| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
 |
|
Either way it leads Wiley to a conclusion that nobody is going like.
The city is the centre of history, ab urbecondita (‘from the foundation of the city’) is the way to go, in our understanding of time, space and topography.
This leads to the rather unfashionable view that Livy was working along the right lines and that logically we should start our investigation of (erm) western history, and non-sacred chronology, with the birth of the two cities that set up the only two significant empires, namely Rome and London.
We ignore the orthos that insist that civilsation comes from the domestication of seeds and animals, from agriculturalists located in the "fertile crescent" or the pastoralists from Steppes.....because we know the actual starting point has to be the City.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
|
We reluctantly admit the Lord is not our shepherd. Because that came later. Cities came first.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
'To eternal Rome, in its one thousand and first year.'
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
The question is how are cities Rome, London (Augusta) founded?
Let's take a look.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ishmael
In: Toronto
|
|
|
|
|
Right! St. Augustine is really Ceasar Augustus in disguise.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| Ishmael wrote: | | Right! St. Augustine is really Ceasar Augustus in disguise. |
The Jesus cult replaces the Augustus cult. According to Ortho, in around 368 London was renamed Augusta, there was a mint and coins bear this mark.
| Augustine of Canterbury (born first third of the 6th century – died probably 26 May 604) was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.[3] | |
|
| |
|
|
|
Boreades
In: finity and beyond
|
|
|
|
I'm just going round the back of the pub dear.
Given that this epic thread was founded by Wiley's report ..
| I recently discovered from Wikipedia that Emperor Vespasian came up with a neat form of taxation, the vectigal urinae, he taxed urine, or more precisely, he taxed the tanners and launderers who bought the urine from public bathhouses, sewers and pisspots. |
.. it seems appropriate to report that the latest hoard of coins has been found behind a pub's toilets.
| A metal detectorist who has spent 10 years searching for hidden treasure found "the biggest hoard of his life" in a field behind his village pub. Luke Mahoney, 40, discovered more than 1,000 silver coins on land belonging to The Lindsey Rose pub in Lindsey, Suffolk. |
I expect you'll want to know how old they are.
| Mr Mahoney unearthed 1,061 silver coins dating back to the 15th to 17th Centuries. Nigel Mills, from international coin specialists Dix Noonan Webb, said the coins would fetch at least £100,000 at auction. He said the earliest coin in the find was an Elizabeth I era shilling dating back to 1573-78, while it also contained a number of Charles I half crowns from 1641-43. |
How did they get there then?
| He said the most popular theory from experts and historians was the coins were buried by a wealthy landowner who had gone off to fight in the Civil War. |
A likely tale? At least it's not a ritual deposit by high-status whatevers. My money (sic) is on Civil War plunder buried in haste and then never retrieved by the ne'er-do-wells.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-53635413?xtor=ES-211-[34753_PANUK_NLT_32_ENG_MANDY_RET_O35]-20200810-[bbcnews_metaldetectoristfindscoinhoardinfieldbehindpub_newsstories]
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
It makes a difference. One is Treasure Trove and you are entitled to a 100% of the value and the other is Treasure Trove and you are only entitled to a 100% of the value. Something like that. When evaluating theories of long ago people's motivations it always pays to evaluate not-long ago people's motivations.
For instance, the coins will never be auctioned. God only knows what a thousand coins coming on the market all at the same time will do to prices. Some hapless museum is going to have to pay .... what is it now? ... about a hundred thousand pounds probably. I mean lucky museum of course. It will be the hapless taxpayer in the form of a Treasury Grant (o.n.o.)
Mind you, Suffolk had its fair share of Civil War mayhem, i.e. none, so anything's possible.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| The question is how are cities Rome, London (Augusta) founded? |
Romulus, the first king of Rome, and Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, shared similar life stories.
They both had a human father but were the son of a god, they fulfilled prophecies, enacted great laws, they died and rose to heaven, where they became a god.
The myth also applies to others, eg Ceasar. It's wrapped up with the founding of Rome. Divi filius, son of the deified one, son of the god.
On 1 January 42 BC, nearly two years after the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC, but before the final victory of the Second Triumvirate over the conspirators who had taken his life, the Roman Senate recognised Caesar as a divinity. He was therefore referred to as Divus Iulius ("the divine Julius"), and his adopted son Octavian styled himself Divi filius[1][2] ("son of the deified one, son of the god"). The fuller form, divi Iuli filius ("son of the divine Julians"), was also used.[3]
Octavian used the title divi filius to advance his political position, finally overcoming all rivals for power within the Roman state.[4] The title was for him "a useful propaganda tool", and was displayed on the coins that he issued.[5]
The title Divi Filius was also applied to some of Augustus' successors, notably Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian.[6] |
The images and legends are circulated and recirculated on the coins. The legend is circulated not just within Rome but on all the trade networks. The legend is more than a propaganda tool, it enables the currency to act as a store of value.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
Reading a typically dense monograph by an English Heritage archaeologist on Yeavering, purportedly an Anglo-Saxon royal site, the whole shebang appears to rest on the dating of a single gold coin, described as 'Merovingian' and thought to be c. 650-660.
There are so many red flags in the archaeological report, it's hard to know where to begin but the gold coin, according to the experts, turns out not to be all gold
| Soon after its discovery, casts of this coin were studied by Dr Jean Lafaurie, of the Cabinet des Medailles, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, who most kindly commented on its affinitiesm. He read the inscription as J > Y r-\ H 0 (. ( obv.) and 1.,. ~ p I Q I IZ 1 Y (rev.). He was led to conclude that this Yeavering coin was a Continental imitation of a triens of CHOE = Huy (Belgium) of the moneyer Bertoaldus, and suggested a date circa 650-60. As this book was going to press, the coin was found by the British Museum to be an ancient forgery of gold-washed copper. |
Dr Kent, of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, decided the coin was 'a contemporary imitation' and correspondingly altered its date by two decades... to c. 640 AD.
The problem facing archaeologists and numismatists is that Yeavering, a completely obscure village overlooked by a famous landmark called Yeavering Bell, is mentioned in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, claimed to be 8th century AD, though the provenance of the earliest extant manuscript, the Moore Bede, is seventeenth-century.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
The dating problem is illustrated by another gold find from Yeavering, not a coin but a thin piece of gold wire
G2 is a circular ring of gold wire about 4•5 mm in diameter and about 0.6 mm in thickness, found at a high level in the filling of one of the small post-holes that defined Building i\4', central aisle. It is slightly distorted in shape, and the two ends of the wire are separated as though it had been prised out of the setting to which it belonged. The wire is moulded into a series of fine, well-executed segmentations at intervals of about 0.35 mm.
G2 is representative of a technical device widely used by goldsmiths and jewellers during the first millennium AD, as part of the repertory of filigree work in gold. It could readily be matched in late provincial-Roman jewellery, but a later origin must be preferred in view of its archaeological context at Yeavering |
I think he's saying an apparently Roman example of filigree work has to be later because of Bede even though very little in the way of anything Anglo-Saxon was unearthed. In fact the author of the (1977) report, Brian Hope-Taylor of the Council for British Archaeology, said the dating of the earlier phase(s) of Yeavering had yet to be determined. He died in 2001 and we're still waiting.
The bulk of the finds consisted of pottery that, the archaeologists concluded, was made no later than 550-600 by 'native British holding onto the humbler details of their own tradition', i.e. rubbish, and there can only have been a very few Anglo-Saxon immigrants, "quickly content to use the pottery made by British neighbours". But why should Yeavering, where a single Merovigian gold-ish coin, or imitation one, turned up, be hailed as 'the first royal palace'? Because it was said to conform to Bede's account of King Edwin of Bernicia's Northumbrian pile.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
We must make a list of "Oops, wrong date" excuses. Here is Yeavering's contribution to start the ball rolling
a Continental imitation
an ancient forgery
a contemporary imitation
prised out of the setting to which it belonged
a later origin must be preferred in view of its archaeological context
has yet to be determined
native British holding onto the humbler details of their own tradition
"Oh, he's died, has he? That solves that one. Next!"
We piled a whole lot up when doing a critique of the Greek Dark Ages when six hundred years has to be constantly added or deducted -- but none of these particular ones featured, except Greek chariots on sixth century vases being 'contemporary imitations' of twelfth century BC chariots. And no, nobody knew how they knew what the chariots looked like after six hundred years of Dark Age. Sybils, probably. No, you're thinking of Fawlty Towers. Although, there were a lot of dodgy Trojan and Mycenaean fortifications now I come to think of it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| Hatty wrote: | | But why should Yeavering, where a single Merovingian gold-ish coin, or imitation one, turned up, be hailed as 'the first royal palace'? Because it was said to conform to Bede's account of King Edwin of Bernicia's Northumbrian pile. |
Wiles likes this bit
| In Building D2a, one of the group of buildings at the west end of the site, cattle bones were piled up alongside one wall in a way which led the excavator to suggest that this was a temple, used in cult practice. Numerous inhumation burials occupied the site, and amongst them, the grave of a child, tightly trussed up in foetal position. The body occupied only half of the grave area, while in the other half was placed a cow’s tooth; another hint of cult practice involving cattle. A grave on the threshold of the Great Hall A4 contained a goat’s skull which might indicate another animal cult associated with the name of the place, the goat’s hill. |
I am not the only one, the goat cult bit is the bit everyone likes. Poor cow.
Crop marks, pot holes, two buckles and a coin = Palace.
It's going to have to be downgraded to something like a Royal Hunting Lodge to stand the test of time.......
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | Crop marks, pot holes, two buckles and a coin = Palace.
It's going to have to be downgraded to something like a Royal Hunting Lodge to stand the test of time..... |
English Heritage is less certain
| Techniques of excavation were evolved specially to allow the precise recovery of the details of vanished wooden structures. ...There has been much scholarly reinterpretation of the original results. |
This all sounds distinctly odd. What is meant by 'evolved techniques' and how are vanished structures 'precisely' recovered?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
I have just downloaded an Academia.edu article called 'Ancient and Early Medieval Coins from Cornwall & Scilly', an edited/updated paper based on the work of the great Roger Penhallurick, RIP. The front cover has an illustration of a gold coin reprinted by kind permission of the British Museum trustees
| Electrotype copy of a solidus of Julian (AD 360-363), a new variety minted in Lyon, France, AD 361-363. This gold coin was found by W. Tonkin at Carn Gowla, New Downs, St Agnes, around 1910 (Gazetteer 143). Although the location of the original coin is unknown, the copy was made from seal impressions on a letter made by Doctor William Whitworth in April 1910, which is now in St Agnes Museum with the copy. |
A 'new variety' from an unspecified/unknown findspot is just the start. Armed with a grant from the Cornish Archaeological Society, the two editors explain in the Preface how they 'rearranged' Penhallurick's archaeological findings into a more numismatist-friendly format
| Roger Penhallurick’s original corpus was organised along chronological lines (‘Greek’, ‘Republican Coins’, ‘Imperial Coins’, etc.), which had the unfortunate effect of separating coins from the same assemblage into different parts of the corpus. It was agreed at an early stage in the publication process that the corpus and accompanying text should be rearranged so that assemblages would be presented together in their entirety to make the publication more useful to its intended audiences. The work of reorganising the manuscript was undertaken by Nick Wells, who had recently completed the publication and database of Iron Age & Roman Coins from Wales project (Guest and Wells 2007). This task proved to be rather more complicated than initially envisaged, though we feel that the end result is worth the effort. |
Does separating a collection of artefacts into chronologically distinct phases not misrepresent the facts on the ground? Is there any point in reading the actual article knowing in advance the evidence appears to have been tampered with in effect?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
