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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #352 Saturday, April 16, 2011 |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Dundee academics reconstruct Viking woman's face |
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· 04/14/2011 3:57:39 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 46 replies · · BBC · · April 13, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Academics at Dundee University have helped recreate the face of a Viking woman whose skeleton was unearthed in York more than 30 years ago. The facial reconstruction was achieved by laser-scanning her skull to create a 3D digital model. Eyes were then digitally created, along with hair and a bonnet, to complete the look. The project was part of a £150,000 investment at York's Jorvik Viking Centre. The Dundee academics were brought in by the centre's owners, the York Archaeological Trust, as part of a project to bring York's Vikings to life. The female skeleton used was one of four... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| First Homosexual Caveman Found |
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· 04/10/2011 5:26:30 AM PDT · · Posted by Scoutmaster · · 54 replies · · The Telegraph (U.K.) · · April 6, 2011 · · None Listed · |
First Homosexual Caveman FoundArchaeologists have unearthed the 5,000-year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world's oldest known gay caveman. Archeologists believe they have discovered a 'transsexual' or 'third gender grave' in the Czech Republic.The male body -- said to date back to between 2900-2500BC -- was discovered buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age.The skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic with its head pointing eastwards and surrounded by domestic jugs, rituals only previously seen in female graves."From history and ethnology, we... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Are lead tablets discovered in a remote cave in Jordan the secret writings about Jesus? |
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· 03/21/2011 10:25:22 AM PDT · · Posted by TaraP · · 30 replies · · Mail Online · · March 21st,2011 · |
Artefacts discovered in a remote cave in Jordan could hold a contemporary account of the last years of Jesus. The find of scrolls and 70 lead codices - tiny credit-card-sized volumes containing ancient Hebrew script talking of the Messiah and the Resurrection - has excited biblical scholars. Much of the writing is in code, but experts have deciphered images, symbols and a few words and the texts could be 2,000 years old. Texts have been written on little sheets of lead bound together with wire. The treasure trove was found five years ago by an Israeli Bedouin and may have... |
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| Jordan Battles to Regain 'Priceless' Christian Relics |
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· 03/29/2011 8:14:29 AM PDT · · Posted by marshmallow · · 66 replies · · BBC · · 3/29/11 · · Robert Pigott · |
They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born. A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007. A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol. A Jordanian Bedouin opened these... |
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| Could this be the biggest find since the Dead Sea Scrolls? |
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· 03/30/2011 9:26:30 AM PDT · · Posted by TaraP · · 72 replies · · Daily Mail · · March 30th, 2011 · |
Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan could change our view of Biblical history.....For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price. This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity. Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to... |
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| Ancient Books Uncovered in Jordan May Date to Start of Christianity.. |
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· 04/14/2011 4:52:06 PM PDT · · Posted by TaraP · · 15 replies · · Fox News · · April 15th, 2011 · |
The 70 tiny books could date back to the first century. Carbon dating tests found that a piece of leather found with the scrolls was over 2000 years old. Experts say the books, made of lead and copper and bound by rings, may be more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls, BBC reports. The writing featured in the books is a form of archaic Hebrew script with ancient messianic symbols, mixed with some form of a code, according to a news release. The codices show notable references to symbols of the Feast of Tabernacle, and depict images of menorahs and... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Are these the nails used to crucify Jesus? |
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· 04/12/2011 2:48:23 PM PDT · · Posted by afraidfortherepublic · · 50 replies · · Haaretz.com · · 4-12-11 · · Nir Hasson · |
Journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that the nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave are revolutionary in their implications regarding the birth of Christianity. The Peace Forest is a small grove of pines sandwiched between the Abu Tor neighborhood and main promenade in Jerusalem. Anyone walking along the road that snakes through the grove can see a green pipe rising from the ground and reaching a height of several meters. This pipe, if journalist Simcha Jacobovici is to be believed, this is the physical tip of an archaeological detective story in the style of the Da Vinci Code. And this pipe is... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| The Mother of All Languages. Modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue |
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· 04/15/2011 2:30:50 PM PDT · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 67 replies · · Wall Street Journal · · 04/15/2011 · · Gautam Naik · |
The world's 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests. The finding, published Thursday in the journal Science, could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species. Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and author of the study, found that the first migrating populations leaving Africa laid the groundwork for all the world's cultures by taking their single language with them -- the... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Ancient stone markers warned of tsunamis |
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· 04/12/2011 12:11:37 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 8 replies · · AP · · 06 April 2011 · · AP · |
Tablets served as a reminder for many of the danger that can follow earthquakes Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day. "High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point." It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Tuberculosis strain spread...fur trade reveals stealthy approach of epidemics... Stanford researchers |
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· 04/11/2011 2:26:01 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 12 replies · · Stanford University · · April 7, 2011 · · Louis Bergeron · |
French Canadian voyageurs spread tuberculosis throughout the indigenous peoples of western Canada for over 150 years, yet, strangely enough, it wasn't until the fur traders ceased their forays that epidemics of tuberculosis broke out. Now Stanford researchers have puzzled out why. It took a shift in the environment of the infected peoples -- in this case, confinement to reservations -- to create conditions conducive to outbreaks.Patience may be a virtue in a person, but in an infectious disease, it is insidious. Witness tuberculosis, which can lie dormant in a human host for decades before bursting forth into infection. TB's stealthy... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Thomas Jefferson was Born on This Day in 1743 |
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· 04/13/2011 1:10:14 PM PDT · · Posted by Perdogg · · 14 replies · · transworld news · · 04.13.11 · |
April 13th is the birthday of one of America's founding fathers. He was born in 1743 in Virginia. Jefferson was one of the original writers of "The Declaration of Independence' which was intended to free America of Britain's sovereignty over the colonies and thus founding the United States of America. Aside from "The Constitution', "The Declaration of Independence' is one of the most important documents of American history. After a year of war the American colonist were growing weary of the many taxes levied on the colonist to pay for Britain's wars and not being represented in their political system.... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| At Auction, the Treasures of a Tycoon War-Hero |
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· 04/10/2011 5:55:11 PM PDT · · Posted by Cincinna · · 5 replies · · The New York Times · · April 8, 2011 · · Souren Melikian · |
PARIS -- The memorable auction of the late Paul-Louis Weiller's objects conducted this week at Drouot by the Gros & Delettrez group is one of those events that signal the end of a period in the cultural life of a nation. Ever since the 1789 Revolution, succeeding generations of the French establishment sought to reconstruct in their residences an environment in which the 17th- and 18th-century styles set the tone. Mr. Weiller, who died in 1993 at age 100, was the archetypal Parisian haute bourgeoisie figure. Driven by a vivid desire to impress, he enjoyed the wealth needed to that... |
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| end of digest #352 20110416 | |
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