Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #37
Saturday, April 2, 2005

PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis

Atlantis [euphemism] in Rock Lake Wisconsin

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/01/2005 11:55:22 AM PST · 22 replies · 221+ views

Rock Lake Research Society | April 2003 or thereafter | RLRS writers
Rock Lake may hold in its murky depths some of the answers to the identity of the " Ancient Foreigners" that the local Indian lore speaks of. Who are the people that built the 'Rock Tepees" (pyramidal stone structures) that lay beneath the waters of Rock Lake and where did they come?

Chemists Probe Secrets In Ancient Textile Dyes From China, Peru (GGG)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/01/2005 10:51:02 AM PST · 6 replies · 315+ views

Eureka Alert | 4-1-2005 | Ann Marie Menting/Cory Hatch
Contact: Ann Marie Menting or Cory Hatch amenting@bu.edu 617-358-1240 Boston University Boston University chemists probe secrets in ancient textile dyes from China, PeruChemists journey to Gobi region for samples, discover novel dye in textiles from Peru (Boston) -- Although searching for 3,000-year-old mummy textiles in tombs under the blazing sun of a western Chinese desert may seem more Indiana Jones than analytical chemist, two Boston University researchers recently did just that. Traveling along the ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang Province on their quest, they found the ancient fabrics ñ and hit upon a research adventure that combined chemistry, archaeology, anthropology,...

NUCLEAR ANALYSIS REVEALS SECRETS OF INCA BURIAL SITE

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/31/2005 11:22:06 AM PST · 24 replies · 850+ views

Oregon State | 03-22-05 | Jana Zvibleman
CORVALLIS - Researchers have applied a unique nuclear analytic technique to pottery found at an ancient burial site high in the Andes mountains, and believe that the girl buried at this site was transported more than 600 miles in a ceremonial pilgrimage - revealing some customs and rituals of the ancient Inca empire. The findings are being published by scientists from Oregon State University in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. On the highest peaks of the Andes, sacrificial burial sites have been discovered since the early 1900s. In one of them was the fully intact, frozen body of a girl...

The Polynesian Connection

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 03/31/2005 8:09:03 AM PST · 7 replies · 111+ views

Archaeology, Volume 58 Number 2 | March/April 2005 | Blake Edgar
They called themselves "people of the tomol" and their canoe the "house of the sea." For the Chumash people, who inhabited the southern California coast as well as several islands across the Santa Barbara Channel, the sewn-plank canoe, or tomol, anchored both their identity and economy... Some archaeologists argue that the tomol made possible the complexity of Chumash culture... What if the Chumash encountered the unchallenged masters of oceanic navigation, the Polynesians, and learned the idea from them? ...[N]ow a distinguished California archaeologist and a linguist of the Chumash languages have marshaled new evidence for a Polynesia-California connection.

Radiation Holds Key to Inca Riddle

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 12:15:42 AM PST · 3 replies · 403+ views

Corvallis Gazette-Times | Mary Ann Albright
An Oregon State University researcher is using modern technology to unravel the mysteries of an ancient South American culture. The Inca empire marked momentous state occasions with a ritual called capacocha. These ceremonies linked the capital of Cuzco to remote Inca provinces through the sacrifice of children and the burial of precious objects. OSU researcher Leah Minc used neutron activation analysis to identify the compositional elements of 15th century pottery found in several sacred burial sites. Establishing the artifacts' makeup allowed her to pinpoint their origins, and ultimately to better understand the capacocha. The findings were published in the March...

Scientists Study Anasazi Calendar

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 03/27/2005 2:32:14 PM PST · 13 replies · 652+ views

KSL-TV | 3-21-2005 | Ed Yeates
Scientists Study Anasazi Calender Mar. 21, 2005 Ed Yeates reporting Don Smith, College of Eastern Utah, San Juan branch: "I think we're becoming more aware that those people were far more familiar with astronomy, science and possibly math than we give them credit for." In a secluded ravine near Blanding, scientists and researchers gather to watch mysterious images forming right before their eyes. Although the rite of Spring, at least on our calendar, slipped in here yesterday almost unnoticed, it's literally in your face in this strange little canyon. We arrived weeks before spring equinox because people studying this place...

Ancient Egypt

BOOK FEATURE: The man who really found Tutankhamen (British Corporal Spy)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/31/2005 1:45:59 PM PST · 13 replies · 446+ views

Middle East Times/World peace Times | March 31, 2005 | Desmond Zwar
CAIRO, Egypt -- For the past 36 years journalist and author Desmond Zwar has shared a great secret: that it was not archaeologist Howard Carter who was responsible for the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, but a humble British corporal whose very presence on the site had to be kept confidential; who in the last days of the dig took a photograph that changed history. Richard Adamson was a 23-year-old spy. He had infiltrated the Wafdist Party -- dedicated to overthrowing British rule in Egypt -- and as a result 28 Egyptians were arrested in Cairo, four of them sentenced to...

USO Canteen FReeper Style~Ancient Egyptian Military: Fortresses, Siege Warfare~July 22, 2003

Posted by LaDivaLoca
On News/Activism 07/22/2003 2:52:06 AM PDT · 365 replies · 417+ views

MilitaryHistory.com at the Internet | July 22, 2003 | LaDivaLoca
† † For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. † † Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! † † ANCIENT WARFARE The oldest remaining documentation of military campaigns come from the Middle East where the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Persians were the main combatants. Read about the rise of standing armies and how battles were fought 4000 years ago. † Continuation of Part I:Ancient Egyptian MilitaryFortresses Unless an enemy was willing to besiege a stronghold until it surrendered or could surprise its garrison...

Ancient Greece

Ptolemy Tilted Off His Axis (lost celestial secret found)

Posted by Between the Lines
On News/Activism 03/30/2005 10:35:09 AM PST · 63 replies · 2,213+ views

LA Times | March 30, 2005 | John Johnson
Studying a statue of Atlas holding the sky, an American astronomer finds key evidence of what could be a major fraud in science history. In a sunlit gallery of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Italy, astronomer Brad Schaefer came face to face with an ancient statue known as the Farnese Atlas. For centuries, the 7-foot marble figure of the mythological Atlas has bent in stoic agony with a sphere of the cosmos crushing his shoulders. Carved on the sphere - one of only three celestial globes that have survived from Greco-Roman times - are figures representing 41 of the 48...

Ancient Rome

Herod's villa becomes outdoor museum

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/28/2005 10:31:47 AM PST · 4 replies · 354+ views

Kathimerini | 3/26/05 | Iota Sykka
A 0.45-hectare roof will be set up to protect the architectural fragments and famous mosaics at Eva in Kynouria from the elementsEnough sculptures have been excavated at Eva in Kynouria over the past 25 years to fill an entire museum. There is no museum as yet and most of the finds are in storage, but the architectural fragments and the famous mosaics, which cover 1,500 square meters, are to be protected by roofing. The Supreme Archaeological Council has decided on a roof that will cover an area of 0.45 hectares, protecting a large part of the villa of Herod Atticus...

Swords and Sandals (Spectacular Mosaics of the Glories of Rome Uncovered in Libya)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/27/2005 5:12:32 PM PST · 19 replies · 1,003+ views

Smithsonian Magazine | April 2005 | Vivienne Walt
In Libya, again open to U.S. travelers after more than two decades, archaeologists have uncovered spectacular mosaics of the glories of RomeHelmut Siegert returned to the coast of Libya last year to follow up on a tantalizing discovery. In September 2000, his colleague Marliese Wendowski was excavating what she thought was a large farmhouse when, 12 feet deep in the sandy soil, she came across a floor covered with a stunning glass-and-stone mosaic of an exhausted gladiator staring at a slain opponent. The discovery had come too late in that year's expedition to pursue further, so the University of Hamburg...

Asia

St Pete Researchers Find Tattoos On Ancient Siberian Mummies

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 03/29/2005 11:19:11 AM PST · 10 replies · 366+ views

Itar - Tass | 3-28-2005
St Pete researchers find tattoos on ancient Siberian mummies St PETERSBURG, March 28 (Itar-Tass) - Infrared photography methods, used for the first time by researchers at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, have made it possible to discover tattoos in ancient mummies excavated in the Pazyryk mounds in the south Siberian Altai Mountains. The mounds date back to the 8th to 5th centuries BC. The discovery was made on three mummies ñ two that used to be female bodies and one male body -- that were produced by special treatment for burial ceremonies. One more male mummy was found in...

Ancient Europe

Kernave: Lithuaniaís ëTroyí to celebrate UNESCO heritage site listing

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/26/2005 5:12:17 PM PST · 6 replies · 256+ views

Baltic Times | 23.03.2005 | Darius James Ross
VILNIUS - Few countries are so fortunate as to have an archaeological treasure trove preserving 10 millennia of human settlement. A discovery so impressive that it bears comparison to the Greek city of Troy, which had been consigned to myth until late nineteenth-century archaeologists dug up a hill in Turkey proving its existence, and showing that a stack of eight cities had been built on top. In the 1970s, Lithuanian archaeologists began following up rumours of a magnificent ancient city, stumbling across a site about 35 km from Vilnius unscathed by war and industrial development, which many now call Lithuaniaís...

British Isles

Divers find Bronze Age artefacts off Devon coast

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/01/2005 11:47:03 PM PST · 3 replies · 247+ views

Telegraph (UK)
Divers have discovered a submerged hoard of Bronze Age artefacts off the Devon coast, it emerged today. The haul, found off Salcombe and believed to have come from an ancient shipwreck, is being studied at the British Museum. Some of the artefacts discovered off the Devon coast It includes swords and rapiers, an axe head, an adze, a cauldron handle and a gold bracelet, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said. The swords are among the earliest found in north-west Europe. The artefacts were found by the South West Maritime Archaeology Group (SWMAG) while diving last summer in an area...

Gold Love Ring is Treasure Trove (Bronze Age Artefacts Found in Wales)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 12:00:55 AM PST · 7 replies · 340+ views

BBC | Wednesday, 30 March, 2005
A collection of artefacts dating from the Bronze Age to the 1600s has been declared treasure by a coroner's court in Cardiff. The items were found over the course of 18 months at various sites in the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales. They included a gold Elizabethan ring with the inscription "Let Liking Last" on its inner rim, found near the ruins of a manor house in Llantrithyd. Five Bronze Age axe heads were also among items found by metal dectectors. The court declared seven items to be treasure, meaning it now becomes the property of the Crown and must...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Big Bite: New info on ice age Australian marsupial lion (neat picture)

Posted by yankeedame
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 6:50:29 AM PST · 23 replies · 1,012+ views

News.Com.AU | April 02, 2005 | staff writer
Aussie lion beats all in bite testApril 02, 2005 From: AAP Big bite ... Thylacoleo carnifex /AAP A MARSUPIAL lion that roamed Australia during the Ice Age had the most powerful bite of any known animal in the world, living or extinct, an Australian and Canadian research team has discovered. More closely related to a wombat than an African lion, the 100 kilo marsupial lion known as Thylacoleo carnifex could out bite the sabre-toothed tiger, the bone-cracking spotted hyena and the Tasmanian Devil. The researchers compared the bite force of the marsupial lion to 38 different species, living and extinct,...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

BRITAIN'S PLAN TO SAVE PLANET FROM QUAKES AND ASTEROIDS...

Posted by LoudAmericanCowboy
On News/Activism 03/29/2005 7:05:24 PM PST · 53 replies · 896+ views

The Times | 3/30/05 | Mark Henderson
March 30, 2005 Britain's plan to save planet from quakes and asteroidsBy Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent PLANS for an early warning system to protect the world against natural disasters ranging from earthquakes and tsunamis to asteroid strikes have been drawn up by the Governmentís chief scientist on the orders of the Prime Minister. A panel headed by Professor Sir David King is recommending that Britain push for a global alarm network to reduce the potential devastation of events such as the Boxing Day tsunami, The Times has learnt. The £100 million initiative, which comes as scientists predict a third...

Cartographers Redrawing Maps After Tsunami [Straits of Malacca 4K feet deep before, now 100 feet?]

Posted by Mike Fieschko
On News/Activism 01/05/2005 4:20:40 PM PST · 30 replies · 3,103+ views

AP via yahoo | Jan 5, 2005 | Katherine Pfleger Shrader
Water depths in parts of the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels off the coast of Sumatra, reached about 4,000 feet before last month's tsunami. Now, reports are coming in of just 100 feet ó too dangerous for shipping, if proved true. A U.S. spy imagery agency is working around the clock to gather information, warn mariners and begin the time-consuming task of recharting altered coastlines and ports throughout the region. Officials at the Bethesda, Md.-based National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency say the efforts will take international cooperation over months, if not years. Thousands of navigational aides, such...

Scientists: Volcano Could Swamp U.S. with Mega-Tsunami

Posted by ex-Texan
On News/Activism 03/29/2005 3:41:11 PM PST · 141 replies · 3,375+ views

China Daily | 3/29/2005 | Staff Writers
A wall of water up to 55 yards high crashing into the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, flattening everything in its path -- not a Hollywood movie but a dire prophecy by some British and U.S. academics. As the international community struggles to aid victims of last month's devastating tsunami in southern Asia, scientists warn an eruption of a volcano in Spain's Canary Islands could unleash a "mega-tsunami" larger than any in recorded history. Hammocks almost buried at the beach of Pajara district in Fuerteventura island (Canary Island), southern Spain. Countries all around the Atlantic rim could be hit...

"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes: expert

Posted by DannyTN
On News/Activism 04/01/2005 3:01:49 PM PST · 135 replies · 2,389+ views

Yahoo News | 4/1/05 | AFP
"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes: expert Fri Apr 1,12:21 AM ET Science - AFP SYDNEY (AFP) - As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert warned the country faced the prospect of a "super volcano" eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes. AFP/File Photo Professor Ray Cas of Monash University's School of Geosciences said the world's biggest super volcano was Lake Toba, on Indonesia's island of Sumatra, site of both the recent massive earthquakes. Cas told Australian media Friday that Toba sits on a faultline running down...

Climate

American Claims Discovery of Atlantis/Reports Point to Proof of Global Warming (sci-news)

Posted by Turk82_1
On News/Activism 11/15/2004 9:39:40 AM PST · 12 replies · 697+ views

Yahoo News | 11/15/2004 | Yahoo
American Claims Discovery of Atlantis 2 hours, 38 minutes ago An American researcher claimed Sunday to have discovered the remains of the legendary lost city of Atlantis on the bottom of the east Mediterranean Sea, but Cyprus' chief government archaeologist was skeptical. Full Coverage Reports Point to Proof of Global Warming 2 hours, 38 minutes ago Politicians in the nation's capital have been reluctant to set limits on the carbon dioxide pollution that is expected to warm the planet by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit during the next century, citing uncertainty about the severity of the threat. But that uncertainty...

Origins and Prehistory

Exploring The Ocean Basins With Satellite Altimeter Data

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 03/28/2005 10:10:48 AM PST · 7 replies · 118+ views

The reason that the ocean floor, especially the southern hemisphere oceans, is so poorly charted is that electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate the deep ocean (3-5 km = 2-3 mi). Instead, depths are commonly measured by timing the two-way travel time of an acoustic pulse. However because research vessels travel quite slowly (6m/s = 12 knots) it would take approximately 125 years to chart the ocean basins using the latest swath-mapping tools. To date, only a small fraction of the sea floor has been charted by ships. Fortunately, such a major mapping program is largely unnecessary because the ocean surface has...

Homo Sapiens:Scientist plunges into work creating deep-sea probes(300km trip on the sea bottom)

Posted by TigerLikesRooster
On News/Activism 03/26/2005 7:23:37 AM PST · 13 replies · 252+ views

Asahi Shimbun | 03/26/05 | TOSHIHIDE UEDA
Homo Sapiens:Scientist plunges into work creating deep-sea probes 03/26/2005 By TOSHIHIDE UEDA,The Asahi Shimbun Developing a robot that can independently quarry the secrets of the deep sea is Taro Aoki's dream. For now, the closest he has come is the ``Urashima,'' an autonomous underwater vehicle developed by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. Aoki, 57, is the program director for the Urashima, which takes its name from a traditional Japanese folk-tale character who rode a sea turtle and visited a deep-sea castle. The real Urashima is loaded with state-of-the-art technology. Cable-less and unmanned,...

Scientists Interrupt Search for the “Mayan Atlantis" in the Caribbean.

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 03/30/2005 2:16:20 PM PST · 22 replies · 590+ views

Cuban Newpaper: GRANMA | November 2004 / FR Post 3-30-05 | Editorial Staff
Scientists Interrupt Search for the ìMayan Atlantis" in the Caribbean. Cuban Newpaper: GRANMA Mexico City, November 6, 2004 Forwarded by David Drewelow This story updates this prior story . - A group of scientists searching for a hypothetical ìMayan Atlantis" found a pyramid of 35 meters under the waters of the Caribbean, but it had to interrupt the mission due to technical problems, as reported by the Mexican newspaper Millenium, today. After 25 days of work in the sea, near the southwestern end of Cuba, the investigations deeper than 500 meters had to be abandoned due to problems with the...

Sundaland (GGG)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 03/31/2005 8:48:54 PM PST · 13 replies · 286+ views

Personal Pages | 3-31-2005
Sundaland The cradle of human civilization may well have been the prehistoric lowlands of the Southeast Asian peninsula, rather than the Middle East. Since those lowlands ësankí beneath the seas thousands of years ago (actually drowned by rising sea levels), humanity has remained unaware of their possible significance up through the early 21st century. Unaware except, that is, for a so-called myth perpetuated by a respected Greek philosopher named Plato, before 347 BC. Plato spoke of an advanced civilization named Atlantis, which sank below the seas perhaps around 9,000 BC. It may well be he wasnít so far off after...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Biblical-giants book soars up charts: 'The Nephilim' explains ancient pyramids

Posted by JohnHuang2
On News/Activism 02/07/2005 11:33:38 PM PST · 114 replies · 2,838+ views

WorldNetDaily.com | Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Biblical-giants book soars up charts 'The Nephilim' explains ancient pyramids, future events Posted: February 1, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com A unique book that purports to explain the past existence of giant beings referred to in the Bible as the Nephilim is skyrocketing up online best-sellers lists, now appearing in the top 10 at Amazon.com. Published by Xulon Press, "The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse" presents an explanation for an unusual verse in the first book of the Bible, Genesis 6:4, which reads: "There were giants (Nephilim) in the Earth in those days, and also after...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Ancient Easter Pages Return To Canterbury

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 03/26/2005 3:51:05 PM PST · 4 replies · 227+ views

The Guardian (UK) | 3-26-2005 | Stephen Bates
Ancient Easter pages return to Canterbury Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent Saturday March 26, 2005 The Guardian (UK) A 1,000-year-old manuscript outlining readings for Holy Week has been returned to Canterbury Cathedral after five centuries, just in time for Easter. The double-page spread, called a bifolium, which was part of a devotional book owned by the cathedral in the middle ages, was recently bought for £7,000 from a London bookseller who had found it in Germany. The cathedral has two further pages from the same book, which may be all that survives. Its travels over the last 500 years are...

Antarctic Oil Painting Shrouded in Mystery

Posted by nuconvert
On News/Activism 03/28/2005 8:43:46 PM PST · 48 replies · 1,128+ views

yahoo news/AP | Mar 28, 2005
Antarctic Oil Painting Shrouded in Mystery Mon Mar 28, 2005 By MATT APUZZO/ Associated Press Writer NEW HAVEN, Conn. - As art restorers in London inspected a 230-year-old painting by master landscape artist William Hodges, they noticed the canvas was thicker in some areas than others. Using an X-ray machine, they peered behind the lush greens of New Zealand and discovered the oldest known painting of Antarctica. The X-ray revealed two icebergs, painted during Captain James Cook's historic expedition below the Antarctic circle. Until the National Maritime Museum in London made the discovery last year, historians believed that only sketches...

'Braveheart' Sword Leaves Scotland for 1st time in 700 years (William Wallaceís sword coming to NYC)

Posted by dead
On News/Activism 03/30/2005 1:06:55 PM PST · 175 replies · 2,757+ views

AP via Yahoo! | Wed Mar 30, 8:12 AM ET Europe - AP
LONDON - One of Scotland's national treasures, the 5-foot sword wielded by William Wallace, the rebel leader portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film "Braveheart," left its homeland for the first time in more than 700 years Wednesday. The double-handed weapon that belonged to Wallace will be the centerpiece of an exhibition at New York's Grand Central Station during Tartan Day celebrations, which begin later this week. Mick Brown a specialist remover prepares to pack William Wallace's sword at the Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland Wednesday March 30, 2005. The sword will leave Scotland Wednesday for the first time in more...

British Library set to return Benevento Missal (World War II Era Plunder)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/31/2005 11:55:26 AM PST · 6 replies · 174+ views

The Art Newspaper | Thursday, 31 March 2005 | Martin Bailey
The Benevento Missal is to be returned to Italy, as a result of a claim submitted following an investigation by The Art Newspaper. On 23 March the UKís Spoliation Advisory Panel recommended that the British Library should restitute the 12th century manuscript to Benevento cathedral. This will be the first time that a UK national institution has returned an artwork or manuscript looted during the Nazi era. A change in the law will be required, since the British Library is legally barred from deaccessioning the manuscript. The Art Newspaper heard rumours about the questionable status of the Benevento Missal in...

CHRISTIANS AMONG MONGOL INVADERS (of Japan)

Posted by Destro
On Religion 03/27/2005 1:16:52 PM PST · 46 replies · 452+ views

keikyo.com
CHRISTIANS AMONG MONGOL INVADERS Seven hundred years ago, Japan faced the threat of imminent invasion by the Mongol, hordes of Kublai Khan. The entire nation was in a state of alarm and many Japanese felt there was no alternative but to surrender to the invaders . This was to be the most serious threat of aggression from abroad that Japan was to experience until World War II of the twentieth century. This attempted invasion of Japan by Mongol Invaders occurred in 1274 and again in 1281. The nomadic Mongol people, originated in the steppe lands, north of China, now called...

Possible Michelangelo Self-Portrait Found

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 03/27/2005 11:52:14 AM PST · 26 replies · 1,038+ views

Discovery Channel | March 18, 2005 | Rossella Lorenzi
March 18, 2005 ó A unique bas-relief, which might be the first known self-portrait of Michelangelo, has emerged from a private collection, art historians announced in Florence this week. The sculpture, a white marble round work attached to a flat piece of marble, with a diameter of 14 inches depicting a bearded man, was lent by a noble Tuscan family to the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci for a study on the relationship between Michelangelo and Leonardo. "The work speaks for itself: it is a very high-quality sculpture which depicts Michelangelo. The skilled chiselling on the back...

This Day In History March 27 1945 Germans launch last of their V-2s

Posted by mdittmar
On General/Chat 03/27/2005 2:38:11 PM PST · 25 replies · 172+ views

The History Channel | 3/27/05 | The History Channel
On this day, in a last-ditch effort to deploy their remaining V-2 missiles against the Allies, the Germans launch their long-range rockets from their only remaining launch site, in the Netherlands. Almost 200 civilians in England and Belgium were added to the V-2 casualty toll. German scientists had been working on the development of a long-range missile since the 1930s. In October 3, 1942, victory was achieved with the successful trial launch of the V-2, a 12-ton rocket capable of carrying a one-ton warhead. The missile, fired from Peenemunde, an island off Germany's Baltic coast, traveled 118 miles in that...

end of digest #37 20050402

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #38
Saturday, April 9, 2005

Mesopotamia

French Archaeologist Solves Mystery of Ancient Mesopotamian City

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/08/2005 3:35:01 PM PDT · 7 replies · 451+ views

Turkish Press | Annick Benoist
PARIS - The mystery of an ancient Mesopotamian city has finally been lifted after 25 years of meticulous work by a French archaeologist who has revealed it was one of the first "modern cities", purpose-built in the desert for the manufacture of copper arms and tools. In a new book entitled "Mari, the Metropolis of the Euphrates", Jean-Claude Margueron said the third millennium BC city, in modern day Syria, was "one of the first modern cities of humanity. Created from scratch in one phase of construction with the specific goal of becoming this (metallurgical) centre." This was an astounding concept...

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian treasure shown 16 years after discovery

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/06/2005 12:22:15 PM PDT · 1 reply · 128+ views

Yahoo | Tue Mar 15,11:55 AM ET | staff writer
The collection, dating back to the Greco-Roman period, features a golden diadem fronted by an image of the god Serapis and a 493-gram (one pound) necklace in the form of a snake ornamented with golden coins from the second half of the second century AD... In addition, photographs of the excavation in Dush's Kharga Oasis, some 700 kilometers (420 kilometers) south of Cairo, and of the items before and after restoration are exhibited.

Ancient Rome

Tiberias Dig Unearths Very Rare Marble Floor

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/08/2005 11:13:37 AM PDT · 83 replies · 1,344+ views

Haaretz | 4-8-2005 | Eli Ashkenazi
Tiberias dig unearths very rare marble floor By Eli Ashkenazi A marble floor dating from the first century CE was unearthed during this season's excavations of ancient Tiberias. According to archaeologist Professor Yizhar Hirschfeld, director of the three-week dig that ended yesterday, the floor is apparently a remnant of a pavement in the palace of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who ruled the Galilee from 4 BCE to 38 CE.

Asia

Ancient Musical Instruments Unearthed (China)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/07/2005 1:03:17 AM PDT · 11 replies · 288+ views

Xinhua | 2005-04-05
BEIJING, April 5 -- Chinese archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of ancient musical instruments from the tombs of Yue State noblemen in East China's Jiangsu Province. Among the discoveries are rare clay instruments called Fou. It was popular during China's Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States Period. All together, about 500 musical instruments made from clay were unearthed from the tombs. Experts consider them outstanding in both quantity and quality. This group of instruments has no documentation and scientists named them after their bell-like shape. Six snakes were carved into this one, called Juzuo, pedestals for pillars to hold...

Archaeologists Dig Up Ancient Casting Centre

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/06/2005 11:43:59 AM PDT · 15 replies · 343+ views

Vietnam News | 4-5-2005
Archeologists dig up ancient casting centre (05-04-2005) Story in stone: An arterfact found at Den Citadel. ó Archeologists claim to have found the countryís largest Bronze Age metallurgy centre, estimated to be 3,500 years old. The site, located at the Den Citadel in Phu My Hamlet, Tu Lap Commune, Me Linh District, in the northern province of Vinh Phuc, has yielded many discoveries which indicate that the site is the largest centre of bronze casting in Viet Nam to have been discovered so far, said Lam Thi My Dung, director of the Museum of Anthropology. Metallurgy and bronze-casting are representative...

Chinese, Japanese Started Prehistoric Exchanges 7,000 Years Ago: Archaeologists

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/11/2003 3:34:55 PM PDT · 17 replies · 136+ views

China View | 10-8-2003
Chinese, Japanese started prehistoric exchanges 7,000 years ago: Archeologists www.chinaview.cn 2003-10-08 20:56:41 Å@Å@BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Archeologists say Chinese and Japanese began prehistoric exchanges about 7,000 years ago. Å@Å@More than 200 Chinese and Japanese scholars and archaeologists convened here Saturday for a symposium themed on prehistoric culture exchange between China and Japan. They compared archeological findings in China's Xinglonggou Relics Site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, also popularly known as "China's first primitive village", and findings in Japanese sites from the Neolithic age, about 10,000 to 4,000 years ago. Å@Å@The cultural exchanges occurred on a route from...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Experts: Dogs originated in ancient Asia

Posted by presidio9
On General/Chat 02/17/2004 2:20:26 PM PST · 37 replies · 153+ views

AP | Tuesday, February 17, 2004
From Yorkshire terriers the size of a teacup to Irish wolfhounds near the size of a small pony, all dogs originated from a single species, probably an East Asian wolf seeking the warmth of the human hearth and an easy meal.

Mammoth remains unearthed in California (SoCal - Moorpark)

Posted by NormsRevenge
On News/Activism 04/07/2005 9:28:36 PM PDT · 41 replies · 669+ views

Monterey Herald | 4/7/05 | AP
MOORPARK, Calif. - The remarkably well-preserved remnants of an estimated half-million-year-old mammoth - including both tusks - were discovered at a new housing development in Southern California. An onsite paleontologist found the remains, which include 50 percent to 70 percent of the Ice Age creature, as crews cleared away hillsides to prepare for building, Mayor Pro Tem Clint Harper said. Paleontologist Mark Roeder estimated the mammoth was about 12 feet tall, Harper said. Roeder believed it was not a pygmy or imperial mammoth, but he had not yet determined its exact type, Harper said. "It's considered a very significant find,...

'Sighting' Of Tasmanian Tiger Sparks L1.2m Bounty Hunt

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 5:47:25 PM PST · 22 replies · 953+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | 3-4-2005 | Anna Gizowska
'Sighting' of Tasmanian tiger sparks £1.2m bounty hunt By Anna Gizowska in Sydney (Filed: 03/04/2005) Officially, the last of their kind died out more than half a century ago, their downfall brought about because white settlers believed they had a voracious appetite for sheep. Now the Tasmanian tiger is once again the subject of a manhunt - this time to prove that the species still exists. The Tasmanian tiger was officially declared extinct in 1986 After dramatic claims by a German tourist to have seen one of the mysterious, meat-eating marsupials lurking deep in the Tasmanian wilderness, Australian magazines and...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Asteroid Theory of Dinosaur Extinction Questioned

Posted by anymouse
On News/Activism 03/01/2004 8:54:16 PM PST · 6 replies · 107+ views

Reuters | Mon Mar 1, 2004 | Maggie Fox
Scientists probing a vast crater off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula questioned a popular theory about dinosaurs on Monday, saying the collision that formed the crater happened too far back in time to have caused their extinction by itself. Much evidence points to the idea that an asteroid or comet gouged the Earth around 65 million years ago, triggering volcanic and climate changes that eventually wiped out the dinosaurs. When the huge, mostly underwater crater was found off Yucatan, it seemed the perfect candidate. "Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that...

Eighteen Hundred And Froze To Death (The Infamous 'Year Without Summer')

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 03/12/2005 8:10:49 PM PST · 48 replies · 1,708+ views

Island Net.com | 4-7-2004 | Keith C. Heidon,PhD,ACM
Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death The Infamous "Year Without A Summer" Of the cold summers in the period 1811 to 1817, the year 1816 has gone down in the annals of New England history as "The Year There Was No Summer," the "Poverty Year" and "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death." The year began with a moderate but dry winter. Spring was tardy and continued very dry. The growing season from late spring to early fall, however, was punctuated by a series of devastating cold waves that did major damage to the crops and greatly reduced the food supply....

More Temples Pop Out of Sea-Bed (Uncovered by Tsunami)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 5:39:19 PM PST · 27 replies · 967+ views

The State (India) | March 31
CHENNAI, March 31. ó After the excitement of discovering man made rock structures under sea off Mahabalipuram coast, the excavation team of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has now unearthed traces of two more temples on shore. Adjoining the Shore Temple, these findings could perhaps lend credence to legends about ëSeven Pagodas (temples)í having stood on this historic spot, once a flourishing port town under the Pallavas. 'We are presently excavating the remains of two structural temples on shore, both to the south of the Shore Temple. They appear to be similar in size to the Shore Temple. And,...

"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes

Posted by AntiGuv
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 6:31:22 PM PST · 65 replies · 1,666+ views

Agence France-Presse | April 2, 2005 | AFP
SYDNEY (AFP) - As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert warned the country faced the prospect of a "super volcano" eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes. Professor Ray Cas of Monash University's School of Geosciences said the world's biggest super volcano was Lake Toba, on Indonesia's island of Sumatra, site of both the recent massive earthquakes. Cas told Australian media Friday that Toba sits on a faultline running down the middle of Sumatra -- just where some seismologists say a third earthquake might strike following the 9.0...

Climate

Years Were Longer 1.3bln Years ago: Chinese Scientists

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 07/22/2003 7:21:52 PM PDT · 23 replies · 192+ views

The Peoples Daily - Science Edition | 7-22-2003 FR Post | Editorial Staff
Years Were Longer 1.3bln Years ago: Chinese ScientistsPeople who complain that there aren't enough hours in the day might have preferred to live 1.3 billion years ago. At that time, according to the latest research by a group of Chinese scientists, there were 15 hours in one day, 42 days in a month, and 13 to 14 months, or more than 540 days, in a year. The finding was obtained through a five-year systematic study of stromatolite samples, known as "stone with memory", by several researchers with the Tianjin geology and minerals research institute under the China Geological Survey...

Biggest iceberg threat to penguins, scientists(Global Warming Of Course)

Posted by Graybeard58
On News/Activism 12/17/2004 2:35:26 PM PST · 48 replies · 1,166+ views

Waterbury Republican-American | December 17, 2004 | Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A remnant of the largest iceberg ever recorded is blocking Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, threatening tens of thousands of penguin chicks with starvation and cutting off a supply route for three science stations, according to a New Zealand official. The iceberg, known as B15A, measures about 1,200 square miles, said Lou Sanson, chief executive of the government scientific agency Antarctica New Zealand. He called it "the largest floating thing on the planet right now" and said U.S. researchers estimate it contains enough water to supply Egypt's Nile River complex for 80 years. It is so big it...

World's Biggest Iceberg Begins Moving

Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach
On News/Activism 04/05/2005 1:32:23 AM PDT · 18 replies · 1,033+ views

Las Vegas Sun | April 03, 2005 | ASSOCIATED PRESS
7 WELLINGTON, New Zealand The world's biggest iceberg has begun moving nearly three months after it stopped its slow float toward colliding with a huge Antarctic ice tongue, New Zealand officials said Monday. Known as B15A, the giant iceberg, a remnant of a Ross Ice Shelf fracture in 2000, is now moving slowly northward out of McMurdo Sound, where it had been blocking sea access, Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson said. He said the iceberg is moving just over a half-mile a day. Earlier, B15A, which is 1,200 square miles and contains enough water to feed the River...

Let's Have Jerusalem!

Nefertiti's 'Love Affair' With Moses to Hit the Silver Screen

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/08/2005 4:21:11 PM PDT · 150 replies · 1,731+ views

Yahoo News! | Fri Apr 8
CAIRO (AFP) - A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed to AFP. "Nefertiti married perhaps one of the first monotheists in history and the film will tell their story, which logically enough should be set in Egypt" said Heyman on a brief visit to Cairo. "One can find in the Old Testament that Moses and Nefertiti had a relationship," he added. The movie will also deal "with the return to the worship of the sun god,"...

Rabbinate Recognizes Bnei Menashe as 'Descendants of Israel"

Posted by SJackson
On News/Activism 03/31/2005 9:05:10 AM PST · 25 replies · 585+ views

Arutz Sheva | 3-31-05
Rabbinate Recognizes Bnei Menashe as 'Descendants of Israel" 16:47 Mar 31, '05 / 20 Adar 5765 In a historic decision, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has decided to formally recognize the Bnei Menashe community of northeastern India as 'descendants of Israel.' The Chief Rabbinate has also agreed to send a beit din (rabbinical court) on its behalf to the region to formally convert them to Judaism. The Bnei Menashe claim descent from the tribe of Menashe, one of the ten tribes exiled from the Land of Israel by the Assyrian empire over 2,700 years ago. They reside primarily in...

Origins and Prehistory

Archaeologist Finds 'Oldest Porn Statue' (7,200 Years Old)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/04/2005 1:22:11 PM PDT · 101 replies · 2,914+ views

The Guardian (UK) | 4-4-2005 | Krysia Diver
Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue' Krysia Diver in Stuttgart Monday April 4, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Stone-age figurines depicting what could be the oldest pornographic scene in the world have been unearthed in Germany. Archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the 7,200-year-old remnants of a man having intercourse with a woman. The extraordinary find, at an archaeological dig in Saxony, shatters the belief that sex was a taboo subject in that era. Until now, the oldest representations of sexual scenes were frescos from about 2,000 years ago. Harald St‰uble of the Archaeological Institute of Saxony, based in Dresden,...

Cross-cultural estimation of the human generation interval...

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/03/2005 9:14:19 PM PDT · 5 replies · 72+ views

American Journal of Physical Anthropology (via Wiley InterScience) | Received: 28 March 2004; Accepted: 25 August 2004 | Jack N. Fenner
...for use in genetics-based population divergence studies. Abstract: The length of the human generation interval is a key parameter when using genetics to date population divergence events. However, no consensus exists regarding the generation interval length, and a wide variety of interval lengths have been used in recent studies. This makes comparison between studies difficult, and questions the accuracy of divergence date estimations. Recent genealogy-based research suggests that the male generation interval is substantially longer than the female interval, and that both are greater than the values commonly used in genetics studies. This study evaluates each of these hypotheses in...

Infectious Evolution: Ancient Virus Hit Apes, Not Our Ancestors, In The Genes

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/02/2005 11:48:39 AM PST · 34 replies · 762+ views

Science News | 3-5-2005 (issue) | Bruce Bower
Infectious Evolution: Ancient virus hit apes, not our ancestors, in the genesMarch 5 Bruce Bower A vicious virus infected ancestral chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa between 4 million and 3 million years ago. Not only did it kill a great many of these primates, but it also infiltrated the surviving animals' genomes, altering the course of evolution. That's the picture emerging from a new analysis of modern-primate DNA. Around 1.5 million years ago, this virus of the class called retroviruses also infected ancestors of modern baboons and macaques, two African monkeys, reports geneticist Evan E. Eichler of the University of...

Evidence for the Orangutan Relationship

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/03/2005 9:23:58 PM PDT · 14 replies · 159+ views

Buffalo Museum of Science | circa 2003 | Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz (et al)
Evidence for the orangutan being the closest living relative of modern humans is based on at least 35 known characters that appear to be either exclusive to humans and orangutans or largely absent in outgroups.

Hunt for ancient human molecules (Amazing Story!)

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 02/16/2004 4:34:29 PM PST · 57 replies · 109+ views

BBC | Published: 2004/02/16 22:21:33 GMT | By Richard Black
Hunt for ancient human molecules By Richard Black BBC science correspondent in Seattle New technologies may soon allow scientists to identify some of the genes of humankind's oldest ancestors. This raises the possibility of plotting the evolutionary tree of humanity from five million years ago to the present. Professor Hendrik Poinar says DNA fragments should be recoverable from fossils that are a million years old, and proteins from even older times. His comments came at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Seattle. Professor Poinar, from McMaster University in Canada, said the key was to...

Life goes on without 'vital' DNA

Posted by Michael_Michaelangelo
On News/Activism 06/04/2004 8:08:18 AM PDT · 158 replies · 132+ views

New Scientist | 6/4/04 | Sylvia Pag·n Westphal
It is not often that the audience at a scientific meeting gasps in amazement during a talk. But that is what happened recently when researchers revealed that they had deleted huge chunks of the genome of mice without it making any discernable difference to the animals. The result is totally unexpected because the deleted sequences included so-called "conserved regions" thought to have important functions. All DNA tends to acquire random mutations, but if these occur in a region that has an important function, individuals will not survive. Key sequences should thus remain virtually unchanged, even between species. So by comparing...

Israeli Site Yields 750,000 Year Old Fire Evidence

Posted by me_newswire
On News/Activism 04/29/2004 1:32:24 PM PDT · 54 replies · 159+ views

AP-via Duluth-News Tribune | April 29, 2004 | Randolf E Schimd
WASHINGTON - More than three-quarters of a million years ago, early humans gathered around a campfire near an ancient lake in what is now Israel, making tools and perhaps cooking food, in the earliest evidence yet found of the use of fire in Europe or Asia. Researchers have found evidence that these early people hunted and processed meat and used fire at a site called Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in the northern Dead Sea valley. Developing the ability to use fire "surely led to dramatic changes in their behavior connected with diet, defense and social interaction," said lead researcher Naama Goren-Inbar...

Fossil Apparently Human Ancestor

Posted by Vaquero
On News/Activism 04/06/2005 10:43:45 AM PDT · 46 replies · 898+ views

AP/Yahoo | 04/06/05 | By MALCOLM RITTER
Experts: Fossil Apparently Human Ancestor 20 minutes ago Science - AP By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer New fossil finds and a computer skull reconstruction bolster the case that an ancient creature that grabbed headlines in 2002 really is the earliest known ancestor of modern humans, researchers say.

'Old Man Of Chad' Confirmed As First Hominid

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/06/2005 5:37:59 PM PDT · 42 replies · 546+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | 4-7-2005
'Old man of Chad' confirmed as first hominid (Filed: 07/04/2005) New evidence shows that a seven-million-year old skull found in the African desert belonged to one of man's earliest ancestors, reports Roger Highfield A squashed, fractured and twisted skull, which has been at the centre of controversy for three years, has been confirmed as the oldest known member of mankind. The skull, between six and seven million years old, was found in the Djurab desert of northern Chad in 2002. Sahelanthropus tchadensis was described variously as "a turning point", "a small nuclear bomb" and "the most important fossil discovery in...

PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis

Another Bone Of Contention Over Kennewick Man (John McCain)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/06/2005 11:02:33 AM PDT · 37 replies · 745+ views

Seattle Times | 3-5-2005 | Kate Riley
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - Page updated at 01:17 p.m Kate Riley / Times staff columnist Another bone of contention over Kennewick Man Kennewick Man is poised to tell his secrets. Almost nine years after the 9,300-year-old remains were found on the banks of the Columbia River and a fierce legal battle, federal courts agreed unequivocally scientists should be able to study Kennewick Man. However, U.S. Sen. John McCain has colluded with those who want to stifle the stories of similar old bones and the light they can shed on the earliest Americans and where they came from. The Arizona...

Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Was Agnes Sorel, The First Official Royal Mistress Of France, Poisoned?

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/05/2005 12:03:22 PM PDT · 44 replies · 734+ views

ESRF | 3-2-2005
Was AgnËs Sorel, the first official royal mistress of France, poisoned? Grenoble (France), 2 April 2005 - The ESRF has gone back in time to study the reason behind the sudden death of the beautiful mistress of French king Charles VII, in the XV century. Thanks to synchrotron light, pieces of AgnËs Sorel's hair and skin have been studied. The evidence obtained makes it possible to suggest plausible causes of death. The way she died is not known yet, however, incredibly high levels of mercury have been found in her remains. This finding opens the door to numerous hypotheses. The...

Norway's old cheese--Viking Viagra? (Norway)

Posted by franksolich
On News/Activism 03/28/2005 3:19:18 AM PST · 28 replies · 845+ views

Norway Post | March 27, 2005 | Janice Neider
Have you heard of Norway's Gamalost (Old Cheese)? It was originally made by the Vikings over 1000 years ago, who believed it had many medicinal properties.But we'll let Janice Nieder tell you what else she discovered:"Phewww! That stuff is nasty -- smells like my dog's bed, but my Grandpa loves it!" was a typical answer when I asked some teens in Balestand, Norway, if they ate Gamalost cheese.I had just heard about this cheese originally made by Vikings over 1000 years ago. They believed it had many medicinal properties and would nibble on it during long voyages to provide energy...

Revealed: The softer, caring side of the marauding Viking

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/07/2005 12:46:37 AM PDT · 17 replies · 454+ views

Scotsman | Thu 7 Apr 2005 | EDWARD BLACK
FAR from their marauding, pillaging stereotypes, Viking warriors were homemakers who couldnít wait to ship their wives over to settle the lands they had conquered, new research reveals. Scientists studying Scots of Viking ancestry in Shetland and Orkney have discovered that there must have been far more Viking women in the Dark Ages settlements than originally thought. However, it appears that Viking wives refused to go deeper into Scotland, with little evidence they made it as far as the Western Isles. Researchers from Oxford University took DNA samples from 500 residents of Shetland using a toothbrush to extract some of...

end of digest #38 20050409

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #39 Saturday, April 16, 2005
Let's Have Jerusalem!
Did Nefertiti have 'love affair' with Moses?
	Posted by wagglebee On Religion 04/09/2005 3:15:38 PM PDT · 21 replies · 263+ views Middle East Online \| 4/8/05 \| Sophie Claudet A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed. "Nefertiti married perhaps one of the first monotheists in history and the film will tell their story, which logically enough should be set in Egypt" said Heyman on a brief visit to Cairo. "One can find in the Old Testament that Moses and Nefertiti had a relationship," he added. The movie will also deal "with the return to the worship of the sun god," said Heyman. He was referring...

The Temple Mount's Jewish History: More Than a Matter of Faith
	Posted by familyop On News/Activism 04/11/2005 8:27:52 AM PDT · 34 replies · 570+ views Camera \| 11APR05 \| Tamar Sternthal The Temple Mount is the site of the first and second Jewish Temples, destroyed in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively--a historic fact accepted even by Muslim authorities. Nevertheless, that fact has not stopped some journalists from reporting on the Temple Mount’s significance in Jewish history cautiously, as if its status is a matter of Jewish faith, or “belief,” and not archeologic evidence. Thus, in the context of anticipated demonstrations by right-wing Israeli Jews, Reuters’ Jonathan Saul reported on April 7: The ancient mosque compound is Islam’s third holiest site. It is Judaism’s most sacred site, the place were...

Key Finds In Temple Mount Trash Heap
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/16/2005 3:21:20 PM PDT · 8 replies · 417+ views Washington Times \| 4-16-2005 Key finds in Temple Mount trash heap Jerusalem, Israel, Apr. 15 (UPI) -- Archaeologists sifting through piles of rubble discarded by Islamic officials from the Temple Mount have found rare artifacts dating to 3,000 years ago. The artifacts were found in the last five months in a city garbage dump used by Islamic officials six years ago when they built a mosque at an underground area of the Temple Mount, the Jerusalem Post said Friday.
Africa
Obelisk Points to Ancient Ethiopian Glory
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/13/2005 1:21:40 AM PDT · 9 replies · 284+ views BBC \| Verity Murphy In northern Ethiopia, in the once-great city of Axum, final preparations are under way for the return of one of Africa's most remarkable archaeological treasures. The Axum obelisk, a 1,700-year-old stone monolith, measuring 24-metres (78 feet) high and weighing 180 tons, is returning home after more than six decades adorning a square in the Italian capital, Rome. It was looted by Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937 during Italy's brief occupation of Ethiopia and has been a bone of contention between the two countries ever since. The Ethiopian authorities accused Italy of foot-dragging over the issue, while Rome blamed...
Kissin' Wears Out, Cookin' Don't
Importance of alcohol production in the ancient world, study
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/09/2005 12:01:37 AM PDT · 32 replies · 602+ views Medical News Today \| 07 Apr 2005 While the modern era has a fondness for the business lunch, the ancient world viewed the feast as an important arena of political action. Yet, new research in the April 2005 issue of Current Anthropology suggests that the story of how the food and drink arrived to the table is just as critical to our understanding of the past as the social behaviors at the table. Since alcoholic beverages were liberally consumed at many of these feasts (often occurring over several days), a sponsor often faced the daunting problem of assembling prodigious amounts of alcohol in the weeks preceding a...

Remains Of Roman Rabbit Uncovered
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/14/2005 2:50:19 PM PDT · 50 replies · 838+ views BBC \| 4-13-2005 Remains of Roman rabbit uncovered The remains of a 2,000-year-old rabbit - found at an early Roman settlement at Lynford, Norfolk - may be the earliest example of rabbit remains in Britain. The bones - which show evidence the animal had been butchered and buried - are similar to those of a small Spanish rabbit, common in Roman times. It is thought rabbits were introduced to Britain following the Roman invasion in AD43.The remains will be officially dated at the Natural History Museum in London. The bones themselves had been butchered, possibly the rabbit was to be eaten by a...
Epigraphy and Language
EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY UNLOCKS SECRETS OF THE ANCIENTS
	Posted by tricky_k_1972 On News/Activism 04/16/2005 5:01:00 PM PDT · 36 replies · 774+ views The Scotsman \| Sat 16 Apr 2005 \| (Drudgereport.com) Scotsman.com EUREKA! EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY UNLOCKS SECRETS OF THE ANCIENTS Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.
Asia
Ancient Tablet Stirs Authenticity Dispute (Korea)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/13/2005 10:03:19 PM PDT · 7 replies · 228+ views The Korea Times \| Kim Ki-tae A newly found ancient tablet, alleged to be the nation's oldest written historic record, is stirring controversy in academia over its authenticity. The Korea Land Corporation's museum on Monday announced that it had found a clay tablet, estimated to date to the third century during the Koguryo Kingdom (37 B.C. A.D. 668). The museum claimed that the tablet, with 290 Chinese characters on historic accounts, was made around 150 years earlier than the Kwanggaetodaewangbi Monument , believed to be Korea 's oldest historical record. The monument was built in 414. ``Around 20 experts have studied and analyzed the material, calligraphic...
India
More research needed on Delhi Iron Pillar: Experts
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/09/2005 1:26:50 AM PDT · 17 replies · 578+ views Press Trust of India \| March 13, 2005 The Delhi Iron Pillar, which has withstood corrosion for over 1,600 years, continues to attract the attention of archaeologists and scientists who want to undertake a systematic study to unfold the secret behind its strength. A panel of scientists from across the country has recommended that the Government allow research on the pillar, a symbol of Indian metallurgical excellence, to ascertain its age, as well as for conservation of its underground part and the passive film that has preserved it through the ages. "The Archaeological Survey of India has agreed to allow the use of well-established non-invasive techniques to ascertain...

New Pallava temple complex discovered in Mahabalipuram
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/13/2005 11:01:12 PM PDT · 3 replies · 167+ views Newz \| 4/12/05 In a major success, archaeologists in Mahabalipuram district have discovered remains of a 4th century Hindu temple built by the kings of the majestic Pallava dynasty. Archaeologists say the uncovering is the result of the December 26 tsunami that destroyed the beaches of various South Asian countries and claimed thousands of lives. The archaeologists inform that the newly discovered temple is a complex by itself. "We carried out extensive diving offshore and there we found certain remains which suggested some human activity in the region. To confirm and correlate that, we carried out excavation on this land and during the...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Darius Ancient Inscription Found in Boushehr Deciphered
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/13/2005 1:51:24 AM PDT · 47 replies · 1,235+ views Persian Journal \| Apr 9, 2005 Archaeologists have succeeded to decipher the text of an old stone tablet found recently in Boushehr, south of Iran. The tablet belongs to Darius the Great, King of Achaemenids. Excavation in the old palace of Bardak-e Siah in Boushehr, in the southern province of Boushehr, at the end of March led to the discovery of a stone tablet, with a written text in New Babylonian and a relief of Darius the Great. Experts of ancient languages succeeded to read and decipher the text, which is evidently part of a larger one. It says: "... I put ... on top of...

Female population predominant in 5000-year-old Burnt City (Iran)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/08/2005 4:10:12 PM PDT · 6 replies · 277+ views Tehran Times \| April 5, 2005 \| Tehran Times TEHRAN -- Anthropological studies indicate that females constituted about sixty percent of the population of the 5000-year-old Burnt City, director of a team of anthropologists working on the ancient Iranian city said on Monday. “We have excavated 208 graves in the cemetery of the Burnt City within seven phases carried out over the past years. 113 of the graves belonged to the female,” Farzad Foruzanfar added. The Burnt City is located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province and covers an area of 150 hectares. It was one of the world’s largest cities at the dawn...

The scourge from nowhere
	Posted by CarrotAndStick On News/Activism 04/08/2005 9:17:07 PM PDT · 77 replies · 1,184+ views Dawn \| 9 April, 2005 \| Dawn Nearly a thousand years after his death, the name of Genghis Khan still reverberates down the ages. Scourge of the known world, he sprang out of nowhere to bring death and destruction. For the world of Islam in particular, the Mongol onslaught was a veritable holocaust. From Bukhara to Baghdad, Genghis laid waste to flowering cities and prosperous countries. Operating on the principle of "surrender and live; or resist and die", he and his generals led his ravening hordes in unceasing campaigns from Beijing to Budapest. Even after his death, his successors carried on his mission to bring all mankind...
Ancient Egypt
Case closed on the end of King Tut (Scan Suggests No Murder)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 03/10/2005 10:53:30 PM PST · 8 replies · 276+ views The Guardian \| Wednesday March 9, 2005 \| Tim Radford, science editor Scan suggests pharaoh was not murdered - but may have been roughly handled by embalmersTutankhamun, the world's most charismatic boy king, probably died of natural causes. A sophisticated scan of the mummy, discovered by British archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, reveals a badly broken leg but no sign of foul play. In a statement calculated to end decades of feverish speculation about royal intrigue, religious repression, palace revolution and cold-blooded assassination in the ancient Nile kingdom, Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's supreme council of antiquities, told Reuters yesterday: "We don't know how the king died, but...

Mummies Undergo CT Scans at Calif. Museum
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/10/2005 2:37:28 AM PDT · 11 replies · 258+ views Yahoo \| Thu Apr 7 \| BEN FOX SANTA ANA, Calif. - This much experts know: One was a priest from a wealthy family. Another was a young girl who sang during religious rituals. A third was a child, buried in a finely carved wooden coffin. But there is much more to learn about the six Egyptian mummies that were wrapped and buried in strips of resin-encrusted linen thousands of years ago to protect them from the elements. Using 21st century medical technology, curators and radiologists in Southern California are examining the relics of the ancient world on loan from the British Museum to learn more of their...

Team Find Secret Of Mummies' Preservation
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 10/23/2003 5:30:08 PM PDT · 19 replies · 179+ views IOL \| 10-22-2003 \| Chris Slocombe Team finds secret of mummies' preservation October 22 2003 at 05:18PM By Chris Slocombe London - A German research team has unravelled the mystery of how the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead, using sophisticated science to track the preservative to an extract of the cedar tree. Chemists from Tuebingen University and the Munich-based Doerner-Institut replicated an ancient treatment of cedar wood and found it contained a preservative chemical called guaiacol. "Modern science has finally found the secret of why some mummies can last for thousands of years," Ulrich Weser of Tuebingen University told Reuters on Wednesday. The team extracted the...
Ancient Rome
Research team recreates ancient underwater concrete technology
	Posted by Mike Fieschko On General/Chat 04/09/2005 4:19:02 AM PDT · 18 replies · 197+ views PhysOrg.com \| Apr 7, 2005 \| unknown Research team recreates ancient underwater concrete technology A University of Colorado at Boulder professor and his colleagues have taken a page from the writings of an ancient Roman architect and built an underwater concrete pier in the manner of those set in the Mediterranean Sea 2,000 years ago. CU-Boulder history Professor Robert Hohlfelder, an internationally known underwater archaeologist, said scholars have long been in awe of the engineering feats of the early Romans. A former co-director of the international Caesarea Ancient Harbor Excavation Project, he said the research effort was spurred by the stunning hydraulic concrete efforts undertaken at...
Prehistoric and Ancient Europe
Pornography in Clay
	Posted by tbird5 On News/Activism 04/15/2005 8:42:19 PM PDT · 65 replies · 1,698+ views DER SPIEGEL \| 14/2005 - April 4, 2005 \| Matthias Schulz New pornographic figurines from the Stone Age have been discovered in Germany. But researchers can't agree on what the 7,000-year-old sculptures mean. Were our ancestors uninhibited sex fiends, or was reproduction strictly controlled to improve mobility? An increasing number of finds seem to indicate the Stone Age was an orgy of sexual imagination. The project itself was far from extraordinary. Workers near the Eastern German city of Leipzig were digging a ditch for a new gas line. Hum drum. But what they discovered was far from routine. A backhoe unearthed a 7,200-year-old, Stone Age garbage pit -- and it was...
PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis
Bones of Contention: A bad bill would throttle American archaeology.
	Posted by The Great Yazoo On News/Activism 04/14/2005 1:24:33 PM PDT · 10 replies · 343+ views NRO.com \| April 14, 2005 \| John J. Miller If a lucky paleoanthropologist ever unearths hobbit bones on federal land, scientists won’t get to study them — at least not if Sen. John McCain and his allies have their way. I’m not joking about hobbits. Really. You may recall the astonishing reports last year about the discovery of Homo floresiensis, a previously unknown species of human that lived as recently as 13,000 years ago — more recently than the Neanderthals. And unlike the Neanderthals, who are usually described as nasty and brutish, the Flores people were short. A fully grown adult would have been about the same size as...

Oldest printed map of New World goes on display [Waldseemüller's, 1507: first to use name 'America']
	Posted by Mike Fieschko On General/Chat 04/13/2005 9:14:23 AM PDT · 8 replies · 221+ views Daily Telegraph [UK] \| Apr 13, 2005 \| unknown A "groundbreaking" 16th century map credited with giving America its name has gone on display at Christie's.The map, the oldest printed map of the New World, is one of only four surviving examples and is expected to raise up to £800,000 at auction.As well as using the word America for the first time, after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who argued that the land discovered by Columbus in 1492 was a new continent, the map is also the first printed portrayal of the Earth as a globe.It was discovered by chance two years ago when a newspaper picture caught...
Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Search For Lost Ring Leads To Hoard Of Ancient Treasure
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/12/2005 3:53:47 PM PDT · 19 replies · 1,000+ views IC Liverpool/Daily Post \| 4-12-2005 \| Gary Skentelbery Search for lost ring leads to hoard of ancient treasure Apr 12 2005 By Gary Skentelbery Daily Post Correspondent A QUEST for a missing wedding ring has helped uncover a collection of ancient treasures dating back up to 4,000 years. Thought to be from tombs on the holiday island of Cyprus, the pricesless collection had been collecting dust in a Cheshire attic for nearly 40 years, with the belief they were old holiday trinkets. Their historic value was discovered when Neville Davies enlisted the help of archaeologist and metal detecting enthusiast James Balme, to help track down his son-in-law's missing...
Origins and Prehistory
Geographic Society Is Seeking a Genealogy of Humankind
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 04/13/2005 3:33:59 AM PDT · 60 replies · 736+ views NY Times \| April 13, 2005 \| NICHOLAS WADE A five-year project to reconstruct a genealogy of the world's populations and the migration paths of early humans from their ancestral homeland in Africa will be started today by the National Geographic Society and I.B.M., the society said in a statement. The goal of the program is to collect 100,000 blood samples from indigenous populations around the world and analyze them genetically. Researchers at 10 local centers and at the National Geographic Society in Washington will then assign the people who give blood to lineages that trace the routes traveled by their early ancestors. The program is an effort to...

Genes To Help Tell 'Story Of Everybody'
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/13/2005 4:49:43 PM PDT · 18 replies · 346+ views ABC.net \| 4-13-2005 Genes to help tell 'story of everybody' Last Update: Wednesday, April 13, 2005. 7:33pm (AEST) The Genographic Project will search for clues about how humans spread around the globe.Indigenous people around the world will be asked to supply a cheek swab to help geneticists answer the question of how humanity spread from Africa. The National Geographic Society and IBM hope to sample 100,000 people or more and look for ancient clues buried in living DNA to calculate who came from where and when. For $US100, anyone who wants to can supply his or her own cheek swab for a personalised...

Prehistoric Jawbone Reveals Evolution Repeating Itself
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/16/2005 3:27:42 PM PDT · 9 replies · 257+ views University Of Chicago Chronicle \| 4-16-2005 \| Catherine Gianaro Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself By Catherine Gianaro Medical Center Public Affairs A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny monotreme, an egg-laying mammal related to the platypus, provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals. The discovery of a prehistoric jawbone, reported in February in the journal Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancestor some 200 million years ago. “The earbones are still attached to...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Mammoth's remains found at homes' construction site(12Ft Fossil far too ancient for carbon dating)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/11/2005 11:51:17 PM PDT · 27 replies · 759+ views Michael Owen Baker \| April 10, 2005 \| Michael Owen Baker Fossil that stood 12 feet tall is far too ancient for carbon datingMOORPARK, CALIF. - The remarkably well-preserved remnants of an estimated half-million-year-old mammoth — including both tusks — were discovered at a new housing development in Southern California. An onsite paleontologist found the remains, which include 50 percent to 70 percent of the Ice Age creature, as crews cleared away hillsides to prepare for building, Mayor Pro Tem Clint Harper said. Paleontologist Mark Roeder estimated the mammoth was about 12 feet tall, Harper said. Roeder believed it was not a pygmy or imperial mammoth, but he had not yet...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
New method for dating ancient earthquakes through cave evidence developed by Israeli researchers
	Posted by Mike Fieschko On General/Chat 04/11/2005 9:44:41 PM PDT · 8 replies · 78+ views Hebrew University of Jerusalem \| Apr 11, 2005 \| Jerry Barach [?] Photo in the stalactite cave near Beit Shemesh, Israel, shows a collapsed ceiling, evidence of an ancient destructive earthquake. Note the stalactites that were growing prior to the collapse, as well as the stalagmites on top of the ceiling that began to grow only after the collapse. (Photo by Elisa Kagan) Full size image available here A new method for dating destructive past earthquakes, based on evidence remaining in caves has been developed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Geological Survey of Israel. Using this method, they discovered for the first time evidence of earthquakes...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Archaeologist Reveals Passion for America's Origin (Uncovered the Lost Remains Jamestown)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/13/2005 1:36:54 AM PDT · 24 replies · 554+ views Daily Press \| April 11, 2005 \| MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON Nearly 10 years after leading the pioneering dig that unearthed the lost remains of Jamestown, archaeologist William M. Kelso was named 2005 Virginian of the Year by the VPA. With the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement just two years away, the former Williamsburg high school history teacher, who lives on the island, says the full impact of the celebrated excavation has yet to be felt. Q: You first came to Jamestown Island at 21, intent on standing on the exact spot where America began. You returned repeatedly over the next three decades. What's behind this lifelong interest?...

Bodies of Brits From 1798 Battle Found in Egypt (Nelson vs. Napoleon)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/14/2005 5:32:58 PM PDT · 15 replies · 643+ views Reuters \| Wed Apr 13, 2005 CAIRO (Reuters) - An Italian archaeologist has discovered the remains of 30 British troops dating as far back as a decisive naval battle in 1798 between France and Britain off Egypt's north coast, the British Embassy said on Wednesday. Archaeologist Paolo Gallo discovered the bodies on an island in Abu Qir bay, east of Alexandria, where British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated Napoleon Bonaparte's French fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Gallo had been excavating the island for Greek-Roman artefacts when he discovered the remains of the 30 British sailors and soldiers, some dating to the 1798 battle and others...

Clean-up starts on famed Minster window [York, England, Great East Window]
	Posted by Mike Fieschko On General/Chat 04/11/2005 9:54:17 PM PDT · 4 replies · 101+ views Yorkshire Post \| Apr 9, 2005 \| Brian Dooks Painstaking work: Senior conservator Nick Teed examines glass taken from the Son of Man panel at the centre of the Great East Window of York Minster, which is to be cleaned and restored in a project that could take 10 years. Picture: Gary Longbottom Stained glass experts have up to 10 years work ahead of them restoring the Great East Window at York Minster – but first they have a great deal of thinking to do. Brian Dooks The York Glaziers Trust has assembled a team of specialists who are meeting monthly to decide how to tackle the multi-million-pound project...

Some Question Discovery Of Blackbeard's Flagship Off N.C. Coast
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 04/09/2005 3:09:07 PM PDT · 22 replies · 482+ views WRAL.com \| 4/8/05 \| Scott Mason RALEIGH, N.C. -- Nine years ago, researchers believe they found Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard the pirate's flagship. Now, some Archaeologists at East Carolina University are not so sure. Researchers found a major shipwreck at Beaufort Inlet nearly a decade ago. They later located 23 cannons resting on the ocean floor. Archaeologists have recovered some of them, along with other 18th century artifacts, which they say all point to the famous vessel. "I am, from my point of view, personally 1,000 percent sure it is Queen Anne's Revenge. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever," researcher Phil Masters said.
end of digest #39 20050416

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #40
Saturday, April 23, 2005

Africa

Stolen Obelisk is Returned to Sheba's Capital

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/20/2005 1:00:23 AM PDT· 6 replies · 207+ views

Times of London | April 20, 2005 | Andrew Heavens
AYALEW ASRESE was 14 when he heard that Benito Mussolini's invading Fascist troops had stolen an ancient granite obelisk from his homeland. Yesterday the 82-year-old Ethiopian watched a new generation of Italians bring home the first part of the 160-tonne monument, which dates from the 3rd century and is thought to be a grave marker for a king from the Axumite Empire. The bemedalled war veteran was one of hundreds of Ethiopians who crowded on to the tiny runway at Axum to greet the 1,700-year-old national symbol. They cheered, wept, chanted prayers and waved banners as a huge Antonov 124...

Anatolia

Layers of clustered apartments hide artifacts of ancient urban life

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/20/2005 9:26:57 AM PDT· 8 replies · 105+ views

San Francisco Chronicle | Monday, April 18, 2005 | David Perlman
But because of the spectacular female clay figures that the archaeologists have found in the excavated layers over the years, «atalhˆy¸k has become a draw for modern believers who hold to the idea that the neolithic people were ruled by a matriarchy whose central figure was a mother goddess... But to Ian Hodder of Stanford and Ruth Tringham of Berkeley, who will lead the expedition's 11th season at «atalhˆy¸k this summer, the evidence questions the notion of a mother goddess and a matriarchal society... Mellaart's mother goddess was found in a grain bin, and the Hodder team's 3-inch figurine was...

Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking

Posted by LostTribe
On News/Activism 10/21/2002 10:13:37 PM PDT· 17 replies · 89+ views

New York Times | October 22, 2002 | John Noble Wilford
Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD new Trojan War has broken out. In the warrior roles of Achilles and Hector are two respected professors on the same German university faculty who could not differ more fully and vehemently over what to make of the ruins at the presumed site in western Turkey of the legendary siege in the 13th century B.C. immortalized by Homer. One adversary, an archaeologist who has directed excavations there since 1988, contends that he has found telling evidence of Troy as a much larger and more important city than previously thought....

Ancient Egypt

7 corpses found in ancient Egyptian tomb

Posted by SmithL
On News/Activism 04/21/2005 10:36:05 AM PDT· 25 replies · 594+ views

AP | 4/21/5
CAIRO, Egypt - Archaeologists digging in a 5,600-year-old funeral site in southern Egypt unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint. The American-Egyptian excavation team made the discoveries in what they described as the largest funerary complex ever found that dates to the elusive 5-millenia-old Predynastic era, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday. "This is a major discovery, and will add greatly to our knowledge of the period when Egypt was first becoming a nation," said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist. The team working for...

Ancient Necropolis Found in Egypt (From earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years Old)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/21/2005 11:07:37 PM PDT· 6 replies · 280+ views

BBC | Thursday, 21 April, 2005
Archaeologists say they have found the largest funerary complex yet dating from the earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago. The necropolis was discovered by a joint US and Egyptian team in the Kom al-Ahmar region, around 600 km (370 miles) south of the capital, Cairo. Inside the tombs, the archaeologists found a cow's head carved from flint and the remains of seven people. They believe four of them were buried alive as human sacrifices. The remains survived despite the fact that the tombs were plundered in ancient times. Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the discovery...

Egyptologists Find Tomb of Ancient Southern Ruler

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/20/2005 1:31:59 PM PDT· 16 replies · 597+ views

Reuters | Wed Apr 20, 2005
CAIRO (Reuters) - American archaeologists working in southern Egypt have found what they think is the tomb of a prehistoric ruler from the middle of the 4th millennium BC, the government's antiquities service said on Wednesday. A team led by Egyptologist Renee Friedman found the tomb at the site of ancient Hierakonpolis or Nekhen, close to the modern town of Edfu and one of the first places in the world identifiable as the capital of a significant political entity. The government's Supreme Council for Antiquities said in a statement that the rectangular tomb contained a wooden offering table and four...

Treasures of Tanis

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/22/2005 10:52:45 AM PDT· 9 replies · 115+ views

Archaeology | May/June 2005 | Bob Brier
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, an entire complex of royal tombs was found intact at Tanis, yielding four gold masks, solid silver coffins, and spectacular jewelry... The treasures are one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time... And while everyone knows Howard Carter's name, that of the excavator of Tanis is Egyptological trivia. It's Pierre Montet... Today, as Tutankhamun once again begins a royal procession through the United States, it is good to remember Tanis and its discoverer, Pierre Montet. The treasure of Tutankhamun may be more extensive, but Montet found three intact royal burials, an achievement...

Uncovering secret buried deep in past (Research into only Egyptian royal burial found outside Egypt)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/19/2005 1:21:38 AM PDT· 5 replies · 356+ views

Scotsman | JULIA HORTON
'Offering which the King gives to Osiris [God of the Dead]. He may give an offering of bread and beer, ox and fowl, for the soul of the estate manager Khnumhotep, son of Nebut." Dr Bill Manley reads out the mass of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics on the front of one of the ornate coffins on display at the Royal Museum as if he were reading words written in English. Peering at the jumble of symbols, it is possible to spot a bird for the fowl or buns for the bread and fool yourself that you too could translate hieroglyphics. But...

Ancient Greece

Albanian Temple Unearthed By UC Archeologists

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/19/2005 11:19:12 PM PDT· 7 replies · 89+ views

University of Cincinnati | April 12, 2005 | Carey Hoffman
A sculptural relief from Apollonia of the goddess Artemis.

Ancient Rome

`Impressive' villa mosaic unearthed near Caesarea

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/18/2005 6:35:32 PM PDT· 26 replies · 569+ views

Haaretz | April 17, 2005 | Amiram Barkat
A 500-square-meter mosaic depicting an intricate design of flamingos, peacocks, ducks and other animals that adorned the floor of a fifth-century C.E. villa, was unearthed recently on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean near Caesarea. Parts of the floor were first discovered in the 1950s by archaeologist Shmuel Yeivin. However, it was not fully excavated at the time due to budgetary constraints. This time, after an initial week-long excavation by Dr. Yosef Porat and Peter Gendelman of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the authority refused to continue the dig, citing a lack of funds. The Caesarea Development Corporation has agreed to pay...

Roman villas found under playing field

Posted by LostTribe
On News/Activism 08/17/2002 10:13:48 PM PDT· 49 replies · 354+ views

Roman villas found under playing field By Catherine Milner, Arts Correspondent (Filed: 18/08/2002) The remains of two Roman villas have been found under a football pitch in Wiltshire in what is believed to be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries since the early 1960s. The houses, which were built for Roman aristocrats in about 350AD, have 40 rooms each and feature an extensive mosaic which is thought to be one of the biggest and best-preserved Roman examples ever found in Britain. Archaeologists from Bristol and Cardiff universities, who are carrying out the excavation, have also exhumed the body of...

Skeleton find could tell us more about the Roman way of death

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/16/2005 5:11:11 PM PDT· 19 replies · 903+ views

Yorkshire Post | 15 April 2005 | Paul Jeeves
ANOTHER headless skeleton discovered in York is among a series of gruesome archaeological finds which could hold the key to unlocking secrets behind Roman burial rituals. The latest discovery of human remains by archaeologists follows in the wake of another headless skeleton found shackled in a grave and a Roman mummy which was also unearthed in The Mount area of the city. A total of 57 bodies ñ 50 adults and seven children ñ and 14 sets of cremated remains have been found during excavations, most by the York Archaeological Trust at a site in Driffield Terrace. Archaeologists are now...

Asia

Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang's famous mummies (Caucasian)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/19/2005 9:08:48 PM PDT· 20 replies · 830+ views

Khaleej Times | 4-19-2005
Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang's famous mummiesM (AFP) 19 April 2005 URUMQI, China - After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proven that Caucasians roamed China's Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived. The research, which the Chinese government has appeared to have delayed making public out of concerns of fueling Uighur Muslim separatism in its western-most Xinjiang region, is based on a cache of ancient dried-out corpses that have been found around the Tarim Basin in recent decades. ìIt is unfortunate that the issue has been so politicized because it...

The Mysterious Tribe of Tuwa

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 01/30/2004 6:35:04 AM PST· 11 replies · 252+ views

China Times | January 27, 2004 | by Chen Lin
The Mysterious Tribe of Tuwa-It's said that they originated from the old or wounded soldiers abandoned by Genghis Khan The Mysterious Tribe of Tuwa On the banks of the Kanas Lake, there live 2,000 Tuwas, a Mongolian tribe that have existed in this remote area of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for generations. They mainly inhabit the areas of Kanas, Hemu and Baihaba. Their primitive nomadic lifestyle seems to have been isolated from the modern civilization of the 21st century. They believe in Shamanism and Lamaism and keep the primitive worship of fire and other natural forces as their...

Nevada Scientists Are Working to Preserve Ancient Terra Cotta Warriors

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/18/2005 6:51:11 PM PDT· 15 replies · 454+ views

KLAS-TV | April 15, 2005 | George Knapp
One of the world's greatest archeological treasures is in serious trouble because of air pollution and scientists from Nevada are coming to the rescue. The terra cotta warriors were built on orders from the first emperor of China but were buried for more than 2,000 years. Scientists from Nevada's Desert Research Institute have been asked to join an international team looking for ways to keep the warriors from wasting away. The ruthless conqueror who became the first emperor of china wasn't a guy who thought small. Emperor Chin not only started the Great Wall of China, but also used hundreds...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Spectacular specimen: This bug's a big one - 8 feet long - and New Mexico scientists nabbed...

Posted by demlosers
On News/Activism 04/22/2005 12:50:39 PM PDT· 91 replies · 2,136+ views

Albuquerque Tribune | April 14, 2005 | Sue Vorenberg
Spectacular specimen: This bug's a big one - 8 feet long - and New Mexico scientists nabbed some of its fossils Think mosquitoes and millipedes are nasty? Then don't look too deeply into New Mexico's past. Today, you can squish the tiny bugs, but 300 million years ago, 8-foot-long millipedes were in control of the landscape, and humans weren't even a gleam in evolution's eye. New Mexico is now a world record holder of such "exquisitely grotesque creatures," as one worker at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science calls them. Evidence of the largest arthropleura - its...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Arizona Meteorite Crater Mystery Solved

Posted by ZGuy
On News/Activism 03/09/2005 10:19:19 AM PST· 181 replies · 4,234+ views

AP via Yahoo | 3/9/05
It's a mystery that has puzzled scientists for years but researchers said Wednesday they have discovered why there isn't much melted rock at the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. An iron meteorite traveling up to 12 miles per second was thought to have blasted out the huge hole measuring three-quarters of a mile across in the desert. The impact of an object at that speed should have left large volumes of melted rock at the site. But British and American scientists said the reason it didn't was because the meteorite was traveling slower than previously estimated. "We conclude that...

Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites

Posted by uglybiker
On News/Activism 07/22/2004 10:25:27 PM PDT· 57 replies · 2,660+ views

European Space Agency | 7/21/04
Rare photo of a rogue wave Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites†21 July 2004Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freakish ocean waves that rise as tall as ten-storey apartment blocks have been accepted as a leading cause of large ship sinkings. Results from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the widespread existence of these 'rogue' waves and are now being used to study their origins. † Severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. Rogue waves are believed to be the major cause in many such...

'Rogue waves' reported by mariners get scientific backing

Posted by Rebelbase
On News/Activism 07/23/2004 1:25:25 AM PDT· 18 replies · 753+ views

yahoo news | 7/21/04 | unknown
PARIS (AFP) - European satellites have given confirmation to terrified mariners who describe seeing freak waves as tall as 10-storey buildings, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. "Rogue waves" have been the anecdotal cause behind scores of sinkings of vessels as large as container ships and supertankers over the past two decades. But evidence to support this has been sketchy, and many marine scientists have clung to statistical models that say monstrous deviations from the normal sea state only occur once every thousand years. Testing this promise, ESA tasked two of its Earth-scanning satellites, ERS-1 and ERS-2, to monitor the...

SHIP-SINKING MONSTER WAVES REVEALED BY ESA SATELLITES

Posted by Yosemitest
On News/Activism 07/25/2004 12:36:29 AM PDT· 36 replies · 3,224+ views

European Space Agency.

| 21 July 2004
Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites † Rare photo of a rogue wave † † 21 July 2004 †Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freakish ocean waves that rise as tall as ten-storey apartment blocks have been accepted as a leading cause of large ship sinkings. Results from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the widespread existence of these 'rogue' waves and are now being used to study their origins. †Severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. Rogue waves are believed to be the major...

Epigraphy and Language

Pompei Discovery For Swedish Archaeologists

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/17/2005 1:36:52 PM PDT· 46 replies · 870+ views

The Local | 4-17-2005
Published: 17th April 2005 11:48 BST+1 Pompei discovery for Swedish archeologists (AFP) Swedish archeologists have discovered a Stone Age settlement covered in ash under the ruins of the ancient city of Pompei, indicating that the volcano Vesuvius engulfed the area in lava more than 3,500 years before the famous 79 AD eruption. The archeologists recently found burnt wood and grains of corn in the earth under Pompei, Anne-Marie Leander Touati, a professor of archeology at Stockholm University who led the team, told AFP. "Carbon dating shows that the finds are from prehistoric times, that is, from 3,500 years BC," Leander...

WOW (Breakthrough in interpreting Oxyrhynchus Papyri)

Posted by bitt
On Bloggers & Personal 04/17/2005 6:14:39 AM PDT· 47 replies · 1,784+ views

the Light of Reason | 4/17/05 | Arthur Silber?
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure ñ a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible. Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed. In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make...

Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world

Posted by illbill
On Bloggers & Personal 04/17/2005 11:04:21 PM PDT· 9 replies · 234+ views

RealOpinion.com
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible. Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

Infra-Red Brings Ancient Papyri to Light

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/20/2005 9:14:51 PM PDT· 9 replies · 322+ views

Sci-Tech Today | April 19, 2005
Oxyrhynchus, situated on a tributary of the Nile 100 miles south of Cairo, was a prosperous regional capital and the third city of Egypt, with 35,000 people. It was populated mainly by Greek immigrants, who left behind tons of papyri upon which slaves trained in Greek had documented the community's arts and goings-on. A vast array of previously unintelligible manuscripts from ancient Greece and Rome are being read for the first time thanks to infra-red light, in a breakthrough hailed as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail. The technique could see the number of accounted-for ancient manuscripts increase...

India

Archaeological Gold Mine Unearthed In UP (Uttar Pradesh)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/20/2005 1:54:12 PM PDT· 28 replies · 552+ views

NDTV | 4-19-2005 | Aradhana Sharma
Archeological gold mine unearthed in UP Aradhana Sharma Tuesday, April 19, 2005 (Sanchankot): The residents of Sanchankot village in Uttar Pradesh on the banks on Sai river never knew they were sitting on an archeological goldmine. Excavations in the mounds here have revealed proof of civilizations of four different periods. The oldest being the Painted Grey Ware period dating from 1400 to 800 BC and the latest the Gupta period of the 4-6th century AD. A 10th century temple of the Pratihar dynasty has also been found during the excavations. ExcavationsThe archeological significance of the site has been known for...

Archeological gold mine unearthed in UP

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/20/2005 9:04:35 PM PDT· 9 replies · 326+ views

NDTV | Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | Aradhana Sharma
The residents of Sanchankot village in Uttar Pradesh on the banks on Sai river never knew they were sitting on an archeological goldmine. Excavations in the mounds here have revealed proof of civilizations of four different periods. The oldest being the Painted Grey Ware period dating from 1400 to 800 BC and the latest the Gupta period of the 4-6th century AD. A 10th century temple of the Pratihar dynasty has also been found during the excavations. Excavations on The archeological significance of the site has been known for almost 150 years now. And almost every one who has come...

Let's Have Jerusalem!

Squeezed Between Burma And Bangladesh, 'Descendents' Of Lost Tribe Of Israel Convert To Judaism

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/16/2005 9:11:40 PM PDT· 3 replies · 190+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | 4-17-2005 | David Orr
Squeezed between Burma and Bangladesh, 'descendants' of the Lost Tribes of Israel convert to Judaism By David Orr in Aizawl, Mizoram, NE India (Filed: 17/04/2005) Passover is around the corner and Arbi Khiangte is helping her aunt, Dovi, clean and redecorate her home for one of the most important feasts in the Jewish calendar. The house is next door to the Shalom Zion synagogue where Arbi's uncle, Eliezer, is the cantor. Like most buildings in Aizawl, the synagogue - a large, corrugated-iron structure - is perched precariously on a hillside with nothing but wooden stilts to stop it tumbling into...

Mesopotamia

Gilgamesh tomb believed found!

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 04/29/2003 6:57:56 PM PDT· 60 replies · 633+ views

BBC | Published: 2003/04/29 07:57:11 | Editorial Staff
Gilgamesh tomb believed found Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history. The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name. Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King. "I don't want to say...

Origins and Prehistory

Stone Age Cutups (Deathly Rituals Emerge at Neandertal Site)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/22/2005 11:36:48 PM PDT· 2 replies · 18+ views

RedNova News | Friday, 22 April 2005
After excavating a cache of Neandertal fossils about 100 years ago at Krapina Cave in what's now Croatia, researchers concluded that incisions on the ancient individuals' bones showed that they had been butchered and presumably eaten by their comrades. That claim has proved difficult to confirm. A new, high-tech analysis indicates that the Krapina Neandertals ritually dismembered corpses in ways that must have held symbolic meaning for the group-whether or not Neandertals ate those remains. Neandertals apparently possessed a facility for abstract thought that has often been regarded as unique to modern Homo sapiens, says study director Jill Cook of...

PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis

Clue To Earliest American May Lay In Suffolk Grave

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/21/2005 11:21:53 AM PDT· 14 replies · 449+ views

The Times (London) | 4-21-2005
April 21, 2005 Clue to earliest American may lie in Suffolk grave By David Sanderson A SAMPLE from the bones of a Suffolk woman buried 400 years ago is to be exhumed by scientists seeking to discover more about an English explorer who is the unsung founding father of America. Archaeologists are to crosscheck DNA from remains they believe belong to the explorer Bartholomew Gosnold with samples from his sister, who was thought to have been buried in a Suffolk churchyard in the 1600s. Church officials have given their backing to the project, which is thought to be the first...

Fig Island has remarkable examples of shell rings

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/19/2005 11:13:05 PM PDT· 3 replies · 119+ views

Associated Press | Sun, Apr. 17, 2005 | Joey Holleman
[V]egetation disguises one of the most important, and least appreciated, cultural history sites in the country, archaeologists say. Much of Fig Island was built by man, not nature. Three of the four separate pieces of high ground that make up the 40-acre island were constructed about 4,000 years ago. Oyster shells - with some conch-type shells, broken pottery and a few animal bones mixed in - were crafted into stadium-like rings and crescents for reasons that remain a mystery... The Fig Island complex features one ring with the largest open interior plaza (slightly more than an acre), another ring with...

Ancient Europe

Archaeologists unearth Celtic burial site

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/19/2005 10:54:50 PM PDT· 4 replies · 104+ views

Slovakia's English language newspaper | April 18 - April 24, 2005 | staff writer
Mari·n Samuel from the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, told the SITA news agency that the most precious find on the early stone age, Neolithic settlement is a skeleton of what they believe was a 40-year-old woman buried in a squatting position. The site is believed to date back to between the 5th and 4th millennium BC.

The Goths and Later Germanic[CELTIC] Invaders

Posted by LostTribe
On General/Chat 09/27/2002 7:07:12 PM PDT· 44 replies · 532+ views

University Web Site | Unk | Unknown
The Goths and Later Germanic Invaders Little is known about the early history of the Goths before they came into contact with the Romans. What little evidence we have indicates that they probably came from Scandinavia. In the first millennium B. C., they crossed the Baltic Sea and migrated into Northeastern Europe in the area occupied by Poland today. Later, they moved again and made their home in the area north of the Black Sea. Nobody knows for sure what caused these migrations but they became known as the Wanderings of the Peoples. Anthropologists speculate that changes in climate caused...

Neolithic France

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/21/2005 10:03:22 AM PDT· 5 replies · 119+ views

Archaeology | May/June 2005 | Jennifer Pinkowski
Recently, in one called PrissÈ-la-CharriËre (after the village it is near), archaeologists Roger Joussaume, Luc Laporte, and Chris Scarre found a communal sepulcher that no one had entered for 6,000 years, giving them a view of the burial practices of a people about whom little is known except that they were early farmers... Inside were the disarticulated remains of at least seven people, as well as two intact ceramic vessels. It was the third burial chamber they had found in the 300-foot-long mound. The other two held the partial remains of at least 11 more people... For the past 10...

Stonehenge 'King' Came from Central Europe

Posted by CobaltBlue
On News/Activism 02/10/2003 12:47:31 PM PST· 26 replies · 81+ views

Science - Reuters | 2/10/03
LONDON (Reuters) - The construction of one of Britain's most famous ancient landmarks, the towering megaliths at Stonehenge in southern England, might have been supervised by the Swiss, or maybe even the Germans. Archaeologists studying the remains of a wealthy archer found in a 4,000-year-old grave exhumed near Stonehenge last year said Monday he was originally from the Alps region, probably modern-day Switzerland, Austria or Germany. "He would have been a very important person in the Stonehenge area and it is fascinating to think that someone from abroad -- probably modern-day Switzerland -- could have played an important part in...

Who Were The Celts?

Posted by blam
On General/Chat 09/26/2002 8:29:44 AM PDT· 119 replies · 585+ views

Ibiblio.org | unknown
Who were the Celts? The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings with other cultures that bordered the lands occupied by these peoples, and even though there is no written record of the Celts stemming from their own documents, we can piece together a fair picture of them from archeological evidence as well as historical accounts from other cultures. The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy around 400 BC, when a previously unkown...

Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Searching for Abbey's Hidden History

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/21/2005 11:20:16 PM PDT· 4 replies · 214+ views

This is Local ondon | Nic Brunetti
ARCHAEOLOGISTS are awaiting results of a geophysical survey carried out around Bisham Abbey last weekend which could reveal the long-lost history of the site. Bisham Abbey, off the A404 Marlow Bypass, is believed to date as far back as 1337, and a special survey hopes to reveal the original foundations of the ancient building. The modern abbey is currently the home of Sport England's National Sports Centre, and six volunteers took to the lawns of the tennis courts to try and detect the foundations. Using a resistivity meter, which sends an electrical current through the ground, the team searched for...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Digging uncovers Shaker history(Archaeologists explore site of famous religious group's house in NY)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/18/2005 11:51:04 PM PDT· 8 replies · 222+ views

Albany Times Union | Monday, April 18, 2005 | JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST
Archaeologists explore site of famous religious group's old seed house in Colonie COLONIE -- A team of archaeologists methodically sifted through clumps of dirt Sunday in an attempt to quickly document newly discovered artifacts on the old Shaker settlement just off Route 155. The find could further reveal the industriousness of the 18th-century religious sect at their first known American settlement, but it also lies directly in the path of a new sewer line serving Albany International Airport. A work crew digging a trench for the line on the county-owned land struck the foundation wall Friday of what experts say...

The Nobel for Neolithic Politics

Posted by swilhelm73
On News/Activism 10/11/2004 3:05:01 PM PDT· 1 reply · 133+ views

TAS | 10/11/2004 | Christopher Orlet
In the late 1940s, the Swedish Academy finally got around to honoring the founders of the modernist literary movement. James Joyce was dead, so the Academy turned to the movement's other founder: Ezra Pound. But there were difficulties. Pound had been a supporter of Mussolini. Worse, he was an anti-Semite. True, he had been the intellectual force behind the greatest literary movement in the 20th century, but he was also an unabashed and unrepentant supporter of fascism. In the end the Nobel Prize Committee gave the award to T.S. Eliot, and asked him to share it with Joyce's ghost. But...

end of digest #40 20050423

Only a day late. I had a sinking feeling that a recent digest had omitted some recently added GGG topics, but I now don't think this is true. The plan is to build a bunch of comprehensive digests as individual messages (and not ping anyone) to compile a massive list thereof here in this topic. Of course, there's not much reason to do so, and I am A) backlogged with housework among other things, and B) lazy. Also, summer is my time of the year. As the Incredible String Band once said, "be glad".

There were no "Thoroughly Modern Miscellany" topics this week. Well done. :')

The usual way I handle the categories is to put the one-topic categories near the beginning, with the larger ones near the middle, and generally TMM and OSM near the end. This is already a day late, so I used the same order as last week. Enjoy, one and all.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #41
Saturday, April 30, 2005

Africa

Ancient Tombs Found Near Obelisk

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 8:14:25 PM PDT · 14 replies · 469+ views

BBC | Tuesday, 26 April, 2005
The obelisks mark the graves of Axum's ancient rulers Archaeologists have found a vast new network of royal tombs in Ethiopia, near the site where the 1,700-year-old Axum obelisk is to be re-erected. Experts using sophisticated imaging equipment discovered the burial chambers, even older than the obelisk, under a 1963 car park, said the UN. The stone monoliths were originally erected to mark burial sites for deceased members of the aristocracy. The final piece of the Axum obelisk was flown home from Italy on Monday. The whole structure - seen as a national religious treasure - is to be re-erected...

Anatolia

Russian Culture Official Suggests Legendary Gold Collection From Troy Unlikely be Returned Germany

Posted by LibWhacker
On News/Activism 02/27/2005 2:03:19 AM PST · 17 replies · 466+ views

AP | 2/27/05
MOSCOW (AP) - A legendary collection of gold objects from ancient Troy seized by Soviet troops in Berlin in 1945 should become Russian government property, a top Russian cultural official said in remarks published Saturday. But Anatoly Vilkov, deputy chief of the Russian agency that preserves the nation's cultural legacy, stopped short of ruling out the objects' return, as quoted by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The gold collection - excavated by amateur German archaeologist Hermann Schliemann - will be made federal property after it is inventoried, he said. It could be exhibited in Germany but only if its return is...

Ancient Egypt

Archaeologists Unearth Seals Used on Pharaonic Desert Missions (Needed Red Paint)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/29/2005 4:35:50 PM PDT · 19 replies · 482+ views

Middle East Times | April 29, 2005
CAIRO -- Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a number of rare Pharaonic seals of soldiers sent out on desert missions in search of red paint to decorate the Pyramids, Egypt's culture minister said on April 28. The 26 matchbox-sized seals belonged to Cheops, who ruled from 2551 to 2528 BC, in whose honor the greatest of the great pyramids of Giza southwest of Cairo was built, and show Pharaonic soldiers' ranks, the MENA news agency quoted Farouq Hosni as saying. "These seals were used by a mission sent by Cheops to collect ferric oxide, which is necessary to make red paint,"...

Ancient Greece

Mycenaean Port of Athens Found?

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/29/2005 9:40:45 PM PDT · 3 replies · 211+ views

Kathimerini | 4-28-2005
Archaeologists in the capital's southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens's first port before the city's naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron -- after which the modern suburb was named -- was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. 'This is a port associated with two myths -- Theseus and the Argonauts -- ...

Mycenaean Port Of Athens Found

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/28/2005 11:00:05 AM PDT · 14 replies · 493+ views

Kathimerini | 4-28-2005
Mycenaean port of Athens found? Archaeologists in the capital's southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens's first port before the city's naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron -- after which the modern suburb was named -- was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. 'This is a port associated with two myths -- ...

Asia

Archaeologist Warns Tomb Raiding Rife in Asia

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:32:38 AM PDT · 13 replies · 205+ views

ABC | Sunday, April 24, 2005
The head of the global body of archaeologists says the theft of sacred and historical artefacts is a huge problem in Asia. Claire Smith, an Adelaide-based academic, says this weekend's return of the second part an ancient Ethiopian obelisk, looted by the Italians in the 1930s, highlights the importance of restoring lost history. Dr Smith, head of the World Archaeological Congress, says Asia suffers particularly from looting. "It is a big problem in Asia and you can see objects in Asia, say, Buddhas that have had their heads chopped off, and the heads are stolen, and I think things like...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Loch Ness Monster Finally Identified???

Posted by Beowulf9
On News/Activism 04/07/2005 9:31:30 PM PDT · 190 replies · 6,674+ views

emediawire.com | April 7th, 2005 | William McDonald
Loch Ness Monster Finally Identified Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, finally identifies what Loch Ness Monster may be. (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- After nearly 1,500 years of conjecture, it appears the Loch Ness Monster may finally be identified. According to American Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, the famous lake monster known as 'Nessieî is neither a plesiosaur or prehistoric reptile, but a real, predatory species of water animal possessing the ability to hunt on land. In the winter months of 2004, McDonald photographed tracks left by a large animal on a mud-covered Loch Ness shoreline...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Earth's Magnetic Field Weakens 10 Percent (and some other stuff)

Posted by NormsRevenge
On General/Chat 12/12/2003 6:26:01 PM PST · 13 replies · 113+ views

Yahoo News | 12/12/03 | Andrew Bridges - AP
SAN FRANCISCO - The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years, raising the remote possibility that it may collapse and later reverse, flipping the planet's poles for the first time in nearly a million years, scientists said Thursday. † At that rate of decline, the field could vanish altogether in 1,500 to 2,000 years, said Jeremy Bloxham of Harvard University. Hundreds of years could pass before a flip-flopped field returned to where it was 780,000 years ago. But scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union cautioned that scenario is an...

Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/24/2005 8:18:25 PM PDT · 31 replies · 294+ views

Scientific American (online) | April 20, 2005 | Sarah Graham
Jafar Arkani-Hamed of McGill University discovered that five impact basins--dubbed Argyre, Hellas, Isidis, Thaumasia and Utopia--form an arclike pattern on the Martian surface. Three of the basins are well-preserved and remain visible today. The locations of the other two, in contrast, were inferred from measurements of anomalies in the planet's gravitational field... a single source--most likely an asteroid that was initially circling the sun in the same plane as Mars--created all five craters. At one point the asteroid passed close to the Red Planet... and was broken apart by the force of the planet's gravity. The resulting five pieces subsequently...

India

Queen's Remains Are Still Elusive

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/24/2005 12:03:21 PM PDT · 5 replies · 264+ views

Deccan Herald | 4-24-2005 | Devika Sequeira
Queen's remains are still elusive Devika Sequeira in Panaji The Archaeological Survey of India's 20-year search for the relics of Queen Ketevan in Old Goa has ended in disappointment. But the excavations offer an intriguing and significant insight into 16th century Goa. Setting to rest a debate that has engaged historians and archaeologists for over 20 years, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) announced earlier this week that though it had managed to locate the 'burial siteî of Queen Ketevan of Georgia amidst the ruins of the St Augustine complex in Old Goa, the queen's remains were not at the...

Let's Have Jerusalem!

Biblical clue found on ancient shrine

Posted by yonif
On News/Activism 11/20/2003 9:32:53 PM PST · 42 replies · 191+ views

CNN | Friday, November 21, 2003 | AP
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A barely legible clue -- the name "Simon" carved in Greek letters -- beckoned from high up on the weather-beaten facade of an ancient burial monument. Their curiosity piqued, two Jerusalem scholars uncovered six previously invisible lines of inscription: a Gospel verse -- Luke 2:25.

Origins and Prehistory

ANCIENT BONE MAY BE FROM NEANDER THAL

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/24/2005 1:18:10 PM PDT · 18 replies · 463+ views

Western Daily Press | 23 April 2005
New research yesterday revealed a West archaeological treasure is more ancient and important than first thought. Discovered in Kents Cavern, Torquay, Devon, in 1927, the fragment of jawbone containing three teeth had been dated as being 31,000 years old. The new analysis, using radio carbon dating, has pushed that date back to between 37,000 and 40,000 years ago, meaning this ancient West resident could be a Neanderthal and not modern human, as previously thought. If the Neanderthal theory is correct, it will prove that the race reached Britain earlier than thought. "Kents Cavern gets more and more interesting all the...

Oldest Fossil Protein Sequenced [from Neanderthal]

Posted by PatrickHenry
On News/Activism 03/15/2005 7:20:27 AM PST · 156 replies · 1,873+ views

Max Planck Society | 08 March 2005 | Staff
An international team, led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, have extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old. It is rare to recover protein of this age, and remarkable to be able to determine the constituent amino acid sequence. This is the oldest fossil protein ever sequenced. Protein sequences may be used in a similar way to DNA, to provide information on the genetic relationships between extinct and living species. As ancient DNA rarely survives, this new method opens...

Archaic Genes in Modern People?

Posted by Lessismore
On News/Activism 04/23/2005 8:30:41 PM PDT · 98 replies · 1,790+ views

Science Magazine | 2005-04-22 | Elizabeth Culotta
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN--About 1200 researchers gathered near the shores of Lake Michigan here from 5 to 9 April to discuss early Englishmen, the birth of modern humans, and Stone Age weapons. In the past 15 years, a flood of genetic data has helped propel the Out of Africa theory into the leading explanation of modern human origins. DNA from mitochondria (mtDNA), the Y chromosome, and ancient humans each suggest that the ancestors of all living people arose in Africa some time after 200,000 years ago, swept out of their homeland, and replaced archaic humans around the globe without mixing with them....

Modern Humans Made Their Point

Posted by Lessismore
On News/Activism 04/23/2005 8:34:30 PM PDT · 55 replies · 783+ views

Science Magazine | 2005-04-22 | Ann Gibbons
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN-- Long before guns gave European explorers a decisive advantage over indigenous peoples, our ancestors had their own technological innovation that allowed them to dominate the Stone Age competition: the projectile point, launched from bows or spear throwers. Paleolithic hunters shooting spears or arrows tipped with these small stone points could stay at a safe distance while hunting a wide assortment of prey--or other humans, says archaeologist John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York. Projectile launchers might even be the key to modern humans' triumph when they entered the Neandertal territory of Europe about 40,000 years ago,...

New Evidence Challenges "Out-of-Africa" Hypothesis of Modern Human origins

Posted by TigerLikesRooster
On News/Activism 04/28/2005 7:33:06 AM PDT · 38 replies · 930+ views

Red Nova | 04/27/05
New Evidence Challenges "Out-of-Africa" Hypothesis of Modern Human origins New evidence challenges "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins WUHAN, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale...

New Evidence Challenges Hypothesis Of Modern Human Origins

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 05/01/2005 11:54:10 AM PDT · 41 replies · 756+ views

Xinhuanet/China View | 4-27-2005 | Xinhuanet
New evidence challenges hypothesis of modern human origins www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-27 17:00:01 WUHAN, April 27 (Xinhuanet) - - Chinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale excavation launched in the Qingjiang River...

PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis

JOURNEY OF MANKIND (The Peopling Of The World)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/25/2005 5:11:40 PM PDT · 41 replies · 895+ views

The Bradshaw Foundation | Unknown | Stephen Oppenheimer
This is the result of a DNA study done by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer and funded by The Bradshaw Foundation. As you go on the journey, here are some things I would like you to make note of and I would appreciate your comments:1. 135-115,000 years ago, notice that the first human excursion out of Africa failed/Died out.2. 74,000 years ago Toba exploded and reduced the worldwide human population to 2-10,000. Note the (about) 10,000 year absence of humans in India, Pakistan and parts of SE Asia. Also, there are two populations of 'out of Africa' humans that are seperated from...

Ancient Europe

Jawbone Hints at Earliest Britons

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 7:54:35 PM PDT · 12 replies · 252+ views

BBC | Paul Rincon
A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly 80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in Europe. The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old, but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years old. However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal. A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort this out. The fragment of maxilla (upper jaw) containing three teeth was unearthed in Kent's Cavern,...

Major Bronze Age Haul Unearthed (UK)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 5:18:02 PM PDT · 11 replies · 463+ views

BBC | 4-26-2005
Major Bronze Age haul unearthed More than 140 pieces have been recovered from the garden A large haul of Bronze Age artefacts has been uncovered by a gardener. The 145 items, dating from about 800BC, were found by Simon Francis as he landscaped the grounds of a house in Cringleford, near Norwich. Norfolk County Council archaeologists say the haul is one of the largest and most significant they have known. Curator of archaeology Alan West said: "The items are in good condition and the more items we find the better knowledge we can develop of the era." It is very...

Oldest rock art in Britain: 12,800 years

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/24/2005 1:40:48 AM PDT · 25 replies · 633+ views

Telegraph (UK) | 22/04/2005 | Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Hard evidence that the engravings of women and extinct creatures at Creswell Crags are more than 12,800 years old is published today, making them Britain's oldest rock art. Creswell Crags, on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, is riddled with caves which contain preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings were found on the walls and ceiling depicting animals such as the European Bison, now extinct in Britain, female dancers or birds - depending on the view of the archaeologist - and intimate female body parts. Dating rock art is difficult, especially if there are no charcoal-based black...

Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Buddha statue from 6th c found in Viking hoard in Helgo, Sweden

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 04/26/2005 11:26:07 PM PDT · 11 replies · 222+ views

Biblical Archaeology Review | March/April 2005 | "Worldwide" editor
This fifth or sixth century A.D. statue of the Buddha from northern India was found in a Viking treasure horde on the Swedish island of Helgˆ. Globalization is clearly not a recent phenomenon... [F]ew people got around as much as the Vikings. From their Scandinavian coves they visited, raided, traded with and settled in lands from Newfoundland to Baghdad. They conquered Britain, terrorized Ireland and France, settled Iceland, raided Spain and ranged throughout the Mediterranean basin. They established a major presence in Russia, the Ukraine and the Crimea, sending their longboats down the Volga into the Black Sea. They raided...

DNA Shows Celtic Hero Somerled's Viking Roots

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 10:52:12 AM PDT · 52 replies · 847+ views

Scotsman | 4-26-2005 | Ian Johnson
DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT A HISTORIC Celtic hero credited with driving the Vikings out of western Scotland was actually descended from a Norseman, according to research by a leading DNA expert. According to traditional genealogies, Somerled, who is said to have died in 1164 after ousting the Vikings from Argyll, Kintyre and the Western Isles, was descended from an ancient royal line going back to when the Scots were living in Ireland. But Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University professor of human genetics who set up a company called Oxford Ancestors to research people's...

Treasure Found on Haddiscoe Island

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/22/2005 11:52:08 PM PDT · 22 replies · 927+ views

EDP24 | 23 April 2005 | STEPHEN PULLINGER
When Roger Cole stepped out of his Land-Rover on Haddiscoe Island, near Yarmouth, he put his foot on what he thought was a pile of old Co-op dividend tokens. On closer inspection, the foreman of the flood defence work site realised they were silver coins and quickly picked up around 200 of them. An expert from Norfolk Landscape Archaeology (NLA) was called in and found a further 100 in the tracks made by a bulldozer. The coins are dated between 1550 and 1646, and the theory of NLA finds liaison officer Dr Adrian Marsden, based at The Castle Museum, Norwich,...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Ancient Manuscript Discovery has 'Da Vinci Code' Touch (Claims to have Bible Figure Biographies)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/30/2005 5:08:57 PM PDT · 21 replies · 1,109+ views

Scotsman | Thu 28 Apr 2005 | Gemma Collins and Vicky Shaw
An ancient document likened to something which could have been featured in best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code was being analysed at a top auction house for its significance today. The manuscript, believed to date from the 17th century, contains biographical details of every person in the Bible. It was unearthed in the depths of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth where it had been kept in storage for Llandovery College, an independent school near the Brecon Beacons. It was among about half of the school's archive of books which were taken to the library around 50 years ago....

The Oak Island Mystery...What lies at the bottom of the Money Pit?

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 07/25/2002 2:22:59 PM PDT · 83 replies · 1,374+ views

The Oak Island Mystery | FR Post July 2002 | Bradley Keyes
What lies at the bottom of the Money Pit? Imagine yourself walking through the trees of a wooded island rumored to hide buried pirate treasure. Suddenly you come across a depression in the ground. It's roughly circular and there's a tree standing above it with a branch that has been cut and appears to have been used as a pulley. Your imagination is fired and hope soars. You run off to get your friends and digging equipment. You and two friends return the next day, shovels in hand, ready to claim your prize. The digging is easy. The dirt...

end of digest #41 20050430

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