But wait...it was in Illinois...no, it was in Missouri! We now think it was in the Yucatan! Actually, it was in Guatemala...


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"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

— Gaius Octavius Caesar Augustus


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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/29/heads-nailed-trees-roman-legionnaires-british-museum-legion
308

It is one of the most chilling passages in Roman literature. Germanicus, the emperor Tiberius’s nephew, is leading reprisals in the deeply forested areas east of the Rhine, when he decides to visit the scene of the catastrophic defeat, six years before, of his fellow Roman, Quinctilius Varus. The historian Tacitus describes what Germanicus finds: the ghastly human wreckage of a supposedly unbeatable army, deep in the Teutoburg Forest. “On the open ground,” he writes, “were whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees.”

Survivors pointed out the spot where Varus had killed himself, and the place where the military standards had been flaunted by the victors. “A living Roman army,” writes Tacitus of Germanicus’s visit, “had come to bury the dead men’s bones. No one knew if the remains he was burying belonged to a stranger or a comrade.” Three whole legions, perhaps 15,000 men, had been slaughtered – as well as the slaves, women and children who would probably have been with them.

The site of the battle was almost certainly at Kalkriese in today’s Lower Saxony where, in 2002, a museum and battlefield park were opened. There is little to see in this wide field ringed by traces of what was once dense forest – but it is nevertheless a sobering spot. “It was killing fields as far as the eye can see,” says Stefan Burmeister, the museum’s director, describing the aftermath of the ambush. Bones and bodies may have decayed, but the soil is full of phosphates, the chemical traces of the dead, and if you strike the ground with a shovel, he says, there is “a fountain of finds”.


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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalkriese

The Romans' saltus Teutoburgiensis (Teutoburg Pass) is taken to refer to the strip of cultivated land with a width of 220 m (720 ft) which lies between the Kalkrieser Berg and a large area of wetland to its north, the great bog of Großes Moor. The passage along the northern slope of the Kalkrieser Berg is a difficult one because of the need to cross many deep brooks and rivulets.[1] Since the start of official explorations in 1988 more than 5,500 Roman objects, mainly pieces of military equipment, have been found in an area covering 17 km2 (6.6 sq mi):[2] The objects include Roman swords and daggers, parts of javelins and spears, arrowheads, sling stones, fragments of helmets, soldiers' boot nails, belts, chainmail hooks, and fragments of armor.[1] Among the most significant items is the earliest known Imperial face-mask.[2] Other items include locks, keys, razors, a scale, weights, chisels, hammers, pickaxes, buckets, finger rings, surgical instruments, seal boxes, a stylus, cauldrons, casseroles, spoons, and amphorae. Jewelry, hairpins, and a disk brooch suggest the presence of women.[1] One of the inscribed objects is a plumb bob with "CHOI", or "C(o)HO(rtis) I", i.e. "property of the first cohort". The other one is a chainmail fastener with the inscription: "M AIUS (cohortis) I (centuriae) FABRICI(i) M AII (cohortis) I (centuriae) FAB(ricii)" ("Marcus Aius of cohort I, centuria of fabricii; property of Marcus Aius of cohort I, centuria of fabricii").[3] A coin struck to commemorate Augustus's adoption of his grandsons Lucius and Gaius in 2 BC has also been found at Kalkriese.[3] In 2016, an archaeological investigation found eight aurei close together at the site, adding to the seven Roman gold coins previously found and tending to corroborate the identification of Kalkriese as the site of the battle.[4][5]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2024 05:37AM by anybody.

Thanks for sharing this. It's fascinating.

Odd how the Nephites were virtuoso at making gold plates that would stand the test of time and last forever and yet couldn't make a sword or a chariot that didn't rust to dust in no time at all.

At least Adam's altar was still around even if it only looked like a pile of rocks by the time Joseph found it and recognized for what it was it as only he could.

See my article on this "Romans and Nephites" at

http://packham.n4m.org/romans.htm

    The top figure for Roman troops and hangers-on is 20,000.  I'm not aware of any means for determining how many Germanic tribesmen were on scene.

    This compares with 260,000 combatants/hangers-on at the Nephite-Lamanite final battle.

    The location of the battle of Teutoburg was unknown by Roman authorities when it happened.  The survivors, and word from the survivors, didn't reach Rome for weeks to months following the battle, and they had no way to give geographic details; there were no roadside memorials, hwy signs or mileage markers.  They could only approximate its location.

    A few years later it was visited by another Roman army, but they, too, had no way to reference it's location, other than to say it was next to a river crossing, in a forest, along with a few other clues.

    Which is the whole point of exmo interest in the Battle of Teutoburg!  Around 25,000 to 30,000 people died in the battle and its site was last visited around 10 AD.  The location of the battle was lost to history, other than the few vague clues...

    But, and it's a huge but, using those vague clues, a british soldier, whose hobby was walking around waving a metal detector in front of him, was able to find the battleground, in 1987.  Follow up investigation by learned and credentialed authorities confirmed it.

    Remember, this battle preceded the Hill Cumorah battle by at least half a century.

    Mormonism started out saying JoJu's hometown Hill Cumorah was the final battle ground for two civilizations, the Jaredites (who fought to the last man) and the Nephites (who died to the last man).

    But the absence of evidence led the church to speculate that JoJu got it wrong and to admit that they don't know its actual location...  Too bad they couldn't ask of ghawd, who giveth liberally.

    Some critics of mormonism cry out that JoJu made it all up! For shame!

" . . . ask of ghawd, who giveth liberally."

Clearly "liberally" in this context means "not at all" and therefore the phrase was born, "God helps those who help themselves." All He asks is that once you do the heavy lifting, He still gets the credit.

15,000 is all?

The Nephites lost 240,000 combatants plus camp followers.

The Lamanites suffered as much casualties at least, as they were unarmored.

So only 500,000 to 750,000 corpses to find.

Nevermind the millions of animals it took to feed that large a population and the tens of thousands of cooking pits.

The church could pay for a complete LIDAR survey of the Hill Cumorah. Wouldn't that show the doubters?

That area is all farmland. It's strange how not a single artifact has turned up. It's like the battles never happened. God must have made it disappear as a test of faith.

Below is a Google Maps snapshot of the Hill Cumorah:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/the+hill+cumorah/@42.9873953,-77.3428513,53080m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

I thought to myself, "Imma take a look at the HIll Cumorah on Google Maps and make fun of it and JoJu!"

But Google Maps PROVES the hand of ghawd watches over everything!

At first glance one is tempted to say that there absolutely nothing special about this location and you can't even tell there's a hill!

But then you look just a tiny bit to the south and there's the proof: Interstate 90!

Let him with an eye peek, let him with a voice shout, let him with a finger point, let him with a date kiss, let him with a her marry, let him with a joint smoke, let him with a tooth bite, let him with a cough wheeze, let him with a Gladys cry, let him with a match flame, let him with a car drive, let him with a job commute, let him with a need yearn, let him in a hurry proceed, let with an agenda preside, etc. (I got tired!)

> (I got tired!)

So did we!

Didn't a prominent GA write a letter - on ChurchCo stationery- that Cumorah was the actual (Factual) site of Battle?


Or, was the letter I saw online fakers (Mark Hofmann style)?

btw, I hear he's still alive..

...Whatever happened to F. Michael Watson?

He wandered off into the desert, like a goat in Hebrew times.

If a prophet farts, does his secretary say, "Bless you"?

It makes perfect sense that secretaries to the prophets have to sign very stringent NDAs to get their jobs, and I totally understand the desire of the church to control 'the message' via NDAs.

But what happens if a secretary writes a soul-shaking memoir to be published after his death?  

This brings up another issue:  Do secretaries to the prophets ever get the Second Annoying?

Do they hang out and make fun of their bosses?  Or do they compete to try to establish which boss is holiest?

First Quorum of the Seventy? He absolutely had received the 2A, which must be a prerequisite for being secretary to the FP.

I'm confident there are also lesser secretaries, meaning women who are possibly called executive assistants, who do the steno pad stuff and fetch the newspapers.

But Mr. Watson didn't have to argue that his boss was Boss.

https://www.mormonwiki.com/F._Michael_Watson

"Frank Michael Watson was a secretary to the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1986 to 2008. He was assistant secretary from 1972 until April 1986. Prior to that call, he served as assistant secretary and then secretary to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1970–1972). He was called to serve in the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 2008 and served until October 2013 when he was designated an emeritus general authority. He served as a counselor in the Church’s Africa Southeast Area presidency and later in the Pacific Area presidency."

Oh yee of little faith...the angel brought a host of handcarts and plebes to scour the battle site forevery tunic button ..it was all taken to heaven along with the plates else how could faith be tested...being a faithful excuse maker really isn’t that hard..I’d wager they even wore bright yellow tunics while they cleaned up every scrap of evidence ...how firm the foundation

But didn't someone find some letters scratched on a rock on the Arabian Peninsula that might have been done by Lehi during his travels and that proves the Book of Mormon is true?