Cave May Hold Secrets to Legend of Ancient Rome - discussion about legend vs fact — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

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Cave May Hold Secrets to Legend of Ancient Rome - discussion about legend vs fact

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	I read about this briefly in a newspaper on the subway yesterday. OK, actually I just glanced over at the newspaper being read by the person next to me and saw something about this cave being found and how it possibly tied into myth, but said person turned the page before I could get too far. Your two points seem rather obvious to me. Anyone who has studied myth knows that all myth is based on at least a grain of truth, and to assume that the validation of one story* validates all other stories is just poor logic. *If that's even what this is. I am skeptical, to be honest. The article gives absolutely no evidence to support the claim that this cave is [i]the[/i] cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled, other than the fact that this archaeologist believes that the myths might be true and--hey look!--we found a cave! Another important point that seems to be missed by everyone involved is that sacred sites like these are often picked long after the events that supposedly surround them took place. Why? Because that's usually how long it takes for something to become sacred. So even if this is the cave where priests of Lupercus held rituals--and I am much more inclined to believe this--it doesn't mean that it is the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled. All it means is that this might be the cave where the ancient Romans [i]believed[/i] that Romulus and Remus were suckled. And yes, the same logic may be applied to holy sites for any world religion, unless someone can prove an unbroken line of descent from the time of the event to the present (in other words, that people in every generation from the time of the event recognized the place as being what people later claimed it was). This is usually not possible, with the trail only going back to a few centuries after the events described in the myth took place. I am, however, not an archaeologist, I am a folklorist, and I am just generalizing here and don't have all the facts in this particular case. I'd love to read a detailed academic paper on the subject, though (preferably in English--my Italian sucks). [img]http://www.liminality.org/asylum/sigs/suho_taegeuk_sig2.gif[/img] ___________________________ Suho: [url=http://www.liminality.org]www.liminality.org[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/4837]Cell 270[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/5689]Sig Rotator[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/22173]the Fellowship of Sup[/url] [small](Edited by [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/user/2031]Suho1004[/url] on 11-23-2007 09:28)[/small] Loading...
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