Free Republic

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Dozens of demonstrators gathered at Rio de Janeiro's heavily polluted Guanabara Bay, demanding that officials clean it up before it is used as a 2016 Olympic sailing venue. Amid whistles of disapproval and shouts of "shame!" demonstrators held a beachside protest, their boats symbolically kept on the shore as they waved their oars in the air. They launched their protest at noon to coincide with low tide, when the dirtiness of the water is most evident. "Brazilian authorities promised a series of improvements to the bay but just a little more than a year ahead...

Romans in Brazil During the Second or Third Century? Ex-marine and underwater explorer/archaeologist/treasure-hunter Robert Marx states rather flatly: Amongst my most notable discover[ies] was that of a 2nd century BC Roman shipwreck in the Bay of Guanabara, near Rio de Janeiro. This is a discovery that has received little to no examination, much less validation, from the realm of mainstream archaeology, no doubt in part because Marx is not a Ph.D. archaeologist. Scouring the web for more information about this finding, I did find a reference to the discovery in an article from Dr. Elizabeth Lyding Will, an expert on...

This is a discovery that has received little to no examination, much less validation, from the realm of mainstream archaeology, no doubt in part because Marx is not a Ph.D. archaeologist. Scouring the web for more information about this finding, I did find a reference to the discovery in an article from Dr. Elizabeth Lyding Will, an expert on Roman amphoras (clay vessels used to store and ship goods during the Roman era). Dr. Will apparently has a piece of an amphora recovered from Marx's Brazil discovery. Of it, she says: The highly publicized amphoras Robert Marx found in the...

The Roman Head from Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, Mexico: A Review of the evidence Paper prepared for the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in New Orleans, Louisiana (April 18-22, 2001). Romeo H. Hristov (b) and Santiago Genovés T. (b) (a) Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM 8713 1, U.S.A. (b) Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas-UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria 04510, México, D.F., MEXICO Abstract: Since the publication of the complementary research on the apparently Roman head found in Central Mexico (Hristov, Romeo and Santiago Genovés 1999 "Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Contacts, Ancient Mesoamerica. 10 (2): 207-213) this find...

ANCIENT ROMANS IN TEXAS? If one searches long enough and hard enough, one can discover hints that just about any ancient culture you care to name set foot in the New World well before the Vikings and Columbus. Old coins, inscriptions, language concordances, and the like are taken by many as proofs that Egyptians visited Oklahoma, the Chinese moored along the Pacific coast, the Celts toured New England, and so on. Now, according to Professor V. Belfiglio, the ancient Romans had Texas on their itineraries. Belfiglio's evidence is fourfold, and so are mainstream criticisms: Roman coins found in Texas....

Professor Elizabeth Lyding Will (1924 - 2009...) was one of the world's leading authorities on amphoras, an ancient two-handled container that her research demonstrated to be vitally important for tracing ancient trade patterns and for opening windows on tremendous amounts of information about ancient life and commerce. In a 2000 article entitled "The Roman Amphora: learning from storage jars," she discusses the diverse uses of "the lowly Roman amphora -- a two-handled clay jar used by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans to ship goods," describing both its main usage for the transportation of liquids including wine, olive oil, and...

There is a trapdoor on Christ's right shoulder. To mount the steps and slowly, fearfully peer out is to see the world through the eyes of a bird, or even a god. Far below, white blocks of flats and offices cluster among folds of tropical green. Down there are the poor in the favelas, the rich in the luxury high-rise apartments, the homeless, the famous football stadiums and Guanabara bay with its scattered islands and boats. Beyond the sands of Copacabana and Ipanema, the limitless Atlantic ocean. To the left, standing twice a man's height, is the slightly bowed head...