/u/hibaldstow's posts in /r/askhistorians

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Have any Roman surnames survived into modern times? If not, what happened to them?

1743 upvotes

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In English, we can read old texts and find out how words used to be pronounced based on their spelling. However, since Chinese uses characters, not an alphabet, is it possible to find out how words in Old Chinese were pronounced?

119 upvotes

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Various cities in the Middle East are considered to be ~5,000 years old. Is it possible that random small villages could be older than this, just without written record?

60 upvotes

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Have any artefacts from Asia been found in Pompeii/Herculaneum, that had travelled along the silk road?

14 upvotes

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Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
Have any Roman surnames survived into modern times? If not, what happened to them?	1743
In English, we can read old texts and find out how words used to be pronounced based on their spelling. However, since Chinese uses characters, not an alphabet, is it possible to find out how words in Old Chinese were pronounced?	119
Various cities in the Middle East are considered to be ~5,000 years old. Is it possible that random small villages could be older than this, just without written record?	60
Have any artefacts from Asia been found in Pompeii/Herculaneum, that had travelled along the silk road?	14