Archaeologists in the Jezreel Valley excavate a pipe that may have belonged to the Sixth Roman Legion camp. Though known from historical sources, the exact location of the camp has remained a mystery. Photo courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project.
Posted on 08/25/2013 5:26:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
For the first time, the camp of the Sixth Roman Legion may have been located. Analyzing an enhanced high-resolution satellite photo, archaeologist Yotam Tepper of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in collaboration with the Jezreel Valley Regional Project, identified what he believes to be the camp’s square-shaped boundary. The team conducted ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic testing and subsequently carried out excavations at the site. They uncovered the base of a battery or wall, a moat surrounding the camp, water pipes, a covered sewage channel, coins, tiles and a shingle decorated with the legion’s symbol. These discoveries seem to support Tepper’s identification of the site as the camp of the Sixth Legion. The site sits between Tel Megiddo (Biblical Armageddon) and the oldest known Christian house of worship, located half a mile south of the camp, which was abandoned by the end of the third century.
According to historical sources, the Legio Sexta Ferrata, known as the “Ironsides,” was based in the Galilee in the second century A.D. The Sixth Legion was most likely stationed there in response to the Jewish antagonism that eventually resulted in the Second Jewish Revolt of 132–136 A.D. From their headquarters, 3,500 Roman soldiers ruled over Galilee and part of Samaria. The city that grew around the camp became known as Legio during the Roman Empire and later as Lajjun after the arrival of Muslim forces in the seventh century. The actual camp site of the Sixth Legion, however, remained unknown. According to Matthew Adams, director of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project, “If [Tepper’s] right and we locate the camp archaeologically, it will be the first time in the archaeology of the Roman Empire that a Roman camp of this period has been excavated in the Eastern half of the Empire!”
(Excerpt) Read more at biblicalarchaeology.org ...
Archaeologists in the Jezreel Valley excavate a pipe that may have belonged to the Sixth Roman Legion camp. Though known from historical sources, the exact location of the camp has remained a mystery. Photo courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project.
!!!HOORAY!!!
Muzzy’s to claim land as theirs in 3-2- oh wait.. they probably already did.
Fascinating stuff!
;’) :’P
[singing] because the Sixth, the Sixth, is on the list...
Interestingly enough, the camp became a settlement (I guess the Romans were referred to as “settlers” then) called, simply, “Legio”, and the big mo’s bums transliterated that as “Lajjun”, which sounds a bit more like “legion”.
I agree, and best of all, this particular article used “A.D.” for the dating, saving everyone a lot of trouble. :’)
The Roman army after the reforms of Augustus consisted of about 28 legions (140,000 soldiers) of regulars, supposedly Roman citizens (in practice the “Roman” army wasn’t particularly Roman by sometime in the 2nd century), and 28 legions of auxiliaries recruited from among the conquered peoples and moved to different locations in the empire. This was a common practice in ancient empires, because foreign troops pressed into service by the conquering power were at least as widely disliked, and didn’t speak the local language.
I watched the Liz Taylor “Cleopatra” again, and while it is best watched with the sound down, there are nice tidbits in the script here and there, such as when the tutor of Ptolemy says, “and with so few men”. The Romans had what amounted to a ridiculously small army, and when needed elsewhere, still managed to be able to shift whole legions to other parts of the empire. Generally, the distribution was four legions in Gaul and Germania, five in the territories along either side of the Danube, and anywhere between two and four in Britain. During Agricola’s campaign in what is now Scotland, the Romans made contact with the various islands, circumnavigated Britain, and apparently built a long-term presence in NE Ireland, probably a fortified trading presence, similar to the strategy that was used to conquer Britain in the first place.
There were five major naval bases, including one on the North Sea, one on the Black Sea, and at least one in Italy; during the reign of the schismatic emperor Carausius, that leader moved the naval base from the continent over to Britain, a canny move. Sailors operated the ships, which existed to move troops, or to fight the occasional naval battle in the Roman fashion. The empire eliminated piracy in the 1st c AD.
The Praetorian Guard consisted of a 29th legion and was the bodyguard of the emperor (that didn’t always work out that well) as well as the local police force in Rome.
There were a series of Jewish Wars (or Roman Wars, from the standpoint of the Jews; for more than 19 centuries Jews refused to walk through the arch of Titus, see the link below) which required additional legions, but the main reason Rome kept legions in the east was the Parthian empire. In the mountainous parts, Roman forts tended to be cohort-sized, meaning that the legion was spread out along the frontiers. At the empire’s territorial peak, under Trajan, the Roman army washed its weapons in the Persian Gulf. The decline began immediately thereafter, with Trajan’s death and the accession of Hadrian.
Romans in Ireland
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1173950/posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpireterritoryandtemporaryexpansions.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumanagh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambay_island
Hay that song was by haulin’ oats he said with a rye smile.
Leggo my Legio he said with an impish grin and deviltry in his eyes.
What about the camp of the Peoples’ Front of Judea.
Is that a sewer pipe?
‘Call Woto-Wooter
That’s the name,
And away go twoubles
Down the dwain.’
Pontius Pilate
(’Stwike him centuwion! Stwike him vewy woughly.’)
I don’t believe they ever replaced the legions destroyed at the Teutoberg forest debacle.
“VARUS! GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!”-AUGUSTUS
Yeah, Hermann the German & Co. nailed them Romans to trees.
If they’d been smart they would have surrendered: they could have had fabric clothing, sanitary facilities, concrete aquaducts, civil law—and wouldn’t sound like they were gargling when they talked.
The legion that was destroyed that lead to the first Jewish Revolt ~67 AD: what archeological substance remains?
***If they’d been smart they would have surrendered: they could have had fabric clothing, sanitary facilities, concrete aquaducts, civil law****
Interesting how you can look at the outcome of such a battle thousands of years afterward and see a different outcome if this or that had happened.
I have A book FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD by Edward Creasy, written in 1851.
He said the Tutoberger forest battle was decisive in it allowed the Germans to progress and become a great nation and major influence in future Europe without being degraded and absorbed by the Romans.
Yet, just a few years ago a TV program bemoaned the Tutoberger forest battle because it eventually led to a modern Germany with Adolph Hitler and WWII. With Roman influence back then, WWII might not have happened.
The legions were replaced, and (news to me) all three eagles were eventually recovered from German tribes, but those three numbers (Varian disaster) were never reconstituted.
> The three legion numbers were not used again by the Romans, unlike other legions that were restructured – unique in Roman history, except for the XXII Deiotariana legion, which may have been disbanded after heavy losses against the Jewish rebels in the Bar Kokba revolt (132–136 CE) in Judea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest#Aftermath
> The outbreak took the Romans by surprise. Hadrian called his general Sextus Julius Severus from Britain, and troops were brought from as far as the Danube. The size of the Roman army amassed against the rebels was much larger than that commanded by Titus sixty years earlier. Roman losses however were very heavy - XXII Deiotariana was disbanded after serious losses.[9][10] In addition, some historians argue that Legio IX Hispana disbandment in the mid-2nd century could also have been a result of this war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt#Roman_reaction
(note, the Ninth Legion is the one claimed to have been annihilated in Caledonia/Scotland, a tale that is entirely modern in origin)
Since the Germans of Roman times are not the modern Germans anyway, the whole argument is moot. :’) Not to mention that the Teutoberg defeat was a temporary setback for Rome — note the link about a Roman cemetery discovered a few years back in *Copenhagen* — the Teutoberg battle was glorified and revived for the purposes of modern German nationalism in the 19th c.
***and (news to me) all three eagles were eventually recovered from German tribes,***
I read about finding the Eagles, years later, at a Germanic pagan worship site. It was when I read the history by Tacitus, a book everyone should go through.
You would find politics back then was just as bad as it is now!
Anyone here see the movie “The Eagle” (based on the book “The Eagle of the Ninth”)?
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