FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
People who might have traveled these vast distances probably weren't scholars; they'd be traders and adventurers. Considering the vast spans of time we're talking about, yeah, probably a not insignificant number of Asians made it to Europe and vice versa, but they wouldn't have been inclined to write about it. Just think, if Marco Polo had never met Rustichello da Pisa then we'd probably have no record of his journey either.
They'd have been rare sights, but seeing someone from another continent in a major trade port wouldn't have been out of the question, and surely some of those guys decided, for one reason or another, to hang around and maybe venture into areas far away from those ports. Maybe some of them had nothing to return to back home and decided to retire in this new land. Maybe some of them fell in love with a local and had enough money or guts to try to make a go at things. Maybe some had lapsed into crime and fled into the hinterlands of a strange new country to escape local authorities. The Roman Empire lasted five hundred years. That enough time that probably all of those things happened, at one point.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
Probably trying to destroy a ring or something.
More fool them, then - they went west, when they should have gone (south) east!
People who might have traveled these vast distances probably weren't scholars; they'd be traders and adventurers. Considering the vast spans of time we're talking about, yeah, probably a not insignificant number of Asians made it to Europe and vice versa, but they wouldn't have been inclined to write about it. Just think, if Marco Polo had never met Rustichello da Pisa then we'd probably have no record of his journey either.
They'd have been rare sights, but seeing someone from another continent in a major trade port wouldn't have been out of the question, and surely some of those guys decided, for one reason or another, to hang around and maybe venture into areas far away from those ports. Maybe some of them had nothing to return to back home and decided to retire in this new land. Maybe some of them fell in love with a local and had enough money or guts to try to make a go at things. Maybe some had lapsed into crime and fled into the hinterlands of a strange new country to escape local authorities. The Roman Empire lasted five hundred years. That enough time that probably all of those things happened, at one point.
Well sea trade at this point was mostly limited to the mediterranean and indian ocean since no one had great ocean-going vessels (at least not outside the pacific). You know how in civ you had triremes get lost if they couldn't see land? That was pretty much a real thing for a long time. So you would probably be limited to chinese in india or east africa (which they have found examplea of Chinese goods in those parts). No suez canal though, so reverse marco polo overland travel is more likely.
There were definitely groups of greeks that made it to all the way to china, but it was more of a generational thing, with macedonian greeks migrating to bactria, then bactrian greeks migrating to india and becoming indo greeks, then indo greeks converting to Buddism and filtering into china as part of the spread of Mahayana there. Eastern Persia isn't really that much of a leap from china though. And of course nomadic steppe hordes got around like crazy, you would regularly have a turkic tribe fighting china then 20 years later they pop up in written histories of india, persia, or even Eastern Europe.
Jealous Deva on
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I'm not saying it happened in any great numbers or anything, but I've always thought that we underestimate the seafaring capabilities of ancient people. Polynesian and Pacific Island cultures used to sail the open ocean in outrigger canoes for vast distances. Nordic cultures sailed some of the most dangerous waters on earth in open-air vessels.
Again, there's little to no evidence of it and I'm just kinda spitballing here, but I believe strongly that there was limited contact between ancient seafaring cultures. Some wild-eyed dude just showing up on a foreign shore speaking an unknown language and maybe sailing home with a story to tell, or disappearing over the horizon never to be seen again.
It's honestly a interesting thought, but there's probably not much more to it than that, at least as far as archaeological evidence goes.
I'm not saying it happened in any great numbers or anything, but I've always thought that we underestimate the seafaring capabilities of ancient people. Polynesian and Pacific Island cultures used to sail the open ocean in outrigger canoes for vast distances. Nordic cultures sailed some of the most dangerous waters on earth in open-air vessels.
Again, there's little to no evidence of it and I'm just kinda spitballing here, but I believe strongly that there was limited contact between ancient seafaring cultures. Some wild-eyed dude just showing up on a foreign shore speaking an unknown language and maybe sailing home with a story to tell, or disappearing over the horizon never to be seen again.
It's honestly a interesting thought, but there's probably not much more to it than that, at least as far as archaeological evidence goes.
Still, one wonders.
Between China and Rome, though, you'd be talking about sailing all the way around India and then Africa, which is a trip many many times longer than anything we have evidence for. In this case they would have almost certainly had to go the land route, at least til they got to the Med.
In particular roman vessels could never have made it around Cape of Good Hope. Those waters are far too nasty for anything the romans could build. It was dangerous enough for later portuguese vessels, and compared to roman vessels the portguese caravel and carrack were juggernauts of seaworthiness.
P.S: However, ships could definitely have been built at the shores of the red sea and from there explored the indian ocean.
P.P.S: I mixed up Africas horn and Cape of Good Hope (aka Cape of Storms).
Fiendishrabbit on
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Yeah, the Romans could build BIG ships, but they weren't very good at building seaworthy ships. And certainly not at open sea navigation.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Romans wouldn't have needed to sail around Africa. There was a proto-Suez Canal at the time; the Nile River had a canal that went out to the Great Bitter Lake, with another canal dug to the Red Sea. It silted up after Roman times since it was always costly to maintain.
Romans wouldn't have needed to sail around Africa. There was a proto-Suez Canal at the time; the Nile River had a canal that went out to the Great Bitter Lake, with another canal dug to the Red Sea. It silted up after Roman times since it was always costly to maintain.
I don't even think they needed to go this far; Weren't there ports on the Red Sea?
I'm not saying it happened in any great numbers or anything, but I've always thought that we underestimate the seafaring capabilities of ancient people. Polynesian and Pacific Island cultures used to sail the open ocean in outrigger canoes for vast distances. Nordic cultures sailed some of the most dangerous waters on earth in open-air vessels.
Again, there's little to no evidence of it and I'm just kinda spitballing here, but I believe strongly that there was limited contact between ancient seafaring cultures. Some wild-eyed dude just showing up on a foreign shore speaking an unknown language and maybe sailing home with a story to tell, or disappearing over the horizon never to be seen again.
It's honestly a interesting thought, but there's probably not much more to it than that, at least as far as archaeological evidence goes.
Still, one wonders.
Between China and Rome, though, you'd be talking about sailing all the way around India and then Africa, which is a trip many many times longer than anything we have evidence for. In this case they would have almost certainly had to go the land route, at least til they got to the Med.
There was plenty of sea trade happening between India and Roman Egypt. And possibly between China and India?
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Most of those would be handled by middlemen though, they'd drop off goods in the red sea, someone would ferry them to the med, then they would go on their way. You wouldn't usually have had one guy taking goods from china and going all the way to somewhere like rome with them.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
See now you start looking into cartography, then celestial navigation, then before you know it you're 20 books into the Aubrey/Maturin saga.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
I highly recommend you read "A History of the World in 12 Maps" by Jerry Brotton, it gives an extensive and interesting (not to mention illustrated) history of map-making, from the first known areal-view map found on a Babylonian tablet to modern Google Map. If I fault him for anything, it'd be being too eurocentric (of 12 maps studied, 11 were made by europeans or americans and only one was Asian). Also I often read it with a tablet computer next to me to look up the maps he was talking about and be able to zoom in on details he discussed at a much better resolution than the printed versions he provided, but that's really a failure of the paper medium, not the author.
To answer your question: around the time of the Enlightenment, when Europe developed precise geographic surveying and triangulation techniques, is when map-making became a more precise science. But it was a slow process, in some cases requiring several generations to completely measure a country by hand. This was then followed by the Age of Discovery, and European sailors navigating (and mapping) the world over the span of centuries.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Coins issued in ancient Rome have been excavated from the ruins of a castle in a city in Okinawa Prefecture, the local education board said Monday, the first time such artifacts have been recovered from ruins in Japan.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
and thanks to Richy, I now have my mom's hannukah present sorted.
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
See now you start looking into cartography, then celestial navigation, then before you know it you're 20 books into the Aubrey/Maturin saga.
I'm already 16 books into the Aubrey-Maturin series...
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The Huns got as far as France by like 451 and it wasn't the entire Hun people either.
So these bones are at least 50 years old before the Huns themselves ever reached France (except maybe outside of some isolated groups) and at most several centuries older than the Huns. The earliest possible dates for these bones go back to when Rome was still a proper Empire.
Which is just mind boggling. How'd those two Chinese guys get all the fucking way up to Britain?
There was trade between rome and china, although indirect.
Roman glassware and coins have been found in china, and thanks to the roman senate and authors moralising over the dangers of silk we know that chinese silk reached the roman empire.
Now, Rome and China were separated by the powerful parthian and Kushan empires, but it's hardly impossible that chinese traders would have followed the silk road all the way to Rome itself and beyond.
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
See now you start looking into cartography, then celestial navigation, then before you know it you're 20 books into the Aubrey/Maturin saga.
I'm already 16 books into the Aubrey-Maturin series...
Well, read faster, then!
Actually, the worst part about where you are in the series is that there are so few left ...
I maaay have never read the last book, even though I own it, because I didn't want there to be No More Aubrey-Maturin
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Ancient Greeks 'may have inspired China's Terracotta Army'
Archaeologists say design of clay warriors suggests close contact between east and west 1,500 years before Marco Polo
Greek craft workers may have helped inspire the most famous Chinese sculptures ever made – the 8,000 warriors of the Terracotta Army who have been watching over the tomb of the first emperor of China for more than 2,000 years.
Archaeologists and historians working on the warriors say they now believe that the figures’ startlingly lifelike appearance could have been influenced by the arrival in China of ancient Greek sculptures, and even that Greek sculptors made their way there to teach their designs.
Li Xiuzhen, a senior archaeologist at the site, said recent discoveries, including that of ancient European DNA recovered from sites in Xinjian province from the time of the first emperor, were overturning traditional thinking about the level of contact between Asia and Europe more than 1,500 years before the travels of Marco Polo.
That seems like a really weirdly unnecessary theory. Clay pottery of lifelike figures was part of early Chinese religious/ceremonial traditions for a good long time even before the Terracotta warriors were made. Why would they need Greek craftsmen around to train Chinese artisans?
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
That seems like a really weirdly unnecessary theory. Clay pottery of lifelike figures was part of early Chinese religious/ceremonial traditions for a good long time even before the Terracotta warriors were made. Why would they need Greek craftsmen around to train Chinese artisans?
Except that isn't the theory. The theory is actually that while chinese craftsmen had previously made small statues for religious purposes the Qin started using larger life-like sculptures (in clay, stone and bronze) in a way that had been unknown in china but was common in the hellenic world. As this coincides pretty well with Alexanders conquests and the spread of hellenic ideals it's not so very farfetched to consider the idea that Hellenism actually had an influence on Qin china, possibly even to the extent that the early Qin emperors brought in greek (or rather hellenic) artisans to advise on sculpturing and bronze casting.
Fiendishrabbit on
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Kind of like comparing the Aztec and Maya Pyramids and going "zomg, they must have had contact with the Egyptians", instead of the obvious "they piled rocks on top of each other in the most stable fashion they knew".
The Chinese where not stupid and the decision to make the terracota warriors represent real people instead of an abstract representation would dictate lifelike appearance. Especially if you have 10 000 tries to get it right with the original people as your guide.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Kind of like comparing the Aztec and Maya Pyramids and going "zomg, they must have had contact with the Egyptians", instead of the obvious "they piled rocks on top of each other in the most stable fashion they knew".
The Chinese where not stupid and the decision to make the terracota warriors represent real people instead of an abstract representation would dictate lifelike appearance. Especially if you have 10 000 tries to get it right with the original people as your guide.
However, when innovations coincide with known cultural migration patterns...
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
That seems like a really weirdly unnecessary theory. Clay pottery of lifelike figures was part of early Chinese religious/ceremonial traditions for a good long time even before the Terracotta warriors were made. Why would they need Greek craftsmen around to train Chinese artisans?
Except that isn't the theory. The theory is actually that while chinese craftsmen had previously made small statues for religious purposes the Qin started using larger life-like sculptures (in clay, stone and bronze) in a way that had been unknown in china but was common in the hellenic world. As this coincides pretty well with Alexanders conquests and the spread of hellenic ideals it's not so very farfetched to consider the idea that Hellenism actually had an influence on Qin china, possibly even to the extent that the early Qin emperors brought in greek (or rather hellenic) artisans to advise on sculpturing and bronze casting.
Still a Stretch.
The Terracota army was a specific project to glorify the first emperor of China and his immediate successors. This alone accounts for the massive size of the statues relative to previous statues. Previous statues still representing real people but in an abstract way. The capacity to actually make life sized statues was not unknown, larger decorative temple statues show that.
Its "smaller abstract statues of real people"+" big temple statues"="Lifesized statues of real people" and from there its a smaller jump to "lets make the terracota look like their real life counterparts". Since this is a simpler theory then "China totally lacked the imagination and skill to make something as cool as the terracota army without help".
Cultural migration patterns or no.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Kind of like comparing the Aztec and Maya Pyramids and going "zomg, they must have had contact with the Egyptians", instead of the obvious "they piled rocks on top of each other in the most stable fashion they knew".
The Chinese where not stupid and the decision to make the terracota warriors represent real people instead of an abstract representation would dictate lifelike appearance. Especially if you have 10 000 tries to get it right with the original people as your guide.
However, when innovations coincide with known cultural migration patterns...
These Chinese accounts describe the Dayuan as urbanized dwellers with Caucasian features, living in walled cities and having "customs identical to those of the Greco-Bactrians", a Hellenistic kingdom that was ruling Bactria at that time in today’s northern Afghanistan. The Dayuan are also described as manufacturers and great lovers of wine
Oh Friday (the 14th) marked the 950th anniversary of the battle of Hastings, where those no good Normans invaded. This resulted in William the Bastard (also known as 'the conquerer') to usurp the Crown, and led to our beautiful Old English language getting polluted with namby pamby French words.
Okay, I might a wee bit biased, but the year of 1066 is a fantastic year of coincidences, and that had only a few things not happened, we might be still using a language full of awesome compound words like the Germans.
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They'd have been rare sights, but seeing someone from another continent in a major trade port wouldn't have been out of the question, and surely some of those guys decided, for one reason or another, to hang around and maybe venture into areas far away from those ports. Maybe some of them had nothing to return to back home and decided to retire in this new land. Maybe some of them fell in love with a local and had enough money or guts to try to make a go at things. Maybe some had lapsed into crime and fled into the hinterlands of a strange new country to escape local authorities. The Roman Empire lasted five hundred years. That enough time that probably all of those things happened, at one point.
More fool them, then - they went west, when they should have gone (south) east!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Well sea trade at this point was mostly limited to the mediterranean and indian ocean since no one had great ocean-going vessels (at least not outside the pacific). You know how in civ you had triremes get lost if they couldn't see land? That was pretty much a real thing for a long time. So you would probably be limited to chinese in india or east africa (which they have found examplea of Chinese goods in those parts). No suez canal though, so reverse marco polo overland travel is more likely.
There were definitely groups of greeks that made it to all the way to china, but it was more of a generational thing, with macedonian greeks migrating to bactria, then bactrian greeks migrating to india and becoming indo greeks, then indo greeks converting to Buddism and filtering into china as part of the spread of Mahayana there. Eastern Persia isn't really that much of a leap from china though. And of course nomadic steppe hordes got around like crazy, you would regularly have a turkic tribe fighting china then 20 years later they pop up in written histories of india, persia, or even Eastern Europe.
Again, there's little to no evidence of it and I'm just kinda spitballing here, but I believe strongly that there was limited contact between ancient seafaring cultures. Some wild-eyed dude just showing up on a foreign shore speaking an unknown language and maybe sailing home with a story to tell, or disappearing over the horizon never to be seen again.
It's honestly a interesting thought, but there's probably not much more to it than that, at least as far as archaeological evidence goes.
Still, one wonders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations#First_Roman_embassy
Between China and Rome, though, you'd be talking about sailing all the way around India and then Africa, which is a trip many many times longer than anything we have evidence for. In this case they would have almost certainly had to go the land route, at least til they got to the Med.
P.S: However, ships could definitely have been built at the shores of the red sea and from there explored the indian ocean.
P.P.S: I mixed up Africas horn and Cape of Good Hope (aka Cape of Storms).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I don't even think they needed to go this far; Weren't there ports on the Red Sea?
There was plenty of sea trade happening between India and Roman Egypt. And possibly between China and India?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
I mean, Alexander got to India before he ate it.
Travel between india and the med happened, and China isn't that much farther. Close enough for buddhism to spread early on, so there's clear cultural exchange between the two.
It's not hard to imagine ethnically chinese people living in northern India, and then moving along the trade routes. I doubt that there were a ton of ethnically chinese people kicking around the roman empire, but there were probably some. and yeah, two of them ended up in England which is weird, but not like...crazy weird.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Which incident led indirectly to this very good, albeit extremely depressing book
There's actually a pretty famous map of Pax Romana trade routes that shows a network going from Hispania all the way to India.
The Tabula Peutingeriana I believe is what you are referring to.
So, that map makes me wonder something: When did we actually get really good high quality mapping? Like, for us, being able to open up Google Maps and see anywhere in the world is second nature. But, like, when did we get there? I'm assuming it was the advent of jet engines that let planes get high enough to do detailed photo recon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Nova_totius_Terrarum_Orbis_geographica_ac_hydrographica_tabula_(Hendrik_Hondius)_balanced.jpg
See now you start looking into cartography, then celestial navigation, then before you know it you're 20 books into the Aubrey/Maturin saga.
I highly recommend you read "A History of the World in 12 Maps" by Jerry Brotton, it gives an extensive and interesting (not to mention illustrated) history of map-making, from the first known areal-view map found on a Babylonian tablet to modern Google Map. If I fault him for anything, it'd be being too eurocentric (of 12 maps studied, 11 were made by europeans or americans and only one was Asian). Also I often read it with a tablet computer next to me to look up the maps he was talking about and be able to zoom in on details he discussed at a much better resolution than the printed versions he provided, but that's really a failure of the paper medium, not the author.
To answer your question: around the time of the Enlightenment, when Europe developed precise geographic surveying and triangulation techniques, is when map-making became a more precise science. But it was a slow process, in some cases requiring several generations to completely measure a country by hand. This was then followed by the Age of Discovery, and European sailors navigating (and mapping) the world over the span of centuries.
and maybe my own..
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
I'm already 16 books into the Aubrey-Maturin series...
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Well, read faster, then!
Actually, the worst part about where you are in the series is that there are so few left ...
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
*looks up*
oohhhh
Well. Shit. That goes on the list.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Except that isn't the theory. The theory is actually that while chinese craftsmen had previously made small statues for religious purposes the Qin started using larger life-like sculptures (in clay, stone and bronze) in a way that had been unknown in china but was common in the hellenic world. As this coincides pretty well with Alexanders conquests and the spread of hellenic ideals it's not so very farfetched to consider the idea that Hellenism actually had an influence on Qin china, possibly even to the extent that the early Qin emperors brought in greek (or rather hellenic) artisans to advise on sculpturing and bronze casting.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Kind of like comparing the Aztec and Maya Pyramids and going "zomg, they must have had contact with the Egyptians", instead of the obvious "they piled rocks on top of each other in the most stable fashion they knew".
The Chinese where not stupid and the decision to make the terracota warriors represent real people instead of an abstract representation would dictate lifelike appearance. Especially if you have 10 000 tries to get it right with the original people as your guide.
However, when innovations coincide with known cultural migration patterns...
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Still a Stretch.
The Terracota army was a specific project to glorify the first emperor of China and his immediate successors. This alone accounts for the massive size of the statues relative to previous statues. Previous statues still representing real people but in an abstract way. The capacity to actually make life sized statues was not unknown, larger decorative temple statues show that.
Its "smaller abstract statues of real people"+" big temple statues"="Lifesized statues of real people" and from there its a smaller jump to "lets make the terracota look like their real life counterparts". Since this is a simpler theory then "China totally lacked the imagination and skill to make something as cool as the terracota army without help".
Cultural migration patterns or no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan
Okay, I might a wee bit biased, but the year of 1066 is a fantastic year of coincidences, and that had only a few things not happened, we might be still using a language full of awesome compound words like the Germans.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It's a good thing Stanislav Petrov couldn't foresee the 2016 American presidential election when he made the decision to not end all human life
The Scots and Irish have a number of successful post Norman invasions. And the Dutch do it to put William III on the throne.