Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Gods, Graves, Glyphs ^ | 7/17/2004 | various

[SunkenCiv]

• 14 Warring States (464-222BC) Tombs Discovered In Sichuan  ^ 6 posted on 07/15/2004 7:20:44 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#6]
• Achaemenid, Worldís First Empire to Respect Cultural Diversity  ^ 3 posted on 07/05/2004 6:45:53 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#3]
• Ancient European Remains Discovered In Qinghai (China)  ^ 27 posted on 07/06/2004 7:23:57 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#27]
• Archaeologists Dig Up World War II Plane  ^ 21 posted on 05/31/2004 9:46:55 AM PDT by farmfriend [#21]
• Archaeologists Reveal Utah Canyon Filled With Ancient Settlements  ^ 22 posted on 07/01/2004 9:37:46 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#22]
• Archaeologists Startled To Discover Neolithic Ritual Site (Scotland)  ^ 3 posted on 05/29/2004 5:41:16 PM PDT by farmfriend [#3]
• Archaeologists tackle China mystery  ^ 3 posted on 07/05/2004 6:43:37 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#3]
• Archeologists discover ancient graffiti on China's Great Wall  ^ 16 posted on 07/11/2004 7:44:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv [#16]
• Archeologists discover ancient graffiti on China's Great Wall  ^ 2 posted on 07/11/2004 4:19:46 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#2]
• Battlements Found At Egypt's Ancient East Gateway  ^ 5 posted on 07/01/2004 9:07:00 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#5]
• Bird's-Eye View Of The Amazon (Airborne Archaeologist Challenges The Myth Of A Pristine Wilderness)  ^ 32 posted on 05/31/2004 9:45:45 AM PDT by farmfriend [#32]
• Books, Magazines, Movies, Music  ^ 17 posted on 07/14/2004 12:02:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv [#17]
• Books, Magazines, Movies, Music  ^ 11 posted on 07/11/2004 9:53:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv [#11]
• Buddha's New Birthplace Discovered  ^ 24 posted on 05/26/2004 9:32:54 AM PDT by farmfriend [#24]
• Catapult-Makers Were Once Ye Olde Celebrities  ^ 4 posted on 07/05/2004 3:22:48 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• Caves Hold Clue To The Riddle Of The Three Hares  ^ 25 posted on 07/03/2004 4:45:03 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#25]
• China Publishes Research Results On Korguryo Kingdom Ruins  ^ 8 posted on 07/02/2004 6:40:49 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#8]
• China: Cemetery dig yields clues 3000 years ago(more on Western Zhou Dynasty)  ^ 9 posted on 05/28/2004 9:10:43 AM PDT by farmfriend [#9]
• Cooks' Crew Hid First Antarctica Painting  ^ 5 posted on 07/09/2004 7:14:36 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#5]
• Dig Under Manezh Yields Suprises  ^ 6 posted on 06/02/2004 2:46:35 PM PDT by farmfriend [#6]
• Drilling Finds Crater Beneath Va. Bay  ^ 16 posted on 06/01/2004 5:11:52 PM PDT by farmfriend [#16]
• Forgotten culture  ^ 21 posted on 07/04/2004 12:32:15 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#21]
• Fossil Findings Blur Picture Of Art's Birth (Neanderthals?)  ^ 18 posted on 07/09/2004 7:18:51 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#18]
• Georgian Archaeologists Discover Basilica Of Middle Ages  ^ 8 posted on 07/07/2004 9:03:00 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#8]
• Halls of Ancient Alexandria's Ivy Found  ^ 22 posted on 05/31/2004 9:47:50 AM PDT by farmfriend [#22]
• Humanity's Strange Face  ^ 19 posted on 05/25/2004 8:32:58 AM PDT by farmfriend ( In Essentials, Unity...In Non-Essentials, Liberty...In All Things, Charity.) [#19]
• Keeping Up With The Empire (Romans In Netherlands)  ^ 4 posted on 05/26/2004 9:28:27 AM PDT by farmfriend [#4]
• Macbeth's Castle Unearthed In Inverness Garden?  ^ 6 posted on 05/28/2004 1:08:34 PM PDT by farmfriend [#6]
• Major Excavation To Open Viking Graves  ^ 16 posted on 06/01/2004 5:17:35 PM PDT by farmfriend [#16]
• Medici's Secret Crypt Unearthed  ^ 4 posted on 07/11/2004 12:29:59 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• New Plan to Renovate Iran's Historical Cyrus Mausoleum  ^ 4 posted on 07/11/2004 4:11:14 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• New Twist On Out-Of-Africa Theory  ^ 64 posted on 07/14/2004 10:51:36 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#64]
• The Oldest Americans May Prove Even Older  ^ 3 posted on 06/29/2004 4:24:38 PM PDT by NukeMan [#3]
• Persepolis 3d [Virtual 3d tour Capital of Persian Empire]  ^ 5 posted on 07/11/2004 10:11:25 AM PDT by FairOpinion [#5]
• Pompeii Find Shows Secrets Of The Samnites  ^ 3 posted on 07/04/2004 5:49:47 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#3]
• The Poop On Ancient Man  ^ 4 posted on 07/02/2004 7:51:18 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• Quarries Providing Stone for Persepolis Discovered  ^ 3 posted on 07/11/2004 10:13:03 AM PDT by FairOpinion [#3]
• Rare Artifacts Shed New Light On Spanish Outpost On (Florida) Panhandle  ^ 4 posted on 07/11/2004 12:54:46 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• Rat DNA Clues To Sea Migration  ^ 5 posted on 06/08/2004 2:09:28 PM PDT by farmfriend [#5]
• Remains Of Colonial Teen Pose A 'History Mystery'  ^ 35 posted on 07/14/2004 10:53:24 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#35]
• Replica Of Roman Murder Victim (1,700 Years Old)  ^ 9 posted on 05/26/2004 10:37:34 PM PDT by farmfriend [#9]
• Scientist: DNA Disputes Russian Tsar Remains  ^ 4 posted on 07/14/2004 10:49:15 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]
• Signs of 8,000-year-old culture found near Bedford  ^ 34 posted on 06/08/2004 12:36:40 PM PDT by farmfriend [#34]
• Silk painting, brassiere unearthed from ancient tombs in N. China(1,000 year-old golden brassiere)  ^ 27 posted on 06/08/2004 12:18:58 PM PDT by farmfriend [#27]
• Sistine Chapel of the ice age revealed  ^ 15 posted on 07/14/2004 11:09:19 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#15]
• Star Chart In Ancient Nara Tomb To Under Go Restoration (Japan)  ^ 5 posted on 07/14/2004 10:45:25 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#5]
• Study: Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit  ^ 154 posted on 07/09/2004 7:21:14 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#154]
• Study: Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit  ^ 163 posted on 07/09/2004 11:08:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv [#163]
• Syria - Archaeological Finding (80K Year Old Human Sites)  ^ 3 posted on 05/29/2004 5:47:24 PM PDT by farmfriend [#3]
• Teeth Show How Society Was Shaped By Old Age  ^ 4 posted on 07/05/2004 6:40:46 PM PDT by FairOpinion [#4]

[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #228 Saturday, November 29, 2008
Epigraphy and Language
Finds that made Basques proud are fake, say experts
	11/28/2008 9:06:04 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 255+ views Guardian UK | Monday November 24, 2008 | Giles Tremlett For traditional Basques the pictures, symbols and words found scraped onto pieces of third century pottery dug up near the town of Nanclares, in northern Spain, included miraculous evidence that their unique language of Euskara was far older than ever thought. Eighteen months ago the dig's director, Eliseo Gil, claimed that some finds at the Roman town known as Veleia were on par with those at Pompeii or Rome itself. Basque nationalists bristled with pride... Now a committee of experts has revealed those jewels to be fakes... The hunt is on for an archeological fraudster who defaced fragments of third...
The stone-age Basque language remains mystery to scientists
	06/01/2006 11:51:18 PM PDT · Posted by Marius3188 · 80 replies · 2,332+ views Deutsche Presse-Agentur | 01 June 2006 | Sinikka Tarvainen San Sebastian, Spain - No frontier marks the entrance to Spain's Basque region, but the traveller passing by quaint villages on green hillsides has a clear sense of entering a distinct territory. It is not just the Basque flags here and there. It is, above all, the signs in a strange language unlike any other in the world. A travel bureau, for instance, is marked 'bidaiak.' An ice-cream shop has a sign saying 'izozkiak.' A police station is marked 'ertzainza', and an office of the Basque regional government is called 'eusko jaurlaritza.' Scientists remain puzzled by the Basque people of...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Baby boys may show spatial supremacy - Male superiority on mental rotation tasks may develop...
	11/27/2008 7:53:13 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 66 replies · 714+ views Science News | November 25th, 2008 | Bruce Bower Male superiority on mental rotation tasks may develop within a few months after birth The gender gap in spatial abilities -- charted for more than 30 years -- emerges within the first few months of life, years earlier than previously thought, psychologists report. Males typically outperform females on spatial-ability tests by age 4, especially on tasks that require mental rotation of objects perceived as three-dimensional. Yet, two studies of 3- to 5-month-olds, both published in the November Psychological Science, conclude that a substantially greater proportion of boys than girls distinguish a block arrangement from its mirror image, after having first...
Underwater Archaeology
Archaeology professor scrutinizes age-old mystery [ Uluburun wreck excavation]
	11/24/2008 3:39:34 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 485+ views University of Tennessee, Knoxville | Saturday, November 22, 2008 | Kayla Kitts In 1983 a sponge diver found funny metal biscuits with ears at the ocean floor. That is how the excavation got started, Hirschfeld said. The ship carried ten tons of copper ingots, which after being analyzed, were determined to be from Cyprus. Each ingot weighs approximately 60 pounds, she said. She and her team also excavated glass ingots, tons of tin, and three Italian swords that were not part of the cargo of the ship. Among the 130 Canaanite jars they found, there were traces of wine in the jars and one was full of glass beads. The team also...
British Isles
Massive Prehistoric Fort Emerges From Welsh Woods
	11/23/2008 7:52:42 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 662+ views National Geographic News | Friday, November 21, 2008 | James Owen Cloaked by time's leafy shroud, the prehistoric settlement of Gaer Fawr lies all but invisible beneath a forest in the lush Welsh countryside. Commanded by warrior chiefs who loomed over the everyday lives of their people, the massive Iron Age fortress once dominated the landscape. Now the 2,900-year-old structure lives again, thanks to a digital recreation following a painstaking survey by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales... The study involved thousands of measurements taken in 2007, which were used build a digital terrain model of the 21-acre (5.8-hectare) site. Measurements were made manually using lasers...
Rome and Italy
Hadrian's wall boosted economy for ancient Britons, archaeologists discover
	11/24/2008 3:51:39 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 245+ views Telegraph | Saturday, November 22, 2008 | Patrick Sawer The 73-mile long Roman wall, built in AD 122 to defend the Roman Empire from hostile Celtic tribes, created a thriving economy to serve the occupying army, according to aerial surveys. Farmers, traders, craftsmen, labourers and prostitutes seized the occasion to make money from the presence of hundreds of Roman troops... The research carried out by English Heritage has revealed over 2,700 previously unrecorded historic features, including prehistoric burial mounds and first century farmsteads, medieval sheep farms, 19th century lead mines and even a WWII gun battery, sited along the 15 foot high wall which stretched from Wallsend on the...
Asia
Red color said to rule fashion world 15,000 years ago
	11/28/2008 9:15:55 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 170+ views Xinhua | November 26, 2008 | Editor: Du Guodong The color red, which represents luck, happiness and passion in China, could have been used in clothing 15,000 years ago... The Xuchang ruins made headlines in foreign media in January when State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced that Chinese archaeologists had found a human skull dating back at least 80,000 years in the ruins last December... [T]his month, their excavation team found from the soil strata dating back 15,000 years, or the late Paleolithic Era, at the Xuchang ruins more than 20 pieces of hematite, one of iron oxides commonly used as a dyestuff, alongside three dozen thin instruments made...
Vietnam
Ancient road found in cave
	11/27/2008 7:59:13 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 20 replies · 567+ views Vietnam News | Thursday, November 27, 2008 | unattributed Traces of a road used by ancient people 21,000 years ago have just been discovered at the Xom Trai Cave in the northwestern province of Hoa Binh's Lac Son District... The Xom Trai Cave represents a typical residence of the Hoa Binh civilisation (from 34,100 years ago until 2,000 BC) in the ancient Muong Vang region, which is today's Tan Lap Commune, Lac Son District in Hoa Binh Province. The cave was discovered in 1974 ... Since then, researchers have discovered traces of approximately six metres of a road at the south end of the cave's mouth. The ancient pathway...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Huge Cave Bears: When and Why They Disappeared
	11/26/2008 6:08:33 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 23 replies · 616+ views Live Science | Nov. 25, 2008 | LiveScience Staff Enormous cave bears that once inhabited Europe were the first of the mega-mammals to die out, going extinct around 13 millennia earlier than was previously thought, according to a new estimate. Why'd they go? In part because they were vegetarians. > Cave bears were huge, with males growing up to around 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg). The maximum recorded weight of both Kodiak bears and polar bears - the largest bears living today - is 1,760 pounds (800 kg), with averages of around 1,100 pounds (500 kg). > Some researchers think humans hunted the mega-mammals to extinction, but researcher Martina Pacher...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Apocalypse how? Revealing the next catastrophic threat to our world
	11/27/2008 9:16:01 PM PST · Posted by AZLiberty · 16 replies · 522+ views Daily Mail | November 23, 2008 | None The article is about a Channel 4 (UK) documentary series called Catastrophe. I found the following excerpt particularly interesting. I don't remember ever hearing about the 1783 toxic cloud over Britain, and now wonder whether this had any influence on early British-American relations, or any long-lasting historical impact. Toxic Cloud Over Britain In 1783 in Laki, Iceland, a volcanic eruption occurred, spewing out gas and lava for eight months and covering an area of 200sq miles in molten rock. The Laki eruption produced huge quantities of sulphur dioxide, burning people's eyeballs, scorching the skin off livestock and killing plants. The...
Egypt
"Screaming Mummy" Is Murderous Son of Ramses III?
	11/23/2008 7:21:36 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 578+ views National Geographic News | Friday, November 21, 2008 | Andrew Bossone found in 1886 and now located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo... [c]alled both "Unknown Man E" and the "Screaming Mummy" because of his open jaw and agonized expression, the mummy has baffled researchers since it was first uncovered. Several archaeologists have proposed theories about the mummy's cause of death, saying he might have been buried alive or poisoned, or that he was a murdered Hittite prince during the reign of Tutankhamen. Archaeologists now agree, however, that mummies are commonly found with their jaws open as a result of their heads falling back after death... The theory about poison, on...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Study of ancient and modern plagues finds common features
	11/21/2008 9:01:03 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 24 replies · 935+ views biologynews.net | November 21, 2008 | NA In 430 B.C., a new and deadly disease -- its cause remains a mystery -- swept into Athens. The walled Greek city-state was teeming with citizens, soldiers and refugees of the war then raging between Athens and Sparta. As streets filled with corpses, social order broke down. Over the next three years, the illness returned twice and Athens lost a third of its population. It lost the war too. The Plague of Athens marked the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Greece. The Plague of Athens is one of 10 historically notable outbreaks described in an article in The Lancet Infectious...
Climate
The enigma of Lake Ontario's 11,000-year-old footprints
	11/23/2008 6:59:11 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 651+ views Toronto Star | Sunday, November 23, 2008 | Leslie Scrivener In the fall of 1908, while building a waterworks tunnel east of Hanlan's Point in Toronto Bay, a work crew came across 100 footprints in a layer of blue clay. The prints appeared to have been left by people wearing moccasins -- 11,000 years ago. It was an astounding discovery, perhaps the first evidence of human habitation on Lake Ontario, but few recognized its significance. "It looked like a trail ...," city inspector W. H. Cross told the Toronto Evening Telegram about what he saw that November day. "You could follow one man the whole way. Some footprints were on...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
War, What Is It Good For? [Precolumbian massacres]
	11/28/2008 8:54:19 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 37 replies · 442+ views Archaeology mag, Beyond Stone & Bone 'blog | November 14, 2008 | Heather Pringle For decades, researchers working in the Americas were in a state of denial about the prevalence of ancient warfare. They viewed the Maya largely as peaceful astronomer-priests, the prehistoric Pueblo people as tranquility-loving architects, and Great Plains bison-hunters as harmonious societies who only engaged in warfare after the arrival of the Europeans. I think many archaeologists were reacting at the time -- consciously or unconsciously -- to the old stereotypes of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages. By the 1990s, however, the evidence of prehistoric warfare across the Americas was simply too great to ignore -- from the slaughter at the...
Peru, the Andes
Remains of 5,500-year-old Human Settlement Found in Peru
	11/28/2008 8:58:53 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 157+ views Latin American Herald Tribune | Friday, November 28,2008 | unattributed (EFE?) A team of Peruvian and German archaeologists has discovered the remains of a human settlement 5,500 years old near the southern town of Nazca, south of Lima, the capital daily El Comercio reported Sunday. The archaeologists, who are members of the Nazca-Palpa project, said that the discovery was made in a sector known as Pernil Alto, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Palpa... [T]he find is the first discovery in southern Peru of an inhabited site corresponding to the late portion of the archaic period some 3,500 years before Christ. One of the project researchers said that the excavations made...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Town Mayor Fires 400-year-old Gun Firing Tradition (Might Scare Children...)
	11/28/2008 6:18:26 AM PST · Posted by Diana in Wisconsin · 38 replies · 726+ views Telegraph | November 28, 2008 | Richard Savill Wimborne council in Dorset has banned a 400-year-old Christmas custom of firing muskets into the sky because of fears it will scare children Wimborne's militia will no longer be able to re-enact the traditionof firing over the Christmas tree Photo: BNPS Wimborne council in Dorset has told the town's Militia, which re-enacts traditions dating back to the 17th century, that it can no longer fire muskets over the Christmas tree. The council said the noise of the blank shots would be too loud for children and would keep families away from the annual event to mark the switching on of...
Reformation
Historic Anabaptist writings to be available online
	11/26/2008 7:56:18 AM PST · Posted by Alex Murphy · 7 replies · 136+ views Associated Baptist Press | 25 November 2008 | Bob Allen PRAGUE, Czech Republic (ABP) -- Writings of Balthasar Hubmaier, one of the most well known and respected Anabaptist theologians of the Reformation, will soon be available for online research, thanks to a project of European Baptist scholars. The Institute of Baptist and Anabaptist Studies at International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, and the German Baptist Seminary in Berlin recently announced that photographic reproductions of all of Hubmaier's surviving works would be scanned into digital images and made available on the Internet. IBTS Rector Keith Jones called it a long-term project likely to take six months to a year...
Faith and Philosophy
Unearthing an ancient treasure trove [ United Arab Emirates, Nestorians ]
	11/24/2008 4:04:25 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 24 replies · 412+ views The National, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates | November 24. 2008 | Tahira Yaqoob To the untrained eye they may look like rubble. But the ruins of a monastery and church discovered in Abu Dhabi tell a fascinating tale about a little-known period in the region's history. When the foundations were built, the Roman empire had just come to an end, Christianity was sweeping the world and Islam had not yet been born... The monastery and church, survivors of a Nestorian Christian period, are just two of 36 archaeological troves on the island. Others include the remains of villas with stucco decorations, pottery and basic furnishings, providing a glimpse into life in pre-Islam times....
Greeks
Defending Byzantium
	11/24/2008 3:55:54 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 26 replies · 392+ views Al-Ahram | 20 - 26 November 2008, Issue No. 923 | David Tresilian Lasting some 11 centuries from the foundation of the city of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium by the Roman emperor Constantine in 330 CE to its final defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, at its height the Byzantine Empire took in the whole of the eastern Mediterranean and stretched from Anatolia and the Balkans to Egypt and north Africa. It always styled itself the heir of the Roman Empire and of classical civilisation as a whole. Examples of Byzantine architecture can still be seen in Istanbul in the shape of...
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
Islamic Library Burned to the Ground [Fisk ALERT]
	04/14/2003 2:40:24 PM PDT · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · 59 replies · 3,828+ views ArabNews - Saudi Arabia | 4-15-03 | Robert Fisk BAGHDAD, 15 April 2003 -- So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then came the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sack of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives -- a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents including the old royal archives of Iraq -- were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the Islamic Library of Qur'ans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze. I saw the looters. One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy who could have...
Pages
[Vanity] [Book] The Wars of the Barbary Pirates
	11/23/2008 6:32:49 AM PST · Posted by CE2949BB · 15 replies · 328+ views Osprey Publishing | 11/23/08 | CE2949BB The Wars of the Barbary PiratesEssential Histories #66Osprey Introduction Most Americans are unaware that, as a young republic, their nation fought a war with the Barbary pirates, the North African corsairs who plied the waters of the Mediterranean at the turn of the 19th century in search of ships to loot and men to enslave. This is perhaps not surprising, for the wars were conducted on a small scale, over a short period of time, and at a considerable distance from American shores. They were, moreover, the product of one of the most inglorious ñ even degrading ñ episodes in...
Early America
Great Pond yields clues to city's past [Dorchester Massachusetts]
	11/28/2008 9:11:26 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 254+ views Boston Globe | November 23, 2008 | Andrew Clark It was once one of the largest bodies of water in the now-extinct Dorchester Commons... Allen Gontz, a professor of environmental, earth, and ocean sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and Ellen Berkland, the city's archeologist, began a search for Great Pond in 2007 as a project for Massachusetts Archaeology Month. Currently, they are working at a site in front of the Blake House - the oldest home (circa 1648) in Boston - on Columbia Road, where they believe the pond once sat before it was filled. Work on the site recently stopped for the winter and it...
Age of Sail
Researchers find historic slave ship wreck
	11/25/2008 4:22:25 PM PST · Posted by Squawk 8888 · 23 replies · 630+ views AP via Canoe | November 25, 2008 | Randolph Schmid WASHINGTON - Marine archeologists have found the remains of a slave ship wrecked off the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1841, an accident that set free the ancestors of many current residents of those islands. Some 192 Africans survived the sinking of the Spanish ship Trouvadore off the British-ruled islands, where the slave trade was banned. Over the years the ship had been forgotten, said researcher Don Keith, so when the discovery connected the ship to current residents the first response "was a kind of shock, a lack of comprehension," he explained in a briefing organized by the U.S. National...
Longer Perspectives
Purging history of Stalin's terror
	11/27/2008 1:54:44 AM PST · Posted by BlackVeil · 5 replies · 270+ views International Herald Tribune | November 26, 2008 | Clifford J. Levy TOMSK, Russia: For years, the earth in this Siberian city had been giving up clues: a scrap of clothing, a fragment of bone, a skull with a bullet hole. And so a historian named Boris Trenin made a plea to officials. Would they let him examine secret archives to confirm that there was a mass grave here from Stalin's purges? Would they help him tell the story of the thousands of innocent people who were said to have been carted from a prison to a ravine, shot in the head and tossed over? The answer was no, and Trenin understood...
World War Eleven
Researchers: WWII Marines entombed on atoll
	11/26/2008 7:08:54 PM PST · Posted by Dubya · 27 replies · 1,899+ views Associated Press | A P Expedition could lead to largest identification of war dead in U.S. history
Frozen in time: Shelters reveal WWII nightmare
	11/27/2008 10:08:11 AM PST · Posted by SmithL · 4 replies · 558+ views AP via SFGate | 11/27/8 | JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer The memories are 64 years old but retold with the clarity of yesterday: a young boy lowered by rope into a deep dark cave, watching the sky above shrink to a small and distant patch of blue. That hole was home for a month for Gerard Mangnan, his family and dozens of others. And it likely saved their lives. While they huddled underground, Allied and Nazi troops above were waging one of the toughest battles of the D-Day invasion. Now, generations later, the story of how caves and quarries became bomb shelters during the 1944 battle...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
US has Sun King's stolen gem, say French experts [ Hope Diamond ]
	11/23/2008 3:03:45 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 24 replies · 797+ views Yahoo/AFP | Tuesday, November 18, 2008 | Richard Ingham and Marie-Pierre Ferey New evidence unearthed in France's National Museum of Natural History shows beyond reasonable doubt that the Hope Diamond is the same steely-blue stone once sported by the Sun King, they said. Mineralogist Francois Farges, heading an investigation published in a peer-reviewed French journal, told AFP he was now "99 percent sure" that the Hope and the mythical Blue Diamond of the Crown were one and the same. "The evidence corroborates a scenario under which the diamond, after being stolen in Paris in 1792, was swiftly smuggled to London, where it was recut," he said. The Blue Diamond came from a...
end of digest #228 20081129

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #228 20081129 · Saturday, November 29, 2008 · 25 topics · 1642165 to 893121 · 692 members ·
	Saturday Nov 29 2008 v 5 n 19 view this issue	Welcome to the 228th issue.  As has been the case a few times in the recent past, I plan to post the Digest on Friday night rather than on Saturday.  Then I'll have a soak and read.  Small change in format.  I'm one of those old timers who put two spaces (rather than one) at the ends of sentences.  I changed the two spaces into   followed by a regular space. The spacing looks perhaps a bit too wide now, but that's better to my eye than not wide enough. Note: Many thanks to Mike Fieschko for pointing out that the History podcast link, along with the Science & Nature podcast link, doesn't work.  The root domain is a goner, which opens an investment opportunity for someone.  This seems like a good time to point out that I've never actually used either of the podcasts, which may explain why I'd been remiss in noticing the disappearance of the domain.  Of course, since no one besides Mike had noticed, apparently A) no one else had tried them either, or B) no one actually reads my verbose ping template messages. Apparently these podcast clients are *not* a far cry from the old IRC clients, at least as regards their (lack of) ease of use.  IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, has been superseded by the various chat clients (AOL/AIM, Yahoo, MSN, iChat, etc) which have a lot less complication in the interface, and of course that's due in part to the latter's use of central servers.  There are plenty of multi-system, all under one roof type chat clients, which allow one to monitor IMs from all the major hosts simultaneously, and some even throw in IRC support. Anyway, it looks like http://www.podcast.net/ vanished shortly after February 15, 2008.  One of the three linked software sources, http://transistr.com/, doesn't seem to have existed for long, if at all*.  iPodderX is its multi-platform replacement I guess. Doppler Radio was previously Windows only, now with iPod / iPhone support (in March 2007 the developer posted, "Vista is my main OS, I develop Doppler on Vista and obviously it also runs on Vista."), while Juice is multiplatform, and has links to various streaming content sites, a nice plus [PodNova, GigaDial, Podsafe Music Network, Podcast Pickle, and Rmail].  Since there's also a link to podcast.net, there should be no surprise if some of those five links don't work. Regardless, I'll be updating my standard ping message templates to reflect this change, and will either remove the podcast references entirely, or include them as Google searches.  One of the hits in a similar search is Learn Out Loud, although it shouldn't startle anyone to learn that I haven't actually tried it, just taken a look at its homepage.  Same goes for The Naked Scientists podcasts.  There's actually at least one forum, Podcast Alley. Thanks again Mike. Christmas is three weeks, five days from today. Got some shopping done this week, didn't go out for that on Black Friday, may do some today or tomorrow. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DavemiesterP for the mail. Nothing yet in the news.

Thermoluminescence Dating Chris Espenshade

Chris Espenshade site:freerepublic.com

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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #229 Saturday, December 6, 2008
Oet-Oet-Oetzi, Goodbye
Iceman Oetzi's Last Supper
	12/01/2008 6:05:44 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 525+ views ScienceDaily | Monday, December 1, 2008 | adapted from Dickson et al From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK and his team have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of the events leading up to his death. By identifying six different mosses in his alimentary tract, they suggest that the Iceman may have travelled, injured himself and dressed his wounds. The Iceman is the first glacier mummy to have fragments of mosses in his intestine. This is surprising as mosses are neither palatable nor nutritious and there are few reports...
Do Octopi Have Octacles?
Squid With 'Elbows' Captured on Video
	11/30/2008 11:51:41 AM PST · Posted by GQuagmire · 28 replies · 1,200+ views AOL.com | 11/30/08 | staff An underwater camera at an oil and gas drilling site off the coast of Texas has captured a rare sight: a squid with "elbows."
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Genes of Sephardic Jews still strong in Spain
	12/05/2008 12:21:36 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 16 replies · 287+ views Reuters | Dec. 5, 2008 | Teresa Larraz MADRID (Reuters) ñ From the 15th century on, Spain's Jews were mostly expelled or forced to convert, but today some 20 percent of Spanish genes can be traced to Sephardic Jews, a study has found. A report in the American Journal of Human Genetics says almost a fifth of Spaniards' genes are of Sephardic Jewish origin and another 11 percent can be traced to North Africa. "The genetic composition of the current population is the legacy of our diverse cultural and religious past," one of the report's authors, Francesc Calafell, from the evolutionary biology faculty at Pompeu Fabra University in...
Spanish Inquisition left genetic legacy in Iberia
	12/05/2008 1:47:19 PM PST · Posted by forkinsocket · 21 replies · 536+ views New Scientist | 04 December 2008 | Ewen Callaway It's not often that cultural and religious persecution makes countries more diverse, but the Spanish Inquisition might have done just that. One in five Spaniards and Portuguese has a Jewish ancestor, while a tenth of Iberians boast North African ancestors, finds new research. This melting pot probably occurred after centuries of coexistence and tolerance among Muslims, Jews and Christians ended in 1492, when Catholic monarchs converted or expelled the Islamic population, called Moriscos. Sephardic Jews, whose Iberian roots extend to the first century AD, received much the same treatment. "They were given a choice: convert, go, or die," says Mark...
India
Murder and torture shakes an ancient pillar of the city
	12/05/2008 5:08:17 PM PST · Posted by MyTwoCopperCoins · 8 replies · 288+ views The Times Online, UK | 5 Dec., 2008 | The Times Online, UK Early reports that two heavily armed Islamist extremists had broken into a mottled apartment block in south Mumbai almost escaped notice. Within hours, however, it had dawned on India's Jews, a community that traces its roots to the court of King Solomon, that for the first time in their history they had been targeted because of their religion. SNIP "We are a tolerant society, we've never had any antiSemitism in India. We can't fathom the reasons for this attack," Elijah Jacob, a local Jewish leader, said. "We can no longer remain complacent." Numbering only about 5,000 in a city of...
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
Hindus, Jews, and Jihad Terror in Mumbai
	11/30/2008 7:44:41 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 22 replies · 672+ views American Thinker | November 30, 2008 | Andrew G. Bostom Sixty hours of jihadist terror depradations throughout India's financial capital, Mumbai -- during which nearly† 200 innocent victims were murdered, and 300 wounded -- apparently ceased this Saturday, November 29, when Indian commandos slew the last three gunmen inside a luxury hotel, while it was still ablaze. Mainstream media coverage of these rampaging, cold-blooded murderous acts of jihad terrorism -- perpetrated by a self-professed "mujahideen" organization (i.e., "The Deccan Mujahideen") -- consistently ignored the clear ideological linkage to Islam. Simply put, "mujahideen" are Muslim jihadists, "holy warriors," because there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad, despite present day...
Longer Perspectives
First credit crunch traced back to Roman republic
	12/01/2008 2:20:37 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 377+ views The Guardian | Friday November 28 2008 | Mark Brown Politicians searching for historical precedents for the current financial turmoil should start looking a bit further back after an Oxford University historian discovered what he believes is the world's first credit crunch in 88BC. The good news is that Philip Kay knows how the Romans got themselves into financial bother. The bad news is no one knows how they got themselves out of it... The monetary historian is giving a lecture today in which he will reveal how Cicero, the Roman orator, gave a speech in 66BC in which he alluded to the credit crunch. Cicero was arguing that Pompey...
Rome and Italy
Ancient Roman Oil Lamp 'Factory Town' Found
	12/05/2008 7:43:05 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 54+ views Discovery News | Friday, December 5, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi Evidence of the pottery workshops emerged in Modena, in central-northern Italy, during construction work to build a residential complex near the ancient walls of the city... Firmalampen, or "factory lamps," were one of the first mass-produced goods in Roman times and they carried brand names clearly stamped on their clay bottoms. The ancient dumping in Modena contained lamps by the most famous brands of the time: Strobili, Communis, Phoetaspi, Eucarpi and Fortis. All these manufacturers had their products sold on the markets of three continents. Fortis was the trendiest of all pottery brands and its products were used up to...
Underwater Archaeology
First century jars recovered by the Guardia Civil in Alicante
	11/28/2008 8:07:07 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 148+ views Typically Spanish | November 25, 2008 | h.b. Two men have been arrested and the amphoras are thought to have come from a shipwreck off Villajoyosa. Agents from the environment protection section of the Guardia Civil, Seprona, in Santa Pola, have arrested two people and recovered 19 amphoras dating from the first and second centuries, thought to have been plundered from a shipwreck. The two men face charges of committing a crime against the historical heritage and one has been identified as 60 year old R.B.M. The earthenware jars are thought to have been taken from the wreck of the 'Bou Ferrer' which was located off the coast...
Greeks
The Complete Guide To: Byzantium
	12/02/2008 12:15:26 PM PST · Posted by george76 · 14 replies · 342+ views belfast telegraph | 2 December 2008 | Cathy Packe The Byzantine Empire lasted for more than 11 centuries, from AD330-1453. At various times, it incorporated most of Europe, including the Balkans, and Turkey, parts of North Africa, and the Middle East. Predominantly Greek-speaking and Christian, its power superseded that of the Roman Empire. The imperial capital was Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, today Istanbul, a city that wielded considerable power until it was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Turks. Some 300 of the greatest treasures of the Byzantine Empire are currently on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London ...in an exhibition put together in collaboration with the Benaki...
Thrace
Thracian funeral mound found near Pravets
	11/28/2008 8:31:21 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 174+ views iBox (Bulgaria) | November 26, 2008 | Diana Stoykova An archaeological discovery of a great importance has been during an anti-treasure hunting action. During an inspection damages on the mound have been noticed and that provoked a further investigation of the site. At the level of the antique terrain a funeral ritual had been performed. Several bronze objects were found, a ring and silver earrings. Another silver earring was found on the upper level of the mound, dating from IV B.C. A fragmented urn with burnt human bones is one of the biggest discoveries. It's hand-made. A small object, most probable a knife, was found inside the urn. The...
Anatolia
An Embalmed Corpse of a King was discovered in Kurdistan-Iran [six bodies]
	11/28/2008 8:51:49 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 474+ views Kurdish Aspect | Thursday, November 27, 2008 | Kurdish National Congress of North America On November 19, 2008, six corpses were discovered in Kurdistan-Iran. Archeologists believe the corpses were buried some 3000 years ago. The corpses belonged to a king and five of his bodyguards, who were buried around him... [T]he king was buried with jewelry and his crown. A fish plaque with ancient writings placed on his chest requires a scientific study by unbiased archeologists to come up with an authentic and undistorted translation of the historic message. The king's picture shows a strong resemblance to the ones of the ancient pictures of the Medes emperors. Also, the geographical area where the corpses...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Parsa emerges from the shadow of Persepolis
	12/01/2008 6:18:26 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 286+ views Payvand's Iran News | Monday, December 1, 2008 | Hamid Golpira The ancient town of Parsa has begun to emerge from the shadows of Persepolis. An Iranian-Italian joint archaeological team has brought to light the first remains of the town of Parsa, which was the residential area of commoners just outside the palaces of Persepolis... Professor Callieri said the team, in collaboration with the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation, is also studying the possibility of setting up a centralized data base compiling all the information on Persepolis and the surrounding area, which may also be put online on a web site. Asked if the excavation provided further evidence of the fact that Persepolis...
Climate
Cave's climate clues show ancient empires declined during dry spell
	12/05/2008 6:43:34 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 111+ views University of Wisconsin-Madison | Thursday, December 4, 2008 | Jill Sakai The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes. Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region......
Dinosaurs
Polar Dinosaurs Endured Cold Dark Winters
	12/04/2008 4:30:38 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 25 replies · 326+ views Live Science | Dec. 4, 2008 | Robin Lloyd Polar dinosaurs such as the 4.4-ton duckbill Edmontosaurus are thought by some paleontologists to have been champion migrators to avoid the cold, dark season. But a study now claims that most of these beasts preferred to stick closer to home despite potentially deadly winter weather. While some polar dinosaurs may have migrated, their treks were much shorter than previously thought, University of Alberta researchers Phil Bell and Eric Snively conclude from a recent review of past research on the animals and their habitat. Polar dinosaurs include hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, tyrannosaurs, troodontids, hypsilophodontids, ankylosaurs, prosauropods, sauropods, ornithomimids and oviraptorosaurs.
Paleontology
New flying dinosaur species found by British scientists
	12/03/2008 3:51:17 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 46 replies · 625+ views The Telegraph | 12/3/2008 | Richard Alleyne A new species of pterosaurs which had a wingspan 16ft wide has been uncovered by scientists - the largest of its kind to ever be found. Pterosaur: A new species has been discovered by scientists from Portsmouth University Mark Witton, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth, was able to estimate from a partial skull fossil that the pterosaur would have had a wingspan of five metres (16.4ft) and would have been more than one metre (39 inches) tall at the shoulder. The fossil is the first example of a chaoyangopteridae, a group of toothless pterosaurs, to be found outside...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Huge Impact Crater Uncovered in Canadian Forest
	11/28/2008 7:56:19 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 49 replies · 1,189+ views National Geographic News | November 25, 2008 | John Roach About 1,100 years ago a space rock the size of a big tree stump slammed into western Canada, carving an amphitheater-like crater into the ground and littering it with meteorites, a new study found. The rock that made the newly identified crater might have created a sky show similar to the one that tore across northern Alberta's skies in the early evening hours of November 20. But unlike the recent fireball -- which broke apart as it streaked through Earth's atmosphere -- the meteorite that carved the newly announced crater would have stayed solid until impact... Meteorites, objects from space...
Lasers Uncover Craters
	12/03/2008 8:30:16 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 14 replies · 521+ views ScienceNOW Daily News | 1 December 2008 | Phil Berardelli Enlarge ImageUnmasked. Aircraft LIDAR sweeps found this previously hidden impact crater in central Alberta, Canada. Credit: Herd et al., Geology Researchers have uncovered a pond-sized crater in the woods of central Alberta, Canada, carved out by a meteor that slammed into Earth about 1100 years ago. The technique they used to pinpoint the pit--a laser take on radar--figures to help scientists find evidence of hundreds of similar impacts that have remained hidden until now. Every 10 years or so, a sizable chunk of asteroid or comet crashes to Earth, leaving a crater about 40 meters wide. The remnants of...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Pre-Columbian Tribes Had BBQs, Parties on Grave Sites
	12/05/2008 7:54:27 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies National Geographic News | Friday, December 5, 2008 | Alexis Okeowo Some pre-Hispanic cultures in South America had elaborate celebrations at their cemeteries, complete with feasting and drinking grounds much like modern barbecue pits, according to a new archaeological study. Excavations of 12th- and-13th-century burial mounds in the highlands of Brazil and Argentina revealed numerous earthen ovens. The finds suggest that the graves were also sites of regular festivals held to commemorate the death of the community's chief.
Diet and Cuisine
Dental Plaque Gives Clue To Diet Of Ancient People [ Peru's Nanchoc Valley ]
	12/02/2008 8:22:46 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 233+ views CBS News Interactive | December 1, 2008 | Associated Press Thanks to poor dental hygiene, researchers are getting a more detailed understanding of what people ate thousands of years ago in what is now Peru.
Superdirt!
Superdirt Made Lost Amazon Cities Possible
	11/30/2008 3:36:23 PM PST · Posted by JoeProBono · 22 replies · 844+ views nationalgeographic Centuries-old European explorers' tales of lost cities in the Amazon have long been dismissed by scholars, in part because the region is too infertile to feed a sprawling civilization. But new discoveries support the idea of an ancient Amazonian urban network -- and ingeniously engineered soil may have made it all possible.
Peru, the Andes
Lost city of 'cloud people' found in Peru
	12/03/2008 4:58:17 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 37 replies · 1,310+ views The Telegraph | 12/3/2008 | Jeremy McDermott Archaeologists have discovered a lost city carved into the Andes Mountains by the mysterious Chachapoya tribe. The settlement covers some 12 acres and is perched on a mountainside in the remote Jamalca district of Utcubamba province in the northern jungles of Peru's Amazon. Buildings carved into the Pachallama peak mountainside in Peru, by Chachapoya The buildings found on the Pachallama peak are in remarkably good condition, estimated to be over 1,000 years old and comprised of the traditional round stone houses built by the Chachapoya, the 'Cloud Forest People'. The area is completely overgrown with the jungle now covering much...
Ancient Autopsies
VIDEO: Machu Picchu Mummy, Gold Found
	12/02/2008 5:49:48 AM PST · Posted by JoeProBono · 17 replies · 474+ views nationalgeographic | December 1, 2008 Archaeologists in Peru have discovered an Inca mummy and artifacts, including gold jewelry, near the ancient mountain citadel of Machu Picchu.
Oh So Mysteriouso
Riddle Of Giant Rock 'Sculptures'[Peru]
	12/04/2008 10:20:27 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 39 replies · 975+ views Sky News | 04 Dec 2008 | Julia Reid A British discoverer who says he has found the world's largest rock sculptures is poised to prove his claims. Can you spot the reclining lamb? Bill Veall used the latest satellite imaging techniques to search the Peruvian mountains for ancient shapes and formations. He was astonished to discover a series of designs, carved into the Andean Cordillera. Mr Veall made a film of his discovery and uploaded it to skynews.com/yourvideos. A 'sacred lamb' image, measuring 1400m by 1000m, was identified next to an altar stone, an antelope head and two staring faces of the 'Sun God' and Venus.Can you see...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Mormon missionaries find sasquatch print[Canada]
	12/05/2008 9:53:08 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 43 replies · 661+ views BC Local News | 04 Dec 2008 | BC Local News Two missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received a scare on the night of Dec. 2 when they saw what they think was a set of sasquatch footprints outside of their Burns Lake home. Tyler Beck and Brad Blazzard are in B.C. for two years, rotating in different communities throughout the Smithers and Burns Lake area for the past seven months. "The first thing we thought was that someone was playing a trick on us," Beck said."But we don't know anyone our age who would do that and our house in on the southside, so...
Early America
NYC marks forgotten holiday from Revolutionary War[Evacuation Day]
	12/04/2008 12:47:04 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 11 replies · 205+ views AP | 25 Nov 2008 | RICHARD PYLE People in 18th century dress greeted visitors Tuesday at Federal Hall, commemorating the end of the Revolutionary War. The costumed reenactors were busy answering questions about the 225th anniversary of Evacuation Day, the day in 1783 when the last British redcoats boarded ships in New York Harbor and sailed away, and Gen.George Washington and his victorious troops marched down Broadway.
World War Eleven
Sailor Missing From WWII Is Identified
	12/01/2008 11:49:49 AM PST · Posted by Stonewall Jackson · 46 replies · 1,463+ views Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office | Dec. 1, 2008 | Staff The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Ensign Robert G. Tills, U.S. Navy, of Manitowoc, Wis. He will be buried on March 23, 2009 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Representatives from the Navy's Mortuary Office met with Tills' next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Navy. On Dec. 8, 1941,...
The Not-So-Great Helmsman
Stalin planned to destroy Moscow if the Nazis moved in
	12/05/2008 4:48:28 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 15 replies · 602+ views The Telegraph | 12/5/2008 | Adrian Blomfield in Moscow Stalin planned to blow up more than 1,200 buildings including the Bolshoi Theatre and St Basil's Cathedral if the Nazis ever took Moscow An exhibition of secret papers staged to commemorate 90 years of military counter-intelligence showed the extraordinary lengths the Soviet high command was prepared to go to if the city fell. The documents were drawn from archives of the so-called "Moscow Plan" drawn up in the Autumn of 1941, when German forces were within 19 miles of the city. Soviet generals had told Stalin that the capital was likely to be overrun and the dictator responded by forming...
Pretty Little Thing Waitin' For the King
Hunt on for Tsars' Amber Room
	03/29/2003 12:21:41 PM PST · Posted by vannrox · 3 replies · 319+ views The Scotsman | Sat 29 Mar 2003 | ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN CRAFTED entirely out of amber, gold and precious stones, it was a masterpiece of baroque art and widely regarded as the world?s most important art treasure. When its 565 candles were lit, the famous Amber Room was said to glow a fiery gold. Looted by the Nazis , its whereabouts have been a mystery since the dying days of the Second World War. But now a new German investigation believes it has found where the treasure, worth £120 million today, lies - in abandoned mine workings in the former East Germany. One of the few facts all historians seem to...
Asia
Dig unearths Stone Age sculptures[Russia]
	12/02/2008 8:59:26 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 7 replies · 316+ views BBC | 02 Dec 2008 | Jason Palmer Rare artefacts from the late Stone Age have been uncovered in Russia. The site at Zaraysk, 150km south-east of Moscow, has yielded figurines and carvings on mammoth tusks. The finds also included a cone-shaped object whose function, the authors report in the journal Antiquity, "remains a puzzle". Such artistic artefacts have been found in the nearby regions of Kostenki and Avdeevo, but this is the first such discovery at Zaraysk. The Upper Palaeolithic is the latter part of the Stone Age, during which humans made the transition from functional tool-making to art and adornment. The new artefacts, discovered by Hizri...
Navigation
Dugout probably dating to prehistoric age discovered at Black Sea bottom
	12/01/2008 6:08:18 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 414+ views FOCUS News Agency | November 29, 2008 | unattributed A dugout probably dating back to the prehistoric age has been discovered the bottom of the Black Sea, National History Museum Director professor Bozhidar Dimitrov told Focus News Agency. On Friday evening at some 15 miles in the sea, east of Maslen Cape, between the seaside cities of Sozopol and Primorsko, a fishing ship found an enormous dugout, he added. "You can find nowhere similar dugouts, as well as any type of vessels older than 3 years of age, because water rots the wood away, but in the Black Sea below a certain depth there is dissolved sulphuretted hydrogen, which...
Rainy Day Women
Researchers find oldest-ever stash of marijuana[China]
	11/30/2008 12:31:53 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 27 replies · 648+ views The Canadian Press | 27 Nov 2008 | The Canadian Press Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China. The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the...
Prehistory and Origins
The Long Road to Modernity
	12/03/2008 8:17:57 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 19 replies · 224+ views ScienceNOW | Monday, December 1, 2008 | Michael Balter About 1.7 million years ago in Africa, Homo erectus, an ancestor of modern humans, started using large hand axes and cleavers. This know-how spread to Asia and Europe and remained cutting-edge technology for well over a million years. Eventually, however, it gave way to the Middle Stone Age, which featured smaller and more sophisticated blades and spearheads... In the 1990s... archaeologists dated a Middle Stone Age site in Ethiopia called Gademotta to 235,000 years ago -- implying that the technology had been maturing for a while before the arrival of modern humans... Kapthurin in Kenya, was more reliably dated in...
Scotland Yet
Pride of place for controversial book discovered at historic site
	12/02/2008 5:33:53 PM PST · Posted by Alex Murphy · 24 replies · 573+ views The Star | 02 December 2008 A MYSTERIOUS Bible printed more than 400 years ago could be the key to unlocking little known secrets about Sheffield's historic Manor Castle. Little is know about the origins of the ancient book found at the site best known as a prison for Mary Queen of Scots. And the more local historians find out about it, the more questions need answering. Printed in 1594, the ancient tome is a Geneva Bible which went on to cause great controversy because it contained annotations which enraged the Catholic Church and infuriated King James. Inside the front cover is a handwritten list containing...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Medieval library site to be dug [ Herefordshire ]
	12/02/2008 8:36:15 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 240+ views BBC | Wednesday, November 26, 2008 | unattributed Archaeologists are to examine a site near a medieval Herefordshire building before a new library is built. The dig will take place near the Master's House in Ledbury before it is extended to house a new library. Herefordshire Council said a viewing platform will be put up so people can observe the work taking place during the three-week dig from 5 January. A medieval wall was uncovered at the site in June, which prompted the more detailed examination. Kate Murray, assistant cultural services manager at the council, said: "I would like to apologise to motorists and traders for any inconvenience...
British Isles
Rare Bronze Age necklace is found [ Britain ]
	12/01/2008 3:00:51 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 471+ views BBC | Monday, December 1, 2008 | unattributed A rare amber necklace believed to be about 4,000 years old has been uncovered in Greater Manchester. Archaeologists made the find while excavating a cist - a type of stone-lined grave - in Mellor, Stockport. It is the first time a necklace of this kind from the early Bronze Age has been found in north-west England. Experts from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit said a amber necklace was one of the ultimate status symbols of the period. The necklace consists of dozens of pierced amber beads of various sizes, linked together on a length of fibre. It was discovered...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Photographer races clock to honor last few World War I vets
	11/11/2008 10:06:01 AM PST · Posted by Borges · 14 replies · 87+ views CNN | 11/11/08 | Mark Bixler and Paula Hancocks Photographer David DeJonge plans to capture a vanishing bit of history Tuesday on a trip to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. There, he hopes to photograph 107-year-old Frank Buckles, one of the few men still alive who fought in World War I. Buckles will lay a wreath at the grave of Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, who led U.S. forces in Europe in World War I. The visit comes 90 years to the day after the end of World War I, an occasion that led to Veterans Day in the United States and Armistice Day in other nations. For...
Take One
Story Details for Roland Emmerich's 2012! (Doomsday movie)
	12/02/2008 9:09:23 AM PST · Posted by dennisw · 30 replies · 575+ views latinoreview | June 24, 2008 | Kellvin Chavez One of our readers, Dr. Strangefist was able to track down the first big spec script that Sony won in a bidding war after the writer's strike. The budget is rumored to be close to $200 million and already has John Cusack and Amanda Peet cast in lead roles. The story blends the idea of the Mayan calendar, which predicts the world ending in 2012, with natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, typhoons and glaciers plaguing the planet and a large cast of characters dealing with the mayhem. WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS LAY AHEAD So here we have 2012, the latest...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Rare fragment of early copy of Gospel goes on sale
	11/28/2008 5:12:08 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 17 replies · 420+ views Reuters | 28 Nov 2008 | Mike Collett-White An unusually large fragment from possibly the oldest copy of part of the Gospel of John will go on sale next month, when the torn piece of papyrus with Greek writing is expected to fetch up to 300,000 pounds ($460,000). The fragment is believed to date to 200 AD, less than 170 years after the crucifixion of Christ, when Christianity was still illegal and around 100 years after experts believe the original Gospel was first written. "This is either the first or the second oldest copy of this part of the text of the Gospel of John," Sotheby's specialist Timothy...
Faith and Philosophy
Turin Shroud may be genuine after all
	10/10/2002 2:14:50 AM PDT · Posted by SteveH · 210 replies · 736+ views UPI via The Washington Times | 10/9/2002 | Uwe Siemon-Netto GURAT, France, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The Turin Shroud bearing the features of a crucified man may well be the cloth that enveloped the body of Christ, a renowned textile historian told United Press International Tuesday. Disputing inconclusive carbon-dating tests suggesting the shroud hailed from medieval times, Swiss specialist Mechthild Flury-Lemberg said it could be almost 2,000 years old.
Ready to Rumble?
Thera eruption in 1613 BC
	12/03/2008 4:12:12 AM PST · Posted by Mike Fieschko · 38 replies · 646+ views ANA | 12/03/2008 | SIMELA PANTZARTZI Two olive branches buried by a Minoan-era eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) have enabled precise radiocarbon dating of the catastrophe to 1613 BC, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 years, according to two researchers who presented conclusions of their previously published research during an event on Tuesday at the Danish Archaeological Institute of Athens. Speaking at an event entitled "The Enigma of Dating the Minoan Eruption - Data from Santorini and Egypt", the study's authors, Dr. Walter Friedrich of the Danish University of Aarhus and Dr. Walter Kutschera of the Austrian...
Egypt
Egyptologists: It is Time to Prove Your Claims
	12/02/2002 4:30:56 PM PST · Posted by vannrox · 76 replies · 3,273+ views World Mysteries | FR Post 12-2-2002 | by Will Hart †www.world-mysteries.com Articles by Will Hart published on the World-Mysteries.com:† Egyptologists: It is Time to Prove Your ClaimsSomething is Wrong with this Picture! Great Pyramid ShockerPerspective - Settling an Old ControversyArchaeological Cover-ups: A Plot to Control History?†The Ancient Enigma - Moving the MegalithsAbout the Author Egyptologists: It is Time to Prove Your Claimsby Will Hart Egyptologists are displaying irrational and unscientific fixations by stubbornly clinging to ideas that have already been discredited. Mr. Lerhner and Mr. Hawass use every public forum to repeat their unproven speculations about how the ancient (Egyptian) builders quarried, transported, lifted, dressed and precisely positioned blocks...
Beethoven's Fifth? Nope, Colt 45
Beethoven was black?
	11/28/2008 7:36:05 PM PST · Posted by mainestategop · 142 replies · 2,196+ views Africa within Beethoven: Revealing His True Identity ††In the 15th and 16th century, written history underwent a massive campaign of misinformation and deception. With the European slave trade in full swing, Afrikans were transported to various parts of the world and were stripped of every aspect of their humanity, and in most of western civilization, were no longer considered human. This triggered a wholesale interpretation of history that methodically excluded Afrikans from any respectful mention, other than a legacy of slavery. This can result in being taught, or socialized, from one perspective. In this instance, historical information tends to flow strictly...
end of digest #229 20081206

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #229 20081206 · Saturday, December 6, 2008 · 43 topics · 2143865 to 2139805 · 694 members ·
	Saturday Dec 6 2008 v 5 n 20 view this issue	Welcome to the 229th issue, 43 topics.  A public welcome to our new members. Despite some quite normal attrition (uh, people leaving the list), of late we've more than made up for it. Still haven't crossed the 700 mark though. Pursuant to last week's podcast links caper, I dropped Mirabilis at last, having waited three years or so for updates to resume, added National Geographic and Discover, and replaced the podcasts with an overdue link to The Archaeology Channel.  Thanks again to Mike Fieschko for pointing out the dead links. Christmas is two weeks, five days from today.  I've got some days off here and there between now and the end of the year.  I hope for a few more, perhaps as early as this coming weekend. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #230 Saturday, December 13, 2008
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Did Noah's Flood start in the Carmel?
	12/10/2008 9:25:29 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 22 replies · 343+ views The Jerusalem Post | 10 Dec 2008 | ETGAR LEFKOVITS A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday. The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood. In the theory posited by British marine archeologist Dr. Sean Kingsley and published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society, the drowning of the..
Did Noah's Flood start in the Carmel?
	12/10/2008 9:29:13 AM PST · Posted by NYer · 63 replies · 1,108+ views Jerusalem Post | December 10, 2008 | ETGAR LEFKOVITS A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday. The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood. In the theory posited by British marine archeologist Dr. Sean Kingsley and published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society, the drowning of the..
Did Noah's Flood start in the Carmel?
	12/10/2008 10:53:09 AM PST · Posted by Between the Lines · 24 replies · 394+ views Jeursalem Post | Dec 10, 2008 | ETGAR LEFKOVITS A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday. The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood. In the theory posited by British marine archeologist Dr. Sean Kingsley and published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society, the drowning of the..
Navigation
Top 100 Stories of 2008 #96: Ancient Traders Sailed the South American Seas
	12/06/2008 8:28:44 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 270+ views Journal Of Anthropological Research | Volume 64, Number 1, Abstracts | Leslie Dewan and Dorothy Hosler Abstract: By approximately 100 BC Ecuadorian traders had established maritime commercial routes extending from Chile to Colombia. Historical sources indicate that they transported their merchandise in large, ocean-going sailing rafts made of balsa logs. By about AD 700 the data show that Ecuadorian metalworking technology had reached the west coast of Mexico but remained absent in the region between Guerrero and lower Central America. Archaeologists have argued that this technology was most plausibly transmitted via balsa raft exchange routes. This article uses mathematical simulation of balsa rafts' mechanical and material characteristics to determine whether these rafts were suitable vessels for..
Peru, the Andes
Machu Picchu was not so lost after all
	12/11/2008 8:15:52 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 6 replies · 483+ views The Telegraph | 12/9/2008 Historians have uncovered documents and maps suggesting the city had been lost and found several times before the man who officially discovered the ruins, American Hiram Bingham, got there. Funded by the National Geographic Society and friends at Yale University, Mr Bingham discovered the Peruvian city of stone terraces in 1911, earning his place among the pantheon on the world's greatest explorers. After setting out from Cuzco, he followed directions from a local man to some Inca ruins, and became the first Westerner to set eyes on the crumbling citadel. Once there, he began removing thousands of artefacts, mummies, stone..
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Patagonia Indian tribe faces extinction
	12/10/2008 1:05:24 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 11 replies · 328+ views Reuters | 10 Dec 2008 | Simon Gardner Hawking sea lion skin souvenir canoes at one of South America's most remote outposts, Francisco Arroyo is among the last members of a Patagonian tribe staring down the barrel of extinction. The elderly Arroyo recalls wending the icy channels and fjords of southern Chile's Patagonia region with his father as a boy, tending a fire lit on dried earth on the bottom of their canoe and diving naked for giant mussels to survive. With only an estimated 12-20 pure-blooded members of his nomadic Kawesqar tribe surviving, most of them elderly, another of the far-flung region's tribes will soon disappear. "It..
Pyramania
Mystery Pyramid Built by Newfound Ancient Culture?[Mexico]
	12/08/2008 7:39:22 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 16 replies · 567+ views National Geographic News | 08 Dec 2008 | Alexis Okeowo Several stone sculptures recently found in central Mexico point to a previously unknown culture that likely built a mysterious pyramid in the region, archaeologists say. Archaeologists first found the objects about 15 years ago in the valley of Tulancingo, a major canyon that drops off into Mexico's Gulf Coast. Most of the 41 artifacts "do not fit into any of the known cultures of the Valley of Tulancingo, or the highlands of central Mexico," said Carlos Hern·ndez, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History in the central state of Hidalgo. Many of the figures are depicted in..
Egypt
How the Great Sphinx of Giza may have started out with the face of a lion
	12/08/2008 12:30:57 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 50 replies · 933+ views Daily Mail | 08 Dec 2008 | Daily Mail The Great Sphinx of Giza might have originally had the face of a lion and could be much older than previously thought, archaeologists have claimed. Until now its origins have been one of history's most enigmatic mysteries, but a new study suggests that the icon did not have the face of a pharaoh. The Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head, which stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, near Cairo. It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 feet long, 20 feet wide and 65..
Nubia
From brief limelight to obscurity [ Sudanese hydroelectric project will flood the ancient Meroe ]
	12/06/2008 3:31:26 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 251+ views Al-Ahram Weekly | Issue No. 925, 3 - 9 December 2008 | Jill Kamil The Meroe High Dam, otherwise known as the Multi-Purpose Hydro Project or Hamdab Dam, is well underway -- and the archaeological remains of the ancient African kingdom of Meroe which developed along the upper reaches of the Nile is destined to oblivion. The purpose of the dam being constructed close to the Fourth Cataract, about 200 kilometres north of Khartoum, is to generate electricity. It is the largest hydropower project currently under construction in Africa. With a length of some nine kilometres, and a crest height of up to 67 kilometres it is reminiscent of the High Dam at Aswan..
Ireland
Treasures on the roadside [ Ireland ]
	12/06/2008 9:15:36 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 377+ views Irish Times | Saturday, December 6, 2008 | Claire O'Connell In 2006 a seemingly routine dig suddenly yielded treasure when it turned up a cache of cash near Cashel. That July, archaeologists led by husband-and-wife team Joanne Hughes and Richard O'Brien were excavating the site of an old pond on the planned N8 Cashel bypass route... the team found a total of 18 silver coins clustered near one spot. The pennies date from the reign of king Edward II in the 14th century and most were minted in London, but one was made in Dublin... Road building has turned up a large number of new archaeologically interesting sites that are..
Oldest Thread on the Web
Stone Age string: Unearthed, the twine that was twisted into shape 8,000 years ago[UK]
	12/08/2008 12:34:07 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 14 replies · 541+ views Daily Mail | 07 Dec 2008 | Neil Sears How old is a piece of string? In this case, 8,000 years - making it the oldest length of string ever found in Britain. Our ancestors made it by twisting together what seem to be fibres of honeysuckle, nettles, or wild clematis, and used it in their struggle for survival as the last ice age ended. This early piece of technology, measuring about 41/2in must have been a revolutionary advance at the time, useful for binding together weapons or tools. Found in the mud: The ancient string It has only survived thanks to the huge floods that followed the melting..
British Isles
Liverpool treasure hunters unearth Bronze Age jewellery in Wrexham field[UK]
	12/11/2008 9:30:18 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 3 replies · 250+ views Evening Leader | 11 Dec 2008 | Evening Leader THREE treasure hunting friends have struck gold again after unearthing Bronze Age treasure in the same spot near Wrexham for the second time in three years. William May, Joseph Perry and Peter Skelly, all from Liverpool, found a pure gold bead and wire piece in a farmer's field outside Rossett, near Wrexham, in August of last year. At an inquest in Flint yesterday, the find was declared treasure by John Gittins, deputy coroner for north east Wales. The latest find belongs to the so-called "Burton Hoard", which was discovered by the three friends in 2004 on the same field in..
Ancient Autopsies
'Oldest human brain' discovered[UK]
	12/12/2008 8:17:03 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 27 replies · 414+ views BBC | 12 Dec 2008 | BBC Archaeologists have found the remains of what could be Britain's oldest surviving human brain. The team, excavating a York University site, discovered a skull containing a yellow substance which scans showed to be shrunken, but brain-shaped. Brains consist of fatty tissue which microbes in the soil would absorb, so neurologists believe the find could be some kind of fossilised brain. The skull was found in an area first farmed more than 2,000 years ago. More tests will now be done to establish what it is actually made of. The team from York Archaeological Trust had been commissioned by the university..
Rome and Italy
Ancient Roman battlefield excavated in Lower Saxony[Germany]
	12/12/2008 1:06:36 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 20 replies · 685+ views The :Local | 11 Dec 2008 | Kerstin von Glowacki Archaeologists have discovered an ancient roman battlefield from the third century near Gottingen that will rewrite history, Lower Saxony's department for preservation of historical monuments said on Thursday. "The find can be dated to the third century and will definitely change the historical perception of that time," Dr. Henning Haflmann told The Local. The amazing discovery allows an insight in what must have been a dramatic battle between Romans and Germanic tribes. "The find indicates a massive Roman military presence," Haflmann said. So far historians believed that the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which took place in 9 AD, resulted..
Climate
Climate may have caused Rome to fall
	12/06/2008 5:55:08 AM PST · Posted by grjr21 · 70 replies · 1,077+ views UPI.com | Dec. 6, 2008 Geologists say a discovery in a cave near Jerusalem suggests climate change may have caused the fall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve reveals increasingly dry weather from A.D. 100 to A.D. 700 that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said Friday
Illyria
The world's first Illyrian trading post found
	12/07/2008 1:05:30 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 236+ views Apollon, Forskningsmagasin fra Universitetet i Oslo | Sunday, December 7, 2008 | Yngve Vogt It all started in spring 2007 when Professor Snjezana Vasilj of the University of Mostar found 16 Illyrian boats in Desilo, fully-laden with Roman wine amphorae. The find was speedily interpreted as proof that the Illyrians were pirates and that the ships had been sunk by the Romans. Although the pirate theory received considerable attention from the press in many parts of Europe, Marina Prusac and Adam Lindhagen did not believe this interpretation... Over the past two thousand years the river has repeatedly changed its bed in the delta. The archaeologists found the remains of the Illyrian trading post under..
Greeks
Prehistoric bronze hoard found off Greek beach (largest of its kind ever found in Greece)
	12/11/2008 9:45:42 AM PST · Posted by NormsRevenge · 25 replies · 925+ views AP on Yahoo | 12/11/08 | AP Authorities say a hoard of 4,500-year-old copper weapons recovered off a northern beach is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece. A Culture Ministry statement says the discovery includes at least 110 ax and hammer heads, but several more should be extracted from compacted masses of corroded metal. The ministry says they were probably buried at a time of unrest or war. The hoard would have represented a fortune at the time
Underwater Archaeology
Archimedes and the 2000-year-old computer
	12/13/2008 2:52:02 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 13 replies · 410+ views New Scientist | Dec. 12, 2008 | Jo Marchant MARCELLUS and his men blockaded Syracuse, in Sicily, for two years. The Roman general expected to conquer the Greek city state easily, but the ingenious siege towers and catapults designed by Archimedes helped to keep his troops at bay. Then, in 212 BC, the Syracusans neglected their defences during a festival to the goddess Artemis, and the Romans finally breached the city walls. Marcellus wanted Archimedes alive, but it wasn't to be. According to ancient historians, Archimedes was killed in the chaos; by one account a soldier ran him through with a sword as he was in the middle of..
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Searchers find remains of Teutonic Knights leaders[Poland]
	12/12/2008 1:00:13 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 42 replies · 633+ views AP | 12 Dec 2008 | MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Polish archaeologists believe silk-draped skeletons found in a cathedral crypt are those of three grand masters who more than 600 years ago ruled the Teutonic Knights -- an order that spread religion through force. An archaeologist in the city of Kwidzyn -- the Teutonic fortress of Marienwerder in the Middle Ages -- said Friday that DNA tests indicate the remains are those of Werner von Orseln, the knights' leader from 1324-1330; Ludolf Koenig, who ruled from 1342-1345; and Heinrich von Plauen, who reigned from 1410-1413. "Taking everything into account, we see that we are dealing with Teutonic Knights grand masters,"..
Happy Anniversary
John Milton At 400
	12/09/2008 8:12:39 AM PST · Posted by Borges · 7 replies · 234+ views Newsweek | 12/08/09 | Marc Bain William Wordsworth had a habit of comparing himself to -- and even being in competition with -- John Milton. Once Wordsworth asked a friend what he thought was the greatest elegy of the English language. The friend said that Milton's "Lycidas" was the greatest, to which Wordsworth replied, "It may, I think, be affirmed that Milton's 'Lycidas' and my 'Laodamia' are twin immortals." His fixation also turns up at one point in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "English Traits." Wordsworth met a man in London who showed him a watch that had belonged to Milton. Taking the watch and holding it out in front of him,..
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
1 million people live in ancient Islamic cemetery
	12/11/2008 2:28:35 PM PST · Posted by forkinsocket · 20 replies · 607+ views ANSA | 2008-12-09 | Cristiana Missori Clean air, green surroundings, silence, calm and wide streets...sounds like a residential area in a big city, right? In fact this is the City of the Dead, situated in the east of Cairo on the foot slopes of the Moqattam mountain. The City of the Dead is the oldest Muslim cemetery in all Egypt that is still operational, and today it is home to around one million people, living people. Why have such a high number of people chosen to move to a cemetery, and what kind of relationship has been established between the land of the living and that..
India
Remote tribe faces extinction after eight men drink chemical they mistook for alcohol[Onge]
	12/11/2008 10:09:01 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 45 replies · 1,309+ views Daily Mail | 11 Dec 2008 | Daily Mail Eight members of a remote Indian tribe have died after drinking a chemical they mistook for alcohol. The dead men from the tiny Onge tribe swigged the brown liquid which washed ashore in a bottle. There are fewer than 100 members of the Onge left. They are the last remaining hunter-gatherers and live on the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Asia
Jars of wonder, jars of hope [ Laos Plain of Jars ]
	12/07/2008 12:52:27 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 377+ views Myanmar Star | Sunday, December 7, 2008 | unattributed Belgian archeologist Julie Van Den Bergh... "The jars date back to the Early Iron Age (500BCE-200CE). But who made these jars? ..." The jars are in clusters, some with as many as 400 of the structures. Some are 3m tall and weigh 13 tons. Several come with angular or round disks that could have been lids, carved with images of humans, monkeys or tigers... French archeologist Madeleine Colani... in the 1930s... interpreted her findings on the sites as a prehistoric crematorium. At Site 1, she discovered a cave with handmade chimney openings. The cave floor showed the remains of burnt..
Morning Calm
The battle to retrieve Korea's old records
	12/08/2008 8:12:05 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 5 replies · 194+ views JoongAng Daily | 08 Dec 2008 | Kim Hyung-eun The battle to retrieve Korea's old records History Displaced 1. Oegyujanggak Books in France On Jan. 28, 2002, a five-member Korean delegation boarded a plane for France. Feelings, however, were a mixture of excitement and apprehension, considering they were about to engage in an encounter of their lives.The delegation, including historians Kim Mun-sik, Shin Byung-ju and Lee Jong-muk, was to visit the National Library of France to examine ancient royal documents from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). It was 136 years since French troops had taken the precious palace records from Korean soil during Byeongin-yango, the French invasion of Korea in..
Prehistory and Origins
The Mysterious Ainu
	12/08/2008 4:58:57 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 28 replies · 683+ views Cryptomundo | 06 Dec 2008 | Brent Swancer The Ainu are the indigenous people of Japan, inhabiting the Northern island of Hokkaido as well as the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Their name means ¬"human¬", or more accurately the opposite of the gods that inhabit all plants, objects, and animals in their heavily animistic religion. Thought to once inhabit all of Japan, the Ainu were pushed northward by the influx of immigration from Asia that occurred primarily during the Yayoi period of Japanese history around 2,300 years ago. The Ainu have faced a long history of oppression and hardship. Throughout the modern era, they have faced active assimilation, forced..
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Warrior's Grave Found in Archeological Excavations at Dam Reservoir[Iran][Kurgan]
	12/08/2008 8:03:02 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 11 replies · 231+ views FNA | 08 Dec 2008 | Fars News Agency Iranian archeological teams working at the reservoir area of the Khoda-Afarin Dam have recently discovered a burial site of a Kurgan warrior during their rescue excavations. A bull, a number of ancient weapons, dishes, and bronze artifacts have also been found in the warrior's grave, MNA quoted the Director of the Archaeological Research Center of Iran (ARCI) Mohammad Hassan Fazeli Nashli as telling the Persian service of CHN on Sunday. "According to the archaeologists, the warrior enjoyed a special status among his people," he added. The Kurgans were an Indo-European culture living in northern Europe, from Russia across Germany during..
Faith and Philosophy
Vase discovery linked to Mary Magdalene
	12/10/2008 1:23:21 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 47 replies · 923+ views Telegraph | 10 Dec 2008 | Nick Pisa Archaeologists have discovered vases of perfumed ointment which may have been used by Mary Magdalene to anoint the feet of Jesus. The Italian team have been digging for several months at the ancient Palestinian town of Magdala -- from where Mary gets her name. The archaeologists of the Franciscan academic society Studium Biblicum Franciscanum found the unopened vases dating to the first century AD conserved in mud at the bottom of a swimming pool in Magdala's thermal complex. The town is on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and Mary Magdalene is mentioned several times throughout the Bible...
Let's Have Jerusalem
12,000 year old Shaman unearthed in Israel
	12/11/2008 10:03:24 AM PST · Posted by Natufian · 19 replies · 748+ views Time Online | 11/11/08 | Ishaan Tharoor A new figure in humanity's history emerged last week when archaeologists announced the discovery of what could be one of the world's oldest known spiritual figures. After years of meticulous excavation just miles from Israel's Mediterranean coast, scientists from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unearthed a 12,000-year-old grave that held the remains of a diminutive "shaman" woman
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Late Neandertals and Modern Human Contact in Southeastern Iberia
	12/11/2008 2:34:06 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 315+ views Newswise | Monday, December 8, 2008 | Source: Washington University in St. Louis It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process. However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been. New research... is based on a study of human fossils found during the past decade at the Sima de la Palomas, Murcia, Spain by Michael Walker, professor at Universidad de Murcia, and colleagues, and published..
Longer Perspectives
[Bitpig] Science Fiction And The Future: So What?
	10/03/2007 1:31:45 AM PDT · Posted by B-Chan · 57 replies · 540+ views Brucelewis.com | 2007.10.03 | Bitpig [B-Chan] Science Fiction has a lousy record of predicting the future. In the 1930s, for example, it was widely held that by 1970, toga-clad descendants of the Depression Generation would be living in giant art deco cities full of speeding Dymaxion Cars and dining on food pills. In the '50s and '60s, it was rocket belts and atomic-powered flying cars we were supposed to be enjoying by 2000. And today? In almost every extrapolation of the future I've read lately, the ultimate fate of mankind is uploading -- the transference of consciousness from biological to digital substrates. Such uploads, it is..
Early America
Law of Nations
	12/12/2008 10:55:50 PM PST · Posted by Calpernia · 15 replies · 271+ views Dr. Orly Blogspot | Emmerich de Vattel Law of Nations; or Principles of the Law of Nature: Applies to the Conduct & Affairs of Nations & Sovereigns 1759. 1st. English Edition. Emmerich de Vattel Emmerich de Vattel's The Law of Nations was key in framing the United States as the world's first constitutional republic. The myth that the founding of American Republic was based on the philosophy of John Locke could only have been maintained, because the history of Leibniz's influence was suppressed. The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. Key to this struggle, was the work..
Symbolism's long inauguration history
	12/11/2008 7:57:42 AM PST · Posted by Pharmboy · 10 replies · 129+ views FirstRead: MSNBC | December 10, 2008 | John Rutherford George Washington showed a keen awareness of political symbolism back in 1789 when he was preparing for his first inauguration. "The cloth and buttons which accompanied your favor of the 30th ... really do credit to the manufacturers of this country," Washington said in a letter to Acting Secretary of War Henry Knox. The letter was displayed at a news conference today at the National Archives. Archives historian Marvin Pinkert said Washington had made a conscious decision to have his inaugural suit made in Boston instead of in one of the European fashion centers. "It's striking that the president was..
Site seen in painting is finally found, For decades, historians, art experts had been stumped.
	12/08/2008 10:59:03 PM PST · Posted by Coleus · 16 replies · 766+ views northjersey | 12.08.08 | JAMES M. O'NEILL For decades, North Jersey historians, art experts and naturalists had been stumped. Geoff Welch helped determine that an 1846 painting labeled "Janetta Falls, Passaic County" was really Clinton Falls. Where was Janetta Falls, Passaic County? Was there a Janetta Falls in Passaic County? Art experts wanted to know because Jasper F. Cropsey, a celebrated Hudson River School artist, painted several waterfall scenes in 1846 and identified them as Janetta Falls. "It's been a mystery for decades," said Kenneth W. Maddox, art historian at the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. Finally, thanks in part to an old magazine article, a local..
Maybe Obama will be the Second Foreign-Born President in History
	12/03/2008 4:49:32 PM PST · Posted by Kevmo · 27 replies · 1,139+ views Various | December 3, 2008 | Various History seems to be repeating itself. http://www.genealogue.com/2005/06/our-canadian-president.html Chester Alan Arthur Our Canadian President? Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U. S. Constitution states that "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." Could a man born in Canada have slipped into the White House through deception? Chester Alan Arthur (he pronounced his middle name al-AN) was, according to the official account, born in Fairfield, Vermont, Oct. 5, 1830, the son of Reverend William and Malvina..
Historical Breakthrough-Proof: Chester Arthur Concealed He Was A British Subject At Birth (Donofrio)
	12/06/2008 7:17:21 PM PST · Posted by STARWISE · 157 replies · 1,879+ views Natural Born Citizen | 12-6-08 | Leo Donofrio [I have collaborated on this with my sister and historian Greg Dehler, author of "Chester Allan Arthur", Published by Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2006 ISBN 1600210791, 9781600210792 192 pages. ] I've been forwarded the actual naturalization record for William Arthur on microfiche, obtained from the Library of Congress. He was naturalized in New York State and became a United States citizen in August 1843. Chester Arthur perpetrated a fraud as to his eligibility to be Vice President by spreading various lies about his parents' heritage. President Arthur's father, William Arthur, became a United States citizen in August 1843. But Chester..
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
U S Two States Away from Constitutional Convention
	12/11/2008 5:28:28 AM PST · Posted by GWMcClintock · 200 replies · 5,356+ views Christian Worldview Network | 12/11/08 | Tom DeWeese This is the most urgent, most important action alert the American Policy Center has ever issued! The Ohio state legislature is expected to vote as early as Dec. 10th, to call for a Constitutional Convention (Con Con). If Ohio calls for a Con Con only one more state need do so and Congress will have no choice but to convene a Convention, throwing our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights up for grabs. Ohio's vote today poses a grave threat to the U.S. Constitution. Please immediately call the Ohio lawmakers listed below. ACT FAST - time is of the essence!
Russia
Russia's last tsar rehabilitated [ Nicholas II and his family ]
	12/07/2008 2:36:17 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 62 replies · 664+ views BBC | Wednesday, October 1, 2008 | James Rodgers et al Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated... Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, doctor and three servants were shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July, 1918. Lower courts had previously refused to reclassify the killings, which had been categorised as simply murder... The Romanovs were shot by a firing squad without a trial, in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The Supreme Court "declared as groundless the repression of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and ordered their rehabilitation", the judge's decision said on..
Stalin's army of rapists: The brutal war crime that Russia and Germany tried to ignore.
	10/25/2008 7:57:11 AM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 161 replies · 4,477+ views Daily Mail (UK) | 24th October 2008 | Andrew Roberts Relations between Russia and Germany have not been good since Vladimir Putin's nationalist sabre-rattling this summer, but they are about to get a whole lot worse. A new film about to be released in Germany will force both countries to re-examine part of their recent history that each would much prefer to forget. Yet it is right that the ghastly truth should finally be acknowledged. The movie, A Woman In Berlin, is based on the diary of the German journalist Marta Hillers and depicts the horror of the Red Army's capture of the capital of the Third Reich in April..
World War Eleven
National Archives lets Internet users have easy access to WWII documents
	12/07/2008 4:27:19 PM PST · Posted by PeteePie · 17 replies · 610+ views Stars and Stripes, Mid East Edition | December 6, 2008 | Robin Hoecker, One month before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a seaman aboard the USS Arizona, Jay Wesley Young, wrote a letter to his sister thanking her for the birthday cake. "I really made a pig of myself," he wrote. Thirty days later, both the cake and Young were gone. The letter is one of 47 million documents now available online through a partnership of the National Archives and Footnote.com. The site, www.footnote.com/wwii, contains 200 terabytes of photographs, enlistment records, and interactive maps relating to World War II. Highlights include a searchable image of the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, 80,000 photographs..
Sunday December 7th is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
	12/06/2008 1:53:14 PM PST · Posted by Dubya · 43 replies · 1,328+ views UNKNOWN | UNKNOWN DECEMBER 7th, 1941 : DECEMBER 7th, 2008 = 67 YEARS JAPAN DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA Flags at half-staff for Pearl Harbor Day Flags should be flown at half-staff Sunday, National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, in respect for the victims of Pearl Harbor. DECEMBER 7th, 1941 : DECEMBER 7th, 2008 = 67 YEARS JAPAN DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA Flags at half-staff for Pearl Harbor Day Flags should be flown at half-staff Sunday, National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, in respect for the victims of Pearl Harbor. United States flag should be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset Sunday. This year is..
Tora! Tora! Tora! pilot (Mitsuo Fuchida) Became Evangelist
	12/07/2008 4:38:25 PM PST · Posted by PeteePie · 15 replies · 706+ views Stars and Stripes, Pacific Edition | Sunday, December 7th, 2008 | Paul Newell Shortly after Mitsuo Fuchida led the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he discovered just how fortunate he was to be living. Along with the 21 holes that visibly pocked the 39-year-old's aircraft, a mechanic on the aircraft carrier Akagi found a frayed elevator cable that dangled from Fuchida's reconnaissance bomber by a single thread. If it had been severed, the inevitable crash could have killed the flight commander -- whose radio message "Tora! Tora! Tora!" was the final go-ahead for the attack that drew the United States into World War II
Oh So Mysteriouso
New atlas comes to the Great Land of the Tattooed (Cities renamed for etymological origins)
	12/07/2008 12:24:08 AM PST · Posted by Stoat · 60 replies · 779+ views The Telegraph (U.K.) / Various | December 4, 2008 | Oliver Smith A fascinating new atlas, featuring cities that are renamed to reflect their etymological origins, is now on sale. Etymologists and wordsmiths will take particular interest in a new set of maps going on sale in time for Christmas. The traditional names for the world's cities, countries, rivers and mountains have been altered on an atlas to reflect their origins and literal meaning. Chicago, for example, is renamed Stink Onion and Cameroon is called the Land of Shrimps. The logic behind each place name is explained on the back of the maps. Cameroon comes from the Portuguese word camaroes, meaning..
end of digest #230 20081213

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #230 20081213 · Saturday, December 13, 2008 · 42 topics · 2148074 to 2144043 · 695 members ·
	Saturday Dec 13 2008 v 5 n 21 view this issue	Welcome to the 230th issue. Christmas is twelve short days away, time perhaps to start singing that song -- the five golden rings part fits right into the general GGG milieu. And, best of all, I get to use milieu in a sentence. I've been hittin' the Christmas cookies, but the only song I've sung (not counting any possible radio accompaniment while driving the car) is Spike Jones' "Ya Wanna Buy A Bunny?" There must have been some reason for it, but regardless, it seemed like a good idea while I pretended to work today. The selection of topics this week was GREAT. I tried to make my usual cutesie segues, but finally got bewildered. The variety has seldom been equaled, and pretty much all highly interesting. There's a bunch of them pertaining to early US history, I've collected those near the bottom of the issue. Many thanks to all who've contributed, and keep it up! Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #231 Saturday, December 20, 2008
Ice Age
Danish Arctic research dates Ice Age[Ended precisely 11,711 years ago]
	12/18/2008 11:35:27 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 25 replies · 468+ views Politiken | 11 Dec 2008 | Julian Isherwood The result of a Danish ice drilling project has become the international standard for the termination of the last glacial period. It ended precisely 11,711 years ago. A Danish ice drilling project has conclusively ended the discussion on the exact date of the end of the last ice age. The extensive scientific study shows that it was precisely 11,711 years ago -- and not the indeterminate figure of "some' 11,000 years ago -- that the ice withdrew, allowing humans and animals free reign. According to the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) in Copenhagen, the very precise dating of the end of...
Australia and the Pacific
World's oldest portrait in peril [Australia]
	12/17/2008 7:31:37 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 457+ views Sunday Times | December 14, 2008 | Paul Ham, Sydney The world's oldest depiction of a human face could be threatened if Australian mining companies are permitted to build an explosives factory on the remote Burrup peninsula in the northwest of the country. A bulbous image of indiscernible sex, with huge eyes and sunken cheeks, the 10,000 year-old carving is chipped out of hard rock. Thousands of other carvings, mostly of plants and animals, which date back to beyond the last Ice Age, are scattered about the peninsula. Archeologists believe that aboriginal tribes made the distinctive carvings up to 30,000 years ago. They could be nearly twice as old as...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Tools with handles even more ancient
	12/15/2008 7:43:39 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 19 replies · 353+ views Science News | Friday, December 12th, 2008 | Bruce Bower In a gripping instance of Stone Age survival, Neandertals used a tarlike substance to fasten sharpened stones to handles as early as 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests. Stone points and sharpened flakes unearthed in Syria since 2000 contain the residue of bitumen -- a natural, adhesive substance -- on spots where the implements would have been secured to handles of some type, according to a team led by archaeologist Eric Boîda of University of Paris X, Nanterre. The process of attaching a tool to a handle is known as hafting. The Neandertals likely found the bitumen in nearby...
Diet and Cuisine
Of Neanderthals and dairy farmers
	12/15/2008 7:48:15 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 34 replies · 405+ views Harvard News Office | December 11, 2008 | Alvin Powell Harvard Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods -- like escargot. Evidence from Neanderthal bones collected from the Shanidar cave in Northern Iraq decades ago and analyzed recently by Tuross indicate that at least that particular Neanderthal was not a heavy carnivore. Neanderthals, she suggested, had a varied diet that included meat, but that was not solely or even largely made up of it. One possible alternative food was found in abundance in the...
Near East
Ancient necropolis found (Syria - found also, Roman ruins)
	12/20/2008 2:32:23 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 10 replies · 305+ views Zee News | Dec. 19, 2008 | Unknown Damascus, Dec 19: A research team from Udine University in Italy has uncovered a vast, ancient necropolis near the Syrian oasis of Palmyra. The team, headed by Daniele Morandi Bonacossi of Udine University, believes the burial site dates from the second half of the third millennium BC. The necropolis comprises around least 30 large burial mounds near Palmyra, some 200km northeast of Damascus in Syria. "This is the first evidence that an area of semi-desert outside the oasis was occupied during the early Bronze Age," said Morandi Bonacossi. "Future excavations of the burial mounds will undoubtedly reveal information of crucial...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Genetic research can open book on Jewish identity -- for good and bad
	12/15/2008 7:09:16 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 34 replies · 466+ views Jewish Journal | December 10, 2008 | Adam Wills Father William Sanchez wears a Star of David pendant on the same chain as his crucifix, and he keeps a menorah in his parish office. After a DNA test confirmed his Sephardic roots, the Albuquerque priest has been actively reconciling this discovery with his Catholic beliefs... Looking back over his childhood in New Mexico, Sanchez now recognizes the Jewish signs: his parents shunning pork, spinning tops during Christmas and covering the mirrors at home if someone in the family died... For small populations in Africa and Asia, genetic research has shed light on claims of Jewish ancestry and provided a...
Kohanim, Tribe of Levi to have 'family reunion'
	07/24/2006 1:49:47 PM PDT · Posted by Blogger · 66 replies · 1,369+ views http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3280527,00.html | 7/24/06 | Ynet News Kohanim, Tribe of Levi to have 'family reunion' Groundbreaking 'Gathering of the Tribe' will include leading researchers and rabbis. Conference is set to take place in Jerusalem in summer 2007 Ynetnews Recent scientific research and DNA testing has shown that today's descendents of the biblical priesthood known as Kohanim are genetically related. Although the descendents of Aharon, the brother of Moses, have spread throughout the world over the past 3,300 years, the members of this extended family are being invited to participate in the first "family reunion' held since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Participants...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Ancient Jewish Shrine is Registered on Iran's National Works List [Esther and Mordecai tomb]
	12/15/2008 7:17:36 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 210+ views Biblical Archaeology Review | December 11, 2008 | editors The head of the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Office has announced that the tomb of Esther and Mordecai has been added to the country's list of national monuments. Asadollah Bayat told the Iranian news service that the ancient tomb is an important Jewish shrine and one of the most historically important buildings in the Hamedan province of Iran. The monument bears Hebrew inscriptions, both on the plaster wall of the main hall as well as on the finely worked wooden tomb boxes. Bayat stressed the monument's importance to the Jewish community, adding that "Jews gather here in the...
Faith and Philosophy
The Last of the Zoroastrians
	12/15/2008 10:15:56 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 23 replies · 756+ views Time | 09 Dec 2008 | Deena Guzder Far removed from Tehran's bustling tin-roofed teashops and Isfahan's verdant pomegranate gardens, the deserts known as Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut meet at the city of Yazd,once the heart of the Persian Empire. Walking across the wind-whipped plains of the forgotten city, a young Iranian woman dressed in colorful floral garbs points out a sand-dusted tower hovering in the distance like a dormant volcano under a relentless sun. "This is where we put tens of thousands of corpses over the years," she explains with a congenial smile. The funerary tower is part of the ancient burial practice of Zoroastrianism, the...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Rubble yields silver Temple 'tax' half-shekel
	12/18/2008 3:38:09 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 13 replies · 258+ views The Jerusalem Post | 18 Dec 2008 | ETGAR LEFKOVITS Two ancient coins, one used to pay the Temple tax and another minted by the Greek leader the Jews fought in the story of Hanukka, have been uncovered amid debris from Jerusalem's Temple Mount, an Israeli archeologist said Thursday. The two coins were recently found in rubble discarded by Islamic officials from the Temple Mount. It is carefully being sifted by two archeologists and a team of volunteers at a Jerusalem national park. The first coin, a silver half-shekel, was apparently minted on the Temple Mount itself by Temple authorities in the first year of the Great Revolt against the...
X'ed the Exodus, but...
Group of Egyptians to Sue 'All Worldwide Jews' Over "Theft of Pharoah's Gold" (No Joke)
	08/22/2003 6:13:30 AM PDT · Posted by AmericanInTokyo · 60 replies · 2,394+ views MEMRI (Middle East News Monitor/Translation) | 9 August 2003 (in Arabic) | MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) Special Dispatch - Egypt August 22, 2003 No. 556 (Translated from Arabic Language Sources) Egyptian Jurists to Sue 'The Jews' for Compensation for 'Trillions' of Tons of Gold Allegedly Stolen During Exodus from Egypt The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world." The following are excerpts from the interview: (1) Dr. Hilmi: "... Since the Jews...
Egypt
Egyptian Team Works to Uncover Statue of Pharaoh
	12/15/2008 3:34:45 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 309+ views Voice of America | December 13, 2008 | Edward Yeranian An archeological team, under the direction of Egypt's well-known Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, has begun uncovering rubble under which the largest known statue of Pharaoh Ramses II is buried in the southern Egyptian town of Sohag. The statue, which workers discovered more than 15 years ago, 476 kilometers miles south of Cairo, is finally being uncovered, according to Antiquities Chief Zahi Hawass. The Egyptian team had been hampered in its excavation work, until now, by the presence of a Muslim cemetery in the region of Akhmim across the Nile River from Sohag. Archeologists were finally able to begin their work...
Longer Perspectives
The Saint Louis Art Museum Ka-Nefer-Nefer Egyptian Mask Saga Continues
	12/14/2008 3:41:58 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 229+ views Riverfront Times Blog | Wednesday, November 26, 2008 | Tom Finkel A recent Associated Press article reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now looking into the provenance of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask, a 3,000-year-old Egyptian relic acquired in the late 1990s by the Saint Louis Art Museum. The mask, said to date back to the Nineteenth Dynasty (1293-1185 B.C.), was unearthed early in 1952 by an up-and-coming Egyptian archaeologist named Mohammed Zakaria Goneim. It is now at the center of a long-running ownership dispute between the art museum and the Egyptian government. The set-to was the topic of an in-depth Riverfront Times story by Malcolm Gay, "Out of Egypt,"...
Ancient Autopsies
Scientists find 2,000-year-old brain in Britain
	12/12/2008 12:36:31 PM PST · Posted by Red Badger · 39 replies · 875+ views www.physorg.com | 12/12/2008 | RAPHAEL G. SATTER The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery. "This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said. The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology...
Asia
Recently Uncovered Skeleton Offers Clues on Chinggis Khaan Era
	12/15/2008 7:22:12 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 27 replies · 478+ views Mongolian News | Thursday, December 11, 2008 | William Kennedy An ancient female skeleton discovered along the Tuul River, some 55 kilometers outside Ulaanbaatar, may be more remarkable for when she lived rather than who she was. After examining earrings and rings discovered amongst the remains, Kh. Lkhagvasuren, an archaeologist who heads the Mongolian Historical and Cultural Heritage Center, said this week that the woman was likely a contemporary of Chinggis Khaan... While an examination of the skeleton -- specifically the skull and waist -- revealed that it belonged to a teenage female, not much else is known about the young woman's life. The body was buried in a wooden...
China
Ancient ruins of salt-making from Shang and Zhou Dynasties found in Shouguang
	12/17/2008 7:43:11 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 166+ views People's Daily Online | December 15, 2008 | unattributed Recently, archeologists from the China Academy of Social Sciences and School of Archaeology and Museology from Peking University and Shandong Province visited and inspected archeological sites of salt-making at the Shuangwangcheng reservoir in Shouguang, Shandong Province. All the experts agree that the relics can be dated back to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and preliminarily examinations conclude that these are important ancient ruins connected to the salt industry. With over 80 sites covering 30 square kilometers the discovery of such densely distributed ancient ruins connected to salt-making is the first of its kind in China's archaeological history. The ancient ruins...
Phoenicians
Rare Lead Bars Discovered Off The Coast Of Ibiza May Be Carthaginian Munitions
	12/17/2008 7:39:02 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 19 replies · 456+ views Science News | Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | source: University of Cologne One of the bars has Iberian characters on it. According to the German Mining Museum in Bochum, the lead originates from the mines of Sierra Morena in southern Spain... A fourth specimen had already been found on an earlier occasion. The characters on the upper surfaces of two of the four known bars are syllabary symbols from the script of Northeastern Iberian... The meaning of the characters has not yet been determined, however, the dating of the objects to the third century B.C., i.e. the period of the Second Punic War, raises further questions. The reason for this is that...
Etruscans
Farmer digs up ancient sanctuary in Italy
	12/17/2008 3:47:51 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 8 replies · 434+ views Associated Press | Dec. 17, 2008 | Ariel David Riccardo De Luca / AP Ancient vases and cups recovered by Italian authorities are shown on Wednesday. ROME - A farmer working his land south of Rome dug up hundreds of artifacts from a 2,600-year-old sanctuary, but ran afoul of police when he tried to sell the ancient hoard, officials said Wednesday.
Rome and Italy
Pompeii Family's Final Hours Reconstructed
	12/15/2008 7:31:13 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 36 replies · 1,148+ views Discovery News | December 11, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi At around 1:00 p.m. on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Pompeii residents saw a pine tree-shaped column of smoke bursting from Vesuvius. Reaching nine miles into the sky, the column began spewing a thick pumice rain. Many residents rushed in the streets, trying to leave the city. "At that moment, Polybius' house was inhabited by 12 people, including a young woman in advanced pregnancy. They decided to remain in the house, most likely because it was safer for the pregnant woman. Given the circumstances, it was the right strategy," Scarpati said... At around 7:00 p.m., by which time the front part...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Indonesia May Face a "Supercycle" of Devastating Earthquakes
	12/15/2008 7:36:21 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 294+ views Discover Magazine 'blogs | December 12, 2008 | 80beats scientists are warning that several other major earthquakes are likely to occur in the region over the next decades. A new study examined the growth records of coral reefs off the coast of Sumatra, and say they show evidence of repeated bursts of earthquakes that relieve pressure on the Sunda fault. A shock in 2007 may be the beginning of a new cycle, researchers say. Says study coauthor Kerry Sieh: "If previous cycles are a reliable guide we can expect one or more very large west Sumatran earthquakes within the next two decades" [Reuters]. As if to illustrate the...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Mystery shrouds the ancient Oshoro circle
	12/15/2008 7:26:02 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 21 replies · 561+ views Japan Times | Sunday, December 14, 2008 | Michael Hoffman In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle -- a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made. What could it be? An Ainu fortress? ...Oshoro today is part of the city of Otaru, on its western fringe, 20 km from the city center and 60 km west of Sapporo. The Late Jomon period (circa 2400-1000 B.C.) was an age of northward migration. The north was warming, and severe rainfall was ravaging the...
Epigraphy and Language
Archaeologists unearth key to ancient sub-Saharan script
	12/16/2008 4:53:43 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 422+ views France 24 | Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | unattributed Three ancient ram statues newly discovered in Sudan could help decipher the oldest script in sub-Saharan Africa whose secrets are mysterious to the modern world, a Western archaeologist said on Tuesday. The rams were excavated at El-Hassa, 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Khartoum, on a sacred causeway leading to an ancient temple, said Vincent Rondot, head of the French Section of the Directorate on Antiquities of Sudan. The site is one of the most southern temples built to Amum, considered an omnipotent god, creator and guardian by people who lived throughout the Nile valley during the Merotic period 300...
Paleontology
New species of extinct animals found in Sahara
	12/16/2008 5:16:16 PM PST · Posted by JoeProBono · 21 replies · 461+ views hostednews British and Moroccan scientists said Tuesday they had found the remains of two new species of extinct animals in the Saharan desert, describing the find as one of the most important of the past 50 years. The team of paleontologists said they had unearthed a new species of pterosaur, a flying reptile from the Mesozoic era, and a new type of sauropod, a giant four-legged herbivore from the Jurassic period.
Scientist Says Ostrich Study Confirms Bird "Hands" Unlike Those Of Dinosaurs
	10/24/2002 1:32:37 PM PDT · Posted by vannrox · 100 replies · 929+ views University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill (http://www.unc.edu/) via Science Daily Magazine | Posted 8/15/2002 | Editorial Staff Scientist Says Ostrich Study Confirms Bird "Hands" Unlike Those Of Dinosaurs -- To make an omelet, you need to break some eggs. Not nearly so well known is that breaking eggs also can lead to new information about the evolution of birds and dinosaurs, a topic of hot debate among leading biologists. Drs. Alan Feduccia and Julie Nowicki of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have done just that. They opened a series of live ostrich eggs at various stages of development and found what they believe is proof that birds could not have descended...
Prehistory and Origins
'Hobbit' fossils represent a new species, concludes University of Minnesota anthropologist
	12/17/2008 10:57:58 PM PST · Posted by CE2949BB · 7 replies · 301+ views EurekAlert | 17-Dec-2008 University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty (along with colleague Karen Baab of Stony Brook University in New York) has made an important contribution toward solving one of the greatest paleoanthropological mysteries in recent history -- that fossilized skeletons resembling a mythical "hobbit" creature represent an entirely new species in humanity's evolutionary chain.
Too Much Monkey Business
Study Suggests Orangutans Are Cultured
	01/03/2003 7:50:16 AM PST · Posted by Junior · 36 replies · 1,894+ views AP Science | 2003-01-02 | PAUL RECER Some orangutan parents teach their offspring to use leaves as napkins. Others say good night with a spluttering, juicy raspberry. And still others get water from a hole by dipping a branch and then licking the leaves. AP Photo These are examples, researchers say, that prove the orangutan is a cultured ape, able to learn new living habits and to pass them along to the next generation. The discovery, reported in a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, suggests that early primates, which include the ancestors of humans, may have developed the ability to invent new behaviors,...
Monkey say, monkey do (wild chimps teach others to use tools, probably planning takeover)
	05/24/2002 8:01:45 AM PDT · Posted by dead · 29 replies · 552+ views SMH | May 25 2002 Young chimpanzees learn how to use tools to open nuts from their mothers. Photo: Christophe Boesch Researchers have discovered a band of chimpanzees in West Africa which use crude stone hammers to crack open nuts, a sophisticated use of tools the monkeys have been teaching to each new generation for more than a century. Using carefully selected stones weighing up to 15kg, the chimps pound the tough shell of the panda nut to extract a high-energy kernel that is an important part of the animal's diet, researchers report Friday in the journal Science. "It is a very skillful behavior...
Biology and Cryptobiology
(Werner) Herzog's epic quest for camera shy Nessie (Loch Ness Monster alert)
	07/01/2003 3:31:32 AM PDT · Posted by weegee · 3 replies · 431+ views Scottland On Sunday | Sun 29 Jun 2003 | BRIAN PENDREIGH Herzog's epic quest for camera shy Nessie BRIAN PENDREIGH THE legend is about to take on the monster. Eccentric German film-maker Werner Herzog will shortly arrive in Scotland to pursue one of the world's most elusive creatures. Herzog, widely regarded as one of the greatest film-makers alive because of his painstaking attention to detail, has become fascinated by the myth of the Loch Ness monster. He now intends to make the definitive documentary on Nessie for cinema release around the world. Friends say he has been obsessively collecting research material in advance of his trip to the Highlands next month....
Mormon missionaries find sasquatch print
	12/19/2008 12:37:27 PM PST · Posted by dragonblustar · 22 replies · 564+ views Houston-Today.com | December 4, 2008 Two missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received a scare on the night of Dec. 2 when they saw what they think was a set of sasquatch footprints outside of their Burns Lake home. Tyler Beck and Brad Blazzard are in B.C. for two years, rotating in different communities throughout the Smithers and Burns Lake area for the past seven months. "The first thing we thought was that someone was playing a trick on us," Beck said."But we don't know anyone our age who would do that and our house in on the southside, so...
Navigation
'Evil water' linked to mysterious drownings
	12/18/2008 4:29:15 AM PST · Posted by Joiseydude · 48 replies · 1,472+ views newscientist.com | 17 December 2008 | Matt Kaplan It may sound like a superstitious excuse for a poor day's swimming, but it is not uncommon for triathletes to complain that the water is behaving badly - even that it is "evil". Now a study suggests what they are feeling is real. Leo Maas, a fluid dynamicist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, and colleagues found that "dead water" - an obstructive effect encountered by ships at sea - can strike swimmers too. As ships sail over a layer of warm water sitting over saltier, or colder, layers, waves form in the boundary between the two layers....
Underwater Archaeology
200 Year Old "Dagger-Board" Schooner Discovered in Lake Ontario
	12/13/2008 7:19:54 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 613+ views Shipwreck World | Wednesday, December 10, 2008 | Jim Kennard A rare dagger-board schooner has been discovered in over 500 feet of water off the southern shore of Lake Ontario... Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville, shipwreck enthusiasts, located the schooner using deep towed side scan sonar equipment. Sailing vessels of this type were in use on the lakes for only a short period of time beginning in the very early 1800's. This ship is the only dagger-board schooner known to have been found in the Great Lakes.
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
American Indian cremation pit found on Ga. island
	12/19/2008 3:14:08 AM PST · Posted by NCDragon · 8 replies · 364+ views AP via WRALNews.com | December 19, 2008 | RUSS BYNUM Exposed by erosion at the edge of a crumbling bluff, the pit discovered beneath 2 feet of sandy dirt at first appeared to be a grave just long and deep enough to bury a human body. An excavation by archaeologists on Ossabaw Island revealed something more puzzling - just a few small bones, apparently from fingers or toes, mixed with charcoal, bits of burned logs and pottery shards more than 1,000 to 3,000 years old. The find has led researchers to suspect that American Indians used the ancient pit to burn bodies of the dead, making it...
Peru, the Andes
'Ancient city unearthed' in Peru [ Chiclayo, Wari, Moche ]
	12/17/2008 7:23:13 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 14 replies · 294+ views BBC | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 | unattributed The site, near the Pacific coastal city of Chiclayo, probably dates to the Wari culture which ruled the Andes of modern Peru between the 7th and 12th Century. The once buried city showed evidence of human sacrifice
British Isles
Century-old message in a bottle found[UK]
	12/20/2008 10:52:35 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 15 replies · 746+ views The Northern Echo | 20 Dec 2008 | Jim McTaggart WHEN a workman started knocking down part of a chimney in a museum he found a letter in a beer bottle that had lain hidden for 102 years. Stonemason Joe Kipling discovered the bottle as he worked on a major alteration project at the Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle. Museum officials were delighted yesterday when they read the letter, which had been handwritten in 1906 by Owen Stanley Scott, who was the curator and secretary of the museum at the time. It states that the flue was one of a number being blocked up in April 1906 when stoves used...
Angles, Saxons, Jutes
Fifth Century settlement located [ Kent UK ]
	12/17/2008 7:34:59 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 180+ views BBC | Thursday, December 11, 2008 | unattributed A Fifth Century Germanic settlement has been discovered on land set out for regeneration in Kent. A team of 30 archaeologists has been studying debris at the site in Rushenden, on the Isle of Sheppey, to learn how the original settlers lived. The remains of a large boat-shaped hall have been found as well as evidence of boat-building activity. Dr Paul Wilkinson, who heads the dig, said the settlement was one of the most important finds of its kind in Kent. "It's significant because it's a Germanic establishment. The boat shape gives the game away to us," he said. "The...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Video: Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece
	12/19/2008 12:52:51 PM PST · Posted by JoeProBono · 21 replies · 636+ views timesonline | December 19, 2008 The mystery is set in the Louvre and the clues are hidden behind a 16th-century masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Remind you of anything? Lovers of Dan Brown novels will be salivating at the discovery of three previously unknown drawings on the back of one of Leonardo's major works. A curator spotted the sketches on the back of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne when it was taken down in September for restoration.
Greeks
The Discovery & Demonstration of the Minoan Calendar
	12/16/2008 3:07:04 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 22 replies · 405+ views Crete Gazette | December 16, 2008 | Dr. Jack Dempsey we knew nothing of how Minoan people reckoned the days of the year and the flow of time. No advanced and prosperous society could manage its agriculture, foreign trade and ritual life without a calendar. And yet, till now, little was known except that the 4-year timing of Olympic Games (first recorded in 776 BCE) was based in a much older calendar that began each year at Winter Solstice. This mystery began to be solved in 1972, when American scholar Dr. Charles F. Herberger published The Thread of Ariadne and revealed the Minoan calendar hiding in plain sight -- in...
Oh So Mysteriouso
The Mysteries of Rennes-Le-Chateau.
	07/24/2002 6:54:02 PM PDT · Posted by vannrox · 18 replies · 3,672+ views Ancient Civilizations | Wednesday, July 17, 2002 | Editorial Staff The Mysteries of Rennes-Le-Chateau. Perched on a dusty hilltop in Languedoc in the French Pyrenees lies the little village of Rennes-le-Ch‚teau. Three little words, Rennes-le-Chateau -- The passing millennia have produced many bizarre mysteries; the riddle of the Sphinx and the Pyramids on the Giza plateau are probably the most famous, but in recent years, perhaps the most engrossing of these enigmas concerns what transpired in the quiet village of Rennes-le-Chateau in the foothills of the French Pyrenees during the dying years of the 19th century. There have been many theories proffered to explain the events, but in essence, not one has...
Turin
Discovery Channel Shroud of Turin documentary will air again this Saturday
	12/19/2008 12:06:56 AM PST · Posted by Swordmaker · 35 replies · 476+ views Shroud.com email | 12/18/2008 | Barrie Schwortz In case you missed it last Sunday, the new Shroud documentary "Unwrapping the Shroud: New Evidence," will be airing again on Discovery Channel this coming Saturday evening, December 20 at 10:00pm eastern and again two hours later at 12:00am (early Sunday morning). Check your local listings for the exact time in your area.
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
Arabic and Its Role in Egyptology and Egyptian Archaeology
	12/15/2008 7:42:28 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 157+ views Journal of the World Archaeological Congress | April 17, 2008 | Nicole B. Hansen Their lack of Arabic skills limits non-Egyptian Egyptologists in their ability to gain insights into Egyptian culture. The overwhelming reliance on European languages in the field limits the contributions that Egyptian Egyptologists are able to make to the field. The effects of these factors are discussed and suggestions are made as to how the situation can be ameliorated... Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology have been historically dominated by the use of three languages: English, French and German. Any scholar who wishes to make a serious career in the field must develop at least a reading knowledge of these three languages, in...
Anatolia
Derinkuyu, the mysterious underground city of Turkey
	12/15/2008 9:37:10 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 14 replies · 689+ views Corner Mystery | 11 Dec 2008 | CM In 1963, an inhabitant of Derinkuyu (in the region of Cappadocia, central Anatolia, Turkey), knocking down a wall of his house cave, discovered amazed that behind it was a mysterious room that he had never seen, and this led him room to another and another and another to it ... By chance he had discovered the underground city of Derinkuyu, whose first level could be excavated by the Hittites around 1400 BC Archaeologists began to explore this fascinating underground city abandoned. It managed to forty meters deep, but is believed to have a fund of up to 85 meters. At...
Climate
The Ghosts of Antarctica: Abandoned Stations and Huts
	12/15/2008 10:24:29 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 32 replies · 964+ views DRB | 09 Dec 2008 | Constantine vonHoffman More ghosts per capita than any continent Does Antarctica have the most ghosts of any continent? On a per capita basis, the answer is yes. While the South Pole and environs doesn't have a permanent population, there are on average 2,500 people living there during the year -- approximately 4000 in summer and 1000 incredibly hardy ones in winter (source). While no complete necrologies exists for the Antarctic, at least 268 people have died there since humanity first decided it was a good place to visit. So if the ghosts divvie the work evenly, each one only has to haunt...
World War Eleven
Islamo Nazism Historic reminder - on this day the Mufti met with Hitler
	11/21/2008 1:11:26 AM PST · Posted by PRePublic · 5 replies · 189+ views JihadiPedia Islamo Nazism Historic reminder - on this day the Mufti met with Hitler The Infamous Arab Muslim leader, Haj Amin Al Husseini (of "Palestine") who was responsible for inciting for the first large scale massacre of Jews by Arabs in 1929, and the Farhud massacre of the Jews in Iraq in 1941 On November 21, 1941 he meets with Adolph Hitler † The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism:Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussein, Who was the Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini? Grand Mufti with Hitler. Grand Mufti with Hitler. Muhammed Amin al-Husseini.
'Adolf Hitler's bookmark' sold in Starbucks car park
	12/16/2008 4:53:09 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 10 replies · 494+ views The Telegraph The 18-carat artefact, which is engraved with a message to the German Nazi leader from his wife Eva Braun, had been missing since it was stolen six years ago. The dedication, to "My Adolf", consoles Hitler for the German surrender at Stalingrad in 1943. The defeat was "only an inconvenience that will not break your certainty of victory", it reads. "My love for you will be eternal, as our Reich will be eternal. Always yours, Eva. 3-2-43." US police recovered the bookmark after a Romanian named Christian Popescu attempted to sell it to an undercover agent for £65,000 ($100,000). Officers...
Takes a Licking...
Swiss watch found in 400-year-old tomb
	12/19/2008 1:22:56 AM PST · Posted by Bon mots · 52 replies · 1,761+ views Ananova | December 2008 | staff Archeologists in China are baffled after finding a tiny Swiss watch in a 400-year-old tomb. The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town. "When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound,? said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum. "We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch." The time...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Gladiators return to Colosseum after 2,000 years
	12/20/2008 9:25:01 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 17 replies · 256+ views The Times | December 20, 2008 They came. They saw. They slaughtered. And now, almost 2,000 years after fighters and wild animals last entertained the rabble, gladiators are set to return to the Colosseum. Umberto Broccoli, the head of archaeology at Rome city council, said it was time that the five million people who visited the Colosseum annually saw the kind of shows originally staged there. They should also experience "the sights, sounds and smells" of Ancient Rome. Mauro Cutrufo, the deputy mayor, said that a series of events would be held next year to mark the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of the Emperor...
end of digest #231 20081220

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #231 20081220 · Saturday, December 20, 2008 · 46 topics · 2151320 to 2147790 · 697 members ·
	Saturday Dec 20 2008 v 5 n 21 view this issue	Welcome to the 231st issue. Christmas is Thursday. This issue is late because I had a lot to do yesterday, and spent my free time (about 60 minutes) not doing the Digest. I did spend a few hours on the road, and most of that time was listening to the book-on-CD version of Barbara Mertz' "Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs". Hey, that title sounds familiar... We've almost reached 700 members. Quit teasing me and join. This is late, and that's a break for you, no more smart remarks from me. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks eleni121.

Nicholas of Myra: the Story of Saint Nicholas
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #232 Saturday, December 27, 2008
Partisan Media Shills Debunked, Again
UNESCO inspection finds no evidence of recent looting in Northern Iraq
	12/21/2008 1:22:17 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 125+ views The Art Newspaper | December 18, 2008 | Martin Bailey A UNESCO mission has visited northern Iraq, with transport and security arranged by American troops. The specialists visited four key sites -- Nimrud, Ninevah, Ashur and Hatra -- and found no evidence of recent looting. This was the first UNESCO inspection since the 2003 invasion. The visit, which for security reasons was not publicised at the time, was from 18-25 November. Details of their findings were later released by Dr Suzanne Bott, a US State Department cultural heritage advisor based at Mosul, in Ninewa province. UNESCO confirmed the mission had taken place, saying that it had been organised by the...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Hand-written note shows El Greco defending Byzantine style in face of Western art
	12/22/2008 7:05:36 AM PST · Posted by eleni121 · 7 replies · 211+ views AlphaGalielo | December 18, 2008 | AlphaGalileo A new investigation could end many of the speculations about the works of El Greco and the man himself. A hand-written annotation to a book, similar to the glosses of Saint Emilianus, found in Spain in a copy of Lives of the most excellent architects, painters and sculptors by Giorgio Vasari, has led Nicos Hadjinicolau, a researcher from the Institute of Mediterranean Studies, to conclude that the artist -- contrary to popular belief -- was a defender of Byzantine art.
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Neanderthals could have died out because their bodies overheated
	12/21/2008 9:45:20 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 65 replies · 972+ views Telegraph | 20 Dec 2008 | Richard Gray Neanderthals may have died out because their bodies overheated as the Earth grew warmer, according to new research. Analysis of DNA obtained from Neanderthal remains has revealed key differences from modern humans that suggest their bodies produced excess heat. While in the cold climate of an ice age this would have provided the species with an advantage, as the earth warmed they would have been less able to cope. Ultimately this would have caused their extinction around 24,000 years ago. Scientists at Newcastle University have put forward the theory after examining a particular form of genetic material which was obtained...
British Isles
Major Roman coins find at Petworth[UK]
	12/23/2008 8:49:08 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 8 replies · 294+ views Midhurst and Petworth Observer | 22 Dec 2008 | Midhurst and Petworth Observer An important discovery of more than 100 Roman coins has left archaeologists wondering whether Petworth has more to do with the Romans than first thought. The 103 coins, which equate to a third of a year's wages for a Roman soldier, were found on farmland in the area on November 24. Experts have previously believed Petworth to have been little affected by the Romans, but the discovery of the silver coins could mean there were wealthy people living there. The coins date from the third and second century BC to the Hadrian period of 132 to 148AD. Sussex Archaeological Society...
Rome and Italy
Ceramic Roman Lamp Of 1st Century Shows Gynecological Examination
	12/23/2008 4:52:35 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 28 replies · 621+ views MedIndia | Tuesday, December 23, 2008 | ANI A group of archaeologists has found in the northern Spanish region of Leon a ceramic lamp dating from the beginning of the 1st century that shows a representation of the gynecological exam performed on a sick woman. A report by the Latin American Herald Tribune said that the find is of an oil lamp, which according to Archaeology professor at Madrid's Universidad Complutense Angel Morillo, is a unique find without parallel in the Roman world. It is an exceptional piece that illustrates the presence of doctors in the city, and - specifically - a military hospital, according to Morillo. On...
Phoenicians
Ancient Mass Graves of Soldiers, Babies Found in Italy [ Himera battled Carthage ]
	12/21/2008 3:20:01 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies · 773+ views National Geographic News | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 | Maria Cristina Valsecchi More than 10,000 graves containing ancient amphorae, "baby bottles," and the bodies of soldiers who fought the Carthaginians were found near the ancient Greek colony of Himera, in Italy, archaeologists announced recently... "Each [mass grave] contains from 15 to 25 skeletons. They were all young healthy men and they all died a violent death. Some of the skeletons have broken skulls and in some cases we found the tips of the arrows that killed them," Vassallo said. He thinks the human remains are from soldiers who died fighting the Carthaginians in a famous 480 B.C. battle described by Greek historian...
Greeks
NY exhibit unveils women's lives in ancient Greece
	12/22/2008 7:56:09 AM PST · Posted by eleni121 · 14 replies · 433+ views PHYSORG | December 20, 2008 | VERENA DOBNIK A woman's place has never been just in the home - not even in ancient Greece. The proof is in an exhibit titled "Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens" - a collection of artifacts that correct the cliched idea of Athenian women as passive, homebound nurturers of men and children.
Ancient Autopsies
Egyptian archaeologists unveil pair of 4,300-year-old tombs of pharaonic officials
	12/23/2008 5:14:03 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 209+ views LA Times | Monday, December 22, 2008 | Rebecca Santana, AP, with contributions by Maamoun Youssef A pair of 4,300-year-old pharaonic tombs discovered at Saqqara indicate that the sprawling necropolis south of Cairo is even larger than previously thought, Egypt's top archaeologist said Monday. The rock-cut tombs were built for high officials -- one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
Egypt
King Tut's Father ID'd in Stone Inscription
	12/21/2008 1:39:52 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 31 replies · 407+ views Discovery News | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi "We can now say that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News. The finding offers evidence against another leading theory that King Tut was sired by the minor king Smenkhkare. Hawass discovered the missing part of a broken limestone block a few months ago in a storeroom at el Ashmunein, a village on the west bank of the Nile some 150 miles south of Cairo. Once reassembled, the slab has become "an accurate piece of evidence that proves Tut lived in el Amarna with Akhenaten and he married his...
Near East
Cavalry Soldiers unearth years of ancient Iraqi history
	12/24/2008 5:09:56 PM PST · Posted by SandRat · 19 replies · 624+ views Multi-National Force - Iraq FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq -- Soldiers from the 1-10 Cavalry Regiment, 172 Infantry Brigade unearthed potentially ancient pottery artifacts, while preparing to excavate a site for the building of a patrol base for the Iraqi Army in the Mahawil area Dec. 11. The Soldiers immediately stopped construction and restricted access to the site until someone with archeological expertise could be contacted and survey the site to determine if the pottery shards were of cultural importance and antiquity. Capt. Christopher Neyman, the C Troop commander, arrived at the scene and ensured the site was protected by establishing a 24 hour...
Priceless Smuggled Treasure Found
	12/25/2008 2:06:55 PM PST · Posted by SandRat · 21 replies · 767+ views Multi-National Force - Iraq BASRA -- Iraqi Security Forces recently uncovered hundreds of historical artifacts during two raids in northern Basra. The 228 ancient artifacts included Sumerian and Babylonian sculpture, gold jewelry and other items from ancient Mesopotamia."This is my favorite item," said Iraqi Col. Ali Sabah, commander of the Basra Emergency Battalion that led the operation, holding a piece of gold jewelry. "It's gold from the Babylon ages and about 6,000 years old. It doesn't have a price." "I'm very happy because this is my civilization's heritage," he said. The Basra Emergency Battalion led raid operated from tips that smugglers intended to remove the...
Vikings
1,000 years on, perils of fake Viking swords are revealed
	12/27/2008 6:39:09 AM PST · Posted by decimon · 27 replies · 814+ views Guardian | Dec. 27, 2008 | Maev Kennedy It must have been an appalling moment when a Viking realised he had paid two cows for a fake designer sword; a clash of blade on blade in battle would have led to his sword, still sharp enough to slice through bone, shattering like glass. "You really didn't want to have that happen," said Dr Alan Williams, an archaeometallurgist and consultant to the Wallace Collection, the London museum which has one of the best assemblies of ancient weapons in the world. He and Tony Fry, a senior researcher at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, south-west London, have solved a...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
New World post-pandemic reforestation helped start Little Ice Age, say Stanford scientists
	12/18/2008 8:57:54 AM PST · Posted by Red Badger · 80 replies · 1,306+ views www.physorg.com | 12-18-2008 | Source: Stanford University The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement. In recent years, there has been growing evidence for the hypothesis that the effect of the pandemics in the Americas wasn't confined to killing indigenous peoples. Global climate appears to have been altered as well. Stanford University researchers have conducted a comprehensive analysis of data detailing the amount of charcoal contained in soils and lake sediments at the sites...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Predecessor of Cows, The Aurochs, Were Still Living In The Netherlands Around AD 600
	12/21/2008 10:02:49 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv · 56 replies · 921+ views ScienceDaily | Monday, December 15, 2008 | University of Groningen Archaeological researchers at the University of Groningen have discovered that the aurochs, the predecessor of our present-day cow, lived in the Netherlands for longer than originally assumed. Remains of bones recently retrieved from a horn core found in Holwerd (Friesland, Netherlands), show that the aurochs became extinct in around AD 600 and not in the fourth century. The last aurochs died in Poland in 1627... The aurochs was much larger than the common cows we know today, with aurochs bulls measuring between 160 and 180 cm at the withers, and aurochs cows between 140 and 150 cm. The cattle bred...
Oh So Mysteriouso
The Missing 13th Amendment
	12/24/2008 8:25:36 AM PST · Posted by Daddynoz · 69 replies · 2,830+ views The Commentator | 24DEC08 | Unknown TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR" In the winter of 1983, archival research expert David Dodge, and former Baltimore police investigator Tom Dunn, were searching for evidence of government corruption in public records stored in the Belfast Library on the coast of Maine. By chance, they discovered the library's oldest authentic copy of the Constitution of the United States (printed in 1825). Both men were stunned to see this document included a 13th Amendment that no longer appears on current copies of the Constitution. Moreover, after studying the Amendment's language and historical context, they realized the principle intent of this "missing"...
Early America
Christmas Night, 1776
	12/23/2008 1:42:36 PM PST · Posted by jessduntno · 51 replies · 1,029+ views humanevents | Today | Newt Gingrich Christmas Night, 1776 By Newt Gingrich On Christmas Day, 1776, nearly all thought the Revolution was lost, except for a valiant few who still believed in "The Cause." We owe our liberty today to those valiant few. Led by George Washington, most of his army, dressed in rags and barefoot, faced a winter gale of rain, sleet, ice and snow. This band of patriots braved a midnight river crossing and a nine mile march over frozen roads to win a spectacular victory at Trenton, New Jersey, the following morning. Those were indeed times, as Thomas Paine would write, that "try...
A Christmas to Remember (1776)
	12/24/2008 2:12:31 PM PST · Posted by Coleus · 10 replies · 359+ views the new american | 12.24.08 | Dennis Behreandt Christmas morning dawned gloomy and cold over the rebel camp. The low, overcast sky promised drizzle, or worse, by afternoon. The temperature, hovering just above freezing the past few days, was now dropping rapidly. The weather conditions did not improve the mood of the soldiers who, having skewered chunks of meat with the ramrods from their flint-lock firearms, were squatting around low campfires preparing the morning's repast.† The general of this rag-tag army was cold too, but for the good of his men he tried not to let it show. Standing six feet, two inches tall and weighing nearly 220...
Pages
Ten American Biographies Everyone Should Read
	11/16/2003 1:11:01 PM PST · Posted by Theodore R. · 35 replies · 4,159+ views Human Events Online | 11-14-03 | Human Events Ten American Biographies Everyone Should Read Posted Nov 14, 2003 HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 21 distinguished scholars to help us develop a list of Ten American Biographies Everyone Should Read. We asked them first to nominate biographies or autobiographies of anyone who had been a native-born or naturalized American citizen since 1776. Then they listed their top ten choices from the entire roster of nominated titles. A book received 10 points for each No. 1 vote it received, 9 points for each No. 2 vote, and so on. The title with the highest aggregate score was rated the...
Longer Perspectives
Conor Cruise O'Brien: A Vindication of Edmund Burke
	12/22/2008 1:56:59 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 18 replies · 428+ views National Review Online | December 22, 2008 | Conor Cruise O'Brien December 22, 2008, 1:30 a.m. A Vindication of Edmund Burke An NRO Flashback EDITOR'S NOTE: Edmund Burke biographer Conor Cruise O'Brien died this past weekend at the age of 91. The O'Brien piece below was the cover story in the December 17, 1990, issue of National Review. I. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES On November 1, 1790, Edmund Burke's most famous book, Reflections on the Revolution in France, was published. It is important to get the title right. The book is often referred to as Reflections on the French Revolution. The book's real title adequately reveals Burke's intentions. Burke's point, in...
Civil War
Pilgrim politician: Abe Lincoln remembered as president who learned God is prime actor in history
	02/21/2008 5:07:01 AM PST · Posted by Caleb1411 · 2 replies · 333+ views WORLD | February 09, 2008 | Marvin Olasky Abraham Lincoln popped out of his mother's womb on Feb. 12, 1809, which means that soon begins a year of activities leading up to his bicentennial in 2009. With only $200, the devoted can buy the "premier package" for "The Official Bicentennial Kick-Off" next week in Kentucky, where Lincoln was born. That expenditure buys admission to a "Champagne Reception" and other activities. In a campaign year when reporters often ask candidates for yes-or-no answers concerning their religious beliefs, there is something to learn from Abraham Lincoln's long and winding road to God. Apart from the spin -- proclamations that Lincoln was a...
Underwater Archaeology
Divers find 1903 shipwreck near Block Island
	12/23/2008 7:46:05 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 4 replies · 387+ views Boston Globe | December 23, 2008 A group of divers says it has found the wreckage of a schooner that collided with a steamship and sank in 1903 near Block Island, R.I. Mark Munro of Griswold, Conn., said his Sound Underwater Survey group and the Baccala Wreck Divers began looking for the remains of the Jennie R. Dubois in 2002, searching a few times a year in an area that eventually stretched to 17 square miles. The group positively identified the shipwreck in September 2007, but kept it a secret until Monday so more research could be done and others interested in the ship couldn't claim...
Wilson's War
Secret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship
	12/26/2008 9:34:33 PM PST · Posted by SecAmndmt · 143 replies · 2,473+ views Daily Mail Online (UK) | December 20, 2008 | Sam Greenhill Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War. But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915. Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target. The Cunard vessel, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was sunk eight miles off the Irish coast by a U-boat.
World War Eleven
General Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
	12/20/2008 6:04:53 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 236 replies · 5,958+ views The Telegraph | 12/20/2008 | Tim Shipman in Washington The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with Russians that cost American lives. 'We've got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he's out of control and we must save him from himself'. The OSS head General did not trust Patton The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in...
General G.S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
	12/22/2008 3:26:44 AM PST · Posted by Daffynition · 54 replies · 1,565+ views The Telegraph | December 21, 2008 | Tim Shipman in Washington The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives. The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home. But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Sunken Soviet sub needs buyer _ or it's scrapped (A late Christmas gift for me?)
	12/25/2008 10:22:40 AM PST · Posted by llevrok · 16 replies · 701+ views Philly.Com | 12/24/08 | eric tucker PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A former Soviet cruise missile submarine that was once featured in a Hollywood film and sank in the Providence River during a storm last year will be converted to scrap metal if no one agrees to buy it, the president of the foundation that owns it said Wednesday. The 282-foot submarine, also known as Juliett 484, began serving as a floating educational museum in 2002, until it went down during a powerful nor'easter in April 2007. Army and Navy dive crews raised the sub in a training exercise last July, and inspections showed the vessel had deteriorated...
Let's Have Jerusalem
British tourist strikes gold in Jerusalem parking lot...
	12/22/2008 10:16:19 AM PST · Posted by TaraP · 39 replies · 1,288+ views Jerusalem Post | Dec 22nd, 2008 Hundreds of gold coins from the seventh century have been uncovered just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Monday. British tourist discovers hundreds of 7th century coins in Jerusalem's Old City The hoard of 264 gold coins was discovered Sunday by a British tourist volunteering at the ongoing dig in a parking lot outside the Dung Gate in the ancient City of David. The find is "one of the largest and most impressive" coins hoards even discovered in Jerusalem, and by far the largest and most important of its period, said Dr. Doron Ben-Ami...
Jerusalem dig finds big gold hoard from 7th century
	12/22/2008 7:58:22 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 26 replies · 806+ views Reuters | 22 Dec 2008 | Douglas Hamilton Excavations have unearthed a hoard of more than 1,300-year-old gold coins under a car park by the ancient walls of Jerusalem, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said on Monday. Archaeologists said the discovery of the 264 coins, in the ruins of a building dating to about the 7th century, the end of the Byzantine period, was one of the largest coin hoards uncovered in Jerusalem. "We've had pottery, we've had glass, but we've had nothing like this," said British archaeologist Nadine Ross, who found the hoard under a large rock on Sunday, in the fourth and final week of a trip...
Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
'Jesus was born in June', astronomers claim
	12/09/2008 11:28:16 AM PST · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 102 replies · 1,652+ views telegraph.co.uk | December 9, 2008 Astronomers have calculated that Christmas should be in June, by charting the appearance of the 'Christmas star' which the Bible says led the three Wise Men to Jesus. They found that a bright star which appeared over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago pinpointed the date of Christ's birth as June 17 rather than December 25. The researchers claim the 'Christmas star' was most likely a magnificent conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter, which were so close together they would have shone unusually brightly as a single "beacon of light" which appeared suddenly. If the team is correct, it would mean...
Kresh
Chuck Norris: Jacking Jesus
	12/23/2008 2:05:02 AM PST · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · 8 replies · 479+ views Townhall | December 23, 2008 | Chuck Norris 'Tis the season to be Jesus stealing? Away in a manger, no Christ for the bed? It has become a new Christmas fetish -- neutering Nativity scenes by jacking Jesus. Just over the past week, dozens of mini-messiahs have been nabbed from Nativities across the country. Residences, churches and even civic displays in New York, Michigan, Nebraska, Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Texas have been exploited by these Christmas scrooges. And such criminal acts are not restricted to America, as a baby Jesus was smashed and then stolen at the 12th-century St. John's Church in Cardiff, Wales, and a...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Japanese who say they are the descendants of Jesus
	12/23/2008 6:08:28 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 14 replies · 541+ views The Telegraph | 23 Dec 2008 On Dec 25, the round-faced Mr Sawaguchi will get up in the icy predawn of northern Japan, put on his uniform of suit and tie and head off for another day as a civil servant in the construction division of Aomori Prefectural Government. But on his way out the door of his home, in the hamlet of Shingo, he will probably give a nod in the direction of the mound of earth topped by a wooden cross that is the last resting place of the man that Christianity reveres as the Messiah. "I'm not really planning anything at all for...
Faith and Philosophy
Ufo's, Nibiru, 2012...and the Mandaeans
	12/23/2008 6:44:46 PM PST · Posted by indianbob · 30 replies · 719+ views All News Web | 24-12-2008 | M Cohen With all the talk about Nibiru, 2012 and UFO's it is amazing that many doing the talking have never heard of the Mandaeans, really amazing. It is like knowing all about Jesus and never having heard of the Jews. In fact it is amazing that Jews, Muslims and Christians have hardly heard of these people, considering they, in all likelihood, are the possessors of the religion and heritage that gave birth to all of the three monotheistic religions and they are still around to tell their story even if no one wants to hear it. So unknown is this grouping...
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
According to expert guest on CoasttocoastAM - Christians burned the library at Alexandria
	12/22/2008 8:37:30 PM PST · Posted by edcoil · 31 replies · 866+ views Coast to Coast idiots | 12-22-08 | edcoil While driving into the office this morning I heard the "expert" guest on Coast to Coast tell everyone not once but several times it was the terrible Christians that burned down the Library at Alexandria. Sadly, facts do not matter or go challenged on that political show any longer. The fact is: Amr bin Aas at the behest of the Second Caliph, Umar burned the Library in Alexandria. Umar the Great or Omar the Great was a Muslim convert from the Banu Adi clan of the Quraysh tribe,[1] and a sahaba (righteous companion) of Muhammad. He became the second Caliph...
Asia
Dropa and the mysteries of the mountains of BayanKara-Ula.
	11/28/2002 11:48:10 AM PST · Posted by vannrox · 29 replies · 3,586+ views DROMO | FR Post 11-28-2002 | Editorial Staff Dropa background High in the mountains of Bayan Kara-Ula, on the boarders of China and Tibet - a team of archeologists were conducting a very detailed routine survey of a series of interlinked caves. Their interests had been excited by the discovery of lines of neatly arranged graves which contained the skeletons of what must have been a strange race of human beings; strange because they had unnaturally spindly bodies and large, overdeveloped heads. At first, it had been thought that the caves had been the home of a hitherto unkown species of ape. But as the leader of...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Who are the Zoroastrians?
	07/29/2003 11:17:26 PM PDT · Posted by freedom44 · 37 replies · 789+ views Zoroastrian Studies | 7/29/03 | Zoroastrian Studies Zoroastrians are the followers of the great Iranian prophet, Spitaman Zarathushtra (known to the Greeks as Zoroaster). Zarathushtra lived and preached somewhere around the Aral Sea, about three and a half thousand years ago, circa 1500 B.C.E. The Background Iran, at the time of Zarathushtra's birth, was a land where many pagan gods and goddesses were being propitiated through ignorance and fear. The prophet Zarathushtra, in his sublime hymns, the Gathas, revealed to mankind that there was the One, Supreme, All-Knowing, Eternal God of the good creations---Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, who was wholly Wise, Good and Just. Ahura...
Zoroastrian Prophecies
	05/16/2004 9:31:44 PM PDT · Posted by freedom44 · 90 replies · 720+ views Avesta | 5/16/04 | Avesta "Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their fullest logical coherence ..." (Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians, pg 29) Coming Comet will Destroy Earth See also Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth According to Zoroastrian scripture, the end of the world will come about when...
Future not so bright for Iran's [Zoroastrians]
	06/18/2004 3:25:42 PM PDT · Posted by freedom44 · 37 replies · 403+ views Yahoo! AFP | 6/17/04 | Yahoo! AFP YAZD, Iran (AFP) - In the burning desert north of this ancient Iranian city, the the Islamic republic's last followers of the Zoroastrian religion are making their annual pilgrimage to the temple of Chak-Chak. "We are a species on the road to extinction," laments Babak, a man in his sixties who came from Tehran with his wife for the annual pilgrimage to one of the Zoroastrians' holiest sites -- the rocky peak of Chak-Chak. The site is a 70-kilometer (50-mile) drive from the central Iranian city of Yazd, the historical capital of what many consider to be the world's first...
Iran hardliners keep lid on ancient fire festival
	03/16/2005 2:56:16 PM PST · Posted by freedom44 · 12 replies · 497+ views Reuters | 3/16/05 | Christian Oliver ISFAHAN, Iran, March 16 (Reuters) - Iranian authorities beat up and tear gassed exuberant young revellers as they breathed new life into a pre-Islamic fire festival with a night of dancing, flirting and fireworks. The Islamic Republic, which has an awkward relationship with its ancient Zoroastrian religion, only gave guarded recognition to the "Chaharshanbe Souri" festival last year. Hundreds of people poured onto the streets in Tehran and other cities for a rare night of partying. Public revelry is unusual in Iran where the authorities consider it to be at odds with the country's strict moral codes. The IRNA news...
The Fire in Iran. Forget about diplomacy, this is war.
	03/17/2005 7:59:31 AM PST · Posted by .cnI redruM · 29 replies · 1,108+ views NRO | March 17, 2005, 7:53 a.m. | Michael Ledeen From al-Reuters, we have a masterpiece of disinformation: ISFAHAN -- Iranian authorities beat up and tear gassed exuberant young revellers as they breathed new life into a pre-Islamic fire festival with a night of dancing, flirting and fireworks. The Islamic Republic, which has an awkward relationship with its ancient Zoroastrian religion, only gave guarded recognition to the "Chaharshanbe Souri" festival last year. The Islamic republic does not have "an awkward relationship" with Zoroastrianism. It forbids Zoroastrian practices, including the celebration of the Zoroastrian New Year, Norooz. Forget about "guarded recognition;" there is a ban. The mullahs know something that al-Reuters...
end of digest #232 20081227

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #232 20081227 · Saturday, December 27, 2008 · 38 topics · 2154736 to 2152289 · 697 members ·
	Saturday Dec 27 2008 v 5 n 23 view this issue	Welcome to the 232nd issue. The previous issue should have been v 5, n 22 (forgot to change it from 21). Just noticed that as I started work on this digest, a couple of hours after posting 231. :') A mere 38 topics (whew!), five of which are archival additions regarding the Zoroastrians. That may come to be more significant if wars break out between A) Pakistan and India, and/or B) Iran's mullahcracy and its enemies inside and outside the country. The next Digest will come out next year, so just to get ready, I'd like to call some more attention to this: Post your Predictions for 2009 Free Republic | 12.01.08 | Perdogg Posted on 11/30/2008 6:26:31 PM PST by Perdogg Christmas was Thursday. I hope it was happy for all you. We've almost reached 700 members. Quit teasing me and join. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

[SunkenCiv]

This is one of those unusual off-day pings to both the Digest and GGG regular lists.

I wrote this:

National Geographic is coming off my list of GGG sources, and I won't be buying anything further from their line of products. [*]

Is that an overreaction? NG is doubtless not the only publication riddled with partisan bias, even on the short list used in my standard ping message links. Please weigh in with your advice and opinions.

[fanfan]

Remember how excited we used to get when “Dad’s” National Geographic” arrived in the mail?

I wasn’t allowed to touch it until I was older, and even then, only after Dad had read it.

It’s not your father’s NG, anymore.

;-)

[ApplegateRanch]

No over reaction AFAIC.

They went political a long time back, and I cancelled my subscription; quit reading them in waiting rooms; and haven’t watched any of their programming in years.

[YOUGOTIT]

I agree National Geo seems to have taken the position that they can tell falsehoods and since they are who they say they are get away with it. It is a shame as they in the past, especially when I was growing up (No TV just books and mags) were one of the best real informing in the world.

[zeugma]

Is that an overreaction? NG is doubtless not the only publication riddled with partisan bias, even on the short list used in my standard ping message links. Please weigh in with your advice and opinions.

I don't have a proble with that. I dropped my subscriptions with them a long time ago. It's just another leftist rag as far as I'm concerned.

[ARCADIA]

I have no problem with National Geographic. If an article is factual and informative, we should post it. It’s editorial line really shouldn’t matter; I think most of us can wade through their polemics and get at the kernels of good stuff.

[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #233 Saturday, January 3, 2009
Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
Mystery surrounds north Ga. ruins[Fort Mountain State Park]
	12/29/2008 9:53:57 AM PST · Posted by BGHater/a> · 74 replies · 1,657+ views AP | 28 Dec 2008 | WALTER PUTNAM The remains of the 855-foot stone wall that gives Fort Mountain its name wind like a snake around the northeast Georgia park,and its very presence begs a question:Who put them there? A Cherokee legend attributes the wall to a mysterious band of "moon-eyed people" led by a Welsh prince named Madoc who appeared in the area more than 300 years before Columbus sailed to America. A plaque at the wall says matter-of-factly it was built by Madoc and his Welsh followers,but most professional archeologists give no credence to the legend. "There has been no archaeological evidence to back up stories...
Undeniable Evidence - Arthur's Voyage To The OtherWorld (America)
	07/11/2003 6:58:50 PM PDT · Posted by blam/a> · 15 replies · 259+ views Arthur in America Undeniable Evidence - Arthur's Voyage To The Otherworld In 1983 we wrote a book of several hundred pages with the intention of publishing it almost straightaway. After some of the horrendous attacks upon the Project we decided to hold off and involved ourselves in all manner of related research, which meant that the other things came to the fore. (One of these was Artorius Rex Discovered.) Nevertheless, our early attempts - before linking up with Jim Michael, Dr. Lee Pennington and friends in the USA - to deal with Prince Madoc and King Arthur 2nd's voyage to North America are...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
European Neanderthals had ginger hair and freckles [ and Type O blood ]
	12/30/2008 8:17:45 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv/a> · 73 replies · 1,221+ views Telegraph | December 29, 2008 | Edward Owen The gene known as MC1R suggests the Neanderthals had fair skin and even freckles like redheads. After analysing the fossil bones found in a cave in north-west Spain, the experts concluded they had human blood group "O" and were genetically more likely to be fair skinned, perhaps even with freckles, have red or ginger hair and could talk... The report, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, concludes that: "These results suggest the genetic change responsible for the O blood group in humans predates the human and Neanderthal divergence" but came "after humans separated from their common ancestor ... chimpanzees." ...One gene...
Study shows competition, not climate change, led to Neanderthal extinction
	12/29/2008 10:53:34 AM PST · Posted by decimon/a> · 17 replies · 370+ views Public Library of Science | Dec. 29, 2008 | Unknown In a recently conducted study, a multidisciplinary French-American research team with expertise in archaeology, past climates, and ecology reported that Neanderthal extinction was principally a result of competition with Cro-Magnon populations, rather than the consequences of climate change. The study, reported in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE on December 24, figures in the ongoing debate on the reasons behind the eventual disappearance of Neanderthal populations, which occupied Europe prior to the arrival of human populations like us around 40,000 years ago. Led by Dr William E. Banks, the authors, who belong to the French Centre National de la Recherche...
2008: A good year for Neanderthals
	12/27/2008 4:56:53 AM PST · Posted by CE2949BB/a> · 26 replies · 569+ views New Scientist | 24 December 2008 | Ewen Callaway For a species that went extinct more than 25,000 years ago, 2008 has been a hell of a year for Neanderthals. The ancient humans got their first complete mitochondrial genome sequence, their stone tools turned out every bit as efficient as ours, and we even heard them speak. Here are some of our favourite Neanderthal discoveries of 2008. Genome secrets revealedBig nose strikes againOur brainy cousinsMore DNA revelationsA voice from the pastMaking themselves prettyMaster tool makersThe butchers of Gibraltar
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
DNA tracks ancient Alaskan's descendants [ On Your Knees Cave man ]
	12/30/2008 8:09:14 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv/a> · 13 replies · 377+ views ADN | December 28th, 2008 | George Bryson An ancient mariner who lived and died 10,000 years ago on an island west of Ketchikan probably doesn't have any close relatives left in Alaska... But some of them migrated south and their descendents can be found today in coastal Native American populations in California, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. That's some of what scientists learned this summer by examining the DNA of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians in Southeast Alaska. Working with elders at a cultural festival in Juneau, they interviewed more than 200 Native Alaskans who allowed them to swab tiny amounts of saliva from their cheeks to...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Eight New Human Genome Projects Offer Large-scale Picture Of Genetic Difference
	05/01/2008 4:56:22 PM PDT · Posted by blam/a> · 3 replies · 33+ views Science Daily | 5-2-2008 | University of Washington Eight New Human Genome Projects Offer Large-scale Picture Of Genetic Difference ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) -- A nationwide consortium led by the University of Washington in Seattle has completed the first sequence-based map of structural variations in the human genome, giving scientists an overall picture of the large-scale differences in DNA between individuals. The project gives researchers a guide for further research into these structural differences, which are believed to play an important role in human health and disease. The results appear in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature. The project involved sequencing the genomes of eight people...
Lamarck In Disguise
Lasting genetic legacy of environment (Epigenome).
	12/20/2007 2:20:13 PM PST · Posted by Jedi Master Pikachu/a> · 11 replies · 49+ views BBC | Thursday, December 20, 2007. | Monise Durrani Environment can change the way our genes work Environmental factors such as stress and diet could be affecting the genes of future generations leading to increased rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.A study of people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the 9/11 attacks in New York made a striking discovery. The patients included mothers who were pregnant on 9/11 and found altered levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood of their babies. This effect was most pronounced for mothers who were in the third trimester of pregnancy suggesting events in the womb might be responsible....
Australia and the Pacific
Platypus Genome Is As Weird As It Looks
	05/07/2008 10:44:35 AM PDT · Posted by blam/a> · 85 replies · 182+ views New Scientist | 5-7-2008 | Emma Young Platypus genome is as weird as its looks 18:00 07 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young It's part-reptile, part-mammal, part-bird -- and totally unique. Two centuries after European scientists deemed a dead specimen so outlandish it had to be a fake, the bizarre genetic secrets of Australia's platypus has been laid bare. Platypuses lay eggs and produce venom like some reptiles, but they sport furry coats and feed their young with milk like mammals. The odd creatures are classed as monotremes, with only one close relative -- the echidna. But as primitive mammals that share the same ancestor as...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Ancient Fossil Suggests Origin of Cheetahs
	12/30/2008 3:33:19 PM PST · Posted by CE2949BB/a> · 23 replies · 369+ views Live Science | 30 December 2008 | Jeanna Bryner A nearly complete skull of a primitive cheetah that sprinted about in China more than 2 million years ago suggests the agile cats originated in the Old World rather than in the Americas.
Paleontology
Experts: Shandong dinosaur fossil field "world's largest"
	12/30/2008 2:17:27 PM PST · Posted by CE2949BB/a> · 12 replies · 332+ views Xinhua | 2008-12-29 JINAN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A dinosaur fossil field discovered this year in eastern China appears to be the largest in the world, a paleontologist told Xinhua on Monday.
Mammoth Told Me There'd Be Days Like These
Scientists find signs of 13,000-year-old extinction event
	01/01/2009 2:09:17 PM PST · Posted by neverdem/a> · 78 replies · 2,214+ views Chicago Tribune | January 2, 2009 | Robert Mitchum Comet may have exploded over planet, causing fires, die-offs, researchers say A meteorite colliding with the Earth 65 million years ago is considered to be the most likely reason dinosaurs vanished from the planet. Now a team of scientists says it has found new evidence that an object from space caused a similar extinction event only 13,000 years ago. In an article to be published Friday in the journal Science, researchers present what one author calls the "smoking bullet" -- proof that an exploding comet triggered the sudden, thousand-year freeze that killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and other large mammals that used...
Scientists say comet killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers
	01/02/2009 7:44:26 AM PST · Posted by Red Badger/a> · 107 replies · 1,400+ views www.physorg.com | 02 JAN 2009 | By Robert Mitchum First an explosion as powerful as thousands of megatons of TNT rained meteorites down on North America. Then forest fires broke out across the continent, sending up a thick layer of soot and dust that blocked out the sun. A sudden ice age ensued, and some of the Earth's largest animals went extinct in a blink of geological time. It's well known that a meteorite colliding with Earth is considered the most likely reason dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. Now a team of scientists says it has found new evidence that a comet triggered a similar extinction much...
Diamonds Linked to Quick Cooling Eons Ago
	01/02/2009 9:02:31 AM PST · Posted by Pharmboy/a> · 26 replies · 458+ views NY Times | January 2, 2009 | KENNETH CHANG University of Oregon Scientists found microscopic diamonds in the black layer of rock at Murray Springs in Arizona. At least once in Earth's history, global warming ended quickly, and scientists have long wondered why. Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling -- which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age -- may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America. That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday's...
Six North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil
	01/02/2009 10:44:35 AM PST · Posted by Red Badger/a> · 19 replies · 583+ views www.physorg.com | 01-01-2009 | Source: University of Oregon in Nanotechnology / Materials Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team. These nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts and have been found in meteorites, are concentrated in similarly aged sediments at Murray Springs, Ariz., Bull Creek, Okla., Gainey, Mich., and Topper, S.C., as well as Lake Hind, Manitoba, and Chobot, Alberta, in Canada. Nanodiamonds can be produced on Earth, but only through high-explosive detonations or...
Did a Comet Hit Earth 12,000 Years Ago?
	01/02/2009 6:02:32 PM PST · Posted by neverdem/a> · 17 replies · 391+ views Scientific American | January 2, 2009 | David Biello Nanodiamonds found across North America suggest that major climate change could have been cosmically instigatedRoughly 12,900 years ago, massive global cooling kicked in abruptly, along with the end of the line for some 35 different mammal species, including the mammoth, as well as the so-called Clovis culture of prehistoric North Americans. Various theories have been proposed for the die-off, ranging from abrupt climate change to overhunting once humans were let loose on the wilds of North America. But now nanodiamonds found in the sediments from this time period point to an alternative: a massive explosion or explosions by a fragmentary...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Another great flood: time to build an ark?
	11/17/2008 6:50:07 AM PST · Posted by TaraP/a> · 40 replies · 679+ views http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20081113/118296502.html | Nov 13th, 2008 MOSCOW. (Andrei Kislyakov, scientific commentator, for RIA Novosti) - The world geological community is warning that today's seismic activity on our planet is nothing compared with what's to come. Over the past three years, Pakistan, for example, has been hit by dozens of earthquakes. In March 2005, 80,000 people died under the rubble there. On October 30, the last time nature went on the rampage, there were hundreds of victims. Tens of thousands of people drowned during an overwhelming Asian tsunami at the end of 2004. China and Afghanistan have been rocked by quakes again more recently. These natural disasters,...
Ancient Autopsies
Top 5 Historical Discoveries of 2008
	12/30/2008 2:28:57 PM PST · Posted by CE2949BB/a> · 9 replies · 571+ views Live Science | 30 December 2008 | Heather Whipps This year got historians and archaeologists all hot under the elbow patches, with important finds coming in from points across the globe. There was the great-grandfather of soul from Turkey and a true jaw-dropper in Spain, plus one little archaeological nugget that really hit the fan. We've boiled down all the juiciest archaeology news to just the top five finds:
Greeks
Mystery surrounds major museum theft
	12/30/2008 6:22:46 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv/a> · 8 replies · 248+ views The Peninsula | Friday, December 26, 2008 | source: Internews The officials of Pakistan's Federal Department of Archaeology and Museum are still clueless about the 81 price less and rare antiques including the priceless statues of Greek deities mysteriously stolen from Taxila Museum nine years ago. Not a single stolen item has been recovered and no official responsible for negligence has been punished... These antiques, which were discovered by Sir John Marshall during excavations carried out between 1813 and 1835 also include the statue of the Greek god Dionysus, the god of wine and a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Being the only statues of Greek gods ever...
Egypt
The Trowel vs. the Text: How the Amarna letters challenge archaeology
	12/30/2008 8:35:16 PM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv/a> · 16 replies · 565+ views Biblical Archaeology Review | Jan/Feb 2009 | Nadav Na'aman Caught Between A Rock And A Reed's Trace. The Amarna letters are a collection of more than 300 cuneiform tablets discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt in the late 1800s. Dating to the Late Bronze Age (1500-1150 B.C.E.), the archive consists of royal correspondence of Pharaoh Amenophis III (1391-1353 B.C.E.) and his son, Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1353-1337 B.C.E.) with local rulers of various Canaanite city-states. This tablet (catalogued as EA 289) and several others were sent to the pharaoh by 'Abdi-Heba, the ruler of Urusalim (Jerusalem), indicating that there was a significant city at the site in the 14th...
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
Egypt police prevent Copts from repairing church: rights group
	08/26/2008 9:34:16 AM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket/a> · 5 replies · 76+ views AFP | 08/26/08 | Staff CAIRO (AFP) -- Egyptian police used violence earlier this month to prevent villagers from repairing the only church in their area, a rights group said on Monday, warning of a rise in sectarian tension as a result. On August 17, "a policeman assigned to guard the Archangel Michael Church in Deshasha (Beni Soueif province south of Cairo) hit three women while they were taking sand into the church to fix the floor which was cracked as result of water collection underneath," the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a statement. After the incident rumours spread in the village...
Egypt Police Prevent Copts From Repairing Church
	08/27/2008 12:05:21 AM PDT · Posted by Islaminaction/a> · 11 replies · 98+ views Islam in Action | August 27, 2008 | Christopher Logan Our Islamic "allies" continue to show their true face to us. The centuries long persecution of the Coptic Christians of Egypt continues, but Muslims do not say a word about it. They only want to silence those that do speak out against this persecution. As for our leaders.....Bush, Condi.....any comments? I thought not. At the end of the article I have posted a video showing just how badly the Christians in Egypt have it.
Russia
Two Medieval Hoards Discovered in Historical Centre of Moscow
	12/29/2008 8:26:29 AM PST · Posted by SunkenCiv/a> · 12 replies · 392+ views Russia-IC | December 19, 2008 | Source: zarusskiy.org A unique hidden treasure consisting of 11 Russian coins of the epoch of Vasily the Blind (Vasily Tyomny) has been found during archeological digging in Tyoplye Ryady in Ilyinka Street. This hoard of medieval coins is one of the biggest in Moscow. However, much bigger buried coin treasures have been recently found one the place of a medieval settlement near Volnino Village of Muromsk District, Vladimir Region. The second find in Moscow has been unearthed in vicinity of Novy Arbat, right by the walls of the House of Journalists in Nikitsky Boulevard - Moscow archeologists have found there another coin...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Top 8 of 2008: Archaeological Discoveries Related to the Bible
	01/01/2009 7:03:16 AM PST · Posted by Mike Fieschko/a> · 10 replies · 609+ views BiblePlaces.com blog | Tuesday, December 30, 2008 | Todd Bolen 2008 was a good year for archaeology.† You can read about the top ten archaeological discoveries in the world this year, but my goal here is simply to suggest what I perceive to be the most significant discoveries for understanding the Bible and its world.† Both the selection and the ranking is purely subjective; there were no polls, editorial committees, or coin tosses.† For another opinion, take a look at the list of Dr. Claude Mariottini.† 1. Khirbet Qeiyafa (and inscription).† The new excavations of this fortified site in the Shephelah ranks as #1 for the following reasons: 1) The...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Year in Review for Medievalists
	01/01/2009 6:47:59 AM PST · Posted by Mike Fieschko/a> · 16 replies · 285+ views News for Medievalists | Sunday, December 28, 2008 | Unknown As 2008 winds down, we will take this opportunity to look back at some of the most interesting medieval stories of the year. Here is our list of top articles placed on our news blog: Art Historian recreates 'The Mystic Ark' of Hugh of Saint Victor Polish archaeologists find remains of three Teutonic Knights Byzantine gold coins discovered in Jerusalem Fordham Professor Decodes Hidden Messages in Medieval Text Byzantine art exhibition at the Royal Academy, London Battle of Agincourt Archaeological discoveries in Rome Istanbul project reveals Byzantine discoveries Boyana church in Sofia - Medieval frescos Vikings may have gone out...
Age of Sail
Builders unearth 18th century galleon in Argentina[Spanish 'galleon']
	12/30/2008 6:01:36 PM PST · Posted by BGHater/a> · 10 replies · 477+ views Reuters | 30 Dec 2008 | Karina Grazina Argentine builders stumbled across the wreck of an 18th century Spanish galleon while digging the foundations for a riverside high-rise building in Buenos Aires, archaeologists said on Tuesday. Experts combing the remains of the ship said they did not expect it to contain treasure, but so far they have discovered several canons and well-preserved earthenware jars that were probably used to store olive oil. The remains of the galleon were found on a building site close to the shores of the River Plate and archaeologists from Buenos Aires city government think the boat was probably shipwrecked some 300 years ago....
Scotland Yet
Rap Music Originated in Medieval Scottish Pubs, Claims American Professor
	12/29/2008 3:18:10 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway/a> · 29 replies · 430+ views The Telegraph | 28 Dec 2008 | Simon Johnson Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that so-called rap battles, where two or more performers trade elaborate insults, derive from the ancient Caledonian art of "flyting". According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap. Professor Szasz is convinced there is a clear link between this tradition for settling scores in Scotland and rap battles, which were famously portrayed in Eminem's 2002 movie 8 Mile. He said: "The Scots have a lengthy tradition of flyting - intense verbal jousting, often laced...
Epigraphy and Language
William Tyndale A hero for the information age
	12/28/2008 6:56:33 PM PST · Posted by GSP.FAN/a> · 10 replies · 279+ views The Economist. | Dec 18 2008 | The Economist. AN EMERGING nation looks increasingly confident as a player on the world stage... China in the 21st century, contemplating the pros and cons of the internet? No, Tudor England, at the time when a gifted, impulsive young man called William Tyndale arrived in London..
Longer Perspectives
It was a golden Elizabethan Age -- we won't see its like again (Big Brother reappears)
	01/02/2009 10:42:20 AM PST · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet/a> · 20 replies · 815+ views The London Telegraph | January 2, 2009 | Charles Moore Most of us find plenty to dislike and complain of in the world we inhabit (which is just as well for us columnists, who find it hard to fashion 1,200 words about unmitigated good news). But it is possible that the biggest and most difficult changes since the 1940s are now afoot. Since September 11, 2001, the West has had a feeling of living on borrowed time. In the course of 2008, it became clear that we could no longer live on so much borrowed money. It does not follow that the resources of our civilisation are exhausted. Indeed, the...
British Isles
Metal detector's rare find[UK]
	12/30/2008 1:01:49 PM PST · Posted by BGHater/a> · 7 replies · 504+ views This is Lincolnshire | 30 Dec 2008 | This is Lincolnshire An ancient figure of Christ has been unearthed in a Lincolnshire field. The near-complete copper artefact dating from the 13th Century is the first of its kind to be found in the county. A metal detector enthusiast found the precious object at East Torrington, near Wragby. The figure would have been mounted on a processional cross used in church services between 1200 and 1300AD, according to Lincolnshire finds liaison officer Adam Daubney. "It would have been made in Limoges in France around the time of the Third Crusade," he said. "Similar crosses are well known in France and England but...
National Treasures
Fortune hunter believes he has Googled gold[TX]
	12/30/2008 12:46:04 PM PST · Posted by BGHater/a> · 24 replies · 874+ views Houston Chronicle | 30 Dec 2008 | Mary Flood Californian is fighting heirs in Texas over the right to dig for it If Nathan Smith's plan to search for a buried treasure near the Texas Gulf Coast using Google Earth and a metal detector sounds like a Hollywood movie, it should. After all, Smith, a California musician, was inspired by the hit National Treasure movies starring Nicolas Cage. And like any good swashbuckling flick, there's a dramatic tale -- this one involving cannibalized 19th-century sailors who supposedly left the pot of gold and silver behind in Refugio County in South Texas. Trying to bankroll his art by becoming a...
Early America
USS Constitution defeats HMS Java
	12/30/2008 7:52:23 AM PST · Posted by Sparky1776/a> · 4 replies · 305+ views You Tube | July 4, 2007 | Self A short video in tribute of USS Constitution victory over HMS Java this day, 1812 that I made last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klI0hI-hU4A My slideshow of Old Ironsides featuring both exterior and interior shots: http://flickr.com/photos/real_bostonian/sets/72157594266255332/show/ An interesting account by Constitution's captain on engaging Java between December 29th & 30th, 1812: http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/war1812/const6.htm And that of the British captain (well the surviving one): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Java_(1811)
Oh So Mysteriouso
The Baigong Pipes- Nature or OOPart?[China]
	01/02/2009 10:33:39 AM PST · Posted by BGHater/a> · 16 replies · 415+ views China Expat | 16 Dec 2008 | China Expat We're all familiar with the concept of modern technology having ancient Chinese analogues. But a 2002 discovery in remote Qinghai province is anachronistic enough to constitute an OOPart. Out-of-place-artifacts are so unusual, or found in such improbable contexts, that mainstream science has no plausible explanation for them.†The crystal skulls of Mexico referenced in the latest Indiana Jones movie, the iron pillar of Delhi, and the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism are examples of OOPart yet to be explained. Like these, the pipes of Qinghai's Mount Baigong suggest a level of technology simply inconceivable for the apparent era of their manufacture. Those...
Underwater Archaeology
Sons' love for missing dad plumbs the ocean's depths; [Sunken World War II submarine found]
	01/02/2009 2:59:31 AM PST · Posted by Daffynition/a> · 3 replies · 519+ views MSNBC | Jan 1 2009 | Bob Dotson Longing can chart a better course than MapQuest. After more than 60 years, the Abele brothers have finally found their father. Lt. Cmdr. Jim Abele commanded the USS Grunion, a submarine that disappeared off the coast of Alaska during World War II. Seven years ago his sons made a deal with their hearts, not their heads, and went looking for him. It cost them a bundle. "If this were an official Navy project, I would guess that the taxpayers would be paying about 10 times what we're paying," John Abele chuckled. "How much are you paying?" I asked. "That's a...
World War Eleven
Long-Sealed Military Files Will Be Opened
	06/09/2005 8:21:12 PM PDT · Posted by Calpernia/a> · 11 replies · 522+ views St. Louis Post-Dispatch | June 6, 2005 | By Harry Levins, Post-Dispatch Senior Writer Archivists are about to unseal a mother lode of military history along Page Avenue in Overland. A ceremony Saturday at the National Personnel Records Center will mark the opening of military files that until now have been off-limits to most Americans. Among the gems: * Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's rating in mid-1944 of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. The report closes with these words on Patton: "A brilliant fighter and leader. Impulsive and quick-tempered. Likely to speak in public in an ill-considered fashion." * Gen. Omar Bradley's radiogram in 1951 to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo, in which Bradley quotes...
Remains of World War II Marine from SC identified
	12/20/2008 7:34:55 AM PST · Posted by csvset/a> · 30 replies · 903+ views The State | Dec. 19, 2008 | SEANNA ADCOX The burial next month of Maj. Marion Ryan McCown Jr. in a family plot in Charleston, nearly 65 years after his plane went down in the South Pacific, brings relief and joy to a family who never thought his remains would be found, his relatives said Friday.The Marine pilot had been missing since Jan. 20, 1944, when his single-seat F-4U Corsair failed to return from a combat mission over the island of New Britain, in Papua New Guinea. His remains were recovered from a crash site in the town of Rabaul, where the Japanese had a base, and identified earlier...
Sneak Attacks
Jim Leavelle: Handcuffed To History
	12/07/2006 8:14:06 PM PST · Posted by kms61/a> · 2 replies · 734+ views KGMB | December 4, 2006 | Jim Mendoza When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Jim Leavelle could only watch from his ship anchored away from battleship row. He was a helpless spectator. "I could see what was happening and the carnage that was taking place over there with the blowing up and burning and all of this," he said. Leavelle was 21 years old, two years into his hitch in the U.S. Navy. On December 7, 1941, he was a supply man on board the U.S.S. Whitney. Fast-forward from 1941 to 1963. Leavelle, now a Dallas detective, was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald the moment Jack Ruby fired his...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Exposing Obama's Genome - And Oprah Winfrey's, Brad Pitts', and yours
	12/31/2008 11:11:00 PM PST · Posted by neverdem/a> · 20 replies · 991+ views Reason | December 30, 2008 | Ronald Bailey Cheap genome screening is becoming ever more widely available. For example, the price of a genome screening test offered by Silicon Valley startup 23andMe has dropped from $999 to $399, and it now reveals even more genetic information to customers. Let's say the price for such tests falls to the price of over-the-counter paternity tests, making it inexpensive and easy for DNA collected from anyone to be screened. Collecting DNA from suspects is a standard plot device in television shows like CSI: Miami and is a facet of real life crime solving. Investigators pick up a cigarette butt, a soft...
Pages
"Clash of Civilizations" author Samuel Huntington dies
	12/27/2008 6:43:54 PM PST · Posted by rmlew/a> · 18 replies · 635+ views Reuters | December 27, 2008 | Muralikumar Anantharaman BOSTON (Reuters) - Political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose controversial book "The Clash of Civilizations" predicted conflict between the West and the Islamic world, has died at age 81, Harvard University said on Saturday. Huntington, who taught for 58 years at Harvard before retiring in 2007, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, the university said on its website. In his 1996 "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which expanded on his 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Huntington divided the world into rival civilizations based mainly on religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam,...
end of digest #233 20090103

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #233 20090103 · Saturday, January 3, 2009 · 39 topics · 2157910 to 2155061 · 698 members ·
	Saturday Jan 03 2009 v 5 n 25 view this issue	Welcome to the 233rd issue. Happy New Year! According to my math, the first four volumes of the Digest had 208 total issues, and therefore the modulus is 25. So this is the 25th issue of volume 5. Either I'll go back and figure out where I wandered off the count, or just bag it, and stop using the numbers altogether. Or maybe I'll just run the random number generator (Applesoft BASIC, under ProDOS, running on the Bernie2theRescue emulator) that I wrote for my dad to pick his lotto numbers. But the Big Change is the long-alluded-to prettying-up of the actual digest message. Ever since this ping message got its makeover (probably more than a year ago) I've written off and on about how, just you wait, the big digest message itself was going to win beauty contests all over the Islamic world. Well, despite such a modest boast, I've procrastinated, and today (in the past fifteen minutes) I've finally done it. I like the results so much, I may wind up fiddling with the ping message again. But don't hold your breath. Thanks to all who answered an unusual question I posted to all, regarding continued use of the National Geographic link. Now that I've cooled down and taken your remarks to heart (and the margin of for-to-against using NG wasn't in favor of "for"), and given it more thought, I'm going to keep the link in the standard ping message footer. So now we can all sleep nights. ;') Nice job, and thanks again, to fanfan, ApplegateRanch, YOUGOTIT, zeugma, and ARCADIA for posting. I'm sure the other 692 replies got lost in the mail -- which is good, because I'm pretty sure I'd never have been able to read them all. ;') It's the Freepathon! We've almost reached 700 members. Still not quite there, we need two more. Quit teasing me and join. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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