The Roman sources are quite insistent on the point that Rome was founded in the middle of the eighth century BC. Most of them settling on the specific date of the 23rd of April, 753 BC when the first settlement was built on the Palatine Hill. According to the myth Romulus chose the Palatine while his twin brother Remus preferred the Aventine.

Things had gotten a bit testy between the brothers after they both decided to found a city on the same spot and couldn't agree on who should be its king. When Romulus built a simple earthen wall around his settlement, Remus contemptuously jumped over it jeering:

"See? That was a piece of cake, Dork Face."

Infuriated, Romulus took out his sword and killed him on the spot.

"See? Yes I see! And that goes for anyone else hanging shit on my walls - or calling me Dork Face!"

What can you say? Brothers. Those are direct quotes btw.

Despite this adamence from traditional sources, archaeology hasn't been too forthcoming on this early age of Rome, only occasionally turning up the odd rustic village or burial ground and finding very little in the way of stone dwellings or city streets.

It has been long assumed that Rome's origins had been very humble indeed and the greatness attributed to its heroic age was mostly a fabrication of later times when people were seeking to find a fitting foundation myth for a city that later became the inheritor of the known world.

The first kings must have lived in huts rather than palaces goes this notion and, by way of example, one only has to look at the humble little dwelling on the Forum which was known as the Regia that was located opposite the great convent of the Vestal Virgins and was dwarfed by the much later Temple of the Divine Julius. The Regia has often been associated with the original residence of the first Roman kings and in Republican times it served as the official residence of the pontifex maximus, the high priest of the Roman state religion. The divine Julius Caesar himself had once lived there because, apart from being one of the most ambitious and talented generals that Rome had ever seen, he was also, at the same time, serving as their pope.

Anyway, it's the simplicity of this ancient regal dwelling which is my point but recently a structure of palatial proportions and dating from the eighth century BC, in other words at the time of Rome's traditional founding date, has come to light only tens of meters away from the Regia. The building, which had been buried under seven metres of soil, had an imposing entrance which opened up into a 240 square metre courtyard and a further 100 square metres under tiled roof. It was about ten times larger than the average dwelling of the time and was decorated with elaborate furnishings and ceramics.

Surprisingly, this palace may have actually stood in the Forum up until as late as 64 AD (that is, for eight hundred years) before being finally consumed by the famous Great Fire during the reign of the emperor Nero. Until that time it served as the official residence of the rex sacrorum (sacred king), another priestly office which was appointed for life by the Pontifex Maximus to perform the sacred ceremonial duties that before Republican times could have only been performed by the king.

Today the remains of the palace actually lie below the evocatively named Temple of the Divine Romulus. Actually, this was dedicated to a completely different and much later Romulus but, still, one can't help wondering whether the memory of this site's association with Rome's first king had completely perished by this time.

Furthernore, this temple now serves as the vestibule of that extraordinarily versatile chapel of Santi Cosma e Damiano.

The picture comes from an old text book (The Miracle of Life edited by Harold Wheeler, Odhams Press London, 1941). I remember spending hours gawking at this picture as a child, tracing the pipes round and round, marvelling at the miniature men and tiny machines.

Bernardus sent me through this rather neat image of the recent total eclipse as viewed from the International Space Station. It shows the moon's shadow completely blotting out light over most of eastern Turkey. More information about this image can be got here.

In 1799, the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne received an unusual package from Australia

"The cask containing the two specimens ? reached Newcastle late in 1799, transported from quayside to the Society's rooms by a woman servant. She carried it on her head and, by mischance, the bottom of the cask gave way, dousing her with pungent spirits. But her dismay was reportedly the greater when, looking down, she saw not only the small chunky wombat, but the remains of 'a strange creature, half bird, half beast, lying at her feet'."

? Thomas Bewick

The specimens had been sent to England by John Hunter the Governor of the colony of New South Wales. His accompanying letter described his first sighting of the mysterious "half-bird half-beast".

The river was very still on the curve where the eucalyptus dips towards the water. The light shaded near late afternoon and twilight would soon darken the outline of the wooded bank and the flat landscape stretching to the horizon. Bubbles broke the surface of the water. A small brown head, its sleek furred cap glided silently in the river's flow.

As you can imagine, my esteemed colleague, I wondered what the aborigine was spearing in the lake near Hawkesbury River close to Sidney. I soon discovered the answer. A small creature fought for its life with such force that it caught its assailant with its spur and seemed to cause much pain. I have taken the liberty of posting the skin of the specimen to you for your study. It is preserved in a keg of spirits with another antipodal beast. I send it to your keeping for the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Bewick working from the skin went on to produce this engraving for the 1807 edition of his book A General History of Quadrupeds.

Is found in the fresh water lakes . . . about the size of a small Cat, it chiefly frequents the banks of the lakes; its bill is very similar to that of a Duck, and it probably feeds in muddy places in the same way; its eyes are very small; it has four short legs; the fore legs are shorter than those of the hind, and their webs spread considerably beyond the claws, which enables it to swim with great ease; the hind legs are also webbed, and the claws are long and sharp. They are frequently seen on the surface of the water, where they blow like a turtle: their tail is thick, short and very fat.

The same year another specimen was received at the British Museum in London and examined by George Shaw an assistant keeper at the museum and a member of the Royal Society. Shaw was astonished by the platypus (as he named it) but he also seriously wondered about its authenticity, confessing that it was "impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal".

Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most extra-ordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accurate is the similitude, that, at first view, it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means ... nor is it without the most minute and rigid examination that we can persuade ourselves of its being the real beak or snout of a quadruped.

Shaw had good reason for his initial scepticism. Although the platypus had come from an impeccable source ? the governor of colony of New South Wales, himself an amateur naturalist with connections to the Royal Society ? the fact remained that this animal really did look like a sewn together amalgam of various species. During this period many new and remarkable species were being discovered but the scientists needed to exercise caution because the fabrication of bizarre creatures and mythical beasts for sale to the credulous was also commonplace.

In Asia there was a long history of animal forgery going back to the Middle Ages. Even Marco Polo who crossed the Indian Ocean in the thirteenth century complained about this disreputable practice.

I may tell you moreover that when people bring home pygmies which they allege to come from India, 'tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island, and I will tell you how.

You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man's. They take these, and pluck out all the hair except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they dry them and stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies. [1]

? Marco Polo, Travels Volume 2. Chapter IX. Concerning the Island of Java the Less (Sumatra)

The surgeon Robert Knox [2] who founded a school of anatomy in Edinburgh put the scientists' quandary this way

It is well known that the specimens of this extraordinary animal first brought to Europe were considered by many as impositions. They reached England by vessels which had navigated the Indian seas, a circumstance in itself sufficient to rouse the suspicions of the scientific naturalist, aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practised on European adventurers; in short, the scientific felt inclined to class this rare production of nature with eastern mermaids and other works of art; but these conjectures were immediately dispelled by an appeal to anatomy (emphasis added).

? Robert Knox, 1823

As mentioned by Marco Polo, the bodies of monkeys were the most commonly used in the manufacture of these exotic beasts. Most popular amongst the sailors who bought them were "mermaids" made by stitching together a small monkey and the tail of a fish. Hundreds of these artificial abominations were taken home to Europe and it become to part of the job of naturalists evaluate and, if possible, debunk them.

Even as late as 1858, the surgeon and naturalist Francis T Buckland was asked to investigate a specimen of a "merman" on exhibition in London.

In the back parlor of the White Hart, Vinecourt, Spitalfields, high and dry upon a deal board, lay this wonderful object-hideous enough to excite the wonder of the credulous, and curious enough to afford a treat to the naturalist.

Such a thing as a merman or mermaid of course never really existed; I was therefore most anxious to examine its composition, which, by the kindness of the landlady (a remarkably civil woman), who removed tile glass which covered her treasure, I was enabled to do. The creature (a gentleman, not a lady specimen of the tribe) was from three to four feet long. The upper part of its body was composed of the head, arms and trunk of a monkey, and the lower part of a fish, which appeared to me to be a common hake; and the head was really a wonderful composition: the parchment like, hideous ears stood well forward, the skin of the nose when soft had been moulded into a decided specimen of "the snub," the forehead was wrinkled into a frown, and the mouth " grinned a ghastly grin;" the curled lips partly concealed a row of teeth which in the upper jaw were of a conical form and sharp-pointed, taken probably from the head of the hake, whose body formed the lower part of our specimen. The lower jaw contained these fish's teeth, but conspicuously in front was inserted a human incisor or front tooth, and a vacant cavity showed that there once had been a pair of them. These were probably placed there to show the "real human nature" of the monster. The head had once been covered with hair; but visitors, anxious to obtain a lock of a merman's hair, had so plucked his unfortunate wig that only a few scattered hairs remained; the relic-seekers are now, therefore, ignorantly treasuring in their cabinets hairs from the pate of an old red monkey.

The "Fejee" Mermaid?now part of the collection of the Peabody

Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

The eyes, sunk deep in the sockets, are formed of round bits of leather, with the pupils marked in black paint; and altogether the features of the merman are those of a disagreeable old man, who was trying not to laugh. There is no portrait of the merman tribe in "Bell's Anatomy of Expression," and a portrait of our Spitalfields friend ought really to find a place in the next edition.

The arms, long, shrivelled and gaunt, were placed in an easy position, as though the owner was kissing its hand to the spectator, and the soft parts having receded from the nails left them long and projecting, like a bird's claws. The chest of the monkey had hardly been big enough to hold the shoulders of the fish, so it is extended with a cage of wire, which also gives the appearance of ribs. The waist is very much larger than the chest proper; from which fact we may learn that the fashion of tight-lacing was not derived from the mermaid family.

The fish (neatly stuffed) was placed with its belly outermost, so that its back fin formed a continuation with the back of the monkey, The junction was cleverly managed, and the tail part was gracefully curved to the left, like the heraldic pictures we sometimes see on coats of arms, &c. The merman was placed on his back; but his proper position is evidently erect, for if he stood up on his tail he would have a much more imposing appearance. The history of it is, that it was bought at a sale of old furniture, &c., of a certain old Mr. Ellis, of whom all I could learn was, that "he bought and sold for the East India Company;" but whether he bought and sold tea, silk or mermaids, I could not ascertain.

Buckland critically examined this and another matching specimen and decided that both had probably produced by a London taxidermist. He was no doubt also relieved that by this time the public's interest in mermaid exotica was declining.

Mermaids were, I believe, not very uncommon exhibitions in days gone by; and they may be still seen occasionally at country fairs, &c. The good folks of England are getting every year more and more educated, and mermaids do not take so well now as formerly, when pack-horses performed tile part of railways, and horn-books composed the village library.

However, as the masterful PT Barnum amply demonstrated to him, with the right amount of marketing and showmanship there was still plenty of money to be extracted from mugs interested in mermaids.

I attended Mr. Barnum's lecture on "Humbug," and the following are my notes of what he said of his celebrated Fejee Mermaid. He defined "Humbug" as "The art of attracting attention, whether the article is good or bad;" and his mermaid story exemplifies his theory. He bought the mermaid, which was being exhibited in Watson's Coffee-house, London, for a shilling, and then he (Barnum) showed it in his museum for nothing, and yet made money. He had an elaborate and really beautiful picture painted, which he hung outside the museum; the picture represented three lovely creatures with beautiful long hair, the traditional looking-glass and comb, &c.disporting themselves in a fairy-like submarine grotto; but he did not say his mermaid was like those in the picture. Attracted by the picture and notice, "A mermaid is added to the museum, ?No extra charge," thousands paid to go in, and then they saw a "hideous, shrivelled-up old mummy; and if people were not satisfied with the mermaid, they had their shilling's worth in looking at the rest of the museum." Mr. Barnum confessed that he did not pursue his studies in Natural History too far, or he might learn too much.

[1] Marco Polo's pygmies - of course, in this case there's always the (very remote) possibility that the Indonesian merchants had actually been catching, stuffing and selling specimens of Homo floresiensis instead!

[2] As sidenote, Robert Knox's "appeal to anatomy" actually went quite a bit further than was usual.

Only a few years after wrting about the platypus, the good doctor became embroiled in a sensational murder trial. He had been so keen to obtain dead bodies for dissection at his anatomy school that he often used the services of grave robbers or "resurrectionists". He paid his suppliers good money and a premium for the freshest copses (no questions asked). This prompted a pair of enterprising Irishmen named of Burke and Hare to start a profitable business murdering people directly (usually vagrants or prostitutes) in order to fulfil Knox's requirements. The pair managed to commit 16 murders over a period of two years before being caught.

While Knox was never directly implicated in the murders, there is reason to think that he knew what was going on and in at least instance he attempted to obscure the evidence of one of the murders.

Rather than lying low Burke and Hare became even more careless and murdered a well known children's entertainer, James Wilson, known as 'Daft Jamie'. He had a deformed foot and was instantly recognised by paying students at Professor Knox's anatomy class. Knox strongly denied that the subject was James Wilson but immediately began his lecture by dissecting his face.

The public furore, however, that was sparked by the trial was such that he was forced to resign his post at the school that he founded and leave Edinburgh for good.

The case became known infamously as the West Point Murders and was suitably immortalised in a children's nursery rhyme.

Up the close and down the stair,
In the house with Burke and Hare.
Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.

Burke and Hare,
Fell down the stair,
With a body in a box,
Going to Dr. Knox.

In the tenth century a sea captain from the Persian port city of Seraf wrote a book which collected together various stories related to him by traders and seamen of life and adventures in the Indian ocean. The writer's name was Buzurg ("Big") ibn Shahriyar and his book was called The Wonders of India which survives today as a single copy kept at a mosque in Istanbul.

The excepted story below, which is the 31st tale in Buzurg's book, was one I first came across in a paraphrased form while reading Richard Hall's excellent book Empires of the Monsoon. Here it is in translation from the original from Pieter Derideaux's website. I've mentioned Pieter's site once before, it is fantastic resource of extracts from ancient and mediaeval authors who writing on subject related to the history of East Africa, the forbidding and mysterious land of "Zanj" [1].

When Buzurg was writing, traders from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea were routinely traveling to and trading with China, India, Indonesia and Africa. It was a world, however, that was virtually unknown to Europeans at the time .

Ismail'awaih told me, and several sailors who were with him, that in the year A.H. 310 [2] he left Oman in his ship to go to Quanbalu. A storm drove him towards Sofala [3] and the Zanj coast. Seeing the coast we had reached, the captain said, and realizing that we were falling among cannibal Negroes we were certain what our fate would be, we made the ritual ablutions and turned our hearts towards God, saying for each other the prayers for the dead. The canoes of the Negroes surrounded us and brought us into the harbor. There we cast anchor and went ashore. They led us to their king. He was a young Negro, handsome and well set-up. He asked us who we were, and were we were going. We answered that we had come to his land.

You lie, he said. It was by no means here you meant to land. It is only that the winds have driven you here in spite of yourselves. When we had admitted that he spoke the truth, he said: Bring ashore your goods. Sell and buy, you have nothing to fear.

We brought all our bales ashore and began to trade, a trade which was excellent for us, without any restrictions or customs dues. We made the king a number of presents to which he replied with gifts of equal worth or ones even more valuable. There we staid several months. When the time to depart came, we asked his permission to go, and he agreed immediately. The goods we had bought were loaded and business was wound up. When everything was in order, and the king hearing of our intention to set sail, accompanied us to the shore with several of his people, got into one of the boats and came out to the ship with us. He even came on board with seven of his companions.

When I saw them there, I said to myself: In the Oman market this young king would certainly fetch thirty dinars, and his seven companions a hundred and sixty dinars the lot. Their clothes are worth twenty dinars at the lowest. One way and another this would give us a profit of at least 3,000 dirhams, and without any trouble. Reflecting thus, I gave the crew their orders. They raised the sails and weighed anchor.

In the meantime the king was most agreeable to us, making us promise to come back again and promising us a good welcome when we did. When he saw the sails full with the wind and the ship began to move, his face changed. You are off he said. Well, I must say good-bye. And he wished to embark in the canoes which were tied up to the side. But we cut the ropes, and said to him: You will remain with us, we shall take you to our own land. There we shall reward you for all the kindness you have shown to us.

Strangers, he said, when you fell upon our shores, my people wished to eat you and pillage your goods, as they have already done to others like you. But I protected you, and asked nothing from you. As a token of my goodwill I even came down to bid you farewell in your own ship. Treat me then as justice demands, and let me return to my own land.

But we paid no attention to his words. As the wind got up, the coastline disappeared from sight. Then night wrapped us in her veils, and we reached the open sea.

When the day came, the king and his companions were put with the other slaves whose number reached 200 head. He was not treated differently from his companions in captivity. The king said not a word and did not even open his mouth. He behaved as if we were strangers to him and as if we did not know him. When he got to Oman, the slaves were sold, and the king with them.

Now, several years after, sailing from Oman towards Quanbalu, the wind again drove us towards the coast of Sofala on the Zanj coast, and we arrived precisely at the same place. The Negroes saw us, and their canoes surrounded us, and we recognized each other. Fully certain we should perish this time, terror stuck us dumb. We made the ritual ablutions is silence, repeated the prayer of death, and said farewell to each other. The Negroes seized us, and took us to the king's dwelling and made us go in. Imagine our surprise, it was the same king that we had known, seated on his throne, just as we had left him there. We prostrated ourselves before him, overcome, and had not the strength to raise ourselves up.

Ah he said, here are my old friends. Not one of us was capable of replying. He went on: Come, raise your heads, I give you the aman (save conduct) for yourself and for your goods. Some raised their heads, others had not the strength, and were overcome with shame. But he showed himself gentle and gracious until we had all raised our heads, but without daring to look him in the face, so strongly did remorse and fear affect us. But when we had been reassured by his save conduct, we finally came to our senses, and he said: Ah traitors. How have you treated me after all I did for you! And each one of us called out: Mercy, oh King! be merciful to us!

I will be merciful to you, he said. Go on, as you did last time, with your business of selling and buying. You may trade in full liberty. We could not believe our ears, we feared it was nothing but a trick to make us bring our goods to shore. None the less we disembarked them, and came and brought him a present of enormous value. But he refused it and said: You are not worthy for me to accept a present from you. I will not soil my property with anything that comes from your hands.

After that we did our business in peace. When the time to go came, we asked permission to embark. He gave it. At the moment of departure, I went to inform him. Go, he said, and may God protect you! Oh king, I replied, you have showered your bounty upon us, and we have been ungrateful and traitorous to you. But how did you escape and return to your country?

He answered: After you had sold me in Oman, my purchaser took me to a town called Basrah,- (and he described it). There I learned to pray and to fast, and certain parts of the Koran. My master sold me to another man who took me to the country of the king of the Arabs, called Baghdad-( and he described Baghdad). In this town I learnt to speak correctly. I completed my knowledge of the Koran and prayed with the men in the mosques. I saw the Caliph, who is called al-Muqtadir (908-32). I was in Baghdad for a year and more, when there came a party of men from Khorasan mounted on camels. Seeing a large crowd, I asked where all these people were going. I was told: To Mecca. What is Mecca? I asked. There, I was answered, is the house of god to which Muslims make the pilgrimage. And I was told the history of the temple. I said to myself that I should do well to follow the caravan. My, master, to whom I told all this, did not whish to go with them or to let me go. But I found a way to escape his watchfulness and to mix in the crowd of pilgrims. On the road I became a servant of them. They gave me food to eat and got for me the two cloths needed for the ihram (the ritual garments used for the pilgrimage). Finally, under their guidance, I performed all the ceremonies of the pilgrimage.

Not daring to go back to Baghdad, for fear that my master would kill me, I joined up with another caravan which was going to Cairo. I offered my services to the travelers, who carried me on their camels and shared their food with me. When I got to Cairo I saw a great river which is called the Nile. I asked: Where does it come from? They answered: Its source is in the land of the Zanj. And where? Near a large town called Aswan, which is on the frontier of the land of the blacks.

With this information, I followed the banks of the Nile, going from one town to another, asking alms, which was not refused to me. I fell, however, among a company of blacks who grabbed me. They seized on me, and put me among the servants with a load which was to heavy for me to carry. I fled and fell into the hands of another company which seized me and sold me. I escaped again, and went on in this manner, until, after a series of similar adventures, I found myself in the country which adjoins the land of the Zanj. There I put on a disguise. Of all the terrors I had experienced since I left Cairo, there was none equal to that which I felt as I approached my own land. For, I said to myself, a new king has no doubt taken my place on the throne and commands the army. To regain power is not an easy thing. If I make myself known or if anyone recognizes me, I shall be taken to the new king and killed at once. Or perhaps one of his favorites will cut of my head to get in his favor.

So, in prey of mortal terror, I went on my way at night, and stayed hid during the day. When I reached the sea, I embarked on a ship; and after stopping at various places, I disembarked at night on the shore of my country. I asked an old women: Is the king who rules here a just king? She answered: My son, we have no king but god. And the good women told me how the king had been carried off. I pretended the greatest astonishment at her story, as if it had not concerned me and events which I knew very well. The people of the kingdom, she said, have agreed not to have another king until they have certain news of the former one. For the diviners have told them that he is alive and in health, and safe in the land of the Arabs.

When the day came, I went into the town and walked towards my palace. I found my family just as I had left them, but plunged into grief. My people listened to the account of my story with surprise and joy. Like myself, they embraced the religion of Islam. Thus I returned into possession of my sovereignty, a month before you came. And here I am, happy and satisfied with the grace God has given me and mine, of knowing the precepts of Islam, the true faith, prayers, fasting, the pilgrimage, and what is permitted and what is forbidden: for no one else in the land of the Zanj has obtained a similar favor.

And if I have forgiven you, it is because you were the first cause of the purity of my faith. But there is still one sin on my conscience which I pray god to take away from me.

What is this thing, oh king? I asked. It is, he said, That I left my master, when I left Baghdad, without asking him his permission, and that I did not return to him. If I were to meet an honest man, I would ask him to take the price of my purchase to my master. If there were among you a really good man, if you were truly upright men, I would give you a sum of money to give him, a sum ten times what he paid as damages for the delay. But you are nothing but traitors and tricksters.

We said farewell to him. Go, he said, and if you return, I shall not treat you otherwise than I have done. You will receive the best welcome. And the Muslims may know that they may come here to us, as to brothers, Muslims like themselves. As for accompanying you to your ship, I have reasons for not doing so.

And on that we parted.

It should be noted that although this story and especially its punch-line would have undoubtedly delighted its Muslim readership, it is almost certainly not true. It is highly unlikely that anyone, African or otherwise would have been able to survive an overland journey from Cairo to the south of Zanj through the hostile territories of inland Africa. A more plausible though also very dangerous route would have been to hitch a ride down the Zanj coast from Mogadishu.

Nevertheless the story relates many things that must have been true about the daily dangers of the trade with Africa.

[1] Zanj - meaning "blacks" i.e. Africans. The ancient African port of Zanzibar which is located centrally on the East African coast derives its name from Persian Zanj-i-bar which means "the Coast of the Blacks". It was famous centuries ago for its exports of gold, ivory and slaves and more recently for its export of Farrokh Bulsara better known as Freddy Mercury.

[2] A.H. 310 - After Hijra i.e. 922 AD

[3] Sofala - located in present day Mozambique was a major trading port and the southernmost point were merchant shipping was willing to go due to the treacherous winds and currents that lay beyond.

Republished from Laputan Logic one year ago...

Galileo to Kepler, 1597
Like you, I accepted the Copernicun position several years ago and discovered from thence the causes of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories. I have written up many of my reasons and refutations on the subject, but I have not dared until now to bring them into the open, being warned by the fortunes of Copernicus himself, our master, who procured immortal fame among a few but stepped down among the great crowd (for the foolish are numerous), only to be derided and dishonored. I would dare publish my thoughts if there were many like you; but, since there are not, I shall forebear.

Kepler to Galileo, 1597
I could only have wished that you, who have so profound an insight, would choose another way. You advise us, by your personal example, and in discreetly veiled fashion, to retreat before the general ignorance and not to expose ourselves or heedlessly to oppose the violent attacks of the mob of scholars (and in this you follow Plato and Pythagoras, our true perceptors). But after a tremendous task has been begun in our time, first by Copernicus and then by many very learned mathematicians, and when the assertion that the Earth moves can no longer be considered something new, would it not be much better to pull the wagon to its goal by our joint efforts, now that we have got it under way, and gradually, with powerful voices, to shout down the common herd, which really does not weigh the arguments very carefully? Thus perhaps by cleverness we may bring it to a knowledge of the truth. With your arguments you would at the same time help your comrades who endure so many unjust judgments, for they would obtain either comfort from your agreement or protection from your influential position. It is not only your Italians who cannot believe that they move if they do not feel it, but we in Germany also do not by any means endear ourselves with this idea. Yet there are ways by which we protect ourselves against these difficulties...

Be of good cheer, Galileo, and come out publicly. If I judge correctly, there are only a few of the distinguished mathematicians of Europe who would part company with us, so great is the power of truth. If Italy seems a less favorable place for your publication, and if you look for difficulties there, perhaps Germany will allow us this freedom.

Was the Amazon basin a pristine wilderness in pre-Columbian times or was it home to advanced societies in any way comparable with civilisations of the Andes or Mexico? Judging by the material conditions of the hunting and gathering tribes that live in the rainforest today and if we consider the poor suitability of rainforest soil for agriculture, the answer would seem to be a resounding "no".

And yet we have stories, eye-witness accounts dating back to the earliest years of the Conquest which describe a densely populated Amazon with villages and towns packed closely together along much of its length. A very different place even to the one we see today.

Francisco de Orellana, one of the original Conquistadors, was in charge of the first European expedition down the Amazon river. His story is remarkable not least because it was a completely accidental voyage of discovery. He and 60 men had been separated from another expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro who had been in search of cinnamon in the jungles of Ecuador. Their boat had been carried downstream by the swift current of the Napo river which turned out to be a major tributary of the Amazon. Seven months later their boat arrived at the Atlantic coast, more than 6,000 kilometres away from where they started out.


Orellana and most of his crew managed to make it back to safety and they brought with them fantasic tales of the sights they had seen on this river. Orellana described the Amazon as a busy waterway which had on both sides of the river populous towns with elaborate temples, plazas and fortresses. As his chronicler, Fray Gaspar de Carvajal relates it:

...we tarried so long in this land of Machiparo's which is 80 leagues in extent, all speaking one language and densely populated with towns and villages with scarcely more than a crossbow shot between them. Some of the towns extended for five leagues without any separation between the houses, quite a wonderful thing to see [a league is about 5.5 kilometres].

Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 616."
Fourth century fragment from the Oxyrhynchus papyri.

It's been known since early last century that some early versions of the John's Gospel have the famous Number of the Beast represented as 616 rather than the more conventional 666.

The Greeks wrote numbers with letters from their alphabet so the sequence ??? (Chi Iota Stigma) in the text fragment shown above represents the number 600 + 10 + 6 or 616.

?

Alpha

1

?

Iota

10

?

Rho

100

?

Beta

2

?

Kappa

20

? / ?

Sigma

200

?

Gamma

3

?

Lamda

30

?

Tau

300

?

Delta

4

?

Mu

40

?

Upsilon

400

?

Epsilon

5

?

Nu

50

?

Phi

500

?

Stigma

6

?

Xi

60

?

Chi

600

?

Zeta

7

?

Omicron

70

?

Psi

700

?

Eta

8

?

Pi

80

?

Omega

800

?

Theta

9

G

Koppa

90

?

Sampi

900

The Greeks used a number system which assigned separate letters for 1,2,3... etc. 10, 20, 30... etc. and 100, 200, 300... etc. While vastly simpler and more elegant than Roman Numerals, for numbers above a thousand, the system became very cumbersome to work with. It would take the Hindus and the invention of zero before a true place-notation number system could allow numbers to easily grow without limits.

This alternative formulation for the Number of the Beast as 616 is very ancient and is attested to by St Irenaeus of Lyon who, writing (in Greek) in the middle of the second century AD, attributed it to scribal error:

Such, then, being the state of the case, and this number being found in all the most approved and ancient copies, and those men who saw John face to face bearing their testimony [to it]; while reason also leads us to conclude that the number of the name of the beast, [if reckoned] according to the Greek mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters contained in it, will amount to six hundred and sixty and six; that is, the number of tens shall be equal to that of the hundreds, and the number of hundreds equal to that of the units (for that number which [expresses] the digit six being adhered to throughout, indicates the recapitulations of that apostasy, taken in its full extent, which occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which shall take place at the end),

?I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six decads they will have it that there is but one. Others then received this reading without examination; some in their simplicity, and upon their own responsibility, making use of this number expressing one decad; while some, in their inexperience, have ventured to seek out a name which should contain the erroneous and spurious number.

The standard form therefore according to Irenaeus was ??? (Chi Xi Stigma) or 600 + 60 + 6 = 666 and any other version is in error. The purpose of this number was to enable the faithful to recognise the Antichrist when he finally emerged and it was given in a numeric rather than literal form because even the very name of the Antichrist was an abomination and as such not worthy of mention in the holy book. Irenaeus explains that the number is derived from a common Greek practice of calculating numbers from names known as Isopsephy (or Gematria in Hebrew*). The usual way was to convert the letters of the person's name into numbers and then simply add them together. By this method, for example, the Greek rendering of Jesus, ??????, adds up to 888**.

A popular, though unproven, explanation for there being two versions of the number is that it represents both Greek and Latin versions of the name of Emperor Nero, a well known persecutor of the early Christians. The logic behind this is that Nero's Greek name is Neron Kesar which when rendered into Hebrew (where the vowels are dropped and read from right to left) it becomes rsq nwrn (???? ???) ? this adds up to 666. On the other hand his more familiar Latin name Nero Caesar is rendered as rsq wrn (??? ???) which adds up to 616.

Maybe. But there are other possible explanations as well, for example, there are apparently two different spellings of the word "beast" in Hebrew which also produce the numbers 666 and 616.

Modern geeks (as opposed to ancient Greeks) will immediately recognise this trick of turning a names into numbers as a form of hash function which is a standard software technique for speeding up text comparisons (amongst other things). Comparing words letter by letter is more time consuming than first converting them to numbers ? by hashing them ? and then comparing the numbers. Only once a numeric match has been found are the words then compared letter by letter.

Methods for hashing vary with the nature of the data to be hashed but the most efficient ones try to reduce the number of words that calculate to the same number. This is known as avoiding "collisions" and on this score the old Greek method fails miserably because countless names will hash to the number 666. Irenaeus himself had a go at speculating on a few candidate names of the Beast (including the "Latins" i.e. the Romans) by didn't come to any firm conclusions.

Speaking algorithmically, a far better approach would have been to use a longer number and use a secure hashing algorithm such as the sort developed for use in digital signatures and password repositories. In case you think I'm being just a little unfair here in expecting the ancients to have been savvy with the best crypto techniques, let me just just remind you that we are talking about the word of God here, okay? Is perfection really too much to ask?

Anyway, a secure algorithm would have led to an almost completely unambiguous*** identification of the Antichrist and this surely would be a handy thing even in this day and age. For example, I'm fairly certain that I'm not the Antichrist ? despite having expressed some fairly anti-Christian sentiments from time to time ? but it would be a good thing to know for sure.

* Hebrew and Greek alphabets have a common origin in Phoenicia (Lebanon). Go here for a nifty demonstration of how these and other alphabets evolved.

** Jesus = 888 - Which, as we all know, means "prosper, prosper, prosper" in Chinese numerology. Imagine what progress those crafty Jesuit missionaries in China might have made with that knowledge.

*** Unfortunately even these methods are not invulnerable to attack as proven with the recent compromise of the industry standard SHA-1 secure hashing algorithm (itself a sure sign of the coming End Times).

UPDATE: Of course I should have known that old Fred Engels would have had it all worked out a hundred and twenty years ago.

I was thinking that another book that might also be able to benefit from the blog treatment is the 18th century comic novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman which was written by Laurence Sterne and published in 9 volumes between 1759 and 1767. The book purports to be an autobiography of the aforementioned Shandy but is really a virtuoso performance of the Arte of Digression which takes as its purpose the deliberate subversion its own plot, structure, chronology and even its role as a book. The whole thing reads as a very modern ? even post modern ? experimental novel, and yet it is even more remarkable because it is also amongst the earliest works in the novel genre.

Although the Colosseum served for many centuries as a centre of hideous spectacle and barbarous cruelty, at the time of its construction Romans saw it as part of the rightful restoration into public hands of land which had been illegally expropriated by the despised Emperor Nero. At the very heart of Rome, from the Palatine to the Esquiline, Nero had built a large private estate, the symbolism of which had been plain to everyone. Nero had even blocked the people's access to the Sacre Via, Rome's most sacred thoroughfare and, in a city which traditionally frowned upon ostentation in private dwellings even for the rich, built himself a huge and magnificent palace which became known as the Domus Aurea or "Golden House". On a ridge on the northern face of the Palatine, Nero had erected for himself a colossal 36 metre high bronze statue and in the middle of the palace grounds was a large artificial lake.

After Nero's eventual disgrace and death, his successors competed with one another to break up his estate and to replace it with structures of public utility. To this end, Emperor Vespasian filled in the lake and built the Amphitheatrum Flavium. He also moved closer to it the Colossus of Nero which he changed to represent to the god of the Sun. It is this combination statue and amphitheatre which much later led to the site being known as the Colosseum.

Considering the watery origins of the site, it seems somehow appropriate that some of the earliest spectacles held there had an aquatic theme. Following precedents set by Julius Caesar and Augustus, the amphitheatre was used as a venue for naumachia, mock sea battles which were designed to thrill and divert the masses. Being located very close to a major aqueduct, the arena of the Colosseum was filled with water up to a height of 1.5 metres. Then scale replicas of naval vessels were floated on the water and manned with presumably very reluctant crews of prisoners who were forced to battle for their lives.

The exhibitions were normally reenactment of famous naval engagements between two fleets such as the Battle of Actium ("Augustus" vs. "Mark Anthony"), the Battle of Salamina ("Greeks" vs. "Persians") etc. They usually involved a large number of ships and thousands of combatants. Clemency was sometimes granted to the victors of these battles but, as with other gladiatorial events, this apparently happened very rarely.

Here is an aerial view of the ancient city of Rome is as it would have looked circa 320 AD during the reign of Emperor Constantine. Looking as we are from the South East, starting from the left, you can see a bend in the Tiber river and the boat-shaped island of Tiberini. The half circular building next to it is the Theatre of Marcellus and raised and slightly to the right of that is the Capitol with its Temple dedicated to Jupiter. In the foreground is the enormous Circus Maximus, a venue for racing chariots which had a seating capacity of a quarter of a million. To the right of this is the palace complex on Palatine Hill and feeding into this is an aqueduct which snakes itself past the square perimeter of the Temple of the Divine Claudius. Directly above this is the elliptical shape of the Amphitheatre Flavius (better known today as the Colosseum). To the right of this are the magnificent grounds of the Baths of Trajan. The expanse of densely packed buildings behind the Colosseum is the sprawling and (somewhat disreputable) commercial district known as Subura.

Some stories are just too damned cute to resist. Take this story reported by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History:

One day a goldsmith in Rome was allowed to show the Emperor Tiberius a dinner plate of a new metal. The plate was very light, and almost as bright as silver. The goldsmith told the Emperor that he had made the metal from plain clay. He also assured the Emperor that only he, himself, and the Gods knew how to produce this metal from clay. The Emperor became very interested, and as a financial expert he was also a little concerned. The Emperor felt immediately, however, that all his treasures of gold and silver would fall in value if people started to produce this bright metal of clay. Therefore, instead of giving the goldsmith the regard expected, he ordered him to be beheaded.

There you have it. The Romans discovered aluminium two thousand years ago, a substance which is extracted "from clay" (i.e. bauxite) and which has only been produced in commercial quantities in the past hundred or so years.

For most of the 19th century it was considered a precious metal so much more valuable than gold that Emperor Napoleon III (nephew of more famous and greater, Napoleon I) commissioned several important works for his recently restored imperial dynasty out of the stuff. He proudly wore a helmet made of aluminium and in 1856 when his son, the crown prince Eugene Louis Jean Joseph was born, he commissioned a baby rattle made out of aluminium (and combined with gold, diamonds, emeralds and coral). In 1860 he ordered that his battle standards, eagles atop of flagpoles, which had formerly been made of bronze, be replaced with aluminium gilded with gold (which had the added advantage of making them three time lighter) and in 1861 he had the state dinner held in honour of the visiting Siamese delegation to be served on aluminium plates while ordinary dignitaries had to be content to eat off gold. Basically, the Emperor was really very positive about aluminium.

So contrast the vision of this enlightened emperor with the stodginess and paranoia of old Tiberius. Imagine how the history of carbonated soft drinks could be been so very very different if the Romans imperator hadn't sought to suppress this wondrous stuff. A cursory glance at Google will tell you that these two stories go hand in hand and are repeated verbatim on virtually every website that has an interest in aluminium.

So I was quite interested to learn while searching for an original source of Pliny's quote, that this was actually just a myth and that Pliny had said no such thing*. Not only that, it was a carefully constructed myth that was promulgated by Napoleon's very own aluminium guy, Henri-Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, the man founded the world's first commercial aluminium process with the genreous support of the Emperor. The purpose of this tale was to explicitly contrast the virtues the two emperors. Tiberius has never been regarded highly by posterity and he really was crotchety and paranoid. Napoleon III, on the other hand, was to be seen as a modern and enlightened monarch, one especially suited to lead France into a glorious future age**. Deville's initial marketing of aluminium was as "silver from clay".

However, what Pliny was actually talking about was a completely different wonder material: flexible glass.

The tale is told that, during the reign of Tiberius, a glass was devised, so compounded as to be flexible, and that the workshop of the inventor was utterly destroyed, lest there should be a decline in the value of copper, silver, and gold.

--- Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 36, para. 195

No mention of a goldsmith, no mention of a metal "almost as bright as silver", this was all Deville's work. The material Pliny discussed was wondrous in itself but it certainly wasn't aluminium. The story is laid out more explicitly by Petronius in The Satyricon:

"But there was an artisan, once upon a time, who made a glass vial that couldn't be broken. On that account he was admitted to Caesar with his gift; then he dashed it upon the floor, when Caesar handed it back to him. The Emperor was greatly startled, but the artisan picked the vial up off the pavement, and it was dented, just like a brass bowl would have been! He took a little hammer out of his tunic and beat out the dent without any trouble. When he had done that, he thought he would soon be in Jupiter's heaven, and more especially when Caesar said to him, 'Is there anyone else who knows how to make this malleable glass? Think now!' And when he denied that anyone else knew the secret, Caesar ordered his head chopped off, because if this should get out, we would think no more of gold than we would of dirt."

---The Satyricon, by Petronius, Volume 2 Chapter 51

So what was this remarkable material? Why was it really suppressed? Was it alien technology?

* This little exercise was for me interesting illustration of the relative strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia which, being the closest thing the web has to an authoritative voice, probably has done the most to spread this myth (mainly through those Wikipedia rip-off sites -- are those things really legal?). But at the same time, it was also the source of the link to the article that debunked it.

** Karl Marx, incidentally, wrote of the two Napoleons: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." --- The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.

Oh, how true.

UPDATE: Language Hat provides a little further on that famous Marx quote:

Regarding the Marx line, Alexander Cockburn has this to say: "In his 1973 NLR/Penguin edition, David Fernbach claimed that it is doubtful whether Hegel ever said any such thing. On the other hand, Engels had recently written Marx a letter in which he observed, 'It really seems as if old Hegel in his grave were acting as World Spirit and directing history, ordaining most conscientiously that it should all be unrolled twice over, once as a great tragedy and once as a wretched farce.' Marx obviously thought it was a bit more dignified to cite Hegel than to say 'Fred Engels was saying to me only the other day..."

The Cha bush grows in various regions of China and Tartary, and produces copiously, but more so in one region than in another... Some tell of a drink made from it, which is taken hot, and habitually used not only by all the Chinese empire but also by India, Tartary, Tibet, the Mongol empire, and the inhabitants of the Eastern Ocean, not merely once a day, but as often as they like. It is a plant of great virtue, the likes of which, if I had not experienced it myself upon the invitation of some Fathers of our order, I would never have been led to credit, for joined to its diuretic faculty, it wonderfully relaxes every blockage of the kidneys and dissipates the heaviness of the head, so that literary men, or others who are compelled by the magnitude of their labors to stay up late at night, find no more noble or fitting remedy in all of nature, and although at first its taste is watery and somewhat bitter, in time it not only loses its unpleasantness, but soothes so well the itchings of the throat, that those who have taken up this drink find it hard to do without.

Ten Cents an Dance

Ten cents a dance,
that's what they pay me
Gosh, how they weigh me down
Ten cents a dance,
pansies and rough guys
Tough guys who tear my gown
Seven to midnight I hear drums
Loudly the saxophone blows
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums
Customers crush my toes

Sometimes I think I've found my hero
But it's a queer romance
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance!



Those are very likely not the words that Betty Bolton is singing in this particular clip but this song was her best known hit. Unfortunately the clip is silent so we don't get to hear her famous contralto singing voice but what you can see is pretty damned remarkable in itself. It's a fragment of a very early television broadcast from the early 1930s which had been recorded off the air waves by amateur enthusiast using a home gramophone recording system (you can watch the rest of the sequence here as a RealMedia clip).

This is a video disc made decades ahead of its time and one which offers us a glimpse - however imperfect - into the long vanished world of mechanical televison.

"Some day they will have color photography," predicted Mark Twain to a friend in 1907. It was a prediction that was bang on the money, in fact a little late, because Auguste and Louis Lumière had already invented the Autochrome process back in 1904.

"A soldier who wears the armor of the past appears in our era frightful but it is equally amazing that this costume is only complete with the addition of a fan! A respectable man does not meet with other gentlemen - let alone with an important official - without bringing with himself such a fan. With just a wave of this magic wand, the multitudes will bow down and bang their heads in humble submission!


"The mesh of the armour mesh is often of the finest execution. Some are constituted from innumerable steel chains sewn onto a jacket of leather, others from tiny sheets or scales of steel. The helmet comes in various shapes and under the slab that protects the chest is an inner protector formed from hundreds of sheets of paper, impenetrable to the blows and stabs of swords - such a simple invention that should make us reflect. The lance is a frightful weapon with a sharp tip and a cutting edge as keen as a razor."

Photograph and text by Felice Beato (translation humbly attempted by Yours Truly). Hand-coloured albumen print, circa 1870.

Commenting on my earlier post about Abracadabra, Mike Brown points out that the magic word hocus pocus also has an interesting history. He quotes from a biography of Harry Houdini by Bernard C. Mayer that says that

When the unlettered congregations attending the sacrement of the Eucharist, heard the Latin 'hoc est corpus' chanted during the awesome transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the words came out as 'hocus pocus', the traditional watchword of conjuring...

Searching around a bit further, I discovered that the first reference to the word hocus pocus was in a passage (displayed below) from a book written in 1656 by Thomas Ady and known as A Candle in the Dark (see p. 26). Ady's book was "A Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches & Witchcraft: Being Advice to Judges, Sheriffes, Justices of the Peace, and Grand-Jury-men, what to do, before they passe Sentence on such as are Arraigned for their Lives as Witches" and in it he discusses, amongst other things, the art of the fairground conjurer who practices deceit rather than witchcraft.

The first is profitably seen in our common Juglers, that go up and down to play their Tricks in Fayrs and Markets, I will speak of one man more excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was he called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery, because when the eye and the ear of the beholder are both earnestly busied, the Trick is not so easily discovered, nor the Imposture discerned...

View of the city of Agen in Gascony in South-Western France. The cathedral which dominates this scene is St. Caprais which was built in the 12th century. In the foreground is the Canal des Deux Mers (Canal of the Two Seas) so named because it connects the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. Not far from where this picture was taken, the canal passes over the Garonne River, suspended high above its waters by a 580 metre long aqueduct.


This picture was taken taken by Louis Ducos du Hauron in or around 1877 and is one of the world's oldest colour photographs and the earliest one of an outdoor scene. Unlike the photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii which, based upon the pioneering work of James Clerk Maxwell, worked by projecting and combining the light of a red, green and blue images, Ducos du Hauron used a colour subtractive system essentially identical to the one used in colour photography today.

Now we had to trust to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly indistinct ; besides this, they have no comparative in their language, so that you cannot say to them, " Which is the longer of the two, the next stage or the last one?" but you must say, "The last stage is little; the next, is it great?" The reply is not, it is a "little longer," "much longer," or " very much longer ; "but simply, " it is so," or "it is not so." They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, "Suppose we start at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive?" they make the wildest points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season. When inquiries are made about how many days' journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying.

In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for " units." Yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus: suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too "pat" to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away.

Amazing, AMAZING stuff coming out of the ground in Eastern Iran at the moment.
Evidence of a previously unknown and highly sophisticated civilisation has been discovered recently in south-eastern Iran. Geographically situated between, and contemporary with, the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, this was a literate society whose material culture was influential over a very wide area. Its pottery dating from the middle of the third millennium BC has been found in sites as widely separated as Syria and India and as far north-east as the Oxus river in modern day Uzbekistan (the so-called Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex or BMAC).
The site came to light only in 2001 when Iranian authorities started arresting villagers for plundering ancient grave sites found at Daqyanousin, near the city of Jiroft in the province of Kerman. The story of the site's discovery goes something like this:

One day in early spring, a peasant from Matoutabad village in Jiroft came across an old object when he was passing along the river. The object was floating on the surface of water, as a consequence of the change in the river's route. The man picked up the object and returned to the village to find out whether other villagers also agreed with what had occurred to his unconscious mind.

The brilliance of joy was quite evident in the eyes of the villagers who had gathered in the village square to observe the ancient artifact. Given that shortage of rainfall had inflicted great damage on the village plantations for the past two years, the villagers had to tackle the ensuing poverty and unemployment. Nonetheless, now things might have been different and if their guess was correct, they would be lucky and they shouldn't miss such a rare opportunity. The story was revealed to the entire village in no time. The following day all villagers took their shovels and picks and moved towards the point where the ancient object was located. Their guess that an underground treasure should have been hiden under the earth was correct. Nonetheless, they could hardly imagine that their homeland - Jiroft - could be the archaeologists' "lost paradise"!
--- Mystery of Daqyanous Treasuries And Extinction Of Ancient Hills In Jiroft

The site has been described as "so densely packed with archaic layers that ancient artifacts are even likely to come by at one-meter depths". Very accessible, no doubt, to agricultural workers armed with picks and shovels.

The word Abracadabra was originally a magic incantation which was used to cure fevers and to protect against disease.

The word was transcribed onto an amulet which was worn around the neck of the patient in eleven successive lines arranged as an inverted triangle. Each line eliminated one letter of the incantation until only the letter A remained at the very bottom of the triangle. This gradual reduction in the number of letters symbolised the reduction and eventual elimination of illness.

This stone panel shows the Mayan king Taj Chan Ahk installing a subsidiary ruler.

Archaeologists working deep in Guatemala's rain forest under the protection of armed guards say they have unearthed one of the greatest Maya art masterpieces ever found.

The artifact?a 100-pound (45-kilogram) stone panel carved with images and hieroglyphics?depicts Taj Chan Ahk, the mighty 8th-century king of the ancient Maya city-state of Cancuén.

The panel was excavated in perfect condition from a royal ball court. Exquisitely carved in precise high relief, the 80-centimeter-wide (31.5-inch) stone depicts the Maya king seated on an earth symbol and throne with a jaguar skin, installing subordinate rulers in the nearby city-state of Machaquila.
Researchers say the panel's text confirms Ahk's status as one of the last, great kings of classic Maya civilization who controlled a vast territory in the Petén rain forest. Ahk grew and held his power through savvy politics and economic clout, rather than war, at a time when most other great Maya city-states were in their final decline, experts say.

"This panel is incredibly important," Arthur Demarest, a Vanderbilt University archaeologist and excavation co-leader, said in a satellite telephone interview from the dig site. "Every once in a while you have a beautiful, spectacular piece of art that is also profoundly historically important."

"It is ? the best piece of Maya art that has ever been found in an excavated context," he added. "It looks like it was made yesterday."

--- Archaeologists Uncover Maya "Masterpiece" in Guatemala

The hieroglyphics expert with the team, Federico Fahsen, has said that the stone panel "is one of the greatest masterpieces of Maya art ever discovered in Guatemala. The images of the rulers and the historical text are deeply and finely carved in high relief and miraculously preserved."

In December 1845, Joseph Faber exhibited his "Wonderful Talking Machine" at the Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia. This machine, as recently described by writer David Lindsay, consisted of a bizarre-looking talking head that spoke in a "weird, ghostly monotone" as Faber manipulated it with foot pedals and a keyboard.

Just prior to this public exhibition, Joseph Henry visited Faber's workshop to witness a private demonstration. Henry's friend and fellow scientist, Robert M. Patterson, had tried to drum up financial support for Faber, a beleaguered German immigrant struggling to earn a living and learn how to speak English. Henry, who was often asked to distinguish fraudulent from genuine inventions, agreed to go with Patterson to look at the machine. If an act of ventriloquism was at work, he was sure to detect it.

Instead of a hoax, which he had suspected, Henry found a "wonderful invention" with a variety of potential applications. "I have seen the speaking figure of Mr. Wheatstone of London," Henry wrote in a letter to a former student, "but it cannot be compared with this which instead of uttering a few words is capable of speaking whole sentences composed of any words what ever."

Henry observed that sixteen levers or keys "like those of a piano" projected sixteen elementary sounds by which "every word in all European languages can be distinctly produced." A seventeenth key opened and closed the equivalent of the glottis, an aperture between the vocal cords. "The plan of the machine is the same as that of the human organs of speech, the several parts being worked by strings and levers instead of tendons and muscles."

Henry, who in 1831 had invented a demonstration telegraph while pursuing his electromagnetic investigations, believed that many applications of Faber's machine "could be immagined [sic]" in connection with the telegraph. "The keys could be worked by means of electro-magnetic magnets and with a little contrivance not difficult to execute words might be spoken at one end of the telegraphic line which have their origin at the other." A devout Presbyterian, Henry immediately seized upon the possibility of having a sermon delivered over the wires to several churches simultaneously.

...Faber, who had destroyed an earlier version of his talking machine out of frustration over an unappreciative public, apparently felt encouraged by the response of Henry and Patterson to his new machine. In 1846, he accompanied P. T. Barnum to London, where the "Euphonia," as it was now called, was put on display at London's Egyptian Hall. The exhibit drew an endorsement from the Duke of Wellington and remained a part of Barnum's repertoire for the next several decades. The financial returns for Faber, however, were meager. He would die in the 1860s without achieving the fame or fortune he sought.

Faber would thus not live to witness the most important outcome of