On the subject of things being found well outside their homelands and
personal time and space, an excavation in Sydney's Rocks in about 1990 found
a small ancient Egyptian Upshabti figure (sorry Egyptophiles - my
spellckecker does not compute), as well as other materials that reflect that
there were people who were collectors or had just brought back junk from
their travels.  Being Sydney's maritime distirct may make this quite
unsurprising. Quite a few  shipwrecks have anomalous materials, quite likely
items traded as sourvenirs by sailors or kept as mementoes.

Denis Gojak

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Babson [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, 14 February 2000 12:55
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: romans in mexico? news from germany
> 
> Could it be a Roman figurine head imported by a 16th-20th century
> collector, and lost?  Could it (if small enough) be something brought to
> Mexico in mud ballast from a Spanish/Mediterranean port, like the Roman
> coins and ancient British pottery found in the James River, Va. estuary
> (discussed, to the best of my recollection, in Noel-Hume's Historical
> Archaeology)?  Again, the German article seems to be trying for sensation
> and, to the best of my limited abilities at reading the language, does not
> mention these more mundane, but much more explicable, possiblities. 
> 
> David Babson. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 01:06 PM 2/13/00 -0800, you wrote: 
> >I heard the report on MPR radio science report. Don't recall names or 
> >anything just they reported that the figurine was agreed to be Roman,
> they 
> >didn't get into the context of where it was found only the period that it
> 
> >was typical of which I don't remember.  One can only imagine that ships
> did 
> >on occassion come to this side of the world probably by accident most of
> the 
> >times that it happened just any thing left would be so few and no telling
> 
> >where. 
> > 
> > 
> >>From: geoff carver <[log in to unmask]> 
> >>Reply-To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]> 
> >>To: [log in to unmask] 
> >>Subject: romans in mexico? news from germany 
> >>Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 21:27:18 +0100 
> >> 
> >>according to a newspaper report which has got some german archaeologists
> 
> >>e-mailing theories back and forth, dated february 10 and reported  from 
> >>london 
> >>(!?), an american anthropologist named Roman Hristov (anybody heard of
> him? 
> >>does 
> >>he exist?) is studying a small black terracotta head which was found
> near 
> >>Mexico 
> >>City in 1933, and subsequently disappeared before rediscovery by this
> Roman 
> >>Hristov, and has since been dated to AD 200 - 
> >>         anybody heard of this? also supposed to have been reported in
> New 
> >>Scientist, so i'll check that out, but thought i'd get some scoop before
> 
> >>this 
> >>debate here gets out of hand (ever wonder just where eric von daniken
> was 
> >>coming 
> >>from...? [ie not geographically, just... mind-set wise?]) - 
> >>         all sounds very suspicious to me (1933, inexact provenience 
> >>[although 
> >>the layer is supposed to be correct], disappearance, etc.) 
> >>         the article in question, for those of you who do read the
> stuff: 
> >> 
> >>LONDON, 10. Februar (rtr). Ein kleiner schwarzer Kopf aus Terrakotta
> könnte 
> >> > die historische Wahrheit in Frage stellen, dass Christoph Kolumbus 
> >>Amerika 
> >> > entdeckt hat. Dem US-Anthropologen Roman Hristov zufolge waren es die
> 
> >>Römer, 
> >> > die den Kopf mitbrachten und damit vor Kolumbus in der Neuen Welt
> waren. 
> >>Das 
> >> > berichtet das britische Wissenschaftsmagazin New Scientist. Der 
> >> > Terrakotta-Kopf, der 1933 in der Nähe von Mexiko-Stadt gefunden
> wurde, 
> >>sei 
> >> > Hristov zufolge ein antikes römisches Kunstwerk und der Beweis dafür,
>
> >>dass 
> >> > es bereits vor den Überfahrten der Spanier Handelsbeziehungen
> zwischen 
> >>der 
> >> > Alten Welt und Amerika gegeben habe. 
> >> > Der Kopf sei nach seinem Fund zunächst in einem mexikanischen Museum 
> >> > verschwunden, bevor ihn der Anthropologe entdeckte, berichtete das 
> >>Magazin. 
> >> > Mit Hilfe einer Probe aus der Rückseite des Kopfes hätten Forscher
> des 
> >> > Heidelberger Max-Planck-Instituts das Kunstwerk auf das Jahr 200 
> >>datiert. 
> >> > Archäologen hätten zudem bestätigt, dass der Kopf in einer Erdschicht
> 
> >> > gefunden worden sei, die ebenfalls auf diese Zeit hindeute. Fachleute
> 
> >> > streiten jedoch noch über die Beweiskraft des Fundes. 
> >> 
> >>geoff carver 
> >>http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/ 
> >>[log in to unmask] 
> >> 
> > 
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