Is this natural English? Hard to understand?

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1) Does "Scoffers at history" mean "The people who scoff at Greek history"?
2) What does "on a tablet" mean?

Context:

.3. The ancient Romans made up the existence of the ancient Greeks.

Scoffers at history as simply "the gossip of dead people" will be vindicated when archaelogists stop studying the sex pictures in the ruins of Pompey and uncover the entire hoax on a tablet hidden behind a depiction of bodily pleasures that Dr. Billy Tom Thomas calls, "disgusting and infinitely intriguing."
http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/future/10-scientific-discoveries-coming-2012-09.html

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 488 • Replies: 4

[+4] - chai2 - 12/26/20121) yes, you're correct 2) a tablet in this case, a large piece of stone on which the story as been etched or painted.

View best answer, chosen by oristarA

@oristarA,

1) yes, you're correct
2) a tablet in this case, a large piece of stone on which the story as been etched or painted.

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Yes natural English hard to understand....

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@oristarA,

Quote:

1) Does "Scoffers at history" mean "The people who scoff at Greek history"?

I don't think that it is limited to those who scoff at Greek history, Ori. I believe that it refers to people in general who scoff at history. This finding, while limited, points up that their view is accurate. In the writer's mind, of course.

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

1) Does "Scoffers at history" mean "The people who scoff at Greek history"?

Read the whole sentence. The scoffers are those who say that to study history is to merely learn about "the gossip of dead people"; and are implied, I imagine, to be ignorant dicks, like those who call literature the study of dead poets, dead carrying a strong implication of irrelevant obsolescence.

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Is this natural English? Hard to understand?

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