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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #389 · v 8 · n 25 Saturday, December 31, 2011 |
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14 topics |
Welcome to the giant 37-topic #389 and final 2011 issue of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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Posted on 07/16/2004 11:27:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #389 Saturday, December 31, 2011 |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Scholarly world abuzz over Jewish scrolls find [ Afghanistan ] |
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· 12/31/2011 10:12:25 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · Jerusalem Post · · Saturday, December 31, 2011 · · Gil Shefler · |
The Jewish scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan's Samangan province, Channel 2 reported on Friday. According to Arab Affairs correspondent Ehud Yeari, if validated the scrolls may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century. "We know today about a couple of findings," Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at Hebrew University was quoted as saying. "In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg." The... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Second Temple Era Seal Unveiled |
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· 12/25/2011 5:19:51 AM PST · · Posted by exbrit · · 14 replies · · Israel National News · · 12/25/11 · · Gavriel Queenann · |
The Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled a rare ancient seal that underscores the bond of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Antiquities Authority, and Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, who oversaw the excavation, explained to reporters the significance of the coin. "This is the first time an object of this kind has been found. It is direct archaeological evidence of Jewish activity on the Temple Mount during the Second Temple era," they said. |
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| Ancient seal found in Jerusalem linked to ritual |
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· 12/25/2011 3:08:23 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 13 replies · · Associated Press · · NA · · NA · |
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A rare clay seal found under Jerusalem's Old City appears to be linked to religious rituals practiced at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday. The coin-sized seal found near the Jewish holy site at the Western Wall bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God." Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said it dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D. -- the year Roman forces put down a Jewish revolt and destroyed the second of the two biblical temples in Jerusalem. The find marks the first discovery of a written... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Rare Cuneiform Script Found on Island of Malta |
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· 12/24/2011 9:27:13 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 46 replies · · Popular Archaeology · · Thursday, December 22, 2011 · · Vol. 5 December 2011 · |
A small-sized find in an ancient megalithic temple stirs the imagination. Excavations among what many scholars consider to be the world's oldest monumental buildings on the island of Malta continue to unveil surprises and raise new questions about the significance of these megalithic structures and the people who built them. Not least is the latest find -- a small but rare, crescent-moon shaped agate stone featuring a 13th-century B.C.E. cuneiform inscription, the likes of which would normally be found much farther west in Mesopotamia. Led by palaeontology professor Alberto Cazzella of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the archaeological team... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Deciphered Ancient Tablet Reveals Curse of Greengrocer |
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· 12/24/2011 9:37:45 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · LiveScience · · Wednesday, December 21, 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
Written in Greek, the tablet holding the curse was dropped into a well in Antioch, then one of the Roman Empire's biggest cities in the East, today part of southeast Turkey, near the border with Syria. The curse calls upon Iao, the Greek name for Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament, to afflict a man named Babylas who is identified as being a greengrocer. The tablet lists his mother's name as Dionysia, "also known as Hesykhia" it reads. The text was translated by Alexander Hollmann of the University of Washington. The artifact, which is now in the Princeton University... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Pillar at Pompei villa collapses |
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· 12/24/2011 9:22:05 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 27 replies · · Monsters and Critics · · Thursday, December 22, 2011 · · Deutsche Presse-Agentur · |
A pillar has collapsed at one of Pompeii's most well-preserved buildings, officials in Italy said Thursday, the latest in a series of accidents to befall the treasured archaeological site. The collapse took place on an external area of the House of Loreius Tiburtinus -- also known as the House of Octavius Quartio -- the office of Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii, said in a statement. Officials were in the process of inspecting the causes and extent of the damage, the statement added. The House of Loreius Tiburtinus is renowned for its artwork and large gardens. In October a portion... |
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| Africa | |
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| Sudan's Ancient Civilization: Nubian Kingdoms and the Christian Era |
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· 12/25/2011 5:42:02 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · Sudan Vision · · Sunday, December 25, 2011 · · A. S. Alkoronki · |
Christianity had entered Sudan through the persecuted followers who escaped Egyptian territories which was occupied by the Romans who fought the new religion at first, but when Christianity became the Empire's religion the missionary movement became active and took a formal push in the reign of the Emperor Justinian in the years 517 AD --565 AD. The first mission sent from Constantinople to Nubia was under the chairmanship of a priest called "Julian" in 543 AD. With the support of Empress "Theodora", "Julian" stayed in Nubia and succeeded to some extent in spreading Christianity among the Nubian Gentiles. Then at... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| The mystery of 666 Explained -- Nero! {Ecumenical thread} |
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· 12/22/2011 1:01:18 PM PST · · Posted by Cronos · · 213 replies · · ecclesia.org · · 2009 · · Richard Anthony · |
Apocalypse 13:16-18 is based on Ezekiel 8 and 9. The "mark" symbolized the spiritual condition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The ones with the "mark" were in allegiance with God. However, in Apocalypse, the mark is reversed. That is to say, the mark was on those who were against God and had allegiance to the "beast." John wrote that the number "is the number of a man's name; and his number is 666." This tells us that those who received the "mark" were actually in allegiance with a "man," an actually person of the first century. So, who was he?... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Eric Hobsbawm on 2011: 'It reminds me of 1848...' |
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· 12/26/2011 8:38:11 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · BBC World Service News · · Thursday, December 22, 2011 · · Andrew Whitehead · |
The renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm has watched the revolutions of 2011 with excitement -- and notes that it's now the middle class, not the working class, that is making waves... He has lived his life in the shadow, or the glow, of revolutions. Born just months before the Russian revolution of 1917, he was a Communist for most of his adult life -- as well as an innovative and influential writer and thinker. He has been a historian of revolution, and at times an advocate of revolutionary change. "Today's most effective mass mobilisations start from a new modernised middle class... |
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| Greece | |
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| Ancient lines of defence |
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· 12/27/2011 8:35:28 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 5 replies · · Athens News · · Sunday, December 25, 2011 · · John Leonard · |
Rhamnous and Sounion became especially important in the late 5th century BC, when the Spartans followed the advice of the traitorous Athenian Alcibiades and seized the strategic hill of Dekeleia, north of Athens, in 412BC. Having thus cut off the city's major food supply, the Spartans forced the Athenians to seek alternative routes for their vital shipments of Evia grain and other foodstuffs. Rhamnous' twin harbours replaced the more northerly port of Oropos and served as a naval base from which Athenian warships could safeguard the newly crucial shipping lanes that extended around Cape Sounion to Piraeus... Visible at Rhamnous... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| An Ancient Greek Debt Solution |
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· 09/30/2011 2:11:57 AM PDT · · Posted by Cronos · · 14 replies · · Wall Street Journal · · 28 Sep 2011 · · Matthew Dalton · |
...The year was around 400 B.C.; Plato was an up-and-coming young philosopher; and Dionysius of Syracuse*, a noted tyrant, had a problem: He'd borrowed too much money from his subjects. .., Dionysius ordered all money handed over to the government upon pain of death. He then reminted every coin, turning each one-drachma coin into a two-drachmae coin. The tyrant was then able to pay all his debts in full; maybe no one noticed that the real value of the coinage had been halved. ...It should be noted that Dionysius enjoyed several advantages over the contemporary Greek state. First, he was... |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| D'oh, it's Homer McSimpson! Stunned Scottish couple unearth '800-year-old' stone head |
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· 12/25/2011 10:51:11 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 45 replies · · Daily Mail · · 12/25/11 · · Charles Walford · |
Whoever carved the statue would not have had TV's favourite cartoon anti-hero in mind -- but there is no doubting the resemblance of this stone head to Homer Simpson It was found by Rosalind and Donald McIntyre when they were clearing the bottom of their garden at their home in Fife, Scotland, earlier this year. The couple were working in their garden when Mrs McIntyre picked up the head. She took it to St Andrews Museum, and the discovery has been referred to the National Committee for Carved Stones of Scotland. |
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| Anatolia | |
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| 9500 year old obsidian bracelet shows exceptional craft skills |
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· 12/29/2011 10:36:07 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 65 replies · · Past Horizons · · Tuesday, December 27, 2011 · · LTDS press release · |
Researchers have analysed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Asikli Hˆy¸k, Turkey. A high level of technical expertise Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet's surface and micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BCE. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today's polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies. Dated to 7500 BCE, the... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Irikaitz archaeological site: only for the tenacious |
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· 12/27/2011 6:52:39 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 4 replies · · Basque Research · · December 27, 2011 · |
The recent discovery of a pendant at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa) has given rise to intense debate: it may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest found to date at open-air excavations throughout the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. This stone is nine centimetres long and has a hole for hanging it from the neck although it would seem that, apart from being adornment, it was used to sharpen tools. The discovery has had great repercussion, but it is not by any means the only one uncovered... |
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| Multiregionalism | |
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| Viewpoint: Has 'one species' idea been put to bed? |
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· 12/30/2011 12:06:29 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 21 replies · · BBC · · December 30, 2011 · · Clive Finlayson · |
Here, Prof Clive Finlayson looks back at the year's developments in human evolution research and asks whether recent discoveries rule out a well known idea about our ancestors. Hobbits on Flores, Denisovans in Siberia, Neanderthals across Eurasia and our very own ancestors. Given this array of human diversity in the Late Pleistocene, we might well be forgiven for thinking that Ernst Mayr's contention that "in spite of much geographical variation, never more than one species of man existed on Earth at any one time" had finally been put to bed. It now seems that a high degree of diversity was also... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Last Neanderthals near the Arctic Circle? |
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· 12/29/2011 10:14:08 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 33 replies · · Past Horizons · · Tuesday, December 27, 2011 · · CNRS press release · |
Dating of butchery marks crucial A multi-disciplinary team of French CNRS researchers, working with Norwegian and Russian scientists, studied the Byzovaya site in the Polar Urals in northern Russia. Using carbon 14 dating and an optical simulation technique, the team was able to put an accurate date on sediments and on mammoth and reindeer bones abandoned on the site. The bones bore traces of butchering by Mousterian hunters. The results intrigue scientists in more ways than one. They show that Mousterian culture may have lasted longer than scientists had originally thought. What's more, no Mousterian presence had ever been identified... |
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| To Build a Fire | |
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| Model unlocks human impact on Africa's fire regimes |
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· 12/30/2011 4:18:21 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 5 replies · · BBC · · December 30, 2011 · · Mark Kinver · |
A model has helped shed light on how human-started fires shaped Africa's landscape, researchers report.Before human activity became widespread, most fires were caused by lightning strikes during the continent's wet seasons, they said. As the human population expanded, more fires occurred during the dry season, triggering a shift in the impact of fires on Africa's ecology, they added. > It has been estimated that early humans could have had the ability to start fires about 300,000 years ago, but the real impact was from about 70,000 years ago as human populations became more widespread. > |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| "Golden Chief" Tomb Treasure Yields Clues to Unnamed Civilization |
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· 12/26/2011 6:35:46 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · · National Geographic News · · December 21, 2011 · · James Owen · |
"Spectacular find" includes gold, jewels, and a small army of likely sacrifices. Newfound tombs in Central America are yielding thousand-year-old gold, gems, and even hints of murder by pufferfish. But the real treasure is the excavation's clues to the unnamed civilization of the so-called golden chiefs of Panama, archaeologists say. "It's really a very spectacular find. ... probably the most significant" for this culture since the 1930s, when the nearby Sitio Conte site, also in central Panama, yielded a wealth of gold artifacts, anthropologist John Hoopes said. Until now, Sitio Conte provided the only major evidence of the golden-chiefs culture,... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| The Human Lake |
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· 12/24/2011 8:43:23 AM PST · · Posted by grey_whiskers · · 9 replies · · Discover · · March 31, 2011 · · G. Evelyn Hutchinson · |
I went recently to San Francisco to give a talk to a conference of scientists. The scientists were experts in gathering together mountains of biological data -- genome sequences, results of experiments and clinical trials -- and figuring out how to make them useful: turning them into new diagnostic tests, for example, or a drug for cancer. The invitation was an honor, but a nerve-wracking one. As a journalist, I had no genome scan to offer the audience. We science writers do have one ace in the hole, though. Instead of being lashed to a lab bench for years, carrying out experiments to illuminate... |
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| Trunken Spree | |
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| Elephant's sixth 'toe' discovered |
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· 12/26/2011 8:28:17 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 57 replies · · BBC News · · Rebecca Morelle · |
A mysterious bony growth found in elephants' feet is actually a sixth "toe", scientists report. For more than 300 years, the structure has puzzled researchers, but this study suggests that it helps to support elephants' colossal weight. Fossils reveal that this "pre-digit" evolved about 40 million years ago, at a point when early elephants became larger and more land-based. The research is published in the journal Science. Lead author Professor John Hutchinson, from the UK's structure and motion laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College, said: "It's a cool mystery that goes back to 1706, when the first elephant was dissected... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Over 65 million years North American mammal evolution has tracked with climate change |
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· 12/26/2011 1:07:37 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · Brown University · · December 26, 2011 · |
Rise and fall of groups of fauna driven by temperaturePROVIDENCE, R.I. -- History often seems to happen in waves -- fashion and musical tastes turn over every decade and empires give way to new ones over centuries. A similar pattern characterizes the last 65 million years of natural history in North America, where a novel quantitative analysis has identified six distinct, consecutive waves of mammal species diversity, or "evolutionary faunas." What force of history determined the destiny of these groupings? The numbers say it was typically climate change. "Although we've always known in a general way that mammals respond to... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| 'Jurassic Park' scientist aims to hatch a dinosaur using DNA from birds |
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· 12/29/2011 6:15:04 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 36 replies · · Daily Mail · · Dec. 29, 2011 · · Ted Thornhill & Zoe Brennan · |
Some might say that only a bird brain could come up with such a plan, but scientist Jack Horner is hoping to use living birds to hatch a dinosaur. Horner, the technical adviser on Jurassic Park and professor of palaeontology at Montana State University believes that a modern bird's DNA contains a genetic memory that could be "switched on' again, resurrecting long-dormant dinosaur traits. What's more, he's looking for a helper to assist in the retro-engineering of a prehistoric beast. He told LiveScience: "I'm looking for a postdoctoral researcher. An adventurous postdoc who knows a lot about developmental biology and... |
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| Extremophiles | |
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| Deep-sea creatures at volcanic vent |
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· 12/28/2011 8:21:06 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 22 replies · · BBC · · December 27, 2011 · · Rebecca Morelle · |
Remarkable images of life from one of the most inhospitable spots in the ocean have been captured by scientists.Researchers have been surveying volcanic underwater vents -- sometimes called black smokers -- in the South West Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean. The UK team found an array of creatures living in the super-heated waters, including yeti crabs, scaly-foot snails and sea cucumbers. They believe some of the species may be new to science. |
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| Biology... | |
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| Badwater Basin: Death Valley Microbe Thrives There |
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· 12/27/2011 5:07:37 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · National Science Foundation · · December 22, 2011 · |
View a video showing the bacteria BW-1 swimming in the direction of the magnetic field. Nevada, the "Silver State," is well-known for mining precious metals. But scientists Dennis Bazylinski and colleagues at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) do a different type of mining. They sluice through every water body they can find, looking for new forms of microbial magnetism. In a basin named Badwater on the edge of Death Valley National Park, Bazylinski and researcher Christopher Lef√‹vre hit pay dirt. Lef√‹vre is with the French National Center of Scientific Research and University of Aix-Marseille II. In this week's... |
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| Rare 'faceless and brainless' fish seen off UK coast |
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· 12/29/2011 2:48:47 PM PST · · DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 35 replies · · MSNBC · · 12-29-11 · |
A rare species of fish described as "faceless and brainless" was among the unusual finds made by marine scientists off Britain's coast, according to a Scottish government report published on Thursday. The prehistoric amphioxus species, which grows to about two inches long and has no fins, was recorded off Orkney, part of the Northern Isles that lie off the far northern coast of mainland Scotland. The elusive fish is regarded as a modern representative of the first animals that evolved a backbone, the Scottish government said. With a nerve cord down its back, it has no specific brain or... |
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| ... & Cryptobiology | |
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| The Yeti, a severed finger spirited from Nepal, and a famous film star. |
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· 12/27/2011 4:38:01 AM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 39 replies · · DailyMail · · 27th December 2011 · · Matthew Hill · |
The full edited title: The Yeti, a severed finger spirited from Nepal, and a famous film star. DNA tests will finally solve a truly bizarre mystery Set high in a remote Himalayan mountain range stands the Pangboche Buddhist monastery. During heavy snowstorms, it can be found only by travellers who listen for the monks' ceremonial horns. The walls are lined with traditional Nepalese paintings depicting the treacherous tracks to the monastery. And among them are pictures of the legendary ape-like creature we refer to as the Yeti. |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Researchers: Excavation Of Shipwreck Warranted |
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· 12/27/2011 8:56:31 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · CBS Detroit · · December 19, 2011 · |
Tests performed at the bottom of northern Lake Michigan have provided enough evidence for researchers to recommend an excavation of the site of a shipwreck to determine if it's the Griffin, a French vessel that was loaded with furs when it sank in 1679, the project's lead investigator said Monday. Sonar scans of the lake bottom and profiling below it showed a mass consistent with other images of a buried ship hull, said Ken Vrana, director of the Laingsburg-based Center for Maritime and Underwater Resource Management. "The consensus among the professionals ... who have reviewed the data so far is... |
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| Hull of ancient ship revealed [ Cyprus ] |
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· 12/27/2011 9:04:28 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · Cyprus Mail · · December 24, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The Department of Antiquities has completed a second season of excavations of the Mazotos shipwreck. The team continued the systematic excavation of a trench, first opened in 2010, at the southern part of the assemblage, which the archaeologists have taken to be the bow of the ancient ship. Meanwhile, transport amphorae recovered at the site came from the island of Chios in the Aegean. One amphora from Cos was also found outside the main assemblage and it may have been part of the crew's provisions. Parts of two anchor stocks were also excavated which, added to the one found last... |
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| Five ancient shipwrecks found in central Stockholm |
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· 12/28/2011 9:14:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Yahoo News · · Tuesday, December 20, 2011 · · AFP · |
Five shipwrecks dating from the 1500s to the 1700s have been found during renovation work on a quay in central Stockholm, the Swedish Maritime Museum said on Monday." |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| The 16 Greatest Cities In Human History |
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· 12/25/2011 7:01:09 AM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 24 replies · · Business Insider · · 12/25/2011 · · Robert Johnson & Gus Lubin · |
Cities have played an important role in human history for over 9,000 years. Jericho, the oldest city on record with a population of 2,000, was the center of commerce and learning in its day. So was Uruk, Mari and other great cities through history to Tokyo, which is the largest city today. Cities are becoming even more important as we passes through the biggest wave of urbanization in human history. Determining the population of any city prior to the late 1700's is no easy task. Even the most casual census was unheard of before then, and studies to nail down... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| 1st Pennsylvania Regiment filled with good shots |
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· 12/30/2011 8:21:05 PM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 35 replies · · Reading Eagle (PA) · · 12-30-11 · · Bruce Posten · |
What made Revolutionary War riflemen in the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Line so special? They were good shots using the right gun, a Pennsylvania long rifle with curved grooves in the barrel and a soft lead ball, according to reenactors. "These were sharpshooters who usually fought in pairs and were accurate in hitting a target within 200 to 300 yards," said Gregory A. Kreitz, 62, of Lower Heidelberg Township, a reenactor with the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment. Using the Pennsylvania long rifle, a second sharpshooter was usually ready to fire when the first one finished, often from behind the... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Why Irish soldiers who fought Hitler hide their medals |
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· 12/27/2011 7:46:14 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 49 replies · · BBC · · December 27, 2011 · · John Waite · |
Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen -- but he wears his medals in secret. Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service. "They would come and get me, yes they would," he said in a frail voice at his home in the docks area of Dublin. And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick,... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| How Germany's feared Scharnhorst ship was sunk in WWII |
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· 12/25/2011 5:27:04 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 51 replies · · BBC · · December 25, 2011 · · Claire Bowes · |
On 26 December 1943 one of the great sea battles of World War II took place.Germany's most famous battleship -- the Scharnhorst -- was sunk by Allied forces during the Battle of the North Cape. Norman Scarth was an 18-year-old on board the British naval destroyer HMS Matchless, which was protecting a convoy taking vital supplies to the Russian ports of the Arctic Circle. In a BBC World Service interview he described how he witnessed the sinking of the Scharnhorst: We could still hear voices calling from the black of that Arctic winter night, calling for help, and we... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Having a cow can be a heart healthy choice |
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· 12/26/2011 3:56:48 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 37 replies · · Penn State · · December 21, 2011 · |
Lean beef can contribute to a heart-healthy diet in the same way lean white meats can, according to nutritional scientists. The DASH diet -- Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension -- is currently recommended by the American Heart Association to lower cholesterol and reduce risk of heart disease. People following the DASH diet are encouraged to eat fish and poultry, but not much beef. According to the Centers for Disease Control about 26 percent of American deaths are caused by heart disease. "The DASH diet is currently the gold standard for contemporary diet recommendations," said Michael Roussell, nutrition consultant and recent... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| This Ancient, Deadly Disease Is Still Killing In Europe |
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· 12/30/2011 3:33:45 PM PST · · Posted by blam · · 35 replies · · TBI · · 12-30-3011 · · John Donnelly · |
This Ancient, Deadly Disease Is Still Killing In Europe John Donnelly, GlobalPost Dec. 30, 2011, 12:53 PM GENEVA, Switzerland -- On the sidelines of a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, just three months ago, a senior health official from Belarus met privately with Mario Raviglione, whose job here at the World Health Organization's headquarters is to control the spread of tuberculosis around the world. Belarus needed help. It had just confirmed a study that found 35 percent of all TB cases in the capital of Minsk were multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) -- the highest rate in the world ever recorded for... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Decades Later, a Cold War Secret Is Revealed |
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· 12/26/2011 5:30:15 AM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 62 replies · · AP via FoxNews · · December 25, 2011 · · Helen O'Neill · |
DANBURY, Conn. -- For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code. |
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| Decades Later, a Cold War Secret Is Revealed |
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· 12/26/2011 4:55:55 PM PST · · Posted by Captain Beyond · · 26 replies · · Associated Press · · 12-25-2011 · · Helen O'Neill · |
This undated image made available by the National Reconnaissance Office is a declassified image of a man standing next to a satellite control section from the Hexagon program. DANBURY, Conn. -- For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets. They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored. They spoke in code. Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met... |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #389 · v 8 · n 25 Saturday, December 31, 2011 |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #389 · v 8 · n 25 Saturday, December 31, 2011 |
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Welcome to the giant 37-topic #389 and final 2011 issue of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #390 Saturday, January 7, 2012 |
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| Sunken Civilizations | |
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| Earliest Directly-Dated Human Skull-Cups [ 14,700 BP ] |
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· 01/07/2012 5:35:06 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · Public Library of Science · |
Abstract Background The use of human braincases as drinking cups and containers has extensive historic and ethnographic documentation, but archaeological examples are extremely rare. In the Upper Palaeolithic of western Europe, cut-marked and broken human bones are widespread in the Magdalenian (~15 to 12,000 years BP) and skull-cup preparation is an element of this tradition. Principal Findings Here we describe the post-mortem processing of human heads at the Upper Palaeolithic site of Gough's Cave (Somerset, England) and identify a range of modifications associated with the production of skull-cups. New analyses of human remains from Gough's Cave demonstrate the skilled post-mortem... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| OHSU research produces the world's first primate chimeric offspring |
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· 01/05/2012 9:26:54 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 18 replies · · Oregon Health & Science U · |
PORTLAND, Ore. - Newly published research by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University provides significant new information about how early embryonic stem cells develop and take part in formation of the primate species. The research, which took place at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, has also resulted in the first successful birth of chimeric monkeys -- monkeys developed from stem cells taken from two separate embryos. The research will be published this week in the online edition of the journal Cell and will be published in a future printed copy of the journal. The research was conducted to... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| ...Kanzi, the ape who HAS learned the secret of man's red fire and loves...a good fry-up |
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· 01/02/2012 2:07:38 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 40 replies · · Daily Mail · |
Eagerly he collects wood from the ground, snaps the branches into small pieces and carefully balances them in a pile. Then, taking care not to burn himself, he gently strikes a match and gets ready for a fry-up. Like all red-blooded males, Kanzi loves messing around with a barbecue. But then, as these extraordinary pictures show, Kanzi is no man. He is a bonobo - pygmy chimpanzee - and his love of fire is challenging the way that we think about our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. For although bonobo apes and larger chimpanzees use twigs and leaves as... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Ancient Texts Part of Earliest Known Documents |
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· 12/31/2011 5:23:11 PM PST · · Posted by Engraved-on-His-hands · · 27 replies · · Discovery News · |
A team of scholars has discovered what might be the oldest representation of the Tower of Babel of Biblical fame, they report in a newly published book. Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the Tower of Babel stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE. It was found in the collection of Martin Schoyen, a businessman from Norway who owns the largest private manuscript assemblage formed in the 20th century. Consisting of 13,717 manuscript items spanning over 5,000 years, the collection includes parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Buddhist manuscript rescued from the Taliban, and even... |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| 'Discovery of a lifetime': Stone Age temple found in Orkney is 800 years older than Stonehenge... |
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· 01/04/2012 6:00:46 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 57 replies · · Daily Mail · |
The site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, was investigated by BBC2 documentary A History of Ancient Britain, with presenter Neil Oliver describing it as 'the discovery of a lifetime'. So far the remains of 14 Stone Age buildings have been excavated, but thermal geophysics technology has revealed that there are 100 altogether, forming a kind of temple precinct. Until now Stonehenge was considered to have been the centre of Neolithic culture, but that title may now go to the Orkney site, which contains Britain's earliest known wall paintings. Oliver said: 'The excavation of a vast network of buildings on... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Ancient DNA Reveals Lack Of Continuity - Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers And Contemporary Scandinavians |
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· 01/02/2012 6:33:58 AM PST · · Posted by blam · · 42 replies · · Science Direct · |
Summary The driving force behind the transition from a foraging to a farming lifestyle in prehistoric Europe (Neolithization) has been debated for more than a century [1] , [2] and [3] . Of particular interest is whether population replacement or cultural exchange was responsible [3] , [4] and [5] . Scandinavia holds a unique place in this debate, for it maintained one of the last major hunter-gatherer complexes in Neolithic Europe, the Pitted Ware culture [6]. Intriguingly, these late hunter-gatherers existed in parallel to early... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| MSU scientists crack medieval bone code |
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· 01/03/2012 2:39:34 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 17 replies · · Michigan State U · |
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Two teams of Michigan State University researchers -- one working at a medieval burial site in Albania, the other at a DNA lab in East Lansing -- have shown how modern science can unlock the mysteries of the past. The scientists are the first to confirm the existence of brucellosis, an infectious disease still prevalent today, in ancient skeletal remains. The findings, which appear in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggest brucellosis has been endemic to Albania since at least the Middle Ages. Although rare in the United States, brucellosis remains a major problem in... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Drought Doomed Ancient City of Angkor |
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· 01/04/2012 3:43:34 PM PST · · Posted by Captain Beyond · · 14 replies · · Mary Beth Day · · U of Cambridge · · LiveScience · |
Bayon temple, constructed by Angkorian King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century. The faces may be representations of Buddha, the bodhisattva Lokesvara, Jayavarman VII, or a combination. The ancient city of Angkor -- the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat -- might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find. The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries.... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| The Earliest Roman Ghost in Britain |
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· 01/07/2012 7:17:32 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · Dr Beachcombing · |
Owen Davies in his fascinating The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts notes the way that strangely (or obviously if you are a sceptic like Beachcombing) ghosts follow the fashions and interests of their times. Take OD's thoughts, for example, on Roman ghosts in the UK. The most recent addition to the corpus of heritage hauntings is also the most venerable of all -- the roman [sic and below] legionnaire. A search on the internet reveals numerous sightings in diverse places such as London, Derby, the Isle of Wight, and an old Roman road near Weymouth. Some readers will be... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| (2012) Mayans couldn't even see their own End of Days |
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· 12/31/2011 5:36:59 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 64 replies · · Winnipeg Free Press · |
Mayans couldn't even see their own End of Days MY prediction for the year 2012, which I am told begins tomorrow, is that the world will not end. This is despite the belief that the Mayan calendar says that it will. The calendar was devised 5,125 years ago by the Mayans of Central America, a people who never had the wit to invent the wheel, but it runs out on Dec. 21, 2012. The End of Days, so to speak. If, as some seers suggest, thats an accurate prediction, you have less than a year to get your affairs in... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Divisions emerge between Islamists in Egypt |
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· 01/01/2012 9:32:56 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Miami Herald · |
In the second phase of elections, whose results were announced Dec. 24, the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, maintained its leading position, raking in more than 4 million votes. It was followed by the Al Nour Party of the Salafists, a more hard-line Islamist group, with about 3.2 million votes. Mohamed Morsi, head of the Freedom and Justice Party, dismissed talk of forming an alliance with the rival Salafists soon after results were announced by the Higher Electoral Committee. Although only partial results are available, both parties together control roughly half the parliamentary seats, with the... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Tomb of Apostle Philip Found |
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· 01/05/2012 7:11:33 AM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 17 replies · · Bible History Daily · |
Amid the remains of a fourth or fifth century church at Hierapolis, one of the most significant Christian sites in Turkey, Francesco D'Andria found this first-century Roman tomb that he believes once held the remains of the apostle Philip. At about the same time as the July/August 2011 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review was hitting the newsstands, containing an article about St. Philip's Martyrium,* author and excavation director Francesco D'Andria was making an exciting new discovery in the field at Hierapolis, one of the most significant sites in Christian Turkey. A month later he announced it: They had finally found... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Rewriting the dawn of civilization ( Was Göbekli Tepe the cradle of civilization? ) |
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· 01/03/2012 10:27:32 AM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 44 replies · · JoNova · |
If National Geographic had more stories like this one, I¬'d be inclined to subscribe. This is fascinating stuff.Seven thousand years before Stonehenge was Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, where you¬'ll find ring upon ring of T-shaped stone towers arranged in a circle. Around 11,600 B.C. hundreds of people gathered on this mound, year after year, possibly for centuries.There are plenty of mysteries on this hill. Some of the rocks weigh 16 tons, but archaeologists can find no homes, no hearths, no water source, and no sign of a town or village to support the hundreds of workers who built the rings... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Earth's massive extinction: The story gets worse |
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· 01/07/2012 6:23:42 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · PhyOrg · |
Scientists have uncovered a lot about the Earth's greatest extinction event that took place 250 million years ago when rapid climate change wiped out nearly all marine species and a majority of those on land. Now, they have discovered a new culprit likely involved in the annihilation: an influx of mercury into the eco-system. "No one had ever looked to see if mercury was a potential culprit. This was a time of the greatest volcanic activity in Earth's history and we know today that the largest source of mercury comes from volcanic eruptions," says Dr. Steve Grasby, co-author of a... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Mighty Arms Helped Extinct Cats Keep a Mouthful of Fanged Teeth |
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· 01/07/2012 7:07:30 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · · LiveScience · |
Sabertooth cats and other super-toothy predators apparently possessed mighty arms that they used to help them kill. The beefy arms would have served to pin down prey and protect the ferocious-looking teeth of the feline predators, which were actually fragile enough to fracture, scientists find. The finding also may hold for other knife-fanged prehistoric carnivores; long before sabertooth cats evolved, a number of now-extinct toothy hunters once roamed the Earth. These included the nimravids, or false sabertooth cats, which lived from 7 million to 42 million years ago alongside a sister group to cats known as barbourofelids, which lived from... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| The Long, Long Depression |
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· 01/02/2012 5:58:18 PM PST · · Posted by dynachrome · · 10 replies · · National Review Online · |
The markets were on a roll. New companies were being listed every few days. Germany had a new currency, and its mighty exporters were doing business around the world. Greece had merged its currency with that of France and Italy in a bold experiment in monetary union. A massive new continental economy was flooding the world with cheap goods, disrupting old industries. And new technologies were creating global markets, where money and information zipped from bourse to bank virtually instantaneously. Until the crash came, it seemed as if everyone would keep on getting richer and richer forever. You could be... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Stripped down as you've never seen her: Pictures of Tower Bridge during construction found dumped... |
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· 01/07/2012 5:10:54 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Daily Mail (UK) · |
Stripped down to her underwear, the never before seen pictures of Tower Bridge -- one of the world's most recognisable structures -- have been unveiled after the stash of hundred-year-old prints were found in a skip. Coinciding with the 125th anniversary of the bridge's foundation, the 50 sepia photos reveal in incredible detail the ingenuity behind one of the capital's most popular tourist destinations, which was the first bridge of its kind in the world. The unique pictures, dating back to 1892, document the construction the iconic bridge, which at the time was a landmark feat of engineering nicknamed 'The... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| (History changed by act of mercy?) How a four-year-old Adolf Hitler was saved from certain death ... |
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· 01/05/2012 7:09:05 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 71 replies · · Daily Mail Online · |
Revealed: The priest who changed the course of history ... by rescuing a drowning four-year-old Hitler from death in an icy river * Future Fuhrer was plucked from certain death by boy who grew up to join the church * German newspaper from 1894 reveals incident It may be the most devastating act of mercy in history. A newspaper report chronicling how a boy of four was saved from drowning has surfaced in a German archive. The child -- who historians believe could have been Adolf Hitler -- was plucked from the icy waters of the River Inn in Passau,... |
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| end of digest #390 20120107 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #390 · v 8 · n 26 Saturday, January 7, 2012 |
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18 topics |
Welcome to the first 2012 issue of the GGG Digest, 18 topics, including five or so added this evening. · view this issue · |
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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This is just a tiny little pre-Digest, I'm behind schedule here (life, not work) and the number of topics is micro this week. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #391 Saturday, January 14, 2012 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Meet the Contenders for Earliest Modern Human |
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· 01/12/2012 5:17:15 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 21 replies · · Smithsonian.com · · 1-11-2012 · · Erin Wayman · |
Paleoanthropologists agree that modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago, yet the fossil evidence for the earliest examples of Homo sapiens is scarce. One problem is the difficulty in recognizing true modern humans in the fossil record: At this time, many of the fossils thought to be early members of our species possess a mix of modern and primitive traits. For some paleoanthropologists, it means our species once had a greater range of physical variation than we do today. For others, it means more than one species of Homo may have lived in Africa at this time, sharing... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Darwin boy's find could rewrite history [Australia-Gun] |
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· 01/10/2012 1:11:20 PM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 32 replies · · Australian Geographic · · 10 Jan 2012 · · AAP with AG STAFF · |
A 500-year-old Portuguese gun has been found on an NT beach, and may suggest Europeans arrived earlier than thought. A DARWIN BOY may help re-write Australia's history after unearthing what he believes is a 500-year-old Portuguese swivel gun on a Northern Territory beach. Portugal occupied Timor from 1515 until 1975, although it is hotly debated whether Portuguese explorers made it to Australia, about 700km away. Christopher Doukas made the discovery at Dundee Beach, about two hours' drive from Darwin. He found the gun when tides dipped to exceptional lows in January 2010, and he could walk out a long way... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Hurricane or Tsunami?: North Carolina coast turns to Tar Hell around time of Magna Carta |
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· 01/09/2012 7:25:36 PM PST · · Posted by baynut · · 17 replies · · The Cosmic Tusk · · January 5, 2011 · · George Howard · |
I have always been curious about the lack of documented evidence for a tsunami ever occuring on my home coast of North Carolina. Some of the largest undersea land slides on earth have been documented off our wonderful Outer Banks, and earthquakes are not completely unknown in the Carolinas. Both cause big waves. And more to point for the Tusk, some very credible work has documented cosmically-induced tsunami in the New York and Hudson Valley region, not far away from NC in a regional sense. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Roman helmet turns history on its head |
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· 01/11/2012 8:44:20 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 45 replies · · Telegraph (UK) · · Wednesday, January 11, 2012 · · Anita Singh · |
Every school child used to learn how the British defended their land during the Roman Conquest. But the discovery of a 2,000-year-old Roman helmet beneath a Leicestershire hillside suggests a different story. Rather than repel the invaders, some Britons fought in the Roman ranks. The ornate helmet was awarded to high-ranking cavalry officers and was found at the burial site of a British tribal leader. According to experts, it transforms our understanding of the Roman Conquest... The treasure, known as the Hallaton Helmet after the area where it was found, dates to around the time of the Roman invasion in... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| A curse on you Plotius |
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· 12/12/2011 4:59:13 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 9 replies · · Past Horizons · · 12-09-2911 · |
The Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum curates fragments related to five lead curse tablets from ancient Rome. One of these tablets (JHUAM 2011.01) was recently conserved and placed on view, along with the original iron nail (JHUAM 2011.06) associated with it. Objects such as this one are evidence of a common practice in Greek and Roman antiquity to scratch curses onto tablets which were then deposited in wells or graves. While the earliest tablets only contained the name of the person to be cursed, later examples grew more elaborate, such as this example. Curses could be inscribed on basically anything, ranging... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| ***What If The Sphinx Is A Woman*** |
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· 01/14/2012 7:29:05 AM PST · · Posted by The Wizard · · 59 replies · |
Consider this.....History in written by the victors....I was watching a great series on Netflix.... "The Pyramid Code" which provides a much more reasonable explanation of things Egypt than the standard "tales" We keep being told the Pyramids were tombs built by Pharaohs, but there were never any mummies found in the Great Pyramid..... Another thought that was raised was that there were great Female Pharaohs that reigned over great years of peace, but who were then almost erased by religious leaders, MEN, who followed them.. To this end I offer the suggestion that all Egyptologists ignore: That the nose of... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| VIDEO - Battle of Tours 732 AD (Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, Savior of Europe) |
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· 01/09/2012 3:46:38 PM PST · · Posted by VU4G10 · · 34 replies · · youtube · |
October 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history. A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and the Frankish Army. |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Naked Images of Pharoahs are Heresy, says Salafist Leader (Prelude to Destroy Egyptian Artifacts?) |
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· 01/12/2012 5:53:55 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 19 replies · · Ahram Online · · Thursday 12 Jan 2012 · · Ahram Online · |
Naked images of Pharoahs are heresy, says Salafist leader Abdel Moneim El-Shahat uses TV appearance to condemn Egypt's Pharaonic heritage, reiterates criticism of Naguib Mahfouz and Alaa Al-Aswany The newly discovered tomb that belonged to Rudj-ka, a priest who headed the mortuary cult of the pharaoh Khafre, at the site of the Giza Pyramids in Cairo (Photo: AP) Images of naked Pharaohs on Egypt's temples are tantamount to heresy, prominent Salafist Abdel Moneim El-Shahat said on Wednesday. El-Shahat, who failed to win an independent seat for the Nour Party in recent parliamentary elections, had previously called Egypt's Pharaonic heritage "rotten."... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Temple Menorah Stamp Affirms Jewish Claim to Land |
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· 01/10/2012 1:55:40 AM PST · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 23 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 10/1/12 · · Gil Ronen · |
Just two weeks after a Temple era seal was displayed to the public, archeologists continue to dig up breathtaking proofs of the ancient and never-severed connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. This time, the find is a 1,500 year old tiny stamp discovered near the city of Akko, bearing the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah. The stamp was used to identify baked products and probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period. The ceramic stamp dates from the Byzantine period (6th century CE) and was uncovered in... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Jefferson's Bible |
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· 01/09/2012 7:39:35 AM PST · · Posted by afraidfortherepublic · · 45 replies · · LA Times · · 1-8-12 · · Craig Ferhman · |
Rick Santorum's near-miss in Iowa provides a reminder that, for many Republican voters (and not a few candidates), religion and politics overlap. If you need another reminder, though, consider this: recently, the Smithsonian has restored and put on display a weird and fantastic 19th century book known as "The Jefferson Bible." That's Jefferson as in Thomas, and this private, personal document offers a useful case study in how politics and Christianity have mixed it up in American history, right up to today. To understand Jefferson's Bible, you need to start with the one book he published in his lifetime: "Notes... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Complete Civil War submarine unveiled for first time |
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· 01/13/2012 9:21:52 AM PST · · Posted by shove_it · · 46 replies · · Yahoo via Reuters · · 13 Jan 2012 · · Harriet McLeod · |
NORTH CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Confederate Civil War vessel H.L. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine when it sank a Union ship in 1864, was unveiled in full and unobstructed for the first time on Thursday, capping a decade of careful preservation. "No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going to see it today," said engineer John King as a crane at a Charleston conservation laboratory slowly lifted a massive steel truss covering the top of the submarine. About 20 engineers and scientists applauded as they caught the first glimpse of the intact 42-foot-long... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Dog tag lost in World War I returned to soldier's son |
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· 01/13/2012 7:12:54 AM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 37 replies · · reuters via Yahoo · · Jan 13, 2012 · · Kevin Murphy · |
KANSAS CITY, MO (Reuters) - Somehow, maybe in a struggle to remove his helmet, Kent Potter lost his dog tag on a French battlefield in World War I. Private Potter, who worked on an Army supply train that consisted mostly of mules and horses, survived the war and returned home to Kansas without the tag, which remained buried for more than 90 years. At a ceremony hosted in the small town of Cottonwood Falls on Thursday, however, the worn, round metal tag finally landed back with the Potter family thanks to the efforts of two Frenchmen. |
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| end of digest #391 20120114 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #391 · v 8 · n 27 Saturday, January 14, 2012 |
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12 topics |
Welcome to the 12 topics of issue #319, which is dedicated to dyslexia. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #392 Saturday, January 21, 2012 |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Discovery of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV 64 |
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· 01/20/2012 5:28:32 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · U of Basel Kings' Valley Project · · January 16, 2012 · · Dr. Susanne Bickel · |
During the season of 2011, three edges of an unknown manmade feature appeared at 1.80m to the north of KV 40, on the 25th of January, the first day of the Egyptian revolution. Due to the situation, it was immediately covered with an iron door. As this structure is so close to KV 40 and as it was impossible to know whether it was just a short unfinished shaft or a real tomb, we gave it the temporary number 40b. This number is now replaced by the final designation KV 64. The KV numbers should definitely be used exclusively for... |
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| Almost 3,000-year-old tomb of female singer found in Egypt |
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· 01/16/2012 11:38:55 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 53 replies · · PHYSorg · · January 16, 2012 · · AFP · |
Swiss archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a female singer dating back almost 3,000 years in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said on Sunday. The rare find was made accidentally by a team from Switzerland's Basel University headed by Elena Pauline-Grothe and Susanne Bickel in Karnak, near Luxor in Upper Egypt, the minister told the media in Cairo. The woman, Nehmes Bastet, was a singer for the supreme deity Amon Ra during the Twenty-Second Dynasty (945-712 BC), according to an inscription on a wooden plaque found in the tomb. She was the daughter of the High... |
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| Britain | |
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| Must Farm Bronze Age site: Archaeologists at work [ East Anglia, 3K yr old boat ] |
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· 01/16/2012 6:05:48 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · Past Horizons · · Sunday, January 15, 2012 · · unattributed · |
Over three thousand years ago the inhabitants of a small southeast fenland community were skilled boat builders, enjoyed fishing, and practised a method of eel trapping still in use today in East Anglia. Mark Knight, senior project officer for Cambridge Archaeological Unit, said: "It's archaeology like it's never been preserved before." The incredibly detailed picture of Bronze Age life discovered on the River Nene, at Must Farm quarry, Whittlesey, has everything from well preserved boats, spears and swords to clothing and jewellery as well as carved bowls and pots still full of food, making it one of the most significant... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Dug out of the Thames mud, a token Romans used to pay for their pleasure |
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· 01/16/2012 7:09:52 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 43 replies · · Daily Mail · · Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 · · Eleanor Harding · |
Made from bronze and smaller than a ten pence piece, the coin depicts a man and a woman engaged in an intimate act. Historians believe it is the first example of a Roman brothel token to be found in this country. It lay hidden in mud for almost 2,000 years until it was unearthed by an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector. On the reverse of the token is the numeral XIIII, which experts say could indicate the holder handed over 14 small Roman coins called asses to buy it. This would have been the equivalent of seven loaves of... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Reaching Back 2,000 Years to Unravel a Curse |
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· 01/05/2012 7:47:43 PM PST · · Posted by shibumi · · 9 replies · · New York Times/Science · · January 2 2012 · · Sindya N. Bhanoo · |
A vegetable seller named Babylas was the target of an alarming curse nearly 2,000 years ago. Written on a lead tablet found in Antioch, one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, the curse calls on the gods to tie up the hapless greengrocer, then "drown and chill" his soul. The curse is described in the German journal Zeitschrift f¸r Papyrologie und Epigraphik by Alexander Hollmann, a classicist at the University of Washington who studies Greek and Roman magic. |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| Braveheart letter to Pope returns to Scotland |
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· 01/16/2012 1:49:00 PM PST · · Posted by NYer · · 48 replies · · cna · · January 13, 2012 · · David Kerr · |
William Wallace of Scotland's name (center) written in Latin: Edinburgh, Scotland, Jan 13, 2012 / 03:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A 14th-century letter asking Pope Boniface VIII to look favorably upon the Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace during his visit to Rome has been returned to Scotland. "This document is an enigma," said George MacKenzie, head of National Records of Scotland at the unveiling ceremony in Edinburgh on Jan. 12.†"It's a letter from the French king to his officials at the Vatican mentioning Wallace, but we don't know what his business was with the Pope. What we do know is... |
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| Greece | |
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| Greece hopes to raise money by renting out Acropolis, Delphi |
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· 01/18/2012 3:50:20 PM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 15 replies · · NYDailyNews.com · · Jan 18, 2012 · · Larry Mcshane · |
Lights, camera, Acropolis! Officials in cash-strapped Greece approved a cheaper pricing plan meant to lure film crews and photographers to its historic attractions -- including the home of the Parthenon. The Greek culture ministry slashed the cost of a one-day film shoot at the Acropolis by more than half, from more than $5,000 a day to about $2,050. The rate for photographers was cut by roughly one-third, from $385 a day to $256. The reduced rates come with a plan to speed up approval of the permits. |
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| Sicilian temple not for sale 'even for 40 bln' |
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· 01/16/2012 8:56:19 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · ANSA English · · January 5, 2012 · · unattributed · |
Russian magnate Prokhorov reportedly wants to buy Temple of Zeus. The mayor of the Sicilian city of Agrigento said Thursday that he would not sell one of Italy's prime archaeological treasures even for 40 billion euros after it reportedly attracted the interest of Russian industrialist Mikhail Prokhorov. The precious-metals billionaire, who plans to run in this year's presidential elections in Russia as an independent candidate, has set his sights on buying the ruins of the Temple of Zeus in Agrigento's famed Valley of the Temples, according to media reports. But Agrigento Mayor Marco Zambuto has moved to nip the notion... |
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| Neandertal/Neanderthal | |
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| Into the mind of a Neanderthal |
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· 01/21/2012 5:48:42 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 43 replies · · New Scientist · · Wednesday, January 18, 2012 · · Thomas Wynn · |
Palaeoanthropologists now know a great deal about these ice-age Europeans who flourished between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. We know, for example, that Neanderthals shared about 99.84 per cent of their DNA with us, and that we and they evolved separately for several hundred thousand years. We also know Neanderthal brains were a bit larger than ours and were shaped a bit differently. And we know where they lived, what they ate and how they got it. Skeletal evidence shows that Neanderthal men, women and children led very strenuous lives, preoccupied with hunting large mammals. They often made tactical use... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Genes Important to Keep Brain Sharp Through Old Age |
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· 01/19/2012 5:54:05 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 20 replies · · Live Science · · 18 January 2012 · · Jennifer Welsh · |
A person's intelligence is mostly inherited, it's in their genes, but whether a person can expect to be a clever grandma or grandpa relies on both genes and environment. "Until now, we have not had an estimate of how much genetic differences affect how people's intelligence changes across the lifetime," study researcher Ian Deary, of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, said in an email to LiveScience. "These new results mean that researchers can seek both environmental and genetic contributionsto successful cognitive aging." Previous studies of the genetics of intelligence have been performed on sets of twins or... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Test Tube Yeast Evolve Multicellularity |
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· 01/17/2012 6:18:07 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 36 replies · · Scientific American · · 1/16/12 · · Sarah Fecht · |
By watching evolution in progress, scientists reveal key developments in the evolution of complex life and put evolutionary theories to the testThe transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms was one of the most significant developments in the history of life on Earth. Without it, all living things would still be microscopic and simple; there would be no such thing as a plant or a brain or a human. How exactly multicellularity arose is still a mystery, but a new study, published January 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that it may have been quicker and... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| That myth-crap of 'Khazars,' pushed by R. Islamists and Neo-Nazis alike |
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· 01/18/2012 2:41:19 PM PST · · Posted by PRePublic · · 31 replies · · LibertyNewsNetwork & more · · Jan. 18. 2012 · |
Ever heard about the 'Khazar' myth pushed by the Neo-Nazis/KKK? In fact, Jews are both a nation and a religion. the percentage of those with any roots in khazaria is so minimal, that there was only one non-historian "writer" that came up with the idea to say that the percentage is higher. As a penpal who is of Jewish background told me once: 'Before the WW2 Were were told to go BACK to Palestine where we came from... now the same haters don't even grant us that...' Hitler VS Khazar myth Oddly enough, Hitler's "aryanism" and anti-Jewish sick obession was AGAINST... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Visit To Jewish Holy Sites in PA Controlled Awarta |
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· 01/18/2012 12:36:00 PM PST · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 4 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 18/1/12 · |
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the official rabbi of the Western Wall in Jerusalem visited the tombs of Eleazar and Itamar in Awarta on Wednesday. The graves of many Biblical figures are located in Awarta such as Eleazar and Itamar who are the sons of Aaron the High Priest as well as Pinchas, and the 70 Elders. Rabbi Rabinovitch reported finding the tombs vandalized and desecrated. Rabbi Rabinovitch's visit was conducted under the auspices of Civil Administration head Brigadier General Motti Almoz and other IDF personnel. The rabbi called upon the proper authorities to renovate the sites. Awarta is today an Arab... |
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| Zymurgy | |
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| The fermented cereal beverage of the Sumerians may not have been beer |
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· 01/20/2012 5:10:16 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · PHYSorg · · January 17, 2012 · · unattributed · |
This has cast doubt on the popular theory that Mesopotamian brewers used to crumble flat bread made from barley or emmer into their mash. The so-called "bappir" (Sumerian for "beer bread") is never counted as bread in the administrative texts, but in measuring units, like coarsely ground barley. Damerow also points out that the high degree of standardisation, which meant that the quantities of raw materials allocated to the brewers by the central administration remained exactly the same over long periods, sometimes even decades, makes it difficult to base any recipes on them. According to Damerow, even the "Hymn of... |
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| Brewers concoct ancient Egyptian ale. |
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· 08/11/2002 3:28:50 PM PDT · · Posted by vannrox · · 4 replies · · 347+ views · · BBC News · · Saturday, 3 August, 2002, 10:06 GMT 11:06 UK · · Editorial Staff · |
Saturday, 3 August, 2002, 10:06 GMT 11:06 UK Brewers concoct ancient Egyptian ale Did King Tut sup on the Old Kingdom recipe? A Japanese beer maker has taken a 4,400-year-old recipe from Egyptian hieroglyphics and produced what it claims is a brew fit for the Pharaohs. The Kirin Brewery Co. has called the concoction Old Kingdom Beer. It has no froth, is the colour of dark tea and carries an alcohol content of 10% -- about double most contemporary beers. Sakuji Yoshimura, an Egyptologist at Waseda University in Tokyo, helped transcribe the recipe from Egyptian wall paintings. Kirin spokesman Takaomi... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered |
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· 01/21/2012 3:44:10 AM PST · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 28 replies · · Live Science · · 01/20/12 · · Remy Melina · |
Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 10:50 AM ET They may not have had television sets, but ancient Peruvians did share one part of our movie-watching culture: popcorn. Researchers have found evidence that societies living along the coast of Peru were eating the air-filled snack about 1,000 years earlier than previously estimated -- even predating the use of ceramic pottery. Corn husks, stalks, cobs and tassels (pollen-producing flowers on corn) dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were unearthed at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two sites on Peru's... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| 1014 AD impact event causes Atlantic tsunami and end of Aztec's Fourth Sun? |
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· 01/11/2012 12:29:51 PM PST · · Posted by BenLurkin · · 14 replies · · 2012Quest · · January 12th, 2011 · · Gary C. Daniels · |
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in England 1014 AD, on the eve of St. Michael's day (September 28, 1014) "came the great sea-flood, which spread wide over this land, and ran so far up as it never did before, overwhelming many towns, and an innumerable multitude of people." This is clearly a reference to a tsunami similar to the one that struck Indonesia in December 2004 which killed over 250,000 people. What could have caused this tsunami? Could a meteor or comet impact in the Atlantic Ocean have been the cause? Researcher Dallas Abbott of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Once Hidden by Forest, Carvings in Land Attest to Amazon's Lost World |
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· 01/16/2012 9:06:28 AM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 38 replies · · The New York Times · · 14 Jan 2012 · · Simon Romero · |
Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe. As he cleared trees on his family's land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus. "These lines were too perfect not to have been made by man," said Mr. Araújo, a 62-year-old cattleman. "The only explanation I had was that they must have been trenches for the war against the Bolivians." But these were no foxholes, at least not for any conflict waged here at the dawn of the 20th century. According... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| The Great Pyramid of Garut?[Indonesia] |
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· 01/12/2012 10:38:19 AM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 27 replies · · Reality Sandwich · · 10 Jan 2012 · · Chris Kaplan · |
A pyramid far older and larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza, has been discovered in Indonesia. Mount Sadahurip in Garut, West Java, dubbed the "Garut Pyramid," has been undergoing verification tests by the Ancient Catastrophic Disaster Team to see if the mount was indeed formed by the existence of a man-made structure. By using Superstring geo-electric instruments, surveyors are measuring the resistivity of the geological layers, with additional funding being approved from Germany to undergo excavations. The initial survey has concluded that the structure is highly unlikely to be of natural formation. A 3D contour plot of topographical... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| The Bailiff and Barack Obama: one Hell of a tale |
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· 01/08/2012 10:29:07 AM PST · · Posted by Oldpuppymax · · 6 replies · · Coach is Right · · 1/08/2012 · · Doug Book · |
There is a Fourteenth century story of a Bailiff -- the hated town collector of rents and enforcer of labor services -- who, while riding to a village one day to collect rents, met the Devil himself in human form. "Where are you going," asked the Devil? "To the next village on my master's business," replied the Bailiff. Upon introducing himself, the Devil asked the Bailiff if he would take whatever was freely offered him. "Yes," replied the Bailiff who then asked the same question of the Devil. The Devil replied that, although also in quest of gain, he would NOT be willing to... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| 1793 penny fetches $1M at Florida auction |
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· 01/08/2012 11:18:13 AM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 43 replies · · AP via Miami-Herald · · 01.07.12 · · staff reporter · |
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A once-cent copper coin from the earliest days of the U.S. Mint in 1793 has sold for a record $1.38 million at a Florida auction. James Halperin of Texas-based Heritage Auctions told The Associated Press on Saturday that the sale was "the most a United States copper coin has ever sold for at auction." The coin was made at the Mint in Philadelphia in 1793, the first year that the U.S. made its own coins. Heritage officials said in a news release that the name of the buyer was not revealed but that he was "a major... |
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| Obituaries | |
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| Vermont writer, historian Richard Ketchum dies at age 89 |
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· 01/17/2012 2:53:02 PM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 10 replies · · AP via The Republic (IN) · · 1-16-12 · · Anon · |
SHELBURNE, Vt. -- Richard Ketchum, a historian, writer and editor who co-founded a magazine about country living and wrote 17 books, has died. He was 89. Ketchum died Thursday at the Wake Robin retirement community in Shelburne. Ketchum wrote 17 books, six of which focused on the American Revolution, including "Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War," and "Winter Soldiers." After moving to Vermont for good in 1974 with his wife, Ketchum co-founded Blair & Ketchum's Country Journal, written for people who had moved to rural areas after growing tired of hectic city and suburban life. |
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| Napoleon | |
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| France Plans Napoleonland Theme Park |
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· 01/20/2012 9:10:46 PM PST · · Posted by Cincinna · · 49 replies · · The Telegraph UK · · 1/20/2012 · · Henry Samuel†· |
A French theme park is being planned in honour of Napoleon Bonaparte, almost 200 years after his death. "Napoleonland", the brainchild of former French minister and history buff Yves Jégo, is being touted as a rival to Disneyland -- assuming, that is, it can gather the £180 million needed to leave the drawing board. The plan is to build the unlikely amusement park on the site of the brilliant but doomed French leader's final victory against the Austrians in the Battle of Montereau in 1814 just south of Paris. The 1815 Battle of Waterloo, in which the Duke of Wellington... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Confederate submarine finally revealed after being buried at sea for 150 years |
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· 01/13/2012 6:49:45 AM PST · · Posted by C19fan · · 118 replies · · UK Daily Mail · · January 13, 2012 · · Staff · |
The world got an unobstructed view of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley for the first time since the Civil War on Thursday as a massive steel truss that had surrounded the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship was finally removed. The truss weighing more than 8 tons had shrouded the sub since it was raised off the coast of South Carolina almost a dozen years ago. |
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| A clearer view: 8-ton steel truss surrounding Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley removed |
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· 01/13/2012 9:50:02 AM PST · · Posted by AtlasStalled · · 8 replies · · Washington Post · · 01/13/12 · |
The world got an unobstructed view of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley for the first time since the Civil War on Thursday as a massive steel truss that had surrounded the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship was finally removed. |
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| Climate | |
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| Arctic Canada caught on 1919 silent film (w/video) |
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· 01/21/2012 1:38:43 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · · BBC · · January 20, 2012 · · Chris Nikkel · |
One of the world's early documentaries featured unique footage of the lives of Arctic fur trappers in 1919. After long being forgotten, it's now been restored for modern audiences in Canada, including communities descended from those featured in the silent film.In July 1919, the RMS Nascopie departed Montreal. It carried supplies bound for Arctic fur trade posts. But the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) ice-breaker had extra cargo on its annual trip. A film crew is on board. The ship headed north. As they travelled, a cameraman filmed the Nascopie crashing through ice floes. When the ship anchored, he went overboard,... |
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| Roaring Twenties | |
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| For sale: guns linked to Bonnie and Clyde |
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· 01/19/2012 9:52:06 AM PST · · Posted by Second Amendment First · · 33 replies · · Kansas City Star · · January 5, 2012 · · Donald Bradley · |
Too bad Christmas has passed. Here's a gift idea for that hard-to-buy-for person on your list: Bonnie and Clyde's Tommy gun. On Saturday, Mayo Auction & Realty of Kansas City will sell a .45-caliber Thompson sub-machine gun along with a 12-gauge shotgun, both supposedly left behind when the infamous duo shot it out with police in April 1933 in Joplin. The auction will begin at 10 a.m. Jan. 21 at the Mayo Auction gallery at 8253 Wornall Road. Bids also may be placed online. Interested? Well, get your special government permit -- the Tommy gun is fully automatic and fully... |
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| Mob Scene | |
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| Mob Threatened To Blind RFK's Kids |
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· 01/20/2012 9:24:33 AM PST · · Posted by AtlasStalled · · 8 replies · · Friends of Ours · · 01/20/12 · · Friends Of Ours · |
Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, claims that degenerate thugs threatened to blind their "young children in an acid attack to deter" the mob buster's "investigation into labor racketeering" as reported by Lou Lumenick for the New York Post: Speaking out in a documentary by her daughter Rory premiering today at the Sundance Film Festival, feisty matriarch Ethel Kennedy recalls a scary threat when her husband was counsel to a Senate subcommittee probing organized crime's control of labor unions. "There was a journalist for the New York Post they had thrown acid in the face of," Mrs. Kennedy,... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Red Tails: Film Review [Hollywood re-writes history again!] |
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· 01/19/2012 6:23:52 AM PST · · Posted by Bender2 · · 98 replies · · The Hollywood Reporter · · 7:53 PM PST 1/18/2012 · · Todd McCarthy · |
Red Tails: Film Review 7:53 PM PST 1/18/2012 by Todd McCarthy The Bottom Line: Action-and-effects version of the Tuskegee airmen's story flies only when it's off the ground. The George Lucas-produced labor of love stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard as Tuskegee airmen in World War II. The experience of black American aviators in World War II gets a whitewash in Red Tails. The story of the 996 pilots (and some 15,000 ground personnel) who distinguished themselves in the air in the face of institutional racism is a great one and, at least, will come to the attention of... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Louvre 'courting disaster' over plans to send works to Fukushima |
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· 01/16/2012 10:56:15 AM PST · · Posted by Razzz42 · · 3 replies · · telegraph.co.uk · · January 12, 2012 · · Henry Samuel Paris · |
...While describing the museum's intention "laudable", he said it was not "the Louvre's role to come to the aid, via exhibitions, of populations that are victims of cataclysms." "(If so), why not do it in all countries hit by earthquakes, forest fires, volcanic eruptions or even wars? ... Why doesn't the Louvre just send the works onto Bagdad?," he complained. France's nuclear safety and protection institute, IRSN, had advised French citizens only to visit the areas for essential reasons and to "regularly pass the vacuum cleaner over the surface of furniture and carpets" in the fallout zone. "What about the... |
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| end of digest #392 20120121 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #392 · v 8 · n 28 Saturday, January 21, 2012 |
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Welcome to the 12 topics of issue #392. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #393 Saturday, January 28, 2012 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Complex Fish Traps Over 7,500 Years Old Found in Russia |
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· 01/26/2012 8:28:46 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · Popular Archaeology · · Wednesday, January 25, 2012 · · unattributed · |
An international team of archeologists, led by Ignacio Clemente, a researcher with the Spanish National Research Council, has discovered and documented an assemblage of fish seines and traps in the Dubna Basin near Moscow that are dated to be more than 7,500 years old. They say that the equipment, among the oldest found in Europe, displays a surprisingly advanced technical complexity. The finds illuminate the role of fishing among European settlements of the early Holocene (about 10,000 years ago), particularly where people did not practice agriculture until just before the advent of the Iron Age. Says Clemente: "Until now, it... |
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| Neandertal/Neanderthal | |
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| Modern flint expert 'reverse engineers' Neanderthal stone axes... our ancestors were... |
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· 01/26/2012 8:19:28 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 29 replies · · Daily Mail · · January 24th, 2012 · · Rob Waugh · |
Researchers at the University of Kent have recreated the processes Neanderthals used to produce sharp flint axes, and found that our ancestors were skilled engineers. A modern-day 'flintknapper' replicated the sharpening processes that Neanderthals used to create tools -- a sort of modern 'reverse engineering' of ancient techniques in use by three kinds of early 'hominin' including Neanderthals as early as 300,000 years ago. The researchers found that Neanderthals could shape 'elegant' stone tools -- shaping them to be hard-wearing, easily sharpened and with a perfectly balanced centre of gravity. The reproduction of how Neanderthals worked shows that it is... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Evidence that brain size gene microcephalin introgressed into Homo sapiens from an archaic Homo |
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· 11/11/2006 8:19:11 AM PST · · Posted by Lessismore · · 50 replies · · 1,012+ views · · Proceedings NAS · · 2006-11-08 · · Patrick D. Evans et al · |
At the center of the debate on the emergence of modern humans and their spread throughout the globe is the question of whether archaic Homo lineages contributed to the modern human gene pool, and more... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| 'Speed Gene' in Modern Racehorses Originated from British Mare 300 Years Ago, Scientists Claim |
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· 01/28/2012 7:50:57 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · ScienceDaily · · January 24, 2012 · · NovaUCD · |
Scientists have traced the origin of the 'speed gene' in Thoroughbred racehorses back to a single British mare that lived in the United Kingdom around 300 years ago, according to findings published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The origin of the 'speed gene' (C type myostatin gene variant) was revealed by analysing DNA from hundreds of horses, including DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of 12 celebrated Thoroughbred stallions born between 1764 and 1930. "Changes in racing since the foundation of the Thoroughbred have shaped the distribution of 'speed gene' types over time and in different racing regions,"... |
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| Climate | |
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| Man's best friend for 30,000 years: Canine skulls discovered in two separate digs reveals... |
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· 01/24/2012 7:04:21 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 36 replies · · Daily Mail · · Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 · · Rob Waugh · |
Scientists believe that two 33,000-year-old skulls unearthed in digs in Siberia and Belgium show dogs were domesticated long before any other animal, such as sheep, cows or goats. Researchers from the University of Arizona said the skulls had shorter snouts and wider jaws than undomesticated animals such as wolves, which use their longer snouts and narrower jaws to help them hunt. That suggested the dogs had been kept for protection and companionship by our ancient ancestors -- just as they are today. The researchers think dogs could have been the first species of animals to be domesticated by humans, long... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Medieval mass grave hints at gruesome secret |
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· 01/26/2012 10:32:18 PM PST · · Posted by Islander7 · · 28 replies · · CBS News · · Jan 25, 2012 · · Staff · |
(CBS News) A gruesome mass grave found in southern England may be the final resting place of some of the most feared marauders of the 11th century. Archeologists say the remains may belong to Viking mercenaries, who were buried in a burial pit in what now is the English town of Dorset. Isotope testing on the men's teeth links their origin to Scandinavia. That's where the easy clues end. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Underwater archaeology: Hunt for the ancient mariner |
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· 01/26/2012 9:06:56 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · · Nature · · Wednesday, January 25, 2012 · · Jo Marchant · |
Foley, a marine archaeologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and his colleagues at Greece's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities in Athens have spent the day diving near the cliffs of the tiny island of Dia in the eastern Mediterranean. They have identified two clusters of pottery dating from the first century BC and fifth century AD. Together with other remains that the team has discovered on the island's submerged slopes, the pots reveal that for centuries Greek, Roman and Byzantine traders used Dia as a refuge during storms, when they couldn't safely reach Crete. It is a nice... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany< | |
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| HMS Victory 'set to be recovered' from seabed |
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· 01/22/2012 8:39:16 AM PST · · Posted by Makana · · 52 replies · · The BBC · · January 22, 2012 · · The Sunday Times · |
The remains of a 300-year-old warship are to be raised from the sea bed, according to reports. The wreck of HMS Victory, a predecessor of Nelson's famous flagship, was found near the Channel Islands in 2008. The British warship, which went down in a storm in 1744 killing more than 1,000 sailors, could contain gold coins worth an estimated £500m. The Sunday Times says the Maritime Heritage Foundation is set to manage the wreck's raising. |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Mystery wreck discovered in the Baltic Sea! |
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· 10/12/2002 8:19:23 AM PDT · · Posted by vannrox · · 43 replies · · 642+ views · · UPI · · Published 10/8/2002 3:06 PM · · (Reported by Charles Choi, UPI Science News, in New York) · |
The Royal Swedish Navy said Tuesday it has discovered an underwater mystery shipwreck with skulls littering its centuries-old wooden decks. The sailing ship, which marine archaeologists think is more than 200 years old, was found standing upright on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The reason for why it sank is so far an enigma, because its hull and masts remain perfectly intact. "We don't have any clues whatsoever right now on what made... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Video: Divers find large, unexplained object at bottom of Baltic Sea |
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· 01/27/2012 5:28:29 AM PST · · Posted by shove_it · · 94 replies · · Yahoo · · 26 Jan 2012 · · Eric Pfeiffer · |
A team of salvage divers has discovered an unexplained object resting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea near Sweden. "This thing turned up. My first reaction was to tell the guys that we have a UFO here on the bottom," said Peter Lindberg, the leader of the amateur treasure hunters. Sonar readings show that the mysterious object is about 60 meters across, or, about the size of a jumbo jet. And it's not alone. Nearby on the sea floor is another, smaller object with a similar shape. Even more fascinating, both objects have "drag marks" behind them on the... |
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| end of digest #393 20120128 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #393 · v 8 · n 29 Saturday, January 28, 2012 |
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10 topics |
Welcome to the 10 topics of this week's kinda tiny issue #393, volume 8, issue 29 issued on the 28th. · view this issue · |
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| 2012` Q1 FReepathon. Target: $94,000 | Receipts & Pledges to-date: $41,318 | |||
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| Woo hoo!! Now over FORTY-THREE percent!! Thank you all very much!! | ||||
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #394 Saturday, February 4, 2012 |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| The Forever Dog --- Dog breeds were created by human beings. The village dog created itself |
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· 01/30/2012 7:20:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 56 replies · · National Geographic · · February 2012 · · Evan Ratliff · |
While a postdoc at Cornell University a few years ago, Adam Boyko became curious about the little-studied village vagrants. Though dogs were first domesticated 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, most breeds go back only a few hundred years. Perhaps village dog DNA might shed light on the long, early history of domestication, when canines were hanging around humans yet not under our domain. But how to get samples? As it happened, around the same time Boyko's brother Ryan had married, and he and wife Corin were looking for a cheap honeymoon off the beaten track. The three Boykos decided to... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Native Americans actually came from a tiny mountain region in Siberia, DNA research reveals |
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· 01/27/2012 8:32:48 AM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 97 replies · · Daily Mail · · 26 Jan 2012 · · Rob Waugh · |
Altai in southern Siberia sits right at the centre of Russia. But the tiny, mountainous republic has a claim to fame unknown until now - Native Americans can trace their origins to the remote region. DNA research revealed that genetic markers linking people living in the Russian republic of Altai, southern Siberia, with indigenous populations in North America. A study of the mutations indicated a lineage shift between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago - when people are thought to have walked across the ice from Russia to America. This roughly coincides with the period when humans from Siberia are thought... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Origin of Ancient Jade Tool Baffles Scientists |
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· 01/31/2012 8:11:46 PM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 16 replies · · LiveScience · · 26 Jan 2012 · · Jennifer Welsh · |
A composite photograph of the front and back of the jade gouge shown with a centimeter scale. CREDIT: Les O'Neil, University of Otago The discovery of a 3,300-year-old tool has led researchers to the rediscovery of a "lost" 20th-century manuscript and a "geochemically extraordinary" bit of earth. Discovered on Emirau Island in the Bismark Archipelago (a group of islands off the coast of New Guinea), the 2-inch (5-centimeters) stone tool was probably used to carve, or gouge, wood. It seems to have fallen from a stilted house, landing in a tangle of coral reef that was eventually covered over... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| 2,200-year-old Egyptian mummy had prostate cancer |
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· 01/30/2012 6:38:47 AM PST · · Posted by C19fan · · 12 replies · · UK Daily Mail · · January 30, 2012 · · Staff · |
Discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy suggests the disease is caused by genetics -- not the environment. Professor Salima Ikram, of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, said: "Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors.' |
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| Archaeoastronomy & Megaliths | |
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| The forgotten Mound of Down |
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· 02/02/2012 6:29:48 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 38 replies · · BBC · · January 27, 2012 · · unattributed · |
There are plenty of drumlins in County Down - but have you heard of the Mound of Down? If not, that is probably because it has been hidden from public view by trees and gorse for decades. But work is now under way to expose this fortification which could be about 1,000 years old. Tim Campbell, director of the St Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, said it was one of the largest megalithic hill forts in western Europe. "We have forgotten about it as it been overgrown with trees," he said. "It was the seat of the high kings when they... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Mysterious 'Winged' Structure from Ancient Rome Discovered [UK] |
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· 01/30/2012 4:03:09 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 45 replies · · LiveScience · · Sunday, January 22, 2012 · · Owen Jarus · |
A recently discovered mysterious "winged" structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels. Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room. "Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms," said William Bowden, a professor at the University... |
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| Climate | |
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| Answering Long-standing Questions about Enigmatic Little Ice Age |
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· 02/03/2012 9:32:32 AM PST · · Posted by null and void · · 38 replies · · Scientific Computing · · 2/3/2013 · |
A new study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century. According to the new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self-perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to University of Colorado Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. The primary evidence comes from radiocarbon dates from dead vegetation emerging from rapidly melting icecaps on Baffin... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Mona Lisa's "twin sister' discovered in Spain's Prado art museum |
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· 02/02/2012 3:36:53 AM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 76 replies · · TorontoStar.com · · Feb 01 2012 · · Sinikka Tarvainen · |
MADRID --- Spain's Prado art museum said Wednesday it had discovered an unusual copy of Leonardo da Vinci's "La Gioconda," painted by one of the master's pupils at the same time that the original was being completed. The copy had been on display at the Madrid art museum for years without experts being aware of its importance. A routine restoration led experts to discover that the dark background behind the female figure popularly known as Mona Lisa had been added afterward and that it covered an Italian landscape similar to that in da Vinci's original. |
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| Paleontology | |
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| New Species of Ancient Crocodile, Ancestor of Today's Species Discovered by MU Researcher [ Casey "Lefty" Holliday ] |
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· 02/02/2012 6:16:32 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · U of Missouri · · Tuesday, January 31, 2012 · · Brad Fischer · |
"Aegisuchus witmeri or 'Shieldcroc' is the earliest ancestor of our modern crocodiles to be found in Africa," said Casey Holliday, co-researcher and assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine. "Along with other discoveries, we are finding that crocodile ancestors are far more diverse than scientists previously realized." Shieldcroc is the newest discovery of crocodile species dating to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 95 million years ago. This period is part of the Mesozoic Era, which has been referred to as the "Age of the Dinosaurs;" however, numerous recent discoveries have led to some scientists calling the era... |
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| Pages | |
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| Book review: 'Elizabeth the Queen' by Sally Bedell Smith |
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· 01/12/2012 7:03:03 AM PST · · Posted by BigEdLB · · 9 replies · · L A Times · · 1/12/12 · · Patt Morrison · |
So what is new to justify Sally Bedell Smith's massive "Elizabeth the Queen"? What is left to uncover, and what should be left uncovered and unknown in the life of this exemplary lady whose predetermined existence of regal obligation is yawningly unenviable, however bejeweled the box it comes in? (Snip) ... an American acquaintance says the queen collects pepper grinders. And sometimes it's about the queen's own words on her ancient calling in the 21st century. With characteristic briskness, she told her cousin Margaret Rhodes that her sanctified role means no retirement until death, "unless I get Alzheimer's or have... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| The Capitol Architect Wanted to Reanimate George Washington's Dead Body (Zombie President?) |
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· 01/29/2012 10:18:30 AM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 42 replies · · IO9.com Secret History · · Jan 28, 2012 · · Lauren Davis · |
The Capitol architect wanted to reanimate George Washington's dead body George Washington may have been America's first president, but was he nearly America's first zombie-in-chief? If William Thornton, physician and designer of the US Capitol, had had his way, Washington's body would have been subjected a scientific experiment designed to bring the deceased former president back to life. In December 1799, 67-year-old George Washington took a ride through the wet winter rain and, shortly afterward, developed a fever and a sore throat. When his condition became so bad that Washington could no longer swallow the concoctions of vinegar, molasses, and... |
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| The Framers | |
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| The Income Tax in 1913 |
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· 01/26/2012 9:02:45 PM PST · · Posted by zeugma · · 17 replies · · ZeugmaWeb.com · · 1/26/2012 · · Zeugma · |
The 1913 Income Tax In 1913 the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It was a fairly short amendment, as such things go, weighing in at a whopping 30 words. It reads as follows: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration. It was a simple little thing, with rather large consequences for the republic. Prior to the income tax being instituted, the United States government managed to fund itself with various excise taxes, and... |
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| Early America | |
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| Former President John Tyler's (1790-1862) grandchildren still alive |
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· 01/26/2012 7:26:41 AM PST · · Posted by rightwingintelligentsia · · 45 replies · · Yahoo! News · · January 26, 2012 · · Eric Pfeiffer · |
Former President John Tyler, born 221 years ago, still has two living grandchildren. The one-term president isn't a well-known historical figure; he's probably best remembered for helping to push through the annexation of Texas in 1845, shortly before leaving office. So, how is it possible that a former president who died 150 years ago would still have direct descendents alive today? As it turns out, the Tyler men were known for fathering children late in life. And that math is pretty outstanding when added up: John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Moving letter from freed slave to old master after he was asked back to work on farm |
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· 02/01/2012 6:45:08 AM PST · · Posted by C19fan · · 40 replies · · UK Daily Mail · · January 31, 2012 · · Louise Boyle · |
A fascinating letter has emerged from a one-time slave to his former master in reply to being invited back to work on the farm where he spent more than 30 years in servitude. Jourdon Anderson wrote to Colonel P.H. Anderson in August 1865, explaining that since he had been emancipated, he had moved his family from Big Spring, Tennessee to Ohio, was being paid for his labour and could support his family. According to an edition of the New York Daily Tribune published at the time, Jourdon Anderson dictated the letter to give his weighty and fitting response. |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| $3B WWII Shipwreck Located in Boston Harbor's Back Yard by Sub Sea Research |
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· 01/27/2012 9:17:16 AM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 12 replies · · PR Web · · 27 Jan 2012 · · PR Web · |
Sub Sea Research LLC, a Portland Maine based company located the worlds richest shipwreck, a WWII British Freighter carrying a secret cargo of 71 tons of Platinum sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of Cape Cod. Sub Sea Research (SSR) spent months searching for the elusive ship, the Port Nicholson, torpedoed by German U-boat U87, June 1942. It took two torpedoes and about 7 hours to sink her. U-87 also fired at the troop ship the "Cherokee," quickly sinking her with a heavy loss of lives. The Port Nicholson is a steel-hulled, 481 ft. merchant ship, coal fired... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Listen to Thomas Edison's recording of Otto von Bismarck in 1889 |
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· 01/31/2012 3:01:01 PM PST · · Posted by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 27 replies · · Telegraph · · 1-31-12 · |
A 122-year-old recording of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, has been discovered in Thomas Edison's laboratory. Bismarck's voice was captured by Adelbert Theodor Edward Wangemann, a German who was working as an assistant to Edison on a project to make phonographs marketable to the ordinary public. The complete transcript has now been released for the first time since the recording in October 1889. In the scratchy recitals on wax cylinder phonograph records the prince can be heard reciting the first strophes of the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudeamus igitur, as well as the beginning... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| The Online Books Page |
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· 01/15/2012 10:04:08 AM PST · · Posted by urtax$@work · · 34 replies · · U of Pennsylvania · · Jan 15, 2012 · · John Mark Ockerbloom · |
The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all. The Online Books Page was founded, and is edited, by John Mark Ockerbloom, He is a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He is solely responsible for the content of the site. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, who provide the server, disk space, and network bandwidth for the site. They also employ the editor,... |
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| end of digest #394 20120204 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #394 · v 8 · n 30 Saturday, February 4, 2012 |
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10 topics |
Welcome to a whopping 17 topic GGG Digest, issue #394, volume 8, issue 30. · view this issue · |
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| 2012` Q1 FReepathon. Target: $94,000 | Receipts & Pledges to-date: $41,318 | |||
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| Woo hoo!! Now over FORTY-THREE percent!! Thank you all very much!! | ||||
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #395 Saturday, February 11, 2012 |
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| Cave Art | |
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| 'The Oldest (Neanderthal) Work Of Art Ever': 42,000-Year-Old Paintings Of Seals Found In Spain |
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· 02/08/2012 10:36:42 AM PST · · Posted by blam · · 81 replies · · The Daily Mail · · 2-7-2012 · · Tom Worden · |
'The Oldest (Neanderthal) Work Of Art Ever': 42,000-Year-Old Paintings Of Seals Found In Spanish Cave* Six paintings were found in the Nerja Caves, 35miles east of Malaga * They are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man By Tom Worden Last updated at 9:27 PM on 7th February 2012 Comments (38) Share The world's oldest works of art have been found in a cave on Spain's Costa del Sol, scientists believe. Six paintings of seals are at least 42,000 years old and are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, experts claim. Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian,... |
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| Climate | |
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| 'Oldest living thing on earth' discovered |
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· 02/07/2012 9:45:53 AM PST · · Posted by null and void · · 63 replies · · The Telegraph · · 1:06PM GMT 07 Feb 2012 · · Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney · |
Scientists say a patch of ancient seagrass in the Mediterranean is up to 200,000 years and could be the oldest known living thing on Earth. Australian researchers, who genetically sampled the seagrass covering 40 sites from Spain to Cyprus, say it is one of the world's most resilient organisms - but it has now begun to decline due to global warming. The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species,... |
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| Scientists: World's oldest organism faces threat from global warming |
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· 02/07/2012 4:24:23 PM PST · · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · · 50 replies · · The State Column · · February 7, 2012 · |
A team of scientists say that sprawling seagrass in the shallows of the Mediterranean may be the oldest living organisms on Earth, far older than humanity itself. Working off of DNA samples, a team of scientists say clumps of seagrass between Spain and Cyprus could be as old as hundred of thousands of years old. The study comes as scientists have sought to increase studies concerning how various organisms will face the changes from global warming. The team of scientists studying the seagrass say that the organism is facing threats from higher than normal sea temperatures and pollutants introduced by... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| 'Woolly mammoth' spotted in Siberia |
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· 02/08/2012 2:52:34 PM PST · · Posted by Red Badger · · 138 replies · · The Sun - UK · · Wed Feb 08, 2012 · · Staff · |
A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all. The animal -- thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago -- was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia. The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed. He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water. Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia.... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Did Early Humans Ride the Waves to Australia? |
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· 02/05/2012 5:09:30 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 39 replies · · Mind & Matter 'blog (WSJ) · · Saturday, February 4, 2012 · · Matt Ridley · |
For a long time, scientists had assumed a gradual expansion of African people through Sinai into both Europe and Asia. Then, bizarrely, it became clear from both genetics and archaeology that Europe was peopled later (after 40,000 years ago) than Australia (before 50,000 years ago). Meanwhile, the geneticists were beginning to insist that many Africans and all non-Africans shared closely related DNA sequences that originated only after about 70,000-60,000 years ago in Africa. So a new idea was born, sometimes called the "beachcomber express," in which the first ex-Africans were seashore dwellers who spread rapidly around the coast of the... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Did Easter Islanders Mix It Up With South Americans? |
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· 02/08/2012 7:20:56 AM PST · · Posted by Theoria · · 16 replies · · Science · · 06 Feb 2012 · · Andrew Lawler · |
The scattered islands of the vast Pacific Ocean were settled by seafarers who set out from the eastern coasts and islands of Asia and traveled thousands of kilometers by boat. Meanwhile pre-Columbian South America was populated by people who crossed a now-vanished land bridge far to the north. Did these two groups ever meet in the New World? There's a good chance of that, according to a new study, which finds evidence that Easter Islanders may have reached South America and mixed with the Native Americans already there. University of Oslo immunologist Erik Thorsby first began analyzing the people of... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Viking barley in Greenland |
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· 02/11/2012 7:20:47 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 38 replies · · ScienceNordic · · via Past Horizons · · Monday, February 6, 2012 · · Sybille Hildebrandt · · tr by Michael de Laine · |
The Vikings are both famous and notorious for their liking of beer and mead and archaeologists have discussed for years whether Eric the Red (ca 950-1010) and his followers had to make do without the golden drink when they settled in Greenland around the year 1,000: The climate was mild when they landed, but was it warm enough for growing barley? Researchers from the National Museum in Copenhagen say the answer to the question is 'yes'. In a unique find, they uncovered tiny fragments of charred barley grains in a Viking midden on Greenland. The find is final proof that... |
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| In Before the Zot | |
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| Vikings were successful at invading, alright, but did they also bring.. wisdom? |
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· 02/08/2012 9:13:50 PM PST · · Posted by WesternCulture · · 37 replies · · Beyond Weird · · 02/09/2012 · · WesternCulture · |
Our offspring and culture is the most successful feature of the History of Mankind. Ancient Rome and Greece have nothing on Scandinavia of today, nor what we did some centuries after Rome came down. No, I'm not a Racist - and I furthermore am more than a true friend of Italy and Greece. But I do not believe there's a point in denying the fact that Viking Culture has played a major role in shaping the World of today. Have a look at it. Britain, North America, Scandinavia, Germany, etc. in one way or another, all were formed by the... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Is Peruvian Mummy a Giant Toddler? |
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· 02/10/2012 8:41:05 AM PST · · Posted by fishtank · · 34 replies · · Institute for Creation Research · · 2-10-2012 · · Brian Thomas · |
Some say that giant humans are too incredible to have been real and that the Bible's references to them are fiction. However, many extra-biblical records corroborate the existence of giants, including sober accounts from early explorers like Magellan and ancient texts like the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Book of Enoch, and the Book of Giants. Now, a mummy skeleton found in Peru looks like a giant toddler. If that is indeed what it is, then it adds more weight to the idea that giants... |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| U.S. court backs Spain over $500M sea treasure |
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· 02/03/2012 5:36:59 AM PST · · Posted by Mr. K · · 48 replies · · CNN · · 2/2/12 · · Al Goodman · |
MADRID, Spain (CNN) --- Spain has won a major victory in its long court battle with a Florida-based deep-sea salvage company over rights to an estimated $500 million in silver and gold coins, officials said Wednesday. The treasure was recovered in 2007 from a 19th century sunken ship off the Spanish coast. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Tuesday turned aside another motion from the U.S.-based company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, and Spanish officials said they now expect the coins --- nearly 600,000 of them --- to arrive in Spain soon. "With the ruling by the appeals... |
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| Early America | |
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| Girandoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark. A National Firearms Museum Treasure Gun |
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· 02/03/2012 11:48:40 PM PST · · Posted by SWAMPSNIPER · · 13 replies · · YouTube · · Feb 04, 2012 · · swampsniper · |
Lewis and Clark's secret weapon - a late 18th Century .46 cal. 20 shot repeating air rifle by Girandoni , as used bin the Napoleonic Wars. A Treasure Gun from the NRA National Firearms Museum. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| The Civil War, Part 1: The Places (Photos) |
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· 02/08/2012 11:09:35 AM PST · · Posted by C19fan · · 52 replies · · The Atlantic · · February 8, 2012 · · Staff · |
Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, commemorated by the Atlantic in a special issue, now available online. Although photography was still in its infancy, Civil War photographers produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of war to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. As brother fought brother and the future of the United States was uncertain, the public appetite for information was fed by these images from the trenches, rivers, farms and cities that became fields of battle. Today's collection is part 1 of 3, covering the places of... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers... |
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· 02/10/2012 7:53:15 PM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 41 replies · · DailyMail · · 10th February 2012 · · Graham Smith · |
Abbreviated title: The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an Allied shell The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter, but the remaining men had... |
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| Obituaries | |
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| World's last' WWI veteran Florence Green dies aged 110 |
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· 02/07/2012 3:28:51 PM PST · · Posted by YankeeReb · · 10 replies · · BBC News · · 7 February 2012 · · Staff · |
A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110. Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough. She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February. The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Briton Claude Choules, died in Australia aged 110 in May 2011. The last three World War I veterans living in the UK - Bill... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Cover-up of Townsville mutiny: black GIs turned on officers |
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· 02/10/2012 4:28:22 PM PST · · Posted by naturalman1975 · · 61 replies · · The Australian · · 11th February 2012 · · Jamie Walker · |
BLACK US troops mutinied in Townsville in 1942 and turned machineguns on their officers, in a secret chapter of the war in the Pacific that has come to light through the papers of the late US president Lyndon B. Johnson. The scandal was hushed up for nearly 70 years after being described in a report given to and apparently kept by Johnson as "one of the biggest stories of the war which can't be written, shouldn't be written". The subject of rumour and speculation for decades in the north Queensland city, it has now emerged that the mutiny was probably... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| A Dream Island Littered with Deadly Relics |
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· 02/08/2012 3:00:30 AM PST · · Posted by Neil E. Wright · · 10 replies · · Speigel Online · · February 08, 2010 · · Stefan Robert Weiflenborn · |
Visitors to the Pacific island of Peleliu can't claim they weren't warned. The sign at the harbour says "Welcome to Peleliu --- Land of Enchantment," but as the boat approaches the quay, a second sign becomes visible. "Remember that WWII ordnance is still dangerous and can injure or kill!" The water glistens in varying shades of turquoise, the sand on the beaches is as fine as dust and a balmy breeze eases the tropical heat. But the beauty is deceptive. The "Land of Enchantment," which belongs to the island nation of Palau, was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Russian scientists seeking Lake Vostok lost in frozen 'Land of the Lost'? (Attacked by "The Thing?") |
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· 02/03/2012 4:58:37 AM PST · · Posted by PJ-Comix · · 44 replies · · FoxNews.Com · · February 2, 2012 · |
A group of Russian scientists plumbing the frozen Antarctic in search of a lake buried in ice for tens of millions of years have failed to respond to increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues --- and as the days creep by, the fate of the team remains unknown."No word from the ice for 5 days," Dr. John Priscu professor of Ecology at Montana State University, told FoxNews.com via email. |
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| Answering Long-standing Questions about Enigmatic Little Ice Age |
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· 02/03/2012 9:32:32 AM PST · · Posted by null and void · · 41 replies · · Scientific Computing · · 2/3/2013 · |
A new†study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century. According to the new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self-perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to University of Colorado Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. The primary evidence comes from radiocarbon dates from dead vegetation emerging from rapidly melting icecaps on Baffin... |
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| World holds its breath for Russian scientists drilling in Antarctic (No Contact) |
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· 02/04/2012 5:14:39 PM PST · · Posted by PJ-Comix · · 103 replies · · Daily Mail (UK) · · February 4, 2012 · · Rob Cooper & Thomas Durante · |
The scientific community is holding its breath for a team of Russian scientists that has been out of contact with colleagues in the U.S for six days, as they drill into a lake buried beneath the Antarctic ice for 20 million years. They have to evacuate their station by Tuesday - when winter proper kicks in and temperatures start to drop to an inhospitable minus 90C. The scientists are currently battling conditions of up to minus 66C at Lake Vostok as they raced to drill into a lake buried two miles beneath the ice before the weather closed in. They... |
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| Silence shrouds Antarctic dig (Still No Contact From Russian Scientists at Lake Vostok Site) |
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· 02/05/2012 7:19:42 AM PST · · Posted by PJ-Comix · · 107 replies · · The Telegraph (UK) · · February 5, 2012 · |
A TEAM of Russian scientists has gone quiet as they race against winter to uncover an ancient Antarctic lake. The group from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) have been drilling for weeks in an effort to reach isolated Lake Vostok, a vast, dark body of water hidden 4000m below the surface of the continent. Lake Vostok has not been exposed to air in more than 20 million years. The team's last contact with colleagues in the outside world was six days ago, and scientists from around the globe are unsure of the fate of the mission - and... |
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| Antarctic explorer says Russian scientists drilling at 'alien' underground lake are safe |
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· 02/05/2012 10:40:44 PM PST · · Posted by prisoner6 · · 34 replies · · Daily Mail Online · · 6th February 2012 · · Rob Cooper & Thomas Durante · |
An American professor and expert of the Antarctic said he believes contact with a team of Russian scientists that has not made contact with colleagues in the U.S for seven days has merely been busy as they drill into a lake buried beneath the Antarctic ice for 20 million years. Professor John Priscu told usnews.com in an email that the crews have been working "round the clock' to beat the end of Antarctic summer, which ends Tuesday. Afterwards, temperatures will fall to deadly levels. |
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| Russian scientists reach buried Antarctic Lake Vostok |
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· 02/06/2012 11:45:08 AM PST · · Posted by ColdOne · · 34 replies · · foxnews.com · · 2/6/12 · · foxnews · |
A group of Russian scientists in Antarctica has succeeded in drilling to a lake buried two miles beneath the icy landmass, the state-run Russian news service Ria Novosti reported --- following a week of radio silence from the team that had some scratching their heads. "Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake," the source reportedly said in a story posted Monday, Feb. 6. An unnamed source with Russia's Federal Service for Hydrometeorology confirmed the news as well, Russian business newspaper The View reported. John Priscu, a microbiologist with... |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #395 · v 8 · n 31 Saturday, February 11, 2012 |
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22 topics |
Welcome to a retro-style 38 topic GGG Digest, issue #395, volume 8, issue 31. · view this issue · |
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| Woo hoo!! Now over FORTY-THREE percent!! Thank you all very much!! | ||||
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #396 Saturday, February 18, 2012 |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| An Ocean of Data: The New Way to Find Sunken Treasure |
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· 02/18/2012 5:51:57 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Popular Science · · February 9, 2012 · · Brooke Borel · |
As much as Foley likes discovering shipwrecks -- he's found or helped find 26 in the past 14 years -- he doesn't much like spending time looking for them, at least not in the conventional ways. Rather than sending dive teams down to survey 1,000-foot transects one fin kick at a time, Foley prefers to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to survey huge tracts of seafloor. Where the robots don't work well, Foley sends down divers armed with closed-circuit rebreathers and thrusters, allowing them to cover more ground. He wants to go faster, he says, because he needs a lot... |
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| Climate | |
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| Was the Northeast Passage first navigated in 1660? (reduced Arctic sea ice then??) |
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· 02/14/2012 6:45:57 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 7 replies · · Whats up With That? · · February 13, 2012 · · Anthony Watts · |
If true, it suggests periods of reduced Arctic sea ice during that time that made this feat possible.Reposted from the blog Ecotretas with permission A graphical comparison between the North East Passage (blue) and an alternative route through Suez Canal (red) David Melgueiro, a Portuguese navigator, might have been the first to navigate the Northeast Passage (known now as Northern Sea Route), between 1660 and 1662, more than 200 years before Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, who did it -- in 1878. One of the most detailed accounts for this voyage is given by Eduardo Brazêo in The Corte-Real family and the New... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| The Legendary White-Skinned Cloud People Of Peru |
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· 02/11/2012 11:44:55 AM PST · · Posted by blam · · 44 replies · · The Right Perspective · · 2-11-2012 · |
Archeologists have discovered a 12-acre lost city deep within the Amazon rain forest that may shed light on a long-lost tribe of white-skinned, blonde-haired people known as the Cloud People. The Cloud People, also known in legend as "the white warriors of the clouds" established expansive kingdom located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru during the ninth century. Bordered by the Maranon and Utcubamba rivers, in the zone of Bagua, their civilzation extended up to the basin of the Abiseo river, and to the very... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| University of Iowa's Center for Book creates paper for national Magna Carta display |
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· 02/10/2012 4:38:21 AM PST · · Posted by iowamark · · 5 replies · · Cedar Rapids Gazette · · 9 February 2012 · · Emily Busse · |
Restored, rare document will go on public display later this month. Starting next week, anyone visiting the U.S. National Archives can gaze at the only original Magna Carta in the United States, thanks, in part, to the work of Iowans. Nestled perfectly beneath the 700-year-old legal document is a sheet of pure white cotton paper, specially made by the University of Iowa's Center for the Book. "Anyone from the state of Iowa can now go to the National Archives rotunda, get in line, wait your turn, and you can literally lean down your face a foot away from [the documents],"... |
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| Pages | |
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| Israeli library uploads Newton's theological texts |
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· 02/16/2012 8:27:00 AM PST · · Posted by fishtank · · 20 replies · · PhysOrg.com · · 2-15-2012 · · Aron Heller · |
Israel's national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton's writings, has digitized his theological collection, and put it online. More at the link... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba's wealth |
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· 02/11/2012 8:10:11 PM PST · · Posted by Engraved-on-His-hands · · 15 replies · · The Guardian [UK] · · February 11, 2012 · · Dalya Alberge · |
A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures. Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator, who headed the excavation on the high Gheralta plateau in northern... |
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| Queen of Sheba's lost gold mine discovered, archaeologist claims |
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· 02/15/2012 1:22:52 PM PST · · Posted by ColdOne · · 8 replies · · 2/15/12 · · newscore · |
A British archaeologist working in northern Ethiopia believes she may have discovered an ancient goldmine that holds clues about where the Queen of Sheba obtained her storied wealth. Louise Schofield, a former curator at the British Museum, told The Observer she was alerted to the mine by a gold prospector while working on an environmental development project in Ethiopia's Tigray region. The shaft, buried some four feet (1.2 meters) underground with an ancient human skull embedded in its entrance, apparently had not attracted much attention, even though locals panned for gold in a nearby river. The site is within the... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Is Israel Giving Jewish Heritage Sites to PA? |
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· 02/14/2012 1:37:14 AM PST · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 6 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 14/2/12 · · Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu · |
The Palestinian Authority wants UNESCO to declare the Patriarchs' Cave and Rachel's Tomb as its heritage sites while Israel is excluding them from its own list. A government committee headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is meeting Tuesday morning to decide on adding 10 more sites to Israel's official list of heritage sites, but the Bible-based Patriarchs' Cave and Rachel's Tomb are not among them Rabbi-Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, Science and Technology Minister and head of the Jewish Home party, issued an urgent appeal to Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser that the two sites be included. The government committee on heritage sites... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Maldives: Islamists Storm National Museum, Destroy Entire Collection of 12th-Century Buddhist Statues |
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· 02/12/2012 11:30:01 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 61 replies · · Weasel Zippers · · 2/12/12 · · zip · |
[Photo] (AFP) -- At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artifacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We... |
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| Jimmy Crack Crow | |
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| Two decades later, donors wondering what happened to plans for slavery museum (Wilder's reparations) |
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· 02/12/2012 8:36:25 AM PST · · Posted by Second Amendment First · · 25 replies · · Washington Post · · Feb. 12, 2012 · · Susan Svrluga · |
Nearly 20 years ago, former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder announced that he wanted to create a museum that would tell the story of slavery in the United States. He had the vision, the clout, the charm to make it seem attainable, and he had already made history: the grandson of slaves, he was the nation's first elected African American governor. He assembled a high-profile board, hosted splashy galas with entertainer Bill Cosby promising at least $1 million in support, accepted a gift of some 38 acres of prime real estate smack along Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg and showed plans... |
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| Grand Old Party | |
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| The GOP's unheralded role in black history |
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· 02/14/2012 11:01:56 PM PST · · Posted by cap10mike · · 20 replies · · BizPacReview.com · · Michael Dorstewitz · |
February may be our shortest month, but it's filled with notable events. This month, we celebrate Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year and Washington's Birthday. We also commemorate President's Day as well as every lover's favorite, Valentine's Day. February has also been reserved as Black History Month. After doing just a little digging, I was struck by the significant role the Republican Party played in not only emancipating slaves in the antebellum South, but also in accepting and elevating them into American society. I was also amazed by how often the Democratic Party thwarted the GOP's efforts. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Kindergartners know Lincoln speech by heart |
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· 02/12/2012 10:08:41 AM PST · · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · · 13 replies · · Orange County Register (CA) · · February 11, 2012 · · By Eric Carpenter · |
ANAHEIM -- They adjusted their black-cotton beards and their Lincoln-stovepipe hats that stood almost as tall as them. Then, in unison, the 19 kindergarteners began: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent ..." From beginning to end, Room 4 at Fairmont Private School recited from memory the entire Gettysburg Address -- President Lincoln's 1863 speech, widely regarded as among the best speeches in American history. With words such as "endure," "dedicate" and "consecrate." The 5- and 6-year-olds got through them all. Their teacher, Patsy Bauman, began teaching her students the address in December, in... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Celebrate George Washington's 280th Birthday at His Home, Mount Vernon! |
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· 02/14/2012 7:13:34 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 26 replies · · Mt Vernon Estate & Gardens · · via Marketwatch · · Feb. 13, 2012 · · Anon. · |
MOUNT VERNON, Va., Feb. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, celebrates our first president's birthday with three days of special events including an outdoor cooking demonstration by celebrated chefs, a new food exhibition with more than 125 objects from the Washingtons' kitchen, a surprise birthday celebration for "George Washington", book signing with PBS's A Taste of History host Chef Walter Staib, and much more! Saturday and Sunday events are included in Estate admission, and admission to all events on Monday, February 20, events are FREE in honor of George Washington's birthday! Saturday, February 18All events... |
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| Early America | |
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| The Sword of Simón Bolívar |
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· 02/16/2012 6:39:59 AM PST · · Posted by InsightSur · · 16 replies · · InsightSur.com · · February 16, 2012 · · InsightSur Editor · |
His full name is Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, and his legacy is equally voluminous. Born on July 24, 1783, he was serendipitously raised in an age of revolutions, and was one of the key leaders in the struggle for independence from Spain which spread throughout Latin America. On June 15th, 1813 he dictated his "Decree of War to the Death," and the rest is history. He would go on to lead Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia to independence from Spain. At one point he was dictator of Peru, president of Colombia,... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| The Monster of Glamis |
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· 02/17/2012 4:40:50 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 13 replies · · Smithsonian magazine · · 2-10-2012 · |
"If you could even guess the nature of this castle's secret," said Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore, "you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours." That awful secret was once the talk of Europe. From perhaps the 1840s until 1905, the Earl's ancestral seat at Glamis Castle, in the Scottish lowlands, was home to a "mystery of mysteries" -- an enigma that involved a hidden room, a secret passage, solemn initiations, scandal, and shadowy figures glimpsed by night on castle battlements. The conundrum engaged two generations of high society until, soon after 1900, the secret... |
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| Cave Art | |
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| Papua New Guinea: Last of the Cave People |
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· 02/13/2012 6:52:51 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · National Geographic · · February 2012 · · Mark Jenkins · |
But for the glow from the campfire, it is impenetrably dark. Never are there stars, as if that would be too much to hope for. Instead, beyond the rock overhang, it's pouring, waves of water relentlessly slapping the giant fronds of the jungle. It always seems to rain at night here in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. This is why Lidia and what's left of her people, the Meakambut, seek refuge in rock shelters -- they're dry. Located high in the cliffs, sometimes requiring a treacherous climb up vines, caves are also natural fortresses that once protected the Meakambut... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Stunning photo taken from kite that captures devastation from 1906 earthquake in San Francisco |
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· 02/12/2012 1:57:18 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 59 replies · · Daily Mail (U.K.) · · 12th February 2012 · · Nina Golgowski · |
A city in ruins: Stunning photo taken from kite that captures devastation from 1906 earthquake in San Francisco This rarely seen image of the city of San Fransisco lying in ruins after the devastating earthquake of 1906 was captured by an ingenious photographer using a camera attached kites. The panoramic shot, which is of outstanding quality considering the basic equipment available, shows the full scale of the disaster which claimed the lives of over 3,000, injured 225,000 and caused $400,000,000 worth of property damage. Commercial photographer George Lawrence, who used home-made large format cameras, was well known at the time... |
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| The Great War | |
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| German soldiers preserved in World War I shelter discovered after nearly 100 years |
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· 02/14/2012 5:49:12 AM PST · · Posted by Mikey_1962 · · 32 replies · · The Telegraph · · 2-10-12 · · STAFF · |
The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when an Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918 causing it to cave in. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them. Nearly a century later French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front during excavation work for a road building project. Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the men had been in at the... |
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| end of digest #396 20120218 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #396 · v 8 · n 32 Saturday, February 18, 2012 |
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18 topics |
This is the 18-topics-strong GGG Digest, issue #396, volume 8, issue 31. We've got 805 members. · view this issue · |
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| 2012` Q1 FReepathon. Target: $94,000 | Receipts & Pledges to-date: $41,318 | |||
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| Woo hoo!! Now over FORTY-THREE percent!! Thank you all very much!! | ||||
Even in Italy?
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #397 Saturday, February 25, 2012 |
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| Africa | |
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| Out of Africa? Data fail to support language origin in Africa |
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· 02/20/2012 8:24:25 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 57 replies · · PhysOrg · · February 15, 2012 · · LMUM · |
Last year, a report claiming to support the idea that the origin of language can be traced to West Africa appeared in Science. The article caused quite a stir. Now linguist Michael Cysouw from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich has challenged its conclusions, in a commentary just published in Science... Atkinson based his claim on a comparative analysis of the numbers of phonemes found in about 500 present-day languages. Phonemes are the most basic sound units --- consonants, vowels and tones --- that form the basis of semantic differentiation in all languages. The number of phonemes used in natural languages varies widely.... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Earliest manuscript of Gospel of Mark reportedly found |
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· 02/21/2012 5:21:41 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 12 replies · · Christianity Today India · · 02/20/2012 · · Stoyan Zaimov · |
Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel B. Wallace has said that newly discovered fragments from the Gospel of Mark could be the oldest New Testament artifacts ever found and date from the first century A.D., or during the time of eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection. Wallace announced his findings at UNC Chapel Hill on Feb. 1, 2012, during a debate in front of 1,000 people, where he unveiled that seven New Testament papyri had recently been discovered -- six of them he said were probably from the second century, and one of them, the Gospel of Mark, probably from the first. The... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| 1500 year-old " Syriac " Bible found in Ankara, Turkey |
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· 02/23/2012 2:20:02 PM PST · · Posted by NYer · · 12 replies · · National Turk · · February 23, 2012 · |
Ancient Bible in Aramaic dialected Syriac rediscovered in Turkey The relic was "rediscovered" in the depositum of Ankaran Justice Palace, the ancient version of bible is believed to be written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus. Ankara / Turkey. The bible was already in custody of Turkish authorities after having been seized in 2000 in an operation in Mediterranean area in Turkey. The gang of smugglers had been charged with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives and went to trial. Turkish police testified in a court hearing they believe the manuscript... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israel Seeks to End Ancient African Jewish Custom |
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· 01/18/2012 9:35:37 AM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 59 replies · · AP via Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald · · 1/18/12 · · Daniel Estrin · |
ASHKELON, Israel --- Israel is closing the books on a rare millennia-old Jewish tradition. Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism. The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept Ethiopians as tenants.The move has prompted large... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Erasing history in Egypt |
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· 12/25/2011 11:46:39 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 66 replies · · Israel Matzav · · 12/25/11 · · Carl In Jerusalem · |
Guy Bechor reports that Egypt is in the process of destroying all remnants of its ancient, non-Muslim cultures. It was barely mentioned in the Israeli and global media, but the following event pertains to the whole of Western civilization: Last Saturday, violent groups of Islamic-Salafi radicals burned the famous scientific institute established by Napoleon in Egypt after its first encounter with the West. Some historians consider it the start of modern times in the Middle East. The site, L'Institut d'Egypte, held some 200,000 original and rare books, exhibits, maps, archeological findings and studies from Egypt and the entire Middle East,... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Maldives: Muslim hardliners smashes Buddhist statues in national museum |
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· 02/08/2012 12:14:00 PM PST · · Posted by bayouranger · · 11 replies · · peopleofshambhala.com · · 08FEB12 · · People of Shambhala · |
On the same day as the Maldives President resigned, after a coup by police, Islamic hardliners burst into the national museum and smashed Buddhist statues. Police spokesman Ahmed Shiyam told police that "A mob entered the museum yesterday (Tuesday). They smashed many statues. This included some statues of Buddha," reports Al Arabiya News. Former President, Mohamed Nasheed, blamed the attack on hardliner Muslims. There has been a debate for some weeks over statues in the Maldives. Several that had been gifted to the nation from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and other nations, were denounced by extremists as "idolatry," and as unacceptable... |
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| Trouble in paradise: Maldives and Islamic extremism |
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· 02/12/2012 9:21:03 PM PST · · Posted by County Agent Hank Kimball · · 26 replies · · Agence France-Presse · · February 12, 2012 · · Amal Jayasinghe · |
At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We lost all... |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Four Unknown Shipwrecks Found [ Crete ] |
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· 02/22/2012 8:08:07 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Athens News · · Monday, February 20, 2012 · · AMNA · |
Four previously unknown shipwrecks have been discovered some 30 kilometers off the Bay of Irakleio, Crete, in recent underwater exploration conducted by the ephorate of underwater antiquities. The new finds comprise two Roman era shipwrecks, one containing 1st and 2nd-century Cretan amphorae and the other containing 5th-7th century post-Roman era amphorae, and two shipwrecks containing Byzantine amphorae, dated from the 8th-9th century and later. The finds, which were made south and east of the Dia islet, which lies 7 nautical miles north of Irakleio, were documented and taken ashore for further analysis. Three more recent shipwrecks were also discovered, as... |
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| What's the Total Value of the World's Sunken Treasure? |
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· 02/23/2012 7:16:17 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · · Popular Mechanics · · Rob Goodier · |
Don't be fooled by the flashy dollars figures, Mitchell-Cook argues --- we can't know how much wealth is at the bottom of the sea, but it's not enough to make it worth your time. There's no documentation for many shipwrecks and disappearances, Mitchell-Cook says. And there's no way to know what happened to the wreck. Some ships drop intact in deep water, others run aground, or break up in a storm and scatter their remains for miles. "Also, currents, bottom conditions, temperature of water, and other factors can work to preserve or destroy a vessel," she says. Don't forget fishing,... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Archaeology: Acropolis of forgotten kingdom uncovered |
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· 02/21/2012 8:33:21 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 28 replies · · ANSA · · Friday, February 10, 2012 · · ANSAmed · |
Numerous archaeological excavations are underway at a huge site in Anatolia which will uncover an ancient and rich yet forgotten kingdom known as Tuwana from the darkness of history, which will be featured in an open-air museum. The news was reported by Lorenzo d'Alfonso, an Italian archaeologist leading the joint mission by the University of Pavia and NYU, who provided details on the excavation campaign in a press conference in Istanbul this month, during which the details of the Italian archaeological missions in Turkey were explained. This "new discovery" from the pre-classical age which "needs to be continued" in southern... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Evidence of massacre in Bronze Age Turkey [ Titris Hoyuk ] |
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· 02/20/2012 8:59:09 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · Past Horizons · · Monday, February 20, 2012 · · Katy Meyers · |
Skeletal collections with trauma found from the Neolithic period in Anatolia suggest that injury was caused by daily activities and lifestyle, rather than systematic violence. However, shortly after this period there is an increase in trauma associated with violence that may suggest an increase in stress within and between populations in this area... The human remains come from the site of Titris Hoyuk, dating to 2900-2100 BCE. The site grew very quickly in this period from a small farming community to an urban centre within a large mud-brick fortification wall built over a stone foundation. Within one of the house... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Aztec carvings tell story of cosmic battle |
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· 02/20/2012 6:32:14 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 31 replies · · Past Horizons · · 2-9-2012 · |
A total of 23 pre-Columbian stone plaques dating back over 550 years were discovered by archaeologists in front of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City, with carvings illustrating Aztec myths including the birth of the god of war Huitzilopochtli. The sculpted images are carved on slabs of tezontle (a volcanic rock) and feature depictions of serpents, captives and warriors. They also feature other figures relating to the mythological origins of Aztec civilization. The stone carvings focus on the myths of Huitzilopochtli's birth and the beginning of the Holy War. Raul Barrera from the National Institute of Anthropology and... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| 300 million year old fossilized forest discovered under coal mine in China |
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· 02/22/2012 4:01:42 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 27 replies · · ZME Science · · 2/21/12 · |
There's some good coming off China's extensive coal exploitation (the nation holds the top place for most pollutant emissions resulting from burning coal), as recent mining activities around Wuda in Inner Mongolia, China, has uncovered an almost perfectly preserved 298 million year-old forest. The forest, which also features intact trees with leaves, branches, trunk and cones, was buried by volcanic ash, and thus kept away from time's unforgiving touch. The researchers dubbed the forest the "Pompeii of the Permian period, since the manner in which it was preserved bared a striking resemblance to the famous Roman namesake event. The volcanic... |
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| The Pompeii of trees: 300 million-year-old forest preserved by volcanic ash found beneath Chinese... |
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· 02/24/2012 5:39:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · · Daily Mail · · Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 · · Ted Thornhill · |
A 300-million-year-old forest has been found preserved by volcanic ash, just as the Roman town of Pompeii was. The remarkable discovery was made near a coal mine at the city of Wuda in China, by a University of Pennsylvania scientist and Chinese researchers. The study site is unique as it gives a snapshot of a moment in time. Because volcanic ash covered a large expanse of forest over the course of only a few days, the plants were preserved as they fell, in many cases in the exact locations where they grew. 'It's marvellously preserved,' said Hermann Pfefferkorn, a paleobotanist... |
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| I'm Driftin', I'm Driftin' | |
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| America and Eurasia 'to meet at north pole' (in 50-200 million years.) |
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· 02/08/2012 10:58:52 AM PST · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 20 replies · · BBC News · · 2/8/12 · · Neil Bowdler · |
America and Eurasia will crash into each other over the north pole in 50-200 million years time, according to scientists at Yale University. They predict Africa and Australia will join the new "supercontinent" too, which will mark the next coming together of the Earth's land masses. The continents are last thought to have come together 300 million years ago into a supercontinent called Pangaea. Details are published in the journal Nature. The land masses of the Earth are constantly moving as the Earth's as tectonic activity occurs. This generates areas such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where Iceland has formed, and... |
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| Meet 'Amasia,' the Next Supercontinent |
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· 02/09/2012 9:45:24 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 29 replies · · Science · · 2/8/12 · · Sid Perkins · |
No boats required. In the distant future, most if not all of today's continents (brown fragments, depicted with current-day outlines) will assemble into a single landmass called Amasia (shown approximately 100 million years from now). Over the next few hundred million years, the Arctic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea will disappear, and Asia will crash into the Americas forming a supercontinent that will stretch across much of the Northern Hemisphere. That's the conclusion of a new analysis of the movements of these giant landmasses. Unlike in today's world, where a variety of tectonic plates move across Earth's surface carrying the... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Why Do Dinosaur Skeletons Look So Weird? (a carcass in a watery grave) |
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· 02/23/2012 12:57:19 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 27 replies · · Science Daily · · 02/16/2012 · |
ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) --- Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs. A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist.... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Ice Age: Back to 18th century? |
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· 02/21/2012 9:03:48 PM PST · · Posted by Paul Pierett · · 28 replies · · The Voice of Russia · · Feb. 21, 2012 · · Igor Siletsky · |
In the near future the mankind will face a new ice age not a global warming. That is the forecast which has been made by Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of Space research laboratory at the Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory, who is a well known global warming skeptic. According to him the coming cold will be caused by a decline in solar activity. Last time our planet experienced it in mid 17th century until the early 18th century. Nevertheless most of the climate experts including the colleagues of Abdusamatov do not support his theory. |
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| Mammoth Told Me... | |
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| Warming climate could make us all shrink |
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· 02/24/2012 8:43:35 AM PST · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 52 replies · · TG Daily · · 24 February 2012 · · Emma Woollacott · |
Researchers have uncovered a direct link between global temperatures and body size, leading them to conclude that future climate change could mean species getting smaller. A team led by scientists from the University of Florida and the University of Nebraska followed the evolution of the earliest horses about 56 million years ago, and found that as temperatures increased, their body size decreased. "Horses started out small, about the size of a small dog like a miniature schnauzer," says Jonathan Bloch, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "What's surprising is that after they first appeared,... |
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| LIVE Woolly Mammoth Spotted in Siberia (video/pic) |
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· 02/10/2012 1:56:59 AM PST · · Posted by Reaganite Republican · · 26 replies · · Reaganite Republican · · February 10, 2012 · · Reaganite Republican · |
Scepitical? Look at the clip and you tell me Red furry coat, giant tusks... elephants†of any sort†not native to the region, either! The Siberian Woolly Mammoth --which we are taught disappeared†abruptly at the end of the last Ice Age (~8000 B.C.)- has long been a source of fascination, as†on occasion†examples are found in a highly-preserved, mummified state under the Arctic territory's thick layer of permafrost.†Similar in appearance to a modern elephant, the Mammoth was actually only slightly larger (~3m at the shoulder) yet with a shorter trunk, longer tusks, ears only 10% the size of their contemporary brethren,... |
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| Climate | |
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| Russians revive Ice Age flower from frozen burrow |
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· 02/20/2012 8:05:56 PM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 49 replies · · AP · · 2/20/12 · · VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV · |
MOSCOW (AP) --- It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. The experiment proves that permafrost serves as a natural depository for ancient life forms, said the Russian researchers,... |
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| Flowers regenerated from 30,000-year-old frozen fruits, buried by ancient squirrels |
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· 02/21/2012 12:42:13 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 20 replies · · discovermagazine.com · · Feb. 20, 2012 · · Ed Yong · |
Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower. These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line. The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the... |
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| Southeast Asia | |
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| Strange New Leaf-Nosed Bat Found in Vietnam |
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· 02/25/2012 6:49:18 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 10 replies · · nationalgeographic · · February 24, 2012 · · Christine Dell'Amore · |
A new species of bat whose face bristles with leaf-like protrusions has been discovered in Vietnam, a new study says. When scientists first spotted Griffin's leaf-nosed bat in Chu Mom Ray National Park in 2008, the animal was almost mistaken for a known species, the great leaf-nosed bat, said Vu Dinh Thong, of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi. Still, Vu Dinh and his team, thinking there was a chance the bat might in fact be new to science, used nets to catch some of the docile animals. "While captured, some similar body-sized bats, i.e. [the] great... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Finding Bigfoot Live Thread |
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· 02/19/2012 7:10:59 PM PST · · Posted by matt04 · · 74 replies · · Animal Planet · · · |
Feb 19, 10:00 pm The team travels to Kentucky to investigate a piece of footage that seems to show the glowing eyes of a bigfoot. With locals reporting activity in Daniel Boone National Forest, the team tries a new search technique to see there really are bigfoots in KY. |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Pterosaur-like Creatures Reported in Papua New Guinea |
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· 07/20/2006 7:42:59 PM PDT · · Posted by DaveLoneRanger · · 309 replies · · 16,006+ views · · E-Media Newswire · · July 20, 2006 · · Staff · |
Intermittent expeditions on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, from 1994 through 2004, resulted in the compilation of eyewitness testimonies that substantiated a hypothesis that pterosaurs may not be extinct. Long Beach, Calif. (PRWEB) July 20, 2006 --- The conflict between evolution and creation took a new form with an investigation of reports of a pterosaur-like creature in Papua New Guinea. According to standard models of science, all pterosaurs became extinct by about 65-million years ago, but traditional interpretations of the Bible suggest that they lived in human times. According to Jonathan Whitcomb, a forensic videographer who interviewed native islanders in... |
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| Early America | |
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| Spain to send military planes to Florida to collect a half of a billion dollars worth of treasure |
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· 02/22/2012 8:54:50 AM PST · · Posted by KeyLargo · · 47 replies · · NY Daily News · · Feb 20, 2012 · |
Spain to send military planes to Florida to collect a half of a billion dollars worth of treasure 17 tons of treasure that U.S. undersea explorers found could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, experts speculate. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, February 20, 2012, 6:12 PM Spain said Monday it will soon send hulking military transport planes to Florida to retrieve 17 tons of treasure that U.S. undersea explorers found but ultimately lost in American courts, a find experts have speculated could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history. |
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| Peru makes last-minute claim to Spanish booty of the Nuestra |
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· 02/24/2012 12:19:49 PM PST · · Posted by wolfcreek · · 22 replies · · Global post · · 2.24.2012 · · n/a · |
In a final twist to a five-year legal drama, the Peruvian government today appealed to the US Supreme Court to prevent the return to Spain of mountains of salvaged 19th-century lucre that are sitting in a US air base in Florida. |
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| The Revolution | |
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| When George Washington Became Great |
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· 02/20/2012 7:07:34 AM PST · · Posted by yinandyang · · 23 replies · · City Journal · · Myron Magnet · |
-snip- Washington had made every mistake in the book in the New York campaign. He had misread the enemy's intentions; he had divided his forces in the face of superior numbers; he had provided no cavalry; he had hesitated almost fatally to get his army out of Manhattan once he grasped the folly of keeping it there; he had allowed Greene to persuade him against his better judgment to keep men in Fort Washington; he had allowed a wealth of precious tents, flour, ordnance, and ammunition at Forts Washington and Lee to fall into enemy hands. And now, on December... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Football clubs to mark 1914 Christmas Truce |
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· 12/05/2011 6:41:30 PM PST · · Posted by DeaconBenjamin · · 7 replies · · RTE · · 11:05, Friday, 2 December 2011 · |
Manchester United are one of four clubs taking part in a tournament this week to commemorate the Christmas Truce of the First World War. British and German troops made a Christmas Truce in the trenches of the Western Front The tale of a football match played on a First World War battlefield during a Christmas Truce in 1914 will be honoured by young players from four of Europe's top clubs this week in the Belgian town of Ypres. The Christmas Truce tournament, which starts on Friday and is organised by the Premier League, features junior sides from English champions Manchester... |
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| The devastation of Dunkirk: Haunting images from German soldier's photo album seen for first time |
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· 11/13/2011 10:51:23 AM PST · · Posted by InvisibleChurch · · 20 replies · · dailymail · · 5:36 PM on 13th November 2011 · |
These photographs are part of a chilling collection of WWII photographs taken by a German soldier in the aftermath of Dunkirk. Today on Remembrance Day, they are a fitting reminder of the fields which played host to some of the bloodiest battles of World War One in which 10 million soldiers died. The pictures show the lifeless beaches of northern France littered with thousands of allied vehicles left behind following the infamous evacuation.One disturbing snap shows the rotting corpse of a British soldier lapping at the shore. Others show the devastation inflicted on the town of Dunkirk following days of... |
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| First World War officially ends |
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· 09/29/2010 7:09:40 AM PDT · · Posted by shove_it · · 41 replies · · 1+ views · · Telegraph · · 28 Sep 2010 · · Allan Hall · |
The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another. Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving... |
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| Last German WWI veteran dies at 107 |
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· 01/25/2008 9:44:07 AM PST · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 18 replies · · 312+ views · · AP on Yahoo · · 1/25/08 · · David Rising - ap · |
BERLIN - It was an American, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who famously reflected that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away." But the phrase seems to apply better to the quiet passing of a German believed to have been the country's last World War I veteran. Erich Kaestner died Jan. 1 in a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 107, his son told The Associated Press. When France's second-last surviving veteran from World War I, Louis de Cazenave, died Jan. 20, the news made international headlines. But in Germany --- which lost both world wars and has had... |
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| On this Day a Tennessee Boy Killed 25 and Captured 132 Enemy |
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· 10/08/2001 12:06:01 PM PDT · · Posted by the irate magistrate · · 94 replies · · 882+ views · · History Channel web page · · 10/08/2001 · · staff · |
ALVIN YORK KILLS 25 AND CAPTURES 132: During World War I, U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York is credited with single-handedly killing 25 German soldiers and capturing 132 in the Argonne Forest of France. The action saved York's small detachment from annihilation by a German machine-gun nest and won the reluctant warrior from backwater Tennessee the Congressional Medal of Honor. Born in a log cabin in rural Tennessee in 1887, Alvin Cullum York supplemented his family's subsistence farming by hunting and, like his father, was soon an expert marksman. He also earned a reputation as a hell-raiser, and few imagined he ... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Long-lost Nuremberg Trials film restored, 66 years late |
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· 02/23/2012 9:33:54 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 4 replies · · The Jewish Chronicle · · February 23, 2012 · · Martin Bright · |
An extraordinary lost film of the Nuremberg war crimes trial enjoyed its UK premiere this week six decades after it was first made. The newly-restored film, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, was unveiled at a screening in Parliament on Wednesday. It includes footage from the trial of 21 members of the Nazi high command and extracts from Nazi films, collected by a unit under the command of Hollywood director John Ford. Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who hosted the event, said: "The Nuremberg Trial was a defining moment in the history of international justice, establishing principles which are still in use... |
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| Did Hitler Have a Secret Son? Evidence Supports Alleged Son's Claims |
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· 02/21/2012 8:32:58 PM PST · · Posted by lbryce · · 20 replies · · ABC News · · February 21, 2012 · · Candace Smith · |
Until his death in 1985, Jean-Marie Loret believed that he was the only son of Adolf Hitler. There is now renewed attention to evidence from France and Germany that apparently lends some credence to his claim. Loret collected information from two studies; one conducted by the University of Heidelberg in 1981 and another conducted by a handwriting analyst that showed Loret's blood type and handwriting, respectively, were similar to the Nazi Germany dictator who died childless in 1945 at age 56. The evidence is inconclusive but Loret's story itself was riveting enough to warrant some investigation. The French newspaper Le... |
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| World War II Rumor About an Ancient Lake Is Revived (Russians Say Hitler Remains/Clones) |
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· 02/09/2012 7:33:04 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 44 replies · · New York Times · · February 8, 2012 · · J. David Goodman · |
As my colleague David M. Herszenhorn reports, scientists are poised to take some highly anticipated samples from a deep subglacial lake in Antarctica, saying on Wednesday that they had succeeded in boring through more than two miles of ice. The state-financed broadcaster Russia Today posted video of the researchers at the frigid Antarctic outpost, including clips of them snowmobiling around the endless expanse of ice and snow and watching supply planes land. What evolutionary secrets Lake Vostok --- named after the Russian research station above it --- may hold after being sealed under ice for millions of years has tantalized... |
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| Hitler's Drugged Soldiers |
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· 05/06/2005 10:57:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Lando Lincoln · · 106 replies · · 10,463+ views · · Der Spiegel · · 06 May 2005 · · Andreas Ulrich · |
The Nazis preached abstinence in the name of promoting national health. But when it came to fighting their Blitzkrieg, they had no qualms about pumping their soldiers full of drugs and alcohol. Speed was the drug of choice, but many others became addicted to morphine and alcohol. The stimulant Pervitin was delivered to the soldiers at the front. In a letter dated November 9, 1939, to his "dear parents and siblings" back home in Cologne, a young soldier stationed in occupied Poland wrote: "It's tough out here, and I hope you'll understand if I'm only able to write to you... |
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| War dead found 60 years after battle |
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· 04/05/2005 8:13:19 PM PDT · · Posted by M. Espinola · · 15 replies · · 1,417+ views · · Swiss Radio International · · Erik Kirschbaum · |
Seelow Heights, Germany (Reuters) - The remains of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers killed in a climactic World War Two battle outside Berlin are still being unearthed and identified 60 years after the fighting ended. German officials said on Tuesday they had found the skeletal remains of 1,080 Wehrmachtand 700 Red Army soldiers at the Seelow Heights battlefield since they began searching 12years ago for victims of the fiercest World War Two combat in Germany. A JS-2 on the Berlin highway during Spring 1945. "World War Two won't be truly finished until they've all been recovered and given a... |
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| Were There Jews in the Nazi Army? |
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· 04/30/2002 5:31:11 PM PDT · · Posted by swarthyguy · · 131 replies · · 6,843+ views · · chronicle.com · · May 3, 2002 · · Danny Postel · |
A historian says thousands of Hitler's soldiers had mixed heritage. Does it matter? Now, Bryan Mark Rigg the 31-year-old professor of history at the online American Military University, who recently received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, has just published a book on Nazi Germany that some historians are calling pathbreaking. This month, the University Press of Kansas releases Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, on which Mr. Rigg has been laboring since his sophomore year of college. Controversy has shadowed his work for years. Articles... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Nazi Germany - Dictatorship (within 24 hrs after fire, no press, assembly or speaking out) |
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· 02/18/2012 12:19:25 PM PST · · Posted by STARWISE · · 55 replies · · History Learning Site · · unk · |
*snip* One week before the election was due to take place, the Reichstag building burned down. Hitler immediately declared that it was the signal for a communist takeover of the nation. Hitler knew that if he was to convince President Hindenburg to give him emergency powers - as stated in the Weimar Constitution - he had to play on the old president's fear of communism. What better than to convince him that the communists were about to take over the nation by force? A known communist - Marianus van der Lubbe - was caught near the Reichstag building immediately after... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Iceland Is So Inbred It Needs a Website to Avoid Incest |
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· 02/11/2012 9:52:19 PM PST · · Posted by Slings and Arrows · · 110 replies · · Gizmodo · · Feb 6, 2012 · |
When your society has inhabited a small, remote island for countless generations and boasts a population of only 300,000, the odds of having sex with a relative are significant. Luckily, Icelanders now have a handy tool to avoid family-sex. √ïslendingab√›k --- meaning "book of Icelanders" --- is an online incest avoidance search engine. Plug in your name and that of a potential mate, and the site searches a genealogical database to see how closely you're related. It's likely that you'll have some overlap many generations back --- in which case you're probably safe from mutant children. But if you share great-grandparents, you might want to reconsider... |
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| end of digest #397 20120225 | |
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