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Boat

Lost Viking waterway found in Orkney revealing Norse impact on local economy

Alison Campsie
Scotsman
Tue, 04 Aug 2020 12:53 UTC
Orkney
© St Andrews University.
The lost Viking waterway likely connected farms on Orkney Mainland to the power bases of the Norse earls on the north west coast at Birsay.
The route was discovered after a series of Old Norse place names in the centre of the mainland, which were connected to sea and boats despite being many miles from the sea, attracted interest from researchers.

Now it is believed that Vikings were using a route from Harray in the central mainland through the Loch of Banks to a portage at Twatt before reaching the Loch of Boardhouse and ultimately the coastal powerbases of the Norse Earls at the Brough of Birsay, a tidal island off the very tip of the north west coast.

The waterway network would have provided a shallow route through which the Vikings were able to haul both their boats and heavy goods, such as grain.

Comment: See also:

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Bomb

Atomic bombings at 75: John Pilger says another Hiroshima is coming - unless we stop it now

John Pilger
Consortium News
Tue, 04 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
NY Times article Hiroshima
© New York Times
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of premeditated mass murder unleashing a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of 21st century U.S. war propaganda, casting a new enemy, and target - China.

When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.

I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties. I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

He described a huge flash over the city, "a bluish light, something like an electrical short", after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell.
"I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead."
Nine years later, I returned to look for him and he was dead from leukemia.
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Target

America's 'Days of Rage': A look into the extensive left-wing bombings & domestic terrorism of the 1970s

Sam Jacobs
Ammo.com
Mon, 03 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
The Weathermen
© David Fenton—Getty Images
Leaders of the radical American student group the Weathermen, (left to right) Jim Mellen, Peter Clapp, John Jacobs, Bill Ayers, and Terry Robbins, march in 1969 at the van of a group of demonstrators during the 'Days of Rage' actions organized by the Weathermen to protest the trial of the Chicago Seven and 'to bring the war home.'
As the summer of 2020 dawned, left-wing radical groups began rioting and taking over parts of America's cities. While this specific form of left-wing violence is new, left-wing violence itself is far from new in the United States. Indeed, one of the most hidden and concealed parts of recent American history is the extensive left-wing violence that began in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s.

At first, one might think that these were isolated incidents of small-scale "protest" or even minor violence. However, upon even brief examination, we find out that the outpouring of leftist violence over this time period was anything but minor. The most likely explanation for why you have never heard of this until now is that the events of these years have been consciously buried by those who would prefer you not know about them.

As the left once again ratchets up both its rhetoric and its physical violence, it's time to re-explore this period of American history. What started as a non-violent student movement quickly escalated into a campaign of terrorism against the American people. And while the similarities may not be terribly striking yet, astute readers of this article will quickly see the world in which we live more and more closely resembling the Days of Rage.
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Info

Figurines found at ancient dig site may depict face of God, says Israeli archeologist


Sputnik News
Sat, 01 Aug 2020 19:20 UTC
Hebrew God
© CLARA AMIT, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY
Figurines allegedly depicting the face of the Hebrew God.
The professor studying the figures believes they may have been used at pilgrimage centers to form a kind of metaphysical connection between God and Man, "a contact between earth and heaven, the core of the religious experience."

Dr. Yosef Garfinkel, a veteran archeologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has proposed a fascinating theory which suggests that a series of three small clay figurines recently discovered at the archeological sites of Khirbet Qeiyafa and Moza, and two similar antiquities previously put on display at the Israel Museum, may in fact be depictions of Yahweh, the God of the Israelites written about in the Hebrew Bible.

In an article in the Biblical Archeology Review published on Friday, Dr. Garfinkel specified that the figures, believed to have been created between the tenth and ninth centuries BCE, a thousand years before the birth of Christ, may have served as representations of God in religious ceremonies.
"During our excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, only one figure was found in the early tenth-century BCE fortified city...Made of clay, the figurine's surviving head measures about 2 inches in height....With a flat top, the head has protruding eyes, ears, and a nose," the academic wrote.
Three of the five figures are said to represent a rider on a horse, with two horse figurines found near the mysterious heads at the Moza site. Garfinkel pointed out that the concept of God riding on horseback is mentioned repeatedly in the Biblical scriptures of Deuteronomy, Kings, Psalms, and Isaiah, and in the Ugaritic texts discovered in Syria and written between the 13th and 12th centuries BCE. "The Canaanite god Baal is described as rkb 'rpt, 'rider of the clouds', 16 times in various Ugaritic texts," the scholar pointed out.
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Solar Flares

The Solar Minimum superstorm of 1903

Dr. Tony Phillips
Electroverse
Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:32 UTC
A photo of the sun on Oct. 31, 1903, from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich

Above: A photo of the sun on Oct. 31, 1903, from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. [ref]
Don't let Solar Minimum fool you. The sun can throw a major tantrum even during the quiet phase of the 11-year solar cycle. That's the conclusion of a new study published in the July 1st edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"In late October 1903, one of the strongest solar storms in modern history hit Earth," say the lead authors of the study, Hisashi Hayakawa (Osaka University, Japan) and Paulo Ribeiro (Coimbra University, Portugal). "The timing of the storm interestingly parallels where we are now-near Solar Minimum just after a weak solar cycle."

The 1903 event wasn't always recognized as a great storm. Hayakawa and colleagues took an interest in it because of what happened when the storm hit. In magnetic observatories around the world, pens scrabbling across paper chart recorders literally flew offscale, overwhelmed by the disturbance. That's the kind of thing superstorms do.

So, the researchers began to scour historical records for clues, and they found four magnetic observatories in Portugal, India, Mexico and China where the readings were whole. Using those data they calculated the size of the storm.

Comment: See also:

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Colosseum

Pompeii's recent finds reveal new clues to city's destruction

Ruben Montoya
National Geographic
Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:14 UTC
pompeii
© ESTUDI LLIMÓS
The excavation of Region V, wedged between Via del Vesuvio and Via di Nola and covering an area of roughly half an acre, led to the discovery of an upscale housing district with extraordinary frescoes and artifacts. The west side of Region V, from Via del Vesuvio to Alley of the Balconies, can now be seen by the public. Future excavations will focus on Region VIII, a determination made by a pressing need for safety and conservation work.
Since its discovery several centuries ago, few archaeological sites have fascinated the world as has the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. After the first major excavations in more than 50 years, Pompeii is revealing a surprising abundance of buried treasures. The new finds are coming from intensive work in a small sector known as Region V that has nevertheless yielded giant insights into the final days of the doomed city.

Along with the complete excavation of two houses — the House of the Garden and the House of Orion — the dig has yielded frescoes, murals, and mosaics of mythological figures in gorgeous colours, skeletons with stories still to be unravelled, coins, amulets, and show horses in the stable of a wealthy landowner.

The new finds are also sparking debate about Pompeii's tragic story. Just before Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and buried the city under a mantle of ash and rock, a local worker scrawled an inscription on a wall. Along with a joke (roughly translated as "he ate too much"), he wrote the date: October 17. The discovery of this inscription may confirm the view that the eruption took place in October, and not August, as some scholars maintain.

Comment: See also:

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Archaeology

Mexico cave with evidence of early humans closed to visitors to prevent DNA contamination


Associated Press
Thu, 30 Jul 2020 15:49 UTC
Chiquihuite Cave early humans north america mexico
© Thomas L.C. Gibson
Located in the mountains, Chiquihuite Cave is unusually high compared to other archaeological sites in the Americas
Tourists or locals visiting a cave in north-central Mexico could endanger what is purported to be some of the earliest evidence of human presence in North America, archaeological authorities said Thursday.

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said the remote Chiquihuite cave in Zacatecas state has been declared off-limits to visitors.

Scientists "are looking for the DNA of ancient humans in the sediments (of the cave floor), thus human presence could contaminate strata that has been preserved intact for thousands of years," the institute said.
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Sherlock

Five interlocked neolithic skeletons dating to the 6th Millenium BC discovered in the UAE


Gulf News
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 11:01 UTC
UAE skeletons

The five interlocked skeletons

Five interlocked skeletons were discovered by the Umm Al Quwain authorities in the neolithic cemetery at Al Shabika.

The skeletons date back to the 6th millennium BC (6000 BC to 5001 BC).

After analysing the bones, it turns out that the skeletons were those of young males buried during the same period.
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Cross

Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland: The magical underground city carved entirely out of Salt Rock

Stefan Andrews
The Vintage News
Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
Poland’s Wieliczka Salt Mine
© Unknown
Few underground cities in the world are sculpted entirely out of rock salt. That's the magic of Poland's fantastic Wieliczka Salt Mine, near the city of Kraków.

A famed tourist attraction, a site of worship and even weddings, a gripping gallery of artistic reliefs, everything in Wieliczka is carved from salt blocks.

Mining operations stopped in 1996, but for many centuries in the past Wieliczka was the most significant cog in the local region's economy

Wieliczka Salt Mine

Inside the mine. Photo by Dino Quinzani CC BY-SA 2.0

Comment: Some additional photos not included in the article:

The Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland
© Unknown
A carving of The Last Supper in St. Kinga’s Chapel.
Wieliczka Salt Mine

Speleothems at Wieliczka include forms that look like a ladder or fountain (top) or spiked fibers (bottom). These natural formations at can appear yellow, red or brown. Both: Rafal Stachurski
Further photos from Wieliczka Salt Mine can be found here.

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SOTT Logo Radio

MindMatters: Interview with Gary Lachman: The Return of Holy Russia

Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin
Sott.net
Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
gary lachman holy russia
The American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce once said, "Through Russia, comes the hope of the world." He spoke those words in the era of Stalin, and it would be another 60 years or so before the end of Communism. But starting in the tumultuous 90s, the great country straddling East and West not only has made a comeback on the world stage - it is seeing a spiritual revival of sorts. Forgotten thinkers are being resurrected in the minds of Russians, new movements are cropping up, and old ones reinvigorated.

While most Westerners may be familiar with Russia's turbulent period of totalitarianism, and the works of a few of its literary giants, there are whole areas of the nation's philosophical, scientific and spiritual inquiry that are largely unknown to many observers. Until now.

This week on MindMatters we are joined by Gary Lachman, author of the new book The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World - and delve into some of the history, movements and individuals that helped shape the religious, social and cultural DNA of its people. It may come as some surprise to know that many developments in science, as well as religious questions, were being seriously addressed and worked out in Russia shortly before the scourge of revolution squelched, and in may cases destroyed, the lives of the people who dared go where few had gone previously.

Join us as we see how this resurgence of Russian thought isn't an anomaly, but is, perhaps, a kind of synthesis, and integration of its hard-won lessons learned, and part of a long tradition we can all learn from.


Running Time: 01:27:57

Download: MP3 — 80.5 MB

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