Secret HistoryS


Archaeology

Earliest dated rock art in Southern Africa depicts shamans' journey to the world of the spirits

Léa Surugue
International Business Times
Sun, 09 Apr 2017 16:54 UTC
Stone Age Painting
© Bonneau/AntiquityExample of fine-line Later Stone Age paintings studied by the archaeologists
For years, archaeologists have known that southern Africa is home to very rich and well-understood rock art produced by hunter-gatherers in the Later Stone Age, but they had been unable to date these creations precisely.

Using an innovative approach, researchers have now come up with new dates, which suggest that in south-eastern Botswana, rock art was created as far back as 5723 - 4420 cal BP - the oldest such evidence found to date in Southern Africa. Their complete findings are now published in the Journal Antiquity.
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Magnify

Embracing figures found beneath molten rock of ancient Pompeii found to be male

Josephine McKenna
The Telepgraph
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 17:08 UTC
The Two Maidens
© Fotonews/Splash News/RennaThe two bodies were found wrapped in a poignant embrace in their final moments as they were covered beneath molten rock and layers of ash in the ancient city of Pompeii.
It is an iconic image which conveys the human dimension of one of the world's worst natural disasters that still resonates 2,000 years later.

Two bodies found wrapped in a poignant embrace in their final moments as they were covered beneath molten rock and layers of ash in the ancient city of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius violently erupted in 79 A.D.

The bodies were dubbed "The Two Maidens" when they were first discovered but in a startling discovery this week scientists found the two bodies were actually male - raising speculation that they may have been gay lovers.

"Pompeii never ceases to amaze," said Massimo Osanna, director-general of the world-famous archaeological site.

"We always imagined that it was an embrace between women. But a CAT scan and DNA have revealed that they are men. "You can't say for sure that the two were lovers. But considering their position, you can make that hypothesis. It is difficult to say with certainty."
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Dig

Wealthy Roman settlement discovered beneath Britain's A1 highway in Yorkshire

Rossella Lorenzi
Live Science
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 07:39 UTC
Silver snake ring
© Northern Archeological AssociatesA rare silver ring shaped like a snake that wraps around the finger hints at the great wealth of the people who lived at Cataractonium.
Construction work to upgrade Britain's longest road into a major highway has revealed a treasure trove of rare artifacts from one of the earliest and wealthiest Roman settlements in the country.

The findings include ancient shoes, cups, a rare silver ring, keys, a high-relief glass bowl and an elaborately carved amber figurine, archaeologists with the public group Historic England announced yesterday (April 6).

Archaeologists uncovered the artifacts in North Yorkshire along the A1, which stretches 410 miles (660 kilometers) from London to Edinburgh, Scotland, during a major project to improve the existing roadway.

"It is fascinating to discover that nearly 2,000 years ago, the Romans were using the A1 route as a major road of strategic importance and using the very latest technological innovations from that period to construct the original road," Tom Howard, project manager at the government agency Highways England, said in a statement.
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Heart - Black

The "Wild 90s" in Russia, as reflected in people's memory, part 2


stanislavs.org
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 18:08 UTC
yeltsin
Two years ago I published an article The "Wild 90s" in Russia, as reflected in people's memory, where I translated one testimonial of a survivor of the Yeltsin's Wild 90's in Russia. Such survivors are many, yet many more perished - in Russia more people died during Yeltsin than during WWII. In that article I also detailed Yeltsin's coup d'etat of November 1993.

Now, a few days ago, the ignominious Navalny organised an "anti-corruption" rally in Moscow and several of Russia's cities. I am not going to go into the details of how only 8000 people out of the 12 million population of Moscow was seen at this colour revolution attempt. I will not go into details of how Navalny turned to the political paedophilia, luring school-aged kids onto the streets with the promise of paying them €10000 if they manage to get arrested, and how the "political speeches" of said kids said that they want to buy sneakers. The use of kids seems to be in the instruction book of any colour revolt worth its name (see "protests" against Charles de Gaulle). I will not go into the details of how Navalny - a jobless man - manages to own expensive car, finance organisation of revolts and produce Hollywood-class films, and why this corruption fighter has several criminal corruption cases over him regarding illegal forest deals.

What I want to go into detail about, is the main chant of Navalny and co., of all the anti-Russian, Russophobic traitors organising such revolts: "Putin must go". That's all of their agenda. They say absolutely nothing about how Russia should be governed or about the future. At best they position themselves as the next presidents and say a few abstract words about how there'll be no corruption and everyone will be equal. Aha! The same manifestos were proclaimed in 1917. And in 1991.
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Archaeology

Eight hundred medieval bodies found during hillfort dig in Roscommon, Ireland

Niall Murray
Irish Examiner
Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00 UTC
An aerial view of excavations
© Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd.An aerial view of excavations at the medieval ringfort at Ranelagh near Roscommon town last August.
A medieval ringfort that included a jewelery workshop and extensive farming has been uncovered in a surprise archaeological find during a road project in Co Roscommon.

But it will take the outcome of scientific analysis on the almost 800 people whose remains were found in the excavation to reveal the complete story of the ringfort.

With no previous record of any habitation on the site, about a mile north of Roscommon town, it was only when geophysics testing results came back that it was clear that there were significant archaeological features.

After a year-long excavation that ended last October, including work by archaeologists through some of the worst storms in decades, a picture is emerging of the settlement that was probably occupied between the sixth and 11th centuries.
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Dig

Scientists unearth medieval remains of the first English 'living dead'

David Keys
The Independent
Mon, 03 Apr 2017 15:16 UTC
Wharram Percy,
© Pete Horne/Historic England/PA WireAerial view of the abononed Yorkshire village of Wharram Percy, where bones have been excavated with evidence of post-death smashing with axes and burning
New scientific research suggests that our medieval ancestors were terrified of the living dead - reanimated corpses which would in popular culture today be dubbed revenants or vampires.

Scientists from Historic England and the University of Southampton have completed a study of human bones from a medieval Yorkshire village which strongly suggests that they were from individuals regarded by their peers as revenants. The scientific analysis has revealed that the individuals' skeletal remains had been deliberately mutilated, decapitated and burned shortly after death.

It is the first time in Britain that such skeletal evidence of a probable medieval belief in revenancy has been found.
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Target

Most don't know the FBI & police admitted their role in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Andrew Emett
Free Thought Project
Tue, 04 Apr 2017 22:47 UTC
Martin Luther King
It's been 49 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI and Memphis Police Department have sparingly released information implicating themselves or members of their agencies in facilitating and directly causing the untimely death of Dr. King. Although the Justice Department officially claims James Earl Ray assassinated MLK, a civil suit later determined that a Memphis cop was involved in a conspiracy to murder the civil rights leader.

During a rainstorm on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers in Memphis lost their lives when the truck's compactor accidentally triggered. On that same day, 22 black sewer workers were sent home without pay while their white coworkers received compensation. Less than two weeks later, over a thousand black sanitation workers went on strike wearing placards reading, "I AM A MAN."

On March 18, 1968, Dr. King spoke at a rally in Memphis promising to lead a march later in the month supporting the striking sanitation workers. According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a black civil rights group named the Invaders sabotaged the March 28 demonstration by distributing hundreds of two by two sticks attached to placards into the hands of impressionable black children caught breaking store windows. The Invaders allegedly incited violence against Dr. King's orders of peaceful resistance.

Comment: Orders to Kill: The government that honors Martin Luther King with a national holiday killed him
As with all Pepper's work on the case (including book reviews), the mainstream media responded with silence. And though this was only a TV trial, increasing evidence emerged that the owner of Jim's Grill, Loyd Jowers, was deeply involved in the assassination. Pepper dug deeper, and on December 16, 1993, Loyd Jowers appeared on ABC's Primetime Live that aired nationwide. Pepper writes, "Loyd Jowers cleared James Earl Ray, saying that he did not shoot MLK but that he, Jowers, had hired a shooter after he was approached by Memphis produce man Frank Liberto and paid $1,000,000 to facilitate the assassination. He also said that he had been visited by a man names Raul who delivered a rifle and asked him to hold it until arrangements were finalized .... The morning after the Primetime Live broadcast there was no coverage of the previous night's program, not even on ABC .... Here was a confession, on prime time television, to involvement in one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the Republic, and virtually no American mass-media coverage."


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Георгиевская ленточка

Vietnam War exhibition reminds world of Russian support to Vietnamese in face of extreme American aggression


Sputnik
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 17:31 UTC
Vietnam war photos exhibit
An exhibtiion of photos taken during the Vietnam War
An exhibition showcasing old photos taken during the Vietnam War has opened in Moscow, with the majority of items made public for the first time, Chairman of the Organization of Vietnam Veterans of Russia Nikolai Kolesnik told Sputnik Vietnam.

Kolesnik was deployed to Vietnam as part of the first group of Soviet missile officers. They came to the Southeast Asian nation in the spring of 1965. The 22-year-old sergeant was tasked with training soldiers of the 236th and 285th surface-to-air-missile regiments of the People's Army of Vietnam. On August 11-12, Kolesnik took part in the second missile fight with US warplanes. His regiment shot down four aircraft.

"Photographs for the exhibition came from archives of Russian servicemen, veterans of the Vietnam War. The exhibition's goal is to remind the younger generation how extreme America's aggression against the Vietnamese people was, how much courage the Vietnamese displayed while protecting their motherland, and how massive our support to Vietnam was," he told Sputnik Vietnam.
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Archaeology

Remains of pyramid dating back to 13th Dynasty discovered in Egypt's Dahshur Necropolis

Nevine El-Aref
Ahram Online
Mon, 03 Apr 2017 17:50 UTC
New corridor discovered
© Egyptian Ministry of AntiquititiesThe corridor discovered on Monday at Dahshur.
Archaeologists have revealed a portion of the pyramid's internal structure, described as being in very good condition

The remains of a 13th Dynasty pyramid have been discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission working in an area to the north of King Snefru's Bent Pyramid in the Dahshur Necropolis.

Mahmoud Afifi, the head of the ancient Egyptian antiquities sector at the antiquities ministry, announced the find, adding that the remains are in a very good condition and further excavation will take place to reveal more of the structure.
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Colosseum

Ancient concession stands and shops found at Roman gladiator arena

Megan Gannon
Live Science
Tue, 04 Apr 2017 15:19 UTC
gladiator arena
© LBI ArchPro/7reasons
The team, from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro), created digital reconstructions of what the area around the amphitheater would have looked like.
Just like spectators at modern-day sporting events, people who attended ancient Roman gladiator fights would have gotten hungry and might have even wanted to shop for little souvenirs. Archaeologists in Austria say they have detected the remains of the bakeries, fast-food stands and shops that would have served spectators at the ancient Roman city of Carnuntum.

Today, Carnuntum is a sleepy town on the southern bank of the Danube, outside Vienna. But in its heyday, it was the fourth-largest city in the Roman Empire, and it was home to as many as 50,000 people, including, for a few years in the second century A.D., the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. [See Reconstructions of the Ancient Roman Shops and Arena]
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