Thursday, October 27, 2005

More pyramids! Archaeologists find European pyramid

A team of American and Bosnian archaeologists claim to have found two new pyramids buried under hills in Central Europe.

The scientists say they found ancient labyrinths and other sand stone buildings under two unusually shaped hills in central Bosnia.

They believe the ruins indicate the hills were once human settlements, probably built by a stone age "super" civilisation tens of thousands of years ago.

They are now trying to locate ancient stairs that would lead them to the entry of the pyramids.


Either there is some odd translating going on, or Erich Von Daniken is doing their copy editing. At any rate, the real story ought to eventually come out. That's the whole thing, too.

Burial site discovered in Riverhead

Last week's stormy weather uncovered what experts said may be an important early American Indian burial site at Indian Island County Park in Riverhead.

The site was spotted by a park supervisor after the Peconic River bank was eroded early last week by heavy rains and high wave action, said Suffolk County Parks Commissioner Ronald Foley.

Archaelogists said yesterday that the site contained bones from at least two people believed to be Indians buried during the Early Woodland period, from 800 BC to AD 800. It also contained artifacts including a pipe and fragments of a bowl.



News from the EEF (Note the new web address, by the way)

"Tebtunis papyri returned to UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library decades after their discovery"
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/10/18_tebtunis.shtml
"Just a few weeks ago, three tins of ancient papyri belonging to
the University of California, Berkeley, finally arrived home, shipped
across the Atlantic [from Oxford] more than a century after they
were collected in Egypt. (...) Among the new materials are fragments
of (...) an ancient medical handbook, and papers from an influential
prophetess of the local crocodile god, as well as a family priest's
writings that trace that a family's history over eight generations."
Comments by the staff of the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri:
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~tebtunis/Oct18_05remarks.html

“Aqueducts, Darius’ Gift to Egyptians”
http://www.chn.ir/en/news/?id=5884§ion=2
“Following the arrival of Darius the Great the Achaemenid king, in Egypt,
Egyptians who were proud of the water of the Nile River and their country
springs, imitated the technique used by Iranian aqueduct diggers to provide
water for their dry lands. Historian Parviz Shahryari believes that aqueduct
diggers went to Egypt with Darius to teach the Egyptians the method of
digging aqueducts. According to Shahryari, it was Walter Hinz, the German
archeologist and Iranologist, who found out this issue for the first time.”
[Is this idea correct? Darius is of course known for his involvement in the
Nile-Red Sea canal, but..? ]

“The basement of the Egyptian Museum will be opened to visitors”
http://www.cairomagazine.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=1514&format=html
“Zahi Hawass (..) declared that a contract has been signed with a
state-owned company to insure and reorganize the Egyptian Museum’s
basement before making it accessible to visitors. The decision comes
after several items from the basement storage area have been “lost”
or stolen in the past year, to the embarrassment of those responsible.”

Dr Zahi Hawass's "Dig days" column:
"Adventures in the Step Pyramid"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/he2.htm
About a year ago I had another great adventure inside the Step Pyramid.
(..) With difficulty I was able to see two beautiful alabaster sarcophagi
made for the burial of Djoser's daughters. The two sarcophagi were
masterpieces, and it is hard to explain their incredible beauty. We
know that the Step Pyramid is the only Old Kingdom Pyramid where
the queens were buried within the king's pyramid. "

Press report: "New law on the way. Can the new antiquities
law [in Egypt] put an end to the antiquities trafficking business?"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/he1.htm [Eds. We doubt it.]

Online article: "Cardiology in Ancient Egypt" by Eugene V. Boisaubin,
MD, in: Texas Heart Institute Journal 1988, 15(2): 80-85. In PDF
(1,7 MB) or as seperately scanned pages.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=324796

Online article: "Egyptian contributions to cardiovascular medicine"
by J. T. Willerson and R. Teaff, in: Texas Heart Institute Journal 1996,
23(3): 191-200. In PDF (1,9 MB) or as seperately scanned pages.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=325346

Online article: A. T. Sandison, "Degenerative Vascular Disease in
the Egyptian Mummy", in: Medical History 1962 January, 6(1): 77-81.
In PDF (1,7 MB) or as seperately scanned pages.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1034676

The New York Public Library's Digital Gallery:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm
Pick "History&Geography", and then search for, e.g.,
"Ancient Egypt", and you will get many lithographs
and old photographs of temples etc.

End of EEF news