Comment by Cthulhu_
1 day ago
As long as they're done faithfully; there's reproductions of old ships too for museum purposes, since the old ships just rotted away over time (I assume). Rebuilding them with modern knowledge of e.g. wood / rope / sail preservation will be valuable.
It also makes me think of a reddit question the other day - why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets? The answer is that they didn't have epoxy sealants and the like back then so it was maintenance heavy.
"As long as they're done faithfully"
You mean they need to be true believers of Anu, Enlil and Istar? Yeah, that would likely help the spirit of restoration efforts..
"why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets?"
Don't carpets also provide good insulation? When you are cold and do not have automatic heating build into the ground ... most people appreciate warm feed over aesthetics.
> As long as they're done faithfully
The entire history of this exercise is basically one in which it’s never done faithfully. Not due to bad faith. But because we don’t know everything yet.
Better than reconstructing in situ is rebuilding elsewhere, as in your ship analogy.
> why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets
For a minute there i thought you were talking about the 70s.
Considering the Greek's love of what modern people consider garishly colored statues, my first instinct would have been that it's for decorative reasons.