Ancient Grecian Military Outpost Discovered
 

For this history buff in all of us..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23691610/

Interesting. That might be fun to go see. Might be a good stop on a trip to the Cliffs of Petra or something like that . . .

Very cool.

What's a Grecian urn?

About $10/hr

I could have sworn we had more history buffs on this Forum...

Isn't that the container that Grecian Formula 44 comes in?

Sorry, I fell into the sarcasmotron and can't seem to lighten-up.

Ancient history -- love it
 

I've been trying to devise a pun about the rear leg joints of murine rodents (Mice-a-Knee-ans), but I've got a cold and can't seem to come up with anything.

No, Mistress, this is interesting. One could imagine that this was where Achilles trained, perhaps, and drilled his Myrmidons (warriors created from ants, if I recall my 8th-grade mythology class correctly).

This might also have been the staging area for the Trojan War, where Agamemnon assembled the forces that would travel overseas to attack Troy. Probably the war was not due to the kidnapping of anybody's beautiful daughter; more than likely it was a war over the right to trade in the eastern Mediterranean, or something like that.

Homer probably exaggerated the length of the war, too -- 10 years' siege would be hard to manage. Maybe a year. Remember that all the chieftains fighting under Agamemnon, such as Achilles and Ajax, would have had obligations back home, lands to oversee, female slaves to check out, and so would have been reluctant to remain overseas for too long. Look what happened at Odysseus' house, with all the suitors chasing after his wife! These guys were thinly-disguised freebooters/pirates, likely to lose interest in a venture (like a siege) that didn't turn a profit fairly quickly.
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I think a lot of historians etc. take the Bible, and Homer's Odysseus as legend or Myth along with other text from bygone eras. I think they hold some truths. THe writer's put some if not a lot of spin on the events to make them the heros. The more we dig up the past, the less stupid or more intellegent some of the early civilizations look in certain aspects. I don't know if anyone had seen the NOVA docutemtary on the finding of Archemedi's text. It was written over for some early Christian text. Some one photgraphed the text in the early 1900's from a book collection, then it disappeared in WW2. It resurfaced recently at an auction. With digital text enhancements they recovered more information. Some parts of it were higher level calculus that hadn't been seen before, or a t least forgotten.
Tom

Keep trying. I'm sure it'll come eventually.

I never liked that Achilles fell. I always thought he was a real heel.

That explains a lot. "Sarcasmotron!" I love that. I hope I can remember it and find a good use for that sometime.

I've read Homer's Oddity and Idiot, but it has been a while...

Can you blame him? Everybody on the Trojan side kept Hectoring him.
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I enjoyed reading the account of Pythias's voyages. I was astounded to learn that he likely sailed as far as Greenland, from Marseilles. I believe his journal is the first account of sea ice in the Mediterranean record. Never underestimate those ancient Greeks.

Very interesting. I was disappointed to not see any photos.

Architects are very visual you know.

Tom W