Roman Britain was multicultural

"Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over the past decade. New research has rubbished our perception of it as a region inhabited solely by white Europeans. Roman Britain was actually a highly multicultural society which included newcomers and locals with black African ancestry and dual heritage, as well as people from the Middle East."

Interesting article about a new exhibit at the Museum of London Docklands.

 

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The difference between today and the Roman times was that Romans expected newcomers to become Roman. Which is why no matter where you went in the empire, every city looked familiar. You could tell where the forum would be, where the lawcourts would be, where the temples would be, etc. Rome was multicultural in the sense that it encompassed many ethnicities from Britania all the way to the deserts of Arabia, but they were all Romans....not Romano-this, Romano-this. Therefore, you cannot look at today's ideas of multiculturalism and try to apply them to the past.

Speaking of multicultural Romans, here is a half North-African (area of modern Lybia) and half Syrian emperor who was quite Roman indeed. You see, Romans didn't care about skin color or what religious practices you had, as long as you became Roman and embodied the ideals of what was to be Roman.

 

The article wasn't about the Roman empire being multicultural -- everyone knows that -- but that Roman Britain was, and this represents a paradigm shift.

 

Oh please, we have known that Roman Britain was multicultural for quite some time.

Here is one such example found long ago, proof that this article presents absolutely nothing new under the sun.



It's a gravestone for Regina, a Britanian freedwoman, from her husband Barates of Palmyra (ie. a middle eastern man). Here they both were in Britania, as husband and wife, despite one of them being born thousands of miles away. Both Romans, using Roman symbols and language (though he also inscribes the message in his native tongue below). Like I said, diversity was a different concept for the Romans than it is for people in the 21st Century. To them diversity was bringing people of different colors and ethnicities and religions under one law, one Roman culture and Roman values and ideals....something not considered very PC today.

Here is more proof this article presents nothing new....inscriptions of tombs of Roman soldiers in Britannia provide proof they came from all over Europe and even the Middle East and North Africa. All fighting for Rome, using Latin and Roman symbols, and quite as Roman as the Romans born in Rome itself. Many settled in Britannia, but even those that didn't probably left offsprings there.

 

Well, one doesnt have to look too far to explain the article. Up at the top, their logo states "Academic Rigor, Journalistic Flair". In the opening paragraph: "New research has rubbished our perception of it as a region inhabited solely by white Europeans." Who's perception? The authors of course and certainly not academia, which has long known that prehistoric Britons (and I use that term loosely to describe the various peoples who inhabited the island) were more closely 'black skinned'. I was taught this in my Intro to Anthropology class 30 years ago.

Articles like these are more about getting the authors name into the spotlight and little else. Remember a few years ago when the two British Museum guys 'shocked' the world when they revealed the had 'just discovered new coins' showing that Cleopatra VII was actually ugly and not beautiful as Hollywood portrayed?

 

I think there's some unfair criticism of this article above, so I thought I'd just add my two cents in defense of it.

• The author is indeed an academic, citing other academic work.
• Just because there are a few pieces of evidence indicating cultural and racial diversity doesn't mean that further evidence doesn't make a difference to consensus views over a period of time. Indeed, Mary Beard indicates that the evidence is far from complete concerning the extent and variety of diversity. So I don't think it's fair to say, "Oh, we already knew that."
• In particular, there has been a lot of recent evidence from genetic analysis that wasn't available even ten years ago, not just about Roman Britain but earlier too. Again, there was some relevant evidence before, but it is much stronger now.
• Apparently the article was in part prompted by some ignorant comments among both academics and non-academics who aren't expert in the area, justifying the article being written and even perhaps some of the hype. And clearly justifying the museum exhibit the article is actually about, and which the author helped curate!

So... thanks for posting, RC!

 

DELETED BY POSTER - for the sake of peace

 

Did we even read the same article?!

First she discusses exactly why material culture (e.g. burial goods) is often subject to bias, or is misleading or absent. Then she describes how her area of expertise can help avoid these problems. She is a bioarchaeologist, using worldwide data sets of patterns of teeth and skeletal growth & mineral composition to identify where a person lived for extended periods of time. (All of this is in the context of pointing out the vast array of diverse pieces of evidence in favour of the diversity hypothesis.) Then comes the paragraph I think you're complaining about:

"We have discovered, for example, that one middle-aged woman from the southern Mediterranean has black African ancestry. She was buried in Southwark with pottery from Kent and a fourth century local coin – her burial expresses British connections, reflecting how people’s communities and lives can be remade by migration. The people burying her may have decided to reflect her life in the city by choosing local objects, but we can’t dismiss the possibility that she may have come to London as a slave."

First, her skeleton was found in London (Southwark). Second, the grounds for claiming that she had black African ancestry and spent time in the southern Mediterranean (not necessarily Italy) is not some wild guess, as you suggest, but the very bioarchaeological data she's just talked about. "[On this basis] we have discovered, for example..." Third, she does not say that she was probably a black slave, but rather that "we can't dismiss" this possibility.

So take it back! The article's OK. (In any case, we agree on the overall conclusion, I think, which is the main thing. Peace! )

 

Come on guys! Group hug!

 

Man, I love cats.

 

So does my dog. Yum!!!!

 

Did this just get turned into the multi"cat"tural thread???

 

Please send me a list of your published academic articles so I can critique them.

 

Oh yes!!


Mysia: Cyzicus (525-475 BCE), obol


Ujjain: 185-160 BC


Chach: Tarnavch (7th-8th c.) (that is supposed to be a lion or a leopard or something like that)


Bahri Mamluk: Baybars (1260-1277)

 

I think so!! And an excuse to post funny cat videos and cartoons Maybe the thread will become an all-out tangential fest (I love those )

Here's a recap of what happened earlier in this thread:



and a coin to, as we say, "keep it legal" (even though there is no such rule about having to post a coin, somehow that too has become a "thing" on the Ancients board: if you post an off-topic comment, or something non-numismatic, you must then post a random coin )


KINGS OF LYDIA, temp. Ardys - Alyattes
c. 630s-564/53 BCE (dates from a CNG listing of a similar coin*; I do not have the reference books nor have I read the latest thoughts)
Electrum trite, 4.8 gm, 13.4 mm. Sardes mint.
Obv: head of roaring lion right, sun with four rays on forehead
Rev: two incuse square punches
Ref: Weidauer Group XV, 64; BMC 2

 

Oh please, I've had 3 appellate briefs in front of the 3rd DCA, and all were won in Per Curiam Affirmed decisions. What about you son, what do you have?

 

Here are some of my cats

 

No, I'm not taking it back. You said ancient Britain was multicultural, and I replied that I thought ancient Britain was multicultural due to slightly different conclusions, to which you pretty much agreed for slightly different reasons and 100% agreed with me that ancient Britain was multicultural, and then I..... Wait, why are we fighting again? I think we both pretty much agree with each other, so why the cat fight?

Fine, I take it back. We cool again?

 

I see..so that would be zero then?