https://www.sott.net/category/19-Secret-History Signs of the Times: The World for People who Think. Featuring independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. en-us Original content Copyright 2026 by Signs of the Times/Sott.net. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net. Mon, 02 Nov 2026 21:39:22 +0000 https://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net https://www.sott.net https://www.sott.net/article/509257-The-War-that-Fell-from-the-Sky Comment: First published on the author's Substack - 'Letters From The Edge of Reality' - 02 November, 2026. What if the Trojan War was not, at its core, a war between armies — but a memory of destruction from the sky? Starting off with the discrepancies between Homer's world and the Greece that claimed him as their own, I follow the trail through Atlantic voyages, ruined Bronze Age cities, human sacrifice, and the tangled stories of Helen, Nefertiti, and the biblical patriarchs. I speculate about how memories of cosmic catastrophe became entwined with migrations, royal scandals, and religious upheaval, and whether later storytellers transformed those memories into accounts of heroic warfare, divine vengeance, and female guilt. The question is not simply where Troy stood, but what happened to the world that remembered it and how catastrophe became one of Western civilization's founding stories. https://www.sott.net/article/509257-The-War-that-Fell-from-the-Sky Mon, 02 Nov 2026 21:38:33 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509263-Historical-records-reveal-the-bitter-truth-about-17th-century-Transylvanias-climate For roughly five centuries from about 1300, Europe experienced periods of unusually cold weather and extreme conditions collectively known as the Little Ice Age. Transylvania, a historical region in modern-day Romania, was also affected, but information about just how severe things were had been scattered in old town records, church logs, travelogs and administrative and monastic diaries. In a study published in PLOS Climate, researchers detail how they pored over hundreds of centuries-old pages to see if they could piece together climate details for the 17th century. This period was already known as one of the coldest intervals of the Little Ice Age. The team, led by Ovidiu Răzvan Gaceu at the University of Oradea, Romania, collected 937 written accounts from 68 localities in Transylvania. As they read, they divided the information into several categories. These were explicit mentions of weather; indirect markers including delayed crop ripening and frozen rivers; and impacts such... https://www.sott.net/article/509263-Historical-records-reveal-the-bitter-truth-about-17th-century-Transylvanias-climate Mon, 02 Nov 2026 21:38:26 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509213-Russian-horror-From-Slavic-folklore-to-the-fears-of-modern-life In Russian culture, fear has never been just an emotion - it's a way of making sense of the world. Where Western horror often pits the individual against some invading evil - the ghost, the vampire, the creature in the dark - Russian horror sees evil as something earned, deserved, or even necessary. The monster doesn't come from the outside. It's sent as punishment, or reminder. The Russian language is full of proverbs about fear: "Fear has big eyes," "The eyes fear but the hands keep working," "Two deaths can't happen, but one is inevitable." Fear, in these sayings, is not paralysis but duty - an emotion to be mastered, not escaped. And when Russians choose to be frightened on purpose - in stories, films, or urban legends - they rarely chase the adrenaline of terror. What they seek instead is moral clarity. From pagan spirits lurking in the bathhouse to Pushkin's cursed gamblers and modern tales of serial killers, Russian horror has always been less about screaming in the dark and... https://www.sott.net/article/509213-Russian-horror-From-Slavic-folklore-to-the-fears-of-modern-life Sat, 31 Oct 2026 17:36:03 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509204-Petroglyphs-from-the-diaries-of-Semenov-Tyan-Shansky-discovered-in-Kazakhstan The legendary traveler of the 19th century described the location of the ancient monuments very accurately. Scientists from Russia and Kazakhstan followed the route of the 19th century geographer and traveler Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky through the south-east of Kazakhstan. On the way to the Tien Shan, which he walked in 1856-1857 along the old postal road between Kopal and Verny (Almaty), they found petroglyphs described by the geographer, the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences reports. https://www.sott.net/article/509204-Petroglyphs-from-the-diaries-of-Semenov-Tyan-Shansky-discovered-in-Kazakhstan Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:52:38 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509196-Comet-Hunting-the-Origins-of-Astrology-and-the-Collapse-of-the-Bronze-Age Comment: First published on the author's Substack - 'Letters From The Edge of Reality' - 23 October, 2026. In the previous article, "After the Fire From Heaven," I explored the possibility that cosmic catastrophes left more than devastated landscapes and memories of destruction: they may also have altered the living things that survived them. Drawing on Eurasian and Native American traditions, I examined stories in which giants, dwarfs, and ravenous cannibals appear as consequences of catastrophe rather than its instigators. Reports of biological anomalies following Tunguska led into a discussion of electrophonic meteors, electromagnetic fields, and the role of cellular stress responses in revealing previously hidden genetic variation. The central question remained exploratory: could some traditions of monstrous transformation preserve memories of biological changes associated with extraordinary environmental upheaval? I now turn to an abbreviated review of the rise and fall of... https://www.sott.net/article/509196-Comet-Hunting-the-Origins-of-Astrology-and-the-Collapse-of-the-Bronze-Age Fri, 30 Oct 2026 19:26:49 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509154-1971-a-pivotal-year-and-the-true-Turning-Point-USA Nixon Shock and Powell Memo shaped "capitalism" and "democracy" in the US as we know today 1971 was a watershed year that split US history into before and after. Two seminal events happened in the year, reinforcing each other and redefining capitalism and democracy in the US. Most people have heard of the famous "Nixon Shock" in 1971, when Richard Nixon announced on August 15 that the US dollar would be unpegged from gold "temporarily". The "temporary" delink, which was a breach of US sovereign promise to the rest of the world, became permanent and shattered the post-war global economic order. Few are aware of an equally momentous event that happened 8 days later. https://www.sott.net/article/509154-1971-a-pivotal-year-and-the-true-Turning-Point-USA Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:20:59 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509149-Technician-cracks-1600-year-old-mystery-to-replicate-Roman-masterpiece The remarkable colour-changing effect observed in a famous Roman masterpiece has been successfully reproduced in quantity for the first time in 1,600 years by a University of Sheffield technician. For the first time, University of Sheffield experts in the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering have successfully reproduced the 'dichroic' glass used to make the 1,600-year-old Roman masterpiece, the Lycurgus CupUsing a recipe derived from a fragment of the original glass, the team recreated its remarkable optical behaviour - a colour shift from jade green in reflected light to ruby red in transmitted lightGlass artist and winner of Netflix's Blown Away series 2, Elliot Walker, has brought this effect to life in a contemporary glass sculpture paying homage to its intricate ancient twin using glass made in the Sheffield melting shopThe extraordinary piece will debut at the University's Festival of the Mind from 6-15 November 2026, before permanent display in the... https://www.sott.net/article/509149-Technician-cracks-1600-year-old-mystery-to-replicate-Roman-masterpiece Wed, 28 Oct 2026 15:32:09 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509128-10000-year-old-stone-bowl-from-southeastern-Turkiye-may-depict-dancing A carved limestone vessel recovered decades ago at Nevalı Çori in southeastern Türkiye shows two people with raised arms beside a mysterious central figure. Archaeologists have interpreted the scene as a possible dance, offering a rare view of how Neolithic communities represented movement and collective activity. Two figures raise their arms as though caught in the middle of a performance. Between them stands a smaller creature with a diamond-shaped head and rounded body. The carving is more than 10,000 years old, and although its meaning remains uncertain, it has become one of the most intriguing objects recovered from Nevalı Çori, a Neolithic settlement in Türkiye's Şanlıurfa province. The scene appears on the outer surface of a broken limestone bowl dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Despite its fragmentary condition, the surviving piece preserves an unusual composition that may once have extended around the entire vessel. Traces of additional figures are still visible... https://www.sott.net/article/509128-10000-year-old-stone-bowl-from-southeastern-Turkiye-may-depict-dancing Tue, 27 Oct 2026 17:14:29 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509112-Siberian-petroglyph-discovery-reshapes-understanding-of-ancient-rock-art-Remarkable-Petroglyph-Discoveries-in-Southern-Siberia Archaeologists carrying out emergency excavations in southern Siberia have uncovered an extraordinary collection of petroglyphs that is transforming scholarly understanding of ancient rock art in the Republic of Khakassia. The findings were announced by the Institute of the History of Material Culture (IHMC) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The discoveries come from the burial grounds of Ust-Kamyshta-1 and Kamyshta-3 in the Askizsky district. Rescue Excavations Reveal Hidden Treasures Between 2021 and 2023, the Sayan Archaeological Expedition conducted rescue excavations to document and protect cultural heritage sites at risk of damage or destruction. The burial grounds were used continuously for over three thousand years, beginning in the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE) and continuing into the early centuries AD. Over time, they became associated with nearly every major archaeological culture identified in Khakassia. Among the most significant discoveries are ten stone... https://www.sott.net/article/509112-Siberian-petroglyph-discovery-reshapes-understanding-of-ancient-rock-art-Remarkable-Petroglyph-Discoveries-in-Southern-Siberia Mon, 26 Oct 2026 18:44:38 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509070-Paleolithic-human-DNA-reveals-east-west-connections-across-Ice-Age-Europe More than 30,000 years ago, people associated with one of Europe's major Paleolithic cultures (the Gravettian) were more interconnected than previously thought. An international research team led by the University of Vienna has uncovered new genetic evidence of long-distance connections between these populations. Published in Science Advances, the study combines genomic data from rare human remains with human DNA preserved in cave sediments. The Gravettian culture was widespread across Europe around 34,000 to 25,000 years ago. While archaeological finds have long suggested extensive contacts across the continent, genetic data pointed to relatively stable eastern and western ancestry groups. By analyzing new and previously published genomic data alongside human DNA from cave sediments, the researchers found evidence of east-west genetic exchange and long-term population continuity in southwestern Europe. https://www.sott.net/article/509070-Paleolithic-human-DNA-reveals-east-west-connections-across-Ice-Age-Europe Sat, 24 Oct 2026 11:17:08 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509051-After-the-Fire-From-Heaven Comment: First published on the author's Substack - 'Letters From The Edge of Reality' - 23 October, 2026. In the previous article, "Comet Swarms and Cosmic Catastrophes," I moved from the construction of biblical narratives to a different question: what kinds of events might lie behind the catastrophes remembered in ancient myth and religion? Drawing on Mike Baillie's work on tree rings and ice cores, I examined episodes of environmental stress that he associated with climatic downturns and cultural disruption. These records gave a starting point for considering whether some ancient descriptions of darkness, fire from heaven, and divine warfare might preserve memories of physical events rather than merely symbolic or theological inventions. The astronomical framework seemed to me to fit best not least because it also meshed with the work of Velikovsky, came principally from Victor Clube and Bill Napier: the hypothesis that a giant comet entered the inner solar system and... https://www.sott.net/article/509051-After-the-Fire-From-Heaven Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:17:03 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509031-An-Edinburgh-doctor-inspired-Doyles-literary-detective-Sherlock-Holmes On the observational genius of Professor Joseph Bell Joe Bell was a man who liked to keep busy. In addition to his hospital and police work, he gradually built one of the largest private practices in Edinburgh, sustaining it throughout his career. Each day he made up to twenty house calls, trundling from appointment to appointment in his elegant barouche. On one occasion, he called on Hugh Black — a minister at St. George's United Free Church, where Bell was an elder. Black's wife, who had summoned Bell, was concerned that her husband was coming down with a cold. The minister dismissed his wife's worries, insisting that he would be well enough to deliver his sermon the next morning. When Bell arrived at the house, he stepped into Black's study, took a seat opposite him, and began telling him a joke. When the minister laughed heartily at the punchline, Bell shot to his feet and pointed a stern finger at his patient, as if he had caught him in a lie. "Ye'll no preach the morrow,"... https://www.sott.net/article/509031-An-Edinburgh-doctor-inspired-Doyles-literary-detective-Sherlock-Holmes Thu, 22 Oct 2026 20:07:55 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509013-Comet-Swarms-and-Cosmic-Catastrophes When the Gods Were Comets: Ancient Myth and the Evidence of Disaster Comment: First published on the author's Substack - 'Letters From The Edge of Reality' - 21 October 2026 Before moving on, let me briefly retrace the path of the last three posts, since the present discussion brings several threads together. In "From Utukku to UFOs: Mesopotamian Demons Revisited", I examined the Mesopotamian understanding of demons and ghosts, the different afflictions attributed to them, and the protective work of the exorcist-scholar, the āšipu. Drawing on Henryk Drawnel's research, I explored how the Enochic Watchers narrative inverted this tradition: the specialists credited with protecting humanity against demons became the forbidden teachers responsible for their existence. I also considered parallels between ancient accounts of nocturnal, bodily, and reproductive disturbances and modern reports of spirit attachment and alien encounters. The central contrast was between a tradition of... https://www.sott.net/article/509013-Comet-Swarms-and-Cosmic-Catastrophes Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:45:40 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/509010-Terror-of-kings-Why-the-1066-appearance-of-Halleys-Comet-terrified-the-medieval-world A sequence on the Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold alongside a crowd gazing at the sky, beneath the embroidered caption Isti mirant stella ("those people marvel at the star"). Above Harold sits Halley's Comet, with ghostlike invasion boats in the border below — a Norman framing of Harold as a doomed usurper whose betrayal invited destruction. A comet, or the regum terror (terror of kings) as the contemporary Norman writer William of Poitiers put it, was widely taken as a portent of change in human affairs. The accurate record of the appearance of the comet is not the point of the depiction in the Bayeux Tapestry. As most Western European sources concur, the comet appeared in the evening sky from April 24, 1066. It remained visible for one or two weeks — four months or so after Harold's coronation. https://www.sott.net/article/509010-Terror-of-kings-Why-the-1066-appearance-of-Halleys-Comet-terrified-the-medieval-world Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:11:53 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508986-The-teenagers-who-imagined-GPS-before-the-Civil-War While at Harvard in the 1830s, a 13-year-old Edward Everett Hale and his brother dreamed up a brick satellite that could pinpoint any ship's location on Earth. By the late 1860s, spaceflight narratives like Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon had begun to articulate a pseudo-plausible vision of what human spaceflight might look like. These narratives laid the foundation for new ideas and inspiration that would ultimately lead to the realization of spaceflight. By the 1890s, many of the spaceflight ideas and ideals that we still think are so new — from asteroid mining to interplanetary nations to terraforming — had already emerged in works of literature. In this early era of space history, Edward Everett Hale stands as a giant. Hale wasn't one of the typical science fiction writers of the age, like Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. Rather, his career and contributions to American public life far exceeded his literary contributions to spaceflight. Hale was an author, publisher, social... https://www.sott.net/article/508986-The-teenagers-who-imagined-GPS-before-the-Civil-War Mon, 19 Oct 2026 21:12:31 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508948-Giant-Ramesses-II-statues-found-in-Behbeit-El-Hagar-after-a-villager-reports-a-carved-stone-block Egyptian archaeologists working in Behbeit El-Hagar, a village in Gharbia Governorate, have uncovered the remains of two giant royal statues, and experts believe both show King Ramesses II. A block of pink granite carved with hieroglyphs came out of the ground close by. The Egyptian mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities made the find during rescue excavations in the village. The discovery began when a local man, busy working on a plot of land he owns in front of his house, struck a stone block covered in carvings. He told the local antiquities inspectorate right away, and inspectors rushed to the site, where a first check showed the block was ancient. The Behbeit El-Hagar inspectorate then completed the legal paperwork, while the Supreme Council of Antiquities formed a committee and a team of specialists to begin rescue excavations, which brought both statues and the granite block to light. https://www.sott.net/article/508948-Giant-Ramesses-II-statues-found-in-Behbeit-El-Hagar-after-a-villager-reports-a-carved-stone-block Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:46:27 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508947-Archaeologists-discover-the-oldest-dwelling-in-the-Western-Hemisphere-at-a-13800-year-old-site-in-Alaska Archaeologists have discovered an ancient base camp in Alaska that has evidence of the oldest dwelling and possibly the earliest domesticated dogs in the Americas. Archaeologists digging at a 13,800-year-old site in interior Alaska have unearthed thousands of artifacts and fossils, including what may be the bones of the earliest domesticated dogs in the Americas, the earliest needles and dwellings in the Western Hemisphere, and stone tools that reveal cultural connections across the Bering Land Bridge. At a site called Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ (which means "They Were There" in the Alaska Native Athabascan language), about 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Fairbanks, archaeologists have excavated an encampment that some of the first people to settle in North America used off and on for a millennium. Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ is located in eastern Beringia, the geographical region that connected northeast Asia and northwest North America during the last ice age. The most recent archaeological and... https://www.sott.net/article/508947-Archaeologists-discover-the-oldest-dwelling-in-the-Western-Hemisphere-at-a-13800-year-old-site-in-Alaska Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:04:51 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508921-Stone-tools-reveal-possible-Aboriginal-gathering-place-lost-to-the-sea-9000-years-ago Stone tools discovered beneath the waters off Western Australia suggest that a freshwater spring may once have served as a gathering place for Aboriginal communities. The site disappeared beneath the sea at least 9,000 years ago, although the artefacts themselves could be considerably older. The discoveries come from Murujuga, in northwestern Australia, where researchers identified 21 stone artefacts at two underwater sites. The findings, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, show that places now lying 11 to 15 metres beneath the sea once formed part of a landscape with freshwater springs, rivers and rocky hills. More importantly, the research demonstrates that Australia's ancient Aboriginal heritage extends well beyond its modern shoreline, with potentially much older archaeological evidence still waiting to be discovered farther offshore. https://www.sott.net/article/508921-Stone-tools-reveal-possible-Aboriginal-gathering-place-lost-to-the-sea-9000-years-ago Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:48:40 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508894-Kathleen-Lonsdales-atomic-patterns The discovery of the molecular structure of benzene by Kathleen Lonsdale helped to reveal the secrets of carbon-based life, but the scientist responsible is far from a household name. Thomas Edison, American inventor of the electric light bulb, once quipped that 'Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration'. However unglamorous it sounds, that hard-work approach is what drives scientific progress. Isaac Newton may or may not have had his own light-bulb moment in a country orchard, but he spent many years hammering out the mathematical calculations underpinning his theory of gravity. Methodical observation and analysis are what count, not sudden flashes of inspiration. The chemical equivalent of Newton's apple is August Kekulé's snake. Dozing one evening in front of a fire, the German scientist dreamily imagined long chains of atoms gambolling through the air. Suddenly, he wrote, 'one of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled... https://www.sott.net/article/508894-Kathleen-Lonsdales-atomic-patterns Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:07:22 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508868-Extraordinary-Bronze-Age-hoard-found-in-Scottish-Borders-may-reveal-how-Scotlands-ancient-bronze-was-made A metal detectorist has found a second Bronze Age hoard in the Scottish Borders. It sits only 7 miles from the Peebles Hoard, a 3,000-year-old treasure he also found. Scotland acquired that first hoard for the nation two years ago. The new find, called the Blyth Hoard, may help explain how its bronze fittings were made. Dr Matthew Knight of National Museums Scotland with a clay mould from the Blyth Hoard and a fitting from the Peebles Hoard that the mould was used to make. Credit: Stewart Attwood Mariusz Stępień made the discovery in 2022. His detector picked up an axe-head first. He saw more bronze objects in the soil and stopped there. He reported the site to the Treasure Trove Unit, which alerted archaeologists at National Museums Scotland. The team excavated the site and found an ancient stone cairn. Inside were a few objects from the Late Bronze Age, dated to roughly 1150 to 800 BCE. Staff moved the hoard to the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh for conservation... https://www.sott.net/article/508868-Extraordinary-Bronze-Age-hoard-found-in-Scottish-Borders-may-reveal-how-Scotlands-ancient-bronze-was-made Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:51:20 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508866-10500-year-old-wooden-structures-beneath-German-lake-may-hint-at-buildings-long-before-farming-arrived Archaeologists have found well-preserved wooden remains from about 10,500 years ago beneath Lake Arendsee in northern Germany. The finds come from the Mesolithic, a period when people lived by hunting, fishing and gathering wild food. People had not yet adopted farming or built the large permanent settlements seen later in Central Europe. Researchers from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt have studied Arendsee underwater for several years. Earlier work revealed Stone Age fish traps, a medieval cargo boat and a later dugout canoe. The new finds reach much further back in time. Divers recovered worked pieces of wood from sediments about 20 meters below the present lake surface. https://www.sott.net/article/508866-10500-year-old-wooden-structures-beneath-German-lake-may-hint-at-buildings-long-before-farming-arrived Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:40:03 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508847-Rare-coin-bearing-face-of-king-with-infamous-nickname-unearthed-in-Scotland-after-1000-years Artifact may reveal ancient trade routes between Viking-controlled Shetland and Anglo-Saxon England Archaeologists in Scotland recently uncovered an Anglo-Saxon coin dating back 1,000 years that was minted under a king known as "the Unready." The coin was unearthed during an excavation in Nesting, a coastal community in Scotland's eastern Shetland Islands, according to Jam Press. Pictures show a thick, greenish-brown patina covering its surface, though some of the original markings remain visible. The excavation was originally conducted to investigate prehistoric structures threatened by coastal erosion, according to Archaeology Shetland. The archaeological investigation included an examination of nearby Iron Age structures. https://www.sott.net/article/508847-Rare-coin-bearing-face-of-king-with-infamous-nickname-unearthed-in-Scotland-after-1000-years Sun, 11 Oct 2026 21:32:18 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508838-Get-to-work-on-time-Waking-up-before-the-invention-of-alarm-clocks From candles that drop metal pins every hour to the knocker uppers of industrial Britain, people throughout history devised plenty of cunning ways to ensure a timely wake-up. During Britain's industrial revolution, new factories faced a need for strict timekeeping - including far more specific start times for workers. A worker arriving even five minutes late could hold up an entire assembly line, losing their employers' profit. They needed a means to wake up on time, especially in the darker winter months, and while early alarm clocks existed at this time, they were far too expensive for a typical worker. Factories tried using whistles and bells to wake and summon workers, but they often proved unreliable. Instead, an entire profession dedicated to awakening people sprouted up: knocker uppers. https://www.sott.net/article/508838-Get-to-work-on-time-Waking-up-before-the-invention-of-alarm-clocks Sun, 11 Oct 2026 19:21:46 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508834-Ancient-Zoroastrian-funerary-inscription-discovered-near-Irans-Sasanian-ceremonial-capital Archaeologists have discovered a funerary inscription dating to the final centuries of the Sasanian Empire in southern Iran, offering new evidence of how ancient Zoroastrian communities treated their dead. Found in a carved rock frame north of the ancient city of Estakhr, the inscription sheds light on religious traditions that regarded the preservation of nature's sacred elements as an essential part of the journey after death. The discovery comes from the Marvdasht Plain in Fars Province, a region known for its extraordinary concentration of pre-Islamic monuments and inscriptions. According to Tehran Times, archaeologist Abolhassan Atabaki identified the inscription as a Pahlavi text associated with a Zoroastrian burial from the late Sasanian period, before the empire's collapse in the seventh century CE. Although researchers have not yet released a complete transcription or translation, the inscription adds another piece to the archaeological record of a region where religious... https://www.sott.net/article/508834-Ancient-Zoroastrian-funerary-inscription-discovered-near-Irans-Sasanian-ceremonial-capital Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:36:42 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508814-How-Banderas-dirty-secrets-were-buried-to-build-a-Ukrainian-hero-and-blame-the-KGB A CIA investigation explored whether marital turmoil drove the Ukrainian nationalist to suicide - and whether his followers concealed the truth. October 15th marks the anniversary of Ukrainian ultranationalist Stepan Bandera's alleged 1959 murder by a Soviet KGB agent, in Munich, Germany. As the Kiev regime has idolized Bandera and his fellow ultranationalist killers without shame since NATO's war with Russia began, mass celebrations could be planned. Ukrainian officials were forced in May to publicly deny they had any intention of moving Bandera's remains from Munich to rebury them. On top of avoiding significant public controversy, Kiev may have had a darker motive - preventing anyone from trying to investigate whether Bandera in fact committed suicide. The popular tale of his KGB assassination seems like a completely false Ukrainian ultranationalist hero myth. For decades reviled by many Ukrainians and not much known outside the region, adoration of Bandera by Kiev's assorted... https://www.sott.net/article/508814-How-Banderas-dirty-secrets-were-buried-to-build-a-Ukrainian-hero-and-blame-the-KGB Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:28:58 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508727-People-reached-Badanj-Cave-in-Bosnia-20000-years-ago-5000-years-earlier-than-previously-thought People were using Badanj Cave in Bosnia and Herzegovina around 20,000 years ago, roughly 5,000 years earlier than previous evidence had shown, according to a new study that reshapes the timeline of one of the eastern Adriatic's most important Paleolithic sites. The new dates suggest that generations of hunter-gatherers returned to Badanj over a period stretching from about 20,000 to 12,000 years ago. That span covers major environmental changes at the end of the last Ice Age and turns the site into an unusually long record of how people lived through a changing landscape. A shelter above the Bregava River Badanj lies near the town of Stolac in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is not a deep cave but a large, south-facing rock shelter set into a slope about 30 meters above the Bregava River valley. Its position was well suited to people moving through the region. The river valley forms a natural route between the Neretva Valley, which leads toward the Adriatic coast, and the... https://www.sott.net/article/508727-People-reached-Badanj-Cave-in-Bosnia-20000-years-ago-5000-years-earlier-than-previously-thought Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:16:42 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508660-Americas-Greenland-deal-has-a-radioactive-backstory A Cold War mission near Thule ended in radioactive fallout and exposed the risks behind Washington's military presence on the Arctic island. The US, Denmark, and Greenland have signed a new agreement to expand American military activity on the island. Washington calls Greenland vital to its security, but an expanded military presence also raises an older question: What risks does the Arctic island take on in return? The agreement builds on a defense partnership dating back to 1951. That history includes an episode that brought the risks of Washington's Cold War strategy into sharp focus: An American mission over Greenland that ended in a nuclear disaster. The nuclear patrols over Greenland In the 1960s, in the middle of the Cold War, the US Air Force launched Operation Chrome Dome. This mission implied keeping bombers armed with nuclear weapons on continuous airborne alert, ready to strike the USSR if necessary. If you've seen the film 'Dr. Strangelove', you'll remember that Major... https://www.sott.net/article/508660-Americas-Greenland-deal-has-a-radioactive-backstory Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:55:33 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508659-Archaeologists-just-discovered-the-lost-city-that-was-there-first-before-Paris Julius Caesar made mention of a fortress in writings from nearly 2,000 years ago. Its location was a mystery — until now. Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Archaeologists revealed a 65-foot-long wall buried under a teaching hospital next door to the cathedral of Notre-Dame.Experts believe the find is from Lutetia, a Gallo-Roman settlement that was the predecessor of modern Paris.The physical evidence of Lutetia confirms historical writings and may settle debate about its original location.In 50 B.C.E, Julius Caesar wrote about a fortified settlement at a spot along the Seine River where Paris is located today. And now, archaeologists may have finally found it. The discovery could settle a centuries-old argument: where exactly did Gallic Lutetia, the first settlement in what is now Paris, stand? Crews excavating the courtyard of the Hôtel-Dieu teaching hospital — just across the Rue d'Arcole from Notre-Dame — uncovered a Gallo-Roman wall of stone and timber roughly... https://www.sott.net/article/508659-Archaeologists-just-discovered-the-lost-city-that-was-there-first-before-Paris Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:35:54 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508583-Ancient-Romes-complicated-border What did Hadrian's Wall actually do? Its history challenges the idea that walls simply separate one side from another. We live in an age of hardened borders and militarized frontiers. Particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks and then the Covid-19 pandemic, the supposedly borderless world of globalization has seen significant retrenchment and "re-bordering," including the rise of nationalist movements hostile to immigration. It doesn't require a stretch to understand why what scholar Andrew Gardner calls the "lived complexities" of the Mexico-US border has helped give rise to the interdisciplinary field of Border Studies. And it's easy to see why Hadrian's Wall, the imperial Roman boundary across northern England, has been taken up by the relatively new discipline. For even though Hadrian's Wall is more than 1,900 years old, it presents a classic case for the study of the ideas and the practices of a frontier between us and them, a formulation that works on both sides of a... https://www.sott.net/article/508583-Ancient-Romes-complicated-border Fri, 25 Sep 2026 20:29:12 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508577-13000-years-ago-you-could-walk-from-Sicily-to-Malta-Now-scientists-are-mapping-the-lost-route There was once a way to travel from Sicily to Malta without crossing the open sea. During the last Ice Age, a vast stretch of land connected the two, offering a possible passage for animals and perhaps prehistoric humans. Then, around 13,000 years ago, rising waters swallowed the connection, leaving a lost landscape beneath the Mediterranean. The most surprising finding, however, is that this lost route may have looked less like a conventional land bridge and more like a scattered world of islands and sheltered waterways. The discovery raises a compelling question: could this submerged territory preserve clues to a forgotten chapter of Malta's human history? https://www.sott.net/article/508577-13000-years-ago-you-could-walk-from-Sicily-to-Malta-Now-scientists-are-mapping-the-lost-route Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:25:11 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508390-Paul-Otlets-Mundaneu-The-internet-before-there-was-an-internet Comment: As this article is over ten years old, one may skip the overly optimistic paragraphs on the possibilities of the Web as as repository of knowledge. But carry on to Otlet's vision and his efforts to realize it. Fascinating! Belgian information activist Paul Otlet envisioned some of the possibilities of today's Web more than a century before its existence. More than a century ago, Belgian information activist Paul Otlet envisioned a universal compilation of knowledge and the technology to make it globally available. He foresaw, in other words, some of the possibilities of today's Web. Otlet's ideas provide an important pivot point in the history of recording knowledge and making it accessible. In classical times, the best-known example of the knowledge enterprise was the Library of Alexandria. This great repository of knowledge was built in the Egyptian city of Alexandria around 300 BCE by Ptolemy I and was destroyed between 48 BCE and 642 CE, supposedly by one or more... https://www.sott.net/article/508390-Paul-Otlets-Mundaneu-The-internet-before-there-was-an-internet Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:54:12 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508366-Romanias-secret-CIA-prison-Two-decades-of-denial-and-unanswered-questions As the long-delayed 9/11 case moves towards trial, evidence of torture at a CIA black site in Bucharest is putting Romania's role in the 'war on terror' under scrutiny. Ammar al-Baluchi remembers the cold most of all. Held nearly naked in a cell lit around the clock by fluorescent bulbs, he referred to his detention "as if I was living in a refrigerator". The nephew of self-declared 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Baluchi was one of six to a dozen men believed to be held and tortured in a secret CIA prison in Bucharest between 2003 and 2005. The treatment of detainees at the facility, formally known as "Detention Site Black", is described in detail in Guantanamo court filings. Solitary confinement under lights that never switched off, sleep deprivation that at times meant being forced to stand shackled for days, repeated dousing with icy water, and forced shaving and physical handling that interrogators euphemistically logged as "attention grasps" and "facial holds" were... https://www.sott.net/article/508366-Romanias-secret-CIA-prison-Two-decades-of-denial-and-unanswered-questions Sun, 13 Sep 2026 20:23:40 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/124498-Mossad-and-Moving-Companies-Masterminds-of-Global-Terrorism June 2, 2003: The other day I was scanning the news reports and came across a rather mundane item that really got me to thinking. Cloudcroft chief stops Israelis with suspicious cargo By Michael Shinabery Staff Writer Alamogordo Daily News Cloudcroft, New Mexico -- That they were speeding through the school zone first got his attention. That they had Israeli driver's licenses and expired passports made him suspicious. Cloudcroft Police Chief Gene Green stopped the 2-ton van on Thursday, for speeding. Initially, Green thought the truck was commercial because of exterior markings. But when he found it was out of Chicago, he asked for documentation such as logs books and manifests. "They said this is a U-Haul truck and handed me a rental agreement (for) in-town delivery only in Illinois, (which) had expired two days before," Green said. He called for backup, and Otero County Sheriff's Deputy Billy Anders, who patrols the Sacramento Mountains, arrived, along with Capt. Norbert Sanchez... https://www.sott.net/article/124498-Mossad-and-Moving-Companies-Masterminds-of-Global-Terrorism Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:43:09 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508343-Scientists-uncover-first-known-adult-T-rex-trackway-dating-back-66-5-million-years The first known trackway made by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) was recently discovered in southwestern North Dakota by a team of scientists. Paleontologists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Liverpool John Moores University in England, found four connected, large, three-toed footprints in the North Dakota badlands, not far from the Montana border. According to a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the trackway is roughly 23 feet long, with the toes measuring around 3.3 feet long. The spacing between the prints indicates the dinosaur had a stride of about 13 feet and was likely walking at a speed of approximately 3.5 to 4.5 mph. Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science said: "Bones tell us an enormous amount about these animals, but footprints capture a moment of behavior. With a trackway, we can actually follow an animal as it moved across the landscape. That is incredibly rare... https://www.sott.net/article/508343-Scientists-uncover-first-known-adult-T-rex-trackway-dating-back-66-5-million-years Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:35:23 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508318-Strange-bedfellows-What-palmistry-and-medicine-have-always-had-in-common Physicians reject palmistry as nonsense. But reading the creases of our palms for hidden meaning is what doctors have always done Signs of the future are marked in our hands, or so any palmist will declare. But do hands also hold signs of the past? Do they have a history? Over decades of research as a historian of medicine and of human bodies, I'd never imagined such a niche question. And then it was sparked in an instant, between one second and the next, in the time it takes to open a manila folder. For another project altogether I was in the UK to research the papers of Charlotte Wolff, a physician trained in Berlin in the 1920s and living in London in the late 1930s, a Jewish refugee. Opening a file labelled 'Zoo, 1938', I came across a massive, delicate palm print: it belonged to Mok, a lowland gorilla at London Zoo. Two days after Mok's death, the keeper had granted Wolff special permission to enter the morgue and collect a pattern that had been too dangerous to acquire in... https://www.sott.net/article/508318-Strange-bedfellows-What-palmistry-and-medicine-have-always-had-in-common Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:04:58 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508317-Routine-yard-work-turns-up-a-trove-of-Viking-silver-largest-treasure-of-its-kind-ever-discovered-in-Denmark The collection includes coins, jewelry, silver bars and a tiny artifact shaped like Thor's hammer. Experts say the roughly 700 items were buried during the tenth century When a resident of northern Denmark started clearing their backyard, the plan was to install a new terrace. They expected a few hours of hard work. But after half an hour of digging, they came across something metallic: a trove of jewelry and coins. Located in the municipality of Rebild, the backyard revealed the largest hoard of Viking silver ever discovered in Denmark. According to a statement from North Jutland Museums, the treasure includes roughly 700 artifacts and weighs more than 40 pounds. Experts think these items were buried in the tenth century. "This is an exceptionally important Viking Age silver hoard," archaeologist Torben Sarauw, head of cultural heritage at North Jutland Museums, tells the Art Newspaper's Hadani Ditmars. "It provides a rare insight into the Viking Age silver economy, where silver... https://www.sott.net/article/508317-Routine-yard-work-turns-up-a-trove-of-Viking-silver-largest-treasure-of-its-kind-ever-discovered-in-Denmark Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:07:37 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508293-Mysterious-medieval-settlement-discovered-residents-seemingly-packed-up-and-vanished Village's abandonment remains an enigma, with no signs of destruction or fire found Archaeologists recently uncovered the remains of a medieval village that was mysteriously abandoned in Germany — raising questions about why its residents packed up and left. The excavation at the Am Frevelgraben site in Halberstadt, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, revealed numerous traces of a medieval settlement, including parts of a multi-tiered ditch system. The State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt announced the findings on Aug. 24. Archaeologists began excavating the site in March ahead of the development of a nearby industrial park, officials said. https://www.sott.net/article/508293-Mysterious-medieval-settlement-discovered-residents-seemingly-packed-up-and-vanished Mon, 07 Sep 2026 22:11:01 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508264-Tracing-the-circulation-of-nearly-four-million-coins-reveal-how-Rome-achieved-economic-integration A study conducted at the University of São Paulo combined digital archaeology and data science to map the financial flows of the Roman Republic. The results suggest that the consolidation of Roman rule depended not only on military conquest but also on the economic integration of the territories under Roman control. For centuries, the study of ancient history relied primarily on interpreting classical texts and examining inscriptions and archaeological remains at their sites of origin or in museums. In recent years, however, a little-known transformation has profoundly changed this landscape. The digitization of extensive archaeological collections, coupled with the development of quantitative methods that can integrate millions of scattered records, is ushering in a new era of historical research. Like other scientific disciplines that have benefited from processing colossal amounts of information, archaeology and history have entered the era of data science. Two researchers from... https://www.sott.net/article/508264-Tracing-the-circulation-of-nearly-four-million-coins-reveal-how-Rome-achieved-economic-integration Sun, 06 Sep 2026 19:47:08 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508204-From-Utukku-to-UFOs-Mesopotamian-Demons-Revisited From Babylonian Exorcists to Enoch's Angels to the Cassiopaeans — Two Traditions, One Choice: Diagnose or Pray Comment: First published on the author's Substack - 'Letters From The Edge of Reality' - 23 August 2026 The previous three articles were preparatory to what I want to write about today. Let me give a brief recap to jog everyone's memory and get us on the same page. Introduction and Review In the first piece, Giants, Omens, and Signs, I mentioned at the beginning that Henryk Drawnel's paper on the Mesopotamian background of the Enochic giants and evil spirits pinged several things in my mind as I read it. Drawnel argued that the violent giants of 1 Enoch were deliberately modeled on Mesopotamian demons, especially the utukku type found in the bilingual exorcistic series Utukkū Lemnūtu. So the first thing I thought about was Van de Mieroop's book "Philosophy Before the Greeks" where he describes the Omen Texts. But in order to really get a handle on the Omen Texts, one needs... https://www.sott.net/article/508204-From-Utukku-to-UFOs-Mesopotamian-Demons-Revisited Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:44:11 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508192-The-historical-fascists-are-preparing-to-take-their-revenge Before our very eyes, the historical forces of fascism are reorganizing. The losers of World War II, those who massacred millions of Soviets, Chinese, and Jews, are once again in power in Japan, Israel, and Ukraine. They hope to take their revenge. It is up to us to denounce their preparations and prevent them from unleashing the apocalypse. The losers of World War II are demanding revenge. They have no interest in it. They just want to win and reorganize the world hierarchically, with themselves at the top. Here's what they have to say. For the "militarists," Japan never lost the war. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is a staunch supporter of the Emperor. Every August 15th, the anniversary of the surrender, she visits the Yasukuni Shrine. This shrine honors all those who gave their lives for the Emperor during the "Fifteen Years' War" — that is, the invasion of the Far East and World War II. She regularly pays her respects at the graves of those convicted of crimes against... https://www.sott.net/article/508192-The-historical-fascists-are-preparing-to-take-their-revenge Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:42:45 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508081-A-unique-11000-year-old-statue-of-a-human-sitting-on-a-leopard-unearthed-at-Karahantepe Archaeologists excavating Karahantepe in southeastern Türkiye have uncovered an approximately 11,000-year-old composite statue depicting a human figure seated on the back of a leopard, adding an unexpected new variation to the site's already remarkable repertoire of human-animal imagery. The 70-centimeter-tall sculpture was discovered during the 2026 excavation season and announced on August 25 by Türkiye's Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy. According to the announcement, the statue was found where it had apparently been left in antiquity, resting on a bench running along the wall of a structure measuring about three meters in diameter. The building had a floor paved with flat stones. Ersoy described the sculpture as displaying a style not previously encountered at Karahantepe. No detailed archaeological publication explaining the object's chronology, manufacturing technique or precise interpretation has yet accompanied the announcement, leaving its meaning open for... https://www.sott.net/article/508081-A-unique-11000-year-old-statue-of-a-human-sitting-on-a-leopard-unearthed-at-Karahantepe Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:24:53 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508070-Britains-forgotten-proxy-war-against-Russia London armed Russia's enemies, promised them independence, and walked away when its imperial gamble collapsed. What is there in common between Ukrainians and the highlanders of the Caucasus, and what parallels can be drawn between Russia and Great Britain in the 19th century, and these same countries in the 21st century? In the 19th century, the British Empire fought against the Russian Empire using the highlanders in the Caucasus in a way that's very similar to how Britain is now using Ukrainians. In the 19th century, the Russian and British empires clashed fiercely over spheres of influence in the Caucasus. This geopolitical rivalry made use of all the means available at the time: wars between spies and diplomats, covert operations, arms smuggling, ideological battles, and active media propaganda. Read more about the confrontation between Russia and Britain, the secret operations in the Caucasus, and the lessons that those who now place their trust in Britain should draw from... https://www.sott.net/article/508070-Britains-forgotten-proxy-war-against-Russia Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:21:26 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/508061-Object-mistaken-for-an-animal-tooth-bead-turns-out-to-be-a-6500-year-old-human-tooth-pendant A small object from a Neolithic site in Serbia, long classified as an animal-tooth bead, has turned out to be something far more unusual: a carefully modified human canine that was likely worn as a pendant more than 6,500 years ago. The tooth came from Jablanica, a Late Neolithic settlement south of Belgrade associated with the Vinča culture. Researchers Nemanja Marković of the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade and Ana Maričić of the Belgrade City Museum identified it as a human upper right canine after reexamining an object that had remained in the Museum of Mladenovac collection for nearly two decades. Their study, published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, found clear evidence that the tooth had been deliberately shaped, drilled and suspended. More unusually, the researchers argue that it was probably obtained after its owner had died and the body had already become skeletonized. A Human Tooth Hidden in a Museum Collection The object was originally recovered... https://www.sott.net/article/508061-Object-mistaken-for-an-animal-tooth-bead-turns-out-to-be-a-6500-year-old-human-tooth-pendant Mon, 24 Aug 2026 02:32:35 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507940-Did-Assyrians-invent-the-telescope-2700-years-ago-The-mystery-of-the-Nimrud-lens More than 2,700 years ago, someone in ancient Assyria carefully ground and polished a small piece of rock crystal, leaving it with one flat face and another slightly convex. The object, now known as the Nimrud Lens, can focus light and even provide crude magnification — properties that have led to a much larger and more controversial question: could the Assyrians have experimented with telescopic observation long before the telescope appeared in early modern Europe? The possibility sounds extraordinary. The earliest documented telescope is generally associated with the Netherlands in 1608, when spectacle maker Hans Lippershey sought a patent for an instrument that made distant objects appear closer. Yet the Nimrud Lens was manufactured between about 750 and 710 BC, more than two millennia earlier. That enormous chronological gap has helped turn a small archaeological artifact into one of the most debated objects in the history of ancient optics. The evidence shows that the crystal... https://www.sott.net/article/507940-Did-Assyrians-invent-the-telescope-2700-years-ago-The-mystery-of-the-Nimrud-lens Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:55:14 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507914-3500-year-old-Linear-A-prayer-may-reveal-Minoan-roots-of-Dionysus-and-Demeter A tiny stone offering table from a Minoan mountaintop sanctuary may preserve something far larger than its size suggests: possible evidence that Dionysus and Demeter had religious predecessors on Crete centuries before they became familiar gods of the Greek world. The object, known as IO Za 2, carries one of the longest surviving examples of the mysterious Linear A script. In a new study, researcher Michael Schümann proposes that its damaged inscription can be reconstructed as a structured ritual prayer naming divine figures he identifies as early forms of Dionysus and Demeter. If that interpretation withstands scrutiny, the implications would extend well beyond the decipherment of a single Bronze Age inscription. It would suggest that at least some elements later associated with two major Greek deities were not created entirely within Greek religion, but developed from much older Minoan religious traditions. That remains a significant "if." Linear A has never been securely... https://www.sott.net/article/507914-3500-year-old-Linear-A-prayer-may-reveal-Minoan-roots-of-Dionysus-and-Demeter Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:41:37 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507897-10000-year-old-rectangular-buildings-unearthed-at-Gobeklitepe-may-have-been-homes Archaeologists working at Göbeklitepe in southeastern Türkiye have uncovered rectangular buildings just beneath the surface in a newly opened excavation area, offering fresh evidence about how people may have lived at one of the world's most important Neolithic sites. The structures belong to what researchers describe as the second phase of occupation at Göbeklitepe. Unlike the site's better-known monumental buildings dominated by massive T-shaped stone pillars, the newly exposed spaces contain fewer pillars and may have served a more domestic purpose. The discovery was made in a new excavation zone north of Göbeklitepe's main protected archaeological area. According to excavation director Prof. Dr. Necmi Karul, archaeologists began working across an area of roughly 1,500 square meters after olive trees growing there were carefully relocated. The team is excavating horizontally across a broad surface before moving into deeper archaeological layers, a strategy intended to reveal how... https://www.sott.net/article/507897-10000-year-old-rectangular-buildings-unearthed-at-Gobeklitepe-may-have-been-homes Thu, 13 Aug 2026 19:55:38 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507764-Child-burial-discovered-beneath-the-Temple-of-Zeus-in-Crimea-Was-it-a-sacrifice A skull shaped by disease, a temple built to face the sunrise, and a 2,000-year-old mystery about a child who may have been sacrificed or simply mourned. On the windswept steppe of eastern Crimea, where the ruins of the ancient fortress-city of Artezian have slept beneath the earth for over two millennia, archaeologists have just uncovered something that has never been documented at the site before: the remains of an infant, buried directly beneath the foundation of a sacred temple, in what may be evidence of a ritual sacrifice dating back roughly 2,100 years. The find comes from the 40th field season of the Artezian Archaeological Expedition (AAE), and researchers are calling it the first discovery of its kind for the classical period anywhere on this stretch of the Crimean Azov coast. A Burial Hidden in the Foundation The tiny skeleton was found tucked beneath an altar table, right at the base of the north wall of the Temple of Zeus Genarchos and Soter — a name that roughly... https://www.sott.net/article/507764-Child-burial-discovered-beneath-the-Temple-of-Zeus-in-Crimea-Was-it-a-sacrifice Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:55:58 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507749-How-Christian-Europe-learned-to-fear-the-forest-and-the-beasts-within Exploring Medieval Europeans' evolving relationship with the wilderness Europe is not a continent of deserts, but in the early Middle Ages, Europeans began to assimilate biblical notions of the wilderness by applying the same philosophy to a regionally appropriate context: the forest. In the absence of the arid, rocky deserts of the Middle East, early Christians looked instead to a tangle of trees and briars growing up outside their lonely settlements and recognized some unifying, shape-shifting quality. Though to modern eyes these landscapes might seem a world apart, to medieval monks the linguistic parallels were obvious. Early Latin translations of the Bible from the fourth century onwards used terms like desertum and solitudo in their depiction of the wilderness trials of the prophets — that is, emphasizing their empty, uninhabited qualities over climatic ones. And there was a lot of deserted land in medieval Europe. After the withdrawal of the Roman Empire from much of western... https://www.sott.net/article/507749-How-Christian-Europe-learned-to-fear-the-forest-and-the-beasts-within Tue, 04 Aug 2026 22:02:42 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507740-Study-uncovers-lost-golden-age-of-languages A new study coauthored by Yale linguist Claire Bowern suggests that tens of thousands of languages were spoken between 1,000 and 3,000 years ago. A linguistic "golden age" flourished between 1,000 to 3,000 years ago when tens of thousands of languages were spoken throughout the world, according to a new study coauthored by Yale linguist Claire Bowern that traces trajectories in global language diversity over the past 12,000 years. The golden age was followed by a period of rapid decline in linguistic diversity that coincided with the rise of large states and multinational empires, such as the Roman Empire, the researchers found. The finding challenges a commonly held view that widespread language extinction began later, about 500 years ago, with the onset of European colonial expansion. The languages of expanding states and empires were disproportionately likely to survive while those of absorbed, displaced, or declining populations disappeared, the researchers concluded. This... https://www.sott.net/article/507740-Study-uncovers-lost-golden-age-of-languages Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:52:04 +0000 https://www.sott.net/article/507718-The-Underground-Nation-returns-Switzerlands-new-war-time-shelter-strategy The "one shelter per citizen" doctrine returns as Europe militarizes. Civilian infrastructure, stockpiles, and daily life are now being reorganized for war. When Switzerland is mentioned, images of the Alps, postcard-perfect landscapes, and the famous cartoon character Heidi usually come to mind. Yet beneath the surface lies one of the world's most complex underground networks. Built upon the Cold War-era principle of "one shelter place for every citizen" (Jeder Einwohnerin und jedem Einwohner ein Schutzplatz) and the Swiss Army's "National Redoubt" (Réduit) strategy, the country developed a vast underground infrastructure. After the end of the Cold War, the underground fortresses (Schweizer Reduit) hidden beneath the Swiss Alps and mountains lost much of their military importance. A large part of these facilities was declassified, opened for civilian use, sold, or transformed into museums. The main reason was the enormous cost of maintaining them. Similarly, in urban areas,... https://www.sott.net/article/507718-The-Underground-Nation-returns-Switzerlands-new-war-time-shelter-strategy Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:16:12 +0000