this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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History Memes

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A place to share history memes!

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[โ€“] Mim@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 months ago

The ancients knew what's good, too.

[โ€“] j4k3@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] Davel23@fedia.io 4 points 4 months ago

Ney yourself.

[โ€“] Fancy_Gecko@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

some things never change

[โ€“] Asidonhopo@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Uhhhh Fyi those dancing girls were definitely girls, like at an absolute maximum of 14 years old

[โ€“] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can we stop trying to hold ancient cultures to moral standards of today?

[โ€“] Mac@mander.xyz 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Imo it's important to continuously compare traditional and modern cultures.

We should criticize ancient slavery, genocide, racism, bigotry, child marriage, women/girls as property, etc etc.

[โ€“] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Imo it's important to continuously compare traditional and modern cultures.

Why? Unless somebody is trying to hold them up as a standard to aspire to cough MAGA cough, what do we gain from looking down and sneering at the horrible moral standards of the past?

I can see the relevance if we were having a discussion about said morals, in which case bringing up the past as an example has some point to it. But not when we're just looking at a random historical artwork.

[โ€“] Mac@mander.xyz 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah, i misinterpreted your comment. You're speaking with an intent of judgement. I was intending more of a comparison for the sake of education and discussion side.

Another thing, to go back to the post: do we even know if the women/girls in the original artwork were sexualized in this piece? In many cultures it was normal to not be fully covered and in fact an exposed body having sexual connotations is fairly modern.

Yeah, fully agree with you on those aspects

[โ€“] Asidonhopo@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I think recognizing that child trafficking and exploitation isn't solely an aspect of the modern world is a step in the right direction towards understanding ancient cultures. The powerful and wealthy who would have had the resources to create these frescoes would have reasonably been the end consumers of these victims of pederasty.

[โ€“] Asidonhopo@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm with you there. It's more the reinterpretation of them as fully developed adult women (of ridiculously short stature) that I'm finding upsetting.

That's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered!

[โ€“] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] Asidonhopo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Just look at them, no sign of adult development

[โ€“] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I guess that's why the Taliban blows these kinds of things up.

No, let's not justify the bullshit the Taliban does, not even jokingly.