Pantagathus

I think the caveat here is oldest discovered winery. Certainly not earliest winery or oldest 'known'. Massaliot vinters were shipping local wine into the heart of Gaul by the early 5th Century BC.

Bryaxis, that is an extremely thoughtful and well articulated reply and one that speaks for my personal opinion quite closely.

Thanks Andrew that was exactly the literary device I had in mind in my last post. Also, I want to clarify (because I can't disagree with Andrew that the judgement of Paris was really the singular event that kicked the Trojan Cycle off) that when I said that the Odysseus - Achilles incident at Scyros was the event that set the events of the Iliad off, I meant that there would not have been a quarrel between Achilles & Agamemnon if Achilles wasn't there and it was Odyssues retrieving him from Scyros that made that happen.

I really do see where you are coming from. However, this could be more of literary device than a faux pas. Also, you/we are judging it based on a translation not the original Greek. In Greek the line about the Odysseus - Achilles quarrel (which has some un-tranlated word fragments in it...) begins with what in my rudimentary understanding of Greek means something like, "Thus, at some unknown point in time" it goes on to mention the strife. (I would post the Greek word but the forum doesn't seem to want me to do it at the moment) Could be that the original intention of the author of the Odyssey was to refer to when Odysseus went to get Achilles to stop acting like a girl (literally!) which was the real key to setting the events of the Iliad in motion and also what the oracle refered to (the Greeks not being able to win the war without Achilles). More than likely that key point was a casualty of centuries of copying and then millennia later to translation and it seems the author of the Odyssey has made a mistake about the quarrel over Briseis. This seems especially likely since one finds the Greek word in the text which refers to coming into manhood. Andrew, your thoughts?

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What are the primary literary sources for the history of this period? That's just the trick it's mainly anecdotal via Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus & Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The majority of our current understanding of the age comes from archaeology which can be seen in the fact that most modern (commercial) scholarly treatments of the Archaic are written by archaeological specialists of the era like J.N. Coldstream, A.M Snodgrass, John Boardman, etc... I personally have had to do serious digging in JSTOR to suppliment my understanding which is why I say it's not accesable to the lay reader. It's a shame because to me the Archaic Greeks derserve much admiration as they come across as a very spirited and venerable people (much like the Republican Era Romans!).

One problem that I see is that the most exciting eras of the ancient Greeks is the Archaic (late 9th - 5th Centuries BC) which is not very accessible to the lay reader. It was a time when Corinth was a leader for a long time along with the Euboeans (Chalcis & Eretria) who were at the vangaurd of Greek exploration and colonization only to be forgotten about by the time of Athen's 'flash in the pan' glory during the Classical era. The history surrounding the Greeks of Magna Graecia, especially the tyrannical conflicts of Sicily; both between each other and in regards to the conflicts with Carthage is also quite captivating in my opinion. Different strokes for different folks I guess...

Here is another article on the subject that gives a wee bit more detail: Viking Age Inca Indian Found in Norwegian Burial Ground? "A particular bone at the back of the head was not fused. This is an inherited trait found almost exclusively among the Incas of Peru," Buckholm added. To this day, no other example of this trait has been found in Norway. "While it is tempting to speculate, seeing as St. Nicolas is the patron saint of sailors, it's hard to imagine a Peruvian making his way here at the time. This is quite puzzling." Fluke if you ask me

I love the reader comment on the page... A violent Roman centurion? Infamy! I just can't believe they didn't negotiate up front. I mean who doesn't know to beware of tourist scams in Rome???

One little thing about walnuts that doesn't get much press is that they are right up there with flax seeds as being rich in Omega-3 Fatty Acids. Great for the brain... (don't know about the 'little' brain though)

I said in my post that it was a pan-semitic activity... Baal (Northwest Semitic/Phoenician) = Bel (Eastern Semitic/Babylonian) = Bēlu (Akkadian) and it means "Lord" or "Master". Most likely 'he' was the sun or a solar deity. The Babylonian & Assyrian Marduk was also conflated with Bel/Baal. As for a Greco-Roman source I would certainly say check Flavius Josephus first.

I thought this was supposed to a party for people to relax?

Having eluded British archaeologists for two decades, American excavators found the seat of the Isthmian Games - one of four ancient Greek athletic contests - practically erased. Full story here: Spero News

To quote Michael Jackson (the Beer Hunter not the Freak): "The worst two phrases in the English language are 1. 'Coldest Beer In Town' and 2. 'Last Beer Until Dry County'..."

Me for one

He's an honorable fellow but I think next year I will be writing in Bill Moyers out of principle.

Egyptologists May Have Hatshepsut's Mummy Mystery Mummy is Female Pharoah "Find of Century" for Egyptology

Nephele, For you and your lovely poem: Hippocamus & Rider

I've been eagerly awaiting this one as all DFH's other 'archaeobrews' have been truely a joy to sample!

Gades (modern Cadiz) in Spain deserves mention; not for size per se but the for the amount of commercial wealth that flowed out of the city to Rome.

RtG: The Tophet was the actual cemetery. The 'rights' of child sacrifice are what is referred to as the Molk Sacrifice as in the Semitic languages it was written and referred to as MLK. There is plenty of evidence that the practice was common among Semitic people with the Jewish people being of course the main contingent to reject the practice. The interpretation of the practice will probably always be open for rigorous debate. However, it seems as if 2 primary factors played a part: The children were perhaps those of important members of the community The children were perhaps already ill and their life expectancy was not expected to be long anyway (based on analysis of remains in the tophets of Carthage & Motya) In Phoenicia proper Baal would indeed have been the primary deity honored in the sacrifice and in Carthage it would have been Baal or Tanit.

LW, a necro response just for you... After pouring through fascicule after fascicule in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum I have to add one to the list that may (according to some scholars) have a bearing on what (Archaic era) artistic depiction Pegasus may have evolved from: The Hippalektryon! or the "Cock-Horse" They were depicted on archaic Attic black figure ware often enough that they must have had some mythological importance but the ancient sources on mythology are mute. The only person who ever wrote about them was Aristophanes (5th-4th Century BC), but their significance to the by-gone Archaic was lost even to him... "Aye, by the Powers, and full many a sleepless night have spent in anxious thought, because I'd find the tawny Hippalektryon out, what sort of bird it was!" - Frogs, 929

Thanks Kosmo, This is pretty much the point I was about to make to bring the thread back around again to Cato

Wait a minute dear Augusta... Is your plan to have this published? How many parts? 2? Why not just break it up into more parts? Valerio Massimo Manfredi did his Alexander series in 3 parts and all were best sellers. Think about extra publishing $$$ that you might be missing out on!

I believe that in most cases the answer is an unequivocal 'yes'. {Also, I remember from my North American archaeology class in college that it's widespread adoption as the staple crop in North America coincided with a severe decline in the dental health of skeletal remains in the corresponding archaeological record... Hmmmm, high fructose corn syrup anyone?}