Secret HistoryS


Books

Where the books weren't burned: Baghdad's ancient library preserved in the chaos of war

Tom Westcott
Middle East Eye
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 10:50 UTC
oldest book baghdad library
© Middle East Eye/Tom WestcottThe al-Qadiriyya library holds historic copies of the Quran and early scientific texts and manuscripts; but its oldest tome is a 950-year-old work on Arabic linguistics
Baghdad's libraries were looted and burned in the chaos of 2003, but one of its libraries escaped this fate and a historic collection survived

Librarian Abdulsalem Abdulkareem moves softly between the bookshelves of the al-Qadiriyya library, sliding silky fabric covers from glass exhibition cases to proudly reveal some of the collection's most beautiful historic tomes.

Many of these are richly decorated copies of the Quran, such as a two-volume hand-written edition, the pages of which are almost a metre long, gifted to the library from the Taj Mahal by an Indian prince several hundred years ago.
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Russian Flag

Russia's Paradise Lost: How National Geographic saw Crimea, before the coup

Tom Winter
Fort Russ
Thu, 17 Jan 2019 18:00 UTC
Crimea
© Reuters
Crimea, 2011, "Russia's Paradise Lost"

The National Geographic Magazine featured Crimea in its April, 2011 issue. The article can be seen here, though to read the whole thing, you have to enter your email address and agree to get promotions from the magazine.

The headline on the first page of text: "The Past is never past in Sevastopol."

On that first page, we find a 70-year-old grandmother saying "Sevastopol is a Russian city, and we will never put up with the fact that Ukraine is in charge."

Comment: Crimea has ALWAYS been seen as Russian, by those inside and outside it. That only changed in 2014 when it became politically inconvenient to acknowledge the obvious. That doesn't change reality, however. Crimea is Russian.

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Sherlock

An ancient relative of humans shows a surprisingly modern trait

Jeff Grabmeier
Science Daily
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 17:09 UTC
ancient dental growth patterns hominids
© S.X. from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.Original Xujiayao fossil (A and C) and μCT reconstruction of all the teeth (B and D). M1 and a part of the root of the deciduous dm2 are visible in the superior view photo, as is the M2 crown. I1 and C were removed from their sockets and appear in the picture as isolated teeth. Note that P3, P4, and M2 were still unerupted. (A and B) Inferior view. (C and D) Superior view. (A and C) Photographed by
Study finds an archaic hominin had modern dental growth

A relative of modern humans that lived at least 104,000 years ago in northern China showed evidence of dental growth and development very similar to that of people today, a new study found.

An international team of scientists performed the first systematic assessment of dental growth and development in an East Asian archaic hominin fossil that is known as the Xujiayao juvenile.

The fossil is of a 6 1/2-year-old who lived between 104,000 and 248,000 years ago found at the Xujiayao site in northern China.

The researchers were surprised to find that in most ways, this child's dental development was very similar to what you would find in a child today, said Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, co-author of the study and professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University.

"The Xujiayao juvenile is the oldest fossil found in east Asia that has dental development comparable to modern humans," Guatelli-Steinberg said.
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Dig

"Incredibly rare" prehistoric forest found in UK's Western Isles

Steven McKenzie
BBC
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 12:00 UTC
Prehistoric wood
© SCAPEPrehistoric wood preserved in peat at Lionacleit
Archaeologists have found evidence of early human activity at a submerged prehistoric forest in the Western Isles.

Lionacleit in Benbecula is one of more than 20 recorded sites of ancient woodland that once grew in the islands.

The remains included an early butchery site and stone tools used for preparing food.

Archaeologists have described the discoveries at Lionacleit as "extra special".

Comment: Evidently the world's climate and topography has undergone great shifts since those times:

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Info

Fossilized teeth reveal unknown prehistoric human relatives

Dyani Lewis
Cosmos Magazine
Thu, 17 Jan 2019 01:56 UTC
Fossil Teeth
© Song Xing and Paul TafforeauJuvenile teeth recovered from a fossil site in China. Hominin remains found at the site share characteristics with Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, and Neanderthals.
Bone by bone, tooth by tooth, the ancient remains of prehistoric human relatives from northern China are giving up their secrets.

In the latest analysis, published in the journal Science Advances, the jawbone and teeth of a child reveal that, like us, these ancient people were slow to mature.

But who these people were remains a mystery.

In recent years, the story of early human evolution has become increasingly complicated. Asia, in particular, is throwing up some head-scratching finds that call into question when different members of the Homo clan migrated out of Africa, and how many separate species existed in different parts of the globe.

The Xujiayao site in the Nihewan Basin of northern China was excavated in the late 1970s. In all, 20 ancient human fossils were found there, including skull fragments, jawbones and teeth from a number of individuals.

There have been two attempts to nail down when these prehistoric people lived. Dating of teeth from animal remains found alongside the hominin bones suggests they lived around 100,000 years ago.

But measurements of trapped electrons in the sediments that contain the fossils point to a more ancient time period.
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Info

After Israel slaughtered Gaza during 'Cast Lead', Obama admin met with Israeli generals to counteract damning Goldstone Report and get Israel's story out

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Michael Posner
Michael Posner
This is the tenth anniversary of "Cast Lead," Israel's three-week-long onslaught on Gaza that took nearly 1,400 lives, 318 of them children, and that as much as anything helped shift the American view of the conflict, causing young progressives to side with Palestinians.

During those three weeks of horrifying images, President-elect Obama had nothing critical to say and Israel did him a favor in return: it ended the bombing/invasion two days before he was inaugurated.

Then in September the UN Human Rights Council issued a bombshell of its own, the Goldstone Report, which documented what it called war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the onslaught, chiefly the Israeli pattern of deliberately striking civilian targets, including schools, mosques, homes, and a flour mill and a chicken farm.

The Obama administration worked to stymie the report at international bodies, and in the end the report went nowhere (defused by its author, Judge Richard Goldstone, who under huge pressure from his own community retracted the allegation that civilians were intentionally targeted).


Comment: See: Why Did Richard Goldstone Throw the Goldstone Report Under the Bus?


Comment: See also:

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Info

Weevil in earthenware shed light on Jomon rituals

Shunsuke Nakamura
The Asahi Shimbun
Sun, 06 Jan 2019 23:58 UTC
Maize weevil
© Provided by Hiroki ObataTraces of a maize weevil on earthenware.
Maize weevils found in potsherds from the Jomon Pottery Culture (c. 8000 B.C.-300 B.C.) period point to an ancient belief that the bug is the incarnation of chestnuts and thus a harbinger of a good harvest, a researcher said.

That hypothesis was presented by Hiroki Obata, a professor of archaeology at Kumamoto University, who previously found that weevils, known as a pest that attacks crops like rice, wheat and maize, feasted on stored chestnuts before grain cultivation had fully started.

Obata discovered that an estimated 500 or so maize weevils had been apparently deliberately mixed into clay for earthenware from the late Jomon period found at the Tatesaki archaeological site in Fukushima, Hokkaido.

Obata, who has extensively researched insect and plant impressions left on Jomon pottery, used X-ray CT scanning and other methods to examine the outer surfaces and insides of the fragments.
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Health

Tending the dying in the 19th century

Livia Gershon
daily.jstor.org
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:17 UTC
A woman tending to a sick man
© No known copyright restrictionsVolunteer Nurses Tending to the Sick and Wounded. (1861). Engraving by Albert Bobbett
In recent years, many Americans have begun looking for new ways to approach death. The death-positive movement supports people who prefer to die at home, and even those who wish to care for the bodies of loved ones the way many families did before the rise of the funeral industry. Historian Karol K. Weaver took a close look at that earlier approach, studying the business of death in early nineteenth century Pennsylvania, when care for the dying and dead fell mostly to women.

Comment:
See also other articles: One can find guides that explain some of the concepts involved in taken care of the dying, like this WikiHow How to Care for a Dying Person

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Books

As Xenophon saw it: Leadership, horsemanship and Socrates dancing

Eve Browning
Aeon
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 14:41 UTC
xenophon horse sculpture
© Leemage/Corbis via GettyOn horsemanship and domestic bliss. Bronze horse and rider, found in the sea off Cape Artemision. Late Hellenistic sculpture, National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece, 150-125 BC.
Brilliant leader, kind horseman and friend of Socrates: Xenophon's writings inspire a humane, practical approach to life

The band of mercenary soldiers had been on the move through hostile territory for several months when they were told they had enlisted under a lie. They weren't marching to put down a rebellion; they were instead marching in rebellion. Offers of special duty pay from their leader, Cyrus the Younger, however, calmed their anger and doubt, and on they advanced, dusty boots through the desert, as the heat of late-summer Persia rose around them in shimmering waves. The villages they passed by were hostile and strange: alien languages, customs, religions. There was little fresh water.

They has assembled under Cyrus in order to overthrow his brother and rival, Artaxerxes II, king of Persia. Before they reached his defensive line, they were harried on their flanks and from behind, depleting morale and using up their supplies. At a small village named Canaxa 50 miles north of Baghdad, they finally met the Persian king's forces, on a day when the noon temperature could have fried a pork chop. As the battle began, Cyrus rashly charged Artaxerxes himself. He was pierced through by a javelin thrown by one of Artaxerxes' guards, and died on the spot.
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Better Earth

700,000 years old skull discovered in Greek cave in 1959 shatters Out of Africa theory


Greece High Definition
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 12:00 UTC
The
The "Petralona man", or "Archanthropus of Petralona"
The "Petralona man", or "Archanthropus of Petralona", is a 700,000-year-old human skull discovered in 1959. Since then, scientists have been trying to trace this skull's origin, a process that has caused considerable controversy.

The skull, indicating the oldest human "europeoid" (presenting European traits), was embedded in a cave's wall in Petralona, near Chalkidiki in Northern Greece. The cave, rich in stalactites and stalagmites, was accidentally located by a shepherd. Dr. Aris Poulianos, an expert anthropologist, member of the UNESCO's International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences and founder of the Anthropological Association of Greece, was assigned a research on the cave and skull.

Comment: For more on the discoveries that further debunk the Out Of Africa theory, see:

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