Archaeologica.org

This time from the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/scien ... es.html?em

Then the Phoenicians, their fortunes in sharp decline after defeat in the Punic Wars, disappeared as a distinct culture. The monumental ruins of Carthage, at modern Tunis, are about the only visible reminders of their former greatness.

The ruins at Carthage are from the re-founded Roman Colony by Julius Caesar. It had nothing to do with the original inhabitants who were sold into slavery if they survived the sack of the city. Scipio leveled the original Carthage.

Scipio leveled the original Carthage.

Min, what's your take on the story that Scipio also sewed the soil with salt? Either way, he certainly trashed the place.

Maybe symbolically or something. Carthage was a trading city not a great agricultural center but the notion of running around pouring salt on the fields seems like an awful lot of work, anyway.

What they did do was kill or enslave the population and burn the city to the ground....and then knock over the remaining walls. That seems like it would have been good enough.

There are some identified Punic remains at Carthage but they are domestic dwellings and are certaintly not "monumental".

Amazing anything survived considering the Roman attack then the Islamic destruction in 698.

Sack the NYTimes fact-checker!

Fact checkers?
Come on!
They do what they can.
But you know it where the NYT puts their token handicap employees.
And gives them the old 110 BPS terminals to work with
We are in a "news cycle"
Nothing in that refers to facts.

I expect Ishtar to show up with a shamanic curse on editors any moment now.

Minimalist wrote:I expect Ishtar to show up with a shamanic curse on editors any moment now.

Welcome Santyago!

Fact checkers?

There are fact checkers in journalism?

I never saw any.

When I was a journalist, there were no such thing ... not even on The Times. I started off my career working on the foreign desk of The Times, taking the news from the foreign correspondents and passing it on to the subs editors' desk. I suppose the subs would have checked something if it jumped out at them as suspect. But otherwise the role of the sub is just to knock the story into shape. Then it goes to various other editors, increasingly more and more senior who would probably think it below them to have to check a fact.

So no ... there are no fact checkers on British newspapers and magazines.

But we did have a saying - don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The truth is, all major media outlets are owned by global magnates, like Rupert Murdoch whose bottom line is to create a narrative that will optimise his assets and holdings in countries where he supports - if not actually appoints - the government. Any other stories that a paper runs are just the sugar to sweeten that pill.





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