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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 30, 2019 12:20:09 GMT -5
Speaking of Egypt, I didn't realize that the Ptolemaic dynasty was so inbred and so adverse to marry outside of its circle of Macedonian, Greek and Thracian buddies. I would have assumed that they had gone native, so to speak, after a few generations. According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia (of which I don't know how far it can be trusted, admittedly), the Ptolemies didn't really mingle with their people. Apparently they mostly didn't even bother learning the local language (Cleopatra VII being an exception). I wonder how that aloofness paid off as far as public relations went... did it enhance the status of the rulers as a class apart, or did it mark them as perpetual foreigners? |
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Post by berkley on May 1, 2019 3:23:38 GMT -5
That's a really good question. Was there a surviving Pharaonic line they could have married into? I'm not sure there was, after, what, a couple centuries of Persian rule? Also - and This is from probably unreliable memories, as I haven't been reading much history the last decade or more - but the impression I have is that there would have been a lot of resistance from the Egyptians themselves to this kind of intermingling, as they were a very inward-looking culture and, paradoxical as it might seem to our minds, psychologically they found it easier to accept a foreign ruling class than any kind of inter-mixing.
I'm putting those ideas out there just as speculation, though, based on nothing more than vague impressions left over from long-ago readings of the ancient Greek historians. Whenever I do get back into reading more ancient history, one of the first on my list is a fairly recent book called The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, by Toby Wilkinson. Maybe that'll clear things up for me.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 15, 2019 17:48:34 GMT -5
Had a few minutes to watch another episode of Battlefield Britain. This one dealt with the Welsh rebellion of 1400-1415. Solid episode and not an area of British history I knew super well. Particularly interesting since my son did a semester in Wales.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2019 22:56:34 GMT -5
Bristol academic cracks the Voynich Code. The Voynich manuscript is one of those historical mysteries that speculative history writers and historical fiction writers (I'm not sure there's much of a difference between the two though) love to include and ascribe fantastical solutions for, but it seems Dr. Gerard Cheshire, a research associate at the University of Bristol has finally broken the code/solved the mystery that countless other cryptographers, researchers, computers, and others have failed to do. The gist of his solution is that it seems the language in the document is a proto-Romance language that was commonly used in Medieval European speech but that no known written sample of was known to exist and had been considered lost. It will take a lot of time, effort and resources to fully translate the document based on this breakthrough though, so we only have snippets so far. -M |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 17, 2019 5:07:30 GMT -5
That’s amazingly cool, @mrp! I just had to announce it in class yesterday afternoon!
(Much to my chagrin, nobody had ever heard of the Voynich manuscript. Mmph! What’s the internet for???)
I can just picture someone going to “the list of the ten greatest historical mysteries” and crossing that one out. Next: the actual purpose of Gobekli Tepe!!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 19, 2019 18:38:22 GMT -5
Another episode of Battlefield Britain. This one about the battle with the Spanish Armada. This is an area where I'm very familiar with the historical context of the battle. But I don't think I was fully conversant with what happened in the battle(s) and why. Naval warfare is a bit of a blind-spot for me and it was interesting to see how the British fleet was using wholly different tactics than the Spanish Armada. Howard and Drake were fighting an entirely new type of naval warfare while the Duke of Medina Sidonia was trying to use the tactics that had defeated the Ottomans at Lepanto. As best I can tell it truly was a revolutionary shift and was the beginning of Britannia ruling the waves.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 20, 2019 6:45:00 GMT -5
My dad used to say that most great defeats were due to otherwise able leaders insisting on repeating a previous battle.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 29, 2019 10:48:20 GMT -5
Watched the next episode of Battlefield Britain about the Battle of Naseby, arguably the turning point of the English Civil War. It certainly wasn't the last important battle as Langport, Rowton Hills and Stow-on-the-Heath were all important battles that followed. Naseby was, however, probably the ultimate turning point. Either army could have won the battle. And following the Royalist defeat, Charles and company would never muster up a force of the strength that was present at Naseby.
Another area of British history I'm not super familiar with (my knowledge seems to come in fits and starts). As always entertaining and informative, if surely cursory.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 29, 2019 11:54:58 GMT -5
Another episode of Battlefield Britain. This one about the battle with the Spanish Armada. This is an area where I'm very familiar with the historical context of the battle. But I don't think I was fully conversant with what happened in the battle(s) and why. Naval warfare is a bit of a blind-spot for me and it was interesting to see how the British fleet was using wholly different tactics than the Spanish Armada. Howard and Drake were fighting an entirely new type of naval warfare while the Duke of Medina Sidonia was trying to use the tactics that had defeated the Ottomans at Lepanto. As best I can tell it truly was a revolutionary shift and was the beginning of Britannia ruling the waves. Naval warfare always comes down to superior seamanship and technology, though size and numbers are always a factor. The Greeks ruled the Mediterranean, though the Phoenecians were strong in this area. However, the Greeks had the technology. The Romans lacked the seamanship of the Greeks; but, they had better military strength and adapted their tactics to take advantage of that, dropping boarding ramps and swarming ships with marines. The Spanish galleons went for size and guns; but, lost maneuverability and still used oars. The English were master sailors and gunners. We studied the sailing era in my Naval history classes, though some of the tactics were a bit vague, in our texts. Sailing in line became the preferred tactic and continued into the 1800s. The way to fight this was something called "capping the T," where you tried to move perpendicular to the enemy, to gain superior position. The English ruled the seas into the 1800s; but, in engagements during the Revolution, and the War of 1812, the uS proved just as able in their seamanship (and arguably better, in gunnery) and favored faster and more maneuverable ships, mainly because we didn't have any Man o' War class ships, until the very end. We even sold our first one, after the Revolution. We then built the frigates which helped defeat the Barbary pirates and did a number on the british, in battle. The design was revolutionary and the hulls very strong. Each generation, though, brought new technologies, whether it was sailing tactics and ship designs, or ironclads and steam power; or, eventually, naval air power. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 29, 2019 12:03:15 GMT -5
Had a few minutes to watch another episode of Battlefield Britain. This one dealt with the Welsh rebellion of 1400-1415. Solid episode and not an area of British history I knew super well. Particularly interesting since my son did a semester in Wales. I didn't know about that rebellion at all before seeing that video. Battlefield Britain is indeed a great show! In the French-speaking world we're more or less raised to see Great Britain as the perennial enemy (the treacherous Albion!) but the island has a great history. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 29, 2019 13:37:46 GMT -5
Another episode of Battlefield Britain. This one about the battle with the Spanish Armada. This is an area where I'm very familiar with the historical context of the battle. But I don't think I was fully conversant with what happened in the battle(s) and why. Naval warfare is a bit of a blind-spot for me and it was interesting to see how the British fleet was using wholly different tactics than the Spanish Armada. Howard and Drake were fighting an entirely new type of naval warfare while the Duke of Medina Sidonia was trying to use the tactics that had defeated the Ottomans at Lepanto. As best I can tell it truly was a revolutionary shift and was the beginning of Britannia ruling the waves. Naval warfare always comes down to superior seamanship and technology, though size and numbers are always a factor. The Greeks ruled the Mediterranean, though the Phoenecians were strong in this area. However, the Greeks had the technology. The Romans lacked the seamanship of the Greeks; but, they had better military strength and adapted their tactics to take advantage of that, dropping boarding ramps and swarming ships with marines. The Spanish galleons went for size and guns; but, lost maneuverability and still used oars. The English were master sailors and gunners. We studied the sailing era in my Naval history classes, though some of the tactics were a bit vague, in our texts. Sailing in line became the preferred tactic and continued into the 1800s. The way to fight this was something called "capping the T," where you tried to move perpendicular to the enemy, to gain superior position. The English ruled the seas into the 1800s; but, in engagements during the Revolution, and the War of 1812, the uS proved just as able in their seamanship (and arguably better, in gunnery) and favored faster and more maneuverable ships, mainly because we didn't have any Man o' War class ships, until the very end. We even sold our first one, after the Revolution. We then built the frigates which helped defeat the Barbary pirates and did a number on the british, in battle. The design was revolutionary and the hulls very strong. Each generation, though, brought new technologies, whether it was sailing tactics and ship designs, or ironclads and steam power; or, eventually, naval air power. It was interesting to me that the Spanish guns were manned by sailors who weren't trained gunners, but who were expected to fire a round or two and then board the other ships. On the other hand, the English ships had dedicated gunners. As a result the English cannons fired about 4-5 times in the time it took the Spanish ships to reload and fire. Given the English tactic of using the maneuverability of their ships to stay out of boarding range and pepper the ships with cannon fire it was a huge advantage. Which leads back to the earlier Spanish victory at Lepanto where the battle was decided by boarding and hand-to-hand fighting and the larger Spanish ships gave them an advantage. |
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Post by codystarbuck on May 29, 2019 14:41:32 GMT -5
The British developed similar tactics in their army. When I was young and we would study the Revolution and the French & Indian War, we would see the illustrations of battle and laugh at soldiers so close to the enemy. Now, part of that was not understanding perspective, as the artist was fudging distances for dramatic impact; but, we also didn't understand the tactics of musket fire. Most engagements were not settled with musket fire; but, by bayonet charge. For musketry, ranks were assemble, about 2-3 deep, and each rank would fire in turn, on command, then reload for the next shot. The better armies could maintain a better rate of fire and have a wall of lead coming at the enemy. it had to be a wall, because smooth-bore muskets weren't very accurate. By the Napoleonic Period, the British Army standard was 3 rounds per minute, in any weather. That was astounding. the musket fire would soften up the enemy ranks (artillery and cavalry factored in this, depending on position and availability), then a charge, with fixed bayonets and pikes. The Sharpe series, with Sean Bean, illustrates this well. the development of the rifle didn't immediately change things. Riflemen were used as skirmishers and snipers, to pick off non-coms and officers, to send the enemy into chaos, and probe for weaknesses in the enemy lines. Few battles were determined by rifle fire, though the Battle of New Orleans, between Jackson's men and the 6oth Rifles was one of the bigger ones.
Cannon were similar and technological developments did change how they were used. The English developed better cannon and used specialist gunners, which became the standard (same for the US Navy). They were skilled in firing their guns rapidly, in any conditions. The Spanish were depending on numbers; the English on speed and strength of attack. They would again employ similar tactics when they no longer had the numerical and technological advantages, in WW2. To fight Rommel, they used raiding tactics, just as the sea Dogs did with the Spanish ships and colonies, to weaken their supply lines and hit their airfields. The result was more troops being diverted to protect supply lines and slower advances and counter-fights. The british used this until they were in a stronger position to fight Rommel (aided by the Operation Torch landings and the increased Allied numbers).
The US employed similar tactics in different theaters, during the Revolution, since we couldn't stand toe to toe with the British Army, very often.
The use of skilled gunners became standard and continues to this day, via gunners mates, who specialize in the use and maintenance of the ships guns and firearms.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2019 22:42:41 GMT -5
Giant marble pyramid-shaped island complex rising from sea uncovered, revealing secrets of ancient Greece's originsExcavations on this site are unveiling evidence that could lead to a rethinking or reevaluation of the origins of Greek culture and showing links between proto-Greek culture and the monument building cultures of Stonehenge, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia and England, as the monument building phase of these cultures were less than a century apart in time and may have been a result of common influences or common impetus form parallel development. Lots of food for thought in this piece and I look forward to seeing more academic analysis of the findings from the continuing excavation. -M
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Post by brutalis on Jul 10, 2019 7:56:55 GMT -5
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 12, 2019 13:03:14 GMT -5
Came across a fun YouTube channel called History Matters (previously 10-Minute History). Short animated videos on a variety of historical subjects that, as best I've been able to discern, are well researched from good sources. Given the length they're a bit cursory, but the creator has a great dry sense of humor (people who die fall over on their side with a distinct thump) and there's a bit of chicken fat in the animations that demand added attention. Worth a look and a bit of time. |
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