Of all the millions of mysteries throughout history, why are we wasting time on Marie Antoinette's love life? This article is already nearly tabloid journalism, and I bet this story shows up in actual tabloids soon.
This is a fallacy that is mostly driven by difference in personality. People are roughly divided into people who are driven and interested by "things" (nearly the entirety of this website) and people who are interested and driven by "people". There is some crossover with objectification of people but thats not relevant.
Scientific methods relating to historical and archeological discovery are immensely important, this article in particular highlights something that may indicate many other hisorical letters/documents may contain previously missed information that while likely mostly mundane minutae, a shining example could alter how we understand history and the interplay of historical figures.
That said it seems this just referencing a less common use of a specific technology to solve a problem which I suppose is appropriate
> People are roughly divided into people who are driven and interested by "things" (nearly the entirety of this website) and people who are interested and driven by "people".
I'd put that very differently. Some are interested in what they have, others in what they do, the rest in how they do. And, I don't think that people on HN are predominantly interested in things. I think they're above all interested in acts.
if you want some more substantial further reading, search around the "things-people" and "data-ideas" dimensions are surprisingly established and quite interesting.
The scientific process is interesting, and I don't object to it's use on Egyptian papyrus or the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I find it unlikely anyone was expecting to find some revelatory details in the letters between Marie Antoinette and her alleged lover. They just wanted to know more about her intimate affairs.
This was really more of a proof of technique. Marie Antoinette’s letters were readily available (the team is French).
The article on Ars is pretty shit at conveying that - you have to get to the 7th paragraph for any technical details to come up - but that’s an(other) indictment of Ms. Oulette, not the research team.
>So when Fabien Pottier and several colleagues at the Museum of Natural History's Research Center for the Conservation of Collections (CRCC) took on the task of uncovering the censored portions of letters between Marie Antoinette and von Fersen, they naturally turned to similar techniques.
That doesn't sound like developing the method was their primary goal.
What is not interesting to you may be interesting to others. Someone "wasting" time on something you don't think useful doesn't prevent others working on something else.
It's not like society is bound to work on one thing at a time...
The resources available for this kind of work are limited, this is a new kind of x-ray that presumably has limited machines available and a high operating cost.
And I didn't say uninteresting. The authour of the letters purposefully removed the lines from the historical record for modesty's sake. It's similar to digging through a celebrity's trash to find salacious gossip.
From the context of the letters, the rest of the words and where they were found. He seems to have only edited a few lines throughout letters. At most, checking one of the letters would have been enough.
Well, now they have used a new novel system to bypass the censorship
If you fail to see the value of how this novel way can be used for other letters beyond this initial test case, then there's not much else to say I feel
>If you fail to see the value of how this novel way can be used for other letters beyond this initial test case
This initial test case based on a technique already in practice on other sources of writing? None of my posts have dismissed the technology, just it's use in this case.
Actually it seems most of the information about Marie antoinette were actually politically motivated slurs made up during revolution. So it's still interesting to distinguish history from propaganda about her libertine life. I think it's particularly interesting in our context, to study what slurs are still repeated aftet two centuries
Can you suggest some historical mysteries that do not receive attention but should? It is my impression that the broad strokes of history are well covered so it is on this level that historical research now takes place.
The bonds between Swedish and French nobility during this time period are interesting. About twenty years after these events, one of Napoleon's marshals was offered the Swedish crown and became king of Sweden.
>Can you suggest some historical mysteries that do not receive attention but should?
The article mentions the process being used on Egyptian papyrus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are countless other recovered bits of parchment that the process could be used on from around the world, possibly uncovering more primary sources about antiquity.
Or just like any other of von Fersen's letters would probably be more illuminating about French Swedish relations, though I don't know if they were censored. His fondness of Antoinette was already known.
Come on. Reading redacted text in hustorical records is an interesting achievement. I guess the authors hoped for more interesting secrets then kind words that might be interpreted as love letters?
I'm asking you to be put in basically the same situation, not an opposite one. The biggest difference is I'm asking for your permission.
My argument was never that Antoinette deserves some special privacy, so changing the subject of the act is not a strawman. Why should people enjoy someone else's private correspondence but not yours?
So you're fine with your private correspondence being public long after your death. Does it matter that von Fersen clearly wasnt? He knew his letters would be public and purposely blacked out parts.
