No News like Ancient News – Roman frescoes discovered

[Prof.Witchheimer]

that looks creepy..

[Prof.Witchheimer]

The Gladiator Diet

....Compared to the average inhabitant of Ephesus, gladiators ate more plants and very little animal protein. The vegetarian diet had nothing to do with poverty or animal rights. Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. "Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat," Grossschmidt explains. "A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight." Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds "look more spectacular," says Grossschmidt. "If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on," he adds. "It doesn't hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators."...

read more - http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.html

[Plynkes]

I take it you chaps have already seen the Casale mosaics from Sicily. I saw them on TV a while back, but they are quite cool because they have: Bikini Girls!

In case anyone hasn't seen them they show young Roman women engaging in sporting activities:




The Romans had Beach Volleyball, see.


And ZUMBA®! Just LIX sestertii plus P+P!
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http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/visits/sicily/romana/

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Top notch find, Dylan. How said, nothing is really new in the modern world, everything repeats itself, even if in modified fashion

[Paul]

Top notch find, Dylan. How said, nothing is really new in the modern world, everything repeats itself, even if in modified fashion

  exactly..like these;
"Baghdad Battery"   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

The  "Dendera Light"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_light

http://greaterancestors.com/?page_id=3313

[Steve F]

On the "nothing new" theme, does everyone already know that the Romans used a d20?


http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4205385

Mind you, at $17,975.00 each, I think I'll stick with Chessex.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Wow, Roman D20  indeed I i wouldn't believe that if someone said that to me.

[joroas]

Gosh, who needs the Discovery Channel when we have this thread? 

[Plynkes]

I knew Romans had D6s (I've got some replica ones I bought at a Roman villa in France), but I didn't realise they had D20s too. Were they for D&D or Pendragon?

[Prof.Witchheimer]

"Nothing new" again. This time plumbing..

[argsilverson]

While ancient egyptians are regarded as the father of surgery Romans had several inventions that are still used today. Examples:
Insulae = block of apartments
aqueducts used in several places even today (The Hadrian Aqueduct constructed by Hadrian in Atehns was still in work till 1925 in Athens).
They constructed several (thousands)  buildings standing till today thanks to a very unique invention, still used today.

Cement

Thus they were able to constuct buildings with bricks and small stones, no need to carve large stones like ancient greeks for example!

As for baghdad battery, it is supposed that for electrolyte they used grape juice!!!
As in the wiki article it is stated that there is no evidence of any use of electric power in the ancient world. But electricity is a greek word coming from Helectron the ancient name for amber! yes they knew about static electricity and yes Helctra was thus named because of her amber coloured eyes. However there is some kind of indirect information that Egyptians used electricity since Solon duriing his visit in Egypt did saw some lights that we can interepret in modern terms as electrical ones. Alas, to the moment there is no direct evidence.
BTW the technology level achieved by ancient people is amazing, otherwise they could not evolve, even the could not even make the transition between food gatherers to farmers.
Other known examples:  Heron of Alexandria (around 43 BC) did invented   a steam device and there is an enormous amount of data about automatons in ancient times or the what's called Antikythera mechanism ("computer" ?!?)

[OSHIROmodels]

When you start tod elve it does become extremely interesting 

cheers

James

[Prof.Witchheimer]

tod elve

No idea what it is

[Col.Stone]

Cement

Thus they were able to constuct buildings with bricks and small stones, no need to carve large stones like ancient greeks for example!

I thought the macedonians came up with that a bit earlier?

[Paul]

Roman army multitool



Roman whistle