No News like Ancient News – Roman frescoes discovered

[Blue in vt]

As an archaeologist I'm happy to see these guys getting their Justice...the antiquities trade is a cancer that is destroying portions of history at a rapid pace.  The site looting in portions of South America is so pervasive that there are cultures that are only known from collections held in private hands...all known sites from that culture have been completely destroyed. 

And one thing to remember about any of these items is this...its not the items that tell the story in archaeology...its how the items are related to each other and the site as a whole.  Think of it as a crime scene...if you start taking clues out...or even moving them around within the scene you are destroying the chance of ever knowing what actually happened in that place. 

This is history...it should not be "owned" it belongs to everyone.

...end rant

Blue

[Little Odo]

Dead on Blue - I too am an archaeologist and foam at the mouth when I hear of/see these atrocities happening. Context is so important with any new find. In the UK we are slowly getting metal detectorists on side and the amount of stuff they now present to the County Archaeologist is steadily growing and the black market share diminishing. I think they now understand that they will be paid market value for their finds provided the land owner is in agreement. The Night Hawks are still a problem, but even they are slowly being shunned by their legitimate brethren. Every site I have excavated has had a resident metal detectorist - they are very useful people to have on site. Now, how do we get the 'stolen' antiquities from those private collections and on show for the people of the world? OK, all context is lost, but at least the artifacts themselves will be available for study by someone qualified to do so.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Mixed Martial Arts Celebrity Recruited for Ancient Roman Army

Millennia before modern-day military recruiters talked up potential soldiers in shopping malls or put up posters, one Roman city took a rather different approach to recruiting soldiers for the emperor's army.

A newly translated inscription, dating back about 1,800 years, reveals that Oinoanda, a Roman city in southwest Turkey, turned to a mixed martial art champion to recruit for the Roman army and bring the new soldiers to a city named Hierapolis, located hundreds of miles to the east, in Syria.

His name was Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus and he was a champion at wrestling and pankration, the latter a bloody, and at times lethal, mixed martial art where contestants would try to pound each other unconscious or into submission...

read more here - http://www.livescience.com/19354-martial-artist-recruited-ancient-roman-army.html

[Prof.Witchheimer]

‘Celtic Computer’ unearthed in the mountains of North Wales!

Snowdonia – Work has halted at an archaeological dig in North Wales following the discovery of an early example of computing equipment on Thursday afternoon.
 
The ‘Dolgellau Environs Project’ has been investigating the post glacial archaeology of Snowdonia National Park for the past four years with a team of volunteer, amateur diggers supervised by a team from University of Wales, Aber-Harlech University. However work on a small scale excavation near Llanberis came to a halt when a volunteer make a remarkable discovery

.

read more - http://archaeosoup.com/?p=3244

[Patrice]

Hi hi. I suppose everyone knows some kind of this "funny" old stupid story:
- Russian archelogists dug 100 metres in the ground, and they found a bit of copper wire, so they said that there were telephones 1,000 years ago in Russia;
- US archeologists were unhappy with this, so they dug 200m in the ground, and they found a bit of optical fiber, and they said that there was internet 2,000 years ago in the USA;
- then, French archeologists dug 500m in the ground in Brittany, and they found nothing. It is a proof that 5,000 years ago the Bretons had Wifi.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

good one   

[inkydave]

Thats not a computer but a record player. Whats todays date by the way?

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Thats not a computer but a record player. Whats todays date by the way?

Actually it looks like a hard drive to me.

Today is April 1 

[joroas]

Looks like a hard drive to me too.  What's a record player? 

I was in town today trying to find a bubble for my spirit level.................

[syrinx0]

Great find. I wonder what the upgrade cost would be from "windows barbarian"? 

Great thread Prof. Lots of interesting reading.

[joroas]

Windows 98BC 

[Prof.Witchheimer]

'Door To Afterlife' Unearthed At Karnak

An Egyptian excavation team has unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni announced on Monday.

Engraved with religious texts, the six-foot-tall red granite door belonged to the tomb of User, the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut, the long-ruling 15th century B.C. queen from the New Kingdom.

The door, known as a false door, was meant to be a threshold that allowed the deceased and his wife to interact with the world of the living.

This "interaction" was not eternal for User. More than 1,000 years after his death, during the Roman period, the massive false door was removed from the tomb and used in the wall of a Roman structure.

read more - http://news.discovery.com/history/door-to-afterlife-unearthed-at-karnak.html

[Patrice]

Does the hieroglyphs on the door mean: "Pedo Mellon a Minno"?

[inkydave]

Windows 98BC 

The Celts surely used Macs. The Romans prefered windows. The Roman campaign in Snowdonia was in fact instigated by one Rostrum Portas in an attempt to destroy the Macs power and gain total world-wide control for his empire.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Rome cracks down on marauding centurions

Rome
Rome has given the centurions a deadline to clear out. The solders in question aren't from the ranks of an ancient legion, but are modern-day performers who pose for tourist photos at the Colosseum.

Men and women decked out in chest plates and helmets eke out a tax-free living at Rome’s most popular attraction, posing for photos with foreign visitors for 5 or 10 euros. Disoriented, jet lagged, or simply scared, tourists have been known to pay up to 50 euros ($67). Some have been roughed up when they refuse.

Arrests were made last summer in an undercover operation with police in tunics and sandals handcuffing centurions and gladiators for ripping off tourists. A recent Italian media report cited a policeman as saying the centurions are all ex-convicts, “every last one of them.”

Now the city government says “basta!” and wants them to pack up their swords, shields, and ensigns and clear out by April 6.

“This will end badly. We’ll wage a revolution. We’ll burn down the Coliseum rather than move from here,” a 21st-century centurion recently told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Along with the fake ancient Roman soldiers, the city aims to rid itself of the vast illegal industry of food and souvenir vendors that feeds off the 6 million people who every year visit the site where Russell Crowe avenged his family’s murder in the 2000 sword-and-sandal blockbuster "Gladiator."

City and national officials say they are defending Rome-the-living-museum from an image akin to theme parks where visitors feast on fast food and ham it up for the camera with fairytale characters.

But the Italian economy is in recession and its prisons overcrowded so government bureaucrats should be vigilant for unrest in the legionary ranks. They might want to reconsider a plan that puts ex-cons out of work.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/0402/Rome-cracks-down-on-marauding-centurions