B******n
发帖数: 1920 | 1 WASHINGTON—A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at
the National Geographic Society to announce they had "entirely fabricated"
ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of
Western civilization.
The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society
existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction
created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and
classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge "Greek"
documents and artifacts.
"Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far," said Professor Gene
Haddlebury, who has offered to resign his position as chair of Hellenic
Studies at Georgetown University. "We were young and trying to advance our
careers, so we just started making things up: Homer, Aristotle, Socrates,
Hippocrates, the lever and fulcrum, rhetoric, ethics, all the different
kinds of columns—everything."
Just one of the "ancient" artifacts dreamed up in a basement in Somerville,
MA.
"Way more stuff than any one civilization could have come up with, obviously
," he added.
According to Haddlebury, the idea of inventing a wholly fraudulent ancient
culture came about when he and other scholars realized they had no idea what
had actually happened in Europe during the 800-year period before the
Christian era.
Frustrated by the gap in the record, and finding archaeologists to be "not
much help at all," they took the problem to colleagues who were then
scrambling to find a way to explain where things such as astronomy,
cartography, and democracy had come from.
Within hours the greatest and most influential civilization of all time was
born.
"One night someone made a joke about just taking all these ideas, lumping
them together, and saying the Greeks had done it all 2,000 years ago,"
Haddlebury said. "One thing led to another, and before you know it, we're
coming up with everything from the golden ratio to the Iliad."
"That was a bitch to write, by the way," he continued, referring to the epic
poem believed to have laid the foundation for the Western literary
tradition. "But it seemed to catch on."
Around the same time, a curator at the Smithsonian reportedly asked for
Haddlebury's help: The museum had received a sizeable donation to create an
exhibit on the ancient world but "really didn't have a whole lot to put in
there." The historians immediately set to work, hastily falsifying evidence
of a civilization that— complete with its own poets and philosophers, gods
and heroes—would eventually become the centerpiece of schoolbooks, college
educations, and the entire field of the humanities.
Emily Nguyen-Whiteman, one of the young academics who "pulled a month's
worth of all-nighters" working on the project, explained that the whole of
ancient Greek architecture was based on buildings in Washington, D.C.,
including a bank across the street from the coffee shop where they met to "
bat around ideas about mythology or whatever."
"We picked Greece because we figured nobody would ever go there to check it
out," Nguyen-Whiteman said. "Have you ever seen the place? It's a dump. It's
like an abandoned gravel pit infested with cats."
She added, "Inevitably, though, people started looking around for some of
this 'ancient' stuff, and next thing I know I'm stuck in Athens all summer
building a goddamn Parthenon just to cover our tracks."
Nguyen-Whiteman acknowledged she was also tasked with altering documents
ranging from early Bibles to the writings of Thomas Jefferson to reflect a "
Classical Greek" influence—a task that also included the creation, from
scratch, of a language based on modern Greek that could pass as its ancient
precursor.
Historians told reporters that some of the so-called Greek ideas were in
fact borrowed from the Romans, stripped to their fundamentals, and then
attributed to fictional Greek predecessors. But others they claimed as their
own.
"Geometry? That was all Kevin," said Haddlebury, referring to former
graduate student Kevin Davenport. "Man, that kid was on fire in those days.
They teach Davenportian geometry in high schools now, though of course they
call it Euclidean."
Sources confirmed that long hours and lack of sleep took their toll on
Davenport, and after the lukewarm reception of his work on homoeroticism in
Spartan military, he left the group.
In a statement expressing their "profound apologies" for misleading the
world on the subject of antiquity for almost 40 years, the historians
expressed hope that their work would survive on its own merits.
"It would be a shame to see humanity abandon achievements such as
heliocentrism and the plays of Aeschylus just because of their origin," the
statement read in part. "Moreover, we have some rather disappointing things
to tell you about the pyramids, the works of Leonardo da Vinci, penicillin,
the Internet, the scientific method, movies, and dogs." | B******n
发帖数: 1920 | | x**8
发帖数: 1939 | 3 2010年the onion的文章，
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
the onion是一家讽刺媒体，发表的文章真真假假，目的是讽刺人群的愚蠢，
您老就别来现了，
【在 B******n 的大作中提到】
: 西方历史学家的造假态度和成就令人佩服！
| w*******2
发帖数: 2199 | 4 老B就是follow哥给出的link
还没引用哥
【在 x**8 的大作中提到】
: 2010年the onion的文章，
: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
: the onion是一家讽刺媒体，发表的文章真真假假，目的是讽刺人群的愚蠢，
: 您老就别来现了，
| n******5
发帖数: 1990 | | n*****8
发帖数: 19630 | 6 老将就是脸皮比城墙拐弯都厚。
这篇文章在多个网站发表的。
而且Gene Haddlebury教授自己承担责任的。
:-)
: 2010年the onion的文章，
: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
: the onion是一家讽刺媒体，发表的文章真真假假，目的是讽刺人群的愚蠢，
: 您老就别来现了，
【在 x**8 的大作中提到】
: 2010年the onion的文章，
: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
: the onion是一家讽刺媒体，发表的文章真真假假，目的是讽刺人群的愚蠢，
: 您老就别来现了，
| x****6
发帖数: 4339 | 7 楼主智商堪忧或者居心叵测，
尼玛把Link遛出来看看
at
society
【在 B******n 的大作中提到】
: WASHINGTON—A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at
: the National Geographic Society to announce they had "entirely fabricated"
: ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of
: Western civilization.
: The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society
: existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction
: created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and
: classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge "Greek"
: documents and artifacts.
: "Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far," said Professor Gene
| s*******9
发帖数: 1559 | 8
人家当真了,
【在 w*******2 的大作中提到】
: 老B就是follow哥给出的link
: 还没引用哥
|
|
