Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin

A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus’ burial cloth. The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery. Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, said Friday that she used computers to enhance images of faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the shroud

A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.

Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.

Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that she used computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.

She asserts that the words include the name “(J)esu(s) Nazarene” — or Jesus of Nazareth — in Greek. That, she said, proves the text could not be of medieval origin because no Christian at the time, even a forger, would have mentioned Jesus without referring to his divinity. Failing to do so would risk being branded a heretic.

“Even someone intent on forging a relic would have had all the reasons to place the signs of divinity on this object,” Frale said Friday. “Had we found 'Christ' or the 'Son of God' we could have considered it a hoax, or a devotional inscription.”

The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping from his hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen's fibers at the time of his resurrection.

The fragile artifact, owned by the Vatican, is kept locked in a protective chamber in a Turin cathedral and is rarely shown. Measuring 13 feet (four meters) long and three feet (one meter) wide, the shroud has suffered severe damage through the centuries, including from fire. ….

via Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin – Yahoo! News.

Maya “Painted Pyramid” Reveals 1st Murals of Daily Life

A series of unusual Maya wall murals, complete with hieroglyphic captions, are providing archaeologists with a priceless look at day-to-day life in the empire circa A.D. 620 to 700.

Previously known Maya murals all depict the ruling elite, victories in battle, or religious themes. (Explore a map of Maya ruins.)

But exterior walls on a “painted pyramid” buried for centuries in the Mexican jungle (pictured, a corner of the pyramid undergoing excavations) have shown Maya scholars something completely different.

The murals—discovered in 2004 at the Maya site of Calakmul—depict ordinary people enjoying much more casual pursuits, according to a new, detailed description of the wall art.

“There's really nothing like this in any of the [known] murals. These are totally unexpected,” said Maya expert Michael D. Coe, curator emeritus at Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History and editor of the new paper.

“This is everyday life with people who are not upper-crust Maya but rather people engaged in everyday activities.”

Maya Food and Fashion

The colorful artwork shows the clothing and jewelry worn by various social classes in Calakmul, one of the largest cities of the Classic Maya period, which lasted from A.D. 300 to 900. (Take a Maya quiz.)

During this era, Calakmul was likely the capital of the Kan (Snake) Kingdom, which held great sway over the Maya world.

The murals also depict common foodstuffs as well as people involved in food preparation and distribution, including a “salt person” and a “tobacco person,” as they are labeled in the hieroglyphs. (Related: “Ancient Farm Discovery Yields Clues to Maya Diet.”)

Other scenes depict corn products that were essential to the Maya diet: A woman distributes a platter of tamales to a crowd in one panel, while a man and woman in another scene serve maize gruel.

What's more, the Calakmul murals' exterior location surprised experts, since other murals were found secreted away inside pyramids.

“In other words, they were public,” Coe said of the Calakmul paintings. “They were to be seen by everybody.” Luckily for Maya scholars, the painted pyramid's long burial helped preserve the unusual artwork.

via Maya “Painted Pyramid” Reveals 1st Murals of Daily Life.

Don’t blame fast food: Mummies had heart disease

You can’t blame this one on McDonald’s: Researchers have found signs of heart disease in 3,500-year-old mummies.

“We think of it as being caused by modern risk factors,” such as fast food, smoking and a lack of exercise, but the findings show that these aren’t the only reasons arteries clog, said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City.

He and several other researchers used CT scans, a type of X-ray, on 22 mummies kept in the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. The subjects were from 1981 B.C. to 334 A.D. Half were thought to be over 45 when they died, and average lifespan was under 50 back then.

Sixteen mummies had heart and blood vessel tissue to analyze. Definite or probable hardening of the arteries was seen in nine.

“We were struck by the similar appearance of vascular calcification in the mummies and our present-day patients,” said another researcher, Dr. Michael Miyamoto of the University of California at San Diego. “Perhaps the development of atherosclerosis is a part of being human.”

One mummy had evidence of a possible heart attack but scientists don’t know if it was fatal. Nor can they tell how much these people weighed — mummification dehydrates the body.

Of those whose identities could be determined, all were of high social status, and many served in the court of the Pharaoh or as priests or priestesses.

“Rich people ate meat, and they did salt meat, so maybe they had hypertension (high blood pressure), but that’s speculation,” Thompson said.

With modern diets, “we all sort of live in the Pharaoh’s court,” said another of the researchers, Dr. Samuel Wann of the Wisconsin Heart Hospital in Milwaukee.

The oldest mummy with heart disease signs was Lady Rai, a nursemaid to Queen Ahmose Nefertari who died around 1530 B.C. — 200 years before King Tutankhamun.

via Don’t blame fast food: Mummies had heart disease – Yahoo! News.

Ancient Egyptian library rivaled a modern residential university

I have just returned from Egypt where modern medicine established its roots in the fourth century B.C., but where all its ancient grandeur has been shed by the 21st century A.D. With the exception of the Nile Valley, it doesn't appear that anything could take root today as the windswept dry and sandy desert extends forever to the east and to the west.

Modern Egypt is a police state, with police visibly in charge of almost all the functions of life. There are tourist police and museum police and hotel police and airport police — every variation with the notable exception of traffic police. Cairo traffic, for example, almost defies description. There are ever-changing, three lanes of traffic on every well-marked, two-lane highway and the occasional cross-walks and rare traffic lights are paid no heed by motorists and pedestrians alike. I would say the greatest health risk must be being a pedestrian attempting to cross the street!

The visit was absolutely fantastic and no one should go through life without seeing the pyramids.

But back to medicine.

The ancient Egyptians had a great understanding of human anatomy through their practice of mummification. However, this was not adapted to medical practice until the beginning of the great medical school of Alexandria. The city itself was founded by Alexander the Great after he defeated the Persians in the fourth century B.C., and advanced south through modern Lebanon, Israel and Gaza to invade Egypt.

He selected the site for the city that bears his name but never saw it built. After his untimely death, his empire was divided up between his generals. Egypt and Alexandria went to his half brother Ptolemy Soter, a provincial Macedonian warlord.

HOUSE OF MUSES

It was remarkable and extraordinary that this soldier built one of the greatest academic institutions in history. It was called the House of Muses (from which we derive the word “museum”) and contained all the elements of a modern residential university. It comprised four schools — mathematics, letters, astronomy and medicine. The building eventually accumulated the largest library in the ancient world, with hundreds of thousands of volumes. Within just a couple of generations its discoveries included the accurate measurement of the diameter of the earth, the cylinder and piston, the pump and one-way valve, the science of hydraulics and a system of planetary motion.

… At its peak, the Alexandria school conducted hitherto forbidden human dissection, studied and timed the pulse with a portable water clock invented by a physicist and recognized that the heart was a pump. These advances in medicine were breathtaking at the time, but could not be sustained. Toward the end of the second century, things started to fall apart with squabbling and hair-splitting. With its reputation waning and the exodus of scientists from the oppressive local ruler, the school closed.

In 48 B.C., Julius Caesar burned the Egyptian fleet in Alexandria harbor while fighting Pompey. The fire spread to destroy the library, but Caesar did not think to mention the incident in his memoirs. The intellectual gem of antiquity was gone forever.

via Ancient Egyptian library rivaled a modern residential university – SILive.com.

‘Doomsday’ 2012 prediction explained: Mayan calendar was cyclical

Contrary to what the latest Hollywood blockbuster movie would suggest, the world will NOT end on Dec. 21, 2012, according to Ann Martin, a doctoral candidate in Cornell University’s department of astronomy. Her research focuses on the hydrogen content of galaxies in the nearby universe.

The Mayan calendar was designed to be cyclical, so the fact that the long count comes to an end in December 2012 is really of no consequence, according to Martin. Simply, it is the end of great calendar cycle in Mayan society, much like our modern society celebrated the new Millennium. It does not mean that the “world will end.” In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end then and there is no evidence to suggest that the Mayans — or anyone for that matter — has knowledge for the world’s demise.

For the past three years, Martin has been a volunteer with Cornell’s “Curious? Ask an Astronomer” service, a Web site founded by astronomy graduate students in 1997.

via ‘Doomsday’ 2012 prediction explained: Mayan calendar was cyclical.

I’ll still see the movie.

2 Japanese subs sunk after World War II found

U.S. researchers said Thursday that they have located the remains of two high-tech Japanese submarines that were scuttled by the U.S. Navy off Hawaii in 1946 to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.

One of the craft was the largest non-nuclear sub ever built and had the ability to circle the globe 1 1/2 times without refueling. Called the I-14, the behemoth was 400 feet long and 40 feet high and carried a crew of 144. It was designed to launch two folding-wing bombers on kamikaze missions against U.S. cities such as New York and Washington, D.C., although changes in tactics, and the end of the war, prevented such attacks.

The second, which also never entered the war, was an attack submarine called the I-201 whose design foreshadowed the sleek submarines of today. It was thought to be more than twice as fast as any U.S. subs used in the war.

“In their time, they were very revolutionary,” said retired Col. Robert D. Hackett, a military historian with CombinedFleet.com, an online collection of information about the Imperial Japanese Navy. He was not involved in the new find. “We were quite interested in the technology.” …

via 2 Japanese subs sunk after World War II found — latimes.com.

Scientists: New dinosaur species found in SAfrica

A newly discovered dinosaur species that roamed the Earth about 200 million years ago may help explain how the creatures evolved into the largest animals on land, scientists in South Africa said Wednesday.

The Aardonyx celestae was a 23-foot- (7-meter-) long small-headed herbivore with a huge barrel of a chest. It walked on its hind legs but also could drop to all fours, and scientists told reporters that could prove to be a missing evolutionary link.

This is a species “that no one has seen before and one that has a very significant position in the family tree of dinosaurs,” said Australian paleontologist Adam Yates.

Yates, who is based at the University of the Witwatersrand's Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research, led the research with a number of other local and international scientists.

Their findings were published Wednesday in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B, a London-based peer-reviewed journal.

The Aardonyx celestae species dates back to the early Jurassic period. Yates said the creature found in South Africa stood nearly 6 feet (about 1.7 meters) high at the hip and weighed about 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms). It was about 10 years old when it died, and its death may have been caused by drought.

The newly discovered species shares many characteristics with the plant-eating herbivores that walked on two legs, Yates said. But the new species also has similar attributes to dinosaurs known as sauropods, or brontosaurs, that grew to massive sizes and went about on all fours with long necks and whip-like tails.

“The discovery of Aardonyx helps to fill a marked gap in our knowledge of sauropod evolution, showing how a primarily two-legged animal could start to acquire the specific features necessary for a life spent on all-fours,” said Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum who assisted on the dig that led to the finding but was not directly involved in the research.

Why and how dinosaurs grew into such massive creatures is a question that scientists have been trying to answer for a long time.

via Scientists: New dinosaur species found in SAfrica – Yahoo! News.

Is there evidence regarding how long dinosaurs lived? What if they could live 600 years and keep growing slowly the whole time?

3-Year-Old Boy Digging in Yard Finds Rings Lost 33 Years Earlier

A 3-year-old boy digging in his yard found wedding rings that were lost by the home's original owner 33 years ago.

The rings 3-year-old Ryan Baima, of Franklin, Mass., dug up were lost in 1976 and belong to retired school teacher Joan Mulligan, reports local TV station WCVB.

Lost and Found

Ryan Baima, 3, dug up two long-lost rings belonging to a former resident of the Massachusetts house he lives in. With the help of his Mom, the boy returned the treasures to their grateful owner.

After some detective work, Luna Baima, Ryan's mother, called Mulligan with the good news Sunday night.

“She said, 'I think I have something that belongs to you.' And immediately it flashed through my mind that's what it was. I couldn't believe it,” said Mulligan, who lost the rings when she was gardening.

The rings were originally lost on the other side of the yard from where they were discovered. Ryan found the rings even after eight to 10 truckloads of dirt had been removed from the yard in the past couple of weeks.

“I gave (Ryan) $50 in multiple bills and he was in the house throwing it up in the air and going, 'Woo!” Mulligan told WCVB.

Mulligan said she will have her long-lost rings repaired in time for her 50th wedding anniversary next year.

via 3-Year-Old Boy Digging in Yard Finds Rings Lost 33 Years Earlier.

Warm-blooded dinosaurs worked up a sweat

Were dinosaurs “warm-blooded” like present-day mammals and birds, or “cold-blooded” like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you’d snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter’s evening.

In a study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded.

If dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded) they would have had the potential for athletic abilities rivalling those of present day birds and mammals, and possibly similar quick thinking and complicated behaviours as well¬. Their internal furnace would have enabled them to live in colder habitats that would kill ectotherms (cold-blooded animals), such as high mountain ranges and the polar regions, allowing them to cover the entire Mesozoic landscape. These advantages would have come at a cost, however; endothermic animals require much more food than their ectothermic counterparts because their rapid metabolisms fatally malfunction if they cool down too much, and so a constant supply of fuel is required.

Pontzer worked with colleagues John R. Hutchinson and Vivian Allen from the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College, UK, to bring a combination of simple measurements, rigorous computer modeling techniques and their knowledge of physiology in present-day animals to bear in a new study on this hot topic. Using their combined experience, the authors set out to determine whether a variety of dinosaurs and closely related extinct animals were endothermic or ectothermic, and when, where and how often in the dinosaur family tree this important trait may have evolved.

“It’s exciting to apply our studies of living animals back to the fossil record to test different evolutionary scenarios,” Pontzer said. “I work on the evolution of human locomotion, using studies of living humans and other animals to figure out the gait and efficiency of our earliest fossil ancestors. When I realized this approach could be applied to the dinosaur record, I contacted John Hutchinson, an expert on dinosaur locomotion, and suggested we collaborate on this project. Our results provide strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded. The debate on this issue will no doubt continue, but we hope our study will add a useful new line of evidence.”

via Warm-blooded dinosaurs worked up a sweat.

Great Pyramid: What is really behind the door found by Gantenbrink’s robot?

.. at the same time that Gantenbrink’s robot uncovered the hidden door inside the Great Pyramid on 22 March 1993, Hawass was suspended from his then position as Chief Inspector of the Giza Pyramid Plateau. Synchronicity, or did Gantenbrink make use of the power vacuum to announce his finding in April 1993, knowing that otherwise it might be suppressed?
What happened next is also interesting, and revealing. Upon the announcement, Gantenbrink was banned from resuming his work. The Egyptian Antiquities Organization (EAO), the predecessor of the SCA, claimed that Gantenbrink had broken a “rule” of archaeology by speaking for himself rather than through the “proper channels”—which are obviously there, by its own admission, to control what gets out and what doesn’t. What happened next is also interesting, and revealing.

Graham Hancock writes: “The [then] Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Dr Rainer Stadelmann, sided with the Egyptians and condemned Gantenbrink for his press action. Dr Stadelmann was adamant about the nonimportance of the find. ‘This is not a door; there is nothing behind it. The President of the EAO, Dr Muhamad Bakr, went so far as to claim the announcement a “hoax”. He stated: “The orifice of the shaft is too small for the robot to go through.

History has shown Bakr to be wrong on both counts. It was Bakr who removed Hawass from his position, claiming that a valuable ancient statue had been stolen from Giza under Hawass’s watch.

To quote again from Hancock: “Three months later, in June 1993, Dr Bakr himself was fired and replaced by Dr Nur El Din. Amid accusations of malpractice and fraud, Dr Bakr spoke of a ‘mafia’ which had been involved with the Pyramids for ‘the last twenty years’. Refusing to give names, Dr Bakr said, ‘I wanted the whole matter investigated by the prosecution authorities, but my request was refused.’”¹⁶

In early 1994, Hawass was reinstated to his position. Though Bakr is clearly not the most credible source, there are nevertheless clear echoes of the ARCE. Hawass’s reinstatement was “said to have been brought about by American intervention”, according to Chris Ogilvie-Herald, writing in the British magazine Quest for Knowledge. At the very least, Hawass seems to be quite fortunate in that no matter what, whether it involve stolen statues or his technical department head being fined and imprisoned, he remains immune to it all.

Gantenbrink never returned to work inside the Great Pyramid. He even offered the Egyptian authorities the use of his robot—because only a robot can penetrate the air shaft—and volunteered to train an Egyptian technician to operate it, but his suggestions were not taken up.

However, Hawass eventually argued that the discovery of the door was extremely interesting and would be further explored. In March 1996, he stated that the door would be opened in September that year. The month was right, but it was on 17 September 2002 that the door was finally opened. The event was broadcast “live” on Fox TV in America and transmitted to 140 countries via the National Geographic Channel. The end result was the discovery of… another door, which Hawass claimed would be opened soon. Seven years later, the world still waits… – pcoppins

Seven years may be enough time to extract all the alien artifacts and put some old Egyptian artifacts in there. But seriously, has anyone asked Dr. Hawass about the second door lately? What do you wish we would find? A great library? Lost technology?