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Here we report preliminary evidence from Xisha Islands in the South China Sea for a large tsunami around AD 1024. Sand layers in lake sediment cores and their geochemical characteristics indicate a sudden deposition event around AD 1024, temporally consistent with a written record of a disastrous event characterized by high waves in AD 1076. Heavy coral and shell fossils, which are older than AD 1024, deposited more than 200 meters into the island, further support the occurrence of a high-energy event such as a tsunami or an unusually large storm. Our results underscore the importance of acknowledging and understanding the...

Did the Ancient Greeks and Native Americans Swap Starcharts? Author Ker Than I had a story on SPACE.com yesterday about a very cool discovery: a one-thousand year old petroglyph, or rock carving, that was found in Arizona and which might depict the supernova of 1006, or SN 1006. The carving is presumed to have been made an ancient group of Native Americans called the Hohokam. The researcher who made the discovery argues that symbols of a scorpion and stars on the petroglyph match the relative positions of SN 1006 to the constellation Scorpius when the star first exploded. Well, after...

Native Americans recorded supernova explosion 16:45 05 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Zeeya Merali and Kelly Young The Arizonan petroglyph may depict the supernova of 1006 AD - the star symbol is on the right and the constellation Scorpius on the left (Image: John Barentine, Apache Point Observatory) This double-sun petroglyph at Chaco Canyon National Monument in New Mexico may depict the supernova of 4 July 1054 (Image: Mark Lansing) There are numerous examples of rock art in the Chaco Canyon National Monument depicting celestial objects (Image: Mark Lansing) Prehistoric Native Americans may have carved a record of a supernova...

A bright star suddenly appears on April 30, 1006 near the star Beta Lupi in the constellation Lupus. This bright star is yellowish-white in color. The star gets brighter, bright to a point, it is brighter than Venus and half Moon. It has a magnitude of -9 at its peak. The star was visible for a year and it disappeared afterwards. The bright star was a supernova. Supernovas are when a star explodes. The Supernova is recorded in Korea, China, Japan, Mesopotamia, and Europe, often by astrologers. The supernova was seen as an omen. The remnants of the 1006 Supernova...

1,000-Year-Old Muslim Joke Book Found An 11th-century book by a revered Baghdad Muslim scholar turns out to be a tongue-in-cheek guide for party crashers, according to the researcher who translated the book into English. The tome was originally authored by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a well known scholar of the Prophet Mohammed's teachings. According to Emily Selove of the University of Manchester, who did the translation, he wrote the book to remind readers "that every serious minded person needs to take a break." She continued, "This book, which contains flirtation, profanity, and even a little drunkenness, is a lot of fun and...