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Skeleton find could rewrite Roman history


Hanslune

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Two skeletons have been discovered in a London graveyard which could change our view of the history of Europe and Asia.

Analysis of the bones, found in a Roman burial place in Southwark, discovered that they dated to between the 2nd and 4th Century AD and were probably ethnically Chinese.

Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One the find was "the first time in Roman Britain we've identified people with Asian ancestry" and it was "absolutely phenomenal".

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37452287

This is interesting but not that extraordinary the Silk Road had been operational for many years and there was sporadic contact between the Romans and India also. Said person could have come to the Roman world by a number of ways. What might be more interesting if he was a native American (but I speculate).

The Romans had a trade port on the south east coast line of India during this time with trade that existed for centuries.

The time period also brings to mind the Huns and other Asiatic invaders that plagued the Roman Empire at that time.

Edited by Hanslune
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What, no pyramids or alienz? This thread sucks! <_<

Just kidding, it is wild to consider though how transient populations were in just those days. And considering we've used the same modes of transportation millennia before... it's interesting how we now consider the old cultures to be so insular and separate.

I imagine that if you were at an ancient cross roads in a fertile valley and looked around at the faces it would probably look none too different than the UN assembly.

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1 minute ago, shadowsot said:

Wasn't there a burial of Chinese person found in Greece some years back?

I believe Italy but I have to go right now check tomorrow

 

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I find it more interesting that people move all over already and have at all times. The only thing that stops people from moving is lack of water.

With enough water people will just keep moving, everywhere.

And modern sedentary people have a hard time understanding that their feet can take them many-many-many miles with very little effort.

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Skeleton find could rewrite Roman history

 

Yeh well call me a sceptic....but how can a skeleton write anything? How would it grip a pen/pencil?  :lol:

 

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12 minutes ago, seeder said:

Skeleton find could rewrite Roman history

 

Yeh well call me a sceptic....but how can a skeleton write anything? How would it grip a pen/pencil?  :lol:

 

Archaeologists are baffled?

Then again, there is a mummy with a keyboard.

Edited by Likely Guy
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32 minutes ago, seeder said:

Skeleton find could rewrite Roman history

 

Yeh well call me a sceptic....but how can a skeleton write anything? How would it grip a pen/pencil?  :lol:

 

Any reputable skeleton should have a secretary that could take short-hand.:lol:

jmccr8

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43 minutes ago, bubblykiss said:

I find it more interesting that people move all over already and have at all times. The only thing that stops people from moving is lack of water.

With enough water people will just keep moving, everywhere.

And modern sedentary people have a hard time understanding that their feet can take them many-many-many miles with very little effort.

Is that in the "we run out of water, dehydrate and die" sense, or "we run out of water for our boats and stop traveling" sense?

As usual, I'm confused. :huh:

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1 hour ago, jmccr8 said:

Any reputable skeleton should have a secretary that could take short-hand.:lol:

jmccr8

Richard the third was good at short hand.

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They say, looking at their cranial features, they match closet to Chinese and Japanese of 19th century, also their dental email signature doesn't fit with the British Islands isotopes signature, meaning they grow up and lived somewhere else in their forming years.

As for rewriting history, not really, we already know Roman Empire and China trade with each other, although through intermediaries, in Central Asia by land and India by sea. Adding a new chapter on external economy would be closer to the deal. Now what were they doing in Londinium? That's quite the periphery of the Empire... Was there anything to get there? Or were they just salves following their master?

If slaves, where did they come from, who enslaved them and brought them to Londinium? Did the Roman overlords knew where they came from or some central Asia connected slave market just sold them as Central Asian?

Edited by Gingitsune
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Which brings to mind a question begging at the footnotes ... what makes the world a 'New' World just because 'Old' Europe knew nothing of it ?

~

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10 hours ago, third_eye said:

Which brings to mind a question begging at the footnotes ... what makes the world a 'New' World just because 'Old' Europe knew nothing of it ?

~

They got it into print before anybody in the Americas. First to publish names. lol

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7 hours ago, Hod said:

An article in Forbes about the skeleton. They are arguing that it isn't necessarily Chinese:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2016/09/23/chinese-skeletons-in-roman-britain-not-so-fast/#526d6dbaef9b

A good quote on the need for skepticism over the claim

 

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I have no doubt that people of Asian ancestry will be found in Rome, London, and elsewhere in the Empire.  After all, the Roman and Chinese Empires knew of one another and traded goods over the long distance between themselves. So while I look forward to DNA evidence to confirm the “Asian” individuals in this study — and expect that that is not far off — news outlets would do well to read thoroughly the articles they’re covering and not exaggerate their headlines.

 

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Just now, Hanslune said:

They got it into print before anybody in the Americas. First to publish names. lol

... that they know of or in the language that they can read ... which in fact which is why Columbus was looking for India/Indus (?) and Cipangu when he didn't fall off the edge of the horizon ... and the poor now First Nation/Native Americans had to contend with being called Red 'Indians' for such a long time :lol:

 

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4 minutes ago, third_eye said:

... that they know of or in the language that they can read ... which in fact which is why Columbus was looking for India/Indus (?) and Cipangu when he didn't fall off the edge of the horizon ... and the poor now First Nation/Native Americans had to contend with being called Red 'Indians' for such a long time :lol:

 

Yep and we all have to put up being named after some Florentine geek.

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Something quite recent though and sure to twist some Academic knickers into tight knots ...

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Abu Rayhan al-Biruni was born in Khwarazm, a region adjoining the Aral Sea now known as Karakalpakstan. The two major cities in this region were Kath and Jurjaniyya. Al-Biruni was born near Kath and the town were he was born is today called Biruni after the great scholar. He lived both in Kath and in Jurjaniyya as he grew up and we know that he began studies at a very early age under the famous astronomer and mathematician Abu Nasr Mansur. Certainly by the age of seventeen al-Biruni was engaged in serious scientific work for it was in 990 that he computed the latitude of Kath by observing the maximum altitude of the sun.

Other work which al-Biruni undertook as a young man was more theoretical. Before 995 (when he was 22 years old) he had written a number of short works. One which has survived is his Cartography which is a work on map projections. As well as describing his own projection of a hemisphere onto a plane, al-Biruni showed that by the age of 22 he was already extremely well read for he had studied a wide selection of map projections invented by others and he discusses them in the treatise. The comparatively quiet life that al-Biruni led up to this point was to come to a sudden end. It is interesting to speculate on how different his life, and contribution to scholarship, might have been but for the change in his life forced by the political events of 995.

***

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

 

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of St Andrews, Scotland
crest.gif

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14:12, 04 January 2014 Saturday

Muslim scholar discovered America 500 years before Columbus

World Bulletin / News Desk

Amid the growing wave of pessimism regarding the so called ‘official story’ that has for centuries attempted to convince the world that Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus was the first person to discover the Americas, an article which claims that central Asian Muslim scholar Abu Raihan al-Biruni discovered the continent centuries before Columbus has come to light.

Writing in History Today, S. Frederick Starr explained that the Muslim scholar had indeed discovered the Americas long before Columbus set sail in 1498. According to the article, Abu Raihan al-Biruni, who was born in the year 973 in what is today known as Uzbekistan, was the first person to officially suggest that an undiscovered landmass in the ocean between the Europe and Asia actually existed.

 

  • world bulletin net link

 

~

I guess the rumors that Columbus did have some access to some secret information could well be true ...

~

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1 hour ago, third_eye said:

Something quite recent though and sure to twist some Academic knickers into tight knots ...

 

   

 

  • world bulletin net link

 

 

I guess the rumors that Columbus did have some access to some secret information could well be true ...

~

Well no if you had read the second link it makes clear what it is saying:

 

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This theory was proposed in around 1037, by which point al-Biruni would have been 70 years old. For this reason, due to not having the energy nor the means to make the trek himself, al-Biruni’s belief remained a mere theory. That is not the say that the Americas had not already been discovered, because there are also records citing that Norsemen from Scandinavia scouring across Iceland and Greenland, eventually accidently landing on Canada only to be chased away by natives who were already living there also exist from the late tenth century. However, al-Biruni was the first person from the known world to officially claim the so called ‘new world’ existed.

Other mistakes in the those articles there is no 'official story' when you see that phrase its a blinking light that says "nonsense on its way".

The first people to discover America were the people who later became the native Americans, the Vikings came then Columbus. Others may have but no evidence exists that they did. Over on the Bering strait those Asians and Americans discovered each other on regular basis for thousands of years.

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43 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Well no if you had read the second link it makes clear what it is saying:

I understand that ... I'm looking at it from a layman's point of view ... merely a suspicion that Christopher did have a head's up on what to expect over the horizon forty days out ... al-Biruni's work and reputation could have traveled far and preceded him ...

 

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Other mistakes in the those articles there is no 'official story' when you see that phrase its a blinking light that says "nonsense on its way".

The first people to discover America were the people who later became the native Americans, the Vikings came then Columbus. Others may have but no evidence exists that they did. Over on the Bering strait those Asians and Americans discovered each other on regular basis for thousands of years.

That pretty much sums it all up ... New World and Old World mish mash ...

~

Edited by third_eye
missed something ... still half asleep
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Doubtful, he figured the Earth was smaller than what Aristarchus. Fully believed he'd reached India up to his death 

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1 hour ago, third_eye said:

I understand that ... I'm looking at it from a layman's point of view ... merely a suspicion that Christopher did have a head's up on what to expect over the horizon forty days out ... al-Biruni's work and reputation could have traveled far and preceded him ...

 

That pretty much sums it all up ... New World and Old World mish mash ...

~

He was expecting something he was expecting to find the island known to lay to the east of the Asian mainland because he used a formula fo rthe determining the earth diameters that was flawed.He called the people he found Indian because he thought he was near India. If he had in some way read Al-Biruni's work he would not have thought he was near India. He also took with him Luis de Torres a man who could speak Arabic and several other languages. He knew that the Arabs already traded with India (where they obtain pepper and spices). If he though he was going to new place why take a translator of languages known to exist in Asia of his time?

Luis de Torres

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If I were looking it from the other perspective Hans ... I would say the same except he didn't know 'new' landmass meant totally new ... he was just looking for a new route, he was never expecting a new continent ... such was the knowledge of the globe as it was known at his time ...

~

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