December 18, 2007

Not exactly news - but a nice, long holiday read and a gift that keeps giving historians fits. ANCIENT ECONOMIES TOPIC V: The Argonaut Epos and Bronze Age Economic History. All that's missing under this tree (O.K. - under this mast) are references to actual board games. However, much is inferred and considerable information supplied. Portions of in this essay resonate with factors apparent in Peter Piccione's decipherment of Egyptian senet and Leslie Kurke's examination of the Greek "poelis" game - both of which augur distant elements related to the traditional relationship between Moorish "counting boards", chess, checkers and European forms of exchequership.

Tracing the origins of "Carolina Gold" rice...

Latest evidence for the explosion of a comet could explain sudden disappearance of Clovis point culture and indirectly support evidence of human habitation in North Carolina 50,000 years ago. But see, contra: Scientists give ice-age theory cold shoulder.

Giants: Myth or Realty? Okay, so it's from a UFO website, but it has some intriguing information and photographs.

The Tabula Peutingeriana is one of the Austrian National Library's greatest treasures. The parchment scroll, made in the Middle Ages, is the only surviving copy of a road map from the late Roman Empire. The document, which is almost seven metres long, shows the network of main Roman roads from Spain to India.

Digging at Armageddon: "Tel Megiddo has been the subject of a number of decisive battles in ancient times (among the Egyptian, Hebrew and Assyrian peoples) and today it holds a venerated place in archaeology, explains site co-director and world-renowned archeologist Prof. Israel Finkelstein.

Chemists have confirmed something that archaeologists and art historians have long suspected: Ancient sculptures found in western Africa contain blood from ritual animal sacrifices in their patina.

Precursor of a Knight Chess Piece?

This nicely crafted copper-alloy Roman horse and rider figure, found in Cambridgeshire (2006-2007), is one of over 58,000 artifacts discovered during the past year by enthusiastic amateurs using metal detectors and/or amateur archaeologists in Great Britain (or uncovered by accident during construction and other types of digging) under a program instituted by the government in 1996 under the auspices of the British Museum. Information compiled from articles at The Daily Mail (scroll down) and BBC News Online.

No information was given about the dating of this horse and rider duo. "Roman" spans rather a large time frame, although since it was discovered in Great Britain, that narrows down the time considerably. However, there is something in these pieces vaguely reminiscent of the much earlier (and much finer) Scythian style - or perhaps Kushan style - that may date this prior to the first century BCE to fourth century CE. Notice the horse's mane gathered and tied - seems more in the Chinese style to us than the Roman style - but then, the tail is not cropped and tied.

Notice too, the "hollow" in the right hand of the rider, where the haft of a spear or some other kind of weapon was probably fitted. And in the left hand? It's unfortunately cut off, but perhaps he held a sword close to his left side.

The headdress of the rider is interesting. It doesn't seem Roman - they wore helmets. And the "collar" or"ruff" around the rider's neck - again, doesn't seem Roman, but Oriental.

December 9, 2007

Erichsen Collection Bequeathed to Stanford
Stanford has acquired the library of one of the foremost Egyptologists of the 20th century. The collection of Wolja Erichsen (1890-1966), now at Stanford's Green Library, documents more than 1,500 years of Egyptian history, ranging from about 650 B.C. to about A.D. 1000.

The Tabula Peutingeriana is one of the Austrian National Library's greatest treasures. The parchment scroll, made in the Middle Ages, is the only surviving copy of a road map from the late Roman Empire. The document, which is almost seven metres long, shows the network of main Roman roads from Spain to India.

Shades of Graham Hancock! Smithsonian Magazine wonders, are the Ethiopians really the keepers of the Lost Ark of the Covenant?

Foundations and walls of Queen Helene of Adiabene's 1st century CE mansion believed to have been discovered in the "City of David" section of Jerusalem

Amateurs Unravel Russia’s Last Royal Mystery

Ancient Chinese Astronomy: New insights from old information

The Guennol Lioness

... was auctioned on December 5th, 2007 at Sotheby's New York and sold for 29 million pounds. Several press releases followed... one here

Only about 3 1/4 inches tall, the 5,000-year-old noble beast of white limestone was carved in ancient Mesopotamia, which now includes both Iran and Iraq. It was created around the time when the wheel was first being used, and dates back to the same era as the magnificent game boards recovered from the so-called "Royal Tombs of Ur." This piece was also excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley and subsequently sold to an antiquities dealer in New York in the early 1930's.

The artist created a diminutive queen who packs a giant punch with her human pose, paws grasped in front of her chest and her noble head turned over her very muscular left shoulder. Not discernible in this photograph, her tail wraps around her waist.

"The lion is a symbol of powerful forces in nature and it would mean it was owned by a figure of great importance," Richard Keresey, worldwide head of Sotheby's Antiquities department, said yesterday.

It was put up for sale by Alastair Bradley Martin, a New Yorker and a grandson of Henry Phipps, the steel magnate. Martin and his late, wife, Edith acquired the statue in 1948 and it has been on loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art for nearly 60 years. The proceeds of sale will go to Martin's charitable foundation.

December 7, 2007

Qin Shihuang's Tomb:
Much of the first emperor who united China's tomb remains to be excavated, after already having given us many treasures. Some recent information about the much-studied tomb:

° "Secret" Room Discovered in Tomb of China's First Qin Dynasty Emperor. The unopened chamber was found at the site near the old imperial capital of Xian using remote sensing technology, about 98 feet deep. More than 2,000 years old, the chamber is buried inside a pyramidal-shaped earth mound 51m (170 feet) high on top of Qin's tomb. It is situated near the life-size terracotta warriors and has four stair-like walls, says Duan Qingbo, a researcher with the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology. Here is a three-dimensional computer-generated representation of the underground burial "palace."

° Guo Zhikun, a specialist in the history of the Qin (221 BC-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-220 AD) dynasties, gave a press conference in Xi'an, the capital city of west China's Shaanxi Province. He disclosed his academic research results focusing on the Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shihuang, making bold guesses about the mysterious tomb complex that fascinates the whole world.

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° Ancient worship dais, used by royalty to give thanks and offerings to Father Sky and Mother Earth, and pray for the peace and happiness of the nation, uncovered in Vietnam.

° A stolen collection of about 100 artifacts dating from more than 8,000 years ago - including what may be very early human portraits - has been returned from Germany to Greece. The artifacts, which are up to 12 centimeters, or 5 inches, high, "date to the dawn of human awareness" and appear to include portraits of Neolithic women.

° A great story about how a "prayer book" revealed long-lost texts of Archimedes from 2,200 years ago and the surprising information that Archimedes was discovering the principles of calculus. Spiegel Online also has a story/review on the Archimedes Manuscript/palimpsest. "In October 1998, when a fragile, handwritten manuscript with mold spots and blackened edges was offered for sale in an auction at Christie's in New York. After a contentious bidding war, the auctioneer's hammer fell at a price of $2.2 million. An anonymous "billionaire from the computer industry" had apparently purchased the rare work."

° Has the cave been discovered in Rome where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf? More coverage at The New York Times and here. There is some skepticism about the claim. See also Spiegel Online International's article on the subject "Is Italy's Spectacular Find Authentic?"

November 25, 2007

° The Snake Stone - at Goddesschess Blog.

° There Be Dragons A fascinating overview of legends, both famous and obscure, about dragons and "serpents" from Sussex in England. With bibliography; also linked to other pages covering the folklore of Sussex.

° The ruins of a large Kushan city have been discovered has been discovered in Chittar Kot, Mansehra, the NWFP (Pakistan), high on an escarpment overlooking the Biran River.

° Copper Age Fashionistas - upswept hairdos, mini-skirts and bracelets were all the rage in Vinca society 7,500 years ago. More coverage.

Eek! "Off with her head" said the Queen... A classic representation of "goddess sitting on throne" figurine is from the Vinca culture, discovered during excavations at Plocnik (Serbia). She is reminiscent of the earlier Neolithic Great Goddess/Queen figure of Catylhoyuk and later Bronze Age ashdodas of the Middle East. The voluptuous figure with hands on belly (possibly pregnant) is a standard that was a classic for thousands of years and crossed multiple cultures in both the old and new worlds. The Vinca culture flourished from 5500 to 4000 BC in what is now Bosnia, Serbia, Romania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It got its name from the present-day village of Vinca, 10 km east of Belgrade on the Danube River, where early 20th-century excavations uncovered the remains of eight Neolithic villages.The discovery of a mine – Europe’s oldest – at the nearby Mlava river suggested at the time that Vinca could be Europe’s first metal culture, a theory now backed up by the Plocnik site, where a sophisticated metal workshop with a furnace and tools including a copper chisel and a two-headed hammer and axe were discovered. This might prove that the Copper Age started in Europe at least 500 years earlier than previously thought.

The Copper Age marks the first stage of humans’ use of metal, with copper tools used alongside older stone implements. It is thought to have started around the 4th millennium BC in southeast Europe, and earlier in the Middle East. The discoveries at Plocnik, confirming those at Vinca, probably push this date back some 500 years. Intriguing is the possibility of cross-cultural transference of metallurgical technologies.

Sir Francis Drake

In honor of the new film about Queen Elizabeth I (starring Cate Blanchett, reprising her role as the Queen), we feature Sir Francis Drake, "The Dragon." Collected sites about Drake's circumnavigation of the globe (lead ship, "The Golden Hind", perhaps named in honor of Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth I). Drake captained "The Revenge" during the epic battles with the Spanish in 1588. A great website featuring the English Battles with the Spanish Armada, includes portraits of some of the principals and paintings of the sea battles between the Spanish and the English fleets. (Portrait of Drake by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Date 1591, National Maritime Museum, London.)

November 11, 2007

° Two well known authors in the world of "alternate history" have new books out, and the Giza pyramids are prominently featured in both. The work of Zecharia Sitchin is well known to listeners of the Art Bell radio show back in the "old days." Sitchin's new book is Journeys to the Mythical Past (Amazon). Gnostic adventurer Philip Gardiner also has a new book, Gateways to the Other World (Amazon).

° The History before History: Part I - Impossible Fossils. There exist many fossils that challenge our modern understanding of history. An impression of a perfect human hand (with fingernail marks) was discovered in 110-million-year-old limestone in Glen Rose, Texas; a 100-million year-old petrified finger (fossil identified as DM93-083), which had its bone structure revealed through radiography, was found on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada; there is the well-known discovery of giant human footprints beside those of a dinosaur in Rìo Paluxy, Texas; and there are many more. The apparent soundness of our current theories is shaken each time an "impossible fossil" comes to light.

° Ancient Writing in Iran A second Persian rock inscription in geometrical script has been discovered in Kaftarlou hill in Kurdistan province that could be as old as 3,000 BCE. Also: Mehr News reports further excavations in Jiroft in search of more inscriptions.

° Joyce Tyldesley's Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt (Thames & Hudson) covers from Early Dynastic times to the death of Cleopatra, a span of some 3000 years. Some of the queens, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Nefertari, and Cleopatra are household names. But here, in splendid detail, and extremely well illustrated, are the other royal ladies. Too often the royal ladies of ancient Egypt are sidelined to the greater glory of their husbands, the pharaohs, but here Dr. Tyldesley brings them into the light, where their standing and often remarkable achievements are emphasized.

From the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (New York):

Mask (Kpeliye), 19th–20th century Côte d'Ivoire; Senufo

Wood, horns, fiber, cotton cloth, feather, metal, sacrificial material; H x W x D: 30 1/4 x 13 x 9in. (76.8 x 33 x 22.9cm)

The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Purchase, Nelson A. Rockefeller Gift, 1965 (1978.412.489)

Description: Small, finely carved face masks are worn at funerals by members of Poro, the Senufo men's society. The masks feature a delicate oval face with geometric projections at the sides. Their smooth, glossy surfaces are ornamented with raised and incised scarification patterns. The leglike forms at the base of the face allude to a traditional hairstyle worn by Senufo women. Considered feminine, the masks honor deceased Senufo elders with their grace and beauty and complement the aggressive male character of Senufo helmet masks. The feathers and animal horns attached to this example are unusual and may have served to enhance the mask's power to combat negative forces in the community.

November 11, 2007

° Kate Mosse, author of best seller historical novel "Labyrinth," has written a new one, "Sepulchre."

° Ancient Egypt Magazine, October/November, 2007 Volume 8, Issue 2, is available. They're also running a special sale - get all available back-issues (1-7) for 135 BPS.

° Biblical Archaeology Magazine online new edition is out (November/December 2007).

° Melting glaciers in Western Canada are revealing tree stumps up to 7,000 years old where the region's rivers of ice have retreated to a historic minimum. The fresh-looking, intact tree stumps beside retreating glaciers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of Vancouver, British Columbia.

So, there may be some hope for a recovery of this missing link...

° A new study "Does Chess Need Intelligence? – A Study with Young Chess Players," by Merim Bilalic and Peter McLeod, Oxford University and Fernand Gobet, Brunel University. In PDF.

° Call for Chess in Education presenters for both the Texas Chess Association (TCA) Chess in Education and the United States Chess Federation (USCF) Chess in Education workshops. FOR BOTH WORKSHOPS: Presenters are encouraged to use 30 minutes, but one-hour presentations will also be considered. Topics should relate to chess in education. All presenters are required to submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) to Alexey Root alexey.root@gmail.com. Deadline for abstracts: 1/8/08 for TCA, 6/7/08 for USCF. Further information here (dates, times, locations, hotel rates, etc.)

Is it a board game? A maze?

It is reportedly an ancient seal revealed by an alleged descendant of the Kings of Yelang, an ancient kingdom in what is now Guizhou Province during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). The seal was made public by a Miao ethnic man who claims to be the 75th descendant of the king.

What does it say? Are the maze-like lines and circles around the perimeter merely decoration - or something else? It's design seems to vaguely echo that of some liubo boards, an ancient Chinese game that was immensely popular during the Han Dynasty, a game closely associated with the Goddess known as the Queen Mother of the West.

November 4, 2007

° Parts of a 7,000 BCE ceramic female statue have been uncovered in Masovice, a village just west of Znojmo, South Moravia. Although only the lower parts of the sculpture have been found, experts say that Hedvika, as the statue has been named by those who discovered it, is a unique find in a European context.

° "Modern" behavior in ancient man may date back much earlier than ever expected.

° Ecod(piece)! Were the women who fashioned these various "protective devices" (it wasn't men who did all the sewing) trying to send the male sex a message about the "family jewels?" More on the history of the codpiece.

° Diyarbakir Excavation Reveals Ancient Tomb of Young Lovers: Archaeologists assert that the couple, who presumably died some 8,000 years ago, is likely to set a record as the oldest embracing couple in the history of archaeology.

° Roman cemetery from about 300 A.D. discovered in suburban Copenhagen

Chess Queen



GM Koneru Humpy (IND 2606)

Humpy turned 20 on March 31st this year. She is currently the second highest rated woman player in the world, and only the second woman chessplayer ever to achieve an ELO rating over 2600 (Judith Polgar is rated 2708 and holds the #20 spot in the world listings). Humpy earned her GM title when she was 15, a few months younger than Polgar was when she earned her GM title. It seems rather silly that people counts months and days in talking about when Humpy, Polgar, Fischer, etc. earned their GM titles, but Humpy's chessplaying ability is no laughing matter! According to the FIDE October, 2007 Ratings List, the Top 100 players (male and female) cut-off is currently 2627. Humpy's current rating is 2606. The next highest rated female player is GM Pia Cramling (SWE) at 2531. Cramling earned her GM title shortly after GM Susan Polgar earned hers in the early 1990's, the first two women to ever EARN the GM rating according to official FIDE requirements.

Humpy works incessantly with her father-coach and others to improve her chess and she does not shy away from events where she sometimes takes some lumps playing against much higher rated players. That's the way one makes improvement - and she is improving steadily. Humpy is an outstanding example for all chessplayers. Recent Humpy articles: from the Hindu's Sports on the Net and Dylan McClain's column at the New York Times. Humpy continues to prove her chess-playing prowess by earning (at present count) two gold medals in the 2007 Asian Indoor Games, including one medal in Blitz Chess. At the recently concluded European Club Cup, Humpy posted a performance level ELO of 2800 - head and shoulders above her competition.

Onward and upward for Koneru Humpy!

October 28, 2007

New discoveries are pushing back the date for the invention of agriculture in the Americas. This article was recently published indicating that maize farming on the Gulf Coast of Mexico first occurred about 5300 BCE, some 1,700 years earlier than scholars previously thought. Now comes news of evidence of agriculture more than 10,200 years ago in northern Peru, about the same time as it developed in the Middle East.

Bryn Mawr is featuring a special exhibition "Breaking Ground, Breaking Tradition: Bryn Mawr and the First Generations of Women Archaeologists" devoted to the first generation of women archaeologists who graduated in the 1920's and 1930's. The exhibition will run from September 25 through December 21 in the Class of 1912 Rare Book Room in Mariam Coffin Canaday Library. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, except for Fall Break and Thanksgiving weekends.

Modern atomic physics is being used to study the pigments used by the ancient Egyptians on their tomb and building frescoes.

What is up with these similarities in certain aspects of the ancient Egyptian and Aztec cultures?

Tourists are being turned on by the "vine of souls" in Peru, while in The Netherlands plans are afoot to ban the sale of "magic mushrooms." Perhaps the Dutch should set up centers run by native shamans to teach the true use of and meaning behind psychotropic vegetation...

Donald Angus MacLean, Isle of Skye, was instrumental in the production of a new film by Toronto poet and first-time producer Alison McAlpine that records ancient stories of the "second sight," passed down from generation to generation, long before the time of radio and television. Hmmmm...is this a kinsman to our own Donald Alexander McLean?

Experts are studying a carved stone recently uncovered on Whitby Abbey Headland in North Yorkshire to see if it represents the first Bronze Age artefact from the site. The article contains a nice photograph of the Fylingdales rock, discovered after a fire on the moors in 2003 with its intricate diamond hatched carving (middle of article), along with a close-up photograph of some of the markings on the Whitby stone (near the end of the article). More on the Whitby stone. More on the Fylingdales rock.

October 21, 2007

Special Announcement

One of our up-and-coming young American players, Ray Robson (13 years old), rated 2396, is trying to raise money to travel to Turkey in mid-November to play in the World Youth Chess Championship. The United States Chess Federation is contributing $800 toward his costs, and the Florida Chess Association $300. The cost of the trip is about $5,000.

The Clermont Chess Club, Clermont, FL, is holding a simul THIS SATURDAY, October 20th, in which Ray will play against all who make a donation (suggested donation is $20). Donations by check or money order can also be made to Gary Robson (Ray's dad), and sent to Paul Leggett, 14840 Windy Mount Circle, Clermont, FL 34711.

The Chess Goddess will smile kindly upon all donations!

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Excavation in the Negev of an Iron Age Phillistine agricultural village leads to the discovery of late Bronze Age settlement - but whose? This article says it's Egyptian.

A number of rare and invaluable medical and astronomical manuscripts have been rediscovered in the "forgotten archives" at the National Library of Egypt. Well - duh!

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure - so the old saying goes, and so it's proven to be - in archaeology. It's rather lowering to think that thousands of years from now archaeologists will find our landfills the most interesting thing about us...

China's Antiquities in Danger of Extinction from Massive Water Project. China might take a lesson from Egypt. When the Aswan Dam was under construction, Egypt sent out a world-wide call for help in excavating and moving precious, irreplaceable antiquities and the whole world rallied to the cause.

Publish or perish? In the U. S., where research is a $55-billion-a-year enterprise that stakes its credibility on the reliability of evidence, the work of Dr. Ioannidis strikes a raw nerve. In fact, his 2005 essay "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" remains the most downloaded technical paper that the journal PLoS Medicine has ever published - from "Most Science Studies Appear to be Tainted by Sloppy Analysis", Wall Street Journal Online Science Journal.

Possibly the world's oldest discovered wall painting

was unearthed recently in northern Syria. Dating back to 9,000 BCE, it contains a distinct checkerboard pattern. The 2 square-meter painting, in red, black and white, was found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo. A second wall painting next to this one will be uncovered next year. The house in which the wall painting is located may have been used as a communal house. The purpose of the painting is unknown. At some point the settlement was abandoned and the communal house was "stuffed" with mud, according to the excavation director.

October 14, 2007

Special Announcement

One of our up-and-coming young American players, Ray Robson (13 years old), rated 2396, is trying to raise money to travel to Turkey in mid-November to play in the World Youth Chess Championship. The United States Chess Federation is contributing $800 toward his costs, and the Florida Chess Association $300. The cost of the trip is about $5,000.

The Clermont Chess Club, Clermont, FL, is holding a simul THIS SATURDAY, October 20th, in which Ray will play against all who make a donation (suggested donation is $20). Donations by check or money order can also be made to Gary Robson (Ray's dad), and sent to Paul Leggett, 14840 Windy Mount Circle, Clermont, FL 34711.

The Chess Goddess will smile kindly upon all donations!

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Alpheta's Literary Agora
Schacchia Ludus by Marcus Hieronymus Vida, Bishop of Alba

Chessays
A new paradigm for an "Origins of Chess" theory
by John Ayer - This essay argues that the generally accepted scheme for the derivation of the current and disused forms of chess from the original Indian proto-chess is mistaken:

Information Cascade - when scientists go wrong "by consensus." An object lesson for those of us investigating the origins of chess.

American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 111 No. 4, October 2007, is now available - see online content.

Care 2.com has a page of resources devoted to Science & Tech News tagged with archaeology

National Geographic reports on an ancient Egyptian temple discovered "embedded" in a mosque - deliberately - by the original mosque builders, raising sensitive cultural and religious issues.

Runes - used for communication as well as for divination by ancient Germanic tribes and later, the Vikings - are discussed in this Nova online article.

The ruins of a stone "cabin" have been discovered on the Icelandic island of Hrútey in Mjóifjördur fjord in Ísafjardardjúp, the West Fjords that may date back to the Viking era.

A study of evidence indicates Stone Age Chinese began cultivating rice more than 7,700 years ago by burning trees in coastal marshes and building dams to hold back seawater, converting the marshes to rice paddies that would support growth of the high-yield cereal grain.

A study of cave sediments by three American researches has confirmed that it was catastrophic droughts that plagued many parts of North, Central and northern tropical South America during the globe-girdling Medieval Warm Period that led to the decline and eventual collapse of the Mayan civilization.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAX

A SOMALI GAME Originally prepared in December 1988 by Rick Davies, in consultation with Ibrahim Awad, Abdidahir Ali Hirsi, Axmed Ismacil Jamac, Axmed Liban Axmed and others in Mogadishu. Contributions by others to this paper would be welcome, and acknowledged. Write to rick@shimbir.demon.co.uk.

October 7, 2007

Gold the Spanish Didn't Find
The University of Pennsylvania Museum hosts a fabulous exhibit between September 23 - December 16, 2007 of pre-Columbia gold artifacts discovered at Sitio Conte in Panama in the 1930's.

Rosslyn Chapel is interesting in it's own right and that was before it was popularized in "The Da Vinci Code." All those theories about the symbolism of Rosslyn Chapel have been given a new lease on life because of Dan Brown! Here's another theory about a section of the ceiling at RC that is supposed to be quite significant - and it also ties into theories about the significance of "23 1/2 degrees." Zecharia Sitchin is mentioned too - he used to be talked about a lot in the "old days" when Art Bell ruled the late night AM radio waves. Ah, nostalgia! We have a soft spot for Art because it was at his old website that many of the Goddesschess folks first met.

Possible "Shivling" discovered in Guwahati, India
When three labourers tried to destroy the pillar last week as a new hospital building is due to be constructed at the spot, they suddenly took ill, the hospital sources said. Another labourer claimed that he had a dream in which a person told him not to destroy the pillar and that many snakes resided at its bottom...

From the above article - A commercial site, but fun to browse nonetheless. Crystals and geodes and spheres - Oh My!

Meanwhile - back in the Renaissance... a site with lots of information about the wonderful world of Europe's cultural flowering and chess. Nice page, batgirl!

Let there be light! Now we can play chess in the dark. Light is provided by four LEDs situated in the corners of the board.

Did Templars refugees carve the Kensington Runestone? A geologist thinks so...

(click to enlarge)

More on the Templars

-- An intriguing interview with Oddvar Olsen about the Knights Templar

-- Ian Sinclair, Grand Prior of the Scottish Knight Templars and The International Order of Gnostic Templars will give a presentation on - (you guessed it!) the Knights Templar in Sedona, Arizona

September 30, 2007

rchaeology and DNA - in the news: The two female bodies originally discovered in the Oseberg Viking ship burial back in 1904 (or thereabouts), who were reburied in 1948 (or thereabouts), have been exhumed for DNA testing; the goal is to determine whether the two women were related, or whether the younger female was a servant who had been sacrificed to accompany the Queen in the afterlife. And in Lebanon, geneticist Pierre Zalloua took DNA samples from 1,000 volunteers and discovered some interesting results about the Phoenician ancestry of "native" Lebanese.

The Saga of Seahenge Now removed from its Norfolk location for preservation after much controversy and court battles, the 2000 year old wooden Seahenge circle will be show-cased in a special permanent display at King's Lynn Museum.

Were seafarers living here 16,000 years ago?
Site off Queen Charlottes could revolutionize our understanding of New World colonization.

Dr. D. P. Sharma has put together a lavishly illustrated catalog, Harappan Art, reviewed by The Hindu online. Available from Eastern Book Corporation.

New theories, reappraisals and promised upheavals are in the news as archaeologists release new research and apply new techniques and new approaches in analyzing prior knowledge:

Excavations at Tell Brak in Syria may reveal new theory about how the first cities grew (another article here)

Widely held beliefs about early Cherokee settlement patterns likely incorrect, according to two new studies

From the remote shores of Budrinna on Lake Fezzan in Libya, and Melka Konture on the banks of the River Awash in Ethiopia, a series of stunning discoveries made by Professor Helmut Ziegert of Hamburg University are set to challenge the originality of the Neolithic Revolution

Stave Church at Fantoff, Norway, 12th century CE. This site offers a listing of many stave churches in Norway with photos - the serpent motif is evident on the roofs of many of the churches. This site offers an intriguingly idiosyncratic history of gnostic belief in Viking territory and why the serpent is featured in the most ancient of the stave churches (before Roman Catholicism became prominent in the 1400's).

September 23, 2007

Dr. McCoy Goes Volcano Hunting Geophysicists say the Thera (Santorini) eruption occurred in about 1645 B.C., but archaeologists prefer 1500 B.C. Dr. McCoy is combining geology and archaeology into a new discipline -- geoarchaeology -- to try to settle the controversy. The date of the eruption has profound implications for ancient history...

A buried cache of 10,000 ancient Chinese coins weighing 1.5 tons uncovered in Changzi County, north China's Shanxi Province.

Tomb raiding - a time-honored profession. It seems the Bulgarians are taking this "fine art" to new heights.

The theory about the Giza Plateau original having two sphinxes is back in the news. Archaeologist Bassam El Shammaa has his own website about his views.

A gaming piece has been discovered in a Roman burial at Bury Mount (aptly named) in Towcester, Northampshire, England.

Chess in Alf's Cards? Not exactly the way Culin would have it - but - the imagery is there to behold. Alf Cooke was an important producer of playing cards and card games in the UK during the period 1920-1970.

A collector with a few interesting items for sale. Scroll down a bit for a number of placards and assorted chesswares...

Does this painting of the "Last Supper" show a female next to Jesus? The famous scene has been painted by numerous artists in the ages since Christ's death. Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code propelled Leonardo da Vinci's painting/fresco "The Last Supper" (completed in c. 1498 CE) into the consciousness of millions of readers worldwide, along with the storyline that the figure portrayed to the left of Christ in that painting is Mary Magdalene who, so the story goes, was Christ's wife and who bore him a child. This painting post-dates da Vinci's by about 60 years: at Girona Cathedral (Spain), by Perris de la Roca, circa 1560 CE. Some observers thing the figure under Jesus' arm is a woman.

September 23, 2007

Dr. McCoy Goes Volcano Hunting Geophysicists say the Thera (Santorini) eruption occurred in about 1645 B.C., but archaeologists prefer 1500 B.C. Dr. McCoy is combining geology and archaeology into a new discipline -- geoarchaeology -- to try to settle the controversy. The date of the eruption has profound implications for ancient history...

A buried cache of 10,000 ancient Chinese coins weighing 1.5 tons uncovered in Changzi County, north China's Shanxi Province.

Tomb raiding - a time-honored profession. It seems the Bulgarians are taking this "fine art" to new heights.

The theory about the Giza Plateau original having two sphinxes is back in the news. Archaeologist Bassam El Shammaa has his own website about his views.

A gaming piece has been discovered in a Roman burial at Bury Mount (aptly named) in Towcester, Northampshire, England.

Chess in Alf's Cards? Not exactly the way Culin would have it - but - the imagery is there to behold. Alf Cooke was an important producer of playing cards and card games in the UK during the period 1920-1970.

A collector with a few interesting items for sale. Scroll down a bit for a number of placards and assorted chesswares...

Does this painting of the "Last Supper" show a female next to Jesus? The famous scene has been painted by numerous artists in the ages since Christ's death. Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code propelled Leonardo da Vinci's painting/fresco "The Last Supper" (completed in c. 1498 CE) into the consciousness of millions of readers worldwide, along with the storyline that the figure portrayed to the left of Christ in that painting is Mary Magdalene who, so the story goes, was Christ's wife and who bore him a child. This painting post-dates da Vinci's by about 60 years: at Girona Cathedral (Spain), by Perris de la Roca, circa 1560 CE. Some observers thing the figure under Jesus' arm is a woman.

September 16, 2007

A couple of articles about the latest look at evidence concerning the migration of people: New Evidence from Texas Pushes Entrance Date Back and Unravelling Mysteries of Ancient Human Migrations.

Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas before Columbus

An intact burial was discovered in March (first being publicized now) in a much-looted Tiwanaku pyramid in Bolivia.

The Ancient and Mysterious History of Tattoos A fascinating look at this ancient art form. According to Joann Fletcher, research fellow in the department of archaeology at the University of York in Britain, tattooing in ancient Egypt was restricted to women who, she believes, used the symbols as talismans against the dangers of child-bearing.

Is Ancient People's End a Warning for the Future? A look at the most recent archaeological findings points to sustained drought as the demise of the Anasazi culture.

Gateway on the western border of China to the Tarim Basin (home of the mummies of Urumchi and other mummies of a European-featured people who lived in the Basin area beginning c. 4,000 years ago), the ancient city of Dunhuang is threatened as never before by climate change.

She is one of the most recognized faces and one of the most beautiful women of all time. New findings have now revealed that the famous bust of Nefertiti (Egyptian Museum, Berlin, Germany), wife/queen of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, underwent at least four different modifications, one of which gave her slight wrinkles around her eyes..

September 9, 2007

Chess with God (and others) The Guardian has an entertaining review of three books about chess: David Shenk's "The Immortal Game: A History of Chess," Michael Weinreb's "The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Oddballs, Geeks, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team,", and Kasparov's "How Chess Imitates Life."

China's "First Emperor" The British Museum will be hosting a new exhibit from September 13, 2007 through April 6, 2008 on China's "first emperor." This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition will explore one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century and provide an insight into China's First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, and his legacy. Objects featured in the exhibition will include a number of the world-famous terracotta warriors from Xi'an, China, which were buried alongside the First Emperor in readiness for the afterlife.

Rare find of textiles in mass grave excavated in China, including evidence of vermillion-dyed cloth, some thousand years before the Arabs discovered a technique for dying cloth vermillion (in the 8th century CE). Several human remains were recovered from the mass burial site, including the bodies of four young women who were probably buried alive as a sacrifice.

A Hunting We Will Go...Hi Ho the Merry-o a Hunting We Will Go Hunting modern-day ocean-going pirates at the Smithsonian Magazine online. And hunting treasure - "Profiteers on the High Seas" at Archaeology Magazine.

You can keep your Bluebeards and your Blackbeards. The most successful pirate of all time controlled a fleet of more than 1,500 ships and upwards of 80,000 sailors -- and she did it all without the help of facial hair.

MORE! Words to the Wise...
Compiled by Archaeology Magazine, some useful sites:

www.ancientscripts.com
Created by a software engineer who moonlights as an amateur linguist, this site not only covers ancient writing systems-complete with illustrations, translations, and maps-but also offers games and downloadable fonts based on ancient scripts.

www.historyworld.net
A search for "writing" at HistoryWorld turns up pages devoted to everything from cuneiform to the "talking leaves" of the Cherokee.

www.ancient-egypt.org/language
The Ancient Egypt Site is brimming with information on writing and literature from the Early Dynastic period up to Greek and Roman times. Its most useful feature is a handy list of heiroglyphs.

www.harappa.com/script
An excellent compendium with links to all the information in cyberspace related to the undeciphered Indus Valley script, this site also features interviews with preeminent linguists and a "dictionary" that offers possible intepretations of the enigmatic signs.

Sold at Sotheby's (London, New Bond Street), on November 2, 2001, Lot 1 in Sale L01292 for GBP 5,760.

Description: Persian, 9th/10th century four ivory chess pieces of geometric form, the knight of conical shape with beaked protuberance and decorated with concentric rings, the rook with deep cut in the centre creating two castle-like projections 3 to 4cm., 1 1/8 to 1 1/2 in.

Compare with related pieces in the Ashmolean Museum and those excavated at Nishapur in the Metropolitan, Museum, New York illustrated by A. Contadini. Related Literature: A.Contadini, 'Islamic Ivory Chess Pieces, Draughtsmen & Dice' in Islamic Art in the Ashmolean, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, Volume X, Part I edited. J.W.Allan.

September 2, 2007

Blogs - love 'em or hate 'em, they're probably here to stay, but they also come and go like the wind, here today, gone tomorrow. Here are a couple of blogs on archaeology in Egypt: trained archaeologist and grad student Andie Byrnes' Egyptology News and Egyptologist Margaret Maitland's The Eloquent Peasant (the name is from an old Egyptian tale) - excellent content!

Have you ever wondered what your name "means?" Behindthename.com has first names in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, India, other languages and different categories (i.e., Irish names, Biblical names, names from mythology, etc.)

Author and former reporter Shun Akiba wants to know why the Japanese authorities are deliberately hiding the existence of secret tunnels under Tokyo - or are they...

Words to the Wise Compiled by Archaeology Magazine - some useful sites at Ancient Scripts.

Part of the Arc of Ancient Civilizations
The Umm Al Nar Culture (2600 - 2000 BCE) is the most important period concerning the development of civilisation in the UAE. Evidence suggests that trade in copper with Mesopotamia and the Indus valley made the area of the United Arab Emirates wealthy during that period and Mesopotamian sources mentioned it as the "Land of Magan".

Pyramid News
Philip Coppens has a new book out, "The New Pyramid Age." Among other things, Coppens claims that the so-called "Bosnian Pyramid" is an "artificial structure." Contra this view is a book published by professional geologist Robert Schoch in 2005, "Voyages of the Pyramid Builders." Schoch himself has taken plenty of heat over the past ten years in orthodox academia for his views. Chapter four of Schoch's book presents the current anthropological data on the entrance of humans into the Americas, as well as introducing the idea that other contacts were made in the intervening years between the original migration and the arrival of Columbus. The subsequent two chapters then delve into the heretical idea of trans-oceanic influence in detail, the first discussing possible contacts across the Atlantic, and the second across the Pacific.

CAIS reports that Iranian archaeologists working on the Kangelu Fortress in northern Iran's Mazandaran Province have put forward the idea that the Sasanian fortress was built to be waterproof as a suitable site for holding rituals in honour of Anahita, the Zoroastrian deity of fertility, water and rivers.

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