Archaeologist for Hire

Civilization Lost premieres this Sunday!!

2011-12-06T16:40:00.001-08:00

You guys! It's finally happening! The show that I spent 7 months working on is finally premiering!!

Sunday, 12/11 at 9pm on H2 (the *other* History Channel)

http://www.history.com/schedule/h2/12/11/2011

Give it a watch? :D

Archaeological shout-outs!

2011-11-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! I know it's been an absurdly long time since my last post and once again, production schedules are to blame. I've finished one show and moved right on to the next so the good news is you'll all have some fun stuff to watch starting in January. Until then, I've got 2 rather cool updates from some equally cool sites/organizations. Give 'em a read and who knows, you might even feel inspired to join up on one of their upcoming projects or pay them a visit!

Cahokia

For all you US natives, next time you're in Illinois make a point to go see what was once the largest city in pre-Columbian North America and give our very own Mississippian cultures some much-needed love!

http://www.cahokiamounds.org/

Many of the great mounds are still there and there's even a Woodhenge! Be sure to keep an eye out for cultural similarities between the mound builders and the more well-known civilizations of Mexico and Latin America. Speaking of which...

Maya Research Project

If Mayan and/or Aztec archaeology is more your speed, here's all the info for the upcoming 2012 field season! It's open to everyone, so even if you're no longer a student (like me!) but still want to get out in the field and do some work, you can!

The Maya Research Program is a U.S.-based non-profit organization (501C3) that sponsors archaeological and ethnographic research in Middle America. Each summer since 1992, we have sponsored archaeological fieldwork at the ancient Maya site of Blue Creek in northwestern Belize. In 2012 we again offer opportunities to participate in our field program and learn about the Maya of the past and today.

The Blue Creek project is open to student and non-student participants, regardless of experience. The field school is certified by the Register of Professional Archaeologists and participants will receive training in archaeological field and laboratory techniques.

Academic credit and scholarships are available.

We invite students and volunteers to participate in the Maya Research Program’s 21st year of our Blue Creek archaeological project in Belize.

2012 Field Season Dates:

Session 1: Monday May 28 - Sunday June 10;
Session 2: Monday June 11 - Sunday June 24 ;
Session 3: Monday July 2 - Sunday July 15;
Session 4: Monday July 16 - Sunday July 29

http://www.mayaresearchprogram.org/

Until next time, gentle readers!

The coolest thing you'll see all day (possibly all week)

2011-09-21T15:01:00.001-07:00

Color photos of Egypt in the 1920s

It's funny. I was looking through these photos and they looked almost identical to what I saw when I was there in 2008 until I realized OMG THE SPHINX PAWS ARE BURIED, which was immediately followed by SWEET FANCY MOSES ABU SIMBEL IS IN ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION!!!11

See the rest here

Brb getting in my time machine/TARDIS.

Just a quick note...

2011-09-20T11:04:00.001-07:00

...as I'm currently at work, but the good citizens at Reddit brought this article to my attention:

An Archaeologist Watches The History Channel and Questions the Part About the Aliens

...and more accurately, the actual blog post in question (Bad Archaeology) I just wanted to get my two cents out into the interwebs in case there was any doubt/confusion/shenaniganry, etc.

I am indeed an archaeologist and I do in fact work for the company that makes Ancient Aliens. I worked on season 2 and a bit of season 3. (For the curious: s2ep4 and s2 ep8. Episode 8 had the highest ratings of the season [haaay]). This job will always mean something to me because it quite literally rescued me from financial (and general life) ruin after two long periods of unemployment. The people here are lovely and while the actual process of making the show is hilarious, maddening, stressful and occasionally downright ridiculous, it's a good job and it could be a whole lot worse. Is it a proper job in academia? Lord no. I never really fit in there anyway and even though I'd like to get a Ph.D. someday, I don't think my place will even be fully in the academic community. I'm not exactly a paper-writing person but I do love conventions and seeing what everyone has been up to over the past year and what exciting new discoveries people are making. (Bonus: free snacks!) I love learning and being around people who are just as excited about 1,000+ yr old stuff as I am. I love being out in the field and getting down and dirty in a trench somewhere, even if it makes my tendonitis go ballistic. There is nothing more exciting than troweling on your merry way and then finding something that's not a rock.

I've been lamenting the state of historically-themed television for many years now and have definitely yelled at many a History program before angrily changing the channel but the unfortunate reality is that, well, people want sensationalism and escapism even if it's in the form of someone else's reality. The world is a pretty tough place right now and the last thing most people want when they turn on the TV is something that requires them to pay attention and devote more of their already taxed and frazzled brain, so they turn to the more mindless programs to attempt to take said mind off of the usual woes of the modern human. That's why reality programming is so popular. It allows people to live someone else's reality and forget about their own for 30 minutes or an hour. Obviously, the farther removed it is from their life experience the better (Swamps! Celebrities doing things! People living in remote/ridiculous places! Cakes!) so those shows get the viewers and the networks choose and create shows accordingly. Unfortunately, this means those of us who actually like to learn things get the short end of the viewership straw. If I want to turn on the TV and learn about something other than creating a sugar sculpture in an hour I'm SOL until the next showing of 'Wonders of the Universe' (Hands down the best show on TV right now. There is no debate.) History International is usually pretty good about having non-alien shows, but if you're like me and no longer get any of the fancy extra HD channels it's back to square one. I'd love for something like Time Team America to actually take hold in the US and get people as excited here as they are in the UK about history. Granted, it's a bit easier to get excited if there are Roman ruins in your back garden, but we'll work with what we've got. We've got about 300 years of history in our little baby of a country and most of it's on the East Coast (a bit more when you remember that there were folks here before those wacky Europeans boated over). What we also have is a whole population of people who want to learn about everyone else's history and those people watch TV! So until we can elbow our way back into network priorities, I guess we'll just keep pirating BBC documentaries and scribbling down ideas for what will hopefully be amazing shows someday. I'll keep helping make silly shows for History and maybe someday I can help make a difference.

TL;DR I don't even know what this post has turned into, but yeah. There you have it. I've got to get back to work :P

Archaeology in the news! Medieval Irish zombies! Aaahh!

2011-09-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

Did zombies roam medieval Ireland?

Two 8th-century skeletons with stones shoved in their mouths suggest that the people of the time thought so.

-Archaeologists in Ireland have unearthed two 8th-century skeletons buried with stones stuck into their mouths.
-They believe this could have been a way to ensure the dead did not rise up like zombies.
-Bodies identified as revenants or the "walking dead" tended to be people who had lived as outsiders.

Two early medieval skeletons were unearthed recently in Ireland with large stones wedged into their mouths -- evidence, archaeologists say, that it was feared the individuals would rise from their graves like zombies.

The skeletons, which were featured in a British documentary last week, emerged during a series of digs carried out between 2005 and 2009 at Kilteasheen, near Loch Key in Ireland by a team of archaeologists led by Chris Read from the Institute of Technology in Sligo, Ireland and Thomas Finan from the University of St. Louis.

The project recovered a total of 137 skeletons, although archaeologists believe that some 3,000 skeletons spanning from 700 to 1400 are still buried at the site.

Read more at the source

Fun fact! This was also the preferred early method of dealing with suspected vampires.

Archaeology in the news! Latest on Irish Bog Bodies

2011-09-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Just in case your Tuesday morning needed some bog folks up in it...

Bog bodies are kings sacrificed by Celts says experts

An expert has stated that the latest bog body found in Ireland has proven that belief that the Celts ritually sacrificed their kings to the Gods.

The body also proves they underwent horrible deaths, if the times turned bad under their reign.

The latest Iron Age bog body dating back to at least 2,000 BC was discovered near Portlaoise in the Irish midlands by an alert bog worker and it bears the same hallmarks of ritual torture that two other famous bodies have.

Ned Kelly, keeper of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland told the Irish Examiner that a clear pattern has emerged in each case.

Source

A post! For real this time!

2011-08-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! I've found myself with a few free minutes and a thought provoking article to share...with sassy commentary!

Here is the site in question: Warning, contains aliens

And here are my thoughts on such matters as an individual with experience in the field of ancient things...and also alien-related silliness. You'll probably notice a theme as the list goes on.

6. Baalbek (any/all parts)

I'm just going to come out and say it. This is 100% manmade. It's a fabulous multi-period site of worship that's most known for it's GIGANTIC stone blocks. The big daddy of all of those blocks never even made it into the finished Roman-era temple and is instead half-buried in the ground where it was quarried. It weighs tons. Lots of tons! Too many tons for a mere human to lift! Surely it must have been advanced, engineering-having extraterrestrial visitors who helped the poor little humans build their mighty temple? In short, no. 'No' is also the long answer. Honestly, if you combine a massive human workforce with some good ol' fashioned Roman engineering, you can accomplish almost anything. People got real ambitious with their building projects back in the day and the multiple periods of building at Baalbek are a prime example of what people can do. Achieve your goals, kids!

5. Nazca Lines

Have you ever been to Chartres? Or are you at least aware of the labyrinth there? Hopefully you are now. I'm a fan of the theory that the Nazca Lines were similar creations, a sort of meditative maze to be walked as part of a personal or larger spiritual event to help the walker gain a deeper spiritual connection to the divinity of their choice. It should be noted that folks in South America liked to build big so it should come as no surprise that their mazes would also be big.

4. Palpa Flat Mountain (left)

Geology. End of discussion. Moving on.

3. Sacsayhuamán (right)

Pronounced close to 'sexy woman', this site is near and dear to my professional heart since I spent a good chunk of last fall learning all about this site in Peru. Once an Inca fortress and sun temple, it was mostly dismantled by the Spanish after they took Cuzco and the smaller stones were used to build the current cathedral and other bits of the city. The stones that remain were too big for the Conquistadors to move and so they're left as a reminder of how impressive the fort used to be. Remember how I mentioned a paragraph or 2 up that South American cultures liked to build big? This would be another example of that. Even though people like to focus on the 'OMG how did a culture without writing build things?!?' part of all this, it's more important to know that the Inca DID have a system of notation (they were ORGANIZED) and they truly mastered the art of Cyclopean masonry. There were no mystical spirit birds lifting stones into place, no UFOs beaming the giant stones from the quarry to the mystical site, none of that. Again, if you have some engineering ingenuity and a massive human workforce (plus a bit of motivation) you can do pretty much anything.

2. Pyramids of Giza

No. Just no. I truly cannot with people who are still trying to make the 'aliens built the pyramids' thing happen. We know SO MUCH about the buildings, the people who build them and to be honest, it's no surprise that what was meant to be a ginormous tomb ended up being a ginormous empty tomb. It's a giant, flashing, neon sign saying 'Treasure In Here!' to all of the ancient world. It was extremely common for tomb workers to re-enter tombs they had just finished building and walk out with bags of epic loot. This was not a new practice. In fact, it's probably one of the oldest out there! We have physical evidence of many kinds that has helped us learn about the daily life of pyramid workers, we have documented scribbles on the stones that show how the different work gangs took responsibility for moving the stones where they needed to go and there is a whole mess of other artifacts, inscriptions and remains (of many sorts) that have allowed us to learn about how a ton of humans combined with some pretty amazing engineering smarts made, you guessed it, something big. Honestly, I think it's a bit insulting that so many people are willing to sell our ancient ancestors so short and continue to claim that the people of Old Kingdom Egypt had neither the intelligence nor the ability to construct something just because *we* can't wrap our heads around the idea that humans could do something like this.

1. Puma Punku

Lordy. This again? Please see the above paragraphs where I discuss large-scale South American building projects, Cyclopean masonry, and the wonders one can accomplish with a massive work force, ingenuity, engineering and a WHOLE lot of time.

Moral of the story: Just because we as 21st century humans don't understand how something was build hundreds/thousands of years ago does not mean aliens built it. On a related note, just because something was created without use of what we deem 'modern' things like geometry (Pythagorean or otherwise), hydraulic machinery and forklifts doesn't mean humans couldn't have created it. If anything, our understanding of how the people of the ancient world worked is being hampered by our need to make things conform to what we perceive as the only way to do things. We'll probably never fully understand the train of thought required to go from 'Hey, this is a really big rock' to 'Let's get this rock out of the bedrock, haul it 20 miles that way and then stack a bunch of them so we can create this awesome thing!'. Such things have come and gone from the human experience (booo) but the fact that they happened and we can still see the results of such thinking is still pretty darn cool.

And with that, back to work! I hope you're all enjoying the new season of Ancient Aliens and I'll post updates when I get them for the soon-to-be-epic Civilization Lost!

Castrato, skeletal analysis and post-menopausal ailments?

2011-07-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

Examination of legendary 18th cent. castrato Farinelli's remains has led to the discovery that castrato and eunuchs probably had a lot in common with post-menopausal women.

Read more

Read even more

Ancient Aliens Season 3!

2011-07-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

Set that DVR and get the popcorn ready! Ancient Aliens Season 3 premieres Thurs. July 28th on the History Channel! We've got 16 episodes this time, so prepare yourselves :P

The lid of Pacal's sarcophagus thanks you for your time.

I haven't forgotten about my blog!

2011-07-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! I know it's been quite a while between updates and that is due entirely to the all-consuming production schedule I am currently on. We're deep into post-production so there won't be any proper blog updates until at least next month. Until then, I highly suggest you check out the Tumblr version of this little blog since it makes micro-blogging and reblogging super easy. I usually reblog interesting things there pretty regularly, since it's a one button kind of operation, so it's easy to do at work.

I promise to return once this show is finished with new and exciting tales of the industry and good ol' fashioned rants about various historical and archaeological things.

Oh, and keep an eye out for Civilization Lost on The History Channel!

Mapping ancient Germania

2011-06-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

Berlin Researchers Crack the Ptolemy Code

A 2nd century map of Germania by the scholar Ptolemy has always stumped scholars, who were unable to relate the places depicted to known settlements. Now a team of researchers have cracked the code, revealing that half of Germany's cities are 1,000 years older than previously thought.

Read more

Assyrian lives!!

2011-06-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

The sound of ancient Mesopotamia

13 June 2011 Last updated at 11:49 ETHelp

A dictionary of the extinct language of ancient Mesopotamia has been completed after 90 years of work.

The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is 21 volumes long, with many volumes dedicated to a single letter.

It was put together by studying texts written on clay tablets discovered in the region, which is mostly modern-day Iraq.

It has not been spoken for around 2000 years, and no one can say for sure exactly what it sounded like, but Dr Irving Finkel gave BBC World Service his best shot.

Source

(In case the video player is a bit screwy, please head to the original page and turn your audio on/up)

Archaeology in the News! 17 'lost' pyramids found by satellite

2011-05-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

See? This is the kind of awesome results you can get when you merge archaeology with state-of-the-art technology. For science!

17 lost pyramids found by satellite

Scientists at the University of Alabama also found 3000 ancient settlements using a new technique of infra-red imaging.
The astonishing results have been confirmed by archaeologists with picks and shovels, who have located two of the pyramids found from space.
"I could see the data as it was emerging, but for me the 'aha' moment was when I could step back and look at everything that we'd found,' Dr Sarah Parcak told the BBC.
"I couldn't believe we could locate so many sites all over Egypt."
The team analysed images from satellites orbiting 400 miles above the Earth, equipped with cameras so powerful they can pinpoint objects less than a yard in diameter.

Read more

Paleodiets, Neanderthals and You

2011-05-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! Many, many apologies for the long delays between posts but the unfortunate reality is that I am SUPER busy at work these days. Post-production is a special sort of land full of madness and crazy schedules, but it's par for the course.

But! I saw this cool article and thought it would be nice to share since it features Neanderthals (who are the new/current hotness) and Paleo eating (in honor of the fact that my Crossfit gym is doing a Paleo Challenge this month :P)

Neanderthal paleodiet was dependent on habitat

The choice of diet for Homo neanderthalensis was dependant on geographical location is the conclusion of Dr. Luca Fiorenza, lead author of the recently published article in PLoS ONE. Whereas previous studies assume specific dietary specializations, the team suggest that the diet of both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens is determined by ecological conditions.

Read more >> http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/05/2011/neanderthal-palaeodiet-was-dependant-on-habitat#ixzz1Lsz5VP5k

Source: Past Horizons

Help National Geographic find Genghis Khan's tomb!

2011-04-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers! I come bearing a quick update to let you know I've stumbled across what is sure to be HOURS of entertainment for a good archaeological cause.

A National Geographic team is utilizing state-of-the-art satellite imaging to conduct non-invasive surveys of Mongolia to *hopefully* locate the legendary (and still AWOL) tomb of Genghis Khan.

What can you do to help? Simple! Follow the link below to the official website and get to tagging satellite photos! If you register (free, no shenanigans) your tags will go towards the expedition database and contribute to the team's work! Cool, right?

http://exploration.nationalgeographic.com/mongolia/

Just a quick update on those recently discovered lead books...

2011-04-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

In case you have (or haven't) been following this story regarding the discovery of a little lead booklet found in Israel reported to be the oldest Christian writings ever/anywhere/etc.

The backlash begins!

Honestly, I can't say I didn't see this coming. The unfortunate reality is that the world of biblical archaeology is constantly marred by dozens upon dozens of faked/forged artifact discoveries. Anyone remember that magical ossuary that had a convenient inscription saying 'James brother of Jesus' on it? Yeah...that not only didn't contain any Jesus bones or James bones but it was also a flaming forgery. These lead books aren't shaping up to be much better, mostly due to the fact that if you actually sit down and translate the Greek inscriptions, they don't make a lot of sense. It's not quite gibberish but it's extremely nonsensical and the illustrations/decorations don't really have anything to do with anything. It's really unfortunate because this casts an unnecessary pall over any discovery made in the Near East, particularly in Biblical areas, because everyone is so incredibly desperate to find something new and/or prove or validate something. There's an entire other rant on this subject but I won't get into that now.

Moral of the story? Watch out for fakes. The good news is they're pretty easy to spot once you get an eye for these sorts of things :)

Until next time, gentle readers!

I'm not dead! I swear! Plus 2011 fieldwork opportunities!

2011-03-23T09:28:00.001-07:00

Gentle readers! It's been far too long without an update! It's been non-stop work and the usual TV production madness here at the Ancient Aliens/Civilization One offices so opportunities for blogging have been few if any. Before I dive back into the research caverns, I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know about fieldwork opportunities this year! It's approaching that magical time when various projects start up and applications for field seasons in exciting places open up to students and archaeology enthusiasts alike! So take a moment, browse, and if you feel the urge to get up close and personal with and wonderful world of archaeology, go for it!! I can't recommend it highly enough :)

AIA
Every year the Archaeological Institute of America posts a listing of field opportunities around the world through a wide variety of universities and organizations. I found my Tiermes/Spain dig through here!

Shovelbums
The go-to site for all forms of archaeological employment and opportunities! All kinds of fieldwork opportunities are posted here, from the local to the global. They also have a nifty interactive map. I found my field school here!

Earthwatch

Honestly, I can't recommend Earthwatch enough. My very first 'proper' dig was through them and I had a blast. I did the Roman Fort on Tyne project in 2006. I also learned that the North Sea is indeed very, very cold. Pick a continent on their map to see what projects are available!

Maya Research Program

I received a lovely email with info about this program the other day. If you like Mayan things, check them out! The project is open to students and volunteers alike, and they have scholarships too. Their field season runs May-July in Belize. (Don't forget the bug spray!)

If I find any more fieldwork opportunities I'll make a post about them so everyone can get involved. Until then, it's back to the research cavern for me. Get your TVs, DVRs and popcorn ready, because come July there's going to be a whole mess of History Channel goodies to watch!

If you're in desperate need of some exciting history, I would also highly (HIGHLY) recommend reading this book:

...and prepare yourself for the unbridled awesomeness that will be this show.

Archaeology in the News! Roman superhighway (and not a series of tubes) in the UK

2011-02-07T10:37:00.001-08:00

Tl;dr: The Romans built a raised road between London and Exeter, it's super awesome and dates to the 1st century AD.

Source

Archaeology in the News! 5th cent. BC palace excavated in Sudan!

2011-02-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

Czech team currently excavating the palace of Queen Amanishakheto.

http://www.praguepost.com/tempo/7365-digging-deep-in-the-sands-of-time.html

This Week in Badass History

2011-01-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

Gentle readers! Welcome to a new feature of Archaeologist for Hire: This week in Badass History!

Most folks are aware that cool things often happen over the course of time, but it needs to be noted just how badass the people and events of the past were.

41 – Gaius Caesar (Caligula), known for his eccentricity and cruel despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Claudius succeeds his nephew.

98 – Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.

814 – Charlemagne (b. 742) (Ok, so perhaps death isn't the most badass thing but Charlemagne *was* badass, so he gets included.)

971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops.

1606 – Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.

For further reading on badasses, I highly recommend checking out this website.

Brought to you by the research staff of Ancient Aliens Season 3.

Also!

2011-01-27T13:28:00.001-08:00

I think there may be a few of you who will be delighted to know that the 3rd season of Ancient Aliens is currently in pre-production! I'll update more as we go along but it's going to be one hell of an adventure with even more episodes than last season!

Now back to researching...

Archaeology in the News! Exciting new finds from northern Greece!

2011-01-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

Archontiko dig bears witness to rich warrior society

Archaeologists unearth another 37 burials at the 20-hectare cemetery site in northern Greece

By John Leonard

A fresh trove of ancient evidence attesting to the long, rich history of the region of Pella in northern Greece has been uncovered during recent archaeological excavations at the vast cemetery site of Archontiko, Pella.

Archaeologists Anastasia and Pavlos Chrysostomou, of the 17th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, report that another 37 burials dating from the late Iron Age to the early Hellenistic period (circa 650-280 BC) have been exposed during the 2010 season, according to a statement released by the Culture Ministry on September 20, 2010.

Investigation of the 20-hectare cemetery site, located 5 km west of Classical-Hellenistic Pella -- the capital of ancient Macedonia from circa 410 BC, has been ongoing since at least the summer of 2000, when the first warrior burials containing gold-decorated armor, weapons, and many other high-status funerary gifts were discovered. To date, with only about 5 percent of the site excavated, a total of 1,004 graves have already been found, including 259 from the Late Iron Age, 475 from the Archaic period, 262 from Classical and early Hellenistic times, and eight of unknown date.

Archontiko contains the cremated and inhumed remains of men, women and children buried with diverse collections of grave goods that indicate Macedonian culture had already attained a high level of development some two centuries before the time of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

Of the latest 37 graves to be opened, six belong to the Late Iron Age (circa 650-580 BC) and contained a variety of ceramic vases and metal objects. Thirty-one burials date to the Classical and Hellenistic periods (5th-3rd century BC). Sixteen of these graves belonged to well-to-do Macedonian men and women buried with distinctive assemblages of personal and precious items. Men were laid to rest with iron weapons (spearheads and knives), metal jewelry (fibulae, rings), gilded bronze wreaths of myrtle, iron strigils, bronze coins and ceramic vessels. Women were buried with metal jewelry (earrings, mouth coverings, necklaces, fibulae, buckles, rings), gilded bronze wreaths of myrtle, bronze coins, glass and ceramic vessels, ceramic busts and figurines, and knucklebones. Women of particularly high status had their graves adorned with iron knives, metal jewelry (diadem strips, mouth coverings, earrings, fibulae, rings, bracelets), amber beads, ceramic figurines and busts, and especially bronze, ceramic, faience and glass vessels. The remains of one young female, who had been cremated, were discovered in a ceramic box (pyxis) beside gold, silver and iron jewelry, a gold mouthpiece, and a unique miniature glass amphora intended for perfume.

Particularly remarkable are the graves of nine male warriors, including one that dates to circa 650 BC. This dead man, buried in a manner worthy of a celebrated hero, was interred with a bronze helmet adorned with gold strips; iron weapons (a sword with a gold-covered handle, two spearheads, four knives); a golden ring; a golden mouthpiece; gold hand coverings decorated with impressed spirals and gorgons; gold shoe covers decorated with golden strands; gold strips that once adorned the funeral shroud; three iron fibulae (one with gold on its head); iron models of a two-wheeled farm cart, furniture and roasting spits; and numerous other objects including molded ceramic vessels that depict a ram and a seated figure of Hades. With the excavators noting that this latest ceremonial helmet is the 404th helmet to have been found at Archontiko in Pella, it seems the site still has many secrets and rich details to tell about ancient Macedonian life and death.

Source!

Caligula's tomb found thanks to looters

2011-01-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot to repost this here yesterday but I spent all yesterday tweeting/Tumblring about Caligula and it was awesome.

Source!

Caligula's tomb found after police arrest man trying to smuggle statue

Police arrest tomb raider loading part of 2.5 metre statue into lorry near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, where Caligula had a villa

Also, for the curious, Caligula's name was actually a nickname, and a diminutive at that. His name was actually Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, which is a mouthful and also not that unique for a Caesar. 'Caligula' means roughly 'little boots' as he spent a good time running around military camps as a child, wearing small caligas, which are sandal/boot type contraption similar to today's trendy gladiator sandals. Observe:

You know you could see someone wearing these around Silverlake/Echo Park with some kind of flowy floral number, Ray Bans, a thrift store hat and a very expensive camera.

In any case, this is good news and bad news. Good news as people will jump right in to preserving this great place and discovering what's inside. The bad news? We don't know how much has been looted. If people were trying to move a statue there's a fair chance other items have long since disappeared into the dark depths of the various antiquities markets and we may never see them again. We'll just have to see what happens!

Archaeology in the News! Earliest known winery found in Armenian cave

2011-01-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

...near that oldest shoe, actually.

Earliest Known Winery Found In Armenian Cave

Back in action!

2011-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Awww here it goes! Greetings gentle readers! I'm back at work for what is surely to be a very exciting year of TV. More details as they come but I'll give you a hint...it involves more aliens and more history.

Stay tuned! There will be all kinds of excitement in the months to come.

Archaeology in the News! Double Feature!

2011-01-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here's 2 great stories floating around the internets today featuring exciting news in China and Australia!

China uncovers 2,400 yr old soup

40,000 yr old Australian site reignites debate on origins

I promise I'll do a real post soon!

New Episode of Ancient Aliens tonight!

2010-12-23T13:04:00.001-08:00

Hold on to your DVRs! There's a new episode of 'Ancient Aliens' on tonight! Show the 209 team some love and give it a watch (and learn about all the ways aliens can wreck your weekend.)

'Alien Devastations'

9pm/The History Channel

Ancient Aliens episode 208!

2010-12-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

Well folks, the 2nd season of Ancient Aliens is wrapping up. Tonight the 2nd of my 2 episodes airs, so I hope you'll give it a watch and enjoy some craziness as we explore the world of large stones put in odd places.

'Unexplained Structures'

10pm PST / The History Channel

New episode of Ancient Aliens tonight!

2010-12-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

Ep. 207

'Gods and Aliens'

10pm PST / The History Channel

Two words: Hologram. Genie.

Archaeology in the News! Silk Road FTW

2010-11-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

Just another reason why I ♥ the general Silk Road areas so very much.

*NOTE* I added photos since the article didn't originally have any, including one of Cai Junnian and another woman from the same area.

Experts to unravel mystery behind European-looking Chinese

2010-11-21 17:00:00

Beijing, Nov 21 (IANS) Anthropologists have begun a study to ascertain if the European-looking Chinese in northwest China are the descendants of a lost army of the Roman Empire.

Experts at the newly set up Italian Studies Centre of the Lanzhou University in Gansu province will excavate a section of the 7,000-km Silk road that linked Asia and Europe over 2,000 years ago, to see if a legion of Roman soldiers settled in the country, China Daily said Saturday.

‘We hope to prove the legend by digging and discovering more evidence of China’s early contact with the Roman Empire,’ said Yuan Honggeng, head of the centre.

Before Marco Polo travelled to China in the 13th century, the only known contact between the two empires was a visit by Roman diplomats in 166 A.D.

Chinese archeologists were, therefore, surprised in the 1990s to find the remains of an ancient fortification in Liqian, a remote town in Yongchang county on the edge of a desert, which was strikingly similar to Roman defence structures.

They were even more astonished to find Western-looking people with green, deep-set eyes, long hooked noses and blond hair.

Though the villagers said they had never travelled outside the county, they worshipped bulls and their favourite game was similar to the ancient Romans’ bull-fighting dance.

DNA tests in 2005 confirmed some of the villagers were indeed of Caucasian origin, leading many experts to conclude they are descendants of an ancient Roman army headed by General Marcus Crassus.

In 53 B.C., Crassus was defeated and beheaded by the Parthians, a tribe occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome’s eastward expansion.

But a 6,000-strong army led by Crassus’ eldest son apparently escaped and was never found again. Though some anthropologists are convinced the Caucasian-looking villagers in Yongchang county are the descendants of the soldiers, others are not so certain.

‘The county is on the Silk Road, so there were many chances for trans-national marriages,’ said Yang Gongle, a professor at Beijing Normal University.

‘The ‘foreign’ origin of the Yongchang villagers, as proven by the DNA tests, does not necessarily mean they are of ancient Roman origin.’

Xie Xiaodong, a geneticist from Lanzhou University, also sounded a skeptical note.

‘Even if they are descendants of Romans, it doesn’t mean they are necessarily from that Roman army,’ Xie said.

Their mysterious identity has brought wealth and fame to some of the villagers.

Cai Junnian has yellow wavy hair, a hooked nose and green eyes. A DNA test in 2005 confirmed he is of European descent. It made him famous almost overnight.

Reporters, filmmakers, historians and geneticists from around the world pursued him. He was invited to meetings with the Italian consul in Shanghai and even appeared in a documentary shot by an Italian TV company last year.

His friends call him Cai Luoma, which means Cai the Roman.

Cai’s fellow villager Luo Ying looks even more European. He has been hired by a Shanghai firm as their ‘image ambassador’.

A Beijing film producer will spend millions to turn the villagers’ story into a film.

The Italian Studies Centre of the Lanzhou University is a platform for experts to further research the subject but ‘the work will certainly be complicated’, said Italian Ambassador to China Riccardo Sessa.

The centre will also help Chinese to learn Italian language and culture, he said. ‘More exchanges will certainly be helpful in unraveling the mystery.’

Source

Ancient Aliens episode 204!

2010-11-18T17:01:00.001-08:00

It's finally happening! It airs tonight! This is the episode I worked on :)

7pm EST/10pm PST

History Channel

The Importance of Branding

2010-11-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

Greetings once again, gentle readers! I've noticed a trend in the internet/mediatised archaeology world and have been ranting about it to those around me but not necessarily online. Now, the rant will go digital! Hooray!

I've noticed that an increasing number of people are creating media-friendly versions of themselves in the world of archaeology. I do realize that this includes my silly website but there is another factor that I am not necessarily putting in huge bold letters at the top of the page with auto-play music (auto-play=NO): Indiana Jones. Don't get me wrong, I love Indy as much as the next person and definitely as much as the next archaeologist/anthropologist (I'm not even going to get into the fiasco that is Crystal Skull. Spielberg, Lucas, you better redeem yourself and the franchise with Indy 5 or we're done professionally) but I'm not trying to be "The Next Indy". I did not get into archaeology because of Indiana Jones. In fact, I was well into my Egyptology phase before I had even seen the movies! I was something of a strange and precocious child...but I think that may be a requirement for archaeology. So many people with good, solid degrees and/or PhDs in their various fields of expertise are creating websites and personas but presenting themselves as a kind of 'Modern Indiana Jones'. This is all well and good, but I'm getting a bit tired of EVERYONE being 'Dr. So-and-so: archaeologist, adventurer, explorer' and posing in cargo pants looking off to the horizon in search of their next quest. I mean, again, this is all well and good, but at this point in the game it's tired. Not to mention, all of the people doing this are men! Ladies! Where you at? I know there are many attractive field-going ladies in the archaeological community (I have worked with a few of them so I can vouch for their existence) but all I ever see are men! Gentlemen with cargo pants and more than a few with a fedora to complete the outfit (leather attaché optional) and they all seem to end up on TV running around poking at ruins. I'm all for more archaeology on TV but why must everyone have to use the old and tired Indiana Jones bit in a desperate attempt to create viewer interest? I know for a fact that people who watch history-themed shows on TV like Indiana Jones, but don't need it to be interested in a show about ancient ruins and whatnot. Not to mention, there is a definite trend towards using a dashing male host/presenter who is dashing but has NO experience or credentials in the field! (Psychologist, former Air Force pilot, survivalist...just to name a few) Is it so much to ask for a host or presenter who actually has a degree in archaeology? Someone who doesn't feel the need to pander to the Indy-factor or wear only 'adventure denim' in the field? Again, I cry to the heavens: where my ladies at??

With that in mind, gentle readers, I present to you my new websona: Annelise Baer, MA. Archaeologist and adventurer-on-a-budget. What does this mean, you may ask? It means I explore places within at least 2 tanks of gas from the Los Angeles area, ideally less, so I can save that money and use it to buy food.. I don't have anywhere near enough money to go on some amazing expedition to someplace with big ruins and ancient mysteries. I have about $500, and I need that to pay bills and buy gas to drive to work. There have been some exciting trips in recent years, but those have been due to great timing and came with a bit of a price tag so I still rock the debt. It was totally worth it though! I do own multiple pairs of cargo pants and have used them in actual archaeological situations so the dirt embedded in the fabric is genuine. I've managed, by great luck and by agreeing to a large amount of debt, to visit some great places. I've accomplished very little in the academic world beyond obtaining-of-degrees due to a marked lack of funds which contributed to a very short stint in the world of graduate studies. I have a camera, several memory cards, a trusty trowel, a habit of getting sassy when talking about history and a thirst for knowledge about anything and everything pertaining to the ancient world. That's it. I know I'm only one person/archaeologist and I don't even have a PhD (...yet?) but dammit if I can't try to change things!

Oh, and I highly recommend checking out (if only for 5 minutes) the new season of Ancient Aliens. Specifically on 11/18/10. That would be the episode I've been working on ^^

Ancient Aliens Season 2 Premiere!

2010-11-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers! I know I'm a week late (such is the sort of thing that happens when TV production well, happens) but the show is on the air! My episodes are 4 and 8, so there's a few episodes for you to enjoy before then.

Episode 1 can be found here in case you missed it.

New episodes air Thursday nights at 10pm on The History Channel!

Ceci n'est pas une ampoule

A Quick Guide to the Ancient World

2010-10-11T17:43:00.001-07:00

Gentle readers! It's been too long. Again, I apologize since this crazy job is actually involving, well...work. During said work, it came to my attention that I never did one of those nice 'Guide to...' type posts about the ancient world! I've realized that not everyone has had dealings with the good people of the past and I think that might be a fun way to spend my Monday since unlike alls y'all that have Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day/Hey Let's Go Invade Someone's House And Tell Them We Live There Now Day, I'm at work hanging with the Space Brothers and Reptilian Awareness Groups. In any case, let's take a trip through some of the ancient world's greatest hits (and misses)!

In the beginning...

When people tend to think of ancient history they usually tend to think of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. This is not to be unfair to the other parts of the ancient world (hi Asia!) but it's just the way things tend to go. Here's a basic run-down of the exciting things happening in and around the Mediterranean and Near East back in the day:

Bronze Age (c.3300-1200 BC)

Early Bronze Age (c. 3300-2200 BC) ==Sumerian empire and civilization was happening in Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom was getting underway in Egypt (this was the period where everyone was building MASSIVE monuments like the pyramids) and folks in the Levant were hanging out and learning to make pottery. This was also when the Hittites were doing their thing up in Anatolia (now Turkey). Greece (the cultural empire, not the country [yet]) was OWNING the Mediterranean with their fierce trade skills and bronze-working arts. The Minoans were an integral part of this and were followed by the Mycenean civilization with their awesomeness.

Middle Bronze (c.2200-1550 BC)== Corresponds to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, in which Egypt gradually recovered from the collapse of the Old Kingdom and everyone started to get in touch with their cultural roots. There were less HUGE monuments but stuff was still being built. The big thing during this time period was writing! The Egyptians were all about writing and this is the time when we got novels, poetry, medical texts, and philosophical writings. Popular stories such as The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor and The Tale of Sinuhe were written during this period and were widely copied, which is why we still have them! Other folks were doing their thing of making better and more elaborate pottery, shinier and pointier bronze weapons

Late Bronze(c.1550-1200 BC)==This is when everything in the ancient world went to crap. No one really knows why, but there are lots of good theories and contributing factors that tend to stem from some sort of environmental catastrophe (volcano?) that impacted the entire ancient world. It was kind of a domino effect of bad times for everyone. So bad that almost 90% of sites in Greece (or the Peloponnese at least) were abandoned and none of the Mycenean palaces survived. Crops failed, societies collapsed, writing is interrupted and at some point the mysterious and marauding Sea People showed up to wreak havok on the already crippled ancient cultures. No one knows who the Sea People were or why they basically became the Scourge Pirates of the ancient Mediterranean, but they came and they dealt some serious damage. Ramses II led numerous campaigns against them and even pursued them far out of Egypt but with only partial success. Everyone else in the ancient Mediterranean was left to wander and flee as the coastal cities were taken out by the Sea People. People were kind of bumped out of the way as refugees from further north moved into new areas and then those groups then shuffled around the Near East. It's generally thought that these wandering folks eventually re-grouped into new areas and eventually created new cultural groups that eventually gave rise to groups like the Hebrews. Hooray learning! And for you Biblical archaeology fans, c.1250 BC is about when Egypt kind of wanted it's land back from all of the Mediterranean refugees and kicked everyone (EVERYONE) out, thus starting that little event known as the Exodus. To be fair, they had had a whole mess of people just sort of show up and settle in the Delta areas and other parts of Egypt since everyone and their mater (hehe Latin jokes) was fleeing Sea People, crop failure, general destruction etc. and just sort of trickled around the Mediterranean and ended up in Egypt.

**It should be noted that the UK was super late to the bronze party and didn't get their Bronze Age underway until c.2000 BC and that lasted until about 500 BC. It's okay though, because they made pretty things out of bronze so their lateness is forgiven.

Iron Age (c. 1300-600 BC)

This was a very interesting time for everyone. After the catastrophic collapse of the Bronze Age, most ancient civilizations were trying to pick up the pieces and get things going again. There was a serious Greek Dark Age were people forgot how to write (or something...the writing just went away. As in gone.) and in Egypt the age of monument building was pretty much over. In Mesopotamia, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to get going. In Anatolia, the Phrygian and Lydian city states began to do their thing and the Phoenicians started to get their empire going in the Levant along with the neighboring kingdoms of Judea and Israel. In Europe, most people were still in their Bronze Age and wouldn't really get with the Iron program until the Romans rolled in and started conquering people and places. Speaking of which, Italy! The Etruscans were pretty established on the Italian peninsula and had many trade connections with the rest of the ancient Mediterranean. Their time ended in 265 BC when the Romans conquered the last Etruscan city of Velzna *sniff* and thus began the rise of the Roman Republic. The Iron Age was also when the Persian Empire began to gather steam. This was the time of Cyrus the Great, Nebuchadnezzar II and Ashurbanipal. After much fighting and sacking of cities, the Assyrian and Babylonian empires were eventually absorbed into the rising Achaemenid Empire which took the ancient Mediterranean out of the Iron Age and into the height of Hellenic influence. Don't worry, we're getting to Alexander.

Fightin' 'round the World

There was A LOT of fighting in the ancient world. There was the Persian Wars, between Hellenic world and the Achaemenid Empire, that lasted from 499 BC until 449 BC. It all started when Cyrus the Great conquered Ionia in 547 BC and included some notable encounters such as the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. In Egypt, other folks were coming in and establishing their own royal lines including but not limited to the Persians, Libyans and Nubians, all of whom ruled for various periods of time until a certain Alexander rolled in...

Hellenistic Period (323 BC- more or less 30 BC)

This would be the period of the zenith of Greek/Hellenic influence on the Mediterranean world. Alexander III of Macedon was born in Pellas in 356 BC and was known for looking nothing like Colin Farrell and having Aristotle as his tutor. Upon the death of his father, Philip II, Alexander inherited a huge army and a sizable empire but felt that there was some room for improvement. In 334 BC, Alexander rolled into Asia Minor and began a 10 year campaign to bring down the Persian Empire. Epic battles such as the Battle of Issus ended with Alexander pwning the Persian forces and ended with Darius III on the run. Alexander then proceeded on to Tyre (I guess he really wanted that purple fabric...) then to Gaza where he laid siege to the fortified city before putting down more pwn and continued on to Jerusalem and then finally down to Egypt. That city, Alexandria? It's his. There were dozens of Alexandrias scattered all across the ancient world as Alexander rolled through with his armies. Alexander left Egypt and chased Darius down again, this time distributing another helping of pwn at the Battle of Gaugamela and after chasing Darius for some time, Alexander decided to swing by Babylon since he ruled it now. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to skip over the details of the rest of Alexander's adventures (seriously. There is a stupid amount of information here. Read and research as you see fit!) and just say he kept going east, picked up a wife in Bactria (his life partner Hephaestion was NOT happy about this), pulled a Napoleon in India and eventually died in Babylon under mysterious circumstances. He left one heir, Alexander IV, born to his wife Roxane after his death, but neither of them lived long due to a 40 year war between 'The Successors'. However, one of Alexander's generals, a certain Ptolemy, later Ptolemy I Soter, took Egypt and proclaimed himself the new pharaoh, thus beginning the Ptolemaic Dynasty!

The Ptolemaic dynasty was a pretty decent time for Egypt. There was lots of flourishing and building and Alexandria became a center of learning and science where some of the greatest minds of the ancient world came to contribute to the growing collection of knowledge at the famed library. The Ptolemies themselves took on the Egyptian traditions of dress, iconography and royal intermarriage (this never ends well...) which helped indoctrinate them into the culture of the Egyptian people. Most people tend to think of the end of the Ptolemaic Period/Dynasty as the death of Cleopatra VII and the official annexation of Egypt by the Roman Empire. I'm going to assume you already know the basic story of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius so I'll skip to the end. Upon her death her son by Julius Caesar (or whoever...), Caesarion, was proclaimed pharaoh but was murdered shortly after. Her children with Marc Antony, the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene and little Ptolemy Philadelphus, were taken back to Rome and cared for by Antony's wife Octavia. No one knows what happened to the boys (most likely the victim of Roman politics) but Cleopatra Selene survived and was eventually married to Juba II of Mauretania and they had 2 children. Hooray happy endings :D

As for everyone else in the world, they were still fighting over everything. If the wars weren't directly related to Alexander's generals or their descendents, then it was about something else. This was later followed by more Roman-themed fighting as the empire expanded and politics took over. There were lots of civil wars too, since it was kind of the cool thing to do. (OMG YOU GUYS MY FINGERS ARE ABOUT TO FALL OFF)

People Called Romanes They Go The House

Ah, the Romanes. Err, Romans. This is a nice section as the Roman Empire covered pretty much everyone in the Mediterranean and then some so everyone can be lumped into one area!

Roman Monarchy (753-509 BC)==This was when that whole Romulus and Remus story happened, and it ended with the famous scandal involving the king, Tarquinius Superbus, allowing his son to rape Lucretia, a wealthy patrician. He threatened to create a scandal implicating her and one of her slaves if she refused. She told her relatives, committed suicide to avoid further shame, and her family members (or the men at least) took down the king, expelled the monarchy and the Senate took over as the ruling body of Rome. Lucretia's widower, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, became one of the first consuls.

Roman Republic (509-27 BC)==Ah, the age of expansion. Think of the Republic as the expansion pack to the first edition of Rome, which was the Monarchy. It'd be like if the Mediterranean was the Outlands to Rome's Azeroth. Yes, that was just a WoW reference. In any case, during the Republic Rome's territory expanded from the Italian peninsula to the entire Mediterranean and eventually included the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe. It also expanded into Asia Minor and included a large portion of what is now Turkey and a good portion of Eastern Europe too. Here's a map!

Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD)==After the death of Julius Caesar, things got a bit hectic. The escalating tensions between Caesar's adopted heir, Octavian, his trusted friend Marc Antony and his mistress/Queen of Egypt Cleopatra culminated in the Battle of Actium which sealed the fates of Cleopatra and Antony. After all that was over, Octavian stepped up and was granted a ridiculous amount of power by the Senate with the first settlement. That was the official end of the Republic and the beginning of the Imperial dynasties. Octavian became Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus and ushered in a period of peace and reform (and conservatism) that made Rome think everything was going to be okay again. He had one daughter, Julia, who was known to cause some serious scandals much to her conservative father's dismay, and adopted 3 men as his 'heirs': Gaius, Lucius and Tiberius. Tiberius won the game of 'last man standing=new emperor!' and succeeded his adoptive father as emperor in 14 AD. Thus began the 40-year rule of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. It's ridiculously complicated, so some kind person made this handy family tree. I'll just list everybody here:

Julio-Claudian

Augustus- He named that month that we have. Mind blown, right?

Tiberius- Kept it hard core.

Caligula- Caligula: "But they love you, Lord."

Tiberius: "No, they fear me, and that is much better."

Claudius- C-c-c-Claudius.

Nero- I'm still mad the Domus Aurea was closed when I was in Rome >:(

Year of the 4 Emperors

Galba, Otho, Vitellius-Is judging you., Vespasian-Has some very nice and highly prized coins

Flavian Dynasty

Vespasian, Titus, Domitian

Nervan-Antonine Dynasty

Nerva (96-98 AD)

Trajan (98-117 AD)- Built that sweet column

Hadrian (117-138 AD)- Built that wall, made beards cool for Romans

Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD)- Started the pointy crown trend on coins

Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD) - How will I be remembered, Maximus?

Lucius Verus (161-169 AD) - co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius

Commodus (180-192 AD)- Are you not entertained?!?

Year of the 5 Emperors

All together now: Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus (193 AD)

Severan Dynasty

Septimus Severus (193-198 AD) - co-ruled with Caracalla 198-209 AD and then Caracalla and Gaeta 209-211 AD.

Caracalla and Gaeta- 211 AD

Caracalla (211-217 AD) - Hey! Where'd Gaeta go? Err, he's away...why do you ask?

~Interlude~ Macrinus (217-218 AD)

Elagabalus (218-222 AD)- This was not his birth name. It was a nickname/stage name he adopted.

Alexander Severus (222-235 AD)- Murdered by his own troops. Yikes. Which led to...

Military Anarchy (not in the UK) (235–284 AD)

Featuring: Maximinus Thrax · Gordian I and Gordian II · Pupienus and Balbinus · Gordian III · Philip the Arab ·

Decius with Herennius Etruscus · Hostilian · Trebonianus Gallus with Volusianus · Aemilianus ·Valerian · Gallienus with Saloninus ·

Claudius Gothicus · Quintillus · Aurelian · Tacitus · Florianus · Probus · Carus · Carinus · Numerian

Back to Business. The Tetrarchy! (293-313 AD)

Diocletian (284-305 AD)- Born in what is now Croatia!

Constantius Chlorus/Constantius I (293-306 AD) -Ok so I just looked at the Wikipedia article for this period and y'all are gonna have to do some light reading on your own.

Moral of the story: Constantine (306-337 AD)

Ok I'm actually giving up on the list of emperors because there were too many. It's ridiculous at this point. What you really need to know is that the first emperor was Augustus and the last was Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD. The end. At that point there was no more Roman Empire. Italy/Rome was taken by Odoacer and his Germanic friends and the Eastern part, based in Constantinople, became it's own thing. That whole Holy Roman Empire thing happened much later.

Ummmm...let's see. It was at this point in history that the 'Western' world went to crap.

The Middle Ages began, and people kind of didn't know what to do now that the glory of Rome had left this gaping vacuum. There was a lot of depopulation and the hot topic of the day was invasion and general dealings with various Germanic groups in and around Europe.

Knights and castles didn't really come into play until about 1000 AD and that's when people started Crusading about with minimal success. In happier news, the Middle Ages also gave us the Islamic Golden Age! Let's learn, shall we?

Islamic Golden Age (mid-8th to the mid-13th cent. AD)-

This was one of those awesome times in history where everyone was doingsomething amazing to contribute to the greater scientific knowledge collective. If there was a time in history to yell 'For science!!!' this would be it. Baghdad was like this magical center of learning where artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders all worked on preserving previous knowledge traditions, improving them and discovering new ones. It all ended with the sack of Baghdad by Genghis Khan's grandson. Way to spoil the party, Hulagu.

At this point we start getting out of the ancient history and into the regular history. The 15th century brought us the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Joan of Arc, papal shenaniganry and lots of other church-based events. This is also where my areas of expertise fade away and I start having to rely on internet research and great Showtime series to fill in my knowledge gaps. Some people are super into Middle Ages history and that's awesome. I appreciate it pretty hard but my loyalties lie with the civilizations that get an 'ancient' tag slapped in front of their name. I will leave you here in the 15th century, gentle readers, and you can explore the rest of history up to the modern era to your hearts content.

Me, I'm going to not type for a while....and go back to work :P

Archaeology in the News! (well, not new news :P )

2010-09-20T16:08:00.001-07:00

Greetings, gentle readers! Just a quick link I wanted to post to a fun story about two great things: archaeology and beer! As you've been reading this blog, you'll know that this isn't exactly *new* news, but it's fun nonetheless!

Spoiler alert: The beer had penicillin in it from the fermentation process!

http://www.care2.com/causes/real-food/blog/ancient-beer-recipe-supplied-antibiotics/

Your Ancestors Were Awesome

2010-09-14T11:34:00.001-07:00

Greetings, gentle readers! It's been a bit too long but that's only because I've been ~working~ It's shaping up to be a truly entertaining second season here at 'Ancient Aliens' and when things actually are ready to be beamed to your TV contraptions, I'll let you know! Until then, we keep it real on the internet and every day is filled with new and exciting factoids.

I've noticed a theme in my work during the last weeks, and it is with that that I provide a slightly ranty post about ancient folks and how they are often denied some much-needed and hard-earned credit.

Ancient folks! They did all kinds of crazy things like figure out that a round thing under a box thing made it move faster! They discovered that if you left a bunch of things in a jar for a while it would do all kinds of crazy things and you could strain it all and suddenly a super tasty beverage exists! They realized that if you take a bunch of certain things, smash them to tiny bits and add oil or water you can turn that woven cloth thing you just made into new a bunch of awesome colors! It's amazing! And yet more often than not, our ancestors aren't given credit for these crazy things they figured out. Why, you may ask? Because we fancy 'modern' people have gotten it into our brains that people who came before us couldn't possibly have had the intelligence or skill required to do these things. Ridiculous, right? Humans as a whole tend to be a pretty clever bunch. I mean, we got the whole 'using tools' thing down pretty solidly and we really like to build big things and we seem to have this crazy habit of getting really inspired and motivated and creating pretty spectacular things. It's just what we do! We've been doing it since day one and will probably continue to do so until the sun goes all red giant and engulfs the first half of our solar system (or perhaps before then if we choose to leave and terraform a new area and everyone goes about speaking English and Mandarin and it's awesome). But I digress. Here's what I'm talking about:

Pyramids: People are constantly asking me about these silly things. How were they built?! Why were they built?! How could puny humans build such a massive structure?!? Why are they all over the world??!?! It's quite simple, actually. In fact, you can experience the magic and wonder of pyramid building in your own yard! Take a shovel, get a bit of dirt on it and deposit the dirt in a nice place. Repeat this process a few times. Notice how your dirt pile is beginning to make a little mound, that kind of looks like a less-angular pyramid? You have now experienced the process that led to massive ancient earthworks (mounds, defensive structures, snakes...) and in turn to pyramids! Cool, huh?

Beer: Since I'm becoming a bit of a connoisseur of ancient ales (I <3 you, Dogfish Head) I'm beginning to see a trend in ancient beverages. Folks realized pretty early on (think 9000 BC early on) that if you add honey to something in a jar, close the lid and let it sit for a while *science* happens. They then realized this science could be controlled and if you combined some different ingredients, the result could actually be real tasty! For example, see this, this and this.

Big Buildings: Huge buildings created by puny humans? Surely not! I disagree pretty vehemently. You know all those big cathedrals that people built because they were so inspired to create the biggest and baddest monument for their particular preferred deity? It's a lot like that, only older and with bigger rocks. But they had no physics or math rules! Sure they did. They just didn't have the same names that we use. I'm pretty sure that people were making Pythagorean-shaped angles before Pythagoras put his name on the idea and wrote it down and that Fibonacci sequences were happening before he too wrote it down and put his name on it. Yes, those blocks and stones are huge. Basic winching done on a HUGE scale combined with actual physical manpower also on a HUGE scale can have amazing results. People got creative and made it work.

OMG it's underwater: Water tables rise. In fact, they've risen quite a bit over the last few thousand years. It also doesn't help things when people go and build dams all over the place and break natural river flows (*ahem* Nile... ¬_¬). Coastlines come and go and more often than not things either end up underwater or much farther away from water sources or coastlines than they originally were. Many ancient cities that appear to randomly be on hills used to be coastal! Alternately, many ancient cities that were coastal are now underwater because they were a bit too close to the coast. It all depends where things are built and what the water situation is.

If I leave you with any thoughts from this post, gentle readers, it's that you should never underestimate the capabilities of people in large groups. You can do pretty much anything.

Oh! And here's a link that was sent to me and that I now pass on to you! It kind of fits the theme of this post.Happy reading! “10 Ancient Civilizations That Were Incredibly Advanced”

OMG!

2010-08-23T21:24:00.001-07:00

Archaeologist for Hire (that would be me) got hired!!! :D

I'll be joining a fantastic team on the production of a rather notable (teehee) History Channel show.

I'll post more details as they happen and as I'm able to share them!

Thanks for sticking with me, gentle readers!

The ancient world was full-on technicolor!

2010-08-20T12:33:00.001-07:00

Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be that's required to see them the way they were thousands of years ago.

Although it seems impossible to think that anything could be left to discover after thousands of years of wind, sun, sand, and art students, finding the long lost patterns on a piece of ancient Greek sculpture can be as easy as shining a lamp on it. A technique called ‘raking light' has been used to analyze art for a long time. A lamp is positioned carefully enough that the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object. When used on paintings, this makes brushstrokes, grit, and dust obvious. On statues, the effect is more subtle. Brush-strokes are impossible to see, but because different paints wear off at different rates, the stone is raised in some places – protected from erosion by its cap of paint – and lowered in others. Elaborate patterns become visible.

Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. UV light makes many organic compounds fluoresce. Art dealers use UV lights to check if art has been touched up, since older paints have a lot of organic compounds and modern paints have relatively little. On ancient Greek statues, tiny fragments of pigment still left on the surface glow bright, illuminating more detailed patterns.

Once the pattern is mapped, there is still the problem of figuring out which paint colors to use. A series of dark blues will create a very different effect than gold and pink. Even if enough pigment is left over so that the naked eye can make out a color, a few thousand years can really change a statue's complexion. There's no reason to think that color seen today would be anything like the hues the statues were originally painted.

There is a way around this dilemma. The colors may fade over time, but the original materials – plant and animal-derived pigments, crushed stones or shells – still look the same today as they did thousands of years ago. This can also be discovered using light.

Infrared and X-ray spectroscopy can help researches understand what the paints are made of, and how they looked all that time ago. Spectroscopy relies on the fact that atoms are picky when it comes to what kind of incoming energy they absorb. Certain materials will only accept certain wavelengths of light. Everything else they reflect. Spectroscopes send out a variety of wavelengths, like scouts into a foreign land. Inevitably, a few of these scouts do not come back. By noting which wavelengths are absorbed, scientists can determine what materials the substance is made of. Infrared helps determine organic compounds. X-rays, because of their higher energy level, don't stop for anything less than the heavier elements, like rocks and minerals. Together, researchers can determine approximately what color a millennia-old statue was painted.

The color? Always something tacky. (Tacky? Um, YOU'RE tacky. These look fantastic and anyone who's seen remnants of paint on any ancient object [statue, building, etc] knows that paint is one of the most awesome things you can find. I seriously *squee'd* with delight when I discovered the ceilings of pretty much all the Egyptian temple complexes I went to were still painted because they were above the sand line. I plan on recreating the color used by the Egyptians for their night sky in my home someday. Seriously. The statues we're so used to seeing as stark white [or a little grungy] marble are that way because the paint has come off. Usually due to exposure to elements, the first things to come away from statues are appendages like arms and legs and any outer layers like paint. It's just the way it goes. Preferred colors in the ancient world were primary colors like reds, blues and yellows along with greens, oranges and blacks if the materials to make them were available. Purples were pretty strictly relegated to fabrics and came once people realized you could gather up THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of a little shell called murex to create the color favored by the Romans and other royal folks in the ancient world.)

More Archaeology on the Internet!

2010-08-15T06:38:00.001-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! I bring you news of another exciting offer of archaeological funtimes on the internet. Check out Sexy Archaeology to find out more about the increasing amount of sexiness in the field and also the 2010 Lassen Forest PIT Project! It's a great opportunity to get involved in some good quality archaeology so if you happen to be in Northern California, be sure to check it out!

Good times and good reads are guaranteed!

Thunderstones!

2010-08-11T13:42:00.001-07:00

From our good friends at National Geographic:

See the full gallery on posterous

"Thor's Hammer" Found in Viking Graves

Norse warriors saw "thunderstones" as protection against lightning.

Long dismissed as accidental additions to Viking graves, prehistoric "thunderstones"—fist-size stone tools resembling the Norse god Thor's hammerhead—were actually purposely placed as good-luck talismans, archaeologists say.

Using fire-starting rock such as flint, Stone Age people originally created the stones to serve as axes. But the Vikings, whose Iron Age heyday lasted from about A.D. 800 to 1050, saw the primitive tools as lightning repellent.

Because the axes predate the Viking age by thousands of years, archaeologists have long seen the stones as random artifacts, perhaps stirred up from earlier, lower burials or dropped in centuries after the Viking era.

But now "we have made enough discoveries of Stone Age artifacts in younger graves to say that they make a clear pattern," archaeologist Eva Thäte, of the University of Chester in the U.K., said in a statement.

Vikings Superstitious?

To solve the thunderstone mystery, Thäte and fellow archaeologist Olle Hemdorff excavated Viking graves in Scandinavia and trawled through catalogs of grave goods from hundreds of Viking burials—all dating to the Iron Age (about 600 A.D. to 1000 A.D.).

For example, in Scandinavia the researchers found about ten Viking burials that held thunderstones up to 5,000 years older than the graves themselves—including a thunderstone in a previously untouched, fifth-century A.D. stone coffin.

In addition, what might be called miniature thunderstones—small, rounded-off flint "eggs"—have been found in Viking graves in Iceland, where flint doesn't occur naturally.

"These people must have gone to all the effort of bringing these goods over fromNorway, on an exceedingly dangerous boat journey," Hemdorff, of the University of Stavanger in Norway, told National Geographic News.

"There is no rational explanation as to why they should appear in the graves—the pebbles were far too small to be useful in any way," Hemdorff said. "It shows that these stones had very special significance and suggests that these people were highly superstitious."

Mighty Thor Connection

The prehistoric stones' "special significance" to Vikings may have derived from legends of Thor, the Norse thunder god said to create lightning with his battle hammer, Mjöllnir.

To the Vikings, "three things seem to be important when choosing thunderstones," Hemdorff said.

"The form had to be similar to an ax or a hammer—that is, a ground stone or flint. The stone had to have 'flaming' properties, which flint and quartz have. And all the stones were damaged with the edge chipped off—'proof' that they fell from the sky," he added.

"Thor's mission was to protect gods and people against evil and chaos," he said in a statement. "It was therefore believed that Thor's rocks protected houses and people."

Now the new grave survey suggests the rocks were believed to protect souls too, the archaeologists say.

Far-Flung Phenomenon?

Similar discoveries in United Kingdom graves suggest that Vikings weren't the only ancient Europeans who saw millennia-old tools as accoutrements for the afterlife.

"In southeast Britain the Lexden Tumulus—a wealthy late Iron Age burial dating to just before the Roman conquest—included within it not only rich contemporary imports from the classical world but also a Bronze [ax] dating to the Bronze age," said John Creighton, an Iron Age expert from the University of Reading in the U.K.

When such out-of-date artifacts are found randomly at archaeological sites, "it is easy to explain them away as residual objects," Creighton said. But when they're found "sealed in graves, as they occasionally are, they are clearly treasured objects."

Archaeologist Tim Champion thinks Iron Age people ritually buried prehistoric tools to commemorate more than just deaths.

In southern England grinding stones and Stone Age stone axes have been found in Iron Age ritual pits that aren't associated with burial but instead may have been used, for example, to mark the end of an occupation of a site, said Champion, of the University of Southampton in the U.K.

"They are a real oddity and were certainly placed there deliberately, but we're not sure why," he said. "I suspect that these people were not so very different from us, and they would have had superstitious folk beliefs."

Help pick a logo for AfH!

2010-08-08T15:48:00.001-07:00

Gentle readers! I call upon you to help me decide which silly font should be featured in the logo at the top of this blog! Of course, the silly Indiana Jones-esque font is an option, but I ask you, the gentle reader, what you think looks best hanging out at the top of the page.

The header currently on the page is just to give you an idea of where it'll be and what it'll look like. Yes, Photoshop is indeed a magical tool.

Comment! Email! Let me know what you think!

See the full gallery on posterous

Archaeology in the News! Tutankhamun's Chariot Rolls into NY

2010-08-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

The sweetest of sweet rides, yo! Who wouldn't want to roll on what appear to be wooden dubs with two (literal) horsepower? If you're in NY, check this out!

King Tut’s Chariot Arrives in Times Square

“Tutankhamun and the (increasingly inappropriately named) Golden Age of the Pharaohs” continues through Jan. 2 at Discovery Times Square Exposition, 146 West 44th Street, Manhattan; (888) 988-8692 or discoverytsx.com.

Archaeology on TV!

2010-08-01T14:37:00.001-07:00

Greetings once again, gentle readers! As it's summer and a good handful of us are either on breaks or 'funemployed', I thought I'd do a brief post detailing the current offerings of archaeological/historical programming available on a TV or computer near you.

First up, we have the infamous Chasing Mummies. Now, this is not my favorite show, but I kind of have to include it because it's all shiny and new AND because I happen to know one of the people on it. It's my duty as a University of Bristol graduate to pimp out the exciting things coming out of Bristol, and this would be one of them! So go ahead and support a fellow archaeology graduate by watching an episode or 2. This show is a bit too sensationalized for my taste but word on the street is that people are enjoying it so feel free to give it a watch. *Disclaimer: I can pretty much guarantee that any actual archaeological experience would be nothing like this. Also, you can't really lose mummies. They either stay where you put them or where someone else put them...which may or may not be in a different spot :P You can't lose pyramids for that matter either...but that's for the next paragraph. And remember, don't be a 'double denim don't'! Mixing denims is acceptable if they are different types/colors: dark wash with light wash, blue with gray, etc. Sorry, Zahi :(

The Lost Pyramid! Or The Lost [insert your favorite ancient monument here]! Now I should probably make it clear that I'm not bagging on Zahi Hawass or anything, but there does seem to be a large number of overly sensationalized shows regarding things in Egypt that he is part of. This is yet another offering from The History Channel that I've seen several commercials for, so unless someone forgot where a pyramid was, I don't think it's actually 'lost'. Again, it's a bit hard to lose a pyramid. They're pretty large and they do tend to stay where you leave them.

The History Channel (and it's sibling History International) seem to be the dumping ground for odd history shows, including (but in no way limited to): Ancient Aliens, Bible Codes (for all you Biblical archaeology fans out there...ok well not really. The shows are ultra-silly), Ancient Discoveries/Inventions/Marvels/Battles and such. Thankfully it looks like several of the more ridiculous 2012/Nostradamus shows aren't in production currently so we have a bit of a reprieve from all that silliness.

I'm adding SciFi's (I refuse to acknowledge this 'SyFy' shenaniganry) 'Stonehenge Apocalypse' to this list because it is easily the most ridiculous SciFi Saturday movie I've seen in a long time. And I actually watched 'Ice Twister'!! Filmed entirely on location in Vancouver, this cinematic offering involves several "archaeologists" and "scientists" who must figure out what to do when Stonehenge suddenly begins to rotate and shoot lazer beams AND cause earthquakes/volcanic eruptions at various points around the world. The tension is almost too much. Oh, and it stars Misha Collins for all you Supernatural fans out there.

National Geographic seems to be sticking to giant animal shows and environmental topics, but they do have a handful of shows on ancient matters such as The Nile and Dead Sea Scrolls, which always make for good viewing.

If you are fortunate enough to live in the UK, it's always time for Time Team! :D Here's the link for the episode I got to be part of: Colworth/Mystery of the Ice Cream Villa. And yes, we did get ice cream. It was awesome.

If none of these televised options sound good to you, I would always recommend popping in any of the Indiana Jones DVDs (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull does not count) or either season of Rome. Why? Because they're awesome.

So get the popcorn ready, gentle readers, and enjoy some fine summer TV!

Pardon our dust...

2010-07-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle Blogspot readers! I'm in the middle of experimenting with formats and autoposting devices so I offer my sincerest apologies if the formatting gets a bit wonky. Example: the GIANT photos. They look fantastic on posterous but as soon as they hit Blogspot? They just get shoved together in front of the post. Arg! I'm working on getting this handled so my posts can go back to being nicely formatted and pleasing to your browser.

Thanks for reading, everybody! :D

For your time:

Field School Roundup: Weeks 3-5

2010-07-25T17:55:00.001-07:00

See the full gallery on posterous

Greetings gentle readers! It's been a bit of time since my last post since field school was monopolizing ALL of my time. The San Bernardino mountains are responsible for monopolizing all of my internet and cellular access, which meant that during the week, I was essentially cut off from the modern world. This was not exactly a bad thing, but it was definitely different. A few lucky souls happened to have Verizon or Sprint, which meant that they were the lucky ones with reception! After 5 weeks in the field I have indeed learned that AT&T is not the chosen cell provider of archaeologists. But enough of this tech banter. Let's get to weeks 3-5 of field school!

Week 3

This week was intense. Actually, it was more than intense but I think that's the word that best sums it all up upon further reflection. My team was out surveying for the second week in a row but this time in a different area. We first noticed that since we weren't down in the odd transitional valley (full of junipers and sagebrush...but with LOTS of Joshua trees and cacti) we weren't dying from the heat nor were we being eaten alive by flies! It was a magical change. We traded weather and bugs for a dramatic increase in terrain covered and surveyed our collective butts off. I can't even remember how many sites we found and recorded but there were many of them and they all had the respective paperwork to go with them. I took a lot of site pictures since it turns out it's rather handy to have a camera on my person at all times. I even found a few things of my own, including (but not limited to) a yellow jasper desert side notch(ed?) point that was the teeniest tiniest point ever. Some highlights of this week included the time that I got a fragment of coyote tooth stuck in my eye, surveying the ENTIRE meadow area to the north of camp, and having to pull a full-on search and rescue survey for a missing group member who turned out to have been back at camp for various reasons that I won't go into here. It was not a fun experience but I can look back on it now and shake my head and laugh. Positive notes from that fateful Thursday: I climbed a peak that was 7687(ish) ft., saw Broom Spring, and had an entire afternoon in camp to get caught up on my site paperwork AND shower! Lemons in to limoncello, folks. Oh, and I got to have rattlesnake for a snack on Thursday night. It tastes...interesting. It's also full of teeny little ribs, which is all well and good if you happen to be a snake and use said ribs for movement purposes, but it isn't the best for eating.

Week 4

There's not a whole lot on record for Week 4 as I spent the majority of it in a 1x2m pit covered in dirt. That's right, Week 4 was excavation week for my team! Each of the excavation units had 2 people in it and with the exception of the lone middle unit was 1x2m. My unit was full of dirt with a consistency not unlike cement, large rocks and the southwestern corner happened to be an edge of a fire ant colony. To say these ants were angry is an understatement. If you overlook the angry fire ants and intense amounts of dirt, there were many bonuses to excavating! For example, since we were in camp, there was no need to go dashing off into the foliage to find a friendly tree because we could just walk up to the Port-o-Potties! Modern luxury indeed. We also had full use of the kitchen so there could be a 10am tea break...WITH TEA! and lunch was whatever we could whip up with leftovers from the previous night's dinner and/or sandwiches. We also finished digging each day around 3pm so everyone had more than enough time to shower (oh, sweet Solar Camp Shower...) and catch up on any paperwork. I didn't find much in my particular unit. I think the biggest finds were some pinkie fingernail-sized flakes in one level and then nothing for the next 2 levels of dirt. This was bad news for us, as finding things is fun, but good news for the Forest Service as they wanted to put in a new vault toilet for the campground in that spot. From what we excavated during our time there, it looks like they won't have to worry about running into anything.

Week 5

*sniff* The last week! It was really strange to realize that 5 weeks had gone by and that field school was over. Everyone was pretty bummed at the prospect of leaving but we had to keep it all in check because there was still work to do! Each of the 3 teams hit the field again for some final surveys of a couple areas so mighty Team B suited up and headed back down into the valley to explore the wilds of Round Valley. It was hot, it was full of Joshua trees but we definitely found some cool sites. Most of our sites were ones that had been reported (badly) but never properly recorded so it was up to us to try and find the sites and see what was actually going on there. We encountered many a lithic scatter and had one small site morph into a HUGE monster site that spanned a good chunk of the valley. There were more lithic bits than I knew what to do with and so much pottery I still wonder what was going on there. Pottery throwing competition perhaps? It's just a theory :P We also helped out Team C with one of the most epic can/historical refuse scatters I've ever seen. I mean, the cans dated from the probably the very very late 1800s to about 1955 or so. There were SO MANY CANS. Big cans, small cans, smushed cans, cans stuck in cactus patches, weird cans, tuna cans...you get the idea. There was even a VW car, a spring mattress, a table and I think a chair or 2 to go with it. It was insanity in rust form. The amusing part was that by the time we got to this particular site on both Tuesday and Wednesday we were so hot and tired that everyone was pretty delirious. We started making up songs about cans to pass the time...S.A.F.E.T.Y. Safety CANS! (I was quite proud of that one...) Thursday was full of paperwork and sketch maps as everyone tried to get everything caught up and handed in. We also took down our large classroom tent AND backfilled the excavation units. Needless to say, everyone got real dirty. Thursday was completed with an epic dinner that was part awesome BBQ camp food and part Thanksgiving feast. My culinary achievement for the week was the creation and perfection of gourmet marshmallows with the help of Tim. I foresee a boutique s'more shop in the future...Friday was an early morning which was simplified by the fact that I had packed up all my stuff the day before and just slept in my car. We broke down and packed up all the kitchen stuff and remaining camp stuff and once we were all done, it was time for the final! It was a bit weird taking a written final exam for the first time in almost 3 years but I think I did pretty well. Once everyone was done, there were many group hugs and a few tears and that was it! We were done! I had plenty of time to reflect on my field school experience on my 2 hour drive home and I can definitely say that field school was one of the best experience I've had. Archaeology, cool people and delicious food out in the beautiful forest...what more could you want?

So there you have it! Thus concludes my 5 week intensive field school experience and I'm pretty sure I've come away a better archaeologist because of it. If you're interested in attending the Applied Archaeology Field School next year, DO IT! The information for the 2011 isn't up yet but here's the link for the 2010 field school so you can get an idea of what to keep an eye out for in the coming months. Until next time, gentle readers!

New Look, Same Great Product!

2010-07-25T11:32:00.001-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! I am coming to you from the new media-friendly incarnation of Archaeologist for Hire! Don't worry, the new blog will have the same old content in a matter of hours (imports! yay!) so your favorite posts about field school, Lemuria and Viking jewelry will be right where you left them.

Keep checking back over the next few days and you'll see what sort of awesomeness can happen, not to mention a final post to wrap up weeks 3-5 of my field school!

Field School 2 week roundup

2010-07-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

Well hello there, gentle readers! It's been 2 weeks since my last post and there have been next to no informative archaeological tweets as I've been at field school and there is no reception (for everyone but Verizon and Sprint...¬_¬) and definitely no internet access up there in the San Bernardino mountain wilderness. There has been SO MUCH going on in these first 2 weeks that it's a bit hard to cram it all into one post but I'll give you some highlights of the fun and madness that happens when you get a bunch of archaeologists and anthropologists together in the mountains.Week 1 of field school was the most classroom-intensive week so that we could get all the basic skills and information down before they sent us out into the wild. By classroom, I'm referring to the giant green army tent that has tables and chairs in it and a gas-powered generator nearby so that people can run computers, a projector and charge many of the cellphones present at camp. The schedule is pretty grueling: up at 5:25am, trudge (or run) to the Port-o-potties, change as fast as humanly possible into more layers as it's usually in the mid-30s in the morning (it was at least 35º on Friday), breakfast at 6am, business at 7am.
During Week 1, this business consisted of morning lectures followed by afternoon lectures or excursions or field exercises to help us get the hang of things like finding prehistoric artifacts in the field, cataloging historical things like cans and bottles and using maps and compasses to figure out where the hell we are. These things usually wrap up around 4:30ish and then we had a little free time to ask questions, hang out, shower or go for short walks until it was time for dinner at 6pm which was pretty promptly followed by an evening lecture around 7:30-7:45ish. Each evening usually concludes with the majority of us huddled around a very large fire attempting to gather warmth before we scurry off to our tents to start the whole process over the next morning. We learned A LOT. I have pages and pages of notes on things like how to make a proper sketch map to the history of mining in the San Bernardino Mountains to native flora and fauna to wilderness survival. We covered everything. We also went on a bunch of fun excursions to areas in and around Bear Valley (named for the plethora of grizzly bears...before people came and shot them all) and saw all kinds of cool things like petroglyphs, a very, VERY angry rattlesnake, portable milling devices in the wild and more sagebrush than you or your grandmother can handle.
After all this excitement, I drove aaaaalll the way back down the mountain to spend about 36 hours at home with important people and swap cars for one with higher ground clearance so I could safely navigate the pointy rocks in and out of camp. Week 1 was also the beginning of our encounters with the wild burros of the area. Every day we seem to find more and more signs of their presence but we have actually yet to lay eyes on these elusive beasties. We hear them call to each other at night and have found much poop and even a hoof print! Expeditions are being planned into the back corners of the mountains in an attempt to spot the wild burros.

Week 2 involved all 20 field school students hitting the ground running. We've been split up into 3 groups and each group rotates between surveying with one of the 2 crew chiefs and excavating at our convenient in-camp site. My team hit the dirt roads and untamed wilderness of the

Rose Mine area and got to intimately know the business of historical mining in our vicinity.

I've seen more cans this week that I've probably ever seen, and a fair majority of them date to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Yes, this could probably qualify as trash, but we prefer to call it 'historical refuse scatter'.

You can learn a lot from the things people leave behind. We've learned that miners probably ate a lot of pancakes since we keep finding Log Cabin syrup tins (they look like little log cabins :B), flour and baking powder tins. Miners also had a disturbing fondness for sardines (from Norvege) and canned meat. We also found a decent scattering of prehistoric goodies too! Pretty much everything up in those mountains is multi-period, so it's very possible to find bits of stone tools near a 19th century can scatter. In fact, it happens pretty regularly since later folks just kept using the older Serrano trails for road purposes. I have no idea how far I walked this week, but I know several acres were covered and my legs still hurt.

I've also had lots of personally productive things happen, like successfully finding and identifying prehistoric goodies in the wild (arrow points! metates!) and, if what I'm doing is actually the correct thing, getting rather good at filling out site records and doing sketch maps. There just might be a career in archaeology for me after all! :D

Well, gentle readers, it's time for me to get back to packing up my trusty duffle bag and gathering essential items for next week as my surveying experience will go from hard to INTENSE with the new crew chief for or group. Expect an update full of ethnobotanical goodness and more tales of the San Bernardino mountains in two weeks!

Archaeologist For Hire's Guide to Looking Good in the Field

2010-06-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! This post comes on the eve of a very exciting event for me: field school! I've actually never done a proper field school in my several years of digging so this is really pretty sweet. Every dig I've been on in the past has had the site all surveyed, measured and whatnot so that all we need to do is grab a shovel or trowel and get to it. This time, however, I will actually get to learn about how to get around a landscape that will be dug upon, survey, orienteer and then eventually plan and dig my own sections. I'll even get a patch of dirt to call my very own! This adventure leads me to a subject that is rather important for me, which is the fine art of looking good while out in the wilderness covered in dirt and sweat. Come with me now as I journey through the exciting world of outdoor fashion!

Pants!

A pair of good, sturdy dig pants are ESSENTIAL. That is in all caps for a reason. Your dig pants will get dirty, dusty, wet, muddy, cut, scraped and any number of other ways an article of clothing can get beaten up. Cargo pants are what you want but what happens if you'd like your pants to look...nice? Perhaps even have some shape that flatters your figure? I've struggled with this quite a bit mostly because I'm female and cargo pants are inherently designed for the lads. Since they come from a military background, they will pretty much always be rooted in a design that was meant to fit the manly soldiers of various armies on their journeys to hostile places. Luckily, we are living in 2010 and much has progressed in the way of women's outdoor clothing options. I purchased a pair of convertible cargo pants by Prana a few years ago and I LOVE THEM. Seriously, these pants are amazing. They've been field tested by me and have stood up to some pretty harsh English weather and the sun and sand of Egypt. And they can turn into shorts! This particular cargo pant has regular pockets as well as 2 cargo pockets with snap closures to keep cameras, lip balm or anything else you may need easily accessible without falling out into your site or wherever you may happen to be. I also recently invested in a secondary pair of dig pants so I can alternate and attempt to keep the dirt levels fairly even. This new pair is actually already packed so I can't exactly look up the make model, but they are Columbia, woven so that the pants actually have UPF 30, have several useful pockets, convert to shorts and fit fantastically. That's my other big thing: fit. As I happen to be a lady who is not twig-sized or shaped, I find it very important to find pants that fit properly. Both of my dig pants actually have a very flattering fit while still providing room for movement and adventuring. They are light (because it can get REAL hot) without being flimsy and can also have things like thermals layered under them without being overly bulky or restricting. Other very acceptable options for pants are a durable pair of jeans. Either way, your pants are your first line of defense against any conditions you may encounter in the field so it's important to get a pair that are as tough and sassy as you are.

Upper Layers

Layering, layering and layering. These are the 3 key elements of dressing for the field. You never know what the weather will do to you out there so it's generally a good idea to bring something for everything. This means, in my case, starting out with a base layer of a good ribbed tank top, followed by a t-shirt (depending on the current conditions and variability of the weather) and either a light sweatshirt or a sweatshirt, fleece or serious rain gear depending on where you are. Thermals can also be added to the equation should you be someplace with serious cold. I tend to stick to white or darker browns and blacks since there tends to be a decent amount of dirt and sweat and you'll probably be wearing things several times before they get washed. You will get dirty. This is a fact and a guarantee. Even if you're only doing lab work, your hands will get dirty. Dirt is inevitable so it's best to make peace with it early on and embrace the bits of Earth that follow you home. They just like you that much! There will be lots of removing and replacing of layers throughout the day, which brings me to another very important topic...

SUNSCREEN

I'm fine with a little sun exposure but as I'm predisposed to being pale (hai Europe) I've gotten my share of epic dig sunburns as well as enviable dig tans. Nowadays, I've embraced the pale and was super excited when the epic new advances in sun protection were made and released for sale to the public. I basically went out and bought the entire line of SPF 70-100 products Neutrogena sells and feel confident that when combined with my UPF 50 hat, I will remain mostly safe from some serious sunburns. I mean, it's SPF 100 sunscreen. 100+ even! If that isn't a product designed for archaeologist then I don't know what is. My issue with sunscreen in the field has always been a combination of lack of SPF and lack of sport-ness. There is literally nothing worse than the sting of sunscreen sweat in your eyes when you're attempting to shovel dirt or move anything dirty or heavy and you have to keep stoping every few minutes because of the horrible sunscreen-laden sweat. It sucks. I've created a multi-layer strategic approach to sun protection for this dig so hopefully at least some part of it will work. If all else fails, at least I get to wear an awesome hat!

Spa Time

Speaking of skin care products, I don't go on any dig without a good face scrub. If there is one 'luxury' product I can't go without, it's probably this. Again, this is because you will get dirty. Even if it's a light day, you'll most likely end up getting a little bit of dirt on you and a bit of sweat, all of which contribute to unhappy pores.

Since my current digging will be taking place out in the forest as opposed to near a place with actual bathrooms and showers, I'm opting for some of the more organic products out there so things can biodegrade a bit. This is actually true for all my shower products this time out. Depending on where you happen to be based for your own dig, you can slide the scale of luxury. I'm definitely not opposed to bringing a mud mask along (if anything you can get some hilarious pictures) and it helps everyone feel all pretty and clean. I also tend to paint my nails before I go, just because. Who says you can't be pretty in the wilderness? The level of spa-type products can vary by personal preference and location, so whether you happen to be camping in the middle of the actual legitimate wilderness or staying at a motel in the closest town, you can still take care of your skin because believe me, after a day of harsh weather one of the best things in the world is a nice shower (hot water is optional :P).

Pilates

Yes, really. This actually serves 2 purposes for the active archaeologist: it keeps you looking good and it strengthens core muscles which you use like there is no tomorrow. There is a lot of heavy lifting, twisting, digging, carrying and a whole mess of other physical activity in the world of archaeology so it's a really good idea to be in some form of shape. It doesn't *need* to be good shape but it helps to not be fully committed to the couch potato lifestyle. That said, every archaeologist I know has serious TV and movie-watching habits. We appreciate good cinema. But yes, pilates. I like pilates quite a bit and really like how you can work muscles without really feeling like you're working them or alternately wonder how the human body is expected to bend or operate in certain ways. It's really good for core and back muscles which help on those long survey treks with backpacks carrying everything . Once you get the hang of it it's pretty fun especially when you realize that you can lift things without hurting yourself thanks to your new strong back muscles!

And with that, gentle readers, it's time for me to get the car packed so I can go to field school! I'll try to do an update at the end of the week so you all can hear about my exciting field school experience so until next time gentle readers, dig hard!

Archaeology in the News! OMG shoes.

2010-06-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Because this story was paraphrased (badly...) in an actual email at work, here's the latest archaeological news! Let's get some shoes.

OLDEST SHOE FOUND BURIED IN SHEEP DUNG
The leather lace-up moccasin with straw padding was found in an Armenian cave and dates to 5,500 years ago.

The ultimate vintage shoe -- a 5,500-year-old leather lace-up moccasin -- has been found buried in sheep dung in a cave in Armenia on the Iranian and Turkish borders.

The cool, dry cave and the thick layer of sheep dung, which acted as a solid seal, kept the world's oldest piece of leather footwear in perfect condition.

Designed a thousand years before the Great Pyramid of Giza, the soft-soled shoe was stuffed with loose, unfastened grass. The right-footed shoe (the left has not been discovered) is 24.5 cm long and 7.6 to 10 cm wide (9.6 by 2.9 to 3.9 inches) (U.S. size 7 women). It was probably worn by an early farmer living in the mountains of the Vayotz Dzor province.

"We were all amazed to see its state of preservation and the fine details such as the laces, eyelets and the straw inside it," said Ron Pinhasi of Ireland's University College Cork and lead author of the research published in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science.

"It is not known whether the shoe belonged to a man or woman. While small, the shoe could well have fitted a man from that era," Pinhasi told Discovery News.

The archaeologists are also unsure whether the grass was used to keep the foot warm or to maintain the shape of the shoe like a modern shoe tree.

The moccasin-like footwear was simply created from a single piece of cow hide that was wrapped around the foot. A leather thong was used to stitch the back and top of the shoe through four and 15 sets of eyelets respectively.

The shoe might have been deliberately buried in the cave during a ritual. Indeed, the archaeologists also found three pots, each containing a child's skull, along with containers of well preserved barley, wheat, apricot and other edible plants.

"We thought initially that the shoe and other objects were about 600-700 years old because they were in such good condition," Pinhasi said. "It was only when the material was dated that we realized that the shoe was older by a few hundred years than the shoes worn by Oetzi, the Iceman," he added, referring to Europe's oldest natural human mummy, which dates back 5,300 years.

Pinhasi and colleagues cut two small strips of leather off the shoe and sent one strip to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford and another to the University of California-Irvine Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility.

All three tests produced the same results, dating both shoe and grass to the Chalcolithic period, around 3,500 B.C.

The oldest known footwear in the world are 7,500-year-old sandals made from plant material found in a cave in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri.

Prior to the Armenian discovery, it was Oetzi, the mummy found frozen in the Alps, who wore the oldest known leather shoes. However, only parts of the Iceman's left and right footwear were recovered.

The mummy's footwear included an inner "sock" made of grass, and a separate sole and upper made of deer and bear leather held together by a leather strap.

"We now known that people were wearing shoes already 5,500 years ago and that these were not so different from the ones we had until recent times," Pinhasi said.

Indeed, the Chalcolithic shoe is very similar to the "pampooties" worn on the Aran Islands, in the West of Ireland, up to the 1950s.

"This suggests that shoes of this type were worn for millennia across a large and environmentally diverse geographic region," Pinhasi said.

According to Andre Veldmeijer, a Dutch archaeologist who specializes in ancient leatherwork, footwear and cordage, the find is very interesting and an important.

"It clearly shows that footwear was common from the earliest times onwards. It would be interesting to know how the skin was processed into leather. Skin processing techniques not only indicate how familiar the people were with leather as a material, but might also inform us on the complexity of the society," Veldmeijer told Discovery News.

Shoes.

Archaeology in the News! Covered in bees

2010-06-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Because I like my archaeological discoveries like I like my coffee: covered in bees.

Ancient Beehives Yield 3,000-Year-Old Bees

Honeybee remains found in a 3,000-year-old apiary have given archaeologists a one-of-a-kind window into the beekeeping practices of the ancient world.

“Beekeeping is known only from a few Egyptian sources, from a few tombs and paintings. No actual hives have been found,” said Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Amihai Mazar.

The hives were uncovered in 2007 at an excavation in Tel Rehov, Israel, home to the flourishing Bronze and Iron Age city of Rehov. Mazar and his team found more than 100 hives, capable of housing an 1.5 million bees and producing half a ton of honey.

In a paper published June 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers analyzed bees preserved in honeycomb that was charred, but not completely burnt by fire that likely destroyed the rest of the apiary.

Unfortunately for would-be makers of ancient honey, heat damaged the bees’ DNA, making it impossible to revive their genes in modern bees. But the researchers were at least able to identify them as Apis mellifera anatoliaca, a subspecies found only in what is now Turkey. It’s possible that A. m. anatoliaca’s range has changed, but more likely that Rehov’s beekeepers traded for them.

Local bees are notoriously difficult to handle. During the 20th century, when beekeepers tried to establish a modern industry in Tel Rehov, they ended up importing A. m. anatoliaca — a literally sweet example of history repeating itself.

Image: Top, micrographs of a drone head and larva; bottom, micrographs of a workers’ head and thoracic flight muscles./PNAS.

Citation: “Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honey bees,” by Guy Bloch, Tiago Francoy, Ido Wachtel, Nava Panitz-Cohen, Stefan Fuchs, and Amihai Mazar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 23, June 8, 2010.

Honey

EschatoLOLogy

2010-05-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Greetings, gentle readers! This week we get to take a look at a very popular topic in history, popular culture and History Channel programming: END TIMES. I now present to you a humorous look at the various ways the world will end or, as my favorite beardy person calls it, eschatoLOLogy.

2012

Aside from the fact that I will be having a killer party on Dec. 21, 2012, this 'event' if you will, seems to be monopolizing the programming on the History Channel. This may be because we're now 2 years away from the fateful date in which something may or may not happen. Here's the deal with 2012: The Mayans have this calendar called the Long Count calendar. This calendar is essentially a really long perpetual calendar, with the exception that the last date on it is December 21, 2012. This has led many, many, many people to think that the reason the calendar stops there is because that is the last day. Ever. There are no more days after that because something horrible and catastrophic happens, thus ending the need for days because there would be no one around to partake in them. The other option, of course, is that on this fateful day there is a great shift in human consciousness and we all awaken to our true metaphysical potential. Or, it could also herald the return of Quetzalcoatl! It's good to have options. There's also some internet mutterings about galactic alignments (because ancient Earthfolk could see and chart the orbits of all those planets past Jupiter, from the ground, with their eyes) and Black Roads (Xibalba be!) and even cataclysmic collisions. What most people tend to forget about this piece of Mayan culture is that 1) we still don't fully understand how it works since there are a lack of Maya to talk to about it 2) the math correlating Mayan dates with Gregorian calendar dates is probably off 3) they may have just ran out of room. I mean, there really is so much space you can carve on a stone or rock, so you can't always fit everything in. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about this matter but for the most part, those last three things are essentially my opinions on the matter. After that, it tends to get rather silly.

Ragnarök
ODIN!!! Sorry, it happens when I encounter Norse things. This is one of my favorite options for teh end tiemz. The Norsefolk had a very particular mythology about what the end of the world and universe as they know it would be. Things begin with three consecutive winters in which there would be no summer and the Sun would essentially be useless. These winters will be proceeded by three earlier winters and great battles around the world. There will be greed, suffering, families turning against each other and all the usual things you would associate with society breaking down. Pestilence and famine are optional, of course. It's about this time that the Sun is swallowed by a wolf followed by the moon and people will generally begin to panic. I mean, the Sun's gone! The stars will disappear too, and on top of the cosmic issues there will be earthquakes, toppling trees and mountains which will result in the breaking of the restraints that have previously kept the Fenrir safely in place. Jörmungandr, the great world serpent, will begin to consume his own tail and there will be all sorts of seismic issues as the land and sea are smushed together. While all this is going on, Loki, who has been imprisoned beneath the earth being snake-poisoned for who knows how long, break free of his bonds and rolls up in a great ship made of human nails and crewed by the dead. Backing him up is Fenrir, spewing wolf fire, and Jörmungandr, spewing world serpent poison. Oh, and the sky splits. The sons of Muspell ride out of this rift and across Bifrost, the rainbow bridge connecting Asgard to the other realms and break the bridge as they do. Heimdallr, the herald of the Æsir, sees all this going down and signals the Æsir that yes, this is the final battle so everyone needs to get their rears in gear and get down to the great field of battle. Easily the best thing I've read about this part of the tale is, "Yggdrasil shakes, and everything, everywhere fears." The gods get ready and make sure everything is polished and sharpened and ready to go, since they're all rocking mythical named weapons and pieces of armor. And then the party starts. Freyr fights Surtr but since he gave away his prized sword, he is defeated. Thor tackles Jörmungandr and eventually defeats the great serpent but, having been poisoned by the venom, manages to stagger only nine paces before falling down dead (NOOOOO!). Týr, the god who lost a hand to Fenris when the gods were originally restraining the great wolf, battles with terrible hound Garmr, aka 'The Worst of All Monsters', which results in the death of both of them. Fenrir swallows Odin (D:) but is almost immediately torn to pieces by Odin's son Víðarr avenging his father's death. Loki dukes it out with Heimdallr and the two kill each other. Surtr covers the world in fire (like you do) and all realms, human and otherwise, go up in flames. After a time, the seas eventually recede and the earth is covered with self-generating crops. Líf and Lífthrasir, two humans who managed to find shelter under Yggdrasil, emerge to find a new world and their descendants repopulate the world. With them are Baldr and Höðr, reborn along with Thor's sons Móði and Magni who are all happy to see each other and spend time reminiscing about the good old days. The Sun will have a daughter who will follow in her father's footsteps and everything will be happy and wonderful again as the world begins again. So, perhaps it's best not to think of Ragnarök as the end of the world, but more like a giant cosmic 'Restore' so the world can begin a new phase of existence free from the negative elements of the previous period.

Of course, there are always other ways in which the world could end:

Archaeology in the News! Happy accident in Cyprus

2010-05-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

Just a quick copypasta since I'm at work. Enjoy!

Cyprus: crew stumble upon 2,000-year-old coffins

Work crews in Cyprus have accidentally unearthed four rare clay coffins estimated to be some 2,000 years old, the country's Antiquities Department director said Wednesday.

Maria Hadjicosti said the coffins adorned with floral patterns date from the east Mediterranean island's Hellenistic to early Roman periods, between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D.

She said the coffins were dug up this week from what is believed to be an ancient cemetery in the eastern coastal resort of Protaras.

Hadjicosti said similar coffins dating from the same period have been discovered. Two such coffins are on display in the capital's Archaeological Museum, while three others remain in storage there. But she called the latest find significant because the coffins were untouched by grave robbers.

"The undisturbed coffins will help us add to our knowledge and understanding of that period of Cyprus history," Hadjicosti said.

She said other items found at the site included human skeletal remains, glass vessels and terra cotta urns, indicating that the cemetery was in use over a long period of time.

The official said the cemetery is one of several found throughout island's northeast, but scientists don't know which undiscovered settlement the bodies came from.

Crews stumbled on the coffins -- or sarcophagi -- while working to complete a sidewalk at the resort.

Excavations on Cyprus have uncovered settlements dating back to around 9000 B.C. Cyprus then saw successive waves of colonization, including Phoenicians, Mycenaean Greeks, Romans and, in the Middle Ages, Franks and Venetians. The island was conquered by Ottoman Turks in 1571 and became part of the British Empire in 1878 before winning independence in 1960.

Tzatziki sauce

The Archaeology of Beer 2: Happy Hour!

2010-05-17T09:59:00.001-07:00

Greetings once again, gentle readers! Today I bring you a follow up to the rather popular 'Archaeology of Beer' post. This time, we will be exploring the exciting world of beers available for purchase NOW that use ancient recipes or are brewed according to ancient traditional methods! While recreation of ancient beverages is not a new phenomena, it's gotten a lot more tasty in recent years. Let's take a look at what's on the menu, shall we?

Midas Touch

This one is one of my favorites. It exists entirely because of organic residue found inside an amphora in a Turkish (then part of the Greek world...) tomb. The brewery, Dogfish Head, parks the date at around 2700 years old but since they don't list the tomb it could be slightly older or younger depending :P Sadly, I don't think it came from the tomb of the legendary Midas but that's beside the point. The point, dear readers, is that this beer is a flavor experience. The ingredients used in its brewing are barley, honey, muscat grapes and saffron which creates what I can only think is the physical manifestation of the epithet "Honey-sweet". Honey is the dominant flavor so it's perhaps a bit closer to mead than the beer that we're used to drinking but without the outright awfulness that is mead. That said, I love it! It's available year round so there's a very good chance you can buy some and enjoy it tonight.

Sah'tea

Another offering from the good folks at Dogfish Head! This one I haven't had the pleasure of sampling but it too comes from an archaic recipe. Dogfish Head says that this brew is an update of a traditional 9th century Finnish beer-like beverage. On their website, they say that this beer is "brewed with rye, we caramelize the wort with white hot river rocks, then ferment it with a German Weizen yeast. In addition to juniper berries foraged directly from the Finnish country-side we added a sort of tea made with black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper." As the last beer I had that was full of flowery herby things was amazing, I can't wait to try this one! It's a limited release, so keep your eyes peeled for this potentially tasty beer at your local junior market or beverage supply merchant.

Ninkasi the first

You may recall mention of the Ninkasi Brewing Company in the original Archaeology of Beer post. Since that post, I've had the opportunity to try their Oatis Stout! It is extremely dark and stouty with a distinct smokey flavor. It's pretty readily available so there's a very good chance there is a fine retailer near you that stocks one or more brews from this awesomely named brewing company.

Ninkasi the second

The lovely folks at Anchor Steam Brewing Company also paid tribute to the great goddess Ninkasi with their own Sumerian Beer Project. The result of said project is the very limited Ninkasi beer. It was brewed according (as much as possible) to the instructions detailed in the Hymn to Ninkasi and does actually include bread in the brewing process, making it the closest thing to proper old school bread beer that may be available for purchase. I have yet to sample this but hopefully I'll get the chance to very soon!

Fraoch

The native ale of Scotland! I actually had this last night and it was delightful to say the very least. This ale is one of the oldest styles of ale in the world and has been brewed 1) with heather and 2) for about 4,000 years. There is documentation of the Picts brewing this tasty beer while they ruled Scotland. The beer is brewed with heather (you know, the kind that flourishes on all those moors in Scotland), barley and sweet gale, giving it a sweet flavor not unlike the Midas Touch beer but definitely not as overtly sweet. I would agree with describing it as spicy and floral and would definitely buy it again. It also has runes on the label for extra fun!

Chateau Jiahu

Dogfish Head is to be the leader in ancient-beers-for-you-to-purchase. This is pretty much a fact. Another of their fine limited release offerings comes to us from China! Yes, you read that right. China! Chateau Jiahu exists thanks to analysis of residue found in vessels in the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province. This recipe is quite special because as it is Neolithic, it is the oldest of the ancient recipes out there. And by old I mean 9,000 years old. Essentially, before the folks in the Mesopotamia were brewing bread beer, the Chinese had been brewing a fermented beverage from rice, honey and fruit. This modern recreation was made according to the molecular analysis of the original samples and included pre-gelatinized rice flakes, wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, barley malt, hawthorn fruit and Chrysanthemum flowers. The mixture was boiled and added to a mixture of Sake yeast and then allowed to ferment for a month, creating a truly awesome beverage! Again, I have yet to try this one but I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Theobroma

The most recent offering from Dogfish Head and their Ancient Ales adventure is inspired by analysis from broken pottery in Honduras! This pottery contained the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink and they went and recreated it! Fiesta indeed. Once again, the recipe keeps very close to the results of the analysis and this beer is made using Aztec cocoa powder and nibs, honey, chilies and annatto seeds (WIN). If it's anything like the Aztec cocoa powder-and-chilies-infused mocha I had the other night and the other chocolate beers I've had in the past, this is shaping up to be pretty epic. If you see this beer, tell me where I can buy it!

I think that wraps up the list of ancient brews I can immediately think of. I'm sure there are more lurking in the dark forests of Europe but this is the bunch that is available for purchase within US borders. Until next time, gentle readers, pour yourself a well-earned pint and toast to the brave pioneers of ancient brewing! Cheers!

This is a mythology post

2010-05-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Tricksy Tricksters

Greetings, oh gentlest of readers, and welcome to yet another mythology post! Today we'll be taking a look at the often misunderstood trickster gods of various cultures. Pull up a comfy chair, grab some popcorn and get ready to learn about the fine art of tricks from the old school masters. Allons-y!

Loki

A half-god half-giant, Loki is one of the more colorful deities in the Norse pantheon. He's an extremely crafty shapeshifter and sometimes turns into salmon. When not being a salmon, Loki tends to be busy causing problems for the rest of the Æsir His children, Hel, Fenrir and Jormungandr, are not the most pleasant bunch and neither is Loki. After a number of exploits including his active participation in the death of the much-loved god Baldr, Loki ended up tied to a rock deep underground (sometimes in Hel depending on who's telling the story) while a venomous snake slowly dripped venom onto his body. His wife, Sigyn, holds a bowl to catch the venom but every now and then she has to empty it. When the venom does hit Loki, this causes (understandably) violent convulsions which in turn cause earthquakes. Ta da! There are many stories about Loki using his craftiness for a variety of means, usually at the expense of the other Æsir. Whether it's tricking Odin into using a shape-shifted giant as a stonemason to build a wall around Valhalla in Midgard or trying in vain to out-eat a giant who is really the personification of fire, Loki always emerges with a few scratches but otherwise no worse for wear. That is, until it's time for Ragnarok. At this time Loki will roll up the final battle in a ship made of dead men's fingernails and duke it out against the Æsir until he meets Heimdallr on the battlefield and the two essentially double-KO each other.

Coyote

Coyote is a character present in the stories of nearly every Native American tribe. The epitome of the trickster, Coyote, like Prometheus and a number of other deities in other cultures, is credited with stealing fire from the gods to give to humans. There are numerous stories of Coyote's exploits and his habit of getting out of some rather tight spots. He often teams up with Crow and/or Raven, another character known for his mischievous ways. Whip smart and often too smart for his own good, Coyote was both the creator of order out of chaos and the destroyer of order and often had ties to death but never in a negative Judeo-Christian sort of way. Coyote, like most tricksters, kept natural forces and other deities in check with his trickery and would chastise any deity that he felt had gotten too big for his or her divine britches.

Here's a short Coyote story from the Nez Perce tribe:

A long, long time ago, people did not yet inhabit the earth. A monster walked upon the land, eating all the animals--except Coyote. Coyote was angry that his friends were gone. He climbed the tallest mountain and attached himself to the top. Coyote called upon the monster, challenging it to try to eat him. The monster sucked in the air, hoping to pull in Coyote with its powerful breath, but the ropes were too strong. The monster tried many other ways to blow Coyote off the mountain, but it was no use.
Realizing that Coyote was sly and clever, the monster thought of a new plan. It would befriend Coyote and invite him to stay in its home. Before the visit began, Coyote said that he wanted to visit his friends and asked if he could enter the monster's stomach to see them. The monster allowed this, and Coyote cut out its heart and set fire to its insides. His friends were freed.
Then Coyote decided to make a new animal. He flung pieces of the monster in the four directions; wherever the pieces landed, a new tribe of Indians emerged. He ran out of body parts before he could create a new human animal on the site where the monster had lain. He used the monster's blood, which was still on his hands, to create the Nez Percé, who would be strong and good.

Tezcatlipoca

The 'Smoking Mirror' of Aztec mythology, Texcatlipoca was a god of many facets. He was associated with a wide range of things including (but not limited to) the night sky, night winds, hurricanes, the North, the earth, obsidian (hence 'Smoking Mirror'), enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife. There are several stories documenting the shenanigans that Tezcatlipoca would get up to with, and often against, Quetzalcoatl. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia!

In one of the Aztec accounts of creation, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca joined forces to create the world. Before their act there was only the sea and the crocodilian earthmonster called Cipactli. To attract her, Tezcatlipoca used his foot as bait, and Cipactli ate it. The two gods then captured her, and distorted her to make the land from her body. After that, they created the people, and people had to offer sacrifices to comfort Cipactli for her sufferings. Because of this, Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a missing foot.
Another story of creation goes that Tezcatlipoca turned himself into the sun, but Quetzalcoatl couldn’t bear his enemy ruling the universe, so he knocked Tezcatlipoca out of the sky. Angered, Tezcatlipoca turned into a jaguar and destroyed the world. Quetzalcoatl replaced him and started the second age of the world and it became populated again. Tezcatlipoca overthrew Quetzalcoatl when he sent a great wind that devastated the world, and what people who survived were turned into monkeys. Tlaloc, the god of rain, became the sun, but Quetzalcoatl sent down fire which destroyed the world again, except for a few humans who survived who were turned into birds. Chalchihuitlicue, the Water Goddess became the sun, but the world was destroyed by floods, with what people survived being turned into fish.

Krishna

Now, you may be wondering why Krishna is on this list. It's actually because of a specific story involving Baby Krishna stealing some ghee (mmmm clarified butter) from his mother. Apparently he made quite the name for himself as a regular butter thief.

Anansi

Anansi the spider is one of the most important deities in West African and Caribbean folklore. Like Coyote, he is the ultimate trickster but is also renowned for his wit and wisdom. The Anansi tales are some of the best known stories in West Africa and often contain morals to guide people in their daily lives. One such story is that of how Anansi got his stories (it's also one of my favorites):

Once there were no stories in the world. The Sky-God, Nyame, had them all. Anansi went to Nyame and asked how much they would cost to buy.
Nyame set a high price: Anansi must bring back Onini the Python, Osebo the Leopard, the Mmoboro Hornets, and Mmoatia, the dwarf.
Anansi set about capturing these. First he went to where Python lived and debated out loud whether Python was really longer than the palm branch or not as his wife Aso says. Python overheard and, when Anansi explained the debate, agreed to lie along the palm branch. Because he cannot easily make himself completely straight a true impression of his actual length is difficult to obtain, so Python agreed to be tied to the branch. When he was completely tied, Anansi took him to Nyame.
To catch the leopard, Anansi dug a deep hole in the ground. When the leopard fell in the hole Anansi offered to help him out with his webs. Once the leopard was out of the hole though he was bound in Anansi's webs and was carried away.
To catch the hornets, Anansi filled a calabash with water and poured some over a banana leaf he held over his head and some over the nest, calling out that it was raining. He suggested the hornets get into the empty calabash, and when they obliged, he quickly sealed the opening.
To catch the dwarf he made a doll and covered it with sticky gum. He placed the doll under the odum tree where the dwarfs play and put some yam in a bowl in front of it. When the dwarf came and ate the yam she thanked the doll which of course did not reply. Annoyed at its bad manners she struck it, first with one hand then the other. The hands stuck and Anansi captured her.
Anansi handed his captives over to Nyame who rewards him with the stories, which now become known as Anansi stories or Anansesem

Hermes

Perhaps one of the most likable Olympians, Hermes is another classic trickster. The second youngest of the Olympians, Hermes was a deity of many things (commerce, thieves, travelers, sports, and border crossings...) Hermes was well known for his tricks that he would often play on unsuspecting gods and mortals alike. A Homeric hymn to Hermes describes him as a god "of many shifts, blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." Everyone knew things were off to an interesting start when, as his first act shortly after being born, Hermes snuck out and stole Apollo's cattle. However, if you have issues with infants stealing your livestock there may be larger issues at hand. Just saying. In any case, Hermes had a very eventful career. He fathered several notable children (Pan, Hermaphroditus, Priapus, Eros, Tyche...) and had supporting roles in both the Iliad and Odyssey. Hermes often aided Zeus in his extramarital affairs and just as often had to clean up the mess afterwards. In conclusion, Hermes has been inventing things and tricking his divine siblings since Day 1. Observe:

According to legend, Hermes was born in a cave on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. Zeus had impregnated Maia at the dead of night while all other gods slept. When dawn broke amazingly he was born. Maia wrapped him in swaddling bands, then resting herself, fell fast asleep. Hermes, however, squirmed free and ran off to Thessaly. This is where Apollo, his brother, grazed his cattle. Hermes stole a number of the herd and drove them back to Greece. He hid them in a small grotto near to the city of Pylos and covered their tracks. Before returning to the cave he caught a tortoise, killed it and removed its entrails. Using the intestines from a cow stolen from Apollo and the hollow tortoise shell, he made the first lyre. When he reached the cave he wrapped himself back into the swaddling bands. When Apollo realized he had been robbed he protested to Maia that it had been Hermes who had taken his cattle. Maia looked to Hermes and said it could not be, as he is still wrapped in swaddling bands. Zeus the all powerful intervened saying he had been watching and Hermes should return the cattle to Apollo. As the argument went on, Hermes began to play his lyre. The sweet music enchanted Apollo, and he offered Hermes to keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. Apollo later became the grand master of the instrument, and it also became one of his symbols. Later while Hermes watched over his herd he invented the pipes known as a syrinx (pan-pipes), which he made from reeds. Hermes was also credited with inventing the flute. Apollo, also desired this instrument, so Hermes bartered with Apollo and received his golden wand which Hermes later used as his heralds staff. (In other versions Zeus gave Hermes his heralds staff).
And with that, I shall spare you from further block quotes and conclude this exciting mythology post. Until next time, gentle readers!

Archaeology in the News! Romans get all up in Scottish cricket grounds

2010-04-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Roman altar stones unearthed at Scottish cricket ground

Roman altar stones dating back almost 2000 years have been found at a cricket pavilion in Musselburgh, East Lothian.

The stones have been described as the most significant find of their kind in the past 100 years.

Renovations were planned at the pavilion but archaeologists had to survey the protected building before work could begin.

Their unearthing of the stones and other artefacts has postponed the planned developments on the pavilion.

George Findlater, senior inspector of ancient monuments at Historic Scotland, said: "The stones have carvings and quite possibly inscriptions which can have a wealth of information on them, a lot of data about the people and their religion at that time."

This helps with the emerging picture of life in and around the Roman fort at Inveresk during the second century

Councillor Paul McLennan

At least one of the altars is from the 2nd Century and is dedicated to the Roman God Jupiter.

Councillor Paul McLennan, cabinet member for community wellbeing at East Lothian Council, said: "The discovery of these remains is particularly exciting as it is not often that Roman altar stones are discovered during an archaeological excavation in Scotland.

"This helps with the emerging picture of life in and around the Roman fort at Inveresk during the second century."

Gravy

Things They Don't Teach You in Field School

2010-04-26T09:08:00.001-07:00

In honor of 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', which is easily one of the worst films that has even been made, I have compiled a short list of skills that one does not necessarily learn in field school (or school in general) that we see in this "film".

Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat

Ok. I've been out in the field a number of times and I cannot recall a single time when I needed to defend myself with hand-to-hand combat. I mean, the most combat I can think of was that time I was in Spain and became the fly swatting ninja because it was impossible to sit still for any period of time without flies landing everywhere. There were so many flies! So it was only natural that all of us began developing lightning quick reflexes. It may have also helped that I play video games. In any case, I have yet to encounter a situation in the field, or otherwise, that requires hand-to-hand combat to defend myself or an artifact.

Foreign Relations

This one is a little different. I have technically had several adventures in foreign relations mostly because I've done digs in other countries. It's really a lot of fun learning about the people you're with (English, Spanish...) because everyone has different social norms and traditions (tea time, siesta, cerveza con limon...) that you get to experience! I suppose what this really applies to is actively participating in Cold War and/or WWII international diplomacy (or lack thereof). I've never had to engage in any high-security anything or have bad guys of a different nationality take my artifacts away.

Arcane Artifact Identification

I've worked with pottery, jewelry, organic material and even a skeleton. None of these have ever threatened to summon one of the Old Gods or aliens or whatever. In fact, the most they've done is join their friends of similar construction in plastic bags for cataloging and cleaning. Don't get me wrong, it would be totally awesome to find a silly mystical amulet or whatever! Especially if it had an Old God to go with it! But alas...old Babylonian things are usually laundry lists or trade orders, things with hieroglyphs on them are usually just fun material goods and/or jewelry, if it's in a language you don't know there's probably someone you can talk to who knows it and if it's a deity you don't recognize, it's probably because most cultures with polytheistic tendencies have lots of deities with lots of different aspects.

Parkour

I'll just come out and say it: I have no upper body strength to speak of. I blame this on my current job and its extreme lack of fitness requirements. I'm pretty sure the most strenuous dig activity I've had to do is the overhead dirt toss-to-wheelbarrow maneuver. It's tough but once you get the hang of it it's really fun and super effective for moving dirt from your particular section back up to the wheelbarrow that is at the actual ground level. I've never really had to climb anything, except for that one time I went to go see the standing stones at Stanton Drew and saw a rather awesome tree nearby...and climbed it. I've never had to quickly scale anything except for maybe a flight of stairs.

Weapon Skills and/or Sharpshooting

This one gets filed under the same category as the first topic, which is Things I've Never Had To Do On A Dig. I mean, I suppose I could defend myself with a shovel or trowel if called upon, but I really haven't had any formal training in that sort of thing...or anything like it :P The best I could do is drawn upon my extensive knowledge of zombie apocalypse survival tactics and hope for the best.

Stunt Driving

I am not licensed to drive anything other than a regular car...and a regular car in the US at that. Forget manual transmission or UK cars. That's right out. The most stunt driving I've done has been on Mario Kart (64 and Double Dash), Rush and probably one of those Need for Speed games too. I've never had to participate in a high speed chase along a perilous cliff and/or Grand Canyon. However, if some Nazis or psychic Soviet spies felt the need to engage in a car chase along Rainbow Road, they would get SCHOOLED.

Radiation Safety

*facepalm*

Nope. Never.

Archaeology in the News! Accidental discoveries are the best

2010-04-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

But wait! There's more!

Hundreds of rare Roman pots discovered by accident off Italy's coast by British research ship

A British underwater research team has discovered hundreds of rare Roman pots by accident, while trawling the wreckages of ships on the sea bed.

The team had been using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to scour modern wrecks for radioactive materials.

They were amazed to come across the remains of a Roman galley which sank off the coast of Italy thousands of years ago.

One of the Roman pots that were found lying on the sea bed off the coast of Italy by a British research team. Experts believe they held oils

The crew from energy company Hallin Marine International, based in Aberdeen, found a number of ancient pots lying in the mud 1,640ft below the waves.

After the first sighting the crew worked around the clock for two days to bring them to the surface without damaging them.

Supervisor Dougie Combe said the team managed to recover five of the 2,000 year-old vessels intact. They cleared debris off them using water jets.

They were then handed over to an archaeology museum in the historic Graeco-Roman city of Paestum, in northern Italy.

Mr Combe, from Speyside, Scotland, said: 'They would have probably been loaded on some kind of merchant ship which sank all those years ago.'

An underwater research team brought up five pots from the seabed, but said there were hundreds still down there

He added: 'It was a big surprise when we came across the pots as we were looking for modern wrecks from the last 20 years or so.

'It's certainly the oldest thing we've come across on the seabed.

'We managed to get five up altogether, but there must have been hundreds of them there.'

The Mare Oceano was searching for low-grade radioactive material alongside Italian company GeoLab when they made the discovery.

They were trawling off the coast of Capo Palinuro, near Policastro, Italy.

The jars that were found are believed to be ancient Greek or Roman and are thought to date back at least 2,000 years.

Source

Archaeology in the News! Fun times at Bahariya Oasis

2010-04-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Better late than never!

Mummy of a 'tiny, wide-eyed woman' discovered in Egyptian oasis

Antiquity: A 3 ft tall intricately carved plaster sarcophagus portraying a wide-eyed woman dressed in a tunic

Egyptian archaeologists discovered an intricately carved plaster sarcophagus portraying a tiny, wide-eyed woman dressed in a tunic in a newly uncovered complex of tombs at a remote desert oasis.

It is the first Roman-style mummy found in Bahariya Oasis some 186 miles southwest of Cairo, said archaeologist Mahmoud Afifi, who led the dig.

The find was part of a cemetery dating back to the Greco-Roman period containing 14 tombs.

'It is a unique find,' he said, confirming that initial examinations indicate a mummy is inside the coffin.

The carved plaster sarcophagus is only 3 feet long and shows a woman wearing a long tunic, a headscarf, bracelet and shoes, as well as a beaded necklace.

Coloured stones in the sarcophagus' eyes gave the appearance she is awake.

Afifi said they had not dated the new find yet, but the burial style indicated she belonged to Egypt's long period of Roman rule lasting a few hundred years and starting 31BC.

He said his team first thought they had stumbled across a child's tomb because of its diminutive stature, but the decorations and features indicated it was a woman.

Afifi said it was still unclear who the woman was but said it was most likely she was a wealthy and influential member of her society, judging by the effort taken on the sarcophagus.

Mummies of people of diminutive stature have been unearthed in other parts of Egypt, where they appeared to have importance in local religions at the time, he added.

The archaeologists also found a gold relief showing the four sons of the Egyptian god Horus, other plaster masks of women's faces, several glass and clay utensils and some metal coins.

The metal coins are being checked to see whether they can date the era of the tomb more precisely.

Afifi said the find suggested the presence of a larger tomb complex, but said humid weather in the area may have destroyed similar sites.

He said none of the other 13 graves were as complete as that of the woman.

Archaeologist Mahmoud Afifi, who led the dig, said the new find had not been dated but the burial style indicated the sarcophagus belonged to Egypt's long period of Roman rule, from 31BC

Enlarge

Archaeologists work around the intricately carved plaster sarcophagus at the remote Bahariya desert oasis area some 186 miles south-west of Cairo

The find was made after archaeologists had made a series of exploratory digs ahead of a local council plan to build a youth center on the land. The area is known for its relics from the Greco-Roman period.

Bahariya Oasis rocketed to fame a decade ago with the discovery of the 'Valley of the Golden Mummies,' a vast cemetery that has yielded up hundreds of mummies, many covered in gold leaf, from the Greco-Roman period.

Those sarcophagi were decorated in a more traditional ancient Egyptian style, rather than the Roman style of the current find.

The discoveries from this period indicate the comparative wealth and prosperity of the oases at the time due to their location on major desert trading routes.

Enlarge

A gold relief representing the four sons of the Egyptian god Horus, in a newly uncovered complex of tombs

A gypsum mask unearthed alongside a sarcophagus recently discovered in Bahariya

Source

I AM THE MIGHTY MINOTAUR!

2010-04-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings gentle readers! In honor of yet another Greek mythology-themed film that will be coming to a theater near you, here's a brief look at another popular hero, Theseus, and how he had nothing to do with a looming war between the Olympians and the Titans!

Theseus led a very interesting life among the many colorful characters in Greek mythology, and his early life was perhaps a very good indicator that he was meant for big things. To begin at the beginning, Theseus had two fathers! He was the son of both Aegeus and Poseidon, at the same time, as his mother Aethra got busy with both lucky gentlemen in the same evening. Theseus is perhaps most famous for his adventure involving the mighty Minotaur of Crete but it might be best to enjoy a little background information to understand exactly how and why he ended up in a strange maze battling it out with a giant man-bull-thing. I'll try to break it down as best I can, as some of it is a bit convoluted as mythology can often be. Here we go!

In the beginning: Theseus' mortal father, Aegeus, was one of the first kings of Athens. He left the city to marry his new bride Aethra and upon discovering her fairly instantaneous pregnancy (mythology rules? This is also when her encounter with Poseidon took place...) he decided to return to Athens. Before he did, however, he hid his sandals and sword under a huge rock (like you do) and decreed something along the lines of "If my son can lift the rock, he should totally take the stuff I hid there and have them as tokens of his royal lineage. He can come find me if he wants, or whatever." Once back in Athens, Aegeus took up with a newly child-free Medea. Turns out the Mediterranean wasn't so big after all! In any case, Theseus was born and grew to be a characteristically strapping young lad who moved the previously mentioned rock and took his new swag. His mother then informed him about the true identity of his father and he decided it would be best to go to Athens and hang out. However, he was a bit far from Athens so he was given two options to get there: take a boat or go through the Underworld. An easy choice, right? So Theseus packed his things and proceeded into the Underworld. (Wait, what?)

Theseus goes to the Underworld: There were six entrances to the Underworld, each guarded by a chthonic mini-boss of sorts, and he boldly forged ahead to each one. At Epidaurus, Theseus beat the bandit Periphetes and took his nubby staff that often identifies Theseus in vase art and other art. At the Isthmian entrance, Theseus killed Siris using the same method he used on hapless travelers (it involves 2 tied-down pine trees, 1 person and a whole lot of...splitting) and then raped his daughter (wtf? was that even necessary?!). At Crommyon, Theseus just killed a giant pig. Near Megara, Theseus pushed Sciron off a cliff and then headed of to Eleusis where he wrestled and then killed Cercyon. The last one was in the nearby plain of Eleusis where Theseus crammed Procrustes into a truly custom-fit bed. Yes, really. The cool part about all these places is that they were all sites of sacred antiquity...in addition to having odd bandits living there.

Theseus finally gets to Athens: Once in Athens, Theseus didn't identify himself to his father the king but Medea recognized him immediately. She made mention of the usual 'OMG he's going to overthrow/succeed/kill you' plan and also worried that her own son wouldn't get to be king, so they determined the best course of action was to send Theseus to Crete to capture and/or kill the Marathonian Bull. Theseus did so quite efficiently and when he returned and proceeded to sacrifice the bull, Medea tried to poison him (like she do) but it was RIGHT THEN that Aegeus recognized Theseus' sandals, shield and sword and slapped the cup o' poison right out of Theseus' hand. Medea took this as her cue to leave and fled, perhaps to Asia.

Meanwhile, on Crete: King Minos and his wife Pasiphaë were enjoying a pleasant life together with many children when Poseidon made Pasiphaë fall in love with a snow white bull he sent to be sacrificed but Minos ended up keeping for himself because it was such a pretty bull. Deeply embarrassed by her...predicament...Pasiphaë went to the genius inventor Daedalus, who was currently being held as a guestage by King Minos, and asked him to help her. Daedalus constructed a cow-shaped container (cowntainer?) for Pasiphaë to climb inside and be with her behooved. This led to the birth of, you guessed it, a half-human half-bull baby. Minotaur! Naturally Minos was less than thrilled with his development and ordered Daedalus to construct a giant labyrinth to contain this mutant child who grew to have serious anger management problems and a hunger for human flesh as no other food source could satisfy his unnatural man-beast needs. Or something like that.

Theseus finally fights the Minotaur: For one reason or another (there are several) Crete and Athens didn't get along. Whatever the reason, it all ended with King Minos of Crete demanding a shipment of seven Athenian males and seven Athenian females every nine years to be fed to the Minotaur. Athens had complied with this request until Theseus arrived and so did the nine year due date for the sacrifice. Theseus volunteered to be Athenian Male #7 and boarded a ship for Crete, telling his father that should he return victorious, he would use white sails but if he failed, the ship would return with black sails. Theseus arrived in Crete and was promptly stripped of any and all weaponry (early TSA?) but was given a ball of string by Minos' daughter Ariadne, who had fallen madly in love with Theseus upon first seeing him. That night, Ariadne led Theseus to the entrance of the labyrinth and instructed him, courtesy of Daedalus, to proceed straight down to the Minotaur and use the string to find his way back out. In return, Theseus promised to take Ariadne back with him to Athens should he be victorious. Theseus found the Minotaur and dispatched him after a decent fight using a sword he had managed to hide in his tunic and emerged from the labyrinth with the Minotaur's head. He and the other Athenian youths escaped along with Ariadne and her sister Phaidra. On the way back to Athens, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island (gratitude!) and got so caught up in his epic victory that he forgot to change the sails on the ship from black to white and when his father Aegeus saw the black-sailed ship approaching the Athenian coast, he threw himself into the sea (the AEGEAN sea! :D ) out of grief for his not-dead son. Moral of the story: Theseus became king of Athens and is associated with other founder-heroes like Perseus, Cadmus and Heracles.

Fear me, Theseus, for I am the mighty Minotaur!

Ok, so that's pretty much the entire reason I wanted to make this particular post. Until next time!

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