Category: Ann - Part 25

Xtreme Stonehenge Theories for the Slightly Insane

Desperate to figure out before the Summer Solstice 2009 what Stonehenge is all about, but you can’t decide which theory – sacrifices, calendar, discotheque, burial site, religious temple, neolithic art – to go with? Don’t panic!Worth1000.com‘s finest Photoshop artists present us with a few alternative – but very plausible – theories about the iconic stone circle’s construction, use, location and present state. Which of the options below do you deem to be most likely? Take the poll, let us know!

Option 1: One Giant’s Game is Man’s Neolithic Monument

Most scientists claim humans started piling up earth, wood and rocks at the Stonehenge site 25,000 years ago. They could not be further from the truth. Stonehenge is a relic of Titans’ favourite pass-time: playing a friendly game of dominoes. It has stand ever since Cronus and Themis did not have the time gather their toys when Ouranos imprisoned the two brothers and their siblings deep within Earth. This makes Stonehenge almost as old as the Earth itself.

Online Surveys&Market Research

The recent discovery of perfectly round holes – shown in the image on the right – supports this theory that Stonehenge is actually leftovers from the first game ever played.

Since this discovery hit the news, the Stonehenge site is flooded with fans of the more classic games such as Risk, Magic the Gathering and Axis of Allies. Some even go as far as to sacrifice their PSPs, Playstation IIIs and Xboxes in the hope this will bring them luck in the games their favourite game.

Option 2: Stonehenge, a Symbol of Peace

It came to light that at the turn of the 20th century the famous engineer and father of Japanese archaeology William Gowland misplaced not just one of the giant stones, but almost the entire ancient monument. Early man did not mean for Stonehenge to be a calendar or sacred site, rather the neolithic monument was build as place for gathering and neolithic raves.

Originally constructed out of wooden pillars Stonehenge was a location to relax, celebrate peace and love and get high, far away from the social pressure caused by tribe culture. A reference to this early – wood-built – Stonehenge can be found in the more contemporary festival ‘Woodstock’. A less popular club nearby is still known as Woodhenge.

As festival organisation wasn’t as evolved back in those neolithic days – although they did upgrade the wooden construction to stones to minimise fire risk – no garbage collections were held. Also, quite a few neolithic ravers met their end due to the consumption of too many psychedelic mushrooms. This explains the skeletons and artefacts that can still be found around Stonehenge nowadays. But by the pagan gods, what a party this must have been!

Option 3: Product Placement Gone Bad

Stonehenge is nothing more than a very expensive ad campaign for McDonalds. Launched in the early nineties by marketing agency Neolithic, the campaign was a huge success. It’s budget was huge, yet nobody anticipated just how much it would influence humanity. Unexpected, Stonehenge began to be featured in history books and more and more people would vouch it to be real.

By the turn of the 21th century UNESCO and English Heritage requested that the European Union look into the Stonehenge craziness. Rumours go that the demand for enquiry was a result of good lobbying by the British Museum, after their proposal to move Stonehenge to London for ‘safeguarding’ the monument was rejected.

The European Commission ruled that the possession of Stonehenge gave McDonalds an unfair monopoly over ancient world monuments, and forced the company to remove it’s logo from the famous rock circle. All references to McDonalds in relation to Stonehenge were erased from the history books, and replaced by a chapter of product placement funded by the Christian Church titled ‘Creationism’. Very little proof of the construction or early branding is left, except for this photograph.

Option 4: They Come For Our henges!

Ever since the UK was warned about MI5 and the British royal family’s involvement in cover-ups of crop circle appearings and I saw the oddly-shaped hats worn to Ascott, I knew this true: Stonehenge is a landing pad for Unidentified Flying Objects.

Recently Iwas proven right, when CNNcameras captured a fleet of extraterrestial vehicles flying in formation over Stonehenge.

For those who refuse to acknowledge the truth, here’s a still from the special news broadcast on CNN. It reads: ‘They’re Here! Nerds across globe rejoice- rest of population in panic.’

Option 5:It’s Nothing But a Hoax

Yeah, we know. It has multiple entries on Wikipedia. Tons of photographs of Stonehenge can be found on Flickr (even in the Heritage Key Flickr Pool). You can visit the ancient stones on Google Earth. Amazon’s flooded by books about this neolithic monument. It’s featured on the English Heritage website and the BBCiPlayer mentions it often. You may see video of it on your iPhone and search for #stonehenge on Twitter. Yet Stonehenge is nothing but a giant hoax!

Better known as ‘Project 5t0|\|3h3|\|3’ to those few insiders that are in the know, all these listings mentioned above are crafted and posted to the internet by a few l33t whizkids, members of the hacker group ‘dRuudZ’.

Their motives? Income from ad clicks on all the Stonehenge websites the group hosts and a percentage on the sales of tourist trips to the area. You don’t believe me and are convinced bonsai kittens are grown in glass bottles? Don’t forget to click the Google ads below! 😉

This is how they filled the Sultan’s Pool

Remains of the Ottoman aqueduct in the Mishkenot Sha'anamim neighborhood (Photo by Skyview Company, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority) An archaeological excavation in Jerusalem has revealed an ancient aqueduct that brought water to the Sultan’s Pool – a Herodian Reservoir that gets its name from Suleiman the Magnificent, who restored the site in the 16th century – and to the Temple Mount, supplying clean water to the city’s residents and visiting pilgrims for drinking and purification. Most Jerusalemites identify the Sultan’s Pool as a venue where large cultural events are held; however, from the Roman period until the late Ottoman period it was one of the citys most important water reservoirs.

The excavation, directed by Gideon Solimany and Dr. Ron Beeri of the Israel Antiquities Authority, focused on a section along the course of the low-level aqueduct, on the western side of Ben Hinnoam Valley above the Derekh Hebron bridge.

According to Dr. Ron Beeri, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “We are dealing with a very impressive aqueduct that reached a height of three meters. Naturally, one of the first things Sultan Suleiman I hastened to do in Jerusalem (along with the construction of the city wall as we know it today) was to repair the aqueduct that was already there which supplied the large numbers of pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem with water for drinking and purification. Suleiman attached a small tower to the aqueduct, inside of which a ceramic pipe was inserted. The pipe diverted the aqueduct’s water to the Sultan’s Pool and the impressive sabil (a Muslim public fountain for drinking water), which he built for the pilgrims who crossed the Derekh Hebron bridge and is still preserved there today.”

Dr. Beeri said, “It is evident that the location of the aqueduct was extremely successful and efficient: we found four phases of different aqueducts that were constructed in exactly the same spot, one, Byzantine, from the sixth-seventh centuries CE and three that are Ottoman which were built beginning in the sixteenth century CE. The last three encircle a large subterranean water reservoir that was apparently built before the Ottoman period.”

Remains of the Ottoman aquaduct in the Mishkenot Sha'anamim neighborhood (Photo by Skyview Company, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority) The low-level aqueduct is one of two ancient water conduits that originated at the springs in the Hebron Highlands and at Solomon’s Pools, and terminated in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. We can learn about the construction of the aqueducts and the repairs that were carried out on them from various historical sources which date from as early as the Second Temple period, as well as from later sources. Different sections of the aqueduct’s course were also exposed in archaeological surveys and excavations that were conducted from the middle of the nineteenth century until the present.

Research has shown that the ancient aqueduct was meant to supply high quality spring water to the Temple Mount, to Jerusalem’s residents and to the many pilgrims that have come to the city over the course of generations. After the Great Revolt was suppressed and the temple was destroyed, the aqueduct served the Tenth Legion and afterwards Aelia Capitolina, which was Roman Jerusalem. The aqueduct was also used during the period of Christian-Byzantine rule and throughout the years when Muslims governed in Jerusalem.

According to Dr. Beeri, We can see that from the time of the Second Temple until the Byzantine period water flowed in an open channel that was covered with stone slabs. In later phases, beginning in the Ottoman period, water was conveyed in ceramic pipes which were installed inside the aqueduct.

The low-level aqueduct is to be incorporated in the Montefiore Museum, which the Jerusalem Foundation plans to build inside the pool, adjacent to the aqueduct.

18th Dynasty tomb found at Dra Abu el-Naga Necropolis

One of the Ushabti figures made of burned clay and faience. (Photo - SCA) Three new ancient egyptian tombs dating back almost 3500 years have been discovered near Luxor by an archaeological mission lead by Dr. Zahi Hawass. One of the newly discovered tombs belonged to Amun-Em-Opet, Supervisor of Hunters and dates back to shortly before King Akhenaten’s reign. Entrances to 2 undecorated tombs have been found to the north-west of Amun-Em-Opet’s. The newly discovered were unearthed at the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Naga, on Luxor’s west bank.

Amongst the items discovered in the 3 tombs:

seven funerary seals bearing the name Amenhotep-Ben-Neferm, Supervisor of the Cattle of Amun.
seals bearing the name of Eke, the Royal Messenger and Supervisor of the Palace.
fragmented remains of unidentified mummies.
a collection of ushabti figures made of burned clay and faence.

The necropolis of Dra’ Abu el-Naga’ is located on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes, Egypt, just by the entrance of the dry bay that leads up to Deir el-Bahri, and north of the necropolis of el-Assasif. Due to its position directly opposite the Temple of Karnak – the main cult centre of Amun from the Middle Kingdom and one of Ancient Egypt’s most important temples during the New Kingdom – and helped the importance of the royal tomb complexes present, Dra Abu El-Naga necropolis became one of the most significant holy burial sites.

The SCA’s press release in English can be found on drhawass.com and more interesting information on Dra’ Abu el-Naga on the project site of the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut.

Archaeology & The Crisis

They claim the crisis affects us all, but did it influence the funding of archaeological excavations, conservation and research? The BBCreports it does, stating the consequences will be felt as far as property development: “The job losses in archaeology could threaten the start of recovery for the building industry as any site with historic significance has to be excavated before development can begin.“

To get an overview of the effect ‘the credit crunch’ has on archaeology, ACE(Archaeology in Contemporary Europe) has opened a webpage dedicated to ‘Archaeology and the Crisis’: “Major changes in the global economy have affected and will continue to affect our lives. Both at face value and as a collective syndrome, the ‘crisis’ clearly impacts on the practice of archaeology, on its practitioners, and ultimately on the knowledge we produce about the past. This webpage proposes to monitor some of these effects, on a country by country basis, on four overlapping themes.“

ACE is gathering – and will supply – information on the effects of the current global crisis on archaeology.You can use an online form to submit information on the impact of the crisis in your country (if needed anonymously).The survey focusses on 4 related areas: research funding and priorities, professional employment and skills, conservation and public outreach and heritage management, policies and legislation.

An example of the questions asked: What are the impacts of the crisis on archaeological documentation and finds, as studied, curated and stored by field units or by museums? Have the budgets dedicated to research (infrastructure or project based, in universities or research bodies) been affected by the crisis, in terms of available funding, evaluation criteria, types of projects selected, eligible expenditures? What impact on the broader publics interest in the past and its values does the crisis have? Which structural, policy and legal modifications follow from or are amplified, accelerated, or on the contrary delayed by various responses to the ‘crisis’ at regional or central government levels?

Got information ‘Archaeology & the current crisis’ to share?Do fill out ACE’s survey.

Via the Flemish Archaeology website archeonet.be.

The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang – The Comic

The First Emperor lived quite a ‘full’ life: becoming King at age 13, uniting China, constructing the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors, finding a cure for Death, avoiding being assasinated, waging a few wars, executing people, …and so forth.

So congratulations to Ian D.Piirtola, who succeeded at capturing all this ANDthe discovery and excavations of the Qin Shi Huang‘s tomb in a 8 pages short – but quite hilarious – comic.

His teachers did not seem to appreciate it that much – he got a C – but we definitely enjoyed it! Thank you for sharing this on Flickr, Mr.Ian D.Piirtola!

Don’t you just love the young Emperor’s ‘Dudes!!’ and fascination with dragon candy?The best thing though, is that thanks to this comic, I actually learned something new.Idid not know the land was shaped to look like a dragon – according to Chinese geometry, nor that The Emperor’s tomb is actually ‘the eye of the dragon’.Guess Ishould have read this…. *blush*

Maybe – if the new excavations at Xi’an produce new finds – we can get a sequel to this little comic?*hopes*

Excavations on the Terracotta Army Site, Xi’an starting again

Chinese archaeologists started the third of a series of excavations at the famous terracotta army site on Saturday, hoping to find more clay figures and unravel some of the mysteries left behind by the “First Emperor“.

Archaeologists hope they might find a clay figure that appeared to be “in command” of the huge underground army, said Liu Zhancheng, head of the archeological team under the terracotta museum in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province.

Liu and his colleagues are also hoping to ascertain the success of decades of preservation efforts to keep the undiscovered terracotta figures intact and retain their original colors. Richly colored clay figures were unearthed from the mausoleum of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of a united China, in previous excavations, but once they were exposed to the air they began to lose their luster and turn an oxidized grey.

The excavation into the first and largest of the three pits at the site would last at least a year, said Wu Yongqi, curator of the museum. The 230 by 62-meter pit – part of the First Qin Emperor’s mausoleum – was believed to contain about 6,000 life-sized terracotta figures, more than 1,000 of which were found in previous excavations, said Wu.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has approved the museum’s dig of 200 square meters of the site, and the excavation is likely to continue if it proves fruitful. Most experts believe the pit houses a rectangular army of archers, infantrymen and charioteers that Emperor Qin Shi Huang hoped would help him rule in the afterlife. But Liu Jiusheng, a Chinese historian in Xi’an, claims it was an army of servants and bodyguards rather than warriors. His argument is still not widely accepted by other terracotta experts.

Personally, I believe they will find even more evidence that the Ancient Chinese invented ice hockey! 😉

via Xinhua News

Dr. Zahi meets President Obama – Video

One can’t ‘tour’ the Middle East and visit Egypt without having seen the pyramids.And if you happen to be the President of the United States of America, you get the VIPtreatement: Dr.Zahi Hawass as a guide for an exclusive guided visit in the pyramids and tombs. A comment by Kate Burgess on Dr.Zahi’s facebook profile reads: ‘President Obama was so lucky to have you as his guide.‘ Areversed world?;) Watch the video here on drhawass.com, or click play:

Mummy CSI – Egypt gets second lab for processing ‘Mummy DNA’

Pharaoh Tutankhamun's dental records Egypt’s first ever DNA lab exclusively dedicated to the study of ancient mummies which is located in the Egyptian Museum and helped with the quest of identifying Hatshepsut’s mummy will get a ‘sister’ lab at the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University. One of the main purposes of the new lab is to independently reproduce the results obtained in the first lab, as a crucial element of DNA testing is independent replication of the results.

Fetus assumed to be one of Pharaoh Tut's stillborn children. DNA of mummies is different from that of people alive: “It is very old and fragile, so we have to extract and multiply it before tests.” The DNAsamples on mummies are taken by entering the same puncture hole from a number of different angles with a bone marrow biopsy needle, a less invasive technique than ones that had been used by previous researchers.

This is not the only ‘Mummy CSI’ ongoing in Egypt. Together with the Faculty of Medicine, the Supreme Council of Antiquities also plans to scan all royal mummies for identification and the forensic section at the faculty will study the bones found inside the pyramid builders cemetery on the Giza plateau, in order to learn of the diseases that they suffered during their lifetimes and their average ages at death. The search for King Tut’s ancestery will also include X-raying and the reconstruction of possible relatives’ features.

The priority of the new lab, said Dr. Hawass, is “to study the family tree ofTutankhamun, as we do not know who his father was, and where his mother’s mummy was buried.”

The lab, which cost one million U.S dollars, is sponsored by the American Discovery Channel, said Hawas, adding that the channel “will shoot what we will be doing.” So if it was Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten) or Amenhotep III that fathered ‘King Tut’, we’ll most likely find out on TV.;)

If you’re interested in ‘Mummy CSI’, you might enjoy the report on the CT-scan done on King Tut’s mummy in 2005 on the drhawass.com website.

Digitally Unrolling Ancient Papyrus Scrolls

Papyrus number 118 discovered at Herculaneum, Villa of the Papyri When in 79 ADthe Vesuvius errupted full force, it destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, covering them with tons of ash, rock and debris.At the same time, it left scientists with an ‘instant capture of time’, capturing daily life in those Roman towns.Now professor Brent Seales and his EDUCE – ‘Enhanced Digital Unwrapping for Conservation and Exploration‘ – team will have a crack at deciphering some of the items ‘preserved’ due to being in the air-tight vault of ashes: two 2,000-year-old papyrus scrolls found in a villa that is thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar‘s father in law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus.

Most likely the scrolls will contain writings by Philodemus, one of the less famous Roman writers and philosophers.But even if they discover what was just a grocery list, this project will be most impressive due to the techniques used and the possibilities it offers in unrolling and deciphering the other – about 1,800 in total – papyrus scrolls found inside the Villa of the Papyri.

Professor Seales and his team will use a X-Ray CTscanning system to collect interior images of the scroll’s rolled-up pages.Then, he and his colleagues hope to digitally ‘unroll’ the scrolls on a computer screen so scholars can read them.Seales admits that there are possible hurdles, the biggest being the carbon-based ink thought to have been used on the scrolls. He says that since the papyrus in the scrolls was turned to carbon by the fury of Vesuvius, it might be impossible to visually separate the writing from the pages, even with powerful computer programs.

More about this deciphering project and previous ones by Professor Seales on Kentucky.com.

Image Restoration of Arbitrarily Warped Documents

Brent Seales previous project was ‘Image Restoration of Arbitrarily Warped Documents’, amongst others on the oldest known complete text of Homer’s Iliad, a copy dating back to the 10th century AD.An interesting paper appeared on the subject: ‘We present a framework for acquiring and restoring images of warped documents. The purpose of our restoration is to create a planar representation of a once planar document that has undergone an arbitrary and unknown rigid deformation. To accomplish this restoration, our framework acquires and flattens the 3D shape of a warped document to determine a nonlinear image transform that can correct for image distortion caused by the documents shape. Our framework is designed for use in library and museum digitization efforts where very old and badly damaged manuscripts are imaged.‘

How To Construct Your Very Own Pyramidiot Theory and Put it to the Test

When reading books, and especially when browsing ‘the interwebz’, one comes across the most hilarious, flabbergasting and ‘OMG, the pills you are taking, are those legal?!‘ pyramid theories. Sadly enough, the thrill is soon gone, as all those ‘pyramidiot’¹ stories fall back on the same basic protagonists aliens and the inhabitants of Atlantis and the same story lines ‘way older’, special vibrations, immortality with an occasional twist freemasonry, numerology and Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities conspiracy theories.

Composing a Pyramidiot Theory

Hence the challenge, write up your very best Pyramidiot Theory without using any of the stereotypes mentioned below. As any good scientist, you will support your theory with references and graphic materials².

Pyramidiot cliches to avoid: atlantis & atlanteans, aliens, UFO’s, mammoths, energy & energy lines, immortality, the Birth of Christ, interstellar communication, numerology. (Did Iforget any?)

Putting your Theory to the Test

Next step of course, is to put your theory to the test. My letter to the honorable Dr Hawass would read something like this:

Dear Dr Hawass,

This is an honor, your combination of stubbornness and enthusiasm is very familiar to me after years and years of seeing you on countless television programs. I visited the Pyramids in April 1997. I am a Belgian aspiring allergologist and read about the confusion that Carter did in the past, and that we, allergologists, accepted and reverberate until todays.

Recently I’ve had an intuition which may explain some mysteries such as who build the pyramids in the first place. My view is that the pyramids were indeed built by an advanced civilization: giant monkeys or Cercopithecidae – some of the many monkeys shown in Planet of the Apes. (see appendix A) We all know monkeys were important in ancient Egyptian religion, and the word ‘baboon’ is likely to be derived from old-Egyptonese. Illustration this is amongst others King Narmer’s ‘baboon’ statue, – a king descending from the previous gods, the giant monkeys and the monkeys in King Tut’s tomb paintings. Individually I believe animal intelligence & size was at a much higher level thousands of years ago although today collectively it has increased inversely (internet etc.).

Doubtless you are familiar the Bosnian Pyramid Hills. It seems to me the most ingenious and logical idea yet that those in their turn were constructed by giant moles as a reaction to the display of superiority by the cercopithecidae. (see appendix B)

My question is: what is your view? It would be fabulous to allow more research to prove or disprove (if possible).

My findings also support your theory that the pyramids were not build by slaves (although we can’t exclude the giant monkeys were keeping the early humans as slaves/cattle and maybe even as a source of protein intake).

Thank You about the attention that You can give me.
Ann

Taking your Theory into the Field

As it unlikely Dr Hawass’ office will deem your theory worthy of a reply if they do, you have just written the most superb pyramidiot theory ever we’re going to look for an easier going and less skeptic crowd totest our theory. Print out your supporting evidence or mine, images licensed CC Attribution and take it to your local pub, local spiritual gathering or to work if you’re up for a real challenge.

If your ‘insane’ rate is less then 80%, you have your self an awesome pyramidiot theory, and you may start contacting publishers or apply for a position teaching the ‘creationism’ theory.

Your Theory’s Insanity Ratio

To compute your insanity ratio, take the amount of people that ignore you, that say ‘you’re insane’, add the times you’re thrown out and detract 1 for each person that says: ‘wow! I didn’t know this’ and ‘do you have a book?’. Then divide that by the total number of people you’ve talked to or attempted to talk to and multiply by a hundred.

Best of luck, and do share your – surely – ingenious Pyramidiot Theories! 😉

¹ Pyramidiot: An idiot (hence, pyramidiot) who believes that the pyramids of Giza were built by aliens / atlanteans / mammoths / invisible pink unicorns. Usually related to those who believe that some re-carved glyphs at Abydos are in fact depictions of helicopters / UFOs / submarines / jet planes etc. (from the Urban Dictionary)
² Important in case your Pyramidiot scenario would every make it to press and the ‘sales’ racks on Amazon.com.