Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 April 5

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April 5

GK Geography question

Which non-european metro has a European name and also one of the largest in that country

I would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.111.228.20 (talk) 13:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's see, New York (as in Yorkshire), Cincinnati (named after a Roman), Norfolk, Virginia (same as the county in England), Wellington (as in the Duke of), Perth, Western Australia (Scottish name). Those are the more notable that come to mind. Googlemeister (talk) 13:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

There are probably dozens of possibilities. New York City has a European name, being of course named after York. Montreal has a "European" name in the sense that it's a French word (Mount Royal, or Royal Mountain), and French was spoken in Europe before it was spoken in Canada. Both anchor one of the largest metro areas in their respective countries. List of largest cities and second largest cities by country would help you in your search. --Jayron32 13:18, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

New York is named after the Duke of York rather than York itself. Proteus (Talk) 22:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Right, because the Duke's title bears no connection to the City of York at all... --Jayron32 22:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course it does, but that doesn't make what you said correct. It's misleading to imply (as you did) that New York is named directly after York, with no intervening steps, just as it would be to imply (as Googlemeister did not) that Wellington in New Zealand was named directly after the small town of the same name in Somerset rather than the famous soldier. Proteus (Talk) 13:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It was New Amsterdam before it was New York. Besides, the question was a European name, not a European city name. Googlemeister (talk) 13:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As usual, the questions from this site are horribly under-specified, and can have many "correct" answers. Knowing which one they are after is virtually never possible. The "one of the largest" bit makes it even more difficult to guess, since that could mean anything from top 2 to top 50%. Auckland is named after the Earl of Auckland for example. Since GK is unusually quite US-centric, I'd go for somewhere in the US. St. Petersburg, FL is obviously named after St. Petersburg, but not one of the largest by any definition. Birmingham, AL could be the answer. There is a Boston in England: Boston, Lincolnshire. Baltimore is named after a title in the Peerage of Ireland. Whether Santiago de Chile has a European name can be debated. There is for example Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I could go on... /Coffeeshivers (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If we tell you the answer, will you share the prize with us? --TammyMoet (talk) 17:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

What's GK? Nyttend (talk) 22:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The IP is based in Mumbai, if that helps. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps they wanting the name of a transport metro. But nothing on List of metro systems seems right. (and what is GK?) Gwinva (talk) 23:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

General Knowledge Rojomoke (talk) 15:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't everyone know that?  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid that's not generally known. Gwinva (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is now. Everyone reads the Wikipedia Reference Desks, don't they? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The word "Metro" has a European (French) origin[1], so any system called "Metro" would have a European name. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is this one, right? [2] In that case, the answer was New Amsterdam, Guyana. The OP didn't provide all the info in the clues, e.g. that it is a really small place. Reading the clues, their answer, and the explanations, I definitely stand by my previous statements of "horribly under-specified" and "many correct answers" /Coffeeshivers (talk) 17:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. What do you bet the OP already knew the answer? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Abe Lincoln bodyguards

Who protected Abe Lincoln from assassination during the US Civil War? I would think he would have a company of troops protecting him because he was president when the front lines were within 50 miles of DC. Surely they would have thought spies from the South might try to assassinate him and would not stick with his usual protective complement (which in 1865 was quite poor quality). Googlemeister (talk) 13:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You'd be surprised; I imagine there was actually very little personal protection for him. Certainly, Washington D.C. itself would have had some troops protecting it, but I am not sure that there would have been a specific bodyguard or detail assigned to the President directly. The United States Secret Service was actually created by Lincoln shortly before he died, but it didn't gain its role as a Presidential bodyguard until after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Prior to the Secret Service, the major Federal Police force was the United States Marshals Service, but that article makes no mention of Bodyguard duties for the President (though today, one of their promary rôles is to guard witnesses whose lives are threatened). Prior to the twentieth century, there was almost no security at the White House at all. You could literally walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell. White_House#Public_access_and_security notes that Abraham Lincoln was " was constantly beleaguered by job seekers waiting to ask him for political appointments or other favors." In other words, it sounds like that during the Civil War, you could go right up to the White House and pester the President directly; given that any one of these "job seekers" could have concealed a weapon rather easily, it seems as if security measures were nonexistant. --Jayron32 13:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought the army would fill in that role during the war. Googlemeister (talk) 13:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As president-elect, Lincoln was helped partly by the Pinkerton Agency... AnonMoos (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually, upon deeper research, Presidential security may have been managed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Apparently Allan Pinkerton helped foil the Baltimore Plot to assassinate Lincoln before his inauguration. In Abraham_Lincoln#1860_election_and_secession it mentions he was under substantial military security for his inauguration festivities, though it is unclear if this was standard security for his presidency, or a special security for the inauguration only. According to Abraham_Lincoln#Assassination, he had a personal bodyguard, but he stepped out for drinks during the play and left Lincoln totally unguarded. So, it does appear that atleast at some times there were varying degrees of "security" provided, though it does seem comicly inadequate compared to what sorts of security the modern President gets. --Jayron32 14:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Ward Hill Lamon was Lincoln's primary bodyguard. —Kevin Myers 20:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

This question was answered in the very recent past. Perhaps someone could link to it. Several police officers of Washington DC were detailed to guard the President, if I recall correctly 2 per shift during the day and one at night when he was at home in the White House. Some of them were very skilled, by all reports, unlike Lamon. One of the other officers wrote a history of his duty guarding the President. Edison (talk) 01:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The night of the assassination, there were attempts on other high-ranking government officials as part of a broader conspiracy. There is or was a school of thought that it was an "inside job", which would make the apparent incompetence of Lincoln's bodyguard that evening possibly more than coincidental. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

On April 3rd, Lincoln landed in Richmond itself and walked a mile or two to the Confederate White House with only half a dozen Marines and a different bodyguard. Although the plan was to arrive on the USS Malvern but it ran aground and Lincoln landed in a smaller boat ahead of most of the Marines sent with him. --JGGardiner (talk) 09:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Public accessibility gets sacrificed as people get smarter about things. Look at JFK riding in an open car in a public street, for example. The President doesn't do that anymore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

So no "Palace Guard" for the Whitehouse during the Civil War then? Googlemeister (talk) 18:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, the average citizen could walk into the White House and theoretically get an audience with Lincoln, after maybe just a couple of interceptions by staff. Assassinations tend to chill excessive openness. Targets of the attempts weren't always as lucky and resourceful as was Andrew Jackson, whose assailant had to be rescued from Jackson by the President's own people, after the pistols misfired and Jackson starting thrashing the jerk with his cane. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Part of the issue is that, prior to the 20th century, the President is a citizen-President and any semblance of royalness was discouraged. Thus, many of the 18th and 19th century presidents lived very differently than the modern ones. The federal government provided the White House, but literally that was it, many early presidents had to provide their own staff and furnishings out of their own wealth or salary. Because of this, many of the early presidents lost a LOT of money while president; one speculation is that the "two-term" convention which existed from Washington was that the early presidents couldn't afford in a financial sense to be President much longer than that. See especially this document which describes how Jefferson was quite literally bankrupted from the expenses he incurred while he was President. IIRC I read somewhere that Jefferson sent letters on his own stationary that he paid for because there was no appropriation for official Presidential stationary even for official government business. When the first telephones were installed in the White House, I think it was during the Cleveland presidency, if you called the White House, the president himself answered, as paying someone to answer for him would have come out of his own funds. It seems quite likely that Lincoln's bodyguards would have been paid by him personally, and not by the federal government, given the conventions of the time regarding these things. Lincoln may not have been able to afford a better security detail than he had. --Jayron32 16:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Islam Europe

Which European nations are becoming anti-Islamic nowadays, with far-right wing parties in legislature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.152.15 (talk) 16:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Your question involves an assumption that I think is incorrect: that any European nation with a far-right party in its legislature is a nation that is becoming anti-Islamic. Nations that have far-right parties in their legislatures often have anti-Islamic minorities, but it isn't fair to say that those nations as a whole are becoming anti-Islamic just because a far-right party gets some votes. On the other hand, it may be that some of those countries have a growing number of people with anti-Islamic views, in some cases a number approaching a majority of the population, but I don't think the presence or not of a far-right party in the legislature is a good criterion for identifying those countries. Marco polo (talk) 17:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

According to this source, a recent study has found that a majority of people in Denmark and the Netherlands have a positive attitude toward Islam, even though far-right parties have a presence in the parliaments of those three countries. By contrast, even though no far-right party has a presence in Germany's national parliament, a majority of Germans have a negative attitude toward Islam. It isn't clear from this article how those attitudes have been changing over time. Marco polo (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

So which voting system do they use please? If the elected members do not corrersponmd with peoples views, then it may not be doing a good job. Thanks 92.24.184.244 (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

That would be true if the only issue that mattered were being "anti-Islamic". However, people vote for politicians for a very great number of reasons, both economic and social. A homeowner living in the suburbs of Munich may support a politician because the politician wants to repeal a water tax that the homeowner hates; the homeowner may not have any idea on the politician's views on Islam, Islamic immigrants, Islamic religious displays, Islamic culture, or anything else. Any politician doesn't totally reflect all of the views of all the electorate. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It's partly a "return of the repressed" -- during much of the 1970s to 1990s, in some countries there was kind of an elite consensus which slapped a smiley-face on multiculturalist policies, which were considered to be de facto off-limits for respectable public discussion (except by sociologists with degrees, who published articles full of professional jargon in scholarly journals), so that anyone who even sought to raise the issue of possible problems with the way that immigration was working out in European societies was automatically branded a new Enoch Powell or vicious racist of the lowest order. The predictable result was that when concerns over results of immigration finally boiled over and became public in a way that could no longer be ignored (partly as a result of 9/11, partly due to other factors), those expressing such concerns were often allied with far-right-wing political movements, and/or extremely disdainful and contemptuous of those who had been shoring up the multicultural pseudo-consensus of previous decades. In several European countries (including France), "center-right" parities have now taken up issues of Muslim integration in order to prevent "far-right" parties from siphoning off votes from the "center-right" party... AnonMoos (talk) 17:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It's simplistic - and wrong - to say rightwing = anti-Islamic. The traditional left and right political spectrum is related more closely to economic ideologies than racial or religious viewpoints. What you are describing is nationalism, which can be held by people of various political persuasions (eg. communist (far-left) states can be extremely nationalistic). Gwinva (talk) 22:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

More populism than nationalism, IMO. AnonMoos gave a fair representation of one of the basic arguments used by many parties that have been called anti-muslim and/or xenophobic.Sjö (talk) 05:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's fair to say that the leading far-right parties of the countries I mentioned—the Danish People's Party in Denmark, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands—are anti-Muslim. As for the second question, Denmark and the Netherlands have forms of proportional representation, such that even relatively small minorities can have representation in their parliaments. Marco polo (talk) 23:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Denmark has an election threshold of 2% and the Netherlands doesn't have a treshold, but a party there needs about 0.7% of the vote to win a seat. That means that a very, very small minority can win represenation in the parliament and the presence of a far right party in the parliament doesn't prove much about the general attitudes in that country.Sjö (talk) 14:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The Global Attitudes Project from the Pew Research Center asks these kinds of questions. This survey is from 2008 but it asked respondents in several large European countries if they had negative feelings towards Muslims.[3] It also shows that there is more anti-Muslim sentiment on the right than the left although the difference isn't as significant as some might expect. --JGGardiner (talk) 08:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that anti-Islamic sentiments are endemic in Western culture, and have been so for centuries. Practically all Europeans (including many people who consider themselves as progressives or anti-racists) carry some attitudes originating in colonialist mindset on how to view the world. That said, many people in say northern Sweden in the 1920's would have been quite indifferent to the issue of Islam, as they would never interact with Muslims or come into contact with the Muslim world in any deeper sense during their lifetime. But in a new context of oil wars and new streams of migration, anti-Islamic sentiments deeply rooted in Western culture reappear and readapt to the new scenario.

Now the advance of the far-right/populist parties is one aspect of this phenomenon, but is rather a sympthom of it. Established political parties, particularily on the right, have been open to reajust their policies and discourse to draw voters from xenophobic/Islamophobic sectors. In Danish the Danish People's Party (the key anti-immigration populist party) got 13.9% in the last election, but on the other side all parliamentary parties have played with appeasement of Islamophobics in one way or another (albeit in very warying degrees) in recent years. --Soman (talk) 20:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe some of it comes from memories of centuries of Muslim aggressions and invasions (which are not completely forgotten or "dead" history in parts of eastern or southeastern Europe), rather than the alleged "colonialist mindset"[sic]. During the 1,050 years from 633 to 1682, Muslims were overall more aggressive and successful in attacking Christians than Christians were aggressive and successful in attacking Muslims. That makes over ten centuries of Muslim colonialism and less than three centuries of Christian colonialism... AnonMoos (talk) 03:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

British Iranians, British Afghanis, British Turks

Which cities or places in England has the largest Iranian populations? Which places in England has the largest Afghanis populations? Which places in England has the largest Turks populations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.152.15 (talk) 17:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It's pretty much a guess, but I would suggest London as the answer to all three. Mikenorton (talk) 09:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

.. and it probably depends whether you mean absolute numbers or proportions. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

See Iranians in the United Kingdom, Afghans in the United Kingdom, and Turks in the United Kingdom. Going by absolute numbers, London is unsurprisingly the answer to all three questions. 130.88.134.206 (talk) 12:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

At 14.6% Muslim, Luton is probably one of the highest in terms of percentage, although I don't have the complete breakdown by ethnicity. See Luton#Ethnicity. StuRat (talk) 05:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought that most British Muslims would be of sub-continental descent, rather than from Iran, Turkey or Afghanistan. DuncanHill (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Probably, but there's a big Turkish supermarket at the end of my road in London, and an Afghan chap drove into the back of my car a few years ago. Alansplodge (talk) 15:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Prishtina to be added on watchlist

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to raise an important issue regarding the Pristina/Prishtina page on Wikipedia.

I have recently noticed that there have been changes indicating that Pristina is part of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Since there is an ongoing dispute about this topic, I would appreciate to add Pristina in the watchlist of Wikipedia.

In addition, Pristina can be described as being the capital of Kosovo (not Republic of Kosovo or the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija) - in this way Wikipedia will remain impartial.

Regards, Kprishtina — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kprishtina (talk • contribs) 20:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, there is no "Wikipedia watch list". Each user can select page they want to keep track of and add them to their watch list by clicking the 'star' in the top-right of the screen. If there are issues with the article in question, please raise them on the talk page. If the article is being vandalised, please notify an administrator or experienced user who will revert the vandalism and apply protection to the page in question. Please ask any future questions on the Wikipedia:Help Desk as the reference desk is for inquiries about finding information out rather than questions or issues with Wikipedia. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts‎ if the matter goes beyond what can be reasonably dealt with on a single article talk page and/or you want to get some outside opinions... AnonMoos (talk) 23:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Raised churchyard graves

I was in an old churchyard in England recently, with many headstones from the 19th. and a few from the 18th. century.

Some of the graves were not flat but had raised stone structures. Were the coffins placed in the raised part without digging a grave, or were they always just ornamental? Thanks 92.24.188.223 (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

They are usually just ornamental. I think English church monuments is the relevant article, although it's mostly about those inside churches. --Tango (talk) 21:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Moved Tango's reply, which for some reason was after the following question. --ColinFine (talk) 22:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Placing a stone directly over the burial site is not unusual. Look at President Truman's marker, for example.[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

In this view of Truman's grave it is obvious that the coffin is not above ground. His burial was in 20th century USA not 18th nor 19th century England. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The tomb of William the Conqueror, who lived in 11th century England, is covered by a stone slab. The point being that covering graves with a stone slab is not unusual. If this is not what the OP had in mind, perhaps he could find an illustration? The pictures in the article cited don't seem to square with the OP's question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The OP is talking about a Chest tomb; " ...a memorial shaped like a stone box or cist, the whole of which is above ground. The body of its subject was usually buried beneath the memorial, not in the chest itself. The chief advantage of this type of memorial is that it is more obvious than a headstone, and it provided its sculptor with five surfaces for decoration." From a very informative article here. Alansplodge (talk) 12:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I know what the OP is on about. They look like this: a rectangular structure above ground, dimensions about 3 feet high x 7 feet long x 2 feet wide, on which are engraved the occupants of the tome which is below the structure. There was one in the churchyard where I went to Sunday school, and when it was opened for a new burial us older ones went and had a look. The structure covered a set of steps down to a larger tomb underground, with room for 8 - 10 bodies. They are quite a common feature in English churchyards, and I'm blowed if I know the correct term for them! --TammyMoet (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

An English table tomb

They're called table tombs. Here is a picture of one. DuncanHill (talk) 12:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Also "altar tombs". Some more reading here. Alansplodge (talk) 12:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

One might refer to such a tomb as a Sarcophagus, see this picture. The Wikipedia article Tomb gives a list of repositories for the dead. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Although a Sarcophagus usually contains a corpse, whereas a chest tomb is constructed over a grave or vault and is usually empty. Alansplodge (talk) 12:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Farmhouse or Hall?

Was there any customary rule that determined if a farmhouse was just a farmhouse or if it was called a "Hall"? In south-east england recently I saw a few old country dwellings that were called "Something Hall", but - 1) they looked like ordinary old farmhouses, 2) the occupiers/owners were not aristocratic as far as I know, 3) there was no village of the same name as the Halls. Thanks 92.24.188.223 (talk) 21:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You can call your property anything you want so long as copyright infringment is not involved. I myself have some beautiful property in Guatemala which I chose to call Castillo Alacran ( scorpion castle) there's no castle there. I doesn't matter. It's just a name, not a discription.190.148.132.192 (talk) 23:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

[Indented 190's post to clarify that I'm answering the OP.] "Hall" usually implied that the occupier owned the building and associated lands, and may well have owned other farms or houses on his/her land that were occupied by tenants. Since such buildings in England not infrequently retain their names for long periods and through changes of ownership, it may be that the families who previously owned them had more status than the current occupiers, and/or that long-term changes in the area (such as some of the land associated with the halls being sold, or grander buildings being subsequently built nearby) have reduced their former relative importance: a country house that once merited being called a hall may well seem quite modest by later standards. It's also possible that the buildings you saw were originally outbuildings of now-demolished larger halls, but have retained the names of the original establishments. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.111 (talk) 00:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

According to EO,[5] the term "hall" originally meant any kind of covered building. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

In the US, at least, the fancier sounding the name, the more humble the residence. (Any place called an "Estate" is likely to be a trailer park.) StuRat (talk) 05:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yup... and in just about any retirement community there will be at least one house named "Dun Roamin"... very few of which started out as a Celtic hill fort. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Burning treasure

In the Beowulf epic, we read that the treasure the dragon guarded was to be destroyed by burning on Beowulf's funeral pyre (because it's all cursed).

[…] A lelt kincs legjava

halomban hamvad el a hőssel együtt,

a szörnyű áron nyert számtalan ékesség,

az átkos ártalom, kiért urunk utóbb

életét áldozta; tűz foga falja fel,

láng nyelve nyalja fel; […]

(Beowulf, line 3009, translation by Szegő György)

Arany János mentions simlar destroying of treasures in the ballad Szondi két apródja (this time so that the enemy can't get it).

A vár piacára ezüstöt, aranyt,

Sok nagybecsü marhát máglyába kihordat;

Harcos paripái nyihognak alant:

 Szügyeikben tőrt keze forgat.

But can you really destroy treasure by burning? Most of it is jewelery made of precious metal and gemstones, plus ornamental metalic weapons. I imagine that burning these would not harm them too much. The fire probably wouldn't even destroy the fine handmade ornaments on these relics: they've survived sitting centuries in a dragon's lair so they must be sturdy. Beowulf has specifically chosen to fight against the dragon with a metallic shield because the fire the dragon breathes would destroy a wooden shield (though this itself seems a bit counterintuitive to me: while a metallic shield wouldn't get destroyed, it would glow so hot he couldn't hold it, and I doubt a dragon could quickly burn a good wooden shield). Even if the treasure is destroyed, much of the value is in the raw material gold and sliver, which could still be regained.

So my question is, is it practical to burn treasures to destroy them? Was it done in reality? – b_jonas 22:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Remember, this is mythology. Anything is possible. If the treasure happens to be a manuscript, for example, then fire will do it.190.148.132.192 (talk) 23:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate note. The last dragon I knew breathed a lot fire but couldn't even boil water.190.149.154.160 (talk) 00:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Metals wouldn't be changed into non-metals, but in a hot fire the bronze would melt, the silver would soften and pick up impurities, and the non-metallic components of, say, a chest would burn, so that things would be somewhat transformed... AnonMoos (talk) 23:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Amber will disintegrate in a very modest fire. Semi-precious minerals like lapis and onyx, if they have decent sized mineral inclusions, may fracture along those inclusions. Some of the treasures of Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Hoard were extremely finely made, with detailed work that would surely be destroyed by a fire. Someone might reasonably believe that the "thing" was this fine craftsmanship, and that its reduction to its constituent metals would "unmake" it, and maybe remove the curse. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 00:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Heh, I wonder how many modern-day crematoria try to convince their customers that those gold wedding rings and teeth were all burned up in the flue... Wnt (talk) 21:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Funny. Or maybe not. Generally speaking, jewelry is removed from the hands of the deceased, especially for cremation, although some might forget. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Pardon me if this seems rude, but may I suggest that in the future you translate into English any Hungarian excerpts you wish to discuss? My friend from Kosice assures me that Hungarian is a beautiful language, but I doubt most people on this page can understand it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

"A lelt kincs legjava". Something about a leg with a kink in it, and coffee. What's not to understand? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Google translate cannot totally handle this, but here's what it came up with for the second (Hungarian) item:

The castle is the market of silver, gold,

Bonfire Forwarders nagybecsü many cattle;

Warrior horses whinny below:

Szügyeikben wield a dagger in his hand

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Luckily there are English translations available of both.

and bear the bountiful breaker-of-rings

to the funeral pyre. No fragments merely

shall burn with the warrior. Wealth of jewels,

gold untold and gained in terror,

treasure at last with his life obtained,

all of that booty the brands shall take,

fire shall eat it. […]

Beowulf, part XXXIX, translated by Francis Barton Gummere, from Project Gutenberg

"On the fortress' square all the silver and gold

Szondi has them build a treasure-pyre mighty;

with dagger in hand he must, fearless and bold,

put to death every whinnying palfrey."

Arany János, The two pages of Szondi, translation by Makkai, Adam

– b_jonas 08:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)