COIN UNEARTH NEW ROMAN EMPEROR
A
coin that solved the mystery of a little-known Roman emperor is going on
display at a new exhibition.
Photo: Mr. Malin's discovery is now going on show at the British Museum
The bronze coin, that bears the face of Emperor Domitianus was found by Brian Malin as he combed a field in Oxfordshire with a metal detector. Only one other such coin exists, showing the face of the man who ruled Britain for just four days, but was dismissed as a hoax. Mr. Malin's coin is on exhibition at the British Museum in London. Experts say his discovery proves the earlier coin, found in France 100 years ago, was genuine and that Domitianus did exist. The coin, estimated to be worth more than £10,000, goes on display on Wednesday at the British Museum in London. Historians believe Domitianus was the penultimate Roman ruler in Britain, an upstart from the legion who was ousted for treason for daring to declare himself emperor and having the coins made. Mr. Malin, a father of one who has been searching for treasure with his metal detector for more than 15 years, found the coin in a field in April last year, 10 miles south-east of Oxford.
Dr Chris Howgego from the Ashmolean Museum: "Brian Malin deserves a lot of credit because he did not even delve into the jar."
It was in a pot of 5,000 others, stuck together and also bearing the heads of emperors. Dating from 250AD to about 275AD, they spanned five emperors and a time of great upheaval for the Roman Empire. Richard Abdy, Roman coin curator at the British Museum, said: "The Roman empire was beginning to fray. Domitianus, it looks, ruled in 271AD, he was the penultimate emperor and there was only one coin with his image. "
There have been references to Domitianus in two ancient texts but they described him as an officer who had been punished for treason." Dr. Chris Howgego, curator for Roman coins at the Ashmolean Museum, said: "It is exciting and valuable and interesting. "Brian Malin deserves a lot of credit because he did not even delve into the jar and brought it into the museum punctually and he is rather sweet. "He has not once asked about the value - he has asked 'how important is this and what can we learn?'" In line with Britain's treasure trove laws, a coroner's inquest will be held and an independent panel will decide how much the 5,000-coin hoard is worth. The panel will then mediate between the Ashmolean, which has said it wants to buy the pot of coins, and Mr. Malin.
Clay tablets hold key to tale of Helen, Paris and the siege of Troy
New archaeological finds show that Homeric and Hollywood epics may be based on more than just myth
The legend has dominated Western culture for more than 3,000 years - the kidnapping of the most beautiful woman in the world, the thousand ships sent to bring her back, and the bloody 10-year war that followed. Now a leading British historian claims that the true story of Troy is finally about to be uncovered. Bettany Hughes, currently making a television series about ancient Greece, says that a number of recently unearthed clay tablets hold "the keys" to the compelling tale of Helen, Paris and the siege of Troy. The famous story - originally told in Homer's epic poem The Iliad - has always been considered more myth than reality. Now, says Ms Hughes, a collection of shattered tablets discovered beneath the Greek city of Thebes could completely overturn that belief. "There is no doubt that this discovery is one of the keys that will unlock the story of Troy," Ms Hughes said yesterday. "The tablets that have been rescued at Thebes mean we are having to re-draft the Bronze Age map. What is emerging is a picture of a world remarkably close to that described by Homer." The fragmented tablets, inscribed in the ancient script known as Linear B, have been dated back to the 13th century BC - the period when the Trojan war is supposed to have been fought. A number of pieces are still emerging from the site. "It's fabulously frustrating," said Ms Hughes. "The tablets are slowly, slowly being deciphered, but it is like putting together a massive jigsaw." Promisingly, the tablets already decoded mention a number of key names from Homer - including lost or vanished cities that supplied ships for the famous fleet led by Agamemnon and Achilles. This, says Ms Hughes, is highly significant, as the tablets pre-date Homer's supposedly fictional work by around 500 years. "Up until now, no one has written seriously about the characters in The Iliad: the people who make it live and breathe," said Ms Hughes, who has been working on a biography of Helen for the past four years. "Evidence like this means that at last we can start to draw lines between the three points of the triangle - the archaeological, textual and literary sources." The Iliad tells the story of what happened after Paris, the Prince of Troy, took Helen, Queen of Sparta, back to Troy. Her husband, King Menelaus, assembled an army of warriors from across Mycenaean Greece, including Achilles, and declared war on Troy. The legend of Troy returns to the forefront of popular culture later this month, when Wolfgang Petersen's $200m Hollywood film opens, with Brad Pitt starring as Achilles and Orlando Bloom as Paris. Despite Ms Hughes's confidence, other leading experts urged caution until the discoveries at Thebes have been studied fully. Professor Tom Palaima, a Linear B expert at the University of Texas, warned that the ongoing archaeological process required "maximum ingenuity". "The Linear B tablets are important because they show us that the Mycenaean Greeks had a vested interest in operating along the coast of Asia Minor, and that would have brought them into direct contact with the Trojans," Professor Palaima said. "To my mind, given all the new information, I don't find it at all difficult to conclude that at some point a combined Greek military campaign could have been launched against Troy, giving rise to the epic." Dr Michael Lane, an Aegean scholar at Sheffield University, said: "It's perfectly correct to say that the Linear B tablets provide us with a lot of information about the institutions of the time, but they don't directly cover the topics that the epic poems do. By and large, the majority constitute lists - things like who has a flock of sheep in a certain place. The stories of the Trojan war are about big guys bashing each other - not about somebody making notes." By J. Thompson
Expedition will study 'man-made object' shown by satellite photos
Photo:
According to press materials supplied by Shamrock -- The Trinity
Corporation, this satellite view shows Noah's Ark jutting out from the
snow on Mt. Ararat. Image Courtesy of Digital Globe
The CIA calls it the "Ararat anomaly". Mountaineers call it the peak of the unforgiving range on the Turkish-Armenian border. But some scientists think it might hold a far greater historical significance as the great archaeological mirage - the remains of Noah's ark. Ten explorers and scientists from the US and Turkey will embark on an expedition on July 15 to scale Mount Ararat, 4,700 metres (15,000ft) above sea level, to determine what is behind the image that has been picked up by spy satellites in the past two decades. New satellite pictures suggest a huge 14-metre-high structure that was exposed when the heatwave that hit Europe last summer melted the snowcap that had obscured it for years. The expedition will be led by Ahmet Ali Arslan, an English professor at Seljuk University in Turkey. An experienced mountaineer, he has already scaled Mt Ararat 40 times and grew up around the mountain range. "The slopes are very, very harsh and dangerous on the northern face - it is extremely challenging, mentally and physically," said Mr Arslan, who was once a prime-ministerial aide. The expedition can only occur with the consent of the Turkish government, and Mr Arslan will meet the prime minister next week to discuss the proposed trip. The estimated cost is £500,000 and will be met by Daniel McGivern, a businessman and Christian activist from Hawaii. At a press conference to announce the trip this week he said: "We are not excavating it. We're going to photograph it and, God willing, you're all going to see it." "These new photos unequivocally show a man-made object," he added. "I am convinced that the excavation of the object and the results of tests run on any collected samples will prove that it is Noah's ark." Mr McGivern's Trinity Corporation last year used Quick Bird, the world's highest resolution satellite, to photograph the anomaly. He has said he is 98% sure that the object is the ark, because of beams of wood he said were visible in the images. The Bible says that the ark, packed with either seven or two of each creature, male and female, on earth, came to rest on the mountains of Ararat after the great floods - thought to have occurred in 5,600BC, when the Mediterranean flooded into the basin where the Black Sea now sits. Skeptics have pointed out that Noah would have had to load 460 organisms a second to fill the ark with two of each species in 24 hours as the Bible suggests. The object on Mount Ararat was first noticed by the CIA in 1949 from a spy plane.
Turkish
pilots saw it again 10 years later, and the pictures began to reinforce the
myth around the vessel, giving Christians apparent archeological evidence
that part of Genesis could be physically substantiated. The region was off
limits until 1982 because of Soviet complaints that explorers were spying.
Since then, teams of explorers have tried to reach the ark, but failed to
substantiate what the object is. Geologists have discovered evidence of a
flood in the region known as Mesopotamia in Sumerian times (6,000 years
ago), yet have maintained that it is not possible for a ship to have made
landfall at an altitude as high as that of Mt Ararat.
Photo: Daniel P. McGivern, president of Shamrock-The Trinity Corp., addresses the media at a Washington press conference with imagery of Mount Ararat in the background.
End of the article.