Book & site list

[Boreades]

Here's a statue from South Shields of the wife of Barates in South Shields second century AD.

Al Beeb adds its usual tones of multiculturalism, but some useful information as well.

This tombstone is evidence for immigration and the mixing of cultures 1800 years ago. It was set up outside the Roman fort at South Shields in north-east England and records a British woman called Regina, who originally came from south-east England, and a man called Barates, who came from Palmyra in Syria. Regina was a slave, but Barates freed her and married her, and when she died aged 30, had this expensive tombstone made for her. It is Roman in style and has a Latin inscription, but also, uniquely in Britain, a second inscription in his own language, Aramaic, reading 'Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld ... fhl_sSpGWw

The movement of Roman Auxiliary military units from Syria could, one supposes, be called a form of immigration. Anyway, Palmyra in Syria is significant, because that's an ancient and important trade-route town.

Also the home of the fabled Ancient Temple of Bel.

Which managed to survive fairly intact for 2,000 years ...



... before being blown up by the Daish

[Boreades]

I wonder if Boreades is a Barat?

Is that like the famous detective : Barratt Holmes?

Or perhaps I'm being confused with Borat from the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. We are easily confused, what with both of us being fabulously wealthy and being equal-opportunity employers. Here he is with his boat and his crew.



I would oblige with similar pics of the SS Boreades and the equally able crew, but M'Lady Boreades ticked the box.

[X] No publicity.

[hvered]

On coins of the emperor Hadrian (117-138AD) she is featured in classic flowing robes with a spear and shield, seated on rocky crags which probably provided the invaders’ first view of Britain.

and

An Orichalcum Sestertius of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the reverse showing a seated figure of Britannia. Similar designs appeared on dupondii and asses possibly struck at a field mint in Britain

"probably" and "possibly" give bad vibes.

There appears to be no known provenance. If there was it would surely feature. In numismatics as with art history, no provenance is no deal.

[Boreades]

"probably" and "possibly" give bad vibes.

That's the trouble with BBC articles. Fine when they stick to the facts (just as we should). Not fine when they stick-in their "reporting policies" and offer politically-correct opinions.

Anyway Hatty, some might say that's the TME authors calling the kettle black. Isn't the TME house largely built on supposition and hypothesis, without a great deal of provenance? (Unless all my copies of TME are strangely missing the references and bibliography pages)

My point is : we all gladly ignore provenance if it supports our own theories. But get all hissy with anyone with a contrary theory if they dare to not provide immediate solid "provenance" as well.

By the way :

(1), don't blame us for the BBC not providing the provenance. For that, you need to go and ask someone like the British Museum.

(2), I thought AEL rules apply? Give a person some space and time to develop their hypothesis and collect the supporting evidence.

[Boreades]

Here's an example :

We were all quite happy to discuss the Belinus Line.

In 1974 Guy Raglan Phillips discovered a network of alignments in an area of northern England called in ancient times Brigantia. The lines were of the Watkins variety found on maps that linked ancient sites called leys. Phillips north-south parallel lines are 12 miles apart, 4 degrees west of the magnetic north axis, and he noticed that one in particular seemed pivotal to this whole system and formed the longest through route in Britain. He named it the Belinus Line

With little or no complaints about its provenance.
That Belinus line links Dor-set with Dur-ness in the north of Scotland.
The name Belinus being, of course, a derivative of the same Bel.
And Beltaine of course.

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

[hvered]

I thought AEL rules apply? Give a person some space and time to develop their hypothesis and collect the supporting evidence.

What hypothesis? Sorry, I didn't realise you were saying something new. Please lay it out for dullards like me.

Isn't the TME house largely built on supposition and hypothesis, without a great deal of provenance? (Unless all my copies of TME are strangely missing the references and bibliography pages)

The absence of references and bibliography was unavoidable because the thesis is original to Mick. Two 'sources' were referenced in the book, Alfred Watkins and John Michell; the V&A got a mention in a footnote too. Would the book have been better with a bibliography?

[Mick Harper]

I thought AEL rules apply? Give a person some space and time to develop their hypothesis and collect the supporting evidence.

Your first valid point, Borry. I thought I was putting my general position (which is negative) and then being helpful. But if not, sorry.

[Boreades]

Yet more similarities surface when we look at the Syrian/Phrygian/Anatolian (Hittite) female form of Bel.

Cybele, here called the Syrian Goddess

From Montfaucon's Antiquities. This illustration shows Cybele, here called the Syrian Goddess, in the robes of a hierophant. Montfaucon describes the figure as follows: "Upon her head is an episcopal mitre, adorned on the lower part with towers and pinnacles; over the gate of the city is a crescent, and beneath the circuit of the walls a crown of rays. The Goddess wears a sort of surplice, exactly like the surplice of a priest or bishop; and upon the surplice a tunic, which falls down to the legs; and over all an episcopal cope, with the twelve signs of the Zodiac wrought on the borders. The figure hath a lion on each side, and holds in its left hand a Tympanum, a Sistrum, a Distaff, a Caduceus, and another instrument. In her right hand she holds with her middle finger a thunderbolt, and upon the same am animals, insects, and, as far as we may guess, flowers, fruit, a bow, a quiver, a torch, and a scythe."

Cybele (/ˈsɪbᵻliː/; Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubeleyan Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian Kuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of obese women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygia's only known goddess,

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

With clear similarities to "our" Britannia, not only in appearance, but also in role, as the Mother-Goddess of the nation.



Sybil's thunderbolt becomes a trident, and the Caduceus is shown as a staff.

[Mick Harper]

With clear similarities to "our" Britannia, not only in appearance, but also in role, as the Mother-Goddess of the nation.

This is not a new theory so I can, I think, be rebarbative without censure. There are no clear similarities with 'our' Britannia whatsoever. It's just a routine goddess with routine appurtenances. They are all mothers to their nation, it's in the nature of goddesses. But in any case it wasn't whether Britannia is this or that, is holding this or that, is mother to this or that nation, that was my point. It was that the coins cited were for all intents and purposes identical. As you continue to demonstrate Britannia comes in so many different guises it is impossible to believe that the British coin and the Phoenician coin can be other than copies of each other. It still remains to discover who was copying whom though.

I wish you well in your general quest re Britannia.

[Boreades]

I'll crack on then.

While we have Britannia ruling the waves, our Dutch cousins have Nehalennia.

Nehalennia is attested on 28 inscriptions discovered in the Dutch town of Domburg on the Zeeland coast, when a storm eroded dunes in 1645, disclosing remains of a temple devoted to the previously unattested goddess Nehalennia.

So if Nehalennia is a forgery, she's a cunnngly-planned one.

Nehalennia is almost always depicted with marine symbols and a large, benign-looking dog at her feet. She must have been a Celtic or Germanic deity, who was attributed power over trading, shipping and possible horticulture and fertility. She is depicted as a (mostly seated) young woman. She wears a typical short cloak over her shoulders and chest. This garment is unique to her and therefore might have belonged to the costumes usual at that period in this region. Often she is accompanied by a dog and she has as attributes a basket of apples or loaves and ship parts.

You have to admire the Dutch, they are very practical people. Even their gods have spare parts to maintain their shipping.

Nehalennia, a Germanic goddess worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea from the Netherlands, is shown on many carved stones holding loaves and apples like a Mother Goddess, sometimes with a prow of a ship beside her, but also frequently with an attendant dog which sits looking up at her.

No, I dunno why a Germanic goddess is on the beach in Holland.

Maybe she was part and parcel of the Britons that went east to Germany and got called Saxons for their troubles?

Or maybe Britannia and Nehalennia both came from Doggerland?

Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalennia