Posted on 12/20/2005 9:59:10 AM PST by blam
They called the Romans Daqin...I wonder if that's any connection to the name Tarquin?
I would submit that the Chinese actually learned from the Romans. Roman soldiers who disappeared after a famous defeat founded a city in eastern China, archaeologists say .
The phantom legion was part of the defeated forces of Marcus Licinius Crassus, according to the current edition of the Italian magazine Archeologia Viva .
The famously wealthy Crassus needed glory to rival the exploits of the two men with whom he ruled Rome as the First Triumvirate, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar .
Crassus decided to bring down the Parthian Empire - a fatal choice .
His forces were routed in 53 BC outside the Mesopotamian city of Carre - today's Harran - and he was beheaded .
According to the Roman historian Pliny, the Romans who survived were taken to a prison camp in what is now northern Afghanistan .
When Rome and Parthia sued for peace in 20 BC - 33 years after Crassus's last battle - all trace of the prisoners had disappeared .
The survivors of Crassus's legion became a mystery, walking ghosts in Roman legends. A Chinese historian in the Han Empire, China's second dynasty, provided an answer to the riddle in the early 3rd century AD .
The historian, Bau Gau, wrote that a Chinese war leader defeated a group of soldiers drawn up in typical Roman formation .
Crassus's old troops must now have been in their fifties and sixties .
Bau Gau said the foreigners were moved to China to defend the strategically important eastern region of Gansu, near today's city of Yongchang .
This is where the survivors founded the city of Liquian, the only site in China where the mark of Ancient Rome can be seen. 'Liquian' is said to mean 'Roman' .
The city has been virtually unknown outside China although hundreds of people visit it each year, admiring traces of defensive wallworks and pieces of broken pottery .
File this under "highly unlikely."
The Caucasians have always been in China and predate the Han themselves in the Gansu region.
From the excellent book The Tarim Mummies, page #281:
"...Narin Infers that they (Caucasians) had been there at least since the Qijia Culture of c. 2,000BC and probably even earlier in the Yangshao Culture of the Neolithic. This would render the Tocharians as virtually native to Gansu (and earlier than the putative spread of the Neolithic to Xinjaing) and Narin goes so far as to argue that the Indo-Europeans themselves originally dispensed from this area westwards."
The movement of the Romans to the Gansu region was a reintroduction.
If this is true, why don't they ever find any MSG at Roman sites? Why aren't there any fossilized fortune cookies at Hadrian's Wall?
While I love a good yarn as much as the next man, the fate of prisoners in ancient times never resulted in a 'prison camp' where all the defeated army was kept together. Too much trouble to maintain them, feed them, etc., not to mention the possibility of an armed uprising.
However, there was a great market for slaves to fill the coffers of the winner (with a little booty for the common soldiers)
On the other hand, some victorius generals simply liked to slaughter the defeated army.
The routing of an entire Roman army is as much a yarn as anything. A more likely scenario was a deal was cut.
How so? The no army is ever a stranger to defeat and Rome has witnessed many near catastrophic defeats where entire legions were destroyed. Hannibal, Sparticus, Alaric, do the names ring a bell?
"Ah, Scotch! Was inwented by little old lady from St. Petersburg!" --Mr. Chekov to Mr. Scott
Here are significant battles where the Romans lost entire armies in significant battles. The defeat of an "entire Roman army" happened a few times in their otherwise glorious military history:
1) Battle of the Allia
2) Caudine Forks
3) Battle of Cannae
4) Arausio
5) Battle of Carrhae
6) Teutoburg Forest
7) Battle of Adrianople
8) Alaric's Attack on Rome
I want to bring to mind that Jerusalem was a cosmopolitan type city like New York or London.
In Jerusalem citizens were referred to as Jews, but they might not be from the tribe of Judah, it like in America we are called Americans, but come from various nations!
In Jerusalem there were folks from the Asia such Chinese, or from Africa, Egyptian, Roamans, Greeks, etc!
This subterranean world would most likely been learn from the Chinese!
Archaeologists in Israel find ancient tunnels from Jewish revolt against Romans
Archaeologists have uncovered underground chambers and tunnels constructed in northern Israel by Jews, for hiding from the Romans during their revolt in A.D. 66-70.
Archaeologists said Monday they have uncovered underground chambers and tunnels constructed in northern Israel by Jews for hiding from the Romans during their revolt in A.D. 66-70.
The Jews laid in supplies and were preparing to hide from the Romans, the experts said. The pits, which are connected to each other by short tunnels, would have served as a concealed subterranean home.
Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the find shows the ancient Jews planned and prepared for the uprising. This is in contrast to the common perception that the revolt began spontaneously.
"It definitely was not spontaneous," said Alexandre. "The Jews of that time certainly did prepare for it, with underground hideaways here and in other sites we have found."
However, the recent discovery of these underground chambers at the Israeli Arab village of Kfar Kana, north of Nazareth, is unique. All other "hiding refuges" found so far are hewn out of rock. But at Kfar Kana, the settlers built the chambers out of housing materials, and they hid them directly under their floors. They made sure their families had access to the chambers from inside their homes.
"This construction was very well camouflaged inside one of the houses," Alexandre said. "There are three pits under this house and one tunnel leading to another pit. There are 11 storage jars in that pit. This was storage for an emergency situation during the second half of the first century CE, which is well-known for the Great Revolt."
Alexandre describes the chambers as "very attractive." Built like igloos, they are wide at the base and small at the top. The tunnels between them are very short, and the ceilings are too low for standing up.
Zeev Weiss, a professor of archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said, "I think this is a very important find at Kfar Kana. It can give us more information about life in the Galilee in the first century and the preparations Jews were making on the eve of the revolt." Weiss is director of excavations at Sepphoris, which was the largest city in the Galilee at the time of the revolt.
The Jewish revolt against Roman rule ended in A.D. 70, when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple.
The Jews at the Kfar site built their houses over the ruins of a fortified Iron Age city, reusing some of the stones from the original settlement. Then they dug through 1.5 meters (five feet) of debris from the ancient ruins to build their hideaway complex. "It was quite a lot of work," Alexandre said.
The original settlement, which dates from the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., is also a new discovery.
Alexandre attributes current dating of the original city as an Iron Age settlement to pottery remains, which are plentiful at the site. The excavators have also found large quantities of animal bones, a scarab depicting a man surrounded by two crocodiles and a ceramic seal bearing the image of a lion.
The excavation of the city's architecture has uncovered fortified walls which still stand 1.5 meters high in some places. "It's magnificent," said Alexandre. "You can walk among them."
"University of Pecs in Hungary"
I think Gov. Schwartzenegger got his degree there.
Seems like a wall is pretty easy to figure out though. :')
Speculation out of thin air. The Roman era is not prehistorical. If the Romans were influenced by the Chinesse they would have wrote about it, and some writings would have been likely to survive.
While I wholeheartedly agree that there's not likely any connection between the development of walls, the Roman Empire and China had continual trade links, both overland and (more intermittently) by sea, usually by go-betweens, but occasionally directly.
Yeah, the Romans had it goin' on. Unified Scotland with the Persian Gulf (briefly), eliminated Mediterranean piracy for hundreds of years, carried on trade with India...
Emperor Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus)
Illustrated History of the Roman Empire | circa 2000 | various
Posted on 10/08/2004 9:55:02 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1239592/posts
Romans in China?
Archaeology | Volume 52 Number 3, May/June 1999 | Erling Hoh
Posted on 07/18/2004 11:43:09 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1173944/posts
Tamil Trade
INTAMM | 1997 | Xavier S. Thani Nayagam
Posted on 09/11/2004 11:07:01 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1213591/posts
The Romans in Ireland
Archaeology Today | 2000? | L.A. Curchin
Posted on 07/18/2004 11:54:58 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1173950/posts
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