NationStates Jolt Archive

http://adventures.yahoo.com/b/adventures/adventures7228


Even before Alexander the Great, Macedonia evoked power from which to steer clear. When the ancient Greeks held their Olympic Games they forbade the participation of the mountainous neighbor to the north because the hunter-warriors there were too strong, too fast, too good — favored by the geographic and genetic equivalent of steroids. It was believed the Macedonians were descendants of Zeus, after all. When Alexander decided to enter the Olympics, he proved the dread justifiable: he won. Then again, he was the emperor.


Alexander had proven himself a brilliant general and decisive conqueror even before his father, Phillip II of Macedon, died. Then, between 336 and 323 B.C., the young leader embarked on a mission to conquer and unite the known world, becoming what some have called the first true global leader — bringing classic Greek (and Macedonian) culture as far north as the Danube, east to India, south to the Nile. The last Egyptian pharoahs were Macedonian, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, descendants of Alexander's general Ptolemy Soter.


After Alexander died, at the seasoned age of 32, Macedonia became the Catena Mundi, the link between the worlds, the mystic cultural crossroads, the nexus of epochs. Over the following millennia almost everyone passed across this junction, most of them to put the stamp of conquest on it — the Romans, the Huns, the Goths, the Normans, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, the Ottomans, the Serbs, and of course the Germans during World War II.


After the war, the core of this country was assimilated into Yugoslavia as its southernmost province, and for 47 years it endured the ignominy of anonymity. But in 1991 the nationalistic spirit reasserted itself, and bloodlessly it re-created a nation, the Republic of Macedonia.


Through it all a certain character has persevered... a stolid grit, a rock-like steadfastness and resolve that transcends time and empires... while at the same time assimilating the more sapid traits of conquerors and passers-through, creating a sort of mixed salad, Makedonska salata of temperament and spirit.


In the humus of history


Its layered history means Macedonia is fecund with archaeology. It seems you can send a spade into the earth practically anywhere and turn up an antique coin, a Neolithic shard, a helmet, even a golden glove thousands of years old. There's a shadow industry of "diggers" who skulk about with scoops and shovels, and trade their finds on the black market, sometimes for millions of denars.


In the southwestern quadrant of the country we find Lake Ohrid, the deepest lake in Europe. The vacation city on its shores may be the oldest continuously habited settlement in Europe, dating back some 7,000 years, and its archaeological riches are barely tapped. Here we meet the foremost archaeologist in Macedonia, Pasko Kuzman. He has been excavating 3,000-year-old submerged sites in Lake Ohrid, and the first fortress of King Philip II, Alexander's father, on its shores.


Though his academic credentials are impressive, my first response is that he's a carbon dated copy of Anthony Hopkins as the lost anthropologist in the film Instinct. There's a permanent supernal glow to his face, like a religious icon — his long white hair is airborne, chest hairs pop around his Neolithic cutting-stone pendant. He's stray-dog restless, like his hero Alexander, whom he admires as a "philosopher in action."


Pasko's signature tools include three weighty watches he wears on his left wrist, what he calls his "time machines." With one he says he travels to the Bronze and Neolithic ages. With another to the future. And with the third, his "archaeological watch" with its special sensors, he makes his finds. "If it beeps twice it is silver; three times and I've struck gold."


Pasko leads us down an alley into a junkyard of rusted tools and stinging nettles. Here he worms down a dark warren, and motions us to stoop and follow. Suddenly we are in a musty, ancient tomb, and by its generous size it appears it was a sepulcher for royalty. Could it have been Alexander's, whose final resting place is still unknown? In the darkness I can still see Pasko's impish eyes dart as he replies, "It is not for me to say."

Regardless, the burial chamber is empty, perhaps the victim of one of the many tomb raiders who steal about this country smuggling antediluvian treasures to overseas buyers.


The mask of Macedonia


After our peregrinations up and down the cobbled streets of Ohrid, Pasko offers to take us to Cabinet Troja, his attic lab up several flights of narrow stairs. As we enter he flips on the fluorescent lights, and there along long tables and shelves are the fruits of his trowel — rows of spear points, shields, arrowheads, swords, necklaces, wine goblets, and patinaed bronze battle helmets. One of these has a wreath and curving ram's horns, similar to the one Alexander wears in depictions on coins and plates. It seems amazing to me that all these treasures are spilled about this loft like a boy's rock collection, and that we're allowed to fondle these artifacts, reaching back and touching the works of hands from over two millennia ago.


Then, with a twinkly beam, Pasko pulls out a silver key. He opens a file cabinet and sets down a container that looks looking like the humidor for some sort of theatrical MacGuffin. We lean over, and he snaps back the lid to reveal his greatest unearthing, the golden mask of Trebenista. Next to it is a golden glove bearing a golden ring, both of which he discovered in 2002 in a tomb here beneath Ohrid.


This is perhaps the most significant modern-day find in Macedonia, and it has made Pasko a bit of a national celebrity. Four other similar masks have been found and spirited across borders, sold in black markets, and are now showcased in museums in Sofia and Belgrade. Pasko keeps this one in a cigar box in his musty loft. He insists I hold the delicate fifth-century B.C. mask, which I almost drop when he remarks it could fetch $18 million on the open market. But he seems none the worried, as though there are troves more where this came from.


Pasko explains the mask was funereal, intended to help the dead communicate with the living. To further clarify, he waxes as precise and elusive as a Basho haiku: "Through the archives of the earth, and the archives of consciousness, Macedonia threads both as legend and reality."


Pasko himself seems threaded in legend and reality, a man who uses the power of the past to understand the future. I can't resist — I have to ask what the future holds for Macedonia.


"Macedonia will never disappear. It is a legendary place that will exist through time. Only when the basic elements of the universe cease to exist, so then will Macedonia."

"What have you learned about the past?"

"Alexander fused the world. He used his power greatly. He enabled the people of Iraq and Iran, Palestine and Egypt, India and Pakistan, to live together, to live in abundance. We try to reach this ideal, but we cannot. We can only aspire to understand the world as Alexander. If we have 100 years of peaceful development we will still be far back. But someday, if we use the light of history to look into the future, we will move forward to the past."

Pasko puts the mask of Macedonia back in its box, ushers us through the door, and with a swipe of his hand turns off the lights.

Uh, thank you Mr. Peabody.

I lost my high school class ring while playing in mud. Some day, an archaelogist will find it and wonder what kind of person I was. Think he'll even be close? :p

If I could go back in time...

I would crash the last supper, run up a huge tab, and stick Judas with the bill.

If I could go back in time...

I would crash the last supper, run up a huge tab, and stick Judas with the bill.
LOL.

Or maybe you could do the painting andy warhole style?

Or we could send The Terminator! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vToIbZRRxlw&search=Terminator%20Jesus)

:D

I can travel through time. It's only the one direction and completely involuntary but still I can do it.

I can travel through time. It's only the one direction and completely involuntary but still I can do it.
Ah, but that raises an interesting question: are you travelling through time, or are you stationary in time, and moving along with it? In other words, are you walking through the car or sitting in it?

http://adventures.yahoo.com/b/adventures/adventures7228


Even before Alexander the Great, Macedonia evoked power from which to steer clear. When the ancient Greeks held their Olympic Games they forbade the participation of the mountainous neighbor to the north because the hunter-warriors there were too strong, too fast, too good — favored by the geographic and genetic equivalent of steroids. It was believed the Macedonians were descendants of Zeus, after all. When Alexander decided to enter the Olympics, he proved the dread justifiable: he won. Then again, he was the emperor.


Alexander had proven himself a brilliant general and decisive conqueror even before his father, Phillip II of Macedon, died. Then, between 336 and 323 B.C., the young leader embarked on a mission to conquer and unite the known world, becoming what some have called the first true global leader — bringing classic Greek (and Macedonian) culture as far north as the Danube, east to India, south to the Nile. The last Egyptian pharoahs were Macedonian, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, descendants of Alexander's general Ptolemy Soter.


After Alexander died, at the seasoned age of 32, Macedonia became the Catena Mundi, the link between the worlds, the mystic cultural crossroads, the nexus of epochs. Over the following millennia almost everyone passed across this junction, most of them to put the stamp of conquest on it — the Romans, the Huns, the Goths, the Normans, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, the Ottomans, the Serbs, and of course the Germans during World War II.


After the war, the core of this country was assimilated into Yugoslavia as its southernmost province, and for 47 years it endured the ignominy of anonymity. But in 1991 the nationalistic spirit reasserted itself, and bloodlessly it re-created a nation, the Republic of Macedonia.


Through it all a certain character has persevered... a stolid grit, a rock-like steadfastness and resolve that transcends time and empires... while at the same time assimilating the more sapid traits of conquerors and passers-through, creating a sort of mixed salad, Makedonska salata of temperament and spirit.


In the humus of history


Its layered history means Macedonia is fecund with archaeology. It seems you can send a spade into the earth practically anywhere and turn up an antique coin, a Neolithic shard, a helmet, even a golden glove thousands of years old. There's a shadow industry of "diggers" who skulk about with scoops and shovels, and trade their finds on the black market, sometimes for millions of denars.


In the southwestern quadrant of the country we find Lake Ohrid, the deepest lake in Europe. The vacation city on its shores may be the oldest continuously habited settlement in Europe, dating back some 7,000 years, and its archaeological riches are barely tapped. Here we meet the foremost archaeologist in Macedonia, Pasko Kuzman. He has been excavating 3,000-year-old submerged sites in Lake Ohrid, and the first fortress of King Philip II, Alexander's father, on its shores.


Though his academic credentials are impressive, my first response is that he's a carbon dated copy of Anthony Hopkins as the lost anthropologist in the film Instinct. There's a permanent supernal glow to his face, like a religious icon — his long white hair is airborne, chest hairs pop around his Neolithic cutting-stone pendant. He's stray-dog restless, like his hero Alexander, whom he admires as a "philosopher in action."


Pasko's signature tools include three weighty watches he wears on his left wrist, what he calls his "time machines." With one he says he travels to the Bronze and Neolithic ages. With another to the future. And with the third, his "archaeological watch" with its special sensors, he makes his finds. "If it beeps twice it is silver; three times and I've struck gold."


Pasko leads us down an alley into a junkyard of rusted tools and stinging nettles. Here he worms down a dark warren, and motions us to stoop and follow. Suddenly we are in a musty, ancient tomb, and by its generous size it appears it was a sepulcher for royalty. Could it have been Alexander's, whose final resting place is still unknown? In the darkness I can still see Pasko's impish eyes dart as he replies, "It is not for me to say."

Regardless, the burial chamber is empty, perhaps the victim of one of the many tomb raiders who steal about this country smuggling antediluvian treasures to overseas buyers.


The mask of Macedonia


After our peregrinations up and down the cobbled streets of Ohrid, Pasko offers to take us to Cabinet Troja, his attic lab up several flights of narrow stairs. As we enter he flips on the fluorescent lights, and there along long tables and shelves are the fruits of his trowel — rows of spear points, shields, arrowheads, swords, necklaces, wine goblets, and patinaed bronze battle helmets. One of these has a wreath and curving ram's horns, similar to the one Alexander wears in depictions on coins and plates. It seems amazing to me that all these treasures are spilled about this loft like a boy's rock collection, and that we're allowed to fondle these artifacts, reaching back and touching the works of hands from over two millennia ago.


Then, with a twinkly beam, Pasko pulls out a silver key. He opens a file cabinet and sets down a container that looks looking like the humidor for some sort of theatrical MacGuffin. We lean over, and he snaps back the lid to reveal his greatest unearthing, the golden mask of Trebenista. Next to it is a golden glove bearing a golden ring, both of which he discovered in 2002 in a tomb here beneath Ohrid.


This is perhaps the most significant modern-day find in Macedonia, and it has made Pasko a bit of a national celebrity. Four other similar masks have been found and spirited across borders, sold in black markets, and are now showcased in museums in Sofia and Belgrade. Pasko keeps this one in a cigar box in his musty loft. He insists I hold the delicate fifth-century B.C. mask, which I almost drop when he remarks it could fetch $18 million on the open market. But he seems none the worried, as though there are troves more where this came from.


Pasko explains the mask was funereal, intended to help the dead communicate with the living. To further clarify, he waxes as precise and elusive as a Basho haiku: "Through the archives of the earth, and the archives of consciousness, Macedonia threads both as legend and reality."


Pasko himself seems threaded in legend and reality, a man who uses the power of the past to understand the future. I can't resist — I have to ask what the future holds for Macedonia.


"Macedonia will never disappear. It is a legendary place that will exist through time. Only when the basic elements of the universe cease to exist, so then will Macedonia."

"What have you learned about the past?"

"Alexander fused the world. He used his power greatly. He enabled the people of Iraq and Iran, Palestine and Egypt, India and Pakistan, to live together, to live in abundance. We try to reach this ideal, but we cannot. We can only aspire to understand the world as Alexander. If we have 100 years of peaceful development we will still be far back. But someday, if we use the light of history to look into the future, we will move forward to the past."

Pasko puts the mask of Macedonia back in its box, ushers us through the door, and with a swipe of his hand turns off the lights.
+1

http://adventures.yahoo.com/b/adventures/adventures7228


Even before Alexander the Great, Macedonia evoked power from which to steer clear. When the ancient Greeks held their Olympic Games they forbade the participation of the mountainous neighbor to the north because the hunter-warriors there were too strong, too fast, too good — favored by the geographic and genetic equivalent of steroids. It was believed the Macedonians were descendants of Zeus, after all. When Alexander decided to enter the Olympics, he proved the dread justifiable: he won. Then again, he was the emperor.


Alexander had proven himself a brilliant general and decisive conqueror even before his father, Phillip II of Macedon, died. Then, between 336 and 323 B.C., the young leader embarked on a mission to conquer and unite the known world, becoming what some have called the first true global leader — bringing classic Greek (and Macedonian) culture as far north as the Danube, east to India, south to the Nile. The last Egyptian pharoahs were Macedonian, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, descendants of Alexander's general Ptolemy Soter.


After Alexander died, at the seasoned age of 32, Macedonia became the Catena Mundi, the link between the worlds, the mystic cultural crossroads, the nexus of epochs. Over the following millennia almost everyone passed across this junction, most of them to put the stamp of conquest on it — the Romans, the Huns, the Goths, the Normans, the Byzantines, the Bulgarians, the Ottomans, the Serbs, and of course the Germans during World War II.


After the war, the core of this country was assimilated into Yugoslavia as its southernmost province, and for 47 years it endured the ignominy of anonymity. But in 1991 the nationalistic spirit reasserted itself, and bloodlessly it re-created a nation, the Republic of Macedonia.


Through it all a certain character has persevered... a stolid grit, a rock-like steadfastness and resolve that transcends time and empires... while at the same time assimilating the more sapid traits of conquerors and passers-through, creating a sort of mixed salad, Makedonska salata of temperament and spirit.


In the humus of history


Its layered history means Macedonia is fecund with archaeology. It seems you can send a spade into the earth practically anywhere and turn up an antique coin, a Neolithic shard, a helmet, even a golden glove thousands of years old. There's a shadow industry of "diggers" who skulk about with scoops and shovels, and trade their finds on the black market, sometimes for millions of denars.


In the southwestern quadrant of the country we find Lake Ohrid, the deepest lake in Europe. The vacation city on its shores may be the oldest continuously habited settlement in Europe, dating back some 7,000 years, and its archaeological riches are barely tapped. Here we meet the foremost archaeologist in Macedonia, Pasko Kuzman. He has been excavating 3,000-year-old submerged sites in Lake Ohrid, and the first fortress of King Philip II, Alexander's father, on its shores.


Though his academic credentials are impressive, my first response is that he's a carbon dated copy of Anthony Hopkins as the lost anthropologist in the film Instinct. There's a permanent supernal glow to his face, like a religious icon — his long white hair is airborne, chest hairs pop around his Neolithic cutting-stone pendant. He's stray-dog restless, like his hero Alexander, whom he admires as a "philosopher in action."


Pasko's signature tools include three weighty watches he wears on his left wrist, what he calls his "time machines." With one he says he travels to the Bronze and Neolithic ages. With another to the future. And with the third, his "archaeological watch" with its special sensors, he makes his finds. "If it beeps twice it is silver; three times and I've struck gold."


Pasko leads us down an alley into a junkyard of rusted tools and stinging nettles. Here he worms down a dark warren, and motions us to stoop and follow. Suddenly we are in a musty, ancient tomb, and by its generous size it appears it was a sepulcher for royalty. Could it have been Alexander's, whose final resting place is still unknown? In the darkness I can still see Pasko's impish eyes dart as he replies, "It is not for me to say."

Regardless, the burial chamber is empty, perhaps the victim of one of the many tomb raiders who steal about this country smuggling antediluvian treasures to overseas buyers.


The mask of Macedonia


After our peregrinations up and down the cobbled streets of Ohrid, Pasko offers to take us to Cabinet Troja, his attic lab up several flights of narrow stairs. As we enter he flips on the fluorescent lights, and there along long tables and shelves are the fruits of his trowel — rows of spear points, shields, arrowheads, swords, necklaces, wine goblets, and patinaed bronze battle helmets. One of these has a wreath and curving ram's horns, similar to the one Alexander wears in depictions on coins and plates. It seems amazing to me that all these treasures are spilled about this loft like a boy's rock collection, and that we're allowed to fondle these artifacts, reaching back and touching the works of hands from over two millennia ago.


Then, with a twinkly beam, Pasko pulls out a silver key. He opens a file cabinet and sets down a container that looks looking like the humidor for some sort of theatrical MacGuffin. We lean over, and he snaps back the lid to reveal his greatest unearthing, the golden mask of Trebenista. Next to it is a golden glove bearing a golden ring, both of which he discovered in 2002 in a tomb here beneath Ohrid.


This is perhaps the most significant modern-day find in Macedonia, and it has made Pasko a bit of a national celebrity. Four other similar masks have been found and spirited across borders, sold in black markets, and are now showcased in museums in Sofia and Belgrade. Pasko keeps this one in a cigar box in his musty loft. He insists I hold the delicate fifth-century B.C. mask, which I almost drop when he remarks it could fetch $18 million on the open market. But he seems none the worried, as though there are troves more where this came from.


Pasko explains the mask was funereal, intended to help the dead communicate with the living. To further clarify, he waxes as precise and elusive as a Basho haiku: "Through the archives of the earth, and the archives of consciousness, Macedonia threads both as legend and reality."


Pasko himself seems threaded in legend and reality, a man who uses the power of the past to understand the future. I can't resist — I have to ask what the future holds for Macedonia.


"Macedonia will never disappear. It is a legendary place that will exist through time. Only when the basic elements of the universe cease to exist, so then will Macedonia."

"What have you learned about the past?"

"Alexander fused the world. He used his power greatly. He enabled the people of Iraq and Iran, Palestine and Egypt, India and Pakistan, to live together, to live in abundance. We try to reach this ideal, but we cannot. We can only aspire to understand the world as Alexander. If we have 100 years of peaceful development we will still be far back. But someday, if we use the light of history to look into the future, we will move forward to the past."

Pasko puts the mask of Macedonia back in its box, ushers us through the door, and with a swipe of his hand turns off the lights.
+1

Time travel will only create problems. I mean, if you wanted to change history, you could just go back, kill Hitler or Stalin? What would that do? You can't possibly know. And frankly, it would make a huge issue with the bleeding hearts.

Say "No" to time travel.

Time travel will only create problems. I mean, if you wanted to change history, you could just go back, kill Hitler or Stalin? What would that do? You can't possibly know. And frankly, it would make a huge issue with the bleeding hearts.

Say "No" to time travel.

But then we'd have an Allies-Soviet war, tesla troopers, mammoth tanks and The Brotherhood of Nod! Yes to time travel! :p
I think time travel should be used to bump off evil dictators and such, in the hands of an international security and very heavily regulated. Unless you mess history so much time travel doesn't end up being invented, you can always go back and fix things anyway.

But then we'd have an Allies-Soviet war, tesla troopers, mammoth tanks and The Brotherhood of Nod! Yes to time travel! :p
I think time travel should be used to bump off evil dictators and such, in the hands of an international security and very heavily regulated. Unless you mess history so much time travel doesn't end up being invented, you can always go back and fix things anyway.

Yes, but what part of history is "Right" and "Wrong"? I mean, who would decide to go back and change something? For Example: If you went and killed off Hitler, wouldn't Germany still be trying to pay off reparations from the Treaty of Versailles today? Would Germany be in a huge depression and not be the great country it is today?

It too risky in my opinion to change things, because this technology would only be abused, causing more wars and such. The real question is not: "What would you do if you went back in time" its: "What would happen the milisecond you stepped out of your time capsule".

But if you travel through time, will your safety be guaranteed? :D

only problem is this guy seems to confuse the Republic of Macedonia with ancient macedonia.

For anyone who's interested
What is now Republic of Macedonia was then Paionia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paionians)

oh and it was Alexander I who competed in the Olympics. This guy try's to give the impression it Alexander III (the great)

loopy bastard

Yes, but what part of history is "Right" and "Wrong"? I mean, who would decide to go back and change something? For Example: If you went and killed off Hitler, wouldn't Germany still be trying to pay off reparations from the Treaty of Versailles today? Would Germany be in a huge depression and not be the great country it is today?

It too risky in my opinion to change things, because this technology would only be abused, causing more wars and such. The real question is not: "What would you do if you went back in time" its: "What would happen the milisecond you stepped out of your time capsule".

If you dont like the outcome of a given action would you not go back and try it again differently until you did like the outcome?

I mean really if killing Hitler in 1929 was a bad idea dont you think youd go back and not kill him the second time around?

Or we could send The Terminator! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vToIbZRRxlw&search=Terminator%20Jesus)

:D
LOL That was really funny.

Stop Killing Judas!

If you dont like the outcome of a given action would you not go back and try it again differently until you did like the outcome?

I mean really if killing Hitler in 1929 was a bad idea dont you think youd go back and not kill him the second time around?
Except that he'd already be dead. (Already will have been dead? Already will have been about to be dead? :confused: ) The only way to stop yourself from killing him would be to kill yourself. But if you did that, who would there be to stop you?

Now do you see why time travel is a bad idea? :D

(Always-already was about to become dead? :confused: )

http://adventures.yahoo.com/b/adventures/adventures7228
Thank you! I enjoyed that. :)

Has anyone ever considered that if one travels through time to alter it, it would be as if time was always altered, thus creating no need to travel back in time to change it?
For instance, say the Nazis actually won WWII, but somebody in the year 2221 traveled back to change that. Time would progress and that same guy traveled back in time would have no reason to use the time machine, if he even still came to exist.

What I’m saying is, if time travel is ever discovered, no one at that time would have a need for it because they’ve already gone back and changed what they wanted to. If time travel is invented, every single person on Earth will thusly be perfectly content with the past and will have no need for it.

I hope that made sense.

Has anyone ever considered that if one travels through time to alter it, it would be as if time was always altered, thus creating no need to travel back in time to change it?
For instance, say the Nazis actually won WWII, but somebody in the year 2221 traveled back to change that. Time would progress and that same guy traveled back in time would have no reason to use the time machine, if he even still came to exist.

What I’m saying is, if time travel is ever discovered, no one at that time would have a need for it because they’ve already gone back and changed what they wanted to. If time travel is invented, every single person on Earth will thusly be perfectly content with the past and will have no need for it.

I hope that made sense.
Discussing time-travel can make your head hurt. Just getting the language right is a chore. But it's fun. I myself favor the De Camp Theory, as described in Lest Darkness Fall, which says that if you travel back in time and make a large enough change, a new time-line begins there. The time-line you started from continues without you but you are now in what is essentially a parallel universe. (I recommend the book highly, by the way, it's a fun read.)

Human greed is the main proof that time travel will never be invented (at least not in the foreseeable future). If someone did invent and patent a time machine, you could bet your ass some lowlife would steal it and go back in time before it was invented and patent it himself. This would continue with other lowlifes in absurdum, resulting in the time machine being "invented" along with electricity and the light bulb. :)

But if you travel through time, will your safety be guaranteed? :D
YTMND

Human greed is the main proof that time travel will never be invented (at least not in the foreseeable future). If someone did invent and patent a time machine, you could bet your ass some lowlife would steal it and go back in time before it was invented and patent it himself. This would continue with other lowlifes in absurdum, resulting in the time machine being "invented" along with electricity and the light bulb. :)

Amen.

I lost my high school class ring while playing in mud. Some day, an archaelogist will find it and wonder what kind of person I was. Think he'll even be close? :p
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" - A future, famous archaelogist.