[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #207 Saturday, July 5, 2008
Early America
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
	07/04/2008 1:51:11 AM PDT · Posted by Jim Robinson · 149 replies · 2,212+ views July 4, 1776 | Thomas Jefferson IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...
Diet and Cuisine
Outdoor BBQ: A 700,000-year-old Ritual
	07/04/2008 5:35:17 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 11 replies · 219+ views LiveScience | Jul 3, 2008 | Meredith F. Small July Fourth is a celebration of outdoor cooking, as well as our nation's birthday. It's time to brush off the barbecue and throw masses of processed meat on the grill. As we all stand around waiting for the fire to die down so that we can make s'mores, it's also a time to ponder the notion that the barbecue is a ritual 700,000 years old or more, and it might have something to do with our big brains.
Travel
Run-down heritage sites embarrass the Greeks
	06/29/2008 10:58:52 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 34 replies · 436+ views The Guardian | Monday June 23, 2008 | Helena Smith in Athens ...Amid unprecedented protests from tour guides, travel companies and tourists irritated by conditions at prime archaeological sites, the ruling conservatives last week rushed hundreds of additional personnel to staff museums and open-air antiquities... The move follows embarrassing revelations over the upkeep of Greece's ancient wonders and mounting public disquiet, voiced mostly by foreigners in the local press, over visitor access to them. Yesterday, the authoritative newspaper Sunday Vima disclosed that the Cycladic isle of Delos - the site of Apollo's mythological sanctuary and one of Greece's most important ancient venues - resembled an "archaeological rubbish dump". Recently, it emerged that...
Greece
Geology Pictures of the Week, June 29-July 5, 2008: Thera (Santorini) unusual view
	07/01/2008 7:01:42 AM PDT · Posted by cogitator · 35 replies · 794+ views NASA Earth Observatory | June 30, 2008 | NASA Learn something new every day entry: this image and accompanying article (click the source link above) told me about Nea Kameni, which is in the Santorini lagoon and which had volcanic activity in 1950. I never knew the name of the island and that it was recently active until yesterday. Click for full-size. Here's a view taken from Santorini. And this image is just to put everything into proper perspective.
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened By New Evidence Located In Ohio, Indiana
	07/02/2008 3:27:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 62 replies · 1,147+ views Physorg | 7-1-2008 | University of Cincinnati Ken Tankersley seen working in the field in a cave in this publicity photo from the National Geographic Channel. Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans -- to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada. A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist...
Astrology Presupposes Astronomy
Planetary line-up excites the sun (Sunspot source found?)
	07/03/2008 12:09:26 PM PDT · Posted by gobucks · 35 replies · 1,196+ views ABC Science | 2 July 2008 | Marilyn Head Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...
Climate
Geologists push back date basins formed, supporting frozen Earth theory (basins in India)
	07/03/2008 11:08:44 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 18 replies · 314+ views University of Florida | Jul 3, 2008 | Unknown Even in geology, it's not often a date gets revised by 500 million years. But University of Florida geologists say they have found strong evidence that a half-dozen major basins in India were formed a billion or more years ago, making them at least 500 million years older than commonly thought. The findings appear to remove one of the major obstacles to the Snowball Earth theory that a frozen Earth was once entirely covered in snow and ice -- and might even lend some weight to a controversial claim that complex life originated hundreds of million years...
Flood, Here Comes the Flood
Invisible waves shape continental slope (climate related)
	06/30/2008 11:51:20 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 20 replies · 286+ views University of Texas at Austin | Jun 30, 2008 | Unknown A class of powerful, invisible waves hidden beneath the surface of the ocean can shape the underwater edges of continents and contribute to ocean mixing and climate, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have found. The scientists simulated ocean conditions in a laboratory aquarium and found that "internal waves" generate intense currents when traveling at the same angle as that of the continental slope. The continental slope is the region where the relatively shallow continental shelf slants down to meet the deep ocean floor. They suspect that these intense currents, called boundary flows, lift sediments as the...
Pole vs the Volcano
Are Volcanoes Melting Arctic?
	06/30/2008 5:41:55 PM PDT · Posted by Kaslin · 61 replies · 1,418+ views IBD | June 30, 2008 Climate Change: While the media scream that man-made global warming is making the North Pole ice-free, another possible cause is as old as the Earth itself. They just have to look deeper.To the delight of Al Gore and the rest of the Gaia groupies, scientists at the National Snow & Ice Data Center in Colorado are predicting that the North Pole will be completely free of ice this summer. The apocalyptic headlines already are starting to appear. "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important," says the...
Prehistory and Origins
Newcomer in Early Eurafrican Population?
	06/30/2008 8:26:30 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 177+ views AlphaGalileo | Monday, June 30, 2008 | unattributed (?) A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal... This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa's possible role in first populating southern Europe. A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context... The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Early Arabs Followed the Rain, or Didn't
	07/01/2008 4:53:28 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 323+ views Discovery News | 6-25-2008 | Jennifer Viegas The phrase "blame it on the weather" takes new meaning in light of research suggesting that regional climate may very well have been responsible for the evolution of lifestyle, culture and even religion in the Middle East.
Near East
Archaeological Sites In South Iraq Have Not Been Looted
	07/01/2008 4:39:25 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 259+ views The Art Newspaper | 7-1-2008 | Martin Baily Despite widely publicised fears of damage to ancient sites, a team of specialists found that eight of the most important have not been touched after 2003. The team's Merlin helicopter flies over the stone temple at Warka An international team of archaeologists which made an unpublicised visit to southern Iraq last month found no evidence of recent looting -- contrary to long-expressed claims about sustained illegal digging at major sites. The visit required the assistance of the British Army, which provided armed protection and...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iranian, Foreign Experts To Excavate Salt Men's Necropolis
	06/30/2008 1:37:43 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 6 replies · 490+ views Mehr News | 6-30-2008 A joint team of Iranian and foreign experts will collaborate on a project planned to excavate the Chehrabad Salt Mine, where all six of the "salt men" were discovered. Archaeologists and experts on other related fields from Germany, England, and Austria will participated in the project, which is expected to begin in spring 2009 in the salt mine located in the Hamzehlu region near Zanjan, northern Iran, the Persian service of CHN reported on Monday. "The Chehrabad Salt Mine is one of important Iranian ancient sites, on...
Egypt
Egypt archaeologists find ancient painted coffins
	06/30/2008 8:16:01 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 232+ views Google/AFP | June 26, 2008 | AFP "These coffins were found in the tombs of senior officials of the 18th and 19th dynasties," near Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday. "Some coloured unopened coffins dating back to the sixth century BC were found as well as some coffins dating back to the time of Ramses II," who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC, he said... The Saqqara burial grounds which date back to 2,700 BC and are dominated by the massive bulk of King Zoser's step pyramid -- the first ever built -- were in continuous use until the...
Africa
Archaeologists find silos and administration center from early Egyptian city
	07/01/2008 10:46:57 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 18 replies · 333+ views University of Chicago | Jul 1, 2008 | Unknown A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life. The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt -- the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture. The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Work late last year revealed details of seven...
Let's Have Jerusalem
The Salome No One Knows
	06/29/2008 11:04:01 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 502+ views Biblical Archaeology Review | Jul/Aug 2008 | unattributed When people hear the name Salome, they immediately think of the infamous dancing girl of the Gospels... At her mother's urging, Salome asked for the head of Herod's most famous prisoner on a platter. Fearful of breaking his word before his guests, Herod granted Salome's request and ordered John the Baptist beheaded. In antiquity there was a considerably more famous Salome, however, who was revered for centuries. She was so admired that generations of mothers, Herodias apparently among them, named their daughters Salome in her honor. This Salome was the only woman ever to govern Judea as its sole ruler....
Pole FReep
Magnetic Fields Used To Date Indian Artifacts
	06/30/2008 1:26:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 286+ views The Wichita Eagle | 6-22-2008 You might be surprised what you can learn from a campfire. A campfire that has been cold for, say, 300 years. Stacey Lengyel hopes she can tell, within 30 years or so, when it was used. Lengyel, a research associate in anthropology at the Illinois State Museum, is the country's leading authority on archeomagnetic dating, a process built around two phenomena: when heated, magnetic particles reorient themselves to magnetic north; and over time, magnetic north is, literally, all over the map. "They call it a 'drunken wander,'...
Ancient Autopsies
4,500-Year-Old Mummies Discovered in Chile (Chinchorro)
	06/29/2008 2:11:47 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 436+ views Sify | 6-28-2008 Eight perfectly preserved mummies, believed to be some 4,500 year old, were found by workers engaged in a restoration project in Chile's far north, Spain's EFE news agency reported on Saturday quoting media report. "These mummies date back to between 2,000 BC and 5,000 BC." archaeologist Calogero Santoro told the daily El Mercurio. The mummies are remains of individuals belonging to the Chinchorro culture, which was one of the first to practice mummification and the perfect condition in which the mummies were found is indicative of their advanced...
Quintillions Ripen
Maize (Corn) May Have Been Domesticated In Mexico As Early As 10,000 Years Ago
	06/29/2008 2:03:58 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 459+ views Science Daily | 6-27-2008 | American Society of Plant Biologists Various unusually colored and shaped maize from Latin America. (Credit: Photo by Keith Weller / courtesy of USDA/Agricultural Research Service) ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) -- The ancestors of maize originally grew wild in Mexico and were radically different from the plant that is now one of the most important crops in the world. While the evidence is clear that maize was first domesticated in Mexico, the time and location of the earliest domestication and dispersal events are still in dispute. Now, in addition to more traditional macrobotanical...
Teotihuacan
Researchers open secret cave under Mexican pyramid
	07/04/2008 8:06:40 AM PDT · Posted by BenLurkin · 20 replies · 527+ views Reuters | Thu Jul 3, 12:22 PM ET | Miguel Angel Gutierrez Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities. The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico. But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD. Archeologists are...
Hohokam
Uncovering an ancient city: Archaeologists unearth houses, artifacts along Silverbell Project
	07/03/2008 8:36:52 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 248+ views The Explorer | Wednesday, July 2, 2008 | Nick Smith The white-colored outlines of rectangular shapes could very well be the markings of a construction site, albeit one that was undertaken more than 700 years ago... Those outlines mark the walls of a Hohokam pit house, part of an ancient city that was uncovered by archaeologists in mid-April at the site of a major road and park project in Marana... A large, 18-inch thick adobe wall was discovered in the area, along with a host of pit houses and ancient Hohokam artifacts. Several pit houses were also uncovered at the southeast corner of Ina and Silverbell roads... "One of the...
Caribbean
Puerto Rico Archaeological Find Mired In Politics
	07/01/2008 8:34:31 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 21 replies · 455+ views Miami Herald | 7-1-2008 | FRANCES ROBLES U.S. archaeologist Nathan Mountjoy sits next to stones etched with ancient petroglyphs and graves that reveal unusual burial methods in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The archaeological find, one of the best-preserved pre-Columbian sites found in the Caribbean, form a large plaza measuring some 130 feet by 160 feet that could have been used for ball games or ceremonial rites, officials said. SAN JUAN -- The lady carved on the ancient rock is squatting, with frog-like legs sticking out to each side. Her decapitated head is dangling...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Research Casts New Light On History Of North America
	07/01/2008 10:26:26 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 14 replies · 653+ views Newswise | 7-1-2008 | Valparaiso University Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso's research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands -- a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois -- were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought. Newswise -- Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his...
Oregon Discovery Challenges Beliefs About First Humans
	07/01/2008 8:20:04 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 19 replies · 1,168+ views PBS | 7-1-2008 | Lee Hochberg Until recently, most scientists believed that the first humans came to the Americas 13,000 years ago. But new archaeological findings from a cave in Oregon are challenging that assumption. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports on the controversial discovery. LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour correspondent: What archaeologist Dennis Jenkins found in the Paisley Caves in south central Oregon may turn on its head the theory of how and when the first people came to North America. Many scientists believe humans first came to this continent 13,000 years ago across a land bridge from Asia...
First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia....
	07/03/2008 4:55:14 AM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 30 replies · 596+ views Science Daily | 7-1-08 Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.....
Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions About First Americans
	07/03/2008 4:12:23 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 323+ views Scientific American | 7-3-2008 | Elizabeth Lunday Excavations at the Gault site in central Texas. -- "Look at that -- isn't it gorgeous?" Sandy Peck asks as she rinses dirt from a flaked stone about the length and width of a pinky finger. Peck runs a hose over soil on a fine-mesh screen, prodding at stubborn clods of clay with a muddy glove. "Look, there's another one." Peck, sorting soil that had been disturbed by a recent thunderstorm, is...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Digging Up The Past At Ancient Stone Circle (Ring Of Bodgar - Orkney)
	07/01/2008 8:41:02 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 360+ views The Scotsman | John Ross Work will start next week to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands. It is believed it was part of a massive ritual complex but little is known about the monument, including its exact age or purpose. It is...
Toward a Prehistory of Fashion
Humans Wore Shoes 40,000 Years Ago, Fossil Suggests
	07/01/2008 8:09:54 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 595+ views National Geographic News | 7-1-2008 | Scott Norris Humans were wearing shoes at least 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. The evidence comes from a 40,000-year-old human fossil with delicate toe bones indicative of habitual shoe-wearing, experts say. A previous study of anatomical changes in toe bone structure had dated the use of shoes to about 30,000 years ago. Now the dainty-toed fossil from China suggests that at least some humans were sporting protective footwear 10,000 years further back, during a time when both modern humans and Neandertals...
Underwater Archaeology
Fire under the ice
	06/25/2008 11:32:36 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 21 replies · 573+ views Fire under the ice | Jun 25, 2008 | Unknown An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. "Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas," explains Dr...
Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study
	06/25/2008 10:05:57 PM PDT · Posted by leakinInTheBlueSea · 9 replies · 372+ views AFP | 6/25/2008 | AFP PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday....
Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study
	06/29/2008 12:05:18 PM PDT · Posted by Cringing Negativism Network · 22 replies · 415+ views AFP | 3 Days Ago PARIS (AFP) -- Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday...
Near East
Grisly Human Sacrifice Revealed at Syria Dig
	07/02/2008 5:59:58 PM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket · 29 replies · 1,133+ views Discovery News | July 2, 2008 | Jennifer Viegas Around 2300 B.C., an acrobat was killed during a bizarre sacrificial ceremony in what is now northeastern Syria, according to a new study published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. Gory evidence of the entertainer's death -- along with the remains of several rare horse-like animals which appear to have been sacrificed as well -- was found in the remains of a building at a site called Tell Brak, which was once the ancient city of Nagar. The findings suggest some ancient cultures may have sacrificed well-known public figures, as well as animals of great personal and monetary...
Longer Perspectives
Cave Men Loved To Sing
	07/03/2008 3:58:32 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 26 replies · 334+ views Yahoo News/Live Science | 7-3-2008 | Heather Whipps Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests. Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there. The Upper Paleolithic people responsible for the paintings had likely fine-tuned their hearing to recognize the sound qualities in certain parts of the cave and...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
German experts crack Mona Lisa smile (discovers model's identity)
	01/14/2008 6:13:34 PM PST · Posted by Clintonfatigued · 29 replies · 450+ views Yahoo News | January 14, 2007 | Sylvia Westall German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait. ADVERTISEMENT Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the sixteenth-century painting. But art historians have often wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been da Vinci's lover, his mother or the artist himself. Now experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Washington's Boyhood Home Is Found
	07/03/2008 5:09:59 AM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 34 replies · 446+ views New York Times | July 3, 2008 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Researchers announced Wednesday that remains excavated in the last three years were those of the long-sought dwelling, on the old family farm in Virginia 50 miles south of Washington. The house stood on a terrace overlooking the Rappahannock River, where legend has it the boy threw a stone or a coin across to Fredericksburg.
Civil War
The Battle of Gettysburg (2nd Day) The Battle of Gettysburg - 2nd Day
	07/02/2008 6:08:10 AM PDT · Posted by mware · 138 replies · 1,097+ views virginiafamilyresearch,com | James E. Ward, Sr., CG & Karen B.Ward, M.A. July 2, 1863 The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000. While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal...
The Battle of Gettysburg (3rd Day)
	07/03/2008 6:28:24 AM PDT · Posted by mware · 67 replies · 730+ views pekin.net | Jon Meinen, Renee Bussone, and Rachel Smith 3rd Day- Pickett's Charge On the outskirts of Gettysburg, at 1 p.m., 170 Confederate cannons open fired. The Union was positioned in Cemetery Ridge with only a stonewall for protection. The Union returned fire. About 2:30 p.m. the Federally slowed there rate of fire and fooled the rebels, to believing they were out of ammunition. Gen. Picket went to see Gen. Longstreet and asked, " General shall I advance"? Longstreet responded with his head bowed and raised his hand. The command was given. " Charge the enemy and remember Old Virginia" Picket said as he lead 12,000 rebels toward the...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Russian Scientists In Bid To Solve Tunguska Event
	07/01/2008 8:55:14 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 25 replies · 943+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 7-2-2008 | Adrian Blomfield Russian scientists in bid to solve Tunguska Event Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 02/07/2008 Russian scientists will this week attempt to solve the mystery of a giant explosion 100 years ago that turned night to day across western Europe and flattened a large swathe of Siberia. Trees lay strewn across the Siberian countryside, in 1953, 45 years after an 'unexplained explosion' near Tunguska, Russia A century after reindeer herdsmen saw a column of light that shone with the intensity of the Sun moving across the Siberian dawn sky, the Tunguska Event remains one of the modern era's most abiding scientific riddles....
end of digest #207 20080705

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #207 20080705 · Saturday, July 5, 2008 · 38 topics · 2040911 to 2038207 · 696 members ·
	Saturday Jul 05 2008 v 4 n 49 view this issue	Welcome to the 207th issue, and welcome to the four (or is it five?) new members who've joined this week. GGG is having what could be an existential crisis. Similar problems have emerged before, but this most recent such began here. We had a more normal number of topics, and the selection was decent. As I edit the issue, I'm sure I'll know more, and maybe I'll even include it here. If not, a break for you. Big kudos to Blam and all others who posted topics and/or called attention to them. In Memoriam: FReeper SheLion has passed away. She wasn't a member of any of the lists I keep, but she's familiar to many who are. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #208 Saturday, July 12, 2008
Rome and Italy
Famed Roman statue 'not ancient' [ Romulus and Remus and she-wolf ]
	07/11/2008 6:29:54 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 21 replies · 309+ views BBC News | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | unattributed A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1200s... The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public. The figures of Romulus and Remus have already been shown to be 15th Century additions to the statue... Rome's former top heritage official, Professor Adriano La Regina, said about 20 tests were carried out on the she-wolf at the University of Salerno... said the results of the tests gave a very precise indication that the...
A Worldwide Push To Bring Back Chariot Racing
	05/24/2007 9:17:51 AM PDT · Posted by DogByte6RER · 29 replies · 831+ views SignOnSanDiego.com | May 24, 2007 | The Wall Street Journal On a drowsy May day in the country, tractors and combines were lumbering down dirt roads when, suddenly, a cloud of dust rose up on the horizon. Birds scattered. Rumbling across the green landscape came seven racing chariots, each pulled by four horses. Riding in the chariot decorated with an engraving of Alexander the Great was Luiz Augusto Alves de Oliveira, a 50-year-old sugar-cane farmer who has an epic plan: returning chariot racing to its ancient glory. In this May Day...
Epigraphy and Language
Scientists use MRI at Kadlec to look at ancient Roman scrolls
	07/11/2008 9:39:52 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 1+ views Tri-City Herald | Thursday, Jul. 10, 2008 | Sara Schilling The director of MRI and radiology at Kadlec Medical Center watched a TV documentary years ago about efforts to read the ancient scrolls and the story stuck with him. This week, Iuliano is using his expertise to scan fragments of the charred scrolls in hopes of discovering what they say... The papyrus scrolls were discovered more than 200 years ago in a villa in what was the Roman town of Herculaneum. The town was buried along with the more famous city of Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted. The scrolls make up the only surviving library from antiquity, Iuliano said. Scholars have...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Diamond Synchatron To Use X-Rays To Examine Dead Sea Scrolls
	09/12/2007 7:49:31 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 527+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 9-12-2007 | Nic Fleming and Roger Highfield Secrets contained in fragile documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls are to be revealed using one of the most powerful light sources in the Universe. British Association Festival of Science: Full coverage British scientists are using a giant instrument - in essence an extremely powerful torch and microscope combined - to read parchments that are too brittle to unroll or unfold. Part of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their discovery enhanced knowledge of Christianity and Judaism The Diamond synchatron...
Archaeologists Claim Essenes Never wrote Dead Sea Scrolls
	07/30/2004 8:49:22 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 41 replies · 1,558+ views Haaretz Daily | 7-30-2004 | Amiram Barkat Located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran is famous throughout the world as the place where the Essenes, who have been widely described in studies, conferences and exhibitions as a type of Jewish "monk," are said to have lived and written the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, based on findings soon to be published, Israeli archaeologists now argue that Qumran "lacks any uniqueness." The latest research joins a growing school of thought attempting to explode the "Qumran myth" by stating that not...
Faith and Philosophy
Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Christianity (feed your faith not your doubts)
	07/05/2008 2:19:29 PM PDT · Posted by theoldmarine · 114 replies · 3,421+ views NY Times | 5 July 2008 | Ethan Bronner A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus..."This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This...
Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection
	07/05/2008 5:46:11 PM PDT · Posted by P8riot · 7 replies · 639+ views International Heral Tribune | 7/5/2008 | by Ethan Bronner A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.
Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
	07/05/2008 6:47:10 PM PDT · Posted by Salvavida · 24 replies · 905+ views New York Times | July 6, 2008 | ETHAN BRONNER A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
Dead Sea tablet 'casts doubt' on death and resurrection of Jesus
	07/09/2008 1:56:21 PM PDT · Posted by americanophile · 71 replies · 2,179+ views The Times of London | July 9, 2008 | Sheera Frenkel The death and resurrection of Christ has been called into question by a radical new interpretation of a tablet found on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea. The three-foot stone tablet appears to refer to a Messiah who rises from the grave three days after his death - even though it was written decades before the birth of Jesus. The ink is badly faded on much of the tablet, known as Gabriel's Vision of Revelation, which was written rather than engraved in the 1st century BC. This has led some experts to claim that the inscription has been overinterpreted....
Judas 'gospel' is pure fiction
	04/15/2006 6:52:25 AM PDT · Posted by truthfinder9 · 8 replies · 383+ views Today, we remember the arrest, trial and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. While Christ went willingly to the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, his arrest came as a result of one of the greatest betrayals in history. One of Jesus' disciples, a member of his inner circle, betrayed him with a kiss. For this action, Judas Iscariot was forever condemned as a traitor. For centuries, that has been the story that we have all known and accepted -- until a few...
Central Asia
Buddha's caves
	07/11/2008 7:01:15 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 174+ views IHT | July 7, 2008 | Holland Cotter Of the 800 or so caves created here from the 5th to 14th centuries, nearly half had some form of decoration. What survives adds up to a developmental timeline of Buddhist art in China... But of course much of it has not survived. By the 11th century Dunhuang's fortunes were in decline. Sea trade had cut into Silk Road traffic. Regional wars left the town isolated. Monks, possibly panicked by rumors of an Islamic invasion, sealed up tens of thousands of manuscript scrolls in a small cave. The invasion didn't happen, but the books, many of them already ancient, stayed...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Archaeologists to refuse help over possible Iran strike
	07/11/2008 2:33:17 PM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket · 22 replies · 386+ views NewScientist | 10 July 2008 | Staff Persepolis, once the capital of the Persian empire, and the massive mud-brick Bam citadel are among the nine listed World Heritage Sites in Iran. Yet leading archaeologists are urging colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian sites that should be exempted from air strikes. "Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action," said a resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, last week. Instead, delegates were advised to emphasise the harm that any military action would do to Iran's people and heritage.
Egypt
Ancient royal burial ground found in Egypt: report
	07/09/2008 10:01:04 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 229+ views Ya-hoo! | Saturday, July 5, 2008 | AFP Archaeologists have uncovered ancient wooden coffins in what appears to be a royal burial ground near the necropolis of Abydos in southern Egypt, the state-run MENA news agency reported on Saturday. The agency said that the discovery, made by a team from the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities, could be dated back to the Old Kingdom (3,000 B.C.) -- the golden age of pyramid building in ancient times. The team "has found what could be a royal complex of 13 tombs of different shapes and sizes that could have belonged to high officials from that period or people who contributed...
Etruscans
Etruscan tomb unearthed in Perugia
	07/09/2008 9:46:57 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 22 replies · 276+ views ANSA.it | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | unattributed An ancient Etruscan tomb has resurfaced after centuries underground during the course of building work in the central Italian city of Perugia. The tomb, which has been preserved in excellent condition, contains seven funerary urns, the municipal archaeology department said. It is in the shape of a square and was covered by a sheet of travertine marble, which had apparently remained untouched since being laid centuries ago. The tomb is split into two halves by a pillar and there are two benches running along each side. The funerary urns, which were placed on the benches, were marked with brightly coloured...
Malta
Important archaeological find in Tarxien [Malta]
	07/09/2008 9:56:56 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 210+ views Times of Malta | Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | Waylon Johnston An archaeological discovery described as the most important in 18 years has been made at the site of the Tarxien temples. Malta Environment Planning Authority (Mepa) officials discovered megaliths and other remains, which are most probably prehistoric, during development works within the buffer zone of the Neolithic temples. ...It lies within a plot of land measuring 25 by eight metres towards the back of the plot. The megaliths and boulders were found together with pottery shards made up of rims, handles and bases in an area measuring roughly four by four metres. The shards have scratched and incised motifs which...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Archaeology bill may cost farmer £1,000s
	07/11/2008 6:14:38 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 124+ views Whitehaven News | Archaeology bill may cost farmer £1,000s | unattributed A Cumbrian hill farmer who planned to build a sheep shelter in the fells, near Buttermere, may have to pay thousands of pounds for an archaeological dig after evidence of an 800-year-old dairy farm was discovered on the land... Buttermere hill farmer, Willie Richardson, who owns his own farm, Gatesgarth, one of the biggest in the Lake District... has been waiting eight months for a decision from the Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) on his plans for the 1,235 square metre shelter at Gatesgarth Farm, Buttermere. Now the work has been delayed indefinitely after an archaeological officer visited the...
Pole vs the Volcano
Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says
	07/10/2008 1:53:24 PM PDT · Posted by hripka · 126 replies · 2,641+ views National Geographic Society | June 30, 2008 | Kimberly Johnson Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says. "What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said. The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the...
Climate
Appalachians Triggered Ancient Ice Age (Smoky Mountains)
	10/28/2006 11:42:19 PM PDT · Posted by Dallas59 · 28 replies · 1,763+ views Scientific American | 10/25/2006 | JR Minkel The rise of the Appalachian Mountains seems to have triggered an ice age 450 million years ago by sucking CO2 from the atmosphere. Researchers report evidence that minerals from the mountain range washed into the oceans just before the cold snap, carrying atmospheric carbon dioxide with them. The result clarifies a long standing paradox in the historical relationship between CO2 and climate, experts say. At the start of the so-called Ordovician ice age, about 450 million years ago, the planet went from a state of greenhouse warmth to one of glacial cold, culminating in mass extinctions of ocean life. This...
Sunspots and the Maunder Minimums
Sun's Not Screwy, Scientist Says
	07/11/2008 11:13:33 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 53 replies · 1,007+ views SPACE.com | Jul 11, 2008 | Unknown Nothing is out of whack with the sun, a NASA researcher said this week, despite some scientists' suggestions that a lull in the weather there lately is unusually long, a phenomenon linked to at least one small ice age. < > "There have been some reports lately that solar minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true," said NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. The ongoing lull in sunspot numbers "is well within historic norms for the solar cycle." < >
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age
	07/07/2008 2:05:25 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 42 replies · 710+ views Live Science | JUL 7, 2008 | Ker Than Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how?
Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age ($$$)
	07/08/2008 9:50:22 PM PDT · Posted by max americana · 11 replies · 325+ views LiveScience.com | July 7, 2008 | Ker Than Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how? "There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada," said retired geophysicist Allen West, who was involved in...
Australia...
Early Aussie Tattoos Match Rock Art
	07/11/2008 6:22:50 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 147+ views Discovery News | Thursday, July 3, 2008 | Jennifer Viegas The study not only illustrates the link between body art, such as tattoos and intentional scarring, with cultural identity, but it also suggests that study of this imagery may help to unravel mysteries about where certain groups traveled in the past, what their values and rituals were, and how they related to other cultures... For the study, published in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity, Brady documented rock art drawings; images found on early turtle shell, stone and wood objects, such as bamboo tobacco pipes and drums; and images that were etched onto the human body through a process...
...and the Pacific
Site of Pacific ruler, mass burial, gets World Heritage splash
	07/09/2008 9:40:21 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 204+ views EarthTimes | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | DPA Vanuatu, the archipelago country in the South Pacific once known as the New Hebrides made its first splash on the world's map of cultural landmarks Monday when a UN committee put the spotlight on its famous 13th-century ruler and a gruesome burial practice of the times. UNESCO's World Heritage Site committee designated places on three islands - Efate, Lelepa and Artok - associated with the life and death of Chief Roi Mata, the islands' last paramount chief in the 1200s. His "mass burial site" that included 25 other bodies was "closely associated with the oral traditions surrounding the chief and...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Ancient ruins found in Bolivia
	07/11/2008 6:38:54 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 207+ views Vancouver Sun (Canada.com) | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | David Mercado, Reuters Locals stumbled upon the remains while clearing the ground to build a new market in the picturesque town of Copacabana, a tourist hotspot on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Many of the unearthed tombs, textiles, clay pots and jewelry belonged to the well-documented Tiwanaku and Inca cultures that populated the area hundreds of years ago. But some relics go back as far as 3,000 years, when a little-known religious tradition called Yayamama is thought to have flourished in the Andes... The sculptures, which also feature two-headed snakes and geometric shapes, are still revered by local indigenous groups. The Yayamama built...
The Vikings
Histories: Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod
	07/09/2008 9:54:28 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 23 replies · 834+ views New Scientist | June 29, 2008 | Gail Vines When Ohthere the Viking arrived at King Alfred's court sometime around 880 he presented the king with a gift of walrus ivory. The gift was carefully chosen. Walrus ivory was then a rare commodity obtained only from northern Scandinavia and Russia, and was highly prized by the English. Having established his credentials as a prosperous and high-ranking man from the far north, Ohthere told Alfred that although he owned reindeer as well as cattle, sheep, pigs and horses, his greatest wealth came from the tax paid by the Finnas, or Sami people. This came in the form of seal skins...
Unravelling The North West's (UK) Viking Past
	02/08/2008 2:52:36 PM PST · Posted by blam · 15 replies · 150+ views Alpha Galileo | 2-8-2008 | Molecular Biology and Evolution The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England -- according to a new study which has been just published. Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry. The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in...
Scotland Yet
Antonine Wall set to take centre stage
	07/09/2008 9:42:59 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 134+ views Sunday Times | July 6, 2008 | Richard Wilson It begins in Old Kilpatrick, on the River Clyde, and ends in Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth. It runs inconspicuously by cemeteries, schools and rows of shops, along streets where pedestrians walk, probably unknowingly, along its spine. In some places railway tracks and roads cross it, in others the trains and traffic race alongside. The Antonine Wall is Scottish history's forgotten legacy. Yet when members of Unesco's World Heritage Committee meet in Quebec tomorrow, the wall -- built by the Romans in AD142 -- will be on their agenda. Having applied for World Heritage Site status, it is on...
Underwater Archaeology
Archaeology: The lost world -- Death in the Mesolithic
	07/11/2008 5:09:19 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 155+ views Nature | July 9, 2008 | Laura Spinney Mesolithic burials in northern Europe could be elaborate. People were buried lying, sitting cross-legged or on their bellies. They were buried with goods that included dogs, red deer antlers, food and amber beads. At Vedbaek Bogebakken, north of Copenhagen, a newborn baby was buried on a swan's wing, next to a woman who is presumed to have died in childbirth. But quite possibly, Mesolithic people in Britain didn't practise the same traditions. The only known Mesolithic burial site in Britain is Aveline's Hole, a cave in Somerset where the remains of around 50 individuals dating from approximately 10,000 years ago...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
UK: 30,000 gather at Stonehenge to celebrate Summer Solstice [Fair warning: Photos]
	06/21/2008 7:29:26 AM PDT · Posted by yankeedame · 85 replies · 2,506+ views DailyMail | 21st June 2008 | Chris Laker As the sun rose at 0458, a cheer went up from the brave crowds who had taken up their positions overnight at the stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Clad in ponchos, black cloaks and makeshift waterproof jackets made from bin-bags, revellers gathered at the Heel stone....
Ancient Autopsies
Stonehenge, Ohio Hopewell sites might have focused on burials
	07/11/2008 6:04:17 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 85+ views Columbus Dispatch | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | Bradley T. Lepper Pearson said, "I think the key thing is that from the moment that Stonehenge is built -- this is very shortly after 3,000 B.C. -- they're putting in burials as well as the parts of the monument itself. And I think it's something that is going hand in hand with it." He referred to alternative theories, including Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill's idea that Stonehenge was a place of healing, as in no way inconsistent with the site also serving as a cemetery. A place devoted to the ancestors naturally could have a variety of secondary uses, such as invoking...
Biology and Cryptobiology
It's a 26ft Jaws and it sucks... (Mysterious arctic shark slurps up seals whole)
	07/11/2008 7:49:27 AM PDT · Posted by Stoat · 69 replies · 2,043+ views The Sun (U.K.) / Florida Museum of Natural History | July 12, 2008 | Boffin-lover Virginia Wheeler It's a 26ft Jaws and it sucks... Big sucker ... the shark -- Massive Arctic shark that sucks up seals whole and may live for 200 years is being studied by boffins for the first time. The mysterious Greenland shark's mouth with hundreds of teeth is UNDER its body -- so it cruises along the ocean bed scooping up prey. Baffled boffins say whole reindeer and polar bear heads have also been found in stomachs of the deep-sea monsters, which can be 26ft long. They are cannibalistic but their flesh...
Paleontology
Simple Life Form May Have Existed 700 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought
	07/11/2008 5:26:55 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 219+ views Science Daily | July 8, 2008 | Curtin University The accepted timeframe for the beginnings of life on Earth is now being questioned by a Curtin University of Technology led team of scientists, after finding a key indicator to the earliest life forms in diamonds from Jack Hills in Western Australia... The Curtin led team's discovery of very high concentrations of carbon 12, or "light carbon" within these crystals is remarkable as it is a feature usually associated with organic life... Evidence for ancient life stretches back in time to at least 3.5 billion years ago, in the form of single-celled organisms that did not require oxygen. The discovery...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Mystery of the meat-eaters' molecule [inability to produce a chemical linked to chronic disease]
	07/08/2008 6:58:14 PM PDT · Posted by GraniteStateConservative · 61 replies · 1,226+ views The Telegraph (London, UK) | 8-7-08 | Roger Highfield Our inability to produce a chemical present in every other primate may be linked to a series of chronic diseases. Roger Highfield explains more What does it mean to be human? For most people, it all comes down to that extraordinary object between our ears, and how it blesses us with language, laughter and logic. But not for Ajit Varki, a doctor-cum-scientist who works in California. Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and auto-immune illnesses Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and...
Prehistory and Origins
Big brains arose twice in higher primates
	07/09/2008 9:12:45 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 13 replies · 322+ views American Museum of Natural History | Jul 9, 2008 | Unknown After taking a fresh look at an old fossil, John Flynn, Frick Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues determined that the brains of the ancestors of modern Neotropical primates were as small as those of their early fossil simian counterparts in the Old World. This means one of the hallmarks of primate biology, increased brain size, arose independently in isolated groups -- the platyrrhines of the Americas and the catarrhines of Africa and Eurasia. "Primatologists have long suspected that increased encephalization may have arisen...
Pages
English to Pass one Million Word Mark on 29 April, 2009
	07/08/2008 5:01:38 AM PDT · Posted by Coffee200am · 41 replies · 591+ views Sify News | 07.07.2008 | Sify News The English language is set to reach a very important landmark within the next year ñ its one millionth word. A new English word is created every 98 minutes, and the current number of official words stands at 995,844. With the way things are going, experts believe that the language will cross its one millionth word mark within the year, more specifically 29 April, 2009. More news, analysis | More Science and Medicine news "English is different to most other languages in that it absorbs words like no other language in history. Language boils up from the people and...
Early America
Philadelphia's Forgotten Founders
	07/09/2008 7:59:07 AM PDT · Posted by William Tell 2 · 22 replies · 335+ views The Bulletin | 07/09/2008 | Michael P. Tremoglie One signed all three bulwarks of the Republic. The other was second only to James Madison as the architect of the Constitution. Robert Morris and James Wilson were two of the most important, yet least publicized, of the Founding Fathers. Why has Philadelphia not commemorated some of its most important citizens? Wilson was according to American Heritage magazine, one of the most underrated Americans in history. Historian Gary Wills wrote, "A signer of the Declaration, a principal drafter of the Federal Constitution, the principal ratifier, and the profoundest theorist of it, Wilson is the least known of the Founding Fathers."...
American Revolution
Alexander Hamilton's Capital Compromise
	07/05/2008 5:53:00 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 18 replies · 398+ views The Wall Street Journal | July 5, 2008 | FERGUS M. BORDEWICH Last month, workmen jacked up a 206-year-old yellow clapboard house, levered it onto a set of remote-controlled dollies, and trundled it two blocks to a new site in St. Nicholas Park, overlooking East Harlem in New York City. The Grange, as it is called, was the home of Alexander Hamilton, best known as co-author of the Federalist papers and America's first secretary of the Treasury. But this founding father also had an extraordinary role in the infant nation's attempt to come to grips with the curse of slavery. Born in the West Indies, Hamilton was one of the most ardent...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Indian groups focus on saving languages
	07/09/2008 10:11:17 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 287+ views Indian Country Today | Faye Flam, Philadelphia Inquirer "We're talking about an emergency situation," said Richard Grounds, a speaker of the Euchee language and co-organizer of the meeting, held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. The youngest person to grow up speaking Euchee as a first language is now 78, said Grounds, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The rest are in their 80s... Languages seem to be going extinct like species of plants and animals. That comparison holds up pretty well, except that languages can occasionally be brought back to life. Growing up in Ohio, Daryl Baldwin said he was told that...
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