Posted on 04/14/2002 6:23:47 AM PDT by Hellmouth
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:
(Lee, Victoria; "Professor Explores Theory of Romans' Ancient Voyage," Dallas Morning News, June 13, 1993. Cr. T. Adams via L. Farish.)
Figure out a reparations angle and there will be plenty of lawyers doing the research.
I wouldn't rely too much on the integrity of the results though.
The entire island of Galveston was raised 8 feet after the 1900 Hurricane. Doubtful they'll find anything prior to 1900 when digging foundations. I do agree with your point, though. Wouldn't say impossible, but I'll wait for further evidence.
Only if they were champion ropers or bull riders. haha
I think it's more likely, Ancient Texans visited Rome and brought back some dinero! And some good pasta.
:-D
ROFLOL!!! Even way back then, someone visited Oklahoma and decided it wasn't a place they wanted to stay! ROFLOL!
I think a few years ago, Clive Cussler wrote a Dirk Pitt novel about that very thing.
Yeah, but the Spanish sure could roast up a good brisket. Especially those Inquisitor guys.
According to Louis L'amour, when the Spaniards arrived in California, they found either Chinese or Japanese (I can't remember which) sailors trading with the locals. Apparently this had been going on for quite a few years prior to the arrival of the Spaniards.
It's true! This is how BBQ sauce was introduced to Italy.
I've read someplace that some Egyptian mummies show evidence of substances found only in the New World. I can't quite remember what those substances are, however.
They heard the Glenn Campbell song, and envisioned "bikini's! :)
I think it was some kind of narcotic. They had a show on it on tv.
Perhaps Cocaine??
What about the reverse?? If one was technologically possible, why not the other?There's an ancient anecdote (Cicero? Seneca? dunno) about the arrival of what sounds very much like a canoe rowed by "tribal americans" at Ostia. They took a good look around, realized they were no longer in Kansas, and headed back out to sea. :')
It may mean that Europeans predate the Mexicans, and therefore Aztlan is a lie?
Mystery Hill, a megalithic site on a knoll in, hmm, I think NH (I've been there, but was in Vermont that day also), is obviously kin to sites of prehistoric Europe. Derided as the construction of a family which used to own the property, the great antiquity of the structures was shown through radiocarbon dating of an internal hearth by some university researchers (Pennsylvania I think).The Mystery of the Cocaine MummiesA German scientist, Dr Svetla Balabanova, discovered that the body of Henut Taui contained large quantities of cocaine and nicotine. At 35 times the dose for smokers, the amounts of nicotine she had found in Egyptian mummies were potentially lethal. The high doses of nicotine in Egyptian bodies could be explained if the tobacco - as well as being consumed - had also been used in mummification. Ramses II died in 1213BC, a few hundred years before Henut Taui. When he was mummified, every possible skill and every rare ingredient was used by the embalmers to try to preserve his body for eternity. For where Henut Tuai was only a preistess, Ramses was arguably the mightiest of all the Pharaohs.
The bandages wrapped around the mummy needed replacing, so botanists were given pieces of the fabric to analyse what it was made of. One found some plant fragments in her piece, and took a closer look. Emerging on the slide, according to her experience, were the unmistakable features - the tiny crystals and filaments - of a plant that couldn't possibly be there.
Sandy Knapp thought the plant from Ramses was more likely to be another member of the tobacco family, which is known to have existed in ancient Egypt, such as henbane, mandrake or belladonna. Michelle Lescot was convinced that her identification had been correct. But she couldn't help with the cocaine, for it seemed not even one botanist believed in a disappearing coca plant. There are actually species of the coca family which grow in Africa, but only the South American species has ever been shown to contain the drug.
If tobacco from Mexico or coca from the Andes was carried across an ocean, it apparently need not have been the Atlantic. According to Alice Kehoe, a number of other American plants mysteriously turn up outside the "sealed" continent. But they are found on the other side of the Pacific.
Discovery of minute strands of silk found in the hair of a mummy from Luxor could suggest the trade stretching from Egypt to the Pacific. For silk at this time was only known to come from China. Martin Bernal argues that it would be a pity to replace earlier cultural arrogance with an arrogant belief in progress.
For in Manchester, the mummies under the care of Rosalie David, the Egyptologist once so sure that Balabanova had made a mistake, produced some odd results of their own.
Little wonder then, that a story that began with one scientist, a few mummies and some routine tests, in no time at all could upset whole areas of knowledge we thought we could take for granted.
If it were true, it would be a major archeological find. A pagan Senator preserving the best of antiquity for the future. Too bad no one in the ancient world had the foresight to do it.
yes but what of ancient texans in rome?
Sloppy writing is indicative of sloppy thinking. If the writer is too lazy or ignorant to get something as simple as the placement of "AD" right, why should I trust him on anything else?
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