Google Maps, Lasers Reveal Vatican Catacombs 84
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Vatican, while notoriously secretive about things buried in its vaults and archives, is being as public as the digital age allows it to be about the nearly completed restoration of catacombs early Christians used as secret churches as well as burial sites. Contractors, archaeologists and art experts spent the past five years restoring the Priscilla catacombs under the Vatican using lasers, among other techniques, to restore frescoes painted on the walls of the burial chambers. The Vatican unveiled the work Nov. 19 with a press conference in the Basilica of San Silvestro outside the burial tunnels, accompanied by a virtual tour of the Priscilla catacombs provided by Google Maps. The basilica is divided into an area for religious services and another that acts as a deposit for sculptures and artifacts dug up during excavations of the catacombs and other areas underneath the Vatican."
About time... (Score:1)
Tom Hanks needs the cash, Da Vinci Code Part 2, coming up!
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
Tom Hanks needs the cash, Da Vinci Code Part 2, coming up!
I guess you missed Angels and Demons [imdb.com] when it came out three years later?
Although, it should be noted that they changed the order of the plots for the film adaptations. The Da Vinci Code is originally the second book in the series after Angels and Demons.
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Ah, crud, yeah, I heard about the book, but I have been living in China since just before it came out and don't pay much attention to decadent Western media. ;-)
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Ah, crud, yeah, I heard about the book, but I have been living in China since just before it came out and don't pay much attention to decadent Western media. ;-)
But that's the best kind!
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Re: Your sig is outdated:
It now says Computer or This Computer.
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The Da Vinci Code is originally the second book in the series after Angels and Demons.
I heard Da Vinci Code was just a rewrite of the story of Angels and Demons, and is basically the same story with somewhat different elements. And the latter was published only because the former did so well.
All I can say is that it was rather challenging to suspend disbelief when I was reading Angels and Demons due to the contrived plot devices (I counted at least three deux ex machinas that were integral to the plot) and several telegraphed plot twists.
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They do have very similar overall plots. I think Angels and Demons was slightly better. Today DaVinci Code is likely the more successful of the two because of Oprah's Book Club making it one of their reads, and then the media/religious right getting all up in arms with how it portrayed the Catholic Church. I don't think Oprah had people read the first novel.
I just found out last night there is now a fourth book in the series -- published just this year. I don't recall liking the third novel as much as the f
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Tom Hanks needs the cash, Da Vinci Code Part 2, coming up!
Yeah, because Captain Phillips has only raked in $100M (great show, BTW, and Hanks does an awesome job).
So, will it be a new map for CoD or BF4? (Score:2)
That would be not only awesome but soo unexpected!
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That would be not only awesome but soo unexpected!
The one thing that kept popping into my head while moving around the Google view was "Wow, they've really improved the graphics in Dungeons of Dreadmor, haven't they?"
You are in a catacomb. To the North is a locked gate, to the East is a small chamber, to the South is a long hall with wooden benches, and West is a narrow passageway.
- Move West
You are in a narrow passageway. To the North is a narrow passageway, to the East is a large hall. There are Tourists here.
- Hit Tourist with brochure
You can't do th
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You are in a narrow passageway. To the North is a narrow passageway, to the East is a large hall. There are Tourists here.
- Hit Tourist with brochure
You've been eaten by a grue.
FTFY!
Took the virtual tour, could clearly see graffiti (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Took the virtual tour, could clearly see graffi (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Took the virtual tour, could clearly see graffi (Score:5, Funny)
Did it say "I for one welcome our roman overlords?"
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The writing you could not decipher was Greek
It's all Greek to me.
: - )
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Re:Took the virtual tour, could clearly see graffi (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing particularly Byzantine about that letter that looks like a "C". It's called a lunate sigma [wikipedia.org] and it's been around since the Hellenistic period. And the scripts written in the crypts are not miniscule; they're very decidedly majuscule. One is rather unlikely to find Greek written in miniscule in a 2nd-4th c. Roman catacomb, given that Greek miniscule would not be invented for another five centuries.
Now, if you happen to have a little Greek, you might have come to the conclusion that these scripts must be Byzantine since your Attic Greek textbook uses letters that look quite different. But the fact is that modern printed Greek, whether classical, koine, or Byzantine, uses a post-classical script. With the invention of printing, printers created a miniscule script similar to that found in the Byzantine manuscripts they were using. Unless you're working specifically on paleography, none of your textbooks or printed editions are going to use a classical script.
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Indeed! Monty Python - Life of Brian - Graffiti Lessons [youtube.com]
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There is even graffiti from the masons who built the Egyptian pyramids, and on many ancient monuments you can see the mark of the individual stone masons on different pieces of construction signing their portion of the work. In two of the cathedrals in Spain, Santiago and another one (Salamanca?), I saw the mark of the same mason (or perhaps family of masons) on multiple columns.
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Different areas in the cathedral have different marks which, according to the staff at the Catederal de Santiago, signified the team that built that section of wall or column. The Stone Mason Guild would have been responsible for all the work crews, I'm not sure if there were a different guild responsible for the details and decorations in the stonework but I don't think so.
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Copy and paste error, so here's the link again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_of_constantine [wikipedia.org]
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Please explain.
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also curious, I don't see anything blatant.
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I was hoping to read what you meant. If you're taking about the Wikipedia article I would say that you could engage in the Talk section regarding improving it, if you haven't done so already.
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True, but it rather ceased to be relevant a few centuries ago. I know Slashdotters like to bear grudges but this is ridiculous. I also think it's cute that you think Slashdot of all places "believes in the Vatican".
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True, but it rather ceased to be relevant a few centuries ago. I know Slashdotters like to bear grudges but this is ridiculous. I also think it's cute that you think Slashdot of all places "believes in the Vatican".
Mouthbreathing Neanderthal scum. If it wasn't for the cataclysmic sacrifice of nearly all of my brave anaerobic ancestors during World War O [wikipedia.org] your caustic remarks wouldn't even be possible.
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Or that Catholics do believe the papacy because of the Donation of Constantine. It was a Catholic priest who identified the forgery, and that over five centuries ago. Anyone who thinks this is a challenge to Catholic beliefs doesn't understand Catholicism.
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It was the Roman Catholic church that suppressed the knowledge of the fraud over and over again, yet individuals within and without the Church continued to explore the meaning of the Gift of Constantine since it is so central to the basis of belief in the Vatican.
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AC has this right. The basis for papal claims to religious authority are not founded on the Donation of Constantine, though the document was used many centuries ago to bolster claims to temporal authority. References to the document don't even appear in the sources until the eighth century, long after the bishop of Rome had begun to build more universal claims upon his succession from Peter. Indeed, apostolic succession--not any grant of authority from an emperor--has been the foundation of episcopal author
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I think it "ceased to be relevant a few centuries ago" only to some Roman Catholics. Use words like "cute" all you like, but you'd be unfortunately implying that a major event in the history of the Roman Catholic church and indeed the western world was not worth considering when discussing today's Vatican.
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Yep, when a newspaper says Putin phoned Washington you find yourself wondering which of millions of people in the State of Washington, Washington, DC, Washington University, etc. etc. he might have been having a nice chit-chat with.
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Until the vatican can admit that priests molested children, and that they were complicit in those behaviours, frankly I don't give a flying fuck about the catacombs or anything else related to Catholicism.
That is your loss, despite all the atrocities caused by and within religion, the Vatican is well worth a visit just to marvel at the amazing artworks and architecture that it contains, and if you are so inclined to get filled with disgust over the massive amounts of wealth that have been spent in the name of some bearded dude in the sky.
That you now can "visit" a tiny part of it without lining the pockets of the Catholic church is in my opinion a win, win situation. For added realism fill a jar with some s
Re:well .... (Score:5, Informative)
You should considered actually going to the Vatican then. Because as somebody who has been there, other than the cost of going to Rome, the entry price to the Vatican was $0. They don't charge to go there unless you want to pay 5 euros to take the elevator to the top of st. peters. You're not required to buy anything from their shops. But at no point on visiting, are you required to pay them anything to look around st. peters, look at the tombs of the popes, look at all the art, etc, etc, etc. So you'd hardly be lining their pockets.
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As someone who is there now, the price you're quoting is for the museum. the price the GP is quoting is for St. Peters. The religious end of the spectrum is free for all, as long as you don't count the time you're waiting in line against the cost. The collection of strangely non-christian art is available at a price, which is likely going towards restoration, seeing how the constant (and MASSIVE) flow of people takes its toll on the artifacts. I saw more than a few people climbing on statues, which makes
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Do I misremember or are you required to buy paper clothing to enter certain buildings if your clothes don't meet dress code?
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The infidels should be banned from this holy site.
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Not to overshadow this recent development of priests with short eyes;, but if you got as far as;"catacombs early Christians used as secret churches as well as burial sites", you've run into something much more heinous. It was the Catholics who ordered these early Christian "gnostics" killed. They HID in these catacombs to avoid detection. Didn't work...
Now I'm all for castrating and executing priests and all, but, being killed trumps getting your pooper poked. Let's not forget all those who; were Jews and
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Yes...they're trying to sto people from reading the book they read frm every weekend, the most published and read book on the planet. And the church is trying to stop them from doing that which they do every weekend...in church....
It's a close call, but you may actually be stupider than thephydes, the troll that started this thread.
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Do you know what a Saint is and why Catholics pray to them?
A better question might be why do Catholics in fact pray to saints? If they actually read the Bible they would be familiar with Jesus' words when he said "When you pray, say, 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy." Luke 11:2. There is no room there for praying to anyone else. If they were addressing a saint they would be disregarding the words of the one they claim to follow.
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let me guess, you probably also believe that Obama was directly responsible and complicit in:
- an IRS office in the midwest (and just that office, and no others) investigating tea party groups with names like "tea party for action" when filing for the "nonpolitical, nonprofit" tax exempt status?
- selecting the contractor who created healthcare.gov, but no other contractors, based on a 1000$ donation made years ago, amidst the other nearly 2 billion in campaign donations he recieved?
- forcing the Marines to
Don't be Evil (Score:1)
Are the "lasers" attached to sharks?
The original need for secrecy... (Score:5, Informative)
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The obelisk (Score:2)
And the obelisk in Saint Peter's Square was "acquired" in Egypt by the Romans to decorate the spina. Later some pope decided that it would suit very well his new square.
Ultima Underworld (Score:2)
Not under the vatican (Score:2, Informative)
The Priscllla Catacombs are off Via Salaria, near the big park that has Villa Ada in it. A good half hour walk, at least, from the Vatican. All of the catacombs are "outside the wall" in any case.
Perhaps they mean "under the control and supervision of the Vatican"?
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War on metonyms! From now on, you decree that nobody must ever refer to Microsoft as "Redmond" or to any of the various organizations of the U.S. government as "Washington". Let's end the richness of the English language here and now!
Back to reality. The Roman Catholic Church itself uses the term Vatican as a metonym.
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Um... I didn't say using Vatican as a metonym was wrong. I only object to doing so when it's anachronistic, especially in what purports to be a work about history. It's like talking about the American war for independence as a battle between Washington D.C. and London.
The language does not become richer by the sloppy use of poetic language. In fact, I agree with Orwell in "Politics and the English Language" [github.io] that using figures of speech after we've lost a sense of the what the figure indicates does not enr