Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #99
Saturday, June 10, 2006

Catastrophism and Astronomy

BIG BANG IN ANTARCTICA -- KILLER CRATER FOUND UNDER ICE

Posted by PatrickHenry
On News/Activism 06/01/2006 5:26:58 PM EDT · 244 replies · 5,274+ views

Ohio State University | 01 June 2006 | Staff (press release)
Ancient mega-catastrophe paved way for the dinosaurs, spawned Australian continent. Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs -- an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history.The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. And the gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out.Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land...

Giant Crater Found [in Antarctica]: Tied to Worst Mass Extinction Ever [Permo-Triassic]

Posted by cogitator
On News/Activism 06/02/2006 2:44:43 PM EDT · 123 replies · 2,205+ views

SPACE.com | June 2, 2006 | Robert Roy Britt
An apparent crater as big as Ohio has been found in Antarctica. Scientists think it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth, 250 million years ago. The crater, buried beneath a half-mile of ice and discovered by some serious airborne and satellite sleuthing, is more than twice as big as the one involved in the demise of the dinosaurs. The crater's location, in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia, suggests it might have instigated the breakup of the so-called Gondwana supercontinent, which pushed Australia northward, the researchers said. "This...

Meteor mega-hit spawned Australian continent: researchers

Posted by NormsRevenge
On News/Activism 06/03/2006 6:23:27 PM EDT · 22 replies · 509+ views

AFP on Yahoo | 6/2/06 | AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A meteor's roaring crash into Antarctica -- larger and earlier than the impact that killed the dinosaurs -- caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history and likely spawned the Australian continent, scientists said. Ohio State University scientists said the 483-kilometer-wide (300-mile-wide) crater is now hidden more than 1.6 kilometers (one mile) beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. "Gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out," the university said in a statement Thursday....

Reversal of Earth's Magnetic Field-(Hey Algore read this)

Posted by ThreePuttinDude
On News/Activism 06/03/2006 10:00:13 AM EDT · 71 replies · 1,621+ views

Projects in Scientific Computing | N/A | Gary Glatzmaier, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Rush made mentioned this week of a core sample that showed evidence of tropical remains from an Arctic sample. Here are the results of a similar study done by a federally funded organization that claims this has been happening for........ever. Simulated three-dimensional structure of Earth's magnetic field, with inward (blue) and outward (yellow) directed field lines. Field lines extend two Earth radii from the core. The location of the core-mantle boundary is evident where the structure becomes complex

Giant Asteroid To Pass Near Earth Wednesday September 29

Posted by Rome2000
On News/Activism 09/20/2004 11:56:32 PM EDT · 159 replies · 7,988+ views

survivalcenter.com
News-Alert-Specials from The Survival Center August 26, 2004 Asteroid Toutatis 4179 (official) Sept 29th, 2004 Anyone who spends even 20 minutes researching Toutatis should quickly comprehend the very real danger this monstrosity represents. ==== According to NASA on September 29, 2004 a large and potentially hazardous asteroid called Toutatis 4179 will come very close to planet Earth. Facts from NASA: Toutatis is about 3 miles long, 1.5 miles wide Discovered in 1989, it nears earth every 3.98 years It has a very strange shape, rotation and orbit On Sept 29th it will come less than 963,000 miles close 963,000 miles...

Native Americans Recorded Supernova Explosion

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/05/2006 7:27:51 PM EDT · 130 replies · 1,761+ views

New Scientist | 6-5-2006 | Zeeya Merali - Kelly Young
Native Americans recorded supernova explosion 16:45 05 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Zeeya Merali and Kelly Young The Arizonan petroglyph may depict the supernova of 1006 AD - the star symbol is on the right and the constellation Scorpius on the left (Image: John Barentine, Apache Point Observatory) This double-sun petroglyph at Chaco Canyon National Monument in New Mexico may depict the supernova of 4 July 1054 (Image: Mark Lansing) There are numerous examples of rock art in the Chaco Canyon National Monument depicting celestial objects (Image: Mark Lansing) Prehistoric Native Americans may have carved a record of a supernova...

Underwater Archaeology

Experts Look For 'Watery Kingdom'

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/08/2006 9:40:09 PM EDT · 24 replies · 624+ views

BBC | 5-25-2006
Experts look for 'watery kingdom' The forest can been seen at low tide in Cardigan Bay Scientists are to carry out an underwater search for a supposed kingdom in Cardigan Bay said to have existed more than 5,000 years ago. Legend has it that the low-lying land of Cantre'r Gwaelod disappeared under the waves during a storm or a tsunami. Experts say the remains of an ancient forest seen sometimes at low tide is evidence that Cantre'r Gwaelod existed. Conservation group Friends of Cardigan Bay will begin the three-year project in Ceredigion this summer. The oldest part of the submerged...

Expedition Seeks Clues To Lost Bronze Age Culture (Minoans - Robert Ballard)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/04/2006 7:05:30 PM EDT · 8 replies · 314+ views

Yahoo | 6-1-2006 | Richard C. Lewis
Expedition seeks clues to lost Bronze Age culture By Richard C. Lewis Thu Jun 1, 4:11 PM ETReuters Photo: Deep-sea explorer Robert Ballard speaks at the National Geographic Society in an undated file photo.... PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) - An underwater explorer who found the Titanic and a team of international scientists will soon survey waters off the Greek island of Crete for clues to a once-powerful Bronze Age-era civilization. The expedition about 75 miles northwest of Crete aims to learn more about the Minoans, who flourished during the Bronze Age, and seeks to better understand seafaring four millennia ago,...

Titanic explorer to seek shipwrecks in Aegean: Greek officials

Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 06/09/2006 5:23:58 PM EDT · 13 replies · 204+ views

PhysOrg | 6/8/06 | AFP
The explorer who discovered the Titanic's resting place is to undertake a search for ancient shipwrecks off the southern Greek island of Crete, the Greek foreign ministry said Thursday. The search, by American oceanographer Robert Ballard, will be conducted in international waters, with the Greek culture ministry hoping to send a representative to observe operations, a ministry official said. "Deep-sea research will be conducted in the area between Santorini and Crete, for the purpose of locating (ancient) Mediterranean sea trade routes, recording ancient shipwrecks etc," culture ministry general secretary Christos Zahopoulos told a news conference this week. "The necessary steps...

Prehistory and Origins

Fossils point to oldest life on Earth

Posted by xcamel
On General/Chat 06/07/2006 5:46:26 PM EDT · 12 replies · 111+ views

SPI | Wednesday, June 7, 2006 | SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON -- The best evidence yet for the oldest life on Earth is found in odd-shaped, rock-like mounds in Australia that are actually fossils created by microbes 3.4 billion years ago, researchers report. "It's an ancestor of life. If you think that all life arose on this one planet, perhaps this is where it started," said Abigail Allwood, a researcher at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and lead author of the new study. It appears Thursday in the journal Nature. The strange geologic structures - which range from smaller than a fingernail to taller than a man - are exactly...

Early Earth Likely Had Continents, Was Habitable, According To New Study

Posted by dila813
On News/Activism 11/18/2005 11:32:59 PM EST · 27 replies · 795+ views

University of Colorado at Boulder | 2005-11-18 | University of Colorado at Boulder
Early Earth Likely Had Continents, Was Habitable, According To New StudyA surprising new study by an international team of researchers has concluded Earth's continents most likely were in place soon after the planet was formed, overturning a long-held theory that the early planet was either moon-like or dominated by oceans. Artist's conception of the early magma ocean. (Image courtesy of NASA) The team came to the conclusion following an analysis of a rare metal element known as hafnium in ancient minerals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia, thought to be among the oldest rocks on Earth. Hafnium is found...

100,000 year-old DNA sequence allows new look at Neandertal's genetic diversity

Posted by PatrickHenry
On News/Activism 06/05/2006 4:11:24 PM EDT · 63 replies · 1,200+ views

EurekAlert (AAAS) | 05 June 2006 | Staff
By recovering and sequencing intact DNA from an especially ancient Neandertal specimen, researchers have found evidence suggesting that the genetic diversity among Neandertals was higher than previously thought. The findings also suggest that genetic diversity may have been higher in earlier Neandertal periods relative to later periods that approached the arrival of humans in Europe. Changes in genetic diversity over time are thought to reflect population events, such as low-population bottlenecks caused by disease or environmental change, as well as the influence of random genetic change. The findings are reported in the June 6th issue of Current Biology by a...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Evolving Genes May Not Size Up Brain

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/04/2006 8:02:02 PM EDT · 11 replies · 306+ views

Science News | 6-3-2006 | Bruce Bower
Evolving genes may not size up brain Bruce Bower Two gene variants previously proposed as contributors to the evolution of human brain size exert no influence on brain volume in people today, a new report indicates. If these particular genes indeed spread quickly by natural selection, that process might have been spurred by the genes' effects on reproductive organs or other tissue outside the brain, say neurologist Roger P. Woods of the University of California, Los Angeles and his colleagues. Prior research had indicated that a now-common variant of a gene called microcephalin originated 37,000 years ago and that a...

The Deadly Virus (The Influenza Epidemic Of 1918)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/04/2006 7:33:03 PM EDT · 46 replies · 966+ views

Science News Archives | 6-4-2006
The Deadly VirusThe Influenza Epidemic of 1918 True or False? The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 killed more people than died in World War One.Hard as it is to believe, the answer is true. World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world's population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history. The plague emerged in two phases. In late spring of 1918, the first phase, known as the...

Asia

Ancient Engraved Chessboards Found On Great Wall

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/05/2006 7:00:02 PM EDT · 22 replies · 437+ views

People's Daily - Xinhua | 6-5-2006
Ancient engraved chessboards found on Great Wall Archaeologists have found two ancient engraved chessboards probably used by soldiers on the Great Wall more than 700 years ago at Qinhuangdao, North China's Hebei Province. The two boards, one for Chinese chess and the other for the ancient game "Tiger Eats Sheep", were engraved on a stone in front of a Great Wall beacon tower possibly in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), said officials with the provincial department of cultural relics. Archaeologists believe that soldiers from all parts of ancient China used to play chess to while away the time on the remote...

India

Aryans In India: Old Debate Triggers New Debate

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 11/11/2002 6:08:30 PM EST · 61 replies · 623+ views

deepikaglobal.com | 11-11-2002
Aryans In India: Old Debate Triggers New Debate New Delhi, Nov 11 (UNI) An Ancient India historian today said his remarks on academic debate over Aryan invasion were torn out of context by the Director of the New Delhi-based National Council of Educational Research and Training. ''He should read my book,'' Prof D N Jha said, commenting on a suggestion by Prof J S Rajput that his remarks perhaps implied a shift from the theory of Aryans' foreign origin. Prof Rajput's suggestion came in a statement voicing satisfaction over scholars' ''professional'' remarks on the publication of the Council textbook on...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Under Tremendous Pressure, Mullahs Agree To Renovate Tomb Of "Cyrus The Great"

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/06/2006 5:11:28 PM EDT · 15 replies · 597+ views

Persian Journal | 5-29-2006
Under tremendous pressure, mullahs agree to renovate tomb of "Cyrus the Great" May 29, 2006 Thanks to Iranian arab-parast, tomb of founder of Iran Zamin covered with dust but tomb of their beloved cowered arab imam whom ran away to Iran for dear life, covered with gold Under tremendous pressure by Iranian People, mullahs agree to renovate tomb of "Cyrus the Great". A team of experts have recently began renovating the tomb of Cyrus the Great at the ancient site of Pasargad in southern province of Fars. Several megaliths of the tomb have been stolen over time and the renovation...

Traces of Mithraism Found in Mazandaran Province

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/09/2006 11:01:21 AM EDT · 9 replies · 110+ views

Cultural Heritage News Agency | 6/8/2006 | unattributed
According to Sourtiji, while most of the Mithraism worship places were located inside the caves or places deeper in the ground with the opening towards the sun, Kangelou monument has a quiet different style. "Kangelou is an oval-shaped tower with a 50-square-meter area, constructed in three floors with rubbles, plaster, and mortar. Although most parts of the ceiling have been destroyed over time, what has remained indicates that Sassanid architectural style was used in the construction of the ceilings. A small hole towards the west was identified during the initial excavations in this monument on the base of the tower...

Faith and Philosophy

Literacy in the Time of Jesus - Could His Words Have Been Recorded in His Lifetime?

Posted by Between the Lines
On Religion 02/07/2006 1:41:13 PM EST · 5 replies · 246+ views

Biblical Archaeology Society | Jul/Aug 2003 | Alan Millard
Literacy in the Time of Jesus Could His Words Have Been Recorded in His Lifetime? Sidebar: Writing Tablets Sidebar: Priceless Garbage How likely is it that someone would have written down and collected Jesusí sayings into a book in Jesusí lifetime? Several lines of evidence converge to suggest it is quite probable. The first factor to consider is how prevalent literacy was in Jesusí time. Full literacy means being able to read and write proficiently, but degrees of literacy vary; people who can read, for example, may not be able to write. A common view is that of W.H....

Epigraphy and Language

Third Century Roman Inscriptions Discovered In Basque Country

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/08/2006 3:51:09 PM EDT · 34 replies · 975+ views

eitb24 | 6-8-2006
Third century Roman inscriptions discovered in the Basque Country 06/08/2006 Archaeologists in the site of IruÒa-Veleia have discovered an epigraphic set "among the most important of the Roman world" with drawings from the third century and a representation of a Calvary. Archaeological site in IruÒa-Veleia Archaeologists in the site of IruÒa-Veleia have discovered an epigraphic set "among the most important of the Roman world," with a series of 270 inscriptions and drawings from the 3rd century and a representation of a Calvary, "the most ancient known up to this moment." The managers of the archaeological site, located near the Alavan...

Ancient Rome

Tombs Of Roman Foes Discovered

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/09/2006 6:13:28 PM EDT · 7 replies · 386+ views

ANSA | 6-7-2006
Tombs of Roman foes discoveredTerracotta, daggers and jewelry in Abruzzo necropolis (ANSA) - L'Aquila, June 7 - Fresh tombs of one of Rome's most implacable foes have been discovered in Italy's mountainous Abruzzo region . Some of the tombs have been dated to the Second Century BC, when Rome was still trying to subdue the warlike peoples that lived in the region . Others date as far back as the 8th century BC, before Rome was founded . A particularly interesting find was a 2nd-Century BC chamber tomb containing terracotta ware, jewelry and a dagger . "It's fascinating to see...

Ancient Europe

Galicians (Vanity)

Posted by Ptarmigan
On General/Chat 06/03/2006 6:55:57 PM EDT · 10 replies · 169+ views

In the land of Spain in the Iberian Peninsula, there are groups of people who speak a language similar to Portguese called the Galicians. Galicians live in northwestern part of Spain, known as the "land of the 1000 rivers". It is one of Spain's official language besides Spanish and are refered as Gallegos. Galcians have migrated to other parts of Spain and Latin America. Galicians have their own autonomous region in Spain, like the Basque people. Galicians originally were Celtic people who migrated from the Pyrenees Mountain. The tribe called Galleci was established in northwestern part of Spain. Then around...

Newly found mosaic is optical illusion

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/03/2006 8:14:32 PM EDT · 34 replies · 614+ views

The Guardian | June 3, 2006 | John Hooper
Archaeologists studying an ancient mosaic found by workers laying cable south of Rome have been astonished to discover that it is an optical illusion. Viewed one way up it is a bald old man with a beard, but turned the other way round it is a beardless youth. Roberto Cereghino, a government archaeological official... said it appeared to be a depiction of Bacchus. The double face is surrounded by objects that were used in Bacchanalian rites: an ancient musical instrument, the sistrum, a two-handed drinking bowl, and a priestly wand. The mosaic's optical trickery may be linked to the fact...

Ancient Greece

Were Greeks 1,400 years ahead of their time?

Posted by aculeus
On News/Activism 06/07/2006 6:58:41 PM EDT · 88 replies · 1,734+ views

The Scotsman | June 7, 2006 | EBEN HARRELL
FOR decades, researchers have been baffled by the intricate bronze mechanism of wheels and dials created 80 years before the birth of Christ. The "Antikythera Mechanism" was discovered damaged and fragmented on the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera in 1900. Advert for The Scotsman Digital Archive Now, a joint British-Greek research team has found a hidden ancient Greek inscription on the device, which it thinks could unlock the mystery. The team believes the Antikythera Mechanism may be the world's oldest computer, used by the Greeks to predict the motion of the planets. The...

Researchers find hidden Greek text on 'world's oldest astronomy computer'

Posted by InvisibleChurch
On News/Activism 06/07/2006 11:44:29 PM EDT · 29 replies · 945+ views

physorg.com | June 06, 2006
The size of a shoebox, a mysterious bronze device scooped out of a Roman-era shipwreck at the dawn of the 20th century has baffled scientists for years. Now a British researcher has stunningly established it as the world's oldest surviving astronomy computer. A team of Greek and British scientists probing the secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism has managed to decipher ancient Greek inscriptions unseen for over 2,000 years, members of the project say. "Part of the text on the machine, over 1,000 characters, had already been deciphered, but we have succeeded in doubling this total," said physician Yiannis Bitsakis, part...

Anatolia

Ancient Stone Tablets Could Shed Light On Surtepe Excavations

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/04/2006 6:50:08 PM EDT · 12 replies · 417+ views

Turkish Daily News | 5-31-2006
Ancient stone tablets could shed light on Surtepe excavations Wednesday, May 31, 2006 Results are being presented this week at the 28th International Congress on Excavations, Surveys and Research in Turkey, which started on Monday in «anakkale, a western province that is also home to the ruins of ancient Troy ANKARA - Turkish Daily News Ancient stone tablets and seals unearthed during archaeological excavations at the Surtepe tumulus, seven kilometers north of Birecik in the southeastern province of fianl´´urfa, could shed light on other ancient structures discovered in the area. A team of experts headed by project director Jesus Gil...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Forgotten petroglyphs in Baltimore park to be studied, displayed [ Susquehanna Valley petroglyphs ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/05/2006 11:17:29 AM EDT · 8 replies · 109+ views

Centre Daily | Fri, Jun. 02, 2006 | Associated Press / Baltimore Sun
Eventually the more than two dozen Native American carvings, which may be thousands of years old, will be put on display. The carvings are called the Bald Friar Petroglyphs. They are older than those of the Aztecs and include concentric circles, fishlike designs and shapes that appear to depict the sun and humans... On Thursday, state archaeologists used chisels and crowbars to dislodge the carvings... The petroglyphs arrived in Baltimore in 1926 after preservationists removed them from the lower Susquehanna Valley to avoid their being inundated by Conowingo Dam. The stones were found in the Bald Friar area of Pennsylvania....

New Mexico's Chaco Canyon: A Place Of Kings And Palaces?

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/06/2006 4:57:14 PM EDT · 58 replies · 895+ views

Ascribe Newswire | 6-5-2006
Mon Jun 5 09:31:01 2006 Pacific Time New Mexico's Chaco Canyon: A Place of Kings and Palaces? BOULDER, Colo., June 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Kings living in palaces may have ruled New Mexico's Chaco Canyon a thousand years ago, causing Pueblo people to reject the brawny, top-down politics in the centuries that followed, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder archaeologist. University of Colorado Museum anthropology Curator Steve Lekson, who has studied Chaco Canyon for several decades, said one argument for royalty comes from the rich, crypt-style burials of two men discovered deep in a Chaco Canyon "great house"...

Agriculture and Domestication

KU Professor's Research Defies Traditional Thinking About Agriculture in Amazonia

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/05/2006 11:21:18 AM EDT · 5 replies · 69+ views

Kansas City infoZine | Sunday, June 04, 2006 | infoZine Staff
Research by a University of Kansas professor and his colleagues showing that ancient Amazonia may have supported large-scale agriculture is challenging conventional thinking and providing ideas for more efficient and environmentally friendly land use in the future... He thinks inhabitants enriched the soil by adding household waste and using a method called slash and char. Slash and char differs from the more established practice of slash and burn. Slash and burn was a high temperature fire that emitted a lot of gas and didn't add much to the soil. Slash and char was a much lower-temperature, smoldering method that added...

Killing Ground (GGG)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/03/2006 5:54:50 PM EDT · 9 replies · 435+ views

National Post | 6-3-2006
Killing ground Published: Saturday, June 03, 2006 PURPLE SPRINGS, Alta. - Buried deep below a shallow southeastern Alberta valley, punctuated by wind-swept sand dunes, vast grassland and aging cow manure, lies evidence of a slaughter that took place 2,500 years ago. What was once little more than leased Crown land now doubles as a precious archeological dig, which, with each turn of the trowel, is teaching University of Lethbridge researchers what one of Alberta's few known bison kill sites can tell us about our past. Listening to archeology professor Shawn Bubel tell the story of how a roaming herd met...

British Isles

Peer's fears over 'pyramid' hill [ Silbury Hill ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/09/2006 11:22:52 AM EDT · 4 replies · 52+ views

BBC | Monday, 17 May, 2004 | unattributed
A peer has compared an ancient monument to the pyramids in a row over the government's right to roam laws. Lord Avebury says he is "stunned" the Countryside Agency's wants to label Silbury Hill in Wiltshire as "unimproved chalk grassland". The move could lead to ramblers having free access to the hill, which opponents fear may cause damage. However, the agency says it took the decision because the 4,700-year-old hill is a "man-made structure". Silbury Hill is comparable with the ancient Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Pyramids of Mexico" -- Lord Avebury Lord Avebury spoke at the public inquiry...

Ancient Egypt

Mummy dearest: riddle wrapped in a mystery [Nefertiti, Maya, Ankhesenpamon?] [ KV-63 ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/07/2006 12:31:03 PM EDT · 13 replies · 174+ views

Washington Times / AFP | June 7, 2006 | Alain Navarro
Could the small tomb, designated KV63, hold a royal mummy, perhaps that of Tutankhamen's widow or even his mother? ...Otto Schaden, the man who found them, leads the American team. He believes they may have located the mummy of Tutankhamen's widow, Ankhesenamen, after traces of her name were found on the seal of one urn. The secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, thinks the final coffins may contain the remains of the pharaoh's mother, whose identity is unknown, and not the wife of Tutankhamen, the boy king who died at age 18.

Climate

Egyptologists' palm nearly extinct.

Posted by S0122017
On General/Chat 06/06/2006 11:53:33 AM EDT · 16 replies · 301+ views

newscientist | 3 6
Histories: Fruits of the tomb 03 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Stephanie Pain When Giuseppe Passalacqua went to Egypt in the 1820s his plan was to do a bit of horse-trading. He soon discovered a more lucrative line of work - excavating ancient tombs and selling off their contents. While Passalacqua found many priceless treasures, unlike most tomb-robbers he also made off with the more mundane. If something could be carried off, it was - right down to the dried-up offerings left to feed the ancients in the afterlife. Among these were some strange shrivelled fruits that have posed a...

Africa

An African kingdom on the Nile [ Meroe ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/09/2006 11:29:36 AM EDT · 6 replies · 91+ views

Al-Ahram Weekly | 8 - 14 June 2006 | unattributed
In a lecture at the Canadian Institute of Archaeology in Cairo last month, Krzys Grzymski of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) described the use of modern technology to uncover the origins and topography, history and development of Meroe, an African kingdom which developed along the upper reaches of the Nile about 200km north of Khartoum between 800 BC and 350 AD... [Excavations have] produced a number of surprises which included errors in earlier published plans of various buildings, numerous unrecorded inscriptions, some graffiti, and many beautifully carved blocks. "Perhaps the most exciting discovery was a stone block bearing the name...

What's New About African History?

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/05/2006 11:27:45 AM EDT · 12 replies · 157+ views

History News Network | June 5 2006 | John Edward Philips, editor
Nor were written documents neglected in those days. Led by John Hunwick, R.S. O'Fahey, and others, historians increasingly tapped the many Arabic and other written documents of Islamic Africa to reconstruct the past of those societies. The Arab Literature of Africa series of catalogues, published by E. J. Brill in the Netherlands, has continued to attract attention to this formerly neglected area of the Islamic world, which has had much impact not only on other parts of Africa but even on the central Islamic lands themselves but which had been shamefully and systematically neglected in Brockelmann's monumental five volume history...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Japan is proud home of Christ's tomb

Posted by NYer
On News/Activism 05/31/2006 12:56:17 PM EDT · 87 replies · 2,176+ views

TimesOnline | May 29, 2006 | Leo Lewis
IN A paddy-lined valley in the far north of Japan is a municipal signpost inscribed: ìTomb of Christ: next left.î Follow the winding path up into the forest and there, sure enough, is a simple mound with a large wooden cross labelled as the grave of Jesus. Nearby is a tomb commemorating Isukiri, Christís brother, adorned with a plastic poinsettia Christmas wreath. For two millennia the farming village of Shingo claims to have protected a tradition that Jesus spent most of his life in Japan. The village is the home of Sajiro Sawaguchi, a man in his eighties who claims...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

World's oldest condom

Posted by Millee
On General/Chat 06/08/2006 10:31:00 AM EDT · 95 replies · 959+ views

Ananova | 6/8/06 | Staff
The oldest surviving condom in the world has gone on display in an Austrian museum. The world's oldest condom, dating back to 1640, has gone on display at a museum in Austria /Europics The reusable condom dates back to 1640 and is completely intact, as is its orginal users' manual, written in Latin. The manual suggests that users immerse the condom in warm milk prior to its use to avoid diseases. The antique, found in Lund in Sweden, is made of pig intestine and is one of 250 ancient objects related to sex on display at the Tirolean County Museum...

Bocksten Man shows his face after 700 years

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/03/2006 8:03:04 PM EDT · 9 replies · 220+ views

The Local -- News from Sweden in English | 2nd June 2006 | Adam Ewing
Nearly 70 years after a boy made an exciting find in a bog south of Gothenburg in 1936, the skeletal remains of a person, now known as the "Bocksten man," are now on display for all to see. Professor Claes Lauritzen made a copy of the skull and had doll maker Oscar Nilsson reconstruct the face with clay and silicon... Using skills similar to those used in forensic medicine, researchers now have an idea of what the man looked like, under what conditions he lived, and how he died. According to Lauritzen, a skull expert, the 30 to 35-year-old man...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

June 6, 1944: General Dwight D. Eisenhower launches Operation Overlord

Posted by fgoodwin
On General/Chat 06/06/2006 12:22:57 PM EDT · 12 replies · 106+ views

History Channel | June 6, 2006 | anon
June 6, 1944: General Dwight D. Eisenhower launches Operation Overlordhttp://www.historychannel.com/td http://tinyurl.com On this day in 1944, now known as D-Day, future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II gives the go-ahead for a massive invasion of Europe called Operation Overlord. Back in America, President Franklin Roosevelt waited for word of the invasionís success. By the first week of June 1944, Nazi Germany controlled most of Western Europe. Allied forces, numbering 156,000, were poised to travel by ship or plane over the English Channel to attack the German army dug in at Normandy,...

end of digest #99 20060610

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #100
Saturday, June 17, 2006

British Isles

New glacier theory on Stonehenge

Posted by billorites
On News/Activism 06/13/2006 7:27:54 AM PDT · 41 replies · 1,049+ views

BBC News | June 13, 2006
A geology team has contradicted claims that bluestones were dug by Bronze Age man from a west Wales quarry and carried 240 miles to build Stonehenge. In a new twist, Open University geologists say the stones were in fact moved to Salisbury Plain by glaciers. Last year archaeologists said the stones came from the Preseli Hills. Recent research in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology suggests the stones were ripped from the ground and moved by glaciers during the Ice Age. Geologists from the Open University first claimed in 1991 that the bluestones at one of Britain's best-known historic landmarks had...

Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths

Road plans put Stonehenge status at risk

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/13/2006 10:10:01 PM PDT · 17 replies · 131+ views

The Guardian | Wednesday June 14, 2006 | David Adam
Sarah Staniforth, historic properties director with the trust, said the national committee of Unesco, which administers world heritage sites, had reviewed the situation and Stonehenge could be taken off the list because of poor traffic management. The trust's warning comes as ministers prepare to decide what to do to ease congestion on the A303, which passes the ancient stones... The issue was not the preservation of the stones but protection and restoration of the surrounding site, believed to hold undiscovered archaeological treasures. "We cannot stand by and allow a second-rate solution to damage for ever one of the world's most...

Druids Despair As Seahenge Set For Dry Berth

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 11/20/2001 9:49:22 AM PST · 42 replies · 385+ views

IOL (South Africa) | 11-19-2001
Druids despair as Seahenge set for dry berth November 19 2001 at 04:16PM London - A Bronze Age timber circle dug up on a beach two years ago should not be returned to its original site, where it would be vulnerable to the forces of the North Sea, English Heritage said on Monday. The 4 000-year-old structure, which became known as Seahenge, was found off the coast of Norfolk, north-east England, and removed despite prolonged protests by locals and Druid groups, who said the circle was a religious monument. English Heritage, the preservation group that oversaw and financed the ...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Did The Ancient Greeks And Native Americans Swap Starcharts?

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2006 6:18:49 PM PDT · 33 replies · 872+ views

Live Science | 6-12-2005 | Ker Than
Did the Ancient Greeks and Native Americans Swap Starcharts? Author Ker Than I had a story on SPACE.com yesterday about a very cool discovery: a one-thousand year old petroglyph, or rock carving, that was found in Arizona and which might depict the supernova of 1006, or SN 1006. The carving is presumed to have been made an ancient group of Native Americans called the Hohokam. The researcher who made the discovery argues that symbols of a scorpion and stars on the petroglyph match the relative positions of SN 1006 to the constellation Scorpius when the star first exploded. Well, after...

Archaeological site yields dental surprise [ PreColumbian dental work ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/14/2006 12:15:14 PM PDT · 10 replies · 129+ views

Yahoo / AP | Wed June 14 2006 | Randolph E. Schmid
Researchers report Wednesday that they found a 4,500-year-old burial in Mexico that had the oldest known example of dental work in the Americas. The upper front teeth of the remains had been ground down so they could be mounted with animal teeth, possibly wolf or panther teeth, for ceremonial purposes, according to researchers led by Tricia Gabany-Guerrero of the University of Connecticut... The individual, aged 28 to 32, would not have been able to bite with his front teeth but appears to have been well fed nonetheless, Chatters said. The body indicated he didn't do hard work, perhaps having been...

Andes People Look Back To The Future

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/12/2006 6:02:34 PM PDT · 14 replies · 312+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | 6-13-2006 | Roger Highfield
Andes people look back to the future Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/06/2006) The Aymara people in South America have a concept of time opposite to the rest of the us, so that the past lies ahead of them and the future behind, according to a study published yesterday. "Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world - from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on - have not only characterised time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front. "The Aymara case is the...

Prehistory and Origins

Affinities Of The Paleoindians

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/13/2006 2:20:25 PM PDT · 8 replies · 322+ views

Antiquity Of Man | Mikey Brass
Affinities of the Paleoindians by Mikey Brass I would like to make it clear from the start that my knowledge of the early occupation of the Americas is very limited. It is a peripheral interest of mine. I don't feel competent enough to make many pronouncements on the late Pleistocene timing of the migration(s) from north-east Asia into the Americas. Instead I focus primarily here on showing, contrary to reports eminating from both pseudoscientific and unfortunately some portions of mainstream archaeology, that the origins of the Paleoindians lay in mainland Asia. Christy Turner has identified what he terms the "Mongoloid...

Scientist's Study Of Brain Genes Sparks a Backlash

Posted by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On News/Activism 06/16/2006 9:32:09 AM PDT · 86 replies · 1,777+ views

Wall Street Journal | June 16, 2006 | Antonio Regalado
CHICAGO -- Last September, Bruce Lahn, a professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, stood before a packed lecture hall and reported the results of a new DNA analysis: He had found signs of recent evolution in the brains of some people, but not of others. It was a triumphant moment for the young scientist. He was up for tenure and his research was being featured in back-to-back articles in the country's most prestigious science journal. Yet today, Dr. Lahn says he is moving away from the research. "It's getting too controversial," he says. Dr. Lahn had touched...

Mesopotamia

Priceless Assyrian Relics Used for Target Practice

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/13/2006 10:16:53 PM PDT · 8 replies · 197+ views

Inter Press Service News Agency | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 | Lisa Sˆderlindh
Located northeast of ancient Nineveh on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in modern-day Mosul, the almost 2,700-year-old Khinnis site, also known as the Bavian site, highlights the geographical start of a impressive engineering feat of ancient Assyrian culture. It remains important to the Assyrian Christian people of Iraq, historically traceable to the Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation... During the recent trip by ISDP -- a special project launched by the Chicago-based Assyrians Academic Society, with members worldwide -- the delegation not only observed the damage caused by tourism, including visitors having chipped off pieces from the rock carvings, but...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Russian Archaeologist Says Merv Was Origin Of Zoroastrianism

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/10/2006 3:16:44 PM PDT · 28 replies · 689+ views

Mehr News | 6-10-2006
Russian archaeologist says Merv was origin of Zoroastrianism TEHRAN, June 10 (MNA) -- Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi believes that Merv, a province in southern Turkmenistan, was the cradle of Zoroastrianism, the Persian service of Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported here Saturday. According to Sarianidi, his archeological team has recently discovered some Zoroastriansí temples in the region. Each has two fire temples -- one was presumably used for religious ceremonies and one for cooking, he added. The temples date back to some 3,000 years BC, estimated the archaeologist. Sarianidi had already named the legendary land of Margush as the origin...

India

Search For India's Ancient City (Muziris - Roman)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2006 6:55:04 PM PDT · 8 replies · 462+ views

BBC | 6-12-2006
Search for India's ancient city Roman amphora pieces abound in Pattanam Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala. For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals. Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared. Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP...

Faith and Philosophy

India: New Interest In 'Jesus Grave' In Kashmir

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/12/2006 9:24:09 AM PDT · 110 replies · 660+ views

Aki/Asian Age | Jun-12-2006 06:14 pm | unattributed
The hypothesis that Jesus Christ is buried in central Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, has aroused a lot of interest among historiographers, researchers, scholars, archaeologists and religious groups both in India and worldwide once again. A team of German researchers, including two archaeologists, is planning to visit Srinagar later this year to investigate the subject. Within India, the political party known as the Janata Party has set up a group of experts from among its members which would be coming to Kashmir's summer capital soon to start research work. The party's president, Dr Subramanian Swamy, who was in...

On the trail of Buddha's disciples

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/15/2006 10:24:41 PM PDT · 1 reply

India Express | Friday, June 16, 2006 | Tarannum Manjul
The country may be busy celebrating the 2550th year of Buddha's Mahaparinirvana, but grey areas abound on how Buddhism spread across the globe after the first sermon at Sarnath. Which is why the state's archaeology department has finally decided to track the route taken by Buddha's disciplesóKumar Jeev, Kashyap and Matangó to spread his message of peace and harmony. The project, titled "The Buddha Sandesh Yatra", will span 11 countries. Beginning from Sarnath, the team will travel to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afganistan, Pakistan and Tibet.

Let's Have Jerusalem

Is the Truth About Masada Less Romantic?

Posted by robowombat
On News/Activism 06/12/2006 10:48:30 AM PDT · 65 replies · 1,771+ views

History Network | June 12, 2006 | Kim Stubbs
Is the Truth About Masada Less Romantic? By Kim Stubbs Kim Stubbs is an Australian freelance writer specialising in ancient and early medieval history. It is the spring of 73 AD and the revolt that has raged in the Roman province of Judea for eight years is about to reach its bloody and tragic conclusion. On an isolated rock overlooking the Dead Sea at the edge of the Judean Desert 967 men, women and children - the last remnants of Jewish resistance to Imperial Rome - await their fate. The spectacular natural redoubt that has become their final refuge is...

In a Ruined Copper Works, Evidence That Bolsters a Doubted Biblical Tale

Posted by Sabramerican
On News/Activism 06/13/2006 12:20:10 PM PDT · 43 replies · 2,246+ views

New York Times | 6/13/2006 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In a Ruined Copper Works, Evidence That Bolsters a Doubted Biblical Tale In biblical lore, Edom was the implacable adversary and menacing neighbor of the Israelites. The Edomites lived south of the Dead Sea and east of the desolate rift valley known as Wadi Arabah, and from time to time they had to be dealt with by force, notably by the likes of Kings David and Solomon. Today, the Edomites are again in the thick of combat ó of the scholarly kind. The conflict is heated and protracted, as is often the case with issues related to the reliability of...

Anatolia

Turkey orders 500-year-old inscription erased from castle

Posted by SmoothTalker
On News/Activism 06/13/2006 11:14:14 AM PDT · 48 replies · 1,556+ views

Mainichi Daily News
"Turkey's Islamic-rooted government has ordered a 500-year old Latin inscription believed to have been carved by the Knights of St. John erased from an old castle, newspaper reports said Tuesday." "In the written order, the Culture Minister told museum officials to scrape away the inscription "Inde deus abest," or "Where God does not exist," carved at the entrance to the dungeon of the Castle of St. Peter in the Aegean resort of Bodrum, Hurriyet, Sabah and Milliyet newspapers reported Tuesday." "The sign could be considered offensive to devout Muslims who believe in God's omnipresence. "Baffling censorship on 500-year-old inscription," Sabah...

Underground City Found Underneath Architect Sinan's House

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 04/09/2004 2:18:04 PM PDT · 65 replies · 592+ views

Zaman Online | 04.08.2004 Thursday | Ersan Temizel
Underground City Found Underneath Architect Sinan's House During restoration of the architect Sinan's house in the town of Kayseri, a Central Anatolian city in Agirnas, an underground city was found. Approximately 4000 square meters of the city, the age of which cannot be estimated, have been excavated so far. Nuvit Bayar, the Project Director of Guntas, the company responsible for the restoration, says, "We plan to finish this delicate job, which has been going on for two years, by the end of this month." Saying that when looked at from outside, Sinan's house looked like a two-story building, Bayar said...

Recent Finds Prove That Homer's Stories Were More Than Myth

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 02/24/2002 4:46:17 PM PST · 21 replies · 286+ views

The Times (UK) | 2-25-2002 | Norman Hammond
February 25, 2002 Recent finds prove that Homer's stories were more than myth By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent A CYNICAL scholar once noted that the reason that academic disputes were so bitter was that the stakes were so small. In the real world maybe, but Troy has been a battleground for 3,000 years not because of mundane matters of funding and status but because of its grip on our imaginations. There may or may not have been a decadeís siege on the edge of the Dardanelles around 1100BC, pitting Late Mycenaean Greeks against their neighbours and possible distant kin: but ...

Ancient Greece

Since when is ancient Greek art obscene?

Posted by billorites
On News/Activism 01/22/2005 5:51:21 AM PST · 15 replies · 698+ views

Manchester Union Leader | January 22, 2005 | GIANNA ANGELOPOULOS-DASKALAKI
GREECE does not wish to be drawn into an American culture war. Yet that is exactly what is happening. The Federal Communications Commission has launched an investigation into the broadcast of the opening ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Summer Olympic Games. The first step was taken in December, when the commission demanded that NBC provide it with tapes of the broadcast. This was in response to nine complaints about indecency from U.S. citizens (globally, viewers exceeded 3.9 billion). The FCC posted the complaints on its Web site. One person reported hearing an obscenity; one objected to the male anatomy on...

So Much Lost and Little Gained: Stone's leftist agenda robs Alexander of authenticity.

Posted by quidnunc
On News/Activism 12/05/2004 7:54:31 PM PST · 26 replies · 1,085+ views

VDH Private Papers | December 5, 2004 | Bruce Thornton
A movie as bad as Oliver Stone's Alexander usually would not be worth notice, but Stone has indulged several cinematic and political pathologies that are illuminating. Some of the film's flaws are curiously old-fashioned, redolent of studio schlock of the 1950s ó the bombastic musical score, Angeline Jolie's pointless Elvira "Mistress of the Night" accent; the heavy-handed, stale Oedipal psychology, complete with snakes; and the corny dialogue whose purple patches sound positively late Victorian. And Colin Farrel's waxed legs and dye job are as embarrassing as Richard Burton's were in his turn as the Macedonian conqueror. More interesting is what...

Persians Find Hollywood's Alexander Not So Great

Posted by freedom44
On News/Activism 12/31/2004 12:17:57 PM PST · 24 replies · 700+ views

AFP via Smccdi | 12/31/04 | AFP
SHIRAZ -- Some Iranians are up in arms again at the United States -- this time because of Hollywoodís version of Alexander the Greatís conquest of ancient Persia. According to Hassan Moussavi, who teaches history at Shiraz University, Oliver Stoneís latest blockbuster is merely the latest in a long line of affronts to the national esteem of the Persians. 'There is not even any proof that this Alexander even existed,' asserted Moussavi, who said he was 'fed up' with historyís ongoing fascination with the Macedonian king, who died in 323 BC at the age of 32 after capturing most of...

Ancient Rome

Man Leads Archaeologists To Frescoed Tomb (Europe's Oldest)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/16/2006 2:21:35 PM PDT · 11 replies · 480+ views

ABC News | 6-16-2006
Man Leads Archaeologists to Frescoed TombSuspected Tomb Raider Leads Archaeologists to Frescoed Tomb North of Rome; May Be Europe's Oldest.This photo provided by the Italian Ministry of Culture on Friday, June 16, 2006 shows a frescoed burial decorated with migratory birds, in the town of Veio, near Rome. Experts on Friday, June 16, 2006 described the tomb as the oldest known frescoed burial chamber in Europe. It belonged to a warrior prince from the nearby Etruscan town of Veio, and dates back to 690 B.C.(AP Photo/Courtesy of Ministry of Culture, HO) VEIO, Italy Jun 16, 2006 (AP)ó A suspected tomb...

Ancient Europe

Basques Were Fishermen More Than 8,000 Years Ago

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/13/2006 3:13:58 PM PDT · 12 replies · 267+ views

EITB24 | 6-13-2006
Basques were fishermen more than 8,000 years ago 06/13/2006 The Basques that settled 8,300 years ago in the Jaizkibel Mountain near the Basque coast were skillful enough to go fishing two kilometres out to sea. The human beings that lived in the Basque Country in the Mesolithic, more than 8,000 years ago, set sail out to sea fishing, something which meant 50 percent of their diet, Aranzadi society of sciences reported Tuesday after examining archaeological remains found in Gipuzkoa. They did not hunt whales, as their descendants many years after, neither tuna nor anchovy as the current Basque fishermen but...

Agriculture and Domestication

Is Modern Civilization Fragile?

Posted by RWR8189
On News/Activism 06/10/2006 6:43:49 PM PDT · 94 replies · 1,250+ views

Reason | June 9, 2006 | Ronald Bailey
CaltechóOur ancestors made themselves and us more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and the weather once they switched from hunting and gathering to farming. So says Brian Fagan, emeritus professor of anthropology from University of California at Santa Barbara, who spoke on the impact of climate change on ancient societies at the Environmental Wars conference of the Skeptics Society last weekend. Fagan's chief claim is that Farming in this case stands for the advent of more complex and interconnected societies. Fagan argues that nimble hunter/gatherers could respond to environmental changes faster than farmers and urbanites who are tied to...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Scientists Find DNA Region That Affects Europeans' Fertility

Posted by PatrickHenry
On News/Activism 01/16/2005 7:32:58 PM PST · 35 replies · 887+ views

New York Times | 17 January 2005 | NICHOLAS WADE
Researchers in Iceland have discovered a region in the human genome that, among Europeans, appears to promote fertility, and maybe longevity as well. Though the region, a stretch of DNA on the 17th chromosome, occurs in people of all countries, it is much more common in Europeans, as if its effect is set off by something in the European environment. A further unusual property is that the genetic region has a much more ancient lineage than most human genes, and the researchers suggest, as one possible explanation, that it could have entered the human genome through interbreeding with one of...

Oldest known bird found in China

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 06/15/2006 2:56:31 PM PDT · 18 replies · 465+ views

Globe and Mail | 6/15 | DAWN WALTON
Scientists have uncovered remarkably preserved fossils -- including feathers and webbed feet -- of the oldest known relatives of modern birds, which also shores up the theory that birds evolved from aquatic environments. Little is known about birds from the age of dinosaurs, since fossils that date back to the early Cretaceous Period -- some 105 to 115 million years ago -- are have rarely been found, the discovery reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science is particularly exciting for those trying to fill gaps in the avian family tree. 'I was totally blown away. I was stunned,' said...

Asia

Ancient tomb found underneath Yen Tu relic [ Han Dynasty ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/15/2006 10:27:07 PM PDT · 3 replies · 22+ views

Vietnam News Agency | 6/15/2006 | unattributed
The arch brick tomb, located about 0.5 m below the relic, is 1.7 m wide and 6m long and is believed to date back to the 5th-6th century of the Han dynasty. Many pottery and china artifacts such as bowls, plates, jars and pots were also found inside and around the ancient tomb.

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Global warming, not asteroid, cause of extinction?

Posted by Zon
On News/Activism 01/21/2005 7:09:59 AM PST · 43 replies · 1,168+ views

c|net news.com | 1/20/2005 | Michael Kanellos
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, the majority of life on earth may have suffocated. The "Great Dying," a catastrophic event that killed 90 percent of Earth's marine life and 75 percent of the life on land, was caused by a combination of warmer temperatures and lower oxygen levels, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Washington. In other words, the extinction was precipitated by global warming, rather than an asteroid collision, the reigning theory. The findings, to be published in the magazine Science, are largely based on comparisons of fossils found in South Africa's...

Climate

Noah's Ark, Pieces Intact, Found

Posted by Michael_Michaelangelo
On Religion 06/15/2006 7:56:07 AM PDT · 137 replies · 2,825+ views

Koenig's International News | 6/14/06 | Bill Wilson
WashóJune 14óKINóOn June 5th, Bible Historian and explorer Bob Cornuke led an expedition of 15 geologists, historians, archeologists, scientists and attorneys on an exhausting mission 13,300 feet above sea level to locate and document the tremendous sections of what is thought to be Noah's Ark located in the Ararat mountain range six hours North of Tehran, Iran. It had been essentially buried beneath the preservation of glaciers until last year when Iran recorded the hottest year on record which melted some of the snowcap revealing 450 by 75-foot footprint of the 'object.' Noah's Ark was claimed to be found in...

Ancient Egypt

In Egypt, the Pharaohs' outspoken defender kicks up a dust storm [ Zahi Hawass ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/14/2006 10:50:26 PM PDT · 1 reply · 4+ views

San Francisco Chronicle | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 (Page†E - 1) | Jack Epstein
At a preview of a King Tut display at Chicago's Field Museum last month, Hawass, whose critics call him "the Show-Biz Pharaoh," a "media whore" and "part P.T. Barnum, part Indiana Jones," asked museum officials to remove one of the exhibition's corporate sponsors after learning its chief executive owned a 2,600-year-old Egyptian coffin... In April, he fired off a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, asking him to return a 71-foot-high Egyptian obelisk in Central Park if he didn't start taking care of it. The pillar, which is in poor condition because of neglect, has been in the park...

Epigraphy and Language

Hittite graves, artifacts unearthed in Adana

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/14/2006 10:55:32 PM PDT · 4 replies · 109+ views

Turkish Daily News | Thursday, Jun 15 2006 | unattributed
Four graves, two jugs and seven coins dating to the Hittite period were unearthed during excavations conducted in the Mediterranean province of Adana, archaeologists working at the site announced on Monday. Adana Archaeology Museum Director Kazõm Tosun told reporters that the graves were unearthed on May 25 during the excavations in the Ceyhan village of Sirkeli. Tosun said they had found some human bones in the graves. "The excavation is still under way. The findings will be exhibited at the Adana Archaeology Museum," he said. He also said the excavations were begun at the request of Akdeniz Petrolleri Inc. prior...

An interpreter of Maya culture [ Harri Kettunen ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/15/2006 9:07:59 AM PDT · 2 replies · 73+ views

the quarterly of the University of Helsinki | summer 2006 | Jani Saxell
"The Maya are the only pre-Columbian culture whose texts have been preserved up to our time in the thousands. They reveal the Maya to have been a people like all others. In the 7th and 8th centuries AD, the area was the most populous in the world and the city-states waged wars against each other," says Kettunen. Kettunen explains that there are quite human reasons why the idealised image of the Maya arose. An early authority on Maya studies, the British archaeologist Eric Thompson had experienced two world wars. "He wanted to believe that the world had had at least...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Bosnian Pyramids: Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of Atlantis

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/15/2006 2:55:21 PM PDT · 11 replies · 388+ views

History News Network | 6-15-2006 | Alun Salt
Alun Salt Bosnian Pyramids: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Atlantis I wasn't going to pyramid blog here, but I've new information and it might be handy to collate all the debunking into one post. If you've been following this at my site then skip on to the Geological and Archaeological results. Otherwise this is both really odd and something I would dearly love to be wrong about. Late last year news broke of a pyramid that had been found in Bosnia. I didnít give it any thought until Coturnix wrote about it in December at Science and Politics....

Underwater Archaeology

Skeleton under ship is Iron age [ Newport Ship ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/14/2006 9:42:27 AM PDT · 22 replies · 269+ views

BBC | Monday, 5 December 2005 | unattributed
The remains of a skeleton found underneath a medieval ship discovered buried in the banks of the River Usk in Newport are that of an Iron age man. Tests carried out on the bones which were found in December 2002, have shown that they date back to 170BC... about 1,500 years older than the 15th century ship. The man is thought to have been about 5ft 9in tall and very muscular. He was probably in his late 20s or early 30s when he died. Experts carried out radio carbon dating on the bones which were found underneath wooden struts supporting...

Protection for wreck sunk in 1703

Posted by robowombat
On General/Chat 06/12/2006 11:53:15 AM PDT · 7 replies · 92+ views

(UK) Dept of Culture , Media, and Sport | 30 May 2006
30 May 2006 Culture Minister David Lammy Acts To Protect The Wreck of 70 Gun Warship Thought To Be Resolution, Sunk Off Sussex In 1703 Culture Minister David Lammy today took action to protect a wreck, believed to be that of the 70-gun war ship Resolution, recently discovered by divers on the seabed in Pevensey Bay, off the Sussex coast. His decision to 'designate' the well preserved remains under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 follows a recommendation from English Heritage. The Order laid in Parliament will protect the newly discovered remains -- and the 100m area around them --...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Hidden room where Leonardo met his Mona

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 01/12/2005 12:59:52 AM PST · 3 replies · 1,165+ views

Telegraph (UK) | 12/01/2005
Restorers find artistís workshop in old Florence friary, writes Bruce Johnston The workshop where Leonardo da Vinci first met and may have begun painting the woman he immortalised as the Mona Lisa has been discovered in a military college. The studio and lodgings, filling five rooms on two floors and still showing traces of wall paintings bearing what one expert called "astonishing associations" with his work, have come to light in what was once part of the friary of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence and was later taken over by Italy's Military Geographical Institute. A team of restorers found the...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Museum to reunite Venus statue with head

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/14/2006 12:28:15 PM PDT · 25 replies · 202+ views

Yahoo / AP | Tue Jun 13, 9:23 PM ET | Giovanna Dell'orto
For the first time in possibly 170 years, a Roman marble statue of Venus will be reunited with its head as both are coming to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, where conservators will piece them back together... A private collector in Houston, Texas, agreed to sell to those who purchased the body at the auction the head as well, which was last documented attached to the body in 1836. The head sold for about $50,000. The 4-foot-6-inch statue is a marble copy from the late 1st century A.D. of an earlier Greek bronze sculpture, which many scholars...

Gritty Clues (How Soil Can Tell Stories Of The Past)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/11/2006 12:57:29 PM PDT · 13 replies · 332+ views

Science News | 6-11-2006 | Aimee Cunningham
Gritty CluesHow soil can tell stories of the past Aimee Cunningham At the base of Monticello Mountain, just below Thomas Jefferson's historic estate in Charlottesville, Va., sits a 90-meter-long greenstone wall. The Rivanna River runs on one side. On the other, earth has piled up to the wall's top. Built up from sediments washing down the mountain for centuries, this soil holds clues to history. But rather than bits of tools or pottery, the clues are chemical elements in the soil. The soil at Monticello Mountain in Charlottesville, Va., contains clues about Thomas Jefferson's agricultural practices on those slopes. Archaeologists...

end of digest #100 20060617

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #101
Saturday, June 24, 2006

Ancient Egypt

Massive Mummy Fraud Discovered After 2,000 Years

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/21/2006 8:47:24 PM EDT · 16 replies · 745+ views

The Guardian (UK) | 6-21-1006 | Maev Kennedy
Massive mummy fraud discovered after 2,000 years Maev Kennedy Wednesday June 21, 2006 Not quite what it seems ... Roman period mummy at the Fitzwilliam Museum Modern medical science has exposed the villainy of the crocodile mummy sellers of Hawara, more than 2,000 years after they defied the edict of a Pharaoh and turned neatly bandaged bundles of rubbish into a nice little earner. Before the reopening this month of the Egyptian Galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, curators took their animal and human mummies to the city's Addenbrooke's Hospital, as part of a £1.5m re-display of the internationally...

Ancient Europe

Bog Bodies Found Were Society's Elite

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/21/2006 7:58:55 PM EDT · 38 replies · 927+ views

Daily Mail | 6-20-2006
Bog bodies found were society's elite 19:45pm 20th June 2006 Research into Iron Age bog bodies discovered in the midlands of Ireland has revealed they were elite members of society who may have met violent deaths as part of kingship rituals. As the bodies discovered in 2003 went on display at the National Museum of Ireland, Eamonn Kelly, the keeper of Irish antiquities, said they were placed along significant boundaries of ancient kingdoms linking them to sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age. "The bodies fit in, in that they are also offerings, they are offerings to the territorial...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

German Archaeologists To Excavate Salt Men's Burial Ground In Iran

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/23/2006 7:24:07 PM EDT · 3 replies · 236+ views

Persian Journal | 6-20-2006
German Archeologists to Excavate Salt Men's Burial Ground in Iran Jun 20, 2006 Following the visit of two Iranian archeologists to Germany and Austria, the condition for a joint cooperation between Iranian and German archeologists was prepared and a team of archeologists of Bochum Mining Museum of Germany is to come to Iran to carry out excavations in Chehr Abad historical salt mine, the burial ground of the discovered famous salt men in Zanjan province. After signing a memorandum of understanding between Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) and Germany's Bochum Mining Museum and defining the budget for this...

Ancient Autopsies

1,000 Skeletons Found In Rome Catacombs

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/23/2006 5:18:46 PM EDT · 24 replies · 970+ views

Scotsman | 6-23-2006 | Nick Pisa
1,000 skeletons found in Rome catacombs NICK PISA IN ROME ARCHAELOGISTS exploring one of Rome's oldest catacombs have discovered more than 1,000 skeletons dressed in elegant togas. Experts are thrilled by the find - which dates from about the first century - as it is the first "mass burial" of its kind identified. Mystery surrounds why so many bodies were neatly piled together in the complex network of underground burial chambers, which stretch for miles under the city. It was the custom then for Rome's upper classes to be burnt not buried, so it is thought the skeletons may be...

2,000-Year-Old 6Ft 6Ins Warrior Giant Discovered

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/31/2002 10:52:50 AM EDT · 22 replies · 387+ views

Ananova | 7-31-2002
2,000-year-old 6ft 6ins warrior giant discovered The remains of an enormous warrior who fought more than 2,000 years ago have been found in Kazakhstan. The soldier was heavily armed and stood around 6ft 6ins tall. Archaeologists believe he was well-built and revered by people who buried him with his weapons. The BBC says the warrior lived around the first century BC. Historians say this may lead them to re-examine the origins of the region's people. Story filed: 10:01 Wednesday 31st July 2002

Agriculture and Domestication

11,000-Year-Old Grain Shakes Up Beliefs On Beginnings Of Agriculture

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/19/2006 4:04:07 PM EDT · 87 replies · 1,672+ views

Jerusalem Post | 6-18-2006 | Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
Jun. 18, 2006 0:24 | Updated Jun. 18, 2006 10:4511,000-year-old grain shakes up beliefs on beginnings of agriculture By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH Bar-Ilan University researchers have found a cache of 120,000 wild oat and 260,000 wild barley grains at the Gilgal archaeological site near Jericho that date back 11,000 years - providing evidence of cultivation during the Neolithic Period. The research, performed by Drs. Ehud Weiss and Anat Hartmann of BIU's department of Land of Israel studies and Prof. Mordechai Kislev of the faculty of life sciences, appears in the June 16 edition of the prestigious journal Science. It is the...

Digging in Denmark, archaeologist uncovers rare prize [ prehistoric agriculture ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/22/2006 11:20:26 AM EDT · 14 replies · 157+ views

University of Wisconsin-Madison | June 21, 2006 | Terry Devitt
In the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, an epoch that spanned a period of about 6,000 years beginning in 10,000 B.C., Denmark, it turns out, was a happenin' place... With a climate moderated by the ocean and abundant natural resources ó seals, fish, deer, wild pig, fowl, nuts ó the hunting and gathering life in prehistoric Denmark was about as good as it got in an age when the height of technology was a stone axe... "Over time, my interest turned to why these hunters became farmers," says Price. "It was in the late Mesolithic, just before the Neolithic, when...

Epigraphy and Language

Archaeologists, courts debate artifacts' value [ Theft of petroglyphs raises questions... ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/19/2006 1:36:11 PM EDT · 8 replies · 74+ views

Contra Costa Times | June 18 2006 | Scott Sonner
In a case with ramifications for archaeological treasures across the West, the Justice Department is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that freed two men convicted of stealing ancient petroglyphs in Nevada. "There is a good deal at stake here," said Sherry Hutt, a former Superior Court judge from Arizona who has written books on the subject and now heads a related program at the National Park Service... Hutt, who manages a Park Service program under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, said the concerns are valid. "Essentially, the government must prove...

Navigation

Jade Find In Antigua Produces Links In Central America

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/20/2006 5:34:22 PM EDT · 21 replies · 368+ views

Antigua Sun | 6-20-2006
Jade find in Antigua produces links to Central America Tuesday June 20 2006 A discovery of ancient jade could shake up old notions of the New World before Columbus. Scientists say they have traced 1,500-year-old axe blades found in the eastern Caribbean to ancient jade mines in Central America 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) away, New Yorkís American Museum of Natural History announced late last month. The blades were excavated in the late 90s by a Canadian archaeologist on the island of Antigua in the West Indies But the jade used to make the blades almost certainly came from Maya mines...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Japanese Researchers Discover Remains Of What Appears To Be 4,800-Year-Old Temple In Peru

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/20/2006 6:13:48 PM EDT · 6 replies · 437+ views

Asahi | 6-20-2006 | Asahi Shimbun
Japanese researchers discover remains of what appears to be 4,800-year-old temple in Peru 06/20/2006 The Asahi Shimbun CHANCAY, Peru--Japanese researchers said they have discovered--with the unintended help of looters--what appears to be a temple ruins at least 4,800 years old that could be one of the oldest in the Americas. The temple is believed to have been built before or around 2600 BC when Peru's oldest known city, Caral, was created, the researchers said. The ruins were found in the ruins of Shicras located in the Chancay Valley about 100 kilometers north of Lima. The team started full-scale excavation work...

Disputed collection holds keys to Machu Picchu's secrets

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 06/17/2006 2:00:55 AM EDT · 13 replies · 416+ views

physorg.com | June 16, 2006 | MATT APUZZO
Even after decades of study, Yale University's collection of relics from Machu Picchu continues to reveal new details about life in the Incan city in the clouds. The bones tell stories about the health of the Incan people. The metal tools hint at the society's technological advancement. The artifacts help scientists reconstruct ancient trade routes. Archaeologists say they've even learned that the Incan diet revolved not around the Peruvian staple of potatoes, but was based largely on maize. All this from restudying a collection that's nearly a century old. The government of Peru wants it back, saying it never relinquished...

Ancient Greece

Archeologists, journalists plan vast database of Greek antiquities abroad

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/17/2006 9:10:30 PM EDT · 3 replies · 19+ views

MacLeans | June 15, 2006 | unattributed
Greek archeologists and journalists said Thursday they are teaming up on an ambitious project to catalogue thousands of Greek antiquities owned by foreign museums and collections. But organizers said the resulting database would not be used to boost repatriation claims... Thousands of artifacts from Greece's rich past are displayed in museums and private collections all over the world. Most were removed during the four centuries of Ottoman rule before the country's independence in the 19th century, while others were plundered during illicit excavations. The project will be carried out in co-operation with unions of the University of Thessaloniki archeologists and...

Ancient Rome

Roman treasure discovered on farm

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/17/2006 9:14:06 PM EDT · 8 replies · 247+ views

BBC | Saturday, 17 June 2006 | unattributed
Farm contractors have unearthed 2,000 Roman coins beneath a field at a farm near Carmarthen. The coins, which date from late Roman times, have been categorised as "treasure" ...The coins are thought to have been lying just 12 inches beneath the surface of a field. The Romans left Wales in 410AD, having first arrived in 47AD. Carmarthen was a Roman settlement from the first century AD.

World Heritage bid hope for wall [ Antonine Wall in Scotland ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/21/2006 1:57:58 AM EDT · 9 replies · 102+ views

BBC | Tuesday, 20 June 2006 | unattributed
Scotland's culture minister has thrown her weight behind the bid to make the Antonine Wall a World Heritage Site... Five local authorities are also supporting the bid, which was officially launched in 2003. The Antonine Wall runs 37 miles from Bo'ness, near Falkirk, to Old Kilpatrick in West Dunbartonshire... built in 140AD to keep Pictish warriors out of the Roman Empire after the conquest of southern Scotland... The Antonine Wall was built after the Romans invaded southern and central Scotland almost 2,000 years ago. It became a monument to the reign of Emperor Antonius Pius but was abandoned after just...

British Isles

Extensive study into Roman town [ Caistor St Edmund ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/19/2006 11:14:44 AM EDT · 14 replies · 121+ views

The town was once the regional centre of East Anglia and is one of only three Romano-British towns remaining undeveloped... was also the market town for the Iceni tribe, led by Queen Boudicca. Archaeological interest began in 1928, and excavations were made between 1929 and 1935 on the forum, a bath complex, the south gate, a house and two temples. Later work involved aerial photography and metal detector surveys, revealing cemeteries and other remains. The new project aims to go further and look at whether the town, known as Venta Icenorum, was established on a new site or on an...

Front Garden Yields Ancient Tools (250,000 Years-Old, UK)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/20/2006 3:48:24 PM EDT · 30 replies · 677+ views

BBC | 6-20-2006
Front garden yields ancient tools Only one other handaxe of this type has been found that is bigger The Britons of 250,000 years ago were a good deal more sophisticated than they are sometimes given credit for, new archaeological evidence suggests. It comes in the form of giant flint handaxes that have been unearthed at a site at Cuxton in Kent. The tools display exquisite, almost flamboyant, workmanship not associated with this period until now. The axes - one of which measured 307mm (1ft) in length - were dug up from old sand deposits in a front garden. "It is...

India

Stone -Age Tools Dug Out Of 'Tiger Hole' (90,000-Years-Old)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/20/2006 5:24:31 PM EDT · 12 replies · 524+ views

Telegraph India | 6-19-2006 | GS Mudur
Stone-age tools dug out of ëtiger holeí G.S. MUDUR The ëtiger holeí that turned out to be a cave shelter; implements found by archaeologists. Telegraph pictures New Delhi, June 12: An assortment of stone-age tools buried in a cave in the western coastal district of Maharashtraís Ratnagiri has provided the first evidence of a cave shelter of human ancestors on Indiaís coastline. What local village folk had shunned as a "tiger hole", archaeologists from the Deccan College and Postgraduate Research Institute in Pune have shown was a shelter that preserved relics of ancient craftsmanship. "The shape and features of the...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Study reveals 'oldest jewellery'

Posted by Fractal Trader
On News/Activism 06/22/2006 5:14:19 PM EDT · 11 replies · 303+ views

BBC | 22 June 2006 | Paul Rincon
The earliest known pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have been identified by scientists. The three shell beads are between 90,000 and 100,000 years old, according to an international research team. The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or bracelet, the researchers believe. The finds, which pre-date other ancient examples by 25,000 years, are described in the US journal Science. It supports my thought that there are no great revolutions in the evolution of modern human behaviour - it is a gradual process Alison Brooks, George Washington...

How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs

Posted by keepa
On General/Chat 06/05/2002 5:45:56 PM EDT · 8 replies · 277+ views

Assyrian International News Agency | Peter BetBasoo
Book review: How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs Peter BetBasoo Title: How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs Author: De Lacy O'Leary, D.D. Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul, London Date: 1949 (according to the inside title page: "owing to production delays this book was published in 1980") Pages: 196 Index: Yes Table of Contents I Introduction II Helenism in Asia 1. Hellenization of Syria 2. The Frontier Provinces 3. Foundation of Jundi-Shapur 4. Diocletian and Constantine III The Legacy of Greece 1. Alexandrian Science 2. Philosophy 3. Greek Mathematicians 4. Greek Medicine IV Christianity as a Hellenizing Force 1....

Exclusive: Dumped Temple Mount Rubble Yields Jewish Artifacts

Posted by Nachum
On News/Activism 04/14/2005 12:59:08 AM EDT · 21 replies · 898+ views

Arutz 7 | Apr 14, '05 | staff
Arutz-7's Ezra HaLevi took an exclusive inside look into one of the most important and unique archaeological explorations in history - currently in danger of going unfinished due to lack of funding. In November 1999, the Islamic Wakf carried out an illegal construction project on the Temple Mount, Judaismís holiest site. The unsupervised digging caused irreparable damage to the important site, as well as to untold priceless artifacts contained in rubble removed during the construction and dumped clandestinely in the Kidron Valley. Though the archaeological remains were no longer in their original contexts, they held enormous potential to shed light...

Faith and Philosophy

The Book Of Isaiah Under The Sands Of Egypt

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/21/2006 8:10:00 PM EDT · 33 replies · 1,195+ views

Polish Science News | 6-20-2006
The Book of Isaiah under the sands of Egypt The archaeological mystery has been solved! The latest research shows that the manuscript found by Polish archaeologists in the village of Gourna (Sheikh abd el-Gourna) near Luxor in Upper Egypt contains the entire biblical book of Isaiah in the Coptic translation. "This is the first complete translation of this book in Coptic" says Prof. Ewa Wipszycka-Bravo of the Institute of Archaeology at Warsaw University. In February last year, Tomasz GÛrecki heading the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the Warsaw University mission in Gourna, made a unique find in the rubbish...

Prehistory and Origins

Earliest hominid: Not a hominid at all?

Posted by Marius3188
On News/Activism 06/19/2006 10:08:06 PM EDT · 79 replies · 1,201+ views

University of Michigan News Service | June 19, 2006 | Laura Bailey
ANN ARBOR, Mich.óThe earliest known hominid fossil, which dates to about 7 million years ago, is actually some kind of ape, according to an international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan. The finding, they say, suggests scientists should rethink whether we actually descended from apes resembling chimpanzees, which are considered our closest relatives. U-M anthropologist Milford Wolpoff and colleagues examined images and the original paper published on the discovery of the Toumai cranium (TM 266) or Sahelanthropus tchadensis, as well as a computer reconstruction of the skull. Two other colleagues were actually able to examine the skull,...

The Ultimate in Genealogy [Review of Nicholas Wade's "Before the Dawn"]

Posted by PatrickHenry
On News/Activism 06/20/2006 10:33:51 AM EDT · 53 replies · 1,068+ views

National Review | John Derbyshire
[Skipped a few intro paragraphs]Before there were modern humans there were hominids, those not-quite-humans who formed one arm of the great chimp-human split of five million or so years ago. The chimps went off on one path through evolutionary space, the hominids on another. By 50,000 years ago there were at least three species of hominid: the Neanderthals in Europe, homo erectus in Asia, and modern humans in Africa. (The recently discovered "hobbit" hominids of Flores Island in Indonesia were probably a downsized subspecies of homo erectus.) Then a tremendous event occurred. A small band of modern humans -- it...

Climate

Earth 'shook off' ancient warming (So now you're saying the planet solved global warming before?)

Posted by presidio9
On News/Activism 02/02/2004 3:16:15 PM EST · 73 replies · 1,072+ views

BBC News | Monday, 2 February, 2004
UK scientists claim they now know how Earth recovered on its own from a sudden episode of severe global warming at the time of the dinosaurs. Understanding what happened could help experts plan for the future impact of man-made global warming, experts say. Rock erosion may have leached chemicals into the sea, where they combined with carbon dioxide, causing levels of the greenhouse gas to fall worldwide. UK scientists report the details of their research in the journal Geology. About 180 million years ago, temperatures on Earth rapidly shot up by about 5 Celsius. The cause is thought to have...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Dino-Era Crater Probed For Clues To Mass Extinction

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 01/24/2002 7:12:22 AM EST · 17 replies · 354+ views

National Geographic | 1-23-2002 | Robert S. Boyd
Dino-Era Crater Probed for Clues to Mass Extinction Robert S. Boyd The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey) January 23, 2002 Scientists have begun drilling a mile-deep hole into a huge underground crater that was left by a mountain-sized asteroid or comet that slammed into Earth 65 million years ago. According to a widely accepted theory, the cataclysmic event wiped out the dinosaurs. This month, the scientists reached the uppermost layer of broken rocks buried beneath Mexico's Yucat·n Peninsula that were smashed, twisted, and hurled about by the tremendous force of the collision. The researchers hope to learn exactly what ...

Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths

Astronomy Picture for Today

Posted by HOTTIEBOY
On General/Chat 06/21/2006 2:49:18 PM EDT · 14 replies · 257+ views

nasa | 06/21/2006 | dg
Sunrise Solstice at Stonehenge Credit & Copyright: Pete Strasser (Tucson, Arizona, USA) Today the Sun reaches its northernmost point in the planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice, the date traditionally marks a change of seasons -- from spring to summer in Earth's Northern Hemisphere and from fall to winter in Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Pictured above is the 2005 Summer Solstice celebration at Stonehenge in England. The event was rare because Stonehenge was not always open to the public, and because recent summer solstices there had been annoyingly cloudy. In 2005, however, thousands of people gathered at sunrise to see...

Solstice sun beams into chamber [ Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/22/2006 11:28:59 AM EDT · 9 replies · 145+ views

BBC | Wednesday, 21 June 2006 | unattributed
Archaeologist Steve Burrow made the discovery after reading a book by Sir Norman Lockyear published almost 100 years ago... Sir Norman - the man who discovered helium - had travelled to the site, otherwise known as the Hill of Black Grove, and measured the alignment of the sun at Easter... "I came across this reference in a book dating back to 1908 but nobody had checked it, nobody had gone and verified it in person," he said... Mr Burrow, a curator of Neolithic archaeology at the National Museum of Wales, delayed his book by a year to test the theory....

Underwater Archaeology

Divers Begin Search For Underwater 'Atlantis' (China)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/23/2006 5:12:37 PM EDT · 9 replies · 351+ views

China Daily | 6-17-2006 | Wu Chong
Divers begin search for underwater 'Atlantis' By Wu Chong (China Daily) Updated: 2006-06-17 05:56 YUXI, YUNNAN: Ten divers began a seven-day search for a possible underwater "Atlantis" on Friday in the Fuxian Lake near Kunming, the second-deepest freshwater pool in the country. Local diver Geng Wei first told of a large ancient city in the lake eight years ago, thought to span 2.4 square kilometres. Geng claimed to have seen lots of square boulders more than 1.4 square metres in size, either piled or scattered deep underwater. In 2001, the local government launched the first large exploration of the lake,...

Oh So Mysteriouso

The Ellenville Tunnels and Pine Bush Pits

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/19/2006 12:11:41 AM EDT · 1 reply · 215+ views

Think About It dot com | circa 1997 | good question...
Seemingly by coincidence I stumbled upon a book entitled Field Guide to Mysterious Places of Eastern North America by Salvatore M. Trento, an Oxford grad. In his book he gives information on 3 underground tunnels outside of Ellenville, NY. He also mentions the presence of 20 circular pits outside of Pine Bush... Unlike the pits, there is no supported explanation as of yet for the tunnels. The author speculates that they were carved by Dutch miners in search of a mineral vein. No records exist of the tunnels and no local historians know how they came to be... The main...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Unique castle sword found in a suitcase

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/23/2006 2:41:20 AM EDT · 32 replies · 365+ views

Northumberland Today | 22 June 2006 | unattributed
X-rays of the sword, which predates the Vikings, revealed its blade is made up of six individual strands of carbonised iron bonded together to form the blade, a practice which has rarely been seen before... The sword was discovered in the first-ever excavation at Bamburgh Castle by the late Dr Brian Hope-Taylor in 1960. Following his death in 2001, the sword was found in a suitcase during a clearance of his house along with a rare pattern-welded sword and an axe also from Bamburgh... A replica sword is being reconstructed which will be displayed at Bamburgh Castle with the original...

Cemetery gives up Saxon secrets

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/17/2006 9:05:21 PM EDT · 4 replies · 90+ views

Oxford Mail | Saturday 17th June 2006 | Samantha Simpson
Experts have been investigating part of a new cemetery in Black Bourton - and have discovered a Saxon gilded buckle... She said: "When the council purchased the land, it was required to carry out a trial dig which showed there to be Saxon remains in the area. "As part of the planning approval the council is required to carry out a fuller dig before than land can be used for graves."

Reconstructing Shakespeare (What Did The Bard Look Like? Exhibit Offers Six Possible Answers)

Posted by nickcarraway
On General/Chat 06/23/2006 2:27:47 PM EDT · 5 replies · 109+ views

Hartford Courant | June 23, 2006 | ADRIAN BRUNE
Scores of literature students and buffs think that, after 400 years, they know Shakespeare - the balding guy with frilly neckware, a goatee and a stiff upper lip who brought us the mercurial musings of Hamlet and the amorous entreaties of Romeo. Not everyone sees him that way. British painter John Taylor saw William Shakespeare as a bit more bohemian, an Elizabethan hipster. His portrait has the bard in a long beard, plain white collar, disheveled hair and a gold hoop in his left ear. The truth is nobody knows what Shakespeare looked like because there is no record that...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Excavation of home of UNC founder William R. Davie -- no evidence that it was burned by Union troops

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/17/2006 8:55:13 PM EDT · 5 replies · 88+ views

University of North Carolina press release | June 13, 2006
Artifacts suggest that the South Carolina site that archaeology students and faculty from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been excavating was indeed the home of UNC founder William R. Davie, but contradict the local lore that Union troops burned the house in 1865... [T]he researchers and their undergraduate collaborators did not find the key evidence that would suggest a fire. "We would expect masses of charcoal and burned window glass, and we just didn't encounter that," Riggs said. "It's possible that such evidence was obliterated, but we really doubt it." ...Two years ago, student and faculty...

end of digest #101 20060624

Smallish digest this week:

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #102
Saturday, July 1, 2006

Africa

Does 'lost' Ark exist in Ethiopia?

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 08/18/2002 7:37:37 PM EDT · 36 replies · 1,286+ views

The Billings Gazatte | August 17, 2002 ( Last modified August 17, 2002 - 12:37 am) | By RICHARD N. OSTLING
August 17, 2002 Last modified August 17, 2002 - 12:37 am Does 'lost' Ark exist in Ethiopia? By RICHARD N. OSTLING Associated Press Thanks to Hollywood's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the Ark of the Covenant is one of the most famous objects in the Bible. It's also one of the most mysterious, since the Bible doesn't say what happened to it. Ethiopian Christians, however, believe the ark still exists in their country. The biblical ark signified God's presence among his people. It was a wooden box containing the two tablets of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses...

Faith and Philosophy

Memory in Ruins [Biblical Archaeology]

Posted by SJackson
On Religion 12/01/2003 6:53:28 PM EST · 11 replies · 168+ views

Azure | Winter, 2004 | David Hazony
For nearly a century, biblical archaeology has been a pillar of the Jewish national revival. Its professional approach, combined with its often dramatic capacity to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel, has done much to convince the world that the Bible is not mere myth, but a document that reflects the truth concerning central periods in Israel's history. Today, however, biblical archaeology has reached a crossroads. Seeking to reconstruct the historical record from scratch, a new school of Bible scholars, historians, and archaeologists has argued that nearly every major story of the Hebrew Bible is little more than a fabrication....

Let's Restore Medina to the Jews

Posted by ml/nj
On News/Activism 10/27/2001 9:33:03 AM EDT · 162 replies · 1,514+ views

The Dhimmi (Jews and Christians under Islam) | 1980 (French) 1985 (Translation to English) | Bat Ye'or
From Chapter 1, Historical Outline: In the year 622, on the invitation of the Ansar - a group of pagans converted to Islam - Muhammad and his small band of followers left Mecca for Yathrib (Medina). The population then consisted of polytheistic clans, of Jewish tribes that had long been established in Arabia, and Arabs converted to Judaism. ... The arrival of Muhammad and his followers provoked no opposition from the Jews. ... In 624 Muhammad, joined by more followers, called upon the Qaynuqa, one of the Jewish tribes of Medina, to recognize his prophetic mission. When they refused, he ...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Al Aqsa official: Jewish Temples existed [Cheer and then Barf]

Posted by Alouette
On Religion 06/14/2006 10:52:01 AM EDT · 8 replies · 167+ views

YNet | June 14, 2006 | Aaron Klein
Says Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries indicating mosque was built at site of former Jewish Temples Contradicting most of his colleagues, a former senior leader of the Waqf, the Islamic custodians of the Temple Mount, told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview he has come to believe the first and second Jewish Temples existed and stood at the current location of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The leader, who was dismissed from his Waqf position after he quietly made his beliefs known, said Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries from generation to generation indicating the mosque was...

Al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of Rock Built to Divert Pilgrimage from Mecca, Jerusalem Not Center of Worship

Posted by SJackson
On News/Activism 10/08/2003 2:29:00 PM EDT · 17 replies · 882+ views

MEMRI | 10-8-03 | Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa
Special Dispatch Series - No. 583 October 3, 2003 No.583 Egyptian Ministry of Culture Publication: The Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock were Built to Divert the Pilgrimage from Mecca; Jerusalem was Not the Center of Worship for the Followers of the Prophet Muhammad On August 5, 2003 Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al-Qahira, which is published by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, wrote an article rejecting the established Islamic doctrine that the Prophet Muhammad's celebrated "Night Journey" (Koran 17:1) took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. 'Arafa, presenting a new analysis of the Koranic...

Team believes it found Noah's Ark (In Iran)

Posted by DannyTN
On Religion 06/30/2006 11:26:43 AM EDT · 173 replies · 2,061+ views

WorldNetDaily.com | 6/30/06 | WorldNetDaily
Team believes it found Noah's Ark Returns from Iranian mountain with petrified wood, marine fossils / Posted: June 30, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A 14-man crew that included evangelical apologist Josh McDowell says it returned from a trek to a mountain in Iran with possible evidence of the remains of Noah's Ark. The group, led by explorer Bob Cornuke, found an unusual object perched on a slope 13,120 feet above sea level. Cornuke, president of the archeological Base Institute and a veteran of nearly 30 expeditions in search of Bible artifacts and locations, said he is cautiously,...

CNN: Archaeologists Report 1st Direct Evidence of Jesus

Posted by jern
On News/Activism 10/21/2002 12:04:51 PM EDT · 351 replies · 3,187+ views

Oct. 21, 2002 | CNN
BREAKING: Archaeologists Report 1st Direct Evidence of Jesus

Pharaoh's chariots found in the Red Sea? ( Holy Moses! )

Posted by UnklGene
On News/Activism 06/21/2003 1:52:07 PM EDT · 142 replies · 2,797+ views

World Net Daily | June 21, 2003 | Joe Kovacs
MUCH ABOUT HISTORY Pharaoh's chariots found in Red Sea? 'Physical evidence' of ancient Exodus prompting new look at Old Testament / Posted: June 21, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." (Exodus 14:21) One of the most famous stories of the Bible is God's parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites from the Egyptian army and the subsequent...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

King Tut's Necklace Shaped By Fireball

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/26/2006 7:32:58 PM EDT · 42 replies · 1,348+ views

The Australian | 6-26-2006
King Tut's necklace shaped by fireball June 26, 2006 LONDON: Scientists believe they have solved the mystery surrounding a piece of rare natural glass at the centre of an elaborate necklace found among the treasures of Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh. They think a fragile meteorite broke up as it entered the atmosphere, producing a fireball with temperatures over 1800C that turned the desert sand and rock into molten lava that became glass when it cooled. Experts have puzzled over the origin of the yellow-green glass -- carved into the shape of a scarab beetle -- since it was excavated in...

Ancient Egypt

Egypt archaeologists find sarcophagi near pyramids

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/25/2006 5:21:40 PM EDT · 17 replies · 183+ views

Pharmboy, oops, I mean Yahoo! | June 25, 2006 | Reuters
...The sarcophagi, found about a kilometer (0.6 miles) south of the pyramids in Giza, dated to the late 26th dynasty, or about 2,500 years old, council chief Zahi Hawass said in a report by the state MENA news agency. Hieroglyphs referring to the ancient Egyptian gods Osiris, god of the dead, and the sun-god Ra were painted on the larger sarcophagus, which measured about 2 meters (6 ft 6.74 in) tall, 70 cm wide and 60 cm deep and was painted red, blue and green, the report said. The name of sarcophagus' owner, Neb Ra Khatow, and ritual incantations to...

Ancient Greece

Key Archaeological Find At Bulgaria's Veliko Turnovo (Thracians)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/26/2006 10:14:46 PM EDT · 20 replies · 469+ views

Sofia Echo | 6-26-2006 | Colin Munro
Key archeological find at Bulgaria's Veliko Turnovo 09:00 Mon 26 Jun 2006 - Colin Munro A gold Thracian breastplate found near the village of Golemanite, Veliko Turnovo municipality, has proven pivotal to the re-construction of the Thracian Calendar. Using a mathematical model, Ventseslav Tsonev of the Regional Historical Museum in Veliko Turnovo presented his findings at a conference on Treasures and Sacred Typography, held recently in Sliven. "In the Thracians' calendar, there are three seasons and 60 main holidays. A year consisted of 12 months with 360 days, five days being added to the last month every year." As there...

Ancient Autopsies

Archeologists unveil pharaonic tomb

Posted by DaveLoneRanger
On News/Activism 06/28/2006 12:46:51 PM EDT · 8 replies · 592+ views

Yahoo! News | June 28, 2006 | ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
LUXOR, Egypt - Archeologists on Wednesday fully unveiled the first tomb discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in over 80 years, and cracked open the last of seven sarcophagi inside to reveal embalming materials and jewelry. "This is even better than finding a mummy ó it's a treasure," said chief curator Nadia Lokma, beaming at the sarcophagus packed with fragile remains that would crumble into dust if touched. "It will tell us about the religious plants and herbs used by ancient Egyptians, what they wore, how they wove it, how they embalmed the dead," she said. Dug deep into...

Ancient Europe

Early Signs Of Elephant Butchers (Britain - 400k-Years-Ago)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/29/2006 4:29:06 PM EDT · 15 replies · 397+ views

BBC | 6-29-2006
Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...

Ancient Rome

Why the Romans built a road to nowhere

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/28/2006 1:15:58 AM EDT · 25 replies · 382+ views

Archant Regional -- where Norfolk really matters | Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | Keiron Pim
The Romans were a methodical people, not given to acts of folly - so why did they apparently build a road to nowhere? Known as the Peddars Way, it is a typically straight track marching from near Thetford directly through the heart of west Norfolk until it peters out at an isolated coastal spot at Holme, and is now favoured by walkers and cyclists... There was a Roman settlement at nearby Brancaster, known as Branodunum, but if that had been the destination they would surely have gone straight there instead of hitting the coastline and then meandering eastwards for a...

Etruscans

FSU Etruscan expert announces historic discovery at ancient site [ Cetamura ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/30/2006 2:35:36 PM EDT · 9 replies · 114+ views

FSU News | June 29, 2006 | Barry Ray
"The building has a highly irregular plan, with stone foundations 3 or 4 feet thick," she said. "One wing of the building is about 60 feet long, flanking a space that has walls running at right angles. Some walls run on a diagonal to the grid, or are curved. There are paved areas alternating with beaten earth floors and what I believe to be a large courtyard in the middle. Some of the foundations are so heavy and thick that they could easily have supported multistoried elements. Within the building's courtyard, de Grummond said, is a freestanding sandstone platform that...

Prehistory and Origins

30,000-Year-Old Relics Reveal Pre-Historic Civilization Along Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/24/2006 5:47:34 PM EDT · 14 replies · 415+ views

China Broadcast - Xinhua | 6-24-2006
30,000-year-old Relics Reveal Pre-historic Civilization along Qinghai-Tibet Railway 2006-06-24 13:59:42 Xinhua Chinese archaeologists claim that relics unearthed in the areas along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway proved that human beings lived there at least 30,000 years ago. Archaeologists with the Qinghai Provincial Archaeological Institute said they collected large number of chipped stone tools including knives and pointed implements dating back 30,000 years in the Tuotuo River valley, Hoh Xil, a habitat for Tibetan antelopes, and Qaidam Basin, where the railway runs through, during recent excavations. More than 30 stone implements were also discovered at the site of Sancha River bridge on the...

Asia

'Foreigner' Helped Build (Chinese) Terracotta Army

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/28/2006 8:31:31 PM EDT · 22 replies · 589+ views

The Guardian (UK) | 6-28-2006 | Jonathan Watts
'Foreigner' helped build Terracotta Army Jonathan Watts in Beijing Wednesday June 28, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Chinese archaeologists have unearthed evidence that a foreign worker helped build the Terracotta Army mausoleum, the resting place of the country's first emperor, who died more than 2,200 years ago. The remains of the worker, described as a foreign man in his 20s, were found among 121 shattered skeletons in a labourers' tomb 500 metres from the mausoleum in the north-western city of Xian, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. According to Xinhua, the man may prove to be "China's first foreign worker", though...

India

Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory

Posted by gnarledmaw
On Bloggers & Personal 06/29/2006 1:46:31 AM EDT · 40 replies · 306+ views

iVarta.com | December 12, 2005 | Prof. Dipak Basu
British linguist Max-Muller has invented the Aryan invasion theory that ancient Aryans invade India at about 1500BC, driven out the Dravidians from their land, have imported the Hindu civilization along with Sanskrit language from the steppes of central Asia. The theory was the justification for the British occupation of India, as Winston Churchill remarked. Although there was no archeological evidence to support this theory, it has become the most important doctrine on the ancient Indian history. Although it was opposed by prominent historians like Ramesh Chandra Mazumdar and archeologists like Rakhaldas Banerjee and S.P.Gupta, the pro-British historians of India so...

Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths

Another 'Stonehenge' discovered in Amazon

Posted by K4Harty
On News/Activism 06/28/2006 5:09:13 PM EDT · 45 replies · 1,140+ views

MSNBC | June 27, 2006 | Stan Lehman
SAO PAULO, Brazil - A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory ó a find that archaeologists say shows early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed. snip...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Scientists reopen one of world's only urban Ice Age dig sites in Los Angeles

Posted by annie laurie
On News/Activism 06/30/2006 2:57:28 PM EDT · 24 replies · 625+ views

OhMyNews | 2006-06-30 | ANDREW GLAZER
Scientists went to work digging for fossils at La Brea Tar Pits, digging the tooth of a 5-foot (1.5-meter) dire wolf and the toe of a sabertooth tiger from the sticky prehistoric asphalt near downtown Los Angeles. About 10,000 years before the arrival of mammoth traffic jams in the second-largest U.S. city, the two beasts likely got stuck in the goo while hunting a camel, horse or ground sloth, said John Harris, chief curator and head of vertebrate studies at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which oversees the site. ''It's one of the, if not the, richest...

Epigraphy and Language

VINP's Reef Bay Petroglyphs Are Chosen As Possible UNESCO World Heritage Site

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/28/2006 12:47:01 AM EDT · 1 reply

St. John Tradewinds News (St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands) | Monday, 26 June 2006 | Andrea Milam
"We proved the authenticity, integrity and chronology of the petroglyphs with the archaeology that was done at Cinnamon Bay," he said. "The data from Cinnamon Bay dates the petroglyphs from as early as 900 A.D. to 1450." The Reef Bay Petroglyphs, above, have been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Agriculture and Domestication

fianl´´urfa To Shed More Light On History Of Civilization

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 06/24/2006 6:14:51 PM EDT · 19 replies · 391+ views

Turkish Daily News | 6-24-2006
fianl´´urfa to shed more light on history of civilization Saturday, June 24, 2006 fianl´´urfa to shed more light on history of civilization ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The southeastern Anatolian province of fianl´´urfa, considered to be the cradle of agriculture as well as hosting numerous examples of ancient architecture, promises new discoveries to shed light on the history of human evolution in the region. Harran University Assistant Professor Cihan K¸rkÁ¸o?lu noted that every archaeological excavation to be carried out in fianl´´urfa would provide new information on the history of civilization in the region. K¸rkÁ¸o?lu reminded the Anatolia news agency that...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius

Posted by Jedi Master Pikachu
On News/Activism 06/24/2006 9:32:32 PM EDT · 22 replies · 616+ views

BBC | June 24, 2006
Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago. One of the team in Mauritius said it was the first discovery of fully preserved bones which could give clues as to how the bird became extinct. Last year, the team found a number of dodo bones at the site, but said the current find was more "significant". The bird is thought to have been hunted to extinction by European settlers. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set...

Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius

Posted by sully777
On General/Chat 06/25/2006 2:44:37 AM EDT · 7 replies · 119+ views

BBC
Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago. One of the team in Mauritius said it was the first discovery of fully preserved bones which could give clues as to how the bird became extinct. Last year, the team found a number of dodo bones at the site, but said the current find was more "significant". The bird is thought to have been hunted to extinction by European settlers. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Battle Treasure On eBay [ raiding historic Scots battlefields ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 06/28/2006 12:52:01 AM EDT · 4 replies · 110+ views

Daily Record | 27 June 2006 | unattributed
Gangs with metal detectors are plundering the nation's heritage and flogging their finds, say archaeologists. One collector is thought to have made thousands of pounds illegally selling items to fans of Oscar-winning movie Braveheart in America... Historian Adrian Murdoch, claims one Texan made almost £5500 selling items he claimed were relics from Scots battlefields including Louden Hill. The Ayrshire site saw Robert the Bruce lead the Scots to victory over the English in 1307.

end of digest #102 20060701

Most of the headers have but one topic in 'em, which means a lot of different subjects, with the usual attempt to produce a sort of reading continuity. Have fun.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #103
Saturday, July 8, 2006

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Genealogists discover royal roots for all

Posted by AntiGuv
On News/Activism 07/01/2006 4:23:09 PM EDT · 86 replies · 1,872+ views

Associated Press | July 01, 2006 | Matt Crenson
Actress Brooke Shields has a pretty impressive pedigree -- hanging from her family tree are Catherine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Charlemagne and El Cid, William the Conquerer and King Harold, vanquished by William at the Battle of Hastings. Shields also descends from five popes, a whole mess of early New England settlers, and the royal houses of virtually every European country. She counts renaissance pundit Niccolo Machiavelli and conquistador Hernando Cortes as ancestors. What is it about Brooke? Well, nothing -- at least genealogically. Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually...

Prehistory and Origins

Roots Of Human Family Tree Are Shallow

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/01/2006 7:12:22 PM EDT · 153 replies · 2,233+ views

ABC News | 7-1-2006 | Matt Clenson
Roots of Human Family Tree Are ShallowRoots of the Human Family Tree Are Remarkably Shallow - All Alive Today Share 1 Common Ancestor By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer Jul 1, 2006 (AP) -- Whoever it was probably lived a few thousand years ago, somewhere in East Asia Taiwan, Malaysia and Siberia all are likely locations. He or she did nothing more remarkable than be born, live, have children and die. Yet this was the ancestor of every person now living on Earth the last person in history whose family tree branches out to touch all 6.5 billion people on the...

Africa

Humans Gave Big Cats Ulcers

Posted by annie laurie
On General/Chat 06/30/2006 3:18:14 PM EDT · 17 replies · 221+ views

LiveScience.com | 28 June 2006 | Ker Than
Early humans living in Africa's open savannahs probably made easy pickings for large predatory cats, but a new study suggests that at least one of the meals didn't sit well. A large cat dining on the entrails of one our early ancestors thousands of years ago contracted an ulcer-causing bacteria that spread to lions, cheetahs and tigers and which persists to this day, a new study concludes.

Biology and Cryptobiology

Gene Reveals Mammoth Coat Colour

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/06/2006 3:43:11 PM EDT · 34 replies · 775+ views

BBC | 7-6-2006 | Rebecca Morelle
Gene reveals mammoth coat colour By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News Woolly mammoths had both dark and light coats The coat colour of mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago has been determined by scientists. Some of the curly tusked animals would have sported dark brown coats, while others had pale ginger or blond hair. The information was extracted from a 43,000-year-old woolly mammoth bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said a gene called Mc1r was controlling the beasts' coat colours. This gene is responsible for hair-colour in...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Old found next to new; Dinosaur herd bones uncovered near Edmonton subdivision

Posted by annie laurie
On General/Chat 07/08/2006 12:40:50 AM EDT · 5 replies · 40+ views

Halifax Chronicle Herald | Canadian Press
EDMONTON -- Bones belonging to an entire herd of dinosaurs have been found next to a new subdivision in southwest Edmonton. Fittingly, the bones belong to the Edmontosaurus, one of the largest duck-billed dinosaurs. The site contains some of the most complete skeletons scientists have of the dinosaur, and will help answer questions about its migratory habits and its development, said Phil Currie, a University of Alberta paleontologist. "With a herd of dinosaurs we can learn a lot about how they grew up, how they changed as they grew, and differences in individuals," said Currie. "Thatís significant because we rarely...

Agriculture and Domestication

Scientists Debate Role Climate Change Plays In Creating Civilizations

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/07/2006 7:04:55 PM EDT · 30 replies · 319+ views

Dispatch.Com | 7-4-2006 | Bradley T Lepper
Scientists debate role climate change plays in creating civilizations Tuesday, July 04, 2006 BRADLEY T . LEPPER One of archaeologyís "big questions" is explaining the origins of civilization. In anthropology, "civilization" has a technical definition. To qualify as a civilization, a society must have all or most of the following characteristics: cities with large populations; a hierarchical social organization, with a king, pharaoh or president at the top of the organizational chart; an economy based on agriculture; monumental architecture; and a system of record-keeping. The earliest civilizations arose in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and northern China. Based on this...

Ancient Europe

Surgery As Practiced By The Ancients Leaves Long Heritage

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/01/2006 9:45:07 PM EDT · 19 replies · 468+ views

Kathimerini | 7-1-2006 | Penny Bouloutza
Surgery as practiced by the ancients leaves long heritageResearchers find that medical treatments still in use today date from antiquity By Penny Bouloutza - Kathimerini Medical practitioners in antiquity left a wealth of knowledge for doctors of the future: the main principles of the diagnosis of disease and the treatment of injuries have been known since the time of Hippocrates. Stefanos Geroulanos, professor of surgery at Zurich University and director of the intensive-care unit at the Onassis Cardiology Center, said that the first operations were performed in the Neolithic period. "Dozens of skulls have been found with holes drilled in...

Navigation

Replica of 3,300-year-old shipwreck arrives in Bodrum [ Uluburun II ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/02/2006 9:51:33 PM EDT · 8 replies · 68+ views

Turkish Daily News (thanks, curmudgeonII) | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | unattributed
The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum and sponsored by the Bodrum Peninsula Promotion Foundation started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and was launched in 2005... The [original] Uluburun sank in the 14th century 8.5 kilometers southeast of Kafl in Uluburun Bay while carrying copper and tin from Alexandria to Crete. It was discovered in 1982 by a diver. The remains of the shipwreck were unearthed by an excavation team consisting of archaeologists and divers and the process has lasted over 20 years. Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds...

Anatolia

An epic battle on Homer's gender

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/02/2006 10:46:38 PM EDT · 62 replies · 391+ views

The Australian | July 03, 2006 | Dalya Alberge (The London Times)
Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby is challenging the accepted gender of one of the most influential writers of all time -- the poet who created the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey in the seventh century BC. Dr Dalby said: "There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man." Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature, he said, citing Sappho, the best-known female poet of ancient Greece, and Enheduanna, the woman mentioned on a Sumerian tablet who thus...

Ancient Greece

Keros Mystery Cracked

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/02/2006 6:09:53 PM EDT · 8 replies · 585+ views

Athens News | 7-1-2006
Keros mystery cracked JOHN PSAROPOULOS A panoramic view of the excavation at Kavos on the Cycladic island of Keros ARCHAEOLOGISTS say they have discovered a 4,500-year-old ceremonial centre, the oldest ritual site in Greece. Excavations resumed for a few weeks this summer at Dhaskalio Kavos - Kavos for short - on the tiny island of Keros, after a lull of nearly 20 years. The problem with the site had been that it was disturbed by looters, who made a lucrative trade in the 1960s of the now famous minimalist Cycladic figurines. As a result, archaeologists could never be sure whether...

Ancient Rome

Rome's Ancient Sites Are at Eternal Peril

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/02/2006 11:07:14 PM EDT · 8 replies · 116+ views

Forbes | July 2, 2006 | Frances d'Emilio
From the imposing stone bulk of the Colosseum to the romantic ruins of imperial luxury atop the Palatine Hill, the Eternal City's monuments, once pillaged by foreign conquerors, today face an array of perils old and new. So far, the Colosseum has made it through two millennia, its imposing stone bulk still standing after quakes, lightning strikes, pillaging, traffic tearing round it and subway cars vibrating below. And now, following the terrorist bombings in London and Madrid, the great stadium where gladiators once thrilled the masses is equipped with metal detectors. "The Colosseum is always worrisome because of the threat...

Fountains Still Pride of Rome - Fresh Waters Reflect Papal Generosity + Baroque's Fathers

Posted by NYer
On Religion 07/07/2006 7:43:57 PM EDT · 6 replies · 84+ views

Zenit News Agency | July 7, 2006 | Elizabeth Lev
ROME, July 6, 2006 (Zenit.org).- As Rome temperatures soar, and the sun reflects off the travertine in the Forum and St. Peter's Square, turning the city into a giant kiln, tourists start to view an old attraction with new eyes: the fountains of Rome. While the Trevi and the Four Rivers fountains are always high on people's must-see list, it takes the scorching heat of Roman summer to see these works not only as photo opportunities, but also as examples of the generosity of Papal Rome. The seventy-odd elegant sculpted fountains, as well as hundreds of simple water spigots, ensure...

Ancient Egypt

Documentary Sets New Date For Exodus

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/03/2006 5:26:25 PM EDT · 25 replies · 767+ views

Jerusalem Post | 7-3-2006 | Etgar Lefkovits
Jul. 3, 2006 0:15 | Updated Jul. 3, 2006 4:57Documentary sets new date for Exodus By ETGAR LEFKOVITS A new documentary by a Canadian Jewish filmmaker argues that the Exodus did happen, but that it took place a couple of hundred years before the commonly-accepted time frame. The Exodus Decoded, a two-hour documentary by award-winning Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, suggests that the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt as recounted in the Bible occurred around 1500 BCE, about 230 years before the date most commonly accepted by contemporary historians. The 10 plagues that smote the Egyptians, according to the Bible,...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Noah's Ark Discovered in Iran?

Posted by freedom44
On News/Activism 07/08/2006 1:05:17 AM EDT · 214 replies · 3,276+ views

National Geographic | 7/7/06 | Kate Ravilious
High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark. The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range. "It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition. Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge. "We have had [cut] thin...

Faith and Philosophy

Georgian Armenians Indignant with Destruction of Armenian Monuments in Nakhichevan (more Islam)

Posted by jb6
On News/Activism 12/28/2005 2:20:19 AM EST · 5 replies · 253+ views

panarmenian | 22.12.2005
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nor Serund (New Generation), the Union of Armenians of Georgia, addressed a letter to Azerbaijani Ambassador to Georgia Ramiz Gasanov to express indignation with the acts of vandalism, specifically the destruction of khachkars (cross-stones), gravestones and monuments in the Armenian cemetery in Old Julfa in Nakhichevan, Nor Serund told PanARMENIAN.Net. A group of representatives of various Georgian NGOs was formed for the further investigation of the above-mentioned fact. The leaders of the organization are hopeful for the support of the Ambassador in relative structures for conduction of a monitoring. The letter addressed to Ambassador Gasanov says in part, "We,...

Medieval cemetery destroyed in border conflict (RoP alert & destruction of the Chistendom)

Posted by CheyennePress
On News/Activism 04/23/2006 4:34:00 AM EDT · 2 replies · 311+ views

The Australian | April 26, 2006 | Jeremy Page
A MEDIEVAL cemetery regarded as one of the wonders of the Caucasus has been destroyed in an act of cultural vandalism likened to the Taliban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001. The Jugha cemetery was a unique collection of several thousand carved stone crosses on Azerbaijan's southern border with Iran. But after 18 years of conflict between Azerbaijan and its western neighbour, Armenia, it has been confirmed that the cemetery has vanished. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based non-government organisation that supports independent journalism, said one of its staff had recently been to the...

Tragedy On The Araxes

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/02/2006 11:06:30 PM EDT · 8 replies · 260+ views

Archaeology | 6030-2006 | Sarah Pickman
Tragedy on the Araxes June 30, 2006 by Sarah Pickman A place of memory is wiped off the face of the Earth. Khachkars of the Djulfa cemetery, c.1987 (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture) On the banks of the River Araxes, in the remote, windswept region of Nakhichevan, is a small area of land known as Djulfa, named for the ethnic Armenian town that flourished there centuries ago. Today, Nakhichevan is an enclave of Azerbaijan. Surrounding it on three sides is Armenia, and on the fourth, across the Araxes, is Iran. Hundreds of years ago, almost all of Djulfa's residents...

Asia

Valuable Han Dynasty Tomb Discovered

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/03/2006 5:48:26 PM EDT · 9 replies · 318+ views

People's Daily | 7-3-2006
Valuable Han Dynasty tomb discovered A large scale Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 25 AD) tomb was discovered at Fengpengling in Wangcheng County in Hunan Province. Piles of yellow cypress wood were found between the coffin and tomb wall, evidence of a typical Western Han Dynasty burial style reserved for a king during that period. Experts who excavated the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tomb in Changsha said that after examining the tomb at Fengpengling they believe the status and rank of the buried person in the tomb and the scale of burial have exceeded that of Mawangdui, another famous tomb...

India

2,300-Year-Old Artefacts May Change Ashoka-Buddhist History

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/04/2006 6:25:30 PM EDT · 41 replies · 684+ views

Delhi India Organiser | July 9, 2006
2,300-year-old artefacts may change Ashoka-Buddhist history (FOC) BHUBANESWAR: Orissa Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies (OIMSEAS) has unearthed some 2,300-year-old artefacts at Jajpur district in Orissa, which, it claimed, could change some historical narratives on the Ashokan period. The description of Chinese pilgrim Hieun-Tsang about Ashoka that he had constructed 10 stupas in Odra country where Buddha had preached may come true. Earlier, historians refused to accept the narrative. We have already analysed five stupas and found three more similar structures,î OIMSEAS Director Debaraj Pradhan told mediapersons here. He said a huge inscribed monolithic stupa along with other...

end of digest #103 20060708

Not a lot of individual pings, to avoid problems in a very busy week of news. Another Whoops! regarding my reposting (and maybe repinging?) of the Phoenician city discovery topic.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #104
Saturday, July 15, 2006

Longer Perspectives

Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel.

Posted by Kimmers
On News/Activism 07/10/2006 12:31:28 PM EDT · 37 replies · 1,150+ views

ikehillah.org | Joe McCain
There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- "Can Israel Survive?" Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that. Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race of people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Update -- Finds or Fakes?

Posted by KyHammer
On Religion 07/13/2006 9:16:34 AM EDT · 11 replies · 281+ views

Biblical Archaeology | May 16 2006 | unknown
Update -- Finds or Fakes? Forgery Bombshell May 16, 2006 The ossuary inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" has recently been studied by Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority. He has reached startling conclusions that will change the debate over this highly controversial artifact. Printed below is a summary of Professor Krumbein's report; click the following links for the full text of the report and the accompanying photographs. As this is being written, Israeli antiquities collector Oded Golan is being tried in criminal court for forging the now-famous James ossuary inscription ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). A...

Epigraphy and Language

Ancient Christian Inscriptions Found In Uzbekistan

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:32:25 PM EDT · 11 replies · 793+ views

UZReport.com | 7-7-2006
Ancient Christian inscriptions found in Uzbekistan 10.07.2006 15:14:48 Eastern-Sogda Archaeological Expedition of the Science Academies of Ukraine and Uzbekistan found a new epigraphic monument ñ inscriptions in Sogdian language (Iranian language, close to Persian and Tajik) with the use of Armenian graphics (language close to today's Hebrew) - during the excavations of the early medieval Christian monastery in Urgut district of Samarkand region. The ancient engravings like these are a unique discovery. There are only a few of them in the world. Now their number has increased by around twenty. Two years ago, local residents were building a road in...

Ancient Egypt

Greek language engravings discovered in Alexandria

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:48:33 AM EDT · 7 replies · 81+ views

Monsters and Critics | Jul 11, 2006, 15:35 GMT | Deutsche Presse-Agentur
The engravings, which were discovered close to the Amoud al-Sawari monument, are said to date back to the times of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180 AD.) ...The engravings are said to be writings glorifying the supreme ancient Greek deity Zeus along with several other Greek gods... The Amoud al-Sawari monument - also known as the Column of the Horsemen, or Pompey's Pillar - is located in the Karmouz district... The red granite pillar stands 27 metres tall and was erected in honour of Roman Emperor Diocletian in 284 AD.

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Ancient sin city bears fresh fruit [ Stabiae in the Bay of Naples ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:42:50 AM EDT · 11 replies · 115+ views

ANSA | July 11, 2006 | Denis Greenan
Stabiae has been neglected over the years because of its more famous neighbour Pompeii and because, frankly, there wasn't much to see there. But now a key new partnership has been set up to dig the whole area of the ancient 'Gomorrah-on-the-Gulf'. Stabiae was in fact much naughtier than supposedly raunchy Pompeii and things went on there that have would have made a Roman patron - never mind matron - blush. According to Pliny the Elder, who died when Vesuvius belched down its wrath on the Neapolitan resort towns, Pompeii was a place you could safely take your daughters, while...

Ancient Rome

What the Romans did to us [ review of An Imperial Possession Britain in the Roman Empire ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/08/2006 3:49:58 PM EDT · 11 replies · 248+ views

London Times | July 8, 2006 | book review by Bettany Hughes
Marching down Marylebone Road I counted 26 neoclassical columns, then my mobile phone rang: a TV researcher was asking why film fetishises the Roman experience. Past the reconstructed remains of a Temple of Mithras in Queen Victoria Street, a billboard announced that new Romano- British artefacts had been unearthed by London developers, adding to those recently turned up by the Jubilee Line extension. One favourite was a lamp in the shape of a soldierís foot, the wick lit on the big toe. It was a 40-minute journey that sang out Vivat Londinium! Romanis Victoria! In truth I had also travelled...

The Phoenicians

Archaeologists Discover Remains Of Phoenician City (800BC)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/12/2006 5:35:13 PM EDT · 3 replies · 388+ views

Typically Spanish | 7-12-2006 | MP
Archaeologists discover remains of Phoenician city By m.p. Wed, 12 Jul 2006, 21:36 The remains of an Archaic Era Phoenician city have been unearthed in Mezquitilla, VÈlez M·laga. Archaeologists say it is the largest settlement from that period in AndalucÌa, and also one of the largest in the Mediterranean. The excavations have uncovered the remains of a block of houses, covering an area of 40 x 12 metres, although the whole city is said to have covered more than six hectares. Kitchen utensils and dishes have also been discovered intact. The site is what remains of the Phoenician city of...

Archaeologists discover remains of Phoenician city

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:36:28 AM EDT · 8 replies · 98+ views

Typically Spanish | Wed, 12 Jul 2006, 21:36 | m.p.
The excavations have uncovered the remains of a block of houses, covering an area of 40 x 12 metres, although the whole city is said to have covered more than six hectares. Kitchen utensils and dishes have also been discovered intact. The site is what remains of the Phoenician city of Las Chorreras, founded in the 8th century BC, and abandoned a hundred years later.

Anatolia

Catalhoyuk Excavations Unveil Very Dawn Of Human Civilization

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:40:52 PM EDT · 54 replies · 1,004+ views

Turkish Daily News | 7-10-2006
«atalhˆy¸k excavations unveil very dawn of human civilization Monday, July 10, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News A total of 130 houses have been unearthed to date during excavations at the 9,000-year-old site of Catalhoyuk in Konya's Cumra district, excavation assistant team leader Shahina Farid has said. The first excavations at the site -- considered one of the oldest settlements in the history of mankind, dating back to the Neolithic Age -- were conducted by British archaeologist James Mellart, who uncovered 80 houses during excavations between 1961-1964, according to the Anatolia news agency. Work at the site resumed in 1993...

Ancient Greece

Massive Earthquake Destroyed Ancient City Of Anamurium, Say Scientists

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/08/2006 4:06:50 PM EDT · 47 replies · 725+ views

Turkish Daily News | 7-8-2006
Massive earthquake destroyed ancient city of Anamurium, say scientists Saturday, July 8, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The ancient city of Anamurium, located west of Mersin's Anamur district, was destroyed by a massive earthquake in the sixth century, scientists working at the site announced on Wednesday. Professor Selim ›nan of Mersin University said in a written statement that four fault lines in the triangle formed by the Mut, Ermenek and Anamur districts had been identified during studies conducted over the last two years with Professor Nurdan ›nan. ›nan said the research revealed strong evidence that the ancient city was...

India

Existence Of Under-Sea Temple Claimed

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/10/2006 6:53:55 PM EDT · 21 replies · 713+ views

Zeenews | 7-3-2006 | Prasaad Bhosekar
Existence of under-sea temple claimed By: Prasaad Bhosekar Visakhapatnam, July 03: Archaeologists in Visakhapatnam claim that a centuries-old temple exists two kilometers from Visakhapatnam coast, on the sea bed. While the coastal city of Visakhapatnam is steeped in history, few know that there was a temple called ìVisakeswara Templeî on the coast of the city. Many centuries ago this temple went under the sea due to geological adjustments. According to Professor Gangadharam, who is working on facts regarding this temple, the temple existed centuries ago, but got submerged in the sea. ``From the research I did, I found out that...

Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy

Dilmun Calendar Theory Backed

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/11/2006 5:21:15 PM EDT · 18 replies · 392+ views

Gulf Daily | 7-11-2006 | Geoffrey Bew
Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...

Prehistory and Origins

Stone Age Elephant Found at Ancient U.K. Hunt Site

Posted by ZULU
On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:01:44 PM EDT · 33 replies · 757+ views

National Geographic | July 7, 2006 | James Owen
The 400,000-year-old remains of a massive elephant discovered near London provide the first evidence that Stone Age humans in Britain hunted and ate the ancient animals, scientists say. The early humans butchered the elephant at the kill site and ate the meat raw, the archaeologists add. The male straight-tusked elephant -- a member of the extinct species Palaeoloxodon antiquus -- weighed about 9 tons (9.1 metric tons), twice as large as elephants living today. Workers unearthed the remains in 2004 in the town of Ebbsfleet, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of London (see map of the United Kingdom), during construction of a new...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Cranbrook officials eager to share mastodon find [ Rochester Hills ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/12/2006 1:26:41 PM EDT · 4 replies · 41+ views

Oakland Press | July 12, 2006 | Bob Gross
The find, he said, gives residents a window into a time thousands of years ago when beasts such as mastodons and woolly mammoths roamed the familiar hills and glaciercarved valleys of the area... Stafford, who holds a doctorate in archaeology, and Cranbrook geologist John Zawiskie worked from about 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to dig up and remove enough bones from the site to fill a truck bed. Mastodons - ancient relatives of elephants - roamed Michigan from about 3.75 million to 11,000 years ago. There are about 250 sites in the state where mastodon remains have been found,...

Faith and Philosophy

Reason to Believe : A leading geneticist argues that science can lead to faith

Posted by SirLinksalot
On News/Activism 07/09/2006 11:40:40 PM EDT · 205 replies · 2,370+ views

Washington Post | 07/09/2006 | Scott Russell Sanders
Reason to Believe A leading geneticist argues that science can lead to faith. Reviewed by Scott Russell Sanders THE LANGUAGE OF GOD A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief By Francis S. Collins Here we are, briefly, under the sun, one species among millions on a gorgeous planet in the remote provinces of the universe, our very existence a riddle. Of all the words we use to mask our ignorance, none has been more abused, none has given rise to more strife, none has rolled from the tongues of more charlatans than the name of God. Nor has any word been...

Biology and Cryptobiology

When killer kangaroos roamed the earth

Posted by JR0tten
On News/Activism 07/12/2006 4:03:51 PM EDT · 39 replies · 1,156+ views

Reuters via MSNBC | 7/12/06 | Various
SYDNEY, Australia - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. Paleontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom." A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in Australia's northwest Queensland state. Professor Michael Archer said Wednesday that the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolflike fangs were found, as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo. "Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big,...

'Ferocious Fossils' Found in Australia

Posted by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
On News/Activism 07/14/2006 3:20:09 AM EDT · 15 replies · 435+ views

Associated Press | July 13, 2006 | Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia ó Before there were cuddly koalas, hoards of flesh-eating kangaroos, "demon ducks," and marsupial lions roamed Australia's Outback, according to recent fossil discoveries by paleontologists. A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales working in the eastern state of Queensland made the discoveries in three new fossil deposits during a recent two-week dig. Many of the fossils are older than 24 million years; one of the deposits is thought to contain fossils up to 500 million years old, according to Prof. Mike Archer, the university's dean of science. A saber-toothed kangaroo and a giant 10-foot-tall,...

Bigger Dinosaurs had warmer blood

Posted by Mazda3Fan
On General/Chat 07/11/2006 1:04:44 PM EDT · 15 replies · 99+ views

BBC News
The bigger a dinosaur was, the warmer its blood, a study of the big beasts' fossil remains shows.

The Living Was Easy for Young Tyrannosaurs

Posted by Al Simmons
On News/Activism 07/14/2006 5:11:38 PM EDT · 21 replies · 677+ views

New Scientist Online | 7/13/2006 | Jeff Hecht
Youth was easy for big predatory dinosaurs ñ but adulthood and old age much harder to survive, a mass graveyard of tyrannosaur fossils suggests. This first study of dinosaur population distributions shows that most juvenile tyrannosaurs survived to reach sexual maturity, but then their death rate increased sharply in adulthood. This life-pattern is similar to those of long-lived birds and mammals. *SNIP Biologists study population distributions of modern animals by counting individuals and keeping track of deaths. This is not possible for extinct creatures, and fossilised remains are also scant for many dinosaurs. But Erickson turned to the tyrannosaur family...

Ancient Europe

Shells May Represent Oldest Known Beads

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/11/2006 5:51:47 PM EDT · 12 replies · 214+ views

Science News | 7-11-2006 | Bruce Bower
Shells may represent oldest known beads Bruce Bower Three sea-snail shells previously discovered at Stone Age sites in Israel and Algeria contain intentionally fashioned holes in their centers, making the finds the oldest known examples of personal decoration, a research team says. HOLE IN TWO. Two perforated shells from an Israeli site dated to between 135,000 and 100,000 years ago appear in different views (top group and bottom group). Vanhaeren, F. d'Errico The trio of perforated shells apparently served as beads, conclude Marian Vanhaeren of University College London and her colleagues. Holes in the shells look nothing like those that...

Britain

Excavation unearths burial site

Posted by annie laurie
On General/Chat 07/12/2006 9:53:59 PM EDT · 5 replies · 52+ views

BBC | 12 July 2006 | Unattributed
Archaeologists believe they may have discovered one of the oldest churches in Scotland during an excavation in Aberdeen. They are awaiting test results which will confirm whether they have uncovered a religious burial site dating back to the 6th Century. The find was made during Scotland's biggest archaeological dig in the east kirk of St Nicholas Church. So far 300 skeletons have been unearthed, far more than expected. The excavation is part of a £5m renovation of the site.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Shakespeare folio brings 5.2 mln dlrs at auction

Posted by presidio9
On News/Activism 07/14/2006 1:23:49 PM EDT · 6 replies · 132+ views

afp | 07/14/06
A rare and historic collection of plays by English playwright William Shakespeare has been sold at auction in London for 2.8 million pounds (4.1 million euros, 5.2 million dollars). The 17th century First Folio -- the first published collection of Shakespeare's plays -- was bought by a "London book dealer", auctioneers Sotheby's said on Thursday. About 750 copies of the First Folio, which has been described as the most important book in English literature, were originally printed in 1623, seven years after the bard's death. They each contain 36 plays, 18 of which had never previously been printed. Experts believe...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Ripper case notes given to museum (New clue in Jack the Ripper case)

Posted by CurlyBill
On News/Activism 07/14/2006 12:01:23 AM EDT · 22 replies · 780+ views

BBC News | July 13, 2006 | BBC
Ripper case notes given to museum Handwritten notes which name a prime suspect in the 1880s serial killer Jack The Ripper case have taken their place in Scotland Yard's Crime Museum. The notes, donated by relatives of an officer involved in the original investigation, identify Polish barber Aaron Kosminski as the murderer. This marked the re-launch of the museum which features exhibits from famous cases dating back to 1875. The exhibition, which is used in police training, is not open to the public. Relatives of Ch Insp Donald Swanson, the senior investigating officer of the Jack the Ripper case, handed...

end of digest #104 20060715

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #105
Saturday, July 22, 2006

Longer Perspectives

Clothing optional may not be way of historical human

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/17/2006 7:46:53 AM EDT · 24 replies · 348+ views

Philadelphia Inquirer | July 16, 2006 | Faye Flam
About 1.7 million years ago the human ancestor homo erectus stayed warm in Europe by throwing on smelly skins of dead animals. By the time the much more human Neanderthals dominated Europe around 300,000 years ago, they were wearing more fitted, more tailored leather clothes, Adovasio said. Modern humans emerged in Africa around 130,000 years ago. By the time we got to Europe around 45,000 years ago, we were far beyond the stereotypical cave-wear.

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Mark Steyn: Before the white man came? War

Posted by Pokey78
On News/Activism 07/18/2006 10:45:03 AM EDT · 205 replies · 4,609+ views

Macleans | 07/18/06 | Mark Steyn
We've deluded ourselves into believing in the myth of the noble and peaceful primitive Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps. But the passage that really stopped me short was this: "Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archaeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Is This The Oldest Human Virus?

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/18/2006 9:27:06 PM EDT · 19 replies · 866+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | 7-18-2006
Is this the oldest human virus? (Filed: 18/07/2006) The papillomavirus has been afflicting humans and their ancestors for millions of years. Now scientists have worked out how it has evolved, reports Roger Highfield Hundreds of millions of years ago, a relative of this virus made dinosaurs sprout warts. When our ancestors split from the apes up to seven million years ago, the virus split with them. Among the earliest modern humans, it was still multiplying, spreading and evolving. Today, this virus, perhaps the oldest to afflict humankind, is causing more suffering than at any time in its history. Although many...

Ancient Egypt

Potential Cure Discovered for Marfan Syndrome

Posted by wjersey
On General/Chat 07/10/2006 8:58:40 PM EDT · 18 replies · 332+ views

WPVI ( Philadelphia) | 7/10/2006 | Anita Brikman
Hundreds of people with Marfan syndrome came from around the country to the University of Pennsylvania over the weekend to hear good news. Years of genetic research may have yielded a "cure" for the most dangerous complications of this disorder. 13-year-old Westin Corbin from Arkansas has many of the hallmark signs of Marfan Syndrome - a disorder affecting the body's connective tissues. He is tall with unusually long arms, thin legs and flat feet, and a chest wall that seems to cave in. His joints are loose and hyper-flexible, but the real danger of Marfan's lies inside because it also...

Tut's gem hints at space impact

Posted by BenLurkin
On General/Chat 07/20/2006 8:48:59 AM EDT · 8 replies · 78+ views

bbc | Last Updated: Wednesday, 19 July 2006, 19:09 GMT 20:09 UK
In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun's necklaces. The jewel was tested and found to be glass, but intriguingly it is older than the earliest Egyptian civilisation. Working with Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat, they traced its origins to unexplained chunks of glass found scattered in the sand in a remote region of the Sahara Desert. But the glass is itself a scientific enigma. How did it get to be there and who or what made it? Thursday's BBC Horizon programme reports an...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Gas escaping from ocean floor may drive global warming

Posted by Pharmboy
On News/Activism 07/20/2006 7:08:30 AM EDT · 68 replies · 1,232+ views

UC Santa Barbara via Eureka Alert | 7-19-06 | Ira Leifer and Gail Gallessich
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Remarkable and unexpected support for this idea occurred when divers and scientists from UC Santa Barbara observed and videotaped a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor. It happened in an area of gas and oil seepage coming out of small volcanoes...

Charcoal reveals wildfire history

Posted by annie laurie
On General/Chat 07/16/2006 6:07:22 PM EDT · 19 replies · 111+ views

BBC | Friday, 14 July 2006 | Unattributed
UK scientists have traced the history of wildfires by studying lumps of ancient charcoal from around the world. The fossils show the incidence of fires through time is closely related to the level of atmospheric oxygen. Andrew Scott and Ian Glasspool say huge swathes of the planet were ablaze when concentrations of the gas peaked some 275 million years ago. Their research is published in the US scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "People might think the charcoal they pull out of a bonfire is just rubbish; but look at it under a microscope and you see...

Climate

Sahara Desert Was Once Lush and Populated

Posted by Marius3188
On News/Activism 07/20/2006 6:55:53 PM EDT · 49 replies · 1,045+ views

LiveScience | 20 July 2006 | Bjorn Carey
At the end of the last Ice Age, the Sahara Desert was just as dry and uninviting as it is today. But sandwiched between two periods of extreme dryness were a few millennia of plentiful rainfall and lush vegetation. During these few thousand years, prehistoric humans left the congested Nile Valley and established settlements around rain pools, green valleys, and rivers. The ancient climate shift and its effects are detailed in the July 21 issue of the journal Science. When the rains came Some 12,000 years ago, the only place to live along the eastern Sahara Desert was the Nile...

Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy

Can moon cycles predict droughts, wet weather?

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/17/2006 1:14:42 AM EDT · 27 replies · 202+ views

Quad-City Times, Davenport, IA | Sunday, July 16, 2006 | Associated Press
Louis Thompson says he's learned to keep quiet when Iowa's crops begin to wither. For decades, the retired soil scientist had been forming his moon theory to explain widespread drought every couple decades, but he says critics prefer to use other explanations... The statistics, after all, are eerily accurate. Thompson has studied weather and crop records for almost 50 years and his research at Iowa State University pointed him to an 18.6-year cycle of drought and rainy weather that coincides with the moon's path around the Earth. When the moon's orbit is at its northernmost track above the equator --...

Agriculture and Domestication

European dry stone wallers talk tactics

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/19/2006 1:38:24 AM EDT · 7 replies · 148+ views

unlike hedgerows, there is no protection under law for dry stone walls. An estimated 7,000km - 4,350 miles - of dry stone walls disappeared from the countryside of England and Wales between 1947 and 1985 and 96% of those left are in need of restoration. Factors like this, together with a passion for the highly-skilled 4,000-year-old technique of controlling livestock, brought dry stone wall experts from around Europe to the Brecon Beacons National Park earlier this month for a conference on regenerating the tradition. Sixteen delegates travelled from as far away as Croatia to explore the problems of maintaining and...

Prehistory and Origins

(Redheads)That Flaming Hair Could Mean Flaming Pain - Study

Posted by Pyro7480
On News/Activism 10/14/2002 6:16:45 PM EDT · 53 replies · 1,464+ views

Yahoo! News (Reuters) | 10/14/02 | n/a
That Flaming Hair Could Mean Flaming Pain - Study Mon Oct 14, 5:50 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Redheads may actually have another trait that makes them stand out -- sensitivity to pain, specialists reported on Tuesday. People with natural red hair need about 20 percent more anesthesia than people with other hair colors, they told a meeting of anesthesiologists. The unexpected finding not only suggests that redheads are more sensitive to pain, but offers insights into how anesthesia works in people. "Red hair is the first visible human trait, or phenotype, that is linked to anesthetic requirement," Dr. Edwin...

Redheads are better at coping with pain

Posted by Grig
On News/Activism 08/11/2005 3:10:20 PM EDT · 93 replies · 1,893+ views

CTV.ca
People with ginger locks are head and shoulders above blondes or brunettes when it comes to coping with pain, researchers claim. Scientists have found that the gene responsible for flame-coloured hair also produces a morphine-type substance that acts like an anaesthetic and reduces pain. When researchers at the Medical Research Council in London introduced the gene in mice, they found the rodents could withstand more pain than normal. "Seventy per cent of redheads are redheads because a particular gene doesn't work," Prof. Jeff Mogil of Montreal's McGill University, told CTV News. "This is a gene that would otherwise give you...

More Mary Ann, Less Ginger

'Apartheid' slashed Celtic genes in early England

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/19/2006 1:33:09 AM EDT · 17 replies · 242+ views

New Scientist | 19 July 2006 | Gaia Vince (I did not make up that name)
Genetic analysis of men in modern-day central England shows that more than half of them possess a Y-chromosome that can be traced to Germania - an ancient region of central Europe... Evidence of the apartheid system can be found in ancient texts such as the 7th century laws of Ine, Thomas says, which place a greater value on the life of an Anglo-Saxon. For example, these laws stated that if an Anglo-Saxon was killed, the "blood money", or "Wergild", payable to the family was up to five times more than the fine payable for the life of a native Celt.

Anatolia

Archaeologists Find Celts in Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey (Ellas Go Bragh!?)

Posted by Pericles
On News/Activism 12/25/2001 3:06:25 PM EST · 107 replies · 912+ views

The New York Times | December 25, 2001 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
December 25, 2001 Archaeologists Find Celts in Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey In the remains of Galatian Gordion in Turkey, archaeologists found a workshop, top, that probably was built in the early third century B.C. A crudely sculptured face, center, with stylistic similarities to heads from Europe attributed to the Celts, was discovered, as were clay loom weights used in weaving. The weights had fallen, along with a pot. By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD n storybook histories, the ancient city of Gordion is remembered only as the seat of King Midas, he of the golden touch, and the place where Alexander the ...

Archaeologists Find Celts in Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey

Posted by Apollo
On News/Activism 12/27/2001 2:45:39 PM EST · 20 replies · 412+ views

NY Times | December 25, 2001 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In storybook histories, the ancient city of Gordion is remembered only as the seat of King Midas, he of the golden touch, and the place where Alexander the Great struck a famous blow in legend and metaphor. Challenged to separate the strands of an impossible knot, the Gordion knot, the conqueror cut through the problem, in the manner of conquerors, with one authoritative swing of his sword. After Midas and Alexander, Gordion languished on the fringes of history, and until recently archaeologists had taken little notice of its Celtic past. Yes, European Celts ó the Gauls of Roman times and ...

Ancient Europe

Archaeologists Seek Hints On 4,000-Year-Old (Thracian) Civilization In Tekirda

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/19/2006 1:39:15 PM EDT · 14 replies · 481+ views

Turkish Daily News | 7-19-2006
Archaeologists seek hints on 4000-year-old civilization in Tekirda Wednesday, July 19, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News Archaeologists working on an ancient Thracian site in Tekirda said on Monday they have unveiled part of an ancient city named Heraion Teichos, which is thought to date back to 2000 B.C. The excavation team of Mimar Sinan University's Archaeology Department has been working to unearth the ancient city, located near Tekirda's Karaevli village, for the last six years. Head of the excavations, Associate Professor Ne?e Atik, told the Doan News Agency on Monday that they were the first team to conduct the...

Bulgaria Unearths Acropolis-Rivalling Ancient Sanctuary

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/21/2006 2:27:46 PM EDT · 4 replies · 114+ views

Sofia News Agency | Thursday, July 20, 2006 | unattributed
Bulgarian archaeologists have continued their amazing streak at the ancient sanctuary of Perperikon, unearthing a temple five times larger than Athens' Acropolis... The Acropolis-rivalling temple dates back to the Bronze Age and is the biggest on the Balkans. The whole complex is spread over 7.5 square kilometres and covers the whole Perperikon peak. People came to pray at that spot for a period of over 2,000 years, archaeologists believe. The complex is checkered with metallurgy workshops and the team discovered many awls, and axe moulds. The discovery represents a success for the archaeologists because it is the first complex of...

Ancient Greece

Kaunos ancient theater had rotating stage, say archaeologists

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/20/2006 11:18:18 AM EDT · 8 replies · 98+ views

Turkish Daily News | Thursday, July 20, 2006 | unattributed
The ancient theater in Kaunos... had a rotating stage, archaeologists working on the site announced on Wednesday... "Kaunos does not have the usual ancient structures built out of colossal white marble columns, but has very special features that can be called firsts in archaeology. One of them is the theater. The two-meter high rotating stage was triangular in shape with different decor on each side. As the setting changed throughout the play's plot, a mechanism rotated the stage," Iflak explained. "Ancient playwrights mentioned this system in historical documents but we did not have any archaeological evidence of this system until...

Ancient Rome

Matera: A Southern Italian Town Revives Its Ancient Cave Dwellings (9,000-Years-Old)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/17/2006 3:07:20 PM EDT · 21 replies · 514+ views

Mercury News | 7-17-2006 | Carol Pucci
Posted on Mon, Jul. 17 Matera: A southern Italian town revives its ancient cave dwellings By Carol Pucci The Seattle Times (MCT) MATERA, Italy - Nicola Rizzi stands in front of his boyhood home where chickens and ducks used to wander, closes his eyes and smells bean soup and tomato sauce boiling on pots heated by wood fires. He was 11, a survivor in a neighborhood of windowless caves and damp walls, where animals and humans slept side-by-side and half the children born there died, among them three of his brothers and sisters. Mostly though, Rizzi remembers the smell of...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Ancient Metal Relics Discovered In Jiroft

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/20/2006 6:04:59 PM EDT · 4 replies · 200+ views

Persian Journal | 7-19-2006
Ancient Metal Relics Discovered in Jiroft Jul 19, 2006 The police department of Jiroft succeeded in confiscating 41 metal relics belonging to the pre-historic and historic periods. The most ancient one is a Riton belonging to the third millennium BC. Riton is a kind of goblet with the head of an animal, usually in the shape of a lion, horse, ibex, or winged lion. "The police department of Jiroft found 41 bronze, copper, and silver relics. The most ancient one is a Riton with the head of a humped cow belonging to some 5000 years ago," said Nader Soleimani, archeologist...

Epigraphy and Language

Iran wants disputed clay tablets returned from US

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/17/2006 2:18:34 PM EDT · 19 replies · 262+ views

Reuters / Yahoo | Wed Jul 12, 2006 | Edmund Blair
The 2,500-year-old Persian tablets, which have been studied for decades at the University of Chicago, give a unique insight into the workings of the Persian empire with cuneiform etchings of payments and rations made to priests, guards and workers... those still under study are at the center of an Israeli compensation suit connected to a shooting in the West Bank blamed on an Iranian-backed group. A U.S. court has ruled that Iran's assets can be seized and last month a U.S. judge upheld the ruling, prompting a new campaign by Iran to secure the tablets' return, including an appeal to...

India

Tamil-Brahmi inscription on pottery found in Thailand

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/17/2006 2:28:14 PM EDT · 6 replies · 97+ views

The Hindu | Sunday, Jul 16, 2006 | unattributed
A unique Tamil-Brahmi Inscription on pottery of the second century AD has recently been excavated in Thailand. A Thai-French team of archaeologists, led by Dr. BÈrÈnice Bellina of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, and Praon Silpanth, Lecturer, Silpakorn University, Thailand, has discovered a sherd of inscribed pottery during their current excavations at Phu Khao Thong in Thailand.

Asia

Fresco pieced together after 1,400 years in desert [ Taklamakan Dandanulike ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/20/2006 11:06:13 AM EDT · 6 replies · 98+ views

People's Daily Online | July 20, 2006 | Xinhua
[I]n the heart of the Taklamakan... [t]he fresco of Buddhist tales was painted on the earthen walls of the Dandanulike Temple in the south of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Discovered in 30 pieces by a Sino-Japanese archaeology group in October 2002, it is believed to date back to the Tang Dynasty of the late seventh century... [E]xperts believe parts had been stolen and some taken by a Swiss botanist in the 1920s, as his name card and a dozen sheets of a German language newspaper were found at the site. The remainder had been damaged by wind and sand,...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Noah's Ark in Iran?

Posted by Sopater
On News/Activism 07/21/2006 1:13:22 PM EDT · 64 replies · 1,285+ views

Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) | July 19, 2006 | Rick Lanser, M.Div.
This article was first published in the July 2006 ABR Electronic Newsletter. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. - Genesis 11:1-2 (KJV) The Media Blitz Since mid-June, 2006 there has been a flurry of reports in the media and on the Internet about the possible discovery of Noah's Ark on a mountain in northern Iran. Robert ("Bob") Cornuke, who has previously claimed to have found such notable things as...

Flood of claims for 'Noah's Ark'

Posted by SirLinksalot
On News/Activism 07/17/2006 12:45:55 PM EDT · 44 replies · 1,475+ views

WorldNetdaily.Com | 07/16/2006 | Joe Kovacs
Flood of claims for 'Noah's Ark' Legendary vessel of Genesis story goes from nowhere to everywhere -- Posted: July 16, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com After centuries of scouring the Earth for Noah's Ark, claims are now flooding in that the legendary vessel of the Bible has been found. Last month, headlines screamed that a Texas team of archaelogists believed they had possibly located the biblical boat in Iran. But hang on to the "Hallelujah!" chorus a little longer. There are numerous claims about the final resting place, from Ararat to Armenia. With modern...

Faith and Philosophy

Ancient Buddhist temple razed in Himachal blaze

Posted by nickcarraway
On General/Chat 07/15/2006 11:22:35 PM EDT · 8 replies · 72+ views

Hindustan Times | July 15, 2006
A fire in a 1,000-year-old Buddhist temple in a remote valley of Himachal Pradesh has reduced the pinewood-structure to ashes and also destroyed a number of scriptures, artefacts and murals, officials said. The fire at the temple in Ribba in Kinnaur valley, about 200 km from Shimla, started late on Friday and caused losses of nearly Rs 125 million, they said. Besides, 170 Buddhist scriptures written over centuries by monks on birch paper rolls, many murals of Lord Buddha, antique jewellery and other artefacts have been reduced to ashes. Himalayan pinewood planks that were used to construct the temple only...

Britain

Time Team To Uncover Island's Secrets [ Isle of Man and Manx Christianity ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/20/2006 11:11:26 AM EDT · 9 replies · 124+ views

Isle of Man Today | Thu July 20 2006 | unattributed
A team of more than 40, including a few well-known faces, will spend three days trying to get to grips with an important area of Manx history... The excavation will be overseen by respected archaeologist and Time Team regular Professor Mick Aston and Phil Harding, whose West Country accent, hats and eccentric hair have made him a favourite with fans, will also join the dig... 'We're going to be investigating a keill -- an early Manx chapel -- that could date as far back as the 7th century, but may also contain evidence of the Viking presence in the Island....

Middle Ages and Renaissance

1410 Grunwald Battle re-enacted (see pictures)

Posted by lizol
On General/Chat 07/15/2006 2:28:50 PM EDT · 7 replies · 226+ views

Radio Polonia | 15.07.2006
1410 Grunwald Battle re-enacted 15.07.2006 The Battle of Grunwald of 15 July 1410, one of the biggest armed clashes of Medieval Europe, is being re-enacted in mid-northern Poland this afternoon. The event began with a holy mass and the Grunwald roll call. Taking part are 1,500 amateur troops from Poland and abroad, who will recreate the battle in which allied Polish and Lithuanian troops defeated the forces of the Teutonic Knights, thus sparking off the collapse of that medieval military order.

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Church of Cognizance out of line with zoroastrian religion

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/21/2006 2:04:56 PM EDT · 4 replies · 35+ views

Eastern Arizona Courier | Thursday, July 20, 2006 | Adam Gaub
Dan and Mary Quaintance of Pima claim they use marijuana - often mixed with milk - in their practice of the Zoroastrian faith. The Quaintances are awaiting trial after being arrested in New Mexico in February for having 172 pounds of marijuana in their possession. While milk, and goat's milk specifically, can sometimes be used in ceremonies in the Zoroastrian religion, Rustom Kevala, the president of the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, said marijuana has never been used as part of their religion. "We don't want Zoroastrians to be associated with this kind of church," Kevala said. "I...

end of digest #105 20060722

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #106
Saturday, July 29, 2006

Ancient Rome

Road sees first traffic for 1,400 years

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/28/2006 12:56:49 PM EDT · 31 replies · 245+ views

Havant & W Sussex News | 27 July 2006 | unattributed
Feet have trodden on a stretch of Roman road for the first time in 1,600 years. A section of the road has been fully uncovered in the final stages of an archaeological excavation on the former Shippams factory site in Chichester city centre... Jo Taylor, of Pre-Construct Archaeology, which has been carrying out the project with Gifford Archaeology, said the road probably dated from the late first century AD. Postholes on the southern side indicated some form of settlement, which was probably domestic. District council archaeological officer James Kenny said it was a privilege to stand on a Roman street....

British Isles

Ancient prayerbook found in Irish bog

Posted by lunarbicep
On News/Activism 07/25/2006 3:21:17 PM EDT · 208 replies · 5,138+ views

couriermail.news | July 26, 2006
IRELAND'S national museum today hailed what it said was one of the most significant discoveries in decades - and perhaps centuries - after an ancient prayer book was found by chance in an Irish bog. The National Museum of Ireland said fragments of what appeared to be an ancient Psalter or Book of Psalms, written around AD 800, were uncovered by a bulldozer in a bog in the south Midlands. "In discovery terms this Irish equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls is being hailed by the Museum's experts as the greatest find ever from a European bog," the museum said...

Ancient Book of Psalms Found in Ireland Bog

Posted by I still care
On News/Activism 07/25/2006 11:00:35 PM EDT · 52 replies · 1,117+ views

Newsmax | July 26, 2006 | Newsmas
DUBLIN, Ireland -- Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog. The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries. "This is really a miracle find," said Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, which has the book stored in refrigeration and facing years of painstaking analysis before being put on public display. "There's...

Ireland worker finds ancient psalms in bog

Posted by FJ290
On Religion 07/26/2006 2:10:22 PM EDT · 39 replies · 341+ views

Associated Press | July 25, 2006 | SHAWN POGATCHNIK
DUBLIN, Ireland - Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog. The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries. "This is really a miracle find," said Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, which has the book stored in refrigeration and facing years of painstaking analysis before being put on public display. "There's...

Ireland Worker Finds Ancient Psalms in Bog

Posted by ps2
On News/Activism 07/26/2006 3:52:44 PM EDT · 32 replies · 1,134+ views

Breitbart.com | Jul. 24, 2006 | Shawn Pogatchnik
Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms.... ****************** The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempt to wipe out the name of Israel. Also see .. http://www.harpazo.net

Ireland worker finds ancient psalms in bog

Posted by antonia
On News/Activism 07/27/2006 3:07:04 PM EDT · 10 replies · 498+ views

yahoo news | 7/25/2006 | SHAWN POGATCHNIK,
[The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83], psalm at bottom of page here.Ireland worker finds ancient psalms in bogTue Jul 25, 7:11 PM EThttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060725/ap SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press WriterDUBLIN, Ireland - Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries."This is really...

Faith and Philosophy

Ancient Persian drawing found in Afghan Buddhist cave

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 07/25/2006 2:53:34 PM EDT · 14 replies · 652+ views

Yahoo | Tue Jul 25
Japanese researchers said they found a seventh-century painting of a mythological Persian bird in Afghanistan's Bamiyan ruins, showing the region's Buddhism was influenced by pre-Islamic Iran. The team unearthed an image of what appears to be a Simorgh, the giant and powerful bird that figures prominently in Zoroastrian-era Iranian legends. The faded painting emerged after Japanese researchers removed soot from a Buddhist cave in Bamiyan, the region where Taliban Islamic extremists dynamited the world's tallest standing Buddha statues in 2001. "This is the first time a vivid image of this creature was confirmed" in Bamiyan, an expert involved in the...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Gas pipeline going to Armenia is destroying 3 thousand year old ancient city

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/28/2006 1:25:55 PM EDT · 8 replies · 128+ views

Today Azerbaijan | 22 July 2006 | unattributed
Diggings related to construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia has partially destroyed remains of the oldest city called "Dragon Stone" (Azhdaha Dashi) in East Azerbaijan province of Iran. "Dragon Stone" includes ruins of an ancient city built 1000 years before Christ and is located at 40 kilometers east of Andarjan village of Varzighan county... "Dragon Stone" was declared a historic site and a protected area... However, Iran's gas company has started digging in the area despite the declaration... The representative of Cultural Heritage and Tourism office has added that studies of the 3000 year old "Dragon Stone"...

Anatolia

Ancient city of Zeugma on the way to becoming an archaeological park

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 3:56:15 PM EDT · 6 replies · 50+ views

Turkish Daily News | Saturday, July 22, 2006 | unattributed
The ancient city of Zeugma, located in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, is planned to be converted into an archaeological park through a series of restoration and landscape works... [T]his year's work would start as of Aug. 1 at the ancient site... Zeugma was founded in 300 B.C. by Alexander the Great under the name of Selevkaya Euphrates. In 64 B.C., Zeugma was conquered and ruled by the Roman Empire and renamed Zeugma, meaning "bridge-passage" or "bridge of boats". During Roman rule, the city became one of the attractions in the region, due to its commercial potential originating from its...

1,500-Year-Old Byzantine Port Discovered

Posted by Clintonfatigued
On News/Activism 07/23/2006 1:52:01 PM EDT · 20 replies · 718+ views

Associated Press | July 22, 2006 | Benjamin Harvey
It seems a typical scene of urban decay: abandoned buildings, crumbling walls, trash and broken wine bottles. Yet it's more than 1,500 years old. Engineers uncovered these ruins of an ancient Byzantine port during drilling for a huge underground rail tunnel. Like Romans, Athenians and residents of other great historic cities, the people of Istanbul can hardly put a shovel in the ground without digging up something important. But the ancient port uncovered last November in the Yenikapi neighborhood is of a different scale: It has grown into the largest archaeological dig in Istanbul's history, and the port's extent is...

Ancient Greece

Roman Bathhouse Excavated In Lipari

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 3:45:16 PM EDT · 6 replies · 98+ views

Agenzia Giornalistica Italia | Saturday July 22, 2006 | unattributed, probably ashamed
A Roman bathhouse built between the first century B.C. the second century [A.D.] was brought to the light of day right in the centre of Lipari, the biggest of the Aeolian Islands. Excavations were financed by the EU and regional culture council with 423,000 euro. The project was handled by Carmelo Riccardo, Giuseppe Arena and Italo Scattina and supervised by Giovanni Bacci of the cultural department and Madleine Cavalier, founder of the archaeology museum in Lipari.

Statues of Ancient Goddesses Found.

Posted by Little Bill
On News/Activism 09/30/2005 5:03:49 PM EDT · 57 replies · 1,848+ views

Yahoo | 9/30/2005 | A Greek Fellow, Nickolas whom AP will not let me C&P
Statues of Ancient Goddesses Discovered By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 42 minutes ago ATHENS, Greece - The life-sized marble statues of two ancient Greek goddesses have emerged during excavations of a 5,000-year-old town on the island of Crete, archaeologists said Friday. The works, representing the goddesses Athena and Hera, date to between the second and fourth centuries ó during the period of Roman rule in Greece ó and originally decorated the Roman theater in the town of Gortyn, archaeologist Anna Micheli from the Italian School of Archaeology told The Associated Press. "They are in very good condition,"...

Ancient Europe

Melting ice sheets could spur oceans' rise

Posted by Dr. Marten
On News/Activism 03/24/2006 11:24:22 AM EST · 85 replies · 1,263+ views

Reuters | 03.23.06 | Deborah Zabarenko
† WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Miami would be a memory, Bangkok a soggy shadow of its former self and the Maldive Islands would vanish if melting polar ice keeps fueling a faster-than-expected rise in sea levels, scientists reported on Thursday. In an issue of the journal Science focusing on global warming, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona reported that if global trends continue, Earth could ultimately see sea levels 20 feet higher than they are now. By the end of this century, Earth would be at least 4 degrees F (2.3 degrees C) warmer than now, or about...

Warmer temperatures a natural phenomenon, new study indicates

Posted by aculeus
On News/Activism 03/21/2002 10:06:52 PM EST · 50 replies · 497+ views

New Zealand Herald | March 23, 2002 | Associated Press
Washington ó An unusually warm period a millennium ago may have been part of a natural planetary cycle, researchers say in a study of tree rings that scrutinizes the link between human activity and climate change. The study, appearing Friday in the journal Science, analyzed ancient tree rings from 14 sites on three continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It concluded that temperatures in an era known as the Medieval Warm Period about 800 to 1,000 years ago closely matched the warming trend of the 20th century. In recent years, many climate scientists have said an unprecedented warming spell that began...

Climate

Ancient air bubbles shed light on greenhouse gases (Global Warming)

Posted by proud_yank
On News/Activism 11/24/2005 8:05:51 PM EST · 77 replies · 1,700+ views

Globe and Mail (Canada) | nov 24, 2005 | Lauran Neergaard
Ancient air bubbles shed light on greenhouse gases By LAURAN NEERGAARD Thursday, November 24, 2005 Posted at 2:45 PM EST Associated Press Washington ‚Äî There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the past 650,000 years, says a major new study that let scientists peer back in time at ‚Äúgreenhouse gases‚Äù that can help fuel global warming. By analyzing tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millenniums, a team of European researchers highlights how people are dramatically influencing the buildup of these gases. The remarkable research promises to spur ‚Äúdramatically improved understanding‚Äù of...

Alaska landscape transformed by warmer climate

Posted by Crackingham
On News/Activism 09/29/2005 4:06:47 PM EDT · 47 replies · 914+ views

Reuters | 9/29/05 | Yereth Rosen
Sinking villages perched on thawing permafrost, an explosion of timber-chewing insect populations, record wildfires and shrinking sea ice are among the most obvious and jarring signs that Alaska is getting warmer as the global climate changes, scientists say. "We are the canary in the mine, unfortunately, and the harbinger of what is yet to come for the rest of the world," said Patricia Cochran, executive director of the Anchorage-based Alaska Native Science Commission. Atmospheric temperatures in the remote state have risen 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 3 degrees C) over the past five decades, according to the recently...

Winds, ice motion root cause of decline in sea ice, not warmer temperatures

Posted by beavus
On News/Activism 12/29/2004 9:56:13 PM EST · 46 replies · 791+ views

University of Washington News | Dec. 16, 2004 | Sandra Hines
Extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s -- and not warmer temperatures of recent years -- are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say. It may have happened more than a decade ago, but the sea ice appears to still "remember" those Arctic Oscillation conditions, according to Ignatius Rigor, a mathematician with the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory and a presenter at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting this week in San Francisco. The...

Asia

China's miracle in the desert is drying up

Posted by TigerLikesRooster
On News/Activism 05/28/2005 8:56:03 AM EDT · 73 replies · 2,012+ views

NYT | 05/27/05 | Jim Yardley
China's miracle in the desert is drying up By Jim Yardley The New York Times SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2005 DUNHUANG, China At the bottom of the mountainous dunes once traversed by traders and pilgrims on the ancient Silk Road, Wang Qixiang stood with a camera draped around his neck. He was a modern pilgrim of sorts, a tourist. He and his wife had traveled by train more than 3,200 kilometers, or 2,000 miles, from eastern China to the forbidding emptiness of the Gobi Desert to glimpse a famous pool of water known as Crescent Lake. They came because the lake...

Horse with No Name

Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 9:34:42 PM EDT · 10 replies · 155+ views

National Geographic News | July 20, 2006 | Sean Markey (no funky bunch)
The pharaohs of ancient Egypt owed their existence to prehistoric climate change in the eastern Sahara, according to an exhaustive study of archaeological data that bolsters this theory. Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths of what are now Egypt, Chad, Libya, and Sudan experienced a "sudden onset of humid conditions." ...The new study, which appears online today on the Science Express Web site, is based on painstaking research that combines new radiocarbon dating of about 500 artifacts from the region with data from past studies. Krˆpelin and study co-author Rudolph Kuper also collected geological climate data from...

Adventurer crosses sands that conquered a king

Posted by Tyche
On News/Activism 01/28/2006 2:33:56 AM EST · 24 replies · 759+ views

The Times Online | Jan 28, 2006 | Martin Penner
INSPIRED by the legend of a Persian king and his lost army, Stefano Miglietti, an Italian adventurer, completed a 340-mile hike through the most isolated and arid part of the western Sahara yesterday. The route that Signor Miglietti followed through the so-called Great Sand Sea ó from the Farafra oasis in southern Egypt to the Siwa oasis in the north ó has always been considered impossible for a man carrying his own food and water. According to legend, Cambyses II, the Persian king, foolishly tried to take the same route in 523 BC, setting off with a 50,000-strong army. Herodotus,...

Prehistoric Desert Town Found In Western Sahara (15,000 Years Old)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/20/2004 12:10:09 PM EDT · 128 replies · 2,169+ views

Reuters | 8-19-2004 | Reuters
Prehistoric Desert Town Found in Western Sahara Thu Aug 19, 2004 01:52 PM ET RABAT (Reuters) - The remains of a prehistoric town believed to date back 15,000 years and belong to an ancient Berber civilization have been discovered in Western Sahara, Moroccan state media said on Thursday. A team of Moroccan scientists stumbled across the sand-covered ruins of the town Arghilas deep in the desert of the Morocco-administered territory. The remains of a place of worship, houses and a necropolis, as well as columns and rock engravings depicting animals, were found at the site near the town of Aousserd...

Prehistory and Origins

Ancient global warming drove early primates' dispersal

Posted by Ben Mugged
On News/Activism 07/26/2006 1:48:01 PM EDT · 37 replies · 719+ views

Eureka Alert (University of Michigan ) | 25-Jul-2006 | Nancy Ross-Flanigan
The continent-hopping habits of early primates have long puzzled scientists, and several scenarios have been proposed to explain how the first true members of the group appeared virtually simultaneously on Asia, Europe and North America some 55 million years ago. But new research using the latest evidence suggests a completely different migration path from those previously proposed and indicates that sudden, rapid global warming drove the dispersal. Researchers from the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences present their findings in the July 25 issue of the Proceedings of the...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Scientists Plan to Rebuild Neanderthal Genome

Posted by CobaltBlue
On News/Activism 07/20/2006 7:06:56 PM EDT · 92 replies · 1,367+ views

New York Times | July 20, 2006 | Nicholas Wade
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Leipzig, Germany, plan to reconstruct the genome of Neanderthals, the archaic human species that occupied Europe from 300,000 years ago until 30,000 years ago until being displaced by modern humans. The genome will initially be reconstructed using DNA extracted from Neanderthal bones that are 45,000 years old, which were found in Croatia, though bones from other sites may be analyzed later. The project is a collaboration between Dr. Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and 454 Life Sciences, a Connecticut company that has...

Project plans map of Neanderthal genome

Posted by doc30
On News/Activism 07/24/2006 2:41:28 PM EDT · 150 replies · 1,944+ views

The Globe and Mail | 7/24/06 | GEIR MOULSON
BERLIN ó U.S. and German scientists have launched a two-year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved. Neanderthals were a species that lived in Europe and western Asia from more than 200,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up a company in Connecticut to map the genome, or humans' DNA code. ìThe Neanderthal is the closest relative to the modern human, and we believe that by sequencing the Neanderthal we can learn...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Tribes, Scientists Still Divided Over 'The Ancient One' [ Kennewick ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/28/2006 1:18:32 PM EDT · 26 replies · 175+ views

Oregon Public Broadcasting | July 27, 2006 | Elizabeth Wynne Johnson
John Sirois is the cultural preservation administrator for the confederated tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation... They consider the Ancient One to be an ancestor in need of peace and want him reburied. Nine years and millions of dollars in litigation haven't done much to heal old wounds. Many Native Americans still dismiss archaeologists as glorified grave robbers. And Sirois says the antipathy seems to be mutual. John Sirois: "They still don't see native people as having knowledge the way they have knowledge. It might be quaint histories that have been passed down, but it's not 'real knowledge'."

Navigation

IU archaeologists hot on the trail of Columbus' sunken ships

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/28/2006 1:11:37 PM EDT · 5 replies · 59+ views

Indiana University | July 27, 2006 | Tracy James
Indiana University archaeologists are confident they are closer to discovering some of Christopher Columbus' lost ships -- and the answer to a 500-year-old mystery, "What was on those ships?" "The discovery of a Columbus shipwreck, let alone the finding of the flagship Mariagalante, would be a tremendous contribution to maritime archaeology," said Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. "Perhaps more important would be the cargo. Were the ships laden with native Taino Indian artifacts heading to Spain? Such a find would shed new light on the...

Chinese Explorers 'Discovered America' [ ! ]

Posted by ex-Texan
On News/Activism 03/07/2002 10:00:38 PM EST · 112 replies · 479+ views

Straights Times Europe Bureau | Alfred Lee
Chinese explorers 'discovered America' By Alfred Lee STRAITS TIMES EUROPE BUREAU LONDON - When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area. And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier. Sailing in 1,000-foot-long ships with nine massive junk-style sails, the Chinese also circumnavigated the world a century before explorer Ferdinand Magellan's epic journey, and reached South America. These disclosures are at the centre of ...

Plans to dig up Chinese ship on

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/28/2006 1:06:41 PM EDT · 11 replies · 94+ views

Daily Nation | 7/28/2006 | Abdulsamad Ali
Plans to excavate a Chinese ship that sunk in the Indian Ocean off Siyu Island 600 years ago are still on, a diplomat has said... Mr Chongli said the Chinese embassy in Nairobi expected the budgetary estimates to be presented to the People's Council for approval in the next budget, early next year. At the same time, a delegation of Chinese researchers had gone back home to study the historical significance of the ship according to available records... The ship is believed to have hit a rock and capsized near Shanga Village in Lamu.† The head of coastal archaeology in...

Did the Chinese discover America?

Posted by NP-INCOMPLETE
On News/Activism 01/13/2003 5:50:54 PM EST · 50 replies · 373+ views

CNN | January 13, 2003 | Adam Dunn
NEW YORK (CNN) -- In his new book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America" (William Morrow), Gavin Menzies claims that a massive Chinese fleet of huge junks and support ships made a two-year circumnavigation of the globe, with extensive exploration of the Americas, nearly a century before Magellan and Columbus.

Is Gavin Menzies Right or Wrong? (Did the Chinese discover the western hemisphere?)

Posted by robowombat
On News/Activism 03/12/2003 11:30:30 AM EST · 12 replies · 167+ views

History News Network | March 10, 2003 | Timothy Furnish
Is Gavin Menzies Right or Wrong? By Timothy Furnish Mr. Furnish, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor, World History, Georgia Perimeter College. Every college world history textbook discusses the early 15th c. CE Chinese naval expeditions, commissioned by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di and commanded by the legendary admiral Zheng He, that sailed as far as East Africa and the Red Sea. Indeed, one of the favorite themes of the history subgenre known as alternative history is: why didn't these Chinese flotillas beat the Portuguese and Spanish to the New World--and what if they had? Gavin Menzies, a former British Royal Navy...

India

Indian archaeologists divers discover ancient port city in south India

Posted by TheHound
On News/Activism 02/28/2005 7:31:09 PM EST · 8 replies · 332+ views

Yahoo! News | Sun Feb 27, 6:04 PM ET
Science - AFP Indian archaeologists divers discover ancient port city in south India Sun Feb 27, 6:04 PM ET †Science - AFP MAHABALIPURAM, India (AFP) - Indian archaeologists have found what they believe are undersea "stone structures" that could be the remains of an ancient port city off India's southern coast, officials say. AFP/ASI Photo † The archaeologists learnt of the structures after locals reported spotting a temple and several sculptures when the sea pulled back briefly just before deadly tsunamis smashed into the coastline December 26. Divers discovered the stone remains close to India's famous beachfront Mahabalipuram temple...

Epigraphy and Language

An ancient art becomes mainstream: The acceptance of tattoo art helps remove former stigma

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/27/2006 2:51:02 AM EDT · 62 replies · 407+ views

Pacific Publishing Company | July 26, 2006 | Dennis Wilken
According to the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, tattooing has been practiced since the days of the ancient Egyptians, although the pharaohs and their gang must have called it some other word. Tatau is a Tahitian word, and ta-tu the Marquesan word that Captain Cook's sailors brought back from their 18th-century travels to Polynesia, where tattooing held great cultural significance on most of the far flung islands of the South Pacific. Sailors became the first segment of western populations to go for tattoos in a big way. Veterans of overseas wars and convicts followed.

Central Asia

Tocharians

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/26/2006 4:11:31 PM EDT · 108 replies · 1,249+ views

Answers.com | unknown
Tocharians The Tocharians were the easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language in antiquity, inhabiting the Tarim basin in what is now Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, northwestern People's Republic of China. Their unique culture spanned from the 1st millennium BCE to the end of the 1st millennium CE. Their language is called Tocharian. Archaeology The Tarim mummies suggest that precursors of these easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language may have lived in the region of the Tarim Basin from around 1800 BCE until finally they were assimilated by Uyghur Turks in the 9th century CE. "Tocharian donors", possibly the "Knights with...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Excavators Uncover Plaza and Street near Siloam Pool

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 11:58:23 PM EDT · 7 replies · 85+ views

Biblical Archaeology Review | July 2006 | Hershel Shanks
After bathing (or purifying) oneself in the Siloam Pool, where Jesus cured the blind man (see "The Siloam Pool," BAR, September/October 2005), ancient pilgrims could ascend ten steps to a lovely columned plaza that has now been exposed by archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Skeleton 'may be John the Baptist'

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 08/01/2002 9:52:18 PM EDT · 12 replies · 296+ views

ANANOVA post of BBC Report | Story filed: 23:26 Thursday 1st August 2002 | Editorial Staff
Skeleton 'may be John the Baptist' A professor claims a skeleton discovered near where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found may be the remains of John the Baptist. He suggests the phrophet who annointed Christ may also have been the leader of the tribe to which the burial ground belonged. Israeli archaelogists say his theory is far-fetched and that the burial site unearthed is probably that of an 18th century Bedouin man. US professor Richard Freund at a Centre for Judaic Studies in Connecticut, has been art of an expedition in the Judean Desert. Professor Freund says there is "circumstantial...

Longer Perspectives

Victor Davis Hanson: Globalization, Ancient and Modern

Posted by Tolik
On News/Activism 04/20/2006 1:35:21 PM EDT · 37 replies · 867+ views

realclearpolitics.com | April 20, 2006 | Victor Davis Hanson
LEPTIS MAGNA, Libya - The most vibrant cities of the Roman Empire were often not found in Europe. Many were located along the southern and eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, such as Leptis Magna, Ephesus and Pergamum.Some of the most impressive ruins of these lost cities are in Libya, at Leptis Magna, whose stones have survived for two millennia. Acres of roads, arches, colonnades and temples arise out of the coastal sands, making Leptis Magna one of the most arresting sites of the ancient world - albeit one closed to most Western visitors for more than 30 years. I've had the...

The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today

Posted by robowombat
On News/Activism 12/20/2005 9:04:54 AM EST · 110 replies · 1,700+ views

Heritage Foundation | December 19, 2005 | Rufus Fears
The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today by J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D. December 19, 2005 Heritage Lecture #917 I am honored to give a lecture named after Russell Kirk, who told us to ponder the permanent things, such as history and human nature. It is about human nature and history that I want to speak to you this afternoon. We are on patrol today in Iraq. Men and women of the United States armed forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Baghdad. They pass in the way of so many who have come before them: the Egyptian...

Ancient Egypt

BREAKING! Scientists peer behind a sealed door in the Great Pyramid - Discover a new chamber!

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 09/16/2002 10:43:07 PM EDT · 93 replies · 1,568+ views

FOX NEWS | 9-16-02 | Post by VANNROX
BREAKING....Fox and National Geographic has just televised video pictures of the newly discovered chamber in the Great Pyramid. A team of scientists from Boston designed the robot that drilled the hole in the door, and the other robot that placed the camera inside the hole to peer behind the door.

Agriculture and Domestication

Prehistoric Britons' Taste For Milk

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 01/27/2003 7:06:39 PM EST · 7 replies · 158+ views

BBC | 1-27-2003
Monday, 27 January, 2003, 22:36 GMTPrehistoric Britons' taste for milk The oldest direct evidence for the existence of dairy farming has been discovered in the UK. It is based on a chemical analysis of milk fat deposits left on pottery fragments found to be 6,500 years old. It is clear that by the time farming reached Britain, milk was already an important commodity Although the practice of milking animals for food was undoubtedly developed elsewhere and then introduced into Britain, this is the earliest time for which researchers have been able to show definitively that it was going on. According...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Rocks add weight to Atlantis debate

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 08/12/2005 4:02:33 PM EDT · 27 replies · 1,304+ views

ABC Online | Wednesday, 10 August 2005 | Rossella Lorenzi
Plato's account of how the fabled city of Atlantis sank below the surface of the ocean has scientific grounding, according to a seafloor survey of an island west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Dr Marc-AndrÈ Gutscher of the University of Western Brittany in France performed a detailed mapping of the seafloor on Spartel Island, already proposed as a candidate for the origin of the Atlantis legend in 2001 by French geologist Professor Jacques Collina-Girard. Lying 60 metres beneath the surface in the Gulf of Cadiz, the island is right "in front of the Pillars of Hercules", or the Straits of...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times

Posted by ForGod'sSake
On News/Activism 07/24/2006 3:03:03 AM EDT · 176 replies · 3,353+ views

Mammoth Trumpet | March 2001 | Firestone/Topping
Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times by Richard B. Firestone & William Topping The Paleoindian occupation of North America, theoretically the point of entry of the first people to the Americas, is traditionally assumed to have occurred within a short time span beginning at about 12,000 yr B.P. This is inconsistent with much older South American dates of around 32,000 yr B.P.1 and the similarity of the Paleoindian toolkit to Mousterian traditions that disappeared about 30,000 years ago.2. A pattern of unusually young radiocarbon dates in the Northeast has been noted by Bonnichsen and Will.3,4 Our research...

Ancient Atomic Warfare - Religious texts and geological evidence

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 07/22/2002 5:01:00 PM EDT · 74 replies · 2,395+ views

New York Herald Tribune on February 16, 1947 | New York Herald Tribune on February 16, 1947 | Ivan T. Sanderson
Ancient Atomic WarfareReligious texts and geological evidence suggest that several parts of the world have experienced destructive atomic blasts in ages past.†The following item appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on February 16, 1947 (and was repeated by Ivan T. Sanderson in the January 1970 issue of his magazine, Pursuit): When the first atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico, the desert sand turned to fused green glass. This fact, according to the magazine Free World, has given certain archaeologists a turn. They have been digging in the ancient Euphrates Valley and have uncovered a layer of agrarian culture 8,000...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

China says Genghis Khan catalyst for Renaissance

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 3:51:52 PM EDT · 33 replies · 230+ views

Turkish Daily News | Saturday, July 22, 2006 | Reuters
"Genghis Khan introduced papermaking and printing technologies to Europe and pioneered cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe," it quoted Zhu Yaoting, a specialist on Mongolian history at Beijing Union University, as saying. "He brought cultural progress that helped liberate the Europeans from the bondage of theology -- in this sense, his expeditions served as a catalyst for the Renaissance," he said. Genghis Khan's expeditions to Europe also reopened the Silk Road and laid the path for Marco Polo's historic trip to China. "The expedition revived the ancient trade link and made economic and cultural exchanges possible again between the isolated...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

NAGPRA update [ Elizabeth Weiss ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/22/2006 4:05:24 PM EDT · 1 reply · 30+ views

ArchaeoBlog | Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | Anthony
The latest issue of the SAA Archaeological record has an article in it by Elizabeth Weiss of SJ State university, on the effects that NAGPRA and repatriation generally have had on osteological research. Happily, I found a copy online (looks to be a more detailed article actually) with non-sub access: NAGPRA Before and After. Weiss argues from an analysis of publications in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology from before and after NAGPRA was enacted that fewer osteological studies were done, fewer sites were used, and fewer geographic locations were examined (all p<0.01). She also says that much research has...

Cache of artifacts found in Jamestown well

Posted by Theoden
On News/Activism 07/26/2006 10:15:53 AM EDT · 26 replies · 1,186+ views

Associated Press/Yahoo News | July 25, 2006 | DIONNE WALKER
RICHMOND, Va. - Sometime around 1610, archaeologists figure, a thirsty colonist in Jamestown set his brass pistol on the side of a well as he pulled up some water and accidentally knocked the weapon in.

Clue found in mystery of Civil War sub [ Hunley ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/26/2006 12:23:24 PM EDT · 10 replies · 243+ views

MSNBC | July 15, 2006 | Associated Press
If the hatch was intentionally unlocked, there are several possible explanations. Dixon could have opened it to see if the 40-foot (12-meter), hand-cranked vessel was damaged when it rammed a spar with a black powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic on Feb. 17, 1864, becoming the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship. Or Dixon could have opened the hatch to refresh the air supply in the eight-man crew compartment or to signal that it had completed its mission. An emergency also could have led the crew to open the hatch to get out. But because...

Cornwell to Help Solve Hunley Mystery

Posted by SmithL
On General/Chat 02/14/2006 4:18:26 PM EST · 31 replies · 347+ views

AP | 2/14/6 | BRUCE SMITH
Charleston, S.C. -- Best-selling crime author Patricia Cornwell will donate at least $500,000 to help researchers solve the mystery of the sinking of the Confederate submarine Hunley, the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship. "This is a crime scene and you are doing an autopsy on that submarine," Cornwell told The Associated Press Tuesday. "It's much like Jack the Ripper ó you take the best modern science and apply it to a very old investigation and see if you can make the dead speak after all these years." The eight-man, hand-cranked sub rammed a spar with black...

Mary Boykin Chesnut a Confederate heroine

Posted by stainlessbanner
On General/Chat 07/26/2006 6:38:05 PM EDT · 12 replies · 107+ views

roanoke | July 23, 2006 | Ned Harrison
She was called the diarist, the grande dame, the confidante of the Civil War. She moved in the highest circles, and was personally acquainted with Varina Davis, wife of the president of the Confederacy. Mary Boykin Chesnut was all that and more: She brought the war to life as did no other of the time. For her writings and her insight at the most critical time in the history of the United States, she is a heroine of the Confederacy. She was born to Southern aristocracy: Her father was Stephen Decatur Miller, a lawyer and later governor of South Carolina...

end of digest #106 20060729

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #107
Saturday, August 5, 2006

Ancient Egypt

Another new tomb in the Valley of the Kings: 'KV64'

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 9:20:31 PM EDT · 2 replies · 11+ views

Valley of the Kings Foundation | 31 July 2006 | Nicholas Reeves
Over the summer I have given much thought to the current state of play in the Valley, to the threat of further uncontrolled excavation and to a peculiar dilemma I find myself in: for the prospect of yet more tombs is based upon rather more than mere academic hypothesis. Just as ARTP's radar survey of the central Valley first highlighted KV63 in 2000, so our project discovered clear evidence also for the existence and location of what appears to be a second new burial, 'KV64' - the tomb to which KV63 quite likely relates... Because of the intensity of interest...

Greeks 'Borrowed Egyptian Numbers'

Posted by blam
On General/Chat 09/15/2003 2:25:58 PM EDT · 11 replies · 75+ views

BBC | 9-15-2003 | Paul Rincon
Greeks 'borrowed Egyptian numbers' By Paul Rincon BBC Science The astronomers, physicists and mathematicians of ancient Greece were true innovators. Ancient Greeks used letters and extra symbols to represent digits But one thing it seems the ancient Greeks did not invent was the counting system on which many of their greatest thinkers based their pioneering calculations. New research suggests the Greeks borrowed their system known as alphabetic numerals from the Egyptians, and did not develop it themselves as was long believed. Greek alphabetic numerals were favoured by the mathematician and physicist Archimedes, the scientific philosopher Aristotle and the mathematician Euclid,...

Epigraphy and Language

Fresh look at Archimedes' theories

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 06/09/2005 2:21:50 AM EDT · 20 replies · 932+ views

Discovery News | Monday, 6 June 2005 | Rossella Lorenzi
A long-obscured transcription of Archimedes' mathematical theories has been brought to light through x-rays, US scientists say. The 1000-year-old parchment, made of goatskin, contains Archimedes' original work, which was written in the 3rd century BC but copied down by a 10th century scribe. The manuscript includes the only copy in the original Greek of the treatise "Method of Mechanical Theorems", in which the Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor describes how he developed his mathematical theorems using mechanical means. It is also the only source in the original Greek of Archimedes' theory of flotation of bodies. In the 12th century parchment...

X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets

Posted by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
On News/Activism 08/02/2006 4:45:46 PM EDT · 44 replies · 1,878+ views

BBC News | 2 August 2006 | Jonathan Fildes
X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News A series of hidden texts written by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being revealed by US scientists. Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings. Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

Archimedes' hidden writings revealed with particle accelerator (Stanford)

Posted by NormsRevenge
On News/Activism 08/04/2006 10:39:30 PM EDT · 12 replies · 448+ views

ap on San Diego Union - Tribune | 8/4/06 | Terence Chea - ap
SAN FRANCISCO -- Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers. Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works. The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment. "We are...

Ancient Roman Villa May Hold World's Richest Literary Treasure

Posted by blam
On General/Chat 04/03/2002 5:27:07 PM EST · 24 replies · 263+ views

The Age | 4-2-2002 | Robert Harris
Ancient Roman villa may hold world's richest literary treasure By Robert Harris April 2 2002 Two thousand years ago, on the Bay of Naples, in the outskirts of the luxurious resort of Herculaneum, stood one of the grandest houses of the Roman world. The Blenheim Palace extended more than 200 metres along the shoreline and included an Olympic-sized pool. The extraordinary construction, which has never been fully excavated, is now the subject of an academic controversy. Eight of the world's leading scholars of ancient literature, including four professors of Greek (from the universities of Bristol, Harvard, London and Oxford) have...

Ancient Greece

Greek Archaeologists Confirm Authenticity Of 'Theseus Ring'

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 6:24:48 PM EDT · 16 replies · 791+ views

M&C Science And Nature | 8-2-2006
Greek archaeologists confirm authenticity of 'Theseus Ring' Aug 2, 2006, 15:44 GMT Athens - The long-lost 'Theseus Ring,' a gold ring found in the Plaka district of Athens in the 1950s and generally dismissed as a fake, has been identified by Greek archaeologists as a genuine 15th century BC artifact, reports said Wednesday. The Greek press had reported the discovery of a gold signet ring, with dimensions 2.7 x 1.8 cm dating from the Minoan period, and the National Archaeological Museum wanted to purchase it for 75,000 euros from the woman who owned it. There was a huge debate about...

Crete: isle of the dead?

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 1:11:02 AM EDT · 16 replies · 212+ views

Frontier magazine | January-February 2000 | Philip Coppens
It argues that the "palaces" could more likely be "temples" rather than residential buildings. For sure, archaeologists are quick to point out that certain parts of the palaces definitely had a religious function. But some go further. Archaeologist Oswald Spengler stated in the 1930s that these "palaces" were temples for the dead. His opinion was not taken seriously, as it went against the accepted belief. Wunderlich continued where Spengler had stopped. Both noted that the state of the palaces was particularly bizarre. Thousands of people are believed to have roamed the corridors of the Palace of Knossos, but the staircases...

Anatolia

Ancient Urartian inscription disappears in Iran

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 1:18:14 AM EDT · 12 replies · 156+ views

Iran Mania | Wednesday, July 26, 2006 | unattributed
An inscription of Urartian king Ishpuini (circa 830 - 810 BC) has disappeared from Baraghaneh Mountain, near Bukan in West Azarbaijan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported...

Ancient Rome

Abandoned Ancient Chariots Found in Bulgaria

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/30/2006 11:25:45 PM EDT · 3 replies · 41+ views

Sofia News Agency | 30 July 2006 | Crime desk
Bulgarian police have discovered three ancient chariots and two ornaments tossed in an abandoned vine-field close to the central city of Stara Zagora. The artefacts were found meters away from a mount and archaeologists believe they date back to the II or III century AD, the Bulgarian national TV reported. Marauders have most likely ripped off exquisite bronze ornaments from the wheels of the chariots, experts think. The silver ornaments that were spared by the treasure-hunters are rarely seen on Thracian chariots. This made archaeologists think that the artefacts were probably used for special occasions. All artefacts have been sent...

Ancient Europe

Metrosexual man ruled the Iron Age

Posted by annie laurie
On News/Activism 08/02/2006 9:00:09 PM EDT · 61 replies · 1,087+ views

The Australian | August 02, 2006 | Unattributed
LONDON: For decades it has been a man's privilege to scoff at the lengths to which women will go to make themselves look beautiful. But go back a few thousand years, and the male of the species went to extraordinary lengths to look good. Scientists examining prehistoric bodies found in the peat bogs of Ireland have discovered evidence of careful grooming on male corpses. One of the bodies, dug up in 2003 at Clonycavan, near Dublin, had mohawk-style hair, held in place with a gel substance. The other, unearthed three months later 40km away in Oldcroghan, had carefully manicured fingernails....

British Isles

Cat drags in new theory on cairns

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 9:30:55 PM EDT · 13 replies · 95+ views

BBC | Friday, 4 August 2006 | the staff cat-ologist?
Emma Sanderson, of Caithness Archaeology Trust, said it was found that a dead rabbit had been left in the replica by a cat... She said it was previously thought that animal remains found in actual cairns were left as ceremonial offerings. However, the cat's dead rabbit has provided a new theory that they had been killed by other animals years after the cairn had fallen into disrepair. Another theory about cairns may also have been exploded after archaeologists knocked down their mock-up. It was noted that the stones collapsed in a pattern previously thought to be evidence of ceremonial closing...

A 3,000-Year-Old Voyage Of Discovery (Scotland)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/01/2006 5:50:30 PM EDT · 29 replies · 902+ views

Scotsman | 8-1-2006 | Jennifer Veitch
A 3,000-year-old voyage of discovery JENNIFER VEITCHMen would have used this type of log boat to fish and hunt, as well as to trade goods with others, as this drawing exhibits. Picture: Courtesy Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust IN ANCIENT times, when Scotland was virtually covered in dense forest, there was only one way to get around. Traveling by boat helped early Scots to find food and trade goods with their neighbours. The work to extract the boat from the river bed is slow and painstaking. Picture: Courtesy Historic Scotland Now, with the excavation of a 3,000-year-old log boat, archaeologists...

Let's Have Jerusalem

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND:Psalm in a bog

Posted by Blogger
On News/Activism 07/28/2006 6:38:52 PM EDT · 7 replies · 611+ views

worldnetdaily.com | July 26, 2006 | Joe Kovacs
TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND 'Psalm in a bog' linked to Israel's current war Some say Scripture find in Ireland has meaning with present conflict Posted: July 26, 2006 8:53 p.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs -- The "miraculous" find of ancient psalms in an Irish bog has some wondering if there's any special modern relevance, since the discovery dealt with the enemies of Israel attempting to destroy the nation. Ancient book of psalms found in Irish bog by construction worker was opened to Psalm 83 (photo: National Museum of Ireland) A construction worker in Ireland came across...

Ancient Latin Translation of Psalms Found in Irish Bog [Follow-up, it isn't Psalm 83]

Posted by Blogger
On Religion 07/29/2006 11:29:22 PM EDT · 48 replies · 686+ views

israelnationalnews.com | 30 July 06 | Ezra HaLevi
Ancient Latin Translation of Psalms Found in Irish Bog 01:24 Jul 30, '06 / 5 Av 5766 by Ezra HaLevi Archaeologists in Ireland found an ancient Latin translation of the Psalms of King David last week. Which Psalm the book was open to when preserved in the Irish bog has been a subject of confusion. (file photo) The ancient book was discovered in a bog by a construction worker who spotted it while driving the shovel of his backhoe into an area nearby. The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. It was initially reported that Latin...

Ancient Warfare

The Battle of Leuctra, 371 BCE

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 4:26:13 PM EDT · 8 replies · 113+ views

Ancient History Sourcebook, Fordham University | c. 360 BCE | Xenophon: Hellenica
the Lacedaemonians posted their cavalry in front of their squares of infantry, and the Thebans imitated them. Only there was this difference---the Theban horse were in a high state of training and efficiency, thanks to their war with the Orchomenians, and also their war with Thespiae; the Lacedaemonian cavalry was at its very worst just now. The horses were reared and kept by the richest citizens; but whenever the levy was called out, a trooper appeared who took the horse with any sort of arms that might be presented to him, and set off on an expedition at a moment's...

USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Ancient Greek Military:Mercenaries ~ December 16, 2003

Posted by LaDivaLoca
On News/Activism 12/16/2003 4:19:32 AM EST · 383 replies · 1,033+ views

Warfare in Hellas | december 16, 2003 | LaDivaLoca
† For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. † † Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! † ANCIENT WARFAREPart III: Ancient Greek Military: †Mercenaries Struggle for Hegemony MercenariesMercenaries were very important in the ancient history. The Greek armies did not need them at first, but later on they were even used in Hellas. Mercenaries were normally used because they were capable of doing something which the army could not do. That is why the Greeks hired Scythic archers, why the Persians used Greek...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Roads threatening 6000-year-old mound in northern Iran

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/30/2006 10:53:14 PM EDT · 10 replies · 101+ views

Tehran Times | 31 July 2006 | Culture Desk
Road construction and railroad development are threatening the 6000-year-old Yaqut-Tappeh mound near Behshahr in Iran's northern province of Mazandaran... A team of archaeologists recently began excavations at Yaqut-Tappeh to save artifacts from sections of the site which will be buried under the road being constructed for Amirabad Port. Railroad construction previously destroyed over 3000 square meters of the site 70 years ago.... Mazandaran is one of Iran's archaeological poles. Studies show that the region has been inhabited for over 400,000 years. Urbanization is thought to have developed in the region some time around 3000 BC, and the new findings at...

Asia

Historical sites losing grandeur [ Pakistan ]

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/30/2006 11:30:25 PM EDT · 2 replies · 18+ views

Gulf Times | Sunday, 30 July, 2006 | Internews
The 17 historical sites identified in Kohat, 50km south from here, for inclusion in the travel guide of Pakistan by the tourism ministry have lost most of their grandeur because of corrosion and plunder by smugglers... Most of the sites which have tourism potential have lost their original look because of negligence of the archaeology department and the district administration. The Durrani family graveyard and the ruins of Aad and Samad have been robbed of precious tiles, gravestones, coins and statues, while some graves have been demolished and reconstructed by their caretakers. The 16th century mosque in the graveyard of...

India

Peru Link To Indian Archaeological Find?

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 5:58:51 PM EDT · 13 replies · 501+ views

BBC | 8-3-2006 | Harsh Kabra
Peru link to Indian archaeological find? By Harsh Kabra Vadodara, Gujarat Geologists have discovered a striking archaeological feature on a hillock in the Kutch district of the western Indian state of Gujarat. This feature is shaped like the Roman numeral VI. Each arm of this feature is a trench that is about two metres wide, two metres deep and more than 100 metres long. The feature has evoked the curiosity of archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so far in Peru. The team, led by Dr RV Karanth, a former professor of geology at the Maharaja Sayajirao University...

China

Tomb Of 1st Emperor's Grandmother Unearthed (China)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 07/29/2006 8:55:58 PM EDT · 20 replies · 484+ views

Xinhuanet -China View | 7-29-2006 | China View
Tomb of 1st emperor's grandmother unearthed www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-29 20:19:32 XI'AN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- After more than a year's excavation and research in a large tomb in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chinese archaeologists have concluded that the tomb belonged to the grandmother of Qinshihuang, the country's first emperor. † Zhang Tian'en, an expert with the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute, told Xinhua on Saturday that the tomb was chronologically the closest to the mysterious mausoleum of Qinshihuang, and was probably built on the emperor's orders. "We are hoping that the excavation of his grandmother's tomb will help unravel the mystery about...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

No Chinese ruins in Cape Breton: archeologists

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/30/2006 11:17:06 PM EDT · 12 replies · 164+ views

CBC News | Thursday, July 27, 2006 | unattributed
Cape Breton-born architect Paul Chiasson says... there's a road, a three-kilometre-long wall that snakes down a hill and stone platforms, all of which look similar to Chinese structures. In his book, The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered North America, Chiasson concludes that explorers from China built the settlement. The claim was so provocative, David Christianson, curator of archeology with the Nova Scotia Museum, and four other archeologists headed out to the site to investigate for themselves. They concluded there was no settlement at all... The archeologists say Chiasson's wall is really a fire break...

The Vikings

Is Global Warming Melting Greenland's Ice Sheet?

Posted by Mike Darancette
On General/Chat 08/04/2006 1:21:32 PM EDT · 3 replies · 107+ views

Cato | 6/14/06 | Jerry Taylor
Al Gore's cinematic lecture contends, in part, that rising global temperatures from industrial greenhouse gas emissions are at this very moment melting the Greenland Ice Sheet, a phenomenon that will eventually inundate global coastal areas and submerge countless cities. True? Not according to a new paper that appears in the June 13 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a prominent peer-reviewed publication of the American Geophysical Union. The authors conclude their study with the following discussion: We have analyzed temperature time series from available Greenland locations and we have found that: i) The years 1995 to 2005 have been characterized by...

Australia and the Pacific

Hawaiian Temples Much Older Than Thought

Posted by Marius3188
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 10:42:40 PM EDT · 23 replies · 490+ views

LiveScience | 01 Aug 2006 | Heather Whipps
Ancient Hawaiians started building their monumental temples at least three centuries earlier than previously thought, a new study suggests. They also spent more time building them, renovating and constructing new temples in waves depending on the island's political situation. "This research provides conclusive evidence that the Maui temple network grew and expanded over a period at least five centuries," said Michael Kolb, an anthropologist at Northern Illinois University and author of the study. "It's clear that the temple system evolved as part of a long trajectory of social and political change that also saw a shift from ancestral to sacrificial...

Climate

Spy Pics Reveal Ancient Settlements (Syria - 130,000 YA)

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 8:49:23 PM EDT · 44 replies · 1,400+ views

Couier Mail | 8-3-2006
Spy pics reveal ancient settlements August 03, 2006 06:51pm AUSTRALIAN researchers studying declassified spy satellite images have found widespread remains of ancient human settlements dating back 130,000 years in Syria. The photographs were taken by United States military surveillance satellites operating under the CIA and defence-led Corona program in the late 1960s. The team of researchers travelled to the Euphrates River Valley in April and June and searched sites they had painstakingly identified using the images, which were only declassified in the late 1990s. Group leader Mandy Mottram, a PhD student at the Australian National University's School of Archaeology and...

Prehistory and Origins

Archaeologists discover stone age tools in Sharjah

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 07/29/2006 11:03:11 PM EDT · 3 replies · 41+ views

Gulf News | July 30, 2006 | Mariam M. Al Serkal
Tests conducted by experts showed the antiquities originated from the middle of the Old Stone Age. The Middle Palaeolithic is the second subdivision of the Old Stone Age in Europe, Africa and Asia, which dates between 300,000 and 30,000 years ago... Only a small sample of the artefacts were removed, they are currently being displayed during a conference held in London to study Arab antiques.

Mesopotamia

At last, a Sumerian dictionary may be ready by 2004!

Posted by vannrox
On General/Chat 07/27/2002 6:11:00 PM EDT · 8 replies · 249+ views

The Philadelphia Inquirer | Saturday, Jul 27, 2002 | By Faye Flam
Posted on Mon, Jul. 22, 2002 Key to an ancient tonguePenn archaeologists have puzzled over the cuneiform writings for decades. At last, a Sumerian dictionary may be ready by 2004.By Faye FlamInquirer Staff Writer The people known as Sumerians are credited with starting the first civilization and building the first settlements worthy of being called cities. They also invented writing, and then they wrote and wrote and wrote, filling millions of tablets with their intricate, detailed characters.They left behind everything from religious texts to poetry to receipts, much of which remains preserved 5,000 years later. Understanding the symbols they...

Agriculture and Domestication

Cambridge Scholar Makes Rare 30,000-Year-Old Find

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 1:34:52 PM EDT · 12 replies · 547+ views

Psysorg.com | 8-3-2006
Cambridge scholar makes rare 30,000-year-old find Archaeologists have unearthed a pair of tiny bone fragments dating back almost 30,000 years and featuring minute designs carved by some of our earliest European ancestors. The thumbnail-sized bone fragments are engraved with parallel lines and match similar artefacts uncovered in the same area during the 19th century. They were carved by hunter-gatherers as they slowly made their way north in pursuit of moving populations of mammoth and reindeer 25-30,000 years ago. The unusual find was made by a Cambridge scholar, Becky Farbstein, who has been working at Predmosti in north Moravia, in the...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Love with a Neanderthal? It could have happened

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/03/2006 11:28:21 AM EDT · 50 replies · 518+ views

Fort Wayne News-Sentinel | Thursday, August 3, 2006 | Faye Flam
The question of sex with Neanderthals speaks to our understanding of ourselves, our origins and our uniqueness. If this other type of human being wasn't like us, what was he like? As I started researching this issue, I found myself staring at a picture of a nude Neanderthal man - a forensic sculpture created by Duke University paleoanthropologist Steve Churchill that was published last year in the journal Science. The model, based on a skeleton found at La Ferrassie in France, is mesmerizing in its combination of familiarity and alienness. To be honest, he's really not half bad looking. I...

Science rebuilds DNA of Neanderthals

Posted by DaveLoneRanger
On News/Activism 07/29/2006 11:51:52 PM EDT · 61 replies · 917+ views

The Sunday Times - Britain | July 30, 2006 | Maurice Chittenden
HE is 38,000 years old and nothing but a pile of bones, but one day we may be able to rebuild him. Scientists are planning to reconstruct the genetic code of Neanderthal man. Anthropologists plan to apply the forensic techniques used to map the human genome to chart all 3 billion chemical "base-pairs" in the DNA of man's close but long-dead relative. The researchers believe the DNA of the two species is 99.96% the same, but will not attempt to recreate a living Neanderthal in the laboratory. Once all the genes and their correct order are known, cloning would theoretically...

What makes us human? The unfortunate 'rat people' of Pakistan could provide the answer.

Posted by aculeus
On News/Activism 07/31/2006 9:59:25 PM EDT · 54 replies · 1,614+ views

The Telegraph (UK) | August 1, 2006 | by Armand Leroi
Travel the Grand Trunk Road between Lahore and Islamabad, and you come to the city of Gujrat. Awash in the smog and sewage produced by its million-odd inhabitants, it is an unlovely place best known for the manufacture of electrical fans. It is also the location of a shrine to a 17th-century Sufi Saint by the name of Shua Dulah. For at least 100 years, but perhaps for centuries, it has been, though is no longer, a depository for children with microcephaly. The word "microcephaly" comes from the Greek, "small head". But in Pakistan, such children are known as chuas...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Range of Giant Elephant Ancestor Reviewed

Posted by Junior
On General/Chat 01/20/2003 2:21:57 PM EST · 10 replies · 510+ views

Science - AP | 2003-01-20 | DEREK GATOPOULOS
IRAKLIO, Greece - A prehistoric ancestor of the elephant may have roamed ó and perhaps swum ó farther than experts once imagined. Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a fearsome Deinotherium Gigantisimum, an elephant-like creature that reached nearly 15 feet tall. The 7 million-year-old remains suggest the mammal moved around larger areas of Europe than previously believed, possibly swimming long distances in search of food. "It was more widespread than we thought," said Charalampos Fassoulas, a geologist who headed the excavations by the University of Crete's Natural History Museum....

Navigation

The Antikythera mechanism: The clockwork computer [from first century BC]

Posted by aculeus
On News/Activism 09/20/2002 3:20:15 PM EDT · 53 replies · 444+ views

The Economist | Sep 19th 2002 | Unsigned
An ancient piece of clockwork shows the deep roots of modern technology. WHEN a Greek sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny island of Antikythera in 1900, it was the statues lying on the seabed that made the greatest impression on him. He returned to the surface, removed his helmet, and gabbled that he had found a heap of dead, naked women. The ship's cargo of luxury goods also included jewellery, pottery, fine furniture, wine and bronzes dating back to the first century BC. But the most important finds proved to be...

Bells on Ships [some naval history]

Posted by 1rudeboy
On General/Chat 08/03/2006 8:00:03 PM EDT · 31 replies · 205+ views

Naval Historical Center--Department of the Navy | 15. July 1999 | unattributed
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER 805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060 Bells on Ships Bells have a centuries-long tradition of varied use in the navies and merchant fleets of the world. They have been used for signaling, keeping time, and providing alarm. Their functional and ceremonial uses have made them a symbol of considerable significance to the United States Navy. Origins Bells cast from metal were first developed in the Bronze Age, achieving a particularly high level of sophistication in China. During the European Middle Ages, they were used by Christians...

Faith and Philosophy

Crusade Pictures from a 1963 National Geographic Magazine (Vanity)

Posted by Theoden
On General/Chat 07/30/2006 7:55:44 PM EDT · 36 replies · 631+ views

National Geographic Magazine | December, 1963 | Franc Shor
I found one of my dad's old National Geographic magazines, and it had some neat pictures on the crusades that I thought I would share. Peter Bartholomew, a servent in the Crusader army, told the nobles that St. Andrew had revealed to him the hiding place of the lance that pierced Christ's side at the Crucifiction. Here, after a search beneath the Church of St. Peter, Crusaders gasp as Bartholomew uncovers a corroded lance head. Hope rekindled, the knights broke the Muslim siege the next day.Braving a Rain of Arrows, Europeans Route the Turks on the Plains of Antioch.Crusaders Marching...

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

Posted by Benoit Baldwin
On News/Activism 10/01/2001 4:22:50 PM EDT · 102 replies · 1,025+ views

Bakir Tarabishy's Muslim Reading Room | Article not dated | Bakir Tarabishy
In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate   Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History? By Bakir Tarabishy   The history books that fill our bookshelves are indispensable recollections of past civilizations glories and failures, achievements and abominations. Unfortunately, history can never be completely objective, since it is written by men, and men have a tendency to restrict their thoughts to a single point of view. While history has created in our minds many heroes from murderers, and criminals from saints, one of its greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the ...

How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science

Posted by sarcasm
On News/Activism 10/29/2001 4:27:41 PM EST · 25 replies · 348+ views

The New York Times | October 30, 2001 | DENNIS OVERBYE
asir al-Din al-Tusi was still a young man when the Assassins made him an offer he couldn't refuse. His hometown had been devastated by Mongol armies, and so, early in the 13th century, al-Tusi, a promising astronomer and philosopher, came to dwell in the legendary fortress city of Alamut in the mountains of northern Persia. He lived among a heretical and secretive sect of Shiite Muslims, whose members practiced political murder as a tactic and were dubbed hashishinn, legend has it, because of their use of hashish. Although al-Tusi later said he had been held in Alamut against his will, ...

Arabs Once Dominated Science

Posted by me_newswire
On News/Activism 04/19/2004 11:59:15 AM EDT · 120 replies · 1,045+ views

KSHB | April 13, 2004 | Michael Woods
The Decline of Islamic Science, the Rise of Extremism The United Nations Development Program, in a report published last year, described in often painful detail some of the factors that have contributed to the decline of science and the rise of extremism in Arab societies. Among them are: Increases in average income have been lower in the Arab world than anywhere else for 20 years, except for the poorest African countries. "If such trends continue...it will take the average Arab citizen 140 years to double his or her income, whole other regions are set to achieve that level in a...

Longer Perspectives

Persians Nevertheless: Why Iranians Never Became Arabs

Posted by freedom44
On News/Activism 07/31/2006 10:33:40 PM EDT · 37 replies · 992+ views

Iranian | 7/31/06 | Bernard Lewis
Why this difference? Why is it that while the ancient civilizations of Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, were submerged and forgotten, that of Iran survived, and reemerged in a different form? Various answers have been offered to this question. One suggestion is that the difference is language. The peoples of Iraq, Syria, Palestine, spoke various forms of Aramaic. Aramaic is a Semitic language related to Arabic, and the transition from Aramaic to Arabic was much easier than would have been the transition from Persian, an Indo-European language, to Arabic. There is some force in that argument. But then Coptic, the language...

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Domesday Book Goes Online

Posted by annie laurie
On News/Activism 08/04/2006 8:25:38 PM EDT · 24 replies · 611+ views

Digital-lifestyles.info | 04 Aug 2006 | Simon Perry
Today, a rather old book from the late 11th century England (1086 to be precise) will be brought online to be searched. The Domesday Book, is the earliest surviving survey and valuation of the King, his senior supporters, the land they owned and their resources. If you'd wanted to look through it previously, you had to drag yourself over to the National Archive in a rather calm building in Kew West London, or cough up a couple of thousand pounds to get them on CD. By going to the Domesday Web site, you can search and get an idea if...

Oh So Mysteriouso

Riddle of Mona Lisa is finally solved: she was the mother of five

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/03/2006 9:17:59 PM EDT · 8 replies · 140+ views

Telegraph | 1/08/2004 | Bruce Johnston
After four centuries in which historians have debated the identity of the artist's subject - with theories ranging from his mother to a Florentine prostitute - new research has supported the claim first made in 1550: that she was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant.

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

Gout Forced Charles V Abdication, Study Finds

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/03/2006 6:33:43 PM EDT · 29 replies · 606+ views

Scotsman | 8-2-2006 | Gene Emery
Gout forced Charles V abdication, study finds By Gene Emery BOSTON (Reuters) - Tests of a 500-year-old pinky finger confirm that Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was debilitated by gout and the painful joints it produces, Spanish researchers reported on Wednesday. Jaume Ordi of the University of Barcelona and colleagues used a microscope to examine the tip of one of Charles' pinkie fingers, which was preserved separately from his body in a small red velvet box. After rehydrating and slicing the mummified fingertip, the Ordi team found telltale signs of gout, including the buildup of uric acid crystals. At the...

Confronting Civil War Revisionism: Why The South Went To War

Posted by Sopater
On General/Chat 08/01/2006 10:08:16 AM EDT · 7 replies · 99+ views

Worldview Weekend | 07/31/2006 | David Barton
WallBuilders not only seeks to present an accurate view of American history but through our strong reliance on primary source documents also seeks to expose and rebut instances of revisionism. The dictionary defines revisionism as advocating "the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine; especially a revision of historical events and movements." 1 Many special interest groups over the past sixty years have urged upon the public a revisionist view of history in a manipulative attempt to justify their particular agenda. For example, those who rely on activist courts to advance an agenda they are unable to...

end of digest #107 20060805

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Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #102 Saturday, July 1, 2006
Africa
Does 'lost' Ark exist in Ethiopia?
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 08/18/2002 7:37:37 PM EDT · 36 replies · 1,286+ views The Billings Gazatte \| August 17, 2002 ( Last modified August 17, 2002 - 12:37 am) \| By RICHARD N. OSTLING August 17, 2002 Last modified August 17, 2002 - 12:37 am Does 'lost' Ark exist in Ethiopia? By RICHARD N. OSTLING Associated Press Thanks to Hollywood's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the Ark of the Covenant is one of the most famous objects in the Bible. It's also one of the most mysterious, since the Bible doesn't say what happened to it. Ethiopian Christians, however, believe the ark still exists in their country. The biblical ark signified God's presence among his people. It was a wooden box containing the two tablets of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses...
Faith and Philosophy
Memory in Ruins [Biblical Archaeology]
	Posted by SJackson On Religion 12/01/2003 6:53:28 PM EST · 11 replies · 168+ views Azure \| Winter, 2004 \| David Hazony For nearly a century, biblical archaeology has been a pillar of the Jewish national revival. Its professional approach, combined with its often dramatic capacity to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel, has done much to convince the world that the Bible is not mere myth, but a document that reflects the truth concerning central periods in Israel's history. Today, however, biblical archaeology has reached a crossroads. Seeking to reconstruct the historical record from scratch, a new school of Bible scholars, historians, and archaeologists has argued that nearly every major story of the Hebrew Bible is little more than a fabrication....

Let's Restore Medina to the Jews
	Posted by ml/nj On News/Activism 10/27/2001 9:33:03 AM EDT · 162 replies · 1,514+ views The Dhimmi (Jews and Christians under Islam) \| 1980 (French) 1985 (Translation to English) \| Bat Ye'or From Chapter 1, Historical Outline: In the year 622, on the invitation of the Ansar - a group of pagans converted to Islam - Muhammad and his small band of followers left Mecca for Yathrib (Medina). The population then consisted of polytheistic clans, of Jewish tribes that had long been established in Arabia, and Arabs converted to Judaism. ... The arrival of Muhammad and his followers provoked no opposition from the Jews. ... In 624 Muhammad, joined by more followers, called upon the Qaynuqa, one of the Jewish tribes of Medina, to recognize his prophetic mission. When they refused, he ...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Al Aqsa official: Jewish Temples existed [Cheer and then Barf]
	Posted by Alouette On Religion 06/14/2006 10:52:01 AM EDT · 8 replies · 167+ views YNet \| June 14, 2006 \| Aaron Klein Says Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries indicating mosque was built at site of former Jewish Temples Contradicting most of his colleagues, a former senior leader of the Waqf, the Islamic custodians of the Temple Mount, told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview he has come to believe the first and second Jewish Temples existed and stood at the current location of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The leader, who was dismissed from his Waqf position after he quietly made his beliefs known, said Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries from generation to generation indicating the mosque was...

Al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of Rock Built to Divert Pilgrimage from Mecca, Jerusalem Not Center of Worship
	Posted by SJackson On News/Activism 10/08/2003 2:29:00 PM EDT · 17 replies · 882+ views MEMRI \| 10-8-03 \| Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa Special Dispatch Series - No. 583 October 3, 2003 No.583 Egyptian Ministry of Culture Publication: The Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock were Built to Divert the Pilgrimage from Mecca; Jerusalem was Not the Center of Worship for the Followers of the Prophet Muhammad On August 5, 2003 Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al-Qahira, which is published by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, wrote an article rejecting the established Islamic doctrine that the Prophet Muhammad's celebrated "Night Journey" (Koran 17:1) took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. 'Arafa, presenting a new analysis of the Koranic...

Team believes it found Noah's Ark (In Iran)
	Posted by DannyTN On Religion 06/30/2006 11:26:43 AM EDT · 173 replies · 2,061+ views WorldNetDaily.com \| 6/30/06 \| WorldNetDaily Team believes it found Noah's Ark Returns from Iranian mountain with petrified wood, marine fossils / Posted: June 30, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A 14-man crew that included evangelical apologist Josh McDowell says it returned from a trek to a mountain in Iran with possible evidence of the remains of Noah's Ark. The group, led by explorer Bob Cornuke, found an unusual object perched on a slope 13,120 feet above sea level. Cornuke, president of the archeological Base Institute and a veteran of nearly 30 expeditions in search of Bible artifacts and locations, said he is cautiously,...

CNN: Archaeologists Report 1st Direct Evidence of Jesus
	Posted by jern On News/Activism 10/21/2002 12:04:51 PM EDT · 351 replies · 3,187+ views Oct. 21, 2002 \| CNN BREAKING: Archaeologists Report 1st Direct Evidence of Jesus

Pharaoh's chariots found in the Red Sea? ( Holy Moses! )
	Posted by UnklGene On News/Activism 06/21/2003 1:52:07 PM EDT · 142 replies · 2,797+ views World Net Daily \| June 21, 2003 \| Joe Kovacs MUCH ABOUT HISTORY Pharaoh's chariots found in Red Sea? 'Physical evidence' of ancient Exodus prompting new look at Old Testament / Posted: June 21, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." (Exodus 14:21) One of the most famous stories of the Bible is God's parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites from the Egyptian army and the subsequent...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
King Tut's Necklace Shaped By Fireball
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/26/2006 7:32:58 PM EDT · 42 replies · 1,348+ views The Australian \| 6-26-2006 King Tut's necklace shaped by fireball June 26, 2006 LONDON: Scientists believe they have solved the mystery surrounding a piece of rare natural glass at the centre of an elaborate necklace found among the treasures of Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh. They think a fragile meteorite broke up as it entered the atmosphere, producing a fireball with temperatures over 1800C that turned the desert sand and rock into molten lava that became glass when it cooled. Experts have puzzled over the origin of the yellow-green glass -- carved into the shape of a scarab beetle -- since it was excavated in...
Ancient Egypt
Egypt archaeologists find sarcophagi near pyramids
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 06/25/2006 5:21:40 PM EDT · 17 replies · 183+ views Pharmboy, oops, I mean Yahoo! \| June 25, 2006 \| Reuters ...The sarcophagi, found about a kilometer (0.6 miles) south of the pyramids in Giza, dated to the late 26th dynasty, or about 2,500 years old, council chief Zahi Hawass said in a report by the state MENA news agency. Hieroglyphs referring to the ancient Egyptian gods Osiris, god of the dead, and the sun-god Ra were painted on the larger sarcophagus, which measured about 2 meters (6 ft 6.74 in) tall, 70 cm wide and 60 cm deep and was painted red, blue and green, the report said. The name of sarcophagus' owner, Neb Ra Khatow, and ritual incantations to...
Ancient Greece
Key Archaeological Find At Bulgaria's Veliko Turnovo (Thracians)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/26/2006 10:14:46 PM EDT · 20 replies · 469+ views Sofia Echo \| 6-26-2006 \| Colin Munro Key archeological find at Bulgaria's Veliko Turnovo 09:00 Mon 26 Jun 2006 - Colin Munro A gold Thracian breastplate found near the village of Golemanite, Veliko Turnovo municipality, has proven pivotal to the re-construction of the Thracian Calendar. Using a mathematical model, Ventseslav Tsonev of the Regional Historical Museum in Veliko Turnovo presented his findings at a conference on Treasures and Sacred Typography, held recently in Sliven. "In the Thracians' calendar, there are three seasons and 60 main holidays. A year consisted of 12 months with 360 days, five days being added to the last month every year." As there...
Ancient Autopsies
Archeologists unveil pharaonic tomb
	Posted by DaveLoneRanger On News/Activism 06/28/2006 12:46:51 PM EDT · 8 replies · 592+ views Yahoo! News \| June 28, 2006 \| ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU LUXOR, Egypt - Archeologists on Wednesday fully unveiled the first tomb discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in over 80 years, and cracked open the last of seven sarcophagi inside to reveal embalming materials and jewelry. "This is even better than finding a mummy ó it's a treasure," said chief curator Nadia Lokma, beaming at the sarcophagus packed with fragile remains that would crumble into dust if touched. "It will tell us about the religious plants and herbs used by ancient Egyptians, what they wore, how they wove it, how they embalmed the dead," she said. Dug deep into...
Ancient Europe
Early Signs Of Elephant Butchers (Britain - 400k-Years-Ago)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/29/2006 4:29:06 PM EDT · 15 replies · 397+ views BBC \| 6-29-2006 Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...
Ancient Rome
Why the Romans built a road to nowhere
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 06/28/2006 1:15:58 AM EDT · 25 replies · 382+ views Archant Regional -- where Norfolk really matters \| Tuesday, June 27, 2006 \| Keiron Pim The Romans were a methodical people, not given to acts of folly - so why did they apparently build a road to nowhere? Known as the Peddars Way, it is a typically straight track marching from near Thetford directly through the heart of west Norfolk until it peters out at an isolated coastal spot at Holme, and is now favoured by walkers and cyclists... There was a Roman settlement at nearby Brancaster, known as Branodunum, but if that had been the destination they would surely have gone straight there instead of hitting the coastline and then meandering eastwards for a...
Etruscans
FSU Etruscan expert announces historic discovery at ancient site [ Cetamura ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 06/30/2006 2:35:36 PM EDT · 9 replies · 114+ views FSU News \| June 29, 2006 \| Barry Ray "The building has a highly irregular plan, with stone foundations 3 or 4 feet thick," she said. "One wing of the building is about 60 feet long, flanking a space that has walls running at right angles. Some walls run on a diagonal to the grid, or are curved. There are paved areas alternating with beaten earth floors and what I believe to be a large courtyard in the middle. Some of the foundations are so heavy and thick that they could easily have supported multistoried elements. Within the building's courtyard, de Grummond said, is a freestanding sandstone platform that...
Prehistory and Origins
30,000-Year-Old Relics Reveal Pre-Historic Civilization Along Qinghai-Tibet Railway
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/24/2006 5:47:34 PM EDT · 14 replies · 415+ views China Broadcast - Xinhua \| 6-24-2006 30,000-year-old Relics Reveal Pre-historic Civilization along Qinghai-Tibet Railway 2006-06-24 13:59:42 Xinhua Chinese archaeologists claim that relics unearthed in the areas along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway proved that human beings lived there at least 30,000 years ago. Archaeologists with the Qinghai Provincial Archaeological Institute said they collected large number of chipped stone tools including knives and pointed implements dating back 30,000 years in the Tuotuo River valley, Hoh Xil, a habitat for Tibetan antelopes, and Qaidam Basin, where the railway runs through, during recent excavations. More than 30 stone implements were also discovered at the site of Sancha River bridge on the...
Asia
'Foreigner' Helped Build (Chinese) Terracotta Army
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/28/2006 8:31:31 PM EDT · 22 replies · 589+ views The Guardian (UK) \| 6-28-2006 \| Jonathan Watts 'Foreigner' helped build Terracotta Army Jonathan Watts in Beijing Wednesday June 28, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Chinese archaeologists have unearthed evidence that a foreign worker helped build the Terracotta Army mausoleum, the resting place of the country's first emperor, who died more than 2,200 years ago. The remains of the worker, described as a foreign man in his 20s, were found among 121 shattered skeletons in a labourers' tomb 500 metres from the mausoleum in the north-western city of Xian, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. According to Xinhua, the man may prove to be "China's first foreign worker", though...
India
Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory
	Posted by gnarledmaw On Bloggers & Personal 06/29/2006 1:46:31 AM EDT · 40 replies · 306+ views iVarta.com \| December 12, 2005 \| Prof. Dipak Basu British linguist Max-Muller has invented the Aryan invasion theory that ancient Aryans invade India at about 1500BC, driven out the Dravidians from their land, have imported the Hindu civilization along with Sanskrit language from the steppes of central Asia. The theory was the justification for the British occupation of India, as Winston Churchill remarked. Although there was no archeological evidence to support this theory, it has become the most important doctrine on the ancient Indian history. Although it was opposed by prominent historians like Ramesh Chandra Mazumdar and archeologists like Rakhaldas Banerjee and S.P.Gupta, the pro-British historians of India so...
Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
Another 'Stonehenge' discovered in Amazon
	Posted by K4Harty On News/Activism 06/28/2006 5:09:13 PM EDT · 45 replies · 1,140+ views MSNBC \| June 27, 2006 \| Stan Lehman SAO PAULO, Brazil - A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory ó a find that archaeologists say shows early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed. snip...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Scientists reopen one of world's only urban Ice Age dig sites in Los Angeles
	Posted by annie laurie On News/Activism 06/30/2006 2:57:28 PM EDT · 24 replies · 625+ views OhMyNews \| 2006-06-30 \| ANDREW GLAZER Scientists went to work digging for fossils at La Brea Tar Pits, digging the tooth of a 5-foot (1.5-meter) dire wolf and the toe of a sabertooth tiger from the sticky prehistoric asphalt near downtown Los Angeles. About 10,000 years before the arrival of mammoth traffic jams in the second-largest U.S. city, the two beasts likely got stuck in the goo while hunting a camel, horse or ground sloth, said John Harris, chief curator and head of vertebrate studies at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which oversees the site. ''It's one of the, if not the, richest...
Epigraphy and Language
VINP's Reef Bay Petroglyphs Are Chosen As Possible UNESCO World Heritage Site
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 06/28/2006 12:47:01 AM EDT · 1 reply St. John Tradewinds News (St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands) \| Monday, 26 June 2006 \| Andrea Milam "We proved the authenticity, integrity and chronology of the petroglyphs with the archaeology that was done at Cinnamon Bay," he said. "The data from Cinnamon Bay dates the petroglyphs from as early as 900 A.D. to 1450." The Reef Bay Petroglyphs, above, have been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Agriculture and Domestication
fianl´´urfa To Shed More Light On History Of Civilization
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/24/2006 6:14:51 PM EDT · 19 replies · 391+ views Turkish Daily News \| 6-24-2006 fianl´´urfa to shed more light on history of civilization Saturday, June 24, 2006 fianl´´urfa to shed more light on history of civilization ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The southeastern Anatolian province of fianl´´urfa, considered to be the cradle of agriculture as well as hosting numerous examples of ancient architecture, promises new discoveries to shed light on the history of human evolution in the region. Harran University Assistant Professor Cihan K¸rkÁ¸o?lu noted that every archaeological excavation to be carried out in fianl´´urfa would provide new information on the history of civilization in the region. K¸rkÁ¸o?lu reminded the Anatolia news agency that...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius
	Posted by Jedi Master Pikachu On News/Activism 06/24/2006 9:32:32 PM EDT · 22 replies · 616+ views BBC \| June 24, 2006 Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago. One of the team in Mauritius said it was the first discovery of fully preserved bones which could give clues as to how the bird became extinct. Last year, the team found a number of dodo bones at the site, but said the current find was more "significant". The bird is thought to have been hunted to extinction by European settlers. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set...

Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius
	Posted by sully777 On General/Chat 06/25/2006 2:44:37 AM EDT · 7 replies · 119+ views BBC Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago. One of the team in Mauritius said it was the first discovery of fully preserved bones which could give clues as to how the bird became extinct. Last year, the team found a number of dodo bones at the site, but said the current find was more "significant". The bird is thought to have been hunted to extinction by European settlers. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Battle Treasure On eBay [ raiding historic Scots battlefields ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 06/28/2006 12:52:01 AM EDT · 4 replies · 110+ views Daily Record \| 27 June 2006 \| unattributed Gangs with metal detectors are plundering the nation's heritage and flogging their finds, say archaeologists. One collector is thought to have made thousands of pounds illegally selling items to fans of Oscar-winning movie Braveheart in America... Historian Adrian Murdoch, claims one Texan made almost £5500 selling items he claimed were relics from Scots battlefields including Louden Hill. The Ayrshire site saw Robert the Bruce lead the Scots to victory over the English in 1307.
end of digest #102 20060701

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #103 Saturday, July 8, 2006
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Genealogists discover royal roots for all
	Posted by AntiGuv On News/Activism 07/01/2006 4:23:09 PM EDT · 86 replies · 1,872+ views Associated Press \| July 01, 2006 \| Matt Crenson Actress Brooke Shields has a pretty impressive pedigree -- hanging from her family tree are Catherine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Charlemagne and El Cid, William the Conquerer and King Harold, vanquished by William at the Battle of Hastings. Shields also descends from five popes, a whole mess of early New England settlers, and the royal houses of virtually every European country. She counts renaissance pundit Niccolo Machiavelli and conquistador Hernando Cortes as ancestors. What is it about Brooke? Well, nothing -- at least genealogically. Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually...
Prehistory and Origins
Roots Of Human Family Tree Are Shallow
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/01/2006 7:12:22 PM EDT · 153 replies · 2,233+ views ABC News \| 7-1-2006 \| Matt Clenson Roots of Human Family Tree Are ShallowRoots of the Human Family Tree Are Remarkably Shallow - All Alive Today Share 1 Common Ancestor By MATT CRENSON AP National Writer Jul 1, 2006 (AP) -- Whoever it was probably lived a few thousand years ago, somewhere in East Asia Taiwan, Malaysia and Siberia all are likely locations. He or she did nothing more remarkable than be born, live, have children and die. Yet this was the ancestor of every person now living on Earth the last person in history whose family tree branches out to touch all 6.5 billion people on the...
Africa
Humans Gave Big Cats Ulcers
	Posted by annie laurie On General/Chat 06/30/2006 3:18:14 PM EDT · 17 replies · 221+ views LiveScience.com \| 28 June 2006 \| Ker Than Early humans living in Africa's open savannahs probably made easy pickings for large predatory cats, but a new study suggests that at least one of the meals didn't sit well. A large cat dining on the entrails of one our early ancestors thousands of years ago contracted an ulcer-causing bacteria that spread to lions, cheetahs and tigers and which persists to this day, a new study concludes.
Biology and Cryptobiology
Gene Reveals Mammoth Coat Colour
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/06/2006 3:43:11 PM EDT · 34 replies · 775+ views BBC \| 7-6-2006 \| Rebecca Morelle Gene reveals mammoth coat colour By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News Woolly mammoths had both dark and light coats The coat colour of mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago has been determined by scientists. Some of the curly tusked animals would have sported dark brown coats, while others had pale ginger or blond hair. The information was extracted from a 43,000-year-old woolly mammoth bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said a gene called Mc1r was controlling the beasts' coat colours. This gene is responsible for hair-colour in...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Old found next to new; Dinosaur herd bones uncovered near Edmonton subdivision
	Posted by annie laurie On General/Chat 07/08/2006 12:40:50 AM EDT · 5 replies · 40+ views Halifax Chronicle Herald \| Canadian Press EDMONTON -- Bones belonging to an entire herd of dinosaurs have been found next to a new subdivision in southwest Edmonton. Fittingly, the bones belong to the Edmontosaurus, one of the largest duck-billed dinosaurs. The site contains some of the most complete skeletons scientists have of the dinosaur, and will help answer questions about its migratory habits and its development, said Phil Currie, a University of Alberta paleontologist. "With a herd of dinosaurs we can learn a lot about how they grew up, how they changed as they grew, and differences in individuals," said Currie. "Thatís significant because we rarely...
Agriculture and Domestication
Scientists Debate Role Climate Change Plays In Creating Civilizations
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/07/2006 7:04:55 PM EDT · 30 replies · 319+ views Dispatch.Com \| 7-4-2006 \| Bradley T Lepper Scientists debate role climate change plays in creating civilizations Tuesday, July 04, 2006 BRADLEY T . LEPPER One of archaeologyís "big questions" is explaining the origins of civilization. In anthropology, "civilization" has a technical definition. To qualify as a civilization, a society must have all or most of the following characteristics: cities with large populations; a hierarchical social organization, with a king, pharaoh or president at the top of the organizational chart; an economy based on agriculture; monumental architecture; and a system of record-keeping. The earliest civilizations arose in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and northern China. Based on this...
Ancient Europe
Surgery As Practiced By The Ancients Leaves Long Heritage
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/01/2006 9:45:07 PM EDT · 19 replies · 468+ views Kathimerini \| 7-1-2006 \| Penny Bouloutza Surgery as practiced by the ancients leaves long heritageResearchers find that medical treatments still in use today date from antiquity By Penny Bouloutza - Kathimerini Medical practitioners in antiquity left a wealth of knowledge for doctors of the future: the main principles of the diagnosis of disease and the treatment of injuries have been known since the time of Hippocrates. Stefanos Geroulanos, professor of surgery at Zurich University and director of the intensive-care unit at the Onassis Cardiology Center, said that the first operations were performed in the Neolithic period. "Dozens of skulls have been found with holes drilled in...
Navigation
Replica of 3,300-year-old shipwreck arrives in Bodrum [ Uluburun II ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/02/2006 9:51:33 PM EDT · 8 replies · 68+ views Turkish Daily News (thanks, curmudgeonII) \| Wednesday, June 28, 2006 \| unattributed The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum and sponsored by the Bodrum Peninsula Promotion Foundation started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and was launched in 2005... The [original] Uluburun sank in the 14th century 8.5 kilometers southeast of Kafl in Uluburun Bay while carrying copper and tin from Alexandria to Crete. It was discovered in 1982 by a diver. The remains of the shipwreck were unearthed by an excavation team consisting of archaeologists and divers and the process has lasted over 20 years. Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds...
Anatolia
An epic battle on Homer's gender
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/02/2006 10:46:38 PM EDT · 62 replies · 391+ views The Australian \| July 03, 2006 \| Dalya Alberge (The London Times) Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby is challenging the accepted gender of one of the most influential writers of all time -- the poet who created the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey in the seventh century BC. Dr Dalby said: "There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man." Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature, he said, citing Sappho, the best-known female poet of ancient Greece, and Enheduanna, the woman mentioned on a Sumerian tablet who thus...
Ancient Greece
Keros Mystery Cracked
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/02/2006 6:09:53 PM EDT · 8 replies · 585+ views Athens News \| 7-1-2006 Keros mystery cracked JOHN PSAROPOULOS A panoramic view of the excavation at Kavos on the Cycladic island of Keros ARCHAEOLOGISTS say they have discovered a 4,500-year-old ceremonial centre, the oldest ritual site in Greece. Excavations resumed for a few weeks this summer at Dhaskalio Kavos - Kavos for short - on the tiny island of Keros, after a lull of nearly 20 years. The problem with the site had been that it was disturbed by looters, who made a lucrative trade in the 1960s of the now famous minimalist Cycladic figurines. As a result, archaeologists could never be sure whether...
Ancient Rome
Rome's Ancient Sites Are at Eternal Peril
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/02/2006 11:07:14 PM EDT · 8 replies · 116+ views Forbes \| July 2, 2006 \| Frances d'Emilio From the imposing stone bulk of the Colosseum to the romantic ruins of imperial luxury atop the Palatine Hill, the Eternal City's monuments, once pillaged by foreign conquerors, today face an array of perils old and new. So far, the Colosseum has made it through two millennia, its imposing stone bulk still standing after quakes, lightning strikes, pillaging, traffic tearing round it and subway cars vibrating below. And now, following the terrorist bombings in London and Madrid, the great stadium where gladiators once thrilled the masses is equipped with metal detectors. "The Colosseum is always worrisome because of the threat...

Fountains Still Pride of Rome - Fresh Waters Reflect Papal Generosity + Baroque's Fathers
	Posted by NYer On Religion 07/07/2006 7:43:57 PM EDT · 6 replies · 84+ views Zenit News Agency \| July 7, 2006 \| Elizabeth Lev ROME, July 6, 2006 (Zenit.org).- As Rome temperatures soar, and the sun reflects off the travertine in the Forum and St. Peter's Square, turning the city into a giant kiln, tourists start to view an old attraction with new eyes: the fountains of Rome. While the Trevi and the Four Rivers fountains are always high on people's must-see list, it takes the scorching heat of Roman summer to see these works not only as photo opportunities, but also as examples of the generosity of Papal Rome. The seventy-odd elegant sculpted fountains, as well as hundreds of simple water spigots, ensure...
Ancient Egypt
Documentary Sets New Date For Exodus
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/03/2006 5:26:25 PM EDT · 25 replies · 767+ views Jerusalem Post \| 7-3-2006 \| Etgar Lefkovits Jul. 3, 2006 0:15 \| Updated Jul. 3, 2006 4:57Documentary sets new date for Exodus By ETGAR LEFKOVITS A new documentary by a Canadian Jewish filmmaker argues that the Exodus did happen, but that it took place a couple of hundred years before the commonly-accepted time frame. The Exodus Decoded, a two-hour documentary by award-winning Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, suggests that the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt as recounted in the Bible occurred around 1500 BCE, about 230 years before the date most commonly accepted by contemporary historians. The 10 plagues that smote the Egyptians, according to the Bible,...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Noah's Ark Discovered in Iran?
	Posted by freedom44 On News/Activism 07/08/2006 1:05:17 AM EDT · 214 replies · 3,276+ views National Geographic \| 7/7/06 \| Kate Ravilious High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark. The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range. "It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition. Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge. "We have had [cut] thin...
Faith and Philosophy
Georgian Armenians Indignant with Destruction of Armenian Monuments in Nakhichevan (more Islam)
	Posted by jb6 On News/Activism 12/28/2005 2:20:19 AM EST · 5 replies · 253+ views panarmenian \| 22.12.2005 /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nor Serund (New Generation), the Union of Armenians of Georgia, addressed a letter to Azerbaijani Ambassador to Georgia Ramiz Gasanov to express indignation with the acts of vandalism, specifically the destruction of khachkars (cross-stones), gravestones and monuments in the Armenian cemetery in Old Julfa in Nakhichevan, Nor Serund told PanARMENIAN.Net. A group of representatives of various Georgian NGOs was formed for the further investigation of the above-mentioned fact. The leaders of the organization are hopeful for the support of the Ambassador in relative structures for conduction of a monitoring. The letter addressed to Ambassador Gasanov says in part, "We,...

Medieval cemetery destroyed in border conflict (RoP alert & destruction of the Chistendom)
	Posted by CheyennePress On News/Activism 04/23/2006 4:34:00 AM EDT · 2 replies · 311+ views The Australian \| April 26, 2006 \| Jeremy Page A MEDIEVAL cemetery regarded as one of the wonders of the Caucasus has been destroyed in an act of cultural vandalism likened to the Taliban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001. The Jugha cemetery was a unique collection of several thousand carved stone crosses on Azerbaijan's southern border with Iran. But after 18 years of conflict between Azerbaijan and its western neighbour, Armenia, it has been confirmed that the cemetery has vanished. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based non-government organisation that supports independent journalism, said one of its staff had recently been to the...

Tragedy On The Araxes
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/02/2006 11:06:30 PM EDT · 8 replies · 260+ views Archaeology \| 6030-2006 \| Sarah Pickman Tragedy on the Araxes June 30, 2006 by Sarah Pickman A place of memory is wiped off the face of the Earth. Khachkars of the Djulfa cemetery, c.1987 (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture) On the banks of the River Araxes, in the remote, windswept region of Nakhichevan, is a small area of land known as Djulfa, named for the ethnic Armenian town that flourished there centuries ago. Today, Nakhichevan is an enclave of Azerbaijan. Surrounding it on three sides is Armenia, and on the fourth, across the Araxes, is Iran. Hundreds of years ago, almost all of Djulfa's residents...
Asia
Valuable Han Dynasty Tomb Discovered
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/03/2006 5:48:26 PM EDT · 9 replies · 318+ views People's Daily \| 7-3-2006 Valuable Han Dynasty tomb discovered A large scale Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 25 AD) tomb was discovered at Fengpengling in Wangcheng County in Hunan Province. Piles of yellow cypress wood were found between the coffin and tomb wall, evidence of a typical Western Han Dynasty burial style reserved for a king during that period. Experts who excavated the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tomb in Changsha said that after examining the tomb at Fengpengling they believe the status and rank of the buried person in the tomb and the scale of burial have exceeded that of Mawangdui, another famous tomb...
India
2,300-Year-Old Artefacts May Change Ashoka-Buddhist History
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/04/2006 6:25:30 PM EDT · 41 replies · 684+ views Delhi India Organiser \| July 9, 2006 2,300-year-old artefacts may change Ashoka-Buddhist history (FOC) BHUBANESWAR: Orissa Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies (OIMSEAS) has unearthed some 2,300-year-old artefacts at Jajpur district in Orissa, which, it claimed, could change some historical narratives on the Ashokan period. The description of Chinese pilgrim Hieun-Tsang about Ashoka that he had constructed 10 stupas in Odra country where Buddha had preached may come true. Earlier, historians refused to accept the narrative. We have already analysed five stupas and found three more similar structures,î OIMSEAS Director Debaraj Pradhan told mediapersons here. He said a huge inscribed monolithic stupa along with other...
end of digest #103 20060708

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #104 Saturday, July 15, 2006
Longer Perspectives
Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel.
	Posted by Kimmers On News/Activism 07/10/2006 12:31:28 PM EDT · 37 replies · 1,150+ views ikehillah.org \| Joe McCain There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- "Can Israel Survive?" Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that. Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race of people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Update -- Finds or Fakes?
	Posted by KyHammer On Religion 07/13/2006 9:16:34 AM EDT · 11 replies · 281+ views Biblical Archaeology \| May 16 2006 \| unknown Update -- Finds or Fakes? Forgery Bombshell May 16, 2006 The ossuary inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" has recently been studied by Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority. He has reached startling conclusions that will change the debate over this highly controversial artifact. Printed below is a summary of Professor Krumbein's report; click the following links for the full text of the report and the accompanying photographs. As this is being written, Israeli antiquities collector Oded Golan is being tried in criminal court for forging the now-famous James ossuary inscription ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). A...
Epigraphy and Language
Ancient Christian Inscriptions Found In Uzbekistan
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:32:25 PM EDT · 11 replies · 793+ views UZReport.com \| 7-7-2006 Ancient Christian inscriptions found in Uzbekistan 10.07.2006 15:14:48 Eastern-Sogda Archaeological Expedition of the Science Academies of Ukraine and Uzbekistan found a new epigraphic monument ñ inscriptions in Sogdian language (Iranian language, close to Persian and Tajik) with the use of Armenian graphics (language close to today's Hebrew) - during the excavations of the early medieval Christian monastery in Urgut district of Samarkand region. The ancient engravings like these are a unique discovery. There are only a few of them in the world. Now their number has increased by around twenty. Two years ago, local residents were building a road in...
Ancient Egypt
Greek language engravings discovered in Alexandria
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:48:33 AM EDT · 7 replies · 81+ views Monsters and Critics \| Jul 11, 2006, 15:35 GMT \| Deutsche Presse-Agentur The engravings, which were discovered close to the Amoud al-Sawari monument, are said to date back to the times of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180 AD.) ...The engravings are said to be writings glorifying the supreme ancient Greek deity Zeus along with several other Greek gods... The Amoud al-Sawari monument - also known as the Column of the Horsemen, or Pompey's Pillar - is located in the Karmouz district... The red granite pillar stands 27 metres tall and was erected in honour of Roman Emperor Diocletian in 284 AD.
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Ancient sin city bears fresh fruit [ Stabiae in the Bay of Naples ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:42:50 AM EDT · 11 replies · 115+ views ANSA \| July 11, 2006 \| Denis Greenan Stabiae has been neglected over the years because of its more famous neighbour Pompeii and because, frankly, there wasn't much to see there. But now a key new partnership has been set up to dig the whole area of the ancient 'Gomorrah-on-the-Gulf'. Stabiae was in fact much naughtier than supposedly raunchy Pompeii and things went on there that have would have made a Roman patron - never mind matron - blush. According to Pliny the Elder, who died when Vesuvius belched down its wrath on the Neapolitan resort towns, Pompeii was a place you could safely take your daughters, while...
Ancient Rome
What the Romans did to us [ review of An Imperial Possession Britain in the Roman Empire ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/08/2006 3:49:58 PM EDT · 11 replies · 248+ views London Times \| July 8, 2006 \| book review by Bettany Hughes Marching down Marylebone Road I counted 26 neoclassical columns, then my mobile phone rang: a TV researcher was asking why film fetishises the Roman experience. Past the reconstructed remains of a Temple of Mithras in Queen Victoria Street, a billboard announced that new Romano- British artefacts had been unearthed by London developers, adding to those recently turned up by the Jubilee Line extension. One favourite was a lamp in the shape of a soldierís foot, the wick lit on the big toe. It was a 40-minute journey that sang out Vivat Londinium! Romanis Victoria! In truth I had also travelled...
The Phoenicians
Archaeologists Discover Remains Of Phoenician City (800BC)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/12/2006 5:35:13 PM EDT · 3 replies · 388+ views Typically Spanish \| 7-12-2006 \| MP Archaeologists discover remains of Phoenician city By m.p. Wed, 12 Jul 2006, 21:36 The remains of an Archaic Era Phoenician city have been unearthed in Mezquitilla, VÈlez M·laga. Archaeologists say it is the largest settlement from that period in AndalucÌa, and also one of the largest in the Mediterranean. The excavations have uncovered the remains of a block of houses, covering an area of 40 x 12 metres, although the whole city is said to have covered more than six hectares. Kitchen utensils and dishes have also been discovered intact. The site is what remains of the Phoenician city of...

Archaeologists discover remains of Phoenician city
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/13/2006 1:36:28 AM EDT · 8 replies · 98+ views Typically Spanish \| Wed, 12 Jul 2006, 21:36 \| m.p. The excavations have uncovered the remains of a block of houses, covering an area of 40 x 12 metres, although the whole city is said to have covered more than six hectares. Kitchen utensils and dishes have also been discovered intact. The site is what remains of the Phoenician city of Las Chorreras, founded in the 8th century BC, and abandoned a hundred years later.
Anatolia
Catalhoyuk Excavations Unveil Very Dawn Of Human Civilization
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:40:52 PM EDT · 54 replies · 1,004+ views Turkish Daily News \| 7-10-2006 «atalhˆy¸k excavations unveil very dawn of human civilization Monday, July 10, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News A total of 130 houses have been unearthed to date during excavations at the 9,000-year-old site of Catalhoyuk in Konya's Cumra district, excavation assistant team leader Shahina Farid has said. The first excavations at the site -- considered one of the oldest settlements in the history of mankind, dating back to the Neolithic Age -- were conducted by British archaeologist James Mellart, who uncovered 80 houses during excavations between 1961-1964, according to the Anatolia news agency. Work at the site resumed in 1993...
Ancient Greece
Massive Earthquake Destroyed Ancient City Of Anamurium, Say Scientists
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/08/2006 4:06:50 PM EDT · 47 replies · 725+ views Turkish Daily News \| 7-8-2006 Massive earthquake destroyed ancient city of Anamurium, say scientists Saturday, July 8, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The ancient city of Anamurium, located west of Mersin's Anamur district, was destroyed by a massive earthquake in the sixth century, scientists working at the site announced on Wednesday. Professor Selim ›nan of Mersin University said in a written statement that four fault lines in the triangle formed by the Mut, Ermenek and Anamur districts had been identified during studies conducted over the last two years with Professor Nurdan ›nan. ›nan said the research revealed strong evidence that the ancient city was...
India
Existence Of Under-Sea Temple Claimed
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/10/2006 6:53:55 PM EDT · 21 replies · 713+ views Zeenews \| 7-3-2006 \| Prasaad Bhosekar Existence of under-sea temple claimed By: Prasaad Bhosekar Visakhapatnam, July 03: Archaeologists in Visakhapatnam claim that a centuries-old temple exists two kilometers from Visakhapatnam coast, on the sea bed. While the coastal city of Visakhapatnam is steeped in history, few know that there was a temple called ìVisakeswara Templeî on the coast of the city. Many centuries ago this temple went under the sea due to geological adjustments. According to Professor Gangadharam, who is working on facts regarding this temple, the temple existed centuries ago, but got submerged in the sea. ``From the research I did, I found out that...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Dilmun Calendar Theory Backed
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/11/2006 5:21:15 PM EDT · 18 replies · 392+ views Gulf Daily \| 7-11-2006 \| Geoffrey Bew Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...
Prehistory and Origins
Stone Age Elephant Found at Ancient U.K. Hunt Site
	Posted by ZULU On News/Activism 07/10/2006 5:01:44 PM EDT · 33 replies · 757+ views National Geographic \| July 7, 2006 \| James Owen The 400,000-year-old remains of a massive elephant discovered near London provide the first evidence that Stone Age humans in Britain hunted and ate the ancient animals, scientists say. The early humans butchered the elephant at the kill site and ate the meat raw, the archaeologists add. The male straight-tusked elephant -- a member of the extinct species Palaeoloxodon antiquus -- weighed about 9 tons (9.1 metric tons), twice as large as elephants living today. Workers unearthed the remains in 2004 in the town of Ebbsfleet, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of London (see map of the United Kingdom), during construction of a new...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Cranbrook officials eager to share mastodon find [ Rochester Hills ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 07/12/2006 1:26:41 PM EDT · 4 replies · 41+ views Oakland Press \| July 12, 2006 \| Bob Gross The find, he said, gives residents a window into a time thousands of years ago when beasts such as mastodons and woolly mammoths roamed the familiar hills and glaciercarved valleys of the area... Stafford, who holds a doctorate in archaeology, and Cranbrook geologist John Zawiskie worked from about 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to dig up and remove enough bones from the site to fill a truck bed. Mastodons - ancient relatives of elephants - roamed Michigan from about 3.75 million to 11,000 years ago. There are about 250 sites in the state where mastodon remains have been found,...
Faith and Philosophy
Reason to Believe : A leading geneticist argues that science can lead to faith
	Posted by SirLinksalot On News/Activism 07/09/2006 11:40:40 PM EDT · 205 replies · 2,370+ views Washington Post \| 07/09/2006 \| Scott Russell Sanders Reason to Believe A leading geneticist argues that science can lead to faith. Reviewed by Scott Russell Sanders THE LANGUAGE OF GOD A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief By Francis S. Collins Here we are, briefly, under the sun, one species among millions on a gorgeous planet in the remote provinces of the universe, our very existence a riddle. Of all the words we use to mask our ignorance, none has been more abused, none has given rise to more strife, none has rolled from the tongues of more charlatans than the name of God. Nor has any word been...
Biology and Cryptobiology
When killer kangaroos roamed the earth
	Posted by JR0tten On News/Activism 07/12/2006 4:03:51 PM EDT · 39 replies · 1,156+ views Reuters via MSNBC \| 7/12/06 \| Various SYDNEY, Australia - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. Paleontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom." A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in Australia's northwest Queensland state. Professor Michael Archer said Wednesday that the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolflike fangs were found, as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo. "Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big,...

'Ferocious Fossils' Found in Australia
	Posted by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit On News/Activism 07/14/2006 3:20:09 AM EDT · 15 replies · 435+ views Associated Press \| July 13, 2006 \| Associated Press SYDNEY, Australia ó Before there were cuddly koalas, hoards of flesh-eating kangaroos, "demon ducks," and marsupial lions roamed Australia's Outback, according to recent fossil discoveries by paleontologists. A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales working in the eastern state of Queensland made the discoveries in three new fossil deposits during a recent two-week dig. Many of the fossils are older than 24 million years; one of the deposits is thought to contain fossils up to 500 million years old, according to Prof. Mike Archer, the university's dean of science. A saber-toothed kangaroo and a giant 10-foot-tall,...

Bigger Dinosaurs had warmer blood
	Posted by Mazda3Fan On General/Chat 07/11/2006 1:04:44 PM EDT · 15 replies · 99+ views BBC News The bigger a dinosaur was, the warmer its blood, a study of the big beasts' fossil remains shows.

The Living Was Easy for Young Tyrannosaurs
	Posted by Al Simmons On News/Activism 07/14/2006 5:11:38 PM EDT · 21 replies · 677+ views New Scientist Online \| 7/13/2006 \| Jeff Hecht Youth was easy for big predatory dinosaurs ñ but adulthood and old age much harder to survive, a mass graveyard of tyrannosaur fossils suggests. This first study of dinosaur population distributions shows that most juvenile tyrannosaurs survived to reach sexual maturity, but then their death rate increased sharply in adulthood. This life-pattern is similar to those of long-lived birds and mammals. *SNIP Biologists study population distributions of modern animals by counting individuals and keeping track of deaths. This is not possible for extinct creatures, and fossilised remains are also scant for many dinosaurs. But Erickson turned to the tyrannosaur family...
Ancient Europe
Shells May Represent Oldest Known Beads
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 07/11/2006 5:51:47 PM EDT · 12 replies · 214+ views Science News \| 7-11-2006 \| Bruce Bower Shells may represent oldest known beads Bruce Bower Three sea-snail shells previously discovered at Stone Age sites in Israel and Algeria contain intentionally fashioned holes in their centers, making the finds the oldest known examples of personal decoration, a research team says. HOLE IN TWO. Two perforated shells from an Israeli site dated to between 135,000 and 100,000 years ago appear in different views (top group and bottom group). Vanhaeren, F. d'Errico The trio of perforated shells apparently served as beads, conclude Marian Vanhaeren of University College London and her colleagues. Holes in the shells look nothing like those that...
Britain
Excavation unearths burial site
	Posted by annie laurie On General/Chat 07/12/2006 9:53:59 PM EDT · 5 replies · 52+ views BBC \| 12 July 2006 \| Unattributed Archaeologists believe they may have discovered one of the oldest churches in Scotland during an excavation in Aberdeen. They are awaiting test results which will confirm whether they have uncovered a religious burial site dating back to the 6th Century. The find was made during Scotland's biggest archaeological dig in the east kirk of St Nicholas Church. So far 300 skeletons have been unearthed, far more than expected. The excavation is part of a £5m renovation of the site.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Shakespeare folio brings 5.2 mln dlrs at auction
	Posted by presidio9 On News/Activism 07/14/2006 1:23:49 PM EDT · 6 replies · 132+ views afp \| 07/14/06 A rare and historic collection of plays by English playwright William Shakespeare has been sold at auction in London for 2.8 million pounds (4.1 million euros, 5.2 million dollars). The 17th century First Folio -- the first published collection of Shakespeare's plays -- was bought by a "London book dealer", auctioneers Sotheby's said on Thursday. About 750 copies of the First Folio, which has been described as the most important book in English literature, were originally printed in 1623, seven years after the bard's death. They each contain 36 plays, 18 of which had never previously been printed. Experts believe...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Ripper case notes given to museum (New clue in Jack the Ripper case)
	Posted by CurlyBill On News/Activism 07/14/2006 12:01:23 AM EDT · 22 replies · 780+ views BBC News \| July 13, 2006 \| BBC Ripper case notes given to museum Handwritten notes which name a prime suspect in the 1880s serial killer Jack The Ripper case have taken their place in Scotland Yard's Crime Museum. The notes, donated by relatives of an officer involved in the original investigation, identify Polish barber Aaron Kosminski as the murderer. This marked the re-launch of the museum which features exhibits from famous cases dating back to 1875. The exhibition, which is used in police training, is not open to the public. Relatives of Ch Insp Donald Swanson, the senior investigating officer of the Jack the Ripper case, handed...
end of digest #104 20060715