bcuster
Well-Known Member
Parasitic Worms Plagued These Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs
Scientists peeled back the layers of history to find the afflictions of a bygone era.
www.popularmechanics.com
Katherine Forsyth, professor of Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow [...] confirmed that it was an ogham script, that of an early style, which most likely dates to the fifth to sixth century but possibly as early as the fourth century.
[Archaeologist Teresa] Gilmore said such stones were “very rare and have generally been found in Ireland or Scotland … so to find them in the Midlands is actually unusual.”
She suggested it could be linked to people coming over from Ireland or to early medieval monasteries in the area. “You would have had monks and clerics moving between the different monasteries.”
Archived version: https://archive.md/fJXqj
More Neanderthal stuff, this time on their language (or lack of it):Was reading this story on neanderthal art: Neanderthals: The oldest art in the world wasn't made by humans and the author has a book out: Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
Published late last year and not read it but the write-up suggests it might come at the question from the angle you mention: "He focuses in particular on behaviour, using archaeological evidence to bring an intimate perspective on lives as they were lived in the almost unimaginably distant past."
scanning costs are v. high but not impossible money high. I know some are hoping to turn up the gospel of st paul.I watched a fascinating documentary last week on Channel 5 of all places about a recent technological breakthrough in trying to read the Herculaneum script rolls. For those unaware of them, as I was until last week, they are 2,000 year-old rolled up script rolls that were carbonised during the infamous Vesubius eruption that destroyed said town as well as nearby Pompeii.
The rolls, hundreds of them, were found a few decades ago during the excavation of what was the largest and most opulent villa in the settlement, and are thought to contain many works of ancient philosophy, literature and history long lost to mankind. The problem has been that whenever someone has tried to unroll one of them, however carefully, they have invariably disintegrated and only a few scraps with legible text could be salvaged.
But now for the very first time, a team from the US, using an extremely advanced type of X-ray machine combined with AI learning software programmed to interpret and decipher the extremely complex and distorted x-ray readings, has for the first time been able to read a page of one of the petrified script rolls in their current rolled up state. The team now hopes they have cracked the problem and will in time be able to extract the information from all the surviving scripts.
Very fucking cool indeed, and the documentary on C5 is well worth checking. Here’s some more info about the breakthrough
Buried by the Ash of Vesuvius, These Scrolls Are Being Read for the First Time in Millennia
A revolutionary American scientist is using subatomic physics to decipher 2,000-year-old texts from the early days of Western civilizationwww.smithsonianmag.com
That looks brilliant, thank you.Enjoyable article comparing those early textiles we've been lucky enough to find preserved in salt, which keeps the colour: https://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp345_salt_preserved_ancient_textiles.pdf
Less than a decade ago, the American anthropologist James C Scott described infectious diseases as the “loudest silence” in the prehistoric archaeological record. Epidemics must have devastated human societies in the distant past and changed the course of history, but, Scott lamented, the artefacts left behind reveal nothing about them.
Over the last few years, the silence has been shattered by pioneering research that analyses microbial DNA extracted from very old human skeletons. The latest example of this is a groundbreaking study that identified three viruses in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones. These pathogens still afflict modern humans: adenovirus, herpesvirus and papillomavirus cause the common cold, cold sores, and genital warts and cancer, respectively. The discovery may help us resolve the greatest mystery of the Palaeolithic era: what caused the extinction of Neanderthals.
That looks impractical even dangerous. That is top heavy.
The top tray would be full of hot coal and I reckon the base may have been filled with sand. But yeah, doesn’t look greatThat looks impractical even dangerous. That is top heavy.
Also designed to fit in a corner which will aid stabilityI was wondering if it had a ceremony role rather than a practical?
looks remarkably like the setup we went with when we were having the kitchen redone. Only burnt about three foot of carpetThat looks impractical even dangerous. That is top heavy.
I'm guessing it's gold but for the life of me I can't stop seeing it as carved out of cheese.I would expect something more like this, you can't knock this over.View attachment 427835
Temple Incense BurnerView attachment 427836