Keyword: renaissance
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Hundreds of millions of Asian men alive today could be descendents of just 11 dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago, according to researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK. The study, published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, looked at the Y-chromosome - the chromosome passed from father to son - in around 5,300 Asian men from more than a hundred different ethnic groups and nationalities. Most Y-chromosome types are extremely rare and so the prevalence of common Y-chromosome types amongst those they found in the Asian men they tested suggests hundreds of millions...
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Genghis Khan, law giver, free trader and diplomat, is back with a new image By Richard Spencer in Ulan Bator (Filed: 11/07/2006) The Mongolian capital has been swamped with images of its former potentate, Genghis Khan, in honour of the anniversary of his unification of the nation in 1206. At the climax of celebrations in Ulan Bator yesterday, soldiers in traditional uniform and bearing yaks' tail standards heralded the unveiling of an enormous statue of the Great Khan in the main Sukhbaatar Square. The monument in which it is set contains earth and stones from the holy and historic places...
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TOKYO (AP) - Archaeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's palace and believe the long-sought grave of the 13th century Mongolian warrior is somewhere nearby, the head of the excavation team said Wednesday. A Japanese and Mongolian research team found the complex on a grassy steppe 150 miles east of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said Shinpei Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University. Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) united warring tribes to become leader of the Mongols in 1206. After his death, his descendants expanded his empire until it stretched from China to Hungary. Genghis Khan built the...
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A London restaurant chain is offering customers free DNA testing to see if they're descended from Genghis Khan. Restaurant Shish has promised free meals for any found to be related to the notorious Mongol leader. The unusual promotion is to mark the Mongolian government's decision to allow citizens to have surnames for the first time since they were banned by the communists in the 1920s. Some 50,000 Mongolians now proudly claim direct descent from and bear the name of Genghis Khan. Shish has teamed up with DNA-based research company Oxford Ancestors to offer descendants food from their ancestral homelands. From...
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Genghis Khan: Father to Millions? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Newshttp://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040621/gallery/genghis_goto.jpg> Statue of the Mongol Emperor June 22, 2004 —Genghis Khan left a legacy shared by 16 million people alive today, according to a book by a Oxford geneticist who identified the Mongol emperor as the most successful alpha male in human history. Regarded by the Mongolians as the father of their nation, Genghis Khan was born around 1162. A military and political genius, he united the tribes of Mongolia and conquered half of the known world with a cavalry riding on grass-fed ponies. By the time Genghis died in 1227,...
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Ghengis Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies Hillary Mayell for National Geographic News February 14, 2003 Genghis Khan, the fearsome Mongolian warrior of the 13th century, may have done more than rule the largest empire in the world; according to a recently published genetic study, he may have helped populate it too. An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or...
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LOS ANGELES, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A new population genetics study may have identified history's greatest lover, at least as measured in millions of descendants in his direct male line. This mighty progenitor was not a celebrated expert in the amorous arts like Casanova. Instead -- and this might say something about human nature that we'd rather not know -- he owed his lineage's staggering reproductive success to his being perhaps history's greatest fighter. The 23 co-authors of a paper published electronically by the American Journal of Human Genetics examined the Y-chromosomes of 2,123 men from across Asia. The Y...
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Genetic markers for the Clan MacDougall... descends from Dougall, King of the Isle of Man and founder of the ancient Scottish Kingdom of the Isles and Lorn. Dougall (c1140-c1207) was the eldest son of Somerled, the ancient warrior sea-king and progenitor of the MacDonald, MacAllister, and MacDougall clans. Somerled expelled his Scoto-Norse rivals from Argyll, Kintyre and the Isles but was himself a Norseman paternally, having a genetic signature that is more common in Scandinavia than in Scotland. The first genetic signature for Somerled was discovered and published in 2005 by researchers at the University of Oxford, and since then,...
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LEONARDO DA VINCI's masterpiece the Mona Lisa has captivated art lovers for centuries - but now, a scientist who analysed every inch and layer of the famous portrait has discovered hidden details beneath the painter's brushstrokes.The early 16th Century painting is arguably one of da Vinci’s most famous works and currently resides in the Louvre, in Paris. It’s estimated that 80 percent of their annual 10.2 million visitors attend to see the Mona Lisa. Scientist Pascal Cotte was asked to digitise the painting using a specialist camera, which was able to capture hidden layers beneath the portrait. From his multispectral...
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CNA Staff, Sep 23, 2020 / 12:00 am MT (CNA).- After fire toppled the iconic spire and destroyed the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France in April 2009, heated debates ensued about whether the reconstruction should use the church’s original design, or use a more modern design and technique. Some proposed futuristic ideas included a rooftop swimming pool and a greenhouse atop the 850-year-old cathedral. Last year, the French Senate passed a bill mandating that Notre-Dame be rebuilt as it was before the fire, with lumber and medieval carpentry techniques, which were highlighted in a public demonstration...
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A "nationally significant" Anglo-Saxon cemetery with 200 graves dating back to the 7th Century has been revealed. The graves were uncovered in Oulton, near Lowestoft in Suffolk, ahead of construction of a housing development. The burial ground contained the remains of men, women and children, as well as artefacts including brooches, small iron knives and silver pennies... A spokesman said the site "lies within the Kingdom of the East Angles, made famous by the royal burial ground at nearby Sutton Hoo". Sutton Hoo, discovered in 1939, included two cemeteries from the 6th to 7th centuries and a ship burial full...
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...the research team extracted and analysed DNA from the remains of 442 men, women and children... from archaeological sites in Scandinavia, the U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland and Russia, and mostly date to the Viking Age (ca. 750-1050 AD). The team's analyses yielded a number of findings. One of the most noteworthy is that contrary to what has often been assumed, Viking identity was not limited to people of Scandinavian ancestry -- the team discovered that two skeletons from a Viking burial site in the Orkney Islands were of Scottish ancestry. They also found evidence that there was...
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A SUNKEN ship has been found in almost perfect condition despite spending 400 years underwater. Divers made the mysterious discovery while exploring the Baltic Sea off the coast of Finland. The divers, from the non-profit Badewanne team, have come across shipwrecks before but never one as old and undamaged as the Dutch merchant vessel. The ship has been dated back to the 17th century. It dates back to a time when the Dutch Empire spanned five continents, becoming an economic superpower that was single-handedly responsible for half of Europe’s shipping by 1670. The ship is called a 'fluyt', a type...
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On this date in 1459, the former Doge of Genoa Pietro di Campfregoso was stoned to death by his city’s enraged populace. This Pietro (English Wikipedia entry | Italian) succeeded his cousin to the merchant oligarchy’s head in 1450. Genoa resided in a crab-bucket of rival peninsular and Mediterranean powers, and Pietro was distinctly out-scuttled in the 1450s. Genoa unsuccessfully supported the Byzantine Empire when it was decisively conquered by the rising Ottomans in 1453, and the Genoans found themselves consequently rousted from a number of Aegean and Black Sea possessions. Meanwhile, fickle Italian fortune brought Neapolitan troops to the...
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Rewilding is not about restoring the past, but about proactively seeking solutions for a world in environmental crisis. There is something deeply heartening about an extinct native species being reintroduced to its former habitat. In the United Kingdom, there are several of those stories. The last time storks were recorded breeding in the UK was way back in 1416 on top of a cathedral in Edinburgh. This year, nests on the Knepp Estate in West Sussex produced the first wild-born chicks in 600 years. The parent birds were bred in captivity and released into the wild as part of a...
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Imagine Shakespeare walking into his local pub and there is his ole friend and competitor Ben Johnson. They have a few drinks while discussing who is the better poet. Drinks are flowing and the conversation gets heated so they decide to have a poetry rap/slam contest to determine the winner. Word play as sword play and an insult competition... like a Dean Martin Roast among poets. Here is what it might have looked like if it happened today in England. Note: Both Harry Baker and Soweto are Oxford students. Harry Baker is also a Christian and does Ted Talks. Some...
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It is now generally accepted the Leif Eriksson sailed from Greenland across the Davis Strait and made landfalls on the North American continent almost a thousand years ago, but what happened in this vast area during the next five hundred years has long been a source of disagreement among scholars. Using new archeological, scientific, and documentary information (much of it in Scandinavian languages that are a bar to most Western historians), this book confronts many of the unanswered questions about early exploration and colonization along the shores of the Davis Strait. The author brings together two distinct but tangential fields...
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Modern banking has its auspicious beginnings in the early to mid Middle Ages. Primitive banking transactions existed before, but until the economic revival of the thirteenth century they were limited in scope and occurrence. By the dawn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, bankers were grouped into three distinct categories: the pawnbrokers, the moneychangers, and the merchant bankers. But with these economic specializations came religious denunciation and backlash. However, these bankers persevered and a new industry was born. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the late fifth century, there followed centuries of deep economic depression, sharp deflation of...
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Two battle axes used in hand-to-hand fighting at the Battle of Grunwald over 600 years ago have been found by detectorists during a sweep of the famous battle site in northern Poland. The find, which has astonished archaeologists, is all the more important as the melee weapons are in remarkably good condition. According to Dr. Szymon Dreja, director of the Museum of the Battle of Grunwald, the discovery of the battle axes are an archaeological sensation. "In seven years of our archaeological research we have never had such an exciting, important and well-preserved find," he stressed. According to the director,...
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In 1280, victorious Teutonic Crusaders began building the world's largest castle on a hill overlooking the River Nogat in what is now northern Poland. Malbork Castle became the hub of a powerful Teutonic state that crushed its pagan enemies and helped remake Medieval Europe. Now, ancient pollen samples show that in addition to converting heathens to Christians, the Crusaders also converted vast swathes of Medieval forests to farmlands. In the early-13th century, Prussian tribes living in the south-eastern Baltic became a thorn in the side of the Monastic State of Teutonic Knights, which was formed in 1224 in what is...
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