641 replies to this topic

[Kortoso]

She looks okay to me!
Big surprise that a woman from north-eastern Africa doesn't look like Elizabeth Taylor.
Occasionally I will meet an immigrant from Ethiopia or Eritrea. Most of the women have a strange, stately beauty all their own, not unlike the reconstruction.

http://k53.pbase.com....DSC011987c.jpg

[timeless]

Every buried treasure most likely has an interesting story behind it. I wonder what this one was:


http://www.foxnews.c...,471434,00.html

[darthgall]

Archaeology comes to life!

Do you think they had wine guys back in the day, like the beer guys at baseball games?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28523693/

Edited by darthgall, 06 January 2009 - 09:20 PM.

[Kortoso]

Archaeology comes to life!

Do you think they had wine guys back in the day, like the beer guys at baseball games?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28523693/

I understand that roasted chickpeas were the preferred treat.

[timeless]

Prehistoric Britain is fascinating:


http://www.telegraph...e-resolved.html

[timeless]

Now THIS is cool:



http://www.time.com/...fullworld-yahoo

[Kortoso]

Prehistoric Britain is fascinating:


http://www.telegraph...e-resolved.html

"Why?" is always the hardest question answer in archaeology.

[darthgall]

If anyone doubts that early christianity tended to "co-opt" pagan beliefs, rituals and religious sites, this should wipe that away:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28995380/

Mick.

[timeless]

I've never heard anyone argue that point, Mick; it's well understood that the conversion of pagans involved 'supplanting' new tradtions over the old ones, and sites as well. It's not a topic of much debate among historians or archaeologists, except for a few on the fringe who trip over their own logic trying to connect dots that require huge assumptive leaps. But those types probably publish very little in the professional journals (finding easier outlets on the Dan Brown boards .

[darthgall]

I agree, Timeless; I don't think people argue the point, more of just my little aside to introduce the link.

Speaking of which, this board doesn't have an "Interesting Paleontology" forum, but I thought this was pretty relevant and cool:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29014818/

I think he showed up in an REH story or two...

MIck.

[Kane]

That's a damn big snake!

[timeless]

Yeah, I saw that too!



http://www.foxnews.c...,487885,00.html




My favorite line in the article is "Bloch said, "I think it's likely that the last of the species were killed off by iron-thewed barbarians treading the jeweled thrones of the earth under their sandaled feet...but that's just a hypothesis."

[deuce]

I agree, Timeless; I don't think people argue the point, more of just my little aside to introduce the link.

Speaking of which, this board doesn't have an "Interesting Paleontology" forum, but I thought this was pretty relevant and cool:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29014818/

I think he showed up in an REH story or two...

MIck.

Here's your "Paleontology", Mick. Enjoy.

http://www.conan.com...?showtopic=2486

[Elegast]

By the time of Julius Ceasar the Roman Legions were very well orginised and they had a very strict chain of command system. Many of our modern armies elements somehow go back to the legions. Tribunes became officers. The Legate was the Coronel ( or Brigadier? ). The Centurians became Seargents, Seargent Majors, etc. The First Centurian of the First Century of the First Cohort. In the British army, would he be the Colour Seargent? In France he'd be the Major ( do not confuse with the English Major ).

Edited by Elegast, 05 February 2009 - 09:42 PM.

[Kortoso]

Centaurians or centurions?
I think that Centaurians were cavalry in Narnia.

[timeless]

Interesting times for Egyptologists.

They?ve unearthed a ?warehouse? with a couple of dozen mummies in Saqqara, a huge necropolis south of Cairo. They were stored in niches lining a deep shaft. Not that old, only about 2,600 years, but the part of Saqqara where they found them dates back to the old 6th Dynasty, a couple of thousand years earlier. Only a few were in sarcophagi, and those wooden, so they weren?t ?important? people. Even so, the excavators were surprised at the ?niche? burial method which they thought was used only in the earliest dynasties.

Interesting thing, they were discovered near two identified tombs, one for a guy responsible for overseeing the operations of nearby quarries and the other a woman whose job was to ?procure? others to entertain the pharaoh (wonder what that means? ) The quarries were dug to provide material for a pyramid nearby, which was discovered in November (smaller than the Great ones, obviously; there are more than a hundred known in the country.)

Also, in Saqqara again, an intact and perfectly preserved mummy has been discovered. Limestone sarcophagus, a big shot. A rare find because grave robbers didn?t get to it. Not really that old, 26th Dynasty, 600 B.C. or thereabouts.

Experts estimate that maybe only a third of ancient tombs and monuments in Egypt have been uncovered.

Maybe they?ll someday find a statue of Set?

[John Maddox Roberts]

Sounds to me like they were reusing an old niche-tomb. The Egyptians were great recyclers. They had to be. There was only so much land and so many resources. When I was there some restoration was being done on the paved area in front of one of the temples. On the sides of the paving blocks you cold see paintings done when the blocks were part of an earlier temple that stood on the same spot. Incidentally, the tomb-robbing was probably beneficial. Without it, the tombs of only a few pharaohs would have contained all the gold in the ancient world. I've seen the Tut exhibit in the Cairo Museum. The sheer volume of gold is mind-boggling, and this was in the tomb of an absolute nobody of a pharaoh. The mind boggles at the prospect of what the tombs of pharaohs like Seti I or Ramses II must have been like.

[timeless]

Interesting how they mummified people in Ancient Egypt:


http://oi.uchicago.e...S/ED/mummy.html

[Sermon Bath]

I once saw this bit on Tv about the enormous numbers of mummies found in Egypt. At one time some business men in England were buying mummies, grinding them up, and selling them for hog feed. They did a good business too.

[thundarr]

I wasn't quite sure where to post it, but I thought here might be a good place. The History Channel has a new series starting March 12 called Warriors which "goes inside the culture of the most famous warriors of all time to explore their weaponry, tactics and, ultimately, their psyche."

Sounds kind of interesting and like something some of us here might appreciate.

Warriors - The History Channel

Here's an episode breakdown:

Episode 1: The Vikings
Norway & Poland, 991AD
The Hells Angels of the Middle Ages pillage Europe, but they meet their match--the Saxons--at the Battle of Maldon.


Episode 2: English Knights
England & France, 1415
Outnumbered English knights and archers, led by King Henry V, slaughter French knights at Agincourt.


Episode 3: Samurai
Japan, 1612
Legendary samurai Musashi meets archrival Kojiro in a climactic duel.


Episode 4: Barbarians
Germany, 9 AD
The Romans, with the greatest army in the world, are annihilated by Germanic tribes at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.


Episode 4: Spartans
Greece, 479 BC
At the Battle of Plataea, brilliant tactics and battlefield discipline help the Spartans defeat the Persians, avenging the devastating defeat of the 300 at Thermopylae.

Episode 5: Maya
Guatemala/Mexico, 800 AD
Recent archeological discoveries unearth secrets of a fierce warrior society--one built on human sacrifice, bizarre rituals and deadly weapons. A bloody battle at the ancient city of Dos Pilas leads to the downfall and disappearance of this powerful pre-Columbian warrior society.


Episode 6: Warrior Monks
Malta, 1565
The Knights of Saint Johns defend Malta from attacking Ottomans in one of history's greatest sieges--the Siege of Malta--the last battle of the Crusades.


Episode 7: Zulu
South Africa, 1879
African warriors overwhelm an occupying British army. It was Britain's Little Bighorn--Englands worst defeat at the hands of a colonial force.


Episode 8: Hawaiians
Big Island & Oahu, 1790
Warring chieftains engage in brutal inter-tribal battles for domination of the Hawaiian archipelago.


Episode 9: American Revolutionaries
North & South Carolina, 1780-81
Backwoods militia led by "The Swamp Fox," Francis Marion, wreak havoc by practicing guerilla warfare against British regulars invading the South.