Jump to content
UNRV Ancient Roman Empire Forums

Aurelia

Legati
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    610

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    17

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Aurelia

  1. 6 Ancient Civilizations Mistakenly Thought To Have Homogeneous White P

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    What do you guys make of the article below? Given where it was published, I'm not sure whether to take this seriously. I'm not doubting the existence of influential black Africans around ancient Mediterranean civilizations, but the claims in this article seem to be stretching reality a bit.

     

    Here are a few passages:

     

    Recent genetic and anthropological studies have concluded that the people known as white Europeans today are not the original inhabitants of Europe. However, this has been documented historically at least since the 19th century.

     

    ...Historian Clyde Winters argues that Blacks in ancient Greece were not just slaves, but rather the true founders of Grecian civilization. He concluded there is no way it can be proven that Indo-European Greeks have always been in Greece and numerous archaeologist have found abundant evidence of Egyptians settled in Greece long before the coming of the Indo-European-Aryans to Anatolia...

     

    ...Even after the Nordic invasion, Blacks were not systematically restricted to the lower classes of Roman society. On the contrary, some became emperors, writers, philosophers, entertainers, generals and popes.

     

     

    ...Both European and Arabic scholars have labeled them as Indo-European or Semetic, but the Phoenicians referred to themselves as Canaanite, the same people spoken of in the Bible. Greek writer Diogenes Laertus in his biography of philosophers, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, describes the Phoenicians as, “tall gaunt and black.”

     

    ...In his work Ancient and Modern Britons: a Retrospect, Vol. 3, David MacRitchie wrote, “We know that the first inhabitants of Britain and more especially those of the northern parts, were craniologically of a type approaching to the Negro or the Australian race.”

     

    ...Germany was by no means an exception in terms of an ancient Black presence. There have been settlements of African people in that region from as far back as the Old Stone Age.

    Black legions invaded Germany with Julius Caesar, and MacRitchie stated that certain Danish tribes in northwestern Germany were “like the Moors, black.”
    ...The Greek historian Herodotus noted that the ethnic composition of the Colchians was similar to that of Black Egyptians. In the late fourth century A.D., church fathers Sophronius and St. Jerome referred to Colchis as a “second Ethiopia” because of its large Black population.

     

     

     

     

  2. New History Books (October 2014)

    in Libri

  3. Update -Tomb found in ancient Greek city Amphipolis - What lies beyond

    in Archaeological News: The World

    Posted

    German Auction House Sells Macedonian Coins Allegedly from Amphipolis (source: Greek Reporter)

     

    In light of this summer’s excavation of a monumental tomb at Amphipolis in northern Greece, a recent auction of ancient Macedonian coins by the German house Gorny and Μosch has raised eyebrows in the art world. The 15 ancient coins, dating from the era of Alexander the Great and his father Philip II of Macedon, are all said to derive from the area immediately surrounding Amphipolis, Greece.
     
    The coins are set to be auctioned in Munich in October. The estimated asking price is 500 euros, though they could sell for as high as 2,500 euros, or perhaps even more.
     
    Greek journalist and folklore writer Giorgos Lekakis says that the coins depict ancient Greek gods and heroes. Highlight of the collection include:
     
    - A tetradrachm from 356-355 BC. On the front side it depicts Zeus wearing a laurel wreath and on the back side it bears the name of “PHILIP” and a horseman waving.
    - A tetradrachm from 355-349/8 BC that also depicts the head of Zeus with a laurel wreath. On the back side it shows a man riding a Pegasus, a branch of laurel or palm and a cancer (crab).
    - A tetradrachm from 336-323 BC. On the front there is the head of Hercules and a lion’s head and on the back side it reads “KING ALEXANDER” and depicts Zeus.
    - A stater from 330-320 BC. On the front it depicts the head of Athena wearing a Corinthian helmet. On the back there is the name “ALEXANDER,” a lightning bolt, a bow and a club.

     

  4. Ancient Paris: Looking For Lutetia

    in Vacatio

    Posted

    Paris actually has quite a bit to offer the Romanophile visitor. I remember visiting the underground exhibition on the Ile de la Cité. I also attended a wonderful concert held at the Roman Baths (Thermes de Cluny). These and many other hidden treasures are often overlooked by the average tourist, but they are definitely worth a visit.

     

    I'm including below an interesting article about Paris aka Lutetia as it was known in Roman times.

     

    Had Georges Eugène Haussmann not undertaken to tear up chunks of old Paris, much of the city's very early history would have remained hermetically sealed beneath its medieval layer, forever lost. Only the odd clue or snippet of information about Roman-era Paris had trickled down prior to the 19th century—in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars (52 BC) for a start, where the oppidum of the Parisii—a tribe of Celtic Gauls—on an island of the river Seine (Sequana) is first mentioned. Their settlement was known as Lutetia, or as the French now call it, Lutèce; the name Paris appears for the first time only in the 3rd century AD.

     

    Another half a millennium elapsed before the famous chronicler of the History of the Franks, Gregory of Tours (circa 538-594), reported the discovery, in a Paris gutter, of an ancient bronze serpent and badger, which his contemporaries interpreted as a premonitory sign that the city would be destroyed by fire—an interesting sidelight but revealing little about Lutetia.

     

    The first reference to an urban Roman monument was discovered only in the 12th century: an unsigned document mentions the "great circus" and "immense ruins" of the "arena", with specific reference to their location "by the church of Saint Victor". The famous medieval abbey of Saint Victor, a place of great erudition and beauty complete with cascading rivulets and fragrant orchards, was situated around the present Place Jussieu, now home to the ugly asbestos-ridden sprawl of the University of Paris VII. A section of the Roman aqueduct was unearthed in the Latin Quarter in the 16th century, and two ancient cemeteries, in the rues du Faubourg Saint Jacques and Faubourg Saint Marcel, were located in the 17th.

     

     

    More at France Today

    • Like 1

  10. Ben Hur 2016

    in Colosseum

    Posted

    There are so many other stories within Roman history that would probably do well on the big screen. Why should Troy and Sparta be the only venues for big drama? Coriolanus faded into the mists already, and there are oh so many versions of "Caesar and Cleopatra." But how about a life of Cicero, or events around the Catiline Conspiracy. 

     

    Cicero is probably not "sexy" enough for Hollywood.  ;)

  12. The Scottish referendum: where is Cicero?

    in Hora Postilla Thermae

    Posted

    I was reading some opinion pieces in the British media about the Scottish referendum this weekend. Many comments from Scottish independence supporters were understandably bitter but I was struck by how some people really took it personally. One guy said he cut contact with friends and family whom he knew had voted no to independence - he unfriended them on Facebook and literally stopped talking to them. I understand the disappointment but to allow differences of opinion to destroy personal relationships is kinda scary. It's almost tribal.

  13. Ancient Egypt now on Google Maps!

    in Vacatio

    Posted

    The Pyramids of Giza, the only remaining ancient world wonder, have stood for nearly 5,000 years and have watched countless visitors come and go.

     

    For many, visiting the Pyramids is a lifetime goal to be crossed off the bucket-list. Yet, as a result of economic or other concerns, visiting the world’s oldest man-made wonder is not always possible.

     

    In an attempt to bring ancient Egyptian history to the comfort of your home, Google’s Street View now allows you to take a ‘virtual walk among the stunning monuments and rich history‘ of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

     

    Google’s Street View now allows users to not only virtually visit the Giza Necropolis, one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world housing the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, but also covers the world’s first Pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara.

     


    However, while ancient Egypt has captured the imagination of many across the globe – from school children learning about the Pharaohs to everyday museum-goers and academics – Egypt’s history extends far beyond the ancient civilization.

     

    In a testament to Egypt’s vast history, Street View’s virtual tour now also features Abu Mena, one of the oldest sites of Christianity in Egypt; the Hanging Church, one of the oldest Coptic Christian churches in the world; the Cairo Citadel, a medieval Islamic fortification and historic site; and the Citadel of Qaitbay, a 15th-century defensive fortress on the Mediterranean coast in Alexandria.

     


     


  17. Capua, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis

    in Vacatio

    Posted

    Very cool photos, Peter. Thanks again for sharing.

     

    did you get to see some of the other sites? In the Villa San Marco, the Villa Adriane and in Oplontis we were about the only visitors there. More on that below :)

     

    Unfortunately, Pompeii and Herculaneum are the only two sites I've visited around Naples. The other one I've visited is Paestum, further down south (click on pic below).

     

    post-4254-0-89804300-1410624918_thumb.jpg

  18. Ponte Rotto: Ancient Rome's Bridge to Nowhere

    in Archaeological News: Rome

    Posted

    Very interesting, thanks for posting. I may have missed this bridge last time I was in Rome.

     

    But for me, the Ponte Rotto still stands as a heroic fragment, enduring and ultimately defeated by the onslaughts of the raging Tiber floods and the many invasions Rome experienced. But its cruelest defeat was in modern times, when two of its remaining piers and a single arch were demolished to build a modern iron trestle bridge so close to the remnant of the Pons Aemilius that it can no longer be seen and contemplated in isolation. Now it stands, a single arch cut off from both banks, a bridge that no one can reach, no one can walk upon.

     

    Sad that it survived more or less intact for centuries, only to be vandalised in "modern" times.

  20. Was Achilles Suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

    in Gloria Exercitus - 'Glory of the Army'

    Posted

    This is an interesting point of view and one that makes total sense.  I mean, PTSD can't be something that's just popped onto our landscape in the last 30-40 years

     

    However, this is precisely what the historian in the article seems to be stating: that ancient warriors (e.g. in Ancient Greece) did not suffer from PTSD because they were used to the brutal conditions of those times. I'm not sure if I agree with that, I mean, even if one is used to living in a brutal society, all the violence must still have some sort of negative psychological effect on a person. Maybe to a lesser extent but still...

  24. Iberians, Celts, And Visigoths

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    Hi Axel,

     

    It's very possible that the Visigoths mixed with the Roman-Iberian population, i guess that would make sense. 

     

    This page shows that "german" haplogroups almost disappeared in spanish gene pool. So Visigoths probably were completely assimilated in all aspects. Like Hungarians completely lost their uralo-finnic gene pool.

     

    I did notice, however, that both Portugal and Spain score quite high for R1b: Italo-Celtic, Germanic; Hittite Armenian, Tocharian. They are more likely to be Celtic-Germanic than Hittite-Armenian, don't you think?  ;)

×
×
  • Create New...