Word: anciently
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...century A.D., these ruthless raiders would periodically sweep in from the sea to kill, plunder and destroy, essentially at will. "From the fury of the Northmen, deliver us, O Lord" was a prayer uttered frequently and fervently at the close of the first millennium. Small wonder that the ancient Anglo-Saxons--and their cultural descendants in England, the U.S. and Canada--think of these seafaring Scandinavians as little more than violent brutes...
...haired people who originated in what is now Scandinavia were primarily farmers and herdsmen. They grew grains and vegetables during the short summer but depended mostly on livestock--cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. They weren't Christian until the late 10th century, yet they were not irreligious. Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, they worshiped a pantheon of deities, three of whom--Odin, Thor and Freya--we recall every week, as Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were named after them. (Other Norse words that endure in modern English: berserk and starboard...
...wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, went to Newfoundland to explore a place identified on an Icelandic map from the 1670s as "Promontorium Winlandiae," near the small fishing village of L'Anse aux Meadows, in the province's northern reaches. They were certain that it marked the location of an ancient Norse settlement...
...originality. Ridley Scott has always enjoyed a somewhat undeserved reputation as a visual virtuoso (White Squall? GI Jane?), but this is one project in which his supposed visual prowess is on display full-force. Taking a page from the James Cameron playbook, Scott meticulously recreates the world of ancient Rome, capturing the most minute details from the bustling streets to the massive Coliseum. And the numerous gladiator battles are quite spectacular, capturing the split-second barbarity through a combination of the realist "skip-frame" technique from Saving Private Ryan and the furious, in-your-face editing style Oliver Stone employed...
...Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "Water, water, everywhere, nor an Evian drop to drink...