are the remains of a man of East Asian descent doing in an early Roman Empire period graveyard in Italy?
Well, not much, presumably, but why was he in Italy at all? A slave, carried from far away? Tourist? Travelling salesman?
are the remains of a man of East Asian descent doing in an early Roman Empire period graveyard in Italy?
Well, not much, presumably, but why was he in Italy at all? A slave, carried from far away? Tourist? Travelling salesman?
Three words: traveling pasta salesman.
By the way, don’t go Brit on us, Dave, you’re not Madonna. It’s “traveling” with a single ‘l’ for good, patriotic Americans. Only a royalist, redcoat sympathizer would waste an extra ‘l’ that way.
I suspect he was a trader. If I remember right, Rome actually did trade with East Asia, although it went through a number of intermediaries. Perhaps this guy decided he wanted to see the other side.
I guess there wasn’t a Kirby Vacuum buried somewhere nearby?
What was Jesus doing in Shingo, Japan 2,000 years ago?
Legal troubles, I’d say.
It’s not really so surprising. There was a massive trade in silks, and many Chinese embassies to lands bordering on the Roman Empire, and, perhaps, to Rome itself. See, for example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations