January 2, 2011

Goddesschess 2010 in Review
Top 101 Tales of the Old Year

January

1. The Book of Enoch tr. by R.H. Charles [1917] The Book of Enoch, written during the second century B.C.E., is one of the most important non-canonical apocryphal works, and probably had a huge influence on early Christian, particularly Gnostic, beliefs. Filled with hallucinatory visions of heaven and hell, angels and devils, Enoch introduced concepts such as fallen angels, the appearance of a Messiah, Resurrection, a Final Judgement, and a Heavenly Kingdom on Earth. Interspersed with this material are quasi-scientific digressions on calendrical systems, geography, cosmology, astronomy, and meteorology.

2. Gorillas 'ape humans' over games Gorilla games provide clues to human understanding. Gorillas play competitive games just like humans, according to scientists at the University of St Andrews.The gorillas at San Francisco Zoo were observed over a period of five years playing with a variety of equipment.

3. In praise of… Neanderthal man It seems we have all been guilty of defaming Neanderthal man. Research by a team based at the University of Bristol suggests that, far from being a lumbering, witless no-hoper, he was capable, 50,000 years ago, of producing forms of cosmetic adornment and even of primitive jewellery. In 1985, finds in Murcia, Spain, had suggested that this might be so; and now an expedition led by Professor João Zilhão of Bristol has uncovered a shell which shows "a symbolic dimension in behaviour and thinking that cannot be denied"...

4. Treasure Found off La Manga The find has been described as one of the most important of all archaeological discoveries. The Ivory tusks measure between 70 and 150 centimetres, with Phoenician writing inscribed.  They have come from a race of elephants which are now believed to be extinct.  There are also copper ingots and stones containing silver and lead.  Ceramic pots which were used for transporting fish and oil have been found too, as well as plates, bowls, combs, ivory knife handles, bronze needles and chandeliers.

5. Megalithic spin? Brockdorff Circle report literally rewrites history RAPHAEL VASSALLO The long-awaited official report into the excavations of the Gozo Stone (aka Brockdorff) Circle in Xaghra – a unique underground prehistoric burial site near Ggantija temples – may have rewritten Maltese history in more ways than one: by failing to properly acknowledge that the site was originally discovered by Gozitan historian Joseph Attard Tabone, whose extensive research led to its precise relocation in 1965

6. Golden Ratio Discovered in Quantum World: Hidden Symmetry Observed for the First Time in Solid State Matter - ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2010) — Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid state matter. They have measured the signatures of a symmetry showing the same attributes as the golden ratio famous from art and architecture.

7. "Lost" Amazon Complex Found; Shapes Seen by Satellite John Roach for National Geographic News - January 4, 2010 - Hundreds of circles, squares, and other geometric shapes once hidden by forest hint at a previously unknown ancient society that flourished in the Amazon, a new study says.  Satellite images of the upper Amazon Basin taken since 1999 have revealed more than 200 geometric earthworks spanning a distance greater than 155 miles (250 kilometers). 

8. In a new translation of a 3,700-year-old Babylonian, cuneiform clay tablet, “Noah’s Ark” is described as a round, bitumen-covered reed vessel. “The ark didn’t have to go anywhere, it just had to float, and the instructions are for a type of craft which they knew very well. It’s still sometimes used in Iran and Iraq today,” said Irving Finkel of the British Museum

February

9. Archaeologist: Royal Palace of Ebla, Living Archive of Syria's History By H.Zain/ Ghossoun Sunday, 14 February 2010 21:32 The importance of the Royal Palace of Ebla, in north Syria, lies in that it includes a room for cuneiform manuscripts, known as 'Ebla Archive' which stressed its importance as a political and economic metropolis in Bilad al-Cham besides that the Palace dates back to the Early Bronze Age 2400 BC. History in the Remaking A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.

10. They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent.

11. Primitive Humans Conquered Sea, Surprising Finds Suggest Prehistoric axes found on a Greek island suggest that seafaring existed in the Mediterranean more than a hundred thousand years earlier than thought "These early people were intentional seafarers," he emphasized, "not individuals lost at sea." At present, the earliest widely accepted evidence of ancient seafaring comes from Australia. Other pieces of evidence, however, suggest that seafaring could go back much deeper in time.

12. BabelStone - The Lost Game of Liubo Part 1 : Funerary Statuettes - The ancient Chinese game of Liùbó - meaning 'six sticks', was immensely popular during the latter part of the Warring States period (476-221 B.C.) and throughout the Han dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.), but later faded into oblivion.

March

13. “People who spend a lot of time failing in game worlds are less put off by failure in the real world,” says Dr. McGonigal. “They’re more likely to stick at it and get to a successful conclusion whereas other people would quit. Because games teach us that failure isn’t actually scary. It’s an opportunity to learn because, obviously, to do amazing things, we can’t just give up because we fail.”

14. Physicists Find Way To 'See' Extra Dimensions ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2007) — Peering backward in time to an instant after the big bang, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe.

15. A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets By NICHOLAS WADE Published: March 15, 2010 - In the middle of a terrifying desert north of Tibet, Chinese archaeologists have excavated an extraordinary cemetery. Its inhabitants died almost 4,000 years ago, yet their bodies have been well preserved by the dry air. - An exhibition of the Tarim Basin mummies opens March 27 at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif. — the first time that the mummies will be seen outside Asia. Secrets of the Silk Road

16.Ancient Texts Present Mayans as Literary Geniuses Book elicits praise from scholars of Mayan culture throughout the world Release Date: March 5, 2010 BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Literary critics, cultural scholars and aficionados of the Mayans, the only fully literate people of the pre-Columbian Americas, have lined up to call the first fully illustrated survey of two millennia of Mayan texts assembled by award-winning scholar Dennis Tedlock, "stunning," "astounding," "groundbreaking" and "literally breathtaking.

17. Qin Shihuang Tomb has north gate March 08, 2010  Reporters from Xi'an Evening News learned from Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology that archaeologists exploring the Qin Tomb have discovered a north gate of the tomb's outer city, marking an important archaeological discovery. The north gate proves that the Qin Tomb has 4 gates. In addition, archaeological exploration of some Han Dynasty tombs located in the Qin Tomb site has led to the exposure of the largest solid bricks unearthed so far.

18. Kerala's possible Mediterranean links unearthed by researchers News Date: 9th March 2010 Did the Mediterranean region of megalithic age have any links with the state of Kerala in southern India? A wide range of megalithic burials recently discovered in some northern districts of Kerala during a research project have thrown light on possible links between the Mediterranean and Kerala coasts in the prehistoric stone age that occurred between 6000 BC and 2000 BC.

19. Roadworks dig finds millions of Aboriginal artefacts Updated Wed Mar 10, 2010 Archaeologists conduct a dig at the Brighton bypass in southern Tasmania. (Rob Paton) • AUDIO: Archaeologist Rob Paton talks to ABC Reporter Damien Larkins about the initial findings. (ABC News) Archaeologists say they may have found proof of the oldest and most southerly human habitation in the world at the site of a major road project in Tasmania. Archaeologists and Aboriginal heritage officers have been removing sediment from eight trenches along the Jordan River levee at the Brighton roadworks site, north of Hobart.

20. ANCIENT TRIBAL MEETING GROUND FOUND IN AUSTRALIA The 40,000-year-old site may hold the world's southernmost traces of early human life. - Wed Mar 10, 2010 03:15 PM ET | content provided by Amy Coopes, AFP The site of the 40,000-year-old tribal meeting ground has been hailed by one archaeologist as "Tasmania's Valley of the Kings." THE GIST: • An archaeology survey conducted ahead of roadwork has found an ancient, Aboriginal meeting ground. • Up to three million artifacts were believed to be buried in the area. • Only around 470,000 of Australia's original inhabitants are still alive today.

21. Sudan's land of 'black pharaohs' a trove for archaeologists By Guillaume Lavallee (AFP) – MEROE, Sudan — There is not a tourist in sight as the sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, but archaeologists say the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan holds mysteries to rival ancient Egypt. Swiss archaeologist Mattieu Honeggar recently discovered a site at Wadi Al-Arab, in a corner of the desert area of north Sudan that was inhabited nearly 10,000 years ago, many millennia before the "black pharaohs," and could allow a better understanding of man's transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

22. Engraved Eggs Suggest Early Symbolism by Michael Balter - March 1, 2010 What do Homo sapiens have that our hominid ancestors did not? Many researchers think that the capacity for symbolic behaviors—such as art and language—is the hallmark of our species. A team working in South Africa has now discovered what it thinks is some of the best early evidence for such symbolism: a cache of ostrich eggshells dated to about 60,000 years ago and etched with intricate geometric patterns.

23.The Staffordshire Hoard: securing a national treasure The recently discovered Anglo-Saxon treasures known as the Safforshire Hoard are to form part of a new West Midlands heritage trail tracing the history of Mercia. Over the past few weeks, these objects, including a stunning gold filigree horse's head, never previously shown, have been wowing visitors again at The Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent, where they are on display until 7 March.

24. Syria's Stonehenge: Neolithic stone circles, alignments and possible tombs discovered. One of the corbelled stone structures found in the Syrian desert. Archaeologists suspect that its an ancient stone tomb. In the front of it are the remains of a stone circle. For Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, it all began with a walk last summer. Mason conducts work at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, out in the Syrian Desert. Finds from the monastery, which is still in use today by monks, date mainly to the medieval period and include some beautiful frescoes.

25. Egypt gets 25,000 artifacts from Britain Mohamed Abdel Salam - 6 March 2010 CAIRO: The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced on Thursday that Egypt restored 25,000 pieces of antiquities from Britain, some dating to the middle of the Stone Age, 200,000 B.C. Hosni said that “some of the pieces date back to the middle Stone Age, while other pieces date back to the pre-civilizations period and prehistoric era and of the dynasties from the 7th Millennium to the 3rd B.C.”

April

26. Archaeologists unearth 6th century Ikea-style temple Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed the remains of a 6th century BC temple-style building complete with detailed assembly instructions which they have likened to an Ikea do-it-yourself furniture pack.

27. Mysterious desert lines were animal traps Walls formed large funnels to direct gazelle and other large game animals - Larry O'Hanlon - updated 1:39 p.m. ET, Tues., April 20, 2010 - British RAF pilots in the early 20th century were the first to spot the strange kite-like lines on the deserts of Israel, Jordan and Egypt from the air and wonder about their origins. The lines are low, stone walls, usually found as angled pairs, that begin far apart and converge at circular pits. In some places in Jordan the lines formed chains up to 40 miles long.

28. Lydia - Herodotus, who wrote around 430 BC, talks about the Lydians as “the first people we know of to have struck gold and silver coins.”  We can therefore place the birth of currency in Lydia due to the fact that archaeologists working in the twentieth century on the site of ancient Sardis, capital of the kingdom, found small round ingots of a metal called electrum. This is not pure gold but a natural alloy of gold and silver.  It could be found in abundance in the mountains of Lydia and especially in alluvial deposits in the Pactolus River, which retained a reputation for being wealthy that its current condition no longer merits.

May

29. Mega Mummy Find: 45 Tombs Unearthed Egyptian Archaeologists Make 'Astonishing Surprise' Discovery By Lama Hasan - Cairo, May 24, 2010 - A team of Egyptian archaeologists headed by Abdel Rahman El-Aydi unearthed what he told ABC News was "the most important cemetery dating to the second dynasty," calling it an ''astonishing surprise."

30.The Mind’s Eye: Games and Altered Consciousness May 27th by Micah Hanks Well known and admired occult fictionalist H.P. Lovecraft once said, when asked if he played games, that “games are for the weak minded.” However, new studies suggest the truth behind this matter may just be just the opposite.

31. The Museum of Talking Boards In the year 1848, something unusual happened in a Hydesville, New York cabin. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the spirit of a dead peddler, became instant celebrities, and sparked a national obsession that spread all across the United States and Europe. It was the birth of modern Spiritualism.

32. New Laser Mapping Technique Reveals Amazing Things Mapping Ancient Civilization, in a Matter of Days By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Published: May 10, 2010 - For a quarter of a century, two archaeologists and their team slogged through wild tropical vegetation to investigate and map the remains of one of the largest Maya cities, in Central America. Slow, sweaty hacking with machetes seemed to be the only way to discover the breadth of an ancient urban landscape now hidden beneath a dense forest canopy.

33. The earliest tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities, and to the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele. Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In England this holiday was expanded to include all mothers and was called Mothering Sunday.

34. Global Consciousness Project Interviews with Tamas Borbely of Goldsmiths College and Dr. Peter Bancel of the Global Consciousness Project reveal common ground on revolutionary research. The notion of a collective global consciousness is accepted truth within many cultures, but scoffed at by modern scientists.  That may change.  Once skeptical researchers investigating the 10-year Global Consciousness Project are finding solid data to support the conclusion that we’re all connected.

35. Architecture and Memory - Robert Kirkbride- The Renaissance Studioli of Fredrico da Montefeltro - In addition to music and conversation, from the chessboard and pieces depicted in the west wall, it seems more than likely that certain games were played in the studiolo. Cheles has noted that "the presence of a game of chess in a study is not unusual: Piero de' Medici kept one in his scrittoio."

36. Exposing the Culture Thieves June 14, 2006 -Investigative journalist Peter Watson discusses the illicit antiquities trade. - Peter Watson is co-author with Cecilia Todeschini of The Medici Conspiracy, an excerpt of which appears in our July/August issue. Watson has followed the connection between criminals and the art and antiquities markets for more than two decades. In 1983 he posed as a wealthy art dealer to help expose a ring of art thieves that stretched from Italy to New York. Medici galore - many links

37. First Earth vs. Space Chess Match Ends – Earth Wins Published by Matt on Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:01 pm via: NASA - The first Earth vs. Space chess match, begun during astronaut Greg Chamitoff’s Expedition 17 stay aboard the International Space Station, is over – and the Earth won.

June

38. 7,000 Year Old Projectile Points found in Vermont (USA) ! From the RutlandHerald.com - Artifacts dating back to 5000 B.C. found in Rutland Town - By PATRICIA MINICHIELLO STAFF WRITER - Published: June 24, 2010 Ancient artifacts dating back roughly 7,000 years ago to 5000 B.C., were found by state archeologists on land near Thomas Dairy in Rutland Town recently

39. Digs in Cyprus uncover more of Phoenician fort By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS (AP) – 6 days ago NICOSIA, Cyprus — Digs in Cyprus have uncovered what may be soldiers' barracks belonging to a sprawling Phoenician fortress that was the island's largest ancient administrative hub dating back at least 2,500 years, the Cypriot Antiquities Department director said Monday.

40. Ancient Human Sacrifice on China’s Periphery Anthropoetics 14, no. 1 (Summer 2008) Herbert Plutschow - Dean of International Humanities, Josai International University Japan - This bronze vessel, its location and approximate date, indicates a continuation of human sacrifice in south-west China into the Western (also Former) Han Dynasty (206BCE-25CE). Already five centuries have passed since the teachings of Kong Fuzi made human sacrifice obsolete, and several centuries have elapsed without any notable evidence of human sacrifice at the state level. Confucianism, a socio-political philosophy based on etiquette, ritual know-how, and learning made human sacrifice obsolete, as the state no longer needed blood sacrifice to impose political authority and social cohesion. Animal sacrifice, however, continued as an important imperial ritual until the collapse of imperial China in 1911.

41. Mat Weights - A remarkable and mysterious group of small bronze sculptures from China’s Warring States Period and Han Dynasty (475 BC–AD 220) depicts bears, felines, rams, deer, and other creatures both real and imaginary. Made in sets of four and often filled with lead, these sculptures were used to weigh down mats used for seating and for playing board games, and their internment in tombs suggests that they were as significant during life as after death.

42. UW games collection goes to Museum of Civilization April 19, 2010 - By Brent Davis - Waterloo - For nearly 40 years, a small museum tucked away at the University of Waterloo boasted one of the world’s largest collections of games. Now, the collection has found a new home at one of Canada’s national treasures, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/home/cmc-home

July

43. FIGHTING CHESS 2010 - Congratulations Tatev! "I'm so glad that Goddesschess and 9Queens are promoting and celebrating fighting spirit among female chess players, and look forward to enjoying the beautiful and skillful display of chess mastery at the US Women's Chess Championships," said Grandmaster Kosteniuk.... who selected Tatev Abrahmayan as the recipient of this year's Fighting Chess Award.

44. Tatev Abrahamyan wins bronze medal at U.S. Women’s Chess Championship July 21, 2010 - PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia’s Tatev Abrahamyan scored 7.5 points and shared the 2nd-3rd places with Anna Zatonskih at the US Women's Chess Championship in Saint Louis. According to additional results, Abrahamyan was awarded bronze medal.

45. Window into the past September 20 - Djulirri in north-western Arnhem Land is home to the most expansive and spectacular discovery of Aboriginal rock art spanning ancient and modern humanity. With motifs dating back more than 15,000 years and drawings of naval ships and early 20th century biplanes, guns, cars and bicycles it provides the first real insight into how the indigenous population reacted to these intrusions

46. Primitive Cinema Used Echoes and Rock Engravings Jeremy Hsu LiveScience Senior Writer - Thu Jul 8, 3:50 pm ET - A Copper Age tribe may have enjoyed a primitive cinematic experience by making stone engravings in an echo-filled Alpine valley, researchers say. Torchlight and flickering shadows would have made the engravings on stone walls seem to come alive at night. And spoken words that became magnified in a natural outdoor theater could have awakened the storytelling imaginations of observers.

47. Divination Objects were used to communicate with gods, spirits and ancestors to understand or influence one's fate. Many African works fit that definition but our exhibit focuses on the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It includes many wonderful examples of their divination trays (opon Ifa) on which the sacred signs (odu) were traced, bowls (agere Ifa)which contained the 16 palm nuts to be cast, beaded bags (which carried tools and supplies) and tappers ( which were tapped to summon and greet the spirits). The quality of the pieces enhanced the diviner's status and inspired confidence in their skill. We also have several Kuba animal friction oracles and a Baule mouse oracle (gbekre) on display.

August

48. The Vibrant Role of Mingqi in Early Chinese Burials Burial figurines of graceful dancers, mystical beasts, and everyday objects reveal both how people in early China approached death and how they lived. Since people viewed the afterlife as an extension of worldly life, these figurines, called mingqi or "spirit utensils," disclose details of routine existence and provide insights into belief systems over a thousand-year period. Mingqi were popularized during the formative Han dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.) and endured through the turbulent Six Dynasties period (221–589) and the later reunification of China in the Sui (589–618) and Tang (618–906) dynasties.

49. Turkish archeologists find 4,000 year-old trade deal in Anatolia Archeologists have unearthed the tablets of first written trade agreement in Anatolia. - 29 August 2010 14:54 - Kanesh, inhabited continuously from the Chalcolithic period down to Roman times, flourished most strongly as an important merchant colony (karum) of the Old Assyrian kingdom, from ca. 20th to 16th centuries BC. A late (c 1400 BC) witness to an old tradition includes a king of Kanesh called Zipani among seventeen local city-kings who rose up against the Akkadian Naram-Sin (ruled c.2254-2218). It is the site of discovery of the earliest traces of the Hittite language, and the earliest attestation of any Indo-European language, dated to the 20th century BC

50. New discoveries in Syria reveal ancient trade routes to Nile Aug 26, 2010, Damascus - An academic excavation team said Thursday it had uncovered artifacts which indicate that an ancient Bronze-Age kingdom in northern Syria had strong international trade relations with Nile river dynasties.

51. 5000 stone statues older than Terracotta warriors discovered in Hunan Thursday, Aug 19, 2010, - Archaeologists have discovered a large group of ancient stone statues at the worship site of Guizai Mountain near Hunan province. According to People's Daily Online, these statues are a lot more in number and a lot older than the Qin Terracotta Warriors found in the depths of the Nanling Mountains located in Dao County of Yongzhou City.

52. S.Korea archaeologists uncover 7,000-year-old oar Tue Aug 17, 12:52 pm ET SEOUL (AFP) – South Korean archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed a rare neolithic period wooden boat oar, believed to date back about 7,000 years but still in good condition. The oar was discovered in mud land in Changnyeong, 240 kilometres (140 miles) southeast of Seoul, the Gimhae National Museum said. "This is a very rare find, not only in South Korea but also in the world," museum researcher Yoon On-Shik told AFP.

53. Pakistan’s archaeological sites endangered by floods Monday, 16 Aug, 2010 - Flood waters in the southern province of Sindh have inundated hundreds of villages and also threaten its cultural heritage. “There is danger to the 5,000-year-old Moenjodaro and Aamri archaeological sites,” said Karim Lashari, chief of the provincial antiquities department. Moenjodaro is on UNESCO’s list of the world heritage sites. Its website says the city was built of unbaked brick in the third millennium BC and provides evidence of an early system of town planning.

54. “The Monkey Race” – Remarks on Board Games Accessories (pdf) Anne-E. Dunn-Vaturi - In the ancient Near East, games represented an essential dimension in social life. It is because they are closely related to another principle, important in the stability of human communities: the notion of divination.(1) Knucklebones and dice were used not only for games of skill, but also for divinatory purposes. Thus, their casting is per ceived as an expression of divine will, determining the movement of pieces or pegs in different games of chance.

55. 18,000 Records Discovered in Chinese Well Reveal Life in Time of First Emperor Submitted by owenjarus on Thu, 07/15/2010 - The discovery was made in the area of Xiangxi, located in Hunan Province. Historians and archaeologists are analyzing a treasure trove of Qin dynasty documents that promise to tell us more about life in the time of the First Emperor of China – Qin Shi Huang.

56. Europe's prehistoric tombs built in bursts Aug 11, 2010 - Western Europe's massive prehistoric tombs were built in a burst of activity over a few centuries around 4000 BC, suggests dating evidence, rather than continuously throughout the Stone Age. In the current European Journal of Archaeology, archaeologist Chris Scarre of the United Kingdom's Durham University, looks at the latest dating of "megalithic" prehistoric tombs stretching from Sweden to Spain.

57. Full text of "Games of the North American Indians" Stewart Culin's magnumn opus is now online but unfortunately lacking the illustrations. Stick and ball games were and are still very popular among Native American Indians and have a colorful history that history is still in the making it seems...

58. TOTO40: A Totolospi Inspired Chess Variant on 40 Squares Toto40 is a chess variant inspired by Frank Hamilton Cushing's incomplete description of Totolospi, a war game once played by Hopi Indians. Totolospi (not to be confused with a race game of the same name) was played on a 10 by 10 grid, with a diagonal line, known as tuh-ki-o-ta, drawn from the northwest to the southeast corner. Cushing's description is vague, but he did state that pieces could be moved onto the diagonal line, but not across it, and that all fighting took place on that line. Toto40 has borrowed the idea of a uncrossable line on which all of the fighting occurs.

59. World Board Game Championships It's over now but... in Lancaster Last Update: 8/05 - A lot of people brag about their board games skills, but now's your chance to really show what you've got. The World Board Game Championships are happening right now in East Lampeter Township, Lancaster County. Organized by The Boardgame Player's Association

September

60. Do it Yourself Games - and more! Alphonsine Chess : : A Goddesschess historical guide for the perplexed craftsperson... This page was inspired by recent correspondence with Rev. Craig L. Cowing of Newport, New Hampshire. With help from his wife, Mr. Cowing's reconstruction of the Alphonsine chessmen and period costumes of the age offers a nice example of how everyday people respond energetically to games in general and the culture of chess in particular. The total cost for the board game project was around $30.

61. 2,500 year old chess pieces found in tomb - September 21st, 2010 (a red letter day) Beijing, Sept. 20: Chess pieces dating back 2,500 years have been found in a tomb in China’s Hebei province. Ten chess pieces were found next to a skeleton in a Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 A.D.) tomb in Pingshan county, said Mr Fan Shuhai, a researcher with Hebei provincial institute of archaeology. The pieces were part of the original version of the game, popular in China at least 2,500 years ago. They were made of animal bones and were piled one on top of another, Xinhua reported. Earlier, several chess boards have been discovered in China, but chess pieces are very rarely found, said Mr Fan.

63. Before & After: Wine-Cult Cave Art Restored in Petra Revealed to the public in late August, the once sooty, 2,000-year-old face of a winged child now stares brightly from an ancient work of cave art—one of several that have recently been restored near Petra, Jordan's ancient rock-carved city and one of the "new seven wonders" of the world (pictures).

64. Bacchanalian Retreat? Photograph by Taylor S. Kennedy, National Geographic Carved into sandstone, stairs lead to a rock-hewn room at Siq al-Barid, or Little Petra (file photo). The Jordanian site may have been a weekend retreat for affluent Nabataeans, a place where they  toasted bacchanalian deities with goblets of wine.

65. Australian Aborigines 'world's first astronomers? Sep 17, 2010 SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian study has uncovered signs that the country's ancient Aborigines may have been the world's first stargazers, pre-dating Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids by thousands of years. Professor Ray Norris said widespread and detailed knowledge of the stars had been passed down through the generations by Aborigines, whose history dates back tens of millennia, in traditional songs and stories.

66. Tengriism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - A diagram of the Tengriist World view on a shaman's drum [1] [2]. The World-tree is growing in the centre and connecting the three Worlds: Underworld, Middleworld and Upperworld. Tengriism (tenger), or Tengrianism is a religion that incorporates elements of shamanism, animism, totemism and ancestor worship. It was the major belief of Xiongnu, Turkic peoples, Mongols, Hungarian and Bulgar peoples in ancient times[. It focuses around the sky deity Tengri (also Tangri, Tanr?, Tangra, etc.) and reverence for the sky in general. Today, there are still a large number of Tengriist people living in Northern and Central Asia, such as the Khakas and Tuvans.

67. Symbols from the sky... Shortly after the autumnal equinox in the year 15,300 BC, deer hunters standing at the mouth of a cave in Lascaux, France, before dusk would have seen the constellation of the Bull, Taurus, climb the sky over the western hilltops. The Hyades cluster would have appeared as the star-speckled face of the animal, its blazing red eye the star Aldebaran, while the brilliant six stars of the Pleiades glittered above its great back.

68. Quantum Chess Changes The State Of The Game - A quantum object can exist in more than one state. When you attempt to interact with it, the wave function collapses and the object settles into a single state. This is the theory applied to Quantum Chess, a new twist on the classic game created by Queen's University undergraduate computer science student Alice Wismath.

69. The 2010 Montreal Open Chess Championship has run a successful course once again! The number of participants topped last year's record and goddesschess was there to record memorable moments as well as a few interesting (we think) interviews conducted by the players themselves.

70. Archaeologists in Jordan say they have unearthed a 3,000-year-old temple By Dale Gavlak - AMMAN, Jordan — Archaeologists in Jordan have unearthed a 3,000-year-old Iron Age temple with a trove of figurines of ancient deities and circular clay vessels used for religious rituals, officials said Wednesday. The head of the Jordanian Antiquities Department, Ziad al-Saad, said the sanctuary dates to the eighth century B.C. and was discovered at Khirbat 'Ataroz near the town of Mabada, some 20 miles (32 kilometres) southwest of the capital Amman.

71. Tell Brak, Archaeological City Hosted the 1st Human Civilization (So...what about Catalhoyok?) By R. Raslan - 27 August 2010 - Syria (Hasaka) – Tell Brak (Nagar) is an ancient late Neolithic, Sumerian, Acadian and Middle-Late Bronze Age city on the Upper Khabur River. It is 45 km far from Hasaka city, 5,5 km from Damascus. Studying pottery fragments found at Tel Brak archaeological site helped to date it to the sixth millennium BC as the oldest inhibited city, he added.

72. Scalpels and skulls point to Bronze Age brain surgery- 31 August 2010 by Jo Marchant - Onder Bilgi talks about his discovery of a razor-sharp 4000-year-old scalpel and what it was originally used for Where are you digging? At an early Bronze Age settlement called Ikiztepe, in the Black Sea province of Samsun in Turkey. The village was home to about 300 people at its peak, around 3200 to 2100 BC.

October

73. Silbury Hill's true story - construction process was more important than design Submitted by Ann on Tue, 10/26/2010 - “What is emerging is a picture of Neolithic people having the same need to anchor and share ideas and stories as we do now, and that built structures like Silbury Hill may not be conceived as grand monuments of worship but intimate gestures of communication.”

74. Hunting for the Dawn of Writing, When Prehistory Became History By GERALDINE FABRIKANT Published: October 19, 2010 - The new exhibition by the institute, part of the University of Chicago, is the first in the United States in 26 years to focus on comparative writing. It relies on advances in archaeologists’ knowledge to shed new light on the invention of scripted language and its subsequent evolution.

75. Chief Archaeologist: New discoveries show First Emperor’s Mausoleum influenced by foreign ideas - Submitted by owenjarus on 10/26/2010 - Acrobats from Burma, workers from Central or West Asia, and a mausoleum design inspired by work in the Middle East – the Mauseoleum of China’s First Emperor was a cosmopolitan place says Dr. Duan Qingbo, the man in charge of excavating it.

76. An archaeological study in Tamil Nadu has thrown light on interesting facets of cave temple architecture during the Pandyas-Pallavas reign, besides uncovering musical inscriptions engraved on some temples. The study has revealed that cave temples of the Pandyas and the feudatories exhibited several cult images of Ananthasayi (Lord Vishnu), Lord Ganesh and Durga, which were not seen in the Pallava corpus of cave art, D Dayalan, Superintending Archaeologist, Temple Research project, said.

77. Headless Romans in England Came From "Exotic" Locales? James Owen for National Geographic News Published October 28, 2010 - An ancient English cemetery filled with headless skeletons holds proof that the victims lost their heads a long way from home, archaeologists say. Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in the northern city of York (map), the 80 skeletons were found in burial grounds used by the Romans throughout the second and third centuries A.D. Almost all the bodies are males, and more than half of them had been decapitated, although many were buried with their detached heads.

78. Neolithic Immigration - How Middle Eastern Milk Drinkers Conquered Europe By Matthias Schulz 10/15/2010 -New research has revealed that agriculture came to Europe amid a wave of immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period. The newcomers won out over the locals because of their sophisticated culture, mastery of agriculture -- and their miracle food, milk.

79. The Sound of Akkadian - Listen to Ancient Babylonian online Submitted by Ann on Thu, 09/30/2010 - The Hammurabi Code, inscribed in cuneiform on a seven foot, four inch tall basalt stele. Curious as to how this sounded? Well, now you can find out! - Almost 2,000 years after its last native speakers disappeared, the sound of Ancient Babylonian makes a comeback in an online audio archive.  The recordings include excerpts from some of the earliest known works of world literature, dating back to the first years of the second millennium BC.

80. Ancient objects found in Agstafa region of Azerbaijan October 1, 2010 - The archaeological digs of the settlements of late bronze and early iron started in Yastytepe settlement of Agstafa. Residuals of brown ware, cutting stones, mud signets, fragments of household utilities and ancient buildings of the late second and early first millennium were found during the digs.

81. Project Troia - Bronze Age Troy Just Keeps on Growing Submitted by Ann10/04/2010 - The Bronze Age remains were found at the lower city, below the remains of Roman and Hellenistic houses. Above left, Dr Ernst Pernicka discusses the excavations with archaeologist Dr Catalin Pavel ... German archaeologists have made new discoveries at modern day Hisarlik, northwest Turkey – ancient Troy. The finds further confirm the area occupied during the Bronze Age was not limited to the citadel; Troy VI and VII were much larger than originally thought.

82. Neanderthals More Advanced Than Previously Thought: They Innovated, Adapted Like Modern Humans, Research Shows ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2010) — For decades scientists believed Neanderthals developed `modern' tools and ornaments solely through contact with Homo sapiens, but new research from the University of Colorado Denver now shows these sturdy ancients could adapt, innovate and evolve technology on their own.

83. The Great Olympiad. Event Summary The 39th Chess Olympiad and the 81st FIDE Congress ended on Sunday, October 3 in a small northern town Khanty-Mansiysk. Another page of the chess history book has been written....

84. Pythagoras First published Wed Feb 23, 2005; substantive revision Fri Nov 13, 2009 Pythagoras, one of the most famous and controversial ancient Greek philosophers, lived from ca. 570 to ca. 490 BCE. He spent his early years on the island of Samos, off the coast of modern Turkey. At the age of forty, however, he emigrated to the city of Croton in southern Italy and most of his philosophical activity occurred there. Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts of his thought written by contemporaries.

85. Did Australian Aborigines reach America first? - Thursday, 30 September 2010 by Jacqui Hayes Cosmos Online - The skull of Luzia, possibly the oldest skeleton in the Americas, who has facial features distinctive of Australian Aborigines. Cranial features distinctive to Australian Aborigines are present in hundreds of skulls that have been uncovered in Central and South America, some dating back to over 11,000 years ago.

November

86. A recent excavation programme at a standing stone known as Trefael, near Newport (south-west Wales) has revealed that what originally was a portal dolmen in later times was transformed in a standing stone, probably used as a ritual marker to guide communities through a scared landscape.

87. CATAL HUYUK - The Temple City of Prehistoric Anatolia BY WlLLIAM CARL EICHMAN - Jericho and Catal Huyuk seem to have formed the two ends of a trading network that made possible the spread of agriculture, pottery, durable buildings, and metallurgy (and possibly philosophy, religion. and the crude beginnings of writing, mathematics, and astronomy) throughout the Mediterranean basin, and eventually into Mesopotamia to the east. Egypt to the southwest, and Greece and Europe to the northwest. This trade network, and the ideas and technologies which it spread. may have been the single most important precondition for the emergence of the monument building empires of the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile valleys.

88. Tracing the Origins of the Ancient Egyptian Cattle Cult Studies of ancient Egyptian religion have examined texts for evidence of cattle worship, but the picture given by the texts is incomplete. Mortuary patterns, ceremonial buildings, grave goods, ceramics and other remains also contain evidence of cattle worship and underline its importance to early Egypt. The recently discovered cattle tumuli at Nabta Playa in the Western Desert are identified here as a potential source of evidence on the origins of cattle worship in the ancient Egyptian belief system.

89. Bull-Killer, Sun Lord August 24, 2010 - by Carly Silver - Foreign religions grew rapidly in the 1st-century A.D. Roman Empire, including worship of Jesus Christ, the Egyptian goddess Isis, and an eastern sun god, Mithras. The first mentions of "Mitra" come from India and Iran. The Rig Veda is a collection of sacred Sanskrit texts composed as early as 1200 B.C. Its Hymn 66 invokes "Mitra," a protector of the law and a god of light. In Iran, Mithras continued in the same vein: the modern Farsi word for "sun" is "mehr," also the root of "Mithras." The all-seeing sun witnesses contracts between the divine and mortal worlds and also is the master of cattle - for example, Helios's herds in Book XI of Homer's Odyssey.

90. Australian archaeologists dig up the truth about European farming Thursday, 11/11/2010- A team of DNA experts from the University of Adelaide has found out who first introduced farming to Europe 8000 years ago. It was originally thought that it was the European hunter-gatherers, but it's been discovered that the first farmers were in fact "invaders", sharing genetic similarities with people living in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

91. Saudi Arabia's pre-Islamic treasures come to the Louvre - Florence Elvin - 10 August 2010 - Artefacts reveal the archaeology and history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from prehistoric times to the modern era. Almost nothing is known about the anthropomorphic stele of Saudi Arabia that Béatrice André-Salvini, head of the oriental antiquities department at the Louvre, refers to as the Suffering Man on account of his look of resigned pain. The only certainty is that it dates from the fourth millennium BC, was found near Ha'il in the north and has never been exhibited. That is true of two-thirds of the 320 items on show at the Louvre. With good reason. The "official" history of the country starts in the seventh century with the coming of Islam. The Suffering Man and two similar stelae, regarded as representations of the idols the Prophet destroyed, are a revelation.

92. Iranian Religious Architecture: Various Zoroastrian Fire-Temples in Mainland Iran & the Greater-Iran -- " Fire is sacred to Zoroastrians. It was ranked according to its uses: that is, from the lesser fires of potters and goldsmiths, through cooking-fires and hearth-fires up to the three great eternal fires of Sasanian Persia. These fires were the Farnbag, the Gushnasp and the Burzen-Mihr flames, sacred respectively to the three classes of priests, warriors, and farmers."

93. Old European / Vinca / Danube script Origin: These symbols have been found on many of the artefacts excavated from sites in south-east Europe, in particular from Vin?a near Belgrade, but also in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, eastern Hungary, Moldova, southern Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. The artefacts date from between the 7th and 4th millennia BC and those decorated with these symbols are between 8,000 and 6,500 years old.

December

94. Yifan is now the youngest Chess Queen in history. Congratulations! From The Week in Chess: Mark Crowther (Fri Dec 24 14:06:00 2010) The Women's World Chess Championships 2010 took place in Hatay, Turkey 2nd-24th December 2010. Losing finalist from 2008, Hou Yifan beat fellow countrywoman Ruan Lufei 3-1 in a rapid play-off in the final of this knockout tournament to take the title. Womens-world-chess-championships-2010 She succeeds Alexandra Kosteniuk who was defeated in Round 3 and beat top seed Humpy Koneru in the semi-final and becomes the youngest women's champion at the age of 16.

95. Math Puzzles’ Oldest Ancestors Took Form on Egyptian Papyrus CALCULATIONS The scribe of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, an Egyptian document more than 3,600 years old, introduces the roughly 85 problems by saying that he is presenting the “correct method of reckoning, for grasping the meaning of things and knowing everything that is, obscurities and all secrets.”

96. Mexican Archaeologists Say Tonina Ballgame Court may Be the One Described in Popol Vuh MEXICO CITY.- The recent finding of 2 sculptures with the shape of a serpent’s head that 1,500 years ago were part of the Ballgame at the Maya city of Tonina, Chiapas today, were found by archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). This discovery allows the consolidation of the hypotheses of how this ritual place looked like in the Prehispanic age; due to its architectural position it is the one that resembles more the one described in Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas.

97. Prehistoric Dice Boards Found—Oldest Games in Americas? New theory for mysterious 5,000-year-old semicircles in Mexico. - Christine Dell'Amore - National Geographic News - Published December 10, 2010 - American Indian casinos aren't exactly new to the game—people were playing dice in the New World as early as 5,000 years ago, preliminary research suggests. Mysterious holes arranged in c shapes—punched into clay floors at the Tlacuachero archaeological site in Mexico's Chiapas state (see map)—may have been dice-game scoreboards, according to archaeologist Barbara Voorhies.

98. Archaeology: 8000 year-old Sun temple found in Bulgaria Dec 15 2010 - The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010. The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the report said.

99. The Casting of Lots among the Hittites in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Parallels PDF Ada Taggar-Cohen Ben-Gurion University - The casting of lots, for a wide range of purposes, was a common practice among the different cultures of the ancient Near East (ANE). The division of land, the election of officials, the working order of priests, choosing a sacrificial animal—in these, as well as in other instances in which a choosing process had to take place, the result was often determined by the casting of lots.

100. Myth, ritual and rock art: Coso decorated animal-humans and the Animal Master by Alan P. Garfinkel, Donald R. Austin, David Earle and Harold Williams (Wokod) - Recent interpretations of rock art have often focused on these images as a somewhat exclusive record of shamanic experiences. Consideration of decorated animal-human figures (Patterned Body Anthropomorphs - PBAs) within the Coso Rock Art Complex in eastern California, in conjunction with the mythology of Kawaiisu, other Numic, and Tubatulabal groups, suggests an alternative (or perhaps complementary) view. Coso PBAs may be representations of an important supernatural – possibly the netherworld master of the animals.  This interpretation, if valid, provides further support for Coso rock art as a manifestation of a hunting religion complex.  Such a complex prominently featured animal ceremonialism and functioned in part as a means to envision a supernatural agent that had special powers controlling the movements of animals and restoring game to the human world.

101. Incredible Find In Peruvian Highlands Peru: 'sensational' Inca find for British team in Andes Discovery of sacred ancestor stones has archaeologists 'dancing a jig' - Dalya Alberge - December 5, 2010 -A British team of archaeologists on expedition in the Peruvian Andes has hailed as "sensational" the discovery of some of the most sacred objects in the Inca civilisation – three "ancestor stones", which were once believed to form a precious link between the heavens and the underworld. As the Incas had no system of writing, the significance of the archaeologists' unprecedented find is reinforced by the identification of ancestor stones in the decoration of a unique 16th-century Inca vessel (cocha) in the British Museum.