Archaeological discoveries, breakthroughs and theories

[petee]

Israel’s Oldest Chinese Inscription Found on Mt. Zion

With the excavation team typically uncovering material dating from the Second Temple through Byzantine periods, a Ming Dynasty bowl was not what they expected.

www.biblicalarchaeology.org

Excavators with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology made an unexpected discovery while excavating on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion: a small porcelain bowl fragment painted with a short Mandarin Chinese inscription.

JimW

 

[JimW]

Israel’s Oldest Chinese Inscription Found on Mt. Zion

With the excavation team typically uncovering material dating from the Second Temple through Byzantine periods, a Ming Dynasty bowl was not what they expected.

www.biblicalarchaeology.org

Excavators with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology made an unexpected discovery while excavating on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion: a small porcelain bowl fragment painted with a short Mandarin Chinese inscription.

JimW

Trade along those routes since Roman times.
Best one I think was probably the Nestorian monk Rabban Bar Sauma, came on pilgrimage from Yuan China hoping to reach Jerusalem but never made it; he did get to Rome to meet the pope though, and later the kings of England and France. His student and travelling companion Markos ended up as the patriarch in Baghdad.

 

[JimW]

Paper suggesting the burial at Sutton Hoo and other "princely burials" of the period may have been of men who served in the Byzantine Army in their wars with the Sasanian Empire:

https://academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ehr/ceae213/7941799?login=false

Pretty persuasive argument, including noting the presence of objects of eastern manufacture rarely found coming via trade but common at shrines popular with equestrian troops, also how new many of the artefacts were at time of burial.

 

[Santino]

I played Medieval Total War which is why I knew that the Byzantine emperors hired bodyguards from Viking lands.

 

[JimW]

I played Medieval Total War which is why I knew that the Byzantine emperors hired bodyguards from Viking lands.

Think this predates the Varangians by a century or two, though seem to recall there was an influx of Anglo-Saxons after 1066.

 

[mx wcfc]

Think this predates the Varangians by a century or two, though seem to recall there was an influx of Anglo-Saxons after 1066.

Yeah, I knew about Anglo Saxon warriors in the Byzantium army post 1066, but not earlier.

I'm going to return to that paper when I'm sober. I'm a bit sceptical.

 

[zahir]

Think this predates the Varangians by a century or two, though seem to recall there was an influx of Anglo-Saxons after 1066.

Argument here for a colony in Crimea:
The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast

 

[belboid]

Think this predates the Varangians by a century or two, though seem to recall there was an influx of Anglo-Saxons after 1066.

So, Ukraine is actually Swedish…

 

[mx wcfc]

Argument here for a colony in Crimea:
The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast

Well, in that case, I think we have grounds to invade and drive Putin out.......