Re: The Skeleton in Armor

[Doug Weller <dweller@ramtops.demon.co.uk>]

Hi,

Sunday, April 21, 2002, 11:23:55 PM, you wrote:

> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Longfellow poem, The Skeleton in Armor.
> The poet said about the poem:

> "is connected with the old Round Tower at Newport. This skeleton in
> armor really exists. It was dug up near Fall River, where I saw it some
> two years ago. I suppose it to be the remains of one of the old Northern
> sea-rovers, who came to this country in the tenth century. Of course I
> make the tradition myself; and I think I have succeeded in giving the
> whole a Northern air."

>  http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/longfe2.html

> The above web page has a bit more information about the body
> found buried near the tower that occasioned Longfellow's poem.

A real skeleton, still with a lot of skin and flesh on it when found
in 1832.  'Armor' is a bit misleading as it wasn't anything like
European armor.

See this site:

http://www.frpd.org/historical/skeleton.htm

NEARA, an organisation which would have been very happy to see this as
Viking or anything European and pre-Columbus, has an article datd 1998
which states:

"  Some fine research by one of our earlier members, Horace F. Silliman,
a retired metallurgist of Waterbury, Connecticut, and published by NEARA
in 1967, gave us important background information on the production of
copper.  He found that an Austrian concern, Haug & Company, in
association with British interests, flooded the market with copper and
brass products between 1560 and 1590."

There were other similar finds.

Doug

-- 
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