Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #259
Saturday, July 04, 2009
We Mutually Pledge to Each Other
Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor
Rare and valuable copy of American Declaration of Independence found... in Surrey
· 07/02/2009 6:15:45 AM PDT · Posted by naturalman1975 · 36 replies · 925+ views ·
Daily Mail (UK) | 2nd July 2009
A rare copy of the United States Declaration of Independence worth thousands of pounds has been discovered in Britain. The document, which is in perfect condition, is believed to be one of only 200 ever printed and was found among files at the National Archives in Kew. An American antiquarian bookseller carrying out research found the Dunlap print of the declaration which was printed on July 4, 1776. The discovery brings the total of known surviving copies worldwide to 26. The last discovery of a Dunlap print was at a flea market in 1989, and it sold at auction in...
The American Revolution
Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code
· 07/01/2009 7:56:51 PM PDT · Posted by Pontiac · 27 replies · 1,158+ views ·
Wall Street Journal | 7/2/09 | RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now. The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them. There is no evidence...
The Framers
the 20th Amendment
· 06/28/2009 4:30:00 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 278+ views ·
Constitution of the United States, via FindLaw et al | ratified on January 23, 1933 | The Framers et al
FindLaw's commentary: As thus stated, the exact term of the President and Vice President was fixed by the Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 1, at 4 years, and became actually effective, by resolution of the Continental Congress, on the 4th of March 1789. Since this amendment was declared adopted on February 6, 1933, Sec. 1 in effect shortened, by the interval between January 20 and March 4, 1937, the terms of the President and Vice President elected in 1932. Similarly, it shortened, by the intervals between January 3 and March 4, the terms of Senators elected for terms ending...
Historical Technology
The first sound bites - The presidential campaign, 1908-style. Hear early phonograph recordings.
· 06/29/2009 9:20:13 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 5 replies · 196+ views ·
Science News | September 26th, 2008 | Ron Cowen
When Bryan speaks, then I rejoice. His is the strange composite voice Of many million singing souls Who make world-brotherhood their choice -- Vachel Lindsay, American poet, 1915 William Jennings Bryan was rarely at a loss for words. His impassioned oratory spellbound congressmen during his two terms in the U.S. House and thrilled thousands of voters during the presidential campaigns of 1896 and1900. But during his third run for the White House, 100 years ago, Bryan had trouble speaking in the intimacy of his own home. "Mr. Bryan seemed a little nervous when he first started, much more so, he...
In Tune
Patriotic Independence Day TV Programs: Set your DVR's
· 07/02/2009 8:27:54 AM PDT · Posted by Perseverando · 1 replies · 196+ views Self | July 2, 2009 | Self
There is some great patriotic programming on TBN over the next several days. Yes, it's primarily Christian in nature, but it's all incredibly patriotic, Independence Day related, and some incredible history lessons as well. Hey, what's on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc? Enjoy! TBN.org TBN TV schedule July 2nd (East coast): Note: Primary schedule is west coast, but you can change time zones. Some great programs (Eastern Time). Check schedule for additional broadcasts. 11:30 AM - A Nation Adrift * 1:30 PM - Medal of Honor * 5:00 PM - America's Godly Heritage * 6:00 PM -...
Monument Without a Tomb
The Five Greatest Americans? You might be surprised...
· 06/30/2009 7:32:01 AM PDT · Posted by Publius772000 · 64 replies · 1,270+ views ·
The Constitutional Alamo | 06/29/09 | Michael Naragon
While sitting in the Advanced Placement institute a week ago, the instructor posed a question to the history educators in the room. "Not counting presidents or their wives," he began, "who would you consider the five greatest, most influential Americans in history?" My mind began to cycle through the most important figures to grace the stage. My first choice was John Marshall. As the first significant Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he established the principle of judicial review, greatly expanding the power of the Court and making the Constitution, according to Jefferson, "a mere thing of wax in the...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
A Historian Is on a Quest to Locate Lost Events
· 06/30/2009 5:03:01 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 29 replies · 371+ views ·
The New York Times | June 30, 2009 | SAM ROBERTS
Richard Perry/The New York TimesKalustyan's, a market at 123 Lexington Avenue, is the only building still standing where a president was sworn in: Chester A. Arthur. Forlornly unidentified and altogether forgotten, these sites have been literally lost to history. ...on West 125th Street...nothing marks the place where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in 1958. Then there is the spot on Fifth Avenue where Winston Churchill, crossing against the light, was struck by a car in 1931 and nearly killed. snip Andrew Carroll, 39, an amateur historian, is embarking this week on a 50-state journey to...
Underwater Archaeology
New York City's harbors house 1,600 bars of silver, and 4-foot-long, wood-eating worms
· 07/01/2009 6:58:24 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 15 replies · 1,094+ views ·
news.yahoo | Sun Jun 28 | Chuck Shepherd
Using GPS and state-of-the-art sonar, Columbia University researchers recently made the first comprehensive map of the wonders submerged in New York City's harbors. Supplementing those findings with historical data, New York magazine reported the inventory's highlights in May: a 350-foot steamship (downed in 1920), a freight train (derailed in 1865), 1,600 bars of silver (unrecovered since 1903), a fleet of Good Humor ice cream trucks (which form a reef for aquatic life), and so many junked cars near the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges that divers use them as underwater navigation points. Of most concern lately, though, are the wildlife: 4-foot-long...
Word
Ancient Find Proves Christ's Words? (oldest christian church unearthed)
· 07/02/2009 6:53:30 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 14 replies · 1,199+ views ·
Netscape | July 2009
Ancient Find Proves Christ's Words?Archaeologists have unearthed in Jordan what they believe to be the first Christian church in the world. Dating back almost 2,000 years to sometime between 33 AD to 70 AD, the church, which is actually a cave, was found underneath Saint Georgeous Church, which itself dates back to 230 AD, in Rihab in northern Jordan near the Syrian border. Agence France Presse and The Jordan Times report that the church is thought to have sheltered the world's earliest Christians from persecution and certain death. "We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians--the 70...
Ancient Autopsies
Pope: Scientific analysis done on St. Paul's bones
· 06/28/2009 4:07:41 PM PDT · Posted by Not gonna take it anymore · 32 replies · 1,024+ views ·
The Detroit News Online | Jun 28, 5:30 PM EDT | NICOLE WINFIELD
ROME (AP) -- The first-ever scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seem to conclude" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday. Archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul. Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or...
Pope: St. Paul's Remains Found in Basilica
· 06/28/2009 9:11:39 PM PDT · Posted by conservativegramma · 69 replies · 1,193+ views ·
NewsMax | June 28, 2009 | NewsMax
Pope Benedict announced on Sunday that fragments of bone from the first or second century had been found in a tomb in the Basilica of St Paul in Rome, which he said confirmed the belief that it housed the apostle's remains. "This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains on the Apostle Paul," the pontiff said at St Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, on the eve of the Feasts of St Peter and St Paul celebrated on Monday.
Have we found the body of St Paul?
· 06/29/2009 8:30:16 PM PDT · Posted by naturalman1975 · 42 replies · 1,049+ views ·
Daily Mail (UK) | 30th June 2009 | A.N. Wilson
Ruthless, half mad, he stoned Christians to death. He also founded modern civilisation. And until yesterday, his fate was one of history's great mysteries...Deeply moved, the Pope delivered the news on Sunday that fragments of bones found in the tomb traditionally considered to be that of Saint Paul did indeed date from the first or second century. Which means that, in all likelihood, they are the bones of the Apostle Paul - bones that have lain there for 1,950 years yet, astonishingly, have only been discovered in our time. You might say, so what? Aren't Roman Catholics always making claims...
Faith and Philosophy
Rome Catacomb Reveals "Oldest" Image of St Paul
· 06/28/2009 4:20:19 PM PDT · Posted by marshmallow · 41 replies · 1,318+ views ·
Reuters | 6/28/09
ROME (Reuters) -- Vatican archaeologists using laser technology have discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of St Paul the Apostle, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome. Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, revealing the find on Sunday, published a picture of a frescoed image of the face of a man with a pointed black beard on a red background, inside a bright yellow halo. The high forehead is furrowed. Experts of the Ponitifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology made the discovery on June 19 in the Catacomb of Santa Tecla in Rome...
Rome Catacomb Reveals "Oldest" Image Of St Paul
· 06/28/2009 3:06:32 PM PDT · Posted by Steelfish · 20 replies · 1,465+ views ·
Reuters | June 28, 2009
Rome catacomb reveals "oldest" image of St Paul Sun Jun 28 ROME (Reuters) -- Vatican archaeologists using laser technology have discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of St Paul the Apostle, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome. Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, revealing the find on Sunday, published a picture of a frescoed image of the face of a man with a pointed black beard on a red background, inside a bright yellow halo. The high forehead is furrowed. Experts of the Ponitifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology made the discovery...
Oldest Icon of St. Paul Discovered
· 06/28/2009 11:54:12 AM PDT · Posted by Mighty_Quinn · 25 replies · 1,551+ views
Oldest known icon of St. Paul discovered!
Let's Have Jerusalem
Reclaiming Biblical Jerusalem
· 06/30/2009 8:06:52 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 24 replies · 401+ views ·
aish.com | June 30, 2009 / 8 Tammuz 5769 | by Rachel Ginsberg
The world of archeology is rocked by evidence of King David's palace unearthed in Jerusalem. How Jewish is Jerusalem? You might think that's a silly question, but in the world of academia, revisionist history and even biblical archaeology, scholars have cast the shadow of doubt over Judaism's intrinsic connection to Jerusalem. The Moslem Waqf, the religious authority that administers the Temple Mount -- the site of Judaism's First and Second Temples -- has been claiming for years that there was never a temple there. But the idea that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its...
Facts In the Ground
Did Hebron Disappear?
· 06/30/2009 6:32:53 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 25 replies · 480+ views ·
aish.com | June 30, 2009 / 8 Tammuz 5769 | by Rabbi Leibel Reznick
Despite the overwhelming evidence, why do some archeologists claim that Hebron was uninhabited during the times of Moses and Joshua? The city of Hebron presents a unique problem to the Biblical archaeologist. Ancient Hebron, located a few miles west of the Dead Sea and about 20 miles south of Jerusalem, figures prominently in the Jewish Bible, mentioned more than 70 times. Hebron is known to be one of the oldest cities in the world. Josephus Flavius, the noted first century CE Jewish historian, stated that in his time Hebron was already 2,300 years old! The city with its rolling hills...
Torah Torah Torah
Egyptology in the Torah: Biblical Archeology
· 06/30/2009 5:04:30 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 15 replies · 320+ views ·
aish.com | June 30, 2009 - Tammuz 5769 | by Rabbi Leibel Reznick
Contrary to popular Egyptologist belief, the Torah does contain numerous hints of contemporary life in ancient Egypt. The western world has a fascination with the culture of ancient Egypt. The image of the great stone sphinx guarding the lofty pyramiding tombs of the mummified pharaohs, as the once all-powerful king journeyed through the world of darkness, adds to the mysterious lure of ancient Egypt. Over 100,000 books have been written on this inscrutable land and its pharaohs, the first one being composed over 2000 years ago. By the time the Hellenistic historian, Manetho, composed his Aegyptiaca in the third century...
Egypt
Ancient military town dating back to 26th Dynasty discovered in Ismailiya
· 06/30/2009 3:16:18 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 20 replies · 263+ views ·
Egypt State Information Service | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | unattributed
Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said an archeological mission discovered the remnants of an ancient military town in the governorate of Ismailiya. The discovered military town dates back to the 26th Dynasty (664-625 BC). It was found in Tel Defna between Al-Manzala Lake and the Suez Canal. The area had been chosen by king Rameses II to avoid attacks from the eastern borders. In addition, the area was used as crossing point by trade convoys coming from east. The discovered military city belongs to king Ibsemalik I.
'Excavating Egypt' shatters art museum records
· 07/03/2009 5:23:14 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 79+ views ·
Lexington Herald-Leader | Thursday, July 2, 2009 | Mary Meehan
A gold gilded (is that a redundancy?) mummy mask, 40-60AD, from the Roman period of Egyptian history, was being installed as part of the upcomng Excavating Egypt exhibit on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The exhibit runs from March 22 to June 14. It is being touted, from the brochure, as "Great discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London." The exhibit highlights the story of pioneer archaeologist Sir William Petrie and his exploration of ancient Egypt between the 1880s and 1920s. More than 200 of his...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Burned grains hold clues to ancient farms [Assiros Toumba in Greece]
· 07/01/2009 3:12:56 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 208+ views ·
Planet Earth online | 26 June 2009 | Natural Environment Research Council
The granary at Assiros Toumba in Greece burnt to the ground around 1300 BC, during the Bronze Age, together with large quantities of grain stored in clay bins and jars. It was a large facility and the fire was 'undoubtedly a catastrophic accident for the people whose grain was stored there,' says Professor Glynis Jones, an archaeologist from the University of Sheffield. The reasons for the fire are unknown - it could have been accidental or may have happened in the aftermath of an earthquake, Jones suggests. But there is no solid evidence to support either theory... The exact proportion...
Diet and Cuisine
Excavation throws up earliest evidence of rice cultivation [ in Vietnam ]
· 07/03/2009 5:39:16 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 70+ views ·
The Hindu | Friday, July 3, 2009 | a Hindu
Excavation of an ancient Vietnamese site has thrown up the earliest evidence of rice cultivation, while shedding new light on how the death of young children was viewed by community members. The excavation, led by professor Peter Bellwood and Marc Oxenham from the Australian National University (ANU) School of Archaeology and Anthropology, studied the site, some 3,000-4,000 years old, named An Son. The findings suggest that death in young children was so common that community members were unlikely to revere the death of their offspring until they had survived for more than five years. "The burial of a new born...
India
Indus Valley's secrets to remain buried: Insecurity forces archaeologists to abandon excavations
· 07/01/2009 3:01:11 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 136+ views ·
DailyTimes of Pakistan | Monday, June 29, 2009 | Afnan Khan
Foreign archaeologists involved in excavation work to explore the Indus Valley Civilisation in Pakistan have left the country due to the war-like situation. The experts from the US, Europe and UK uncovered the mysteries of the Indus Valley Civilisation for the world during their research spanning decades. The teams, consisting of senior professors Dr Richard H Meadow, Professor JM Kenoyer, Dr Jean-Francois Jarrige and late Prof George F Dales, had conducted extensive research in different parts of Pakistan. A majority of the areas that were a part of the Indus Valley Civilisation became Pakistan after the partition of the sub-continent...
Ancient Europe
Bulgarian Archaeologists Discover 7 000-Years-Old Settlement
· 07/03/2009 5:16:41 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 129+ views ·
Novinite / Sofia News Agency | Thursday, July 2, 2009 | unattributed
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a 7 000-years-old settlement close to the northeast city of Shumen. The village dates back to the Stone-Copper Age, and is located in the locality of Chanadzhik, near the village of Sushina and the Ticha Dam. The archaeologists have discovered over 300 finds, most of which are made of marble. "These items are extremely rare. They were worn by very specific people. These are decorations that were not available to the masses. There are also others that are made of clay or bone," explained Stefan Chohadzhiev, an archaeology professor at the Veliko Tarnovo University, as quoted...
Scotland Yet
Scots fought 'in bright yellow war shirts not Braveheart kilts'
· 06/28/2009 6:41:21 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 113 replies · 1,768+ views ·
Daily Telegraph (UK) | 28 Jun 2009 | Simon Johnson
Medieval Scottish soldiers fought wearing bright yellow war shirts dyed in horse urine rather than the tartan plaid depicted in the film Braveheart, according to new research. Historian Fergus Cannan states that the Scots armies who fought in battles like Bannockburn, and Flodden Field would have looked very different to the way they have traditionally been depicted. Instead of kilts, he said they wore saffron-coloured tunics called "leine croich" and used a range of ingredients to get the boldest possible colours.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Skeleton reveals violent life and death of medieval knight
· 06/29/2009 5:47:25 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 16 replies · 1,128+ views ·
Daily Telegraph (UK) | 29 Jun 2009 | Auslan Cramb
A 620-year-old skeleton discovered under the floor of Stirling Castle has shed new light on the violent life of a medieval knight. Archaeologists believe that bones found in an ancient chapel on the site are those of an English knight named Robert Morley who died in a tournament there in 1388. Radio carbon dating has confirmed that the skeleton is from that period, and detailed analysis suggests that he was in his mid-20s, was heavily muscled and had suffered several serious wounds in earlier contests. He appears to have survived for some time with a large arrowhead lodged in his...
Through the Looking Glass
Dig aims to uncover castle past [Oystermouth Castle in Mumbles]
· 07/01/2009 3:06:53 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 244+ views ·
BBC | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | unattributed
The castle was founded by William de Londres in the early 12th Century and is considered one of the finest in the area. The first major archaeological dig to take place at a medieval castle near Swansea is underway. Experts and volunteers are hoping to uncover artefacts along with clues as the original layout... They will be on site digging and examining trenches for three weeks... The dig is focusing on an area outside the west tower where archaeologists are looking for an outer wall and a ditch. They are also examining the knoll after a geophysical survey commissioned by...
Precolumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Connecting dots of migration in ancient Southwest [ Anasazi star orientation? ]
· 07/03/2009 5:09:44 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 111+ views ·
George Johnson | Wednesday, July 1, 2009 | STL Today / St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Associated Press
From the sky, the Mound of the Cross at Paquime, a 14th-century ruin in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, looks like a compass rose -- the roundish emblem indicating the cardinal directions on a map. About 30 feet in diameter and molded from compacted earth and rock taken near the banks of the Casas Grandes River, the crisscross arms point to four circular platforms. They might as well be labeled N, S, E and W...
Australia & the Pacific
Human role in big kangaroo demise
· 06/27/2009 9:09:29 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 15 replies · 397+ views ·
BBC Science and Technology | Monday, 22 June 2009 22:25 UK | By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Debate has raged about the demise of "whopper hopper" P. goliah A fossil study of the extinct giant kangaroo has added weight to the theory that humans were responsible for the demise of "megafauna" 46,000 years ago. The decline of plants through widespread fire or changes toward an arid climate have also played into the debate about the animals' demise. But an analysis of kangaroo fossils suggested they ate saltbush, which would have thrived in those conditions. The research is in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. There has long been dissent in the palaeontology community about the cause...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Giant Moa Rebuilt Using Ancient DNA From Prehistoric Feathers
· 07/02/2009 3:09:07 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 30 replies · 547+ views ·
sciencedaily
Scientists have performed the first DNA-based reconstruction of the giant extinct moa bird, using prehistoric feathers recovered from caves and rock shelters in New Zealand.Researchers from the University of Adelaide and Landcare Research in New Zealand have identified four different moa species after retrieving ancient DNA from moa feathers believed to be at least 2500 years old. The giant birds -- measuring up to 2.5 metres and weighing 250 kilograms -- were the dominant animals in New Zealand's pre-human environment but were quickly exterminated after the arrival of the Maori around 1280 AD.
Prehistory and Origins
Primate ancestor may be from Asia, not Africa
· 06/30/2009 6:48:32 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 10 replies · 243+ views ·
Discovery | Jennifer Viegas
Scientists spur debate by linking Myanmar fossil to humans, apes, monkeysA new Myanmar fossil primate, Ganlea megacanina, suggests the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from large-toothed primates in Asia and not Africa, according to new research published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. If Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is confirmed as being the ancestral homeland of higher primates, or close to it, the discovery points to a circuitous migration route for some early primates, which must have gone to Africa and then come back to Asia. Christopher Beard, lead author of the study, told...
Paleontology
Fossil Fragments Reveal 500-million-year-old Monster Predato
· 06/30/2009 2:38:44 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 15 replies · 495+ views ·
livescience
Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers from Uppsala University and colleagues reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals, the arthropods. The fossil fragments puzzled together come from the famous 505 million year old Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in British Columbia, Canada. Uppsala researchers Allison Daley and Graham Budd at the Department of Earth Sciences, together with colleagues in Canada and Britain, describe the convoluted history and...
Dinosaurs
"Dinosaur Mummy" Has Skin Like Birds' and Crocodiles'
· 07/03/2009 6:50:11 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 150+ views ·
National Geographic | June 30, 2009 | Christine Dell'Amore
"This is the closest you're going to get to patting the animal," said excavation leader Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at Britain's University of Manchester... Advanced imaging and chemical techniques revealed that the 66-million-year-old "mummified" duckbilled dinosaur had two layers of skin, as do modern vertebrates, including humans. Such a discovery was possible because the dinosaur's skin fossilized before bacteria had a chance to eat up the tissue. It is "absolutely amazing to be able to identify organic molecules from soft tissue that belonged to a beast that died over 66 million years ago," said Manning, whose work with the fossil...
Bugs
Ant mega-colony takes over world
· 07/03/2009 5:48:39 AM PDT · Posted by Daveinyork · 12 replies · 258+ views ·
Earth News | July 1, 2009 | Matt Walker
Matt Walker Editor, Earth News A queen and worker Argentine ant have many, many relatives A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered. Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another. The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination. What's more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together. Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America....
Flood, Here Comes the Flood
Virginia Man To Search For Noah's Ark In Turkey
· 06/28/2009 5:17:15 AM PDT · Posted by Fennie · 45 replies · 1,227+ views ·
FOX News | February 2, 2009 | Associated Press
Saddened by the wickedness of man, God directs the righteous Noah to build an ark for his family and two of each species of animal. Together, they ride the ark through 40 days and 40 nights of torrential rains that God unleashes upon the Earth. And when the waters subside, Noah and the animals return to land. "That seems almost like a fairy story," said archaeologist Randall Price, who is director of Liberty University's new Center for Judaic Studies. "But we believe it was an actual event." This summer Price, 57, plans to continue on a journey to prove just...
Longer Perspectives
Bio-Darwinist Beats Up On Psycho-Darwinists
· 06/27/2009 7:55:19 PM PDT · Posted by Fichori · 127 replies · 1,181+ views ·
CEH | 06/26/2009
June 26, 2009 -- Evolution of rape? No way. Sharon Begley won't let the evolutionary psychologists get away with their tales about how rapists, molesters, and cheaters can't help themselves because evolution made them that way. The Science Magazine blog Origins seems to be cheering her on. Science writer Sharon Begley, who in 2007 returned to her old job at Newsweek after 5 years of writing the "Science Journal" column for The Wall Street Journal, has long reported skeptically about anything smacking of biological determinism. In the 29 June issue of Newsweek, she pens a 4300-word critique of evolutionary psychology,...
Oh So Mysteriouso
The Dashka Stone (Another Out-of-Place Artifact)
· 07/01/2009 9:40:07 PM PDT · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · 26 replies · 654+ views ·
The Epoch Times | February 18, 2009 | Leonardo Vintiñi
An Oopart (Out Of Place ARTifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that, given their level of technology, are completely at odds with their determined age based on physical, chemical, and/or geological evidence. Ooparts often are frustrating to conventional scientists and a delight to adventurous investigators and individuals interested in alternative scientific theories. In the Ural Mountains of Siberia, a stone tablet was found by a physics and mathematics professor of Bashkir State University, Alexandr Chuvyrov. Weighing in at nearly a ton, the three-layer tablet bears a striking topographical resemblance...
end of digest #259 20090704
|
|
|
| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #260 Saturday, July 11, 2009 |
|
|
|
|
| Rome and Italy | |
|
|
|
| End of an empire? Blame it on the weather |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 3:13:33 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · · 57+ views · · New Scientist · · December 22, 2001 (issue 2322) · · Betsy Mason · |
Bad weather may have triggered the fall of the Roman Empire. When the Visigoths and other northern barbarians upped sticks and headed south into Roman territory in the 5th century it might have been to escape the cold and poor harvests. Waning sunspot activity is a symptom of a weakened Sun, which could make the world cool by around half a degree. Meteorologist Kevin Pang found that sunspots were conspicuously absent from the historical record. "That was just about the time the Roman Empire fell in 476," he says. The gaps in sunspot sightings coincided with high levels of carbon-14... |
|
|
|
| end of digest #260 20090711 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #260 Saturday, July 11, 2009 |
|
|
|
|
| We Mutually Pledge to Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor |
|
|
|
|
| Happy Independence Day |
|
|
· 07/03/2009 11:30:47 PM PDT · · Posted by TBP · · 17 replies · · 199+ views · · USHistory.org · · 7/4/76 · · Thomas Jefferson, et. al. · |
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Happy Independence Day |
|
|
· 07/03/2009 11:30:48 PM PDT · · Posted by TBP · · 17 replies · · 300+ views · · USHistory.org · · 7/4/76 · · Thomas Jefferson, et. al. · |
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,... |
|
|
|
| The Framers | |
|
|
|
| the 21st Amendment |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 3:37:15 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · 243+ views · · Constitution of the United States, via FindLaw et al · · proposed February 20, 1933, ratified on December 5, 1933 · · The Framers et al · |
text of the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Section 1. : The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2. : The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. Section 3. : This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the... |
|
|
|
| Early America | |
|
|
|
| But Where's George? Vernon Downplays Its Lead Character |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 11:05:16 AM PDT · · Posted by La Lydia · · 8 replies · · 338+ views · · Washington Post · · July 5, 2009 · · Brigid Schulte · |
Just about every American, from the time they're 6 or so, learns that Mount Vernon is Founding Father George Washington's home. They draw pictures of the grand farmhouse in art class. Study it in history. File onto buses and reverently visit the hallowed ground along the Potomac River. And right now, that's Mount Vernon's problem. There's just too much George, according to some international culture experts, who are considering whether the historic estate belongs on the United Nations' list of World Heritage sites. A group advising the U.S. government on getting American sites onto the prestigious list initially rejected Mount... |
|
|
|
| Second Fiddle in the History Books | |
|
|
|
| American History Exhumed |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 11:08:28 AM PDT · · Posted by bs9021 · · 8 replies · · 255+ views · · Campus Report · · July 10, 2009 · · Alana Goodman · |
On October 11, 1809, celebrated explorer Meriwether Lewis -- of Lewis and Clarke fame -- was found shot to death on the floor of an old tavern at the edge of Indian country in Tennessee. Witnesses and friends traveling with the explorer maintained that Lewis shot himself in the head and chest after a long bought of mental illness and depression. However, some of Lewis' family members argued that he was murdered in cold blood. Two-hundred years later his descendents are still dead-set on solving the mystery, even if it means digging up and studying... |
|
|
|
| World War Eleven | |
|
|
|
| WWI naval veteran Stone dies (Last surviving veteran of both World Wars) |
|
|
· 01/12/2009 10:23:58 AM PST · · Posted by presidio9 · · 14 replies · · 763+ views · · ITN · · January 12, 2009 · |
One of the four remaining British veterans of the First World War has died, his family has said. Skip related content William "Bill" Stone, 108, took part in the 90th Anniversary of the Great War Armistice in London in November 2008. Mr Stone's daughter, Anne Davidson, said: "William had a remarkable, long, healthy and happy life. "He thoroughly enjoyed going to events, meeting people and, whenever possible, regaling those around him with his fund of Naval stories and jokes. "He loved singing, knew most hymns by heart and had an amazing repertoire of old-time songs -- often with alternative words.... |
|
|
|
| Africa | |
|
|
|
| Archaeologists hit jackpot in Mali |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 8:35:01 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · 288+ views · · SwissInfo · · July 9, 2009 · · Unknown · |
Archaeologists from Geneva University have discovered what they claim is Africa's oldest ceramic, dated at around 9,400BC, in eastern Mali."It's a tiny, ornate fragment that was made with great skill and the use of fire," said ethno-archaeologist Anne Mayor in Bamako, the Malian capital. |
|
|
|
| Egypt | |
|
|
|
| Another cache unearthed in National Museum [ Egypt, Zahi "Zowie" Hawass ] |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 6:07:46 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · · 229+ views · · Egyptian Gazette · · Wednesday, July 8, 2009 · · unattributed · |
Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed another cache near the Western gate of the National Museum in Cairo, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said yesterday.Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the cache contained a table made of limestone, a fragment of a slab with hieroglyphic inscriptions, some stones, and the base of a pharaonic pillar, which date back to the pharaonic period around 1,300 years BC."This type of slab was quite widespread during the era of the Pharaohs, who used it to mark a special occasion, |
|
|
|
| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
|
|
|
| Elamite Jar Burial Transferred to Haft-Tappeh Museum |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 1:44:20 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · 179+ views · · Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies · · Wednesday, July 1, 2009 · · Mehr News · |
Iran's most intact jar burial, which dates back to the Elamite era, was transferred to the Haft-Tappeh Museum last week. Containing a skeleton in fetal position, the jar was discovered during the latest excavation carried out several months ago at Haft-Tappeh, a major Elamite site near Susa in Khuzestan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday. "This is the first time such an intact jar burial has been unearthed," director of the Restoration Department of the Haft-Tappeh and Chogha Zanbil Center Kazem Borhani said. "Urgent actions were taken to preserve the artefact in situ in order to safely... |
|
|
|
| Rome and Italy | |
|
|
|
| End of an empire? Blame it on the weather |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 3:13:33 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · · 57+ views · · New Scientist · · December 22, 2001 (issue 2322) · · Betsy Mason · |
Bad weather may have triggered the fall of the Roman Empire. When the Visigoths and other northern barbarians upped sticks and headed south into Roman territory in the 5th century it might have been to escape the cold and poor harvests. Waning sunspot activity is a symptom of a weakened Sun, which could make the world cool by around half a degree. Meteorologist Kevin Pang found that sunspots were conspicuously absent from the historical record. "That was just about the time the Roman Empire fell in 476," he says. The gaps in sunspot sightings coincided with high levels of carbon-14... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Via Aurelia: The Roman Empire's Lost Highway |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 7:27:25 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 15 replies · · 640+ views · · Smithsonian Magazine · · June 2009 · · Joshua Hammer · |
French amateur archaeologist Bruno Tassan fights to preserve a neglected 2,000-year-old ancient interstate in southern Provence At first glance, it didn't appear that impressive: a worn limestone pillar, six feet high and two feet wide, standing slightly askew beside a country road near the village of Pélissanne in southern France. "A lot of people pass by without knowing what it is," Bruno Tassan, 61, was saying, as he tugged aside dense weeds that had grown over the column since he last inspected it. Tassan was showing me a milliaire, or milestone, one of hundreds planted along the highways of Gaul... |
|
|
|
| The Etruscans | |
|
|
|
| 2,000-year-old cream shows aristocrat's taste (Etruscan) |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 5:45:22 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · 334+ views · · Discovery · · Jul 10, 2009 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
Archaeological Superintendency of Tuscany, Florence Italian archaeologists have discovered lotion that is over 2,000 years old, left almost intact in the cosmetic case of an aristocratic Etruscan woman. The discovery, which occurred four years ago in a necropolis near the Tuscan town of Chiusi, has just been made public, following chemical analysis which identified the original compounds of the ancient ointment. The team reports their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. Dating to the second half of the second century B.C., the intact tomb was found sealed by a large terracotta tile. The site featured... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Tuscans 'not descended from Etruscans' |
|
|
· 07/05/2009 11:32:18 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 22 replies · · 607+ views · · Italy Mag · · 04 July 2009 · · Italy · |
The current population of Tuscany is not descended from the Etruscans, the people that lived in the region during the Bronze Age, a new Italian study has shown. Researchers at the universities of Florence, Ferrara, Pisa, Venice and Parma discovered the genealogical discontinuity by testing samples of mitochondrial DNA from remains of Etruscans and people who lived in the Middle Ages (between the 10th and 15th centuries) as well as from people living in the region today. While there was a clear genetic link between Medieval Tuscans and the current population, the relationship between modern Tuscans and their Bronze Age... |
|
|
|
| India | |
|
|
|
| Folk wanderings in "the Heartland" |
|
|
· 07/07/2009 7:51:36 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · 378+ views · · Gene Expression ScienceBlog · · Tuesday, July 7, 2009 · · Razib · |
Herodotus tells us of the Scythians, who ravaged the Middle East and Europe. The Romans later defeated Sarmatians on the plains of Pannonia. Even further back in history we know of the Indo-Aryan Mittani in Syria, while there are hints of a relationship between nomadic societies on the steppe of Eurasia and later settled populations in Eastern Europe, Iran & India. Because of the lack of literacy in most of the world before 500 B.C. we must rely on archaeology to connect the vaguest of these dots... Standard physical anthropological methods did yield results which suggested that populations of European... |
|
|
|
| Navigation & Trade | |
|
|
|
| 8th century Islamic vase found (in Japan) |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 8:16:12 AM PDT · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 15 replies · · 352+ views · · Asahi Shimbun · · 07/06/09 · |
Shards of an Islamic ceramic vase -- the oldest uncovered in Japan -- were excavated at the former site of Heijokyo palace, municipal researchers said. The 19 pieces of what is believed to be a vase more than 50 centimeters tall date back to the late eighth century, about 100 years earlier than Islamic ceramics found in Fukuoka Prefecture. The researchers believe the vase was used during maritime trade to carry spices from the Islamic world. Tatsuo Sasaki, a professor of archaeology at Kanazawa University, said the finding confirms that Nara was a terminus on... |
|
|
|
| China | |
|
|
|
| Chinese archaeologists sketch out layout of KublaiKhan's capital |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 10:07:46 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · 188+ views · · Xinhua · · Wednesday, July 8, 2009 · · Fang Yang (editor) · |
Chinese archaeologists said here on Wednesday that they have sketched out the layout of the first capital of Kublai Khan's empire, known as Xanadu in Marco Polo's Travel Notes, through a large-scale excavation... The capital Shangdu was built in 1256 under the command of Kublai Khan, the first emperor of Yuan Dynasty, who was enthroned there four years later. It became a summer resort after the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) moved its capital to present-day Beijing in 1276, and was destroyed during a peasant war at the end of the dynasty... the excavation program, the largest of its kind on the... |
|
|
|
| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
|
|
|
| Ant mega-colony takes over world |
|
|
· 07/02/2009 4:17:52 PM PDT · · Posted by xcamel · · 44 replies · · 1,116+ views · · BBC/UK · · Wednesday, 1 July 2009 · · Matt Walker · |
A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered. Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another. The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination. What's more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together. Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica. These introduced Argentine... |
|
|
|
| Agriculture and Animal Husbandry | |
|
|
|
| Fish on the menu of our ancestors |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 6:02:11 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · · 251+ views · · Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News · · Tuesday, July 7, 2009 · · Sandra Jacob · |
The isotopic analysis of the diet of one of the earliest modern humans in Asia, the 40,000 year old skeleton from Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, has shown that at least this individual was a regular fish consumer. Michael Richards of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explains "Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of the human and associated faunal remains indicate a diet high in animal protein, and the high nitrogen isotope values suggest the consumption of freshwater fish." To confirm this inference the researchers measured the sulphur isotope values of terrestrial and freshwater animals around the Zhoukoudian area and... |
|
|
|
| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
|
|
|
| Illness brought down early human rival: scientist [ Neandertal ] |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 5:38:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · 316+ views · · Jyllands-Posten · · Tuesday, July 7, 2009 · · The Copenhagen Post · |
Infectious disease carried by Homo sapiens was responsible for the demise of the Neanderthal, according to a new theory Scientists seeking to uncover the mystery of what happened to the Neanderthals should look to the modus operandi of another great... Scientists seeking to uncover the mystery of what happened to the Neanderthals should look to the modus operandi of another great die-off 30,000 years later, argues a Danish expert in an article submitted to the Journal of Archaeological Science. In the article, professor emeritus Bent Sørensen of the University of Roskilde wrote that disease carried by Homo sapiens migrating out... |
|
|
|
| Prehistory and Origins | |
|
|
|
| Explosive growth of life on Earth fueled by early greening of planet |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 4:28:09 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · · 349+ views · · Arizona State University · · Jul 8, 2009 · · Unknown · |
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is filled with several turning points when temperatures changed dramatically, asteroids bombarded the planet and life forms came and disappeared. But one of the biggest moments in Earth's lifetime is the Cambrian explosion of life, roughly 540 million years ago, when complex, multi-cellular life burst out all over the planet. While scientists can pinpoint this pivotal period as leading to life as we know it today, it is not completely understood what caused the Cambrian explosion of life. Now, researchers led by Arizona State University geologist L. Paul Knauth believe they have found the... |
|
|
|
| Climate | |
|
|
|
| Ice Sheets Can Retreat 'In A Geologic Instant,' Study Of Prehistoric Glacier Shows |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 2:41:08 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · 186+ views · · Science News · · June 22, 2009 · · University at Buffalo · |
Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo... The proof of such rapid retreat of ice sheets provides one of the few explicit confirmations that this phenomenon occurs. Should the same conditions recur today, which the UB scientists say is very possible, they would result in sharply rising global sea levels, which would threaten coastal populations...The researchers used a special dating tool at UB to study rock samples they extracted from a large fjord... |
|
|
|
| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
|
|
|
| 'Uplift' baffles scientists, transforms area beach... |
|
|
· 07/09/2009 3:10:20 PM PDT · · Posted by TaraP · · 44 replies · · 1,513+ views · · Homer News · · July 10th, 2009 · |
Like a giant fist punching through the earth, a 1,000-foot long section of the beach below Bluff Point rose up 20 feet from the tidelands sometime last Friday or late Thursday, pushing boulders up from the ocean bottom, cracking sandstone slabs and toppling rocks upside down. Below Bluff Point, a new fissure opened up at the base of the 800-foot high cliff. The uplift could be a re-activation of a landslide that happened perhaps 12,000 years ago. "There was just beach before," said Ron Hess, who lives on Bluff Road above the new uplift. "Now there are tidal pools." "You... |
|
|
|
| Australia & the Pacific | |
|
|
|
| Australovenator -- Jurassic killer stalked Australia |
|
|
· 07/03/2009 8:28:53 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 7 replies · · 392+ views · · news · · July 03, 2009 · |
THREE new species of Australian dinosaur have been discovered in a prehistoric billabong in western Queensland. Premier Anna Bligh announced the discovery in the central western town of Winton today as she opened the first stage of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History. The dinosaurs have been nicknamed after characters created by poet Banjo Paterson, who is said to have written Waltzing Matilda in Winton in 1885. Banjo (carnivorous theropod), Matilda and Clancy (giant plant-eating sauropods) were found in a vast geological deposit near Winton that dates from 98 million years ago. The first new sauropods to... |
|
|
|
| Paleontology | |
|
|
|
| Armadillo-like Crocodile Fossil Found in Brazil |
|
|
· 07/09/2009 5:38:33 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 17 replies · · 300+ views · · National Geographic News · · July 8, 2009 · · John Roach · |
An ancient fossil crocodile coated in armadillo-like body armor was unveiled yesterday at an environmental museum in Brazil. Dubbed Armadillosuchus arrudai, the newly described species of crocodile roamed the arid interior of Brazil about 90 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, scientists said. It was 6.6 feet (2 meters) long, weighed about 265 pounds (120 kilograms), and had a relatively wide head with a narrow, toothy snout. |
|
|
|
| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
|
|
|
| A Large Stone Quarry used to build Temple walls Exposed in Excavations |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 5:36:12 AM PDT · · Posted by SJackson · · 6 replies · · 430+ views · · IMRA · · 7-6-09 · |
A Large Stone Quarry from the End of the Second Temple Period was Exposed in Excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is Conducting on Shmuel HaNavi Street in Jerusalem -- Dr. Ofer Sion, the excavation director, estimates, "The stones that were quarried here were used by Herod to build the walls of the Temple".An ancient quarry, c. 1 dunam in area and dating to the end of the Second Temple period (c. 2,030 years old), was uncovered in excavations being conducted on Shmuel HaNavi Street in... |
|
|
|
| Religion of Pieces Alert | |
|
|
|
| What You Need Know, And What The Press Won't Tell You About Temple Mount |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 12:10:26 PM PDT · · Posted by Shellybenoit · · 31 replies · · 902+ views · · CAMERA/The Lid · · 7/6/09 · · The Lid · |
Religion is at the heart of dispute over the Temple Mount, but maybe not the way you think. To the Jews it is the site of the Two Holy Temples erected to God. It is also one of only three places in the Tanach (the Jewish Scriptures) that talks about a financial transaction where a Jew purchased the land. Scholars believe the transaction was written about to show Jewish ownership of that land: King David then bought the site from the Jebusites, as it is written (II Samuel 24:24): "David bought the threshing-floor... for fifty pieces of silver." Ever since... |
|
|
|
| Longer Perspectives | |
|
|
|
| Jerusalem launches debate on sharing holiest site (Temple Mt/Dome of Rock) |
|
|
· 06/20/2009 8:59:12 PM PDT · · Posted by VRWCTexan · · 19 replies · · 541+ views · · Reuters · · June 18, 2009 · · Ari Rabinovitch · |
Espousing a dream of harmony that may stretch credibility among even the most fervent believers in dialogue among the great religions, clerics in Jerusalem launched a project on Thursday aimed at finding a way to share the city's holiest, and most fought over, site. Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish Temple. |
|
|
|
| Ancient Autopsies | |
|
|
|
| (Muslims & violence) Ethnic riots spread in China's west; 140 killed |
|
|
· 07/06/2009 9:18:37 AM PDT · · Posted by Righting · · 238 replies · · 4,074+ views · · news.yahoo · |
Ethnic riots spread in China's west; 140 killed... Police sealed off streets in parts of the provincial capital, Urumqi, after discord between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China's Han majority erupted into violence. Witnesses reported a new, smaller protest Monday in a second city, Kashgar. |
|
|
|
| Faith and Philosophy | |
|
|
|
| Historic Bible pages put online |
|
|
· 07/05/2009 9:59:44 PM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 13 replies · · 499+ views · · bbc · · 6 July 2009 · |
About 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible have been recovered and put on the internet. Visitors to the website www.codexsinaiticus.org can now see images of more than half of the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript. Fragments of the 4th Century document -- written in Greek on parchment leaves -- have been worked on by institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia. Experts say it is "a window into the development of early Christianity". |
|
|
|
| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
|
|
|
| The Great Famine, 1317 |
|
|
· 07/09/2009 4:36:09 PM PDT · · Posted by Little Bill · · 15 replies · · 436+ views · · Virtual Library · · Unk · · Lynn Harry Nelson · |
Lectures in Medieval History -- The Great Famine (1315-1317) and the Black Death (1346-1351) -- The 14th century was an era of catastrophes. Some of them man-made, such as the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy, and the Great Schism. These were caused by human beings, and we shall consider them a bit later. There were two more or less natural disasters either of which one would think would have been sufficient to throw medieval Europe into a real "Dark Ages": the Great Famine and the Black Death. Each caused millions of deaths, and each in its way demonstrated in... |
|
|
|
| Age of Sail | |
|
|
|
| 400 years later, explorer's death still a mystery (Henry Hudson) |
|
|
· 07/07/2009 4:51:21 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · 548+ views · · Live Science · · Jul 7, 2009 · · Heather Whipps · |
It has been 400 years since English explorer Henry Hudson mapped the northeast coast of North America, leaving a wake of rivers and towns named in his honor, yet what happened to the famed explorer remains a mystery. Hudson was never heard from again after a mutiny by his crew during a later voyage through northern Canada. That he died in the area in 1611 is a certainty, and he may have even been killed in cold blood, according to new research. |
|
|
|
| Underwater Archaeology | |
|
|
|
| Underwater exploration seeks evidence of early Americans |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 7:10:01 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · 232+ views · · Eurekalert · · Thursday, July 9, 2009 · · Debbie Morton, Mercyhurst College · |
Where the first Americans came from, when they arrived and how they got here is as lively a debate as ever, only most of the research to date has focused on dry land excavations. But, last summer's pivotal underwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist Dr. James Adovasio yielded evidence of inundated terrestrial sites that may well have supported human occupation more than 12,000 years ago, and paved the way for another expedition this July. As part of their 2008 findings, the researchers located and mapped buried stream and river channels and identified in-filled sinkholes... |
|
|
|
| Diet and Cuisine | |
|
|
|
| Maize may have fueled ancient Andean civilization [ update of sorts ] |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 5:32:03 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 27 replies · · 204+ views · · Science News · · Bruce Bower · |
Prehistoric communities in one part of Peru's Andes Mountains may have gone from maize to amazingly complex. Bioarchaeologist Brian Finucane's analyses of human skeletons excavated in this region indicate that people living there 2,800 years ago regularly ate maize. This is the earliest evidence for maize as a staple food in the rugged terrain of highland Peru, he says. Maize agriculture stimulated ancient population growth in the Andes and allowed a complex society, the Wari, to develop, Finucane contends in the August Current Anthropology. Wari society included a central government and other elements of modern states. It lasted from around... |
|
|
|
| The Zapotec | |
|
|
|
| Zapotec Digs in Mexico Show Clues to Rise and Fall |
|
|
· 07/10/2009 10:11:11 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · 173+ views · · National Geographic · · March 9, 2009 · · John Roach · |
For 1,500 years, the agrarian Zapotec state spanned 800 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) and was home to at least 100,000 people. The Zapotec were pioneers in the use of agriculture and writing systems. They were gifted weavers and ceramic artisans. They built Monte Albán, one of the earliest cities in the Americas, and established a remarkably organized bureaucratic structure. But their state collapsed, and no one is exactly sure why. One place where the story of Zapotec civilization is being uncovered is 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside the city of Oaxaca, at the site of an ancient town... |
|
|
|
| Peru, the Andes | |
|
|
|
| Scientists Uncover Inca Children's Countdown To Sacrifice |
|
|
· 10/01/2007 3:43:47 PM PDT · · Posted by blam · · 22 replies · · 597+ views · · Eureka Alert · · 10-1-2007 · · Craig Brierley · |
Hair samples from naturally preserved child mummies discovered at the world's highest archaeological site in the Andes have provided a startling insight into the lives of the children chosen for sacrifice. Researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust used DNA and stable isotope analysis to show how children as young as 6-years old were "fattened up" and taken on a pilgrimage to their death. A team of scientists led by Dr Andrew Wilson at the University of Bradford analysed hair samples taken from the heads and from... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Inca Sacrifice Victims "Fattened Up" Before Death (all Cultural Values are "equal" alert) |
|
|
· 10/09/2007 9:31:46 AM PDT · · Posted by SirLinksalot · · 7 replies · · 775+ views · · National Geographic · · 10/03/2007 · · Kelly Hearn · |
Children selected for Inca ritual sacrifice were "fattened up" with high-protein diets in the months leading up to their deaths, a new study has found. Researcher Andrew Wilson and his team conducted DNA and chemical tests of hair samples taken from four child mummies found in the Andes mountains in the 1990s. (See a photo gallery of the frozen Inca mummies.) By studying the ratios of chemicals present in the hair, the team helped show how victims were prepared for death... |
|
|
|
| Precolumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
|
|
|
| The lost tribe of South Carolina |
|
|
· 07/05/2009 11:49:30 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 15 replies · · 599+ views · · The State · · 05 July 2009 · · JOEY HOLLEMAN · |
Cofitachequi: We can't pronounce it, we don't know exactly where it is, but the importance of this Native American mound city is clear. North Carolina has the Lost Colony, a 16th-century legend that draws the curious to the longest running outdoor theater production in North America. The desert Southwest has the Anasazi, the native culture that vanished in the 14th century and is celebrated at a dozen National Park Service sites. South Carolina has a combination of the two -- Cofitachequi. Ever heard of it? Cofitachequi is mentioned in third-grade S.C. history books, and there's a diorama about it at... |
|
|
|
| Old Man River | |
|
|
|
| Amazon River Up To 11 Million Years Old, Says Study |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 12:55:12 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 35 replies · · 506+ views · · Scientific Blogging · · July 7th 2009 · · News Staff · |
The Amazon River has been around for 11 million years ago and in its shape for the last 2.4 million years ago, according to a study on two boreholes drilled in proximity of the mouth of the Amazon River by Petrobras, the national oil company of Brazil. Until recently the Amazon Fan, a sediment column of around 10 kilometres in thickness, proved a hard nut to crack, and scientific drilling expeditions such as Ocean Drilling Program could only reach a fraction of it. Recent exploration efforts by Petrobras lifted... |
|
|
|
| Quit Comparing Hitler to Obama | |
|
|
|
| Alternative Encryption Technologies of WWII |
|
|
· 07/08/2009 3:52:05 AM PDT · · Posted by Osnome · · 12 replies · · 314+ views poster · · 7-8-09 · · poster · |
So many technologies of Code Encrption were used and could have been used in WW2 by both sides. David Kahn in his book THE CODEBREAKERS stated why did not the Germans, some of whom relaized that their Enigma Code Machine was far from infallible, did not adopt new dissimilar machines. Well his(Kahn's) answer was:"they did they not have another machine" That is far from true. The above are alternatives to Enigma: The Hitler-Muhle(Mill). Mill is German slang for 'typewriter'. |
|
|
|
| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
|
|
|
| Czech: Rare Devil's Bible to return to Prague for exhibition (Codex Gigas) |
|
|
· 04/24/2007 2:29:54 AM PDT · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 16 replies · · 1,294+ views · · Ceske Noviny · · 04/17/07 · |
Rare Devil's Bible to return to Prague for exhibition Stockholm -- The rare Devil's Bible, which Swedish troops took away from Bohemia during the Thirty Years' War and which Czech PM Mirek Topolanek got acquainted with during his visit to Sweden today, will return temporarily to Prague this year and put on display in the National Library. Stockholm's Royal Library experts told Topolanek that the Devil's Bible (Codex Gigas) is one of the most valuable medieval manuscripts summarizing the period knowledge. The manuscript, weighing 75 kg, has a wooden cover in white leather of 92x50.5x22 centimetres. Its digitalisation is underway, the... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Return of Devil's Bible to Prague draws crowds |
|
|
· 09/23/2007 4:38:02 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 26 replies · · 431+ views · · AP · · September 21, 2007 · |
Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil's Bible -- a medieval manuscript said to have been written 800 years ago with the devil's help -- has returned to Prague after an absence of 359 years. And Czechs were eager to see it, officials said Friday.The priceless piece, considered the biggest medieval book, was taken from the Prague Castle by Swedish troops at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648. It is in Prague on loan from Sweden's Royal Library in Stockholm. It was put on display under high security at the Czech National Library.Its... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mysterious Book: Codex Gigas |
|
|
· 07/07/2009 8:24:41 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 17 replies · · 829+ views · · Socyberty · · 06 July 2009 · · S. Hayes · |
A huge mysterious medieval book, penned by a Benedictine monk on animal skin with bizarre devilish illustration and incantation. But who has the missing pages, and why? Codex Gigas -- literally translated means "Giant Book", photograph below, with a box of matches resting on it, gives an idea of the scale of the almost metre long text, it takes two people to lift it, which makes it the largest medieval manuscript in the world. The book can be found in the National library in Stockholm -- it has 600 pages -- all made from animal (donkey) skin, the front and... |
|
|
|
| end of digest #260 20090711 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
