Ancient sites

[Kieran]

I have always been interested in ancient structures, sites, and monuments from around the world .Being Irish, i would be naturally be drawn to my own culture's history.
I might sound like a broken record with my interest in the hudson valley caverns and standing stones in New york.
If, this stones or dolmens are geniune. It actually changes American history somewhat, because they should'nt be there.
We have no evidence in the records of history "WHO BUILD THEM".

We now they could be Celt, because they have being verified as so by some historians others disagree and claim colonists build them. Of course, they might be only markers to something, other Groups previously may have been there before the Celts.
The problem with the celts and the druids, was that they never wrote down anything down about themselves, everything was verbal because they wanted to avoid there enemies gaining knowledge to their ideas and there culture.
Julius Caesar, even wrote, the Celts, are one of the most mysteries races i have ever come across. For some reason, Ireland was never invaded by the Romans, Historians' actually today, still today can not figure out 'why' Everybody else was under the thumb of the Romans.

I will show a video here to why, i think the hudson valley cavern and stones are an important find. http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=DbKkwCx5zyM&t

This is only, one site that will give u an idea, what the hudson valley caves, standing stones, and caverns are important.

This a standing stone of a Celt god called Janus. It is very old, it was only found recently.http://www.fotosearch.com/IST519/1252881

 

[Kandinsky]

The Romans never got Ireland because they couldn't manage to conquer Wales or Scotland. They were building forts in east Wales and southern Scotland to try to keep a lid on them. What's now called Merseyside never had a strong Roman presence either. The north west coastline didn't fall under Roman occupation. In that light, they didn't have the infrastructure to maintain a port capable of shipping serious forces over to Ireland.

The problem with the celts and the druids, was that they never wrote down anything down about themselves, everything was verbal because they wanted to avoid there enemies gaining knowledge to their ideas and there culture.

It's interesting to read the Roman records of the lengths they would go to when faced with an organised force of Celts or Gauls. The Celts had developed writing by around the 6th century BC, but it's thought to have been sustained by the priest class. This means that only a small minority could read or write due to the secrecy of the priest caste. The Romans had greater literacy and their histories are more widespread and some are still available. Most of our knowledge of Celtic culture is drawn from Roman records. Naturally, the Roman version of Celtic society will be biased and partially propaganda.

Have a look at this link... Theoretical Structural Archaeology

 

[Kieran]

The Romans never got Ireland because they couldn't manage to conquer Wales or Scotland. They were building forts in east Wales and southern Scotland to try to keep a lid on them. What's now called Merseyside never had a strong Roman presence either. The north west coastline didn't fall under Roman occupation. In that light, they didn't have the infrastructure to maintain a port capable of shipping serious forces over to Ireland.



It's interesting to read the Roman records of the lengths they would go to when faced with an organised force of Celts or Gauls. The Celts had developed writing by around the 6th century BC, but it's thought to have been sustained by the priest class. This means that only a small minority could read or write due to the secrecy of the priest caste. The Romans had greater literacy and their histories are more widespread and some are still available. Most of our knowledge of Celtic culture is drawn from Roman records. Naturally, the Roman version of Celtic society will be biased and partially propaganda.

Have a look at this link... Theoretical Structural Archaeology

Yes, we have theories to why they didnt, but notting was ever siad by the Romans themselves. That was my argument. Historians have theories to why, but you could be right, because the Roman army was very overstretched when it came to their armies.
They were trying to quell uprisings all over the Roman empire at the time. It is a historical fact, that the celt tribes from Ireland invaded England and joined up with Tribes from scotland called the PICTS to attack the Romans and keep them out of scotland.

Yes, a modern well equiped force like the Roman army were too strong for the celtic tribes, they were too professional. But, they overstretched their Armies to beyond breaking point.

While they were trying to fight battles in the middle east. Goth tribes, Germanic Tribes, and Celt tribes attacked Rome.

Well, the druids were the elite of the celts. they forbid writeing only verbal mainly to stop knowledge of their ideas and culture from falling into there enemies hands.The Romans, wrote alot and must of it was definately propaganda and alot of this information by the romans was used by the New church( christianity) to denounce the Celts beliefs.

 

[conor]

The Romans never got Ireland because they couldn't manage to conquer Wales or Scotland. They were building forts in east Wales and southern Scotland to try to keep a lid on them. What's now called Merseyside never had a strong Roman presence either. The north west coastline didn't fall under Roman occupation. In that light, they didn't have the infrastructure to maintain a port capable of shipping serious forces over to Ireland.



It's interesting to read the Roman records of the lengths they would go to when faced with an organised force of Celts or Gauls. The Celts had developed writing by around the 6th century BC, but it's thought to have been sustained by the priest class. This means that only a small minority could read or write due to the secrecy of the priest caste. The Romans had greater literacy and their histories are more widespread and some are still available. Most of our knowledge of Celtic culture is drawn from Roman records. Naturally, the Roman version of Celtic society will be biased and partially propaganda.

Have a look at this link... Theoretical Structural Archaeology

The Romans named Ireland Hibernia, which means Winter land. Too cold, perhaps The word Celt was a generic Roman word for thousands of tribes who were not united under one common culture. Sure, they traded with one another, but the further you got from a certain locality, the culture would become different but yet similar. With only a small number of people who could read or write, they would have led lives that were based primarily around a small village and the villages surrounding it. Thus, to talk about a celtic culture is to talk about many different cultures.

The word Celt as the Romans used it would probably be a derrogotary word as we understand it. If you read some of the accounts of Romans about the Celts, it is always about how savage they were, either in how they dressed, acted or fought in battle.

It is sort of a similar situation for all the native americans who, despite having many different cultures get lumped under the one umbrella - native american.

It's funny, but one thing that I find interesting about the Roman empire, especially on the outskirts of it, is how local tradition became infused with Roman tradition and vice versa. Temples to traditional gods took on a Roman style of worship. Within Roman religion itself, there were sects upon sects of different forms of worship to cater for anyone really. I think that if you wanted to see a modern example of how religion was played out in the classical world, you can look at Indian Hinduism, the very definition of which is an injustice to the rich diversity of Indian tradition.

In such a climate, a foreigner was odd for having other gods than you, but that did not make him wrong and you right, or vice versa. Your mother probably went out every night to see her friends and preform rituals which you would never encounter yourself in any form, and you would choose certain sects, or just adhere to a more general style of worship.

So, it wasn't like they were trying to conquer people so completely as to rob them of their tradition, not like what happened when the Europeans came to America in the name of God, to "save" the heathens.

There is one interesting exception. In the early centuries of the first millenium Christianity was banned. I read an account of a Roman guy who was in charge of dealing with people who were found out to be Christians. These radicals seemed ideologically opposed to Rome and all its connotations. "My only king is God" - a direct reaction to what some felt was an oppressive empire (and for many, it very much was). In becoming a Christian you denied any other form of worship, and so basically you were against the whole idea of Roman society. You were willing to die for these beliefs, that there was a higher truth other than worshipping all sorts of idols, and only through this higher truth, revealed by a chap called Jesus, you could find true nirvana, a kind of enlightenment that transcended death, as Jesus had shown you.

You can see it was a pretty romantic and radical movement, on the run from an empire based on falsities as you saw it, one which deified everything and anything. If you think about it, as each ceasar was deified, the deification of Jesus to this ultimate God, beyond all those petty Roman gods, could have been a reaction to this admittedly indulgent and over the top Roman tradition (even some Romans felt that way about making each Ceasar a god!). The political turmoil of that period can not be underestimated either. Julius Caesar's death had settup a system of deifying dead emperors, and of herititory emperorship. This was probably a very bad thing. Rome was in constant upheaval, and it is probably no wonder such a radical option as Christianity caught hold of some people's imaginations.

Anyway, back to the guy who tortured Christians. I read this sample of his diary or record type thing he kept. He said that they didn't have to renounce God or Christ or anything like that. They only had to accept the Roman gods. He genuinely seemed perplexed as to why they just didn't accept the Roman gods, and it is clear that he really cannot understand this monotheistic fundamentalism which seems to be at the core of all monotheistic religions - a kind of self-righteousness which excludes all other forms of belief. It's funny, now I think that this kind of fundamentalism is generally a bad thing. But it is kind of romantic in a way when you think of the oppression of the Roman empire and how it led some to take such a radical stance against all things Roman. The fact that the Romans eventually adopted it themselves in a time when the empire was falling apart perhaps shows that there was a general dis-ease felt throughout the empire (even in Rome itself) at the way things are going.

Anyway, totally off topic, but I couldn't resist. I am really fascinated by the classical period in general.