Replies

Dustbunny (8/20/2005 4:04:23 AM PDT)Archeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, ah, to be young and have the chance to devote my life to learning all the mysteries.

Ah, to be young, period. ;')

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #58
Saturday, August 27, 2005

Ancient Egypt

Egypt uncovers remains of ancient church beneath monastery

Posted by NYer
On News/Activism 08/24/2005 6:21:42 AM PDT · 17 replies · 758+ views

People's Daily | August 8, 2005
The remains of an ancient church dating to the early days of Christianity have been discovered beneath a Coptic Christian monastery, the Egyptian Gazette daily reported Sunday. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni announced Saturday that archaeologists have found the remains of the church, built of bricks. It included a number of underground rooms which monks used for celebrating the liturgy. The church, uncovered beneath Saint Anthony's Monastery in the Red Sea area, was founded by disciples of Saint. Anthony, a hermit who died in A.D.356 and is regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. Archaeologists have also unearthed the bases...

Ancient Greece

Technology in Ancient Greece -- Draining projects in the lake Kopaida

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/26/2005 8:36:12 AM PDT · 7 replies · 101+ views

Dina Baga homepage | last updated Novembre 28, 1997 | Dina Baga
The biggest technical project of the Mycenae civilization is the one of the drainning of the lake Kopaida in the 14th century B.C. The water from the rivers and the torrents that were overflowing the plain, were conveied through an irregular canal, the width of which was 40 -60 metres, and a system of banks at the NE side of the lake, where a concentrating trench(ditch) (total length of 9 kilometres) was carrying them away into deep holes. Those holes were not enougth to absorb all that water, so the Mycenae's technicians builted an underground inclined tunnel, dug into the...

Ancient Rome

BBC's £58m Rome is most violent, explicit and costly drama yet

Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 08/21/2005 12:09:19 PM PDT · 44 replies · 967+ views

UK Telegraph | 8/21/05 | Chris Hastings
The BBC is about to broadcast the most violent and sexually explicit programme ever to be shown on British television - and at £58 million for 12 episodes it is also the most expensive. Rome, a drama set in the dying days of the Roman Empire, contains full frontal male and female nudity and depictions of violent sex. The Sunday Telegraph has seen the first six episodes of the blood-soaked drama - a co-production between the corporation and the American broadcaster HBO - which contains nudity within its opening minutes. The show, which premieres in America next Sunday and hits...

Asia

Ancient Site Reveals Stories Of Sacrificed Horses

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/24/2005 4:26:47 PM PDT · 11 replies · 291+ views

Xinhuanet/China View/China Daily | 8-24-2005
Ancient site reveals stories of sacrificed horses www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-24 14:15:53 BEIJING, Aug. 24 -- A trip to Zibo might leave you with the similar impression as to a trip to Xi'an, especially when you visit the relics of horses buried for sacrifice. Zibo, in east China's Shandong Province, is the location of the state of Qi's capital in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). During this period, five feudal lords were able to gain control over the other states, with Duke Huan of Qi the head of the five. The difference between the horse buried for sacrifice in Zibo...

British Isles

BILL WYMAN KICKS OFF PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES ROADSHOW IN COLCHESTER (Wrote Book About Archaeology)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 8:33:12 PM PDT · 46 replies · 603+ views

24 Hour Museum | 2/26/05
He might be better known for wielding a bass guitar than a metal detector, but former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has been an enthusiastic amateur archaeologist for many years. So who better to open proceedings at a Portable Antiquities Scheme Roadshow? Held up and down the country on November 27, the events offered a chance for members of the public to have any finds they’d unearthed identified by an expert. Altogether some 840 people did just that at events in Donnington, Exeter, Reading, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, York and Colchester where Bill Wyman was on hand to get things going. Speaking to...

Stone Axes Highlight 10,000 Years Of Commuting In Stockbroker Belt (UK)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/25/2005 1:48:17 PM PDT · 13 replies · 278+ views

London Times | 8-25-2005 | Dalya Alberge
August 25, 2005 The Times Stone axes highlight 10,000 years of commuting in stockbroker belt By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered an important Stone Age site in the heart of Surrey. An excavation has turned up flint tools and cooking pots from about 10,000 years ago at the site on the North Downs. The area, which bears the remains of cooked meals, campfires and flints shaped into tools by people who visited the North Downs around 8,000BC, is believed to contain one of the most important Mesolithic excavations in Britain. Andrew Josephs, an archaeologist and the project’s consultant,...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Islamic regime to submerge Iran's historical root (Persepolis & Pasargade)

Posted by F14 Pilot
On News/Activism 08/22/2005 1:02:15 PM PDT · 91 replies · 943+ views

SMCCDI | Aug 21, 2005
The Islamic regime is to submerge part of Iran's past in a shameful historical cleansing, in order to avoid facing more nationalistic problems with future generations. The construction of a very controversial dam project is near completion and soon, the tomb of "Cyrus the Great" and "Persepolis" would be submerged under water. Cyrus the Great (580-529 BC) (known as Kourosh in Persian; Kouros in Greek; Kores in Hebrew) was the first Achaemenian Emperor and founder of Iran, who issued a decree on his aims and policies, later hailed as his charter of the rights of nations. Inscribed on a clay...

Let's Have Jerusalem

RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS

Posted by gscc
On Religion 08/20/2005 6:09:30 PM PDT · 8 replies · 330+ views

travelvideo.tv | August 17, 05
RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS Aug 17, 05 | 4:55 pm Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.

Third-generation Iraqi looks after Abraham's birthplace

Posted by FairOpinion
On News/Activism 08/20/2005 7:07:10 PM PDT · 19 replies · 511+ views

AFP /Yahoo News | Aug. 20, 2005 | AFP
UR, Iraq (AFP) - Dhia Mhesen rattles off fact after fact about this ancient mud brick city, the site of a giant ziggurat and the reputed birthplace of Abraham -- the prophet revered by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike. "The ziggurat was the temple of the moon god," said Mhesen. "And over there is the house of Abraham. The bible calls this place Ur of the Chaldeans." Mhesen, 46, is the third generation caretaker at Ur, a 4,000 year-old city located near Nasiriyah, 375 kilometers (235 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. The site is also known as Tell Muqayyar....

Mesopotamia

Under the Old Neighborhood: In Iraq, an Archaeologist's Paradise

Posted by neverdem
On News/Activism 08/22/2005 9:28:43 PM PDT · 7 replies · 398+ views

NY Times | August 23, 2005 | JAMES GLANZ
ERBIL, Iraq - If a neighborhood is defined as a place where human beings move in and never leave, then the world's oldest could be here at the Citadel, an ancient and teeming city within a city girded by stone walls. Resting on a layer cake of civilizations that have come and gone for an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 years, the Citadel looms over the apartment blocks of this otherwise rather gray metropolis in Iraqi Kurdistan. The settlement rivals Jericho and a handful of other famous towns for the title of the oldest continuously inhabited site in the world. The...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Peruvian Pyramids Rival The Pharaohs'

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/22/2005 11:38:36 AM PDT · 48 replies · 1,117+ views

The Times Of London | 8-20-2005 | Norman Hammond
August 20, 2005 Peruvian pyramids rival the pharaohs' By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent RUINS on Peru’s desert coast dated to some 4,700 years ago suggest an earlier focus of civilisation than any so far identified in the New World. The site of Caral, in the Supe Valley north of Lima, covers 66 hectares (165 acres) and includes pyramids 21m (70ft) high arranged around a large plaza. “What really sets Caral apart is its age,” Roger Atwood reports in Archaeology. “Carbon dating has revealed that its pyramids are contemporary with those of Egypt and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia.” These are among...

Biology and Cryptobiology

In the Wake of the Phoenicians: DNA study reveals a Phoenician-Maltese link

Posted by afraidfortherepublic
On News/Activism 08/21/2005 1:38:08 PM PDT · 32 replies · 651+ views

The National Geographic | October 2004 | Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa
In the Wake of the Phoenicians: DNA study reveals a Phoenician-Maltese link The idea is fascinating. Who among us hasn't considered our heritage and wondered if we might be descended from ancient royalty or some prominent historical figure? Led by a long-standing interest in the impact of ancient empires on the modern gene pool, geneticist and National Geographic emerging explorer Spencer Wells, with colleague Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut, expanded on that question two years ago as they embarked on a genetic study of the Phoenicians, a first millennium B.C. sea empire that—over several hundred years—spread across...

Some scholars think unending arguments over evolution in U.S. are inescapably religious

Posted by AncientAirs
On News/Activism 08/18/2005 7:58:27 PM PDT · 24 replies · 369+ views

Mainichi Daily News | August 19, 2005
NEW YORK -- As students head back to biology classrooms across the United States in the next few weeks, debate over whether they should be taught "intelligent design" concepts alongside evolution is getting hotter, with the president, other politicians and a high-profile Roman Catholic cardinal from Austria all weighing in. Quizzed on the topic, President George W. Bush recently told reporters: "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas and the answer is 'Yes."' The president's remark prompted sharp criticism from intelligent design opponents. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday on the CBS...

Prehistory and Origins

Bones reveal first shoe-wearers

Posted by LibWhacker
On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:06:07 PM PDT · 96 replies · 1,063+ views

BBC | 8/24/05 | Olivia Johnson
Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist.Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones. He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance. The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The development of footwear appears to have affected the four so-called "lesser" toes - excepting the big toe. Ancient footwearWhile early humans living in cold northern climates may...

Georgians Claim to Unearth Ancient Skull

Posted by anymouse
On News/Activism 08/22/2005 6:43:45 PM PDT · 27 replies · 496+ views

Associated Press | 8/22/05 | MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
TBILISI, Georgia - Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old — part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe. The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was found Aug. 6 and unearthed Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said David Lortkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who took part in the dig. In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found...

Not the Biggest Man on Campus, but Surely the Biggest Foot [why is a TX dinosaur track in B'klyn?]

Posted by Pharmboy
On News/Activism 08/20/2005 4:25:43 AM PDT · 79 replies · 903+ views

NY Times | August 20, 2005 | MICHAEL BRICK
Ruby Washington/The New York TimesWayne G. Powell, chairman of the geology department at Brooklyn College, with the track of an Acrocanthosaurus, top, and a larger one from a Pleurocoelus. Scientists thought the block was a replica. Here is a good way to hide dinosaur tracks: Wait tens of millions of years while the footsteps fossilize under a shallow sea that will later become Texas, dig up the tracks just before World War II, put plaster around the sides, paint the whole thing a whimsical muddy red, take it to Brooklyn and bolt it to a classroom wall with an...

Medieval Europe

Scotland's "Braveheart" honored, 700 years on

Posted by ajolympian2004
On General/Chat 08/24/2005 3:10:49 AM PDT · 27 replies · 210+ views

Reuters via Yahoo! | Tues. Aug. 23, 2005 | Gideon Long
By Gideon Long Tue Aug 23,11:52 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Seven hundred years to the day after Scottish hero William "Braveheart" Wallace was executed by his English foes, a historian has retraced his final journey to promote his dream of independence for Scotland. David Ross, who has written books on Wallace and other Scottish national heroes, strode from Westminster through the old City of London on Tuesday wearing a kilt and carrying a sword. Accompanied by around 100 supporters, many playing bagpipes and waving the blue-and-white Scottish flag, Ross ended his journey at Smithfield, where Wallace was butchered by...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Experts Discover that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles are Related

Posted by restornu
On General/Chat 08/20/2005 11:24:37 PM PDT · 46 replies · 466+ views

My Family
Ancestry.com Reveals Prince Charles and Camilla are Cousins PROVO, Utah, April 4/PRNewswire/ -- When Prince Charles first met Camilla Parker-Bowles at a polo match in the early seventies, she said to the prince, “My great-grandmother and your great-great grandfather were lovers, so how about it?” Today, genealogical research shows they have an even stronger bond, they are ninth cousins. According to family history experts at Ancestry.com, a service of MyFamily.com, Inc., Prince Charles and Camilla are ninth cousins once removed. Prince Charles and Camilla are both descendents of Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle. Prince Charles’ family history can be...

Mystery Digger named at last

Posted by naturalman1975
On News/Activism 08/04/2005 4:25:43 PM PDT · 10 replies · 618+ views

The Australian | 5th August 2005 | D.D. McNicoll
THE grim-faced mystery soldier watching the Japanese surrender at Wom airstrip in New Guinea at the end of World War II has been identified. He is Major Douglas Squire Irving Burrows, Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (senior administrative officer) of the Australian 6th Division. His widow, Val Burrows, of Mosman in Sydney, said yesterday that Burrows had never spoken much about the war. "He and his mates laughed about the funny things that happened - and their stories got better with the passing years - but they never spoke about the fighting," she said. "There was no counselling in those days....

New clues to Titanic disaster

Posted by Aussie Dasher
On News/Activism 08/23/2005 6:06:00 PM PDT · 69 replies · 1,615+ views

Herald Sun | 24 August 2005
EXPLORERS have found a previously unknown site scattered with artefacts from the Titanic that could shed new light on the final moments of the world's most famous ocean liner. "We found a new debris field about 900 metres south of the stern, which supports my long-standing belief that the Titanic began to break apart and sink further south than where she currently sits," expedition leader G. Michael Harris said today. Mr Harris, whose grandfather led the first wave of expeditions in the early 1980s, made the 4km dive with his 13-year-old son through freezing waters in a three-man submersible. The...

New York State Works to Preserve Rare 18th Century Artifacts, Including Benedict Arnold Papers

Posted by Pharmboy
On News/Activism 08/20/2005 11:52:11 AM PDT · 8 replies · 203+ views

Associated Press | Aug 20, 2005 | Chris Carola
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The major general was so well known that even his abbreviated signature - "B. Arnold" - was sufficient on a pass to ensure anyone safe passage. But in September 1780, that signature sealed Benedict Arnold's fate as the American hero of Saratoga became America's most infamous traitor. The passes he scrawled for "John Anderson" - the alias of John Andre, a British spy - are among the most treasured items among the thousands of Revolutionary War documents and relics in the state library and archives, located in the New York State Museum. Now, thanks to a...

Original Einstein Manuscript Discovered

Posted by NormsRevenge
On News/Activism 08/20/2005 6:07:59 PM PDT · 14 replies · 608+ views

AP on Yahoo | 8/20/05 | Toby Sterling - AP
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1925 has been found in the archives of Leiden University's Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, scholars said Saturday. The handwritten manuscript titled "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas" was dated December 1924. Considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs, it was published in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in January 1925. High-resolution photographs of the 16-page, German-language manuscript and an account of its discovery were posted on the institute's Web site. "It was quite exciting" when a student working on his...

end of digest #58 20050827

Wow, another week without Egypt, and also a week without Greece.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #59
Saturday, September 3, 2005

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Chandler's Wobble Causes Earthquakes, Volcanism, El Nino, and Global Warming

Posted by IGBT
On News/Activism 01/18/2005 8:58:05 PM PST · 20 replies · 761+ views

Michael Wells Mandeville | 2004 | Michael Wells Mandeville
The exact location of the North and South Poles of the Earth's spin axis are constantly changing while the Earth's crust wobbles slightly around and over the poles in the 14 month and 6.5 year cycles of Chandler's Wobble. The eigth graphs in this story board demonstrate that peaks of seismic and volcanic activity come and go in accordance with these rhythms of Chandler's Wobble to produce the El Nino syndrome. The graphs also prove that the total amount of this activity has progressively increased during the last 50 years while the center of Chandler's Wobble has slowly drifted towards...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

Posted by cogitator
On General/Chat 01/06/2005 11:32:02 AM PST · 6 replies · 1,221+ views

Rochester Academy of Science | January 1998 | Paul Dudley
Considering that news is still dominated by the tsunami and its aftereffects (and aid and recovery efforts), my mind is still on that kind of topic. I recalled back during the days when the Chicxulub impact site was being identified as the main Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) event that the supporting evidence for the regional location was thick layers of ejecta at the K/T boundary found around the Caribbean. I checked for pictures and found a few; below is one of the best from Belize. Can you see the K/T boundary? Go to the linked article to read more about this image...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

Posted by cogitator
On News/Activism 01/06/2005 11:40:15 AM PST · 5 replies · 1,533+ views

Rochestery Academy of Science | January 1998 | Paul Dudley
Link post: the image and the thread (to discuss it) are below: Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

'Meteorite' Hits Girl

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/27/2002 11:50:09 AM PDT · 96 replies · 309+ views

BBC | 8-27-2002
Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK 'Meteorite' hits girl Siobhan Cowton: "I saw it fall from above roof height" The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot. Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky. This does not happen very often in Northallerton Siobhan Cowton Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel. The family now...

Rhythmic Submarine Volcanos And El El NiÒos

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/29/2005 1:37:32 PM PDT · 22 replies · 174+ views

Science Frontiers | September-October 1993 | William Corliss
The real cause of El Ninos is still obscure. However, the recent discovery of over 1,000 previously unmapped submarine volcanos rising from the seafloor in the eastern Pacific may lead to El Nino's source. The synchronous eruption of, say, 100 of these volcanos might warm the ocean around Easter Island a tad -- just enough to warm the atmosphere above a bit -- resulting in a shift of the high pressure area.

Ancient Rome

Battle for the books of Herculaneum (1 of finest libraries of the ancient world, covered in Lava)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/15/2005 11:30:07 PM PDT · 3 replies · 433+ views

Mimirabilis | 15 May 2005 | Peter Popham
Buried deep in the Villa dei Papiri, covered by the molten lava of Vesuvius, lies one of the finest libraries of the ancient world. But excavation may destroy more than it savesThey look like lumps of coal, and when the Swiss military engineer and his team who first explored the buried town of Herculaneum in the 18th century encountered them, that was how they were treated: as ancient rubbish, to be dumped in the sea. But before being hit by a cascade of molten volcanic rock at more than 400C (the so-called pyroclastic flow that inundated the town), these now-blackened...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Iran's dam will sink tomb of Cyrus the Great

Posted by Cyrus the Great
On News/Activism 08/31/2005 4:05:02 PM PDT · 25 replies · 438+ views

Iranfocus | 8/31/05 | Iranfocus
Tehran, Iran, Aug. 31 ñ Iran is building a dam which once completed will destroy the 2,500-year-old historic ruins of tomb of the first Achaemenian king of ancient Persia. The Sayvand Dam being constructed in the central Fars province will inevitably cause river waters to submerge Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, and Pasargard, the site of the mausoleum of the first Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. The dam which is near completion is some eight kilometres from Pasargard and 50 kilometres from Persepolis, according to an official in Iran's Cultural Heritage Organisation. The dam is to start operation in...

India

Archaeologist stirs storm with 'ancient city' claim

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/04/2005 10:36:46 PM PDT · 7 replies · 482+ views

Bangladesh News | Monday March 28 2005
A professor of archaeology at the Jahangirnagar University has stirred a controversy with misleading claims about and unauthorised excavation at an archaeological site. Professor Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, who led the excavation of an 18 by 16 metre area at Owari-Bateshwar in Belabo upazila of Narsingdi, claimed in April 2004 that the excavation had led to the discovery of a road, a citadel and a raft of artefacts that dated back to 450BC. Sufi told the media that his findings indicated to the oldest civilisation to have been discovered so far, and would redefine the history of eastern India and substantiate...

Mesopotamia

Museum inquiry into 'smuggling' of ancient bowls

Posted by swilhelm73
On News/Activism 04/25/2005 2:51:58 PM PDT · 1 reply · 80+ views

timesonline | April 22, 2005 | Dalya Alberge
ONE of the world's leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East. University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt. The bowls were loaned to the university museum ó the Petrie ó by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world's finest collections of antiquities in private hands. The bowls, which were loaned for research and cataloguing, are being...

Polish and US Troops Saved Ancient Babylon - Says Defence Minister

Posted by Grzegorz 246
On News/Activism 01/18/2005 9:41:21 AM PST · 10 replies · 574+ views

Polskie Radio | 17.01.2005
Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said today that contrary to a report by the British Museum, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved the famous archaeological site for civilisation. A British Museum report published at the weekend said U.S. troops had caused "substantial damage" to the ancient city by setting up a military base amid the ruins in April 2003 after invading Iraq and toppling President Saddam Hussein. It also said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Amar: Bnei Menashe are descendants of ancient Israelites

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/04/2005 9:50:12 PM PDT · 1 reply · 269+ views

Haaretz | Fri., April 01, 2005 | Yair Sheleg
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization. The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews (IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe community and bringing them to Israel. The Bnei...

Archeologist is 'naked' and in your face (combines arch. & hipster's approach to explore Bible)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 09/02/2005 12:42:37 AM PDT · 9 replies · 357+ views

The Globe and Mail | Thursday, September 1, 2005 | MICHAEL POSNER
Simcha Jacobovici combines archeology and a hipster's approach to explore biblical stories, MICHAEL POSNER writesBy You've heard about The Naked Chef, of course: Britain's Jamie Oliver, who lays out the bare essentials of his culinary art in a popular TV series. And you may remember Naked City, a gritty black-and-white police drama from the sixties. But are you ready for The Naked Archaeologist? That would be Toronto documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, who has turned his personal passion for biblical archeology into a 26-part series for Vision Television (debuting Labour Day). Best known for Deadly Currents (a film about the Arab-Israeli...

British Isles

The Ferriby boats -- 1600BC

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:21:56 AM PDT · 10 replies · 186+ views

Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Southampton | Aug 13 1999 | J.S. Illsley
The Ferriby boats were first found in 1938, and two further boats were discovered in 1940 and 1963, all by E.V. Wright who has become the principal authority on them. All were buried in the thick and very difficult blue clay in the intertidal regions of North Humberside... The people who built these boats evidently lived in a wood rich society and were familiar with working large timbers on a gross scale (check with Frances on Stonehenge as a wooden building)... Nevertheless the quality of the joins and seams is very high, especially where the side strakes join the edges...

Oldest Bridge in Ireland

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:10:07 AM PDT · 12 replies · 199+ views

Archaeological Institute of America | May 6, 1998 | Ben Keene
Built in A.D. 804, the 533-foot-long, 17-foot-wide oak span supported a roadway leading to the nearby monastery and village of Clonmacnoise. The size of the bridge suggests technical know-how and a large, skilled workforce. It also indicates the area was more economically and politically advanced than previously assumed. An underwater team led by Aidan O'Sullivan found the remains in 1996 after reading about the bridge in twelfth-century Irish annals... a bronze liturgical basin decorated with ribbing and dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. About 12 inches across, the basin was badly damaged. It was possibly lost on the bridge...

Medieval Europe

Ancient Skeletons Were Siege Soldiers (Netherlands)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/06/2005 12:34:22 AM PDT · 2 replies · 219+ views

Expatica | 3 May 2005
AMSTERDAM ó Nine skeletons found on 4 May last year in Maastricht are of Dutch origin and were probably members of the Staatse leger (State army), Maastricht City Council has revealed. Research by police and the municipal's archaeological service has indicated that the soldiers were killed and buried during a siege of Maastricht, either in 1592 (with Prince Maurits) or in 1594 or 1632 (with Prince Frederik Hendrik). The skeletons are currently being stored at the anatomy department of the Leiden University, but later this month they will be transferred to the archaeological department in Maastricht. The small cemetery was...

Crowds mark death of Braveheart

Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 09/01/2005 7:37:16 AM PDT · 16 replies · 785+ views

Islington Gazette | 8/31/05 | Islington Gazette
CROWDS of more than 1,000 flocked to Smithfield to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Scottish hero William Wallace - also known as Braveheart. The freedom fighter was hung, drawn and quartered outside the church of St Bartholomew the Great in 1305 after being betrayed by a Scottish knight in service to King Edward the First. His life story was famously given a Hollywood makeover by actor/director Mel Gibson in 1995 for the film Braveheart. But no national celebrations were planned to mark the 700th anniversary of his execution so author and historian David Ross, who wrote bestseller...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Discovery Of Ancient Indian Village Halts School Construction

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:17:29 AM PDT · 3 replies · 293+ views

WREG | 4/24/05 | Brian Kuebler
Desoto County, MS -- Archeologists are combing over 150 acres of land slated for three new Desoto County Schools. The state of Mississippi halted the construction of the schools after a tip call revealed the land should be marked for an archeological excavation. Preliminary findings proved the tip genuine when scientists found bone fragments, pottery shards and other evidence of a 1200 year old Indian village. The complete excavation process could take some time but a preliminary report will be sent to the state Monday at which point the government will decide whether or not to proceed with the plan....

New Structure Found at Ancient Ohio Site

Posted by Artemis Webb
On News/Activism 08/30/2005 7:52:19 PM PDT · 24 replies · 643+ views

AP | 08/30/2005 | none credited
OREGONIA, Ohio - Archaeologists say they have something new to study at Fort Ancient State Memorial. A previously unknown circular structure about 200 feet in diameter was detected recently during preliminary work for an erosion-control project at the site of 2,000-year-old earthworks, state authorities said. More study will be needed to determine whether the structure is an earthworks or the remains of a ditch that held a series of large posts or of some other kind of structure, state authorities said. "The reaction is 'Wow!'" Jack Blosser, Fort Ancient's site manager, said of the new find. Blosser said the last...

Prehistory and Origins

"Antibiotic" Beer Gave Ancient Africans Health Buzz

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/19/2005 6:57:43 PM PDT · 25 replies · 568+ views

National Geographic | May 16, 2005 | John Roach
Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa. George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River. The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Carnegie scientists find muscular ancient mammal

Posted by Willie Green
On General/Chat 03/31/2005 1:51:05 PM PST · 5 replies · 105+ views

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Thursday, March 31, 2005 | Byron Spice
Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have discovered fossils of a mouse-size mammal that dug and burrowed in search of tasty insects during the Jurassic Age, 150 million years ago. The extinct species has been dubbed Popeye. Its tastes appeared to favor termites, not spinach as its cartoon namesake. But like the famous Sailor Man, this creature has massive forearms, an adaptation that helped it dig.

Paleoanthropology: Start Over? (Open ended storytelling pawned as science)

Posted by bondserv
On News/Activism 08/27/2005 9:08:20 AM PDT · 220 replies · 1,713+ views

Creation-Evolution Headlines | 8/22/05 | Creation-Evolution Headlines
Paleoanthropology: Start Over? -- 08/22/2005 -- The September issue of National Geographic, featuring the African continent, has arrived in homes. On page 1, Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post wrote about the quest for early man, asking, "Are we looking for bones in all the right places?" The bulk of the article describes the 'messy' story of human origins. It used to be clean-cut, he said, but no longer: Scientists are good at finding logical patterns and turning data into a coherent narrative. But the study of human origins is tricky: The bones tell a complicated story. The cast of...

Space radiation may select amino acids for life

Posted by LibWhacker
On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:16:24 PM PDT · 80 replies · 754+ views

New Scientist | 8/24/05 | Maggie McKee
Space radiation preferentially destroys specific forms of amino acids, the most realistic laboratory simulation to date has found. The work suggests the molecular building blocks that form the "left-handed" proteins used by life on Earth took shape in space, bolstering the case that they could have seeded life on other planets. Amino acids are molecules that come in mirror-image right- and left-handed forms. But all the naturally occurring proteins in organisms on Earth use the left-handed forms - a puzzle dubbed the "chirality problem". "A key question is when this chirality came into play," says Uwe Meierhenrich, a chemist at...

Texas Farmer Claims He Caught Legendary 'Chupacabra'

Posted by BurbankKarl
On General/Chat 08/25/2005 11:44:52 AM PDT · 85 replies · 2,896+ views

NBC | 8/25/05 | various
A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed. What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo. The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

America's Pristine Myth

Posted by Mobile Vulgus
On News/Activism 08/31/2005 7:32:03 PM PDT · 59 replies · 1,419+ views

Christian Science Monitor | Charles C. Mann
Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she'll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent's few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed. But in...

end of digest #59 20050903

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #58 Saturday, August 27, 2005
Ancient Egypt
Egypt uncovers remains of ancient church beneath monastery
	Posted by NYer On News/Activism 08/24/2005 6:21:42 AM PDT · 17 replies · 758+ views People's Daily \| August 8, 2005 The remains of an ancient church dating to the early days of Christianity have been discovered beneath a Coptic Christian monastery, the Egyptian Gazette daily reported Sunday. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni announced Saturday that archaeologists have found the remains of the church, built of bricks. It included a number of underground rooms which monks used for celebrating the liturgy. The church, uncovered beneath Saint Anthony's Monastery in the Red Sea area, was founded by disciples of Saint. Anthony, a hermit who died in A.D.356 and is regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. Archaeologists have also unearthed the bases...
Ancient Greece
Technology in Ancient Greece -- Draining projects in the lake Kopaida
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/26/2005 8:36:12 AM PDT · 7 replies · 101+ views Dina Baga homepage \| last updated Novembre 28, 1997 \| Dina Baga The biggest technical project of the Mycenae civilization is the one of the drainning of the lake Kopaida in the 14th century B.C. The water from the rivers and the torrents that were overflowing the plain, were conveied through an irregular canal, the width of which was 40 -60 metres, and a system of banks at the NE side of the lake, where a concentrating trench(ditch) (total length of 9 kilometres) was carrying them away into deep holes. Those holes were not enougth to absorb all that water, so the Mycenae's technicians builted an underground inclined tunnel, dug into the...
Ancient Rome
BBC's £58m Rome is most violent, explicit and costly drama yet
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 08/21/2005 12:09:19 PM PDT · 44 replies · 967+ views UK Telegraph \| 8/21/05 \| Chris Hastings The BBC is about to broadcast the most violent and sexually explicit programme ever to be shown on British television - and at £58 million for 12 episodes it is also the most expensive. Rome, a drama set in the dying days of the Roman Empire, contains full frontal male and female nudity and depictions of violent sex. The Sunday Telegraph has seen the first six episodes of the blood-soaked drama - a co-production between the corporation and the American broadcaster HBO - which contains nudity within its opening minutes. The show, which premieres in America next Sunday and hits...
Asia
Ancient Site Reveals Stories Of Sacrificed Horses
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 08/24/2005 4:26:47 PM PDT · 11 replies · 291+ views Xinhuanet/China View/China Daily \| 8-24-2005 Ancient site reveals stories of sacrificed horses www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-24 14:15:53 BEIJING, Aug. 24 -- A trip to Zibo might leave you with the similar impression as to a trip to Xi'an, especially when you visit the relics of horses buried for sacrifice. Zibo, in east China's Shandong Province, is the location of the state of Qi's capital in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). During this period, five feudal lords were able to gain control over the other states, with Duke Huan of Qi the head of the five. The difference between the horse buried for sacrifice in Zibo...
British Isles
BILL WYMAN KICKS OFF PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES ROADSHOW IN COLCHESTER (Wrote Book About Archaeology)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 8:33:12 PM PDT · 46 replies · 603+ views 24 Hour Museum \| 2/26/05 He might be better known for wielding a bass guitar than a metal detector, but former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has been an enthusiastic amateur archaeologist for many years. So who better to open proceedings at a Portable Antiquities Scheme Roadshow? Held up and down the country on November 27, the events offered a chance for members of the public to have any finds they’d unearthed identified by an expert. Altogether some 840 people did just that at events in Donnington, Exeter, Reading, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, York and Colchester where Bill Wyman was on hand to get things going. Speaking to...

Stone Axes Highlight 10,000 Years Of Commuting In Stockbroker Belt (UK)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 08/25/2005 1:48:17 PM PDT · 13 replies · 278+ views London Times \| 8-25-2005 \| Dalya Alberge August 25, 2005 The Times Stone axes highlight 10,000 years of commuting in stockbroker belt By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered an important Stone Age site in the heart of Surrey. An excavation has turned up flint tools and cooking pots from about 10,000 years ago at the site on the North Downs. The area, which bears the remains of cooked meals, campfires and flints shaped into tools by people who visited the North Downs around 8,000BC, is believed to contain one of the most important Mesolithic excavations in Britain. Andrew Josephs, an archaeologist and the project’s consultant,...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Islamic regime to submerge Iran's historical root (Persepolis & Pasargade)
	Posted by F14 Pilot On News/Activism 08/22/2005 1:02:15 PM PDT · 91 replies · 943+ views SMCCDI \| Aug 21, 2005 The Islamic regime is to submerge part of Iran's past in a shameful historical cleansing, in order to avoid facing more nationalistic problems with future generations. The construction of a very controversial dam project is near completion and soon, the tomb of "Cyrus the Great" and "Persepolis" would be submerged under water. Cyrus the Great (580-529 BC) (known as Kourosh in Persian; Kouros in Greek; Kores in Hebrew) was the first Achaemenian Emperor and founder of Iran, who issued a decree on his aims and policies, later hailed as his charter of the rights of nations. Inscribed on a clay...
Let's Have Jerusalem
RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS
	Posted by gscc On Religion 08/20/2005 6:09:30 PM PDT · 8 replies · 330+ views travelvideo.tv \| August 17, 05 RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS Aug 17, 05 \| 4:55 pm Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.

Third-generation Iraqi looks after Abraham's birthplace
	Posted by FairOpinion On News/Activism 08/20/2005 7:07:10 PM PDT · 19 replies · 511+ views AFP /Yahoo News \| Aug. 20, 2005 \| AFP UR, Iraq (AFP) - Dhia Mhesen rattles off fact after fact about this ancient mud brick city, the site of a giant ziggurat and the reputed birthplace of Abraham -- the prophet revered by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike. "The ziggurat was the temple of the moon god," said Mhesen. "And over there is the house of Abraham. The bible calls this place Ur of the Chaldeans." Mhesen, 46, is the third generation caretaker at Ur, a 4,000 year-old city located near Nasiriyah, 375 kilometers (235 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. The site is also known as Tell Muqayyar....
Mesopotamia
Under the Old Neighborhood: In Iraq, an Archaeologist's Paradise
	Posted by neverdem On News/Activism 08/22/2005 9:28:43 PM PDT · 7 replies · 398+ views NY Times \| August 23, 2005 \| JAMES GLANZ ERBIL, Iraq - If a neighborhood is defined as a place where human beings move in and never leave, then the world's oldest could be here at the Citadel, an ancient and teeming city within a city girded by stone walls. Resting on a layer cake of civilizations that have come and gone for an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 years, the Citadel looms over the apartment blocks of this otherwise rather gray metropolis in Iraqi Kurdistan. The settlement rivals Jericho and a handful of other famous towns for the title of the oldest continuously inhabited site in the world. The...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Peruvian Pyramids Rival The Pharaohs'
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 08/22/2005 11:38:36 AM PDT · 48 replies · 1,117+ views The Times Of London \| 8-20-2005 \| Norman Hammond August 20, 2005 Peruvian pyramids rival the pharaohs' By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent RUINS on Peru’s desert coast dated to some 4,700 years ago suggest an earlier focus of civilisation than any so far identified in the New World. The site of Caral, in the Supe Valley north of Lima, covers 66 hectares (165 acres) and includes pyramids 21m (70ft) high arranged around a large plaza. “What really sets Caral apart is its age,” Roger Atwood reports in Archaeology. “Carbon dating has revealed that its pyramids are contemporary with those of Egypt and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia.” These are among...
Biology and Cryptobiology
In the Wake of the Phoenicians: DNA study reveals a Phoenician-Maltese link
	Posted by afraidfortherepublic On News/Activism 08/21/2005 1:38:08 PM PDT · 32 replies · 651+ views The National Geographic \| October 2004 \| Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa In the Wake of the Phoenicians: DNA study reveals a Phoenician-Maltese link The idea is fascinating. Who among us hasn't considered our heritage and wondered if we might be descended from ancient royalty or some prominent historical figure? Led by a long-standing interest in the impact of ancient empires on the modern gene pool, geneticist and National Geographic emerging explorer Spencer Wells, with colleague Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut, expanded on that question two years ago as they embarked on a genetic study of the Phoenicians, a first millennium B.C. sea empire that—over several hundred years—spread across...

Some scholars think unending arguments over evolution in U.S. are inescapably religious
	Posted by AncientAirs On News/Activism 08/18/2005 7:58:27 PM PDT · 24 replies · 369+ views Mainichi Daily News \| August 19, 2005 NEW YORK -- As students head back to biology classrooms across the United States in the next few weeks, debate over whether they should be taught "intelligent design" concepts alongside evolution is getting hotter, with the president, other politicians and a high-profile Roman Catholic cardinal from Austria all weighing in. Quizzed on the topic, President George W. Bush recently told reporters: "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas and the answer is 'Yes."' The president's remark prompted sharp criticism from intelligent design opponents. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday on the CBS...
Prehistory and Origins
Bones reveal first shoe-wearers
	Posted by LibWhacker On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:06:07 PM PDT · 96 replies · 1,063+ views BBC \| 8/24/05 \| Olivia Johnson Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist.Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones. He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance. The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The development of footwear appears to have affected the four so-called "lesser" toes - excepting the big toe. Ancient footwearWhile early humans living in cold northern climates may...

Georgians Claim to Unearth Ancient Skull
	Posted by anymouse On News/Activism 08/22/2005 6:43:45 PM PDT · 27 replies · 496+ views Associated Press \| 8/22/05 \| MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI TBILISI, Georgia - Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old — part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe. The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was found Aug. 6 and unearthed Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said David Lortkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who took part in the dig. In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found...

Not the Biggest Man on Campus, but Surely the Biggest Foot [why is a TX dinosaur track in B'klyn?]
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 08/20/2005 4:25:43 AM PDT · 79 replies · 903+ views NY Times \| August 20, 2005 \| MICHAEL BRICK Ruby Washington/The New York TimesWayne G. Powell, chairman of the geology department at Brooklyn College, with the track of an Acrocanthosaurus, top, and a larger one from a Pleurocoelus. Scientists thought the block was a replica. Here is a good way to hide dinosaur tracks: Wait tens of millions of years while the footsteps fossilize under a shallow sea that will later become Texas, dig up the tracks just before World War II, put plaster around the sides, paint the whole thing a whimsical muddy red, take it to Brooklyn and bolt it to a classroom wall with an...
Medieval Europe
Scotland's "Braveheart" honored, 700 years on
	Posted by ajolympian2004 On General/Chat 08/24/2005 3:10:49 AM PDT · 27 replies · 210+ views Reuters via Yahoo! \| Tues. Aug. 23, 2005 \| Gideon Long By Gideon Long Tue Aug 23,11:52 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Seven hundred years to the day after Scottish hero William "Braveheart" Wallace was executed by his English foes, a historian has retraced his final journey to promote his dream of independence for Scotland. David Ross, who has written books on Wallace and other Scottish national heroes, strode from Westminster through the old City of London on Tuesday wearing a kilt and carrying a sword. Accompanied by around 100 supporters, many playing bagpipes and waving the blue-and-white Scottish flag, Ross ended his journey at Smithfield, where Wallace was butchered by...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Experts Discover that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles are Related
	Posted by restornu On General/Chat 08/20/2005 11:24:37 PM PDT · 46 replies · 466+ views My Family Ancestry.com Reveals Prince Charles and Camilla are Cousins PROVO, Utah, April 4/PRNewswire/ -- When Prince Charles first met Camilla Parker-Bowles at a polo match in the early seventies, she said to the prince, “My great-grandmother and your great-great grandfather were lovers, so how about it?” Today, genealogical research shows they have an even stronger bond, they are ninth cousins. According to family history experts at Ancestry.com, a service of MyFamily.com, Inc., Prince Charles and Camilla are ninth cousins once removed. Prince Charles and Camilla are both descendents of Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle. Prince Charles’ family history can be...

Mystery Digger named at last
	Posted by naturalman1975 On News/Activism 08/04/2005 4:25:43 PM PDT · 10 replies · 618+ views The Australian \| 5th August 2005 \| D.D. McNicoll THE grim-faced mystery soldier watching the Japanese surrender at Wom airstrip in New Guinea at the end of World War II has been identified. He is Major Douglas Squire Irving Burrows, Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (senior administrative officer) of the Australian 6th Division. His widow, Val Burrows, of Mosman in Sydney, said yesterday that Burrows had never spoken much about the war. "He and his mates laughed about the funny things that happened - and their stories got better with the passing years - but they never spoke about the fighting," she said. "There was no counselling in those days....

New clues to Titanic disaster
	Posted by Aussie Dasher On News/Activism 08/23/2005 6:06:00 PM PDT · 69 replies · 1,615+ views Herald Sun \| 24 August 2005 EXPLORERS have found a previously unknown site scattered with artefacts from the Titanic that could shed new light on the final moments of the world's most famous ocean liner. "We found a new debris field about 900 metres south of the stern, which supports my long-standing belief that the Titanic began to break apart and sink further south than where she currently sits," expedition leader G. Michael Harris said today. Mr Harris, whose grandfather led the first wave of expeditions in the early 1980s, made the 4km dive with his 13-year-old son through freezing waters in a three-man submersible. The...

New York State Works to Preserve Rare 18th Century Artifacts, Including Benedict Arnold Papers
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 08/20/2005 11:52:11 AM PDT · 8 replies · 203+ views Associated Press \| Aug 20, 2005 \| Chris Carola ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The major general was so well known that even his abbreviated signature - "B. Arnold" - was sufficient on a pass to ensure anyone safe passage. But in September 1780, that signature sealed Benedict Arnold's fate as the American hero of Saratoga became America's most infamous traitor. The passes he scrawled for "John Anderson" - the alias of John Andre, a British spy - are among the most treasured items among the thousands of Revolutionary War documents and relics in the state library and archives, located in the New York State Museum. Now, thanks to a...

Original Einstein Manuscript Discovered
	Posted by NormsRevenge On News/Activism 08/20/2005 6:07:59 PM PDT · 14 replies · 608+ views AP on Yahoo \| 8/20/05 \| Toby Sterling - AP AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The original manuscript of a paper Albert Einstein published in 1925 has been found in the archives of Leiden University's Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, scholars said Saturday. The handwritten manuscript titled "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas" was dated December 1924. Considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs, it was published in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in January 1925. High-resolution photographs of the 16-page, German-language manuscript and an account of its discovery were posted on the institute's Web site. "It was quite exciting" when a student working on his...
end of digest #58 20050827

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #59 Saturday, September 3, 2005
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Chandler's Wobble Causes Earthquakes, Volcanism, El Nino, and Global Warming
	Posted by IGBT On News/Activism 01/18/2005 8:58:05 PM PST · 20 replies · 761+ views Michael Wells Mandeville \| 2004 \| Michael Wells Mandeville The exact location of the North and South Poles of the Earth's spin axis are constantly changing while the Earth's crust wobbles slightly around and over the poles in the 14 month and 6.5 year cycles of Chandler's Wobble. The eigth graphs in this story board demonstrate that peaks of seismic and volcanic activity come and go in accordance with these rhythms of Chandler's Wobble to produce the El Nino syndrome. The graphs also prove that the total amount of this activity has progressively increased during the last 50 years while the center of Chandler's Wobble has slowly drifted towards...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe
	Posted by cogitator On General/Chat 01/06/2005 11:32:02 AM PST · 6 replies · 1,221+ views Rochester Academy of Science \| January 1998 \| Paul Dudley Considering that news is still dominated by the tsunami and its aftereffects (and aid and recovery efforts), my mind is still on that kind of topic. I recalled back during the days when the Chicxulub impact site was being identified as the main Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) event that the supporting evidence for the regional location was thick layers of ejecta at the K/T boundary found around the Caribbean. I checked for pictures and found a few; below is one of the best from Belize. Can you see the K/T boundary? Go to the linked article to read more about this image...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe
	Posted by cogitator On News/Activism 01/06/2005 11:40:15 AM PST · 5 replies · 1,533+ views Rochestery Academy of Science \| January 1998 \| Paul Dudley Link post: the image and the thread (to discuss it) are below: Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

'Meteorite' Hits Girl
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 08/27/2002 11:50:09 AM PDT · 96 replies · 309+ views BBC \| 8-27-2002 Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK 'Meteorite' hits girl Siobhan Cowton: "I saw it fall from above roof height" The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot. Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky. This does not happen very often in Northallerton Siobhan Cowton Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel. The family now...

Rhythmic Submarine Volcanos And El El NiÒos
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/29/2005 1:37:32 PM PDT · 22 replies · 174+ views Science Frontiers \| September-October 1993 \| William Corliss The real cause of El Ninos is still obscure. However, the recent discovery of over 1,000 previously unmapped submarine volcanos rising from the seafloor in the eastern Pacific may lead to El Nino's source. The synchronous eruption of, say, 100 of these volcanos might warm the ocean around Easter Island a tad -- just enough to warm the atmosphere above a bit -- resulting in a shift of the high pressure area.
Ancient Rome
Battle for the books of Herculaneum (1 of finest libraries of the ancient world, covered in Lava)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/15/2005 11:30:07 PM PDT · 3 replies · 433+ views Mimirabilis \| 15 May 2005 \| Peter Popham Buried deep in the Villa dei Papiri, covered by the molten lava of Vesuvius, lies one of the finest libraries of the ancient world. But excavation may destroy more than it savesThey look like lumps of coal, and when the Swiss military engineer and his team who first explored the buried town of Herculaneum in the 18th century encountered them, that was how they were treated: as ancient rubbish, to be dumped in the sea. But before being hit by a cascade of molten volcanic rock at more than 400C (the so-called pyroclastic flow that inundated the town), these now-blackened...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iran's dam will sink tomb of Cyrus the Great
	Posted by Cyrus the Great On News/Activism 08/31/2005 4:05:02 PM PDT · 25 replies · 438+ views Iranfocus \| 8/31/05 \| Iranfocus Tehran, Iran, Aug. 31 ñ Iran is building a dam which once completed will destroy the 2,500-year-old historic ruins of tomb of the first Achaemenian king of ancient Persia. The Sayvand Dam being constructed in the central Fars province will inevitably cause river waters to submerge Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, and Pasargard, the site of the mausoleum of the first Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. The dam which is near completion is some eight kilometres from Pasargard and 50 kilometres from Persepolis, according to an official in Iran's Cultural Heritage Organisation. The dam is to start operation in...
India
Archaeologist stirs storm with 'ancient city' claim
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/04/2005 10:36:46 PM PDT · 7 replies · 482+ views Bangladesh News \| Monday March 28 2005 A professor of archaeology at the Jahangirnagar University has stirred a controversy with misleading claims about and unauthorised excavation at an archaeological site. Professor Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, who led the excavation of an 18 by 16 metre area at Owari-Bateshwar in Belabo upazila of Narsingdi, claimed in April 2004 that the excavation had led to the discovery of a road, a citadel and a raft of artefacts that dated back to 450BC. Sufi told the media that his findings indicated to the oldest civilisation to have been discovered so far, and would redefine the history of eastern India and substantiate...
Mesopotamia
Museum inquiry into 'smuggling' of ancient bowls
	Posted by swilhelm73 On News/Activism 04/25/2005 2:51:58 PM PDT · 1 reply · 80+ views timesonline \| April 22, 2005 \| Dalya Alberge ONE of the world's leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East. University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt. The bowls were loaned to the university museum ó the Petrie ó by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world's finest collections of antiquities in private hands. The bowls, which were loaned for research and cataloguing, are being...

Polish and US Troops Saved Ancient Babylon - Says Defence Minister
	Posted by Grzegorz 246 On News/Activism 01/18/2005 9:41:21 AM PST · 10 replies · 574+ views Polskie Radio \| 17.01.2005 Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said today that contrary to a report by the British Museum, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved the famous archaeological site for civilisation. A British Museum report published at the weekend said U.S. troops had caused "substantial damage" to the ancient city by setting up a military base amid the ruins in April 2003 after invading Iraq and toppling President Saddam Hussein. It also said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Amar: Bnei Menashe are descendants of ancient Israelites
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/04/2005 9:50:12 PM PDT · 1 reply · 269+ views Haaretz \| Fri., April 01, 2005 \| Yair Sheleg Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization. The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews (IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe community and bringing them to Israel. The Bnei...

Archeologist is 'naked' and in your face (combines arch. & hipster's approach to explore Bible)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 09/02/2005 12:42:37 AM PDT · 9 replies · 357+ views The Globe and Mail \| Thursday, September 1, 2005 \| MICHAEL POSNER Simcha Jacobovici combines archeology and a hipster's approach to explore biblical stories, MICHAEL POSNER writesBy You've heard about The Naked Chef, of course: Britain's Jamie Oliver, who lays out the bare essentials of his culinary art in a popular TV series. And you may remember Naked City, a gritty black-and-white police drama from the sixties. But are you ready for The Naked Archaeologist? That would be Toronto documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, who has turned his personal passion for biblical archeology into a 26-part series for Vision Television (debuting Labour Day). Best known for Deadly Currents (a film about the Arab-Israeli...
British Isles
The Ferriby boats -- 1600BC
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:21:56 AM PDT · 10 replies · 186+ views Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Southampton \| Aug 13 1999 \| J.S. Illsley The Ferriby boats were first found in 1938, and two further boats were discovered in 1940 and 1963, all by E.V. Wright who has become the principal authority on them. All were buried in the thick and very difficult blue clay in the intertidal regions of North Humberside... The people who built these boats evidently lived in a wood rich society and were familiar with working large timbers on a gross scale (check with Frances on Stonehenge as a wooden building)... Nevertheless the quality of the joins and seams is very high, especially where the side strakes join the edges...

Oldest Bridge in Ireland
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:10:07 AM PDT · 12 replies · 199+ views Archaeological Institute of America \| May 6, 1998 \| Ben Keene Built in A.D. 804, the 533-foot-long, 17-foot-wide oak span supported a roadway leading to the nearby monastery and village of Clonmacnoise. The size of the bridge suggests technical know-how and a large, skilled workforce. It also indicates the area was more economically and politically advanced than previously assumed. An underwater team led by Aidan O'Sullivan found the remains in 1996 after reading about the bridge in twelfth-century Irish annals... a bronze liturgical basin decorated with ribbing and dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. About 12 inches across, the basin was badly damaged. It was possibly lost on the bridge...
Medieval Europe
Ancient Skeletons Were Siege Soldiers (Netherlands)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/06/2005 12:34:22 AM PDT · 2 replies · 219+ views Expatica \| 3 May 2005 AMSTERDAM ó Nine skeletons found on 4 May last year in Maastricht are of Dutch origin and were probably members of the Staatse leger (State army), Maastricht City Council has revealed. Research by police and the municipal's archaeological service has indicated that the soldiers were killed and buried during a siege of Maastricht, either in 1592 (with Prince Maurits) or in 1594 or 1632 (with Prince Frederik Hendrik). The skeletons are currently being stored at the anatomy department of the Leiden University, but later this month they will be transferred to the archaeological department in Maastricht. The small cemetery was...

Crowds mark death of Braveheart
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 09/01/2005 7:37:16 AM PDT · 16 replies · 785+ views Islington Gazette \| 8/31/05 \| Islington Gazette CROWDS of more than 1,000 flocked to Smithfield to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Scottish hero William Wallace - also known as Braveheart. The freedom fighter was hung, drawn and quartered outside the church of St Bartholomew the Great in 1305 after being betrayed by a Scottish knight in service to King Edward the First. His life story was famously given a Hollywood makeover by actor/director Mel Gibson in 1995 for the film Braveheart. But no national celebrations were planned to mark the 700th anniversary of his execution so author and historian David Ross, who wrote bestseller...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Discovery Of Ancient Indian Village Halts School Construction
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:17:29 AM PDT · 3 replies · 293+ views WREG \| 4/24/05 \| Brian Kuebler Desoto County, MS -- Archeologists are combing over 150 acres of land slated for three new Desoto County Schools. The state of Mississippi halted the construction of the schools after a tip call revealed the land should be marked for an archeological excavation. Preliminary findings proved the tip genuine when scientists found bone fragments, pottery shards and other evidence of a 1200 year old Indian village. The complete excavation process could take some time but a preliminary report will be sent to the state Monday at which point the government will decide whether or not to proceed with the plan....

New Structure Found at Ancient Ohio Site
	Posted by Artemis Webb On News/Activism 08/30/2005 7:52:19 PM PDT · 24 replies · 643+ views AP \| 08/30/2005 \| none credited OREGONIA, Ohio - Archaeologists say they have something new to study at Fort Ancient State Memorial. A previously unknown circular structure about 200 feet in diameter was detected recently during preliminary work for an erosion-control project at the site of 2,000-year-old earthworks, state authorities said. More study will be needed to determine whether the structure is an earthworks or the remains of a ditch that held a series of large posts or of some other kind of structure, state authorities said. "The reaction is 'Wow!'" Jack Blosser, Fort Ancient's site manager, said of the new find. Blosser said the last...
Prehistory and Origins
"Antibiotic" Beer Gave Ancient Africans Health Buzz
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/19/2005 6:57:43 PM PDT · 25 replies · 568+ views National Geographic \| May 16, 2005 \| John Roach Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa. George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River. The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Carnegie scientists find muscular ancient mammal
	Posted by Willie Green On General/Chat 03/31/2005 1:51:05 PM PST · 5 replies · 105+ views The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette \| Thursday, March 31, 2005 \| Byron Spice Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have discovered fossils of a mouse-size mammal that dug and burrowed in search of tasty insects during the Jurassic Age, 150 million years ago. The extinct species has been dubbed Popeye. Its tastes appeared to favor termites, not spinach as its cartoon namesake. But like the famous Sailor Man, this creature has massive forearms, an adaptation that helped it dig.

Paleoanthropology: Start Over? (Open ended storytelling pawned as science)
	Posted by bondserv On News/Activism 08/27/2005 9:08:20 AM PDT · 220 replies · 1,713+ views Creation-Evolution Headlines \| 8/22/05 \| Creation-Evolution Headlines Paleoanthropology: Start Over? -- 08/22/2005 -- The September issue of National Geographic, featuring the African continent, has arrived in homes. On page 1, Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post wrote about the quest for early man, asking, "Are we looking for bones in all the right places?" The bulk of the article describes the 'messy' story of human origins. It used to be clean-cut, he said, but no longer: Scientists are good at finding logical patterns and turning data into a coherent narrative. But the study of human origins is tricky: The bones tell a complicated story. The cast of...

Space radiation may select amino acids for life
	Posted by LibWhacker On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:16:24 PM PDT · 80 replies · 754+ views New Scientist \| 8/24/05 \| Maggie McKee Space radiation preferentially destroys specific forms of amino acids, the most realistic laboratory simulation to date has found. The work suggests the molecular building blocks that form the "left-handed" proteins used by life on Earth took shape in space, bolstering the case that they could have seeded life on other planets. Amino acids are molecules that come in mirror-image right- and left-handed forms. But all the naturally occurring proteins in organisms on Earth use the left-handed forms - a puzzle dubbed the "chirality problem". "A key question is when this chirality came into play," says Uwe Meierhenrich, a chemist at...

Texas Farmer Claims He Caught Legendary 'Chupacabra'
	Posted by BurbankKarl On General/Chat 08/25/2005 11:44:52 AM PDT · 85 replies · 2,896+ views NBC \| 8/25/05 \| various A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed. What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo. The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
America's Pristine Myth
	Posted by Mobile Vulgus On News/Activism 08/31/2005 7:32:03 PM PDT · 59 replies · 1,419+ views Christian Science Monitor \| Charles C. Mann Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she'll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent's few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed. But in...
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