/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19772998]

There are so many cool people in history that haven't had books written about them. I like this one. I'm gonna write a book about this one.
Anyone know any good books about Iran 5000 years ago?

Any ideas about what the plot should be?

Post other cool historical people nobody wrote any books about.

[Anonymous No.19773030]

>>19772998
Sardinian men forming bands and attempting to reacg fun and fortune in the levant. Jokes and friendshhip between the members of the sardinian pirate band.
Hard to write about it because we don't know much about how their culture was actually like

[Anonymous No.19773046]

>Post other cool historical people nobody wrote any books about.
I'm going to write about this guy.

[Anonymous No.19773050]

>>19772998
90% of that story sounds like some nerds headcannon. Maybe its just a random corpse that was buried with with a metal ball placed in the socket?

[Anonymous No.19773053]

>>19773046
oh, he does sound like a very chill dude. I'd read a book about him in a heartbeat

[Anonymous No.19773057]

>>19773030
>Hard to write about it because we don't know much about how their culture was actually like
That makes it easier. Where little is known you can substitute invention.

[Anonymous No.19773062]

>>19773050
well, they'd know she was a priestess by a variation of different circumstances, depending on how she died. They'd know she was a 6' woman by her bone structure, they'd know the gold eye was a gold eye by the fact that it was gold and in the socket of her head. The last sentence is cringe, but the rest is easily provable.

[Anonymous No.19773102]

>>19773062
>They'd know she was a 6' woman by her bone structure
it depends on the archaeologist doing the survey

[Anonymous No.19773112]

Any woman pirate.

Except about 3 of them, none of them have any books written about them at all. I've looked.
Jeanne de Clisson, who absolutely wrecked France had, as far as I could find, a single, untranslated book written about her, in the 1800s, and 1 "alternate history" book about her, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Zheng Yi Sao was a chinese pirate queen that not only had the largest fleet ever (400 ships), but also managed to retire instead of being executed - I just found out that there was a single book written about her since the last time I looked, that came out last year and it's only "based" on her.

[Anonymous No.19773121]

>>19773102
I'm sure someone at a large archeological dig site would be able to tell the difference between a male and female hip

[Anonymous No.19773179]

>>19773121
It was a joke

[Anonymous No.19773183]

>>19773179
be funny next time

[Anonymous No.19774751]

I actually thought of this same thing a couple years ago when I first read about this bronze age bionic eye anon. This would have been within the context of the BMAC (Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex), the little known central asian urban civilization sandwiched between the great Semitic cities of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. One of the more interesting things we've recovered from BMAC sites are bowls that were certainly used to brew psychedelic stews, showing signs of opium, cannabis, ephedra, among other substances. What interested me about this eye is the vermiculated patterns carved into it that correspond with much later Buddhist ocular physiologies. I actually translated a text from Tibetan for my PhD that goes through an extremely detailed physiology of the eye, elucidating the complex subtle channel system that attaches the eye to the heart, where wisdom winds flow and allow one to use sky and sun gazing practices to achieve instantaneous and complete awakening. The texts these practices come from are only a thousand years old, but they claim the practices are part of an ancient tradition extending back over ten millennia. This eye seemed like a cool clue. Could make a book or short story about its ancient context with a bit of creative historiography.

[Anonymous No.19774874]

Henry Every. Not a total unknown, but a major (and based) pirate who captured the wealthiest merchant fleet at the time and nearly caused a war between UK and the Mughal Empire.

"Although stories of brutality by the pirates have been dismissed by sympathizers as sensationalism, they are corroborated by the depositions Every's men provided following their capture. John Sparkes testified in his "Last Dying Words and Confession" that the "inhuman treatment and merciless tortures inflicted on the poor Indians and their women still affected his soul," and that, while apparently unremorseful for his acts of piracy, which were of "lesser concern," he was nevertheless repentant for the "horrid barbarities he had committed, though only on the bodies of the heathen." Philip Middleton testified that several of the Indian men were murdered, while they also "put several to the torture" and Every's men "lay with the women aboard, and there were several that, from their jewels and habits, seemed to be of better quality than the rest.""

[Anonymous No.19774904]

I'm almost certain any figure that anyone can name have books about them they're just not popular books.

[Anonymous No.19774982]

>>19774751
That does sound quite interesting. If you don't mind, what text in particular? Any place I could look for similar history/practices?

[Anonymous No.19775020]

There was an ancient Egyptian guy who was paid by some dead dude with a tomb to go to the tomb every year and stay there for a few days to make the necessary sacrifices for the dead guy's soul. While he was there camping out in a nearby tomb he used the spare time to write letters to his family about how to manage their shitty Egyptian middle class lives. He wrote drafts of the letters and then discarded or forgot some of these drafts in a shallow pit. Thousands of years later they were discovered and we now have an ongoing letter exchange of some random Egyptian guy telling his wife not to pay the milkman too much.

Anyone know what the guy's name was or the name of the book?

[Anonymous No.19775025]

>>19774982
this is a very interesting book on Tibetan gazing practices

[Anonymous No.19775140]

>>19775020
Was it a late period individual?

[DoctorGreen !DRgReeNusk No.19775238]

>>19774751
> read about this bronze age bionic eye anon. This would have been within the context of the BMAC (Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex), the little known central asian urban civilization sandwiched between the great Semitic cities of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization
interesting

[Anonymous No.19775704]

>>19774751
>Semitic
depends on the time period

[Anonymous No.19776739]

>>19775140
I think it's this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heqanakht_papyri

[Anonymous No.19777028]

>>19772998
Waltari's Sinuhe the Egyptian.

[Anonymous No.19777053]

>>19775020
Some things never change huh.
*cracks beer*

[Anonymous No.19777215]

There are a lot of Roman Emperors in the later empire who were seemingly very interesting but have 0 fictional portrayals because of how shoddy our history is surrounding them. People like Aurelian and Julian the Apostate ring to mind. There are few nonfiction books on them that are always very niche and absolutely no historical fiction on them.

[Anonymous No.19777232]

>>19777215
Vidal's Julian is good, also Graves' Count Belisarius.

[Anonymous No.19777279]

>>19777232
Ah forgot about Vidal. I was more talking about Aurelian. I have a nonfiction book on him and he seems to have been a fairly interesting figure. There are quite a few interesting characters in the Crisis of the Third Century who could be protagonists of their own tragedies that really don't have any media about them since records of the era are so shoddy. Tetricus being forced to lead the Gallic Empire by his army on threat of death only to flip sides and help Aurelian defeat his own army as soon as they meet, Zenobia trying to carve out an empire as the puppet master behind her child-king son, Aurelian himself the classic lead-from-the-front hardass emperor who gets murdered by his own scribe because he thought Aurelian was going to kill him.

[Anonymous No.19777396]

>>19773030
did women just used to have their boobas out like that back then??

[Anonymous No.19777464]

>>19773046
sounds great. write it

[Anonymous No.19777507]

>>19772998
>Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico

[Anonymous No.19777528]

>>19775020
Imagine your dumb posts on newgrounds ended up preserved somehow and people 2000 years later start analyzing them.

[Anonymous No.19777614]

>>19777396
In Knossos it was warm enough and isolated from the spread of patriarchal tendencies invading the rest of the Greek world at the time.

[Anonymous No.19778636]

I want a book about Ea-nasir, the guy who kept scamming people, and then kept every complaint he got about it

[Anonymous No.19778649]

>>19773102
kek

[Anonymous No.19779498]

best part about being a historical chad is that there is limitless content. i dont have to be jealous about my ideas from other historical writers. just think about the roman empire and all the insanely cool shit you could write a novel about there. enough content for 30, nay, 50 authors to work on their whole career and never run out of material.

[Anonymous No.19779527]

>>19777215
>>19777232
I'm actually really amazed how good Julian is. I'm reading it now. At first I hated Gore Vidal's writing style because he comes off so arrogant and affected, but when you look past it the content itself is great and even the style gives it a charm that accentuates how confining and isolating but majestic it was to live as part of the imperial family. i hate GV as a person but it's a great book so far. julian is qt.

i dont think historical gets as much attention as it deserves because it's a high bar to write in. fantasy toddlers can just make everything up. but in historical every single detail has to be researched, and most are too lazy to go thorugh the effort. we live in the adhd age and it takes powers of autism to write historical. that said, after reading historical i think it has the balance of entertainment and education, whereas fantasy is purely junk food and leaves you just as much a pathetic worthless manchild as before you read it.

[Anonymous No.19779595]

>>19773112
That's because these people were irrelevant and the idea that there were is only a recent revision yet to yield any fiction. Muh heckin pirate queen is nonsense. It's an annoying thing when you want to know an accurate weighing of history with full context and not someone's insecure fanfiction.

[Anonymous No.19779613]

>>19772998
>6' tall

HWNBAW

[Anonymous No.19779618]

>>19772998
There were no Persians 4800 years ago.

[Anonymous No.19779655]

>>19779595
cope

[Anonymous No.19781093]

bump

[Anonymous No.19781098]

>>19779618
persian area

[Anonymous No.19781106]

>>19774751
Sounds fascinating
I love all this ancient alt-tech civilisation stuff
Would love to talk to you about this on discord or something
Do you have more sources/recs?

[Anonymous No.19781190]

>>19779527
You write well.

[Anonymous No.19782514]

>>19778636
same

[Anonymous No.19783094]

>>19772998
The fucking state of modern archaeology.
>we found a thing and now know everything about it.
Finds a rock in eye socket
>OMG slay qween it would have been gold and looked like she had occult powers
These people deserve death

[Anonymous No.19783305]

Her eye also could have been covered in poop to make people think she had fart powers and could see into the toilet.
Not saying this isn't a cool find but I don't understand the point of all the conjecture

[Anonymous No.19783503]

>>19783305
>I don't understand the point of all the conjecture

It's to give it clickbait power. Without that, it's some boring old bones, but with the made-up story it's a yasss qweeeen

[Anonymous No.19785033]

>>19779595
You type a lot of words just to say you're angry people want to learn more about an interesting figure of history.