A discussion forum for history enthusiasts everywhere
 
HomeHome  Recent ActivityRecent Activity  Latest imagesLatest images  RegisterRegister  Log inLog in  SearchSearch  

Share | 
 

 Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere

View previous topic View next topic Go down 
AuthorMessage
Caro
Censura
Caro

Posts : 1514
Join date : 2012-01-09

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere EmptySat 18 Jan 2014, 04:38

Our news in the last couple of days has been full of rediscovered or just discovered bodies.  It seems the pelvis of Alfred the Great (or his son or...) has been found in a box of bones in Winchester.  I don't know which this paper this news originated from - usually there is something saying Daily Mail or Guardian, but this one doesn't have that, just the writer - Raphael Satter.

Alfred's bones were known to have been moved after he died, eventually being deposited at Hyde Abbey in Winchester, about 100 kilometres southwest of London. But much uncertainty followed with the tumult of the Reformation; an 18th-century building project that turned the site into a jail; and the claims of a 19th-century antiquary named John Mellor who boasted of having unearthed the king's bones...
They looked first in the place where Mellor claimed to have left them, in the churchyard of nearby St. Bartholomew's Church, but tests on the remains found there showed the bones were from a number of different people who lived hundreds of years later than Alfred.  
Researchers had better luck when they went through two boxes of bones excavated from the site of Hyde Abbey about two decades ago and kept at the Winchester Museum.
One, a pelvis, was radiocarbon dated to roughly around the time Alfred had died. Researchers say that, given the historical record, bones that old could only have come from Alfred or his family.
That conclusion ''is based on a valid chain of reasoning,'' said Oxford University professor John Blair.

And a previously unknown Pharaoh has been discovered in Egypt.  Senebkay, part of the Abydos dynasty suspected (why?) to have existed but not previously proven.  http://www.livescience.com/42673-forgotten-pharaoh-discovered.html

Senebkay's tomb dates to 1650 B.C. The tomb is made up of four chambers, including a burial chamber of limestone painted with colorful images of gods and goddesses. Nut, the goddess of the sky, Nephthys, the goddess of morning, Isis, the goddess of motherhood and fertility, and Selket, the goddess of protection against scorpions and snake bites, all make appearances on the white walls.
The items in the tomb would have once shown with gold gilt, but those riches are long gone in the hands of robbers. Senebkey's mummy rested in a jumble along with fragments of his coffin, funerary mask and the chest he borrowed from Sobekhotep I. The chest would have held the jars holding Senebkey's internal organs.
 
Back to top Go down
Islanddawn
Censura
Islanddawn

Posts : 2163
Join date : 2012-01-05
Location : Greece

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Re: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere EmptyMon 20 Jan 2014, 14:56

Oh dear, try as they might to whip up public hysteria (a la Richard III) over Alfred's supposed pelvic bone with an hour long press conference anouncing the stunning (tongue in cheek) find and a Beeb doc tomorrow night revealing all on the frantic search for the King's nether regions, somehow it all seems like deja vu.

http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/20/alfred-the-great-or-edward-the-elder-pelvic-bone-most-likely-belongs-to-anglo-saxon-king/

What will be next, a fight over who gets the honour of burying the one and only bone? Are they planning on a re-construction of Alfred's pelvic area so we can see a likeness? And who will be cast in the role of Philippa?
Back to top Go down
Meles meles
Censura
Meles meles

Posts : 5037
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Re: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere EmptyMon 03 Feb 2014, 10:51

And now it seems they've found the remains of Blanche Mortimer too:

BBC News : Blanch Mortimer: 'Remains' of medieval traitor's daughter found
Back to top Go down
Islanddawn
Censura
Islanddawn

Posts : 2163
Join date : 2012-01-05
Location : Greece

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Re: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere EmptyThu 20 Feb 2014, 11:04

Thought provoking article from ABC Australia on how archaeology is turning monarchs into heroes. Exploiting the past to re-inforce the present and the misuse of archaeology, using the recent excavations of Richard III and King Herod as examples.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/5257524
Back to top Go down
Meles meles
Censura
Meles meles

Posts : 5037
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Re: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere EmptyThu 20 Feb 2014, 11:35

Putting aside the modern Israeli state's fatuous use of Herod to try and justify their claims to the Westbank, that article still doesn't really present much evidence for how Herod can now be seen as a hero, even to the Jewish population, either then or now. Herod still comes across as a meglomaniacal tyrant, whose brutalities were seen by his contemporaries as excessive even by the standards of their time, and with a typical tyrant's perchant for self-publicity through punishingly expensive, grandiose building projects .... not unlike North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
Back to top Go down
Sponsored content




Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty
PostSubject: Re: Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere   Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere Empty

Back to top Go down
 

Royal Bodies Unearthed Everywhere

View previous topic View next topic Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

 Similar topics

-
» Royal Bodies
» King Arthur’s Britain: The Truth Unearthed?
» Bring up the Bodies
» Hairs in the Royal Annointed
» Celebrations for a royal wedding

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
Res Historica History Forum :: The history of people ... :: Individuals-