Well just a few absent minded thoughts on immigration and the killing of named lions. Is there anything that joins them up, yes its the news. Idiotic killers of wild life, deserve prison is my only view on Cecil's killer, luckily the dentist killed a high profile animal and now lies in hiding, justice waiting to be meted out. The airlines are beginning to stop transporting trophy heads and hides, and the death of Cecil did at least bring that about. I have seen on my F/B account pictures of exceptionally stupid women crouched beside various dead animals, including giraffes, so it is not just a male trait. And that is all I will say about the cruel sport of killing animals.
Immigration is another matter, and the word that sprang to mind was compassion for all those people stranded in no man's land at Calais. This of course is what is happening, they are fed, clothed by charities and anyone who has seen these people will understand the desperation of their plights. It is a plight that has been echoed down the centuries, it is not new, we all probably have 'alien' blood in our veins from early ancestors. Whether our ancestors came over with the Romans, Saxons or the Vikings, these things happen, people move from one country to another for many reasons.
A Scottish comedian is angry in the Guardian, From this I gather we have to temper our irrationality, remember the descriptive language we use when we describe other equal human beings. It is a 'nuisance' for the lorry drivers and holiday makers to stay stuck in traffic jams for hours on end but it is a calamity to set off into an unknown future with very little on your back and the knowledge that should you be evicted as an 'illegal immigrant' you will have to go back to a war torn country. So I have no answers to the problem, new towns in Africa maybe, but the Arab holocaust is something else, which funnily enough we do not get much news on, is Syria still a desperately divided country with its civilians fleeing the warring sides, what about Iraq?
So in the end I shall go back to reading a long PDF on the Prehistoric and Roman history of North-East Yorkshire, because I can't do anything in the end, but perhaps be very grateful that I live in a country where peace reigns!
And to add a rider, also tolerance.......
And then there is also other news; The Die the Struck Britain's First Coin
And to add a rider, also tolerance.......
And then there is also other news; The Die the Struck Britain's First Coin
Hi Thelma, There's a coincidence -- I'm about a quarter through Melanie Giles, _A Forged Glamour: Landscape, Identity and Material Culture in the Iron Age_, it is about the Yorkshire Arras culture and the surrounding region. I recommend it and it is unusually inexpensive for such an important work. You can get an ebook version on Google Play.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the Gallo Belgic A die (Ambiani large flan type), Britain's first coin seems a bit of journalistic wishful thinking. I think it most likely a forger's die but the main thing is that British finds of this type of coin are usually very worn, unlike the continental finds of the same coins.
Hi John, Thanks, will look up that book, need some books on this part of Yorkshire, and there are a lot of 'square' barrows round here. Interestingly the Wheeldale Roman road is almost marked out by Roman villas to the coast line, which probably gives it more credence as to being Roman..
DeleteI thought the die was rather beautiful, forger or otherwise but as you say, most archaeology news has to have a journalistic tag in it. Perhaps coins were worn because of continually changing hands, I wonder how the currency worked in all these different places...
Must be nice to live close to that stuff!
DeleteThose gold staters are a bit of a mystery, their focus is around the Thames estuary in areas where a lot of potin coins are found in hoards. Some varieties and denominations of the type are more usually found on the continent and in better condition. Perhaps in Britain they were especially prized and were passed frequently as high status gifts, or traded and hoarded because subsequent issues of gold staters had less gold content and they thus became subject to Gresham's law that bad money drives out good. The only problem there is that you would think that most would be melted to profit on the gold. It was too much gold for any common transaction at the time, and gold staters were mainly used for military pay and do not often show up that worn in Britain.
"Must be nice to live close to that stuff!" Actually these square barrows don't show up as much, and have a tendency to be rounded at the corners into the bargain, this is I expect due to farming and ploughing. The Arras Culture seems to be restricted to certain areas, here, between the River Humber and the Southern slope of the N.Y.Moors..
DeleteAs for the book, £30 is not reasonable in my estimation, but I can get it as an e-book for £11 on Google, never had an e-book, so some debate will go on in my mind, apparently you can read it on the computer.....