Four hours drive south of Lima Peru one finds the Paracas Peninsula, part of which is an ecological reserve, where one can see wildlife such as sea lions, and a myriad of various sea bird species. The area is amazingly rich in seafood, and abundant fresh water exists just below the surface of the desert sands, suitable for irrigation free agriculture.

Therefore, it would seem to be a very liveable place for humans. Stone tools, of various forms and styles of shaping have been found in the area, and cursory analysis has established dates of as old as 8000 years. The greatest of Peruvian archaeologists, Julio Tello, made studies in this area in 1928 and performed excavations on the north side of the peninsula, in the central area of the large semi-circular bay there. He discovered and excavated a massive and elaborate graveyard, where each tomb contained an entire family, each one ornately wrapped in multiple layers of highly stylized, woven and coloured cotton cloth. He also found the sand filled remains of subterranean houses, which turned out to be numerous; so numerous in fact, that the village stretched out for between 1 and 2 km just above the seashore.

But, the most amazing finds were the skulls, some enormously elongated. The scientific name for this is dolichocephally. Most skulls exhibiting this condition, found in many parts of the world, were clearly the result of the practice of head-binding, the process being known as cranial deformation. And so how was this achieved?

The remains of a previously unknown pharaoh who reigned more than 3,600 years ago have emerged from the desert sand at South Abydos in Sohag province, about 300 miles south of Cairo, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said.

The skeleton of Woseribre Senebkay, who appears to be one of the earliest kings of a forgotten Abydos Dynasty (1650 - 1600 B.C.) was found by a University of Pennsylvania expedition working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It rested in a four-chambered tomb amidst the fragmented debris of his coffin, funerary mask and canopic chest. Such chests were used to contain the organs of an individual.

Senebkay's tomb dates to about 1650 B.C., during Egypt's Second Intermediate Period, when central authority collapsed, giving rise to several small kingdoms. It was found close to a larger royal sarcophagus chamber, recently identified as belonging to king Sobekhotep (probably Sobekhotep I, ca. 1780 BC) of the 13th Dynasty.

A flooded sinkhole in southern Mexico that terrifies local villagers has just been explored by underwater archaeologists, who found the submerged cavern littered with elongated skulls and human bones.

The underwater cavern, known as Sac Uayum, is a cenote located in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. A cenote is a natural pit resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath. They were sometimes used by the ancient Maya for sacrificial offerings.

Sac Uayum sits just outside the ruins of the ancient Maya city of Mayapán, about 40 kilometres south of Mérida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán. Mayapán was a major political centre from the 12^th to the 15^th century AD and contained a city enclosed within a stone wall. Within the city walls, there were around 40 cenotes which would have served as vital sources of water for the 17,000 residents and may have even been the reason for the city to have been built there.

Remnants of an ancient civilization dating back 450,000 years, including a mass grave, have been found in the southern Jazan region, said Faisal Al-Tumaihi, an archaeologist at Jazan University.

"A group of Saudi archaeologists discovered the site of an ancient civilization in Hasma," he said. "The antiquities that have been found in the area included those dating back to the pre-historic period," he added.

He said the latest excavations in the region took place in Hasma, which is located northeast of Uhd Masaraha, last year. "The antiques found in the area also included a jar dating back 5,000 years. It was found in Ather, an ancient coastal city," Al-Tumaihi said.

The Permanent Committee for Research and Ifta, under the chairmanship of Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, has approved the exhumation of ancient graves in the cemetery, said Ali Zaala, spokesman of the Jazan governorate.

King Tutankhamun's penis was mummified erect -- that's one of the several weird, unexplained details about the best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

The boy pharaoh has been puzzling scientists ever since his mummy and treasure-packed tomb were discovered exactly 91 years ago on Nov. 22, 1922 in the Valley of the Kings by British archaeologist Howard Carter.

Only a few facts about his life are known. Tut.ankh.Amun, "the living image of Amun," ascended the throne in 1333 B.C., at the age of nine, and reigned until his death at between 17 and 19 years. He was a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, probably the greatest of the Egyptian royal families.

"How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys."
- Emma Bull

"Of course it's all connected; every facet of life is inextricably linked. It all began at the very beginning and continues today and into the future, all as part of the grand plan, all as part of the grand illusion that will be revealed only when the Creator sees fit."
- Eamonn Gabriel

"Coincidence is best regarded as a crack in time, a gap in time's narrative that requires filling in, elaboration. You see, when the entire story is laid before you the concept of coincidence simply vanishes and understanding takes its place."
- Eamonn Gabriel

Many readers of my book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, have written to me asking for further information about the varied connections between Frank Olson's death and Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination. The following is an initial effort to answer those questions, and to further detail these connections. Of course, many of these connections are explained in greater detail in my book.

Loulan was discovered in 1980, but it was 3800 years ago that she died on the trade route known as the Silk Road. The natural dryness and salty soil preserved her and over two hundred other mummies, individuals who had lived in several closely located settlements along the trade route. The mummy has been called the Loulan Beauty because of her amazingly preserved stately facial features that have remained quite beautiful even in death.

Unfortunately, the region where she and the others were found is politically unstable and the discovery of the mummies in the Tarim Basin in China was seen as a possible instigating factor for unrest. The Chinese government has been reluctant to allow full access to the mummies because of their racial identity. The Tarim mummies are Caucasian and this fact has given credence to the claims of the local peoples, the Uyghur, who look more European than Asian that they are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the area and not later arrivals, as Chinese history claims.

Victor Mair, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was instrumental in getting access to these mummies. He and Paolo Francalacci, a geneticist, were finally able to obtain some genetic samples in 1993. Their findings revealed that the mummies are indeed European but they probably migrated from the Siberian region and are unrelated to the Uyghur. The Chinese government did allow further testing in 2007 and 2009 and the finding supported the Siberian connection as well as suggesting the mixing of people from Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Europe and other unknown sources. It is unfortunate that the Beauty and the others are at the centre of this controversy because it has distracted somewhat from the fact that there were Europeans in China at least a thousand years before conventional history has Caucasians in this area of the world.

Number three in our weekly series of Great Comets: The Comet of the Black Death, or Comet Negra. Hard to beat this one for dramatic impact.

The Comet of the Black Death is said to have coincided with the great plague, the "Black Death," that killed half the population of Europe from 1346 to 1350. The plague is thought to have originated in Central Asia and, transmitted by fleas on rats, been carried along the Silk Road into Europe.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicted the Black Death this way, in his 1562 painting "The Triumph of Death":
There are other theories, too, about the origin and spread of the Black Death. One says that a comet or fragments of a comet precipitated the Black Death. If you remember that scientists have said that the last Ice Age was caused by an asteroid impact, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that a piece of a comet striking the Earth could have disrupted the atmosphere enough to initiate the famines and plagues that characterized the Black Death:

"In France . . . was seen the terrible Comet called Negra. In December appeared over Avignon a Pillar of Fire. There were many great Earthquakes, Tempests, Thunders and Lightnings, and thousands of People were swallowed up; the Courses of Rivers were stopt; some Chasms of the Earth sent forth Blood. Terrible Showers of Hail, each stone weighing 1 Pound to 8; Abortions in all Countries; in Germany it rained Blood; in France Blood gushed out of the Graves of the Dead, and stained the Rivers crimson; Comets, Meteors, Fire-beams, corruscations in the Air, Mock-suns, the Heavens on Fire . . ."

A 16th century manuscript featuring an image that looks like a kangaroo could prove that Portuguese explorers discovered Australia before the first recorded European landing in 1606

A drawing of a kangaroo on a 16th century Portuguese manuscript could potentially change the world's understanding of Australia's history.

The manuscript, which is thought to date from between 1580 and 1620, appears to show a small kangaroo within the letters of its text. If the image actually is a kangaroo, the drawing suggests that Portuguese explorers may have discovered Australia before the first recorded European landing on the continent by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606.

The document, which contains text or music for a liturgical procession, was recently acquired by the Les Enluminures Galley in New York, which has valued the item at $15,000 (£9,174). It was previously in the possession of a rare book dealer in Portugal.

Laura Light, a researcher at the gallery, told Australia's The Age newspaper that "a kangaroo or wallaby in a manuscript this early is proof that the artist of this manuscript had either been in Australia, or even more interestingly, that travellers' reports and drawings of the interesting animals found in this new world were already available in Portugal."

The text also includes the image of two half-naked men wearing crowns of leaves, which researchers believe may represent Australian aborigines.

Cairo: Archaeologists in Egypt believe they have discovered the remains of a previously unknown pharaoh who reigned more than 3600 years ago.

The skeleton of King Senebkay were uncovered at South Abydos in Sohag province, about 500 kilometres south of Cairo, by a University of Pennsylvania expedition working with the government, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said.

Never before heard of in ancient Egyptian history, King Senebkay's name was found inscribed in hieroglyphics written inside a royal cartouche - an oval with a horizontal line at one end signalling a royal name, the ministry said in a statement.