This is really more of an archaeological question than a purely historical one. Reading the poem The Ruin got me wondering what the ruins would actually have looked like shortly after they were abandoned.

Today many Roman ruins have had to be dug out of the landscape to make them visible (I'm thinking of somewhere like Vindolanda). But what kind of condition would forts, aqueducts etc. have looked like in, say, the year 800? Would they still be largely functional? Or did the buildings degrade quickly?

If not, why not? It seems to me that the European front was the more important front of the war from the U.S.'s position, is that a wrong assumption?

Upvote what you liked best this past month! Feel free to submit what you think should be included here but wasn't.

And how might this mythology connect to other religions?

Hello r/askhistorians

I apologise if my question is controversial, but it occurred to me the other day that the Arab states of the Middle East (in particular, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq don't exactly have a good track record with plenty of sectarian violence.

Furthermore, surveys have shown that citizens of those nations identify firstly with religion or ethnicity, and secondarily with the nation they are from.

Why is this the case? MY thoughts go to sykes-picot and the colonial administration, but there are plenty of examples that reject this notion.

Firstly, Indonesia - which is a country with a vast ethnic and religious landscape, has moderately fewer socio-political issues than the Arab states, despite being subject to Colonialisation under the Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese.

Secondly is the example of Iran. Although not religiously diverse, and although not technically "colonised", it has a ethnically diverse population - azeris and persians.

So why is it that some post-colonial states have prospered, and others are held back significantly by ethnic divisions? Why is nationalism given different weight across the world, despite the ethnic makeup of a country.

THansk,

EDIT: Specifically (Civic) Nationalism - why has it failed, whereas religious and ethnic Nationalism succeed?

Did they just accept it? Or they don't even have a position to say no? Wouldn't they want to stop the tradition of being, technically speaking, rape?

I recently read about the Fourth Crusade and the Venetian - Ottoman Wars. It seems to me that Venice was able to supply a large amount of troops in conflicts despite the fairly small territory, and population, which was actually within in the republic.

The aquaducts revolutionized life in Ancient Rome, but due to being sealed in places with lead, they caused toxicity in the water. The extent and impact of the toxicity is up for debate, but what else could they have used?

Let's say I am an (early) medieval pilgrim from the Holy Roman Empire on my way towards Jerusalem. How would I know where to go and what would reasonable be my knowledge of topography.

I know he has spent most of his life in Austria and died at 21. I wonder if there ever were any plans to put "Franz" as he liked being called, on the throne? It seems that Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) was the one who tried his best to carry the torch of his uncle. What do we know about ambitions of the Emperor's son?

I was reading about Ismaili theology, and it seemed to be incredibly different from both Twelver Shia and Sunni Islam. How did these changes come about?

I usually see/read things about Egypt, Carthage, Kush, Mansa Musa, and European colonialism other than that there seems to be nothing else about Africa. Why is that?

My grandfather was in Patton's 3rd Army as a combat engineer. We are trying to recreate his path through Europe and match them up with some letters we found, etc.

Online, I haven't had much luck separating out his specific unit from the larger troop movements.

Are there particular resources I should be looking to for this kind of detail? A narrative history would be ok, maps would be fantastic!

I have access to a major university library and its interlibrary loan system.

As I understand it, the Four Class System was a simple ethnic hierarchy as follows:

• Mongols
• Semuren (Turks & Central Asians)
• Northern Chinese
• Southern Chinese

Lane, May & Mote each claim that the former subjects of the Southern Song Dynasty constituted the Southern Chinese, while the rest of the Mongols 'Chinese' subjects constituted the Northern Chinese. However, it really makes no sense that the Yuan would simply divide the Chinese geographically, as the Four Class System was an ethnic hierarchy.

If the Yuan's aim was to portray China as divided, a geographical explanation for the terms Northern vs. Southern Chinese would make sense. From my readings, this doesn't seem to be the case - if anything, the Yuan seemed to be proud to control a unified China and derived some legitimacy from this.

Lastly, there would be fews ways to distinguish a Han from North China vs a Han from South China - their location and, perhaps, spoken dialect are all that come to mind.

So, was Northern Chinese simply a catch-all for Khitans, Jurchens, and Koreans and Southern Chinese a catch-all for the Han?