Ancient Romans In Texas?

Science Frontiers online ^ | Nov-Dec 1993 | William Corliss

[Hellmouth]

ANCIENT ROMANS IN TEXAS?

If one searches long enough and hard enough, one can discover hints that just about any ancient culture you care to name set foot in the New World well before the Vikings and Columbus. Old coins, inscriptions, language concordances, and the like are taken by many as proofs that Egyptians visited Oklahoma, the Chinese moored along the Pacific coast, the Celts toured New England, and so on. Now, according to Professor V. Belfiglio, the ancient Romans had Texas on their itineraries.

Belfiglio's evidence is fourfold, and so are mainstream criticisms:

• Roman coins found in Texas. The most convincing example came from the bottom of an Indian mound at Round Rock. This mound is dated at approximately 800 AD. Skeptics suppose that the coin was dropped on top of the mound in recent times and was carried to the bottom by rodents and tree roots. Hmmm!

• The remains of a shipwreck. Circa 1886, the wreck of an unusual ship was found in Galveston Bay. Belfiglio says this ship's construction is typically Roman. Nautical experts doubt this. but they will admit that real Roman craft were perfectly capable of sailing to Texas.

• The remains of an ancient bridge. Also in Galveston Bay, the timbers of an old bridge were found under 15 feet of sediment. A similar divergence of opinion prevails here.

• Language concordances. Belfiglio has pointed out many similarities between Latin and a dialect of the now-extinct Karankawas tribe. No comment here from the language experts.

(Lee, Victoria; "Professor Explores Theory of Romans' Ancient Voyage," Dallas Morning News, June 13, 1993. Cr. T. Adams via L. Farish.)

[Billy_bob_bob]

I'm personally of the opinion that certain ancient peoples like the Viking, Celt and Roman traveled over a much larger range of the world than what is usually credited to them. When one considers how knowlege like iron working was cloistered and treated like a "trade secret" for centuries by the Scythians, it doesn't take much of a leap of logic to consider that certain families or tribes might have obtained and then concealed knowlege of distant, unknown lands, and the ways to get there and back.

I would not be at all surprised to find that Romans had once landed on American shores, either by accident or intent, nor would I be surprised to find that they had founded short-lived colonies here.

[uglybiker]

Of course they did! A proud tradition carried on today by their descendants in the W.W.F.

[uglybiker]

If they turn up a Roman bath in downtown Galveston while digging a foundation...

I wouldn't put too much creedence in that, either. Last I heard, America's biggest gay community was in Houston.

[pepsionice]

This is somewhat easy to explain. A Roman vessel likely got blown off course from the Spanish coast. It drifted for days and the crew died along the way, and weeks later, it beached on the Texas coast. The local Indians probably found the coins and considered them lucky objects.

[sawsalimb]

It wouldn't surprise me either. My question,in this instance,is,"What in the world did they come to the Gulf Coast for?" Nothing that's easily available on the gulf coast of Texas comes to mind as being worth the time,effort,and hazard of a long voyage in an open boat. The furs aren't of any exceptional quality,I don't think they were planning on drilling oil wells,and there aren't any particularly valuable minerals there,that I know of.

This,at least to my way of thinking,would argue for an accidental landing-possibly a good sized ship.

[sawsalimb]

As plausible an explanation as any other.

[aculeus]

Et tu, Bubba?

[csvset]

De Soto didn't fare too well in Texas either.

[Random Access]

All hat and no cataloni.

Excellent.

[Ranger]

belt buckles the size of dinner plates

That was a shield polished to reflect light and blind the adversary. Or it could be a train headlight.

[general_re]

I think accidental landing is probably the most plausible explanation also. There was a sunken Roman galley discovered off the coast of Brazil some years ago, so there's certainly precedent for such a thing. What seems unlikely is that there was any regular, culturally significant contact between the Old and New worlds in ancient times, the claims of the Afrocentrists notwithstanding.

[x]

Your story is almost ten years old. This makes it more likely that Ancient Romans were in Texas, since it's less likely that the Ancient Indians could have gotten the coins over the Internet.

[vetvetdoug]

Rome, Naples, Venice, and ALpine are in Texas. What more proof does one need?

[tal hajus]

Ancient Egyptians in OK?

I AM a descendant of Rameses the Great!

somehow I've always known.

[blam]

Meet Luzia. This is a reconstruction from the oldest dated skeleton ever found in the Americas (Brazil), 11,500 years old. (Spirit Cave Woman, found on an island off California, will probably top the 11,500 year old Luzia date.)

[blam]

Spirit Cave Man (My apologies, I have gotten him mixed up with the skeleton found off the California coast. Now, I don't know what her name is.) This guy is believed to have been related to Kennewick Man.

[SR71A]

Et tu, Bubba?

< groan>
or maybe "veni, vidi, barbici": " I came, I saw, I barbequed"
:)

[Mulder]

My question,in this instance,is,"What in the world did they come to the Gulf Coast for?" Nothing that's easily available on the gulf coast of Texas comes to mind as being worth the time,effort,and hazard of a long voyage in an open boat.

The very fact that it is "Texas" is sufficient to warrant the "time, effort, and hazard" of travelling across the world.

If the Romans didn't realize this, then they were fools, and it's no wonder their empire collapsed.

[Cultural Jihad]

Veni, vidi, sweati.