When archaeology goes bad

December 12, 2000 9:02 PM

When archaeology goes bad "For a nation that has always reveled in its cultural uniqueness, the discoveries were more than heartening; they were almost too good to be true. "
posted by lagado (7 comments total)

Shouldn't this be "When design goes bad"? That interface and three-column page is atrocious! But then, IANAD.
posted by daveadams at 7:25 AM on December 13, 2000

dave: We hashed out the IHT's design a few weeks back. Though I don't think consensus was reached. :-) (I like the 3 columns, BTW)

"The devil made me do it."

Jeepers, that devil really is everywhere! From the Apple farms to the archaeology digs. Man, I'll be people all over the world are thankful for the spread of the Judeo-Christian belief system, now they have an actual evil entity to blame their jealousy and stupidity on.
posted by cCranium at 8:51 AM on December 13, 2000

"Devil" is a reasonable translation of a pre-Christian Japanese concept. I think the idea of blaming mistakes on an evil entity is also a little older than Judeo-Christianity ...
posted by dhartung at 9:59 AM on December 13, 2000

It occurs to me that "The Devil made me do it" might be a collocquial translation into English of the actual Japanese phrase he really used, preserving the spirit though not necessarily the literal meaning of what he said.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:36 AM on December 13, 2000

Yeah, alright, I can accept and happily concede both those points.

I'll still hide my mouth behind my hand while I snicker at the concept of blaming any evil force. How much praise was did said "archaeologist" heap upon the force of good, and how much did he keep for himself?
posted by cCranium at 11:08 AM on December 13, 2000

For the record the word "devil" (as in demon) is derived from the Zoroastrian religion which has a big influence on Judaism and is ultimately of proto-indoeuropean origin.

"The ancient writings of the Persian Avesta and the Hindu Vedas share many gods and beliefs. Eventually they must have split, causing later authors to demonize the divinities of their adversaries. In early Hindu writings the asuras were respected gods, but later they became the demons most hated, while Ahura Mazda became the chief god of the Zoroastrians. (Persian often uses an h where Sanskrit uses an s, such as haoma for soma.) On the other hand the Hindu term for divinities, devas, was used by Zoroastrians to describe the devils from which even our English word is derived."

http://www.san.beck.org/EC7-Vedas.html

posted by lagado at 2:12 PM on December 13, 2000

For completeness: There's a sad ending to this story.
posted by lagado at 11:19 PM on March 11, 2001