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German Scientists: Europe's Oldest Script Found in Bulgaria Lifestyle: 18 May 2005, Wednesday. Ancient tablets found in South Bulgaria are written in the oldest European script found ever, German scientists say. The tablets, unearthed near the Southern town of Kardzhali, are over 35-centuries old, and bear the ancient script of the Cretan (Minoan) civilization, according to scientists from the University of Heidelberg, who examined the foundings. This is the Cretan writing, also known as Linear A script, which dates back to XV-XIV century B.C. The discovery proves the theory of the Bulgarian archaeologists that the script on the foundings is...

Museum curator credited with finding oldest 'steel' The Yomiuri Shimbun Two pieces of metal unearthed at colonial ruins in Turkey have been deemed the world's oldest examples of a crude type of steel, dating back to 1800 B. C.The discovery has been credited to Hideo Akanuma, senior curator at Iwate Prefectural Museum, who tested the pieces, which were excavated in 1994 at the Kaman-Kalehoyuk ruins, 100 kilometers southeast of Ankara. Both pieces measure between one and two centimeters long and about one centimeter wide and were excavated by archaeologists of the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan, who started digging...

Archaeologists find 'Britain's oldest shoe' James Sturcke and agencies Tuesday May 10, 2005 A 2,000-year-old shoe uncovered at a Somerset quarry. Photograph: Exeter Archaeology/PA Archaeologists excavating a quarry in Somerset claim to have found Britain's oldest shoe, believed to be 2,000 years old. They said the shoe, which was found at Whitehall Quarry, near Wellington, was the equivalent to a modern size 9 or 10, and was so well preserved that the stitching and lace holes were visible in the leather. It was taken to a specialist conservation centre in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and was expected to go on display at...

Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue' Krysia Diver in Stuttgart Monday April 4, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Stone-age figurines depicting what could be the oldest pornographic scene in the world have been unearthed in Germany. Archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the 7,200-year-old remnants of a man having intercourse with a woman. The extraordinary find, at an archaeological dig in Saxony, shatters the belief that sex was a taboo subject in that era. Until now, the oldest representations of sexual scenes were frescos from about 2,000 years ago. Harald Stäuble of the Archaeological Institute of Saxony, based in Dresden,...

Excavation unearths oldest archaeological site in UAE By Prerna Suri 8 February 2005 DUBAI — The oldest archaeological site in the UAE dating back to 7,000 years, has been discovered on the island of Marawah, located about 100km west of Abu Dhabi, according to Dr Mark Beech, Senior Resident Archaeologist for the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey (ADIAS). Dr Beech disclosed the findings at a lecture organised by the Dubai Natural History Group which was attended by a large crowd. The lecture covered important findings and discoveries by ADIAS during their excavation in 2004 including a skeleton of what is...

DALLAS - J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree, the nation's oldest known bank robber, who turned to crime in his 80s and said the robberies made him feel good for days afterward, died in a prison hospital. He was 92. A spokesman for the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., said Rountree was transferred there shortly after his sentencing in January for a bank holdup in Abilene when he was 91. He died Oct. 12, two months shy of his 93rd birthday. The Abilene job was the last of three bank robberies Rountree began in 1998, when he was...

The Lagoa Santa (or "Luzia") Group (Minas Gerais, Brasil) A skull belonging to a roughly 20 year old woman was unearthed in Brazil by the French archaeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire in the 1970s. She died before being able to do much work on her dicovery. Annette Laming-Emperaire at work in her Lapa Vermelha excavation. The skull was later re-discovered by Brazilian Prof. Walter Neves and analyzed. He also excavated more remains in the same cemetery-like site where the original "Luzia" had been found. Neves named the ancient lady "Luzia" in analogy to the famous and much older African "Lucy" - the...

Europe's oldest wooden staircase found in Austria Tue Oct 12, 1:05 PM ET Science - AFP VIENNA (AFP) - A 3,000-year-old wooden staircase has been found at Hallstatt in northern Austria, immaculately preserved in a Bronze Age salt mine, Vienna's Natural History Museum said. "We have found a wooden staircase which dates from the 13th century B.C. It is the oldest wooden staircase discovered to date in Europe, maybe even in the world," Hans Reschreiter, the director of excavations at the museum, told AFP. "The staircase is in perfect condition because the micro-organisms that cause wood to decompose do not...

Chinese archaeologists find 'world's oldest earrings' July 27, 2004 Chinese archaeologists have discovered earrings they believe are the oldest found in the world. The jade earrings, which date to between 7500 and 8200 years ago, were unearthed at the Xinglongwa culture site in Chifeng city in Inner Mongolia, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The jade rings, called "Jue" in old Chinese, have diameters that measure 2.5 to six centimetres. Liu Guoxiang, head of an archaeological team under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said it was "magnificent" that the earrings were found in pairs that were almost similar in...

Remains of oldest inhabitant of Abu Dhabi found (By a staff reporter) 30 June 2004 ABU DHABI - Remains of the earliest-known inhabitant of Abu Dhabi have been found on the western island of Marawah by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, as part of their spring excavation season, it was announced on Tuesday. Marawah is part of the Marawah Marine Protected Area, MPA, which is managed by Abu Dhabi's Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA). The excavations were carried out at the site of a 7,000 year old village which has the best-preserved and most-sophisticated stone buildings...

Oldest Christian church possibly discovered in Jordan: report www.chinaview.cn 2004-06-22 15:08:03 AMMAN, June 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The earliest known Christian church in Jordan was discovered, if the preliminary dating of the remains as first to second century A.D. proves correct, the local newspaperJordan Times reported Tuesday. Director of Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Adnan Hadidi, told the newspaper that the church was found during the third season of excavations at Artemis Temple and its vicinity in Jerash,about 50 km south of Amman. The excavations have been carried out by the department in cooperation with the Italian Archaeological Center of Oriental Research...

SHAITIYA, Lebanon (June 15) - A Lebanese woman who has documents saying she was born in 1877 -- making her at least 126 years old -- could be the oldest person in the world. Hamida Musulmani, frail and wrinkled but still working on her family's farm in south Lebanon, showed Reuters this week a document from Lebanon's 1932 census which lists her birth year as 1877. Musulmani holds 10-month-old Mohammed, her youngest descendant. She feels well, she said, but complained of failing sight. Local officials said her papers were authentic, although they date from a year when she would already...

Woman Recognized as World's Oldest Dies in Puerto Rico at 114 Ian James/Associated Press May 31, 2004 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Ramona Trinidad Iglesias Jordan, who at age 114 was recognized as the world's oldest person, has died after a bout with pneumonia, her family said Monday. Iglesias died Saturday in a nursing home in San Juan, said Rene Matos, a great nephew who lives in El Paso, Texas. She was three months from turning 115. "I was hoping she could make it to her 115th birthday, but it was impossible," Matos said by telephone from Texas. "She...

Oldest Evidence of Bedding Found By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Evidence of Oldest Bedding May 5, 2004 — An Upper Paleolithic camp, once submerged by the waters of the Sea of Galilee, has yielded the world's oldest evidence of bedding, according to Israeli archaeologists. Known as Ohalo II, the site was abandoned by Stone Age fishermen and hunters nearly 23,000 years ago, following a flood. "Calm, relatively deep, water covered the site, and the immediate deposition of fine clay and silt layers began. Together, the water and sediments sealed the site and protected the remains for millennia," archaeologist Dani Nadel...

'Silver scrolls' are oldest O.T. scripture, archaeologist says Feb 27, 2004 By Gary D. Myers Significant scrollGabriel Barkay, in silhouette, shows a picture of how one of the silver scrolls looked shortly after it was removed from the tomb at Ketef Hinnom. Scholars determined that the scrolls were inscribed with the ‘priestly blessing’ found in Numbers 6:24-26. Photo by Gary D. Myers NEW ORLEANS (BP)--While excavating a burial tomb near Jerusalem in 1979, Gabriel Barkay uncovered the oldest known copy of Old Testament scripture. The priestly blessing, recorded in Numbers 6:24-26, was discovered on two small silver scrolls dated to...

Fossil find is oldest land animal Scientists have decided that a fossil found near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire is the remains of the oldest creature ever to live on land. It is thought that the one-centimetre millipede which was prised out of a siltstone bed is 428-million-years-old. Experts at the National Museums of Scotland and Yale University have studied the fossil for months. They say the find is the earliest evidence of a creature living on dry land, rather than in the sea. The discovery on the foreshore of Cowie Harbour was made by an amateur fossil hunter, Mike Newman. To...

World's most mysterious book may be a hoaxThe Voynich manuscript may be elegant gibberish. 17 December 2003 JOHN WHITFIELD Using a Cardan grille the manuscript could have been written in three months. © G. Rugg A strange sixteenth-century book may be cunningly crafted nonsense, says a computer scientist. Gordon Rugg has used the techniques of Elizabethan espionage to recreate the Voynich manuscript, which has stumped code-breakers and linguists for nearly a century1. "I've shown that a hoax is a feasible explanation," says Rugg, who works at Keele University, UK. "Now it's up to believers in a code to produce evidence...

Public release date: 5-Nov-2003 Contact: Claire Bowles claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk 44-207-331-2751 New Scientist Oldest human custom EVEN early humans knew a thing or two about dental hygiene. Our ancestors used grass stalks as tooth picks, experimental findings suggest. The teeth of ancient hominids commonly have curved grooves on their roots. It has been suggested that these marks were made by an implement used to pick teeth. But critics of this theory point out that the teeth of today's regular toothpick users have no such marks. Resolving this conundrum has surprisingly wide implications. Similar grooves have been found on fossil teeth dating back...

World's 'oldest' rice found By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Rice was on the menu for ancient man Scientists have found the oldest known domesticated rice. The handful of 15,000-year-old burnt grains was discovered by archaeologists in Korea. Their age challenges the accepted view that rice cultivation originated in China about 12,000 years ago. The rice is genetically different from the modern food crop, which will allow researchers to trace its evolution. Today's rice is the primary food for over half the world's population, with 576,280,000 tonnes produced in 2002. Rice is especially important in Asia, where...

The mystery of Brazoria Woman: Is she the oldest North American? Star-Telegram STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON Texas A&M University doctoral students Jason Wiersema and Bill Dickens gently push aside mud to reveal the burial of Brazoria Woman. STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON Joining them is Mike Waters, who documents the site. STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON While the dating of the skeleton may ultimately depend on high-tech radiocarbon tests, the field tools on this dig, included such everyday items as the ever-present sunscreen and paintbrushes to gently move earth away from artifacts. STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON Although most of Brazoria Woman's bones were found intact, some bone fragments also were...