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Well, this is annoying: my blogging software, Movable Type, seems to have packed it in, and I can't post anything using that software. Argh!
We're at the cottage now, where we have only dialup internet access, and limited patience for computer goop. When we go home (probably Sept 5th or so) I'll get this fixed one way or another. Seems like a good time to switch to better blogging software, hmmm?
So anyway, there won't be updates here until I get things fixed. If you want to know when things get back to normal around here (without checking the site every day) keep an eye on the RSS feed, or just drop me a note and say that you'd like to be informed when things are all back to normal.
From The Guardian: David's toe points art historians to origins of Michelangelo's marble.
Scientists have identified the precise origin of the marble block used for Michelangelo's David, and say the discovery will be useful for helping to preserve one of the world's greatest sculptures.
Until now, art historians knew only that the large block came from the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, which still produce many types and qualities of marble.
Analysts have now used three tiny samples, retrieved from the second toe of the left foot of David when the figure was damaged in act of vandalism in 1991, to track down the marble's origin. Not only were they able to determine the exact spot of excavation - the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara - they also found that Michelangelo's marble is of mediocre quality, filled with microscopic holes, and likely to degrade faster than many other marbles. [continue]
From The Guardian: Shakespeare was a political rebel who wrote in code, claims author.
MORE...A code-breaking book which aims to change the image of William Shakespeare and reveal him as a subversive who embedded dangerous political messages in his work is to be published in Britain.
Far from being an ambitious entertainer who played down his Catholic roots under a repressive Elizabethan regime, Shakespeare took deliberate risks each time he took up his quill, according to Clare Asquith's new book Shadowplay. She argues that the plays and poems are a network of crossword puzzle-like clues to his strong Catholic beliefs and his fears for England's future. Aside from being the first to spot this daring Shakespearean code, Asquith also claims to be the first to have cracked it.
'It has not been picked up on before because people have not had the complete context,' she explained this weekend. 'I am braced for flak, but we now know we have had the history from that period wrong for a long time because we have seen it through the eyes of the Protestant, Whig ascendancy who, after all, have written the history.' [continue]
From the New York Times: Team-Building With a Twist.
It was the waiter's missing shirt button, and the tattoo of a snake and a lizard on his bicep, that clinched it.
Fifteen employees, from managers to plant workers, of the Gates Corporation, a Denver maker of automotive and industrial rubber belts and hoses, had already lifted fingerprints near the chalk outlines of two bodies in an alley and a parking garage and found clues like hair, blood, the steak-knife murder weapon and notes about the killings.
Then, over dinner in a restaurant, one of them remarked that the waiter's appearance matched evidence that they had gathered during the day. So the group asked Tim D. Keck, a consultant and retired police chief who was leading the exercise during a quarterly team-building conference in Poplar Bluff, Mo., the location of a company plant, to "arrest" him.
Corporate trainers have always had a knack for coming up with offbeat exercises to teach teamwork and build leadership skills. Rope courses and other military-inspired Outward Bound-like tests of endurance have been around for decades. But in the last few years, there has been a shift away from physically demanding and intensely competitive exercises toward more creative and cerebral undertakings, according to the American Society for Training and Development in Alexandria, Va.
The new wave of team-building adventures varies from cooking contests à la "Iron Chef" and arts-related activities like playing percussion instruments, staging plays and dancing to outside ventures like sailing and crime scene investigating. [continue]
From The Independent: Archaeologist begins search for wreck of slave ship that mutinied.
An archaeologist is to begin searching the South African coast for a slave ship that was the site of a dramatic battle between Madagascan slaves and their Dutch captors in 1766. Jaco Boshoff hopes to find the wreck of the Meermin and shed new light on the slave trade.
In December 1765, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Meermin and sent it from Cape Town round the tip of South Africa to buy slaves on the west coast of Madagascar, 1,700 miles away. The crew picked up 147 slaves there, and set sail to return home. At sea, the Dutch crew ordered some of the slaves to clean the guns and some spears they had picked up as souvenirs. The quick-witted slaves used the arms to kill half the 60-member crew and ordered the survivors to sail the ship back to Madagascar.
The sailors did as they were ordered by day, but at night they steered the ship back towards Cape Town - at a faster pace. When the boat finally dropped anchor in Cape Town, some of the Madagascans went ashore, only to be overpowered by farmers. The rest remained on board until the ship hit a sandbank and they were captured. The authorities abandoned the damaged Meermin on the sand.
Now Mr Boshoff, who works with the government-run Iziko Museums in Cape Town, believes he can find the remains of the ship. [continue]
From scotsman.com: Long-lost map points back to roots of Botanic Garden.
A long-lost map found gathering dust in a basement is set to give a fascinating insight into the history of Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden.
The 150-year-old map has been restored from the brink of disintegration after being found by chance in a basement beneath the Botanics library.
Botanists and curators at the garden are excited by the find and believe it could shed light on the garden's past and reveal important facts about the work of the garden in the 19th century.
They now aim to study the map in detail to find out as much as they can from it and are convinced it holds more facts about how the garden used to look and why many of the features which remain today were created. [continue, see photo]
From ICWales.co.uk: Roman 'motorway' secrets unveiled.
Archaeologists excavating along the ancient Via Egnatia in Greece are revealing the secrets of the ancient Romans’ equivalent of an Interstate highway.
Stretching 535 miles across modern-day Albania, Macedonia and Greece, the stone-paved road made the going easy for charioteers, soldiers and other travellers. It was up to 30 feet wide in places and was dotted with safety features, inns and service stations.
"This was a busy road, and the Romans managed to make it completely functional," archaeologist Polyxeni Tsatsopoulou told The Associated Press.
Built between 146 and 120 B.C. under the supervision of the top Roman official in Macedonia, proconsul Gaius Egnatius, the highway ran from the Adriatic coast in what is now Albania to modern Turkey, giving Rome quick access to the eastern provinces of its empire.
Ancient engineers did such a good job that the Via Egnatia remained in use for some 2,000 years, sticking to its original course even as its paving slabs were plundered for building material. But over the last century, [continue]
From Yahoo News: For sale: one megalithic tomb (if buyer passes muster).
MORE...BAGNEUX, France (AFP) -Pascal Normand has decided to sell his 5,000-year-old megalithic tomb, but he is being very choosy about who gets it.
"Ive got to feel that the buyer has a real passion for the monument, even if he decides not to open it to the public," Normand said about his dolmen -- a Neolithic tomb consisting of two or more upright stones with a capstone -- in Bagneux, western France.
No passion, no sale, he says.
To sweeten the deal, Normand is throwing in a bar and two apartments on the 2,300-square-metre (half-acre) plot, asking 1.5 million euros (1.8 million dollars) for the lot.
The dolmen, at 23 metres (75 feet), is the longest in France, Normand says, adding that it was classified as a historic monument in the 19th century by Prosper Merimee, the playwright and author who was also state archaeologist. [continue]
From novinite.com: IXth Century Monastery Remains Unearthed in Bulgaria.
Well-preserved monastery vault arches dated back to the IXth century were found during excavation works in the Karaach Tepe area near Varna.
The arches are the only ones that have remained from the monastery constructions of the Middle Ages, experts claim. The new findings prove that in the early stages of the Middle Ages the Bulgarians were able to compete with the Byzantines in that kind of construction works. [continue]
From scotsman.com: Power of seven.
Whatever tenant arrangements were agreed around 5,000 years ago, number seven house at Skara Brae village in Orkney has been pretty good value for money. Structurally, it's solid and the furniture - beds, dresser, cupboards, cool-store for the food - is still in tip-top condition. And if the original roofing (whalebone, skin, turf or suchlike) had been regularly attended to, it could be advertised as "ready for occupation".
Certainly, there wouldn't have been the modern condensation problem, caused by the latter-day addition of a glass roof, or the stresses caused from thousands of feet pounding along what was meant to be the upper level of somebody's home. Which is why Julie Gibson, Orkney's county archaeologist, reckons the preservation work being done this summer on the neolithic house has made present-day visitors appreciate the unique value of the site even more. [continue]
From sfgate.com: Renaissance garden grows insight into the lives of long-gone sailors.
MORE...The Vasa was a magnificent ship. Decorated with symbolic sculptures, carvings and gold leaf, and bronze guns polished to a fare-thee-well, she was built to impress and strike fear as the pride of Sweden's 17th century Royal navy. On a fine August day in 1628, with king, court and populace gathered, she was launched. Within minutes -- sails set, flags flying, gun ports open for the royal salute -- she caught a gust, heeled over and sank.
The Vasa lay in the Stockholm harbor for 333 years. In 1961, she was brought up from centuries of enveloping mud. With the salvage came skeletons of the drowned along with about 24,000 preserved objects. In 1990, the Vasamuseet, located less than a nautical mile from the spot where she capsized, opened to display her restoration. The museum -- with its interactive exhibits and films that bring to life the Vasa and her times -- has become Scandinavia's most visited attraction. [continue]
From mosnews.com: Estonian Archaeologists Play Flute Recovered from 600-Year Old Loo.
Estonian archaeologists have found an ancient flute in an outhouse dating 600 years back, the DELFI news portal reports. The chief researcher praised the finding and said that the ancient musical instrument was still playable.
The dig site where the flute was found is located in the town of Tartu near the border with Russia. Chief researcher Andres Tvauri has said that the flute was in “working condition” after staying in an outhouse for six centuries and added that to his awareness there was no equally old woodwind instrument in Estonia that could still be played. [continue, see photo]
From the Beeb: Grave reveals medieval Caesareans.
The medieval remains of a mother and daughter found in North Yorkshire shows signs of an attempted Caesarean operation, scientists have revealed.
The 900-year-old grave at Wharram Percy held the remains of a woman aged between 25 and 30 with a baby.
A study of the remains by English Heritage showed the woman died during her pregnancy and the foetus was cut free from the womb in a bid to save it.
Nearly 700 skeletons have been found at the 12th century site near Malton.
It is thought the woman died during her pregnancy which was 10 weeks short of full-term.
Simon Mays, skeletal biologist at English Heritage's Centre for Archaeology, said the find contradicts previous notions that medieval people got used to death.
He said it suggests life was precious and people were prepared to carry out drastic acts to preserve it. [continue]
From ansa.it: Ancient Egypt gems on Italian isle.
Pantelleria, August 25 - A priceless set of ancient jewellery, probably from Egypt, is the latest archaeological jackpot experts have struck on this southern Italian island .
Excavations at the 16th-century BC settlement of Mursia, on the north-western part of the isle, have uncovered a beautiful oriental style ring, necklace and pair of ear-rings .
The discovery comes on the back of a string of spectacular recent finds made here which date back to ancient Roman times. [continue]
Posted at 09:30 AM on August 25, 2005. | Filed under: history & archaeology. | Permalink |
From iol.co.za: Archaeologists hail mosaic find in Sinai.
A nine-metre-long Roman mosaic dating from the 2nd Century has been unearthed by an Egyptian-Polish archaeological team in northern Sinai, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said on Wednesday.
The mosaic was found while the archaeologists were restoring a Pelusium Roman theatre in an area 25km east of the Suez Canal.
"It is the most unique piece of mosaic ever found in Sinai," said SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass.
The mosaic, made from a combination of glass, marble, clay and limestone, features a blooming garden with two birds on a tree branch and other birds flying over roses.
It is believed to have once been part of the theatre's decorated floor. [continue]
From scotsman.com: Wild boar the ground force team to revive forest.
Wild boar have returned to an area where their ancestors once foraged to help efforts to restore the ancient Caledonian pine forest.
A project has started in Glen Affric in which wild boar are now living and breeding within two large enclosures in the forest. It is hoped that the "original ground disturbance force" will eat invasive bracken and help increase the number of tree seedlings to regenerate the forests.
The project is unique in using wild boar to manage a native pine wood and the eight sows, one boar, called Boris, and 40 young will soon be rewarded for their efforts by moving from a test plot of just over an acre to a larger home of about 10 acres.
Munching on the exposed tubers, the animals eat young bracken shoots as they emerge in spring. It is hoped that the patches of well turned soil left behind will provide a fertile seed bed for the regeneration of native species such as pine, rowan and birch, and the project will monitor seedling establishment over the next two to three years. [continue]
Hey! Maybe Berlin's Jagdreferent could send some of Berlin's wild boars off to Scotland.
From csmonitor.com: Music adds spice to cooking.
Sharon O'Connor can't imagine working in the kitchen without music playing in the background. But not just any music. A former cellist with the San Francisco String Quartet, she likes to find just the right piece to accompany her culinary forays. The pursuit has led her to write cookbooks that combine her passion for food and music in an inimitable way.
Each of her cookbooks comes in a boxed set with music created, performed, and recorded to suit the recipes.
Ms. O'Connor, who has cooked with such famous chefs as Daniel Boulud and Ming Tsai, is president and creator of the aptly named Menus and Music company. With 18 cookbook-CD sets already under her belt, she is now getting ready to release another eight cookbook sets later this year. [continue]
Hmmm, sounds interesting. We just use the shuffle feature on the digital music player here, which sometimes means that we cook Italian food while listening to Indian ragas.
MORE...From National Geographic: Puppets Help Raise Africa's Abandoned Hornbill Chicks.
Researchers hoping to increase the breeding rate of southern Africa's increasingly rare ground hornbill have taken to feeding abandoned chicks with puppets disguised as the birds' parents.
The faux foster mother may seem real to the ground hornbill chick. But inside the puppet head is a human hand trying to save the chick and its species from sliding to extinction.
Ground hornbills lay up to three eggs at a time, but they feed only one chick. Conservationists collect remaining hatchlings that are otherwise left to starve and hand-feed them. [continue]
From iol.co.za: Inca ruins uncovered near frosty peaks.
A Czech scientific expedition has claimed to have found in the Andes mountains of Bolivia the ruins of an Inca city at the highest altitude recorded to date, according to the Czech expert who led the research team.
Consisting of several sites, the Inca settlement near Lake Titicaca extended for about 10 square kilometres at an altitude between 3 000m and 4 000m, said Ivo Bartecek, a Czech specialist in Ibero-American studies.
"Up higher, there are only glaciers," said Bartecek, who is also head of the philosophy faculty at the University of Olomouc in the eastern Czech Republic.
The expedition of two Czech scientists and two researchers spent three weeks during the South American winter exploring the region.
The team's main goal was to prove the hypothesis that Inca and pre-Inca civilisations existed in the highest possible regions of the Andean mountain range. [continue]
From physorg.com: Salt production started in ancient China.
Harvard researcher Rowan Flad and colleagues said they found multiple lines of evidence of large-scale salt production at an archeological site near Zhongba, along the Yangzi River in central China.
The chemical compositions of the soil and nearby brine were found to be similar to other salt-production facilities. Likewise, the researchers said the form and composition of various ceramics found at the site are similar to salt production pottery discovered in other regions of the world.
The scientists say their study indicates salt production was a significant activity at the site during the first millennium B.C., and possibly earlier. [continue]
From National Geographic: Paper Wasps Beg Their Young for a Saliva Snack.
Parents across the globe usually take their role as providers very seriously. But in an unusual role reversal, paper wasp queens beg their young for a meal.
When they get peckish, the queens wag their abdomens across their nests, creating vibrations that "ask" for a nutritious saliva snack.
"She does it when she's hungry, not when the larvae are hungry. So the adult is begging for food back from the larvae," said Bernard Brennan, the postdoctoral researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who made the discovery.
Paper wasps (Polistes dominulus) are among the best studied insects in the world. But the reason for the queens' wagging behavior remained a mystery until Brennan started researching it as a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. [continue]
Well, what do you know? Somebody's taken the community kitchen idea and made a business out of it. From csmonitor.com: Cooking out, eating in.
The company is called Dream Dinners and, like more than a hundred similar outfits across the country, it functions as a sort of communal kitchen where moms and dads whip up a few weeks' worth of freezer-ready meals in just two hours. It's home cooking - without the home.
It works like this: Customers use a website to select a time and date along with the meals they'd like to prepare - herb-crusted flank steak, perhaps, or chicken mirabella. When they arrive at the session, ingredients have been carefully doled out into stainless steel containers.
The would-be chefs simply mix and season, prepping meats and fish and pizza for the oven. The prepared - but uncooked - meals are then bundled into freezer bags and aluminum containers. Cooking instructions are affixed and the trove is tucked into a cooler for the ride home, where each customer will stockpile a dozen ready-to-cook meals. [continue]
I'd rather start a community kitchen or cooking club myself, but I can see where it would be handy to have somebody else do all the planning and shopping.
MORE...From Wired: A P2P Network for Bikes
Thousands of commuters in Lyon, France, are using pedal power instead of gas, under an ambitious new program that lets people rent bikes from public racks at low cost.
It's kind of like peer to peer for public transport.
The rent-a-bike scheme, called Vélo'v Grand Lyon, is open to anyone armed with a credit card. It costs 1 euro ($1.20) an hour, but there is no charge for the first 30 minutes. Since 90 percent of trips take less than half an hour, most subscribers pay nothing.
In just three months, the program has signed up 15,000 subscribers who take 4,000 trips a day and travel over 24,800 miles a week on 2,000 public bikes at 150 bike stations. [continue]
From RenewableEnergyAccess.com: Development Yields Antifreeze from Biodiesel.
In addition to topping off your gas tank with biodiesel, a new advance could let you fill your vehicle's cooling system with a biomass-derived antifreeze.
A new process developed at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) creates a valuable secondary product from the biodiesel manufacturing process that makes the production cycle both profitable and affordable.
Galen Suppes, chief science officer of the MU-based Renewable Alternatives, developed a process for converting glycerin, a byproduct of the biodiesel production process, into propylene glycol, which can be used as nontoxic antifreeze for automobiles. Suppes said the new propylene glycol product will meet every performance standard, is made from domestic soybeans and is nontoxic. [continue]
Link found here at makezine.com.
From This is North Scotland: Ancient bead may be clue to king of Orkney.
A Small brown and yellow bead which travelled 600 miles from one end of the country to the other has yielded another clue about where a King of Orkney might have lived around 2,000 years ago.
The round Meare bead has just been found in what was thought to be a rubbish site beside the Minehowe rock-built underground structure.
Excavation started in 2000 after local farmer Douglas Paterson of Tankerness rediscovered the site. It was originally found in the 1950s and covered up again for the safety of farm animals. The latest dig has been focusing on a ditch, encircling the Iron Age underground structure, and a metalworker's workshop nearby. [continue]
From the Beeb: Online librarian is 'overwhelmed'.
The founder of an online book-sharing library says the interest in his scheme has been "beyond his wildest dreams".
The My Book Your Book website does not go live until Monday evening, but has already received 750 applications.
All of its "founder members" will be able to access thousands of paperback novels - provided they donate 10 books each to the co-operative scheme. [continue]
The My Book Your Book website explains how it works.
From the Jerusalem Post: Ancient riddle eludes archeologists.
University of Haifa archeologists digging in the ancient city of Hippos-Sussita have uncovered more than what they expected this season. One of their surprises was the discovery of a lintel from a structure built during the Byzantine era with Jewish symbols, which was originally thought to be a synagogue, but now believed to be a church.
The sixth season of the archeological excavation at Hippos-Sussita overlooking Kibbutz Ein Gev on the eastern shore of the Kinneret, has produced several astonishments like the lintel, says Prof. Arthur Segal of the university's Zinman Institute of Archeology. The lintel was uncovered in a public building in the southwestern residential quarter of Sussita, which according to Ancient Jewish sources indicated that such a synagogue existed in this predominantly Greek city.
Segal later reached the conclusion that it was actually a church. He explained that the structure could have served first as a synagogue and later been turned into a church. In another explanation he suggested that the synagogue may have existed in close proximity to the church, and following the synagogue's destruction the lintel was reused in the church. [continue]
From The Telegraph: 'Henry VIII hunting whistle' unearthed.
A silver huntsman's whistle, which may have belonged to Henry VIII, has been unearthed during a metal detectors' club gathering.
The whistle is engraved with motifs that appear to link it to the king's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. It is being studied at the British Museum.
The finder, Keith Stuart, 62, was taking part in the club event in a field on the Isle of Wight and is now waiting to be told the whistle's value after having it declared treasure by a coroner's court.
Archaeologists have dated it to the 16th Century and have told Mr Stuart that it will fetch many thousands of pounds. The whistle, 2½ in long, is engraved with roses and pomegranates, the latter being the emblem of Catherine of Aragon, Henry is believed to have hunted on the Isle of Wight and the whistle may have been dropped during a visit. [continue]
From Reuters: Rival child lamas grow up and into political storm.
In the cobbled paths and ancient courtyards of Tibet's Tashilhunpo monastery, a little boy stares out of pictures wearing a yellow, cone-shaped hat that mark his sect of Buddhism.
Gyaltsen Norbu has been groomed since childhood to prepare for his role as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of the 10th and the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
But while he received politically vetted religious training under the close watch of China's leaders, another boy is believed to have grown up under house arrest, dubbed the world's youngest political prisoner.
The first boy was chosen by the Chinese government. The second, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was anointed by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader and Beijing's nemesis since he fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. [continue]
From the Globe and Mail: The villages beneath the city.
When construction workers expanding Teston Road in Vaughan turned up the jumbled remains of at least 15 people this month, they may have been surprised. But the bones -- which were 500 to 700 years old -- weren't a shock to archeologists or aboriginal people. They were just the latest in a number of significant finds that have turned up all over the Greater Toronto Area, from a massive Iroquois village discovered under a Stouffville subdivision to the remains of a Seneca settlement by the Humber River that still reveals traces of its past when construction crews dig in the area. [continue]
From the BBC: Early humans 'may have spread TB'.
The tuberculosis bacterium emerged in East Africa three million years ago and may have spread around the world when early humans left their ancestral home, a genetic study suggests.
According to molecular analysis of modern strains, the pathogen is much older than previously thought, predating other human afflictions such as the plague. [continue]
From Reuters: Prince dreams of independence in Italian village
MORE...Tourists ran after Giorgio Carbone as he crossed a square in the village of Seborga in northern Italy. They all wanted pictures of the nondescript man with the greying beard, tired-looking eyes and simple suit.
That's because Carbone is, in fact, Prince Giorgio I of Seborga, a former flower seller dedicated to promoting this mediaeval village's claim of independence.
At first sight, Seborga is a typical picture postcard village on the Italian Riviera with minute squares and narrow streets meandering beneath an imposing bell tower.
But a sign proclaiming "Welcome to the Principality of Seborga" and blue-and-white striped flags fluttering from its buildings set it apart from the other villages dotting the coastline between Genoa and the French border.
"We are the oldest principality in the world," said Carbone, who peppers his speech with swear words, making tourists blush and earning him the nickname "Sua Tremendita" or "Your Tremendousness" among the villagers.
Seborgans believe their independent history dates back to 954 when the counts of nearby Ventimiglia gave the land to Benedectine monks who established a sovereign Cistercian state. [continue]
From Medical News Today: Languages 'Leak' into Each Other in Subtle Ways Says Study.
While linguistics experts are reluctant to talk of a 'third language' being formed in the brain of an immigrant, studies are now beginning to show that the brain does find it difficult to completely compartmentalize two distinct languages without merging them in subtle ways, says U of T linguistics professor Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux.
"What we are finding is that we don't and can't have complete separation between different languages in our heads. Yes, you can become very talented with your acquired language but there will always be a kind of window in our brains where one language will always 'leak' into another."
For example, a fluently bilingual speaker may say something in almost perfect English with the exception of one or two words or word structures from their mother tongue infiltrating the sentence. One instance is a person whose native language is German and who has mastered the English language saying something like, "I to the dining room go." [continue]
When did humans start wearing supportive footwear? RedNova reports that anthropology professor Erik Trinkaus has
MORE......analyzed the foot bones of western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic and middle Upper Paleolithic humans. In doing so, he found the anatomy of their feet began to change starting around 26,000 years ago.
"I discovered that the bones of the little toes of humans from that time frame were much less strongly built than those of their ancestors while their leg bones remained large and strong," Trinkaus said. "The most logical cause would be the introduction of supportive footwear."
During barefoot walking, the smaller toes flex for traction, keeping the toe bones strong. Supportive footwear lessens the roll of the little toes, thus weakening them. [see full article]
From Iceland Review:Grave of Egil Skalla-Grímsson found?.
MORE...Icelandic State Radio reports that the possible grave site of Egil Skalla-Grímsson, one of Iceland's most famous vikings, has been found under the altar of a church from the settlement period. No bones were found at the burial site.
Jessie Byock, archeology professor at the University of California in Los Angeles who is in charge of the excavation, emphasizes that the work being done in Mosfellsdal is not directed at finding the grave site of Egil Skalla-Grímsson. The excavation has taken many years and the church at Hrísbrú is the seventh dig site.
The purpose of the dig is to map the settlement in Mosfellsdal as it was in the time of the Vikings and understand how people lived. Professor Byock told television station Stod 2 that if they also find the burial site for Egil Skalla-Grímsson he will be very happy; it is known that Egill was buried in the area.
In the Icelandic Saga, Egil's Saga, Egil is said to have been buried underneath a church that his foster daughter Thórdís had built, but his bones were subsequently moved to a site near Mosafellsdal. The grave under the church is over two meters long, and Egil is described as having been a tall and powerfully built man. [continue]
From discovery.com: Thracian Treasure Surfaces in Bulgaria.
Bulgarian archeologists have unearthed more than 15,000 golden pieces of Thracian royal jewelry dating back to the third millennium B.C., the director of the National Historical Museum, Bozhidar Dimitrov, said.
"The golden objects unearthed near the village of Dabene in central Bulgaria are not just pieces of Thracian jewelry. They are objects of exquisite regal ornamentation," he told AFP.
"In the whole of Europe and the Near East there is only one find that rivals these extremely well-crafted pieces — the golden treasures found in ancient Troy," Dimitrov said. [continue, see photos]
Thanks to Cynthia and Arthur, who both wrote to me yesterday to point out this story. (Sorry I'm a little late in posting about it - I've just returned from a trip.)
MORE...From Ananova: Medieval peasants had 'better teeth'.
MORE...Medieval peasants had better teeth than people today because they spent longer chewing their food, say researchers.
Professor Wolfgang Arnold, from the University of Witten/Herdecke, studied the remains of people buried between the 5th and 9th centuries.
He found they had better teeth than their descendants, even though they never brushed their teeth.
He said: "The portrayal of the typical person from the middle ages as having rotten teeth is wrong.
"There was sweet food items available then, but despite this and the fact there were no toothbrushes, not a single body showed signs of tooth decay. [continue]
From discovery.com: Fancy Roman Dining Hall Found.
Startling evidence of ancient Romans' most exclusive way of dining has been uncovered in a villa in southern Italy, local archaeologists announced.
Excavation at the residence of an aristocratic family in Faragola, in Puglia, has brought to light a rare example of a stibadium, a semicircular couch on which selected guests sat at the most fashionable dinner parties.
Complete with a fountain, which provided fresh water for the meals, the stibadium consisted of a semicircular platform of masonry that formed the basis for mattresses or bolsters on which the guests reclined. (...)
Built in the 4th century, the residence reached its height of splendor during the 5th century. Belonging to the senatorial Cornelii Scipiones Orfiti family, it featured big and luxurious thermal baths, with rooms for cold, lukewarm and hot baths.
In a large room with a precious mosaic floor, guests indulged in massages.
But the most spectacular room was the cenatio, the dining hall. The dominus, the house owner, sat at the right on the stibadium, while the most important guest sat at the left in front of the dominus. [continue, see photos]
From iol.co.za: Archaelogists on trail of ancient warships.
Italian archaeologists believe they are on the verge of finding the ancient ships downed in the battle of the Aegates Islands more than 2000 years ago thanks to modern technology and a police tip-off.
"This project has an enormous historical value, but perhaps more important is the relevance for archaeology," Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily's chief of marine culture, said on Friday.
"What we find will help us understand how wars were waged at that time and how battleships were built."
After two years of underwater searches around the islands, which lie west of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, experts last year found a bronze helmet and some amphorae from about 241 BC, the date of the decisive Roman victory over the Carthage fleet.
At around the same time, a team of Italy's famed art police busted a collector who had a ship's bronze battering ram from the same period on display in his home. It turned out the relic had been illegally looted using nets from the same area. [continue]
From the Jerusalem Post: Archaeologists uncover Roman graveyard in Austria.
Archaeologists said Saturday they have unearthed a large Roman-era burial ground in the western Austrian city of Wels that contained at least 50 skeletons, numerous urns and coins.
The graveyard, believed to date to 2 or 3 B.C., was discovered about a year ago during excavation to build an office complex and an underground parking garage, said Renate Miglbauer, the archaeologist in charge of the site. [continue]
An article at 24 Hour Museum points out an interesting section of the British Library website:
The British Library website is now proudly hosting a searchable archive of 253 rare Renaissance festival books, made possible by three years of work by researchers at the University of Warwick, in association with the British Library.
From marriages, coronations and births to official visits and saints' days, celebrations staged by the royal courts of Europe were occasions to be remembered. Festival books could be compared to souvenir programmes, or magazine accounts, documenting through eye-witness accounts and philosophical reflections the key events in the lives of princely and elite folk - the celebrities of the day.
"Festivals were immensely expensive occasions," said Professor Ronnie Mulryne, who directed the project, "so they could be given permanence by writing an official report." [continue, see images]
A few years ago I blogged about where St Matthew's remains might be; some say his bones are resting near Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan. Now the Kyrgyzstan Development Agency reports that the remains of a very old monastery have been found in that area.
The Issyk-Kul Regional Archaeological Expedition of the Kyrgyz Russian Slavic University led by Academician, Vladimir Ploskih has been searching for an Armenian Brothers' Monastery shown on the Katalan map of the world made in the 14th century for several years. Several days ago they found an underground temple. (...)
We discovered that the entrance to the cave was blocked and it had rained the day before so the clay was wet and it was dangerous to go into an unknown place but we really wanted to. The historians started their descent. We recognised at once that it was an architectural construction. One could see the professionally built arches and well thought-out design. Rooms cross at right angles and there are several passages that end in small cells. The main room just before the entrance sloped downwards and turned left and then there was an obstruction although its vault could be seen for several metres further.
When was it built? We found the answer in one of the arches where several deeply hammered in and totally corroded metal rods were found there, which could only have got in that state over a long period of time. The next day, Academician Vladimir Ploskih investigated the find and walked around all the rooms. In the evening he reported to all scientific and historical centres that the Armenian Brothers’ Monastery had finally been found and it was a sensation. (...)
It might be that this is the monastery where, according to the 14th Century map, the Apostle Mathew’s relics are kept. [read full article]
Thanks to Laura of Faynights for writing to tell me about the above article.
MORE...The Perfect Red sounds like an interesting book, and here's a review of it from the Washington Post:
One day, Amy Butler Greenfield was sitting in a library in Seville, Spain, perusing the cargo manifests of ships of the colonial era, when she noticed how often cochineal was mentioned. Why were the Spanish shipping so much of this special red dyestuff from Mexico? Intrigued by its apparent value, she decided to unearth its history. That Greenfield also comes from a family of dyers made the scholarly detective work all the more appealing to her.
The result, A Perfect Red, is a fascinating history of dyeing, as craft and culture, focusing on the social and economic importance of shades of red, the most vibrant of which were reserved for royalty. In the days before synthetic colors, some red dye came from plant sources such as henna or madder and some from insects such as Laccifer lacca (the latter was ideal for lacquering or shellacking wood). But competitive dyers sought "a perfect red," by which they meant a profitable one -- a dye that was stable, easily absorbed by fabric and resistant to fading. [continue]
Link found at Arts and Letters Daily.
MORE...From New Scientist: Erotic images can turn you blind.
Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along - erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners' calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.
The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as "emotion-induced blindness". [continue]
