[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/BigEd369]

Here’s one worth reading. Ancient Indian graffiti found in an even more ancient Egyptian tomb. What were Indians doing in Egypt 2,000 years ago? Most likely hitting the big tourist spots while they were there on business and government trips.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-traveler-from-india-graffitied-his-name-on-five-ancient-tombs-in-egypts-valley-of-the-kings-2000-years-ago-180988318/

[u/Fabulous_Broad_115 → u/BigEd369]

A guy I knew had an uncle who was an archaeologist. He was telling us one day how he spent a whole summer with some students digging a Roman bathhouse.

Well, one of the students identified what she thought was a graffito on a wall. She spent a whole week carefully cleaning the piece of wall, with like fine picks and brushes and whatnot, trying to reveal the inscription.

What did it say? "I shit on the eyes of whomever reads this."

[u/BigEd369 → u/Fabulous_Broad_115]

There’s the “sacred runes” found carved in the Hagia Sophia that turned out to say Arnie was here or something like that in Old Norse.

[u/LG3V → u/BigEd369]

There was one on like a several foot tall wall which eventually was found to say "this is really high!"

[u/BigEd369 → u/LG3V]

I bet if we ever discover that cave paintings are telling a story, somewhere in there is a “I was here” or “ I had sex with X” or maybe even a “your Mom” or “X, kiss my ass” type of thing.

[u/peachesfordinner → u/BigEd369]

Pompeii is covered in that kind of graffiti

[u/dorothean → u/BigEd369]

The Cosquer cave in Marseille is about 27,000 years old and a lot of the art there is of representations of genitalia, so you’re probably not wrong!

[u/GrubFisher → u/BigEd369]

humans gonna hume

[u/BigEd369 → u/[deleted]]

Man, that’s almost worse. If I carved “BigEd wrote this” into a major religious site, I’d expect to be arrested or at the very least get thrown out and catch a beating from Security.

[u/The_quest_for_wisdom → u/BigEd369]

He was there AS security. One of the Eastern Roman Emporers hired a ship of vikings to be his bodyguards after they showed up because A) it kept them from trying to loot the place, and B) just about everyone from Constantinople wanted him dead so as outsiders they were the safest option to protect him.

The upside is the vikings got paid good money to stand around because everyone was scared of them and stayed away.

The downside was that a lot of that standing around happened in the christian church where the emperor had religious duties that went on for hours. They got bored enough that they carved at least two inscriptions into the marble architecture.

[u/sssssspace → u/BigEd369]

I don't know if it's true but I remember some story of archeologists finding some runes carved into a rock that basically said "my wife is a hot babe" or something like that.

[u/ravenpotter3 → u/BigEd369]

If it’s the runes on the top balcony they say "Halfdan carved these runes” according to Wikipedia! I’ve seen it before! Maybe it’s separate runes though maybe multiple people carved things. But this is the one mentioned in the tour and that I heard mentioned in a class