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The personal life of a Nazi: New trove of Himmler documents published

Isabel Kershner
The New York Times
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 13:41 UTC
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the wife of Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi Gestapo and the SS and one of the main orchestrators of the Holocaust, sent him a message: "There is a can of caviar in the ice box. Take it."

On another occasion Himmler's wife, Margarete, received a note: "I am off to Auschwitz. Kisses, Your Heini."

Excerpts from a private collection of hundreds of the Himmlers' personal letters, diaries and photographs were published for the first time this weekend by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot and the German paper Die Welt, providing a rare, if jarring, glimpse into the family life of one of Hitler's top lieutenants while he was busy organizing the mass extermination of Jews.
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The mystery of the Peterborough petroglyphs

April Holloway
Ancient Origins
Tue, 17 Sep 2013 06:49 UTC
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They could be thousands of years older than experts allow, if only because the extensive weathering of some of the glyphs implies more than 1,000 years of exposure.
The Peterborough Petroglyphs are the largest collection of ancient rock carvings (petroglyphs) in all of North America, made up of over 900 images carved into crystalline limestone located near Peterborough in Ontario, Canada.

Proclaimed a National Historic Site of Canada in 1976, local indigenous people believe that this is an entrance into the spirit world and that the Spirits actually speak to them from this location. They call it Kinoomaagewaapkong, which translates to "the rocks that teach".
The petroglyphs are carved into a single slab of crystalline limestone which is 55 metres long and 30 metres wide. About 300 of the images are decipherable shapes, including humans, shamans, animals, solar symbols, geometric shapes and boats.

It is generally believed that the indigenous Algonkian people carved the petroglyphs between 900 and 1400 AD. But rock art is usually impossible to date accurately for lack of any carbon material and dating artefacts or relics found in proximity to the site only reveals information about the last people to be there. They could be thousands of years older than experts allow, if only because the extensive weathering of some of the glyphs implies more than 1,000 years of exposure.
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Archaeologists find cultural connections with Europe in ancient Jordanian settlement


RedOrbit
Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:38 UTC
Ancient Pottery
© University of Gothenburg Pottery from one of the rooms from 1100 B.C.
Swedish archaeologists in Jordan led by Professor Peter M. Fischer from the University of Gothenburg have excavated a nearly 60-metre long well-preserved building from 1100 B.C. in the ancient settlement Tell Abu al-Kharaz. The building is from an era characterized by major migration.

New finds support the theory that groups of the so-called Sea Peoples emigrated to Tell Abu al-Kharaz. They derive from Southern or Eastern Europe and settled in the Eastern Mediterranean region all the way to the Jordan Valley.

"We have evidence that culture from present Europe is represented in Tell Abu al-Kharaz. A group of the Sea Peoples of European descent, Philistines, settled down in the city," says Peter Fischer. "We have, for instance, found pottery resembling corresponding items from Greece and Cyprus in terms of form and decoration, and also cylindrical loom weights for textile production that could be found in central and south-east Europe around the same time."

Tell Abu al-Kharaz is located in the Jordan Valley close to the border to Israel and the West Bank. It most likely corresponds to the biblical city of Jabesh Gilead. The Swedish Jordan Expedition has explored the city, which was founded 3200 B.C. and lasted for almost 5 000 years. The first excavation took place in 1989 and the most recent in autumn 2013. All in all, 16 excavations have been completed.
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Blackbox

The Baghdad battery

John Black
Ancient Origins
Fri, 24 Jan 2014 07:06 UTC
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One of the most interesting and highly debated artefacts of the Baghdad Museum in Iraq is a clay pot. It is 5-6 inches high and encapsulates a copper cylinder. Suspended in the center of this cylinder - but not touching it - is an iron rod. Both the copper cylinder and the iron rod are held in place with an asphalt plug. The rod shows evidence of corrosion, probably due to the use of an acidic liquid like vinegar or wine.

These artefacts (more than one was found) were discovered during the 1936 excavations of the old village Khujut Rabu, near Baghdad. The village is considered to be about 2000 years old, and was built during the Parthian period (250BCE to 224 CE).

Although it is not known exactly what the use of such a device would have been, the name 'Baghdad Battery', or 'Parthian Battery', comes from one of the prevailing theories established in 1938 when Wilhelm Konig, the German archaeologist who performed the excavations, examined the battery and concluded that this device was an ancient electric battery. Another theory suggests that they were containers to hold papyrus.

After the Second World War, Willard Gray, an American working at the General Electric High Voltage Laboratory in Pittsfield, built replicas and, filling them with an electrolyte, found that the devices could produce 2 volts of electricity.
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Eye 1

Rare documents reveal the tragic stories of those who sought official permission to not fight in the First World War

Cahal Milmo
The Independent
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:35 UTC
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Soldiers waving good bye to loved ones as they leave Victoria Station in 1915
One mother begged for her youngest son - the last survivor of five - to be spared the killing fields of France. A father, tortured by the thought of the loss of his three boys, is found to have taken his own life. Thousands more pleaded to be kept away from war on the grounds of belief, hardship and injury.

A little-considered aspect of the First World War was revealed today with the publication by the National Archives in Kew, west London, of documents describing the stories of those who sought official permission not to go and fight.

The records of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal, one of dozens of bodies set up to adjudicate on applications from conscientious objectors to impoverished fathers for a military service exemption, are one of only two surviving full sets of such documents and have now been put online.

Such was the sensitive nature of the files and their potential to damage social cohesion, the government ordered the destruction of all but two sets of the papers after the war.

Of the 8,791 cases considered in Middlesex, only five per cent came from conscientious objectors, undermining the perception that many who sought not to fight were pacifists. Other reasons presented to the tribunals included illness, employment in a protected industry and likely hardship for family members.

Whatever their case, few were successful. The records show that just 26 applicants received a full exemption and 581 were allowed to remain out of the war subject to conditions.
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This intricately crafted harpoon tip is 35,000 years old!

Robert T. Gonzalez
io9
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 09:02 UTC
Ancient Harpoon_1
© O'Connor et al
A harpoon tip dating to 35,000 years ago has been discovered on Timor, an island 250 miles northeast of Darwin, Australia. The ancient artifact, which was hewn from bone, is notable for its design, the complexity of which suggests humans in the region manufactured sophisticated weaponry earlier than previously believed.

Timor
© Google MapThe location of Timor, an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia.
In the January 15th issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers led by Australian National University archaeologist Sue O'Connor propose that the ancient inhabitants of Timor used harpoons to hunt large fish from boats. The notion that our ancestors were equipped to make meals of ocean animals 35,000 years ago is not, in itself, surprising; in 2011, another team led by O'Connor reported the discovery of a shelter in East Timor harboring the remains of pelagic and other fish species dating to 42,000 years ago - compelling evidence that early modern humans in the region successfully practiced deep-sea fishing.
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Archaeologists discover ancient death chambers used for execution, torture in Bursa, Turkey


Hurriyet Daily News
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 12:54 UTC
Dungeons
© AA photos
Archaeological excavations that have been carried out in the northwestern province of Bursa have discovered 2,300-year-old dungeons used for execution and torturing during the Bithynia Kingdom era.

Archaeologists discovered that the dungeons, which contain a "bloody well," "torture chamber" and "corridors connected to tower," used horrific execution methods.

Uludağ University Faculty of Science and Literature History of Art Department member İbrahim Yılmaz, who was on the excavation team, said within the scope of the project to reveal Bursa city walls, implemented by the Bursa Municipality, the restoration of centuries-old walls were continuing.

Yılmaz said a large part of the 3,400-meter-long walls had been revealed and the locations of "Taht-ı Kale," "Yer Kapı," "Saltanat Kapısı," "Kaplıca Kapı" and "Zindan Kapı," which are around the city walls and provide entrance to the walls, had also been determined.

Restoration in the Zindan Kapı in Alacahırka neighborhood, which is located in the last part of the walls, discovered dungeons, Yılmaz said. "Over these dungeons were houses were people were living. Considering that there were dungeons or dungeon remains might be there, we expropriated these buildings. After the houses were demolished, scientific excavations revealed remains of Bursa dungeons," he said.
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USA

Rwanda and the Scramble for Africa: Turns out the U.S. is 100% responsible for the slaughter of a million Rwandans in 1994

Ed Herman
Z Magazine
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 10:03 UTC
Book Review

Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa: From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction

By Robin Philpot. Baraka Books (Montreal, Canada), 273 pp.
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Robin Philpot's important new book Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa is an eye-opener and essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the recent history of Rwanda, ongoing U.S. and Western policy in Africa, and how efficiently the Western propaganda system works.

As in the case of the wars dismantling Yugoslavia, there is a "standard model" of what happened in Rwanda both in 1994 and in the preceding and later years, a model that puts the victorious Tutsi expatriate and Ugandan official Paul Kagame, his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and his Western supporters in a favorable light and the government of Rwanda, led by the Hutu Juvenal Habyarimana, in a negative light. Philpot challenges this model in all of its aspects and shows convincingly that, in a virtual miracle of systematic distortion, this version of history stands the truth on its head.

One important feature of the standard model is its portrayal of the West as a regrettably late intervener in the Rwanda struggle, with oft-cited ex-post apologies from Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright during their visits to Rwanda in 1997 and 1998 for U.S. and allied failure to intervene to prevent the massive killings in 1994.

Comment:
In fact, in succeeding years the United States and its allies supported the penetration of the RPF into the political and military structures of Rwanda, essentially pushing a major subversive force into the institutions of a victim of aggression. [...]

...the low-level RPF war was also greatly helped by the West's putting the Rwanda government under siege for its alleged human rights violations...
Does any of that sound familiar?

It's precisely what they're doing to Syria (via Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey) today, but do we really have to wait 20 years for most on the Left to figure this out?

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Ice Cube

Ancient 'Big Freeze' rapidly wiped out North American and European forests

Charles Q. Choi
Yahoo! News
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Lake Meerfelder Maar
© UnknownLake Meerfelder Maar (Eifel, Western Germany) within the maar crater during misty weather conditions, with coring platform. The village of Meerfeld is seen in the background.
A major cold age that descended on Earth nearly 13,000 years ago is linked with a widely studied and debated mass extinction of large mammals, such as ground sloths, in North America. But the effects of this so-called "Big Freeze" weren't limited to North America: New research shows that forests throughout Europe vanished within two centuries of the onset of this frigid time.

These findings highlight the way the environment can shift drastically over the course of just a few human lifetimes, the researchers said.

The last major cold age on Earth was a 1,100-year-long chill that began more than 12,800 years ago. The period, sometimes nicknamed the "Big Freeze," is technically known as the Younger Dryas. (This era was not a glacial period, often called an ice age, but rather a cold time in the relatively warm spans between glacial periods.)

Comment: There may not have been any such 'delay'. As noted by the study's author, dating methods are unreliable, and they're rendered unreliable because of the same cause of Ice Ages:

Co(s)mic Influences in Nuclear Decay?

Study of lake in Ireland shows last ice age took just months to set in

Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive

The Younger Dryas Impact Event and the Cycles of Cosmic Catastrophes - Climate Scientists Awakening

The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis Revisited

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Ten enduring mysteries of the Longyou caves

April Holloway
Ancient Origins
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 08:43 UTC
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The scale of the Longyou Grottoes is magnificent and momentous, the design was delicate and scientific, the construction was sophisticated, and the precision is indicative of superior craftsmanship.
Located near the village of Shiyan Beicun in Zhejiang province, China, lies the Longyou caves - an extensive, magnificent and rare ancient underground world considered in China as 'the ninth wonder of the ancient world'. The Longyou grottoes, which are thought to date back at least 2,000 years, represent one of the largest underground excavations of ancient times and are an enduring mystery that have perplexed experts from every discipline that has examined them. Scientists from around the world in the fields of archaeology, architecture, engineering, and geology have absolutely no idea how they were built, by whom, and why.

First discovered in 1992 by a local villager, 36 grottoes have now been discovered covering a massive 30,000 square metres. Carved into solid siltstone, each grotto descends around 30 metres underground and contains stone rooms, bridges, gutters and pools. There are pillars evenly distributed throughout the caves which are supporting the ceiling, and the walls, ceiling and stone columns are uniformly decorated with chisel marks in a series of parallel lines. Only one of the caves has been opened for tourism, chosen because of the stone carvings found inside which depict a horse, fish and bird. The Longyou caves truly are an enigma and here we will explore ten mysteries that are still unexplained despite more than two decades of research.
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