December 24, 2005
Ancient Persia Exhibition
We went to the British Museum yesterday to see the exhibition ‘Forgotten Empire - the World of Ancient Persia’. Absolutely fascinating!
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/persia
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:13 PM | TrackBack
February 21, 2005
Mons Graupius
Historian James Fraser has ‘relocated’ the battle of Mons Graupius (AD 84) to the Gask Ridge in Perthshire, as noted by Ian Johnston in the Scotsman. Famously described by Tacitus, this was fought between the Romans under Agricola and the Caledonii under Calgacus.
thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=169512005
www.morgue.demon.co.uk/Pages/Gask/index.htm
UPDATE 21 March 2005
Predictably, perhaps, James Fraser’s studies are being challenged. As Charles Currie says, “Grampian is called Grampian because of Mons Graupius.”
thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=302582005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 04:22 PM | TrackBack
January 30, 2005
Iraqi Scots
Charlatan alert! According to Sharon Ward in the Scotsman on January 15, a television programme called ‘Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History’, will reveal that 20 percent of Scots have Iraqi blood, that Atlantis was in the North Sea, and that many Scots used to speak Welsh. (It will be shown later this year by STV/Grampian.)
According to DNA testing (by the Oxford Ancestors Project), the non-Iraqi 80 percent are apparently descended from hunter gatherers who came north after the last ice age, rather than Celts, Romans, and Vikings etc.
As any archaeologist knows, the mention of Atlantis is a sure-fire sign that some nonsense is imminent. Moreover Iraq did not exist until the last century.
As for the DNA testing - what was the sample and how was it collected? It is true than DNA evidence often seems to conflict with linguistic research. However the results of the BBC Blood of the Vikings (Y chromosome) genetic survey were in line with conventional expectations. Angle, Saxon and Danish ‘invader’ DNA was found throughout mainland Britain, while ‘Norwegian’ DNA was prevalent in the Orkneys and Shetlands, and common in the Western Isles.
news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=51752005
www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/
Posted by Simon Holledge at 12:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 09, 2004
Coastal archaeological sites threatened
Coastal erosion is threatening a number of archaeological sites in Benbecula, Caithness, East Lothian, Fife, the Orkneys and the Shetlands and elsewhere,
Experts at a conference organized by the Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (SCAPE) Trust on October 12 will discuss the fact that Historic Scotland are not accepting responsibility for sites in the face of natural erosion.
Apparently the government has made money available for coastal protection, but there are no specific funds for protecting archaeological sites. The archaeologists would presumably want the sites to be thoroughly examined in cases where it is not practical to save them.
news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1154462004
www.st-andrews.ac.uk/envhist/Conf.htm
www.st-andrews.ac.uk/envhist/ConfProg.htm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 12:35 AM | Comments (1)