Forum: Ancient & Classical

I came across these lectures a few months back. It's a good series that provides a good rundown for those who prefer vids to reading. There's quite a few hours of lectures but it's still a lot quicker(though not as in-depth) than Gibbon's work: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. rx8UsHmYtvQ I found the vids to be a good refresher course. Much of this "old" stuff helps explain whats happening today kids! That's why the big U's are big on their classics courses. Latin helps too.

...when Perseus beheaded her. I woke-up thinking about it. Pegasus was born-of her blood and its twin-brother who was not its twin; Chrysaor, was born-from her severed neck. Ya gotta love ancient offworld shape-changers and the elaborate soap-dramas they got involved in. The times when it was a winged-horse, Pegasus flew-around kicking rocks-into-muse-fountains, like Hippocrene. Chrysaor was sometimes a winged-boar, who basically was content to be the King of ancient Iberia. Their father was Poseidon, who slept with Medusa one time, in Athena's temple. They should've slept in a woodcutter's hut.

It would be nice if nobody gave an answer supplied by Mr. Google and tried to figure it out for themselves.. As usual I have my own theory. But this time I am going to pick yours apart first, You can rest assured that if I find problems with your rationale, I will tell you precisely why. It will of course be a mirracle if we come to any kind of concensus.

The Hounds of the Underworld, Cwn Annwn, enliven the Celtic folk-tales, bounding across the cold night sky in an exhilarating and impressive wild hunt. In Wales, they are said to suddenly appear around St. David's Eve. "…Hath thou never heard lore of Cwn Annan? On a forlorn winter’s night where the moon shines not, do they not come to thee? Ghostly specters, the hounds dance in expectation of the hunt, eyes and ears glow an unearthly crimson. Blood. They writhe and howl in a manner not of mortal dogs. No, these creatures are from the dead, from the world beneath. Running across the night sky, they wait for their masters to call them hither for the hunt. Hath thou never heard the mournful bays they give off in the dead of night? Or thou just gave them off for a mere fancy of the mind, or the whispering winds through tree. Fools notions, I tell thee. Only a fool will take no notice of the tales (Arc Trench) of old. But when the hounds come for thee, thou shall see the undaunted fury that lie behind the scarlet...

Hey guys simple question here, do you know of any good ancient history textbooks that I could get from a local bookstore like Barnes and Noble? Even if you have something, but it's only sold online still let me know. Thanks guys. I would like it to cover most of the ancient era, but the main areas would be, Sparta, Rome, Greece, and Persia. Thanks

Out of Place Artifacts otherwise known as Ooparts, this is something I have recently started looking into and there seems to be lots of these artifacts which makes me think wether mainstream history, archaeology and science really does have all the answers. Such things are ridiculed by mainstream academia and for quite a simple reason, they are out of place and throw all of their current ideas and theories out of the window! Mainstream academia gets very defensive when all the ideas that they have been taught and the ideas which they spread as fact are brought into disrepute. Open your mind and take a look at some of these Out of Place Artifacts that I now present to you... some from the downright strange to the downright interesting! The 500,000 year old Spark Plug (The Coso Artifact) found by Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey, and Mike Mikesell in 1961... were seeking interesting mineral specimens, geodes and the like, for their gem and giftshop in California when they collected some rock...

Or could it have been a temple in which ancient knowledge was passed from one grand hierophant to another? Why were there no paintings or hieroglyphs to celebrate King Cheops life? Why was the coffin so blasé and crudely constructed when every other pharaoh’s was well adorned. It was the Greatest Pyramid after all. Maybe it was a temple to initiate priests and philosophers into the ancient mystery schools? Here’s an interesting theory on the pyramid being a temple and not a tomb: http://www.ancientmonks.com/mystical-order-of-neglected-knowledge/important-documents/great-pyramid-of-giza

http://ironlight.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/nevadas-mysterious-cave-of-the-red-haired-giants/ Watching Ancient Aliens and they covered this. Showing skulls excavated from the Nevada cave. Not a fake or what ever but actual human skulls but much larger then normal human skulls. Several legends from around the world from David versus Goliath as the most well known to lesser known stories of the Aztec seeing/meeting them. And yet so little is told about them. How did so many legends of giant humans, matching the same descriptions down to hair color, come if they weren't real? Especially since we freaking found the bones and mummies of them! So not a legend, real, and yet so little time is spent on them.

Just like the Freemasons, the druids had elaborate rituals of initiation in which ancient secrets were passed on from an “enlightened” High Priest to the new candidate. Just like the freemasons, the candidate went through a ritual “death” then was arisen in the 3rd degree of initiation. Here is an interesting read on how ancient traditions spread from Egypt to Phoenicia and to the ancient druids of Gaul and Britain which helped craft modern masonry : http://www.ancientmonks.com/mystical-order-of-neglected-knowledge/3rd-degree-masters-of-the-univers/druids

I've always sensed a huge controversy existed when those in positions of mass-manipulation prompted the changeover from rolled papyrus-texts to block-form parchment-pages. -Huge. Assuming our ancestors were as stubbornly 'superstitious' about veering from tradition as we are today. The aesthetically-pleasing act of unrolling a papyral-script; gone... Wisdom, proverbs, lore, medical-knowledge, all suddenly available without the ritual of unrolling, and spreading the page flat for full display... " I'm not going to listen to anything that isn't on a rolled-scroll. Something that's nakedly displayed on a page, from a pile of pages, seems generic. Cheap," I can hear my relatives saying. The British Museum's longest papyrus is about 130' long, or 40km. It's one of the boring ones, that just explains who-the-temple-owes and why, blah blah blah, with a brief history of Ramessus III thrown-in. I'd hate to see the scroll-size of an non-brief history. The point is, that the scroll-form gave it a sense...

A new report that suggests the peoples of ancient Britain used the brain casing of skulls as bowls for drinking. It's reasonable from here to assume they could be used for food too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12478115

Since the release of Frank Miller's 300 on film I thought it may be interesting to post a better historical account of the Battle of Thermopylae. Frank Miller, while relying on historical accounts, indulged quite a bit in the department of fantasy when portraying this battle. I aim to present some interesting facts. In the late summer of 480 BC King Leonidas of Sparta led 300 Spartan hoplites and some 7,000 other Greek soldiers on a defensive against King Xerxes of the Persian Empire and his army of near 200,000 Persians on a narrow path at Thermopylae. Although some historians believe Xerxes was merely attempting to expand his empire westwards, many concede he was seeking revenge for the Battle of Marathon where his father, King Darius the Great, was defeated by the Athenians just a decade before. The Marathon In September of 490 BC King Darius and an army of between 20,000-30,000 Persian troops set foot on Greek soil just north of Athens at Marathon. At the time the Athenians could not get...

Dr Hawass: About a week ago I got a satellite image of a site that all my life I've wanted to excavate Ross Coulthart: And what do you see? Dr Hawass: I can see a pyramid! Ross Coulthart: There's a pyramid buried? Dr Hawass: Buried under the sand - and I'm telling you before the opening of your exhibit in Australia, you will hear the news about me discovering a new pyramid. Ross Coulthart: A pyramid buried? Dr Hawass: A pyramid buried under the sand! Ross Coulthart: A whole pyramid? Dr Hawass: A whole pyramid!

For years shortround and I have discussed in passing the birth of the English language, where it began and how it developed. After some heavy discussion we concluded there was a relationship with the Frisian Islands. He and I discussed the language developing as a trade language along the northern coasts of the Netherlands and Germany, but alas we were very wrong. Although we were correct in our Frisian ancestry, we were wrong about how and why the language developed. The study of linguistics is a massive undertaking, and there are a number of sub-branches of linguistics such as semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, phonetics, and so on, which hone in on all the little details of spoken and written language. In any case, the study of the history of any given language is no small task and takes many years to truly grasp and appreciate. However, here I can provide a little of the history behind the evolution of the English language in such a way we all can appreciate if only a little. But first we need...

I.) The Popol Vuh - the sacred word of the Maya-Quiché gives us a valuable window into the science of the ancient civilizations. For not only does it state that the earth is round - but it states it twice 1.) .. and they contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth. 2.) .. and they examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky and the round face of the earth. II.) The Egyptian Sphinx is said to be aligned east - but that isn't so. It's spine is aligned 5 degrees north of east in alignment with the ancient equator that ran through Easter island, Nasca, Peru and Giza Egypt. Only the Sphinx's reconstructed head and face align eastward /

In the Popol Vuh, the sacred word of the Maya-Quiché, it's mentioned twice that the earth is round: "..and they contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth!" "..and they examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky and the round face of the earth!" As often as these subjects are discussed - and as often as the passages are quoted, it's a wonder that it doesn't become a part of our knowledge base. But then perhaps they were so much further ahead in their cosmology than we are - that they didn't need our technology and some are afraid to admit it. james /

pre-Dynastic ancient Egypt is not at all what you think. The ancient Egyptians (and those that carried on the faith into Dynastic times) communicated with the UK and the Maya-Quiché from the Yucatan. They were monotheistic with a pantheon of nine gods in what they called the Ennead. There was also a ten member Ennead they called the "ten great ones of the Palace, you Great Ennead." All across the UK and on the Continent we find cathedral churches and the remains of monasteries designed by the Templars that carried the tradition of the ancient Egyptians. It was because of this tradition of the ancient Egyptians now found carved on the corbels of cathedral churches and the remains of monasteries and practiced in the liturgy of the Cistercian Monks that led to the destruction of the monasteries in the UK by Henry VIII Know your history - cause it's all there for the finding! james /

Gotland is without a doubt a island forgotten by time, its archaeology spans millenia of human occupation and settlements, although now a part of Sweden, it was at one time a land unto itself and jump off point for early voyagers and exploration. As you wander amongst the ancient burial mounds that dot the island, you have the overwhelming sense that time has stood still, hallowed ground untouched for thousands of years holds a peace that would be hard to find anywhere on earth. According to Gutasagan (the Gotlandic Tale), Gotland was an enchanted island , which rose every evening and sank again every morning. The enchantment was broken when a man by the name of Tjelvar came to the island, bringing with him fire. Geological studies have shown that, although the tale might not be true, the island has sunk and risen again many times from the sea. In this way Gutasagan, written down in the beginning of the 13th century, tells its version of the origin of Gotland. Still today the island is as enchanted,...