Isn't it common knowledge now that Rome had emissaries sent to China along the silk road? Perhaps an outpost was established somewhere along the route. <p></p><i></i>
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Quote:</em></strong><hr>Isn't it common knowledge now that Rome had emissaries sent to China along the silk road?<hr><br>
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Admiral,<br>
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I'm not sure about this myself but I thought Rome didn't establish contact with China until the Byzantine Era when Roman agents smuggled silk worm eggs back to Constantinople.<br>
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Does anyone else know of earlier contact between China and Rome ?<br>
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-Theo <p></p><i></i>
Jaime
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This discussion keeps coming back every once in awhile. I think the usual conclusion is that the Romans probably did trade with China - through middlemen - but any rumours about Roman settlements in the far east are very hard to prove. <p>Greets<br>
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Jasper</p><i></i>
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Hallo Ivan,<br>
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the news seems to refer to an elder theory that after the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae a greater body of Roman prisoners was transferred to the Eastern boundary of the Parthian realm in order to defend it against the Parthians' Eastern adversaries.<br>
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IIRC did the - otherwise respectable - German TV series 'Terra X' dedicate a chapter to this theory and I think there was shown even an old Chinese painting showing hostile soldiers with their shields linked together over their heads 'like the scales of a fish'. And the authors of the report showed the remains of an old abandoned Chinese city with rectangular walls ... Both thought to be indications for the presence of Roman legionaries.<br>
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There must have been an own topic about the Romano-Chinese connection at this forum, if You don't find it, take a look at this site:<br>
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[url=http://www.pip.com.au/~paceman/ROMANS%20IN%20CHINA.html" target="top]www.pip.com.au/~paceman/ROMANS%20IN%20CHINA.html[/url]<br>
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Greets - Uwe <p></p><i></i>
Greets - Uwe
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Much the same material appears in an article in this week's "Economist" magazine as a "special:"<br>
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"The Romans in China"<br>
Dec 16th 2004<br>
From The Economist print edition<br>
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"In a remote village of western China, high on the dusty pastures that stretch toward the Qilian mountains, the local branch of the Communist Party is finishing off a new headquarters that stands out from the local buildings, all built of compacted earth. This building has a classical Roman portico, made of concrete, at the entrance. The local party chief and his deputy both think they are the descendants of Romans.…" You have to be a subscriber to read the rest. I read it in my hard-copy edition…<br>
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What amazes me is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) even winks at this sort of thing -- the notion that “Romansâ€ÂÂ
Duane C. Young, M.A.
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Roman in China? How about South America! The Times published this today (Of course this is all about journalists getting their vocabulary wrong, but read the piece nonetheless)<br>
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December 22, 2004<br>
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Women warriors from Amazon fought for Britain's Roman army<br>
By Lewis Smith<br>
<img src="http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,167961,00.jpg" style="border:0;"/><br>
THE remains of two Amazon warriors serving with the Roman army in Britain have been discovered in a cemetery that has astonished archaeologists.<br>
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Women soldiers were previously unknown in the Roman army in Britain and the find at Brougham in Cumbria will force a reappraisal of their role in 3rd-century society.<br>
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The women are thought to have come from the Danube region of Eastern Europe, which was where the Ancient Greeks said the fearsome Amazon warriors could be found.<br>
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The women, believed to have died some time between AD220 and 300, were burnt on pyres upon which were placed their horses and military equipment. The remains were uncovered in the 1960s but full-scale analysis and identification has been possible only since 2000 with technological advances.<br>
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The soldiers are believed to have been part of the numerii, a Roman irregular unit, which would have been attached to a legion serving in Britain. Other finds show that their unit originated from the Danubian provinces of Noricum, Pannonia and Ilyria which now form parts of Austria, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia.<br>
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Hilary Cool, the director of Barbican Research Associates, which specialises in post- excavation archaeological analysis, said that the remains were the most intriguing aspects of a site that is changing our understanding of Roman burial rites.<br>
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“It seems highly probable that we have a unit raised in the Danubian lands and transferred to Britain,â€ÂÂ