pothos.org

To all members:
I found a great website which has wonderful images of ATG. It is http://www.sangha.net. I hope you will try it and like it.Jan

Greetings,I have seen this site before- okay for photos, but their creative, poetic license regarding historical info is a bit dodgy- Regards,
Sikander

Hi Jan, that's a really interesting site. But I only got part way and it froze up on me so I will have to try it again and will definitely bookmark it. For that person who wanted the speech at the Opis, it's on there!

Greetings Ruth,Yes, the "Opis Speech" is on there, along with the story that Cleopatra was Alexander's reincarnated spirit and they have also stated the Melissa story as "fact", along with several others. This site has a definite agenda and it shows- painfully- in how they skewer history to fit that agenda. The one thing I can say is that they provide a tiny disclaimer stating their material is an opinion only, but it is quite fine print and usually not noticed by those who *ought* to notice it! It is my contention that fiction and conjecture is a frequent occurence in any presentation of Alexander history, but this site goes one better and re-writes it altogether and presents it as fact, which has led to some confusion for students who somehow have the thought that "if it is on the Internet it must be true", similar to how in the past, some people thought "if it's on the news it must be true" and "if it's in a book it must be true".. However, it is a good site to use for teaching critical thinking and spurring further research/verification of "facts", both historical and otherwise. Regards,
Sikander

I only had chance to read the Opis speech (such as it is, whether authentic or not) and I was mainly looking at the pictures when my computer froze. Shall have another look and see what fantasia this is all about. ruth

Interestingly, when I had enough time to have a bit of a trawl, I didn't find it quite as bad as was made out - although in general it is still a danger that readers will take it as gospel.One or two of the offending passages also read, to me, like quasi-biblical texts. Maybe it was the translation of whatever it was they were using (or maybe I've misremembered). All it needed was a smattering of "thous" and "thees"...All the bestMarcus

Greetings Marcus,I don't mean it shouldnever be read; I still go back and read it on occassion- but when the entire site has been read- every biography- the direction becomes clear and the playing at "facts" clearer. And because it is written with such a sense of certainty, students (and some adults) *do* take it as gospel.. which is fine for a personal sense of god and history but not so good when it comes to writing history. It can be considered more a "jumping off point" for discussing how history can be interpreted and rewritten to suit private or political aims.. which is a valuable thing for anyone to learn! (smile)Regards,
Sikander

Oh, you're quite right, and I totally agree with you.And it is the fact that people take these things as gospel that's worrying.I had the misfortune to watch the second Tomb Raider film at the weekend. I admit that this was partly due to Angelina Jolie, but I was also interested because I knew there was some reference to Alexander in it. OK, the movie was bad, really bad; but what concerned me more was that, when they were explaining the 'historical' background, it was all about some treasure that Alexander was supposed to have deposited in the hidden temple (blah, blah)... fine, it's not historical, but that's fine for a bad movie plot. I am sure, though (and this is the real problem) that Ms Jolie then said that the temple was destroyed in 390BC... which causes a bit of a chronological problem, of course.I might have misheard, in which case apologies to the script writers. If I didn't mishear, though, I think it's shameful that, even when making up a story like that, they can't get something right that's so easy to check.All the bestMarcus