Michelle Moran's Blog, page 58
April 26, 2011
Enormous statue of powerful pharaoh unearthed
AP: CAIRO – Archaeologists unearthed one of the largest statues found to date of a powerful ancient Egyptian pharaoh at his mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor, the country's antiquities authority announced Tuesday.
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April 25, 2011
Four Individuals Caught in 'Death Trap' May Shed Light on Human Ancestors
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA—Finding one partial skeleton of an ancient member of the human family is the rarest of rare discoveries in human evolution. So, paleoanthropologists murmured in surprise at a meeting here Saturday when South African researchers announced that they had found at least four individuals of a new species of early human, Australopithecus sediba.
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April 18, 2011
Dundee academics reconstruct Viking woman's face
Academics at Dundee University have helped recreate the face of a Viking woman whose skeleton was unearthed in York more than 30 years ago.
Did Lucy's species butcher animals?
MINNEAPOLIS—In August 2010 archaeologists announced that they had discovered evidence that pushed back the origin of butchery nearly 800,000 years.
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April 6, 2011
Prehistoric Fossil May Have Inspired Greek Myths
by Rossella Lorenzi
The bone of a large extinct creature, once treasured by the ancient Greeks, has finally found a permanent home in England.
Greek Tablet May Shed Light on Early Bureaucratic Practices
An archaeologist digging in the rubble of a distant past counts on the conqueror's havoc, nature's upheavals and plain human negligence to have left legacies of unintended value — like a fragment of a clay tablet bearing archaic writing from an early period of state formation in Greece, more than 3,400 years ago.
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April 4, 2011
How a 'Jester god' revealed oldest Mayan royal tomb
by Dan Vergano
SACRAMENTO — The image of a "Jester god," a symbol of royalty among the ancient Maya, may have done just the trick. Discovered on a buried incense burner, the Jester god identifies what archaeologists report is the oldest tomb of an ancient Maya ruler.
Ancient Greek Computer Had Surprising Sun Tracker
Lisa Grossman
The world's oldest astronomical calculator is famous for having intricate gear systems centuries ahead of their time. But new work shows the Antikythera mechanism used pure geometry, as well as flashy gears to track celestial bodies' motion through the heavens.
The Curse of the Mummies' Arteries
In the ancient tomb paintings of the Nile Valley, Egypt's nobility often appears lithe, beautiful, and, above all, healthy. But researchers have long doubted that life at the top of the social pyramid in ancient Egypt was quite so rosy.
April 3, 2011
Is this the first ever portrait of Jesus? The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years
The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine. But in a certain light it is not difficult to interpret the marks around the figure's brow as a crown of thorns.
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