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This June, a giant cross was discovered in the remote mountain areas of northern Pakistan, overlooking the river Indus, by a team of researchers from the University of Baltistan in Skardu. Carved out of marble stone, weighing three or four tonnes, and approximately seven feet in height, the cross is believed to be the largest one of its kind found in the Subcontinent. The discovery has generated global interest since it sheds new light on the religious history of the Subcontinent. While the precise era to which the cross belonged is yet to be ascertained through carbon dating, initial...

The Italian peninsula seems to shimmer and shine with history and art, from graceful, full bodied nymphs set against make-believe cypresses and oaks, to crumbling mounds of marble on which lie the almost breathable, almost visible words of lives, songs, and politics past. But before all the art, before the reawakening, before the soldiers cloaked in scarlet and gold, and the senators in their Senate hall...before the reign of emperors and tyrants was a race of peoples whose culture lived on in the greatest empire the world has ever known. They were the Etruscans, a mysterious tribe that scattered throughout...

Saint Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor in the second century AD. A disciple of Saint John the Evangelist, Polycarp died martyr in AD 155 or 156 for refusing to renounce Christianity. His martyrdom was marked by various miraculous prodigies, but foremost among them, perhaps, is the incredible fortitude of the man--who was at least 86 at the time of his trial--and his willingness to speak the truth to power even with the threat of immediate death hanging over his head. Here is an excerpt from the account of his martyrdom, recorded by Saint Irenaeus, in which Polycarp...

John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.(Revelation...

Considering the Crusades in the Context of the Current Conflict with Radical Islamists By: Msgr. Charles PopeRecent and persistent attacks by radical Muslims, especially the most recent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, have many asking what can or should be done to end such atrocities. Military actions by numerous countries, including our own, are already underway. Most feel quite justified in these actions and many are calling for more concerted efforts to eliminate ISIS and related zealots who seem to know no pity, no reason, and no limits. I do not write here to opine on the need for...

On 8/9 November 1997 the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung reported that German and Turks archaeologists, who conducted excavations at the ancient site of Kaunos on Asia Minor coast just across the Greek island of Rhodes, unearthed an inscription in two scripts. The top part is inscribed in the Carian language and the same text is repeated in the lower part in classical Greek. The inscription is a resolution of the city of Kaunos to honor two Athenians, one of whom is Nikokles of Lycekleous a fairly know person and contemporary of Demosthenes. Thus, the stone was safely dated to...

Most Ancient Case Of Tuberculosis Found In 500,000-year-old Human; Points To Modern Health IssuesView of the inside of a plaster cast of the skull of the newly discovered young male Homo erectus from western Turkey. The stylus points to tiny lesions 1-2 mm in size found along the rim of bone just behind the right eye orbit. The lesions were formed by a type of tuberculosis that infects the brain and, at 500,000 years in age, represents the most ancient case of TB known in humans. (Credit: Marsha Miller, the University of Texas at Austin)" ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2007) —...

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...

Just Who Is It That Has God's Blessing? By Chuck Baldwin Food For Thought From The Chuck Wagon February 3, 2004 I constantly marvel at the thinking of today's professing Christians. The majority of them seem incapable of comprehending anything above the spoon-fed diet of religious and political propaganda that is daily disseminated from the ivory towers of "anointed" Christian institutions. In no place is this "sound bite" mentality more apparent than when reference is made regarding those people whom they believe are qualified to speak on their behalf. When speaking of those leaders who seem to have a robot-like...

PARIS (AFP) - The vast group of languages that dominates Europe and much of Central and South Asia originated around 8,000 years ago among farmers in what is now Anatolia, Turkey. So say a pair of New Zealand academics who have remarkably retraced the family tree of so-called Indo-European languages -- a linguistic classification that covers scores of tongues ranging from Faroese to Hindi by way of English, French, German, Gujarati, Nepalese and Russian. Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson, psychologists at the University of Auckland, built their language tree on the same principles as the theory of genetic evolution. According...