[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #243 Saturday, March 14, 2009
President John Tyler's Grandson?!?
Tech degree, not ancestry, key to success (Grandson of Pres. JOHN TYLER)
	03/12/2009 4:02:58 AM PDT · Posted by Keltik · 18 replies · 497+ views Virginia Tech | Winter 2007 | Christopher J. Leahy As a boy, Harrison Tyler (chemical engineering '51) never gave much thought to his grandfather, John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States. "I grew up during World War II," he told Subaru Drive Magazine in 2002, "and surviving the war and the shortages was what was on everybody's mind. Being related to a president was never a thought." Such a view may seem astonishing, but President Tyler died in 1862, 66 years before his grandson was born. In fact, Harrison Tyler's father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853 and died in 1935, so there were very few...
Tippecanoe and Who? [Grandson on Pres John Tyler Lives]
	03/12/2009 6:58:30 AM PDT · Posted by PurpleMan · 19 replies · 647+ views The (NRO) Corner | 11 Mar 09 | Mark Krikorian "... not one, but two, of President John Tyler's grandsons are still alive."
President John Tyler's grandson working in obscurity at Virginia Tech
	03/12/2009 8:38:10 AM PDT · Posted by Edit35 · 6 replies · 387+ views Virginia Tech Magazine | Feb, 2007 | Christopher Leahy As a boy, Harrison Tyler (chemical engineering '51) never gave much thought to his grandfather, John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States. "I grew up during World War II," he told Subaru Drive Magazine in 2002, "and surviving the war and the shortages was what was on everybody's mind. Being related to a president was never a thought."
Rome and Italy
Rome's Tremendous Tunnel [100 kilometers long, century to dig it]
	03/13/2009 8:35:55 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 31 replies · 714+ views Speigel | Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | Matthias Schulz Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it... The tunnel begins in Syria and runs 64 kiometers above ground before going below the surface in three lengths of one, 11 and 94 kilometers... The tunnel was discovered by Mathias Döring, a hydromechanics professor in Darmstadt, Germany... Qanat Firaun, "Canal of the Pharaohs," is what the locals call the weathered old pipeline. There are even rumors that gold is hidden in...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Burgundy Wine Has Long History In France: Remains Of Gallo-Roman Vineyard Discovered...
	03/13/2009 8:45:11 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies · 240+ views ScienceDaily | Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | CNRS via AlphaGalileo Gevrey-Chambertin, 12 km from Dijon, is famous throughout the world for its Burgundy wines. It is now possible to conclude that winegrowing in this region goes back to the Gallo-Roman era, as testified by the findings of excavations by the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives (INRAP), at the spot known as "Au dessus de Bergis"... the archeological dig revealed 316 rectangular pits aligned in 26 rows, interpreted as being the remains of a vineyard from the first century AD... revealed a series of hollow remains (pits, pot-holes and ditches) from different periods. For the Gallo-Roman era, an area of...
Epigraphy and Language
Scholar: The Essenes, Dead Sea Scroll 'authors,' never existed
	03/13/2009 9:53:56 PM PDT · Posted by rdl6989 · 15 replies · 389+ views Haaretz.com | Mar 13, 2009 Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
New Madrid fault system may be shutting down
	03/14/2009 3:57:46 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 10 replies · 311+ views Purdue University | March 13, 2009 | Elizabeth K. Gardner The New Madrid fault system does not behave as earthquake hazard models assume and may be in the process of shutting down, a new study shows. A team from Purdue and Northwestern universities analyzed the fault motion for eight years using global positioning system measurements and found that it is much less than expected given the 500- to 1,000-year repeat cycle for major earthquakes on that fault. The last large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone were magnitude 7-7.5 events in 1811 and 1812. Estimating an accurate earthquake threat for the area, which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee,...
Are You Cereous? Life Came from an Asteroid?
	03/06/2009 4:12:22 PM PST · Posted by GodGunsGuts · 81 replies · 781+ views CEH | March 5, 2009 Ceres is an icy asteroid way out in space that has a lot of ice. The DAWN spacecraft is heading there. When it arrives in 2015, maybe it will find out if a substantial part of the water is in liquid state under an ice crust. Say the word water, and some think... life. Space.com reported that an astrobiologist has a new idea: life started on Ceres and then moved to Earth. Believe it or not, it’s a radical new theory Joot Houtkooper told the International Society...
Ancient fossil forest found by accident (potential major out of order problem for Darwinists)
	07/30/2007 2:01:00 PM PDT · Posted by GodGunsGuts · 375 replies · 5,752+ views news@nature.com (via BioEd online) | April 23, 2007 | Katharine Sanderson Geologists have found the remains of a huge underground rainforest hidden in a coal mine in Illinois. The fossil forest, buried by an earthquake 300 million years ago, contains giant versions of several plant types alive today. ... Also surprising is the presence of remains from mangrove-like plants. "It was always assumed that mangrove plants had evolved fairly recently," says Falcon-Lang.
Empty Quarter
George Hedges dies at 57; celebrity lawyer was also a noted archaeologist
	03/13/2009 7:45:45 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 234+ views Los Angeles Times | Friday, March 13, 2009 | Thomas H. Maugh II Hedges retained an interest in archaeology throughout his law career. A 1984 luncheon conversation with filmmaker Nicholas Clapp brought the fabled city of Ubar to his attention. An important center of the frankincense trade 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, Ubar had been unsuccessfully sought by a variety of archaeologists and explorers, and many thought it was mythical. Hedges and Clapp decided it was real and enlisted JPL scientists Blom and Charles Elachi, who persuaded NASA astronauts to photograph the region of southern Oman where they believed the city would be found. Those photos revealed faint traces of ancient...
Amateur Contributions
Armchair explorers: Surprising finds in satellite photography
	03/10/2009 10:43:24 AM PDT · Posted by Squidpup · 15 replies · 1,241+ views Christian Science Monitor | March 10, 2009 | CSMonitor Outside of Tucson, Ariz., the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is used to store old planes. The airplane 'boneyard' houses thousands of decomissioned military aircraft. The base is still in use, and you can find many active aircraft slightly to the northwest.
Let's Have Jerusalem
Byzantine era church discovered near Bet Shemesh
	03/11/2009 6:02:01 PM PDT · Posted by SJackson · 24 replies · 454+ views JERUSALEM POST | 3-10-09 A church dating from the Byzantine period (sixth-seventh centuries CE) and paved with beautiful mosaics and a dedicatory inscription has been exposed at an Antiquities Authority excavation at Horvat a-Diri, 5 km. east of Bet Shemesh, in the wake of plans to enlarge the nearby Moshav Ness Harim. This mosaic found near Moshav Ness Harim includes a dedicatory inscription in acient Greek. Photo: Daniel Ein Mor / Antiquities Authority "The site was surrounded by a small forest of oak trees and is covered with farming terraces that were cultivated by the residents of Ness Harim. Prior to the excavation, we...
Farmers Find Ancient Monastery
	03/13/2009 7:22:45 AM PDT · Posted by GonzoII · 6 replies · 271+ views CNN via AOL | March 11, 2009 | Deb Krajnak After a group of Israeli farmers sought last year to expand their property in the hills near Jerusalem, they discovered an archeological gem beneath the dirt. A team led by Daniel Ein Mor barely had to scratch the surface before finding the remains of a Byzantine monastery, he told CNN on Wednesday. "The excavation at Nes-Harim supplements our knowledge about the nature of the Christian-Byzantine settlement in the rural areas between the main cities in this part of the country during the Byzantine period," including Jerusalem, Mor said. The church is believed to have been built in the late fifth...
Faith and Philosophy
Authors Warn That Many Textbooks Distort Religion
	03/07/2009 8:13:13 AM PST · Posted by metmom · 33 replies · 774+ views FOXNews.com | Saturday, March 07, 2009 | By Lauren Green Jesus was a Palestinian? That's what one public school textbook says. Although Jesus lived in a region known in his time as Palestine, the use of the term "Palestinian," with its modern connotations, is among the hundreds of textbook flaws cited in a recent five-year study of educational anti-Semitism detailed in the book "The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion." Authors Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research found some 500 flaws and distortions concerning religion in 28 of the most widely used social studies and history textbooks in the United States.
Longer Perspectives
History's oldest hatred
	03/11/2009 1:32:44 AM PDT · Posted by MartinaMisc · 21 replies · 671+ views Boston Globe | 3/11/09 | Jeff Jacoby ANTI-SEMITISM is an ancient derangement, the oldest of hatreds, so it is strange that it lacks a more meaningful name. The misnomer "anti-Semitism" - a term coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr, who wanted a scientific-sounding euphemism for Judenhass, or Jew-hatred - is particularly inane, since hostility to Jews has never had anything to do with Semites or being Semitic. Perhaps there is no good name for a virus as mutable as anti-Semitism. "The Jews have been objects of hatred in pagan, religious, and secular societies," write Joseph Telushkin and Dennis Prager in "Why the Jews?," their...
Moderate Islam
Dark passages Does the harsh language in the Koran explain Islamic violence?
	03/08/2009 5:00:22 AM PDT · Posted by ninonitti · 20 replies · 419+ views Boston Globe | March 8,2009 | By Philip Jenkins WE HAVE A good idea what was passing through the minds of the Sept. 11 hijackers as they made their way to the airports. Their Al Qaeda handlers had instructed them to meditate on al-Tawba and Anfal, two lengthy suras from the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam. The passages make for harrowing reading. God promises to "cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks!" (Koran 8.12). God instructs his Muslim followers to kill unbelievers, to capture them, to ambush them (Koran 9.5). Everything contributes to advancing the holy goal:...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iran urbanized 4,500 years ago
	03/09/2009 9:39:03 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 21 replies · 251+ views Iran Press TV | Sunday, March 8, 2009 | NAT/JG Archeological studies have indicated that traces of ancient population in Iran's northern province of Mazandaran goes back 5,600 years. "Archeological excavations and precise date recognition at the historical site of Gohar Tappeh revealed urbanism had entered the region about 4,500 years ago," says Ali Mahforouzi, head of the excavation team of Gohar Tappeh of Mazandaran. The discovery has also led archeologists to believe that powerful political and economic systems in the region were established around 5,600 years ago. "If we believe in the theory that urban dwelling occurred after agrarian, we could claim settlement in Mazandaran province dates back...
Egypt
In the house of millions of years
	03/09/2009 9:15:30 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 197+ views Al-Ahram Weekly | Issue No. 937, 5 - 11 March 2009 | Nevine El-Aref Nice article about some recent finds, including at least two which have appeared on FR of late. Clockwise from top: King Amenhotep III's sphinx statue; canopic jars from Sheikh Abdel-Gourna; a relief on Isisnofret's sarcophagus; the lower part of King Amenhotep's statue (5 - 11 March 2009, issue #937)
Sail Like An Egyptian
	03/10/2009 1:36:39 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 16 replies · 419+ views Popular Science | 09 Mar 2009 | Jeremy Hsu It turns out the oldest seafaring ships ever found actually work An archaeologist who examined remnants of the oldest-known seafaring ships has now put ancient Egyptian technology to the test. She teamed up with a naval architect, modern shipwrights and an on-site Egyptian archaeologist to build a replica 3,800-year-old ship for a Red Sea trial run this past December. The voyage was meant to retrace an ancient voyage that the female pharaoh Hatsheput sponsored to a place which ancient Egyptians called God's land, or Punt. Ship planks and oar blades discovered in 2006 at the caves of Wadi Gawasis provided...
Underwater Archaeology
China to Salvage Porcelain-Laden Ming Dynasty Ship
	03/12/2009 12:07:59 AM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 10 replies · 287+ views The Hindu | 3/11/09 Archaeologists will salvage a porcelain-laden ship that is believed to have sunk off the coast of southern China some 400 years ago, state media said on Wednesday, hoping to find out more about foreign trade during a period when the country tried to close itself off to the world. The ship is thought to be a merchant vessel and could contain some 10,000 pieces of porcelain, most made during the reign of Emperor Wanli (1572-1620) in the latter part of the Ming Dynasty, the official Xinhua News Agency said. About 200 pieces have already been recovered and some date back...
Prehistory and Origins
'Peking Man' older than thought
	03/12/2009 9:16:42 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 22 replies · 431+ views BBC | 11 Mar 2009 | Paul Rincon Iconic ancient human fossils from China are 200,000 years older than had previously been thought, a study shows. The new dating analysis suggests the "Peking Man" fossils, unearthed in the caves of Zhoukoudian are some 750,000 years old. The discovery should help define a more accurate timeline for early humans arriving in North-East Asia. A US-Chinese team of researchers has published its findings in the prestigious journal Nature. The cave system of Zhoukoudian, near Beijing, is one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the world. Between 1921 and 1966, archaeologists working at the site unearthed tens of thousands of...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
White Masters in the deserts of China?
	03/11/2009 5:30:22 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 11 replies · 544+ views Philip Coppens | 11 Mar 2009 | Philip Coppens The discovery of Caucasoid mummies in China shows that East and West might have been meeting since the Bronze Age. Do they validate some of the ancient legends? Cherchen Man mummy Christopher Columbus is said to have been the first who broke down the barrier that was the Atlantic Ocean, that body of water that separated two continents. But no such barriers -- whether natural or ideological -- existed between Europe and the East -- one could travel over land. Nevertheless, the discovery of Caucasoid mummies has provided not only indisputable evidence that Europeans travelled very far East, it has...
Central Asia
Bizarre, elongated skulls found in Siberia
	03/12/2009 11:00:58 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 63 replies · 1,492+ views Digitial Journal | 28 Feb 2009 | Adriana Stuijt This one-minute video shows skulls dating from the 4th century AD, excavated near Omsk, Siberia by Russian archeologists. They show a prominent deformation which they said was created by skull clamping or binding of newborns crania. Archeologists deem these too strange to be publicly displayed in the city museum. From the front the skulls look like that of a normal human, but when turned to the side it's clear that this is not the case. The skulls are grossly elongated. Scholars at the Omsk Museum of History and Culture have no conclusive answer as to the origins of these skulls,...
Why Did You Say Burma?
Myanmar finds more evidences on Bronze Age, Iron Age
	03/09/2009 7:14:24 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 153+ views ChinaView / Xinhua | Monday, March 9, 2009 | Deng Shasha (editor) Recent excavations have found more evidences on both Bronze Age and Iron Age in Thazi township, central Mandalay division, Myanmar, proving that the country passed through both Bronze Age and Iron Age in the ancient time. The Archaeology, Natural Museum and Libraries Department under the Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with the CNRC of France, excavated the areas around Ywagongyi village in the township for 20 days from Jan. 10 to 30, finding out the site where 44 bodies were buried along with two small bundles of bronze sheets, two iron objects, 14 stone beads of different colors, a fine...
India
Lord Rama's ancient idol found
	03/09/2009 9:02:24 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 313+ views NewKerala | Saturday, March 7, 2009 | United News of India An idol of Lord Rama -- about 1000-years-old -- was found at Sidha Ashram in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh. The idol of 11th century AD was found by intellects and archaeologists taking part in nine-day Ram Vangaman Path Sarvekshan Yatra started from Satna district's Chitrkut area from March 1, official sources said today. "This is the most ancient idol of Lord Rama found ever," claimed Archaeology Experts R K Chaturvedi and R A Sharma, member of Prof Awadesh Parasad Pande headed Sarvekshan Yatra team. The idol of the deity was holding a bow and arrow indicating his readiness to...
Lancelot Link
Zoo chimp 'planned' stone attacks
	03/10/2009 12:46:01 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 48 replies · 1,257+ views news.bbc | 9 March 2009 A male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors, according to researchers. Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles. Further, the chimp learned to recognise how and when parts of his concrete enclosure could be pulled apart to fashion further projectiles. The findings are reported in the journal Current Biology. There has been scant evidence in previous research that animals can plan for future events.
D.B. Cooper
Scientists Helping FBI Solve D.B. Cooper Case
	03/08/2009 1:57:36 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 52 replies · 1,326+ views MSNBC | Tues., March. 3, 2009 | CHRIS INGALLS A team of scientists is in town, helping the Seattle FBI do something it hasn't been able to do on its own. They're trying to find new evidence that will lead to one of the Northwest's most notorious fugitives. Tom Kaye's casting with cash, which tells you this is ordinary fisherman on the banks of the Columbia River. Weird science - that's probably the better way to describe the fishing expedition that's going on this week near Vancouver. Kaye is hoping his experiment can help reel in one of the biggest catches of all: the Northwest skyjacker known only as...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Elf Detection 101-How to find the hidden folk of Iceland
	03/11/2009 6:24:04 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 56 replies · 608+ views Slate | 11 Mar 2009 | Juliet Lapidos An article on Iceland's de facto bankruptcy in the April issue of Vanity Fair notes that a "large number of Icelanders" believe in elves or "hidden people." This widespread folklore occasionally disrupts business in the sparsely populated North Atlantic country. Before the aluminum company Alcoa could erect a smelting factory, "it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it." How do you find an elf? With psychic powers. According to a poll conducted in 2007, 54 percent of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Attenborough: Yeti evidence 'convincing'
	03/12/2009 10:17:51 AM PDT · Posted by dragonblustar · 25 replies · 612+ views Belfast Telegraph | Saturday, 28 February 2009 Sir David Attenborough believes there is "very convincing" evidence that Yetis exist. Speaking on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, the revered wildlife expert said: "I'm baffled by the Abominable Snowman - very convincing footprints have been found at 19,000ft. No-one does that for a joke. I think it's unanswered."
New Lemurs Found in Madagascar
	08/11/2005 2:53:55 AM PDT · Posted by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island · 65 replies · 1,200+ views BBC | 9 August 2005 | Staff Two new species of lemur have been found in Madagascar, bringing the number of known species to 49. German and Malagasy scientists made the discovery by analysing the genetic make-up of wild lemurs. Lemurs are considered the most endangered of all primates and live only on Madagascar which has evolved in isolation for 165 million years. As a result, the island is now home to mammals, birds and plants that exist nowhere else on our planet. The first new species is a giant mouse lemur known as Mirza zaza. It has a long bushy tail and is about the size...
The Vikings
Those nice Vikings did a lot for us - and it wasn't all pillaging[UK]
	03/13/2009 10:24:11 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 41 replies · 677+ views Times Online | 13 Mar 2008 | Ben Hoyle From the moment that they ransacked a remote priory at Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings have had a bad press. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's entry for the year says that the raiders made "lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter", fixing the popular image of the Vikings for the next 1,200 years. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants. Historians will try to redress the balance today at a conference at the University of Cambridge and show that the Vikings who settled in Britain and Ireland were technologically...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Historian reveals men in Rembrandt's Night Watch
	03/13/2009 10:46:44 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 13 replies · 514+ views Reuters | 13 Mar 2009 | Aaron Gray-Block New life has been breathed into Dutch master painter Rembrandt's 'Night Watch', the famous dark-toned 17th-century painting of city guards gathering to march For more than three centuries, the identity of the men depicted in the massive portrait hanging in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum have been unknown, but a Dutch historian now claims to have identified them all. The painting, some 363 cm by 437 cm, is considered the Rijksmuseum's most famous painting. The Rijksmuseum said on Wednesday retired historian Bas Dudok van Heel has identified the men after years of research. "It is great for both the museum and the public...
How Long Will It Laster
Old soles: 800-year-old shoe soles yield clues about preservation of leather
	03/09/2009 9:06:01 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 306+ views Phys.org | March 4th, 2009 | Provided by ACS Ancient garbage can be like gold to archaeologists. During excavation of an 800-year-old trash dump in Lyon, France, scientists discovered the archaeological equivalent of golden shoe soles: A trove of leather soles of shoes, which is helping scientists understand how leather stays preserved in wet, oxygen-free environments. That knowledge could aid restoration of other leather artifacts, according to a report on analysis of the old soles scheduled for the current issue of ACS' semi-monthly journal Analytical Chemistry. In the article, Michel Bardet and colleagues point out that leather consists of collagen, a tough protein that can remain intact hundreds of...
Not So Ancient Autopsies
Mediaeval 'vampire' skull found near Venice
	03/08/2009 5:13:24 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 20 replies · 925+ views Daily Telegraph (UK) | 8 Mar 2009 | Nick Squires The remains of a woman's skull with a rock thrust into its jaws is evidence of the mediaeval fear of vampires, Italian anthropologists have claimed. Scientists found the skull, with its mouth agape and a large slab of rock forced into its mouth, while excavating a mass grave dating from the Middle Ages on an island near Venice. Female "vampires" were often blamed for spreading the plague epidemics through Europe, said Matteo Borrini of Florence University. Wedging a rock or brick into the mouth of a suspected vampire was a way of preventing the person from feeding on the bodies...
Italy dig unearths female 'vampire' in Venice
	03/13/2009 3:36:30 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 13 replies · 530+ views AP | 3/13/09 | Ariel David An archaeological dig near Venice has unearthed the 16th-century remains of a woman with a brick stuck between her jaws -- evidence, experts say, that she was believed to be a vampire. The unusual burial is thought to be the result of an ancient vampire-slaying ritual. It suggests the legend of the mythical bloodsucking creatures was tied to medieval ignorance of how diseases spread and what happens to bodies after death, experts said. The well-preserved skeleton was found in 2006 on the Lazzaretto Nuovo island, north of the lagoon city, amid other corpses buried in a mass grave during an...
Shakespeare First Theater, and Portrait?
Shakespeare painting is 'only surviving portrait from his lifetime'
	03/08/2009 7:04:07 PM PDT · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 36 replies · 1,046+ views dailymail.co.uk | March 9, 2009 | Matt Sandy A 400 year old painting thought to be the only surviving portrait of William Shakespeare from his lifetime is to be unveiled. The picture, painted in 1610, six years before the playwright's death, has been owned by the Cobbe family since the early 18th century. But for three centuries they were unsure if the subject was Britain's greatest writer. At one point it was thought to be Sir Walter Raleigh.
Only Shakespeare Portrait Painted During His Lifetime Is Revealed in London (video)
	03/10/2009 9:53:40 AM PDT · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 16 replies · 1,094+ views NBC News | March 10, 2009 The New York Times: "His face is open and alive, with a rosy, rather sweet expression, perhaps suggestive of modesty."
Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare' (latest theory on "true" Shakespeare in new book)
	10/05/2005 11:38:17 AM PDT · Posted by Stoat · 33 replies · 1,339+ views The BBC | October 4, 2005 Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare' † The authorship of Shakespeare's plays has often been questioned An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare's plays, a new book claims.The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare says the courtier, nicknamed "Falstaff" by close friends, used Shakespeare as a "front man". The book by Brenda James and Professor William Rubinstein contains a foreword by Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. Many experts remain sceptical at claims to have found the "real" Shakespeare. Jonathan Bate, professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of...
British Isles
Ancient fish trap discovery in the Teifi Estuary[UK]
	03/10/2009 1:44:18 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 12 replies · 427+ views Tivy-Side Advertiser | 10 Mar 2009 | Tivy-Side Advertiser A huge ancient fish trap more than 250 metres long and probably at least 1,000 years old has just been discovered in the Teifi estuary. The underwater structure was first identified on aerial photographs and a recent exploratory dive at the site near Poppit has revealed the structure is protruding about 30 cm above the sand, allowing for a fuller investigation by divers. A collaborative project is currently underway between Pembrokeshire College and the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, and members of the public are being asked to help with information for research into the conundrum of the "Poppit fish-trap'. Dr Ziggy...
The Head that Wears the Crown
Was this Britain's first black queen?
	03/12/2009 10:00:05 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 53 replies · 1,013+ views Guardian | 12 Mar 2009 | Stuart Jeffries Queen Charlotte was the wife of George III and, like him, of German descent. But did she also have African ancestry? Queen Charlotte died nearly two centuries ago but is still celebrated in her namesake American city. When you drive from the airport in North Carolina, you can't miss the monumental bronze sculpture of the woman said to be Britain's first black queen, dramatically bent backwards as if blown by a jet engine. Downtown, there is another prominent sculpture of Queen Charlotte, in which she's walking with two dogs as if out for a stroll in 21st-century America. Street after...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Rare Maya panels found in Guatemala
	03/12/2009 10:57:48 AM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 14 replies · 412+ views Reuters on Yahoo | 3/11/09 | Sarah Grainger GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) -- Archeologists have uncovered carved stucco panels depicting cosmic monsters, gods and serpents in Guatemala's northern jungle that are the oldest known depictions of a famous Mayan creation myth. The newly discovered panels, both 26 feet long and stacked on top of each other, were created around 300 BC and show scenes from the core Mayan mythology, the Popol Vuh. It took investigators three months to uncover the carvings while excavating El Mirador, the biggest ancient Mayan city in the world, the site's head researcher, Richard Hansen, said on Wednesday. The Maya built soaring temples and elaborate...
Columbus
Christopher Columbus was actually a Scotsman called Pedro Scotto, historian says
	03/09/2009 8:02:54 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 32 replies · 679+ views Telegraph | 08 Mar 2009 | Telegraph The 15th century explorer who opened up the American continents to Europe was actually called Pedro Scotto - not Christopher Columbus - and his family originally hailed from Scotland, a Spanish historian has claimed. Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga has disputed conventionally-accepted narratives on the explorer's origins - that he was the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, or that he was from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain. In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher," Mr Villalonga told Spain's ABC newspaper on Sunday. And his...
Surprising colonists of La Isabela
	03/09/2009 8:01:59 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 4 replies · 205+ views Times Online | 04 Mar 2009 | Norman Hammond, Burials excavated at the earliest European settlement in the New World, established by Christopher Columbus in 1493, have surprised archaeologists by including women and children. It had been thought from documentary evidence that the settlers had all been men. La Isabela, on the north coast of Hispaniola, in what is now the Dominican Republic, was founded by Columbus, pictured below, late in 1493 on his second voyage. The camp at La Navidad, now in Haiti, established on his first voyage in 1492, had been abandoned by the time he got back, and he moved eastwards along the coast of Hispaniola...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Mysterious shipwreck unearthed at bottom Gulf
	03/09/2009 5:57:30 AM PDT · Posted by BBell · 45 replies · 2,248+ views Times Picayune | March 08, 2009 | John Pope Nearly 200 years ago, a ship sank in the Gulf of Mexico, about 35 miles off Louisiana's coast. It stayed, undiscovered, on the seabed, about 4,000 feet below the surface, until 2002, when a crew happened upon the wreckage while checking out a pipeline. An expedition led by Texas A&M University found no skeletal remains and nothing to indicate the vessel's name, where it came from or how it sank. But underwater sleuths discovered plenty of artifacts, including a telescope, pottery, French bottles, swords, English mustard jars, hourglasses, a cast-iron stove and a Scottish cannon, Louisiana State Museum spokesman Arthur...
New light shed on shipwreck mystery
	03/10/2009 6:46:47 AM PDT · Posted by BBell · 8 replies · 694+ views Times Picayune | March 10, 2009 | John Pope Details match those of 1813 privateer The mystery surrounding the wreckage of a ship at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may have moved a few steps closer Monday toward being solved. Details that investigators have been able to piece together about the vessel match those of a ship that capsized in the Gulf in November 1813 after being chased by a British ship that was part of a naval blockade during the War of 1812, said Jack Irion, a marine archaeologist with the federal Minerals Management Service. In that incident, all eight crewmen were rescued by the British...
Early America
Celebrating 276 Years of Bowling Green
	03/12/2009 11:22:15 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 11 replies · 193+ views NY Times | March 12, 2009 | Sewell Chan Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Bowling Green, a parade ground and cattle market in the Dutch era, was laid out in 1733 during the period of British colonial rule. Bowling Green, the uneven gated ellipse at the foot of Broadway, evokes history more than most spots in New York City. Legend has it -- though historians give the legend almost no credence -- that Indian tribal leaders used the land for meetings and to negotiate the sale of Manhattan to Peter Minuit in 1626. What is known is that the site was a parade ground and cattle market in...
The Mystery of the Forgotten U.S. Flag Revealed
	03/10/2009 7:36:13 AM PDT · Posted by FreeManWhoCan · 16 replies · 841+ views Civil-liberties.com A little known odd fact about the history of Old Glory, is her sister, the forgotten Civil Flag of the United States. The existence of the first U.S. civil flag came about in 1767 when members of the "Sons of Liberty" rebelled against the Stamp Act by turning the flag of the British East India Company on its side and then flew it on the "Liberty Tree...
Revolution leaps from the pages
	03/09/2009 11:19:03 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 8 replies · 261+ views The State (SC) | Mar. 09, 2009 | JOHN MONK The Magazine's First EditionDavid Reuwer, Publisher History buff publishes magazine about the war for independence A dark blue Liberty battle flag of the American Revolution flies outside David Reuwer's Camden office, while pictures of early patriots -- Ben Franklin, John Adams, Henry Laurens -- line a wall inside. "The Revolution and its era, it is a narrative of who we are," said Reuwer, 50, whose S.C. license tag reads "Rev War." "It's our identity, and it created something that is still playing out." Reuwer's passion led him recently to publish American Revolution, a magazine he hopes to print five times...
Revolutionary War site still a mystery[GA]
	03/09/2009 10:38:04 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 8 replies · 471+ views WTOC | 02 Mar 2009 | Dal Cannady History and a mystery all rolled into one. Musket fire filled the woods near Brier Creek, but nothing like 230 years ago. Crowds gathered to remember the 3,000 Revolutionary War soldiers who fought there on this date. Among them, Tom Gurley's great, great, great grandfather. "He submitted paperwork for a Revolutionary War pension and in his deposition he described marching here, the battle and escaping across the Savannah River." said Gurley. 150 men weren't as lucky. They were killed by the British in one of the war's lesser known battles. Local historians know the names of many who died here,...
The Framers
the 7th Amendment
	03/08/2009 5:22:57 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies · 429+ views Constitution of the United States, via Populist America et al | The Framers In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
The Civil War
Hidden Message Found in Lincoln Pocket Watch (Abraham Lincoln)
	03/10/2009 3:15:49 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 128 replies · 3,522+ views Washington Post | Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | Neely Tucker For nearly 150 years, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch has been rumored to carry a secret message, supposedly written by an Irish immigrant and watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon. Dillon, working in a D.C. watch repair shop in 1861, told family members that he -- by incredible happenstance -- had been repairing Lincoln's watch when news came that Fort Sumter had been attacked in South Carolina. It was the opening salvo of what became the Civil War. Dillon told his children (and, half a century later, a reporter for the New York Times) that he opened the watch's inner workings and scrawled...
Collector: Lincoln photo uncovered in Grant album
	03/10/2009 7:15:57 AM PDT · Posted by jimtorr · 19 replies · 1,212+ views AP via Yahoo News | 10 March 2009 | Brett Zongker, AP It's an AP story, so I'll paraphrase the first paragraph. U.S. Grant's great-great-grandson found what appears to be a picture of Lincoln standing in front of the White House in 1865. It could be the last picture of him taken before he was killed.
end of digest #243 20090314

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #243 20090314 · Saturday, March 14, 2009 · 52 topics · 2206339 to 2201070 · 713 members ·
	Saturday Mar 14 2009 v 5 n 35 view this issue	Welcome to the 243rd issue. The combined GGG membership remains at 713. Topics in this week's digest shrank to 52 (from 53). To everyone who contributed topics or pinged me to one -- Thanks! Be sure to check Homer_J_Simpson's topics, many of which are based on archival newspaper articles, usually 70 years ago that day. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. Donate to FreeRepublic.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #244 Saturday, March 21, 2009
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Clues To A Secret Of Life Found In Meteorite Dust....
	03/17/2009 1:29:48 PM PDT · Posted by TaraP · 32 replies · 462+ views Science Daily | March 17th, 2009 NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level. We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is LEFT-HANDED," said Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "By that I mean why all known life uses only left-handed versions of amino acids to build proteins." Glavin is lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the Proceedings of...
Prehistory and Origins
3 new bacteria species found (not on earth, either...)
	03/16/2009 4:32:36 PM PDT · Posted by aMorePerfectUnion · 29 replies · 618+ views The Hindu Newspaper (India) | March 17, 2009 | T.S. Subramanian CHENNAI: Three new species of bacteria, which are not found on the earth and are highly resistant to ultraviolet radiation, have been discovered in the upper stratosphere (more than 15 km above the earth) by Indian scientists, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). While one of the species has been named Janibacter hoylei after astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, the second has been christened Bacillus isronensis recognising the ISRO's contribution in balloon experiments which led to the discovery. The third has been named Bacillus aryabhata after the Indian astronomer. An ISRO statement said: "The precautionary measures and controls operating in...
Paleontology
Unknown lifeform discovered in ancient fossil
	03/15/2009 8:40:14 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 27 replies · 704+ views Telegraph | 14 Mar 2009 Traces of an unknown lifeform have been found in rocks in a secret location in Devon in south west England. The animal, which made large burrows through sediment at the bottom of desert wadis in Torbay some 260 million years ago,could be unknown to science. Scientists from around the world will be informed of the mystery when the findings are officially published later this year. It comes as nine other sites in the area have been officially recognised as of national and international importance geologically. Geologist Kevin Page from Plymouth University, said they had been unable to find any known...
Dinosaurs
Fossil hints at fuzzy dinosaurs
	03/19/2009 7:45:22 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 17 replies · 345+ views news.bbc | 18 March 2009 | Victoria Gill discovery in China has prompted researchers to question the scaly image of dinosaurs. Previously, experts thought the first feathered dinosaurs appeared about 150 million years ago, but the find suggests feathers evolved much earlier. This has raised the question of whether many more of the creatures may have been covered with similar bristles, or "dino-fuzz".
Miniature carnivore dinosaurs roamed North America (the size of a small chicken)
	03/17/2009 2:16:07 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 30 replies · 439+ views AFP on Yahoo | 3/17/09 | Jean-Louis Santini WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Meat-eating dinosaurs the size of a small chicken roamed areas of North America 75 million years ago, according to research by Canadian paleontologists. The mini-dinosaur, similar in appearance to the Velociraptor, is named Hesperonychus elizabethae and is the smallest carnivorous dinosaur known to have lived in North America. "Hesperonychus is currently the smallest dinosaur known from North America," said University of Calgary paleontologist Nick Longrich. "Its discovery just emphasizes how little we actually know, and it raises the possibility that there are even smaller ones out there." Longrich, together with University of Alberta paleontologist Philip Currie, are...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Photo In The News: Bizarre Giant-Headed Predator Found
	03/19/2009 6:05:08 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 48 replies · 1,544+ views National Geographic | March 19, 2009 | Christine Dell'Amore A giant head and gill-covered body make this newly reconstructed creature (pictured) "one of most bizarre fossil creatures that there is," one scientist said. The 505-million-year-old critter was first identified in 1912 from fossil pieces. Over the years, bits of it showed up in museum collections mislabeled as jellyfish, sea cucumbers, and various other creatures. But expeditions in the 1990s began to uncover more complete specimens, which suggested the animal, dubbed Hurdia Victoria, was much more unique than previously thought. Now, a well-preserved specimen found in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and...
"Predator X" Arctic sea monster's giant bite
	03/17/2009 10:51:43 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 34 replies · 1,076+ views news.bbc | 17 March 2009 A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic had a bite that would have been able to crush a 4x4 car, according to its discoverers. Researchers say the marine reptile, which measured an impressive 15m (50ft) long, had a bite force of about 45 tonnes (33,000lbs) per square inch. The creature's partial skull was dug up last summer in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard by a Norwegian-led team. Dubbed "Predator X", it patrolled the oceans some 147 million years ago. Its jaws may have been more powerful than those of a Tyrannosaurus rex, though estimates of the dinosaur's bite...
Anthropology
Armed' chimps go wild for honey
	03/19/2009 8:27:42 PM PDT · Posted by jmcenanly · 12 replies · 271+ views BBC | 11:06 GMT, Wednesday, 18 March 2009 | Rebecca Morelle Cameras have revealed how "armed" chimpanzees raid beehives to gorge on sweet honey. Scientists in the Republic of Congo found that the wild primates crafted large clubs from branches to pound the nests until they broke open. The team said some chimps would also use a "toolkit" of different wooden implements in a bid to access the honey and satisfy their sweet tooth. The study is published in the International Journal of Primatology. Crickette Sanz, from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said: "The nutritional returns don't seem to be that great.
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Study gives more proof that intelligence is largely inherited
	03/18/2009 8:36:57 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 67 replies · 1,098+ views UCLA/Eureka Alerts | 17-Mar-2009 | Mark Wheeler UCLA researchers find that genes determine brain's processing speed They say a picture tells a thousand stories, but can it also tell how smart you are? Actually, say UCLA researchers, it can. In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Feb. 18, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by...
Longer Perspectives
There's more to life than sequence
	03/15/2009 11:25:04 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 13 replies · 252+ views Nature News via Water in Biology | March 13, 2009 | Philip Ball I have been meaning for some time to write about an interesting paper in JACS by Naoki Sugimoto's group in Kobe. It found its way into an article that I wrote this week for Nature's online news. So I've decided to simply post this article here -- it's not all strictly relevant to water in biology, but hopefully is interesting stuff anyway. This is the version before editing, which has more detail. Shape might be one of the key factors in the function of mysterious, 'non-coding' DNA. Everyone knows what DNA looks like. Its double helix decorates countless articles on...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Three Sisters Mystery Masonic Link?
	03/18/2009 11:47:22 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 22 replies · 648+ views Largs and Millport News | 18 Mar 2009 | Largs and Millport This week, Know Your Largs looks into the secrets behind the "Three Sisters" in a script which could come right out of "The Da Vinci Code" while arguments raged about the discovery of mysterious human remains on the same hill. Mr Charles Kidd, a former manager of the Clydesdale Bank in Largs dating back to the 1950s, investigated the historic Three Sisters landmark which were built by Sir Thomas Brisbane exactly 200 years ago in 1809. Another archaeologist, Dr Phene, speculates on the original significance of the Green Hill on which the pillars are built and on the significance of...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Hunt for Alexander's tomb: Greece, Egypt, Persia, India, Broome
	03/20/2009 9:54:17 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 9 replies · 366+ views ABC News | 18 Mar 2009 | ABC News Alexander the Great, whose tomb has been missing for nearly 2,000 years, could be buried in Broome in Western Australia, a Perth man says. Macedonian-born Tim Tutungis told ABC Kimberley that he first heard the 'Broomer' from his old mate, Lou Batalis. "We just got onto the subject of Alexander The Great's tomb, and he said, 'They'll never ever find it, no matter where they look, because Alexander the Great is buried in Broome, in Western Australia'," Mr Tutungis said. "Approximately 50 years ago, some guy went into a cave in Broome and he saw some inscriptions in there and...
The Party of Treason
The Conyers bill is back [restricting access to research we paid for]
	02/14/2009 6:44:09 AM PST · Posted by antiRepublicrat · 17 replies · 499+ views Open Access News | February 04, 2009 | Staff Yesterday Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.† This year it's H.R. 801 (last year it was H.R. 6845), and co-sponsored by Steve Cohen (D-TN), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL).† The language has not changed.† The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism.† It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency.† The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where Conyers is Chairman, and where he has consolidated his power...
Rep. Conyers wants science to be secret -- or you will pay
	03/06/2009 5:47:17 PM PST · Posted by LibWhacker · 38 replies · 846+ views DiscoverMagazine | 3/6/09 There are some things science needs to survive, and to thrive: eager, hardworking scientists; a grasp of reality and a desire to understand it; and an open and clear atmosphere to communicate and discuss results. That last bit there seems to be having a problem. Communication is key to science; without it you are some nerd tinkering in your basement. With it, the world can learn about your work and build on it. Recently, government-sponsored agencies like NIH have moved toward open access of scientific findings. That is, the results are published where anyone can see them, and in fact...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Scientists in bone battle
	03/19/2009 8:05:35 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 11 replies · 280+ views nature | 18 March 2009 | Rex Dalton Officials at the University of California are moving to give two of the oldest-known skeletons in North America to a local Native American tribe, against the recommendation of university scientists who say the bones should be retained for study. Under federal law, bones are returned to a tribe that can prove 'cultural affiliation' through artefacts or other analyses. At nearly 10,000 years old, the skeletons in question -- unearthed in 1976 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) -- are so ancient that they are not culturally linked to any tribe...But last month, University of California president Mark Yudof...
British Isles
Alabama fights to reinstate plaque celebrating Welsh "Columbus'
	03/18/2009 11:26:54 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 12 replies · 252+ views Wales Online | 18 Mar 2009 | Darren Devine A GROUP of Welsh Americans are hoping their campaign to reinstate a plaque celebrating the arrival of Prince Madoc ap Owain in the US will overcome its final political hurdle. The plaque was blown out of its position on the Alabama shoreline at military museum Fort Morgan by Hurricane Frederic in 1979. The Alabama Welsh Association (AWA) wants the plaque restored to its original position and last year won the backing of the state's House of Representatives. Though the motion then stalled in Alabama's senate the AWA believes a resolution calling for its reinstatement could be passed when the local...
And for Dessert, Lady Fingers
Druids Committed Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism?
	03/20/2009 4:10:41 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 26 replies · 701+ views nationalgeographic | March 20, 2009 | James Owen Recent evidence that Druids possibly committed cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice -- perhaps on a massive scale -- add weight to ancient Roman accounts of Druidic savagery, archaeologists say.After a first century B.C. visit to Britain, the Romans came back with horrific stories about these high-ranking priests of the Celts, who had spread throughout much of Europe over a roughly 2,000-year period.
This Week's Excuse for Cheap Gags
Hood not so good? Ancient Brits questioned outlaw
	03/14/2009 11:16:04 AM PDT · Posted by Turret Gunner A20 · 31 replies · 846+ views PeoplePC Online | Saturday, March 14, 2009 | Staff LONDON - A British academic says he's found proof that Britain's legendary outlaw Robin Hood wasn't as popular with the poor as folklore suggests. Julian Luxford says a newly found note in the margins of an ancient history book contains rare criticism of the supposedly benevolent bandit. According to legend, Hood roamed 13th-century Britain from a base in central England's Sherwood Forest, plundering from the rich to give to the poor. But Luxford, an art history lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, in Fife, Scotland, says a 23-word inscription in a history book, written in Latin by a medieval...
The 13th Century manuscript that shows Robin Hood and his Merry Men weren't so popular after all
	03/14/2009 7:48:20 AM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 70 replies · 1,341+ views Daily Mail (UK) | 14th March 2009 | Paul Sims Folklore holds that Robin Hood was a fearless outlaw loathed by the rich and loved by the poor. Fighting injustice and tyranny, his gallantry became the stuff of legend - and Hollywood movies. But according to a newly-discovered manuscript entry it appears that Robin and his Merry Men may not have been as popular as the stories would have us believe.Written in Latin and buried among the treasures of Eton's library, the 23 sparse words shed new light on the Sheriff of Nottingham's mortal foe. Translated, the 550-year-old note reads: 'Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw...
Egypt
Egypt Set to Open Pyramid for First Time to Tourists
	03/16/2009 7:29:36 PM PDT · Posted by AngieGal · 16 replies · 461+ views Fox News | March 16, 2009 | Associated Press Travelers to Egypt will soon be able to explore the inner chambers of the 4,500-year-old "bent" pyramid, known for its oddly shaped profile, and other nearby ancient tombs, Egypt's antiquities chief announced Monday. The increased access to the pyramids south of Cairo is part of a new sustainable development campaign that Egypt hopes will attract more visitors but also to avoid some of the problems of the urban sprawl that have plagued the famed pyramids of Giza. Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the chambers of the 330-foot-pyramid outside the village of Dahshur, 50 miles south of Cairo, will be...
Ancient Autopsies
Found: the sister Cleopatra killed
	03/15/2009 2:18:56 AM PDT · Posted by BlackVeil · 27 replies · 947+ views The Times | March 15, 2009 | Daniel Foggo Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen's younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra's younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra's true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated...
Skeleton of Cleopatra's Murdered Sister Identified
	03/15/2009 3:13:37 PM PDT · Posted by RDTF · 15 replies · 454+ views Fox | March 15, 2009 Archeologists and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra's younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. -snip-
Found: the Sister Cleopatra Killed
	03/15/2009 11:07:14 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 34 replies · 854+ views The Times (London) | March 15, 2009 | Daniel Foggo ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra's younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra's true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated whether she was Greek or Macedonian like her ancestor the original Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who was made...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Where is the tomb of Mordechai and Esther?
	03/11/2009 5:42:58 AM PDT · Posted by SJackson · 34 replies · 839+ views Jerusalem Post | 3-11-9 | MICHAEL FREUND A few months ago, the normally hostile Iranian regime took the rather unusual step of adding a Jewish holy site to its National Heritage List. On December 9, 2008, Iranian news outlets reported that the tomb of Mordechai and Esther, the heroes of the Purim saga, would now be under official government protection and responsibility. The purported tomb of Mordechai and Esther in Iran. Photo: Courtesy The move cast a brief spotlight on the site, which is well-known to Iranian Jews but largely unfamiliar to those outside the country. And with Purim being celebrated this week, it is worth taking...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Scholar: The Essenes, Dead Sea Scroll 'authors,' never existed
	03/13/2009 8:18:50 AM PDT · Posted by TaraP · 42 replies · 971+ views Ofri Ilani | March 13th, 2009 Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...
Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls
	09/25/2007 4:48:34 PM PDT · Posted by brityank · 9 replies · 179+ views The Evening Bulletin [PA] | 25 September, 2007 | Neil Altman Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls By: Neil Altman, For The Bulletin 09/24/2007 Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves. During those same years, archaeologists tried to identify the people who deposited the scrolls. They found the Qumran ruin, a...
Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?: New Book Addresses Historical Origins of the Bible
	02/16/2007 2:06:00 PM PST · Posted by Alex Murphy · 15 replies · 840+ views PR Newswire | Feb. 16, 2007 LAPORTE, Ind., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- C. Jack Trickler presents a clear and accessible study of the people who wrote the books of the Bible, their motivations and the historical, political and social settings in which they wrote in his new book, "A Layman's Guide to Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?" (now available through AuthorHouse). Trickler discusses his own theories, as well as those of other religious scholars, to offer a thorough, well-researched argument. "When you get into the Bible, you see enough evidence that the Bible was written by humans that you have to say, 'Well, who...
The Chinese connection (to the Dead Sea Scrolls)
	11/30/2006 8:40:52 PM PST · Posted by John Philoponus · 11 replies · 457+ views The Star | Nov. 4, 2006 | NEIL ALTMAN The Dead Sea Scrolls have been guarded for 60 years like crown jewels, the possessions of a scholarly elite who were challenged only in the past decade to bring the scrolls to the public. Now, there is accumulating and compelling evidence that these supposedly ancient texts are medieval at best and have a connection with China. That connection is raising questions about the manuscripts' true dating, origin and possible authenticity. ........ In 1991, I wrote articles for the Washington Post and Boston Herald about the idea that a number of previously undeciphered markings in the margins of two Dead Sea...
Pages
Sony e-book reader gets 500,000 books from Google
	03/19/2009 9:45:42 AM PDT · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 19 replies · 415+ views SFGate | Thursday, March 19, 2009 | AP Google Inc. is making half a million books, unprotected by copyright, available for free on Sony Corp.'s electronic book-reading device, the companies were set to announce Thursday. It's the first time Google has made its vast trove of scanned public-domain books available to an e-book device, and vaults the Sony Reader past Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle as the device with the largest available library, at about 600,000 books.The scanned books were all published before 1923, and include works like Charles Dickens'"A Tale of Two Cities" as well as nonfiction classics like Herodotus'"The Histories."The books are already available as free downloads in...
Rome and Italy
The Killing of Julius Caesar "Localized"
	03/14/2009 6:31:51 PM PDT · Posted by Captain Peter Blood · 17 replies · 404+ views Mark Twain Short Story | 03-14-2009 | Captain Peter Blood Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from the Roman "Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous occurrence. Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living delight in this labor of love--for such it is to him, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come...
Climate
American Adults Flunk Basic Science
	03/19/2009 6:27:05 PM PDT · Posted by freedumb2003 · 93 replies · 903+ views Science Daily | 3/13/2009 | ScienceDaily ... Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun... Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time... Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water... ... Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly
Bloodbaths
Amazing Fossils: Do They Help Darwin?
	03/20/2009 8:09:11 AM PDT · Posted by GodGunsGuts · 56 replies · 833+ views CEH | March 19, 2009 Amazing Fossils: Do They Help Darwin? March 19, 2009 -- Some remarkable fossils have been found recently. According to the reports, scientists are not sure what to make of them, even though evolutionary language is liberally applied to the interpretation...
No more love for Lucy? (33 years of evolutionary propoganda up in smoke)
	03/11/2009 11:40:00 AM PDT · Posted by GodGunsGuts · 308 replies · 3,377+ views Journal of Creation | Ryan Jaroncyk No more love for Lucy? Ryan Jaroncyk For over the last 30 years, the supposedly 3.2 Ma old Australopithecus afarensis specimen known as "Lucy' has been boldly proclaimed as the ancestor of all humanity in magazines, television shows, books, newspapers and museums. However, Tel Aviv University anthropologists have published a study casting serious doubt on Lucy's role as mankind's ape ancestor.1 Based on a comparative analysis of jaw bones in living and extinct primates, researchers concluded that Lucy and members of her kind should be "placed as the beginning of the branch that evolved in parallel to ours.'...
What Darwin Didn't Know
	01/27/2009 2:23:45 PM PST · Posted by truthfinder9 · 41 replies · 590+ views http://charismamag.com/articles/index.php/18473 | Fazale Rana A sage once said, "It's not what you know you don't know that's the problem; it's what you don't know that you don't know." When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of biological evolution, there was a lot of biology he didn't know. Some of it he recognized. But there was much he never even thought about. During the 150 years since then, scientific advance has yielded important understanding about life's origin, history and characteristics. These accomplishments provide the framework for modern biology. Even more, they are causing scientists to question his theory. Learning what scientists know will equip Christians with...
Meet the Earliest Baby Girl ever Discovered!
	09/21/2006 7:05:18 AM PDT · Posted by PatrickHenry · 197 replies · 3,275+ views Max Planck Society | 12 September 2006 | Staff (press release) 3.3 million years ago, a three year old girl died in present day Ethiopia, in an area called Dikika. Though a baby, she provides researchers with a unique account of our past, as would a grandmother. Her completeness, antiquity, and age at death combine make this find unprecedented in the history of paleoanthropology and open many new research avenues to investigate into the infancy of early human ancestors. The extraordinary discovery reported this week in the scientific journal Nature, was found in north-eastern Ethiopia, by a paleoanthropological research team led by Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged of the Max Planck Institute in...
Stakes Are High and So Am I
700 years on, a proper funeral for the 'teenage witch' who had her head chopped off
	03/16/2009 6:06:34 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 37 replies · 551+ views Daily Mail (UK) | 16th March 2009 | Beth Hale The body of a 14th century teenager thought to have been beheaded as a witch and buried on unconsecrated ground has been exhumed and given a proper burial. The girl, named Holly by archaeologists because her remains were found beneath a holly bush, had had her head laid at her side, a sign that she might have been suspected of witchcraft. Holly's body was found six years ago in Hoo, Kent, during an excavation by archaeologists prior to work starting on a housing development and was taken away for research.
'Vampire' unearthed from Venice plague grave
	03/14/2009 7:50:08 PM PDT · Posted by BlackVeil · 13 replies · 557+ views Australian Broadcasting Commission | March 13 2009 | anon Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century. Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death. "This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire," Mr Borrini said. "This...
Faith and Philosophy
2 men get prison for stealing, destroying statue at Padre Pio shrine near Barto
	03/18/2009 6:58:01 AM PDT · Posted by Born Conservative · 26 replies · 365+ views Reading Eagle | 3/18/09 | Holly Herman Two men apologized Tuesday in Berks County Court before they were sentenced to state prison for stealing and destroying a brass statue of an angel from the National Center of Padre Pio Inc. near Barto in September. John E. Hammond Jr. and Jamie L. Custer admitted they cut the 8-foot-tall, 1,200-pound "Angel of the Roses" into pieces and sold them as scrap for $952. Hammond, 31, of Spring City, Chester County, was sentenced by Judge James M. Bucci to 21 months to six years in state prison. "I am ashamed and embarrassed," Hammond said. Custer, 31, Norristown, received one to...
Early America
Spy network gave Washington victory
	03/16/2009 2:13:39 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 18 replies · 411+ views The Free-Lance Star | 16 Mar 2009 | CATHY DYSON The father of our country also was a 'spymaster extraordinaire,' according to a retired CIA executive George Washington defeated the British empire, not with his "ragtag Army," but with his extensive network of spies. That's according to Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA executive who began to research the history of espionage decades ago. "Washington had his spies everywhere," said Poteat, who helped establish the International Spy Museum in Washington. "He set up the most effective intelligence operation this country has ever seen." Poteat lives in McLean, but was in Fredericksburg Saturday to address a group keenly interested in the...
The Framers
the 6th Amendment
	03/15/2009 5:09:24 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 37 replies · 396+ views Constitution of the United States, via Populist America et al | The Framers "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
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