Can You House Train a Wormhole?

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Wormholes are theoretical.  Physicists describe wormholes as shortcuts in spacetime, a virtual tunnel that connects today to some point in the past or future.

Wormholes are deeply ingrained in popular culture (think Stargate SGI and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and even a new TV series on the Discovery Channel starring Morgan Freeman. Stephen Hawking loves wormholes.

Wormholes can be scary, like that visual sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The question is, can they be house trained? That is, can a wormhole be trained to work for you? If it won't listen to your suggestions, can you at least trust it before you jump down the galactic-firehose- quantum-water-slide?

That is the essential question in Gettysburg Passage, my novel, the first of a trilogy.

This modern adventure story involves a mysterious ancient artifact, people living today around Washington, D.C., some famous dead Americans, a homeless shelter, a historic American battlefield named Gettysburg and mildly philosophical questions relating to the current lust for a materialist at-all-costs consumption culture, an open yearning for contemporary immortality and the optimal speeds for street-legal muscle cars.

At about 90,000 words it is a fast read and available now for $2.99 at Amazon.com.

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7 Signs Your Boyfriend Is an Alien

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This 7 tips are not gender specific and may easily apply to boyfriend or girlfriend ;-)

7.  He takes the bear's side of every argument.
6.  She can't explain that mysterious artifact hidden in the drawer next to the porn stash.
5.  Your soul mate has a weakness for weird weapons and can hit an archery target at 200 yards.
4.  She's not worried about money and suggests wild berries are suitable winter provender.
3.  He's on the run, perhaps stalked by a large, shadowy figure with hairy arms who may have wandered away from the Steelers practice squad.
2.  She's not alarmed when people dead for 100 years drop by the house for an urgent chat.
1. ...and here's the smoking gun: He thinks Bon Jovi is a French resaurant in Georgetown.

....many of these issues surface in my action and adventure, history, philosophy and a touch of fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, on sale from Amazon at $2.99....enjoy!!

tags: slightly eccentric writer living in the washington suburbs

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Gettysburg, the Trojan War and Modern Archaeology

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One of the common threads of my opening action and adventure novel, Gettysburg Passage, and the books that follow, is that commonly held beliefs about our history evolved, and how we got to this spot in the modern world, are too simplistic. My thesis is that civilizations matured earlier than suspected and that we have a lot to learn as we continue to investigate ancient settlement sites and records.

A good example of how modern science is proving me correct is the latest news out of Troy. German archaeologists now find that the area believed to be Troy has been settled at least since the Bronze Age, stretching back more than 3,000 years. The period roughly aligned with when the Trojan War would have occurred matches a sophisticated complex of settlements and defenses that existed on the spot believed to be Troy.

Here is the link that tells more: http://heritage-key.com/blogs/ann/project-troia-bronze-age-troy-just-keeps-growing

I won't do a spoiler but there is a link between the characters in my novel and the migrations of ancient people that would settle the lands through Asia Minor into the ancient Middle East and North Africa. These ancient migrations brought people to the area where Troy was founded. A great battle was fought and a legend and literature born.

Some prominent people living in the American south about 100 years ago considered their heritage (the losing side of the American Civil War) to be a lost cause, much like poor Troy facing the overwhelming invading forces of King Agamemnon. Many threads.....in any case, my novel mostly takes place in the present day but many of the issues discussed above come into play as the central character, Rick Reynolds, attempts to understand why an ancient artifact appears to be drawing him to fateful cave, a passage in the mountains near a battlefield in Gettsyburg.

For more information on Gettysburg Passage, go to Amazon.com.

tags: Troy, Rome, Egypt, Sumer

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What if Gen. Custer Wrote You a Traffic Citation?

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One of the ongoing challenges of writing a novel is making it entertaining while at the same time keeping it real. Consumers are more than willing to suspend disbelief if the entertainment value and fit with the plot outweighs a hurdle of believability. Gettysburg Passage, my novel available at Amazon.com, uses elements of fantasy, fast action & adventure, history, and a touch of science fiction to keep the plot moving forward.

Fairly early in the novel, several prominent figures out of American history make brief appearances in the present. "Guest" appearances are made by George Custer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and John Reynolds.

Of course, George Custer is the famous general and later Indian fighter. What readers probably don't know is that he got his early war fighting experience in northern Virginia and in particular in Washington suburbs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is a world famous American Supreme Court Justice. But as a young man he was wounded in one of the very first battles of the Civil War, Balls Bluff, again in the Washington suburbs.  John Reynolds is famous as one of the most admired Federal Civil War generals. He was very active in and around Washington.

In my novel, all of the actions of these famous historical figures fit closely into the plot, based on actions in their lives, helping to move the book relentlessly forward. Like I said, make it entertaining while keeping it as "real" as possible ;-)

Check out Gettysburg Passage on Amazon.com.

tags: ancient civilizations, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indo-European

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Infinitely Burning Caves, Time Shifts and a Novel

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Man has used coal for warmth and metalworking for thousands of years. Primitive coal mines
and pits were some of the earlier forms of metal mining. With exposed coal came mine fires. Fires are usually caused by careless trash burning, lightning or forest and brush fires. All over the globe, there are thousands of out-of-control coal mine fires burning right now. There is a well known mine fire in Pennsylvania that continuously burns and even destroyed a town.

This mine was an inspiration for Gettysburg Passage, a new novel available from Amazon. Gettysburg Passage is not about the Civil War, but about a modern "rip in the veil of time" that exists in a burning coal mine in the mountains near the Gettysburg battlefield. Because this abandoned mine contains a mysterious shaft that is in fact a time portal, some unintended time shifts impact characters in the book. How this time portal affects people and where it actually leads is one of the great mysteries that surfaces in Book 1 and that is a central component of Book 2.

The burning passage presents a problem and an opportunity to the main character, Rick Reynolds. Rick may have already experienced the portal once and, if so, doesn't want to do it again. He is quite happy living a life with a good job, friends and modern conveniences. But destiny, fate, or a higher power, has other plans for Rick and his friends.

No matter how they try to avoid it, the burning mine has a pull on the key characters in Gettysburg Passage. Despite living modern lives, it lures them north from the Washington area towards the area of the historic battle, towards a burning mine and what lies beyond.

To read Gettysburg Passage, go to Amazon.com and look up the book. It can be read on Kindle or as a Kindle app on computers, iPads and smart phones. What are you waiting for?

Tags: ancient civilizations, time travel, Ur, Indo-European, Greece, Rome, Egypt

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1863 Around the World and Just Outside Your Door

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1863.

President Lincoln freed African American slaves. King George assumed the throne in Greece. Thomas Crapper invented a new toilet in England. Colombia was formed. Cambodia became a French Protectorate. The Red Cross was organized in Geneva. Rugby was invented. Coastal Holland experienced devastating floods. In America, it was a period of constant war. North versus South. Federal versus Native American.

No matter where you live in the world, how would you react if a little bit of 1863 suddenly visited you one day? Maybe it would be something you spotted just as dusk was settling in. Or maybe it would arrive with a knock at your front door. Or perhaps you were lost and directions given pointed to something from 1863. Perhaps the experience would be fleeting, a few moments at most.

Would you tell someone? Or would you ignore it and hope it wouldn't be repeated? These are questions that characters in Gettysburg Passage face. They are modern men and women, living today,  just like you. Suddenly their world changes just a little bit. What should they do? What would you do? What if your decision could change the fate of the world. Would you act? Even if you faced great danger?

To learn more, go to Amazon.com and look up Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan. Just $2.99 by download to your Kindle, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android smart phone. It's easy. Do it!

Tags: ancient civilizations, Sumer, Babylon, Indo-European, Greece, Hittites

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Does Character Define Destiny?

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In my action and adventure book, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, the main character struggles with a challenge that some might call his destiny. The action in this story takes place today and involves successful young professionals living in the Washington area in the U.S. These young people work hard and play hard and question whether they really have time for an adventure that might change their lives.

The main character, Rick Reynolds, is actually called upon to risk his life for something he is not sure is worth it -- a recently discovered sacred object from an ancient civilization. He is called upon to act, to preserve this ancient symbol -- and he is unsure if he should get involved. His friends have lots of opinions but at crunch time, at least early in the story, they aren't much help.  This quandry calls to mind this quote on destiny:

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny"

For Rick, his character is clearly his destiny in this novel. If you would like to learn more, look up Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan under the book section of Amazon. com.  Readers have posted some amazing reviews.

Key terms: archaeology; lost civilizations; Crete; Egypt; Mesopotamia

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Emerson said a hero is persistent

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Much of this blog has fun with archaeology and the discovery of evidence of ancient culture and civilizations, the evolution of language, the historical migration of peoples, and the emergence of spirituality, complex settlements, cities and human organizations, all the elements that make up the raw material for a meaty, three-part series of fictional action & adventure stories! Many of my interests can be boiled down to "how did we all land right here right now?"

Those are all macro issues and a potential reader might rightly say, those topics are too big to wrap my head around and besides, who cares? So in my book I bring it all down to an individual and personal level, and address issues like, what is heroism? In my book, Gettysburg Passage from Amazon, we follow an everyday modern person, Rick Reynolds, who as the story evolves is asked to make choices that might be considered heroic. And he is not the only one. Several of his friends, including an emergency room nurse, and two high tech sales people -- even a priest and a college anthropology professor -- all are asked at different times to take on very hard, thankless tasks.

In our society today we spend a lot of our time avoiding these situations. It is not that we are selfish and uncaring. More likely I think it is that we are all so busy. But no matter how we try to avoid it, at certain points in our lives we are all asked to take on hard, thankless jobs. It could be the care of a loved one or neighbor, the organization of a community activity, the fixing of a problem at work where you will probably not receive appropriate credit. In my experience most of the time people do these things and they don't go looking for glory. They just get it done.

As Emerson predicted, people are persistent in their everyday heroic acts. An admirable thing.

In Gettysburg Passage, Rick Reynolds is pushed, pushed, pushed by forces outside of himself. Improbable, impossible things are glimpsed in the hazy, late evening summer darkness. A stranger rides up on a horse to his bedroom window just before dawn. He is somewhat familiar with the forces behind these actions but he doesn't understand them fully. He is reluctant to face up to what might be going on. Why should he? For the first time in his life he is becoming a professional success. He is making good money. Rick owns a mountain cabin. He enjoys outdoor activities and the company of friends. Why should he threaten this picture by getting involved in something that will likely rip him away from his comfort zone?

Does he take on the responsibilities of becoming a hero? And what of his friends? What choices do they make? Would you put your life at risk to accomplish a great task? Would you take it on with the awareness that no one would ever know what you did?

We read of heroes in the epics from ancient Greece, Egypt, Gilgamesh in Sumer, Rome, in the old Norse stories. But heroes are actually created every day right here around us. And we never learn about most of them.  If you would like to see how Rick and his friends do with the choices they need to make, please go to Amazon.com and look up Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan. To read it you need a Kindle or an app for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android. The apps can be easily and effortlessly downloaded right from the book listing and the whole process only takes a few seconds. I also look forward to hearing from you on Twitter. You can find me @JohnJ_Callahan.

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From Uruk, Athens and Rome, to Washington and the Dark Ages Again?

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If you -- yes, you browsing the internet right now! -- were picked out of the crowd to drop what you were doing to "save" an ancient people, at the probable cost of your modern existence, would you consider it? There's no time to say goodbye because what if that ancient society was absolutely dependent right now -- life or death -- on you making an affirmative choice? Now double down....What if today's modern society would cease to exist unless you say yes?

No? Then poof!! In the blink of an eye existence suddenly is undone, changed, rearranged, cities gone without a trace. Innovations left on the workbench or forgotten in the clouded minds of inventors. Poetry never written, canvases left blank, rivers never spanned, endless fields once again thick with swaying grain in a strong afternoon wind, never seeing the passing ancient road to a distant capital.

How can this be? This is the stark choice facing a character, Rick Reynolds, in the new novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon.com. As you might imagine, Rick basically doesn't want to help! Who would? He is reasonably successful, makes a good living, has a circle of good friends, enjoys getting outdoors on weekends and holidays. Like most young, middle class people living in the early 21st century from Mumbai to Shanghai to Denver to Frankfurt, Rick enjoys the fruits of modern existence: low-cost health care, decent pay, plentiful food and abundant recreational opportunities.

But Rick has a choice to make. He is needed. What will he do?

Who needs the help anyway? Is it the inhabitants of the proto city of Eridu in the Fertile Crescent? Or perhaps peasants groaning under the lash of Eannatum of Lagash, the first ruler in history known to have dominated his neighbors in a reign of terror? How about the Hattians, under pressure from the encroaching Indo-European Hittite tribes advancing from the East?

Should you somehow make it back there, five, ten, fifteen thousand years ago, how will you defend this ancient proto civilization? Would you raid an armory? Could you learn the long bow and judge the right size for your arms? How about the sword? If given the choice, could you judge a blade's worth, or the fit of proper armor? Would you choose the spear or the battle ax? The hammer or the javelin?

Or would your principal weapon be your brain, your experience, your heart?

There are a lot of questions raised in this blog and only some of the them are addressed in Book One, Gettysburg Passage. But questions are asked and decisions are made. To learn more, go to Amazon.com and download the novel for your Kindle, or download the free Kindle app for your iPad, iPhone, Android phone, PC or Mac. My readers are enjoying the book using all of these readers. You can download the book in less than 60 seconds. Why not do it now? Action, adventure and fantasy awaits!

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Washington, Gettysburg, the Black Sea and the Pontic-Caspian Steppe

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Concerning my novel Gettysburg Passage, readers have told me that they quickly begin to get a feeling that the action-adventure story operates on several levels. On the easiest level, people living today around Washington, D.C., in the Northeast and in Paris, get caught up in what is to be done with a discovered historical artifact that my be immeasurably valuable. Obviously one could just bundle it up and go drop it off at the Smithsonian and be done with it. But we are talking adventure here with a dash of fantasy, and that option isn't desirable. So dealing with the artifact becomes a central driver in the plot.

But there are clues sprinkled liberally throughout that other forces are in play. In that spirit, I would like to briefly highlight an area of the world remote from the heavily forested eastern Seaboard of the U.S. I will then tie this discussion back to the completed first novel and other volumes to follow.

The Pontic-Caspian Steppe is a vast grasslands that is actually part of the great Eurasian Steppe. It stretches from Hungary in Europe around the Black Sea and Caspian Sea all the way to Mongolia. Steppes in general have cold winters and hot summers, are mostly flat, support trees only along streams and rivers and are dominated by plentiful grasses. The Pontic-Caspian Steppe resides in Asia closest to Europe and it here that researchers believe that humans used their inate intelligence to develop complex social organizations.

It is on this vast steppe that the seeds of ancient civilizations took root. Here tribesmen and women first cast up their gazes to the great sky God with chanted names strikingly like Deus and Zeus. The tribes first tamed horses (ekwos,equus/equestrian) and trained them for warfare, crafted the wheel for carts and chariots, made weapons like spears, swords, knives, bows and hammers. Livestock was gathered and grazed to form tribal and family wealth. Cereal grain seeds were collected for primitive farming. Most importantly, many modern languages used throughout the West and in India were first formed here. The language is called Proto-Indo-European. Many, many things valuable to us now were first conceived of on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

It is here on this vast steppe that tribes organized concepts of uplifting spirituality and social organization, and violent theories for vast warfare and plunder campaigns. And somehow, influences stretch back and bounce forth, from the spicy bog fires in camps along the Caspian Sea where storytellers chant to rapt listeners heroic poetry somehow influencing and being influenced by those frequenting the affluent and trendy pubs and restaurants of the western suburbs of modern Washington, D.C.

The journey begins in the novel Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon and instantly downloadable to your Kindle or as a Kindle app on your iPad, iPhone, Android phone, Mac or PC. Please buy it, read it and review it today!

Theban Desert Road Survey

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If you follow this blog you understand that nearly every week new evidence surfaces that sheds light on newly discovered lost cities, frontier towns and important remnants of ancient civilizations. The more we look using sophisticated archaelogical tools, the more we find. While modern scholarship is wonderful, perspectives on the past constantly evolve and the stories told in universities, books and in the media are at best a partial view of what really happened -- the million friendships, treaties, visions, dramas, insights, breakthroughs, discoveries, encounters, battles and migrations that led to several billion of us somehow arriving and living in a modern 21st Century world.

The latest example of understanding the past in a new way can be found in The New York Times on September 6, 2010, in an article by John Noble Wilford. The story was also widely reported on many other media outlets. The article said that the Egyptian Government's Supreme Council of Antiquities had announced the discovery of the oldest significant military-administrative city yet found deep in the desert interior. The settlement was located at a caravan crossroads near the Kharga Oasis. The settlement is believed to be about 3,500 years old and located about 100 miles west of Luxor, site of the ancient temple complexes at Thebes.

Thebes, of course, was world famous in antiquity and extolled by Homer in The Iliad: "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes."

In my new book, Gettysburg Passage, people living today are given an accidental glimpse of a forgotten world where people built a significant proto civilization and struggled to keep it alive. As you read the story, you begin to wonder what some of the characters might do today to help that ancient civilization survive. Can we influence the past? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? One way to find out is to go to Amazon.com and download the action-adventure novel onto your Kindle, PC, Mac, iOS iPad or iPhone, or your Android platform.

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Spectacular advanced ancient civilization

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A central thread of this blog is that there are a million spectacular, jaw-dropping discoveries that are yet to be made about our very distant past. Some of these discoveries are derivative, like the remnants of a lost Roman city uncovered in the inner reaches of deeply forested, boggy Wales countryside or evidence of an Odysseus-related castle on the wind-swept Isle of Ithaca.

Other finds are totally new. In today's Washington Post, a front-page story describes how previous archaeological dogma is being thrown out the window as scientists realize the Amazon rain forest was home to sophisticated ancient civilizations that sustained relatively large towns and supported effective large-scale agriculture.

The novel Gettysburg Passage, available from amazon.com (the online store, not the rain forest) also throws dogma out the window. The novel hints at an advanced, ancient civilization that existed prior to those (Sumerians, Hittites, Egyptians, etc.) traditionally studied today. The older civilization was in fact the trailblazer and innovator for key technological and religious concepts currently held dear. But the novel's proto civilization faced a grave danger to its very existence. Remarkably, a key to its survival is found today. Can people and decisions made today have an effect on the distant past?  Gettysburg Passage attempts to answer this question in a modern action adventure novel.

What the heck. The only thing at risk is the history of Western Civilization and our very existence. Available as a $5.99 download for Kindle, or as a Kindle app on smartphones, iOS, Mac or PC.

To learn even more, read more of this blog or go to YouTube and type in Gettysburg Passage.

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The First People

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Have you ever thought about how the human race got its act together, how the first people emerged? You know, people who cared about their appearance, maybe with a bit of jewelry or makeup, who might laugh at a joke or sway to the pleasing rhythm of a song? People that you could relate with and maybe laugh together at a Geico commerical. It's a given that from a physical and brain development point of view, humans in the form of modern homo sapiens have been ready for prime time for about 200,000 years.

But from 200,000 BCE to say, 15,000 or 10,000 B.C., there is the big gap of prehistory where man presumably developed the ability to communicate in familiar and complex ways. Did it happen all at once about 50,000 years ago or evolve over time? Presumably, a certain advanced language ability allowed the articulation of  abstract thought and perhaps helped formulate the first manifestations of spirituality and religion as seen in cave paintings and burial rituals. Interestingly, crude funeral rituals may go back at least 60,000 to 70,000 years.

Along the way, social activities blossomed, such as communal feasting, gaming, story telling, gossiping, flirting and joking and ultimately fishing and farming and bitching about the weather.  Once folks had put the key cultural concepts together in small communities, they were ready for the next step, building a civilization. It is in these earliest efforts, where communities continued to grow and evolve that we see the emergence of the earliest towns in the Cradle of Civilization from Sumer to Early Dynastic Egypt. Some communities stood out and were able to leave a record and set an example that has be documented and  survived down to our present age.

But some group of people, some community, did it first. Before the history writers were around. They didn't necessarily leave records. Somehow, at least for now, evidence of them has been lost. Fortunately, for those of us today curious about the past, we have Gettysburg Passage, an Amazon book, by John Callahan.  The key characters of Gettysburg Passage are modern, normal people, alive today. But somewhat against their wishes, people in the book are given the responsibility to influence the formation of a critical-mass community back in the most ancient times. Before Memphis in ancient Egypt, before Jericho, before Eridu in Sumer. Members of this ancient, forgotten community are oppressed, scattered and disheartened. Their lands have been overwhelmed, defenses defeated and homes occupied. But no matter how dire their plight, they must follow divine prophecy. They have the job of carrying the precious seeds of a young civilization to a land where they can be planted, sprout and flourish. Our current existence depends on it.

These concepts are explored in  Books I, II and III of the Gettysburg Passage series. The first book is available today for $5.99. Why not visit Amazon today?

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Ancient Civilizations Under Our Feet

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As I was bike riding a couple of days ago I passed a woods and, despite my downhill speed, my eyes were drawn deep into the trees lit in pleasing patterns by late afternoon sunlight. As I often do during such moments, I imagined what had occurred in that spot over the years: farming, hunting, fishing, burial grounds perhaps, military skirmishes involving troops from the Civil and Revolutionary wars, interactions between native peoples and settlers, and stretching back tens of thousands of years, maybe activities from lost societies that we have no conception of yet.

As an avid reader of history, conventional wisdom tells us that the first glimmers of organized society are only 12,000 years old or so, with basic settlements, social hierarchy, crude agriculture and the domestication of animals emerging very slowly as the world thawed and the glaciers retreated. This framework works for my book series but I would still be thrilled if evidence appeared of relatively advanced societies -- along the lines of Cretan or Minoan civilization -- were found to exist 20,000 or even 40,000 years ago. Wouldn't that make for some interesting plot lines?

News out of the U.K. this weekend is that the recent dry weather there has caused literally thousands of ancient settlement sites, from Roman ruins to settelments thousands of years earlier, to suddenly become evident because of variations in crop coloring. Soil over some ancient settlement structures, like ditches or holding ponds, may hold moisture somewhat more efficiently and produce a deeper green. An old wall, on the other hand, might rob surface crops of moisure in specific patterns, giving another clue. From the air, faint patterns of old forts, walls, ditches and settlements fairly jump out to an observer or a camera, the English Heritage organization reports.

The more experts look, the more patterns of human exploration and settlement are found. So, to my mind and imagination, rarely is a woods just a woods. If you look and listen closely, the buzz of prior human activity becomes almost a roar. If you'd like to explore how several people from the Washington area reluctantly get involved in often harrowing activities strongly influenced by an obscure ancient civilization, please check out the book Gettysburg Passage now available on amazon.com.

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• Dry early summer turns 2010 into a vintage year for archaeology (guardian.co.uk)

Launch of Gettysburg Passage Novel from Amazon Featured in Leading Media

Just a quick note that Gettysburg Passage, a contemporary action adventure novel, was launched Wednesday with a national announcement carried by PR Newswire that was picked up by AOL, Yahoo, CNBC, Reuters, Dow Jones and more than 200 other leading wires and media portals. While I would like to think the media was excited about the story, realistically what was newsworthy to them was the fact that Gettysburg Passage is one of the first fiction e-books published to be optimized for e-reader platforms like Kindle, iPad and Kindle apps on PC, Mac and smartphones. The novel has video links, hypertext and encourages the reader to explore issues developed in the narrative. Some experts, like Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, think the reader should have an uninterrupted immersion in the fiction experience. That is not how I see people around me reading today, however. They comment, the talk back, they share, the Tweet. One of my daughters can be quiet for hours as she reads, but she is also capable of providing nearly a running commentary, too. So visit Amazon.com, read a review of the book, perhaps watch one of my videos on YouTube (keywords: Gettysburg Passage) and then consider downloading the novel to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android phone, or download the Amazon Kindle reader application for your PC or Mac. It takes just a moment and you can be reading within 5 minutes. I promise!

Palace of Odysseus Discovered in Ithaca

Image via Wikipedia

Odysseus was the mythical king of Ithaca from roughly the Eighth Century B.C. and a central player in both the Illiad and the Odyssey. Literary experts have long taught that he never existed but was simply a fictional superhero in the Greek national epics. Isn't it surprising then, as archaeologists dig ever deeper into the past, that a royal palace has been excavated on the island of Ithaca, in the Ionian Sea, just where Homer said it would be and the remains date to....the Eighth Century B.C. There is a facinating story on all this just published in the Telegraph in the U.K. by Nick Squires. (Why do all of my best links come from the U.K.?). The link follows below. As I remind my readers, the world as we know it was built from and is supported by past civilizations. Easily 95% of the knowledge related to ancient civilizations has been lost. But we can use information fragments, such as the work being done by the archaeologists from the University of Ioannina, to expand our imaginations and dream of what came before us. In my new book from Amazon.com, Gettysburg Passage, people find an artifact from a past civilization, as luck would have it, under some bushes not far from the White House. It is an ancient royal mace, or perhaps a cheesy copy. But the artifact reveals a world they had no idea was possible and tests their smug assumptions about what matters. They are quickly confronted with a need to take action -- or possibly perish. Why not download the book and find out what happens?

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• Greeks 'discover Odysseus' palace in Ithaca, proving Homer's hero was real' (telegraph.co.uk)

Gettysburg Passage "Video Trailers" Now Available on YouTube

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Gettysburg Passage, a new action-thriller novel available this week from Amazon, is the subject of two brief video trailers on YouTube. Just enter the title as keywords and Part 1 and Part 2 should pop up. Production values are definitely internet quality but I hope you enjoy the brief book promos. We shot at an antebellum farmhouse and at a battlefield site in Fairfax County, VA, just outside the Washington D.C. beltway. This area is intensely suburban today but some special spots are not much changed from 150, 200 years ago. Please let me know what you think!

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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• Roman fortress Caerleon gives up new treasures to archaeology students (guardian.co.uk)
• Major find at Roman fortress site (bbc.co.uk)
• Latest Arthurian Round Table with a Roman Connection? (rogueclassicism.com)
• Top 10 clues to the real King Arthur (independent.co.uk)
• King Arthur: the 'facts' about the legendary figure (telegraph.co.uk)

Archaeologists Discover Oldest House in Britain

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The latest news from the U.K. is that university archaeologists from the University of York and Manchester University have uncovered remains of the oldest home-like structure ever discovered, dating back at least 11,000 years to the Stone Age. In an article in The Independent by David Keys, the paper's archaeology correspondent (isn't that cool?), researchers said the dwelling was found in North Yorkshire near Scarborough. The dwelling could be up to 1,000 years older than previously discovered Stone Age buildings. Here is a link to the article:

http://bit.ly/cn3e1p

My point is that the more archaeologists explore, the more they find and the earlier evidence of civilization stretches back into the deep past. Who knows if evidence of surprisingly advanced civilizations may be found with the continued progress in detection technologies (more on this tomorrow in my discussion of huge new Roman archaeological finds detected using the latest equipment). No, I am not an Atlantis nut, these issues are tied into the plot of my new novel, Gettysburg Passage, available soon from Amazon.

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• Archaeologists unearth Britain's oldest house (channel4.com)
• Stone Age remains are Britain's earliest house (eurekalert.org)
• Archaeologists discover Britain's oldest home (independent.co.uk)
• Archaeologists dig 'oldest house' (bbc.co.uk)
• Archeologists: Stone Age Dwelling Britain's Oldest Surviving House (cbsnews.com)
• Oldest house in Britain discovered to be 11,500 years old (telegraph.co.uk)

John the Baptist and the Power of Ancient Pilgrimage

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Media in Eastern Europe are agog with the announcement in early August that remains believed to be of John the Baptist have been dug up on ancient St. Ivan (John) Island, off the Black Sea coast of Sozopol, Bulgaria.

Inhabitants of the island began following Christianity around 300 A.D. and a monastery was built there over the ruins of an ancient Roman temple. Early buildings included the Basilica of the Mother of God. Over the centuries the church and surrounding monastery were abandoned and reoccupied. The Monastery of John the Forerunner and the Baptist was an important center of Christianity. Archaeological research has occurred sporadically since the 1980s and was recently funded by the Norwegian government. A royal residence, a library, part of the fortified wall with the gate and several monastic cells have been unearthed.  The relics, which include part of an arm bone, a skull bone, and a tooth, were found in a sealed marble reliquary in the St. John the Forerunner Church in July by the team of archaeologists led by Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov.  A Greek inscription was found quoting a man named Thomas, “God’s servant brought a particle of St. John on the 24th,” a traditional feast day for the Baptizer.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=118869
http://bit.ly/dBv7sm

Thousands of pilgrims are streaming to the site from Russia and Europe. How did the relics get to the Black Sea? Why do pilgrims feel the need to visit? What is the significance of being in the presence of something possibly sacred? These and other issues are relevant to the find on this ancient Black Sea island and also relevant to my soon-to-be-published novel, Gettysburg Passage. Look for it soon!

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• John the Baptist in Bulgaria? (beliefnet.com)
• St John the Baptist's bones 'found in Bulgarian monastery' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Remains of St John the Baptist 'found' (bbc.co.uk)