NationStates Jolt Archive

ROME (The Roman Free Press)- Earlier today, acheologists excavating in Rome today discovered an artifact from 4390 BC that indisputably proves the existence of Rome in 4390 BC.

The document that was found- written in very crude Latin- is very similar to the original texts of the Sumerians- it is an economic document, in this case a note for delivery. All that the document says is the following:

To Taminus of Rome- two jars of wine

"This is monumental news", said Regina Mardenses, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Rome, of the discovery. "It proves that there was a 'Rome' as early as 4390 BC and that there already was an economic system in the area at the time. This is incredible."

Mardenses, however, also warned about reading too deeply into the finding. "Since we don't have a firm foundation date we can't be sure that this is, without a doubt, the date that Rome was founded, and we still have a 3647-year gap to the 'traditional' founding of Rome in 753 BC that we need to explain. Still, this says a lot about our people and our history and that is something we must emphasize today."

The document's date was confirmed by carbon-dating, and Mardenses says she will stage another press conference for the international press later today.

OOC: I'll update this as I go along- scholarly debates, etc. Anyway, feel free to ask questions about the discovery- something of this magnitude would be a real Earth-shaker today.

Also, you are encouraged to provide theories of your own. Just remember that there are a few parameters to consider before writing one:

1) It IS a genuine artifact, thus it really did come from 4390 BC and is not a forgery.

2) It IS geuninely in Latin, with every word preserved. This means that the line above actually does read what it says and is not incorrect in any way.

Therefore, there can be no question that this document does not refer to a Roman living in Rome in 4390BC. Other than that, there's a lot left for interpretation.

To: regmar@romeU.rome
From: editor@cottishfreepress.com
Subject: Artifact find

Hi. I'm Jake Petersen, responsible editor of the Cottish Free Press, and I would like to ask you a few questions, and possibly even have an interview with you. Can we schedule an appointment for today or tomorrow?

Anyway, here are the questions:

1. How can you be so sure that it say "To Taminus of Rome- two jars of wine", when it is in very crude latin. Can't you have possibly mistranslated?

2. How do you, from an experts point of view, think that Rome looked like in BC 4390?

3. Where do the document come from?

I hope that you will be able to answer these questions.

Jake Petersen

The Jeruselem Institute of Roman History would be interested in examining the item in question. We still hold the theory, the Etruscans were the forerunners to Imperial Rome and Latin was formed from their language.

Professor Marcus John Smith
University of Jerusalem

The Empire of Layarteb congradulates the Roman government on their finding. As far as we can push back is a few scattered tribes in the early 6th century A.D.

Layarteb: Thank you.

Jeruselem: "For security reasons, we cannot allow the document to leave the University of Rome. However, if you would like to send some people to inspect the document for yourself we can arrange a time for you to do so.

With regards to the Etruscans: at this stage we are unsure as to what 'Rome' was at this stage, but my personal belief is that it was still an Etruscan town and that Latin still originated from Etruria."

Cotland: "1. The words themselves are very clear- they are just written like a child would write those words today. It shows us that Latin was in its developmental stages back in 4390 BC, and was a functioning language.

2. Rome probably wasn't any different than the towns that populated Sumer some 1,000 years afterward- it was probably crudely built and very small, maybe not even totalling 100 people. Still, this document shows that they did have an economic system in place, so there was some kind of sophistication involved within Rome.

3. We found the document excavating near the Aventine Hill. I had a hunch that there was something deeper than anything else we'd found there previously and lo and behold there was. We'll probably go back in the near future to see what else we can turn up."

OOC: I'm surprised that no one has clued in that this document predates the first written documents by almost a thousand years (Sumer's documents came about in 3400 BC).

Layarteb: Thank you.

Jeruselem: "For security reasons, we cannot allow the document to leave the University of Rome. However, if you would like to send some people to inspect the document for yourself we can arrange a time for you to do so.

With regards to the Etruscans: at this stage we are unsure as to what 'Rome' was at this stage, but my personal belief is that it was still an Etruscan town and that Latin still originated from Etruria."

Cotland: "1. The words themselves are very clear- they are just written like a child would write those words today. It shows us that Latin was in its developmental stages back in 4390 BC, and was a functioning language.

2. Rome probably wasn't any different than the towns that populated Sumer some 1,000 years afterward- it was probably crudely built and very small, maybe not even totalling 100 people. Still, this document shows that they did have an economic system in place, so there was some kind of sophistication involved within Rome.

3. We found the document excavating near the Aventine Hill. I had a hunch that there was something deeper than anything else we'd found there previously and lo and behold there was. We'll probably go back in the near future to see what else we can turn up."

OOC: I'm surprised that no one has clued in that this document predates the first written documents by almost a thousand years (Sumer's documents came about in 3400 BC).

Wait until my Maya findings...

Cotland: "1. The words themselves are very clear- they are just written like a child would write those words today. It shows us that Latin was in its developmental stages back in 4390 BC, and was a functioning language.

2. Rome probably wasn't any different than the towns that populated Sumer some 1,000 years afterward- it was probably crudely built and very small, maybe not even totalling 100 people. Still, this document shows that they did have an economic system in place, so there was some kind of sophistication involved within Rome.

3. We found the document excavating near the Aventine Hill. I had a hunch that there was something deeper than anything else we'd found there previously and lo and behold there was. We'll probably go back in the near future to see what else we can turn up."

OOC: I'm surprised that no one has clued in that this document predates the first written documents by almost a thousand years (Sumer's documents came about in 3400 BC).

ooc: I haven't gotten to Rome or any of the other ancient cultures in my Ancient History class yet. We've spent the past 6 months learning of the Vikings and the Norwegian ancient history... Sorry. If I'd known, I'd be ecstatic (sp?).

ooc: I haven't gotten to Rome or any of the other ancient cultures in my Ancient History class yet. We've spent the past 6 months learning of the Vikings and the Norwegian ancient history... Sorry. If I'd known, I'd be ecstatic (sp?).

Mayans originated around 2600 BC and the Anasazi around 1200 BC, also the focus of what I'll find.

Wait until my Maya findings...

OOC: Oooh, an historical-ideological race. I like that. Though, to be fair, I've doubted that Sumer's writing is the oldest to begin with, and that there's just so much we don't know about the North Americans. Who knows what Empires formed in North America...

*dreams*

Mine won't be ideological but hell the ancient Anasazi date back to 1200 BC and actually to around 8000 BC when their ancestors roamed...I wouldn't doubt that they had writings.

ooc: I haven't gotten to Rome or any of the other ancient cultures in my Ancient History class yet. We've spent the past 6 months learning of the Vikings and the Norwegian ancient history... Sorry. If I'd known, I'd be ecstatic (sp?).

OOC: I wasn't referring to you in particular. I know that there's probably a lot of people who think "Sumer" is a misspelling of "summer" and not the first civilization that gave us writing. I was just surprised out of the 100,000 or so active users on NS not one of them noticed that I've basically made it that Rome is older than Sumer.

Layarteb: in a way, it's ideological. I mean, if your nation can claim- with proof- that it's the oldest in the world then its status rises immensely. People will be in awe simply because the nation survived for so long and will listen up if it speaks. With regards to RL Rome archaeologists have determined that it's actually older than traditions state- somewhere in the 800s BC and not 753 BC as legend has it- so the chance that it may be even older exists.

To keep the ball rolling, any further questions regarding our discovery from the NS crowd?

Ahh you'll see. It isn't my state actually that's the oldest. Like I said the Layartebian peoples dates back to the 6th century (early). This discovery will actually not be part of Layarteb but rather a discovery about humanity.

OOC: I'm going to start unveiling the theories...be forewarned they'll get quite whimsical, as can be expected from a traditional society such as Rome.

Below is a scholarly argument.

"Connecting The Past"
By Dr. Paullus Campania, Professor of History, University of Rome

Last week, the University of Rome unveiled compelling evidence that suggested that the City of Rome existed in 4390 BC. This predates not just the traditional founding of Rome in 753 BC but also the formation of the first nation state in history (Egypt, c.3000 BC) and of the first Sumerian writings, held before this discovery as the first ever writings in human history.

The challenge, here, comes from what to make of the evidence that we have found. The evidence comes in the form of a single line, and, apart from indicating that it is a transaction of some sort, that the person in question is Roman and that Rome exists in his time period, there is little anyone can draw from what is found.

The line in question is as follows:

To Taminus of Rome- two jars of wine

It, like many of the documents recovered from ancient Sumer, does not say much definitively about the state, its power and its condition in its time period, forcing historians to extrapolate this information from what little is said.

So what can be extrapolated from this statement? Well, we know that at least a person named Taminus lived in Rome in 4390 BC and that he received two jars of wine. Thus, we can say that in Rome there already was a delivery and communications system established allowing Taminus to receive his wine. We can also say definitively that Rome, as a place, existed in 4390 BC, and, by possessing a system capable for trade, it is, at the very least, already a functioning village.

Then the situation gets murky. We can deduce that "Taminus" was a name ancient Romans used in naming their children, but how many "Tamini" are out there at that time we may never know. Also, we cannot be sure if wine was a heavily-desired commodity at the time or if it was the only one in Rome- what we know is that at least one person wanted two jars of wine, though for what purpose we don't know.

Also, what is "Rome"? By basis of where it's found, the language used in writing the document and by the argument of place name continums throughout history (meaning a placename will always refer to the same place even in different time periods) we can be sure that "Rome" is the same place as our modern city. However, how big it was we cannot figure out. Certainly it needed an administration of some sort that would make it necessary for conducting trade, even on this level, and that would mean that Rome would probably have to be bigger than a few huts bundled together if it was to have the necessary administration in place to facilitate trade. How the government is run- again, we don't know. We just know that some kind of government was needed to allow trade to happen, otherwise, systems of trade would fall apart.

Then there is the messy situation regarding Rome's traditional foundation. This document leaves a 3647-year gap in between when Rome was traditionally held as "founded" and when this document was written, proving the existence of an earlier Rome. Of course, scholars today view a lot of Rome's early history with suspicion, as people like Livy rely too much on myth and not enough on fact. It may be fun to think of Aeneas and Latinus as real people- and maybe they were- but in the game of creating a scholarly work that just doesn't cut it.

Traditionalists may see this as final extinction of their beloved stories, or they may move- like people did with Plato and Atlantis- to push the foundation of Rome even further back, hypothesizing that the early Roman historians erred when they wrote that Rome was founded in 753 BC, as it really should be 7530 BC. Other scholars may hypothesize that Rome was indeed founded twice- that, in the 3647 years before 753 BC, a "Rome" had flourished before and then fell, with Aeneas and Romulus later founding a new city- this city- to replace the old one. The flaw in that argument, however, is what to make of the mythical account- clearly, "Rome" as a place name did not exist before Romulus, so there could not be a "Rome" before him, and yet there is.

However, the scholarly debates have just begun, and there is still more evidence to be found. For now, though, we'll be stuck with Taminus and his two jars of wine, hoping that one day we'll be able to see the greater truth from that statement.

*bump* Will update later. Also, a repost of what I added in the first post:

"Also, you are encouraged to provide theories of your own. Just remember that there are a few parameters to consider before writing one:

1) It IS a genuine artifact, thus it really did come from 4390 BC and is not a forgery.

2) It IS geuninely in Latin, with every word preserved. This means that the line above actually does read what it says and is not incorrect in any way.

Therefore, there can be no question that this document does not refer to a Roman living in Rome in 4390BC. Other than that, there's a lot left for interpretation."

The eternal Imperium would like to state it's disgust at this obvious forgery. It is an attempt by the government of RomeW to make Rome look like the cradle of the written language, and thus create a image coup. An obvious and blatant attempt.

The Empire of Layarteb, while it has not tested anything will be asking to do our own tests. However, we do not doubt the validity of RomeWs claims.

OOC: I apologize this didn't come sooner...I was busy with other things. I'd also like to mention that there's the possibility that the Tartaria tablets, found in Romania, are actually written documents and, if so, they'll predate both Sumer and this document, as those tablets are from around 5000 BC.

The eternal Imperium would like to state it's disgust at this obvious forgery. It is an attempt by the government of RomeW to make Rome look like the cradle of the written language, and thus create a image coup. An obvious and blatant attempt.

Dr. Mardenses: "To the honourable nation of Ankhmet, so far we have not made such claims. While it is true that this predates the Sumerian writings, we have not yet stated that Rome is the cradle of civilization or that we had invented writing. We believe that the cradle of civilzation is somewhere in Africa, where the first humans were found, and probably that is where the first written document is. All we have found is a written document that predates Sumer- nothing else. We don't even know what happened to Rome after 4390 BC, or whether or not Romans invented writing. We just have something written and are simply trying to make sense of it, that's all."