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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #383 · v 8 · n 19 Saturday, November 19, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #383 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · Number 19 on the 19th. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #383 Saturday, November 19, 2011 |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Israelis set out to map vast, politically sensitive Mount of Olives necropolis |
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· 11/17/2011 4:44:46 PM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 9 replies · · Washington Post · · 11-17-11 · |
JERUSALEM --- A Jewish group in Jerusalem is using 21st-century technology to map every tombstone in the ancient cemetery on the Mount of Olives, a sprawling, politically sensitive necropolis of 150,000 graves stretching back three millennia. The goal is to photograph every grave, map it digitally, record every name, and make the information available online. That is supposed to allow visitors to find their way in the cemetery, long a bewildering jumble of crumbling gravestones and rubble surrounded by Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Beset for many years by neglect, it is among the oldest cemeteries in continuous use in... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israeli history photo of the week: Cave of the Patriarchs |
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· 11/17/2011 5:24:17 PM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 8 replies · · Jerusalem Post · · 11/17/2011 · · Lenny Ben-David · |
JPost special feature: A Library of Congress collection that documents Israel before the creation of the state. The Library of Congress has recently digitalized a collection of over 10,000 photographs, taken by the "American Colony" in Jerusalem, a group of Christian utopians who lived in Jerusalem between 1881 and the 1940s. The photographers returned to the US, and bequeathed their massive collection to the Library of Congress in 1978. The collection includes Winston Churchill's visit to Jerusalem, Jewish expulsions from the Old City during Arab riots, and the building of Tel Aviv. In synagogues around the world this Sabbath, congregations... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Crusader's Arabic Inscription No Longer Lost in Translation |
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· 11/16/2011 9:37:48 AM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 14 replies · · Live Science · · 11/14/11 · · Jeanna Bryner · |
A rare Arabic inscription from the Crusades has been deciphered, with scientists finding the marble slab bears the name of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, a colorful Christian ruler known for his tolerance of the Muslim world. Part of the inscription reads: "1229 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Messiah."The 800-year-old inscription was fixed years ago in the wall of a building in Tel Aviv, though the researchers think it originally sat in Jaffa's city wall. To date, no other Crusader inscription in the Arabic language has been found in the Middle East. "He was a Christian... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Earliest Sample of Minoan Hieroglyphics Found in Western Crete |
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· 11/18/2011 7:13:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Greek Reporter · · Thursday, November 17, 2011 · · Stella Tsolakidou · |
A four-sided red jasper sealstone is among the finds unearthed during this season's excavation of the Minoan peak sanctuary at Vrysinas, located south of the city of Rethymnon. The whole area was officially announced and included in the archaeological sites list by the Central Archaeological Council of Greece. The sealstone, which is carved on all four surfaces with characters of the Minoan Hieroglyphic script, constitutes the sole evidence to date for the presence of this earliest Minoan style of writing in Western Crete. The excavation, which began in 2004, is conducted by the Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities under... |
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| Greece | |
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| An excavation is no camping trip [huge ancient Greek commercial area on Sicily] |
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· 11/19/2011 1:22:08 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · · Eurekalert (U of Bonn) · · Monday, November 14, 2011 · · Dr. Gabriel Zuchtriegel · |
Led by Professor Dr. Martin Bentz, Bonn archeologists began unearthing one of Greek antiquity's largest craftsmen's quarters in the Greek colonial city of Selinunte (7th-3rd century B.C.) on the island of Sicily during two excavation campaigns in September 2010 and in the fall of 2011. The project is conducted in collaboration with the Italian authorities and the German Archaeological Institute. Its goal is to study an area of daily life in ancient cities that has hitherto received little attention... Concentration in a certain city district applied primarily to potteries in Selinunte, which were massed on the edge of the settlement... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Ancient bronze artifact from East Asia unearthed at Alaska archaeology site |
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· 11/14/2011 11:20:33 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · U of Colorado at Boulder · · November 14, 2011 · |
Artifact resembles small, broken buckle, could have been horse ornamentA team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object found in an ancient Eskimo dwelling and which likely originated in East Asia. The artifact consists of two parts --- a rectangular bar, connected to an apparently broken circular ring, said CU-Boulder Research Associate John Hoffecker, who is leading the excavation project. The object, about 2 inches by 1 inch and less than 1 inch thick, was found in August by... |
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| Bronze artifact found on Alaska's Seward Peninsula |
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· 11/15/2011 10:40:50 AM PST · · Posted by El Sordo · · 16 replies · · Yahoo! News · · 11/15/11 · · Dan Joling · |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) --- A research team is attempting to discover the origin of a cast bronze artifact excavated from an Inupiat Eskimo home site believed to be about 1,000 years old. The artifact resembles a small buckle, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder said in an announcement. How it got to Alaska remains a mystery. |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Archeologists investigate Ice Age hominins' adaptability to climate change (neandering) |
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· 11/17/2011 6:40:41 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · Arizona State U · · November 17, 2011 · |
Complex computational modeling provides clues to Neanderthal extinction -- Computational modeling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights into the extinction of Neanderthals. Details of the complex modeling experiments conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado Denver will be published in the December issue of the journal Human Ecology, available online Nov. 17. "It's been long believed that Neanderthals were outcompeted by fitter modern humans and they could not adapt," said Riel-Salvatore. "We are changing the main... |
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| Old Stoners | |
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| The Netherlands: Archaeologists Find Habitation Sites in Port of Rotterdam |
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· 11/17/2011 4:51:06 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Dredging Today · · Tuesday, November 8, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The site of what is now Rotterdam's Yangtzehaven was inhabited by humans in the Middle Stone Age. At a depth of 20 metres, in the sea bed, unique underwater archaeological investigation found traces of bone, flint and charcoal from around 7000 BC. These finds are the very first scientific proof that humans lived at this spot in the Early and Middle Stone Age. Up to now, very little was known about this period in particular, the Early and Middle Mesolithic, so far to the west of the Netherlands... Some 9000 years ago, the area where the North Sea and the... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Ground-breaking technology shows no second chamber at Newgrange |
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· 11/19/2011 1:48:54 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Meath Chronicle · · Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The technology used in an attempt to find out whether a second passage tomb, which may also be aligned with a solstice event, exists at Newgrange had proved its worth during experimentation by a Slovakian team of scientists who visited the Boyne Valley, an Irish archaeologist said this week. Dr Conor Brady, archaeologist and lecturer at Dundalk Institute of Technology, who lives at Slane, said that while there would be no "dramatic announcements" about discovery of a second chamber at Newgrange at this stage, the microgravitational technology used in the experiments had proven valuable to archaeologists and scientists. The possibility... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Oldest rock art in Egypt discovered |
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· 11/17/2011 4:49:02 PM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 15 replies · · Yale News · · 11/10/2011 · · Dorie Baker · |
Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Professor John Coleman Darnell of Yale have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about 15,000 years old, making them the oldest rock art in Egypt and possibly the earliest known graphic record in North Africa. The dating results will be published in the December issue of Antiquity (Vol. 85 Issue 330, pp. 1184-1193). The site of the rock art panels is near the modern village of Qurta, about 40km south of the Upper-Egyptian town of Edfu. First... |
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| Pyramania | |
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| Egypt closes Great Pyramid after rumors of rituals |
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· 11/12/2011 11:23:45 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · Sun Times · · Friday, November 11, 2011 · · Ben Hubbard, AP · |
Egyptian camel handlers attend Friday prayers at the Giza Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011. Egypt's antiquities authority closed the largest of the Giza pyramids Friday following rumors that groups would try to hold spiritual ceremonies on the site at 11:11 on Nov. 11, 2011. The closure follows a string of unconfirmed reports in local media that unidentified groups would try to hold "Jewish" or "Masonic" rites on the site to take advantage of mysterious powers coming from the pyramid on the rare date. [caption] |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Roman DNA project gives voice to the silent majority |
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· 11/19/2011 2:06:49 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · Past Horizons · · Thursday, November 17, 2011 · · unattributed · |
A new project to carry out DNA analysis on a group of skeletons who were immigrants to Rome, has been created by Kristina Killgrove, a biological anthropologist from Vanderbilt University... This project will be the first to study the DNA of immigrants to Rome and will help rewrite the history of everyday life there. At the simplest level, each skeleton reveals key information about the person --- male or female, height, age of death, and long-term diseases, and these can all be found through observation of the bones. Bones and teeth hold additional information about diet and place of origin... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Rethinking the fall of Rome's republic |
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· 11/19/2011 2:32:47 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · MIT news · · November 9, 2011 · · Peter Dizikes · |
Using a variety of sources, from ancient texts to new archaeological evidence, Broadhead has crafted a novel hypothesis about how Caesar --- as well as Sulla a few decades before, and Augustus several years later --- could march on Rome with his own legions. "My interpretation is a demographic one," Broadhead says. "Ancient Italy was a place of high geographical mobility, instead of being a place filled with sedentary peasants, which is the stereotypical image." People in towns throughout the Italian peninsula, from whose numbers the Roman Republic traditionally recruited its army, often traveled either to the newly conquered outposts... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| 17th century shipwreck found off Swedish coast |
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· 11/17/2011 6:59:33 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · Associated Press · · November 16, 2011 · · Malin Rising · |
STOCKHOLM (AP) --- A shipwreck discovered in the murky waters of the Baltic Sea is believed to be a legendary 17th century warship whose captain went down with it in battle rather than surrender to the enemy. Deep Sea Productions, an underwater research team, said Wednesday it believes the 25-meter (82-feet) wooden wreck it found off the island of Oland this summer is the ship Svardet, which sank when Sweden was defeated by a Danish-Dutch fleet in a 1676 naval battle. Malcolm Dixelius, a member of the research team, said that wood samples show the wreck is from the 17th... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Rare 14th century time-telling instrument, marked with badge of Richard II, to sell at Bonhams |
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· 11/19/2011 2:39:54 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · ArtDaily · · November 2, 2011 · · unattributed · |
This quadrant is the earliest of a similar group of three other quadrants dated 1398, 1399 and circa 1400 respectively... Like the others, it is noteworthy for showing equal hours, in which the entire period from midnight to midnight is divided into twenty four equal parts. This technique had developed slowly during the 14th century. Indeed one of the earliest examples in England of an administrative record using equal hours occurs on the occasion of Richard II's abdication on 30 September 1399 stated to have been 'at about the ninth stroke of the clock'. On its reverse, the quadrant features... |
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| Early America | |
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| Ruins of Oldest Protestant Church in America Found at Jamestown |
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· 11/18/2011 11:39:32 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 68 replies · · The Christian Post · · 11-14-11 · · Michael Gryboski · |
Researchers at Jamestown, Va., may have found the site where the first Protestant church in North America was built. Dr. William Kelso, head of the research team at Jamestown, which was founded as a settlement established by the Virginia Company of London in the 17th century, explained in an interview with The Christian Post that the group began excavating at the site where they may have found the church in the summer of 2010. Kelso, an American archaeologist specializing in Virginia's colonial period, believes the ruins found are the church because of a "Record of construction in Spring of 1608,... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Five hidden messages in the American flag |
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· 11/14/2011 2:33:28 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · · BBC · · November 13, 2011 · · Megan Lane · |
Until 1912, there was no set design for the Stars and Stripes. And so, hidden in older versions of the flag, its makers laid hints of the country's history and quest for identity. Aptly -- given its national anthem is about the flag -- the Stars and Stripes is a key part of America's identity. It hangs in classrooms and in courtrooms, on state buildings and suburban porches. It has been the national flag since 1777. And the flag that inspired the anthem was enormous. Measuring 30 by 42 feet (9 x 12.8m), it was raised over Baltimore's Fort McHenry during... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Society Plans World War II Oral History Project |
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· 11/14/2011 12:36:00 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 4 replies · · Southington Courant · · November 14, 2011 · · Ken Byron · |
Wants To Record Veterans' Memories Before Generation Disappears -- The Southington Historical Society is undertaking an oral history project to preserve the stories of local veterans of World War II before they are gone. Society President Ken DiMauro said he estimates that 450 people from Southington fought in the war. But with people of that generation move into their 80s, he said perhaps 45 to 60 are still alive. The intent, DiMauro said, is to record interviews as many as possible. "I saw the same thing happen with World War I veterans," DiMauro said. "We need to do an oral history, because... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Evidence of Ancient Lake in California's Eel River Emerges |
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· 11/15/2011 12:58:02 PM PST · · Posted by george76 · · 16 replies · · Science Daily · · Nov. 14, 2011 · |
A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake, which has since disappeared, and leaving a living legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout...about 60 miles southeast of Eureka. The river today is 200 miles long, carved into the ground from high in the California Coast Ranges to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean in Humboldt County. The evidence for the ancient landslide, which, scientists say, blocked the river with a 400-foot wall of loose rock and debris ... "Perhaps of most interest, the presence of... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Tyrannosaurs were power-walkers |
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· 11/15/2011 8:02:49 AM PST · · Posted by Winstons Julia · · 31 replies · · www.nature.com/news · · 7 November 2011 · · Matt Kaplan · |
But Heinrich Mallison of Berlin's Museum of Natural History is challenging that view. He argues that the structure of dinosaur hind limbs is markedly different from that of modern mammals and birds, meaning the stride formula isn't a good indicator of what dinosaurs can really do. |
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| end of digest #383 20111119 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #383 · v 8 · n 19 Saturday, November 19, 2011 |
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14 topics |
Welcome to issue #383 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · Number 19 on the 19th. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #384 Saturday, November 26, 2011 |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Watery secret of the dinosaur death pose (Simplest explanation of Dino extinction: They drowned) |
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· 11/26/2011 6:26:37 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 23 replies · · New Scientist · · 11/23/2011 · · by Brian Switek · |
Recreating the spectacular pose many dinosaurs adopted in death might involve following the simplest of instructions: just add water. When palaeontologists are lucky enough to find a complete dinosaur skeleton -- whether it be a tiny Sinosauropteryx or an enormous Apatosaurus -- there's a good chance it will be found with its head thrown backwards and its tail arched upwards -- technically known as the opisthotonic death pose. No one is entirely sure why this posture is so common, but Alicia Cutler and colleagues from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, think it all comes down to a dip in... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Nest Full of Baby Dinosaurs Discovered |
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· 11/20/2011 6:29:52 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Discovery News via Fox · · November 16, 2011 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
A 70-million-year-old nest of the dinosaur Protoceratops andrewsi has been found with evidence that 15 juveniles were once inside it, according to a paper in the latest Journal of Paleontology. While large numbers of eggs have been associated with other dinosaurs, such as the meat-eating Oviraptor or certain duck-billed hadrosaurs, finding multiple juveniles in the same dino nest is quite rare... All were found at Djadochta Formation, Tugrikinshire, Mongolia, where it's believed sand "rapidly overwhelmed and entombed" the youngsters while they were still alive. The researchers conclude that the 15 dinosaurs all show juvenile characteristics. These include short snouts, proportionately... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Whales in the desert: Fossil bonanza poses mystery |
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· 11/20/2011 1:41:13 PM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 68 replies · · AP via Phys.org · · November 19, 2011 · · Eva Vergara and Ian James · |
Maybe they became disoriented and beached themselves. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm. Maybe they died there over a period of a few millennia. But somehow, they ended up right next to one another, many just meters (yards) apart, entombed as the shallow sea floor was driven upward by geological forces and transformed into the driest place on the planet. Today, they have emerged again atop a desert hill more than a kilometer (half a mile) from the surf, where researchers have begun to unearth one of the world's best-preserved graveyards of prehistoric... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters |
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· 11/20/2011 9:02:21 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 73 replies · · Sunday NY Times Review · · 11-20-11 · · David Z. Hambrick and Elizabeth J. Meinz · |
HOW do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology. ...what seems to separate the great from the merely good is hard work, not intellectual ability...Malcolm Gladwell observes that...snip "Once someone has reached an I.Q. of somewhere around 120," he writes, "having additional I.Q. points doesn't seem to translate into any measureable real-world advantage."snip.. But this isn't quite the story that science tells. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields --- and not just up to a point.... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Genetic Study Confirms: First Dogs Came from East Asia |
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· 11/23/2011 7:43:40 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 21 replies · · KTH Royal Institute of Technology · · November 23, 2011 · · Katarina Ahlfort · |
Researchers at KTH say they have found further proof that the wolf ancestors of today's domesticated dogs can be traced to southern East Asia --- findings that run counter to theories placing the cradle of the canine line in the Middle East.Dr Peter Savolainen, KTH researcher in evolutionary genetics, says a new study released Nov. 23 confirms that an Asian region south of the Yangtze River was the principal and probably sole region where wolves were domesticated by humans. Data on genetics, morphology and behaviour show clearly that dogs are descended from wolves, but there's never been scientific consensus on... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Darwin's Tongues: Languages, like genes, can tell evolutionary tales |
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· 11/26/2011 5:48:41 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · Science News · · November 19th, 2011 · · Bruce Bower · |
Others suspect Atkinson's analytical approach could be fruitful if informed by more sophisticated assumptions about how languages change. "I think many linguists would praise Atkinson's contribution if it weren't for the fact that his conclusions are so outlandish and contrary to linguistic intuition," says linguist Michael Cysouw of Ludwig Maximilians University Munich in Germany. One problem lies in Atkinson's focus on frequencies of only one linguistic element, phonemes, to retrace language evolution. "That could be compared to tracking the history of vertebrates by counting the number of bones in their skeletons," Cysouw says. The database of phonemes consulted by Atkinson... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| New Theory on When Western Wall Was Built |
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· 11/23/2011 2:12:31 AM PST · · Posted by Never A Dull Moment · · 17 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 11-23-2011 · · By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu · |
The discovery of a new ritual pool [mikveh] under the Western Wall suggests a new theory that the Kotel was completed years later than during the reign of King Herod, as was believed until now. Israel Antiquities Authority excavations of an ancient drainage channel underneath the main street used by pilgrims 2,000 years ago revealed the ritual pool. The excavations beneath the paved road exposed sections of the Western Wall foundations. Dr. Donald Ariel, a native of the United States, said the coins that were discovered in the area were struck by the Roman procurator in the years 17-18 in... |
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| New Find Sheds Light on Ancient Site in Jerusalem |
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· 11/23/2011 8:10:21 AM PST · · Posted by lbryce · · 5 replies · · AP via Yahoo News · · November 23, 2011 · · Matti Friedman · |
Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem's Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world's most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The man usually credited with building the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary is Herod, a Jewish ruler who died in 4 B.C. Herod's monumental compound replaced and expanded a much older Jewish temple complex on the same site. But archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority now say diggers have found coins underneath the massive foundation stones of the compound's Western... |
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| New Find Sheds Light on Ancient Site in Jerusalem |
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· 11/24/2011 7:34:21 AM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 7 replies · · AP · · 11/23/11 · · Matti Friedman · |
JERUSALEM (AP) --- Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem's Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world's most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The man usually credited with building the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary is Herod, a Jewish ruler who died in 4 B.C. Herod's monumental compound replaced and expanded a much older Jewish temple complex on the same site. But archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority now say diggers have found coins underneath the massive foundation stones of... |
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| Coins from 17AD found under Jerusalem's Western Wall hints sacred site NOT built by Herod |
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· 11/26/2011 3:24:42 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 14 replies · · Daily Mail (UK) · · 11-25-2011 · · Rob Waugh · |
The history of one of the world's holiest sites - sacred to both Jews and Muslims - is set to be rewritten, following a surprise discovery in a ritual bath beneath the complex. It proves that the Wall - supposedly built by Herod, the Jewish king who features prominently in the Gospels, was in fact built much later. Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem's Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world's most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday.... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Mystery of Dead Sea Scroll Authors Possibly Solved |
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· 11/22/2011 7:19:20 AM PST · · Posted by shove_it · · 28 replies · · Yahoo! · · 22 Nov 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
The Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written, at least in part, by a sectarian group called the Essenes, according to nearly 200 textiles discovered in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank, where the religious texts had been stored. Scholars are divided about who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the texts got to Qumran, and so the new finding could help clear up this long-standing mystery. The research reveals that all the textiles were made of linen, rather than wool, which was the preferred textile used in ancient Israel. Also they lack decoration, some actually being bleached... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Rare 14th century time-telling instrument, marked with badge of Richard II, to sell at Bonhams |
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· 11/19/2011 2:39:54 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · ArtDaily · · November 2, 2011 · · unattributed · |
This quadrant is the earliest of a similar group of three other quadrants dated 1398, 1399 and circa 1400 respectively... Like the others, it is noteworthy for showing equal hours, in which the entire period from midnight to midnight is divided into twenty four equal parts. This technique had developed slowly during the 14th century. Indeed one of the earliest examples in England of an administrative record using equal hours occurs on the occasion of Richard II's abdication on 30 September 1399 stated to have been 'at about the ninth stroke of the clock'. On its reverse, the quadrant features... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Doctors could learn from Shakespeare's deep understanding of mind-body connection |
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· 11/23/2011 7:58:28 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · · BMJ-British Medical Journal · · November 23, 2011 · |
Body-conscious Shakespeare: Sensory disturbances in troubled charactersShakespeare was a master at portraying profound emotional upset in the physical symptoms of his characters, and many modern day doctors would do well to study the Bard to better understand the mind-body connection, concludes an analysis of his works, published in Medical Humanities. Kenneth Heaton, a medical doctor and extensively published author on William Shakespeare's oeuvre, systematically analysed 42 of the author's major works and 46 of those of his contemporaries, looking for evidence of psychosomatic symptoms. He focused on sensory symptoms other than those relating to sight, taste, the heart, and the... |
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| Early America | |
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| How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims |
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· 11/24/2011 8:45:34 AM PST · · Posted by FreeKeys · · 23 replies · · Hoover Digest · · January 30, 1999 · · Tom Bethell · |
When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, they established a system of communal property. Within three years they had scrapped it, instituting private property instead. Hoover media fellow Tom Bethell tells the story. There are three configurations of property rights: state, communal, and private property. Within a family, many goods are in effect communally owned. But when the number of communal members exceeds normal family size, as happens in tribes and communes, serious and intractable problems arise. It becomes costly to police the activities of the members, all of whom are entitled to their share of the total product of the... |
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| The General | |
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| What did George Washington Drink? |
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· 11/19/2011 8:35:32 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 46 replies · · Wall St Journal · · NOVEMBER 19, 2011 · · WILLIAM BOSTWICK · |
In the spirit of authenticity, a home-brewer attempts to recreate a founding father's beer recipe. It was last Thanksgiving. I had my heirloom turkey, local yams and organic cranberries. I had donned my waxed-canvas apron and consulted vintage recipe books. I was ready to eat. But on this, the most heritage-chic of holidays, what should one drink? Wine felt too stuffy; a six-pack not ceremonial enough. I was stumped. Then I discovered George Washington's beer. Or, more precisely, a recipe for it, referenced in a few old home-brewing books. Scribbled on the last page of one of Washington's journals is... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Public Education: How Wishful Thinking and Good Intentions Destroyed Public Education |
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· 10/25/2011 4:17:40 PM PDT · · Posted by wayne_shrugged · · 11 replies · · Public Ed Dread · · 10/25/2011 · · Bridgette Wallis · |
New Book on Public Education Public Ed Dread: How Wishful Thinking and Good Intentions Reformed Academics Right Out of Our Public Schools is a must-read for concerned parents, homeschoolers, grassroots reformers, and concerned citizens alike trying to make sense of American public education. This book was written by a teacher with years of experience in the system. The author taught in a low-income, Title I failing school in California where she experienced the politics of whole language and No Child Left Behind. She also taught in a middle-class, suburban school where she witnessed the effects of the accountability reform movement... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| DNA frozen in permafrost muck reveals ancient ecosystems |
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· 11/21/2011 6:15:14 PM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 14 replies · · Montreal Gazette · · November 19, 2011 · · Ed Struzik · |
EDMONTON --- University of Alberta scientist Duane Froese was on sabbatical last summer when he received a call from a Yukon miner who wanted to give him the heads-up about a site he planned to excavate. Like most Klondike miners, Tony Beets is a character. He's tall, bushy-haired, drives fast and uses colourful language. But he'd also been incredibly helpful over the years, moving in heavy equipment for scientists such as Froese, exposing layers of ancient permafrost that yielded the frozen bones of woolly mammoths, scimitar cats, short-faced bears and other animals that lived in this part of the world... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| American Indian Collectivism: Past Myth, Present Reality |
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· 11/24/2011 4:39:57 PM PST · · Posted by OddLane · · 9 replies · · PERC · · Summer 2006 · · Carlos L. Rodriguez and Craig S. Galbraith · |
In the past, most if not all North American indigenous peoples had a strong belief in individual property rights and ownership. Frederick Hodge (1910) noted that individual private ownership was "the norm" for North American tribes. Likewise, Julian Steward (1938, 253) asserted that among Native Americans communal property was limited, and Frances Densmore (1939) concluded that the Makah tribe in the Pacific Northwest had property rights similar to Europeans.¬' These early twentieth-century historians and anthropologists had the advantage of actually interviewing tribal members who had lived in pre-reservation Indian society. |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Mexico Acknowledges 2nd Mayan Reference To 2012 |
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· 11/24/2011 7:02:11 PM PST · · Posted by edpc · · 53 replies · · AP via Yahoo News · · 24 Nov 2011 · · Mark Stevenson · |
MEXICO CITY (AP) --- Mexico's archaeology institute downplays theories that the ancient Mayas predicted some sort of apocalypse would occur in 2012, but on Thursday it acknowledged that a second reference to the date exists on a carved fragment found at a southern Mexico ruin site. Most experts had cited only one surviving reference to the date in Mayan glyphs, a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| Ancient mass grave of children found in Peru |
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· 11/21/2011 8:53:04 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Reuters · · Monday, November 21, 2011 · · unattributed · |
A Peruvian archaeologist has discovered the remains of 44 infants and young children sacrificed to appease ancient deities in the 14th century at a site in the Andes near the Bolivian border. The remains were found near a stone funeral tower --- known locally as chullpas --- in the Sillustani archaeological site, located some 1300 kilometres south-east of the capital Lima, near Lake Titicaca, which Peru shares with Bolivia... The infants were buried in pairs inside funeral baskets or in ceramic urns near a 10-metre-tall circular stone brick tower known as Chullpa Lagarto (Lizard Chullpa). The children were buried with... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Is this an alien skull? Mystery of giant-headed mummy found in Peru |
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· 11/19/2011 8:07:52 AM PST · · Posted by Perdogg · · 87 replies · · Daily Mail UK · |
A mummified elongated skull found in Peru could finally prove the existence of aliens. The strangely shaped head - almost as big as its 50cm (20in) body - has baffled anthropologists. It was one of two sets of remains found in the city of Andahuaylillas in the southern province of Quispicanchi. |
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| Not-So-Ancient Autopsies | |
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| The John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage |
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· 11/22/2011 8:20:07 AM PST · · Posted by NEWwoman · · 146 replies · · jfk-assassination.com · · 4 Mar 2006 · |
During his electoral battle tour in the south of the States, John F. Kennedy visited Dallas (Texas) on November 22, 1963. On his arrival at 1140 hours, he was warmly welcomed by the people of Dallas. Kennedy, Governor John Connally and their wives sat down in the limousine of the President which led the motorcade through the town. |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| 40 years later, new evidence unveiled in DB Cooper case |
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· 11/24/2011 4:52:50 AM PST · · Posted by Morgana · · 34 replies · · MSN · · 11/24/2011 · · Chris Ingalls · |
This Thanksgiving marks the 40th anniversary of a legendary Northwest crime. In 1971 skyjacker DB Cooper parachuted into the night sky over Washington and vanished. Now, FBI agents have something they don't often get in a 40-year-old criminal case: new physical evidence. It comes from the clip-on tie left behind on the hijacked plane from the man known as DB Cooper. For three years a team of private scientists has been studying evidence from the Cooper case, at the invitation of the Seattle office of the FBI. "One of the most notable particles that we've found, that had us the... |
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| D.B. Cooper: 40 years later - November 24th, 2011, marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary case |
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· 11/25/2011 2:35:32 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 37 replies · · Yahoo! News · · November 24, 2011 · · Yahoo! News · |
D.B. Cooper: 40 years later November 24th, 2011, marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Cooper case, an unsolved crime that has baffled agents, detectives and amateur sleuths, and spurned one of the greatest manhunts in law enforcement history. The FBI's case file on D.B. Cooper runs some forty feet long. It is located in the basement archives of the Bureau's field office in Seattle, where for four decades agents have hunted for the man who ransomed a passenger jet for a small fortune and parachutes, then jumped out the back over the rural Northwest, during the middle of a... |
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| end of digest #384 20111126 | |
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