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COIN (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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I struggle with "ramming" - (behave...don't titter)- you have to imagine mighty fleets 6 miles across sailing towards each other with the objective of sailing their ship into another ship at speed so that the bronze ram penetrates - (ooh)- the other's hull, you then have to disengage -(stop tittering)- to avoid sinking along with the enemy you have just holed, to do with 3 layers of oarsman is I would hazard a guess a tad difficult.

I've always had problems with that. (I've consulted specialists.) The idea of ramming at the warp speed of rowboats -- and avoiding being rammed by them -- being uppermost in my thoughts. That's why I was so impressed by the ram found off the coast of Israel. (Oh God, please don't let it be a ...)

In fact if you then attempt to board, you are going to go down -(stop it)- with the enemy's sinking ship. No doubt the practitioners of experimental archaeology, having shown that a trireme can sail, will now show ramming feasible, if you have the right size of crew member (enough).

I agree with all this too. The only saving grace is apparently genuine historical accounts of medieval battles involving ships-with-forecastles grappling with one another so they can board one another. It sounds fearfully messy and ineffective

"Spanish ship trying to grapple port side, captain."
"Get the long poles, number one."
"They've got long-jumpers, captain."
"Damn, bounding Basques. Get my brown trousers, number one."

But, I suppose, it is fearfully difficult sinking wooden ships. Didn't the Armada reach Calais after having England's entire supply of shot fired into its broadsides?
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Wile E. Coyote


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I am taking a look, there is a bit of ignoral of Romans and boats (all roads (sic) lead to Rome). I notice that the invented original coxswain of Aeneas was "Palinurus" He serves the function of path, guiding light, safe passage through rough seas etc, but wrongly sacrificed to save all, as they travel from Troy to Rome.

As the Augustan myth was replaced with the Jesus myth, Palinurus seems to have evolved into St Paul.

Palinurus in the Aeneid

Cape Palinuro: "Those living near will build you a mound. Through the remainder of time that site will be named Palinurus" (Aeneid 6.378-81).
In Book 3, which tells of the Trojans' wanderings after The Fall of Troy, he is singled out as an experienced navigator.[1] In Book 5, when the Trojans have left Carthage, he advises Aeneas to forestall sailing to Italy and to wait out a terrible storm on Sicily, where they hold the funeral games honoring Aeneas's father, Anchises. After they leave Sicily for Italy, Palinurus, at the helm of Aeneas's ship and leading the fleet, is singled out by Virgil in second person[2] when it becomes clear that he is the one whom the gods will sacrifice to guarantee safe passage to Italy for the Trojans: unum pro multis dabitur caput, "one single life shall be offered to save many." Drugged by the god of sleep, he falls overboard;[3] Aeneas takes over the helm and, unaware of the gods' influence, accuses Palinurus of complacency: "You, Palinurus, placed too much trust in the sky and the ocean's / Calm. You'll lie naked and dead on the sands of an unknown seashore."[4][5]


This seems to Wiley evocative of the story of St Paul, Acts 27, but I doubt anyone will be convinced. So it is down to me to navigate.

Acts 27 is the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the journey of Paul from Caesarea heading to Rome, but stranded for a time in Malta. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.[1]
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Mick Harper
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Look, Wiley, please don't post up such large wodges. It's too off-putting. We'll read 'em but only if you break them up a bit. I have to do it because they pay me to do it, but the rest of the wold is disappearing over an event horizon. Tell Hatty occasionally too.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Will try to do better. Can I teach old Coyote, new tricks?
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Wile E. Coyote


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But, I suppose, it is fearfully difficult sinking wooden ships. Didn't the Armada reach Calais after having England's entire supply of shot fired into its broadsides?


The best method is burning or capturing when ashore. William the Conqueror was a master of this tactic, in fact he burnt his own boats. William Longsword captured 300 French ships at the Battle of Damme simply by turning up after the French had wandered off pillaging. I don't know why but this victory is not as celebrated as the destroying of the Spanish armada. Not taught in school.
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Hatty
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
William Longsword captured 300 French ships at the Battle of Damme simply by turning up after the French had wandered off pillaging. I don't know why but this victory is not as celebrated as the destroying of the Spanish armada. Not taught in school.

The earliest reference to William Longsword is in a fourteenth-century work known as the Grandes Chroniques de France, the 'first official history of France', which was produced by the monks of Saint-Denis. This lapse of memory seems odd as William was the son of Rollo, celebrated as the founder of the Norman line of dukes, so it's entirely predictable that the chronicle would attribute at least some military exploits to such a famous son.
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Mick Harper
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Palinurus in the Aeneid

In other words Romans wanting to plug themselves into ancient heroes. They're the sworn enemies of the Greeks and the Phoenician Carthaginians, so who's left? Trojans and Amazons... what d'ya reckon, Virge?

In Book 5, when the Trojans have left Carthage, he advises Aeneas to forestall sailing to Italy and to wait out a terrible storm on Sicily, where they hold the funeral games honoring Aeneas's father, Anchises.

So we got there afore them Carthaginians, right, Virge?

After they leave Sicily for Italy, Palinurus, at the helm of Aeneas's ship and leading the fleet, is singled out by Virgil in second person[2] when it becomes clear that he is the one whom the gods will sacrifice to guarantee safe passage to Italy for the Trojans

It's all of two miles. Sailing instructions: all aboard, human sacrifice, oops we're there. Caledonian MacBrayne have got a lot to learn.

This seems to Wiley evocative of the story of St Paul, Acts 27, but I doubt anyone will be convinced. So it is down to me to navigate.
Acts 27 is the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the journey of Paul from Caesarea heading to Rome, but stranded for a time in Malta. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

He's right, damn him, he always is. I'm not convinced.
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Wile E. Coyote


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For newcomers there is an interesting discussion on "St Paul the Conman" in New Concepts.
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Mick Harper
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A snippette from a forthcoming book by a well-known Applied Epistemologist

-----------------------

Never accept definitions at face value, they may be assumptions that have been around long enough to become self-evident facts. Christianity is so deep-dyed, everyone thinks they know how it is represented in Christian cultures. But that is because everyone is from deep-dyed Christian cultures, even people that aren’t. You will be deep-dyed too but you can use your loaf to judge the fishes. Jesus did not say

“Thou shalt use a fish symbol but only early doors when Christian iconography is sure to be a bit patchy. You can drop it later. I may be a fisher of men but I’m not saying we go round scooping people up in our net whether they want it or not.”

St Paul disagreed, he thought that an excellent recruitment policy. He did not however believe Christians should be buried facing east. “We’re not a sun cult,” as he told the Ephesians in an epistle that didn’t get the nod at Nicaea.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
There is no evidence that heavy armour or chariots could be militarily functional at all, the use of these symbols on coins was by showing an indestructible armoured hero emperor, metal coins could signify a store of value over increasingly large trade areas which were widely accepted by all.

Most Ancient battles did not take place. Areas were coinquered by trade, not conquered by Heavily armoured heroes.


Hats wrote:

Funnily enough I was looking at a report about an excavation of an Iron Age chariot in Pocklington, East Yorkshire which turned out to be 'the most extensive square barrow cemetery found in 30 years'.


Hats wrote:
Burials of this form are associated with a particular Iron Age culture, known as the Arras tradition after a cemetery excavated in the early 19th century. The phenomenon first appears in the late 5th century BC, and remains distinctive down into the 1st century BC. In Britain, such burials are concentrated in eastern Yorkshire, but they closely resemble funerary rites practised in parts of northern France, suggesting a connection of some kind between the two regions. Traditionally, the rapid appearance of this new mode of commemoration is linked to invaders settling in Yorkshire. Previous Iron Age cemeteries in the region containing dismantled chariots or carts have been found up in the low chalk hills forming the Yorkshire Wolds, however.


Hats wrote:

Parisi chariot burials were discovered two hundred years ago, when archaeology was a relatively young academic subject. This seems to be the first find since then of an 'Arras culture' burial ground complete with horse and cow burials, but I wonder how archaeologists tell the difference between a 'chariot' and a plough, or 'cart' as they say perhaps because it sounds more like chariot.

There really doesn't seem to be any evidence of Parisiis being invaders though the article glosses over this by making sure we know they had 'settled' in the area and the people are thought to have lived (peaceably) in a nearby village called Hayton ('hay town'). Would there be much diff between implements used to farm on chalk in northern France and eastern Yorkshire?


To Wiley these burials are modelled from a image on a coin. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1911-0208-2[/quote]
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Mick Harper
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M J Harper wrote in a forthcoming book:

Those who know their Penguin Classics will recall Achilles drove round the ramparts of Troy in his chariot and, whether he actually did or not, this is placed by academics in the Mycenaean period, c 1250 BC. Greeks of the Classical period did not use chariots for warlike purposes though the idea of chariots was familiar to all Greeks – they feature in poetry and on pottery and frescoes both from the Mycenaean period before 1250 BC and the Achaean and Classical periods after 700 BC.

Although, as confirmed by the authors of Centuries of Darkness, there are no illustrations of chariots between 1250 and 700. This would strike anyone as odd but Hilda Lorimer, an Oxford specialist, added to the oddness by pointing out

there was a very close similarity between 1450 BC and 750 BC vehicles

We look to the experts to explain how anyone can know what chariots looked like after hundreds of years of not knowing what chariots looked like. Dame Hilda's opposite number, Anthony Snodgrass, Emeritus Professor in Classical Archaeology at Cambridge, posed the question in a slightly different way

Since there is no sort of evidence from 1250 down to 700 for the use of chariots in the Aegean, it seems unwise to assume any continuity between the Mycenaeans and eighth-century chariots until this can be proved

and provided the answer

‘inspired by the epic poetry of Homer’ and 'a few surviving Mycenaean pots’ showed later artists the way to draw
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Mick Harper
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There's an interesting piece on Greek ships in today's medium.com here https://historyofyesterday.com/how-the-ancient-greeks-transported-20-ton-war-ships-over-dry-land-7b9dbdbdee

I don't know if people can access these things, let me know if not and I'll post it up by hand.
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Wile E. Coyote


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I can see the material.
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Wile E. Coyote


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I suppose it really should be titled "how the ancients transported and then forgot to ...." as a number of times this was achieved militarily, including by Octavian prior to the Battle of Actium. Then around about the start of time, roughly 1 AD, folks stopped doing this and it was simply forgotten about or seen as not feasible..... that is, until the canal was built in the 19th century.
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Hatty
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We came across 'tarbert' or Tairbeart place names when tracing the Chad Meridian up the western coast of Scotland. It is said to mean place of portage, i.e. where boats were carried overland, admittedly only for a mile or so. There is no physical evidence such as the 'road' at Corinth.

The earliest written record of this presumed ancient practice is in a highly dubious chronicle, Orkneyinga Saga, attributed to an unknown Icelandic author writing in the thirteenth century. It's supposed to have been one of the sources used by a familiar name, Snorri Sturluson, though as usual the original manuscript no longer exists.
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