Michelle Moran's Blog, page 70

Royal Blood May Be Hidden Inside Decorated Gourd

by Jennifer Viegas, Discovery Channel

Carved pumpkins abound this Halloween season, but a decorated gourd dated to 1793 may be the spookiest of them all. New research determines it may contain the blood of Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine that same year.

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Where Pocahontas Said, 'I Do'

Her life has been celebrated in song, story and a Disney cartoon, but no one knew where Pocahontas tied the knot with a tobacco farmer—until now. Archaeologist Bill Kelso and his team were digging this summer in a previously unexplored section of the fort at Jamestown, Va., the country's oldest permanent English colony, when they uncovered a series of deep holes.

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Divers discover 1500 live ammunition shells under NY bridge

by Rich Calder

COMMERCIAL divers were confident Sunday that they uncovered what the Navy missed more than 50 years ago during a frantic search that made national headlines in the US: roughly 1500 live shells that went overboard into New York's Verrazano Narrows and Gravesend Bay.

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York's 'Headless Romans' (gladiators, according to some) had exotic origins and diet

They are unusual because they are all believed to be male, most are adults – and more than half had been decapitated. When these 30 bodies were buried some got their heads in the right place – on their shoulders. Others saw their heads placed between their knees, on their chests or down by their feet. In one double burial the two bodies even had had their heads swapped over.

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Restoring 'lost city' of medieval Spain

Archaeologist Ramon Fernandez explains the significance of the finds

It has been 100 years since excavations started on the Madinat Al Zahra, the magnificent 10th century palace city near Cordoba in southern Spain. Although only 11% of the city - built by the powerful caliph Abd Al Rahman III - has been uncovered, it is unlikely that it will take another century to unearth the remainder of the site given the rapid advances in excavation technology.

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Neanderthal Children Were Large, Sturdy

Jennifer Viegas

Neanderthal youngsters that made it to the "terrible two's" were large, sturdy and toothy, suggests a newly discovered Neanderthal infant. The child almost survived to such an age, but instead died when it was just one and a half years old.

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Swiss Archaeologists Find Door Into History

ZURICH – Archaeologists in the Swiss city of Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe.

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Tomb of ancient Egyptian priest Rudj-Ka discovered at Giza

Egyptian archaeologists discovered a 4400-year-old tomb, south of the cemetery of the pyramid builders at Giza, Egypt. In a statement, Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny, said the ancient Egyptian tomb was unearthed during routine excavations supervised by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) near the pyramid builder's necropolis.

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2012 Mayan Calendar 'Doomsday' Date Might Be Wrong

By Ian O'Neill

According to all the ridiculous hype surrounding Dec. 21, 2012, the Mayans "predicted" the end of the world with one of their calendars. On this date, doomsayers assert that Earth will be ravaged by a smorgasbord of cataclysmic astronomical events -- everything from a Planet X flyby to a "killer" solar flare to a geomagnetic reversal, ensuring we have a very, very bad day. As we all know by now, these theories of doom are bunkum.

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Tyrannosaurus rex munched on his own kind for lunch

by Phil Gast

(CNN) -- Add cannibalism to the fearsome attributes of Tyrannosaurus rex, the big-headed dinosaur that roamed North America 66 million years ago and took no prisoners.

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