Golden Bough from Roman mythology 'found in Italy'

Telegraph ^ | February 18, 2010 | Nick Squires

[SunkenCiv]

In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld safely. They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built in honour of the goddess Diana near an ancient volcanic lake in the Alban Hills, 20 miles south of Rome. They believe the enclosure protected a huge Cypress or oak tree which was sacred to the Latins, a powerful tribe which ruled the region before the rise of the Roman Empire. The tree was central to the myth of Aeneas, who was told by a spirit to pluck a branch bearing golden leaves to protect himself when he ventured into Hades to seek counsel from his dead father... Shards of pottery surrounding the site date it to the mid to late Bronze Age, between the 12th and 13th centuries BC.

[SunkenCiv]

The legend inspired JMW Turner to paint a grand canvas entitled 'Lake Avernus ? The Fates and the Golden Bough', now held by the Tate Collection

[SunkenCiv]

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[MrChips]

Mirabile dictu!

[yarddog]

I know the Romans considered themselves descended from the Trojans but is there any truth in that myth at all?

Usually there is a trace of fact in myths such as Theseus and the Minotaur. I just don’t think there is any hint of truth about the relationship of Rome and Troy but would love to learn if there is.

[bigheadfred]

I picked up an old copy of The Golden Bough at the used book store. Been trying to get through it, but I’m thinking I’m going to resort to a continuous coffee IV.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” is available free online:

http://www.bartleby.com/196/

[ZULU]

Interesting that the oak was sacred to so many ancient peoples.

[AdmSmith]

Thanks for the link to the on-line version. http://www.bartleby.com/196/

I had a copy of it when I was analyzing events in South East Asia and spiced my reports with strange quotations.

[astyanax]

There are two copies on the shelves at home.
Mine and my wife’s.
When we married (and combined our libraries) the number of same titles we both owned was amazing.
(Probably why we were so compatible.) ;)

[wildbill]

Ok, but their headline is a teensy-weensy bit misleading if this golden bough they found isn’t the one that actually went down to Hades with Aeneas.

2. another problem I have with the story is why no pics of the golden bough they found itself? Wouldn’t you like to see photographs of the archeological team hacking the golden bough out of the tufa? You know they had to be taking pictures to show it in situ.

3.I checked the original website doe pics and they only had two artists’ renditions of the golden bough legend. In the second one, the representation of one of the Fates looked pregnant and Aeneas himself looked a little chunky with those boobs an old guy gets as his pec muscles atrophy. Oh well, that just adds to the realism of the mythical story.

[SunkenCiv]

Prince’s Palace Found in Volcanic Crater [where Romulus and Remus were educated]
Discovery News | Friday, February 26, 2010 | Rossella Lorenzi
Posted on 02/26/2010 7:50:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2460331/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Isn’t that from a 1950s science fiction classic? ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

Not per se -- the Aeneid was commissioned by the Senate to create a founding myth of sorts, and perhaps to stake claims to the eastern Med, and ominously take on the role of descendants of a city sacked by the Greeks. But there's plenty of reason to think that the Etruscans came from the Aegean and Anatolia, so the Romans were after a fashion borrowing the identity of a people they'd conquered.

lemnian stele site:freerepublic.com

Google

[SunkenCiv]

Wait a sec, don’t you mean you’ve been trying to saw your way through it? ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

That is kind of odd. Unless it was passed from culture to culture through contact, it wouldn’t be too far out to think that reverence for the oak (I once read that “druid” is a transliteration of “daru vid” which means “to know the oak”) percolated up from whatever underlying people once covered Europe.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, quit makin’ fun of man-boobs. Uh, no reason...

[SatinDoll]

Yeah, I felt the same way when reading The Aeneid.

[ZULU]

Good idea.

[bigheadfred]

Wait a sec, don’t you mean you’ve been trying to saw your way through it?

Yeah buds. I get through a leaf or two and my brain logs off. Just saps me. I'll keep chipping away. But I have only a sliver of hope. :-)