So How Bad Were the Vikings

You have undoubtedly heard the stories of the Norse raiders laying waster to parts of Northern Europe and keeping the inhabitants in fear. New research now shows that stories may in fact just be stories. As reported by National Geographic

Just how bad were the Vikings?

Winroth is among the scholars who believe the Vikings were no more bloodthirsty than other warriors of the period. But they suffered from bad public relations—in part because they attacked a society more literate than their own, and therefore most accounts of them come from their victims. Moreover, because the Vikings were pagan, they played into a Christian story line that cast them as a devilish, malign, outside force.

"There is this general idea of the Vikings as being exciting and other, as something that we can't understand from our point of view—which is simply continuing the story line of the victims in their own time," Winroth says. "One starts to think of them in storybook terms, which is deeply unfair."

In reality, he proposes, "the Vikings were sort of free-market entrepreneurs."

further still...

Rather than being primed for battle by an irrational love of mayhem, Vikings went raiding mainly for pragmatic reasons, Winroth contends—namely, to build personal fortunes and enhance the power of their chieftains. As evidence Winroth enumerates cases in which Viking leaders negotiated for payment, or tried to.

For example, before the Battle of Maldon in England, a Viking messenger landed and cried out to 3,000 or more assembled Saxon soldiers: "It is better for you that you pay off this spear-fight with tribute ... Nor have we any need to kill each other." The English chose to fight, and were defeated. Like anyone else, the Vikings would rather win by negotiation than risk a loss, Winroth says.

This just shows that history we are taught may not be the actuality of events and to always keep an open mind to historical 'facts'.

And Even More Scot History- The Real Braveheart

In the vein of looking at the history of Scotland. I thought we could take a look at the one of most famous, at least by Hollywood standards, thank you Mr Gibson, Scot. Here are two views on Braveheart, William Wallace.

The first showing the world, palaces, etc, of Wallace.



And the second, a channel 4 documentary looking at the true Braveheart.

Before Scotland- The Story of Scotland, Part 2

A continuation of part 1

Before Scotland- The Story of Scotland, Part 1

With impeding vote that may may create one of newest independent nations, I thought a little trip down the history of Scotland was in order.

Uncovered- 7,000 Year Old Stone Age City

Via Haemus.org and more found after the jump

Archaeologists in Croatia have unearthed what they say is the largest Stone Age city ever discovered in the region. The new find stretches for more than 100 thousand square meters, and it is believed to be roughly 7,000 years old.

A research team led by Maja Krznaric Skrivanko and Hrvoje Vulic from Vinkovci Municipal Museum announced this week that they had discovered a previously unknown village that dates back to the fifth or fourth millennium BC. Speaking with JutarnjiList, the team said that the discovery lurked for millennia just a couple of feet below the surface.

“At the beginning,” Vulic said, “we found the remains of tanks, wells, and ceramic items dating back to the Stone Age, and we decided to further investigate.”

The find was made a few kilometers west of Vinkovci, a Croatian city of roughly 35,000 and the largest town in the country. The survey work was necessary to ensure that any future construction work on the site would not damage unknown historical artifacts. The researchers reportedly had no clue that they would find such a massive repository of archaeological treasures before they started the dig.

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Place Your Bets- Whose Is Burried in Large Northern Greece Tomb

Yes, the headlines (mine and the National Geographic piece cited) should be leading you to think that is Alexander the Great. But, the smart money is not betting on that outcome, thinking the Alexander's body lay somewhere in Egypt, and the tomb being excavated is a royal tomb and probably one of Alexander's family members. Still an exciting find.



From NG and more after the jump

After nearly two years of digging at the site (known as the Kasta tumulus after the name of the hill it lies beneath), archaeologists are now exploring its inner chambers.

This past weekend the excavation team, led by Greek archaeologist Katerina Peristeri, announced the discovery of two elegant caryatids—large marble columns sculpted in the shape of women with outstretched arms—that may have been intended to bar intruders from entering the tomb's main room.

"I don't know of anything quite like them," says Philip Freeman, a professor of classics at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

The curly-haired caryatids are just part of the tomb's remarkable furnishings. Guarding the door as sentinels were a pair of carved stone sphinxes, mythological creatures with the body of a lion and the head of a human. And when archaeologists finally entered the antechamber, they discovered faded remnants of frescoes as well as a mosaic floor made of white marble pieces inlaid in a red background.

The finely crafted floor, says Ian Worthington, a classical scholar at the University of Missouri in Columbia and the author of two books on Alexander the Great, "is a clear sign of wealth. The palace of Pella [where Alexander the Great was born] yielded a number of mosaics, and they were all very costly."

A big question now is: Who was interred in the inner chamber? Peristeri and her colleagues have yet to break the seal over the entrance, so archaeologists can only make educated guesses. Most agree, however, that the tumulus is unlikely to hold the remains of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king who defeated the Persian army, invaded Asia and Egypt, and created one of the ancient world's largest empires.

The Gold of the Thracians

The below video shows a part of the historical record that I have heard, read, or otherwise know very little about. I hope you find it as enthralling as I did.

Ancient Masterpieces- Stark White/Brilliant Color

Unfortunately, there is no way I will have any chance to see this exhibit in its original run. Here is to hoping the exhibit goes on tour or that someone takes and shares detailed pictures



The advertising page for it can be found here.

The Mystery of Mine Howe

I had no idea Orkney was such a hot spot for ancient archeology

The Land of the Dead- Stonehendge

Although we will probably never know the full extent of what Stonehenge was used for, what we can say is that the stone structure and the surrounding area appears more like a proverbial 'land of the dead'. More so, it appears that Stonehenge is a part of a far larger ritualistic structure. As reported by the New Scientist.

The landscape around Stonehenge has yielded hidden treasure: 17 previously unknown ritual monuments, a "house of the dead" predating the stone circle, and what appears to be a ceremonial route around Stonehenge itself.

Instead of today's solitary monument, Stonehenge was the focus of "a completely theatrical arrangement," says archaeologist Vincent Gaffney of the University of Birmingham in the UK.

Gaffney and his colleagues have produced a detailed map covering 12 square kilometres around Stonehenge. No excavation was involved. Instead, Gaffney's team spent four years surveying the landscape with magnetometers, radar, electrical resistance measurements and lasers, creating a detailed picture of what lies below the visible landscape. They unveiled the map this week at the British Science Festival in Birmingham.

A hidden world

One of the most striking discoveries was also one of the oldest: a long burial mound dating from before Stonehenge was built between 5000 and 4000 years ago. The mound was built over the remains of a huge, 6000-year-old timber building thought to have been a "house of the dead", used to store bodies that had been ritualistically defleshed and disassembled. The building has a slightly trapezoidal shape, similar to much older buildings on mainland Europe, although those were always in or near settlements.

The survey turned up 17 small ritual monuments, many of them circular, thought to be contemporary with Stonehenge's busiest period. Gaffney suggests they were the equivalents of small "chapels".

(Image: LBI ArchPro, Mario Wallner)

The nearby Durrington Walls "super-henge" holds even more secrets. At almost 500 metres across, it is one of the biggest earthworks of its kind. Gaffney's team has found evidence that early in its history it was flanked by a row of around 60 huge stones or posts up to 3 metres high. Some of them may remain intact beneath the banks of the monument.

The map also shows many linear features, which Gaffney says suggest that the land was divided up at some point, perhaps into fields or proto-estates.

The remainder of the article can be found here. 

The Ancient World of Orkney

Interesting in of itself, but it also makes me wonder if the Orkney ruins were not built on or around other more ancient sites now sunk below sea. Not that I have any evidence to support that idea, but considering all that we have learned about the ruins drowned by the inundation at the end of ice age.

And Jack the Ripper Was.......

Now this story caught my eye. Not only did technological advances seeming help solve a murder, and I say seemingly because the authorities, as of this writing, remain mum, but a murder mystery that has lasted for well over 100 years and caught the curiosity of so many too numerous to count. So who was the Jack Ripper, the excerpt from the BNO New story states.....

‘Jack the Ripper,’ the elusive serial killer who targeted prostitutes in London in the late 19th century, has been identified as a Polish immigrant through DNA evidence which was recovered from a shawl that was found at one of the crime scenes, according to British researchers. Police have not yet commented on the claim.

Russell Edwards, 48, enlisted the help of Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer of molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University, after finding out about a shawl which belonged to Catherine Eddowes, the fourth murder victim, and which was found at the crime scene. He bought it at an auction and handed it over to Louhelainen for analysis.

“In March 2007, I became aware that there was a shawl, purported to belong to Catherine Eddowes at the time, for sale at an auction house near to where I lived. I did some research into the provenance of the shawl and from there I went and bought it,” Edwards explained. “The very first day, I allowed this shawl to be tested.”

The shawl was next to Eddowes’ body when she was found in Mitre Square in London by policeman Edward Watkins on September 30, 1888. Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, who accompanied Eddowes’ body to the morgue, asked his supervisor if he could take the shawl because of its size and because his wife was a seamstress. It was then passed down the family over the years without ever being washed.

When Louhelainen and his assistants examined the shawl, they discovered multiple stains which originated from the brutal murder of Eddowes. “We were told that we have blood spatter in the form of slashing, possible semen stains, possible blood stains, possible fecal matter, all of which the shawl is covered in,” Edwards said. “It was extremely exciting.”

You can find the remainder of the story here.

The Mystery of the Mayan Red Queen

Who was she? Why was she adorned while other Mayan women were not?

First Artic Peoples Not the Inuit

I saw this rather intriguing article a few days ago, an excerpt which appears below.

Migration pulses into the Americas

In the archaeological literature, distinctions are drawn between the different cultural units in the Arctic in the period up to the rise of the Thule culture, which replaced all previous Arctic cultures and is the source of today’s Inuit in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. The earlier cultures included the Saqqaq or Pre-Dorset and Dorset, comprising the Palaeo tradition, with the Dorset being further divided into three phases. All of these had distinctive cultural, lifestyle and subsistence traits as seen in the archaeological record. There were also several periods during which the Arctic was devoid of human settlement. These facts have further raised questions regarding the possibility of several waves of migration from Siberia to Alaska, or perhaps Native Americans migrating north during the first 4,000 years of the Arctic being inhabited.

“Our study shows that, genetically, all of the different Palaeo-population cultures belonged to the same group of people. On the other hand, they are not closely related to the Thule culture, and we see no indication of assimilation between the two groups. We have also ascertained that the Palaeo-population were not descendants of the Native Americans. The genetics reveals that there must have been at least three separate pulses of migration from Siberia into the Americas and the Arctic. First came the ancestors of today’s Native Americans, then came the Palaeo-population, and finally the ancestors of today’s Inuit,” says Eske Willerslev.

Inuit family circa 1917. Image: Wikimedia Commons

The genetic studies confirm a growing body of knowledge that shows that migrations of early humans was far more complex than was otherwise considered.

Voodoo- Spirits of Two Faces

A rather detailed look at the history of voodoo.

Ancient Greek Cities That No Longer Exist

I have a certain ambivalence when it comes to lists, as they generally speak more to those who compile the list more so than anything else. That said, what analysis does not show a certain level of bias. More so, many of the cities mentioned in the video below show how influential and wide-spread the Greek culture was. Many of the ruined cities mentioned are quite surprising.