Secret HistoryS


Books

Elizabeth I revealed as translator of historic Tacitus manuscript

Rebecca Jones
BBC
Fri, 29 Nov 2019 12:00 UTC
elizabeth I
© Lambeth Palace Library/Getty Images
A manuscript written by Queen Elizabeth I has been discovered after lying unnoticed for more than a century.

A literary historian from the University of East Anglia made the startling find in Lambeth Palace Library in London.

He turned detective to piece together a series of clues to establish that the queen was the author of the writings.

The work is a translation of a book in which the Roman historian Tacitus wrote of the benefits of monarchical rule.

Comment: Elizabeth I's aptitude for translating as well as her interesting milieu is noted in Laura Knight-Jadczyk's article The True Identity of Fulcanelli and The Da Vinci Code:
In the early 1520s, Marguerite became involved in the movement for the reform of the church, meeting and corresponding with the leading reformers of the period. In 1527, apparently by her own choice, (rare in those days) Marguerite married Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre (though most of his kingdom was in Spanish hands). Henri d'Albret was the son of Catherine de Foix, descended from a famous Cathar family.

Around 1531, Marguerite allowed a poem she had written to be published, Miroir de l'ame pecheresse (Mirror of the sinful soul). Marguerite gave a copy of Miroir to one of her ladies in waiting, Anne Boleyn, and it was later translated into English by Anne's 12 year old daughter, Elizabeth later to become the greatest monarch England has ever known. As it happens, Anne Boleyn had previously been the lady in waiting to Margaret of Austria, so the two ladies undoubtedly communicated with one another and shared a Lady in Waiting. It also makes one wonder about the possibility that there was a great mystery surrounding Anne Boleyn?
And check out SOTT radio's: Also available in full on YouTube here.

See also: Long-lost overpainted portrait reveals young Queen Elizabeth I

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Pharoah

Ancient Egyptian High Priest hid mummies from grave robbers during Kingdom's decline


Sputnik
Sat, 30 Nov 2019 16:37 UTC
Ramses
© AFP 2019 / MOHAMED EL-SHAHED
The Valley of Kings and Queens is visited by hordes of tourists annually, and it appears there is at least one person to thank for sheltering King Ramses' remains from greedy 10 century BC tomb raiders.

Bettany Hughes' Channel 5 show Egypt's Great Treasure has revealed a stunning story of the so-called TT320 - the ancient Egyptian tomb located in close proximity to Deir el-Bahri, just opposite Luxor.

It is believed to have initially been the last resting place of High Priest of Amun Pinedjem II, his wife Nesikhons, and their close attendants.

Pinedjem II died around 969 BCE - at a time of the Egyptian Kingdom's decline, with grave robbery typical of the period. And it appeared he had done something really cunning and sneaky to secure the remains of legendary Ramses IX.

Comment: See also:

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Better Earth

1,400 years ago Bamburgh Castle was center of 'Northumbrian enlightenment', hosting visitors from as far as North Africa

Ryan Morrison
Daily Mail
Thu, 28 Nov 2019 14:41 UTC
Bamburgh
A previous study revealed that while most of Britain was in the 'Dark Ages' one area was playing host to visitors from across Europe, researchers studying bones uncovered near Bamburgh Castle claim
While most of Britain was in the 'Dark Ages' one area was playing host to visitors from across Europe and having its own local 'enlightenment', researchers studying bones uncovered near Bamburgh Castle claim.

Over the past 20 years, experts from Durham University have been studying the remains of 110 Anglo-Saxons found buried near the Northumberland castle.

They were found between 1998 and 2007 under the dunes just south of the Bamburgh Castle but were likely buried 1,400 years earlier.

Researchers say the remains belonged to people from across the British Isles and particularly western Scotland but were all likely of a high status within the court during what historians call the 'Golden age of Northumbria'.


Comment: This seems to validate other finds: Fascinating discoveries suggest Isle of May was a healing centre for hundreds of years


Comment: It's worth considering that perhaps a 'Dark Ages' did occur, for the great majority, at least, as Laura Knight-Jadczyk in Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls writes:
Until that point in time, the Britons had held control of post-Roman Britain, keeping the Anglo-Saxons isolated and suppressed. After the Romans were gone, the Britons maintained the status quo, living in towns, with elected officials, and carrying on trade with the empire. After AD 536, the year reported as the "death of Arthur", the Britons, the ancient Cymric empire that at one time had stretched from Cornwall in the south to Strathclyde in the north, all but disappeared, and were replaced by Anglo-Saxons. There is much debate among scholars as to whether the Anglo-Saxons killed all of the Britons, or assimilated them. Here we must consider that they were victims of possibly many overhead cometary explosions which wiped out most of the population of Europe, plunging it into the Dark Ages which were, apparently, really DARK, atmospherically speaking.
But following this upheaval, during which there may have been places of refuge, for some, there arose a period quite different to our own, so much so that, even in our age of information and 'diversity', we're still struggling to understand the people of the Middle Ages. R. G. Collingwood in Speculum Mentis writes:
The men of the middle ages, as we look back on them, appear to us half children and half giants. In the narrowness of their outlook, the smallness of the problems they faced, their fanciful and innocent superstition, their combination of qualities and activities which a reflective or critical society would find intolerably contradictory, they are children, and it is difficult for us to believe that human beings could be so simple. But in the solid magnitude of their achievements, their systems of law and philosophy, their creation and organization of huge nation-states, their incredible cathedrals, and above all their gradual forging of a civilized world out of a chaos of barbarism, they seem possessed by a tenacity and a vastness of purpose that we can only call gigantic. They seem to be tiny people doing colossal things.
See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Info

The Harappan script: An enigma from the ancient world

Monidipa Dey
Financial Express
Fri, 29 Nov 2019 17:10 UTC
Despite the thousands of archaeological artefacts excavated from more than a thousand settlements, a wholesome perspective of the civilisation still remains elusive.
Harappan Script
© Financial ExpressIn the 1920s, when the Harappan civilisation first came into limelight owing to the efforts of the then leading archaeologists of British and Indian origin, it was little expected that the civilisation would prove to be a mystery for a such a long time.
A standing offer of $10,000 prize money remains open from 2004, donated by an anonymous donor and valid as long as Steve Farmer, a historian, remains alive. This large temptation or let's say motivation to read a text over 50 characters still remains unclaimed. So, the question that naturally comes next is why was this prize money offered and what is the text that is so difficult that it cannot be read? With that question, readers, welcome to the world of Harappan civilisation and its mysterious script. While experts have unlocked the magical door of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Mayan language, and many other lesser-known scripts, the Harappan script still stubbornly refuses to yield its secrets to the archaeologists, historians, and other experts working in this field.

Of course, there are other scripts that remain elusive to the human minds, such as the texts of the Olmec and Zapotec (Mesoamerican cultures prior to the Mayans taking over), Proto-Elamite (earliest writings of ancient Persia or modern-day Iran), among few others; but the prize money stands only for deciphering the Harappan script. So, if one wants a name in the academic world, and can withstand the constant eagle-eyed surveillance and inspections by the experts of one's works, what can be better than to take up the challenge of reading the scripts of Harappan civilisation!
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Sherlock

No humans needed: Neanderthals possibly responsible for their own extinction


Eindhoven University of Technology
Wed, 27 Nov 2019 12:00 UTC
Neanderthals
Neanderthals may simply have been unfortunate to have lived in small numbers.
Scientists remain puzzled by the sudden extinction of Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. New research by scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, Leiden University and Wageningen University now suggests we might have been too quick in attributing the demise of Neanderthals to invasions by members of our species, Homo sapiens. Relying on models from conservation biology, the researchers conclude that the downfall of Neanderthals may have been the result of their small population size alone. The study has been published in PLOS ONE.

Among scientists, there is a broad consensus that modern humans played an important role in the extinction of Neanderthals: bands of modern humans would have invaded Neanderthal territory (e.g. Europe and the Near East), where they outsmarted or outnumbered their sister species

But, according to the Dutch scientists, linking the demise of Neanderthals to invasions by modern humans may have been too rash. They started from one uncontested fact: the Neanderthal population, like any other hominin population before, was extremely small, comprising perhaps no more than 10,000 individuals, and had been so throughout its existence. The researchers wondered whether that fact alone could explain its extinction.

Comment: It seems increasingly likely that a multitude of factors led to the demise of the Neanderthals, but, as of yet, genocide by humans is not supported by the evidence.

If, after a period of relative stability in the Neanderthal's environment, along came ever increasing pressures of a shifting climate - and all the challenges that poses - as well as with more sophisticated species on the scene, could it be that Neanderthals were simply unable to adapt to these new challenges? Humans, as shown by their proliferation across much of the planet, are capable of adapting to all kinds of conditions, whereas Neanderthals, as reflected in the "stagnation" in tool design, small population sizes, their limited scope of habitation throughout Europe, were not. And so, naturally, like many other animal species, including other hominin species, isn't it more likely that Neanderthals, more simply put, no longer 'fit', and, in turn, died out?

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Heart - Black

A 1970 law led to the mass sterilization of Native American women. That history still matters

Brianna Theobald
Time
Thu, 28 Nov 2019 11:47 UTC
Navajo woman walks towards her hogan
© Bettmann/Getty ImagesA Navajo woman walks towards her hogan on the Navajo Indian Reservation between Chinle and Ganado, Ariz., in August of 1970.
Marie Sanchez, chief tribal judge on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, arrived in Geneva in 1977 with a clear message to deliver to the United Nations Convention on Indigenous Rights. American Indian women, she argued, were targets of the "modern form" of genocide — sterilization.

Over the six-year period that had followed the passage of the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers were actually even higher. Some of these procedures were performed under pressure or duress, or without the women's knowledge or understanding. The law subsidized sterilizations for patients who received their health care through the Indian Health Service and for Medicaid patients, and black and Latina women were also targets of coercive sterilization in these years.

But while Sanchez and the Native women with whom she organized responded to the results of that 1970 law, they also recognized that the fight against involuntary sterilization was one of many intertwined injustices rooted — as was their resistance — in a much longer history of U.S. colonialism. And that history continues to this day.

When the federal government forced Native peoples onto reservations in the 19th century, the situation produced a cascade of public-health disasters. By 1900, the American Indian population had reached its nadir of less than a quarter million. Infants and children proved particularly vulnerable to illness and death. One government official estimated in 1916 that approximately three-fifths of Indian infants died before age 5. On many reservations, women responded by bearing more children despite their compromised health. The historian Frederick Hoxie has argued that "only the maintenance of extraordinarily high birth rates" saved one nation from "dropping into oblivion."
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Palette

Long-lost overpainted portrait reveals young Queen Elizabeth I

Mark Brown
The Guardian
Wed, 27 Nov 2019 15:23 UTC
elizabeth I
© BonhamsThe portrait dates from 1562 and it may have been painted in Steven van der Meulen’s workshop.
A mysterious portrait of an unknown woman has been identified as a rare depiction of a young Elizabeth I projecting power, confidence and suitability for marriage.

The discovery was announced by the auction house Bonhams, which said the California owners of the painting had no idea who the sitter was until they had it cleaned. The procedure revealed the picture had been overpainted, probably in the 19th century.

The original subject appeared to be Elizabeth I, a fact confirmed when it was taken to Bonhams this year.

Andrew McKenzie, the director of the auction house's old masters department, called it an "important and exciting" discovery. "It is really rare to find something this early," he said.

Comment: See also:

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Info

8,000-year-old stone structure unearthed on Turkish island

Burak Akay
Anadolu Agency
Thu, 21 Nov 2019 17:50 UTC
Stone Structure 8000 year old
© Anadolu Agency
Canakkale, Turkey - A monument believed to be around 8,000-year old was unearthed in northwestern Turkey, according to the head of an excavation team.

"During this years' excavation work, we have found a structure that we believe dates back to around 6,000 B.C.," Burcin Erdogu from Trakya University, archeologist and head of the excavation team, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

Excavations in the Ugurlu-Zeytinlik mound in the northwestern province of Canakkale's Gokceada district had earlier unearthed a 7,000-year-old structure complex.

Erdogu said the new excavation will through light on the history of Gokceada, which dates back to 8,800 years.
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Hourglass

Best of the Web: 100 years ago, a gigantic meteor shook Michigan on Thanksgiving eve

Eric Mack
CNET
Mon, 25 Nov 2019 19:42 UTC
Chelyabinsk Meteor
© Associated PressIn this frame grab made from a dashboard video camera, a meteor streaks through the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013.
A century ago, on Thanksgiving eve, people across Michigan saw something that would mark Nov. 26 in their memories for years to come. Fog and rain rolled across the Great Lakes region, when just before 8 p.m. something unusual cut through the dark.

"The road, trees, houses and even ourselves were bathed in a blinding phosphorescent-like glow which had its center in a bright streak in the sky above us," highway construction superintendent Leroy Milhan of Centerville, Michigan, would recall in a paper published the following year. "It passed over us toward the west. Immediately came a muffled report or jar that shook houses and the very earth like an earthquake."

The following day, the Washington Times reported that "telegraph and telephone communications and electric lighting plants in several cities in southern Michigan and northern Indiana are out of commission" as a result of "a remarkable phenomenon believed by several scientists to have been a gigantic meteor."

Comment: You can read more about the hazards to humanity from cometary bombardment in SOTT's Comets and Catastrophe Series by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

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Archaeology

Divers discover fully intact medieval sword wedged in underwater stone in Bosnian river

Ian Harvey
The Vintage News
Tue, 05 Nov 2019 18:24 UTC
sword river bosnia stone
© Ivana PandzicThe 700-yr-old sword was found embedded in rock at the bottom of the river.
In Bosnia's Republika Srpska, the Vrbas River has held a secret for around seven centuries. A medieval sword was recently discovered stuck in a stone thirty-six feet down at the bottom of the river. Divers from the RK BUK, a boating and dive club in Banja Luka, found the sword in relatively good condition considering the amount of time spent underwater.

Republika Srpska Museum historian, Janko Vracar, announced that an analysis of the blade had been done and verified that the sword was from around the end of the 1200s to the first half of the 1400s. According to The Srpska Times, Vracar noted that the City of Banja Luka and Republika Srpska are prioritizing the conservation of the weapon which is a rare find in the region.
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