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A newborn baby's head accounts for one-quarter of its weight. |
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Sphinx statues found in Egypt
Reads: 187 |
Posted by Thoth on Sunday, August 24, 2008 (CDT)
 Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed four small statues of the Sphinx, the mythological figure of a lion with a human head, the Higher Council of Antiquities said on Friday. The headless sandstone statues were found on a road linking the ancient temples of Luxor and Karnak in southern Egypt, antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
They were unearthed in an area once occupied by a police station that was demolished as part of a project to rescue artifacts, Hawass said.
The statues date from the reign of King Nekhtnebef who founded the 30th Pharaonic dynasty (363-380 BC), Hawass added.
(Read More... Civilisations Past & Present | Word Count: 188 | comments? | Score: 0) |
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Ghost Particles & Pyramids
Reads: 226 |
Posted by Thoth on Saturday, August 23, 2008 (CDT)
 Some ancient Maya looked to our galaxy, the Milky Way—a hazy streak across the night sky—and saw the “cosmic monster,” a fluid, two-headed serpent sometimes associated with clouds, water, and rain. To modern skywatchers, the Milky Way is less monster than menagerie, a swirling disc of billions of stars of a dozen species, from brown dwarves to red giants. But it does produce a kind of rain, a constant shower of high-energy cosmic rays.
Teams of physicists and archaeologists are collecting this cosmic rain for an inside look at the ancient Maya and other past cultures. The Maya carefully observed the night sky. Now the sky seems to be looking back.
In what was once a low-energy nuclear physics lab on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, particle physicist Roy Schwitters stands next to a gaping hole in the floor of a cavernous, garagelike workshop. In the hole, which is surrounded by day-glo orange safety netting, is Schwitters’s prototype, an almost featureless aluminum cylinder 5 feet in diameter that extends 14 feet to a sub-floor.
(Read More... Civilisations Past & Present | Word Count: 577 | comments? | Score: 0) |
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DNA tests to study mummy fetuses in King Tut tomb
Reads: 127 |
Posted by Thoth on Friday, August 08, 2008 (CDT)
 Egyptian scientists are carrying out DNA tests on two mummified fetuses found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun to determine whether they are the young pharaoh's offspring, the antiquities authority said Wednesday. The two tiny female fetuses, between five to seven months in gestational age, were found in King Tut's tomb in Luxor when it was dissevered in 1922.
DNA samples from the fetuses "will be compared to each other, along with those of the mummy of King Tutankhamun," the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said in a statement.
The testing is part of a wider program to check the DNA of hundreds of mummies to determine their identities and family relations. Hawass said the program could help determine Tutankhamun's family lineage, which has long been a source of mystery among Egyptologists.
(Read More... Civilisations Past & Present | Word Count: 930 | comments? | Score: 0) |
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New life given to ancient Egyptian texts stored at Stanford for decades
Reads: 159 |
Posted by Thoth on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 (CDT)
 They're torn and faded and have the woven texture of a flattened Triscuit. At first glance, the ancient Egyptian texts look like scraps of garbage. And more than 2,000 years ago, that's exactly what they were-discarded documents, useless contracts and unwanted letters that were recycled into material needed to plaster over mummies, like some precursor to papier-mâché.
Now they are priceless clues to everyday life in the Ptolemaic Era, bits of history recently cleaned and sandwiched between pieces of glass so researchers at Stanford could begin translating the Greek writing and Egyptian script while studying the worn papyrus it is scribbled on.
The texts, collectively called papyri, were donated to Stanford in the 1920s by an alumnus who bought them from an antiquities dealer in London. They've been overlooked by generations of faculty who haven't focused on papyrology, said Joe Manning, an associate professor of classics.
(Read More... Civilisations Past & Present | Word Count: 932 | comments? | Score: 0) |
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Archaeologists On Alert For Fake Skulls
Reads: 197 |
Posted by Isis on Sunday, July 20, 2008 (CDT)
 While the crystal skull was the main plot device for the latest Indiana Jones Adventure, last week it was discovered the revered pieces of archeology are actually fake. It takes a lot of detective work for archaeologists to uncover what is real and what isn't. It was the inspiration for the latest Indiana Jones movie, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Legend says there are 13 of the ancient skulls that hold mystical powers.
So when a skull was anonymously donated to the Smithsonian in 1992 the museum began an investigation that would last 16 years. Jeff Boudreau is an expert at the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and knows a thing or two about artifact investigations. His specialty is Native American points, what many call arrowheads. Boudreau recently authenticated a point found in Falmouth, Mass. as being 2,000 years old.
For years scientists relied on observations and experience to know whether they were fake or real, but now it's a more forensic exercise, using electron microscopes, chemical testing, and even lasers. Boudreau says over time, the electrons in an article shift and a laser can pick up those shifts.
(Read More... Civilisations Past & Present | Word Count: 461 | 1 comment | Score: 0) |
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