Melvadius

Dura Europas?

I know that you have had several changes in your life this year and consequently had to cut back on your Forum visits so may not pick this up immediately but anyway here's wishing you a Happy Birthday and a successful year ahead including with your studies

This reminds me that I really must get around to reading the copy of Religions of Rome we have in the house. Not having read either it or the book references mentioned already I can only speculate but is it possible that sacrifices within the Cult were carried out as part of the Moon's cycle of waxing and waning? If this was so then the sacrifice may may have taken place during or around the period of the 'Dark of the moon' when the sun could literally be said to be looking the other way. This may also go some way to explaining the subterranean nature of Mithraic temples

I am not sure how many of our members have that much interest in the French Indo-China campaigns but have allowed this post as it does fall into Historia in Universum. I don't know much relating to the 'myths' so will only comment that it may be useful to include a short paragraph of background info on the conflict including the dates and location of the Battle to put the 'Myths' into context. Also possibly including some indication of where the myths have been 'stated' which you are refuting as I presume you will have that information.

Sonic, possibly you should come out from under that stone more often as you have provided a good encapsulation of what we probably should all consider the key questions. I recently had pointed out to me another aspect which although to some extent secondary to your suggestions also could be a subject for neutral/ academic consideration in a similar way. Recently much has been made in some quarters of Cleopatra

Of course if it was 'real' silver then I suppose that you could always try paying your taxes with it. I understand it was fairly normal practice in the later Empire at least with gold coins to melt down high value 'pure' coins into bars and ship them back to Rome/ the nearest mint for re-stricking - especially when coinage was being debased.

While others, if you considered both question and answer phonetically (which our dear lords and masters currently consider the best way to learn English) rather than as written or even spoken with some accents or dialects, you can understand where they went wrong.

Looked at logically there are several possibilities roughly in ascending order of plausibility: 1) A Roman ship somehow blown off course against the prevailing winds for several weeks or actively hunting new lands coming to grief in the America's - seems unlikely 2) A Viking ship happening to have the head on board - possibly as a lucky piece of one of the crew - again either comingot grief or possibly used as a trade item during the Viking settlement of Vinland. - Slightly more plausible but still seems an unlikely scenario 3) Carried on a Pre-Columbus ship visiting the America's - something which has long been suspected may have happened but for which we have no hard and fast evidence. Why it should have been on the ship is anyone's guess but the head could to my eyes be seen as a European's attempt to depict a sailor of the period rather than necessarily Roman as the style seems to indicate tothe 'experts'. - This is now into the area of just about plausiblity 4) Arrived sometime after the Spanish discovery of the America's but stratification of the excavation was not as good as it should have been. Where it originally came from in this scenario is to some extent irrelevant as it could have come in a a number of different ways that we cannot prove or disprove. - Plausibility in this case is heavily reliant on how good or otherwise the original excavation was at keeping tight stratification records and ensuring that no one planted the head as a 'joke'. This scenario is one which depending on the preceeding could widely range between highly plausible or totally unlikely The question marks about the Thermoluminescence dating are a bit concerning given the variability which can care occur in results due to a number of randomising factors and the highest prbablity dates does allow for a wide range of lower probabilities. Of course with any of the above scenarios if the head is actually Roman in origin then a simple process of trade coul dhave passed it from the coast to where it was found and many cultures have a habit of burial with grave goods which include unusual objects which have been 'found' such as fossils or flints as well as ancient heirloooms. Without going into this in a lot more detail my initial inclination is slightly more towards a variant of scenario 2 or 3 than any of the others but I'm open to counter arguments. BTW Hristov seems to have come down on a Viking option as can be read here Any other thoughts?

Many Happy Returns, Have a great day

The BBC now have an article on this find as well here. Although it isn't too different from the other report it does include a link to a 360 production video report on Youtube reporting on the find. This video report includes some nice images of the defensive ditches mentioned in the other reports.

I recently received one of those 'this was from last year' type joke messages which seem to circulate long after the 'year' in question - in this case it has been circulating since at least since June 2009. It is usually extremely doubtful that they relate to any particular year. I did a quick check and there seem to be several slight variations on this theme including the age of those claimed to have sat the test but a couple of the supposed answers in this version give potentially worrying slants on 'current' knowledge of the Roman period. BTW I cannot take credit for the comments after some of the answers - this is how it came to me. Read and enjoy - or despair: The following questions were asked in last year's GED examination. These are genuine answers (from 18 year olds)... and they WILL breed. Q. Name the four seasons. A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink. A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists. Q. How is dew formed? A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire. Q. What causes the tides in the oceans? A. The tides are a fight between the earth and the moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins the fight. Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist upon? A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed. Q. What are steroids? A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs. (Shoot yourself now, there is little hope.) Q. What happens to your body as you age? A. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental. (At least they get to travel!) Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes. A. Premature death. Q. How can you delay milk turning sour? A. Keep it in the cow. (Simple, but brilliant) Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorized? (e.g. The abdomen.) A. The body is consisted into 3 parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I,O,U.. (WTF!) Q. What is the fibula? A. A small lie. (This person has a career in politics awaiting!) Q. What does 'varicose' mean? A. Nearby. Q. What is the most common form of birth control? A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium. (That would work.) Q. Give the meaning of the term 'Cesarean section'. A. The Cesarean section is a district in Rome . Q. What is a seizure? A. A Roman Emperor. (Julius Seizure, I came, I saw, I had a fit!) Q. What is a terminal illness? A. When you are sick at the airport. (Irrefutable!) Q. Give an example of a fungus . What is a characteristic feature? A. Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and they look like tiny umbrellas. Q. Use the word 'judicious' in a sentence to show you understand its meaning. A. Hands that judicious can be soft as your face. (OMG) Q. What does the word 'benign' mean? A. Benign is what you will be after you be eight (Brilliant) Q. What is a turbine? A. Something an Arab or Sheik wears on his head These people vote -- They are the future generation!

I have already indicated above along with my own inclination the underlying facts that any individual's perceptions of ethnicity, social class and 'racial' affiliations based effectively on place of birth do not necessarily align closely with reality. This is especially true if such designations may have had their origins in a classification system which is inherantly of a racist or 'inverted' racist nature - any result is liable to be biased in some way. The above link well illustrates the numerous different opinions mainly but not exclusively in America about what might constitute a 'black'/ person of colour (or any other designation you may wish to consider). American perceptions of 'racial heritage' based on it's social and legal history is notorious for suffering from this dicotomy so without a large caveat is possibly not the best place to provide a 'definitive' conclusion about an individual whose history remains open to so many conflicting opinions and uncertainty The few 'facts' relating to Cleopatra's racial heritage that the majority of 'experts' seem to agree on is that she was born in Egypt within a family which had a strong Macedonian heritage but few if any 'confirmable' links to the native 'Egyptian' population let alone sub-Saharan Africans. That said I strongly suspect that this question will continued to circle without resolution as rightly or wrongly so many individuals feel passionately about the topic and without a lot more information which is not available from the historical record it can never be definitively resolved.

That could have been my next choice but I suspect you may well be correct Would you like to confirm that ummidia quadratilla has guessed correctly Bryaxis Hecatee?

Sanxay?

There are several issues with the various 'skin hue' maps produced based on the work of von Luschan and Biasutti not least the socio-political period in which these were created. This is exemplified by how many 'hues' can be seen to relate solely to Europe along with gaps in the data being interprolated from the closest areas where data did exist - no matter how far away. However the core concept is probably reasonably valid, despite the obvious desire of some 'people of colour' to claim her as their heroine: The incidence of sub-Saharan African's within the Ancient Egytian population was probably quite low. QED the chances of Cleopatra having any significant quantity of non-Macedonian/ non-Egyptian blood in her is fairly minimal.

3 People continue to be interested in the subject but a definitive answer to the race question will never be provided or even if it is be accepted by everyone

I suspect you may be confusing the large open air ornamental pond located on the peristyle garden at the Villa of the Papyri with an impluvium. In the case of a villa such an ornamental pool presumably would have been fed by water accessed from either a town

Milan had a strong defensive wall built in the late 3rd Century which may have had something to do with it's defensive ability but it also was closer to the frontier area than Rome. Effectively it was more 'central' for the are directly controlled by the Western Empire so a better base for a leader intent on being close to threatening enemies on the border including keeping an eye on the previously rebel 'Gallic' Empire. I agree about the defensive nature of Ravenna there has been a lot of land reclamation there since the Roman period so you effectively now approach the modern harbour through a canal from the Adriatic with the main town some 4 miles inland from the sea.

I've no objection to more of the Forum readership submitting reviews providing they fit into one of the forum peregrini areas of close 'time' association to Rome. In fact if anyone is worried that they only have books which have already been reviewed I do not see this as necessarily a problem. Having more than one opinion of a book can be an advantage for a new reader who is uncertain if they wish to spend X amount purely on one person's opinion. The other obvious advantage is the more people who have done at least one review for the site - the wider UNVR can distribute books/ articles for future reviews. That way more of us will have the opportunity to increase our library holdings for a litle quid pro quo but for anyone interested you may find the the 'How to write a review' thread worthwhile reading for basic instructions.

Well the obvious inclusion is the Forma Urbis map which, probably along with an unknown quantitiy of other marble items including columns and statues, seems to have been broken up to be burnt to produce lime either for inclusion in concrete for construction or simply as a fertiliser. Speaking of marble columns not all of those removed from Rome were from Roman period structures. Apparently several were recovered from the Tiber - presumably part of a lost Roman period cargo which sank then used in the construction of Syon House in Middlesex.

All three topics now merged as requested. (Emoticon in honour of a certain Geordie Builder/ Falklands vet )

If you are reasonably close you may be lucky if you contact Vindolanda about volunteering to help out in a general way. However they formally announce their arrangements for volunteering to excavate on 1 November each year. I believe that all places have now been taken for this year, as a little while back I received their annual newsletter, which advised that all places were taken within 3 days of them being announced. If you wish general information about volunteering for Vindolanda in the future there is more information here relating to this year. However we recently discussed some possible alternative excavation sites including excavation holiday's being advertised at Arbeia in this thread.

God old gas pipelines strike again - my old tutor worked on a similar project in the UK and you can get enormous quantities of material excavated in a very short period of time. The real issue is to ensure that you are given enough time to carry out both the initial excvations and then the equally, if not more important, post-excavation work to write things up.

Past Horizons now have a bit more on this discovery al;though retreading much of what has been pronted elsewhere it does include several of the photographs from Flickr as part of their main report on the associated fort here

Welcome coltrane68, I am sure that you will soon find your own place here. As far as 'distance learning' is concerned it depends what area you wish to pursue in your studies. If it was to include archaeology then there are several Universities which offer 'distance learning' courses on the topic a few of these are listed on the CBA website here. However I suspect most universities listed there will be offering 'continuing education' courses rather than distance learning or online. These last two forms of learning, where they exist, tend not to be intended as the major component of Degree level work despite this you may find something interesting to follow up on when the next academic period starts. I know that the Open University do run several Classics related courses up to Masters level although I understand that not too many of their modules currently cover the Roman period per se they should all be distance learning and I believe include an increasing quantity of online discussion/activity. BTW belated welcomes to godsownson and anyone else whose welcome message hasn't been responded to up to now - sorry.