a radical traditionalist would never have made the wicker man...

<@Otter> so obli, what's a roll with a dead german philologist cost these days?

<obli> dunno... my investiagations suggest he is less interesting than jane harrison

<@Otter> hmmmm

<@Otter> who is she?

<obli> Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have become standard.

<obli> theres a decidedly diffrent character to british interpretations of paganism compared to the contanetal approach

<@Otter> what is the standard interpretation of Greek religion these days?

<obli> i don't think a german would even have made the wicker man

<@Otter> lol

<obli> even = ever

<@Otter> ah, you mean the movie?

<Eugenios> The standard interpretation is scientific

<Eugenios> As accurate to what we know as possible

<obli> it tends more towards emphisising the irrational over the rational if there can be any claim to like.. a standard approach currently

<Eugenios> And I wouldn't have it any other way

<obli> yeah the movie

<Eugenios> "Irrational emphasis" is not scholarly - that's pop culture and a lot of alternative religion/occultism

<obli> i'm talking compared to scholarship up until the 60s Eugenios :P

<@Otter> knowing that the greeks and this and that ritual and god x and  his little sister goddess y is different than understanding what those meant to the ancients

<Eugenios> It's not just a list of features. Good archaeology studies everything from cultural attitudes to language to art

<obli> a radical traditionalist would never have made the wicker man...

<obli> they are all homer.. no hesiod :P

<Eugenios> Just because things aren't perfectly preserved doesn't mean we can just fill in the blanks with whatever we feel like

<Eugenios> And claim that represents the ancient traditions

<obli> maybe (probably) i am jumping the gun... but that sounds like an arguement for a degree of uniformity of approach in the ancient world which never existed :P

<@Otter> for at least a couple centuries, i don't think they even bothered to find gaps for the things they wanted to stuff in

<obli> for a couple of centuries it was all gaps

<Eugenios> Things in the ancient world weren't totally uniform, but that doesn't mean there weren't core values and concepts that were universal to the Ancient Hellenes

<obli> who falls under the banner of "the ancient hellenes"

<Eugenios> Arete, Eusebia, Kharis - (Excellence, Reverence, Ritual Reciprocity) were all standard

<Eugenios> Classical Greeks from 600 BC to 100 AD (give or take)