Archaeologica.org

Interesting article Clubs. Yep, this guy parts with his "stuff" way too easy.

No way to know what the artifact is right now, but I haven't had any faith in any of the claims about Zheng He. Too many facts wrong in the reports.

Good article.

Beagle wrote:Interesting article Clubs. Yep, this guy parts with his "stuff" way too easy.

No way to know what the artifact is right now, but I haven't had any faith in any of the claims about Zheng He. Too many facts wrong in the reports.

Good article.

He did get the guy to give him credit for the find, but from reading his account of the find, he was certainly club_washed and it seemed as if he in no way believed it could have been real, even though he was clearly puzzled by it. As most "treasure hunters" have found (and you see such comments on that site) is that if someone offers you money for something you think is worthless, rethink the sale.

I like to read there. There is a whole section devoted to those who hunt "points" some finds are quite spectacular. It's also a good spot to keep up on what's being found and where. Since I've been following that site, several people have posted inital posts about a find...only to refrain from discussing further. Mysteries.

That is a good link, I'll keep it. I've made some very good buys, and I've never tried to cheat anybody. It's just that people don't have a clue sometimes as to the value of things. Especially at estate sales.

When Grandma passes on sometimes and kids clean out the attic, they sometimes put old books in boxes and sell them for next to nothing by the box.

I try to get there very early.

Regarding Columbus and his maps, it seems to me he actually believed he had reached the islands near India. It is he who named the indigenous peoples "Indians". The following link addresses this quite clearly:
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ren/Ren1/308mono.html

The cartographical concepts are complicated and represent a retrogression precipitated by the Columbus brothers' disappointment that no passage to Asia could be found in Central America. Before the fourth voyage, they presumed the New World was in fact a separate enormous island. Afterwards, however, they reverted to the belief that the mainland they explored was part of the Asian continent's eastern coast. The sketch maps clearly prove this point. Places Columbus visited along the Honduran coast on the fourth voyage are recorded on the first section as if they were on an Asian coastline west of the West Indies but attached to South America. The names on this coast are Cariai, Carambaru, Bastimentos, Retrete, and Belporto. On the second portion, these same names appear again along an indisputably Asian coastline.

The distance between Europe and Asia is grossly underestimated, a tenet basic to Columbus' thinking. The landmass in the northwest of the first section has a configuration similar to that in the Cantino map (Slide #310). This area has been interpreted variously as representing either Columbus' concept of Cuba, the peninsula of Florida, or perhaps the Asian mainland. Westward on the same continent, Columbus inscribed names for China from ancient maps by Ptolemy Serica, Serici Montes and Sinarum Situs. To the south Columbus imagined a narrow isthmus (Panama, later to be discovered by Balboa). West of the isthmus, he labeled the sea, Sinus Magnus, the classical name for the waters east of Asia. He even included a strait through the isthmus to account for the sea route Marco Polo had used to return from China two centuries earlier.

I am a skeptic of regarding other ideas. It seems almost too convenient to say these secret maps and records existed in order to protect business interests. Since they are secret that are not discovered. I also am sure most people here have heard of the Vinland map forgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland_map These types of forgeries and false information become part of the culture in a way and people believe them. Amazing how many people believe Dan Brown's novel of the 'holy bloodline' is true inspite of every attempt to show it really was just a clever fiction.

Maps were expensive to create and hard to keep secret. They were almost always goverment property.
The traders learned it the hard way, kept it all in their heads, and passed it down trusted man to man. And being in the family didn't always mean you were trusted.

Columbus had to say he got to India. He had bet the Queens personal jewels on the trip. Saying he hadn't found what he said he was going to find, would at the least land him in prisson for life. More likely, it would have cost him his head. It was only after the gold started to pour in that he could admit it wasn't what he had said. That amount of gold can buy a lot of forgiveness.

As far as army numbers are concerned, I found these numbers:
War of Succession
Battle of Shiloh Union Casualities 13,047
Confederate Casualities 10,694
Battle of Gettysburg Union Casualities 23,055
Confederate Casualities 23,231
Those are casualities, not Army totals. Total Union Army was 2.5 million

The Alied Force at Normandy alone was 1,452,000. And that was one battle. I could not find a total number for the Allied Forces in Europe, but there were 5 Army "groups", and a group was between 400,000 and 1,000,000 men. That is in Europe alone, not counting the Pacific.

None of these numbers include Navy.

So, if Lincolon could come up with 2.5 million and FDR mabe twice to four times that many, I don't think it is that hard to belive some of the numbers given in older accounts. A few may be vastly inflated, but they stand out as such.

These numbers may seem hard to belive in our day of wringing our hands over 10 deaths in a day. But my dad (who was in both the Atlantic and Pacific WWII theaters) once told that "Human life has always been the lowest cost commodity in history. It is easy to replace by unskilled labor that enjoys the work. Goverments that think long term, just wait a generation to rebuild their armys." I guess the time diference between WWI and WWII, and then WWII and Korea, and then Korea and Viet Nam, proves that point.

kbs2244 wrote:"Human life has always been the lowest cost commodity in history. It is easy to replace by unskilled labor that enjoys the work. Goverments that think long term, just wait a generation to rebuild their armys." I guess the time diference between WWI and WWII, and then WWII and Korea, and then Korea and Viet Nam, proves that point.

Maybe we can definately agree on this point.

Maybe we can definately agree on this point

but onl;y if you dropped the Korean war from the list
WW2 1939 (41 if youre american) til 1945
Korean War 1950 - 1953

8 years is not enough time to raise a new generation of soldiers
unless you're an african despot

Don't make the mistake of thinking that map has to be recognisable as such KB. It need only be a set of directions, the object is to get you from A to B. A map of the New World would have been of about as much use to CC as a chocolate fire guard, what he needed was a set of sailing instructions if he was working form prior knowledge.

what he needed was a set of sailing instructions if he was working form prior knowledge.

i.e. keep heading west

In a sailing vessel Marduk? I doubt it.

As far as army numbers are concerned, I found these numbers:
War of Succession
Battle of Shiloh Union Casualities 13,047
Confederate Casualities 10,694
Battle of Gettysburg Union Casualities 23,055
Confederate Casualities 23,231
Those are casualities, not Army totals. Total Union Army was 2.5 million

The Alied Force at Normandy alone was 1,452,000. And that was one battle. I could not find a total number for the Allied Forces in Europe, but there were 5 Army "groups", and a group was between 400,000 and 1,000,000 men. That is in Europe alone, not counting the Pacific.

None of these numbers include Navy.

So, if Lincolon could come up with 2.5 million and FDR mabe twice to four times that many, I don't think it is that hard to belive some of the numbers given in older accounts. A few may be vastly inflated, but they stand out as such.

What on earth do American civil war or WWII numbers have to do with ancient armies?

The ACW was the first major conflict to use railroad supply lines whenever possible and both sides made extensive use of the many rivers for transport. In the US army during WWII (and probably everyone else's ) for every guy toting a rifle there were five guys driving trucks.

A better argument would be Napoleonic armies which sometimes reached great size except Napoleon would then follow the maxim "march divided but fight concentrated" to the greatest extent possible. Even in Europe with a significantly better road network than the ancient world it was simply not possible to move an entire army of 200,000 men along a single axis of advance. For one thing the French tended to live off the land (a polite way to say "steal from the peasants") and the guys going through first would not leave much for the guys at the end of the column. Napoleon's Austrian and Prussian enemies tended to use the depot system with carefully defined lines of supply which Napoleon used against them with great effect. And lastly, let us not forget that when Napoleon took 600,000 men into Russia (slightly more than half of Xerxes' purported army) most of them starved or froze to death.

There are a lot of reasons why ancient statistics are terribly inflated (usually to do with self-glorification of the commander....something which still happens today) but they have to be taken with a grain of salt.

kbs2244 wrote:

Columbus had to say he got to India. He had bet the Queens personal jewels on the trip. Saying he hadn't found what he said he was going to find, would at the least land him in prisson for life. More likely, it would have cost him his head. It was only after the gold started to pour in that he could admit it wasn't what he had said. That amount of gold can buy a lot of forgiveness.

exactly:
'Groping in the hazy conceptions of his geography to make sense of his discoveries, Christopher Columbus, finding himself on Hispaniola, thought that he had already reached Taprobane and made an offering thereof to Ferdinand and Isabella thinking they were worthy of possessing an island of such vast magnitude. Castilian prelate and overzealous friar Jimenezd de Cisneros disparaged Columbus's pretensions that he had been to Taprobane but asserted that he himself would embark upon a voyage in search of the "true Taprobana" if their most Christian majesties would favour him with their permission and provide him with a formidable fleet."

http://www.rootsweb.com/~lkawgw/slm-taprobane.htm

Beagle wrote:That is a good link, I'll keep it. I've made some very good buys, and I've never tried to cheat anybody. It's just that people don't have a clue sometimes as to the value of things. Especially at estate sales.

When Grandma passes on sometimes and kids clean out the attic, they sometimes put old books in boxes and sell them for next to nothing by the box.

I try to get there very early.

here's a few more chinese items found in places they should not have been.

http://www.1421.tv/gallery.asp?Section= ... 0artefacts

In a sailing vessel Marduk? I doubt it.

perhaps you should read his log again then
where he remarks things like

furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route

Tuesday, 11 September. Steered their course west and sailed above twenty leagues

Friday, 14 September. Steered this day and night west twenty leagues

Sunday, 16 September. Sailed day and night, west thirty-nine leagues

Monday, 17 September. Steered west and sailed, day and night, above fifty leagues

Tuesday, 25 September. Very calm this day; afterwards the wind rose. Continued their course west

etc
etc
etc
lying was he ?

here's a few more chinese items found in places they should not have been

I especially liked

Metal object found at Moeraki

A metal object found at Moeraki. Can anybody shed any light on what it's use might have been?

thats about all the evidence I needed to see to reach a conclusion about the scholarliness of this book
its like
"hey anyone we found this piece of metal and we're trying to fit it into our agenda, can anyone help"
no doubt in a couple of months I'll come back and see that piece listed as

Metal button found at Moeraki
a metal button found at Moeraki which came from the tunic of the chinese admiral who first came to america in 1421

clubs_stink wrote:

kbs2244 wrote:

Columbus had to say he got to India. He had bet the Queens personal jewels on the trip. Saying he hadn't found what he said he was going to find, would at the least land him in prisson for life. More likely, it would have cost him his head. It was only after the gold started to pour in that he could admit it wasn't what he had said. That amount of gold can buy a lot of forgiveness.

exactly:

Sorry guys - this is myth. Queen Isabella had already hocked the majority of the crown jewels in order to finance the war against the moors. It was primarily wealthy arisotcrats at the queens urging that finance the trip.