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Ancient Poem Praises Murderous Roman Emperor Nero

Owen Jarus
LiveScience
Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:28 UTC
Papyrus
© Image courtesy Egypt Exploration Society
The back of the newly deciphered papyrus. It wasn't unusual in the ancient world for texts to be written on both sides.
A just-deciphered ancient Greek poem discovered in Egypt, deifies Poppaea Sabina, the wife of the infamous Roman emperor Nero, showing her ascending to the stars.

Based on the lettering styles and other factors, scholars think the poem was written nearly 200 years after Nero died (about 1,800 years ago), leaving them puzzled as to why someone so far away from Rome, would bother composing or copying it at such a late date.

In the poem, Poppaea ascends to heaven and becomes a goddess. The ancient goddess Aphrodite says to Poppaea, "my child, stop crying and hurry up: with all their heart Zeus' stars welcome you and establish you on the moon..."

Nero was one of the most infamous rulers who ever lived. Ancient writers say that he killed his own mother, Agrippina, and his first wife Octavia.

He is also said to have killed Poppaea herself with a kick to her stomach while she was pregnant. If that wasn't enough, the well-known line - "Nero fiddles while Rome burns" - is an apocryphal phrase related to a great fire that ravaged Rome for six days during his reign.

Poppaea herself is also depicted in a less-than-positive light by ancient writers. When Octavia was killed, Poppaea was said to have been presented with her head. Some sources also speculate that she was the power behind the throne that encouraged Nero to murder his mother.
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Grave of King Richard III May Be Hidden Under Parking Lot


LiveScience
Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:00 UTC
Richard III
© Public Domain
A contemporary drawing of Richard III and his queen, Anne Neville, and son, Edward, Prince of Wales.

King Richard III of England had the honor of being memorialized in a William Shakespeare play after his death in battle in 1485. Now, modern-day archaeologists are on the hunt for the medieval king's physical resting place.

The University of Leicester, Leicester City Council and the Richard III Society have joined forces to search for the grave of Richard III, thought to be under a parking lot for city council offices. The team will use ground-penetrating radar to search for the ideal spots to dig.

"This archaeological work offers a golden opportunity to learn more about medieval Leicester as well as about Richard III's last resting place - and, if he is found, to re-inter his remains with proper solemnity in Leicester Cathedral," Philippa Langley, a Richard III Society member, said in a statement.

Richard III was King of England from 1483 to 1485. He died during the Battle of Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses, an English civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Richard III was the last English king to die in battle. Shakespeare penned Richard III, a play about the tragic king, approximately 100 years later.

Regardless of his Shakespeare claim to fame, the king was talked about for his own right. "Richard III is a charismatic figure who attracts tremendous interest, partly because he has been so much maligned in past centuries, and partly because he occupies a pivotal place in English history," Langley said.
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'Village' Which May Pre-date Romans Discovered at Ipplepen


Herald Express
Thu, 23 Aug 2012 02:23 UTC
Alisdair Dewhirst
© Herald Express
History: Ipplepen district and parish councillor Alisdair Dewhirst.
Archaeologists digging for evidence of Romans in South Devon have gone back even further in history.

The large-scale dig in Ipplepen has led to the discovery of a 'native village' which could have pre-dated the Romans.

The Herald Express withheld the site location until experts were able to get on site. It can now be revealed the dig is taking place at Ipplepen.

Excavation work has uncovered the remains of a round house, the type of houses lived in by native Britons during the Iron Age and unlike the Roman houses which were usually square.

The presence of Roman pottery indicates that the round house was still used after the Romans arrived.

The dig was triggered by a chance find of some coins by metal detectorist Philip Wills, of Torquay.

He discovered a coin called a Denarius, currency that was minted in Rome and was probably brought to Britain by the Romans when they invaded in 43 AD.

Then Mr Wills and fellow enthusiast Dennis Hewings, of Paignton, found more evidence of Romano-British activity.

Details were passed to Danielle Wootton, the Devon finds liaison officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Geophysical surveys later uncovered evidence of an extensive settlement including roundhouses, quarry pits and track ways.
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Prehistoric Druidical Rock Shelter Found in Srikakulam, India

K. Venkateshwarlu
The Hindu
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:22 UTC
Prehistoric Rocks
© The Hindu
STONES OF GOD: Prehistoric druidical rock shelter and worshipping place found by freelance archaeologist K. Venkateswara Rao in Chittivalasa village in Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh recently.
A prehistoric druidical rock worshipping place and shelter resembling those in Europe and Africa, have been discovered amid the hillocks skirting Chittivalsa village in Srikakulam district by a freelance archaeologist, K. Venkateswara Rao recently.

The cluster of unique oval-shaped standing rock formations each measuring about eight metres in height and 28 metres in circumference and having well-defined ledge cuts and postholes used for wooden canopy like shelter, could have been a habitation and a place of worship. That a prehistoric circular hut existed here is indicated by circular postholes found on boulders opposite to the cluster of standing rocks within a radius of 3.05 metres.

Quite surprisingly, the rocks are well protected as the place continues to be revered as 'Pandavulapancha,' 'Pandavuladoddi' and 'Demudurallu' (stones of God) in the local legend, the belief being Pandavas lived in the rock shelter for some time during their 'aranyavasa' and the place belongs to God.

Pandavulapancha, the name given to a naturally formed cavern containing five rock beds is located on the rear side. These beds are hewn on the large inclined rock aligned in the north-south direction, another proof of prehistoric people living there. The cavern was later occupied by Jain ascetics by making some alterations to the beds and chiselling channels around the bed enabling free flow of rain water.
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Sherlock

New Date for Julius Caesar's British Invasion


Sky & Telescope
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:24 UTC
white cliffs of Dover
© Donald W. Olson
Caesar's fleet arrived first at the white cliffs of Dover on the southeastern coast of Britain, but he decided this was not a suitable landing spot.
It's not every day that a famous historical event, scrutinized by generations of classical scholars, can be re-dated by two astronomers and their college honors class. But that's exactly what Donald W. Olson and Russell Doescher of Texas State University did, with the help of students Kellie Beicker and Amanda Gregory. They report their findings in the August 2008 Sky & Telescope, which has just hit the newsstands..

Tipped off by Don in advance, I was fortunate to be able to join the team's research trip to the southern coast of England last summer. The white cliffs of Dover, subject of a memorable song from World War II, were also the setting for a much earlier clash of civilizations. Along this very shore, Julius Caesar first landed with two legions of Roman soldiers in 55 BC.

Caesar, in his first-hand account of the invasion, carefully noted the phase of the Moon, the approach of the equinox, and above all the unexpected ocean tides his fleet encountered. So it's a simple matter for any astronomer to determine the precise date of the invasion, right?

Wrong! No lesser astronomers than Edmond Halley and George B. Airy carefully studied the astronomical aspects of 55 BC in hopes of letting historians know the exact date and location where Caesar and his legions came ashore. But Airy and Halley disagreed with each other. And what's more, they both got it partly wrong, as Olson's Texas State team found out on their research trip.
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Cow Skull

Earliest Asian Skull Found; Likely Around 50,000 Years Old

Jason Mick
DailyTech
Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:52 UTC
Find could lend credence to idea that man evolved in Asia, rather than Africa

For scientists the evolution debate regarding man is far from over. No, not that debate -- the debate among researchers largely involves where the earliest primates (which predate the hominids that surveyed the Pleistocene plains of Africa) evolved, and also where humans migrated early in their history.

A newly published study [abstract] in the prestigious peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal offers both the oldest confirmed human skull fossil, and evidence of early migration from mankind's likely evolution location (in Africa) to a new home in Southeast Asia.

Researchers traveled to a cave near Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains where a 16,000-year-old human skull was discovered in the early 1900s. Searching deeper, they found a skull that was dated (using direct uranium dating) to a maximum age of 63,000 years ago. Combined with luminescent (which measures stored energy from solar heat/radiation in the crystalline component of soil buried in dark locations) and carbon dating of the surrounding sediments, it was determined that the individual -- whose gender was not determined in the work -- lived between 46,000 and 51,000 years ago.
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Document

Roman Curses Appear on Ancient Tablet

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:12 UTC
Roman Tablet_1
© Roger Tomlin
The tablet after it was unrolled.
An ancient Roman lead scroll unearthed in England three years ago has turned out to be a curse intended to cause misfortune to more than a dozen people, according to new research.

Found in East Farleigh, U.K., in the filling of a 3rd to 4th Century AD building that may have originally been a temple, the scroll was made of a 2.3- by 3.9-inch inscribed lead tablet.

Popular in the Greek and Roman world, these sorts of "black magic" curses called upon gods to torment specific victims.

Rolled up to conceal their inscriptions, the tablets were either nailed to the wall of a temple or buried in places considered to be close to the underworld, such as graves, springs or wells.

The scroll, unearthed in the Kent village had been carefully rolled up and buried, most likely in the third century AD, similar to other curse tablets found throughout Europe.

The researchers tried to read the fragile scroll without unrolling it by using a technique called neutron computed tomography imaging at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, but "the resolution was not sufficient to discern any writing on it," said the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group, which made the finding.
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Sherlock

Amelia Earhart mystery: New evidence, right spot, searchers say

Amy Hubbard
The Telegraph
Mon, 20 Aug 2012 06:19 UTC
Image

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan in May 1937. New video shows a debris field in an area where wreckage of their final flight was thought to be, searchers say.
In July, a team searching for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane was wrapping up an expedition and feeling downhearted. They had come away with apparently little to show for their $2.2 million worth of efforts.

But now those searchers says high-definition video from that trip shows promising evidence.

"We have man-made objects in a debris field," Ric Gillespie told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Monday morning. And those objects are "in a location where we had previously reasoned where airplane wreckage should be."

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were lost on their July 2, 1937, flight from New Guinea to Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean. Earhart was trying to become the first woman to fly around the planet.

"We don't want to oversell this," Gillespie cautioned. "We have lots of clues. ... It looks like it might be the right stuff, but we need a lot more work done, and ultimately we're going to have to go back and recover it."
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Info

Oldest Bones from Modern Humans in Asia Discovered

Charles Choi
LiveScience
Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:01 UTC
Oldest Bone
© F. Demeter
A reconstruction of the human skull discovered in Tam Pa Ling.

Newfound pieces of human skull from "the Cave of the Monkeys" in Laos are the earliest skeletal evidence yet that humans once had an ancient, rapid migration to Asia.

Anatomically modern humans first arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa. When and how our lineage then dispersed out of Africa has long proven controversial.

Archaeological evidence and genetic data suggest that modern humans rapidly migrated out of Africa and into Southeast Asia by at least 60,000 years ago. However, complicating this notion is the notable absence of fossil evidence for modern human occupation in mainland Southeast Asia, likely because those bones do not survive well in the warm, tropical region.

Now a partial skull from Tam Pa Ling, "the Cave of the Monkeys" in northern Laos helps fill in this mysterious gap in the fossil record. [See Photos of "Monkey Cave" Fossils]

"Most surprising is the fact that we found anything at all," researcher Laura Lynn Shackelford, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Illinois, told LiveScience.

"Most people didn't think we'd find anything in these caves, or even in the region where we're working in mainland Southeast Asia. But we're stubborn, gone where no one's really looked before, or at least in almost a century."
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Light Sabers

Japan's 'Last Ninja': A 63-year-old former engineer


The Raw Story
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:15 UTC
Image

Jinichi Kawakami
A 63-year-old former engineer may not fit the typical image of a dark-clad assassin with deadly weapons who can disappear into a cloud of smoke. But Jinichi Kawakami is reputedly Japan's last ninja.

As the 21st head of the Ban clan, a line of ninjas that can trace its history back some 500 years, Kawakami is considered by some to be the last living guardian of Japan's secret spies.

"I think I'm called (the last ninja) as there is probably no other person who learned all the skills that were directly" handed down from ninja masters over the last five centuries, he said.

"Ninjas proper no longer exist," he said as he demonstrated the tools and techniques used in espionage and sabotage by men fighting for their samurai lords in the feudal Japan of yesteryear.
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