Leptis Magna was a punic and then roman settlement. Septimius Severus (145 – 211), Roman Emperor from 193 to 211, was born in this town. Leptis Magna: in the past was known as the "Town of white shadows", a name due to the white statues appearing and disappering amid the dunes of sand. The city had temples, a theatre and an amphitheatre, with a profusion of decorations and statues.
Leptis Magna’s market is a particularly well preserved example of such structures of a Roman city. In fact, many of the features of this market are unique. Along with typical porticoes of shops, the structure had two central circular stalls. The system used by stall holders for measuring the quantities of goods was still found in the market.
"The Roman food market of Leptis Magna was built in 8 BC by a wealthy citizen Hannibal Tapapius Rufus. The evidence for this comes from two inscriptions: one in Latin over the entrance of the market and another in neo Punic on the architrave of one of the market’s circular central stalls."
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-market-place-leptis-magna-a138237
For a web tour in this town, see for instance
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Three poleis - Tripoli
By the fifth century B.C., Carthage, the greatest of the overseas Phoenician colonies, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included Oea (Tripoli), Labdah (later Leptis Magna), and Sabratah, in an area that came to be known collectively as Tripolis, or "Three Cities".
read more http://countrystudies.us/libya/5.htm Libya, by Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Libya: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
Tripoli is the mondern town corresponding to the old Oea, one of the three old Phoenician towns along the coast of Tripolitania, in Libya. http://www.livius.org/oa-om/oea/oea.html
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Possible geoglyphs spotted in Peru
Possible geoglyphs spotted in Peru, by Rossella Lorenzi.
A huge network of earthworks, or geoglyphs, is visible in satellite imagery of a large area around Titicaca Lake, a researcher claims. http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/geoglyph-peru-andean.html
Was this a planned symbol? Yes, says scientist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna."An Italian researcher may have discovered a huge network of earthworks representing birds, snakes and other animals in Peru, according to a study published on the Cornell University physics website arXiv.
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, assistant professor at the department of physics of Turin's Polytechnic University, used Google satellite maps and AstroFracTool, an astronomical image-processing program which she developed, to investigate over 463 square miles of land around Peru's Titicaca Lake "
New Desert Crater Found Using Google Maps and Free Software
"The discovery of a new crater in the Bayuda Desert in Sudan suggests that the next generation of crater hunters could be amateurs based at home.
Most of the rocky planets, moons and asteroids in the Solar System are pock-marked with impact craters of all sizes. On Earth, however, small craters are rare because they quickly get eroded by weather and water.
So the discovery of new small craters is a reason to celebrate. A couple of weeks ago, an Italian team announced in the journal Science that it had used Google Earth to identify an impact crater in the remote desert of southern Egypt. A quick trip to the region showed this crater to be 45 meters in diameter and reasonably well-preserved in the desert rocks.
Now, just a few days later, Amelia Sparavigna at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy has found evidence of another crater in the Bayuda Desert in Sudan using Google Maps. This one is a little bigger: about 10 kilometres in diameter."
Most of the rocky planets, moons and asteroids in the Solar System are pock-marked with impact craters of all sizes. On Earth, however, small craters are rare because they quickly get eroded by weather and water.
So the discovery of new small craters is a reason to celebrate. A couple of weeks ago, an Italian team announced in the journal Science that it had used Google Earth to identify an impact crater in the remote desert of southern Egypt. A quick trip to the region showed this crater to be 45 meters in diameter and reasonably well-preserved in the desert rocks.
Now, just a few days later, Amelia Sparavigna at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy has found evidence of another crater in the Bayuda Desert in Sudan using Google Maps. This one is a little bigger: about 10 kilometres in diameter."
The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Internet : New crater in Sudan discovered using Google Maps
"Software scientists have discovered a 10 kilometre wide crater like structure in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan using Google Maps.
If confirmed, it will be the second such discovery using the popular online mapping tool and could spawn a new generation of home-based amateur crater hunters.
Amelia Sparavigna from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy said she got the idea from Italian researcher Vincenzo de Micheles who identified an impact crater in the remote desert of southern Egypt by 2008 using Google Earth.
Located between the fourth and sixth cataract, the area is characterised by basaltic rocks from ancient volcanoes."The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Internet : New crater in Sudan discovered using Google Maps
If confirmed, it will be the second such discovery using the popular online mapping tool and could spawn a new generation of home-based amateur crater hunters.
Amelia Sparavigna from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy said she got the idea from Italian researcher Vincenzo de Micheles who identified an impact crater in the remote desert of southern Egypt by 2008 using Google Earth.
Located between the fourth and sixth cataract, the area is characterised by basaltic rocks from ancient volcanoes."The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Internet : New crater in Sudan discovered using Google Maps
M R James - The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a certain hidden treasure of this Abbot Thomas, for which those of Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked where it was, and always answered, with a laugh: 'Job, John, and Zechariah will tell either you or your successors.' He sometimes added that he should feel no grudge against those who might find it.
http://ghost.new-age-spirituality.com/mrjames10.html
M R James - The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Bel racconto breve di James sulla ricerca di un tesoro nascosto.
M R James - The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Bel racconto breve di James sulla ricerca di un tesoro nascosto.
Ivory from the melting permafrost
Trade in the ivory from the tusks of dead mammoths has occurred for 300 years and continues to be legal. Mammoth ivory is rare and costly, because mammoths have been extinct for millennia: in fact this trade does not threaten any living species. However, this uncontrolled extraction of mammoth remains from the melting Siberian permafrost is a problem. from Wiki
From a NY Times item:"There's a kind of discomfort when you're a scientist and you see something that could have scientific value being carved up and destroyed," Haynes said. "But this is the trade-off," he added. "I see the businessman's arguments, too. Mammoths are already extinct and people need an economy." In addition, the Russian government examines the tusks to make sure none bearing disease, prehistoric human markings or other scientifically valuable elements are exported.
Scared of being hit by a meteor?
A very interesting article discussing a book on dinosaurus, meteorites and volcanos.
"But Dr Nield’s book even excuses the meteorite from wiping out the dinosaurs. He cites one scientist, Professor Gerta Keller of Princeton University, who claims there were signs of them on Earth 300,000 years after the meteorite struck. The suggestion is that while the meteorite dealt the dinosaurs an all-but-fatal blow, what finally finished them off was a massive volcano. Just before the dinosaurs died, there was a huge eruption of volcanic rock and gas in India, with a truly stupendous outpouring of lava with toxic exhalations that would have had a catastrophic effect on the atmosphere."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1343905/Scared-hit-meteor-Dont-dinosaur.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
"But Dr Nield’s book even excuses the meteorite from wiping out the dinosaurs. He cites one scientist, Professor Gerta Keller of Princeton University, who claims there were signs of them on Earth 300,000 years after the meteorite struck. The suggestion is that while the meteorite dealt the dinosaurs an all-but-fatal blow, what finally finished them off was a massive volcano. Just before the dinosaurs died, there was a huge eruption of volcanic rock and gas in India, with a truly stupendous outpouring of lava with toxic exhalations that would have had a catastrophic effect on the atmosphere."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1343905/Scared-hit-meteor-Dont-dinosaur.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The Amazing Steam Engines Of The First Century: An online translation of an ancient text reveals some engineering marvels from antiquity.
by KFC 01/20/2011, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26285/
"Ask a person in the street who invented the steam engine and you're more than likely to hear the names of various Renaissance inventors such as Denis Papin or James Watt. Less well known is the fact that steam engines were in use at least 2000 years ago. Our knowledge of these devices is largely the result of a text called Pneumatica written in the first century by the Greek mathematician, engineer and inventor Hero of Alexandria. Today, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, talks us through some of these devices as they are described in an online translation of Hero's work."
Ulysses' last voyage
I and my company were old and slow when at that narrow passage we arrived where Hercules his landmarks set as signals, that man no farther onward should adventur. On the right hand behind me I left Seville, and on the other already had left Ceuta. 'O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand perils,' I said, 'have come to the West, to this short eve which is the remaining of your senses, still be you unwilling to deny the knowledge, following the sun, of the unpeopled world. Consider the seed from which you sprang; you were not made to live like brutes, but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.' So eager did I render my companions, with this brief exhortation for the voyage, that then I hardly could have held them back. And having turned our stern to the morning, we of our oars made wings for this mad flight, evermore gaining on the larboard side.
Already saw the night all the stars of the other pole, and ours so very low that they did not rise above the ocean floor. Five days and nights lasted since we had entered into the deep pass, when a mountain appeared to us, dim from distance, and it seemed to me so high as I had never any one seen.
Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping; for out of the new land a whirlwind rose, and smote upon the fore part of the ship. Three times it made her whirl with all the waters, at the fourth time it made the stern uplift, and the prow downward go, as pleased Another, until the sea above us closed again."
arranged from Longfellow's Translation
Already saw the night all the stars of the other pole, and ours so very low that they did not rise above the ocean floor. Five days and nights lasted since we had entered into the deep pass, when a mountain appeared to us, dim from distance, and it seemed to me so high as I had never any one seen.
Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping; for out of the new land a whirlwind rose, and smote upon the fore part of the ship. Three times it made her whirl with all the waters, at the fourth time it made the stern uplift, and the prow downward go, as pleased Another, until the sea above us closed again."
arranged from Longfellow's Translation
Ulisse
Lo maggior corno de la fiamma antica comincio` a crollarsi mormorando pur come quella cui vento affatica; indi la cima qua e la` menando, come fosse la lingua che parlasse, gitto` voce di fuori, e disse:
...
Io e compagni eravam vecchi e tardi quando venimmo a quella foce stretta dov'Ercule segno` li suoi riguardi, accio` che l'uom piu` oltre non si metta: da la man destra mi lasciai Sibilia, da l'altra gia` m'avea lasciata Setta.
"O frati", dissi "che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l'occidente, a questa tanto picciola vigilia d'i nostri sensi ch'e` del rimanente, non vogliate negar l'esperienza, di retro al sol, del mondo sanza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza". Li miei compagni fec'io si` aguti, con questa orazion picciola, al cammino, che a pena poscia li avrei ritenuti; e volta nostra poppa nel mattino, de' remi facemmo ali al folle volo, sempre acquistando dal lato mancino. Tutte le stelle gia` de l'altro polo vedea la notte e 'l nostro tanto basso, che non surgea fuor del marin suolo.
Cinque volte racceso e tante casso lo lume era di sotto da la luna, poi che 'ntrati eravam ne l'alto passo, quando n'apparve una montagna, bruna per la distanza, e parvemi alta tanto quanto veduta non avea alcuna.
Noi ci allegrammo, e tosto torno` in pianto, che' de la nova terra un turbo nacque, e percosse del legno il primo canto. Tre volte il fe' girar con tutte l'acque; a la quarta levar la poppa in suso e la prora ire in giu`, com'altrui piacque, infin che 'l mar fu sovra noi richiuso.
...
Io e compagni eravam vecchi e tardi quando venimmo a quella foce stretta dov'Ercule segno` li suoi riguardi, accio` che l'uom piu` oltre non si metta: da la man destra mi lasciai Sibilia, da l'altra gia` m'avea lasciata Setta.
"O frati", dissi "che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l'occidente, a questa tanto picciola vigilia d'i nostri sensi ch'e` del rimanente, non vogliate negar l'esperienza, di retro al sol, del mondo sanza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza". Li miei compagni fec'io si` aguti, con questa orazion picciola, al cammino, che a pena poscia li avrei ritenuti; e volta nostra poppa nel mattino, de' remi facemmo ali al folle volo, sempre acquistando dal lato mancino. Tutte le stelle gia` de l'altro polo vedea la notte e 'l nostro tanto basso, che non surgea fuor del marin suolo.
Cinque volte racceso e tante casso lo lume era di sotto da la luna, poi che 'ntrati eravam ne l'alto passo, quando n'apparve una montagna, bruna per la distanza, e parvemi alta tanto quanto veduta non avea alcuna.
Noi ci allegrammo, e tosto torno` in pianto, che' de la nova terra un turbo nacque, e percosse del legno il primo canto. Tre volte il fe' girar con tutte l'acque; a la quarta levar la poppa in suso e la prora ire in giu`, com'altrui piacque, infin che 'l mar fu sovra noi richiuso.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818
Questa poesia parla di Ozymandias, altro nome di Ramses II.
Ramses II, Egyptian Museum, Torino
Iris Nebula
Iris Nebula LBN 487 and NGC 7023 in Cepheus
From an image by Hewholooks, which is the user page of Hunter Wilson. Images may be seen at http://hwilson.zenfolio.com/f129011888 or on
Wikimedia athttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=hewholooks
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Testa osiriaca danneggiata
"Uno dei pezzi esibiti alla mostra di antichità del Museo Egizio di Torino a Shizuoka (Giappone), durante i lavori di imballo/trasporto, ha subito un grave danno. Si tratta della testa osiriaca che era a suo tempo stata riparata con l'aggiunta di una corona bianca, non sua. Viva preoccupazione degli Egittologi italiani."
http://www.archaeogate.org/egittologia/article/1277/1/danneggiata-la-testa-osiriaca-del-museo-egizio-di-torin.html
http://www.archaeogate.org/egittologia/article/1277/1/danneggiata-la-testa-osiriaca-del-museo-egizio-di-torin.html
Egyptian Museum, Torino
This head has been damaged during the packaging after an exhibition in Japan
The cloak of Harry Potter
This left only one parcel. Harry picked it up and felt it. It was very light. He unwrapped it. Something fluid and silvery grey went slithering to the floor, where it lay in gleaming folds...
"What is it?"
Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.
"It's an Invisibility Cloak"
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.com/2011/01/invisibility-cloak.html
"What is it?"
Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.
"It's an Invisibility Cloak"
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.com/2011/01/invisibility-cloak.html