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Thread: Romans in China?

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    qnzkid711's Avatar Senator
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    Roman Descendants Found in Gansu

    by Our Staff Reporter Cui Bian

    Archaeologists from China and other countries have verified a Roman connection with Lijian, an ancient city built during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-23), located in Zhelaizhai Village, 10 km south of the county seat of Yongchang, Gansu Province. According to archaeologists, the Roman Republic was called "Lijian" in ancient China, and the city "Lijian" was built to accommodate a group of Roman captives.

    However, mystery surrounded how the captives came to be in Gansu, as China had never engaged in a war with Rome due to the distance between the two countries.

    A 2,000-Year-Old Puzzle

    The question had remained unsolved for nearly 2,000 years, originating in the bloody war between the Roman Republic and Parthia, present day Iran. In 53 BC, or the first year of Ganlu in China's Western Han Dynasty, Roman Consul Marcus Licinius Crassus mustered up seven legions of 45,000 soldiers, and waged a war of invasion against Parthia. Unexpectedly, the arrogant Roman armies were defeated by Parthia, and Crassus was beheaded. Crassus' oldest son, who was captain of the First Roman Legion, led over 6,000 soldiers to break through the siege and fled.

    Rome signed a peace treaty with Parthia in 20 BC and required Parthia to repatriate its soldiers captured 33 years ago. However, the remnants of the Roman forces in Parthia were nowhere to be found. Where did they go? The question perplexed not only the Romans then, but historians from all over the world, ever since.

    Settlement in China

    In the 1940s, various foreign scholars wrote articles discussing the event. One of them pointed out that ancient China named most settlements of immigrants by using the name of their original country. The existence of the City of Lijian was naturally connected with Roman immigrants. Moreover, Lijian first appeared on the map during the Western Han Dynasty in 20 BC, the time when Rome asked Parthia to release its war captives. This was by no means a historical coincidence. It indicated that the Roman soldiers had wandered into China and settled at the foot of the Qilianshan Mountains after they broke through the siege.

    In recent years, scholars from China and other countries have been able to consult a large number of historical books with the assistance of related departments in Gansu. They made comparative studies between Chinese and Western historical records, and finally found a clue to the mystery in a biography of Chen Tang in The History of the Former Han Dynasty, written by historian Ban Gu (32-92) of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220).

    According to records in The History of the Former Han Dynasty, Gan Yanshou and Chen Tang, the two generals stationed in the Western Regions (a Han Dynasty term for the area west of Yumenguan Pass, including what is now Xinjiang and parts of Central Asia), led a troop numbering more than 40,000 in 36 BC to conquer Zhizhi, the present Dzhambul in Kazakhstan. They encountered a strange army in a city surrounded by huge logs. The soldiers were drilling with their round shields to form a defensive screen in such a way as to appear like the scales of fish. Only Roman troops built defense structures with big logs and fought in fish-scaled defensive formation. Historians concluded from their studies that the strange troop was made up of those that remained of the Roman armies.

    The Han army attacked the city and was victorious. They captured about 1,500 Romans and brought them to China. Emperor Yuandi ordered that they be settled in Fanmu County (the present Yongchang County) and that a separate county named Lijian be set up. In 592, as the Lijian people had integrated with the Hans, Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) ordered the merger of Lijian with Fanmu County. Until that point, the City of Lijian had been in existence for 612 years.

    Historians have also found information in many other historical records relating to the existence and evolution of Lijian.

    Roman Traces Still Discernible

    In May 1993, several archaeologists came to Zhelaizhai Village to conduct a field investigation and small excavation. They discovered that the "Lijian Ruins" as named by the locals, were actually a very old city wall, which was some 10 meters long, 1-2 meters high, and nearly 3 meters at its widest. The wall was built in an "S" shape from clay earth. In the vicinity of the ruins were farm houses. The villagers recalled that in the early 1970s, the wall was close to 100 meters long, three times the present height and fairly wide on the top. Later, people dug the earth from the wall for various purposes, making it shorter and shorter.

    The excavation yielded dozens of relics, such as iron cauldrons, iron pots and ceramic kettles. All the relics were verified as remains from the Han Dynasty. Archaeologists found out that in Xinghua Village not far from the ruins, a farmer had dug out a thick big log over 3 meters long, which was inlaid with several wooden clubs. The log was collected by the County Cultural Center. The archaeologists examining the log claimed that most probably, it was an instrument used by the Romans to build the city wall.

    The archaeologists conducted their investigations in neighboring villages and to their surprise, they found that many people in the villages, still possess such features as high-bridged noses, deep-set eyes, curly blond hair, and large-boned figures. Song Guorong, 39, was one of them. He was 1.82 meters tall, with a high-bridged nose, large deep-set eyes, and curly blond hair. Song said there were almost 100 people in the area that looked like him. One of Song's relatives was even taller than him with blue eyes. The archaeologists found several children in the village with white skin and blond hair, just like European youngsters.

    There are also some unique customs in the area. The most interesting is the locals' worship of the ox. Many families like to make ox-head shaped bread from leavened flour, which they call "ox nose", as a sacrificial offering. The locals have also built Ox God Temples in village shrines and at major crossroads, and erected ox heads as symbols. Before the Beginning of Spring (first solar term), villagers dredge soil from the rivers and mold a "spring ox" in the temple. On the day they carry the "spring ox" out of the temple and smash it as a prayer for future prosperity and a good harvest.

    "Ox butting" is a favorite sports with the locals. During this activity, the villagers drive the herds to a slaughterhouse so that the oxen will work themselves into a frenzy as they smell blood and butt each other to death. Experts say that has come from the custom of bullfighting pop-ular with the ancient Romans.

    http://www.china.org.cn/Beijing-Review/Bei...jr98-46-13.html


    Here is another document:
    http://www.pip.com.au/~paceman/ROMANS%20IN%20CHINA.html

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    i guess it does make some since.

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    Interesting. There are also some greek influences in XinJiang in NW China. Perhaps a cultural relic of the days of Alexander the Great.
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    Who knows? Maybe the Romans even arrived in Amerika before the Vikings......

  5. #5

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    Homi, that might just be possible:
    History Mystery: Ancients in America

    Long before Columbus sailed to North America, this hemisphere may have been visited by other Europeans, ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese - even the ancient Egyptians!
    In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
    Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

    Many of us learned that rhyme, part of a longer history poem, when being taught in school that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Although nothing can be taken away from Columbus' daring voyage, he certainly was not the first to arrive on the shores of the Americas. For one thing, there were already people here - many Native American nations inhabited what later became North and South America and even the Caribbean islands where Columbus landed. Columbus probably wasn't even the first "white man" to make it here. It's fairly well documented that Icelander Leif Ericsson successfully sailed to North America in the year 1000 - almost 500 years prior to Columbus's voyage.

    In fact, there's a growing amount of proof suggesting that a lot of the familiar history of human exploration and "discovery" by our ancestors as we were taught it may be quite wrong. There is hard evidence of ancient civilizations making their mark in places where, according to traditionally accepted history, they just shouldn't be. Here's an overview of some of the most remarkable and fascinating cases.

    Greeks and Romans in the New World

    Coins:
    Roman coins have been found in Venezuela and Maine.
    Roman coins were found in Texas at the bottom of an Indian mound at Round Rock. The mound is dated at approximately 800 AD.
    In 1957 by a small boy found a coin in a field near Phenix City, Alabama, from Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, and dating from 490 B.C.
    In the town of Heavener, Oklahoma, another out-of-place coin was found in 1976. Experts identified it as a bronze tetradrachm originally struck in Antioch, Syria in 63 A.D. and bearing the profile of the emperor Nero.
    In 1882, a farmer in Cass County, Illinois picked up bronze coin later identified as a coin of Antiochus IV, one of the kings of Syria who reigned from 175 B.C. to 164 B.C., and who is mentioned in the Bible.
    Pottery: Roman pottery was unearthed in Mexico that, according to its style, has been dated to the second century A.D.
    Inscriptions:
    In 1966, a man named Manfred Metcalf stumbled upon a stone in the state of Georgia that bears an inscription that is very similar to ancient writing from the island of Crete called "Cretan Linear A and B writing."
    In the early 1900s, Bernardo da Silva Ramos, a Brazilian rubber-tapper working in the Amazon jungle, found many large rocks on which was inscribed more than 2,000 ancient scripts about the "Old World."
    Near Rio de Janeiro, high on a vertical wall of rock - 3,000 feet up - is an inscription that reads: 'Tyre, Phoenicia, Badezir, Firstborn of Jethbaal..." and dated to the middle of the ninth century B.C.
    Near Parahyba, Brazil, an inscription on Phoenician has been translated, in part, as: "We are sons of Canaan from Sidon, the city of the king. Commerce has cast us on this distant shore, a land of mountains. We set [sacrificed] a youth for the exalted gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of Hiram, our mighty king. We embarked from Ezion-Geber into the Red Sea and voyaged with ten ships. We were at sea together for two years around the land belonging to Ham [Africa] but were separated by a storm [lit. 'from the hand of Baal'], and we were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, on a... shore which I, the Admiral, control. But auspiciously may the gods and goddesses favor us!"
    The Kensington Stone, discovered in Kensington, Minnesota in 1898 contains an inscription describing an expedition of Norsemen into the interior of what is now North America. It's estimated that this expedition took place in the 1300s.
    In 1980, P.M. Leonard and J.L. Glenn, from the Hogle Zoological Gardens, Salt Lake City, visited a rock outcropping in Colorado that was reputed to be inscribed with "peculiar markings." Leonard and Glenn believe they are excellent examples of Consainne Ogam writing - a type ascribed to ancient Celts. One of the many inscriptions was translated as: "Route Guide: To the west is the frontier town with standing stones as boundary markers."
    A fist-sized, round stone was found during the early 1890s in an cemetery near Nashville, Tennessee. Its front was inscribed with symbols thought to be Libyan, pre-100 A.D. style. It translates as: "The colonists pledge to redeem."
    Pictures:
    An experienced botanist has identified plants in an ancient fresco painting as a pineapple and a specific species of squash - both native to the Americas. Yet the fresco is in the Roman city of Pompeii.
    Statues:
    In 1933, in a burial at Calixtlahuaca, Mexico, archaeologist José García Payón discovered a small carved head with "foreign" features in an undisturbed burial site. It was later identified by anthropologist Robert Heine-Geldern as "unquestionably" from the Hellenistic-Roman school of art and suggested a date of "around AD 200."
    Structures:
    Many stone chambers dot the New England countryside and most archaeologists insist they are all potato cellars built long ago by farmers. Others argue that they are too sophisticated for such a mundane application. One, is built into a hillside at Upton, Massachusetts, has sophisticated corbelling that follows they style of Irish and Iberic chambers. It's theorized that it was really built by Europeans around 700 AD - long before the Leif Eiriksson.
    Ships:
    In 1886, the remains of a shipwreck was found in Galveston Bay, Texas. Its construction is typically Roman.
    Toys:
    A doll made of wood and wax was found deep in a "Well of Sacrifice" at Chichén Itzá, Mexico, on which is written Roman script.
    Tombs:
    In the Mayan ruins of Palenque, a stone sarcophagus was found that is very much in the style of the ancient Phoenicians.

    The Far-Traveling Egyptians

    Statues:
    In 1914, archaeologist M.A. Gonzales was excavating some Mayan ruins in the city of Acajutla, Mexico when he was surprised by the discovery of two statuettes that were clearly Egyptian. One male and one female, the carvings bore ancient Egyptian dress and cartouches. They are thought to depict Osiis and Isis.
    Inscriptions: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found in New South Wales, Australia. Located on a rock cliff in the National Park forest of the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, the enigmatic carvings have been known since the early 1900s. There are more than 250 carvings of familiar Egyptian gods and symbols, including a life-sized engraving of the god Anubis. The hieroglyphs tell the story of explorers who were shipwrecked in a strange and hostile land, and the untimely death of their royal leader, "Lord Djes-eb." From this information, scholars have been able to date the voyage to somewhere between 1779 and 2748 BC.
    Fossils:
    In 1982, archaeologists digging at Fayum, near the Siwa Oasis in Egypt uncovered fossils of kangaroos and other Australian marsupials.
    Language:
    There are striking similarities between the languages of ancient Egypt and those of the Native Americans that inhabited the areas around Louisiana about the time of Christ. B. Fell, of the Epigraphic Society, has stated that the language of the Atakapas, and to a lesser extent those of the Tunica and Chitimacha tribes, have affinities with Nile Valley languages involving just those words one would associate with Egyptian trading communities of 2,000 years ago.
    Artifacts:
    Near the Neapean River outside Penrith, New South Wales, a scarab beetle - a familair Egyptian symbol - carved from onyx was unearthed. Another was found in Queensland, Australia.
    Tombs:
    The April 5, 1909 edition of The Phoenix Gazette carried a front-page article about the discovery and excavation of an Egyptian tomb in the Grand Canyon by none other that the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian has since denied knowledge of any such discovery.

    The Scattered Tribes of Israel

    Inscriptions:
    In 1889, the Smithsonian's Mound Survey project discovered a stone in a burial mound in eastern Tennessee on which is inscribed ancient Hebrew lettering. Known as The Bat Creek Stone, experts have identified its letters as being Paleo-Hebrew dating from the first or second century A.D. Some of the letters spell out: "for Judea."
    An abridged version of the Ten Commandments was found carved into the flat face of a large boulder resting on the side of Hidden Mountain near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Known as The Los Lunas Inscription, its language is Hebrew, and the script is the Old Hebrew alphabet with a few Greek letters mixed in.
    Artifacts:
    In June, 1860, David Wyrick found an artifact on the general shape of a keystone near Newark, Ohio that is covered in four ancient Hebrew inscriptions translated as: "Holy of Holies," "King of the Earth," "The Law of God" and "The Word of God."
    In November of that same year, Wyrick found an inscribed stone in a burial mound about 10 miles south of of Newark, Ohio. The stone is inscribed on all sides with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters. A robed and bearded figure on the front is identified as Moses in letters fanning over his head.
    Asians on the West Coast

    Stories:
    Indian traditions tell of many "houses" seen on Pacific waters. Could they have been ships from Asia?
    Chinese history tells a charming account of voyages to the land of "Fusang."
    Old Spanish documents describe oriental ships off the Mexican coast in 1576.
    Coins:
    In the summer of 1882, a miner in British Columbia found 30 Chinese coins 25 feet below the surface. The examined coins of this style were invented by the Emperor Huungt around 2637 B.C.
    Artifacts:
    Japanese explorers and traders left steel blades in Alaska and their distinctive pottery in Ecuador.
    Underwater explorations off the California coast have yielded stone artifacts that seem to be anchors and line weights. The style and type of stone point to Chinese origins.
    Structures:
    California's East Bay Walls, ancient low rock walls east of San Francisco Bay, have long been a mystery. No one knows who built them or why. In 1904, Dr. John Fryer, professor of Oriental languages at U.C. Berkeley, declared: "This is undoubtedly the work of Mongolians... the Chinese would naturally wall themselves in, as they do in all of their towns in China."

    ©2005 About, Inc. All rights reserved. A PRIMEDIA Company.
    http://paranormal.about.com/library/.../aa080700a.htm

    Carthaginians in The New World, A Radical Theory
    © 1999 Roy A Decker, Oroblanco

    Evidence of ancient explorers traveling to the new world does exist, and more than a single anomaly.
    Published by kind courtesy of Mr. Roy A. Decker. All comments regarding this particular article publication should be addressed to Mr. Decker.

    The Biblical Clues
    The legendary mines of King Solomon made him the wealthiest ruler of his time (900 BC). The exact location or even the existence has been hotly debated, however the Bible itself is fairly well proven in historical data, moreover there is no mention of "King Solomon's Mines" - rather it states flatly that he contacted his friend and ally to the north, King Hiram to hire his men to build and man his fleet of vessels. Hiram was ruler of Tyre in Phoenicia, whose sailing men were renowned for their wide ranging travels. The fleet left from the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber, and returned to Joppa and Tyre, ports on the Mediterranean. The voyage took three years, each time returning laden with silver, gold, ivory, gems, spices and incense, and rare "almug" wood. The fleet had gone to the fabulous lands of Tarshish and Ophir, which are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as being rich in precious metals and other trade items. Tarshish is situated in southwestern Spain, and was known to the Greeks as Tartessus. The book of Jonah in the Old Testament provides further proof of the location of Tarshish, since Jonah fled to Joppa where he boarded a "ship of Tarshish" to flee there, so it is evident that voyages could depart in either direction, east or west from the Levant. Ophir has not been found, but the name itself is a clue to its origins. The Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians rarely (if ever) used a name for a city or town ending in "IR" - while the Phoenicians did - for example Agadir in Iberia, or Rusaddir on the north coast of Africa. Tarshish was a Celt-Iberian city, destroyed by Celts in the pay of Carthage in about 500 BC. Carthage soon became the pre-eminent sea power in the western Mediterranean, up to the disastrous wars with Rome. Josephus, a first century AD Hebrew historian who served the Romans thought that Ophir was merely Sophir, or India and that the "golden chersonessus" was also India. The Greeks proved that idea false, as little gold was found there by them and in fact most gold there was imported as well. Furthermore it would have been cheaper and faster to travel there overland rather than risk the lengthy 3 year sea voyage, a ridiculous length of time if the ships were merely traveling from the Red Sea to India and back.

    Able Seamen
    After several disastrous conflicts with the Assyrians, Pharaoh Necho (700bc) searched for a new way to defeat his dangerous enemies to the north. His first project was to construct a canal to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, which would enable him to move his forces by sea with great rapidity and perhaps defeat his foes. During the construction, he had a nightmare, and when he turned to his soothsayers for explanation, they told him that the canal would indeed function as a highway for armies and navies - FOR HIS ENEMIES! He immediately scratched construction on the canal (which would not be completed for centuries&#33 and turned to the possibility of moving his armies around the continent of Africa by sea to outflank his enemy. He turned to those renowned sailors of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos (Phoenicia) and contracted a fleet to sail from the Red Sea around the continent of Africa. The fleet set sail and took three years to complete the voyage, returning in the third summer*. One of the participants stated they had the Sun on "their right hand" as they rounded the tip of southern Africa. Herodotus took this as "proof" they were lying, as that was considered impossible! Today we know that is proof they did in fact travel south of the Equator. The voyage took too long to be much use for moving armies rapidly so the idea was forgotten.
    *Herodotus also notes that the feat of circumnavigation of Africa was soon duplicated by the Carthaginians.

    Phoenician sailors set out from their homeland on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean to trade, explore and to found colonies. They had competition from the Greeks, but managed to set colonies on most of the islands in the Mediterranean, along the north coast of Africa (including one named Carthago, Carchedon to the Greeks, or Carthage - from the punic Qart-Hadasht meaning "New Town") and along the coast of Spain (then called Iberia by the Greeks). They built small trading settlements through the Sahara desert and scattered through the middle east. They were able to navigate by the stars, unlike their Greek and Roman counterparts who without any compass were forced to sail within sight of land at all times.

    The New Town
    Carthage had two beautiful harbors, an inner and outer, her location (in modern day Tunisia near Tunis) was excellent for seagoing trade and she prospered. The mother country (Phoenicia) fell to conquerors, but Carthage grew in strength. Around 500 BC, she sent out explorers (Hanno and his brother Himilco) to explore and colonize the Atlantic coast of Africa and the coast of Spain, France, and reached England, which they called the "Tin Isles" for the metal they traded for. Tarshish had become a rival, and Carthage got her Celtiberian allies to utterly destroy the city about this time. She came into conflict with the expanding Greeks over possession of Spain, Marseilles, France and crucially in Sicily. The wars lasted 200 years with Carthage emerging the victor inspite of heavy losses. Massalia (today Marseilles France) and Syracusa remained Greek but the other areas became Carthaginian or Punic. (Punic is the term used by the Romans to refer to the Carthaginians, from Phoinike, as the Greeks called them.) Carthage had a good working relationship with the numerous Celts who populated Spain, France, and the British Isles, often hiring them as soldiers. (In fact almost a third of Hannibal's army were Celts who were readily trained and equipped.)
    We should keep in mind that the history of Carthage was written by her enemies, who painted them as evil avaricious greedy people, more concerned with money and deceit than honor. To a large degree this is undeserved - even Herodotus records them as trading "with perfect honesty" and any success on their part in outsmarting an enemy was described as "deceit". Almost nothing remains of their literature and culture, though it is known that some must have been of high quality. Some modern scholars state that Carthage had no body of literature, but this I find doubtful since the Phoenicians originated the alphabet! King Juba of Mauretania referred to the Punic books on geography, as did Sallust. On the fall of Carthage, several libraries of Punic books were given to the princes of Numidia for their part in the war by the Romans. A treatise on agriculture written by Mago (probably the youngest brother of Hannibal who was named Mago, but there were several others with that name) was highly esteemed by the Romans who eventually published a number of copies. There seems to have been a Punic or rather Phoenician style of architecture too, for even King Solomon hired Phoenicians to build his temple. A horseshoe style or semi-circle seems to have been popular. (*see below) Furniture and metalwork of Carthage was highly esteemed by her trading neighbors, and their glass products (including trade beads) were very popular. Raisin wine, a speciality of Carthage was especially prized by the Romans. Jewelry manufacture was important, and one type of semi-precious stone was even called after Carthage, the Carbuncle. Trade was most important though and Carthage was very involved in the spice trade as well as virtually every other commodity one can think of in ancient times including exotic goods like billets of ebony wood, ivory, bulk metals in ingots such as copper and all-important tin - vital for production of bronze - as well as perfumes, incense and horses as well as slaves. The sea trade was only one part of her trading empire though, it is often forgotten that overland caravans beat a steady path to Carthage from deep in sub-Saharan Africa and as far away as Persia and Aethiopia.

    When Alexander completed his conquest, Carthage sent letters of congratulations and gifts - although fortunately for them Alexander didn't turn his attention to them. Alexander was apparently planning on an expedition against Carthage and Italy, but died of a fever before completing his preparations. The question of whether or not he could have been successful is moot, however it would have been a different sort of war than the Persian conquest. Carthage would not likely collapse after a defeat or two, Alexander was short on manpower (he was forced to reorganize his phalanxes with only the front three ranks being Macedonians, the remainder Persian and other levees) and how the naval conflict would resolve is unknown. Rome and Carthage were allied at this time, and the Romans were fond of saying that if Alexander had gone west instead of east he would not be known as "The Great".

    When Tyre fell to Nebuchadrezzar in 576 BC, Carthage gained ascendancy over the other Phoenician colonies, including Utica and Gades (or Agadir, today modern Cadiz) even though they were older, becoming a de-facto capital of what remained of the Phoenician empire. Carthage was protector and trading partner for these numerous colonies, and she sent out colonists to establish new cities and in some cases to re-establish them where former Tyrian colonies had failed or been conquered. Allying with the Etruscans of Italy, the Carthaginians were able to exclude the Greeks from further expansion into the western Mediterranean and after the fall of Tarshish, Carthage held the straits of Gibraltar closed to any foreign vessels.

    Other than the scant record from the periplus of Hanno, whatever records of exploration and colonization were lost when Carthage was utterly destroyed by Rome in 146BC. However, several of the early treaties between Rome and Carthage still exist (in the latin) and one fact does stand out from them - that Carthage specifically did not want any foreigners to travel or do business beyond the Pillars of Hercules (today Gibraltar) - at least not without the permission of the Carthaginian Senate and an official of the government must be present.

    Early Drug Use
    Recently tests were run on ancient Egyptian mummies, that came up with astounding results. Evidence of their use of cocaine and nicotine showed up - in spite of the fact these are New World products! While some scholars are saying this must be from some African plants that were similar but now extinct (doubtful, but possible. One plant of particular interest was the "Silphium" plant, which was cultivated in what is now modern Cyrenaica in Libya - the plant was esteemed for many uses including medicinal and food. The plant seems to have gone extinct about the time of the Roman conquest of the area.) Silphium closely resembles the Anise plant (the licorice flavor) so may have been related. According to accepted history, China was not known to the west until the Roman empire yet genuine silk threads have been found on ancient Egyptian mummies too - proving that contact was more far reaching and far older than previously thought.
    The more likely scenario is that there was indeed contact between the old world and the new which involved trade. In my opinion the Egyptians were not particularly good seamen, but the Phoenicians were! The trade routes they used were jealously guarded secrets, and their ability to navigate was well known. When the mother land was conquered, first by Babylonians and later by Persians and Greeks, most of the trading colonies became allied with Carthage. Carthaginian traders were quick to duplicate the navigational feats of their forefathers and to fill the void in providing trade goods. Thor Heyerdahl's famous "Ra Expeditions" proved that cross oceanic travel was possible even with the reed boats of Egypt, but navigation without compass would have been difficult.

    It can be argued that the Egyptians had some method of using the stars for navigation, as the near perfect alignments of the pyramids could attest. However, it is my opinion that the Sphinx and certain other monuments ascribed to the Egyptians are in fact much older (circa 10000 years.) Egyptians did venture on the seas to the "mythical" land of Punt, a place which can be identified with Sumatra though theories abound as to its location including the Great Lakes of North America. A point to consider here is found in one of the ancient Egyptian inscriptions describing the expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to Punt - part of the text states "...the Phoenicians..." but the remainder of the text is missing. It is in a part of the text which is supposed to be a statement by the King of Punt, pointing out the secret path to the land and mentioning the "steps of Myrrh". The Puntese already knew of the Phoenicians by this early date, and to go a step further the Puntese were also called Puoeni by the Egyptians, which is a term also used to describe Phoenicians. The Puntese were most likely Phoenician colonists.

    The Phoenicians were known to navigate by the stars, and in fact the Romans called the North star the "Punic Star" because of its use by them for navigation, but did not understand how. Another navigation tool called the "gnomon" was used to determine the latitude by the position of the Sun. A Greek sea-captain from Massilia (now Marsielles in France) named Pytheas learned the use of it and used it in his exploration of the Atlantic coast of Europe, noting that the Northern Star is not precisely at the North Pole as well as other remarkable scientific observations including the midnight sun at high latitudes and fog banks. On his return to Massilia, Pytheas was rewarded by his Greek fellow citizens with ridicule and scorn, an attitude that persists to this day among some scholars.

    Another navigational instrument which probably was in use by Phoenicians was the cross-staff, a long sighting staff with uprights set at various spots which allowed the user to determine latitude as well as direction. Furthermore, some instinctive oceanic navigation skill was very probable among these sailors - similar to the unerring way Polynesians could find their way to tiny specks of land in the vast expanse of the Pacific simply by observing the formations of clouds, the flights of birds and even the way waves form far from land. A short passage from the Greek book "Argonautica" describing the man who was to be the navigator for the fictional voyage - as being able to judge the time for sailing by the wind and the sky, and the direction to land by the swell of the sea.

    Punic Calling Cards
    The islands of the Canaries have stone ruins, the most imposing being a number of 'stepped' pyramidal structures located right in the middle of a town. Farther out in the Atlantic, the Azores have turned up with a hoard of Carthaginian coins, a statue of the 'horse' of Carthage, and a number of pottery fragments that could be Punic, but cannot be definitely ascribed to them. The official view? "May have been a ship that got lost." Along the Atlantic seaboard of the Americas a number of stone "steles" (monuments) have been found, usually inscribed in (of course) Punic, and many have the name of Hanno -the admiral sent out from Carthage with the express mission of exploration and colonization about 500 BC. Oddly, in northeastern Pennsylvania near the town of Hawley, one of these stone steles was found, inscribed in Punic ("This monument placed by Hanno, do not deface") of course this must be yet another "hoax". Some universities are now saying that the Phoenician seafarers may have been trafficking the entire circumnavigable coast of Africa and the coast of India as early as 1500 to 1200 BC.
    The alphabets of India, Ceylon and Sumatra all originated from Phoenician - this is eloquent evidence of far ranging contact.
    Inscriptions on stone are found throughout the Americas, and coins of Carthage have been found in a number of states. Nearly all have been found close to navigable waters, and oddly all are of the earliest issues of Carthage, none later than the First Punic war have turned up. A metal urn with Phoenician themes and likely a Carthaginian trade item was unearthed near the junction of the Chenango and Susquehanna rivers in New York.

    Divers investigating the odd stone formation off Bimini Island found a shipwreck, that dated to the 1800's - while searching they found that it lay atop an older shipwreck, one that is positively Phoenician and dates to approximately 1000BC! Dr J Manson Valentine of Yale university confirmed the origins of the wreck. Evidence of other ancient shipwrecks exists, in particular a Punic vessel located off the coast of Honduras as well as one found "deeply buried in sand" in Mexico in the 19th century, another which is as yet unidentified off the coast of Texas as well as what was probably a Roman trading vessel off Beverly Massachusetts.

    Carthaginian amphorae have been found in the Americas, as well as weapons, oil lamps, glass "trade" beads along the St Lawrence river among other "anomalous" finds.

    Ancient historians
    The Syracusan (Greek 100bc) historian Diodorus said the Carthaginians had a "large island" which was located "far out in the Atlantic ocean" - on which there were "many mountains" and "large navigable rivers". The land was rich in gold, gems, spices, etc. He stated that the Phoenicians had found it "by accident" while founding colonies on the west coast of Africa when some ships got lost. The Atlantic currents do in fact run straight at South America from that region so it would be possible for a lost ship to travel there, and the return voyage would be made easier by following the oceanic currents north then back east across the ocean. In fact this has happened in recent years, a small African fishing boat got lost in a storm and ended up on the coast of Brazil! In 1488 a certain Jean Cousin of Dieppe France, while sailing down the west coast of Africa was caught in a storm and blown across to Brazil. (This is four years prior to Columbus's more famous voyage.) The actual meteorological conditions do support this as probable. Diodorus said they (the Carthaginians) were "keeping it secret"!
    Other historians (Herodotus and Polybius) have hinted at its existence, and further explained some of the other colonies. The coast south of Lixus was described as "teeming" with Punic trading colonies. One of the colonies founded by Hanno (500bc) which has not been located correctly was Cerne, (pronounced Ker-neh) it is my opinion this is today the Canary islands. When first discovered by the Portuguese, they found light skinned people, who had "writings" they themselves could not read and asked their Portuguese visitors if they could. They did not know what had become of their "motherland" - and this is taken by some authors to be proof of Atlantean influence, but I believe they were survivors of Cerne. The Portuguese were unimpressed with the people or their ruins and writings, and killed them - they also burnt the writings as possible heresy!

    One of Plutarch's (2nd century ad) less known works* also states quite clearly the state of affairs. He cited a document which was found in the ruins of the old city of Carthage. He said the Carthaginians knew of a "true continent" which was located far to the west of Britain. He added that "greeks" had gone there and intermarried with the local peoples. The "greeks" who lived there, laughed at the people in Europe, which they said was a mere island by comparison - while they lived on the true continent which bordered the whole west side of the Atlantic.

    *Moralia XII, On The Face Of The Moon
    It is my opinion that the "big island" was the Americas! I do not think the Carthaginian explorers founded big cities in the new world, rather they were more interested in commerce. There are several arguments against their having contact, one of which is there is not any ruins of any fort. However, there are a number of ancient earthwork fortifications scattered through the Ohio river valley that date to (about) 200bc - the height of the power of Carthage. Some strange artifacts have turned up in these ruins (called the Hopewell culture) including one amulet that appears very much Hebrew! In some of these ruins there are long stone structures that look remarkably like the 'boat sheds' used by Punic and Greek sailors to protect their ships during foul weather. Location is a problem, but they are close to a river even though the river is today too shallow for navigation, it may well have been deeper then.

    Supposedly there are no written evidence of ancient contact, but in fact there have been a great number of writings found inscribed on stone scattered throughout the Americas. A number of them have been studied and deciphered, many by Barry Fell. (His books America BC and Saga America contain a good deal on this) Although they are nearly always denounced as "hoaxes" it is strange that only recently are many readable! Most have been in an ancient Celtic script called Ogam, and quite a number are Iberian and Punic, while some are even Egyptian! The seamanship of the ancient Celts is little respected, yet no less than an authority than Julius Caesar described their ships as quite large compared to his small Roman vessels, capable of traveling in the open seas!

    The strange ruins of Mystery Hill in New Hampshire are in fact the remains of a Punic-Celtic colony. Aristotle mentioned that the Carthaginians had once attempted a colony in their "secret land" but later withdrew it, blocking others from attempting it including their allies the Etruscans and even the Tyrians fleeing the wrath of Alexander. Several other sites in New England are obviously related as well as a likely connection with the strange stone walls of southern California and several native American tribes of the southwest such as the Pima and Zuni.

    More information...
    The true history of the Phoenician peoples and in particular the remarkable Carthaginians has never been told, virtually all we know of them is what was written by their enemies who were trying to paint them in the worst possible tones. Some of the worst of their practices such as human sacrifice were really nothing unusual for many cultures of their time. Even the supposedly civilized Romans buried alive two Gauls in an attempt to fulfill a prophecy which claimed that some part of Rome must be home to Gauls - not to mention the slaughter of countless thousands for entertainment! The Carthaginians may well have been the most accomplished explorers in history.

    In conclusion here are a few collected articles for you to judge for yourself. I am working on a book to further explain this and present the evidence, if you are interested drop me a line at oroblanco@netscape.net. (the old address at USA.NET is discontinued 7/31/01) with your name and address, I will contact you to let you know when publication begins. (Please, no spam. It will not be opened or read.) *update, book project is still unfinished with new information now being added - anyone who has information and or photos they would like included is welcome to submit it for inclusion and full credit to sources.

    http://www.phoenicia.org/carthanewworld.html

    and also check this link: http://www.phoenicia.org/america.html

    personally, i don't find it that odd that there were romans in china, I mean, it isn't as if there was no contact between china and the western world.

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    there is a book written about that by Warner H. Munn, it is called The lost legion and it is a story about a legion sent (by Caligula) to retrieve legion Eagles captured by Parthians during Crassus campaing and to find out what happened to about 6000 war prisoners. Or at least that was the excuse, in fact Caligula wanted to get rid of very popular general so he sent him on a mission he couldn't accomplish.

    The book is written like a story with a lot of historical facts...quite an interesting reading...

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    :evil

    Thats some crazy stuff there. From reading this, it sounds like the Romans were spreading like a frickin virus all over the world lol.

    I wonder though, why they havent found more stuff in Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc, paintings about ridiculously long sea voyages, and things like this (unless this was in there and I missed it somehow.) if the Romans and friends did indeed travel all over like that. Only one picture of some plants? Obviously some of them had to come back, at least to Roman lands, so the painter in Pompeii knew what those plants looked like...you see what Im saying?

    The inscriptions are interesting, to be sure, and the fact that they are in the "new world" is amazing in itself, but from what I saw, these werent credited to Romans, but to other various groups.

    Fascinating to think about anyway. :smile
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    Originally posted by crownsteler@Jan 11 2005, 08:42 PM
    Homi, that might just be possible:
    History Mystery: Ancients in America

    Long before Columbus sailed to North America, this hemisphere may have been visited by other Europeans, ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese - even the ancient Egyptians!
    In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,

    Look at this picture does this figure have the features of a native american??



    or this??

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    There are even claim.s that A greek philospher was the person who led to modern english saying china, which means the Qin Dynasty in China : He even said there a mighty empire right in the east unknown to the west. :

    By the way how did the legions manage to escape the slaughter of the parthias, they are all foot soldier cohorts, whereas parthias are all horsemen? And why they not retreat to Rome in the West and went to East. :w00t

    The big long article surely shows a lot of unexpected things. Very shocking news

  10. #10

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    Romans in China is true, but they were there because of entirely a different reason than you think.

    The roman remains that were found in western china is what's left of Crassus's army that was defeated at the Battle of Carrhae in 54 BC.

    The Parthians marched the captured romans (~10,000) eastward to their territory in Sogdia, near modern day Afganistan.

    Shortly after, the region was conquered by the Han Chinese. The Romans that were forced settled there became the first ones to directly have contact with the chinese.

    That information has been known for quite some time.

    http://www.unrv.com/fall-republic/battle-of-carrhae.php

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    The only documents and proof we really have is a Chinese book mentioning Romanmerchants in China during Antoninus Pius (they were NOT officials although the Chinese documents say so). The tradeing routes for silk were known (to some merchants at least who were not really happy about telling too many people about that for obvious reasons) and Roman coins were found in some parts of India and Asia but there is no proof (or likeliness) for any official connections.

    The story about the Roman town is old, yet there's not sufficient proof.
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    so long cant ke....e...p... rrrrrrrr......ea....diin....g
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    As far as I know, China in ancient times, were the greatest sailors in the world. They went EVERYWHERE, from Rome to America, they went all across the Globe. After a while they decided, in a great meeting that China WAS the world, so they built the great wall, since they believed no other country could educate them any more. I find it strange though, since this is how China is today in many ways. To the Chinese people, the government has taught them that they are the greatest nation in the world, much like the old days.
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    Man this is a great thread. I think it very possible that chinese han did come into contact with the romans. If the soldiers of Crassus were never seen again, and evidence points to them bieng in CHina, that can be the only explanation. And the romans all over the world topic, that may be very true to. Records may not show it because the voyagers may never had been heard of again.

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    Well, Native Americans are Mongoloids. I could imagine some Asians (as in Chinese or Japanese) visiting America; they obviously trekked there before.... only if there was more evidence to support such a claim.

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    That is totally awesome, if it is true. Someday, we may yet find out the complete truth.

  18. #18

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    History Mystery: Ancients in America

    Long before Columbus sailed to North America, this hemisphere may have been visited by other Europeans, ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese - even the ancient Egyptians!
    In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
    The most feasible civilization of Western colonization of America before the Vikings is that of the Phoenicians... It makes a whole lot of sense. If Hanno of Carthage went as far as Congo (or maybe more) in his sea voyage to Southern Africa, it makes perfect sense that a carthaginian could have travelled from West Africa to America in a short amount of weeks.

    made this map to better illustrate the point.
    Hypocrisy is the foundation of sin.

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    Originally posted by Siblesz@Jan 17 2005, 02:35 AM
    History Mystery: Ancients in America

    Long before Columbus sailed to North America, this hemisphere may have been visited by other Europeans, ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese - even the ancient Egyptians!
    In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
    The most feasible civilization of Western colonization of America before the Vikings is that of the Phoenicians... It makes a whole lot of sense. If Hanno of Carthage went as far as Congo (or maybe more) in his sea voyage to Southern Africa, it makes perfect sense that a carthaginian could have travelled from West Africa to America in a short amount of weeks.

    made this map to better illustrate the point.
    Yeah, and their little triremes would've been swallowed up by the Atlantic. : I've read books about the Phoenicians by really good authors and so far it's only speculation. Poeni sailors were great, but even a lot of them shore-hugged.

  20. #20

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    Originally posted by AHappyMilkCarton@Jan 17 2005, 02:41 AM
    Yeah, and their little trireme would've been swallowed by the Atlantic. :
    Hehehe...

    The RA Expeditions (1969-70)
    Thor Heyerdahl continued his research on ancienct navigation and turned his attention to the ancient reed-boats made of papyrus. These boats were deemed insufficient to cross the Atlantic as the reeds were believed to become water-logged after less than two weeks on open water. Heyerdahl believed that contemporary science underestimated the the ancient vessels and undertook to prove this by experiment. In 1969, he bought 12 tons of papyrus and worked with experts to construct an ancient-style vessel. The result was a 15 m boat which was launched at the old Phoenician port of Safi, Morocco. In the spirit of cooperation, Heyerdahl embarked under the UN flag with a crew of seven men from seven countries. The papyrus craft, Ra, sailed 5000 km (2700 nautical miles) in 56 days until storms and deficiencies in the construction caused the team to abandon their target only one week short of Barbados.

    *
    Ten months later, Heyerdahl tried the same voyage with the smaller (12 meter) Ra II. This vessel crossed the widest part of the Atlantic 6100 km (3270 nautical miles) in 57 days, from Safi to Barbados. Once again, this voyage showed that modern science under-estimated long-forgotten aboriginal technologies. The theory that Mediterranean vessels built prior to Columbus could not have crossed the Atlantic was thrown on its head.
    If a reed boat could do it, so could a trireme.
    Hypocrisy is the foundation of sin.

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