Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #152
Saturday, June 16, 2007
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Cubed Roots
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Otzi's violent world
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Posted by Clive
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 7:57:26 AM EDT · 30 replies · 784+ views
National Post | 2007-06-11 | (editorial page)
His scientific handle is Similaun Man, but his family likes to call him Otzi, the Iceman. Don't feel excluded: you're a part of Otzi's extended clan. His corpse was discovered by tourists in September, 1991, lying facedown in a glacier at an elevation beyond 10,000 feet in Europe's Otztal Alps. He was in such an excellent state of preservation that he was at first thought to be a victim of the First World War, whose soldiers sometimes still turn up in the ice of the Tyrolean highlands. But it soon transpired that the five-foot-tall Otzi had died on a spring...
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Climate
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Ice Ages Dried Up African Monsoons
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/10/2007 5:59:59 PM EDT · 26 replies · 655+ views
New Scientist | 6-10-2007
Ice ages dried up African monsoons 10:00 10 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service When ice ages held Europe in their grip, Africa also felt the pinch - though in a different way. It has long been suspected that there is a connection between the west African monsoon and climate at higher latitudes - especially over geological timescales, says David Lea at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But until now, there hasn't been enough supporting evidence." Now Lea, with team leader Syee Weldeab and colleagues, has reconstructed the most detailed history of the monsoon yet, spanning 155,000 years and two...
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Africa
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The Primal Roots of Red Hair Revealed
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/09/2007 11:59:18 PM EDT · 37 replies · 677+ views
LiveScience | May 24, 2007 | LiveScience Staff
Primatologists know humans, apes and monkeys can see red, but have quarreled over what initially locked the adaptation into place. Did it first help primates find meals, or was the ability to see a red-headed, red-skinned mate from a mile away the first benefit of full-color vision? A new study shows that apes first evolved color vision to help them forage food, after which nature made red the sexiest color around and spiked apes' evolutionary tree with red hair and skin... Andre Fernandez, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio University and co-author of the paper, explained that neuroscientists have already found...
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Prehistory and Origins
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Neanderthals Bid For Human Status
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 6:23:54 PM EDT · 28 replies · 527+ views
New Scientist | 6-13-2007 | Rowan Hooper
Neanderthals bid for human status 13 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service Rowan Hooper NEANDERTHALS as innovators? That the concept seems amusing goes to show how our sister species has become the butt of our jokes. Yet in the Middle Palaeolithic, some 300,000 years ago, innovation is what the Neanderthals were up to. This period is usually regarded as undramatic in cultural and evolutionary terms, with little in the way of technological or cognitive development. Palaeoanthropologists get more excited about the changes in tools found later, as the Middle Palaeolithic gave way to the Upper, and as modern humans replaced Neanderthals,...
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Neanderthals 'Were Ahead Of Their Time'
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/14/2007 8:56:19 PM EDT · 77 replies · 1,200+ views
The Telegraph (UK) | 6-15-2007
Neanderthals 'were ahead of their time' Last Updated: 2:42am BST 14/06/2007 Big, brutish and stupid - it's a commonly held view that our prehistoric predecessors were as wild and unsophisticated as the animals they hunted. Neanderthal man was 'as smart as we are' But Neanderthal man was not as slow-witted as he looked and was in reality as smart as we are, an archaeologist claims. They were actually innovators who used different forms of tools to adapt to the ecological challenges posed by harsh habitats as they spread through Europe. Although our ancestors have become the butt of jokes about...
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Ancient Europe
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Early Europeans likely sacrificed their own
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Posted by Renfield
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 7:21:13 AM EDT · 37 replies · 665+ views
MSNBC | 6-11-07 | Heather Whipps
Europe's prehistoric hunter-gatherers may have practiced human sacrifice, a new study claims. Investigating a collection of graves from the Upper Paleolithic (about 26,000 to 8,000 BC), archaeologists found several that contained pairs or even groups of people with rich burial offerings and decoration. Many of the remains were young or had deformities, such as dwarfism. The diversity of the individuals buried together and the special treatment they received could be a sign of ritual killing, said Vincenzo Formicola of the University of Pisa, Italy....
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British Isles
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Bronze Age finds at A38 bypass
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/09/2007 11:51:06 PM EDT · 4 replies · 30+ views
BBC | Friday, June 1, 2007 | unattributed
Bronze Age pottery and tools have been unearthed by archaeologists working on the site of... the A38 Dobwalls bypass. Workers discovered flint tools and waste flakes. Fragments of pottery dating back 4,000 years were also found under a mound of stones... The results of the analysis will be published in Cornwall's archaeological records after the end of the bypass work in September 2008.
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Thrace
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Unique Thracian Symbol Of Royalty Discovered In Bulgaria
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/12/2007 9:22:35 PM EDT · 19 replies · 582+ views
Novinite | 6-11-2007
Unique Thracian Symbol of Royalty Discovered in Bulgaria 11 June 2007, Monday Archaeologists have discovered the most ancient ruler's symbol on Bulgarian territory, what was once the kingdom of the Thracian tribes. The Bulgarian archaeologists Daniela Agre and Deyan Dichev, who are leading the Strandzha expedition, made the announcement for the exceptional finding on the Bulgarian National Radio on Monday. The artifact was unearthed near the village of Golyam Dervent. Dichev and Agre were researching a dolmen (dolmens were the first Thracian tombs) when they noticed a frieze of intertwined zoomorphic and geometrical elements carved on the entrance of the...
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Rome and Italy
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More Clues in the Legend (or Is It Fact?) of Romulus[Rome]
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Posted by BGHater
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 9:21:26 AM EDT · 23 replies · 847+ views
The New York Times | 12 June 2007 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
The story of Romulus and Remus is almost as old as Rome. The orphan twins were suckled by a she-wolf in a cave on the banks of the Tiber. Romulus grew up to found Rome in 753 B. C. Historians have long since dismissed the story as a charming legend. The 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen said: "The founding of the city in the strict sense, such as the legend assumes, is of course to be reckoned out of the question: Rome was not built in a day." Yet the legend is as imperishable as Mommsen's skeptical verdict, and it has...
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Ancient Rome is rebuilt digitally
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Posted by BenLurkin
On General/Chat 06/11/2007 5:21:35 PM EDT · 32 replies · 528+ views
Associated Press | 6 minutes ago | ARIEL DAVID,
ROME - Computer experts on Monday unveiled a digital reproduction of ancient Rome as it appeared at the peak of its power in A.D. 320 -- what they called the largest and most complete simulation of a historic city ever created. Visitors to virtual Rome will be able to do even more than ancient Romans did: They can crawl through the bowels of the Colosseum, filled with lion cages and primitive elevators, and fly up for a detailed look at bas-reliefs and inscriptions atop triumphal arches. "This is the first step in the creation of a virtual time machine, which...
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Experts build simulation of ancient Rome
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Posted by Professional Engineer
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 6:58:04 PM EDT · 16 replies · 435+ views
Connecticut Post | 06/12/2007 | ARIEL DAVID
ROME -- Computer experts on Monday unveiled a digital reproduction of ancient Rome as it appeared at the peak of its power in A.D. 320 -- what they called the largest and most complete simulation of a historic city ever created. Visitors to virtual Rome will be able to do even more than ancient Romans did: They can crawl through the bowels of the Colosseum, filled with lion cages and primitive elevators, and fly up for a detailed look at bas-reliefs and inscriptions atop triumphal arches. "This is the first step in the creation of a virtual time machine, which...
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Venice, Italy sick of the slovenly tourists [$675 fine for slobs]
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Posted by Sleeping Beauty
On General/Chat 06/05/2007 3:31:07 PM EDT · 21 replies · 516+ views
Chicago Tribune | May 25, 2007 | Tracy Wilkinson
Officials in Venice -- as well as the handful of actual Italians still living in the lagoon city -- have declared themselves fed up with a certain category of tourist: the pot-bellied, bare-chested, food-chomping, trash-spewing hordes that peak from now until autumn. To combat what they see as a scourge, Venice authorities are distributing leaflets and posting posters with a new set of rules. In St. Mark's Square, it is now forbidden to sit or recline under the porticos and on the steps along the Procuratie Nuove and the Ala Napoleonica, the buildings that ring the city's iconic St. Mark's...
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Epigraphy and Language
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Tablets Tell All: Ancient Athletes Flogged For Sins
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 6:58:10 PM EDT · 11 replies · 419+ views
The Age | 6-7-2007 | Allan Hall
Tablets tell all: ancient athletes flogged for sins Allan Hall, Berlin June 7, 2007 AN ANCIENT training manual for Roman athletes -- carved in marble almost 2000 years ago -- prescribes far worse punishments than a sending off or a week's docked pay if they performed badly in the Colosseum. The manual recommends a flogging to get them to perform better. And the same went if they drank too much mead or behaved disgracefully with the local maidens. The marble tablet was found in 2003 in the town of Alexandria Troas in Turkey, and deciphered only recently by academics at...
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India
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'Ancient India Was In The Middle Of Global Trade'
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/15/2007 6:44:26 PM EDT · 11 replies · 252+ views
The Times Of India | 6-15-2007
Q&A: 'Ancient India was in the middle of global trade' 15 Jun, 2007 l 0142 hrs IST S P Gupta, former director of Allahabad Museum and current chairman of Indian Archaeological Society, is credited with excavating several Indus Valley sites. He spoke to Rohit Viswanath on recent developments in marine archaeology: What are the latest advancements in marine archaeology? We do not use the term marine archaeology anymore. It is called underwater archaeology. That is because the term merely denotes oceanic and deep-sea archaeology. However, underwater archaeology has a wider scope. Fresh-water sources have been historically conducive to human habitation....
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Egypt
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Lascaux On The Nile
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/15/2007 5:43:08 PM EDT · 4 replies · 139+ views
Ahram | 6-15-2007 | Nevine El-Aref
Lascaux on the NileOne of the newly discovered rocks featuring three bovids with horns Palaeolithic rock art depicting animal illustrations similar to those found in the Lascaux caves in France have been discovered in the Upper Egyptian town of Kom Ombo, reports Nevine El-Aref The discovery of huge rocks decorated with Palaeolithic illustrations at the village of Qurta on the northern edge of Kom Ombo has caused excitement among the scientific community. The art was found by a team of Belgian archaeologists and restorers and features groups of cattle similar to those drawn on the walls of the French Lascaux...
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Agriculture
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The significance of kitchens for Ancient Egyptians
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Posted by Renfield
On News/Activism 06/15/2007 8:10:15 AM EDT · 31 replies · 653+ views
The Daily Star (Egypt) | 6/2/07 | Ahmed Maged
CAIRO: There are diverse aspects to the ancient Egyptian civilization that many of us are fascinated by: the building of pyramids, the tombs that store mummies or hoards of gold, as well as the captivating paintings on the walls. But few of us direct our attention to the ancient Egyptians' cuisine and their kitchens. The issue would have remained sidelined, even despite of the fact that the walls in temples and tombs are replete with images showing the Pharaohs' meals as well as the poultry and animals that made up part of their dishes. But when a tour guide's interest...
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Helix, Make Mine a Double
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Human genome further unravelled ('Junk' DNA not so junky after all).
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Posted by Jedi Master Pikachu
On News/Activism 06/15/2007 1:49:42 PM EDT · 31 replies · 484+ views
BBC | Thursday, June 14, 2007
The researchers hope to scale the work up to the whole of the genome A close-up view of the human genome has revealed its innermost workings to be far more complex than first thought.The study, which was carried out on just 1% of our DNA code, challenges the view that genes are the main players in driving our biochemistry. Instead, it suggests genes, so called junk DNA and other elements, together weave an intricate control network. The work, published in the journals Nature and Genome Research, is to be scaled up to the rest of the genome. Views transformed...
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Biology and Cryptobiology
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The Blue People Of Troublesome Creek (Kentucky)
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 05/21/2004 11:08:30 PM EDT · 56 replies · 11,553+ views
Science | November, 1982 | Cathy Trost
THE BLUE PEOPLE OF TROUBLESOME CREEKThe story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. by Cathy Trost ©Science 82, November, 1982 Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs. The boy inherited his father's lankiness and his mother's slightly nasal way of speaking. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. "It was almost purple," his father recalls. Doctors were so...
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Blue people inhabited Kentucky in 1950s
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Posted by Daffynition
On General/Chat 06/15/2007 1:58:19 PM EDT · 32 replies · 383+ views
Pravda | 15.06.2007 | Staff Reporter
Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs. The boy inherited his father's lankiness and his mother's slightly nasal way of speaking. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. "It was almost purple," his father recalls. Doctors were so astonished by the color of Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy's skin that they raced him by ambulance from the maternity ward in the hospital near Hazard to...
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China
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Chinese Find Shipwreck Laden With Ming porcelain
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 6:30:40 PM EDT · 18 replies · 570+ views
Yahoo News | 6-13-2007
Chinese find shipwreck laden with Ming porcelain Wed Jun 13, 4:21 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese archaeologists have found an ancient sunken ship in the South China Sea laden with Ming Dynasty porcelain, the Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. Divers used satellite navigation equipment to find the vessel, dubbed South China Sea II, which is about 17 to 18 meters (yards) long and lying at a depth of 20 meters. "A preliminary study of the sunken ship shows it may have sunk 400 years ago after striking a reef," archaeologist Dr Wei Jun was quoted as saying. The...
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Paleontology
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China finds new species of big, bird-like dinosaur
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Posted by EndWelfareToday
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 11:09:23 AM EDT · 70 replies · 1,047+ views
Yahoo News/Reuters | Wed Jun 13 | Tan Ee Lyn and Ben Blanchard
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China has uncovered the skeletal remains of a gigantic, surprisingly bird-like dinosaur, which has been classed as a new species.Eight meters (26 ft) long and standing at twice the height of a man at the shoulder, the fossil of the feathered but flightless Gigantoraptor erlianensis was found in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia, researchers wrote in the latest issue of Nature.The researchers said the dinosaur, discovered in April 2005, weighed about 1.4 tonnes and lived some 85 million years ago.According to lines of arrested growth detected on its bones, it died as a young adult...
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'Gigantoraptor' uncovered in the desert
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Posted by bruinbirdman
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 8:32:31 PM EDT · 23 replies · 1,259+ views
The Telegraph | 6/13/2007 | Roger Highfield, Science Editor
'Roadrunner' dinosaur discovered A 3000 lb "big bird" dinosaur called Gigantoraptor has got scientists into a flap. The remains of the gigantic, surprisingly bird-like dinosaur - the biggest toothless dinosaur ever found - have been uncovered in the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia, China, and challenge current understanding about the origins of birds. The find was made when Chinese scientists were being filmed by a Japanese TV crew in Erlian Basin and they thought a nearby bone was an example of a newly discovered long necked dinosaur, called a sauropod. But as they took a closer look, under the gaze...
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Catastrophism and Astronomy
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An ancient bathtub ring of mammoth fossils
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/11/2007 11:47:57 AM EDT · 20 replies · 315+ views
PhysOrg.com | May 7, 2007 | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
The fossils, in some cases whole skeletons of Mammathus columbi, the Columbian mammoth, were deposited in the hillsides of what are now the Yakima, Columbia and Walla Walla valleys in southeastern Washington, where the elephantine corpses came to rest as water receded from the temporary but repeatedly formed ancient Lake Lewis. PNNL geologists are plotting the deposits to reconstruct the high-water marks of many of the floods, the last of which occurred as recently as 12,000 to 15,000 years ago... Geologists suspect that most of the Ice Age floods in eastern Washington originated from glacial Lake Missoula. The lake formed...
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Ancient DNA Traces The Wooly Mammoth's Disappearance
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 1:35:44 PM EDT · 38 replies · 1,065+ views
Psysorg | 6-7-2007
Ancient DNA traces the woolly mammoth's disappearanceSome ancient-DNA evidence has offered new clues to a very cold case: the disappearance of the last woolly mammoths, one of the most iconic of all Ice Age giants, according to a June 7th report published online in Current Biology. DNA lifted from the bones, teeth, and tusks of the extinct mammoths revealed a "genetic signature" of a range expansion after the last interglacial period. After the mammoths' migration, the population apparently leveled off, and one of two lineages died out. "In combination with the results on other species, a picture is emerging of...
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Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
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An Old Religion Says No To Billboards (Zoroastrians)
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/12/2007 6:02:27 AM EDT · 24 replies · 384+ views
Bell South | 6-12-2007 | Ramola Talwar Badam
An Old Religion Says No to Billboards Published: 6/12/07, 5:25 AM EDT By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM MUMBAI, India (AP) - Some might see the towering billboards that rise out of a centuries-old Mumbai funeral ground as a message from beyond the grave. But the signs - which exhort motorists to "Rev up your night life" by buying a popular car - have bitterly divided the city's Parsi community since they were erected last week, with many people saying they desecrate the sanctity of the place. Trustees of the funeral ground, who authorized the billboards, say they are needed to...
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PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
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Ancient Tomb Found in Mexico Reveals Mass Child Sacrifice (At least they didn't throw theirs away?)
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Posted by Bladerunnuh
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 10:55:30 AM EDT · 45 replies · 655+ views
National Geographic | 6-12-07 | Kelly Hearn
Construction crews unearthed the burial chamber this spring near the town of Tula, the ancient Toltec capital, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Mexico City (see Mexico map). The chamber contained 24 skeletons of children believed to have been sacrificed between A.D. 950 and 1150, according to Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. All but one of the children were between 5 to 15 years of age, and they were likely killed as an offering to the Toltec rain god Tlaloc, Gamboa said. The Toltec, a pre-Aztec civilization that thrived from the 10th to...
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Ancient Tomb Found in Mexico Reveals Mass Child Sacrifice
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Posted by NYer
On News/Activism 06/13/2007 11:02:55 AM EDT · 25 replies · 813+ views
National Geographic | June 12, 2007 | Kelly Hearn
The skeletons of two dozen children killed in an ancient mass sacrifice have been found in a tomb at a construction site in Mexico. The find reveals new details about the ancient Toltec civilization and adds to an ongoing debate over ritualistic killing in historic Mesoamerica. Construction crews unearthed the burial chamber this spring near the town of Tula, the ancient Toltec capital, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Mexico City (see Mexico map). The chamber contained 24 skeletons of children believed to have been sacrificed between A.D. 950 and 1150, according to Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist at Mexico's National...
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Faith and Philosophy
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Row Erupts In Spain Over Legendary Knight El Cid's Sword
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 6:40:38 PM EDT · 17 replies · 706+ views
M&C | 6-10-2007 | Sinikka Tarvainen
Row erupts in Spain over legendary knight El Cid's sword By Sinikka Tarvainen Jun 10, 2007, 14:33 GMT Madrid - A millennium after the death of the legendary Spanish knight El Cid, a row has erupted over his alleged sword. The solid, 0.75-metre sword with a black handle, called La Tizona, has been known as Spain's answer to King Arthur's Excalibur or Charlemagne's Joyeuse. Until now, nobody doubted that the sword, which was on display at Madrid's Military Museum for more than 60 years, once belonged to the country's national hero. But when the northern region of Castile and Leon...
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Middle Ages and Renaissance
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(Immense) Subterranean Vault Dating Back To 8th Hejira Century Found Beneath The Citadel
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/09/2007 7:41:54 PM EDT · 18 replies · 705+ views
Egyptian State Inrormation Service | 6-9-2007
Subterranean vault dating back to 8th Hejira century found beneath the Citadel An immense subterranean vault was found beneath the Citadel in Cairo on 7/6/2007, said the Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni. The vault dates back to the era of King Al-Nasser Mohamed Ben Qalawun in the 8th century of Hejira, said the Minister. The vault extends along 200 meters between Al-Ablaq Palace and the sideline palaces of the Citadel.
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Longer Perspectives
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Group announces list of world's 100 most endangered sites (nearly ALL under islamic threat)
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Posted by 2banana
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 3:15:16 PM EDT · 9 replies · 578+ views
World Monuments Fund | Jun 8, 2007 | World Monuments Fund
CONFLICT. Whether past, ongoing, or imminent, conflict has become one of the most severe threats to cultural heritage. Among the sites at grave risk on the 2008 Watch List are: - Cultural Heritage Sites of Iraq, where ongoing conflict has led to catastrophic loss at the world's oldest and most important cultural sites, and where the damage continues. (by islam) - Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, tragic illustrations of the importance of cultural heritage and the consequences of its destruction, the leftover fragments and historic context remain endangered, and their future in question. (by islam) - Church of the Holy Nativity, Bethlehem,...
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Shams and Scams
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The Muslims who discovered America
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Posted by swarthyguy
On News/Activism 10/11/2002 1:40:55 AM EDT · 78 replies · 5,867+ views
WND | 10.11.2002 | Joseph Farah
In anticipation of Columbus Day, I've been educating myself on the Muslims who discovered America. You mean you didn't know that Muslims were in America before Columbus? You didn't know Muslim navigators took Columbus by the hand and led him to a little island in the Bahamas known as Guanahani, a settlement of Islamic Mandinkas from Africa? You hadn't heard about the Muslims from both Spain and West Africa who sailed to America at least five centuries before Columbus? Yes, this is the new uni-cultural rage with the U.S. Muslim community. There are seminars in major cities and mosques all...
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Oh So Mysteriouso
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Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Loses Funding
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Posted by Renfield
On News/Activism 06/12/2007 10:05:58 AM EDT · 8 replies · 203+ views
Javno | 6-11-07 | Tatjana Ljubić
The hills in Visoko are a natural formation and not pyramids, as Semir Osmanagic wishes to present them, says Bosnian Culture Minister. The Ministry of Culture of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina wants to put an end to the funding of the project "Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun." Opinions on the subject as well as on the pyramid phenomenon are so divided in Bosnia that some public persons, who have denied the existence of pyramids, said that they would set themselves on fire if those were really proven to pyramids. Numerous politicans have given support to the research in...
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Navigation
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Is This Chaucer's Astrolabe?
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/12/2007 8:54:45 PM EDT · 24 replies · 706+ views
Nature | 6-8-2007 | Philip Ball
Is this Chaucer's astrolabe?Astronomical instruments were probably made after Chaucer's designs, not before.June8, 2007 Philip Ball The British Museum's 'Chaucerian' astrolabe: not really Chaucer's, of course. British Museum Want to see the astrolabe used for astronomical calculations by Geoffrey Chaucer himself? You'll be lucky, says Catherine Eagleton, a curator at the British Museum in London. Several astrolabes have been suggested to have once belonged to Chaucer. The claims are based on the device in question's resemblance to one described by Chaucer in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, written in the late fourteenth century. Perhaps, the claimants argue, the astrolabe they...
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Napoleon
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Napoleon's battle sword up for auction (worn during the battle of Marengo in Italy, June 1800)
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Posted by NormsRevenge
On General/Chat 06/09/2007 4:03:46 PM EDT · 6 replies · 181+ views
AP on Yahoo | 6/9/07 | Marco Chown Oved - ap
FONTAINEBLEAU, France - After more than 200 years in the family, the gold-encrusted sword Napoleon carried into battle in Italy will be auctioned off Sunday, across the street from one of his imperial castles. The intricately decorated blade is 32 inches long and curves gently -- an inspiration Napoleon drew from his Egyptian campaign, auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat said. "He noticed that the Arab swords, which were curved, were very effective in cutting off French heads" and ordered an imitation made upon his return, Osenat explained. The last of Napoleon's swords in private hands, it has an estimated value of at...
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Napoleon's sword sold for $6.4 million
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Posted by BGHater
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 12:53:25 PM EDT · 35 replies · 698+ views
AP | 10 June 2007 | AP
FONTAINEBLEAU, France --A gold-encrusted sword Napoleon wore into battle in Italy 200 years ago was sold Sunday for more than $6.4 million, an auction house said. The last of Napoleon's swords in private hands, it has an estimated value of far less -- about $1.6 million, according to the Osenat auction house managing the sale. Applause rang out in a packed auction hall across the street from one of Napoleon's imperial castles in Fontainebleau, a town southeast of Paris, when the sword was sold. Osenat did not identify the buyer, but said the sword will remain in Napoleon's family, which...
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Early America
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Thore-La-Rochette Journal: Remembering French Hero of the American Revolution
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Posted by Pharmboy
On News/Activism 06/15/2007 7:18:10 AM EDT · 6 replies · 126+ views
NY Times | June 15, 2007 | JOHN TAGLIABUE
Christophe Calais for The New York Times Michel de Rochambeau at home in Vendume with a portrait of his forebear Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, who fought with George Washington at Yorktown and had a chateau at Thore-la-Rochette. THORE-LA-ROCHETTE, France -- Michel de Rochambeau likes to think that the life span of a tree separates him from his most illustrious ancestor. He recently had dozens of young lime trees planted in a row along the two-mile road that winds along the Loir River leading to his modest chateau in northern France. They replaced trees that had been planted by...
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Researchers Seek DNA Link to Lost Colony
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Posted by varina davis
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 5:04:04 PM EDT · 64 replies · 1,612+ views
WRAL & AP | June 11, 2007
ROANOKE ISLAND, N.C. - Researchers believe they may be able to use DNA to uncover the fate of the Lost Colony, which vanished shortly after more than 100 people settled on Roanoke Island in 1587. Using genealogy, deeds and historical narratives, researchers have compiled 168 surnames that could be connected to settlers in what is considered the first attempt by the English to colonize the New World. The team will try to trace the roots of individuals related to the colonists, to the area's 16th century American Indians or to both.
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World War Eleven
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Second World War MI5 documents revealed
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Posted by Calpernia
On General/Chat 06/15/2007 9:34:59 AM EDT · 13 replies · 196+ views
UKTV | 13th June 2007
Second World War MI5 documents revealed MI5 has been criticised for releasing documents that reveal the identities of agents serving in the Second World War. A large number of documents dating from the Second World War have been released by MI5 after more than 60 years. Released to the National Archives, the files contain details about the real identities of a number of spies and double agents working during the war. The documents relate to a camp in Ham, Surrey, that was used to hold and interrogate Nazi spies, many of whom later became double agents working for British intelligence....
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Russia declassifies military archives dating back to 1941-1945
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Posted by Calpernia
On General/Chat 06/15/2007 9:08:56 AM EDT · 4 replies · 94+ views
Interfax | Jun 14 2007
MOSCOW. June 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The archives of the Red Army and the Soviet Navy dating back to the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany in 1941-1945 have been declassified, Russian Defense Ministry's Archive Service chief Col. Sergei Ilyenkov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday. "The documents stored at the Defense Ministry Central Archive in Podolsk, the Central Naval Archive in Gatchina, and the Archive of Military Medical Documents of the Defense Ministry's Military Medical Museum in St. Petersburg have been declassified," Ilyenkov said. The declassified documents include 4 million copies.
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Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
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Archaeologists Find Early Executive Toilet In Sheffield Works
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/10/2007 11:03:52 AM EDT · 16 replies · 847+ views
24 Hour Museum | 6-8-2007 | Caroline Lewis
ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND EARLY EXECUTIVE TOILET IN SHEFFIELD WORKS By Caroline Lewis 08/06/2007 A grinding workshop at the site. Courtesy University of Sheffield/ARCUS The Victorians were great inventors, and their progress in the field of sewage disposal was not one of their least achievements. Thomas Crapper is famed for popularising the flush lavatory in the 19th century, but not many examples of his early "work" survive. So archaeologists from the University of Sheffield got quite excited when they found a toilet dating back around 150 years in an old cutlery and grinding works, believing it to be an original Crapper. Further...
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end of digest #152 20070616
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