648 replies to this topic

[Mike_The_Barbarian]

Some women are professional escorts, others are amatuers. You might take a woman's body but you'll rarely ever take her heart. They may give it to you .

Very poetic.


Haha, good news...I think.

You mean painting bikinis on the nudes?

Haha, what quilifications do you need for this job?

[budgie]

Ah-ha Hagar the Horrible.. You a fan Painbrush? - read the strip every day

For those not in the know -Hagar the Horrible

Budgie

[PainBrush]

I liked dear old departed dads Hagar a little better than the sons - but it's still pretty funny .

[Kane]

One of the more interesting aspects of prostitution during various times in the Roman Empire was that it was standardised by the goverment for the benifit of the military.
Seems that a young infantry soldier could cash in some of his pay at the paymasters office for a set of coins. Now these coins were inscribed with images of different sexual positions and acts.
With a coin purse full of these coins our brave young man-at-arms, wearing a smile, gets the required permission and strools on down to the local brothal.
Showing up at the door he presents the first of these coins to the owner and is shown to the room where that particular act, and only that act, is preformed. It does not matter that our protruding protaganist does not speak the local language. He knows that the empire is providing for him by ensuring that all the brothals have women who are trained to preform the acts depicted on those coins.
And should he find himself transfered to a new post on the other side of the empire? Does not matter, because somewhere in the area is a brothal with women trained to do those same acts and the coins he brought with him are legal tender in any brothal in the empire. No haggling over price, no need to try to explain what you want.
At the end of the month the owner of the local brothals would show up at the paymasters office turn in the coins and be re-embursed in local, or roman, coinage.

[Carlos]

[quote name='Mike_The_Barbarian' date='Oct 27 2006, 10:50 PM' post='55764']
[quote]Some women are professional escorts, others are amatuers. You might take a woman's body but you'll rarely ever take her heart. They may give it to you . [/quote]

Very poetic.


Haha, good news...I think.



The women who fall hard for a man are always the ones who end up stalking them. Better to disappoint them with your imperfections up front, if they still keep coming back, be very careful with them because they're the ones already plotting your slow and painful demise if and when you "break their heart".

[Carlos]

We knew what we were doing even if we didn't why.

http://www.newscient...cen-sabres.html

It seems to me the more we learn about ancient and traditional technologies, we learn we don't know about everything them.

[Dragon Girl]

Interesting. I imagine most metal technology originally came about by accident and then later developers experimented to find the right combination of elements to get the properties they wanted. Who knew that nano technology existed even back then?

[Kortoso]

This article has been making the rounds of various sword forums. It appears that now that we know how to make nanotubes deliberately - and coincidentally the tools to view them and identify them - we're starting to see them everywhere.

Such steels as damascus and wootz are folded and forge-welded many, many times to make thing layers. I'm not surprised that something kinky is then happening in the nano-world.

[Ironhand]

Rare Greek antiquities go on display By DAVID MINTHORN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Dec 5, 6:15 PM ET



NEW YORK - Warned that the barrage of Persian arrows would hide the sun at Thermopylae, the Spartan hero Dienekes replied with cool bravado, It will be pleasant to fight in the shade.

ADVERTISEMENT

Known for their terse, unflinching way of speaking, these consummate warriors from the Lakonia region of Greece were known as laconic, or sparing of words. The term also applies to their art.

"Athens-Sparta," opening Wednesday at the Onassis Cultural Center, presents 289 archaeological artifacts from the paramount city states of ancient Greece to illustrate their very different social and artistic legacies.

Athens lavishly encouraged artistic creativity, which became the fountainhead of Western civilization. Laconic, militarist Sparta spent sparingly on the arts, yet managed to produce its own notable works, as shown by the celebrated objects on display.

Mounted strikingly in the compact gallery in midtown Manhattan, the survey encompasses some of the rarest relics ever to travel outside Greece, dating from 800 B.C. to about 350 B.C. Admission is free for the one-time show, on view through May 12, 2007.

Artifacts from centuries of conflicts include spear points and javelin tips from the 480 B.C. battlefield of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans fought to the last man against Xerxes' overwhelming forces; a large marble bust commemorating Leonidas, the Spartan king who died with his troops at Thermopylae; a marble relief of an Athenian trireme warship in action; and a bronze Assyrian helmet from the 490 B.C. Battle of Marathon, Athens' war booty offering at the shrine to Zeus at Olympia.

Objects from the domestic and religious life of both cities include intricately painted pottery and drinking vessels, metallic sculptures of athletes and votive figurines, coins and decorative pins, gravestones carved from marble, and busts and statues of Athena, the patron of Athens, and other Panhellenic gods.

Greece's greatest museums in Athens, Sparta, Marathon, Olympia and Rhodes loaned priceless objects for the show. A lavishly illustrated catalog includes essays by Greece's top antiquities scholars, including Nikolaos Kaltsas, director of the National Archaeological Museums, who curated the show.

Wallboards and labels on the artifacts trace a history of shifting alliances and hostilities rooted in radically different social organizations and cultural ideals in Athens and Sparta.

Sparta, militant and highly regimented, bred the best soldiers of the Hellenic world by making its residents subservient to the state. Humanist Athens produced the greatest philosophers and builders by encouraging freethinking of its citizens. Sparta thrived as an oligarchy, Athens as a democracy, and slavery was part of both societies.

Athens' artists and its sea-borne commerce dominated the Mediterranean region, generating wealth and underwriting intellectual achievements such as the Parthenon and theatrical tragedy. Spartan traders and craftsmen also brought prosperity to their society, although military preparedness was always uppermost and artistic creativity a lesser concern.

Mutually antagonistic for centuries, the two powers and their allies set aside enmities and formed a common front when Persian invaders on land and sea threatened to overrun Greece in the early fifth century.

In 490 B.C., 10,000 Athenian troops turned the tide at Marathon, routing twice as many Persians. When a larger force of Persian invaded again in 480 B.C., the Spartans galvanized Panhellenic resistance with their heroic, three-day stand at Thermopylae.

The Athenian naval victory at Salamis later in the year, and the Spartan-led battlefield triumph at Plataeae in 479 B.C. all but ended serious Persian designs on the Greek mainland.

But Hellenic animosities rooted in clashing ideals eventually led to the Peloponnesian War, 431 B.C. to 404 B.C., climaxed by Sparta's defeat of Athens.

One of the clearest examples of their stark difference in world views is reflected in steles, or gravestones. The Spartan leader Lycurgus banned inscriptions of names on graves except for "those who died in war" and women who died in childbirth.

In contrast, Athenian gravestones commissioned by the wealthy were artistically carved reliefs depicting the deceased, often based on works at the Parthenon or other great monuments. The expenses led to legislative efforts against such extravagant memorials, the exhibition notes.

On the Net:

http://onassisusa.org

[deuce]

Skara Brae is too cool (along with sites like the Knap of Howar):

http://www.orkneyjar...tory/skarabrae/

In Howardian terms, most likely built by the Picts. I really can't see the "red-haired reindeer people" pulling off such structures.

[Ironhand]

Ancient weapons found in ruins in Syria
By TARA BURGHART, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 16, 10:12 PM ET

CHICAGO - It was the ancient version of a last stand: Twelve clay bullets lined up and ready to be shot from slings in a desperate attempt to stop fierce invaders who soon would reduce much of the city to rubble.

The discovery was made in the ruins of Hamoukar, an ancient settlement in northeastern Syria located just miles from the border with Iraq.

Thought to be one of the world's earliest cities and located in northern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it is the site of joint excavations by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities.

Excavations have been going on at the site since 1999, but in digs conducted this past fall, researchers uncovered new evidence of the city's end and more clues about how urban life there may have begun. The University of Chicago was to announce the findings Tuesday.

The site is so close to Iraq that Clemens Reichel, the American co-director of the expedition, has seen explosions on the other side of the border.

"It's somewhat surreal. We're not living in a vacuum there. We know exactly what's happening across the border," Reichel said. "But working in Syria is like working in the eye of the storm. It's very peaceful to work there. Practically no problems."

The site was anything but peaceful in approximately 3,500 B.C. The archaeologists have previously detailed how they believe Hamoukar's independence was ended by a battle that caused its buildings and walls to collapse and burn.

This past fall, the team found more traces of that battle. For example, there was a shallow pit containing a water basin normally used to soften clay sealings for reuse. The clay sealings were used on bags, jars and baskets to help ensure that the valuables or food inside had not been tampered with.

But along this basin, the researchers found neatly lined up along its edge 12 "sling bullets," oval-shaped weapons made of clay that were fired using slings. More than 1,000 of the bullets were found in debris of collapsed walls in 2005.

Reichel theorizes someone who usually worked with the clay sealings was trying to contribute to the war effort and fashioned bullets from the clay instead.

"You imagine the despair the people were in. They were using everything they could to throw back at the attacker," he said. "It looks like a desperate last attempt."

But the roof collapsed before the bullets could be used, and the researchers believe they were the first to see the scene since that fateful day.

"It's the content of 5,500 years ago no one has seen. There's an element of eeriness ? almost a sacred element ? when you do this," said Reichel, a research associate at the university's Oriental Institute.

As for the identity of the invaders, the researchers point to debris that indicates if members of the Uruk culture of southern Mesopotamia weren't the ones attacking, they certainly swooped in immediately afterward and took over the city. Either way, they were probably on a quest for the region's raw materials.

Elsewhere at the site, archaeologists believe they've found clues to why urban life began at Hamoukar.

A massive area, the size of a golf course, is scattered with thousands of pieces of obsidian, a type of rock used to produce tools and weapons. It also contains debris that "tells us that they are not just using these tools here, they are making them here," Salam al-Kuntar, the Syrian co-director of the expedition, said in a statement.

Using pottery fragments for dating purposes, the researchers theorize the area could have been a place where obsidian tools were produced hundreds of years before the ferocious battle.

The discovery could also help explain how civilizations developed in different regions of the Fertile Crescent, Reichel said.

It is accepted that in the south, urban society developed in response to the need for organized labor to support the irrigation-based agriculture. The findings from Hamoukar ? which was on a key trade route linking modern-day Turkey to southern Mesopotamia ? suggest that civilization could have developed there to tap into the market for mass-produced goods (such as obsidian tools).

Guillermo Algaze, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at San Diego, has researched Mesopotamian archaeology and early civilizations. He follows the findings at Hamoukar, but did not participate in the dig.

He said the existence of Hamoukar and the nearby Syrian city of Tell Brak prove that early development of Mesopotamia occurred independently in the north and south, which is contrary to traditional scholastic belief. Previously, civilization in the north of the region was thought to have developed under the influence of urban areas in the south.

Still, the outcome of the battle at Hamoukar in 3,500 B.C. helped change the trajectory of the region, with southern Mesopotamia becoming the dominant force, home to ancient kingdoms such as Babylonia.

[Ironhand]

Greek archaeologists discover theater By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 15, 8:27 PM ET

ATHENS, Greece - Sections of an ancient Greek theater were discovered on Thursday during construction work in an Athens suburb, archaeologists said.

Until now, only two such buildings were known in the ancient city where western theater originated more than 2,500 years ago.

Fifteen rows of concentric stone seats have been located so far in the northwestern suburb of Menidi, according to Vivi Vassilopoulou, Greece's general director of antiquities.

"Another section appears to lie under a nearby road," she told The Associated Press.

"(The remains) were discovered during excavation work, supervised by archaeologists, for a new building," Vassilopoulou said. "But it is still very early to offer any conclusions."

The structure has not yet been dated, and further details are expected to emerge following a full excavation.

Menidi is thought to be built over the ancient village of Acharnae, the largest of a string of rural settlements outside ancient Athens. Ancient writers mention a theater at Acharnae, but no traces of it had been found until now.

The village was linked with Dionysos, the ancient god of theater and wine, as the Athenians believed that ivy ? his sacred plant ? first grew there.

Built in semicircular tiers on hillsides, ancient theaters were monumental, open-air structures that could seat thousands of spectators.

Theater first emerged as an art form in late 6th century B.C. Athens, where ancient playwrights competed for a prize during the annual festival of Dionysos ? in whose cult the art originated.

The works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes were performed in the theater of Dionysos under the Acropolis.

Originally a terrace where spectators sat on the bare earth above a circular stage, it was rebuilt in stone during the 4th century B.C. and could sit up to 14,000 people.

Another smaller theater has been discovered in southern Athens.

[Kortoso]

Rare Greek antiquities go on display By DAVID MINTHORN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Dec 5, 6:15 PM ET

NEW YORK - Warned that the barrage of Persian arrows would hide the sun at Thermopylae, the Spartan hero Dienekes replied with cool bravado, It will be pleasant to fight in the shade.

ADVERTISEMENT

Known for their terse, unflinching way of speaking, these consummate warriors from the Lakonia region of Greece were known as laconic, or sparing of words. The term also applies to their art.

Ha! "Advertisement"!? That's plenty ironic! Obviously that text was left over from copying from the webpage, but it looks like the museum knows what side their bread is buttered on, big Greek movie, time to trot out the Greek treasures...

[Konorg]

here is a very informative website called History fo the Barbarians

http://www.wizardrea...ns/history.html

[Kane]

Starting tonight at 8:00PM EST, The History Channel will be running two programs that might be of interest to the members here.

First is "Barbarian Battle Tech". A look at the weapons and their development that were used by the various barbarian cultures of Europe.

At 9:00PM there is a two hour program on the The Dark Ages. A look at the life, culture, warfare, worship, and other aspects that went on during the period known as the Dark Ages.

[jackx]

I might have to eventually check that out, but something tells me the "barbarian battle tech" will just make me cringe even more when I actually see it then when I just read the name...

[Kortoso]

I saw most of the Dark Ages show last night. As long as I suspended my reenactor's criticisms of the gear and costumes, it's a pretty entertaining retelling of the history of the Dark Ages.

[PainBrush]

Darn it ! I always miss the stuff I want to watch , fell asleep yesterday at 7 or so until 1:00 , didn't get to watch those shows OR to tape Rome . The good part is they'll rerun them 47 & 2/3 times this week on the History channel - they're good for that . Rome gets replayed again ain a couple days too . So you said it was 'entertaining' - how much of that suspension was necessary , was this the " Complete Dummy's Guide to the Middle Ages" or was it fairly accurate ? - For that matter , how about the 'barbarian battle tech' one ? -It's not like you can ruin the ending of the shows for us , I think we all have a good idea of that already

[Winterghost]

Dark Ages was replayed twice more that night, I believe, since I was up all night with the boy..........

I taped it and haven't got to sit all the way through it. Is this the first in a series and will they all be on Sunday?

[Kortoso]

http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/
Cool VR mock-ups of ancient Rome, with flyovers. Fun for visualizing what cities of the Hyborian Age would look like.