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Chesstories

2007

September 28, 2008
Inside Caves: Beneath the surface - a few underworld connections to explore and ponder ...

Oldest Skeleton in Americas Found in Underwater Cave? Eliza Barclay for National Geographic News - September 3, 2008 Deep inside an underwater cave in Mexico, archaeologists may have discovered the oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas.

Exploring the mystery of the cliff-face caves
BEIJING, Sept. 28 -- (see above photo) Mystery surrounds more than 100 caves on the sheer cliff face of a peaceful gorge in Yanqing district. There is no written record of the origin or history of the Guyaju cave complex in Zhangshanying town, 92 km north of Beijing.

Missouri cave paintings give ancient insight:  Study of ancient cave drawings, some of which may date to 800 CE, suggests Mississippian period may have started earlier than presently acknowledged. 

More on the "petrified poop" discovered in a cave in Oregon: DNA analysis of the coprolites linked modern-day Native Americans to Asian roots and radiocarbon dated to 14,300 years ago. That's 1,000 years before the oldest stone points of the Clovis culture, which for much of the 20th century was believed to represent the first people in North America

A Sleeping Buddha statue (see photo below) discovered in Sri Lanka cave.

Earlier this month: Archaeologists discovered a 19-metre (62-foot) "Sleeping Buddha" statue along with scores of other historical relics in central Afghanistan near the ruins of giant statues destroyed by the Islamist Taliban seven years ago.

The Book of Caverns appears to have originated in the Ramessid Period (the 20th Dynasty). As an underworld book, it seems almost to emphasize that previous text had been too soft on those deceased who fail their judgment in the afterlife, while at the same time focusing also on the rewards of those who do. It is, in fact, one of our best sources on the ancient Egyptian concept of Hell.

Detail from 5th section of the Book of Caverns from the tomb of Ramesses VI

Cooking up a little chess? "An officiating goddess stokes the fire beneath the enormous cauldron into which the heads and hearts of the enemies are delivered. A second cauldron contains the bound and decapitated bodies of the enemies themselves. The cauldrons are supported by the arms of the "place of annihilation".

Shard find in Intramuros shows early form of writing A NATIONAL Museum team has dug up a pot shard with an inscription around its shoulder, similar to the world-renowned Calatagan pot, at the San Ignacio archeological site in Intramuros. The find, lying 140 centimeters below the surface at the ruins of the San Ignacio church, is seen as evidence of another ancient form of writing in the Philippines.

EXTRA!! The 2008 Presidential Chess Board
Has Senator McCain rooked himself?

Janus Revisited: (cartoon) Neo Con Icon for the 21st. Century

Chess Graphic (see below) from Anna Contadini's study of Islamic Chessmen

Gold Standard
Secrets of Alexander the Great's Golden Era:



(Abvove Image: jewelry from one of the women's graves)

Greek dig uncovers over 1400 graves excavated in Pella, Greece, including 11 Archaic Period (580BC and 460BC) graves of women and 20 warrior graves. 

BREAKING NEWS! Long lost Pelagonian Kindgom Discovered!? Archeologists are certain the locality of Bonce is the long lost fourth Macedonian kingdom, the city of Pelagonia. The latest discoveries led by Professor Viktor Lilcic showed a massive royal grave site, one of a kind in the Balkans.

Where have all the Sami gone?
You can live in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö your whole life and still know almost nothing about the Sami, the indigenous people of Sweden, writes David Bartal.

Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:09am EDT By Miguel Angel Gutierrez MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.

September 14, 2008

This week - a segue into physics, polarities, bodies in motion, the fundamental nature of time-space and some very old board games... " Spooky action " at a 5000 + year old distance? You decide...

Who knew? Answer: A few very remarkable minds who became quite unpopular in certain closed circles - but whose ideas have transcended the academic. political and religous flybottles that traditionally attempt to gag them.

1- Flashback
Physics anyone? (last week's posts on the subject of physics and board games..)

Physics is a changing tide for games development
Keith Stuart - The Guardian, Thursday August 28 2008
The future is about games in which emergent behaviour is as much a part of the scenery as well as the enemy AI and the sand box design structure. This is the point at which dead worlds come alive.

Joseph Needham on Chinese Physics and Chess

PDF (1.88 Mb) Ch. 26 Physics - the Chinese orientation to chess - Ch. 26 Physics, (8) The Magnet, Divination, and Chess, pp. 314-334.

2 - Today
Having survived the events of Wednesday, September 10th, (i.e. - "Large Hadron Collider Fails to Destroy the World") - Goddesschess is to both relieved and pleased to celebrate another day of life by offering the following info-bytes for your continuing edutainment!

3 - Flash-forward
Under Crozet's Earth
"If you were to dig a hole 300 feet straight down from the center of the charming French village of Crozet, you'd pop into a setting that calls to mind the subterranean lair of one of those James Bond villains."

At the Heart of All Matter - The hunt for the God particle By Joel Achenbach - Photograph by Peter Ginter

"This technological netherworld is one very big scientific instrument, specifically, a particle accelerator-an atomic peashooter more powerful than any ever built. It's called the Large Hadron Collider, and its purpose is simple but ambitious: to crack the code of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is made of; in other words, to get to the very bottom of things."

Dendera and the Temple of Hathor
by Mark Andrews

Egyptian Stars under Paris Skies
By Jed Z. Buchwald - Buchwald’s work focuses primarily on the history of physics from the 17th through 19th centuries (he has written books on Hertz and electric waves and on Fresnel and wave optics) and on related issues in the philosophy of science. But he’s also interested in (and teaches courses in) the social and economic history of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Byzantine Chess "Byzantine chess, also called round chess, is an about 1000 year old variant of the game of Shatranj. It was popular in the 10th century after Christ in Byzantium (the city now called Istanbul), and hence is called Byzantine chess."

Computer analysis of the two versions of Byzantine chess Anatole Khalfine, Ed Troyan (Submitted on 21 Jan 2007 (v1), last revised 4 Oct 2007 (this version, v2))

Egypian Mehen "Evidence of Mehen is found dating from approximately 3000 BC and continues until 2300 BC, when it appears to have been prohibited for a currently unknown reason, then does not reappear until 700 BC. Some of the best evidence appears during the Old Kingdom, in a picture in the tomb of Hesy-Ra."

More Mehen @ Pascal Romain's excellent website

Cyclotrons and Mehen - Coincidence - or just two prime examples of Bohm's co-habiting "implicate" and "explicate" order? Spooky board game action from a 5000 year distance...

° Schematic for a cyclotron particle collider/accelerator

° Schematic for Egyptian Mehen

At the very center of things - Is your universe an "innie" or an "outie"? Why not both?

Dragging the net for Dr. Evil, Mini Me, mini max, "Infinite Potential" and all the usual suspects

"Just the fact's. mam ..." (Joe Friday)

In "Infinite Potential", F. David Peat describes how David Bohm came to believe that the traditional interpretation of quantum mechanics--with its barriers of uncertainty--was incomplete. In a bold step that turned quantum mechanics on its head, he introduced the "implicate order," which created a storm of controversy, yet may well have opened the door to a much deeper theory of the nature of reality.

Worlds collide - David Bohm meets Krishnamurti Enquiry into the nature of thought and the source of conflict in the world

Krishnamurti (1895-1985) spent the last 55 years of his life travelling throughout the world speaking with people about the fundamental human problem of conflict in the world and the activity and nature of human thought.

David Bohm (1917-1992) was a quantum theorist who explored areas of mutual interest with Krishnamurti, starting with the observer and the observed, from the 1959 when they met until K's death. In the remaining 8 years of his life, Bohm continued to enquire into the nature of thought and the process of dialogue in seminars held in Ojai, California.

Karma Chakra

Karma Chakra (“Wheel of Action”) is a board game that is devised with Buddhist education in mind. It is based on Buddhism - Mahayana & Vajrayana Buddhism in particular. Karma, is a Sanskrit word that means “action”. Chakra, is also Sanskrit, meaning “the wheel”.

Yama as Dr Evil's Bellybutton?

"The wrathful looking head in the center of the board is that of Yama, the one with many names such as Lord of Death and Lord of Illusion. Yama is the emanation of Deity of Wisdom Manjushri. Yama represents the impermanent and illusory nature of all phenomena."