Archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp, who is promoting a new book on Julius Caesar, headed a project to recreate Caesar's bust using a 3D scan of one existing portrait, a marble bust held by the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Archaeologist and anthropologist Maja d'Hollosy used the scan of the marble bust (and other portraits, allegedly) to create a truly horrendous clay and silicon 'reproduction'. The bust was unveiled at an event by Buijtendorp at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands, on Friday.

RT reports:

A new 3D reconstruction of Julius Caesar's head gives unprecedented insight into what the famous Roman general looked like all those years ago - including the bizarre proportions of his cranium.
...
The result is a remarkably lifelike depiction of Caesar, down to the unusual skull shape said to have been the result of his difficult birth.

"So he has a crazy bulge on his head," Buijtendorp said of his skull, HLN reports. "A doctor said that such a thing occurs in a heavy delivery. You do not invent that as an artist."

You can see the monstrosity that resulted above. The only problem is: Caesar didn't look like that.

Oh my god. The lies we were taught in school. I have just finished listening to an interview with (v.i.p.) Shashi Tharoor about his book on the British rule of India: Inglorious Empire: What the British Did To India.

• Before the British arrived India represented over 20% of the world's GDP (textiles, steel, shipbuilding...) and had done so for centuries. By the time the British left it was reduced to 3% of world's GDP.
• There is an eyewitness account the British smashing Indian looms and breaking or cutting off the weavers' thumbs so they could not rebuild the looms and resume production.
• The Indian export textile industry was effectively destroyed as Indians were forced to sell cotton to Britain and then buy back inferior British textiles.
• The railways did little to benefit Indians until after the British left.

An interesting datum given today's situation...

• The British were the ones responsible for introducing the Hindu-Muslim antagonistic divide. The Hindus and Muslims were united, serving under common native command, to oppose the British. The British responded by initiating policies that over time succeeded in their aim of building hostility between the two faiths - the old "divide and conquer" tactic.

And we are reminded again of the genocidal policies that I first read about in Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts. This time, however, it was Winston Churchill himself who emerged as the Stalinesque monster, diverting grain from regions where millions were dying in order to build up reserves for remotely hypothetical threats in Europe. Churchill is on record as saying the deaths are the Bengalis own fault for "breeding like rabbits".

And on and on it goes.....

Introduction by the Saker: I have always had a passion for theology in general and the studies of religions in general. Several years ago I discovered, quite by chance, a book written by Michael A. Hoffman II entitled Judaism's Strange Gods which I found most interesting and thought provoking. Reading that book, I felt that I wanted to find out much more and I ended up ordering and reading Michael A. Hoffman II's magnum opus Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit which absolutely amazed me: over 1000 pages packed with information, sources and most interesting analyses. Needless to say, the book was also very controversial and elicited all sorts of negative reactions from various reviewers. Here I need to immediately begin by a disclaimer: while the topic of "Rabbinical Phariseism" (modern "Judaism" should be called something like "Rabbinical Phariseism" since all modern Judaic denomination are descendants of the sect of the Pharisees; furthermore, this religion is dramatically different from the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: it is the religion of Maimonides, Karo, Luria and others) has always fascinated me and while I do have a graduate degree in theology, I am absolutely not qualified to endorse or refute the views of Hoffman. What I can say is that his books are very well written, well researched, fully sourced and that I see no contradictions between what he wrote and the little I personally know about this topic. As for his critique of the religion of the Rabbinical Pharisees (from which all form of modern "Orthodox Judaism" stem from), it is not "racist" in any way: unlike ethnicity, a religion is a personal choice and thus a legitimate target for scrutiny and criticism and Hoffman's condemnation of Rabbinical Phariseism is in no way harsher than the writings of Church Fathers like Saint Justin Martyr, Saint John Chrysostome, Saint Cyprian of Carthage or Saint Ephrem the Syrian.

Hoffman recently published another amazing book, the 700 pages long "The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome" which I began reading (I am about 1/3rd through) with, again, rapt interest. Yet again, here was a very well researched and beautifully controversial book which gave me as strong desire to speak with the author and, luckily for me, Michael A. Hoffman II has kindly agree to replies to my questions to him on his life and research. The following is the full unedited Q&A with I had with him.

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Many Trump supporters, and even some on the left, like to talk about the "Deep State" secretly having complete control of our government, thus rendering our elected leaders to be nothing more than meaningless figureheads. Let's investigate.

Long before the term 'Deep State' became popular, the term "Military Industrial Complex" was coined by President Dwight Eisenhower.

He gave his now famous Military Industrial Complex (MIC) speech on Jan 17, 1961.

More than 3,000 years ago in what is now the lower Chao Valley in Peru, ancient people created five geoglyphs out of angular rocks, forming designs that may have shown heavenly constellations.

These geoglyphs had stone doorways leading into them. Archaeologists believe that ancient people would have entered these doorways to participate in some form of ceremony or ritual activity performed at the geoglyphs.

These five geoglyphs are part of a much larger ceremonial landscape now called Pampa de las Salinas that consistsof more than 20 archaeological sites, including trails, plazas and a massive mound called "Los Morteros" that consists of the remains of ancient buildings as well as fish and plants.[Amazing Photos of the Mysterious Geoglyphs in Peru]

Recently, archaeologists have been mapping and excavating Pampa de las Salinasin an effort to help understand the landscape's mysteries.

The war that Israel initiated in June of 1967 became the stuff of myths and legends on many levels. Now, after fifty one years it may be time to unravel and demystify what took place during those fateful six days in June.

There is the myth of the existential threat which called for Israel to engage in a preemptive strike which started the war, then there is the myth of the greatness of the Israeli army and its remarkable abilities, and there is a claim which one can argue is also a myth that it was this war that changed the face of the Middle East forever. Then, there is an even greater myth and that is that Palestine was occupied as a result of the 1967 war. That the West Bank and The Gaza Strip, which are no more than two small parts of Palestine artificially created when Israel was established, are The Occupied Palestinian Territories, as opposed to two areas within occupied Palestine. It can be no coincidence that most immediately after the war of 1967 these areas were named "The Occupied Territories" and the fact that the greater part of Palestine had been occupied for almost twenty years - that point had somehow slipped the collective memories of all but the Palestinians themselves.

If you've ever wondered how people rose to power in Ancient Rome newly discovered political ads in the famous city of Pompeii offer fresh insight on the age-old practice of propaganda.

The recently uncovered Latin inscriptions were found by archaeologists working in the Regio V area of the government protected park. The perfectly preserved messages, which were graffitied onto the outside of buildings during Pompeii's heyday more than 1,900 years ago, were used to promote politicians running for office, according to reports in Italy.

Since its rediscovery in 1748, various studies of Pompeii have shown that the ancient town had a sophisticated political structure, including magistrates and councillors.

An extraordinary letter home to Scotland from a young man who had emigrated to Australia in the 1830s has been made available to people trying to reconcile with Aboriginal history.

James Graham wrote home to his family in Fife in 1839, a year after he had emigrated to Australia, and his letter contains proof that Aborigines were massacred by white settlers - studies have shown that up to 60% of Australians still do not believe such atrocities happen.

During National Reconciliation Week earlier this month - seven days of promoting Aboriginal culture - the so-called Overland Letter by Graham was promoted by the University of Melbourne in its online publication Pursuit.

The letter from the university archives is extraordinary for several reasons, not least because it is a rare example of the "criss-cross" style of writing which Victorians used in order to save paper - the most famous user of that method was the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

According to Pursuit, Graham's cross-writing horizontally, vertically and diagonally filled two large leaves of heavy paper with words that would later add up to forty pages of typed transcription.

Some of the most enigmatic human-made objects from Europe's late Stone Age - intricately carved balls of stone, each about the size of a baseball - continue to baffle archaeologists more than 200 years after they were first discovered.

More than 500 of the enigmatic objects have now been found, most of them in northeast Scotland, but also in the Orkney Islands, England, Ireland and one in Norway.

Archaeologists still don't know the original purpose or meaning of the Neolithic stone balls, which are recognized as some of the finest examples of Neolithic art found anywhere in the world. But now, they've created virtual 3D models of the gorgeous balls, primarily to share with the public. In addition, the models have revealed some new details, including once-hidden patterns in the carvings on the balls. [See More Photos of the Intricately Carved Stone Balls]

Hugo Anderson-Whymark, a curator at National Museums Scotland who created the online models, explained that many functions have been proposed for the stone balls over the years.

Such proposals have included the possibility that they were made as the stone heads for crushing weapons, or standardized weights for Neolithic traders, or rollers for the transport of the giant stones used in megalithic monuments.

One theory is that the knobs on many of the carved stone balls were wound with twine or sinew, which allowed them to be thrown like slings or South American bolas. Other theories describe the balls as objects of religious devotion or symbols of social status.

It's a Stone Age mystery: why did one-third of the people living in an ancient village far from the sea develop a condition typically seen today in avid surfers?

There is no obvious answer - but the weird prevalence of "surfer's ear" in the ancient community might shed new light on the way humans lived just before the farming revolution.

Körtik Tepe, a site in eastern Turkey, was first occupied between 12,400 and 11,250 years ago. This was a time of massive social change, when roaming hunter-gatherers first began living in permanent villages.


We know very little about the lives of those early villagers, other than that they continued to hunt and gather food rather than farming the land. To find out more, a team led by Yılmaz Erdal at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, examined 128 skeletons buried at the site.