Free Republic

Last month, archaeologists cracked open a tomb excavated in Alexandria, Egypt, revealing three skeletons bathing in an crimson pool of sludgy sewage. In response, tens of thousands around the world immediately petitioned for the right to sip from the freshly uncorked casket of amontillado. (Spoiler: It hasn't worked out.) But fear not, coffin connoisseurs: There's a new artisanal artifact in town -- the world's oldest solid cheese, over 3,000 years in the making. The tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt during the 13th century BC, contains quite the trove of treasures. First uncovered in 1885,...

Ptahmes was Mayor of Memphis and high-ranking official under the Pharaohs Sethi I and Ramses II (1290-1213 BC) of the XIX dynasty. His tomb is located in the south of the Causeway of the Pharaoh Unas which yields a number of tombs dated to the New Kingdom. It was rediscovered in 2010 after a part of it was revealed in 1885 and lost under the sands at the end of the 19th century. During the 2013/2014 excavation season, Cairo University archeologists found broken jars at the site. One jar contained a solidified whitish mass, as well as canvas fabric that...

Claims that we ought to subscribe to a low-carb, high-protein 'paleo diet' are typically based on assertions our ancestors avoided complicated plant processing in favor of simpler meals consisting of meats, nuts, fruit, and raw vegetables. "...nonsense ..."

A distant star system that scientists described as abnormal, chaotic, and strange is finally coming into focus, thanks to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Using its powerful Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb has captured a rare image of one of two known planets orbiting the star 14 Herculis, located about 60 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way.The planet, known as 14 Herculis c, stands out for how incredibly cold it is. While astronomers have discovered nearly 6,000 exoplanets, only a small handful have been directly imaged, and most of those are extremely hot, with temperatures soaring into the hundreds or...