Rare Minoan sealstone in the treasure-laden tomb of a Bronze Age Greek warrior | Hacker News Reader

Rare Minoan sealstone in the treasure-laden tomb of a Bronze Age Greek warrior

phys.org

156 pointscurtis46 comments

For more detailed images of the stone, see National Geograpic coverage [1] or the University of Cincinnati magazine article (including micrographs of details) [2].

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/relay.nationalgeographic.com/pr...

[2] http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearth...

The micrograph details in the second link are staggering. Honestly none of the photographs in the original article do it the slightest bit of justice. You can see the fallen warrior's locks of hair, and the patterns on his dress. That's insane. This would be an impressive piece of art coming from any culture at any point in history.

"Indeed, many of the seal's details, such as the intricate weaponry ornamentation and jewelry decoration, become clear only when viewed with a powerful camera lens and photomicroscopy."

This suggests that 3000 years ago human eye was much much stronger than today and could see details that we are unable to see today. I've seen similar objects in museums with incredibly fine detail that I could not resolve (like circular seals made with clay) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizat...

Wouldn't it be possible that the material deteriorated over time and so today it's harder to view the details than back when it was created?

Or they had techniques to miniaturize things.

Which is not out of the question; scaling a drawing up or down can be done with pretty simple tools (this is how a couple guys in Kentucky reproduced a Nazca-style giant figure back in the 1980s, with no access to flying saucers or mystically-levitating priests).

A pantograph is a simple machine that came along quite late. I can imagine a similar machine for carving, but I think it's quite easy to view the past with our own perspectives. The pantograph, and this speculative carving machine, are labor saving devices. I assume the Minoan sealstones were custom-made, one-of-a-kind items for those important enough to use them. While labor was cheap in most cases, those in need of this specialized skill were able to pay the cost.

No, the details were originally that small.

I think the question is less about size than about deterioration. By analogy - old documents are hard to read sometimes because ink has faded. So the question is more like: is the size the problem or is it the fidelity?

I suspect they could have used curved polished bronze mirrors for magnification.

They may have access to a magnification technology but what would be the objection to the idea that human eye had a closer focus point 3000 years ago?

I'm open minded but in terms of evolution, 3000 years is a very short time, so changes in human physical capabilities requires specific and compelling evidence. In contrast, bronze age mirrors certainly existed and noticing and leveraging the effects of non-flat surfaces seems fairly inevitable to me given you only need to look at a spoon or something.

But it could be a one off. That is, someone was born with a mutation that gave them amazing levels of visual acuity, but didn't pass on that trait to children.

3000 years is to soon for significant changes in human DNA. Every population world wide would have to have very strong selective pressure for such a change to occur. Alternatively, everyone worldwide could simply have some environmental difference resulting in changes to the eye, but that also seems unlikely.

>3000 years is to soon for significant changes in human DNA.

Doesn't necessarily has to be DNA. Prevalence of fixed focus work, screens and monitors and reading, has made more people need glasses, in earlier ages, than 100 or 200 years ago for example...

Not everyone worldwide has a computer. The environmental change I mentioned would need to be something like the change in CO2 levels to impact everyone.

Could it be the prevalence of ophthalmologists instead? I assume it was really hard to get good medical care100 to 200 years ago, not to mention the cost of glasses.

>Could it be the prevalence of ophthalmologists instead?

It's orthogonal. More doctors would mean more diagnosis. But more short distance indoors fixed focus screen work stress on the eyes would also mean more patients.

Too little time outdoors

Research has found that spending time playing outside as a child may reduce your chances of becoming short-sighted, and existing short-sightedness may progress less quickly.

This may be related to light levels outdoors being much brighter than indoors. Both sport and relaxation outdoors appear to be beneficial in reducing the risk of short-sightedness.

Excessive close work

Spending a lot of time focusing your eyes on nearby objects, such as reading, writing and possibly using hand-held devices (phones and tablets) and computers can also increase your risk of developing short-sightedness.

An "everything in moderation" approach is therefore generally recommended. Although children should be encouraged to read, they should also spend some time away from reading and computer games each day doing outdoor activities.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/short-sightedness/causes/

You can't use "small details" to logically arrive a higher focus point. What use would humans have for intense detail, at a time when the world was far more dangerous at range? And even then, 3,000 years ago is less than a blink of an eye in terms of evolution. Without more examples of humans actually "needing" intense, closer focus, there's no way (even with a 3,000 year evolution window) they'd evolve closer focus just for... art.

Occam's razor is rather applicable here. Magnification would be way easier and more available. Even a polished bent sword magnifies.

But even if you can see the work, how do you stabilize the microtremors in the artists' hands?

You can use the equivalent of a mahlstick to guide your tool. Its one of those sticks with padded heads that painters rest their hand on to steady it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulstick

People can work on very tiny objects. Look up Diorama for a world devoted to creating intricate tiny objects.

See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8315... - there was an excellent BBC Radio 4 program about this guy.

He works at night to limit traffic vibration, has learnt to slow his heart rate, gets Botox injections to stop from blinking, it's an obsession - not altogether healthy IIRC.

Very interesting.

It's really hard to know how detailed we're talking about based on this quote. But details can be created without being "clear" to the naked eye. But even if they needed to be clear, I suspect there were humans alive back then as well as today who, through genetic variance or lived experience, can see the details clearly whether you or the scientists who made this find are able to.

I have really bad vision; -7.0 to -7.5 in both eyes. Without glasses my focal point is about 3 inches from my face. At that range I can see quite a bit of fine detail that you'd never notice from even a foot away. In the past, before corrective lenses, I imagine 'fine jewlery maker' would be one of the few careers open to me, and that I'd be pretty good at it.

Same here. I am -8.0 and -8.5 with about a 2"-3" focus point and I can see very intricate detail that others have trouble seeing.

So the issue is not about having a higher density of rods and cones in the eye but about the focal point (which I think should be related to the lens). The closer to the surface the eye focus the sharper the image and more details are seen.

Some ancient cultures trained children as engravers, who, after a lifetime of peering at tiny details, probably developed eye disorders and inability to see normally. This wouldn't be permitted today.

They couldn’t see the details because the object was 1,000s of years old, dirty and covered in limestone.

Below is a link from another poster.

http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearth...

The realism in the depiction of human figures is incredibly advanced and predates Classical Athens sculpture by 1000 years. Like finding an iPad in Mediaeval England.

Isn't it "Like finding Picasso in Medieval England"?

Except for the "realism in the depiction of human figures" bit.

Early / pre Blue Period Picasso was pretty real, iirc. The guy was very talented.

Picasso was a virtuoso artist from child: http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/period-first.php

His later experiments with style were not an artifact of lack of talent, but conscious artistic experimentation.

Sadly, modern artists try often to skip the mastering the basics and just start to splat color on canvas.

If you are referring to middle age artistic maturity this portrait of Henry 8 by Hans Holbein the Younger[0] is pretty sweet https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Workshop_of_Hans_Hol... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger

That's past the middle ages though, isn't it?

Well, one definition for the end of middle ages is fall on Constantinopole (1453) and Hans died in 1543 at the ripe age of 45. So, yeah, renaissance.

Now that I looked, the list of english monarchs gives a striking visual transformation from the stereotypically awkward european middle age art to renaissance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs

And Henry the 8'th portrait seems to be the first one that does not contain obviously awkward shapes (to my untrained eye).

So in 100 years we transform artistically from kindergarten to realistic portraiture. Pretty awesome - makes the original commment more apt, and my quip somewhat moot.

I had a similar experience in some art museums in Britain. In the late middle ages and early modern times a pigeon flying through the painting towards the viewer was a popular motif to symbolize the holy spirit.

You could clearly tell that the depiction of the flying bird got better over time, but even with contemporaries you could see huge differences in terms of skill.

Not quite like that at all. The Minoans were known to carve semi-precious gemstones and the Mycenaeans known to have adopted it from them from the 16th century BC (source: "Encyclopedia of European Peoples, Vol 2, entry on "Mycenaeans", "Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete", R. Castleden). From Minoan sealstones which are already exhibited in museums, the level of detail seems comparable to me. I'm not quite sure where the contrast with classical Athens in the article comes from.

wow, amazing coincidence since I was just reading earlier today about the 425BCE Battle of Pylos in Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. and that battle was a thousand years after this burial!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pylos

Donald Kagan is amazing. The lectures to his Introduction to Greek History course at Yale are also on Youtube [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL023BCE5134243987

This area has a lot more to uncover. I visited Pylos two years ago and there are excavations in numerous sites around it. Can't wait to see what is next.

They discovered a cave nearby that was used more than 5000 years ago. The cave entrance collapsed 5000 ago and was discovered just recently. An undisturbed view of prehistoric life from some much time ago.

Couldn't the idea that ancient people were bad at art just come from their small populations, small quantity of discovered artifacts and not teaching each other their skills? Surely a single person could figure out how to draw on his own and that might be as rare as it is today. I don't know anyone who could produce pictures of people's bodies of that quality. One such special person might have made this seal, but not been around to make other seals from a similar period.

>Couldn't the idea that ancient people were bad at art

I don't thing there is such an idea -- not a widespread one, and not one held by archeologists at any rate. Even cavemen paintings (e.g. in france) show magnificent skill.

The idea of 'singular genius' is over done, and most great artists were well trained and built on the work of others.

one word: hercules

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