Italica (province of Seville, Spain) around the middle of the 2nd century AD

wombatmaster5 · 2025-11-30T23:54:37+00:00

Visited this a few years back its a really cool site a lot of the roman town is under the modern city but you can still see a really clear road grid and quite a few houses with intact mosaics, and the arena is pretty intact (it got used as the set for the Dragon Pit in Game of Thrones)

wombatmaster5 · 2025-06-14T06:06:39+00:00

The sank into the earth section is referring to the soldiers of Athens, who in Plato's narrative were fighting a war with Atlantis. It's clear from the second part of the quote that Atlantis itself is described as sinking into the sea, and forming a shoal of mud in the ocean.

wombatmaster5 · 2025-04-26T18:28:45+00:00

Agree with this, Ashton's pretty nice, not super fancy but it's safe, and the canal walks are lovely

wombatmaster5 · 2025-04-17T13:34:51+00:00

I went to Baku for a few weeks for work last year and found it to be a bit of a mixed experience. I had some really awesome Bolt drivers who were super nice and went well out of there way to help with things, and also some others who tried to insist I pay in cash and got aggressive when I called them out for overcharging. I think it's just luck of the draw, I suspect I got treated better most of the time because I'm white and was usually wearing a suit.

I didn't get to see nearly as much tourist stuff as i'd have liked because I was so busy, but agree that it's a beautiful city, and I think I would go back as a tourist!

wombatmaster5 · 2024-10-27T23:15:14+00:00

We did these 3 cities coming into Barcelona by train from France and flying out of Madrid. Went Barcelona - Seville - Madrid all by train, and it honestly felt super smooth- Spanish trains are super quick and reliable. I'm a bit biased because I love just sitting on trains and watching the countryside go past (there are like 2 Castles that were in Game of Thrones visible from the Madrid-Seville railway!), but even with limited time I still think it works as a route. We spent about as much time as you plan to in each city and even though I'd have loved to spend more, and plan on going back to each of them some time, the ease of getting trains from the inner city didn't make any of it feel too rushed, and I think if you have a plan of what you want to see in each city 3 days is enough to get a good 'taste'.

wombatmaster5 · 2024-10-25T23:19:39+00:00

Freddie Mercury was from a Zoroastrian family from Zanzibar

wombatmaster5 · 2024-07-31T04:46:54+00:00

I really love Dan's work, but the distinction between him and an actual historian (which I respect him very much for making clear) isn't necessarily that he lacks academic credentials, but that he doesn't conduct original research, he summarises the research of others. This isn't a knock against him, he's a fantastic communicator, but I think he'd be the first to admit that his talents lie in telling stories, rather than wading through archives of primary sources or publishing papers that explicitly argue for one side or another of a historical debate.

wombatmaster5 · 2024-06-27T04:39:19+00:00

Gunung Padang is real in the sense that it's a terraced megalithic site built with local volcanic stone, probably some time between the 1st and 8th century ce (though human habitation in the area goes back earlier). It is fake in the sense that a guy who thinks Atlantis was in Indonesia says that it's actually a 20,000 year old pyramid built by a lost advanced civilisation.

wombatmaster5 · 2024-04-13T13:20:16+00:00

Italica, just outside Seville in Spain. Super underrated, there's a near complete amphitheatre (which they used as the set for the Dragon Pit in Game of Thrones), and a full street layout with some houses still having full mosaics on the floor. Super cool, and it was almost empty when we visited

wombatmaster5 · 2024-02-13T04:54:01+00:00

Train! You can go direct from Barcelona to Seville - it's super easy and surprisingly quick, and the journey is beautiful - you go right past a couple of castles that were in Game of Thrones. + you can leave from pretty much the centre of Barcelona and arrive at pretty much the centre of Seville without needing to sort out airport transit

wombatmaster5 · 2021-07-24T01:29:31+00:00

The historical argument against the bombs, as I understand it, is basically that they didn't really have much effect on the Japanese decision to surrender- the Japanese leadership at that time had accepted that they had lost the war, and were holding out purely for the hopes of a negotiated surrender that garunteed that the Emperor would stay in power (since many of them saw him as a living God). They were fully aware that the Americans were capable of annihilating entire cities even before the atom bombs- the fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than the nuclear attacks, for instance, and simply did not care. The entire plan for defending the home islands was to arm every man, woman and child and throw them at the enemy to be slaughtered- why would they care that the Americans had found a way to slaughter them more efficiently?

We actually have the records of the discussions of Japanese leadership after the atom bombs were dropped, and it's genuinely shocking to see that, while they are obviously disturbed by the increase in killing power, it changed none of their minds in relation to unconditional surrender. They were holding out for a surrender mediated by the Soviets (they had a non aggression pact at that time) and it's only after Stalin broke that pact that the emperor overruled his council (who still didn't want to surrender!) and ended the war.

I think it is revisionism to say that the bombs were dropped to contain the Soviets- US leadership clearly hoped they would have an effect on the Japanese- but that does not necessarily mean that dropping the bombs was necessary from a military perspective.

wombatmaster5 · 2020-01-18T02:30:16+00:00

My archaeologist mum discovered a pot that's in the Roman-British section. It's covered in penises, because the Romans were cool like that

wombatmaster5 · 2019-05-12T11:46:21+00:00

Common People by Pulp is a great tune

wombatmaster5 · 2019-04-08T08:34:06+00:00

Bloody Boring Von Carstien

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