Sevaan Franks
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Vladislav? http://t.co/yJdJ931C
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Sevaan’s Favourite Sausage Soup: http://t.co/kHUzak3K
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Millionaire adopts girlfriend in ‘surreal’ legal move to allegedly protect... http://t.co/jsRSJlMK
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Troll level: Master - http://t.co/WAYJqExb
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Li Ching-Yuen: http://t.co/XeBhO9qw
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‘Arrested Development’ Writer: Original Cast Is Back, And “There Are Offices And Parking Spaces” http://t.co/1IV1wS7B
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What film career is right for you? http://t.co/P2KFB3Cq
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Miranda Piker and the Chocolate Factory http://t.co/ukf0pzks
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Emotional Bag Check. Cool idea: http://t.co/dwQXFGVj
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Employee of the month: http://t.co/PpmZGzyx
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One less life: http://t.co/2hq9pYAd
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#Raptors fail: http://t.co/B97NpJTh
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This dog: http://t.co/izJx5HvQ
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The day journalism died: http://t.co/3EjrLRKS
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Map of Springfield: http://t.co/D5hiRBSr
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The evolution of hip-hop: http://t.co/P01CcwBq
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TCM unveils list of 10 most influential silent films http://t.co/XMEq5BIU
Posts
Researchers have examined a collection of Italian 19th century mummifed heads.
A mounted human head strikes a brain-teasing pose—just one of eight forgotten but stunningly preserved 19th-century Italian mummies whose secrets of preservation have only recently been unraveled.
Working in the town of Salò, anatomist Giovan Battista Rini (1795-1856) “petrified” the corpses and body parts by bathing them in a cocktail of mercury and other heavy metals, according to new chemical analyses and CT scans, to be described in a future issue of the journal Clinical Anatomy.
Story: James Owen, National Geographic News | Photo: Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley
Bace says detailed plans for the use of these monuments will determine which parts of them are suitable for commercial activities and which parts should not be touched.
Rich with monuments dating back to Roman times, Albania has struggled for years to preserve them properly, as government after government failed to invest enough in restoration.
However, the proposal, which could be acted on as soon as next month, has drawn a fierce response from historians, archeologist and architects, some of whom accuse the authorities of failing to safeguard the nation’s heritage.
Story: Balkan Insight | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Archaeological Survey of India’s Superintending Archaeologist R. Krishnaiah, told The Hindu that while conducting an exploration around the Bheemeswara Swamy temple to ascertain its origin and antiquity, their Deputy Superintending Archaeologist D. Kanna Babu discovered the stunning and unique image of a seated mother goddess (Yakshini), in a remote corner outside the temple.
The centuries old temple is revered as one of the ‘Pancharama Kshetras.’ From the archaeological research point of view, the ‘mother goddess’ sculpture was a rare discovery, said Mr. Krishnaiah. This find would be vital for reconstructing the cultural life of ancient Andhra, the origin and evolution of early cultural art. This idol was believed to be from the Ashoka period in 3 Century BC.
Story: Ramesh Susarla, The Hindu | Photo: The Hindu
A well-preserved Viking sword has been uncovered at a Norwegian construction site.
NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology archaeologist Anne Haug told NRK, “It’s extremely exciting, the sword has some remnants of wood and fabric, and it is very rare.”
It is believed that the swords are in such good condition because they lay in clay underneath 1.5 metres of arable land. Several burial sites are known to be in the area, which were razed to the ground in the 1800s.
Story: The Foreigner | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Ibrahim told Ahram Online that the team would collect samples of the boat’s wooden beams for analysis on Monday in order to draw up accurate plans for the boat’s restoration in a special museum located on the plateau.
The first phase of the project, carried out two years ago, assessed the area surrounding the second boat pit with the use of topographical radar surveys. A large hangar has since been built over the second pit, with a smaller hangar erected inside to cover the top of the boat itself. The hangars were especially designed to protect the wooden remains during the project’s analysis and treatment phases.
Story: Nevine El-Aref, AhramOnline | Photo: Ahram Online
According to Sarawak Museum Department director Ipoi Datan, the process of acquiring all 122 skeletons taken from Niah Cave in Miri was done with cooperation from the National Heritage Department.
“There are several procedures that we need to follow and it will take another two to three years before we will reach something,” Ipoi said when met by reporters after the launching of a photography exhibition at the Sarawak Art Museum yesterday.
Story: The Borneo Post | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Archaeologists and conservation experts on the Italian island of Sardinia have succeeded in re-assembling literally thousands of fragments of smashed sculpture to recreate a small yet unique army of life-size stone warriors which were originally destroyed by enemy action in the middle of the first millennium BC.
It’s the only group of sculpted life-sized warriors ever found in Europe. Though consisting of a much smaller number of figures than China’s famous Terracotta Army, the Sardinia example is 500 years older and is made of stone rather than pottery.
Story: David Keys, The Independent | Photo: The Independent
Excavations at the site of Kharaneh IV are providing archaeologists with a new perspective on how humans lived 20,000 years ago. Although the area is starkly dry and barren today, during the last Ice Age the deserts of Jordan were in bloom, with rivers, streams, and seasonal lakes and ponds providing a rich environment for hunter-gatherers to settle in.
“What we witness at the site of Kharaneh IV in the Jordanian desert is an enormous concentration of people in one place,” explained Dr Jay Stock from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and co-author of the article.
Story: University of Cambridge | Photo: University of Cambridge
The remains of a WWII RAF ace has been found after being listed as missing in action for 71 years.
He was listed as missing in action presumed dead and his status remained that way for seven decades until historian Andy Saunders began researching the case.
He discovered FO Allen’s body had been removed from his wrecked plane on May 18 by locals and buried in an unmarked grave in the village of Poix-de-Nord, near Cambrai.
His younger brother Richard Allen is now preparing to lead family members at a dedication service in France when a new headstone with FO Allen’s name on will be erected on the grave.
Story: The Telegraph | Photo: BNPS
“One area they were doing boat building, nearby they were on riverbanks and sand bars collecting reeds or doing a bit of fishing or elsewhere they would be hunting game,” said director Garry Momber.
“Effectively you have all these activities happening which have strong parallels with the modern high street, but they’ve all just been a bit consolidated.”
Story: BBC News | Photo: BBC News
“As it is, the row has been cut in two places by the windfarm access road.
“What does concern us is that at no time was anyone asked to carry out a basic survey of what’s visible on the ground.
“Potentially, this stone row is incredibly important – it looks like the type you get on Dartmoor.”
Story: South Wales Guardian | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Workers repairing a gas pipeline on an island near Tunisia have unearthed a Roman cemetery.
An employee from the STEG, who was present when the discovery was made, confirmed that while the staff was digging to repair a gas pipeline they discovered fragments of marble, pottery, clothes, coins, and human bones. The employees did not recognize that the area was a cemetery until they invited archaeologists to investigate the site.
Youssef el Cherif, a Tunisian archaeologist, confirmed that the graves discovered in “el Kantra” appeared to be connected to the archaeological site of Meninx.
Story: Faten Bouraoui, All Africa | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A roadwork project in Malta has uncovered a Muslim cemetery which dates back to the 17th century.
Two archaeologists were working hard at documenting the findings yesterday afternoon. Remains ran along the chiselled rock at various points, with the occasional bone jutting out.
“We’re working along the cross section, cleaning up the debris surrounding the bones and noting everything we find,” Marvin Demicoli said.
Colleague and fellow archaeologist Michelle Padovani said that many of the remains were in good condition and that work was proceeding briskly, although she could not say how long they would last.
Story: Bertrand Borg, The Times| Photo: Chris Sant Fournier
Packed tightly into one of the chambers, the team discovered a cache of at least 83 animal mummies, which dates back more than 2,000 years. Most of the animals are dogs, although they also found two cats as well as sheep and goats.
The team believes that the animals were each sacrificed and are from an as-yet-undiscovered tomb in the area that likely dates to a later period than the monumental building.
Story: Owen Jarus, LiveScience | Photo: North Abydos Votive Zone Project
Heavy snow in Italy has caused damage to Rome’s Colosseum and the medieval town of Urbino.
In Rome, fragments have fallen from the Colosseum which remains closed to tourists. The famous Roman amphitheatre, which is at the centre of a busy road junction, is blackened by pollution and has been losing pieces for years.
A long-delayed restoration of the 2 000-year-old monument is set to start next month, with funding from Italian billionaire Diego Della Valle.
Story: News24 | Photo: AFP
Discovery News has posted an interesting article about the origins of Valentine’s Day.
Imagine half-naked men running through the streets, whipping young women with bloodied thongs made from freshly cut goat skins. Although it might sound like some sort of perverted sado-masochistic ritual, this is what the Romans did until 496 A.D.
Indeed, mid-February was Lupercalia (Wolf Festival) time. Celebrated on Feb. 15 at the foot of the Palatine Hill beside the cave where, according to tradition, the she-wolf had suckled Romulus and Remus, the festival was essentially a purification and fertility rite.
Story: Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
New research indicates that the rise of agriculture in Central Africa may have contributed to the demise of the lust rainforests of the area.
About 3000 years ago, Central Africa was a landscape in transition. Lush evergreen forests were gradually giving way to savannas and grasslands as regional climate change pushed the formerly humid weather patterns toward drier, slightly warmer conditions. But climate was not the only factor at play. According to a new study, an influx of humans into the region at this time may have helped drive some of the original rainforests into oblivion.
The paper’s results, published online today in Science, came as a surprise to the researchers. “To be honest, at the beginning we were not at all aware of this human issue,” says lead author Germain Bayon, a geochemist at the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea in Plouzané.
Story: Rachel Nuwer, ScienceMag | Photo: Guenter Guni/iStockphoto
Researchers will spend the next four years gathering and analysing data on the movements and motives of traffickers, the types of activities involved, such as illegal excavation; transit and purchase; and pricing structures. The aim is to develop new approaches to regulate the international trade of cultural goods and help policymakers better define laws to fight criminal activities.
“It’s extremely widespread,” said criminologist Dr Simon Mackenzie, who will lead the project. “There are architectural sites and museums that are being looted all over the world, including Britain and the USA, but obviously more so in the developing world. Previous safe areas have become accessible and the material is saleable. Nowhere is safe.”
Story: The Guardian | Photo: Italian Carabinieri
An initial clue lay in a 20ft stone stele (or slab) carved with a sun and crescent moon, the “calling card of the land of Sheba”, Schofield said. “I crawled beneath the stone – wary of a 9ft cobra I was warned lives here – and came face to face with an inscription in Sabaean, the language that the Queen of Sheba would have spoken.”
On a mound nearby she found parts of columns and finely carved stone channels from a buried temple that appears to be dedicated to the moon god, the main deity of Sheba, an 8th century BC civilisation that lasted 1,000 years. It revealed a victory in a battle nearby, where Schofield excavated ancient bones.
Story: Dalya Alberge, The Guardian | Photo: The Tigray Trust
The canvas, which was purchased by Abraham Lincoln’s descendants before being donated to the state’s historical library in the 1970s, was discovered to be a hoax when it was sent to a conservator for cleaning, said James M. Cornelius, the curator of the Lincoln library and museum in Springfield. The museum is planning to present its findings at a lecture on April 26.
“It was a scam to defraud the Lincoln family,” Mr. Cornelius said.
Story: Patricia Cohen, NYT | Photo: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum
An ancient residential area has been found east of Mexico City at Amecameca.
“In Mexico, we really have very little evidence of how the cities really were, or how people lived,” said Echenique, who was not involved in the dig but is familiar with preliminary findings.
Towering pyramids in Mexico like Chichen Itza or temple complexes like Uxmal are well known, but the vast urban centers that supported those ceremonial centers largely disappeared.
The housing compounds at Amecameca were apparently built by one of the still-unnamed cultures that populated the Valley of Mexico long before the Aztecs appeared in the area in 1325 and founded Tenochtitlan, the precursor to Mexico City.
Story: Mark Stevenson, AP | Photo: AP
The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when an Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918 causing it to cave in.
Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them.
Nearly a century later French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front during excavation work for a road building project.
Story: The Telegraph | Photo: BNPS
s one of the great works of Western literature once so cogently observed, everybody does it — and in the 99% or so of human history without sanitation services, humans pretty much just pooped wherever there was space. These “nonhardened fossils”, as archaeologists have euphemistically referred to them, account for a shockingly high percentage of the material found in ancient cave sites. There’s such a ridiculously high quantity of preserved human poop — paleofeces, if we’re being technical — that being able to extract any amount of DNA would make them a massively useful resource.
Story: Alasdair Wilkins, io9 | Photo: TAMU Anthropology Archives
The last surviving British veteran of the first world war has died aged 110.
Mrs Green passed away in her sleep at a care home in Norfolk just two weeks before her 111th birthday.
The great-grandmother signed up to the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) 93 years ago in September 1918, when she was aged just 17.
She was the last surviving person to have served in WWI following the death of British-born sailor Claude Choules in Australia last year.
Story: The Telegraph | Photo: Masons
The tiny vase-shaped creatures’ fossils were found in Namibia’s Etosha National Park and other sites around the country in rocks between 760 and 550 million years old, a 10-member team of international researchers said in a paper published in the South African Journal of Science.
That means animals, previously thought to have emerged 600 million to 650 million years ago, actually appeared 100 million to 150 million years before that, the authors said.
Story: Physorg | Photo: Physorg
Posts
Shared by SebastianI just learned about strategic voting options in my area at…
“This is a safe Liberal seat. Vote your preference.”
So if I vote Green, do they get extra funding? Ditto NDP?
Do you like looking at pictures of meat? How about a juicy beef burger, covered in egg mayonnaise with cow fat dripping off? Perhaps some soft, meaty chunks of
Hong Kong, China (CNN) – China has been cracking down on dissent of late, as the recent detainment of artist Ai Weiwei suggests. But the latest guidance on television programming from the State…
Funny thread.
Shared by Sebastian
Sevaan: this article, in addition to being entertaining (and kind of alarming!) contains an instance of your favourite word in the English language.
Meet the next virtual…
As jailed former mafia boss Joseph Massino gives evidence against one of New York’s biggest crime families, here is a breakdown of the big “Five Families” operating in the city.
Shared by Sebastian
Boris shared this a while back on Facebook. Makes for interesting listening. Kanye was not all that great back then.
On “Spaceship” Kanye West challenged other people to…
The perfect site for bored people. Includes funny pics, video games, interesting facts and lots more.
[Video Link] The age old problem of picking up a blob of liquid without altering its shape has been solved!
Details about the technology are not available on Furukawa Kikou’s website…
Terry Jones, one of the key members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, has admitted that he “only occasionally” found the comedy sketches funny.
Shared by SebastianWhy did you decide to write this column in question-and-answer form? Good question! As a tribute to a single chapter in Ulysses, the 70-page chapter known as the “Ithaca…
Darby?
As of today, January 6, 2011, this mega-mansion located at 9 High Point Road in Toronto, is not only the most expensive listing in Toronto, but all of Canada! There are two pieces of land listed in…
John Martz says:
Trexels is a limited edition print from John Martz and Koyama Press featuring 235 of your favourite Star Trek characters (give or take a few Tribbles) in pixelated form….
For BB, JC, and KG, Book and Album pairings. Sure to inspire your very own list.
