Unlikely women or men in a Roman fort were using this object to insert in their vagina or anus for thrills. Or indeed to torture someone, they had much more vicious instruments. The phallus was the image of Roman power, and was literally as common as MacDonalds Golden Arches are today. Much more so. This will freak some of you out, (I hope it does), but the cock was as wide-spread in the Roman Empire as the crucifix or cross in Medieval Europe. It was a symbol of a value-system.

You haven’t thought about coastal or river settlements, have you? That’s where it all starts …

Simple answer - they weren’t painted from life.

As stated, your idea of Samurai facing Medieval European knights is pure video-game. Neither went one on one with each other, or even their own cohorts, so I will leave it the great fantasy in the sky. This is the history forum, after all.

OK, your question is completely implausible. Samurai and Medieval knights never encountered each other. Except in fantasy video games. European Medieval knights went into battle, fully armoured, which did them no good, because their chainmail was easily penetrated by the arrows of cross-now archers. These were not Robin Hood willow branch bows, but projectile trigger action cross-bows (think of them as an early rifle). I don’t think the Samurai had anything like this, so they would have been destroyed if they had faced a European Medieval army. Heavier iron armour did those knights no good, because it was so heavy that once knocked off their horse, they couldn’t get up again. From the C17 onwards, no one relied on the cavalry (Knights) in Europe except as “shock and awe” to terrify civilians. Wars were won with fire-power - artillery. There is a basic reason why Europeans went like fire and flood through so many nations, to their great disgrace, because they really had better technology for making war.

With a cross-bow? Where did you get that from? Which video-game?

Any archer with a hauberk (cross-bow) was more than capable of bringing down a knight in full armour, and they did. Once on the ground, halberdiers could cut his throat with a simple knife, much less a pike or broadsword. The age of armoured cavalry was a short one in Europe. I expect Samurai, should they have found themselves on a medieval European battlefield, might have found that a bit tricky too. Maybe try a different video game?

Graham Hancock is an historian or archaeologist in the same sense that Margaret Mitchell is a renowned expert on the US Civil War.

The point about the Garamantes is that they were not exactly anyone’s “neighbours” in the sense that there was there was widespread cultural exchange, intermingling of populations, or even a profound existential threat to another power in the same geographical area. Their incursions into Roman/Mediterranean power-politics were as half-hearted allies of some much more problematic characters, such as Juba, who did frighten the Romans (briefly). They didn’t make much impression on the Persians or Greeks, who were actually far more interested in “Who exactly was out there” than the Romans were and could be counted on to tell the tale if there was one, or at least make it up. That’s what is fascinating about the Garamantes. A whole civilisation dependent on a particular eco-system, which would be destroyed when it failed and leave not much trace. Note to all of us.

She’s disappeared off the radar. Knollys was the subject of various historical romances which were at one time quite widely read, eg “The Rose of Raby” , but these went down the memory hole after WW2. They weren’t particularly well written, but that is not necessarily a draw back. If a movie producer had picked it up and cast someone like Vivien Leigh, it could all have been different. Who gave a toss about Thomas Cromwell before Hilary Mantel made him the subject of the “Wolf Hall” trilogy, two of which won the Booker Prize?

Posts like this make me despair. How about the history of any people who have been brutally exploited, is that all grist to the mill for a “horror movie”?

A good sword could be passed down from father to son, or gifted to someone in exchange for favours, or buried with a notable warrior. Many Viking weapons did double duty as humble farm implements, sailing tack etc and thus were recycled rather than inherited. The Vikings did not have particularly high-tech/super-efficient weaponry that would have represented a major investment and frequently lost, abandoned, or cannibalised their own kit. They failed abysmally as archers for example, though they tried it.