04-28-2010, 06:21 PM
Greetings to all,
I will freely admit that I belong to the pro-Kalkriese camp. That does not mean that I have a closed mind however, as my near obsessive interest in the Batlle of the Teutoburg Forest goes way back (to when I was 9 years old! - and that was a long, long time ago). I, personally, have never seen Kalkriese as THE SITE of the battle, but rather as A SITE along with possible others in the running 3 or 4 days' long battle, assuming that our only extant account of the actual battle, from Cassius Dio, is reasonably accurate with regard to its duration. Those others are yet to be found - and may never be found.
I have gotten quite interested in the discoveries in what is being called "Fields of Conflict Archaeology". My expedition to the Yale University libraries earlier in April allowed me to look at some of the collected papers in journals in this field. Finding battlefields, especially ancient ones, with any kind of artifact left, seems to be rare - maybe even extremely rare. The bones found on the site are of great to me, and I wish more was available in English on what the forensics tell us about them. To find a female skeleton among them is no great stretch. After all, Varus' army had a large civilian presence and some of them were surely still alive at the end (wherever that took place). My guess is that captured civilians would be more likely to end as slaves rather than sacrifices, unlike the military personnel. In the articles I've seen of more recent date, there is discussion of looting - for which the Germans had plenty of time to strip the dead and search the battlefield.
I have seen information calling into question the VAR countermarks, but to the best of my knowledge the coins found to date including the catalogued information on the stolen coins have none of them of the 10 AD series. They all predate that series. So, even if the countermark means something else,...
Obviously, the Romans and Germans fought each other time and again during the long process from Drusus to Varus and including Germanicus, and after. The Germans certainly got in some good "licks" against the Romans.
The connection to a legion I all the way back to Pyrrhus seems a big stretch (the chest hook owned by M Aius - mentioning Fabricius)- that predates Hannibal - and the legions had no regimental history at that early date. That would be legion I in a particular consul's series. They were usually disbanded back then. We do know that legionaries included their centurions' names on their equipment (and on their tombstones as well). The palisade stakes found at Oberadan including centurial markings. They are hard to read in the photos I've seen so I am deferring to the experts on that one.
What are the theories out there for other conflicts to which Kalkriese might be connected? I would be interested in what other information there is out there. My German being sketchy at best, and more technical stuff being tough to translate even when German is readable at a low "conversational" level, some English translation would be helpful to me and I know to other English speakers.
I will freely admit that I belong to the pro-Kalkriese camp. That does not mean that I have a closed mind however, as my near obsessive interest in the Batlle of the Teutoburg Forest goes way back (to when I was 9 years old! - and that was a long, long time ago). I, personally, have never seen Kalkriese as THE SITE of the battle, but rather as A SITE along with possible others in the running 3 or 4 days' long battle, assuming that our only extant account of the actual battle, from Cassius Dio, is reasonably accurate with regard to its duration. Those others are yet to be found - and may never be found.
I have gotten quite interested in the discoveries in what is being called "Fields of Conflict Archaeology". My expedition to the Yale University libraries earlier in April allowed me to look at some of the collected papers in journals in this field. Finding battlefields, especially ancient ones, with any kind of artifact left, seems to be rare - maybe even extremely rare. The bones found on the site are of great to me, and I wish more was available in English on what the forensics tell us about them. To find a female skeleton among them is no great stretch. After all, Varus' army had a large civilian presence and some of them were surely still alive at the end (wherever that took place). My guess is that captured civilians would be more likely to end as slaves rather than sacrifices, unlike the military personnel. In the articles I've seen of more recent date, there is discussion of looting - for which the Germans had plenty of time to strip the dead and search the battlefield.
I have seen information calling into question the VAR countermarks, but to the best of my knowledge the coins found to date including the catalogued information on the stolen coins have none of them of the 10 AD series. They all predate that series. So, even if the countermark means something else,...
Obviously, the Romans and Germans fought each other time and again during the long process from Drusus to Varus and including Germanicus, and after. The Germans certainly got in some good "licks" against the Romans.
The connection to a legion I all the way back to Pyrrhus seems a big stretch (the chest hook owned by M Aius - mentioning Fabricius)- that predates Hannibal - and the legions had no regimental history at that early date. That would be legion I in a particular consul's series. They were usually disbanded back then. We do know that legionaries included their centurions' names on their equipment (and on their tombstones as well). The palisade stakes found at Oberadan including centurial markings. They are hard to read in the photos I've seen so I am deferring to the experts on that one.
What are the theories out there for other conflicts to which Kalkriese might be connected? I would be interested in what other information there is out there. My German being sketchy at best, and more technical stuff being tough to translate even when German is readable at a low "conversational" level, some English translation would be helpful to me and I know to other English speakers.
Quinton Johansen
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae
