Roman jewelry found in 5th Century Japanese tomb

[Brandy Blue]

Very cool if true. Of course some Asian goods made it to Rome, so the reverse is not too unplausible.

http://news.yahoo.com/roman-jewellery-found-ancient-japan-tomb-163550978.html

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Very cool if true. Of course some Asian goods made it to Rome, so the reverse is not too unplausible.

http://news.yahoo.com/roman-jewellery-found-ancient-japan-tomb-163550978.html

I confess that my knowledge of Roman Jewelry is quite limited, but I recall that besides the Silk Road there is a theory that after the Partians defeated Crassus' Legions the captured prisoners were sent to China as soldiers based on roughly contemporous reports of "mercenary" units in China.

Although the transfer would have been indirect it's not impossible by any stretch - especially if the goods passed accross Asia over a generation or so, going through different owners.

[Brandy Blue]

I think I heard somewhere about those Roman mercs in China too. I don't know if the evidence is good or not.

[Fisherking]

An easier explanation is that Rome traded regularly with the Indian Sub Continent by land and sea. India traded with China and so on. For a time Rome was also trading directly with China via the silk road.

It is not too surprising that something made its way to Japan.

[gaelic cowboy]

The tomb is 5th century but I bet the jewelery is not, given a long enough time scale you could get any amount of stuff traded all over the place.

[wangchang]

Well I think it confirms what I always thought : people travelled more and farther than we think.

Even more awesome is the theory made by some well known scientists, archeologists, explorers... that some of the early egyptians elite knew that there was another continent out there (america), and that they had long time established contact with the empires out there (the ancestors of the mayan...). But knowledge was lost during the long centuries of massive (really massive) political turmoil in egypt, which lead to some regression in the egyptian advancement (you can't really study when the library is on fire and troops are trying to kill you).
Even if the egyptians were not well known navigators, I don't think it's impossible. I mean, I herd of a guy that crossed the atlantic with juste a raft (and survived). And Columbus boat wasn't impressive either.
So this theory could make some sense, and it could also explain some of the striking similarities between the mayan and the egyptians.

[Catiline]

There's pretty much nothing but conjecture and wishful thinking to suggest pre-Columbian contact between the Egyptians and the Americas. Given how loudly they trumpeted their other efforts at exploration, it seems unlikely that contact across the Atlantic wouldn't have been recorded. There's no evidence of the other goods you'd expect to be traded going either way.

There are some nice parallels in things like the pyramids, but it's most likely convergent evolution - there are only so many ways to build monumental structures like those with the level of technology available.

[The Wizard]

Very interesting. That extends the reach of Roman trade even further than previously assumed, I imagine. No captured legionaries needed -- just Indian Ocean monsoon trade.


Well I think it confirms what I always thought : people travelled more and farther than we think.

Even more awesome is the theory made by some well known scientists, archeologists, explorers... that some of the early egyptians elite knew that there was another continent out there (america)

I don't think any self-respecting scientist worth his salt would make such an outlandish claim. People who appear in Ancient Aliens or Ancient X-Files maybe, but not actual academics.

The whole idea is based on Western prejudice -- them injuns just weren't capable of buildin' no pyramids. Utter nonsense, of course.

[Tuuvi]

There's pretty much nothing but conjecture and wishful thinking to suggest pre-Columbian contact between the Egyptians and the Americas. Given how loudly they trumpeted their other efforts at exploration, it seems unlikely that contact across the Atlantic wouldn't have been recorded. There's no evidence of the other goods you'd expect to be traded going either way.

There are some nice parallels in things like the pyramids, but it's most likely convergent evolution - there are only so many ways to build monumental structures like those with the level of technology available.

Even then they only appear similar on the surface; Mayan pyramids and hieroglyphic writing are really different in form and function from Egyptian pyramids and writing.