Melvadius

From BBC: Roman glass dish found in grave

I don't make any claims ot be a climatologist but I suspect that the argument is that a warm period would lead to larger sections of the ice cap breaking off - possibly unexpectedly. One argument I heard touted about long bewfore the current concern about climate change kicked in was that in theory a group of inuits may have been trapped on a large ice sheet which broke off from the main ice cap and for some reason or other not been able to leave - possibly a large family group without the means to all get off? Such an ice sheet may have drifted towards Scotland, slowly melting and the last survivor made it off on the only kayak after all hope was lost. Personally I don't know what the true explanation may be but it is an interesting nugget of information and I am sure that more than one Doctorial thesis has (and will) make use of it as part of their argument;) Melvadius

I can't swear to the population decline figures not having folowed it up so far but depending upon the context it may simply have been referring to a part of the highlands severely affected by bad weather. However the inuit story has been around for years and seems to be based on established facts - even if the full story is unlikely to ever be discovered. The British Association for American Studies has an item on

I would tend to agree with the concensus of what has been posted already although I suspect that Formosus Viriust... is operating under a common modern misconception about the ease with which people can pick up literacy skills. In the 'modern' world we tend to be surrounded by the printed image with words and images often flashing up onto our television screens making the relationship easier to pick up. However, there are still significant proportions of modern populations with only limited literacy despite years of usually mandatory education. Across Europe low levels of reading ability average about 10% of the population who can 'just about understands short texts with repeated language patterns on familiar topics' c/f: (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Policy/adultlevels.html). There was not the same emphasis on learning literacy skills in most of the ancient world as the modern world requires. As I mentioned in a previous posting (copied above by Gaius Octavius) there is abundent evidence from Vindolanda and elsewhere amongst the Roman military of very variable levels of literacy. Putting all this into an ancient world context, where even basic writing material could be hard to come by, the estimates quoted above of 30% literacy levels in Pompeii or even as low as 10% are not unreasonable. Melvadius

Hastings is possibly the classic example of an army losing it's cohesion (although due to a ruse rather than crippling pressure) and no longer being able to put a united front against a resurgent enemy. However, I suspect that even if the Scots, Irish and Welsh combatants at Arnhem didn't object then the Free-Poles who were also there may have a strong argument about 'limiting' the defenders there to 'English' troops Despite this I agree with your main point that both Hastings and Arnhem as well as innumerable engagements throughout history do point out the fact that more men tend to be lost in retreat when an army fragments and is no longer able to face the enemy from a defensive/ united position. Such lessons from history is a major reason for the British army tending to put relatively equal emphasis on discipline as well as initiative which in several instances has allowed them to minimise losses or like at Dunkirk allowed them to path the way for eventual victory. Mind you such training doesn't always seem successful in stopping the Brass appearing to go out of their way to drop their men in it again and again

I suspect part of the problem (not stated in the article) is historic and to an extent culturally based. In Britain when archaeology was in it's infancy and Departments of Archaeology were being established I understand that they were usually attached to (or developed) from existing Classics department so did have some loose affiliation to 'written' history. In contrast in America, I understadn that Archaeology departments were usually established as sub-divisions of Anthorpology Departments so probably had a much looser afiliation to 'historic' and 'Classical' written sources. These loose associations/ affiliations, or possibly simply perceptions, to some extent have continued into the modern era often amongst those who should know better. In my experience, in Britain as a recent archaeology student, we are positively encouraged to operate in a multidisciplinary manner. Any site investigation should include elements of comparison and contrasting of sources across the spectrum such as historical and other records research, excavation, scientific analysis of finds and comparison with other sites. American trained archaeologists I have come across have speken of using similar multidisciplinary methods I cannot speak for the situation in every history department across Britain or the US but have noticed in some of my more recent 'historical texts' references being made to specific archaeological site reports. Possibly this indicates that the 'new' multidisciplinariasim is further advanced than the History Today article would lead people to suspect? Melvadius

My understanding of the Anglo-Saxon fighting technique employed by Harold was that the core of his army was made up of his own and senior followers household troops supplemented by a local 'fyrd' [spelling corrected] which is basically troops raised from the local area who were highly varied in how they were armed and level of training. As the battle at Hastings was fought in the south of england very few, if any, of the local fyrd would have had any Nordic blood. It is worth noting however that there were two major battles fought in 1066 the first near York when Harold, King of Norway invaded. The local fird fought the invaders but despite taking significant loses the Norsemen held the field and then moved onto York where they took hostages amongst the local population. As Yourk had been a Norse city it is probable that a significant proportionof the lcoal troops would ahve had Norse blood. The consequence of the invasion meant that Harald (of England) who had been waiting in Kent for the expected Norman invasion had to dismiss the local fyrd and hot foot it North with his household troops to deal with the Norse invasion and then retrace his steps. This meant that his household troops would have been pretty much exhausted by their journey and the local fyrdhad to be recalled to face the Norman invaders which probably directly contributed to their eventual defeat. Although written after William was in control [consequently possibly a bit biased], you may find the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles on this point of interest c/f the 1065/1066 entries at the following link: http://historymedren.about.com/library/tex...aschron1061.htm Melvadius

An interesting addition to this thread is the article in the Science Daily: Viking Legacy On English: What Language Tells Us About Immigration And Integration 'ScienceDaily (Apr. 22, 2009)

A shorter period of time? The Romans were present in Britain for 367 years, they officially (not counting Caesar's brief flirtation in 55/54BC) arrived in 43AD under the invasion of Claudius and finally left the island for good in 407 AD when Constantine III was proclaimed emperor by the Roman troops in Britain and crossed the Channel with all of the remaining units of the British garrison, Roman Britain effectively ended. The inhabitants were forced to be responsible for their own defence and government

I would agree with most of the comments posted already. Yes there can be advantages in a convenient TV overview of a site but (and it is a very big but) going in person gives you the control to move your head half and inch or even turn through 180 degrees and reveal the relationship of one building to another. These are often relationships which would are ignored or possibly deliberately obfuscated in a TV documentary. TV can not give you a true impression of the intertwinned views, sounds and smells of a visit to a site. It is often the personal images which I remember; wandering away from the guided tours in Pompeii and finding an small fresco detail which because of the overall incompleteness of the building never features on any itinery TV or otherwise. Moving further afield it was crawling through a cistern under excavation in Tunisia and running my hand across a small section of Roman grafitti which had been perfectly preserved. Thirdly (but not finally) standing in the middle of an amphitheatre with a small sand storm blowing maing sand on the arena floor swirl up around my feet and partially obscure the inclompleteness of the remains around me. Possibly the best image I didn't personally see but heard about immediately afterwards was when a piece of a leather tent was excavated out of the mud at Vindolanda. As it was opened it was seen to still contain the remnants of linen thread but these almost instantly evaporated/ dissolved as the air got to them. These are all impressions that cannot be matched by TV. Melvadius

True but not always so in 'traditional' English construction. To adapt a quote from a British TV comedy show 'Red sky at night could mean the forge is on fire again' . This is not to say that thatch was commonly used but that either a very solid chimney and/or some other means of separating the flamible material from the heat source usually has to be considered when working metal. Traditionally in England some forges were initiallly situated in smaller 'out' buildings away from larger and more important structures and/or a stone or tile roof would be used (as the Romans tended to do) with solid timber supports which would take time to burn. This is one of the advantages of using solid oak timbers as a building material. It is slow to catch light and even with intense heat often slowly chars rather than burns usually giving people a chance to fire fight before needing to escape. Melvadius

Coal is generally not used directly for metal working as the most common type (bitumous coal) releases sulpher and other impurities into the metal being worked. It is much more common when forging metal to work with coke (which is produced by cooking coal under low oxygen conditions) although wood was also used historically. That isn't to say that coal may not have been used in some circumstances just that its direct use is less likely. As coal, and even more so coke, burns hotter than wood it makes working metal easier however it also requires improved chimneys with better insulation to stop the transfer of heat and consequent increased risk of fires breaking out in thatch or other combustible material. As far as I know the main discoveries of coal use in the Roman period have been associated with domestic and some religious sites - possibly linked to sacred flames but at least one instance is on record of coal being used to dry corn. As Roman corn drying kilns used indirect heat the corn would not have been affected by impurities carried in the smoke. NB because of this release of impurities the increasing use of coal for cooking in the Victorian era, rather than over wood fires, was a key factor in the development of cooking ranges which utlised indirect cooking methods. Melvadius

The Charterhouse site (which is in the Mendips) is probably the best known Lead mining area in Britain dating from the Roman Period. However there were others as the Roman Britain site notes including; Machen in Mid-Glamorgan, South Wales, Pentre in Flintshire, North Wales, and at Lutudarum (Crich, Derbyshire) in the Southern Pennines. c/f http://www.roman-britain.org/places/charterhouse.htm The problem at Charterhouse is the level of arsenic in the soil which appears to be the result of the cupulation process being used there for a period to try and extract silver from the ore. Unfortunately for the Romans the silver content in the Mendips was probably not as high as at other major lead/silver production sites like Rio-Tinto in Spain which did supply much of the silver used by the Romans in their coinage. Melvadius

This article concerning the sheer quantity of environmental (and possibly other) archaeological material awaiting analysis following the excavation in 2002 of the medieval Newport ship has appeared in the South Wales Argus: 'IT looks like gloop from the River Usk. But as Mike Buckingham finds out, where there's muck there's an historical treasure trove. MUD, mud, apparently inglorious mud stored in 50 building waste bags may contain historical gold relating to Newport's mediaeval ship. "And just as the old prospectors panned for gold we are going to have to sift through this lot to get it to reveal its treasure" Charles Ferris who has led the campaign to save the ship says. Mr Ferris who is also a Newport councillor stands in front of unpromising rows of plastic bags ranged three deep on metal shelving in the industrial unit where remnants of the 550-year-old vessel are stored. "And that's the easy part" he with a faint smile eloquently conveying under-estimation. "After that the coins, scraps of clothing and bits of leather, fishbones, nails and items of lost cargo will have to be analysed, photographed and stored. "The gold waiting to be discovered is the most detailed insight we can hope for of life in Newport and on board the ship at a crucial stage in the history of the development of sailing vessels." When the timbers of what turned out to be Newport's medieval ship were first unearthed in 2002 they were thought to have been part of an old jetty. ....' Continued at: http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/4233..._medieval_ship/

What page are you referring too (Out of curiosity)? I happen to have the book at home and can't find anything similar after a (very) quick look. From what I know would a channel with a sidewalk for inspections be normal, and the channel would gradually be filled with calcium (and other) deposits in a up side down triangular shape. Here it almost looks like it's filled from the top down, hence the curious shape. There is no one image from Hodge's book that conforms to the unusual umage of the Garad qanat. I was actually thinking about three of the images in combination echoing some of the features shown. Fig 8 on page 29 showing the Qanat at Samos where the water was actually carried in a pipeline in a trench at the side of the tunnel for the possibility of carrying the water in a lower section of the tunnel. Fig 58, page 107 showing the rock cut channel on the side of a cliff at Side in Turkey extrapolating it for the arching shape used in some rock cut tunnels. Fig 161, pg 231 The aqueduct tunnel at Cologne for graphically showing concretion in a tunnel. I rather suspect however that the 'double' tunnel may actually be down to a need to recut the tunnel - either because it was originally too high or possibly because of erosion in the bottom of the tunnel. I found an interesting website on aquaducts which includes some additional indformation on the Garada qanat, which you may already know about http://www.romanaqueducts.info/ Garada is included in the list of 50 aqueducts where there is a separate article but the images taken within the Garada qanat do not show the same 'double' tunnel as depicted in the article. http://www.romanaqueducts.info/aquasite/index.html From a quick skim of the other articles there does appear to be some variation in the internal dimensions of the qanat tunnels recorded here. Melvadius

I would agree that the reported discovery is interesting, if only for extending the known length of the Gadara qanat system. The article doesn't make clear how extensive the use of qanat's were particularly historically in the more arid regions around the Mediterranean. As to the tunnel shape it does have some parallels with other tunnels (c/gf Trevor Hodges book Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply) although I did wonder if the 'unusual' shape is more due to the build up of calcium (or similar) deposits and possibly later recutting of the tunnels with possibly a lower water channel rather than an 'original' design feature. Like you I look forward to reading a more technically based if not fuller report in the future. Melvadius

I can't say that I've ever seen a ghost of any desription but a few years back there was a story circulating in the media about ghostly Roman legionaries being seen on Hadrians Wall. Personally I didn't take much notice of the story as I knew that one of the Re-enactor groups were having a sponsored walk along the Wall in full kit at the time and the weather had been truly foul for much of it with thick swirling fog - you get the picture Melvadius

If this is true (and I'm not saying it's not) how was the first glass made? How is the growing demand for glass met? I should have made clearer in my last posting that although I didn't have the technical details at hand, in Roman Britain & indeed the Western half of the empire, most (if not all) glass was primarily made using 'cullet' (broken glass) with some additional material to bulk it out. I believe this was because the main manufacturing bases for 'new' Roman period glass were in the eastern half of the Empire so the west had to mainly rely on recycling existing glass. As to your other questions Cadrail has kindly already posted an appropriate link to Wikipedia which provides a good overview of technical information on Roman glass production including the additives used to produce different colours of glass. Melvadius

An interesting article (especially for wine buffs) which in its full form points out how Vitruvius's advice on growing vines were interpreted in Gallo-Roman France. Burgundy Wine Has Long History In France: Remains Of Gallo-Roman Vineyard Discovered In Gevrey-Chambertin ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2009)

I've excavated plenty of it. No pictures though, you're going to have to take my word for it Here is an interesting link, it mentions colourless glass somewhere. I also have excavated my share of 'clear' Roman glass but you may also be interested in some experimental work which was carried out on Roman glass blowing techniques back in 2005 and 2006. Full details of the project can be found at the following link: http://www.romanglassmakers.co.uk/ It is worth noting that the experimenters made use of surplus excavated Roman glass, including some 'clear' glass (I understand supplied by Molas) to form the basis of their experiment. I don't know the precise mechanics but you really need some broken glass to form the basis of any new glass products. Melvadius

Erm, I don't know quite how to say this except to point out that the 'Poll' options appear to all be wrong. Although it is split into three federal provinces, the southernmost of which (Janub Darfur) could 'just conceivably be considered in the southwest of Sudan, Darfur 'region' itself is actually in Western Sudan. Unfortunately 'Southwestern' is the nearest option allowed in the Poll. Melvadius

In my day I like to think that people had a general idea of where major conflicts were occuring even if they could place the conflict to within a few hundred miles on a large scale map. I suppose it is just another example of the problems of declining standards and the 'Hollywood' version of history which now underpins a large chunk of all societies. If it doesn't appear in slow motion in the latest blockbuster then the general answer to geographical questions is all to often 'who cares?' or 'does it matter?'. Mind you that leads to a whole parcel of other issues with both the film and book world happily switching locations of conflicts and nationalities of participants. I always think of Krakatoa 'East' of Java as I am sure many of these misplacements have now firmly entered 'urban legend' and appeared in reference material of shall we say 'less academic worth' . Melvadius

The English navy at around the time of the Armada was evolving revolutionary new tactics, according to new research. Tests on cannon recovered from an Elizabethan warship suggest she carried powerful cast iron guns, of uniform size, firing standard ammunition. "This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanisation of war," says naval historian Professor Eric Grove of Salford University. "The ship is now a gun platform in a way that it wasn't before." Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound from Oxford University adds: "Elizabeth's navy created the first ever set of uniform cannons, capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage. "[Her] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later." ... Continued at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7899831.stm This article links into the BBC progamme - Timewatch: Elizabeth's Lost Cannons, (BBC Two, 2000 GMT, Saturday 21 February '09). More film clips are at the BBC History website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/elizabethsarmada/

I've long argued that a limit should be imposed on the maximum term a political party (rather than individual) can remain in power could be a good thing - it tends to smooth out the excessess of politically motivated policy making. However lack of experience or age (either youth or old) is not necessarily a disability to those running a large 'empire' successfully - just look at Augustus. [Even being 'officially' disabiled does not necessarity negate reasoning ability and a successful leadership.] Small mindedness and totally ignoring the wider picture on the other hand is pretty much invariably a recipe for disaster. On the showing to date there may be a few [teething] problems within the Obama camp BUT they do seem willing to listen to a wider world view than Bush's administration ever were and trying to address some of the root causes of the current econmic situation, so from this side of the Pond these are very hopeful signs. Melvadius [edits]

A French battleship sunk in 1917 by a German submarine has been discovered in remarkable condition on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. The Danton, with many of its gun turrets still intact, is sitting upright in over 1,000m of water. It was found by the Fugro geosciences company during a survey for a gas pipeline between Algeria and Italy. The Danton, which sank with 296 sailors still onboard, lies 35km southwest of the island of Corsica. Naval historians record that the Danton's Captain Delage stood on the bridge with his officers and made no attempt to leave the ship as it went down. The French government is now keen to see that the site is protected. "Its condition is extraordinary," said Rob Hawkins, project director with Fugro GeoConsulting Limited. ..... more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7898890.stm