Learning to Learn

The codex form is highly preferred for how durable and compact it is; yet where did it come from? Well, it didn’t just pop out of nothingness! The earliest form of codex was a wax tablet, which could be bound together at the edges. Since what was being written in was wax, it could be smoothed out and redone if needed, nothing was really permanent. No one gets everything perfect the first time, so it makes sense that the Romans created a way of writing for learning. The instruments and materials they used were not as expensive as an alternative like animal skin. Messing up was just part of the process of learning.

All Together Now

Following the assignment to create a group post/video we came up with the following video. (Turn your speakers all the way up, we are amateur movie makers!)

Now we would just like to put in a few words more on the topic of Story and Song. In the video we talked about each other's civilizations and how they all relate through the theme of water in their origin myths, and stories in general. Maddie shared a little bit more on this theme here. What we didn't get to is how this important oral knowledge is shared, or the structures for sharing it.

All that we've learned: Oral Knowledge

From US Embassy New Delhi on Flickr

For those of you counting on this post to go up Friday morning, sorry despite the rumors I'm not perfect. This post took a little more research than I originally intended. As our discussion of oral knowledge winds down I wanted to take the opportunity to look back at all of that we've learned and discussed on this blog. Although our instructors have given us many interesting topics to learn about in this unit, I've enjoyed the themes that we pulled out here on our blog.

Myths make the world go around..

Although Roman mythology lacks the extensive list of literary work that documents Greek mythology, their oral myths have been noted, especially in their relation to Greek myths. The myths and stories played more of an important role in the religious system in Greece than Rome, where ritual and cult were valued. Although different names and myths (a full list of the different names and meanings can be found here), there were many of the same values reflected in them.

The "start" of it all..

The Roman Republic was during the period of ancient civilization where the areas surrounding and in much of Europe functioned as a republic. This video explains the expansion of the Roman Republic since around 508 BC. The first 1:37 minutes are the most relative, and it helps to read the footnotes.