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2011-05-17

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Hollywood Romans - Ancient-Warfare.com, the online home of Ancient Warfare magazine. Details Category: WS&S editor's blog Published on Wednesday, 22 January 2014 03:22 Written by Guy Bowers There is a short period in the year from early December to late January where there are no active shows in the UK. I’ve been a regular attendee at the Penarth show for more years than I care to mention!

However, Crusade also offers something else: a series of lectures held by Dr Adrian Goldsworthy and Rob Jones (see picture, with Goldsworthy on the right). Last year’s lecture focused on weapons. Rob then took this discussion and looked how the sword evolved in the medieval period. Previous lectures have focused on the effectiveness of missile weapons in the ancient period, how perhaps victory conditions for different ancient armies should differ, and how cavalry should be reflected in games.

Now for me, I find the lectures fascinating. Whatever your poison, Crusade is a good and varied show. Empress of the East: The Death of Dura-Europos. Dead Warrior or War Criminal? And why does it matter now? This is a Sasanian-Persian soldier, probably a ranking officer (his upper body was protected by iron mail armour and he carried a sword with a pommel of jade, a semi-precious stone that can be tracked to Chinese Turkestan). He died a gruesome death in a claustrophobic tunnel below the walls of Dura-Europos in a fire that he may have intentionally set.

His men were mining under Tower 19 (not far from the Palmyra Gate) when a Roman countermine broke through and enemy soldiers entered the tunnel. What happened next is hotly contested. In fact, it almost caused a diplomatic incident when Dr Simon James of the University of Leicester presented a new theory to an American archaeological congress in 2009. It's complicated. But now that Dr James has fully published his 'Gas Warfare' hypothesis in the American Journal of Archaeology,* you can judge for yourself. The Story So Far The Persian Offensive The Battle for Tower 19 Persian Tunnelling 1. Casting Faith to the Winds | Religio et Pietas. 'Chasing Aphrodite' And Other Dirty Art World Deals. Hide captionA marble sculpture from the 4th century B.C. shows winged griffins attacking a fallen doe. It was purchased by the Getty Museum in 1985. A decade later, authorities seized Polaroid photos from the warehouse of a well-known antiquities middleman, who admitted the sculpture had been looted from ruins in Italy.

Click here to see those Polaroids. On Tuesday, the archaeological museum in Aidone, Sicily, will inaugurate the exhibit of a long-lost but now hard-won antiquity — a stone Aphrodite that was illegally excavated from the region 30 years ago. Hide captionThis 4th century B.C. stone sculpture of Aphrodite, goddess of love, was illegally excavated from Sicily. This 4th century B.C. stone sculpture of Aphrodite, goddess of love, was illegally excavated from Sicily. Chasing AphroditeBy Jason Felch and Ralph FrammolinoHardcover, 384 pagesHoughton Mifflin HarcourtList Price: $28 Read An Excerpt The World's 'Second Oldest Profession' True isn't the only guilty one, of course.

J. The Bible and Interpretation - Artifacts and the Media: Lead Codices and the Public Portrayal of History. More scandalous is the complete lack of journalistic integrity, honest research, and thorough fact-checking. These codices might never have been heard of if the authors of the reports for BBC and Fox News (among others) had just checked with the academic community before publishing the “find”. At the very least, the journalists might have used less authoritative language, expressed more caution, and exposed the controversy rather than simply stating, as if doing so made it fact, that these codices were “the earliest Christian texts” and that they held “early images of Jesus.”

By Thomas S. Verenna Independent Researcher and Student May 2011 1. Introduction Two months ago an article hit the media streams hard and fast, announcing that new artifacts had been discovered by a Bedouin containing the earliest known Christian writings, possibly even the words of the figure of Jesus himself. 2. First, to the people involved (the dramatis personae, if you will). And: Base dig unearths 2,000-year-old find - News. ARCHAEOLOGISTS working on a military base have unearthed what they believe could be a 2,000-year-old Roman shrine. The shrine was discovered during a dig at RAF Lakenheath, with senior Suffolk County Council archaeologists calling the find ‘extremely unusual’.

Jo Caruth, senior project manager, said: “We’ve worked on the base for quite a few years now, but in that time we’ve not seen anything quite like this.” Ms Caruth said the find, the site of which measures around 15m square, contained a series of small circular Roman buildings dating from the second century AD to the fourth century AD. The importance of the find was as part of a growing body of discoveries in the Lakenheath area, according to Ms Caruth. “It adds a very important piece to the overall picture of Roman Lakenheath. At the moment we have got a lot of evidence of domestic life, occupations and animal husbandry. Suffolk County Council was called in to explore the site after plans to build a gym there were submitted.

Rosemary Sutcliff and ‘The Eagle’ landed in The Spectator « ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF | the eagle of the ninth book | the eagle film | about books, reviews, film, tv, radio, quotes. Rome: The Spoils. So, when we last left Rome, before Spartacus: Gods of the Arena started, Dodgey had just demonstrated why he's called Dodgey, Boring was being boring, Caesar had Triumphed and Atia was trying to persuade Octavia she's not a psycho, with limited success. This episode opens with Dodgey murdering someone, so presumably he's now a hit-man on top of everything else. Boring, however, is now a magistrate and has started to meet his clients as patron, which involves sitting in a chair, throne-like, surrounded by his family. Quite why his entire family want to watch all the proceedings I'm not sure, but he's pulling off the big man in town thing rather well (being mean to former friends etc) so I think the time is right to re-christen him The Godfather. The Godfather (formerly known as Boring) insists that Pullo is 'dead to him' and tries to persuade his old friend that he can't help Caesar's disgruntled veterans.

I do fondly remember the next bit though, one of the highlights of the series. Widespread Roman infanticide not substantiated by Hambelden studies. Whenever I see a headline that purports to label an entire civilization with a practice that in modern times would be viewed as repulsive, I immediately cringe. That was my reaction when I saw the headline "Infanticide common in Roman Empire" on a Discovery News Article. The article was posted to announce the release of a new study by Simon Mays, a senior scientific officer for the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage, and colleague Jill Eyers entitled "Perinatal infant death at the Roman villa site at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire" that is scheduled to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

"A previous excavation of Hambleden in 1921 determined that the site has 97 infant burials, the largest number of such burials for any Roman location in Britain. The excavator at the time suspected infanticide "with surreptitious disposal of the bodies So, was infanticide and child exposure really common in the Roman Empire? 'Thou durst not guess, O babe divine! J. Damnatio memoriae from antiquity to the present. Pre-Christian gravesite discovered - Lifestyle News - Austrian Independent Online News - English Newspaper. © europics.at Builders assigned to construct a new railroad in Carinthia found what is believed to be an ancient gravesite. Federal Railways (ÖBB) said today (Fri) four skeletons and funerary objects such as chains and various trinkets were discovered in the town of Kühnsdorf.

An archaeologist who was asked to examine the bones and objects described them as "the most important discovery in the region in decades. " He added that they may date back to 130 to 50 years before Christ. ÖBB explained the construction of the Koralm track will nevertheless continue as planned after they are measured, photographed and removed for further investigations. Only some weeks ago, 16 graves were unearthed at the location of a former Roman city in the Vorarlberg capital of Bregenz. The gravesite is around 1,700 years old, according to experts. The Mysteries of Pompeii - MyQuest | my thoughts on life's journey. Our Rick Steves guidebook said to alot three hours to Pompeii and that one could do it on the way between points. We spent at least four hours and the last of that was rushed. If we had it to do over again, we would have spent the entire day there with plans to picnic for lunch and take nice breaks in the midst of sight-seeing.

After all it is a full city that one is exploring, not just a small archaeological site. We left our B&B in Rome that morning and thanked the woman who fixed our breakfast for being so nice and kind. We made the bus stop in time and got to the train station in time and settled into our train to Naples. Our plan was to grab a quick bite to eat in Naples, hopefully near the train station. Fortunately we found a brick-oven pizza place and had traditional Neapolitan pizza and were warmed by the fire. Back in the train station, we purchased our tickets to the ruins of Pompeii, which was about thirty minutes away. 'Delight' as professor's Pompeii is up for Bafta. Prof Mary Beard A documentary on Pompeii featuring Cambridge academic Professor Mary Beard has been nominated for a prestigious Bafta award.

Prof Beard, who is a classics professor at Cambridge University, appeared in the BBC production, Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, in which she examined buildings, skeletons and other remains which were preserved when the town was buried under several feet of volcanic ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. Her investigations provided insights into the daily life of those who lived there including what they ate, what diseases they had survived and their interest in sex. The programme has now been nominated for a Bafta in the Specialist Factual section of the 2011 Philips British Academy Television Awards, which will take place on Sunday, May 22. It is up against Alan Bennett and the Habit of Art, Flying Monsters 3D and the BBC’s Human Planet. “Let’s share this eyeball to eyeball without any tricksy stuff. What Did the Romans Eat - Written Sources for Roman Food. You may have heard about the bulimic practices of sybaritic Roman gluttons and the over-cited symbol of Roman culinary excess, the dormouse.

Did you know the Romans thought certain foods made you healthy or that those lacking time or cooking facilities could buy fast food? Information on Roman food comes from a variety of sources. Mosaics and other art work show food and people eating [click on the images]. Archaeological finds attest to street food-vendors. You can get hints about Roman food from Latin poetry, including the satirists, Ovid (Ars Amatoria "The Art of Love"), Seneca (Apocolocyntosis "Pumpkinification of Claudius") and Martial's epigrams.

The naturalist who died observing the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Pliny the Elder, describes plants eaten as food, and his nephew, Pliny the Younger, writes about food in his letters. Apicius Dates: A.D. Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire - pdf rar zip ebooks mediafire ifile. Herculaneum. Past and Future. Part 3: Early development and topography. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum. Past and Future. (Frances Lincoln, 2011; 352 pages, ISBN-10: 0711231427; ISBN-13: 978-0711231429) (For the introduction to this series of posts about Herculaneum Past and Future, see here.) The new findings revealed by AWH regarding the early history, site and development of Herculaneum contribute hugely to our understanding of the town’s earliest years and thus make this book essential reading, not just for those interested in Pompeian archaeology, but for anyone interested in Roman urbanisation in general.

This post focuses on the parts of the book that deal with this subject, primarily to be found in the fourth chapter of the book (‘The town and its setting’). In this chapter AWH explores the scanty evidence furnished by the literary sources which is set against and contextualised by a number of important recent discoveries made thanks to the work of the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP). © James Andrews. . © Linda Irollo-Sosandra Srl. Archaeologists in Syria discover Byzantine mosaic. Just when you thought all news coming out of Syria was bad, an archaeology team has discovered a Byzantine mosaic in a medieval church. The mosaic was discovered last week at the Deir Sounbol Church on al-Zawieh Mountain. Syrian investigators say the mosaic measures 4x5 meters (13x16 ft.). While portions are damaged or missing, floral and geometric shapes are clearly visible and there are inscriptions in Greek. These are prayers that include the names of the owner of the church and the person who supervised the creation of the mosaic.

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire. The war weakened both sides so much that they were easy pickings when the followers of Mohammed burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century. One of Byzantium's greatest achievements were its sumptuous mosaics. I love the fact that Syrian archaeologists are continuing to dig despite the chaos and repression going on in their country. Ara Pacis Augustae Online. Death in Roman Mainz « New at LacusCurtius & Livius. Death statistics for Roman Mainz If you visit a museum with Roman inscriptions and read the tombstones, you will notice that old people invariably died at 60, 70, or 80.

The ancients didn’t know exactly how old they were (except, of course, for that man mentioned by Pliny the Elder, who said he could prove that he was 130 years old – from his tax records). I wanted to check this, so I decided to look at the inscriptions from a city where many tombstones have been found. Mainz was a logical candidate: its Landesmuseum has a nice “Steinhalle” (hall of ancient stones). Besides, there were legions over here, which – I assumed – must have kept some kind of administration.

Tombstone of Gaius Faltonius Secundus As the picture above shows, it did not work out as I expected, but still there is an interesting result. Like this: Like Loading... Mosaic Painting Dating Back to Byzantine Era Unearthed in Idleb SANA , Syria. Idleb, Northern Syria (SANA) _ Excavation Department at Idleb Antiquities Directorate on Tuesday unearthed a mosaic painting dating back to the Byzantine Era at Deir Sounbol Church in al-Zawieh Mountain. Head of the Excavation and Studies Department, Anas Haj Zaiydan said that just a part of the mosaic painting was found at the eastern side of the church, adding that the painting is 5-meter long and 4-meter wide.

He indicated that the eastern part of the painting is burnt, adding that the part which is located to the west of the marble-made basis is also damaged as well as the northern and southern corners of the painting. The painting is embroidered with geometric and floral shapes, in addition to some written inscriptions. For his part, Chairman of Idleb Antiquities Directorate, Nicolas Dabbas, said that two separated Greek texts are written on the painting, the first of which consists of five lines while the second consists of three lines.

Ruaa al-Jazaeri / al-Ibrahim. Elagabalus - Roman Emperor Elagabalus. The Roman Mysteries. Les Thermes en Gaule romaine. La théorie du tombeau de Talpiot. Un site Ecossais pourrait détenir la clé de la légende du Roi Arthur. Journées de l'archéologie 2011 : visite de la fouille des Carmes à Nîmes - institut de recherches archeologiques. Une légion de la fin de la République romaine. LE CHEMIN DE LA LETTRE LATINE.