Criminal Activities (2015)

Criminal Activities: Directed by Jackie Earle Haley. With Michael Pitt, Dan Stevens, Christopher Abbott, Rob Brown. Four young men make a risky investment together that puts them in trouble with the mob.

“I give this show a 3 just for some entertainment value, but maybe I should give it something lower for being so misleading. History and archaeology are full of mysteries and conflicting theories, as they should be and all of these should be examined openly. I have the most OPEN of open minds and am willing to belief that civilization is FAR older – by thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, than is currently believed.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat said, I watched the show last night about an alleged u0026quot;Englishmanu0026quot; being buried in the desert with a runic gravestone and all the furor Wolter created around this. Pure codswallop. I know something about runes, not enough to read the inscription itself, but enough to know that these were probably not Anglo Saxon runes, but Nordic runes, and even if they were Anglo Saxon – Englishmen had stopped using runes in favor of the Latin alphabet by the 12th century (after the Norman conquest. No one would have used these. If someone had gone to all the effort of carving out that inscription (his buddy was carrying a chisel around with him?), it would have been in Latin alphabet (as we use now) in Old English or in Latin (Latin most likely as it was the universal tongue).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd then to go to England to allegedly hunt down this Hurech was ridiculous – there was no evidence tying Peter de Hurech to some alleged body in the American desert. While some Englishmen did use surnames at that time (my own family has an ancient surname in Yorkshire), most people did not and just went – as someone said, by Christian names or nicknames.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe episode presented no proof of any of the allegations and was as realistic as Tolkienu0026#39;s hobbits. It is a shame that the HISTORY channel is presenting this bunk under its auspices and giving the merest conjecture and speculation, the lustre of legitimate archaeology. This is especially bad as so many young people watch these shows and donu0026#39;t know any better. We need to re-learn the value of PROOF.”