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What the Romans didn't do for us
Guardian UK ^ | Wednesday, March 16, 2011 | Mike Pitts

Posted on 06/10/2011 8:23:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

The route had long been known as a lost Roman road... dig director Tim Malim noticed that the road had twice been rebuilt, and knew its history could be dated using a technique that tells you when buried mineral grains were last exposed to sunlight.

The unexpected result was a more than 80% chance that the last surface had been laid before the Roman invasion in AD43. Wood in the foundation was radiocarbon-dated to the second century BC, sealing the road's pre-Roman origin. And Malim thinks a huge post that stood in 1500BC close to the crest of the hill was a trackway marker...

...notwithstanding villas with central heating and public statues of Roman emperors, some academics portray the... occupation as a mere ripple on the longer and stronger flow of native culture and politics... Could Britain have been more "Roman" than was thought... Britons were more aware of Rome than Rome was of Britain... in a cemetery near Colchester, Essex, excavated mostly in the 1990s... members of the ruling class who had died between about AD40 and AD60... the things the deceased took with them... precious Roman objects requiring Roman expertise... there is "the doctor". This man had his wine jar, his imported pottery service and copper vessels. But he also had a set of surgical instruments -- one of the oldest known in the ancient world... scalpels, forceps, probes and more -- and comparable to finds made around the Roman empire.

But they are not Roman. On current evidence, they were made in Britain to designs that merely borrowed from Greece and Italy... Many things here once thought "Roman" could, in fact, be older. Shropshire's road, then, could be the start of a journey that changes the way we think about early Britain.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: britain; celts; godsgravesglyphs; romanbritain; romanempire
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To: ClearCase_guy

:’D


41 posted on 06/11/2011 6:15:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: TwoSwords

Chicks.


42 posted on 06/11/2011 6:15:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: Verginius Rufus

There should be a Tiny Antilles as well.


43 posted on 06/11/2011 6:16:34 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: calex59

The English came in after the Romans left — actually before that — and that’s the reason the British civilization of the time went all to heck. But it wasn’t entirely that way, as at least two sites (one well inland) were linked by trade with the Byzantine Empire.

The Romans had no educational system, other than private tutoring (often by slaves) which led to an uneven level of literacy throughout the empire. In Ostia there’s a mostly intact restaurant from Roman times (not in operation of course; the waitresses would be pretty old, for one thing) and their popular offerings are depicted in mosaic, with no text.


44 posted on 06/11/2011 6:20:37 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: Tuketu

I’m not sure they even had chocolate then. ;’)


45 posted on 06/11/2011 6:20:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: Verginius Rufus

Why that’s not true at all. I know all about Dominica. It is an island inhabited by monks of the Dominican order and no women are permitted on the island. You have to get there by going up cliffs using a basket pulled by ropes.

So there!


46 posted on 06/11/2011 6:27:10 AM PDT by wildbill (You're just jealous because the Voices talk only to me.)
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To: decimon; TigersEye

I agree.

The main problem the Romans had was internecine warfare. The Empire spent much of the third century engaged in civil wars between a patchwork of quasi-imperial pretender states. And it still endured. My favorite of the 3rd c emperors is Aurelian — had some crook on his staff not murdered him, he’d have been better remembered for the things he never got to do as a consequence (whatever those would have been).

During his five year reign he defeated (basically destroyed, in some cases) invading barbarians, reunified the empire, built the city wall around Rome, and abandoned Dacia which was n of the Danube, hard to defend, and probably well-stripped of wealth by his predecessors. The conquest of Dacia by Trajan during the 2nd c had marked the economic high point of the old empire, but those days were behind it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian


47 posted on 06/11/2011 6:34:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: wildbill

I thought there was a singing nun involved.


48 posted on 06/11/2011 6:35:43 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: padre35; bert

There’s an old African saying, “where you find a man, there you will find a road.” There’s probably a pretty old roadbuilding tradition, and as in all cultures, the quality of the roadways varied quite a bit. Obviously those big-assed rocks at Stonehenge didn’t get there without some kind of A) trackway and B) political cooperation or authority over a nice big swath.


49 posted on 06/11/2011 6:36:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: patton

Hi! That was a very interesting piece of information. I googled up Duden but was not able to find relevant information.

Can you point me to more information about this?

This is one of my hobbies, learning about standardization of old languages via “new” media.

For example, before Radio most Italians could barely understand each other. However when Radio chose the Florentine pronunciation, all of Italy slowly standardized to it.

Look at China, where now the Mandarin pronunciation rules are “killing” regional dialects

In India, the Bombay Bollywood Hindi has become the standardized Hindi

In our own United States, we have moved progressively towards a Mid-west accent, as our TV broadcasters have favored that accent


50 posted on 06/11/2011 6:39:20 AM PDT by SoftwareEngineer
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To: patton

I am an “idiot from Texas” :)

Well, you guys might have had the capital of the Old South, but we still have ALL of our pre civil war territory!

...and also, we elect Republicans unlike you folks who are “liberal” now...

...so there with the hornet’s nest


51 posted on 06/11/2011 6:43:47 AM PDT by SoftwareEngineer
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To: SoftwareEngineer

http://rapidog.com/dictionary-german-german-duden-rapidshare.html


52 posted on 06/11/2011 7:04:13 AM PDT by patton (I am sure that I have done dumber things in my life, but at the moment, I am unable to recall them.)
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To: SoftwareEngineer

I never liked them dan liberals in WVA, anyway.


53 posted on 06/11/2011 7:06:06 AM PDT by patton (I am sure that I have done dumber things in my life, but at the moment, I am unable to recall them.)
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To: SoftwareEngineer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_German


54 posted on 06/11/2011 7:12:24 AM PDT by patton (I am sure that I have done dumber things in my life, but at the moment, I am unable to recall them.)
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To: SunkenCiv

That’s because you got fooled by pictures. All Dominican monks have those long side curls and spend most of their day rocking back and forth, praying for rain so they can make more champagne.

But it’s an easy mistake to make unless you are a Columbia trained historian like me.


55 posted on 06/11/2011 7:13:29 AM PDT by wildbill (You're just jealous because the Voices talk only to me.)
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To: SunkenCiv
The Roman Empire was not a republic or a democracy...

What, that egghead Greek stuff?

Sunkus: "Hail Caesar!"
Hadrian: "You have a nice ass."
Sunkus: "Which I devote to the Republic of Rome!"
Hadrian: "Yeah, I gotta do something about that frickin' Senate."
Sunkus: "The Senate is as your moat to the mob, Caesar!"
Hadrian: "That's that democracy crap, right? Some bread and circus and they're happy."
Sunkus: "Long live the Empire!"

56 posted on 06/11/2011 7:49:45 AM PDT by decimon
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To: wildbill

Obviously I would have to get up pretty early in the morning if I wanted to put something over on you.


57 posted on 06/11/2011 9:01:20 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Salgak
Well, remember what James Carville said about Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and Alabama in the middle.

(May not have that word-for-word but that was the gist.)

58 posted on 06/11/2011 9:04:23 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: patton

Very good my friend!

Thanks for the links. I am going to review them right now.

I assume from your posts that you speak High German. Where did you learn it? Are you an ethnic?


59 posted on 06/11/2011 9:09:02 AM PDT by SoftwareEngineer
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To: SoftwareEngineer
Not an ethnic - my grandparents migrated to the US.

I learned German at home, at catholic school, and at Das Verteidigungsspracheninstitut - The Defense Langauge Institute in CA. Valedictorian, Class 0184 DLIPSF.

Plus I lived there a number of years.

60 posted on 06/11/2011 9:30:43 AM PDT by patton (I am sure that I have done dumber things in my life, but at the moment, I am unable to recall them.)
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