[1205.4324] Universal Properties of Mythological Networks -- Pádraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna
There has been a lot of research into the statistical properties of biological and social networks, and many networks show interesting statistical regularities.
The authors mentioned studies of social networks like those of company directors, jazz musicians, movie actors, scientific coauthors, as well as online social networks. They also used a study of a fictional social network: Marvel superheroes. As a further check, they analyzed Victor Hugo's
Les Misérables, William Shakespeare's
Richard III, JRR Tolkien's
Fellowship of the Ring, and JK Rowling's
Harry Potter.
The mythological stories they worked on were
- Beowulf -- a medieval English epic
- The Iliad -- an ancient Greek epic
- The Táin Bó Cuailnge -- a medieval Irish epic
The Iliad's characters' social network was much like real ones, while Beowulf's and the TBC's ones were much like fictional ones. However, removing the central character of Beowulf and the 6 central characters of the TBC yielded social networks much like real social networks.
The authors suggested that as evidence for partial historicity of those three epics.
However, there is a lot of comparison work that was left undone. What happens when one removes the central characters in the fictional works that they analyzed? What are the statistics of detailed biographies of well-documented people? Of detailed histories of well-documented events? What happens when one removes the central characters from those?
Like a history of the US Civil War or World War II, and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Hideki Tojo, etc.
Or a history of the discovery of quantum mechanics, something that took place over several years, and that had no central figure.
This work can be extended to the more reliable ancient histories, like Suetonius's
The Twelve Caesars, and the later parts of Livy's
History of Rome. The earlier parts of Livy's history would be an interesting comparison.
As to mythological works, one could look at some from the Middle Ages that were based on real people and events. The Song of Roland was based on the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, and its oldest manuscript dates back to 1140 - 1170. Likewise, Theodoric the Great ruled Italy around 500 CE, and legendary mentions as Dietrich von Bern start around 800 CE.
If this method proves reliable, then it can be extended to ancient texts whose historicity is more controversial. An obvious one is the Bible.
In its early history, where does the mythology end and the reliable history begin? It's usually agreed that its history up to the conquest of Canaan is mythological, and that its history starting with the Dual Monarchy is at least somewhat reliable. In between are the likes of Kings David and Solomon.
Then, of course, there is the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ. The canonical Gospels don't give us much to work with, it must be said, but they are full of detail compared to the rest of the New Testament, many of the noncanonical Gospels, and purported outside sources like Josephus.
The main problem is that their method is rather subjective and labor-intensive, requiring carefully reading the texts. They resorted to that after discovering that automated methods were less-than-reliable. Using mentions in encyclopedia articles depended on the encyclopedia, for instance. However, natural-language processing may supply an alternative. Their method does have a plus, however. They were able to identify friendly and hostile relationships, something that they found useful.
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