More About the Nature of History and Historians.

History With RCS: History, historians, and me

Historians:

                Historians have typically found it useful to see human actions as falling into widely recognized patterns such as: economics, baseball, archaeology, gardening,politics, games, anthropology, law, literature, and even the history of history.

                I am interested in a variety of our doings. However, who we are and how we are doing seem high in my present interests. Who we have been and how we have been doing may be more correct.

                Historians have thought of history as a record of how people have tried to meet their needs and desires. One may write a history of her morning breakfast. She may call it a story. However, it may be called history as soon as it is published, especially it it represents an attempt at honesty. Wise men and women have long felt that a familiarity with that record is useful in guiding their orientations and actions.

                Many have found that ignorance of the past is predictive of failure of present actions and activities. That's history for you.

History:

                History seems often to be a record of how we got here. And some historians have considered some histories as a kind of photographic snapshot. A sort of stop action to allow better observation. A way which may enhance the quality of one's observation of a happening and so improve our interpretation and understanding of it. History may be a way to look at a process more carefully after it is completed. History is often a useful way of reviewing a record of and an interpretation of what we have done at a given time and place under given circumstances. And doing so be able to see what we typical do in a given circumstance. This may give us a chance of predicting that which we are likely to do in similar circumstances.

                A doing which is set down as history may have occurred 20,000 years ago, say I, or at breakfast this morning. History may not always depend on reality. Reality, to our mind, is scarce. We very much like our history to be true or, at least, honest. Probably all historians want their history to be useful; most of them want it to be helpful to the reader.

Evidence and Interpretations:           

Historians and history depends very much on evidence. That evidence has long depended much on documentation. Documentation has most often been in the form of written material and now are many communicable materials such as videos. I very much appreciate documentation. However, Throughout the ages, there were ages when no one knew how to document. There were ages of ages when there was no one. Geologists look into times that preceded most or all life and earth. They record and interpret their findings. They offer evidence of their findings. Archaeologists dig up and date mostly man made stuff and have to document it themselves. I call it all history.

                I like all chronological happenings and doings. As I write about such doings and happenings I interpret and analyze it myself. Often I am interpreting the work of someone else, usually a historian.

                I like the story in history. I like it more when it is realistic. I like it better when I find it useful. I like it best when it helps me to approach reality.

                I hope that you find enough to like in my rendering of times past here. Some have told me that they like what I write here as sort of a backstory for more recent events.

                Thank you very much for reading. Please tell me when there is anything you would like me to write more about.

                                                                                rcs

 

How did The Silk Road Actually Work?

 History With RCS: It worked very well for the Han people for a while. Chines are getting the Road to work for them again right now.                                       

Enjoy this video which I brought here from You Tube. It is clear and more historically up to date than most. By checking out pubIron Agelications on this blog you may find out how the Road worked through the Iron Age back into the early Bronze Age. You may also find on this video and from posts here that the people we called Persians and later Iranians had a strong influence on the road for a very long time. People living along that road know of that influence and feel it today.

Search This Site

 History With RCS: Blog search

           For readers who are not familiar with the many search options available to them here, I will begin to review some of them.

            It seems that blogs are so out of fashion that few remember how they may be fashioned. For example this blog is of three columns. I have used the central column as the place up to 400 essays or posts.

                An important function of the columns to the left and right of the central column is to offer you apps to help you find the essays which interest you. They are largely made up of search apps. However, they also contain other helpful apps.

             Let me begin with the column to your left on the main view of the page. On all of my blogs the this left hand column begins with the app which allows you to select the language in which to choose to read the post you select.

                Other apps you will find in this column may have a different order on each of the associated blogs. For example the next app might be "Associated Blog Sites to visit." To be transported to the one which interests you and be transported to it. The next app may be "Popular Posts." There you can find the names of up to four posts others have been finding interesting. Each name will be follow by a few words about it. click on that name and that post will appear. Next you may come to a title that reads "Pages." Click on one of the listings there and be taken to another page where you can find posts much like this one or different.

                The last listing in this column will usually be "Blog Archive." This can be a very useful app for you. Use it to become familiar with the essays and other posts available on this blog site. You will see a list of years and months. Click on one and you will taken to all of the posts published in that period. All are interesting and usually contain some hard to find YouTube videos which YouTube allows me to show.

                The right hand column usually begins with a search app, perhaps with the  title "Search This Site." There is a little window in which you may enter a word or phrase and then click on the word "Search." Try it and see what happens.

                I will leave this little post here for a few weeks and then move it to "Pages." You are now on the home page.

                This is a good place from which to comment.

                                                                                rcs

 

 

More Shee

 History With RCS: Holy Shee

            Especially in Ireland, but also in Britain and Europe, there remain certain stone carvings that have been called idols. Thew show a female figure displaying and exaggerated vulva. They are not beautiful or young and are often without breasts. They have long been called Sheela na gig. A good translation has not been agreed upon. I think that sacred spirit of the vulva may do. So, I say, that to the meaning of shee may be added "sacred." 

 

                In Wikipedia it says that one of the best examples of these particular sheela was found in Round Tower at Rattoo, in County Kerry, Ireland.  

                At times the figures have been called witches, hags, exhibitionists, and less complimentary things.

                Some of the sculptings seem to have been moved from their original sites to be incorporated into older church buildings.

 

                There is an old Irish dance, the Sheela na gig. According to Wikipedia the oldest written record of this phrase is as the name of this particular dance. That mention dates back only to the mid 1700s. 

                There is a myth known in Ireland an beyond of a goddess who grants kingship. She might appear at a dance as a lustful old hag and most men would avoid her and refuse her advances. The one man who did sleep with her, found her transformed into a beautiful maiden who conferred royalty upon  and blessed his reign.

                Some Irish lads are taken by a good tale and their are some tricky old ladies on the island.

                Thanks for reading.

                                                                           

                                                                                rcs

In Reference to a Timeline Item Comment

History With RCS :In Reference to  Gerry Art's Comment to post 2,660 BC to 2,400 BC in reference to metal work of the period.

                I will tell what I can about the metal work of that period. The post centers on 2,500 BC which marks the a high point of the the Bronze Age of most of Europe, much of North Africa, and nearly all of the Near East. That is much of Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond was enjoying the Bronze Age, which to some has seemed a golden age. 
    

                I am pleased to be able to say that during this period Ireland was one of the most productive miners of gold and the producer of of some of the finest gold work. Some of the gold work which marked Ireland of this period were the following: Lunulea, a form of collar; torcs, a kind of neck piece which bent firmly around the neck, they were strikingly handsome; gorgets, they were a sort of chest piece or breast piece and often the most beautiful and intricit of these items. It may have been used to hold articles of dress in place. Rings and a large number of other items were also produced in gold.

                I am speaking of Bronze Age Gold work. But much fine gold work in an early age when much copper was mined and worked well before the Bronze Age. 

                I seem to be forming my remarks here almost entirely around Ireland, but a Bronze Age was occurring around much of the world.

                It has been said that there was a Bronze age in Ireland from 2500 BC to 500 BC. I believe that there is now important evidence of important Bronze work being done in Ireland by 2,700 BC. I am also fairly sure that an Iron Age had already begun in Ireland 600 BC.

            Let me include that the Bronze Age in Ireland and Beyond was preceded by the neolithic period, which we might call the New Stone Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age. I traumatic change in much of the world.

                In the neolithic period gold and were both already mined and worked in Ireland. Fine work was produced in small quantities. Silver and lead were probably also mined and worked in small quantities.

                It seems that I had Ireland on the mind when I began this piece.

                Ireland entered the Bronze Age as a major miner and worker of Gold. In that Bronze Age a variety of bronzes were founded. Nearly all of them were an alloy mostly of copper but always with a portion of tin. I do not recall the usual proportions just now. How- ever there was bronze produced using arsnic in the place of tin. The tin was used to make the copper stronger, more resistant, and harder than copper. It also turned out to be a sort of stainless copper with the look of gold!

                Tin was both mined in Ireland and imported to Ireland. A sort of metal alchemy was begun which employed mercury, lead, arsnic, silver, gold and other elements. The mining, smelting and working of tin and copper to make bronze was a sophisticated process. 

                The Iron Age in Ireland as in Europe, North Africa, the Near East and beyond was begun by a new people who proved to be many. These people knew horses well. They knew the processes of mining, smelting and working iron. They made iron swords which cut through bronze weapons. They dominated Bronze Age people nearly everywhere. They were able to dominate cultures which were in many ways superior to theirs. At times they recognized this. They brought a new language, they brought it to Ireland and it became the mother of all the language spoken there for over two thousand years. It is the Gaelic which is still spoken in parts of Ireland. English is the dominate language on the Island today. English too is born of that Iron Age language.

                So, what are the Bronze age metals: gold, silver, copper, lead, arsnic, mercury, tin, and certainly more known by some. Bronze, a metal alloy made by man, and still one of the most beautiful and useful metals made by man and one of the least toxic if not made with arsenic. The alloy named an Age. We have much more to learn of the Bronze Age.

            Thank you for your comment Gerry Art.

                                                                                            rcs.

                

               

 

Silk Road Ramble

 History With RCS: Another piece of Silk Road history. Introducing the back-story of cities along the Silk Road.

 

                We may gain some interesting knowledge of our world by learning the stories of the trade routes we have come to call the Silk Road. I have just begun to find their names and a of information about them. I will mention three of them here. Their names are. Kashgar, Bukhara, and Kucha. In the process of this first look at these first three cities I have discovered some bits of information I hope to follow up on later. You may guess at what they may be as you read on.

                If you want you can record your guesses in the "comments" section of this post. You can also ask questions, make suggestions, and help me correct errors.

Kashgar: 

                The city of Kashgar is an oasis city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China; a region which is now mostly desert. Kashgar is one of the western most cities in China. It is near the boarder of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. The Tarim Basin is a large geological feature of about 390,000 square miles. Water that flows into the Basin does not flow out, still it is mostly desert. Xinjiang is the part of China in which the Uygur live. The Uygur are a Muslim people of whom you may have heard on TV. The Silk Road divides into three branches to cross the Tarim Basin east to west or visa versa. As we continue you will find that the Road has many branches. 

                The Han Chinese have been a power in the Tarim Basin from about about 76 BC so have a strong claim on it. How many years are there before 76 BC? 

                The four countries I mention above each of whose names ends in -stan may remind you of Persia or Iran or both. You can find that these countries have historical connections with Iranians. I think that we can call kashgar a city with an Iranian history. The people of Kashgar were once of the Zoroastrian religion and some may still practice it. Most people in Iran practice Zoroastrianism to this day. Wikipedia people say that the city has been ruled by Chinese, Turkic, Mongol, and Tibetan Empires. I did not know that there had been a Tibetan Empire.

                I believe that ancient Iranians were important all along the the Silk Road from the eastern Mediterranean through to India and China. I see at this moment that Iranians were documented as important on the Road by 525 BC on inscriptions found at Persepolis. I suspect that we will find that they were important there long before.

                I remember reading that some not so early Iranians were called Saka by some and that some had red hair. Can it be so? We may have a lot to learn, but we are learning. Stick with me for a while.

 

Bukhara, our second Silk Road city:

                It probably existed 3,000 years ago, it is now the capital city of the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan. Bukhara has served as a center of trade, scholarship, and religion. Most people of the city still speak Tajik, a form of the Persian language. Remember that Persia is what we once called Iran. Uzbek is the language of the countryside and a second language of the city people. The Republic of Uzbekistan is now a Muslim country. It was anciently settled by Iranians. They were called Scythian and founded a kingdom there in about 900 BC.      

                As we continue learning we find that Tajik is a Persian language and that Uzbek is a Turkic language strongly effected by Persian.

                Bukhara became part of the Abbasid Caliphate in 819 AD and  was the capital of the Samanid Empire. At its greatest, about 900 AD, the empire included all of Afghanistan, huge parts of Iran, Turkmenistan,, Kyrgyzstan, and parts of Kazakhstan and Pakistan. The Abbasid Caliphate was the 3rd from the Prophet(Muhammad). They were significantly dependent  upon the Persian Buddhist family the Barmakids!

                The Barmakids could begin a new story that we won't follow just know. We have now passed well into the historic period which I intend to review at a later stage of this examination of the Silk Road. The Samanid Empire was a Sunni Iranian empire which included what are now the countries mentioned in the paragraph above. The Samanids brought Persian culture to a receptive Islamic world. Thanks to that fact the Islamic world has brought brought much of that culture to the West. It seems to me that I have it said that the Spanish Caliphates  so like the concept of pants that the fad spread to to the rest of the western world. I am pretty sure that there is truth in that.

                I will ramble on to the third city of this essay. Please help me to correct my errors or to add information in "comments" immediately below the end of this essay.

                Ancient Iranians called themselves Arya of ethnicity airya. I don't know how one would translate "ethnicity" to ancient Iranian. Speaking of ancient Iranians, at a very early date, on their way from the northeast to a place much nearer to what we have called "the western world," a significant number of them may have stopped off at India for a time.

                In a later essay of this Silk Road trip I might turn in at India. I think that some Europeans may have received fine fabrics from Indian before ever hearing of Chinese silk. People of the Near East more certainly did. As we look more into India, we may learn more of an ancient language called Kuhj. Some students of ancient languages consider Kuhj to be a fore-barer of the Indo-European languages. In sanscrit it seems to mean something like "rob" or "steal." Were our ancestors known thieves?

                I'm not concerned. Most genealogists can find kings and saints in one's family as well as a horse thief or Two.

                Another city on the Silk Road was Kucha. Kucha was an old Buddhist kingdom on the branch of the SR which ran along the north side ob what is now the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim basin and south of the Muzat river in China.

                "Kucha" comes from the Kuchan scripts of late antiquity. Kuchan is an India script. It may have connections with a writing used in Tibet. The Chines might like it be something from Han Chinese, but they are stretching a lot to do so.

                The city of Kucha in the Silk Road was a Central Asian metropolis. Its population was said to have been Indo-European. I believe that I am not wrong to call it an early Iranian people. It is also said that they were notably red-haired and blue eyed.

                I feel I have rambled far enough for now so I will bid you good bye.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                                                        rcs

  

14. Vijayanagara - The Last Emperors of South India

Evidence of Pre-Flood Civilization: More Found Each Year.

                    

    History With RCS: PreFlood Civilization Indian

                                

                Pre-flood civilization in India. What's your story. We do not know: where we come from, where we have been, what we have done, the truth of our past. We are learning. We are learning from ruins dating to the end of the Ice Age.

                                                                                rcs

Irish Confederate Wars

History With RCS: The Eleven Year War. Scots, Catholics, Protestants, greed, fear, and cruelty brought to Ireland by English

              The Irish Confederate Wars lasted from 1641 to 1653. Seems the Irish called them the Eleven Year War.

                I am new to these happenings and am emotional as I read of them, but will continue to try to bring more of an honest story to you.

             

              I do kind of get that the cause of this "rebellion may well be lack of self-government and of sharp Irish awareness of that lack. Outside of Ireland a wide spectrum  other reasons and causes. English fear and greed may be among them.

                Let me try to express the nature of some of my ignorance. I have heard that the "rebelling" Irish were Catholic. Was there not a Jew or an atheist among them? I have also heard that some those rebellious Irish were English! How can that be? Were they English Catholics living in Ireland, or what? At the time of this Eleven Year War, of what did the Kingdom of Ireland consist? Which Scots were not against a free Ireland? Which Protestant colonials figured in this conflict?

                So, among the "rebelling' Irish Catholics there were English? And against them was the Kingdom of England? the Kingdom of Ireland? Some Scots?
And some Protestant colonials?

 

                Oh, it kind of got under the skin of an Irishman or two that the English idea of "plantation" was to come to Ireland, take Irish land from Irish families and plant English there. This was not done with sweetness. The Irish who lost their land were left not only with out a roof, but also without the food their land provide. They were left without stock or crop or door or roof. They were left with some emotions and some memories.

                Are there any good movies or film about these goings on?

                Can you tell something about these happenings? anything? I do not think that there is anything wrong with the "Comments section below. Use it to help me. You can do so anonymously.



                                                                                                                by Richard Sheehan

 

A Very Short Little Old Back-story.

History With RCS: Mago Bill animates my connection to history, and more.

                Mago Bill connects me to to the history of Ireland, and from there to history far and wide. "He" helps me to get far back into ancient history and prehistory. And, it seems that, there is a very far back.
* He seems to help me to explore time and space.
* He helps me to see aspects of the ageless wisdom teaching anew.
* He helps me to fresh views of governance, politics, and philosophy.

                Mago Bill was my paternal great grandfather.

                Mago is a very old Irish name, probably picked up from the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians. In the US the name seems to have given Mago some trouble. For there he began to sign his name M. William Sheehan.

 

Mago in Ireland

                The name Mago has been found in county Clair and all over Ireland for hundreds of years. A historian writing in Ireland in 1691 writes of a count Mago. Another historian writes of a Mago county in the Ireland of of 1829. There seems to have been a barony of Mago in Kerry. There have been Irishmen who have claimed to be sons of Magog. Could that have anything to do with the price of beans?              

 

 

                Take some time to search this site. There are several apps available to help you with your explorations here.

                                                                                                                                                                                 Richard Carroll Sheehan

My Visiters to our History Site.

History With RCS: Countries With Most Visiters to Site

                This site is beginning to have a notable number of viewers. The top three countries are:

The US

Russia

Germany

Welcome!

Tied for 4th place are Colombia and Sweden.

Welcome all!

Thank you for visiting a site with no "visuals"  except a few videos. Please return and explore the whole site.  Use the apps.

American Indians in the Time of Mega Fauna

History With RCS, archaeology: people of the Hopewell Tradition of North America.

 

 People of the the Hopewell tradition were ancestral to many modern Indian Nations.          

                They may also represent an important tradition extending back in what seems a continuous line, to a time of the mega Fauna. They may even have used the atlatl as early as that. They had certainly maintained a recognizable way of living extending hundreds of years into the past.

                The Hopewell people, like many other Native American people, were matrilineal. In such cultures a man and a woman may have joined under the name of the woman's family. The children of such union may have had the responsibilities and privileges of the female line. If I, as a male, were a member of the culture, my "surname" would become that of my wife's mother, grand mother, and great grandmother. My children would bear that name. I might become known for the doings of my wife's family. 

                I am far from sure of the ways their particular matrilineality effected their culture. However even the little we can learn may help us to better consider how Patrilineality may effect a culture. 

                The Hopewell have been called Mound Builders and came from a long line of such builders. They built more than complex mounds; they built a variety of interesting earthworks.They also made tools and artworks of stone, mica, copper, bone, wood, and much else.

                A work of theirs is called the Newark Earthworks and is located near Newark and Heath, Ohio in what is now the U.S.A. Three sections of this work have been identified and called: the Great Circle, the Octagonal, and the Wright Earthworks. As you may guess the complex was built by people we call Hopewell, The work was done between 100 BC and 500 AD. The Hopewell may have begun a decline as early as 400 AD. The Great Circle has called the biggest earthwork circle in the world or in the U.S. It is very big. It is believed to have been used as a place of ceremony, social gatherings, trade, worship, and honoring the dead. 

                Scholars have demonstrated that the Octagonal Earthwork was used as a lunar observatory for tracking the moon's orbit during its 18.6 year cycle.

                Trade: Evidence of their work and commerce has been found from south Florida and near the mouth of the Mississippi to the Great Lakes, and from the Rocky mountains to the Appalachian mountains. and some say, to the Atlantic coast of North America. Much of such evidence is concentrated in the drainage areas of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers.

                After 1492 Europeans were becoming aware of the earthworks of the Hopewell and Adena people. First the Spanish and later the French commented on some of the mounds being abandoned and over grown with grass, brush, and trees. The English and American colonists became curious of mounds at an even latter date, They dug into them. They found goods; goods of many kinds from pottery to gold. Some of their finds were wonders. Including skeletal remains of persons of a bigger of a size than any of the finders.

                Some of the finders were interested in that which could be sold. Others wondered who the builders could be. Certainly not the few sad Indians they saw around them. The Indians they saw around them were the children who's families had been diseased and cruelly exploited  by Europeans for over 300 years. What you see is what you get. They were not seeing the "noble redman." We are still learning about who those builders were. We still have much to learn. Most of the evidence points tot  the Native people living near us today.

                For now, I will say that it has seemed reasonable to believe that the Hopewell people experienced a peak in their culture from about 200 BC to about 400 AD. They were proceeded by an interesting and long lived culture called the Adena. Like the Hopewell they traded from the Gulf of Mexico to a bit beyond the Great Lakes and all along the Mississippi Drainage system, including the Ohio and Missouri rivers. There is much evidence that the Adena were active from about 1,000 BC to about 200 BC.

                I hope to post about the Adena When I believe there is interest among my readers.

                Experienced ones say that we have much of value to learn from the signs left by our Native predecessors, if we would dig carefully.

 

                Thank you for reading.

RCS

 

Mago Bill

History With RCS: Mago Bill, a Munster Man?

 

                I have posted a lot about Mago Bill and have even had a couple of Mago Bill blogs. One of the Mago Bills I have written was probably born in County Munster, but may have arrived in America before he could toddle. He was my great grandfather M. William Sheehan.

 

                 Sheehan is a fine and interesting surname, but Mago often attracts me more.Spanish speaking friends tell me that in Spanish mago means magician and the like. Some also tell me that "the three kings'' or "three wise men" of Christmas are called magos and that each of them is a mago. This seems interesting to me but may have been of no interest at all to my great grandfather.

 

                However, I have been told that before Rome came of age and in the early days of Carthage, that Mago was an important family name among the Carthaginian Phoenicians. I see that Magos where friends and family of a famous guy by the name of Hannibal.

 

                Magos were well known traders, navigators, and military leaders of Carthage. Carthaginian traders and navigators came to Ireland for a variety of reasons. The main reason was probably tin. In the Bronze age and beyond tin was important because without it there was little bronze. The Irish of the day were metal workers, craftsmen, and artists. They were also miners, alchemists, poets, lovers, and impressionable for hearing the name Mago so often from the visiting Carthaginians that they began to name their male child, Mago. From that time and centuries on the name Mago was from time to time quite popular on the Island. 

 

                The name Mago and Mago Bill have, from time to time, has influenced and inspired my research and writing of history.

 

                On this Mago Bill site you may expect essays dealing with Ireland, the Irish, Mago Bill and much more as you may have already discovered.

 

                Thanks for your visit and thank you for reading this essay which I have written for you.

 

                More to come,

     

 

                                                        bye for now

                                                        RCS