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An inscription carved into a 2,100-year-old hand-shaped amulet from northeastern Spain seems to be related to Basque and may be a rare example of an ancient language spoken in Europe more than 5,000 years ago.In a new study, published Tuesday (Feb. 20) in the journal Antiquity, researchers revealed that the inscription is the oldest and longest ever found in a Vasconic language, a group of languages that includes modern Basque. Until now, the only known ancient Vasconic texts were mainly from a few words written on coins from the region, the researchers said.Archaeologists unearthed the amulet in 2021 at the...

Archaeologists From The Aranzadi Science Society First Uncovered The Hand Of Irulegi In 2021, During Excavations Of An Ancient Settlement At The Base Of Castillo De Irulegiko Gaztelua Near Pamplona, Spain.The object dates from the 1st century BC during the Roman Sertoria Wars (80 to 72 BC), a period of conflict between a faction of Roman rebels (Sertorians) and the government in Rome (Sullans).According to archaeologists, the hand was placed over a door for protection, but the settlement was burned and then abandoned, leaving the object buried in the ruins of a mud-brick house.It is suggested that the hand was...

Basque hotels are where the locals eat, and in the rural west the locals prefer meat, potatoes, beans and dozen old-fashioned, garlicky side dishes, not tapas. This is why the Basque places seem locked in the past, because the people who eat at them are conservative in every sense of the word, ranchers, farmers, miners and the people who make their living servicing those industries. The Basque sheepherders, despite the barrier of language and religion, fit right in to the culture of the West. After 1876, the Basque most likely to come to America were the losers of the Carlist...

Hi Guys, I found this in the attic. My father was in the WWII and he made Normandy. This emblem is on a dark green "Genuine Basque Beret" that was made in England. I searched the whole internet and can't identify it. I even tried google image search. Thank you The patch has a black background. The two gold stripes are outlined with red stitches. The rest is gold stitches.

(PHOTOS-AT-LINK) Agustin Otxotorena, a Basque executive living in Caracas, grew tired of constant calls from friends and relatives in Spain telling him that there was no food in Venezuela, so on May 20 he began publishing photos on Facebook of supermarkets in upscale sectors of Caracas filled with goods. In addition to showing evidence of an abundance of food stuffs, Otxotorena also analyzed the situation. He concluded that there are two countries in Venezuela—one where "there are many people having a hard time, who don’t have the money to live,” and another where there is "an upper class that has...

A Biological Dig for the Roots of Language By NICHOLAS WADE Correction Appended Once upon a time, there were very few human languages and perhaps only one, and if so, all of the 6,000 or so languages spoken round the world today must be descended from it. If that family tree of human language could be reconstructed and its branching points dated, a wonderful new window would be opened onto the human past. Yet in the view of many historical linguists, the chances of drawing up such a tree are virtually nil and those who suppose otherwise are chasing a...

Like vultures, the worldwide press is starting to celebrate the anticipated disintegration of Spain. The Catalans are determined to go.  Considering that Catalonia is the richest province in Spain (by absolute numbers), Spain would suffer an economic hit should Catalonia go. However, always alongside the separatist Catalans are the Basque, who have the highest per capita output in Spain – but only one third the population base.  Navarre Province (which is heavily Basque in the north) came in second per capita in 2010.  Madrid was a mere third per capita, but much of that is artificial wealth, because the national bureaucracy...

Thousands of people gathered in northern Spain on Sunday to demand a referendum vote for the independence of the country’s Basque region. Demonstrators holding long lengths of cloth formed human chains across several Basque cities, including the capital of Vitoria, Bilbao and San Sebastian. Many of the protesters wore the colors of the Basque flag -- red, white and green. The demonstration was organized by the pro-independence Gure Esku Dago ("It's in Our Hands") group, and was backed by several separatist parties and local figures. Spain’s Basque community has long asserted that it should be independent of the country, and...

Basques can now safely visit Iceland without the threat of being killed on sight. P In a small town on the western coast of Iceland last week, authorities finally revoked a 400-year-old order that allowed Basques to be killed on sight. For the last four centuries people hailing from the Basque Country could have been legally hunted down and killed had they dared to step foot in Iceland. But last week, authorities finally repealed an order issued 400 years ago that led to the massacre of 32 Basque whalers. It came about after three Basque whaling vessels entered a fjord...

417 animals were analysed in all: 147 pottokas, 163 Basque mountain ponies, 62 Jacas Navarras and 45 of the Burguete horse breed. Two of these breeds are heavy or given over to meat production (Jaca Navarra and Burguete); on the other hand, the other two are considered to be lightweight breeds... one can observe a gradient between the autochthonous breeds: the pottoka has had the least external influence and the Burguete breed the most... The results show that the four native breeds are related to each other; above all there are geographical relations: the pottoka with the Basque mountain pony...

LONDON: British prime minister David Cameron apologized on behalf of his country Tuesday for the 1972 slaughter of 13 Catholic demonstrators in the Northern Ireland town of Londonderry, an outrage that became known as "Bloody Sunday." In a solemn statement to the British House of Commons, Cameron said that a mammoth, 12-year investigation into the killings left no doubt that the soldiers confronting crowds of Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry's hard-line Bogside district mowed down unarmed protesters without provocation. "What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong," Cameron said, as a crowd watching him from Londonderry...

SAN SEBASTIÁN, Spain, December 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The appointment of Bishop José Ignacio Munilla to the diocese of San Sebastian in northern Spain, has been repudiated in a letter signed by a majority of priests of the diocese. Since the rejection early in 2009 by the Austrian bishops conference of the pope's pick for bishop of Linz, some European bishops and priests have stepped up their defiance of papal wishes on appointments and Catholic teaching.  The letter said that Bishop Munilla is "not suitable" for the post and said the appointment would "discredit the ecclesiastical life of our diocese."...

AFP - Two suspected ETA militants arrested in France earlier this week have been charged with conspiracy to collaborate with a terrorist organisation, a legal official said Saturday. Police apprehended 30-year-old Aitor Elizaran in a car park at the wheel of a stolen car in the Brittany seaside town of Carnac on October 19, along with a woman suspect, 32-year-old Oihana Sanvicente. Both were carrying loaded weapons at the time and have also been charged with firearms offences, possession of false documents, and car theft, the official said. The pair had been renting a studio at the holiday resort where...

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AFP) – Police in Spain's northern Basque Country arrested an ex-leader of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the armed separatist group ETA, and eight other militants accused of seeking to rebuild the party, judicial and police sources said. Former Batasuna spokesman Arnaldo Otegi was held in the city of San Sebastian along with a top union leader and three other Basque militants suspected of having tried to "reform the leadership of Batasuna on the instructions of ETA," a judicial source said. The interior ministry said later that four other "leaders of the independentist left" had been...

MADRID (AFP) – Security forces in France on Saturday arrested the suspected military chief of ETA, the third top leader of the Basque separatist organisation to be captured in the last six months, Spanish national radio said. Jurdan Martitegi was detained along with two other ETA suspects in the vicinity of the southern French city of Perpignan in an operation carried out in cooperation with Spanish security forces, the radio said, quoting anti-terrorist sources. The French interior ministry said three ETA suspects were arrested in the village of Montauriol, but it did not identify them. Spanish news reports said Martitegi...

For traditional Basques the pictures, symbols and words found scraped onto pieces of third century pottery dug up near the town of Nanclares, in northern Spain, included miraculous evidence that their unique language of Euskara was far older than ever thought. Eighteen months ago the dig's director, Eliseo Gil, claimed that some finds at the Roman town known as Veleia were on par with those at Pompeii or Rome itself. Basque nationalists bristled with pride... Now a committee of experts has revealed those jewels to be fakes... The hunt is on for an archeological fraudster who defaced fragments of third...

In search of the lost Sahara 05/15/2008 A team of Basque and Sahrawi archaeologists is making the first catalogue of the prehistoric heritage of the Western Sahara. Archaeologists doing some research. Photo: EiTBThe region of Tiris, a vast desert area south of Western Sahara, is the work field of the Basque-Sahrawi expedirion researching the past of this inhospitable place of the planet. A team of Basque archaeologists led by Andoni Sáenz de Buruaga, a professor at the Basque public university UPV, is visiting the Western Sahara for a fifth time. "We presented our research project to the Sahrawi Government in...

via translation - The boat tuna freezer basque Bakio Beach this Sunday has been assaulted by pirates while fishing seems to be "off the coast of Somalia, has informed the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Basque Government, which has ensured that the pirates have taken control of the boat. Apparently, according to this source, the pirates had attacked the ship with rocket-propelled grenades Spanish, although there have been no injuries among the crew of fishing. A total of 26 people make up the crew of Bakio Beach: 13 of African descent and 13 Spanish origin -5 them...

Ancient DNA: reconstruction of the biological history of Aldaieta necropolis A research team from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology & Animal Physiology in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and led by Ms Concepción de la Rúa, has reconstructed the history of the evolution of human population and answered questions about history, using DNA extracted from skeleton remains. Knowing the history of past populations and answering unresolved questions about them is highly interesting, more so when the information is obtained from the extraction of genetic material from...

Isaías Carrasco, 42, former Socialist councilor, has been murdered half an hour ago in the Basque region, before his wife and daughter. Spain will hold next Sunday the first National elections after 3/11.