Today's nightlife can be described as colorful, many people's nights are more beautiful than the day, but whether it is daily thinking, academic research or historical archaeology, it is easy to ignore the nightlife of the ancients, and it seems that the night of the ancients is sleep and sex. Although the lighting technology in the past is not as good as the current colorful city that never sleeps, night also has a special meaning and special activities for the ancients, open the "Night of the Ancients", an archaeological book that aims to emphasize the neglected ordinary night life, explore the diversity of human lifestyles and spiritual pursuits, and enter the nightlife of ancient people in various regions of the world.
"The Night of the Ancients: An Examination of the Night Life of the Ancient World" is a collection of essays based on real data, compiled from the works of different anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists. In addition to the introduction and summary, roughly divided into five parts and seventeen chapters according to the content, each chapter is independent of each other, and each has its own wonderful, a little article is more academic, some will be as interesting as listening to a story, each chapter is attached with a large number of pictures, the author also mentioned that many of these pictures are very valuable, from all aspects of support.
From the Paleolithic to the Mayan Classic, from ancient Arizona to the Mexican border region, from Indian civilization to Oman in the Middle East, from the Northern European Viking to the South African Iron Age... From the perspective of the breadth of time and the distribution of space, the content of "Night of the Ancients" is still very comprehensive, and we can also use this to see the similarities and differences between the night life and culture of different civilizations in different periods. When it comes to the long night, often think of danger, evil and darkness, especially the ancients' limited understanding of the laws of nature, can walk around at will during the day, can hunt labor, the range of activities at night is often limited to indoor or near the house, the character of the night people will also change, become fragile, but also become mild, a group of people get together to talk and communicate, or perform some mysterious prayers or sacrifices, the night usually represents quiet, of course, there are exceptions, such as Oman because of its special climate to irrigate at night, And the night in ancient Rome will continue to be noisy. Night is also the best disguise, theft, robbery and other behaviors have existed since ancient times, and in some civilizations, "sex life" can only be carried out at night, and plantation slaves only have a moment of freedom at night.
Impressively, in many cultures, the night is more closely associated with women, the moon represents women, witches dominate ancient rituals, and night reminds everyone that women's power helped create the world, and that at night, women give birth to life and balance power between men and women.
It's just a pity that "Night of the Ancients" only mentions a description of the ancient Chinese night, although there are still a lot of crossing dramas and costume dramas on weekdays, but obviously it is only for the plot and does not conform to the truth of history, but the Chinese nation has a long history and rich culture, if you can come out of the Chinese version of "Night of the Ancients", it must be very interesting.
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