Anglesey

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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 11:15 pm

Francesca also undertakes various media activities, including presenting the BBC 2 TV documentary series Bible's Buried Secrets, which aired in the UK in 2011.


http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/theology ... akopoulou/

Damn, we've missed it.
BBC2: Bible's Buried Secrets

But she seems like our kind of revisionist historian. Snippets still on the BBC website.
Did God Have a Wife? : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fpxmc
Did King David's Empire Exist? : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fmbw8
The Real Garden of Eden : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fv92m
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 7:50 pm

You didn't miss much. I vaguely remember watching the series but it just turned out to be David this and temple that. If there was anything new or interesting I must have missed it.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 10:59 pm

It got me wondering though. If David really was a minor player who struck it (or Goliath) lucky, how did his son Solomon get so wealthy in just one generation? Was it the copper mining?

The ancient mine was found in a desolate region south of the Dead Sea in southern Jordan in an area called Khirbat en-Nahas, which means 'ruins of copper' in Arabic. ... The ancient site contains around 100 buildings, including a fortress, in the middle of 24 acres of land covered in black slag. The mine works are covered with trials and holes, and are big enough to be seen on Google Earth's satellite images. The team also found ancient Egyptian artifacts at the site including a scarab and amulet from the 10th century BC.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... esert.html

Black piles of slag define Khirbat en-Nahas, a copper mining and smelting site, in this image, taken by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on August 11, 2010. It is not so unusual that a copper mine should show up in a satellite image (the Earth Observatory has posted several examples), but Khirbat en-Nahas is remarkable because it was built some 3,000 years ago. The faint square on the northern edge of the site is an Iron Age fortress.

Khirbat en-Nahas is tucked into a desert valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, now in Jordan. In order for copper production to reach such a vast scale in such a desolate place, Khirbat en-Nahas had to have been built by an organized state, says archeologist Tom Levy of the University of California-San Diego, who has been studying the site for more than 10 years.


Image

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=47448

Google Earth link

Led by Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan’s Friends of Archaeology, an international team of archaeologists has excavated an ancient copper-production center at Khirbat en-Nahas down to virgin soil, through more than 20 feet of industrial smelting debris, or slag. The 2006 dig has brought up new artifacts and with them a new suite of radiocarbon dates placing the bulk of industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas in the 10th century BCE – in line with biblical narrative on the legendary rule of David and Solomon. The new data pushes back the archaeological chronology some three centuries earlier than the current scholarly consensus. The research also documents a spike in metallurgic activity at the site during the 9th century BCE, which may also support the history of the Edomites as related by the Bible.


http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/archive/newsre ... olomon.asp

Was it always such a desolate place? Where did they get the fuel to smelt the copper ore? Who are these Edomites?
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 9:10 am

Khirbat-en-Nahas is in Jordan which is supposed to be a Hebrew word meaning to flow down so it may be a river did once 'flow down' and the area was lusher.

Where tin came from is more problematical; the land of tin was at times alleged to be Chaldea though there's no evidence (apart from Chaldea being a land of 'riches beyond imagination' which could mean anything). Some tin mining might have taken place in Spain, the records are scanty mainly because of later mining activity and archaeologists just can't be bothered/don't get funding.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 11:22 am

Could Chaldea have been in what we now call Afghanistan?

The last mining boom in Afghanistan was over 2,000 years ago in the era of Alexander the Great, when gold, silver and precious stones were routinely mined. Geologists have known of the extent of the mineral wealth for over a century, as a result of surveys done by the British and Russians. An American company was offered a mining concession over the entire country in the 1930s but turned it down. Despite this historical knowledge, global interest was only really boosted in 2010 when the Pentagon commissioned a report from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Historical mining concentrated mostly on precious stone production, with some of the oldest known mines in the world believed to have been established in Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan as early as 8000 BC.[8] In ancient Egypt, lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs and was used in Egypt's pyramids;[9] it was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians for seals and at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh. During the height of the Indus valley civilization in about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines.[10][10] Lapis jewelry has been found at excavations of the Predynastic Egyptian site Naqada (3300–3100 BC), and powdered lapis was used as eyeshadow by Cleopatra.[10] In ancient Mesopotamia, Lapis artifacts can be found in great abundance, with many notable examples having been excavated at the Royal Cemetery of Ur (2600-2500 BC).

The mine of Aynak's copper has more than 2,000 years of history, from the coins and the tools that were found there. The gold of Zarkashan has more than 2,000 years of history in Ghazni Province.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan

No mention of tin there though.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 12:11 pm

The reference to Puck of Pook's Hill reminded me of a painting called The Piper of Dreams which was incredibly well-known at the beginning of the First World War.

Image

The painting was exhibited at the RA in 1915 and constantly reproduced thereafter. It clearly resonated with the public more than the usual Edwardian 'faery' painting or literary whimsy.

I wondered if the pan flute which traditionally is made from a hollow reed had some connection with the caduceus (fashioned from ?). Crichton Miller says 'Scotland's" Holy Rood" literally means a sacred measuring instrument. ....rood means rod and rod means a measuring stick named after the ancient reed, a segmented length of grass'.

Miller is normally fairly reliable and, though he doesn't say so, another word for rod is cane, often associated with twining plants such as beanstalks, reminiscent of the two serpents coiled round Hermes' caduceus. In Hebrew cana means reed. The Land of Canaan may be something to do with 'place of reeds' though where such reeds might have grown is beyond anybody's ken...
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 1:10 pm

I was wondering if in earlier times ships setting out on long voyages would have stocked up with citrus fruit, from southern Italy, Lebanon, Palestine and north Africa (tangerines are said to be named for Tangiers), and that this diet constituted a huge, though not necessarily deliberate, medical advantage for, say, 'Phoenician' navies. Hasn't Vitamin C been 'proven' to prevent scurvy?

But it turns out not to be quite so straightforward because despite the introduction of lime and/or lemon juice on board British Navy ships, scurvy didn't completely disappear.

Someone on this site http://www.idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm points out the effect that copper, that is copper cooking vessels, has on the body's ability to absorb vitamin C. Copper utensils were considered rather grand at one time and are still used which seems oddly counter-productive if the claim is true.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby TisILeclerc » 1:43 pm

It would presumably be difficult for northern nations to access lemons and oranges etc unless there was a regular import of the fruit.

However fresh vegetables and onions could also work. Captain Cook was insistent on taking on fresh supplies of vegetables as well as lemons whenever he called in at a port. In particular he was in favour of Sour Kroutt which he persuaded the crew to eat by making sure they knew the officers were all eating it.

Here's an informative article on the various attempts to prevent scurvy.

http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/h ... k_1969.pdf
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 5:16 pm

Fresh meat might be the best 'cure'. The problem on long distance voyages was fresh anything since victuals consisted mainly of dried, salted and tinned stuff.

Arctic and Antarctic expeditions seem to have suffered more scurvy than anywhere else. A deficiency in Vitamin D (lack of sunlight) may have played some part in their poor health. The meat given to crews not only wasn't fresh but bad which may be the reason why citrus was introduced in the first place.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 1:09 pm

Vitamin C deficiency is still surprising widespread in the UK adult population, without displaying the full-blown scurvy symptoms. The most common mild symptom is gum disease, or bleeding gums. Shoving a toothbrush round your mouth provokes the situation, and despite the TV advertising, toothpaste doesn't cure vitamin deficiency either.

Our ancestors did know something we've forgotten. The humble watercress was once-upon-a-time much prized as a dietary supplement. The Watercress Line in Hampshire is one vaguely remembered leftover. Most chalk rivers in southern England used to have lots of watercress beds, within living memory. The best watercress still comes from as high up the river flow as possible, to minimise contamination by animal effluent or parasites like flukeworm.

Modern science has identified more than 15 essential vitamins and minerals contained in this one herb – more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, and more vitamin C than oranges.

Watercress is very low in calories, but contains phytonutrients like isothiocyanates and antioxidants with a plethora of disease-preventive properties. Gluconasturtiin, a glucosinolate compound providing the peppery flavor, is one of them, contained in the leaves and stems and providing phenethyl isothiocyanates, shown to inhibit carcinogens.

Vitamin K is by far the most prominent nutrient in watercress, with 312% of the daily recommended value. It forms and strengthens the bones and limits neuronal damage in the brain, which is helpful in treating Alzheimer's disease. There's also vitamin C, with 72% of the daily value, closely followed by vitamin A with 64%. Vitamin C provides top-notch infection-fighting power to stave off colds and flu, help maintain healthy connective tissue, and prevent iron deficiency. Vitamin A, also known as retinol, is essential for a properly functioning immune system and produces pigments in the retina of the eye, an absence of which can cause night blindness.

Manganese is a cofactor for the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase, and calcium for strong bones and teeth come in high doses when you eat watercress. Antioxidant flavonoids like ß carotene, zeaxanthin, and lutein protect from lung and mouth cancers. B-complex vitamins include riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), thiamin, and pantothenic acid, all important for keeping your cellular metabolic functions at peak performance.


http://foodfacts.mercola.com/watercress.html
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