King Arthur and the Lost Roman City of Caerleon, Wales

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

In an earlier blog, I mentioned how improved archaeological detection technologies are leading to astounding new finds in archaeology, ancient civilizations, history, climatology, etc. Recent news from Wales proves this fact.

The South Wales Argus and other U.K. media are reporting on researchers from Cardiff University who, using geophysical mapping tools, have found the remains of a large walled city that no historians knew existed in an area that was thought to be mostly unoccupied.

Think about that. A very large military settlement of immense importance to Rome, completely lost to history without a trace, then thousands of years later, discovered. It was not some obscure outpost garrisoned by second stringers. There were only 30 Roman legions across the whole empire at the point in history and the Caerleon "lost city" was the base of one of them.

The sprawling complex of Roman ruins looks to have possibly included warehouses, temples, markets, town halls, etc.

Tours of the excavation sites will run Tuesday to Sunday at 11am and 2.30pm between now and September 17, or can be viewed online at www.britarch.ac.uk/caf

Archaeologists from Cardiff University, and staff and students of University College, London, will begin a six-week dig to help determine how far below the ground the remains are hidden.

Here is the link to the article in The Argus:

http://bit.ly/bMvpCn


More things to think about....does Caerleon, Wales ring a bell? It is believed to be the home of King Arthur's Camelot. Were the legends of The Knights of the Round Table, Uther Pendragon, Merlin,
Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Tintagel, the final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon, were these people and events somehow fueled by the Roman presence in Caerleon? Or do the stories stretch further back into the ever shifting and also obscure and mysterious Anglo-Celtic mists?

In my novel, Gettysburg Passage, available soon from Amazon, a group of friends living in and around Washington, D.C. are reluctantly pulled into shocking events powered by just such a "lost" city as Caerleon, once completely lost to modern histories but nevertheless still powerful and reaching out, tugging, pulling and pushing people and events today...

Watch for the news release announcing book availability very soon.....

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The Mysterious Ancient Civilization You've Never Heard Of

Image via Wikipedia

The Voice of America recently posted a brief yet interesting update on Mohenjodaro (also spelled Moenjodaro, Mohenjo-Daro), the mysterious, ancient Indus Valley civilization that existed roughly parallel to Egypt and Mesopotamia. Mohenjodaro, the city, is a UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site.

But because of its location in dirt poor, arid southern Pakistan northeast of Karachi, the remains of this Indus Valley civilization faces a Rodney Dangerfield reality. The country experiences widespread poverty, is administratively mismanaged, confronts an enervating insurgency and the culture places little value on the past that is not related to Islam.

As the article points out, this is a recipe for neglect. Less than 10% of Moenjodaro and its sister city of Harappa have been excavated. Almost nothing is known of this mysterious civilization except that at its peak it may have contained the most modern capital city and administrative in the world, with advanced housing for 30,000 to 40,000 residents, a perfectly engineered street grid, sophisticated water distribution and waste-water removal, public pools, a vast granary to collect the harvest from the surrounding agricultural areas.

Little art work has of yet surfaced from this mysterious civilization that stretched from northern India to Iran. Intriguingly, the artifact above, often called The Dancing Girl, was found there and is considered by art experts to be one of the most sophisticated and evocative sculptures ever made (the artifact that speaks to the ages") . It depicts a young woman of perhaps 15 caught in the moment of song and dance.

With the global economy weak and archaeological funds short, what other undiscovered evidence of surprisingly advanced and evocative past civilizations exist for us to find under the baked dirt and sands of our world?

My new novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, deals with issues of unknown yet hard-to-supress civilizations and how they can messily erupt in our midst today. When they show up, they impact ordinary people attempting to go about their lives as they are pulled and tugged reluctantly into events that often seem well above their experience to handle. For a review of the book, check out one of my earlier posts or contact me directly via email or Twitter. As of this writing, the publication date is anticipated to be in the first week of August, 2010.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Here is the Voice of America link:

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Mystery-Shrouds-Ancient-Civilization-in-Pakistan--98967839.html

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The Origin of Western Civilization

I think the point of a news story linked to below is that as archaeologists continue to excavate, the origins of Western civilization continues to be pushed back and back into the murky, shadowy past. According to article, much of our civilization did not originate in the "cradle of civilization" in the Fertile Crescent around Babylon, but instead is the result from cultural and technological advances which originated east of modern day Turkey, in Armenia.

Of course, one of the important plot points in my new ebook from Amazon, Gettysburg Passage, is that our civilization was conceived far earlier than even this, from an area to the west where EurAsia comes together as the last Ice Age slowly recedes...

Here is the link details:

Mesopotamia’s civilization originated in Armenia
Published July 2, 2010 by
GMTPanARMENIAN.Net

The article states that excavations at Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) in Turkey confirm that Armenia is the innovation source for metallurgy, wine-making and horse breeding.
In the article, Mitchell S. Rothman, a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and founder of the Anthropology Department at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, is quoted as claiming that Mesopotamian culture borrowed very heavily from the earlier Shengavit culture.