An eclectic assortment of stuff: food, archaeology, fun, books, history, geekery, etc.
Posted in history & archaeology, religion on Feb 22nd, 2008
From Time.com: A Lead on the Ark of the Covenant.
When last we saw the lost Ark of the Covenant in action, it had been dug up by Indiana Jones in Egypt and ark-napped by Nazis, whom the Ark proceeded to incinerate amidst a tempest of terrifying apparitions. But according to Tudor Parfitt, a real life [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 20th, 2008
From the BBC: Ancient city discovered in India.
Indian archaeologists say they have found remains which point to the existence of a city which flourished 2,500 years ago in eastern India.
The remains have been discovered at Sisupalgarh near Bhubaneswar, capital of the eastern state of Orissa.
Researchers say the items found during the excavation point to a [...]
Posted in environment on Feb 20th, 2008
From the Independent: How I built my house for £4,000.
When he’s expecting visitors, Steve James watches out the windows so he can catch the look on their faces when they see his house for the first time. "It’s always the same," he say. "There’s an intense stare and total mystification, as if they can’t quite [...]
Posted in books & lit, history & archaeology, religion on Feb 19th, 2008
From The Independent: Found at last: the world’s oldest missing page.
A year after the Romans packed up their shields in AD410 and left Britain to the mercy of the Anglo-Saxons, a scribe in Edessa, in what is modern day Turkey, was preparing a list of martyrs who had perished in defence of the relatively new [...]
Posted in art, history & archaeology, religion on Feb 19th, 2008
From The Art Newspaper: Noah’s Ark in the desert.
The ancient Egyptian monastery of Deir al-Surian is traditionally said to have been modelled on Noah’s Ark, since the outline of its walled buildings looks like a ship.
But Deir al-Surian resembles the Ark in another sense, as it has preserved unique examples of very early Christian art, [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 19th, 2008
From EurekAlert: Cleopatra’s cosmetics and Hammurabi’s Heineken.
Marketers and critics alike have assumed that branding began in the West with the Industrial Revolution. But a pioneering new study in the February 2008 issue of Current Anthropology finds that attachment to brands far predates modern capitalism, and indeed modern Western society.
In "Prehistories of Commodity Branding," author David [...]
Posted in art, history & archaeology on Feb 19th, 2008
From discovery.com: Oldest Oil Paintings Found in Afghanistan.
The oldest known oil painting, dating from 650 A.D., has been found in caves in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, according to a team of Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.
The discovery reverses a common perception that the oil painting, considered a typically Western art, originated in Europe, where the earliest [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Feb 15th, 2008
From physorg: The Best Way to Board a Plane.
"I remember waiting in line to scan my ticket inside the terminal, I believe it was at the Seattle airport," Steffen told PhysOrg.com. "I remember being quite disappointed when I saw how long the second line was — the one at the entrance to the airplane — [...]
From Reuters: School fights to revive native Canadian language.
In a grey, shed-like building on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in southern Ontario, Esenogwas Jacobs is getting her kindergarten students ready to head home for the day.
"Gao dehswe," Jacobs says, calling her students to the door.
"Gyahde:dih," she adds, it’s time to go.
Her students [...]
Posted in language on Feb 14th, 2008
Oh my! A Hieroglyphic Luwian Valentine, a Hurrian-Hittite Dialog, a Sumerian Valentine… who can resist? Go see the results of the The First (and Possibly Last) Eisenbrauns Ancient Near Eastern Valentine Contest.
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 13th, 2008
Here’s an article from NewScientist.com, reprinted by the Orlando Sentinal: Health-care plan in ancient Egypt? Research suggests more than spells, prayers.
As Egyptian mummies go, Asru is a major celebrity. During her life in the 8th century B.C., she was known for her singing at the temple of Amun in Karnak; now she’s famous for her [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, science on Feb 11th, 2008
From discovery.com: Napoleon Poisoning Claims Debunked.
Napoleon Bonaparte did not die from arsenic poisoning, a new examination of the French emperor’s hair has established. (…)
Now, Italian scientists have repeated the hair testing using a small nuclear reactor. The study will be published in the March issue of the Italian journal Il Saggiatore.
Researchers from the universities of [...]
Posted in DNA, history & archaeology, science on Feb 11th, 2008
From Science Daily: Viking Blood Courses Through Veins Of Many A Northwest Englander.
The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England — according to a new study.
Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, science on Feb 10th, 2008
From 60 Second Science: How do you grow a glacier?.
Villagers in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains have practiced "glacier growing" for centuries, according to local legend. Historically, snowmelt often hasn’t provided enough water for crops or humans in the dry, high-altitude regions, so growing glaciers became crucial to survival. How did they do it? [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 9th, 2008
From the BBC: The Romans carried out cataract ops.
Think of the Roman legacy to Britain and many things spring to mind – straight roads, under-floor heating, aqueducts and public baths.
But they were also pioneers in the health arena – particularly in the area of eye care, with remedies for various eye conditions such as short-sightedness [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, science on Feb 9th, 2008
From the BBC: ‘Super-scope’ shines on Mary Rose.
The research is taking place at the Diamond synchrotron, a beam-generating machine that covers the area of five football pitches.
Scientists are using the facility in a bid to fine-tune the conservation of the historic vessel’s timbers.
The Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII’s English fleet, sank in 1545 and [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, music, religion on Feb 8th, 2008
From the New York Times: No Quasimodo, He Brings Music to Notre-Dame Bells.
Stéphane Urbain stood leaning against a heavy wood frame high in the north tower of Notre-Dame, wrapped in a navy blue woolen cape against the wind, as he waited for the bells to sound.
Then three of the four immense bells tolled, shaking the [...]
Posted in coffee, strange stuff on Feb 7th, 2008
From Ananova: Praying for a cuppa.
The power of prayer is all it takes to relax with a drink at a newly opened Croatian cafe.
Customers at the Jedro coffee shop in Zagreb are asked to say a certain number of prayers in return for their drinks.
The most expensive beverage is a Coca-Cola which costs five ‘Hail [...]
Posted in DNA, history & archaeology on Feb 7th, 2008
From the New York Times: DNA Indicates Lice Reached Americas Before Columbus.
When two pre-Columbian individuals died 1,000 years ago, arid conditions in the region of what is now Peru naturally mummified their bodies, down to the head lice in their long, braided hair.
This was all scientists needed, they reported Wednesday, to extract well-preserved louse DNA [...]
Posted in animals, birds, insects, etc on Feb 7th, 2008
From the New York Times: Mystery Solved: This Hummingbird Chirps With Its Tail.
When a male Anna’s hummingbird swoops down over a female in an acrobatic mating display, it emits a loud and quick chirp, closely corresponding in tone to the highest C on a piano. For years, the source of the sound has been the [...]
Posted in books & lit, history & archaeology on Feb 7th, 2008
From csmonitor.com: In Timbuktu, a new move to save ancient manuscripts.
Abdel Kader Haidara carefully picks up one of a dozen small leather-bound books lying on his desk and leafs through the age-weathered pages covered in Arabic calligraphy.
This tiny book is centuries old and one of more than 100,000 manuscripts that can be found on shelves [...]
Posted in Italy, history & archaeology on Feb 7th, 2008
From the Telegraph: Medici philosopher’s mystery death is solved.
After 500 years, one of Renaissance Italy’s most enduring murder mysteries has been solved by forensic scientists.
Ever since Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a mystical and mercurial philosopher at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici, suddenly became sick and died in 1494, it has been rumoured that foul [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, religion on Feb 6th, 2008
From the New York Times: An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus
Before Zeus hurled his first thunderbolt from Olympus, the pre-Greek people occupying the land presumably paid homage and
offered sacrifices to their own gods and goddesses, whose nature and identities are unknown to scholars today.
But archaeologists say they have now found the ashes, [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 6th, 2008
From the BBC: Hope of finding first King’s home.
Archaeologists believe they could be closer to discovering the site of the palace belonging to the first King of a united Scotland.
The academics at Glasgow University have been studying documents and previous archaeological finds to narrow down the location in Perthshire. [continue]
Posted in miscellaneous on Feb 2nd, 2008
From The kotatsu: a different way of thinking about tables.
The kotatsu looks rather like a coffee table and is comprised of four parts: 1) the wooden structure, 2) a heating element that hangs in the center of the structure, 3) a heavy futon blanket, and 4) a tabletop that sandwiches the blanket between itself and [...]