Photos of Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs

Click on the link to view more photos

http://www.livescience.com/44540-pterosaur-photos.html

6th century monastery with intricate mosaic floors discovered in Israel

 

A Byzantine period monastery with impressive mosaic floors was uncovered in Israel, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
The ancient structure measures at approximately 65 by 115 feet and contains a prayer hall and dining room lined with detailed mosaic carpets.

 

 

"It seems that this monastery, located near the Byzantine settlement of Horbat Hur, is one monastery in a series of monasteries situated alongside a road that linked Transjordan with the Be’er Sheva‘ Valley," excavation director Daniel Varga said in a press release.
The mosaic floors include four Greek dedicatory inscriptions signifying the names of the monastery's abbots: Eliyahu, Nonus, Solomon and Ilrion.
The inscriptions also contain the dates of the pavements in the various halls which helped the archaeologists in dating the monastery to the second half of the sixth century.
In addition to the inscriptions, various pottery assemblages including jars, cooking pots, kraters and bowls were discovered in the monastery. Glass vessels and coins were also uncovered which indicate a rich material culture in the monastery.
The discovery was made during a routine salvage excavation conducted by the IAA prior to the construction of an interchange on Israel's Highway 31 in the Negev desert.
The IAA along with the Netivei Israel Company, Hura municipality and Wadi ‘Attir Association have plans to relocate the monastery and its mosaics to the Wadi ‘Attir agricultural/tourism project adjacent to Hura.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/01/6-century-monastery-with-intricate-mosaic-floor-discovered-in-israel/

History Trivia - University of Basle in Switzerland founded

April 4,

86 Caracalla, Emperor of Rome, was born.

527 Justinian I was created co-emperor.

1081 Alexius Comnenus crowned emperor. Alexius seized the throne from Nicephorus III. During his reign, he would succeed in reviving the Eastern Roman Empire after half a century of ineffective rule.

1460 University of Basle in Switzerland founded.

1541 Ignatius of Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuit Order.

1581 Francis Drake was knighted for completing a circumnavigation of the world.

1588 Christian IV succeeded Frederik II as king of Denmark.

History Trivia - Edward the Confessor crowned King of England

April 3

1043 Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England. Elected by popular acclamation, Edward (known as "the Confessor" for his piety) had Norman sympathies and had supposedly named William the Conqueror his successor, before choosing Harold Godwinson on his death-bed.

1367 John of Gaunt and Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Najara, in Spain.

1559 Philip II of Spain and Henry II of France signed the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, ending a long series of wars between the Hapsburg and Valois dynasties.

Mr. Chuckles checks out Tara Ford while stirring The Wizard's Cauldron

 

The Wizard says:

 

This week, we have UK romcomerati Tara Ford with us around the Cauldron. One of the new wave of women's fiction scribblers, and very funny with it, Tara turned to writing after a period of severe illness and much of what she experienced formed the (comedic) core of her first novel. Her Calling all series is attracting rave reviews from the cognoscenti and it is hard to escape the perception that writing, for Tara, after her illness nearly took the option away, is a second chance, one that she's taking with both hands.

Click on the link to read more:

http://greenwizard62.blogspot.com/2014/04/calling-all-romcomedians-tara.html

Travel in groups. Save Fuel. Take a BUS!!! Funny!!!

The basic idea of this animated video is to travelling in group and save fuel. Take a bus, train. Reduce pollution, fuel emission and get a better environment for the days to come.

History Trivia - Charlemagne, King of the Franks and first Holy Roman Emperor was born.

April 2

 68 the Emperor Galba was declared Imperator by his legion.

506  The Brevairum, a code of laws for the subjects of Alaric II, King of the Goths, was drafted at Toulouse.

742 Charlemagne, King of the Franks from 768-814, first Holy Roman Emperor, from 800-814, was born.

999 Sylvester II was elected pope. He was the first French pope, and was said to have played a major role in popularizing Arabic numerals in the West.

1234 Edmund Rich became Archbishop of Canterbury. Raised to the Archbishopric by Pope Gregory IX, Edmund was an outspoken figure who clashed with King Henry III of England and preached for the Sixth Crusade.

 1285 Honorius IV elected pope. Honorius was old and crippled when elected but in his brief two years as pope he worked toward reuniting the Western and Eastern churches and supported the mendicant orders.

1502- Arthur, English crown prince/husband of Catherine of Aragon, died.

Ngaire Elder featured in the Indie Scribe Magazine

Ngaire Elder featured in the  Indie Scribe Magazine

http://www.joomag.com/magazine/indie-scribe-magazine-april-2014/0559323001395247249

Indie Scribe Magazine April 2014 www.joomag.com Featured Author this month is the delightful Ngaire Elder and in the Poet Zone - the wonderful Kusht

11 ancient burial boxes recovered in Israel

 

A 2,000 year-old Jewish burial box is on display in Jerusalem Monday, March 31, 2014. The Israeli Antiquities Authority said the boxes were recovered last Friday in Jerusalem when police observed a suspicious nighttime transaction involving two cars, four individuals and the 11 boxes.AP


11 ancient burial boxes were recovered by Israeli Police on Friday, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.
The authority says the boxes were recovered last Friday in Jerusalem when police observed a suspicious nighttime transaction involving two cars, four individuals and the 11 boxes near a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

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'We can learn from each ossuary about a different aspect of language, art and burial practice.'- IAA's Dr. Eitan Katz

Once police realized the boxes were of archaeological significance, they alerted the Antiquities Authority. It is not yet clear how the suspects got hold of the boxes.
Two of the suspects are still being held and the others are under house arrest, according to the authority.
These boxes, or ossuaries, are believed to originate from the Second Temple Period. Experts say they are from within a 1.3 mile radius of Jerusalem.
Constructed by the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem King Herod, the Second Temple was a holy place of worship for the Jewish people, where the Dome of the Rock stands today.
Some of the 2,000-year-old boxes are engraved with designs and even names, giving clues to their origin and contents. The boxes contain bone fragments and remnants of what experts say is pottery buried with the deceased.
The Antiquities Authority's deputy director, Eitan Klein, said he believes the boxes originated near Jerusalem's Mount Scopus. Thieves may have looted them from a cave where they were deposited, or the cave may have been uncovered inadvertently during a construction project or excavation, he said.
The Antiquities Authority already has in its possession over 1,000 of these ancient boxes, but each one is significant, said Klein.
"We can learn from each ossuary about a different aspect of language, art and burial practice," he said. "And we can learn about the soul of the person."
Some of the 11 boxes feature elaborate engravings, which Klein says indicate the wealth and high social status of the deceased. Two were inscribed with names — Yoezer and Ralphine.
According to common Jewish practice of the time, the dead were not buried but laid out in a cave for a year. The bones were then gathered and stored in the special boxes.
According to Israeli antiquities law, all antiquities discovered or found within Israel are considered property of the state.
In the past, allegations of forgery have been made over certain ossuaries and their inscriptions.
But Klein said the engravings on the recovered boxes indicate the 11 boxes are authentic. "Everything here smells authentic," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/03/31/11-ancient-burial-boxes-recovered-in-israel/

3,300-year-old tomb with pyramid entrance discovered in Egypt

Dating back around 3,300 years this tomb was discovered recently at an ancient cemetery at Abydos in Egypt. At left the rectangular entrance shaft with massive walls served as a base for a small pyramid that was an estimated 23 feet.Photo courtesy Kevin Cahail


By Owen Jarus

A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 23 feet high at its entrance, archaeologists say.
The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.

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There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb. [Gallery: See Images of the Newly Found Tomb]
Newly discovered pyramidThe chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.
"Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything," said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.
The pyramid itself "probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath," Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven't survived or have not yet been found. [Image Gallery: Amazing Egyptian Discoveries]
Military tiesIt was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.
Cahail believes that Horemheb's family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Writing on the figurines say that they are for the "Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses)." This appears to be a military title and its possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.
He noted it's interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.
"They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time," Cahail said.
Multiple wives?The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it's uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.
Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.
Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.
"You're left with the question, who are all these people?" Cahail said.
A Jasper treasureOne of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.
"It's a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets," Cahail said. "It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that."
The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma'at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.
"Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you've done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth," Cahail said.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/03/31/3300-year-old-tomb-with-pyramid-entrance-discovered-in-egypt/

Are they Richard III's remains? To ask the question is to miss the point

'The story of Richard III evidently has powerful appeal – the bitter underdog, scheming and ruthless, finally undone by the forces of good.' Photograph: Culture Club/Getty Images


The battle to prove whether these bones actually are Richard's is a bit like quibbling about the authenticity of Wolf Hall

David Shariatmadari
The Guardian

There's been a twist in the strangest cold case of our times: Richard III's bones, thought to have been discovered in 2012, may yet prove as elusive of those of the princes in the tower who he is alleged to have murdered. Two senior academics have cast doubt on claims by Leicester University that his skeleton has been found, its spine bent out of shape by scoliosis, using DNA and carbon dating. There are other noblemen of the time who would have shared the crucial genetic material, they argue, meaning that the match with a swab taken from Richard's distant relative, Michael Ibsen, is inconclusive.
The university has hit back. There's other evidence, it says, that supports a positive identification. But the point is that it doesn't really matter. A couple of dissenting voices may be just what this story needs.
Many found the excitement generated by the original discovery baffling. A bizarre row arose, for example, over whether the remains should be buried in York, the home of Richard's dynasty, or Leicester, where they were found. Something called the Plantagenet Alliance was formed and a case was lodged with the high court. Hadn't these people got better things to do with their time?
The story of Richard III, fixed in our national consciousness by Shakespeare, evidently has powerful appeal – the bitter underdog, scheming and ruthless, finally undone by the forces of good. So powerful that it has given rise to a reaction: for years people have become obsessed about proving that he wasn't such a bad person after all. Members of the Richard III Society, formed in 1924, get to experience the thrill of redemption every time they explain that he was pious, a patron of the arts and learning, a "talented administrator".
The apparently eccentric response makes more sense when you realise that what is at stake is not historical truth. Richard, about whom relatively little is known, but much has been imagined, is a mythological figure. As a character he generates either morbid fascination, or sympathy as a good man wronged, depending on which version you buy.
And myth captures the imagination far more effectively than the reality of most archaeological work. If the bones were somehow proved not to be the real thing, they would still be interesting from a scientific point of view, as an example of a medieval warrior killed in battle. But outside academia, hearts would sink.
This is an unlikely scenario, however. Seeds of doubt may have been sown, but the case on the other side is still strong. And when it comes to myth, doubt is fine: it is probably an essential ingredient. Once entirely pinned down by forensic science, the fun evaporates. The gaps in our knowledge through which the light of imagination plays are filled. In 1991, for example, DNA evidence proved beyond all doubt that Anna Anderson could not have been Anastasia, the last tsar of Russia's daughter. Her story was incredibly unlikely – the real Anastasia was executed in a cellar in 1918. But it was a myth of escape and continuity. Squashing it once and for all seemed gratuitous.
Data from the case will contribute to various specialised fields of research. But beyond university departments, the battle to prove whether these bones actually are Richard's is a bit like quibbling about the authenticity of Wolf Hall – sort of beside the point. It might be better to think of the skeleton from Leicester as the modern equivalent of a medieval saint's relic. The church never worried much about the fact that there were 40 or so shrouds of Jesus knocking around, or enough pieces of the true cross to build a barn. To stand in for faith, we have nostalgia for a simple story of good or evil. Tourism, for whichever lucky city eventually gets to host the tomb, will supply the modern equivalent of pilgrims

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/30/richard-iii-remains-question-bones

Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers

 

Black death researchers extracted plague DNA from 14th century skulls found in east London. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

 

Evidence from skulls in east London shows plague had to have been airborne to spread so quickly

Vanessa Thorpe
The Observer

Archaeologists and forensic scientists who have examined 25 skeletons unearthed in the Clerkenwell area of London a year ago believe they have uncovered the truth about the nature of the Black Death that ravaged Britain and Europe in the mid-14th century.
Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast doubt on "facts" that every schoolchild has learned for decades: that the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats.
Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London, during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line, have suggested a different cause: only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.
The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late spring the following year it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill five million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than today's disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.
According to scientists working at Public Health England in Porton Down, for any plague to spread at such a pace it must have got into the lungs of victims who were malnourished and then been spread by coughs and sneezes. It was therefore a pneumonic plague rather than a bubonic plague. Infection was spread human to human, rather than by rat fleas that bit a sick person and then bit another victim. "As an explanation [rat fleas] for the Black Death in its own right, it simply isn't good enough. It cannot spread fast enough from one household to the next to cause the huge number of cases that we saw during the Black Death epidemics," said Dr Tim Brooks from Porton Down, who will put his theory in a Channel 4 documentary, Secret History: The Return of the Black Death, next Sunday.
To support his argument, Brooks has looked at what happened in Suffolk in 1906 when plague killed a family and then spread to a neighbour who had come to help. The culprit was pneumonic plague, which had settled in the lungs of the victims and was spread through infected breath.
The skeletons at Charterhouse Square reveal that the population of London was also in generally poor health when the disease struck. Crossrail's archaeology contractor, Don Walker, and Jelena Bekvalacs of the Museum of London found evidence of rickets, anaemia, bad teeth and childhood malnutrition.
In support of the case that this was a fast-acting, direct contagion, archaeologist Dr Barney Sloane found that in the medieval City of London all wills had to be registered at the Court of Hustings. These led him to believe that 60% of Londoners were wiped out.
Antibiotics can today prevent the disease from becoming pneumonic. In the spring of 1349, the death rate did not ease until Pentecost on 31 May

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/29/black-death-not-spread-rat-fleas-london-plague

Augustus rules again as Rome acts to restore lost mausoleum

Augustus’s mausoleum was used as a bull-fighting ring and a concert hall before being abandoned and falling into disrepair.

On the 2,000th anniversary of the emperor's death work will finally start to reopen historic site to visitors

Tom Kington in Rome
The Observer,

He was Rome's first emperor, the founder of a world-dominating imperial dynasty, and a builder of roads and stunning temples who brought peace to a far-flung empire; a man so powerful the Roman senate named a month after him. Now, on the 2,000th anniversary of the death of the emperor Augustus, the city of Rome is getting ready to honour its favourite son by saving his mausoleum from shocking neglect.
Built in 28BC and as broad as a city block, the cylindrical mausoleum has seen better days after being sacked, bombed and built upon down the centuries. It was used as a bullfighting ring and a concert hall before it was finally abandoned, recently becoming a hangout for prostitutes and a handy toilet for tramps.
That was a sad fate for one of Rome's most significant and sacred monuments, which once stood 120ft high – topped by a 15ft bronze statue of Augustus – and housed the emperor's ashes as well as those of his successors Tiberius and Claudius. Today, as tourists flock to the Forum and the Colosseum, diners at the pizzeria across the street from Augustus's mausoleum – which lurks behind a fence in a piazza yards from Via del Corso – barely notice it.
But with €2m (£1.6m) in fresh funding, archaeologists now plan to clean up, restore and reopen the site, while the city is to spend €12m on creating a pedestrianised piazza to handle visitors.
"Augustus made Rome the world's biggest and most beautiful city, the capital for business, culture and entertainment," said Rome's culture assessor, Flavia Barca. "Not every city can celebrate a 2,000-year anniversary."
Considered to be Rome's finest emperor, Augustus defeated his rivals Antony and Cleopatra before establishing Pax Romana throughout the empire, while rebuilding Rome and setting up the city's first police and fire fighting services, claiming on his death bed: "I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble".
The marble has long been stripped from his mausoleum, but three concentric outer walls, the widest 15ft thick and the highest 50ft tall, have stood the test of time, while an upper floor is now missing, leaving a surprisingly large open-air circular space inside where the horns and screeches of Rome's thundering traffic fade to an eerie silence.
"It's incredible the mausoleum is still standing despite what it has been through," said Elisabetta Carnabuci, one of the archaeologists charged with restoring the site.
Pillaged in 410 by Visigoths who scattered the emperors' ashes, the mausoleum was converted by the Colonna family in the 12th century into a castle, which was demolished by cannon fire during a clash with a rival family, the Orsinis. By the 16th century the site had been turned into a formal garden with a well-to-do palazzo built into the walls, before it was used for bullfights in the 18th century and then firework displays.
Large holes punched through the Roman masonry indicate the exits added when the mausoleum was converted into an elegant concert hall in 1908, becoming home to the city's main orchestra, with a domed roof added and space for 3,500 spectators drawn by conductors such as Arturo Toscanini.
But in 1936 Benito Mussolini ordered the musicians out and stripped the site down to its original Roman masonry in a bid to honour the emperor he emulated, in time for the 2,000th anniversary of Augustus's birth in 1937. Cypress trees were planted on top of the mausoleum's walls in the belief Augustus originally planted trees there, and a squat two-storey tower was erected in the open space at the heart of the mausoleum to mark the spot where the ashes were once kept.
"It was a real hack job by Mussolini's archaeologists," said Carnabuci, wrinkling her nose during a visit to the site last week. "When we get the money, that tower is going."
But Mussolini's tampering with history was nothing compared to the mausoleum's postwar fate. As stonework crumbled, the inner chamber was gated off in the 1960s before tramps congregating at a nearby soup kitchen discovered they could bed down undisturbed outside the walls.
In an attempt to restore the site in time for the 2,000th anniversary of Augustus's death in 2014, the cash-strapped city of Rome looked for a private sponsor, noting how shoemaker Tod's had stepped forward to pay for vital restoration at the Colosseum. "No one wanted to sponsor the mausoleum, and so we missed the anniversary," said Claudio Parisi Presicce, Rome's archaeology superintendent. "But with the €2m in public money now available, we can get started."
That has put off the reopening until 2016, but the city did arrange a sneak preview last weekend, and Carnabuci said the response showed Romans have not forgotten their first emperor. "There were 5,000 queuing round the block, under the rain," she said. "I was shocked, it was like a rock concert, and when the people got inside there was an awed silence."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/29/augustus-rome-lost-mausoleum

History Trivia - William Harvey of England discovers blood circulation.

April 1

374 Comet 1P/374 E1 (Halley) approached within 0.0884 AUs of Earth. 

527 Byzantine Emperor Justin I named his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne.

 705 Greek pope John VII was chosen to succeed John VI.

1204 Eleanor of Aquitaine died.

1293 Robert Winchelsey left England for Rome, to be consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury..

1340 Niels Ebbesen killed Gerhard III of Holstein in his bedroom, ending the 1332-1340 interregnum (period of discontinuity) in Denmark. 

 1578 William Harvey of England discovered blood circulation.

Pre-order information on Kerry Donovan's new book The Transition of Johnny Swift

To pre-order Kerry Donovan's new book, The Transition of Johnny Swift, click on the links:

US
http://www.britainsnextbestseller.com/

UK
http://www.britainsnextbestseller.co.uk/


The Transition of Johnny Swift is a psychological thriller set in present-day England. Racing driver, “Fiery” Frank Brazier has a problem. He sees a Shadow-man—ominous, overwhelming. It happens in times of stress, but things are worsening. He would seek medical help, but racing drivers aren’t supposed to feel fear, and how would the team’s sponsors react? At the start of the final race of the season, Frank is only one win away from sealing the F2500 Championship and earning a place on a Formula 1 team for next season. With blood pumping, and adrenaline heightening his senses, his nemesis, the Shadow-man returns. He sits on the nosecone of Frank’s car, brooding, still, and silent. Frank survives a front tyre blowout, wins the race and a new contract. The next day, he accompanies his sister, Paula, to London by train, but a senseless act of vandalism causes an horrific rail crash… Waking in hospital, eyes bandaged, bones broken, head aching, Frank hears two words that throw him into a world of terror and confusion. “Save her!” When the doctors remove the eye bandages, Frank sees the owner of the voice —Shadow-man. He repeats the words. “Save her.” “Save who?” “Paula...”