https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/09/12/who-were-lovers-modena-roman-era-remains-are-two-men-holding-hands-study-claims/

They were discovered in 2009, locked in eternal embrace in a necropolis under what is now the city of Modena in Italy. The two figures had been buried in the same grave during the Roman era between the 4th and 6th centuries. They were holding hands, and there are indications that they were originally looking at each other; one of them was wearing a bronze ring.

The pair became known as the “Lovers of Modena,” earning comparisons to Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare’s doomed lovers, who lived in northern Italy.

But new scientific analysis has added a twist to the tale. Using a new technique that analyzed the protein on the tooth enamel of the two badly preserved skeletons, a team of researchers from the University of Bologna concluded that the figures were actually two men.

That the two men were buried in this way appears to be extremely unusual. “At present, no other burials of this type are known,” Federico Lugli, the lead author of the study, told the newspaper La Repubblica. Other cases of burials featuring two figures holding hands always involved a man and a woman, he said.

Anon 1 Wrote:
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> n/t

I disagree with Anon 1's sentiments.

I think this is a very big deal historically, and for everyone.

Tevai Wrote:
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> Anon 1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > n/t
>
> I disagree with Anon 1's sentiments.
>
> I think this is a very big deal historically, and
> for everyone.

Erm, no it's not. Classical-era homosexuality has never been some great secret. It's even mentioned in the Bible in unflattering terms and phrases like "Greek love", "Roman love", "lesbian", "sapphi c", and "Sodom ite" (sorry about the last one!) are all originate in the pre-medieval world.

May be wise to speak for yourself instead of stating emphatically that it is no big deal. For some of us it is. If it is not for you, fine. But no need to tell Tevai her opinion is wrong.

There are many contexts to view this information in. Just because it was all mentioned in the Bible in a disparaging way does not mean is has no meaning beyond that. Does not mean the issue had been addressed because, well, the Bible addressing anything is a joke.

The burial method here was clearly rare. One of a kind so far. For me personally it is a big deal.

I think you are both right.

Phyllida notes that anyone who has studied Greek and Roman history realizes that homosexuality was widely accepted and widely practices in the classical world. That is an important point, reflecting the fact that there is nothing inevitable or even logical in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic condemnation of same sex love. Homosexuality, after all, evidently did not prevent Greece from developing some of the most important political and intellectual ideas of all time; or Rome from conquering and administering a huge chunk of the world and raising living standards for perhaps a quarter of the global population.

D&D is correct, however, in pointing out that the grave and its contents deserve public attention. Why? Because the vast majority of people in the West and globally don't know how the classical world viewed homosexuality. That ignorance is a problem; it reinforces the "traditional" hostility to gay rights. The information "anybody" produced above accordingly merits wide publication because it highlights the arbitrary and unnecessary nature of laws and prejudices against homosexuals and homosexuality.

There is another aspect to the burial as well: what it symbolizes. Burying two people in an embrace or holding hands is rare regardless of gender or sexual orientation. I would be profoundly moved to discover any couple interred in that way. The grave also speaks highly of the community that laid the couple down in that position. They didn't have to do that.

They were saying something. They were celebrating something.

Tevai, if they were Christian, and the lack of cremation points to the possibility, it could mean that early Christians, or at least some of them, were not particularly homophobic. As I said elsewhere in the thread, cremation was the norm for Greek and Roman pagans. Christians buried the dead in hopes of resurrection.Of course this discovery doesnt prove that the couple were Christians, but it is a possibility.Regardless it is interesting if only .educate bigots to the fact that homosexuality was widely practiced by the ancients



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2019 04:15PM by bona dea.

According to some Biblical scholars, a Sodom ite was actually someone who wasn't hospitable, which was a big deal in the ancient world.

Exactly. In the ancient world, hospitality was a sacred obligation.

Can you produce a single scholarly article arguing that a lack of hospitality, rather than sinfulness is 1) what Sodom ites were known for and 2) that inhospitality is why the city was destroyed?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah. this article offers references by Christian and Jewish scholars and the various theories on the sin of Sodom. There is also a scripture mentioned which details the sin and it is not homosexuality

Well, it is Wikipedia.

There are a few sources that argue that the sin was inhospitality and not homosexual aggression. One of those sources is to a junior college professor and another is to a Boise State academic, so that gives some pause for thought.

There are several scriptures cited in favor of the inhospitality argument, but they are ambiguous at best.

Ezekial 16 says the people of s&G were destroyed because "they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me." Okay, so they were inhospitable. They also did "detestable things," which are distinct from being inhospitable; and God personalizes them by saying they were "detestable things before me." What were those detestable things if not sexual promiscuity, rape, attempted rape, and homosexuality?

Jude 7: the sin is "sexual immorality." It's hard to dispute that that is promiscuity, rape, attempted rape and/or homosexuality. Exekial described these as "detestable" in the eyes of God.

Philo of Alexandria, we are told, said the sin was homosexuality or at least the man assuming a sexually submissive position. That, the argument goes, is not about homosexuality but about the man assuming a submissive position. I don't think that is a reasonable distinction. I guess God hates him some Beta Males. . . or he in fact disfavors homosexuals, which seems a much simpler interpretation

There are two passages in the Bible that, we are told separate homosexuality from S&G. Luke 10:8-12, and Matthew 10: 9-15. But those are specific statements aimed at the apostles, saying not to take purse or script and that if people did not give them food or money, they should dust off their feet and condemn those cities to destruction like S&G. But that is not a general statement about hospitality: it applies not to all people, nor to all believers, but to the specific agents of God. It's the equivalent, therefore, of saying anyone who mistreats Jesus is going to hell.

So these scriptural arguments seems pretty weak as a foundation for the claim that S&G were not destroyed for sexual misbehavior, the "detestable things" S&G did besides being miserly to strangers. There is also the problem of the Levitical Law, which pronounced it a sin if a man laid with a man as with a woman, a sin to be punished by immediate capital punishment.

We are to believe that homosexual rape is sinful because it is inhospitable? One pretty much has to ignore Leviticus to swallow that line, as well as Exekial and his "detestable things" that were explicitly mentioned as separate from inhospitability.

It comes from Genesis 19:5 -

"And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them." [i.e. have sex]

The implication is that the men wanted to sleep with the two angels. But the bit people miss here is not the homosexuality itself but the implication of sexual aggression.

True,but raping a stranger of either sex, human or angel violates the sacred obligation of hospitality in the worst way

Yes, someone said that on Wikipedia. The argument was that God was angry at the inhospitality embodied by homosexual rape. The author claimed that that the sin was murder and the homosexual rape was only the axe with which the murder was committed.

That is silly given that nothing in Leviticus dictates capital punishment for inhospitability while the code explicitly demands the death penalty for gay people. The punishment meted out to S&G was annihilation which, by the Mosaic Code, was the punishment for homosexuality.

I majored in ancient languages and cultures and almost all ancient people including the Jews had the sacred guest belief.Lot went to the extreme of offering his daughters to a mob to protect his guests. The.scariest host relationship is common knowledge to those in the .field. I used wiki because it was the most complete article I could find online quickly. Wiki has its problems but this article's is well annotated and you can check out the original sources. You don't have to believe me and I don't really care if you do or not
I am only saying that hospitality and rape of strangers is a valid theory and becoming more and more accepted.Considering the guest/host obligations of the. ancientn worldit it is certainly viable. However none of us knows for sure what a writer millennia ago thought about homosexuality.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2019 08:47PM by bona dea.

Other theories are that they were twins or brothers who died in the same battle or comrade in arms.The hand holding could be accidental due to a quick burial. Also,in many cultures hand holding among men is common. Bottom line, we don't know

> Wiki has its problems but
> this article's is well annotated and you can check
> out the original sources.

If you went back and read what I posted at 5:53, read it very carefully, you would realize that I did indeed "check out the original sources." The argument is weak.

The Bible condemns homosexuals to capital punishment. It says nothing like that for bad hosts. The subsequent OT references, like Ezekiel, describe the people of S&G as bad hosts but separately as people who engaged in "detestable things" in the eyes of the lord, things deserving capital punishment. Jude says the same thing. Philo of Alexandria tries to say homosexuality wasn't the important sin but assuming a subordinate position was--which would condemn women in heterosexual relationships. But women weren't condemned to death like S&G and, in the Mosaic Code, homosexuals were.

Read it as you want. Your studies of classical Greek and Roman civilizations aren't very helpful when it comes to Hebrew mythology, particularly when that mythology explicitly condemns gay people to the sort of fate visited on the peoples of S&G.

Romans traditionally cremated the dead. Burial was common for Christian Romans. If this couplen were Christians, this is very interesting.

I like hearing news like this. Growing up I was always given the impression by adults/society/religion that being homosexual was a new fad by people who were corrupting the laws of nature. Of course this is utter rubbish and there have always been people who were gay. That’s what I believe and I hope the truth of this continues to be made more clear.

The Romans had mmm some rules on homosexuality but it was common to have sex with males at least in pre Christian times. However, it usually involved boys or slaves and the noble Roman was mocked if he took the passive position.To Romans sex was sex with some rules and there was no.shame in same-sex unions if you %followed the rules. We know less about Lesbianism, but certainly it existed

Somewhere in time someone thought that was the way they should be buried. Every once in a while, love has it's day.

Sometimes when you can hear hoofbeats, it's fun to imagine that it's zebras.

What other explanations might explain The Lovers?

It could be lemmings.

Lemmingites?

Siamese twins?

Thank you for playing "I hear zebras!"

I'm thinking that these two guys were caught being gay, by people with power who didn't like the Gays. Their punishment was to be buried alive together in a very confined space and they died cursing at each other.

Hopefully, as Anybody points out, once the DNA analysis is in, we'll know more about how they died, what they were wearing, what kind of 'product' they had in their hair, what side they parted their hair on, what their last words were, who died first and other assorted facts that DNA analysis tells us.

Mimes that died suddenly while performing a mirror act together?

Two guys that got trampled by zebra's?

"But new scientific analysis has added a twist to the tale. Using a new technique that analyzed the protein on the tooth enamel of the two badly preserved skeletons, a team of researchers from the University of Bologna concluded that the figures were actually two men."

Why are they assuming the men's genders?

Gender is a social construct, you can't deduce it from protein on tooth enamel.

Oh that is a good point. They may very well have considered themselves to be two females, 1 male 1 female, or other variations. Yeah, lots of presumptions going on in this thread and it just seems to wrong, and I am especially surprised at some who have been so strongly voiceful about making sure the rest of us do not ever suggest anything resembling undue presumptions about gender. Good point.

Seriously?

Race is a social construct. Gender is not. Gender is a complex biological pattern, including intersex individuals and all sorts of (largely genetically derived) characteristics that manifest in gender identity. What would be a social construct is the arbitrary definition of gender identity as binary.

You can assuredly derive gender, which is a function of chromosomes, from basic proteins. Understanding gender identity is more difficult.

Someone needs to check and see if in the hand holding they are doing the Sure Sign of the Nail.