Romans In Brazil During The Second Third Century?

Mysterious Earth ^

[blam]

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 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 ship are in fact similar in shape to jars produced in kilns at Kouass, on the west coast of Morocco. The Rio jars look to be late versions of those jars, perhaps datable to the third century A.D. I have a large piece of one of the Rio jars, but no labs I have consulted have any clay similar in composition. So the edges of the earth for Rome, beyond India and Scotland and eastern Europe, remain shrouded in mystery. Information about this find is practically non existent. Gary Fretz's synopsis of the "whole story" suggests that the find has been suppressed by the Brazilian government:

At the time the amphorae were confirmed to be "Roman", the large Italian faction in Brazil were extremely excited about this news. The Italian ambassador to Brazil notified the Brazilian government that, since the Romans were the first to "discover" Brazil, then all Italian immigrants should be granted immediate citizenship. There are a large number of Italian immigrants in Brazil and the government has created a tedious and costly citizenship application procedure for Italians that does not apply to Portuguese immigrants. The Brazilian government would not give in and the Italians in Brazil staged demonstrations. In response, the Brazilian government ordered all civilians off the recovery project and censored further news about the wreck hoping to diffuse the civil unrest. Finally, I've also seen mention of the following written works, which I've yet to dig up: Marx R.F., 1984 , Romans in Rio? [see Santarelli A. Mondo Sommerso 270 1983:252-3. Oceans, 17.4: 18-21.] The Romans in Rio book (?) is not among the works of Robert Marx as listed at Amazon.

[blam]

"And they, after all, were just pursuing the Carthaginians in order to stamp them out."

Hadn't considered that. They probably 'worked-on' King Solomon's mine workers too, huh?

[blam]

"Just short note to thank both of you for including me on the ping list. I take much enjoyment reading this sort of stuff. Kudos to you blam...for finding such stimulating articles....and special thanks to you farmfriend for maintaining the list."

I'm glad that you appreciate it. I do it because I enjoy the resultant discussions and learning opportunity. My thanks to 'farmfriend' too.

I was at Barnes & Nobles resently and purchased a copy of Whittaker Chamber's book Witness as a Christmas present for my son. (This book is close to the top of my all-time-favorite books.)

[U S Army EOD]

Back in 1977 a single handed sailor was trying that very trip. He ran into trouble and decided he may want to abandon his boat because he thought it was sinking. He got into his life raft and tied it to the boat but the line broke. His boat beat him to Central America by about two weeks. He finally made it in the raft.

[Eva]

Fascinating article, thanks for posting!

[farmfriend]

You are welcome.

[farmfriend]

Thanks for the moral support and the funny story.

[AmericanVictory]

There are those that theorize that the fabulous cities which have been discovered in the Amazonian interior, which are of an architecture clearly beyond the capailities of the present members of the "white tribe" are of that civilization which was the creator of Solomon's mines. As for the Carthaginians and other Phoenician civilizations on the coasts beyond the Straits, we shall never know because the Romans so thoroughly destroyed all of the civilization that they could, by their voyaging seems to have been more extensive in the Atlantic than that of Rome.

[aruanan]

I don't believe things are as tidily dealt with as Snopes would like to believe. Somewhere I have correspondence with an author who was working on this very question with respect to a particular gauge of train track in Europe. I'll see if I can dig it up. It was on another computer in another lab, but I've saved all my data, so it's probably there somewhere. I know I've seen it once or twice since then while looking for other stuff.

[msdrby]

ping

[night reader]

I believe there was ancient contact between Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. ...and that this contact was broken numerous times (and memory of this contact was forgotten) due to worldwide catastrophies, famine and/or plagues.

If regular trade had been established, there would have been motivation to keep it quiet in order to maintain the monopoly! Thus losing a very few captains or ships would have broken the contact and subsequently all memory thereof.

[RightWhale]

Carthagenians(sp) had traded with nations across the Atlantic

The possibly Phoenicians ruins at North Salem are dated to about 3000 years ago.

[blam]

"The possibly Phoenicians ruins at North Salem are dated to about 3000 years ago."

Yup, a lot going on that we'll never learn. To bad about the libray at Alexandria...many answers were lost there...maybe, even the location of Atlantis.

[carpio]

BTTT

[Cronos]

A tribe of white, mostly blonde haired, blue-eyed "Indians" has been found in a remote region of the Amazon jungle

Aw, that's a red herring. They've been talking about blond blue eyed Injuns in the US too, but they were always just beyond the boundaries of where the explorer had gone to. Furthermore, why would Romans in 19 B.C. be blonde and blue-eyed????

[Cronos]

But it may have been possible that a Roman ship trading with Britain in the time of Claudius would be blown off-course, but not in 19 B.C. At that time, the Romans stuck to the Mare Nostrum -- the Mediterranean. The only Atlantic crossings were across the Englsih Channel in 50 BC.

[Cronos]

But a good article. Thanks for posting it. I really do appreciate the ones you post, very insightful. Phoenicians may have come to America, Vikings too and maybe Chinese and Japanese. But there weren't any real explorations or continuous trade. But then again... the Old Kingdom egyptians traded with nubia only once every few decades, so it was a fantabulous land to them, probably America would have been the same -- a journey every 20 odd years for rare materials. But then why was it broken off in the case of the Romans??

[Cronos]

'Did Roman explorers discover America 1,300 years ahead of Christopher Columbus'

doesn't that conflict witht he date here ? 19Bc versus 200 AD? But then, it could be an occasional tradign trip. But were the Romans so far back in antiquity as the Old Kingdom Egyptians?

[Cronos]

I believe there was ancient contact between Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. ...and that this contact was broken numerous times (and memory of this contact was forgotten) due to worldwide catastrophies, famine and/or plagues. This is/could be why we have 'exiled' populations of humans of different races all over the globe.

Very plausible. An ice age civilisation has been theorised before.

[Cronos]

Hadn't considered that. They probably 'worked-on' King Solomon's mine workers too, huh?

I thought it was proven that King Solomon's mine were either in Ethiopia or Yemen.

[Cronos]

Thor Heyerdahl