Melvadius

We've probably got all of the Falco books somewhere in the house I just haven't had the time to seek out and read the latest ones. BTW Before moving a few years back I got rid of a lot of my personal library which was then mainly assorted fiction and stretched to over 3,000 books. Unfortunately it has been building back up again with a heavier emphasis on academic books in various nooks and crannies all over the house. However I don't feel either strong enough or wish to try getting them all together and counting them again just to find out how bad our storage needs now are by numbers - let alone weight. I suspect however what could be loosely termed 'Roman related' is now around at least 150-200 books if not more

You may be interested to know that Clive D.W. Feather (someone interested in archery) apparently decided to do some research in the Squire Law Library in Cambridge into the legal situation and posted some relevant sections of the various statutes with his interpretation here. Although the earliest laws he was able to read date from the reign of Henry VIII he believed that the obligation for Englishmen to practice archery probably stopped around 1863 before any remaining elements of the statutes notably relating to what bows could be made of and the fact aliens were not allowed to take them abroad or use them in England being finally repealed in 1960.

Fire at your own units deliberately and see your army morale crumble faster even if it doesn't turn on you personally.

You go for millennia and little or nothing is discovered and then along come two sites at once. OK not strictly true but there have been two recent discoveries of actual structural remains from Mesolithic settlement sites (which can be added to the previously known Starr Carr and a very few other sites) towards rewriting the map of our knowledge of this remote period in British history. The Mesolithic period is a period of mobile hunter/ gatherers recolonisation of Britain after the retreat of the ice fields when there seems to have been no permanent dwelling sites or at least none occupied on a permanent basis until very late on going into the Neolithic period when farming developed. Mesolithic sites are normally identified through a few specialist flint tools or more commonly large scatters of debitage from where the flint tools were created. These finds provide evidence of where people in the Mesolithic period have lived or at least passed through and at least in the case of Sefton may, if the report is correct, just about provide evidence of the first people to settle down on a more permanent basis. First we have this report from the Guardian on the discovery of the remains of three possible hut structures at Lunt Meadow at Sefton on Merseyside dating back to around 5800 BC.

To take one example. Given that the Normans who invaded England as mounted warriors and with other groups taking power across Europe including Sicily were actually 'Northmen/ Norsemen' who had settled in north western France (ie Normandy) I think that something may have gotten lost in translation.

Even if they didn't use the term I suspect at least one of the references will be to what is usually called a 'bodkin' style arrowhead. This is actually named after a long, very sharp but also very narrow medieval period dagger called a 'bodkin' although examples of such arrowheads do pre-date the medieval with several known Roman examples. Comitatus has an interesting article on tests of various reproduction Roman style arrowheads here.

No idea where it is but if it is something like an undercroft/cellars then it may be associated with a forum or more likely an agora to pick up on the hint about 'Greek masons'. If so that would probably rule out France so possibly somewhere in Greece as a location?

I would tend to discount the possibility that this is an underground cistern or even the subterranean part of an arena but instead inclined to suspect that if anything it may be part of the catacombs in Rome.

Archaeologically speaking while there are a fair few Viking period swords around the fairly consistent story, from the known battle sites, are of injuries more ususally consistent with those liable to have been caused by either axes or spears. Swords may have been used by a few elite warriors but axes and spears were the weapons of choice by those who may only have been involved in combat occasionally. It takes less metal and time at the forge to create such weapons so they were affordable for those who not already rich.

While the Romans may have been relatively lighlty staffed I suspect your lecturer's talk is to some extent suffering from the well known trap of a lack of direct compatability between terminology used in different cultures and different situations. You have actually touched on this in your side comments in the post. This is possibly exemplified by the recurring difficulties people have in deciding what the Roman population was at different points in time because in some counts only the head of household would have been counted while at other times only men over certain ages were or those in receipt of the bread dole and in csome counts slaves were included but not in others (see this thread for a bit more on the topic of the total empire population). If the Roman 'administrator' numbers are for instance only based on the final layer discounting slaves and possibly anyone who fed back information then there is obviously going to be a massive disparity with the Chinese system where everyone was allocated a post and their expertise/ social standing and responsibilities were enumerated to the last digit. Its a bit like comparing chalk with cheese or counting apples and pears in two different areas where what is counted and in which circumstances is poorly understood even by experts let alone anyone simply picking up on what without this background context are effectively random statistics.

Agreed. however what most people, even 'expert' historians, usually do not consider in discussing the events leading up to the outbreak of WW2 is the fact that Chamberlain's 'appeasement' of Hitler bought Britain badly needed time for us to start the process of preparing to fight a modern war. If Churchill been in charge and had rushed in to start the war with Germany before we had 'ramped up' our weapons production we would have lost in very short order. Hitler could then have turned on the rest of the world one by one with relative impunity and probably with even worse consequences for those not his 'willing' allies. Personally I have long suspected that Chamberlain did know what he was doing and that although he was not the man to lead Britain in war he could buy us time to get ready for the inevitable conflict. The relevant records are probably under a 100 year seal if so then 'watch this space' and see how many deeply held opinions have to be rewritten.

Don't be too surte I vivdly remember being involved in a school production years back that managed to get the 'impression' of a moving wagon over on stage - you just have to suspend a lot of disbelief;) Hope you enjoy it however they do it

You also have the demographics of the US army in the 1940's and even in more recent times to consider. A mix of men often from small rural communities and poor urban areas where racial communities are still to some extent segregated even if not actually antipathetic towards each other due to colour and/or financial/ religious reasons. In many instances the men who entered the military had never been further away from their home than the nearest large town and tool little interest in wider world affairs so deep insularity was added to the mix. Send them to foreign lands where they have effectively been told the enemy are sub-human and it would frankly be more suprising if they had not reacted in the way many (but not all) of them did. American and to some extent every military unit in the world has exhibited similar symptoms throughout history - even in our 'more' enlightened times - just consider some of the stories arising from Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. So far as finding it a suprise is concerned, these stories have been fairly common knowledge for decades not least since My Lai happened and the older WW2 stories started to surface possibly as a form of expiation. The problem I suspect is that several parts of the media tend to operate a form of self-censorship so any hint of the underlying issues keep getting supressed and any 'new' horror comes as a suprise to them that 'their' troops could act in such a horrific way.

Victorian references

Luckily or possibly unluckily when I tried to follow the links Klingan had provided above from this PC they all went to the same top level search screen. I ended up having to copy and paste the search into a new windows - and yes my eyes are watering with some of the images - not for the young

This is back to the issue I touched on earlier that bombing runs could occur at different heights depending on the planes being used, the target and whether missions were carried out during daylight or night time. These issues make any discussion about relative AA weapons effectiveness fairly mote since you cannot discuss like with like. The issue of differences in methodologies is why you have the old RAF joke about US airmen getting increasingly important medals for flying at decreasing heights until they finally get told they will be court martialled as they are not allowed to fly with the British.

You have to realise that AA guns were only one element of the defences used during WW2 and the effectiveness of all of them relied on a number of different factors including: How high were the enemy planes? How fast were they flying? How many AA guns were available? What was their effective range? Were there fighter defensive forces involved Were there fighter escorts involved? Were the AA guns under point attack themselves? Were enemy planes within range of small arms fire? Were there barrage balloons (or similar) restricting aeriel movement? Was it day or night time? What were the weather conditions? Were defenders solely reliant on visual observation or could they be targeted onto attackers using radar or similar? While some AA guns used proximity fuses requiring either contact with enemy plans or being set to explode at certain heights not all did. The nearer planes were to the ground the more effectively small arms and light AA guns could be targeted onto them. Effectively if you can put up a wall of fire in front of a plane it is liable to run into it and suffer some form of damage even iof you do not use exploding shells. Damaged planes tend to fall behind their comrades and any fighter escorts so can be more easily picked off on their return trip by defending fighters even if they do not crash due to the damage they have received. Such planes may have been recorded as fighter destroyed but their original damage was due to AA fire - how could anyone start sorting out which was lost due to what if the probable causes were never originally recorded? Yes there were injuries on the ground due to shells falling back to ground and exploding there but I suspect generally defenders on the ground tended to be more concerned with shrapnel from exploded shells. It was effectively invisible and fell back over quite wide areas causing a higher risk death and serious injuries amongst anyone exposed on the ground.

So far it is a set of circumstantial evidence. Firstly the location of his body has long been known but the location of the burial has been beneath a car park - only recently was permission granted to excavate and the precise location targeted by comparison with ancient maps. The location of the burial within the choir of the Greyfriars church is suggestive of a high status burial while the fact the skeleton found shows evidence for a medical condition which would make one shoulder sit higher than the other suggestive of being hunch backed in addition the skeleton had an arrow in its back. The full list of reasons are: Five reasons were given: the body was of an adult male; it was buried beneath the choir of the church; there was scoliosis of the spine, possibly making one shoulder higher than the other (to what extent would depend on the severity of the condition). In addition, there was an arrowhead embedded in the spine; and there were perimortem injuries to the skull. Dr. Jo Appleby, the archaeologist who discovered the skeleton, described the latter as "a mortal battlefield wound in the back of the skull" Further laboratory tests, including DNA comparisons, are planned to verify the identification.

The Hurriyet Daily News is carrying this report that recent building work discovered a large villa believed to date from the Late Roman/ Byzantine period near Izmir containing mosaics comparable to those in the now submerged town of Zeugma. The hope is that this discovery is part of a larger area of buildings so possibly one of the lost cities of Anatolia.

Braveheart is not the best source if you are seeking historical accuracy - just look at all that Italian Rennaisance armour the English were wearing. In fact the Bruce did train the schiltrons for some time before Bannockburn where they came as a suprise and along with the pit traps were effectively used against the English knights and lesser mounted men at arms. However in later battles the English had grown wise to the schiltrons use against cavalry so stood off and peppered them with archery fire against which, since they were relatively lighty armoured, they had little defence.

As the 2nd link I posted indicates the Dorset native Indians seem to have abandoned that part of Baffin island before the arrival of the Norse. However later evidence of a Norse coin dating to 1065-80 found in a native settlement on the coast of Maine along with Dorset tribal artefacts indicate some contact must have continued for at least half a century after the discovery of Vinland recorded in the Saga. Of course personally I think it was all a set up as recorded in a wealth of detail by Harry Harrison back in 1967 in his 'biographical' work on the 'actual' reasons for the discovery of Vinland The Technicolor Time Machine

I agree that one or two random coins could have come in after the Roman's abandoned Britain. Since there isn't a lot of information around on the web at present I wrote the suggestion as 'IF'. It really is down to the precise mix of coinage and more importantly IF the information is available on how different period coins were distributed through the horde. Distribution information IF available can indicate where coins may have been built up over an extended period of time being added to a 'savings bank' or alternatively if they all came from a single deposit (all shiny new and unworn and closely dated) which is more likely to indicate a sudden crisis with coins issued at the end of a period of service. I look forward to further reports coming out which will hopefully clarify if the suggested connection exists or not.

You do not need a breach to make a castle surrender I believe that one of the 'nominally' strongest castles in the near East Krak de Chevaliers controlled by the Knights Hospitaller's fell to the Mamluks in a 36 day siege during which the defenders had been forced back into their central citdel after the outer defences had been breached one by one. Apparently the defenders received a 'forged' letter from their order saying they could surrender however I do wonder if the capture of the aqueduct supplying the castle with water may also have played a part in their surrender. In comparison during the Wars of Scottish Independence Edward I of England invaded Scotland and had the 'War Wolf' built (by repute one of the largest trebuchets ever constructed) during the siege of Stirling. The defenders saw it nearing completion and tried to surrender before it could be used but Edward sent back their surrender party until he could try it out and had succeded in breaching the walls. However later on after Stirling Castle had been rebuilt and now under the control of Edward II the English defenders were placed under siege for a year. The fact that the defenders promised to surrender if not relieved within a year directly led to the Battle of Bannockburn and ultimately defeat for the English despite technically having a much stronger army than the relatively poorly equipped besieging Scots.

The National Geographic is carrying this story of the discovery of what seems to be fairly convincing evidence for the second known Viking site found in the America's after the onward leap from Greenland.

The BBC is carrying this story of a potential major advance in the study of the world's oldest undeciphered writing (proto-Elamite) - and if it works it will all be down to a new way of lighting and so recording the images for 'crowd sourced' solutions.