Pam:
>I hate to be a party-pooper, but did ancient empires really bother with
>populist propoganda? Isn't it a more modern thing? (Maybe they did -
>I'm open to examples.)
They did. One of the easiest way was to build pompous architecture - luckily not too much of the Nazi regime's stuff survived the war, but what had been there were poor copies of previous cultures, with the typical lack of finesse of that regime. The great pyramids did have such a function besides providing a tomb for the pharaohs, and most of the other seven miracles as well.
>I can see local Lunar commanders/administrators using skalds, criers or
>priests or their equivalents to get information THEY think is important,
>(new taxes, curfews, or bounties), out to the locals. But does Galmour
>reather bother with spin control?
I wouldn't want to miss the announcement that the road tolls or grain tithe have been lowered to a higher amount than they were before the announcement. 1984 stuff... Big Mother is watching you.
>The rest of Glorantha's communication
>moves little faster than the speed of a mule, so why should Glamour
>bother to manage information for distant, illiterate, non-voting
>populace?
Because the distant, illiterate, non-voting populace will pay for the information. This is what the "entertainers" live on, think of their tours as infotainment. The "news" will be old enough to have been put into ballads, or plays, but the better of these entertainers will be able to include actual political proceedings into their cabaret acts.
In Dragon Pass, news may travel instantaneously at times, when the Puppeteers change places with distant illusions.
>Are we assuming the LE knows how to make paper? If so, the process is
>still delicate and laborious, and paper is expensive. My guess is that
>cheap paper is made of reeds, or at least contains a lot of reed
>fibers.
Living in a river valley which knows reed craft, I suppose they will have a ready industry of making papyrus. While I have no ideas about that material's usage in hygienic context, it made an expensive but entirely useful and durable writing material.
Parchment might be considered unclean by the Dara Happans, consisting of beast carcasses. Even though the donkey is at least kin to the horse, a celestial beast.
>Cotton, flax, silk and wool fibers would make a higher grade of
>paper. (Wood pulping is pretty much beyond them, I think - unless maybe
>they heat wood chips in giant kettles with gorp?)
Gorp produced paper should be instable, rotting away by itself. Come to think of this, the Thanatari ought to produce it...
>I don't see them wasting a lot of paper printing broadsheets.
Especially since printing is most likely unknown. The proposal to use coins for propagandistic inscriptions has the merit that these would be readily mass-produced, be it by dye or by casting.
>I imagine that the relative values of writing surfaces are:
>slate/clay & chalk (erasesable)
>clay tablets
>wax tablets (eraseable)
>papyrus/reed mats or scrolls
>paper (made with the "slurry, screen & press" method)
>vellum (sheepskin)
>copper or other metal
>stone
>Did I miss any?
parchment
wooden staffs or rods (rune staffs)
ceramics, enamel
cloth (canvas, cotton...)
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