Free Republic

One Marcus Novius Tubula apparently ordered the sundial to mark his noble appointment as tribune of Rome itself, say archaeologists after finding it in ancient town of Interamna Lirenas One day around 2,000 years ago, a Roman named Marcus Novius Tubula ordered an elaborate sundial, University of Cambridge researchers report after finding it intact two millennia later during excavation in the Roman town of Interamna Lirenas, near Monte Cassino, in Italy. Carved in limestone and 54 centimeters in width, the sundial's concave face was engraved with 11 hour lines intersecting three day curves. Thus the device could give indicate the...

The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire... The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made...