ARCHAEOLOGY
The Fed’s Real-Life Indiana Jones – “Easter and his team are locked in a constant game of cat and mouse with criminals who are trying to smuggle artifacts into the U.S. His goal is to return looted artifacts to their home countries and disrupt the networks smuggling them. Whether it’s the return of dinosaur skeletons to Mongolia or the repatriation of stolen Holocaust art, “pretty much anything that can pop into your mind as belonging to one particular culture, that’s what we would investigate,” Easter said.”
Saudi Armco Worldwide – Early Man in Arabia
ANCIENT ROME
Roman Subway Construction Uncovers Possible Mass Grave Of Elite Soldiers
“The discovery of a mass burial of 13 skeletons in the Metro C construction, then, holds potential to tell us more about these prominent and powerful soldiers. As reported by the AP, spokesperson for the Culture Ministry, Rossella Rea, said that the barracks, which date back roughly to the time of Hadrian in the 1st century AD, cover nearly 10,000 square feet with three dozen rooms decorated with mosaics and frescoes. There is unfortunately no additional information on the burial, other than that a bronze coin and a bronze bracelet were found.”
Archeologists Discover Ancient Skeleton Mosaic That Says “Be Cheerful and Live Your Life”
Roman Vindolanda Fort ~ A wonderful site for an online exploration of an intensive excavation.
More on Vindolanda: The wooden wonders of Vindolanda Roman fort to be revealed – and they’re not to be missed.
Vindabona – in Austria (Gaul). You’ll recognize the place name from “Gladiator.”
Herculaneum: The Other Pompeii – A wonderful video focused on the lives and last moments of a lesser known victim of the 79 AD explosion of Vesuvius, the seaside resort of Herculaneum, a Roman town that was completely covered and astonishingly well preserved, much more so than Pompeii. Herculaneum was a “treasure trove” of skeletal remains as well as furniture and wood giving more insight to life in Roman times, including a wooden lares shrine (you will have seen a good example of this in “Gladiator”)
EGYPT
KMT – A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt – KMT or “kemet” is the ancient Egyptian’s word for their home, “black” land, referring to the black silt left behind in the Nile’s flood.
Imhotep – Vizier, architect, physician, god. Inspiration of two Mummy movies.
Ancient History Encyclopedia: Imhotep – more about the polymath of ancient Egypt.
The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani – by E. A. Wallis Budge – what every student of Egyptology invariably begins with when tackling the ancient heiroglyphs of the Egyptians. The study of that long-dead language has seen much advancement since Budge first published this seminal work, but it remains a highly collectible introduction to the linguistic study of ancient Egypt.
FORENSICS
The Vivid Blue Mineral That Grows on Buried Bodies and Confuses Archeologists – Firstly, vivianite can tell us about what happened to a person’s body after their death. In 1963, an American B-26B aircraft went down over a mountainous part of South Vietnam. Its crew was subsequently listed as missing in action.
Forensic Anthropology – University of Tennessee : original academic center of what later became known as “The Body Farm” – developed by Dr. William Bass. Many a forensic anthropologist traces their “lineage” back to this man, as do quite a few police forensic experts.
WA researchers’ Ancient Egyptian mummies breakthrough could help catch criminals – “Egyptian blue, also known as cuprorivaite, is the earliest known synthetic pigment. It was first prepared in ancient Egypt before 3200BC and was used extensively until the 4th century AD, when its synthesis was apparently forgotten.”
Texas State Body Farm – San Marcos, Texas
LONE STAR NOTES
March 2, 1836 – Signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence
March 6, 1836 – Fall of the Alamo
The Runaway Scrape
True Women – Film – based on the book by Janice Woods Windle – chronicles the history of her ancestors who were part of the colonies that were invited to settle in the Mexican state of Tejas y Coahuila and their involvement in the events that forged the state of Texas. Starring: Dana Delaney, Elizabeth Gish, Angelina Jolie.
The “Twin Sisters” Arrive
April 21, 1836 – Battle of San Jacinto
The battle lasted 18 minutes.
Handbook of Texas : Battle of San Jacinto – “Measured by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world. The freedom of Texas from Mexico won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War, resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Almost one-third of the present area of the American nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed sovereignty.”
Essay on the lead-up and occurrence of the Battle that Santa Anna himself noted as having “conquered the Napoleon of the West” (yes, he called himself that.) With Map.
“A Sea of Mud” – aftermath in the days and weeks following the Battle of San Jacinto. Why didn’t Santa Ana attempt to continue warfare against the Texas rebels? From the description of the book by Gregg Dimmick, Amazon.com:
“One of those consulted in the course of this work was noted historian Professor James E. Crisp of North Carolina State University, who calls the author a “natural historian” and describes Dimmick’s findings as “a story which rivals the miracle of San Jacinto in importance . . . a remarkably complete account of what happened to the main force of the Mexican army between April 21 and the second week of May, 1836 . . . a few days [within which] an orderly Mexican withdrawal to a defensive position within Texas turned into an unmitigated disaster which sealed the fate of the Mexican campaign.”
Sea of Mud : Artifacts Found at Site – A nice little page with pictures of the site where Dimmick and other archaeologists performed their work, as well as the variety of items recovered.
