[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #222 Saturday, October 18, 2008
Africa
Which way 'out of Africa'?
	10/15/2008 6:33:31 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 221+ views University of Bristol | Monday, October 13, 2008 | Cherry Lewis The widely held belief that the Nile valley was the most likely route out of sub-Saharan Africa for early modern humans 120,000 year ago is challenged in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team led by the University of Bristol shows that wetter conditions reached a lot further north than previously thought, providing a wet 'corridor' through Libya for early human migrations. The results also help explain inconsistencies between archaeological finds... Well-documented evidence shows there was increased rainfall across the southern part of the Sahara during the last interglacial period (130-117...
Prehistory and Origins
Speed-Walking Across Asia
	10/11/2008 10:56:58 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 100+ views ScienceNOW Daily News | Tuesday, October 7, 2008 | Ann Gibbons Chinese paleontologists discovered the two incisors in 1965 and the relatively simple stone tools in 1973 in the Yuanmou Basin... and might be from the species Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of humans that may have been the first human to spread beyond Africa about 1.8 million years ago. Scientists have gotten mixed results for the age of the site because there were no volcanic crystals in the soils for reliable radiometric dating. Lacking solid dates, researchers thought until a decade ago that the earliest humans didn't reach Asia until 1 million years ago. But a series of dates for...
Ancient Europe
Archaeologists find bones from prehistoric war in Germany
	10/11/2008 11:17:03 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 261+ views EarthTimes | Thursday, October 9, 2008 | DPA Archaeologists have discovered the bones of at least 50 prehistoric people killed in an armed attack in Germany around 1300 BC. The signs of battle from around 1300 BC were found near Demmin, north of Berlin. They are the first proof of any war north of the Alps during the Bronze Age, said state archaeologist Detlef Jantzen on Thursday. One of the skulls had a coin-sized hole in it, indicating the 20- to 30-year-old man had received a mortal blow. A neurologist said he was probably hit with a wooden club and died within hours. Scientists plan DNA tests on...
Chalcolithic
Copper Age began earlier than believed, scientists say
	10/11/2008 2:14:49 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 220+ views Monsters and Critics | Tuesday, October 7, 2008 | Deutsche Presse-Agentur Serbian archaeologists say a 7,500-year-old copper axe found at a Balkan site shows the metal was used in the Balkans hundreds of years earlier than previously thought. The find near the Serbian town of Prokuplje shifts the timeline of the Copper Age and the Stone Age's neolithic period, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic told the independent Beta news agency. 'Until now, experts said that only stone was used in the Stone Age and that the Copper Age came a bit later. Our finds, however, confirm that metal was used some 500 to 800 years earlier,' she said. The Copper Age marks the...
Climate
Prehistoric Disaster: An Alpine Pompeii from the Stone Age
	10/11/2008 1:51:16 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 26 replies · 565+ views Der Spiegel | Friday, October 10, 2008 | Matthias Schulz The people of the Mondsee Lake settlement were apparently relatively advanced within this cultural group. They had metallurgical skills, which were rare in Europe. They cleverly searched the mountains for copper deposits, melted the crude ore in clay ovens and made refined, shimmering red weapons out of the metal. In dugout canoes... they paddled along the region's river networks and sold their goods in areas of present-day Switzerland and to their relatives on Lake Constance. Even Otzi the Iceman had an axe, made of so-called Mondsee copper. At approximately 3200 B.C., says Binsteiner, the master blacksmiths were struck by a...
Paleontology
Researcher investigates ancient geology to understand human development, climate change
	10/11/2008 2:20:11 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 127+ views PhysOrg | Friday, October 3, 2008 | Provided by Georgia State University Daniel Deocampo, a Georgia State assistant professor of Geology, is investigating ancient lakes and volcanic ash to help scientists better understand the environment in which humans evolved, and eventually used ash and sediment to build infrastructure in ancient civilizations... His research into volcanic ash that formed sedimentary rocks in Italy and California helps scientists better understand the ways ancient societies, including the Romans, used rocks to create mortar and concrete that, in some cases, was actually more durable than the modern varieties. Over hundreds of years, Romans experimented with different volcanic ash layers to perfect the building materials which would...
Egypt
Raising Alexandria [ from 2007 ]
	10/11/2008 2:56:01 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 14 replies · 234+ views Smithsonian magazine | April 2007 | Andrew Lawler ...in the early 1990s Goddio began to work on the other side of Alexandria's harbor, opposite the fortress. He discovered columns, statues, sphinxes and ceramics associated with the Ptolemies' royal quarter -- possibly even the palace of Cleopatra herself... he has found that much of ancient Alexandria sank beneath the waves and remains remarkably intact. Using sophisticated sonar instruments and global positioning equipment, and working with scuba divers, Goddio has discerned the outline of the old port's shoreline. The new maps reveal foundations of wharves, storehouses and temples as well as the royal palaces that formed the core of the...
Ancient Autopsies
Ephesus necropolis yields rare jewelry find
	10/12/2008 7:04:59 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 280+ views Today's Zaman | Saturday, October 11, 2008 | unattributed New sites have been explored during this season's excavations in Ephesus. Archeologists have been exploring a necropolis housing 55 bodies and 18 pieces of 1,700-year-old golden jewelry in the ancient city of Ephesus, located in the Aegean province of Izmir. The deputy leader of the excavation team, Austrian Sabine Ladstätter, spoke yesterday to the Anatolia news agency and said they had found important archeological remains during this year's Ephesus excavation season, which finished at the end of September, and added that the jewelry they found had been a surprise. Ladstätter noted that they had found a necropolis this year with...
British Isles
Rare finds unearth Teesside link with royalty[UK]
	10/14/2008 7:54:53 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 15 replies · 529+ views Evening Gazette | 14 Oct 2008 | Karen Faughey RARE Anglo Saxon jewellery worth an estimated £250,000 has revealed a fascinating link between East Cleveland and the royal family of 1,400 years ago. Exciting archeological finds dating back to the seventh century have been ruled to be treasure during five separate inquests at Teesside Coroners' Court. Experts have described the finds as "unparallel in the North East' after historians discovered 109 graves near Loftus from around 650AD - one of which is thought to have contained the body of a princess. Though the acidity in the soil means the remains no longer exist, dozens of high status items have...
Rare finds near Loftus reveal royal link
	10/17/2008 1:31:03 AM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 3 replies · 169+ views Evening Gazette | Oct 14 2008 Rare Anglo Saxon jewellery worth an estimated £250,000 has revealed a fascinating link between East Cleveland and the royal family of 1,400 years ago. Exciting archeological finds, dating back to the 7th Century, have been ruled to be treasure during five separate inquests at Teesside Coroner's Court. Experts have described the finds as "unparalleled in the North-east' after historians discovered 109 graves near Loftus from around 650AD - one of which is thought to have contained the body of a princess. Though the acidity in the soil means the human remains no longer exist, dozens of high status items have...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Stonehenge 'was a cremation cemetry, not healing centre'
	10/11/2008 11:21:44 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 356+ views Telegraph | October 9, 2008 | Louise Gray Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetry throughout its history, according to new evidence that divides archaeologists over whether England's most famous ancient monument was about celebrating life or death... The latest evidence is from a team of archaeologists from a number of British universities who have been carrying out excavations over the past five summers... The report said: "We propose that very early in Stonehenge's history, 56 Welsh bluestones stood in a ring 285 feet 6 inches across. This has sweeping implications for our understanding of Stonehenge." The second significant finding was from radiocarbon dating of human remains found...
Prehistoric child is discovered buried with 'toy hedgehog' at Stonehenge
	10/12/2008 11:11:14 AM PDT · Posted by Beowulf9 · 23 replies · 612+ views Mail Online | October 10 2008 | Daily Mail Reporter This toy hedgehog, found in a child's grave at Stonehenge, is proof of what we have always known - children have always loved to play. Archaeologists who discovered the grave, where the child was laying on his or her side, believe the toy - perhaps placed there by a doting father - is the earliest known depiction of a hedgehog in British history. The diggers were working to the west of Stonehenge in what is known as the Palisade Ditch when they made the remarkable discovery last month in the top of the pit in which the child was buried....
The Vikings
Archaeologists dig deep to shed new light on city's Viking heritage
	10/11/2008 11:12:34 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 163+ views Yorkshire Post | Thursday, October 9, 2008 | Paul Jeeves A thousand years ago York ranked among the 10 biggest settlements in Western Europe, but archaeologists have now found the remains of a Viking settlement at the Hungate dig close to banks of the River Foss. The discovery is less than a mile from the remains of similar buildings found during the world-famous Coppergate dig 30 years ago, providing further clues as to the true size of the Viking town of Jorvik... The timber-lined cellar of a two-storey Viking age structure was unearthed more than 10ft below the current street level at Hungate last week, and it is thought...
Faith and Philosophy
Fighting with Jaguars, Bleeding for Rain: Has a 3K-year-old ritual survived in the central Mexico?
	10/12/2008 6:53:48 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 242+ views Archaeology, v61 n6 | November/December 2008 | Zach Zorich In early May I went to the Guerrero highlands to see the celebrations that take place during the Catholic Holy week, which coincides with the beginning of the spring planting season. The people in several mountain towns practice a type of Catholicism that incorporates religious beliefs and rituals that pre-date the arrival of Europeans. The most spectacular of these rituals are the Tigr√© fights. Men in the village of Acatlan dress in jaguar costumes and box each other as a kind of sacrifice to the rain god, Tlaloc. (The goggle-like eyes on their headgear match ancient depictions of both Tlaloc...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Red ochre burials: Greater Nicoya and elsewhere
	10/11/2008 2:07:42 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 113+ views Guanacast Journal, Costa Rica | October 7th or 8th, 2008 | Frederick W. Lange I was only slightly surprised when, in 1978, during excavations at a badly pot-hunted cemetery at the site of Nacascolo on the Bay of Culebra in Guanacaste, we encountered the first Red Ochre burial ever reported from Greater Nicoya. The Nacascolo burial was from approximately 1,200 years ago, making it more than a millennium more recent than the Wisconsin red ochre burials. At Nacascolo, a central male figure was surrounded by carefully sorted piles of the arm and leg bones of previously buried males of apparently more or less the same age, who had been moved aside to make room...
Biology and Cryptobiology
World's Oldest Fossil Impression Of Flying Insect Found In Suburban Strip Mall
	10/15/2008 9:41:17 AM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 13 replies · 494+ views Science Daily | Oct. 15, 2008 paleontologists may scour remote, exotic places in search of prehistoric specimens, Tufts researchers have found what they believe to be the world's oldest whole-body fossil impression of a flying insect in a wooded field behind a strip mall in North Attleboro, Mass. During a recent exploration as part of his senior project, Richard J. Knecht, a Tufts geology major, and Jake Benner, a paleontologist and senior lecturer in the Geology Department, set out to hunt for fossils at a location they learned of while reading a master's thesis that had been written in 1929. With chisels and hammers, the team...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Outcry at scale of inheritance project - NIH launches multi-million-dollar epigenomics programme.
	10/12/2008 11:17:18 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 11 replies · 263+ views Nature News | 10 October 2008 | Helen Pearson The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) handed out the first payments in a multi-million-dollar project to explore epigenomics last month. But some researchers are voicing concerns about the scientific and economic justification for this latest 'big biology' venture. Epigenetics, described as "inheritance, but not as we know it"1, is now a blisteringly hot field. It is concerned with changes in gene expression that are typically inherited, but not caused by changes in gene sequence. In theory, epigenetic studies can help explain how the millions of cells in the human body can carry identical DNA but form completely different cell...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Earliest confirmed TB case found (9,000 years)
	10/15/2008 9:11:40 AM PDT · Posted by Rebelbase · 6 replies · 276+ views BBC | 10/15/08 | staff The 9,000-year-old remains of a mother and her baby discovered off the coast of Israel provide the earliest concrete evidence of human TB, say researchers. The bones were excavated from Alit-Yam, an ancient Neolithic village near Haifa, which has been submerged in the Mediterranean for thousands of years.
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Did Volcanoes Spark Life on Earth?
	10/17/2008 11:08:42 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 22 replies · 425+ views ScienceNOW Daily News | 16 October 2008 | Phil Berardelli Enlarge ImageHumble beginnings. An experiment in the 1950s with primordial gases and sparks produced some of life's building blocks.Credit: Ned Shaw/Indiana University/Science A once-discarded idea about how life started on our planet has been given a new life of its own, thanks to a serendipitous find. The story traces back to the early 1950s, when chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago in Illinois tried to recreate the building blocks of life under conditions they thought resembled those on the young Earth. The duo filled a closed loop of glass chambers and tubes with water...
Cities of Vesuvius
Ancient Roman stadium open
	10/12/2008 7:28:39 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 20 replies · 410+ views UPI | October 10, 2008 | unattributed The Roman stadium where Emperor Antoninus Pius staged Rome's version of the Olympic Games will be open this weekend for the first time in almost 500 years. Archaeologists have so far excavated half of the stadium, which was built of volcanic rock around 142 A.D. near Naples, and was buried by volcanic ash in 1538 following an eruption by Mount Nuovo, ANSA reported Friday. "Like the great Italian culture capitals of Florence, Venice, Rome and Urbino, Pozzuoli can also take advantage of its illustrious past, which is reflowering from the bowels of the earth," said Pozzuoli Mayor Pasquale Giacobbe. In...
The Bloody Games
Tomb of Real 'Gladiator' Found in Rome
	10/17/2008 4:12:50 AM PDT · Posted by NCDragon · 16 replies · 1,022+ views FOXNews/Times | October 16, 2008 | FOXNews Staff Italian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the ancient Roman hero said to have inspired the character played by Russell Crowe in the film "Gladiator." Daniela Rossi, an archaeologist based in Rome, said the discovery of the monumental marble tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, including a large inscription bearing his name, was "an exceptional find." She said it was "the most important ancient Roman monument to come to light for twenty or thirty years." The tomb is on the banks of the Tiber near the via Flaminia, north of Rome. Cristiano Ranieri, who led the archeological team at the site,...
Rome and Italy
Archaeologists unearth place where Emperor Caligula met his end
	10/18/2008 2:30:11 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 6 replies · 549+ views Times Online | 17 Oct 2008 | Richard Owen Archeologists say that they have found the underground passage in which the Emperor Caligula was murdered by his own Praetorian Guard to put an end to his deranged reign of terror. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (AD12-AD41), known by his nickname Caligula (Little Boots), was the third emperor of the Roman Empire after Augustus and Tiberius, and like them a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His assassination was the result of a conspiracy by members of the Senate who hoped to restore the Roman Republic. However the Praetorian Guard declared Caligula's uncle Claudius emperor instead, thus preserving the monarchy. Maria...
Ancient Art
Italy tries to block sale of Bonhams antiquities linked to disgraced dealer
	10/12/2008 7:19:20 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 111+ views Times Online | October 10, 2008 | Dalya Alberge Francesco Rutelli, the former Italian Minister for Culture and Deputy Prime Minister, told the Italian Parliament he had believed that some of the antiquities to be auctioned in London next week had been exported illegally from Italy. In an "urgent question" to Sandro Bondi, his successor as Culture Minister, he accused the centre-right Berlusconi Government, which took power in May, of failing to take action over the illegal export of archaeological treasures. Mr Rutelli later told reporters that he was most concerned about an elaborately decorated Apulian 4th-century BC red krater or Greek vase that forms part of the Bonhams...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Grave Fragment Found: Son of Second Temple High Priest
	10/06/2008 2:11:25 PM PDT · Posted by Nachum · 18 replies · 445+ views arutz 7 | 10-06-08 | Hillel Fendel Archaeologists excavating north of Jerusalem have found a piece of a sarcofagus - a stone coffin - belonging to a son of a High Priest. The visible inscription reads, "the son of the High Priest" - but the words before it are broken off. It thus cannot be ascertained which High Priest is referred to, nor the name or age of the deceased. Many other findings in the excavation are from the late Second Temple period, and archaeologists assume that the High Priest in question lived between 30 and 70 C.E. Yoli Shwartz, Spokesperson for the Israel Antiquities Authority, notes...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Ground Breaking Dig Backs Jesus' Divinity
	10/15/2008 9:48:32 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 113 replies · 1,455+ views SydneyAnglicans | October 8, 2008 | Mark Hadley The Life of Jesus film crew has gained rare access to an archaeological find that cements historical evidence early Christians worshiped Jesus as divine. Dr John Dickson, the series' host and co-founder of the Centre for Public Christianity, will guide viewers through the remains of an ancient prayer hall unearthed at Megiddo in central Israel. "The inscriptions on the mosaic floor are remarkable," Dr Dickson says. "One of them names a benefactor called Gaianus who is described as a centurion. Another mentions a woman called Akeptous who "offered this table in memorial of the God Jesus Christ'." The inscriptions cast...
Epigraphy and Language
History detective
	10/14/2008 1:57:19 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 6 replies · 202+ views The Daily Inter Lake | Sunday, Oct 12, 2008 | Michael Richeson Maybe it's a trick of the mind. Maybe it's conditioning from too many Indiana Jones movies, but Flathead County's records building has the same feel as a rare books collection in a library or a grandparent's attic. The gathering of history somehow reaches out from the stacked boxes and emits a feeling of mystery and depth. In less dramatic terms, the building is just a shell filled with metal shelves and white boxes. But standing in an aisle, surrounded by documents that date back to the late 1800s, the place does feel like Jones' warehouse. Harrison Ford, however, has never...
Civil War
Impact Of Geology On The U.S. Civil War: War From The Ground Up
	10/11/2008 11:27:10 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 44 replies · 473+ views ScienceDaily | October 7, 2008 | Geological Society of America Whisonant and Ehlen also studied the terrain at Antietam, the site of the bloodiest battle in the Civil War, where on 17 September 1862 up to 23,100 soldiers were killed, wounded, or declared missing. "What's so striking at Antietam," says Whisonant, is that "two geologic units underlie [that area]. One is a very, very pure limestone that as it erodes it literally melts. Mostly what you get with that is a very even, level, open surface -- there just aren't a lot of deep holes and high hills that give soldiers a place to hide." On one area of this...
Clef Notes
Manhattan's historic Tin Pan Alley is up for sale
	10/14/2008 11:28:16 AM PDT · Posted by weegee · 5 replies · 292+ views AP via Yahoo | Thu Oct 9, 9:32 AM ET | no byline Tin Pan Alley, the home of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and other great American songwriters, is up for sale. Five buildings on West 28th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea district are being offered as a group for $44 million. A listing on real estate Web site Loopnet recommends that the buildings be torn down and a high-rise take their place. Preservationists and tenants aren't happy... Tin Pan Alley housed a concentration of music publishers and songwriters from the 1890s to the 1950s.
Longer Perspectives
Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall is in Delafield (WI) Through Monday
	10/17/2008 2:44:57 PM PDT · Posted by Diana in Wisconsin · 3 replies · 69+ views JSOnline | October 16, 2008 | Mike Johnson Delafield, WI - Jeanette Dow and John Phillip Kronschnabel Jr. peer at a black wall containing name after name of fallen soldiers, their index fingers sliding over them in search of two men from Black River Falls who died in the Vietnam War. Dow, of Sullivan, knew the men and their parents. When she heard that the Moving Wall, a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was coming to Delafield, she and her grandson, Kronschnabel, decided to visit it Thursday to pay tribute to the two soldiers and honor the other men and women who made...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
In Israel, Remembering The Yom Kippur War
	10/08/2008 12:10:34 PM PDT · Posted by IsraelBeach · 10 replies · 286+ views Israel News Agency / Google News | October 8, 2008 | Joel Leyden In Israel, Remembering The Yom Kippur War By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----October 8, 2008 .....As I wrote the below account 5 years ago, the first time retracing steps taken thirty-five years ago during Yom Kippur in Israel and the US in October 1973, memories began to pour back along with the anxiety and tears that we all experienced at the time. For many of us, the scars of war will never heal. Nor should they. Sitting in the relative safety of a suburban Long Island home, I first heard news reports of Arab armies attacking Israel on...
end of digest #222 20081018

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #222 20081018 · Saturday, October 18, 2008 · 30 topics · 2109087 to 2103203 · 690 members ·
	Saturday Oct 18 2008 v 5 n 13 view this issue	Welcome to the 222nd issue. Not sure how this one looks, or how big it will be. I have to be at work at 8 AM, and worked today, and uncharacteristically had a party to go to tonight, s'fun. Anyway, I pulled out some decent clothes, and looked nice for about an hour, when I spilled some kind of finger food on myself. Glad the hosts have a dog. President McCain. Vice-President Palin. November 2008 -- Be There. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #223 Saturday, October 25, 2008
Revenge of the AV Club
Edwardian London Comes to Life (Amazing Movie footage from 1904)
	10/24/2008 11:58:14 AM PDT · Posted by mojito · 129 replies · 2,298+ views Powerline | 10/24/2008 | John Hinderaker This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time: movie footage of London shot in 1904. This clip is an excerpt from a 12-minute long video that was made as a travelogue to lure visitors from Australia. It is a fascinating and all too brief glimpse into the vibrant, teeming London of Sherlock Holmes:
Lost film footage of Edwardian London discovered
	10/24/2008 9:39:38 PM PDT · Posted by 6SJ7 · 48 replies · 1,162+ views Telegraph.co.uk | Oct 24, 2008 | Stephen Adams A historian has discovered film footage of Edwardian London that includes fascinating snapshots of people going about their everyday lives. The film was shot in 1904 as a 'travelogue' for Australians curious about life in what was "one of the most exciting cities anywhere", according to Professor Ian Christie. He discovered the 12 minute reel while trawling through archives in Canberra. Prof Christie said: "It's a rather clever mixture of what we would expect to see - such as the Embankment, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square - but it also has these wonderful close ups of individuals.
Not-so-Ancient Art
PHOTOS: Unusual Rock Art Trove Found in Australia
	10/23/2008 5:24:32 PM PDT · Posted by Goonch · 49 replies · 913+ views nationalgeographic Paintings of sailboats, ocean liners, and biplanes adorn newfound rock shelters in the remote Aboriginal territory of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Researchers working with Aboriginal elder Ronald Lamilami discovered thousands of the paintings--including the largest rock-art site in Australia--during an expedition in August and September 2008. (See full story.) "It is the most important Ö rock art in the whole world" that shows contact with other cultures, said lead researcher Paul Tacon of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.
Ancient Art
The treasure trove making waves
	10/19/2008 2:10:38 AM PDT · Posted by csvset · 11 replies · 803+ views BBC | 18 oct 2008 | Simon Worrall Ten years ago, at a spot known locally as "Black Rock", two men diving for sea cucumbers came across a large pile of sand and coral. Digging a hole, they reached in and pulled out a barnacle-encrusted bowl. Then another. And another. They had stumbled on the oldest, most important, marine archaeological discovery ever made in South East Asia, an Arab dhow - or ship - built of teak, coconut wood and hibiscus fibre, packed with a treasure that Indiana Jones could only dream of. There were 63,000 pieces of gold, silver and ceramics from the fabled Tang dynasty, which...
Africa
Ancient Egypt had powerful Sudan rival, British Museum dig shows
	10/20/2008 5:51:32 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 138+ views Telegraph | October 16, 2008 | Stephen Adams The Second Kushite Kingdom controlled the whole Nile valley from Khartoum to the Mediterranean from 720BC to 660BC. They discovered a ruined pyramid containing fine gold jewellery dating from about 700BC on a remote un-navigable 100-mile stretch of the Nile known as the Fourth Cataract, plus pottery from as far away as Turkey. Other finds included numerous examples of ancient rock art and 'musical' rocks that were tapped to create a melodic sound. They only made the discoveries after being invited by the Sudanese authorities to help excavate part of the Merowe region, which is soon to be flooded by...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Egyptologists use high-tech software to analyze construction of Great Pyramid
	10/21/2008 6:14:48 AM PDT · Posted by Mike Fieschko · 7 replies · 425+ views physorg.com | October 21, 2008 | Sumathi Reddy and Nia-Malika Henderson Using cutting edge technology, Egyptologist Bob Brier of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University delved into the only standing wonder of the ancient world, the Great Pyramid, and uncovered the mystery behind cracks in the massive Egyptian structure, unearthing a new room along the way. Brier, French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin and a team of software specialists from Dassault Systems in Paris used 3-D modeling software to determine that the burial chamber's stone support beams cracked as final construction of the Giza wonder was near completion 4,500 years ago. The team discovered that the cracks occurred when three...
Egypt
Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Egyptian Temple near Pomorie [ Roman Empire era Bulgaria ]
	10/20/2008 5:47:05 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 155+ views News.BG (Bulgarian News) | October 16, 2008 | Diana Stoykova Remains of a temple complex dedicated to the cult of Isis and Osiris were discovered in the Paleokastro region in Pomorie. The temple dates back from the second century A.C., announced Burgasinfo. The building was built on the grounds of an ancient Thracian pagan temple, claim the archaeologists. "There are many temples in Bulgaria, connected to Isis and Osiris, but this is the first temple complex, discovered through the means of archaeology", explains Sergey Torbanov, leader of the diggings. During this season the main street in Anhialo was also discovered. The site of the diggings is put under security. The...
Rome and Italy
Message in a Bottle [History of wine snobbery]
	12/26/2005 11:56:44 PM PST · Posted by LibWhacker · 7 replies · 332+ views New York Times | 12/24/05 | Tom Standage [ . . . ] The Romans were the first to use wine as a finely calibrated social yardstick - and thus inaugurated centuries of wine snobbery . . . Pliny the Younger, writing in the late first century A.D., described a dinner at which the host and his friends were served fine wine, second-rate wine was served to other guests, and third-rate wine was served to former slaves. [ . . . ] Just how seriously the Romans took the business of wine classification can be seen from the story of Marcus Antonius, a Roman politician who in 87...
British Isles
Gold brooch find a first for Norfolk[UK][Roman]
	10/20/2008 8:11:46 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 4 replies · 325+ views EDP 24 | 20 Oct 2008 | LORNA MARSH The first example to be recorded in Norfolk of a very rare gold Roman brooch was found by a metal detector, it hasd been revealed. Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service (NMAS) is now keen to acquire the "significant" piece, which dates from the third or fourth century, in order to keep it in the county after it was found in a field in Gunthorpe. Dr Andrew Rogerson, head of the Finds Identification and Recording Service within the NMAS said it was unique within the county and important in the context of our understanding of the late Roman period. "It is...
Epigraphy and Language
The Portraiture of Caligula in Right Profile- AR Denarii: The Imagery and Iconography- Joe Geranio
	04/23/2006 6:15:10 PM PDT · Posted by Joe Geranio · 11 replies · 274+ views The Portraiture of Caligula | 4/22/06 | Joe Geranio For photos at portraitsofcaligula.con under basesclaudius tab For some time now I have been fascinated with the portraiture of Caligula in the round! He has typically been portrayed in the round (typology)1 , and his physiognomy. as follows, but first Most of these portraits are based upon official portraits, we can assume as Caligula (Princeps) wished to be portrayed some twelve to 30 sculptural likenesses of Caligula have survived,2 but these identifications can be quite subjective due to familial assimilation. Caligula's characteristics typical are:...
Genghis Khan
Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Technologies
	10/20/2008 5:40:28 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 399+ views ScienceDaily | October 17, 2008 | University of California, San Diego Once he was below ground, his men brought in horses to trample evidence of his grave, and just to be absolutely sure he would never be found, they diverted a river to flow over their leader's final resting place. What Khan and his followers couldn't have envisioned was that nearly 800 years after his death, scientists at UC San Diego's Center for Interdisciplinary Science in Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3) would be able to locate his tomb using advanced visualization technologies whose origins can be traced back to the time of the Mongolian emperor himself... Lin and several colleagues...
Central Asia
Burial of Mongol Yoke Period Discovered in Vladimir
	10/20/2008 5:34:52 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 115+ views Russia-IC | October 15, 2008 | unattributed, Source: oreanda.ru Remains of people, who presumably perished during inroad of Mongol leader Batu Khan on Vladimir, were found yesterday not far from the well-known Golden Gates of Vladimir. For almost eight centuries the remains had been lying in the ground unknown. According to the Chief Architect of Vladimir Archeological Centre Tatiana Mukhina, five skeletons were found. The experts assume it was an Old Russian burial, judging by ceramics that was discovered during clearing of the mortal remains. The earthen ware probably can be dated to the early 13th century. All of them perished during one of the Mongol forays, most probably...
Asia
Balhae Castle Unearthed
	10/20/2008 5:31:18 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 144+ views Chosun news in English | October 2008 | unattributed A castle-sized mound of the Balhae Kingdom has been unearthed in Primorsky Kray, Russia. The ruins confirm that Balhae (698-926) stretched even to the 45th to 46th parallels and was the indisputable successor to Koguryo (37 B.C.-668 A.D.). The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage made the announcement Thursday. From Sept. 3 until Oct. 2 in cooperation with the history, archeology and folklore research center at the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the NRICH excavated the ruins of Pyeongji Castle in the Koksharovka-1 area of the Chuguevskiy rayon district east of Lake Xingkai in the Russian...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Peruvian archaeologists have made the most exciting find in the country for a generation
	10/21/2008 2:43:14 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 13 replies · 979+ views ITN | 21 Oct 2008 | ITN They have confirmed the discovery of two 3,000-year-old temples in the Collud-Zarpan complex, some 500 miles north of the capital Lima. The two structures formed part of a large ceremonial area that belonged to the Cupisnique culture, according to Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva. He saids: "We have here a monumental staircase of 25m in width. The rest is a polychromatic relief with images of the spider god, and we also have a part behind of what would be a temple that extended at least 500m south." The archaeologist said the discovery ranks as one of Peru's most important religious finds...
Prehistory and Origins
Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists
	10/20/2008 6:31:46 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 478+ views Telegraph | October 19, 2008 | Jonathan Wynne-Jones ...researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes. Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands. While the use of such paraphernalia for inhaling drugs is well-known, the age of the bowls has thrown new light...
Greece
Grog of the Greeks [ barley beer, honey mead, retsina wine ]
	10/20/2008 5:05:51 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 32 replies · 346+ views New Scientist | November 27, 1999 | Stephanie Pain Scholars have always suspected that the ancients had odd tastes. If you believe Homer, wise old Nestor, veteran of the Trojan War, enjoyed a few scrapings of goat's cheese and a dollop of honey in his wine. And Homer might have been right: archaeologists often find little bronze cheese graters in later Greek graves which they think were part of a drinking kit. But until now there has been no good evidence that the Minoans and their mainland neighbours the Mycenaeans knew how to brew beer or mead, let alone mixed them into cocktails. After painstaking chemical analysis of cups,...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
World's first dog lived 31,700 years ago, ate big
	10/20/2008 8:36:28 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 37 replies · 879+ views Discovery | 17 Oct 2008 | Jennifer Viegas Discovery could push back the date for the earliest dog by 17,700 years An international team of scientists has just identified what they believe is the world's first known dog, which was a large and toothy canine that lived 31,700 years ago and subsisted on a diet of horse, musk ox and reindeer, according to a new study. The discovery could push back the date for the earliest dog by 17,700 years, since the second oldest known dog, found in Russia, dates to 14,000 years ago. Remains for the older prehistoric dog, which were excavated at Goyet Cave in Belgium,...
Australia and the Pacific
Stolen artefacts point to lost Philippines tribe
	10/24/2008 8:27:11 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 6 replies · 111+ views Telegraph | 24 Oct 2008 | Thomas Bell Archaeologists in the Philippines believe they have discovered evidence of a lost tribe in sacks of broken pottery seized from antiquity smugglers. Twenty-two sacks of pottery, including burial urns sculpted in human form believed to be more than 2,000 years old, were found loaded on a tricycle in Sarangani province on the Filipino island of Mindanao in August. It is thought that they originated in the neighbouring province of Sultan Kudarat, but the precise location remains a mystery and there are fears that the tribe has in effect been lost again because the artefacts were moved by treasure hunters. A...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Genetic-based Human Diseases Are An Ancient Evolutionary Legacy
	10/19/2008 5:50:29 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 14 replies · 198+ views Science Daily | Oct. 19, 2008 Tomislav Domazet-Loöo and Diethard Tautz from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plˆn, Germany, have systematically analysed the time of emergence for a large number of genes - genes which can also initiate diseases. Their studies show for the first time that the majority of these genes were already in existence at the origin of the first cells. The search for further genes, particularly those which are involved in diseases caused by several genetic causes, is thus facilitated. Furthermore, the research results confirm that the basic interconnections are to be found in the function of genes - causing...
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Middle Ages and Renaissance
French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt
	10/24/2008 6:41:43 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 65 replies · 791+ views The Telegraph | 10/24/2008 | Peter Allen and Nabila Ramdani in Agincourt The French are using the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt to accuse England's men of acting like 'war criminals'. Exactly 593 years after King Henry V's legendary victory, a revisionist conference will be held at the scene of the triumph. Academics will suggest that the extent of the feat of arms was massively exaggerated, with claims that the English were hugely outnumbered a lie. More controversially still, they will say that the foreign invaders used numerous underhand tactics against an honourable enemy. These included burning prisoners to death and setting 40 bloodthirsty royal bodyguards on to a single Gallic...
Civil War
Scientists Discover New Clue in Mystery of Sunken Civil War Submarine
	10/20/2008 8:26:45 AM PDT · Posted by Joiseydude · 23 replies · 989+ views FoxNews.com | Monday, October 20, 2008 It's long been a mystery why the H.L. Hunley never returned after becoming the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship in 1864, but new research announced Friday may lend credence to one of the theories. Scientists found the eight-man crew of the hand-cranked Confederate submarine had not set the pump to remove water from the crew compartment, which might indicate it was not being flooded. That could mean crew members suffocated as they used up air, perhaps while waiting for the tide to turn and the current to help take them back to land....
Climate
Ancient microbes made giant magnets - Magnetic fossils show how climate change creates new extremes
	10/20/2008 6:44:17 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 17 replies · 495+ views Nature News | 20 October 2008 | Ashley Yeager Spearheading: scanning electron microscopy reveals a large magnetofossil from an unknown organism surrounded by smaller magnetofossils from bacteria. Scientists have unearthed giant magnetic fossils, the remnants of microbes buried in 55-million-year-old sediment. The growth of these unusual structures during a period of massive global warming provides clues about how climate change might alter the behaviour of organisms. Some bacteria, both living and fossilized, contain magnetite -- magnetic iron oxide crystals -- that the organisms are thought to use to navigate, orienting themselves along the magnetic field lines of the Earth. But the new fossils are "unlike any magnetite crystal...
Longer Perspectives
The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave In The Rocks?
	10/20/2008 10:23:55 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 53 replies · 493+ views ScienceDaily | October 5, 2008 | University of Leicester [The author] takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years... Dr Zalasiewicz said: "From the perspective of 100 million years in the future ‚Ä" a geologist's view ‚Ä" the reign of humans on Earth would seem very short: we would almost certainly have died out long before then. What footprint will we leave in the rocks? What would have become of our great cities, our roads and tunnels, our cars, our plastic cups in the far distant future?...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Scene of grisly mob slaying has haunted past
	10/19/2008 7:42:55 PM PDT · Posted by CurlyBill · 11 replies · 626+ views AP | 13 Oct 08 | Colleen Long It is a fitting backdrop for a ghost story: An old mansion on a secluded hilltop sits empty, save for a caretaker who lives upstairs. A no-trespassing sign is staked near the locked metal gates, and the stately grounds are covered in thistles.
Paleontology
Dinosaur Dance Floor: Numerous Tracks at Jurassic Oasis on Arizona-Utah Border
	10/20/2008 3:24:35 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 16 replies · 314+ views Science Daily | Oct. 20, 2008 University of Utah geologists identified an amazing concentration of dinosaur footprints that they call "a dinosaur dance floor," located in a wilderness on the Arizona-Utah border where there was a sandy desert oasis 190 million years ago. Located within the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, the "trample surface" (or "trampled surface") has more than 1,000 and perhaps thousands of dinosaur tracks, averaging a dozen per square yard in places. The tracks once were thought to be potholes formed by erosion. The site is so dense with dinosaur tracks that it reminds geologists of a popular arcade game in which participants dance...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Villagers killed in battle over Mayan archaeological site
	10/20/2008 11:01:08 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 4 replies · 168+ views 3 News | Mon, 06 Oct 2008 Five police officers have been arrested in the deaths of four villagers during a raid against protesters who had seized the entrance of a Mayan archaeological site. The Chiapas state Justice Department says the five officers headed the operation to remove hundreds of mostly indigenous villagers who had occupied the entrance of the Chinkultic ruins for nearly a month. The villagers were protesting excessive entrance fees and a lack of investment in the area. They were demanding a role in the administration of the ruins. The protesters fought police with sticks, rocks and machetes. The Justice Department says four villagers...
end of digest #223 20081025