Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
YouTube - Ancient Mesopotamia (clip)
YouTube - Ancient Mesopotamia (clip)
This is a very nice very simple summary of Sumer with some essential attention to the invention of agriculture, the wheel, and writing. Much of the political analysis is oversimplified and the speculations presented here about the disappearance of civilizations in this area are useless. Maybe the people responsible for the rise of civilization here moved elsewhere - e.g. Egypt.
This is a very nice very simple summary of Sumer with some essential attention to the invention of agriculture, the wheel, and writing. Much of the political analysis is oversimplified and the speculations presented here about the disappearance of civilizations in this area are useless. Maybe the people responsible for the rise of civilization here moved elsewhere - e.g. Egypt.
YouTube - Civilisations- Mesopotamia [1/6]
YouTube - Civilisations- Mesopotamia [1/6] The narration is English, but in terms of the commentary, there is an asssumption here that the viewer not only speaks English, but also French, a regrettably arrogant lapse typical for archaeology, and not motivating for those seeking to understand the subject matter. Otherwise, the video is excellent.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. - NYTimes.com
Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. - NYTimes.com:
"The little-known culture is being rescued from obscurity in an exhibition, “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C.,” which opened last month at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. More than 250 artifacts from museums in Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania are on display for the first time in the United States. The show will run through April 25."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Ancient Astronomy and the Ancestral Pueblo Anasazi Kivas to Sight Solar and Lunar Risings
Via Sacred studies : Ohio Wesleyan art professor uncovers celestial connection in desert Southwest, a November 1, 2009 article by Doug Caruso at THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH. Read the whole article. Here is my summary with a link to the important illustration:
Two Ohio Wesleyan professors have greatly furthered the cause of my decades-long megalithic research by confirming what I have always argued about the ancient megaliths and such megalithic sites as the Malta Temples.
They are all astronomy, here on the example of the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo) Kivas, as proven by Jim Krehbiel, head of the Ohio Wesleyan University Art Department, together with Barbara Andereck, a professor of astronomy and physics at Ohio Wesleyan and one of her students, Natalie Cunningham, who did important calculations.
Here is what they have discovered about the Kivas as astronomical observatories, using stone formations as lines of sight:
source of the ilustration at
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2009/11/01/graph.html
Two Ohio Wesleyan professors have greatly furthered the cause of my decades-long megalithic research by confirming what I have always argued about the ancient megaliths and such megalithic sites as the Malta Temples.
They are all astronomy, here on the example of the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo) Kivas, as proven by Jim Krehbiel, head of the Ohio Wesleyan University Art Department, together with Barbara Andereck, a professor of astronomy and physics at Ohio Wesleyan and one of her students, Natalie Cunningham, who did important calculations.
Here is what they have discovered about the Kivas as astronomical observatories, using stone formations as lines of sight:
source of the ilustration at
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2009/11/01/graph.html
Friday, March 06, 2009
Ancient Tides : A Blog by Gregory LeFever Linking Ancient History to Today : The Turin Canon (Turin Papyrus, Turin Kinglist)
Ancient Tides is a nice blog by Gregory LeFever with the motto "Linking ancient history to today". The blog covers current news on the topic of ancient cultures.
One posting that caught our eye is More Fragments of Ancient List Are Found, which we plan to look into more carefully soon, as the Turin list of kings is an important document for the chronology of Ancient Egypt, upon which the chronology of the Ancient Near East is also principally based.
We provide our decipherment of the Turin Canon (viz. Turin Papyrus, Turin Kinglist) here, here, here and here.
As written at LexiLine:
One posting that caught our eye is More Fragments of Ancient List Are Found, which we plan to look into more carefully soon, as the Turin list of kings is an important document for the chronology of Ancient Egypt, upon which the chronology of the Ancient Near East is also principally based.
We provide our decipherment of the Turin Canon (viz. Turin Papyrus, Turin Kinglist) here, here, here and here.
As written at LexiLine:
"As some of you know, I have several times recommended the re-study of the Turin Canon by new thermoluminescence methods, since I am sure some of the pieces of this important historical papyrus have been mis-pasted in the reconstruction process. Thermoluminiscence would easily determine where the pieces should properly be pasted (by grains on the paper, etc.). My suggestions have fallen on deaf ears in Egyptology, for the same reason as given above - the object is "too important" to study - it might be damaged.LeFever links us to a Discovery article by Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News, Fragments of Ancient Egyptian Papyrus Found, in which Lorenzi reports that additional fragments of the Turin Canon (they call it the Turin Kinglist), an ancient Papyrus listing the rulers of Ancient Egypt, have been found. As Lorenzi writes, the fragments were found:
And so, erroneous conclusions drawn from a - surely - falsely reconstructed document are used to map the chronology of ancient Egypt, for which the Turin Canon is of eminent importance."
"[S]tored between two sheets of glass in the basement of the Museo Egizio in Turin, the fragments belong to a 3,000-year-old unique document, known as the Turin Kinglist....
Scholars from the British Museum were tipped off to the existence of the additional fragments after reviewing a 1959 analysis of the papyrus by a British archaeologist. In his work, the archaeologist, Alan Gardiner, mentions fragments that were not included in the final reconstruction on display at the museum. After an extensive search, museum researchers found the pieces....The finding could help more accurately piece together what is considered to be a key item for understanding ancient Egyptian history.
This is one of the most important documents to reconstruct the chronology of Egypt between the 1st and 17th Dynasty," Federico Bottigliengo, Egyptologist at the Turin museum, told Discovery News.
Unlike other lists of kings, it enumerates all rulers, including the minor ones and those considered usurpers. Moreover, it records the length of reigns in years, and in some cases even in months and days....
Some of the finest scholars have worked on the papyrus last century, but disagreement about its reconstruction has remained," Bottigliengo said. "It has been a never-ending puzzle....
We are confident that a new examination with modern scientific techniques will enable a much improved reconstruction to be achieved," Richard Parkinson, curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, told Discovery News."