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The sword, recovered off the coast of Israel, most likely belonged to a knight who fell into the sea or lost the weapon in battle, experts said. Shlomi Katzin attached a GoPro camera to his forehead, slipped on his diving fins and jumped into the waters off the Carmel coast of Israel, eager to go exploring. On the sandy floor of the Mediterranean Sea, he found a sword. Archaeologists would later determine that it was about 900 years old. It weighed four pounds, measured about four feet long and originated from the Third Crusade, experts said. “Oh yes, he was...

The sword was discovered in 2021 by Shlomi Katzin while conducting a study of stone and metal anchors on the seabed. The area was a natural anchorage for ships near Haifa's ancient port city that the Crusaders captured from the Arabs during the early 12th century AD.In a new study published by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the researchers describe how the sword was found covered in a thick marine concretion of sand and shells, making it difficult to separate the metal without causing damage. However, the concretion slowed down the oxidation process, preserving the sword which would have rusted...

ZME Science reports that Shlomi Katzin of the University of Haifa discovered a three-foot-long Crusader-era sword encrusted with shells and sand while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea off Israel’s Dor Beach. The Israel Antiquities Authority soon granted permission to recover the object from the seabed and transfer it to the University of Haifa. A CT scan at a nearby hospital revealed that the sword’s iron blade is severely corroded, yet enough of it survives to indicate that it was likely forged in Europe and belonged to a Frankish knight. “Swords were precious objects, and therefore were carefully cared for and...

Direct link in the "source URL". At stake is that, if there is an attempt to build the Third Temple, it would require demolition of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest religious site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, probably prompting the whole Muslim world, both Sunni and Shi'a, to go to war. Nearly 2 hours. Transcript in the comments.

Today in history: King St. Louis IX scores major victory for Christians over Islamic jihadOn June 6, 1249, King Louis IX of France—better known to posterity as Saint Louis—scored a dramatic victory over the Islamic jihad at the start of the Seventh Crusade.uly 7, 2017 - St. Louis, Missouri - The sunset over the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue of King Louis IX of France in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri.Today in history, on June 6, Louis IX of France – better known to posterity as Saint Louis – scored a dramatic victory over the Islamic jihad.It was late May,...

On July 14, 2022, Al-Qaeda's official media outlet Al-Sahab released a video featuring an audio address by the organization's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The video is the sixth part in a series titled "Deal of the Century or Crusades Spanning Centuries," whose first part was released on September 11, 2020. The fifth part was released on June 14...

A mass grave uncovered in Sidon, Lebanon, has shed new light on the Crusades and on the cruelty of medieval warfare, a new study in the academic journal PLOS ONE has shown. Archaeologists unearthed a large quantity of human bones in the moat of the Saint Louis Castle in South Lebanon. The area was first conquered by the Crusaders after the First Crusade in 1110. Some 150 years later, the Christian city was attacked and largely destroyed by the Mamluks in 1253 and then destroyed even more by the Mongols in 1260. Pursuing the idea of liberating the holy sites...

Their grisly remains show the ugly brutality of the holy wars.Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king. The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and...

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Valparaiso University announced Tuesday that it has adopted the Beacons as its new team name, replacing the Crusaders, a term school officials dropped this year after saying it had been embraced by hate groups. The university's president, José D. Padilla, said the private Lutheran school's new nickname "directly connects to the University's motto, 'In Thy Light We See Light,' and represents the Valparaiso University community in many ways."

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR continue to interest experts, who claimed they had uncovered a "place of power" used by the order and a possible clue that they were on the hunt for the Ark of Covenant. The Catholic military order was active for almost 200 years until their abrupt demise. At the height of their power between the 12th and 13th century, the Templars were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusade period and managed large Christian economic organisations across Europe and the Middle East. But their sudden reduction in power inspired the rise of legends and has seen...

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Valparaiso University announced Thursday that it is dropping the team name Crusaders, the school mascot and all logos associated with the term that it said has been embraced by hate groups. The decision comes after a decadeslong debate that had intensified recently because groups such as the Ku Klux Klan began using the symbols and words. The school's faculty and student senates each passed resolutions calling for the change and the university's alumni board of directors supported reassessing the appropriateness of the team name. The Crusades were a series of bloody religious wars starting in the 11th...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man is charged with providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group, including attempting to buy multiple weapons and scouting potential targets for an attack in the Tampa Bay area, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. A criminal complaint charges Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a potential 20-year prison term. **SNIP** According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari scouted a number of targets in the Tampa Bay region, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field...

Today in history, May 18, 1565, one of the most symbolically important military encounters between Islam and Europe began: the Ottoman Turks besieged the tiny island of Malta, in what till then was considered the heaviest bombardment any locale had been subjected to. Around the start of the sixteenth century, Muslim pirates from Algiers began to terrorize the Christian Mediterranean. Like their terrestrial counterparts, they too were indoctrinated in and emboldened by Muhammad's promises: "A campaign by sea is like ten campaigns by land," the prophet had said, "and he who loses his bearings at sea is like one who...

Archaeological evidence suggested that 25 individuals whose remains were found in a burial pit near a Crusader castle near Sidon, Lebanon, were warriors who died in battle in the 1200s. Based on that, Tyler-Smith, Haber, and their colleagues conducted genetic analyses of the remains and were able to sequence the DNA of nine Crusaders, revealing that three were Europeans, four were Near Easterners, and two individuals had mixed genetic ancestry... ...when the researchers sequenced the DNA of people living in Lebanon 2,000 years ago during the Roman period, they found that today's Lebanese population is actually more genetically similar to...

How to Plan a Crusade: Religious War in the High Middle Ages, by Oxford professor Christopher Tyerman, demolishes the legend that Western crusaders were mere irrational rabble from Dark Age rubble.It is a mark of our hyper-political and hypocritical age that those who are most ignorant of the crusades should condemn the perceived ignorance of medieval crusaders. Sprinkle in accusations of greed, thuggery, and a moral equivalence with ISIS (see former President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015) and it pretty much sums up what many people think they know about the crusades. But popular...

About 700 years ago, a bronze ring depicting St. Nicholas — the saint who inspired the modern-day figure of Santa Claus — slipped off the finger of its owner, likely either a crusader or a pilgrim traveling to the Holy Land. The ring lay buried in the dirt for hundreds of years, until a gardener in Israel found it last week while weeding in Lower Galilee. The gardener, Dekel Ben-Shitrit, 26, turned the unusual ring over to Israel's National Treasures Department, where archaeologists dated the metal artifact to between the 12th and 15th centuries, during the Middle Ages. [The Holy...

The issue is this: In the eyes of some, the Crusader nickname is offensive to non-Christians. Some folks see it as a symbol of slaughters during the 11th-century Holy Wars between the Christians and Muslims. Others would argue that a Crusader is simply someone who is fighting for a cause. Webster’s Dictionary uses both definitions.

For the first time in almost 750 years a Roman catholic Mass has been celebrated in the ancient fortress of the Crusaders, the Krak des Chevaliers. The Mass was celebrated using the Traditional Roman (pre-Vatican II) rite. Video at the linked website.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has warned the US of the “gravest consequences” if Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any other Muslim prisoner is executed. Tsarnaev, named in Zawahiri’s online video message, was sentenced to death by lethal injection last year for the 2013 bomb attack that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Tsarnaev committed the bombing with his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police in the manhunt that followed it. “If the US administration kills our brother the hero Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any Muslim,” Zawahri said in an online video, “[it]...

The BBC has warned English football fans not to dress as crusaders when attending the Euro 2016 tournament this summer as they might cause offence to Muslims. The advice comes via their ‘iWonder’ website, aimed at a younger audience, which asks such pressing questions as “Was Shakespeare a feminist?” and “How green is my commute?” Posing the question: “Is it wrong to dress as a crusader for an England match?” the answer appears to be a resounding “yes”. “Crusaders were the perpetrators of violent attacks across Europe and the Middle East on Muslims, Jews and pagans,” the website intones, suggesting...