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Old 25th June 2006, 06:52 PM   #1
tsubame1
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rivkin
Second comment would be that to resolve the issue rather than being interested in contemporary field research, one must concentrates of archival sources. In my personal opinion, things told by local artisans, martial artists etc. tend to be heavily mixed with rumors, legends and interpretetations. Obviously, if one is capable to analyze them, they can be important sources as well.
I'm under the impression that archival resources were made with field researches too, so they may be subject to the same limitations of the modern ones. Depends on the way they were/are made.
But the modern ones benefits of the previous knowledge, the highlighting of previous mistakes and of the modern technology.
I completely agree about the capability to analyze them.
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Old 26th June 2006, 02:27 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tsubame1
I'm under the impression that archival resources were made with field researches too, so they may be subject to the same limitations of the modern ones. Depends on the way they were/are made.
But the modern ones benefits of the previous knowledge, the highlighting of previous mistakes and of the modern technology.
I completely agree about the capability to analyze them.

I think both are important.

No question that archival resources can be subject to imprecision and innacuracies. Many older sources are colored by prejudice and colonial perspectives, while still others simply reflect poor data collection and analysis. In the end, an archival source is only one thing and we should recognize potential pitfalls and try to utilize as many available sources of data as are available. To me, this includes looking at past writings (when available) and interacting with contemporary sources.

I agree with Kiril that contemporary sources have potential for innacuracy, but I'm no more willing to ignore their existence than I am potentially innacurate archival resources and prior reasearch.

I'm always pleased by how edifying a few comments by someone actually living within a particular culture can be to my research. I wouldn't base anything solely on those comments, but they often add to my understanding exponentially.

Last edited by Andrew; 26th June 2006 at 03:34 AM.
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Old 26th June 2006, 06:36 AM   #3
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Ugh, what I meant is that when one talks about the origin of a certain weapon, contemporary sources are far inferior to the archival ones since the events leading to creation of new sword patterns typically happened many centuries ago.

However, if we are to talk about modern sources vs. old ones in general, I find the latter to be superiour. One can just compare on one side Ibn-Khaldan, Ibn-Iyas, Maqrizi, Suleiman Faiq with Edward Said and see for hilmself which he likes better.
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Old 26th June 2006, 03:34 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rivkin
Ugh, what I meant is that when one talks about the origin of a certain weapon, contemporary sources are far inferior to the archival ones since the events leading to creation of new sword patterns typically happened many centuries ago.

However, if we are to talk about modern sources vs. old ones in general, I find the latter to be superiour. One can just compare on one side Ibn-Khaldan, Ibn-Iyas, Maqrizi, Suleiman Faiq with Edward Said and see for hilmself which he likes better.
LOL!!!
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Old 26th June 2006, 04:38 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rivkin
Ugh, what I meant is that when one talks about the origin of a certain weapon, contemporary sources are far inferior to the archival ones since the events leading to creation of new sword patterns typically happened many centuries ago.

However, if we are to talk about modern sources vs. old ones in general, I find the latter to be superiour. One can just compare on one side Ibn-Khaldan, Ibn-Iyas, Maqrizi, Suleiman Faiq with Edward Said and see for hilmself which he likes better.
I understood what you were saying. I just don't agree completely. (Not sure this is the point of this thread anyway. ).

I don't "prefer" one source over any other: I try to consider them all.

The sources you listed are all unfamiliar to me so I do miss that point.
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Old 26th June 2006, 09:15 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Andrew
I don't "prefer" one source over any other: I try to consider them all.
...dixit...
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Old 26th June 2006, 10:07 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tsubame1
...dixit...
I don't understand Tsubame how is Andrew's statement an unsupportable assertion ?
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Old 26th June 2006, 10:49 PM   #8
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...dixit...

lol, Carlo. As with most things on the internet. After all, I'm a lawyer. We love dicta.
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Old 27th June 2006, 05:21 AM   #9
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ipse dixit = "because I said so!"
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