Posted on 07/30/2002 11:11:50 AM PDT by sourcery
A church just like it, on same scale, is in Cambridge, England. There are others in Scandinavia. All date to the 1050- 1300 era.
Columbus is debunked by this? No, he was a great hero of the Christian faith, and that is why he did it-- he said it was so that the Christian faith could be refreshed and find new strength to continue its mortal combat with Islam.
But the Norse and Swedes and Icelanders and Greenlanders were regularly contacting and trading with America from c985- 1485 AD, where an established colony existed in Vinland.
Said when golden coaches return to their inherent pumpkinness.
BTW in the movie "Patton" the general explains that when a legion returned to Rome in triumph, the general of the legion would lead a parade past the emporer. Riding in the chariot next to the general was a slave who held a golden wreath over the general's head. The wreath signified his triumphs. At the same time the slave whispered in the general's ear, "Sic transit gloria mundi".
My particular favorite was Caesar's oft used phrase in his Gallc Commentaries, "Quae cum ita sunt".
The place in Newfoundland where there is purported to be the original Norse settlement is now even devoid of trees.
During that time period the Norse were growing grains in Southern Greenland.
That climatological period of time is known as the "Midevil Maximum". it was followed by the "Little Ice Age" when the Norse vanished from Greenland. The reason for the Norse leaving N. America is less clear.
You do the math.
Two ships --possibly intending to settle or colonize SOMEWHERE or other, came to some little grief at that spot on the coast, and went to some trouble to thoroughly repair one or both of their vessels. Probably had just limped in. Women and livestock were along to some degree.
This very early on, as likely c982-7 as later around 1012. Greenland was only receiving its first settlers itself, then! These 2 ships may have been headed for Greenland to settle, and missed it, running too far south to make Cape Farewell--a common problem for Greenland-bound sailors all during the Viking heydays.
Quite a lot of work was done, they stayed over two winters, then sailed away in the second spring, thus they were there some 18 months in all and then sailed away never to look back, never to return. Probably they went on to Greenland, their intended destination all along! If Vinland had been their destination, they would have had no reason to do their boat repair way up there in the harsh Arctic, for Vinland too was forested, so they could have gone on to their goal, and lived permanently. Only a complete dire sinking emergency could explain Lantsy Meadows in that case. No evidence any other Vikings ever returned to that site.
The kindest explanation would be that since Greenland had no timber, these were Greenlanders seeking the nearest timbered coast, there to renew/rebuild their vessels. Maybe they built a third vessel from scratch!
Again, nothing to do with Vinland, nothing to do with the Vinland map, never any grapes, never any wheat, never ANYTHING, except a good place to repair ships, with bog iron nearby even --which they DID work, for the iron fittings and etc needed.
It is very unclear that any Norse who lived in North America ever DID leave it, I am sure they died here. Roger Williams, the first Englishman or white of any kind, to settle in the 17th century on Narragansett Bay, the central Vinland featured area, said that in his opinion the local "Indians" were all descended from Icelanders at least in part, as was their language. He also says that those who later converted to Protestantism and English dress and farming, could not be distinguised from the other English colonists by their looks, but only by their speech.
Verrazano who visited in about 1515 or so, said the natives there were "white"-- totally white, whiter than Venetian Italians or his own crew. Avoid common mistranslations, look at what he actually wrote in his own tongue! He also saw two blond white children on a dock near Portsmouth, NH, but was prevented by foul winds and his hurry to get back to Europe before winter, from coming ashore there as the children beckoned him to do.
The Portuguese, BTW, when asked where they had gotten these tough, hardworking workers ="Labradors" in Portuguese-- lied and said they had found them in the wastes of what we call "Labrador"== a joke 500 years old now.
They didn't want to disclose where they really had got them, so they could maybe come back and get more. Certainly they didn't want to tell the English.
There is no incontrovertible proof of that. For one thing, the technology to actually date the ink doesn't exist yet, because there's not enough ink for a meaningful result. And no one has actually done the requisite comparative testing of the inks on comparably old documents to permit any definitive statements to be made on the matter.
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Note: this topic is from 7/30/2002. |
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