If you are trapped in ancient time, what would you take?

Give me an evening to observe the moons of Jupiter with a my 400mm telephoto
lens, and 30 min with my Redshift software and I could tell THEM what day
and time it was... better yet, I would build them a calendar .

- H

 

Right -- and then explain how the earth is spherical and is in orbit
around the sun. Sometimes knowledge can be fatal

 

Bring Al Gore with you to invent the internet while you're there.

 

Selma Hayek and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

 

Right.
You will show up with a few strange devices, and proceed to tell them
what day it *really* is.

Like I said earlier, any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
This does not mean that you will automatically be revered; it could
simply mean that they will kill you immediately.

Bill Funk
Change "g" to "a"

 

Bimbos were present from day one, how good do you think these two would look
after running out of makeup and plastic surgeons?

 

Bimbos? They're both bright and accomplished women. And I've seen one
them without makeup. She looked terrific.

 

[SNIP]

Aspirin. And, in my case, ergotamine. The one modern thing I'd really hate
to be without. Otherwise, as a one time archaeologist, I'd be having a
ball.



Peter

 

Not in every culture, but in quite a few that's what I've always imagined
too, when day-dreaming about it.


Peter

 

Best bet would be to stick it in a slow moving glacier.

Some years back there was a debate about how to label high level radioactive
waste in ways that would appropriately warn people "Do not dig here or you
will die!" and would last the necessary 20,000 years. Language is not too
tricky: a skull and cross-bones suggests death to any human regardless of
cutural context - the problem is the material. Most things that really last
are also intrinsically valuable or useful. Gold - nah, people would
actively dig it up. Plastics wouldn't last long enough. Even glass makes
excellent flaked cutting tools, and who is to say that in 20 millenia man
won't be back to the stone age.

In the end someone had the sense to ask archaeologists, and the concensus
answer was pottery. Lasts easily for that length of time, and is not very
intrinsically useful: break it and there are no sharp edges, it can't really
be shaped in any worthwhile way. Make it rounded, so you can't build with
it. Bury enough at the site that they have no rarity value and that anyone
digging there will run into them, but not so many that they are worth
exploiting as a raw material (to ballast a boat, say, or to grind up to make
grog tempered earthenware.) I always thought this was a fascinating
exercise.

I once dug on a late mediaeval site where we had a student who thought he
knew everything. One day we got a football and painted half of it matt
black and burried it - black half up - in some loose soil (of course we
didn't disturb the real stratigraphy - we were all archaeologists, after
all...) in the area he was digging. Much excitement from him at uncovering
this 'cannon ball', followed by careful cleaning to reveal it, then
incredulity turning to fury as he got beyond the paint and found what it
really was, followed by the rest of us falling about laughing and him
throwing the ball at someone's head.



Peter

 

[SNIP]

Actually, all you need in most cultures and times would be an astronomical
almanac. Predicting eclipses and so on would get you all the respect you
needed.

Still, the history book could be handy - any wars coming up, it would be
nice to sure you were on the winning side...


Peter

 

Assuming you really knew the time and date.

 

The almanac idea might work. The history book might provide some
surprises. How well do we really know history that far back?

Phil

 

And I would *NOT* use an almanac to be sure I was on the winning side
in a war - I'd use it to make sure I was no where close.
War was *really* hell back then.

Bill Funk
Change "g" to "a"

 

M1A1 Abrams, lots of Fuel and AMMO!!!

 

That has only marginaly changed. But sure - not being anywhere near a
larger conflict would be good. Problem is, most of the "minor" ones
aren't really known about so its goingto be very hard to do either.

 

I think it was really worse, for all concerned.
Medical care was barbaric, to say the least.
Even the people who lived near the armys' paths lost out; the only way
to feed the troops was to forage, and paying for what was taken was
usually a nicety that simply didn't exist. And, if a region proved to
be a good provider ont he way *to* the battle (if a long way away) was
revisited on the way *back*, too. Something for the farmers to look
forward to, especially in regions that were's even part of the fray.

Bill Funk
Change "g" to "a"

 

Strictly as a mental exercise, I would consider that terminal
overkill.
One ot two thousand years ago, there were no practical targets worthy
of that kind of firepower.
IMO, much better would be something along the line of an APC; much
more interior room (gotta put that fuel somewhre, as well as the photo
equipment), able to be operated by one person, an M-60 on the
ring/pintle is more than enough to intimidate any group of people of
the time period, and the APC will protect you as well as the M1A1 will
from whatever the locals can throw at you.

Bill Funk
Change "g" to "a"

 

How about a couple of lighters and some engineering books?

 

I didn't mean to be fighting - simply to avoid being in the country/tribe/
whatever that got conquered and enslaved/slaughtered/decimated whatever...



Peter