Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #41 Saturday, April 30, 2005
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Africa
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Ancient Tombs Found Near Obelisk
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 8:14:25 PM PDT · 14 replies · 469+ views
BBC | Tuesday, 26 April, 2005 The obelisks mark the graves of Axum's ancient rulers Archaeologists have found a vast new network of royal tombs in Ethiopia, near the site where the 1,700-year-old Axum obelisk is to be re-erected. Experts using sophisticated imaging equipment discovered the burial chambers, even older than the obelisk, under a 1963 car park, said the UN. The stone monoliths were originally erected to mark burial sites for deceased members of the aristocracy. The final piece of the Axum obelisk was flown home from Italy on Monday. The whole structure - seen as a national religious treasure - is to be re-erected...
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Anatolia
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Russian Culture Official Suggests Legendary Gold Collection From Troy Unlikely be Returned Germany
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Posted by LibWhacker On News/Activism 02/27/2005 2:03:19 AM PST · 17 replies · 466+ views
AP | 2/27/05 MOSCOW (AP) - A legendary collection of gold objects from ancient Troy seized by Soviet troops in Berlin in 1945 should become Russian government property, a top Russian cultural official said in remarks published Saturday. But Anatoly Vilkov, deputy chief of the Russian agency that preserves the nation's cultural legacy, stopped short of ruling out the objects' return, as quoted by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The gold collection - excavated by amateur German archaeologist Hermann Schliemann - will be made federal property after it is inventoried, he said. It could be exhibited in Germany but only if its return is...
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Ancient Egypt
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Archaeologists Unearth Seals Used on Pharaonic Desert Missions (Needed Red Paint)
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/29/2005 4:35:50 PM PDT · 19 replies · 482+ views
Middle East Times | April 29, 2005 CAIRO -- Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a number of rare Pharaonic seals of soldiers sent out on desert missions in search of red paint to decorate the Pyramids, Egypt's culture minister said on April 28. The 26 matchbox-sized seals belonged to Cheops, who ruled from 2551 to 2528 BC, in whose honor the greatest of the great pyramids of Giza southwest of Cairo was built, and show Pharaonic soldiers' ranks, the MENA news agency quoted Farouq Hosni as saying. "These seals were used by a mission sent by Cheops to collect ferric oxide, which is necessary to make red paint,"...
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Ancient Greece
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Mycenaean Port of Athens Found?
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/29/2005 9:40:45 PM PDT · 3 replies · 211+ views
Kathimerini | 4-28-2005 Archaeologists in the capital's southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens's first port before the city's naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron -- after which the modern suburb was named -- was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. 'This is a port associated with two myths -- Theseus and the Argonauts -- ...
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Mycenaean Port Of Athens Found
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/28/2005 11:00:05 AM PDT · 14 replies · 493+ views
Kathimerini | 4-28-2005 Mycenaean port of Athens found? Archaeologists in the capital's southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens's first port before the city's naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday. A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron -- after which the modern suburb was named -- was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily. 'This is a port associated with two myths -- ...
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Asia
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Archaeologist Warns Tomb Raiding Rife in Asia
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:32:38 AM PDT · 13 replies · 205+ views
ABC | Sunday, April 24, 2005 The head of the global body of archaeologists says the theft of sacred and historical artefacts is a huge problem in Asia. Claire Smith, an Adelaide-based academic, says this weekend's return of the second part an ancient Ethiopian obelisk, looted by the Italians in the 1930s, highlights the importance of restoring lost history. Dr Smith, head of the World Archaeological Congress, says Asia suffers particularly from looting. "It is a big problem in Asia and you can see objects in Asia, say, Buddhas that have had their heads chopped off, and the heads are stolen, and I think things like...
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Biology and Cryptobiology
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Loch Ness Monster Finally Identified???
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Posted by Beowulf9 On News/Activism 04/07/2005 9:31:30 PM PDT · 190 replies · 6,674+ views
emediawire.com | April 7th, 2005 | William McDonald Loch Ness Monster Finally Identified Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, finally identifies what Loch Ness Monster may be. (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- After nearly 1,500 years of conjecture, it appears the Loch Ness Monster may finally be identified. According to American Forensic Artist and private investigator William McDonald, the famous lake monster known as 'Nessieî is neither a plesiosaur or prehistoric reptile, but a real, predatory species of water animal possessing the ability to hunt on land. In the winter months of 2004, McDonald photographed tracks left by a large animal on a mud-covered Loch Ness shoreline...
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Catastrophism and Astronomy
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Earth's Magnetic Field Weakens 10 Percent (and some other stuff)
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Posted by NormsRevenge On General/Chat 12/12/2003 6:26:01 PM PST · 13 replies · 113+ views
Yahoo News | 12/12/03 | Andrew Bridges - AP SAN FRANCISCO - The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years, raising the remote possibility that it may collapse and later reverse, flipping the planet's poles for the first time in nearly a million years, scientists said Thursday. At that rate of decline, the field could vanish altogether in 1,500 to 2,000 years, said Jeremy Bloxham of Harvard University. Hundreds of years could pass before a flip-flopped field returned to where it was 780,000 years ago. But scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union cautioned that scenario is an...
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Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located
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Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/24/2005 8:18:25 PM PDT · 31 replies · 294+ views
Scientific American (online) | April 20, 2005 | Sarah Graham Jafar Arkani-Hamed of McGill University discovered that five impact basins--dubbed Argyre, Hellas, Isidis, Thaumasia and Utopia--form an arclike pattern on the Martian surface. Three of the basins are well-preserved and remain visible today. The locations of the other two, in contrast, were inferred from measurements of anomalies in the planet's gravitational field... a single source--most likely an asteroid that was initially circling the sun in the same plane as Mars--created all five craters. At one point the asteroid passed close to the Red Planet... and was broken apart by the force of the planet's gravity. The resulting five pieces subsequently...
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India
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Queen's Remains Are Still Elusive
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/24/2005 12:03:21 PM PDT · 5 replies · 264+ views
Deccan Herald | 4-24-2005 | Devika Sequeira Queen's remains are still elusive Devika Sequeira in Panaji The Archaeological Survey of India's 20-year search for the relics of Queen Ketevan in Old Goa has ended in disappointment. But the excavations offer an intriguing and significant insight into 16th century Goa. Setting to rest a debate that has engaged historians and archaeologists for over 20 years, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) announced earlier this week that though it had managed to locate the 'burial siteî of Queen Ketevan of Georgia amidst the ruins of the St Augustine complex in Old Goa, the queen's remains were not at the...
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Let's Have Jerusalem!
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Biblical clue found on ancient shrine
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Posted by yonif On News/Activism 11/20/2003 9:32:53 PM PST · 42 replies · 191+ views
CNN | Friday, November 21, 2003 | AP <p>JERUSALEM (AP) -- A barely legible clue -- the name "Simon" carved in Greek letters -- beckoned from high up on the weather-beaten facade of an ancient burial monument.</p> <p>Their curiosity piqued, two Jerusalem scholars uncovered six previously invisible lines of inscription: a Gospel verse -- Luke 2:25.</p>
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Origins and Prehistory
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ANCIENT BONE MAY BE FROM NEANDER THAL
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/24/2005 1:18:10 PM PDT · 18 replies · 463+ views
Western Daily Press | 23 April 2005 New research yesterday revealed a West archaeological treasure is more ancient and important than first thought. Discovered in Kents Cavern, Torquay, Devon, in 1927, the fragment of jawbone containing three teeth had been dated as being 31,000 years old. The new analysis, using radio carbon dating, has pushed that date back to between 37,000 and 40,000 years ago, meaning this ancient West resident could be a Neanderthal and not modern human, as previously thought. If the Neanderthal theory is correct, it will prove that the race reached Britain earlier than thought. "Kents Cavern gets more and more interesting all the...
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Oldest Fossil Protein Sequenced [from Neanderthal]
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Posted by PatrickHenry On News/Activism 03/15/2005 7:20:27 AM PST · 156 replies · 1,873+ views
Max Planck Society | 08 March 2005 | Staff An international team, led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, have extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old. It is rare to recover protein of this age, and remarkable to be able to determine the constituent amino acid sequence. This is the oldest fossil protein ever sequenced. Protein sequences may be used in a similar way to DNA, to provide information on the genetic relationships between extinct and living species. As ancient DNA rarely survives, this new method opens...
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Archaic Genes in Modern People?
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Posted by Lessismore On News/Activism 04/23/2005 8:30:41 PM PDT · 98 replies · 1,790+ views
Science Magazine | 2005-04-22 | Elizabeth Culotta MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN--About 1200 researchers gathered near the shores of Lake Michigan here from 5 to 9 April to discuss early Englishmen, the birth of modern humans, and Stone Age weapons. In the past 15 years, a flood of genetic data has helped propel the Out of Africa theory into the leading explanation of modern human origins. DNA from mitochondria (mtDNA), the Y chromosome, and ancient humans each suggest that the ancestors of all living people arose in Africa some time after 200,000 years ago, swept out of their homeland, and replaced archaic humans around the globe without mixing with them....
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Modern Humans Made Their Point
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Posted by Lessismore On News/Activism 04/23/2005 8:34:30 PM PDT · 55 replies · 783+ views
Science Magazine | 2005-04-22 | Ann Gibbons MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN-- Long before guns gave European explorers a decisive advantage over indigenous peoples, our ancestors had their own technological innovation that allowed them to dominate the Stone Age competition: the projectile point, launched from bows or spear throwers. Paleolithic hunters shooting spears or arrows tipped with these small stone points could stay at a safe distance while hunting a wide assortment of prey--or other humans, says archaeologist John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York. Projectile launchers might even be the key to modern humans' triumph when they entered the Neandertal territory of Europe about 40,000 years ago,...
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New Evidence Challenges "Out-of-Africa" Hypothesis of Modern Human origins
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Posted by TigerLikesRooster On News/Activism 04/28/2005 7:33:06 AM PDT · 38 replies · 930+ views
Red Nova | 04/27/05 New Evidence Challenges "Out-of-Africa" Hypothesis of Modern Human origins New evidence challenges "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins WUHAN, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale...
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New Evidence Challenges Hypothesis Of Modern Human Origins
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 05/01/2005 11:54:10 AM PDT · 41 replies · 756+ views
Xinhuanet/China View | 4-27-2005 | Xinhuanet New evidence challenges hypothesis of modern human origins www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-27 17:00:01 WUHAN, April 27 (Xinhuanet) - - Chinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale excavation launched in the Qingjiang River...
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PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis
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JOURNEY OF MANKIND (The Peopling Of The World)
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/25/2005 5:11:40 PM PDT · 41 replies · 895+ views
The Bradshaw Foundation | Unknown | Stephen Oppenheimer This is the result of a DNA study done by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer and funded by The Bradshaw Foundation. As you go on the journey, here are some things I would like you to make note of and I would appreciate your comments:1. 135-115,000 years ago, notice that the first human excursion out of Africa failed/Died out.2. 74,000 years ago Toba exploded and reduced the worldwide human population to 2-10,000. Note the (about) 10,000 year absence of humans in India, Pakistan and parts of SE Asia. Also, there are two populations of 'out of Africa' humans that are seperated from...
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Ancient Europe
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Jawbone Hints at Earliest Britons
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 7:54:35 PM PDT · 12 replies · 252+ views
BBC | Paul Rincon A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly 80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in Europe. The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old, but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years old. However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal. A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort this out. The fragment of maxilla (upper jaw) containing three teeth was unearthed in Kent's Cavern,...
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Major Bronze Age Haul Unearthed (UK)
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/26/2005 5:18:02 PM PDT · 11 replies · 463+ views
BBC | 4-26-2005 Major Bronze Age haul unearthed More than 140 pieces have been recovered from the garden A large haul of Bronze Age artefacts has been uncovered by a gardener. The 145 items, dating from about 800BC, were found by Simon Francis as he landscaped the grounds of a house in Cringleford, near Norwich. Norfolk County Council archaeologists say the haul is one of the largest and most significant they have known. Curator of archaeology Alan West said: "The items are in good condition and the more items we find the better knowledge we can develop of the era." It is very...
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Oldest rock art in Britain: 12,800 years
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/24/2005 1:40:48 AM PDT · 25 replies · 633+ views
Telegraph (UK) | 22/04/2005 | Roger Highfield, Science Editor Hard evidence that the engravings of women and extinct creatures at Creswell Crags are more than 12,800 years old is published today, making them Britain's oldest rock art. Creswell Crags, on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, is riddled with caves which contain preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings were found on the walls and ceiling depicting animals such as the European Bison, now extinct in Britain, female dancers or birds - depending on the view of the archaeologist - and intimate female body parts. Dating rock art is difficult, especially if there are no charcoal-based black...
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Medieval and Renaissance Europe
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Buddha statue from 6th c found in Viking hoard in Helgo, Sweden
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Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/26/2005 11:26:07 PM PDT · 11 replies · 222+ views
Biblical Archaeology Review | March/April 2005 | "Worldwide" editor This fifth or sixth century A.D. statue of the Buddha from northern India was found in a Viking treasure horde on the Swedish island of Helg. Globalization is clearly not a recent phenomenon... [F]ew people got around as much as the Vikings. From their Scandinavian coves they visited, raided, traded with and settled in lands from Newfoundland to Baghdad. They conquered Britain, terrorized Ireland and France, settled Iceland, raided Spain and ranged throughout the Mediterranean basin. They established a major presence in Russia, the Ukraine and the Crimea, sending their longboats down the Volga into the Black Sea. They raided...
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DNA Shows Celtic Hero Somerled's Viking Roots
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Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/26/2005 10:52:12 AM PDT · 52 replies · 847+ views
Scotsman | 4-26-2005 | Ian Johnson DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT A HISTORIC Celtic hero credited with driving the Vikings out of western Scotland was actually descended from a Norseman, according to research by a leading DNA expert. According to traditional genealogies, Somerled, who is said to have died in 1164 after ousting the Vikings from Argyll, Kintyre and the Western Isles, was descended from an ancient royal line going back to when the Scots were living in Ireland. But Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University professor of human genetics who set up a company called Oxford Ancestors to research people's...
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Treasure Found on Haddiscoe Island
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/22/2005 11:52:08 PM PDT · 22 replies · 927+ views
EDP24 | 23 April 2005 | STEPHEN PULLINGER When Roger Cole stepped out of his Land-Rover on Haddiscoe Island, near Yarmouth, he put his foot on what he thought was a pile of old Co-op dividend tokens. On closer inspection, the foreman of the flood defence work site realised they were silver coins and quickly picked up around 200 of them. An expert from Norfolk Landscape Archaeology (NLA) was called in and found a further 100 in the tracks made by a bulldozer. The coins are dated between 1550 and 1646, and the theory of NLA finds liaison officer Dr Adrian Marsden, based at The Castle Museum, Norwich,...
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Oh So Mysteriouso
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Ancient Manuscript Discovery has 'Da Vinci Code' Touch (Claims to have Bible Figure Biographies)
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Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/30/2005 5:08:57 PM PDT · 21 replies · 1,109+ views
Scotsman | Thu 28 Apr 2005 | Gemma Collins and Vicky Shaw An ancient document likened to something which could have been featured in best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code was being analysed at a top auction house for its significance today. The manuscript, believed to date from the 17th century, contains biographical details of every person in the Bible. It was unearthed in the depths of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth where it had been kept in storage for Llandovery College, an independent school near the Brecon Beacons. It was among about half of the school's archive of books which were taken to the library around 50 years ago....
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The Oak Island Mystery...What lies at the bottom of the Money Pit?
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Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 07/25/2002 2:22:59 PM PDT · 83 replies · 1,374+ views
The Oak Island Mystery | FR Post July 2002 | Bradley Keyes What lies at the bottom of the Money Pit? Imagine yourself walking through the trees of a wooded island rumored to hide buried pirate treasure. Suddenly you come across a depression in the ground. It's roughly circular and there's a tree standing above it with a branch that has been cut and appears to have been used as a pulley. Your imagination is fired and hope soars. You run off to get your friends and digging equipment. You and two friends return the next day, shovels in hand, ready to claim your prize. The digging is easy. The dirt...
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end of digest #41 20050430
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