This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: AFP
Jul 21, 2010
Egyptian experts have begun to explore the depths of Lake Qarun south of Cairo using remote sensing radars in search of sunken artefacts, antiquities officials told AFP on Wednesday.
Antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass said the work was launched a few days ago. "It is the first time ever that the antiquities department carries out an archaeological mission in Lake Qarun."
Khaled Saeed, who heads the department of pre-historic affairs at the Supreme Council of Anti
Source: AFP
Jul 21, 2010
In the Asterix comic books you only had to drink a magic potion to be able to lift a menhir. But in reality you need vast quantities of muscle power and lots of patience.
That is what a group of 30 holiday-makers found out when they heaved on a rope to move a 4.2-tonne stone block as part of an experiment probing the mysterious history of megaliths in France's northwestern Brittany region.
"It's experimental archeology," explained Cyril Chaigneau, an architect
Source: ABC News
Jul 21, 2010
Although Adolf Hitler's ideological autobiography remains banned in Germany and Austria, George Tabori's stage comedy of the same name, which debuted in 1987, still is held in great esteem -- so great that it has been adapted for the screen despite its barely marketable title.
International box office prospects, already dim to begin with, are further hindered by many inside jokes and allusions to Hitler's famous speeches that work in German but probably will not survive dubbing or s
Source: Live Science
Jul 21, 2010
Sex toys have come a long way since the Stone Age -- but then again, perhaps not as much as we might think.
Last week, an excavation in Sweden turned up an object that bears the unmistakable look of a penis carved out of antler bone. Though scientists can't be sure exactly what this tool was used for, it's hard not to leap to conclusions. [See "Sex Myths and Taboos"]
"Your mind and my mind wanders away to make this interpretation about what it looks like
Source: NYT
Jul 21, 2010
More than two years after trial judges acquitted the former prime minister of Kosovo of murder, rape and torture, an appeals panel at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday ordered him to be retried because the intimidation of witnesses had undermined his trial and produced “a miscarriage of justice.”
The ruling against the former prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, shocked lawyers at the tribunal, which had never been ordered to conduct a retrial and had rarely seen one gr
Source: AFP
Jul 21, 2010
Peruvian archaeologists have found remains from a person believed to be a leader of a key pre-Inca civilization that is more than 1,200 years old, one of the researchers said.
Carlos Elera told AFP the remains from the northern region of Lambayeque are from what some call the Sican culture that flourished in the area between around 700 and 1375 AD.
He said among the remains found two weeks ago in the archaeological complex Las Ventanas is a type of sarcophagus for an ad
Source: BBC
Jul 21, 2010
David Cameron has been criticised after mistakenly saying the UK was the "junior partner" in the allied World War II fight against Germany in 1940.
He made the historical slip, neglecting the fact that the US had yet to enter the war, on the second day of his first trip to the US as prime minister.
Labour's David Miliband called it a "slight", while a veterans' group said it could "alienate" former troops.
No 10 said Mr Cameron
Source: BBC
Jul 21, 2010
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has written to US senators who are calling for an inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted over the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died, was released by the Scottish government in August 2009.
Mr Salmond said the Scottish government made the decision on "compassionate grounds" as Megrahi is terminally ill.
He said there were no representations from oil
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
The Hague war crimes tribunal has ordered the retrial of Kosovo's former Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj because of witness intimidation.
The tribunal said that his acquittal on murder and torture charges related to the 1998-99 conflict two years ago was a miscarriage of justice.
The original trial for Mr Haradinaj and two former Kosovo Liberation Army comrades was marred by intimidation that left two prosecution witnesses too scared to testify, Patrick Robinson, the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
A 12-year dispute has ended with an agreement that a 1912 oil painting will be returned to a Vienna museum and displayed with an acknowledgement that it was stolen from a Jewish art dealer by a Nazi agent.
The settlement calls for the Leopold Museum to own the painting entitled "Portrait of Wally" by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele after paying $19 million (£12m) to the estate of Lea Bondi Jaray and allowing it to be displayed for three weeks at the Museum of Jewish H
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
Instruments used in Elvis Presley's autopsy and embalming are going up for auction in Chicago, including the "John Doe" toe tag used after the original was stolen amid the chaos at the hospital following his death.
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers will hold the auction Aug. 12, four days before the 33rd anniversary of Presley's death.
The auction house said that all of the items used in the autopsy and funeral preparations will be available, from rubber gloves and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
David Warren, an Australian scientist who invented the black box flight data recorder, has died, at the age of 85.
Warren, came up with the idea for the cockpit voice recorder after investigating the crash of the world's first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953. He thought it would be helpful for airline accident investigators to have a recording of voices in the cockpit.
He designed and constructed a black box prototype in 1956, but it took several years bef
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
The remains of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were exhumed more than two decades after their execution in an attempt to quash conspiracy theories surrounding their death.
But relatives of the late and hated couple have repeatedly questioned whether the two bodies buried in the Ghencea cemetery in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, are really those of the Ceausescus, suspecting they were secretly buried elsewhere.
Die-hard supporters have also q
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
David Cameron has not ruled out a full inquiry into the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, US senators have claimed.
Four senators who met the Prime Minister during his visit to Washington said he told them he may yet order an independent investigation.
But the senators from New York and New Jersey, the states where most of the 189 American victims on board Pan Am flight 103 came from, said Mr Cameron was clear that he was keeping an open mind.
Mr Ca
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 21, 2010
A handwritten story by Franz Kafka that has never been published is understood to be contained in a secret archive of the author's private papers.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which was involved in the legal challenge to lift the secrecy surrounding the privately-held archive, disclosed the existence of the short story on its website.
The discovery emerged as an Israeli court rejected an application to keep secret the contents of a vast collection of Kafka's writing
Source: NYT
Jul 21, 2010
“Sweetheart,” a character shouts to a secretary in the “Mad Men” episode airing Sunday, “8 o’clock Saturday night, Jimmy’s La Grange.”
Pause! Rewind! Jimmy’s what?
It’s Restaurant Week in New York City, but a quick look at the Zagat’s guide showed that you won’t be booking a table for two at Jimmy’s La Grange: There is no such restaurant, putting us on the hunt for a bit of Old New York....
The New York Times gave Jimmy’s two stars in a brief review in 1965
Source: DNAinfo
Jul 21, 2010
The 18th-century boat unearthed last week at the World Trade Center site is about to make its first journey in more than 200 years.
Starting on Monday, archaeologists will dismantle the ship’s crumbling wooden beams and move them to storage to study them further, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority.
The work is scheduled to take five to eight days, but the Port Authority hopes to speed it up by adding double shifts.
After the beams leave th
Source: WaPo
Jul 21, 2010
Yards Brewing Co.'s Ales of the Revolution are beers with a history chaser. The Philadelphia microbrewery, which opened in 1995 in a building the size of a toolshed and now occupies a former skateboard rink, has attempted to replicate the brews our Colonial forefathers would have downed while talking sedition in wayside taverns.
General Washington's Tavern Porter takes its cue from a home-brew recipe, preserved in the New York Public Library, that Washington jotted down while he was
Source: AHA Blog
Jul 20, 2010
The AHA welcomes the Construction History Society of America as its newest Affiliated Society.
Our new affiliate has the following statement of purpose:
The Construction History Society of America is dedicated to the study of the history and evolution of all aspects of the built environment—its creation, maintenance, and management. It is a forum for scholars and professionals in the field to share, meet, and exchange ideas and research. Membership is open to a wide
Source: AFP
Jul 20, 2010
An 800-year-old, pre-Columbian burial ground with baskets full of human remains was unearthed at a building site outside San Jose, National Museum archaeologists said Tuesday.
The burial ground, dating from about the year 1200, yielded 26 sets of human bones from children to adults, contained in baskets made of plant fiber, an unusual material for native groups predating the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.
Gutierrez said the burial site was first dis
