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Benvenuti in queste pagine dedicate a scienza, storia ed arte. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Torino

Friday, December 27, 2013

Trundholm Sun Chariot and Langstrup Plate

Read please this post, very interesting

Les dues vides del Carro Solar de Trundholm, Publicat per Albert
títol del TREBALL DE FINAL DE GRAU,  carrera d'Humanitats  a la UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA.
at http://alauniversitat.blogspot.it/2013/11/les-dues-vides-del-carro-solar-de.html
And also /news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/bronze-age-calendar-120330.htm



By Nationalmuseet, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47971456

See also: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2512
Ancient bronze disks, decorations and calendars, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
(12 Mar 2012) Recently, it was published that some ancient bronze disks could had been calendars, that is, that their decorations had this function. Here I am discussing an example, the disk of the Trundholm Sun Chariot, proposing a new interpretation of it, giving a calendar of 360 days. Some geometric diagrams concerning the decoration layout are also proposed. Comments: Ancient calendars, ancient time-keeping, Bronze Age, Trundholm Sun Chariot
Cite as: arXiv:1203.2512 [physics.pop-ph]

See also http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.4103
Number pi from the decoration of the Langstrup plate, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
(19 Mar 2012), Studies of ancient bronze artifacts can be useful in understanding the progression of human knowledge of mathematics and geometry. Here I discuss the decoration composed by several circles and spirals of the Langstrup belt disk, an artifact of the Bronze Age found in Denmark. I am showing by measurements of diameters and distances of spirals, that the artist who made the decoration knew some approximations by rational numbers of the number pi, the dimensionless physical quantity representing the ratio of circumference to diameter. Comments: Ancient measurements of pi as ratio of circumference and diameters, giving rational numbers,
Cite as: arXiv:1203.4103 [physics.pop-ph]

Thursday, October 24, 2013

A literary experiment on Harry Potter and his social network

Literary works can be analyzed in the framework of the network theories, as proposed for instance by the Stanford Literary Laboratory, in some of their experiments. The plot of a play or a novel, can be displayed as a network of interacting characters, where the timeline of the plot is projected on a planar graph. We can discuss this approach and apply it to the first novel of the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling, entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Besides being an entertaining application for teaching networks, this approach can help in highlighting some features of the plot structure.

More details at:A.C. Sparavigna, On Social Networks in Plays and Novels, The International Journal of Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 10, 2013, Pages: 20-25
 DOI: 10.18483/ijSci.312
http://www.ijsciences.com/pub/article/312

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Sea Silk (Bisso)

From Wikipedia - ...
China never managed to reach the Roman Empire directly in antiquity, although general Ban Chao sent Gan Ying as an envoy to "Daqin" in 97 AD. Gan Ying did not reach Daqin, he stopped at the coast of a large sea, because "sailor(s) of the Parthian west border" told him that the voyage to cross the sea might take a long time and be dangerous. Gan Ying left a detailed account of the Roman Empire, but it is generally considered to have been based on second hand information:
The Kingdom of Da Qin (the Roman Empire) is also called Lijian. As it is found to the west of the sea, it is also called the Kingdom of Haixi ("West of the Sea"). The territory extends for several thousands of li. It has more than four hundred walled towns. There are several tens of smaller dependent kingdoms. The walls of the towns are made of stone. They have established postal relays at intervals, which are all plastered and whitewashed. There are pines and cypresses, as well as trees and plants of all kinds.
- Gan Ying gives a very idealistic view of Roman governance which is likely the result of some story he was told while visiting the Persian Gulf in 97 AD. He also described, less fancifully, Roman products:
Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are all tall and honest. They resemble the people of the Middle Kingdom and that is why this kingdom is called Da Qin. This country produces plenty of gold [and] silver, [and of] rare and precious [things] they have luminous jade, 'bright moon pearls,' Haiji rhinoceroses, coral, yellow amber, opaque glass, whitish chalcedony, red cinnabar, green gemstones, gold-thread embroideries, woven gold-threaded net, delicate polychrome silks painted with gold, and asbestos cloth.
They also have a fine cloth which some people say is made from the down of 'water sheep' [sea silk], but which is made, in fact, from the cocoons of wild silkworms (wild silk). They blend all sorts of fragrances, and by boiling the juice, make a compound perfume. [They have] all the precious and rare things that come from the various foreign kingdoms. They make gold and silver coins. Ten silver coins are worth one gold coin. They trade with Anxi [Parthia] and Tianzhu [North-western India] by sea. The profit margin is ten to one. . . . The king of this country always wanted to send envoys to the Han, but Anxi [Parthia], wishing to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks, blocked the route to prevent [the Romans] getting through [to China].

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Moving sand dunes on Mars

Moving Sand Dunes on Mars, by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Abstract: It was recently announced that the sand dunes on Mars can move. This important result was obtained by means of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images, recorded three years apart, of the dunes in the Nili Patera caldera show that they move. Here we compare an image HiRISE of 2007 with an image of 1999 recorded by the Mars Global Surveyor. Therefore, with the help of Gimp, the GNU image processing software to enhance the images, we can see and measure the motion of the dunes during a longer period of time.

A dune on Mars which is moving. In the Nili Patera caldera.
199 on the left, 2007 on the right


More details and article at:


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Peruvian dunes (Google Earth)



http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/DUNE/

"Moving Dunes on the Google Earth" at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1290
(where I show how to use the time series of the Google Earth to estimate the motion of the barchans. I discuss also how to use reference points and adjust the Google images to have a "movie")

"A Study of Moving Sand Dunes by Means of Satellite Images"

Sunday, August 11, 2013

From Google Earth to Tatooine

Today (11 August 2013)  I found this article entitled "Star Wars home of Anakin Skywalker threatened by dune" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23375344
It is told that "Sand dunes migrating over the Tunisian desert are poised to bury a famous Star Wars film set. The buildings of the fictional city Mos Espa featured in The Phantom Menace, "Episode I" of the Jedi saga. Sited on the planet Tatooine, this was the home of the young Anakin Skywalker ... Scientists have used the dwellings as a fixed geographic reference to measure the migration of giant wind-blown crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans. They have published details in the journal Geomorphology." The paper is in press, and you can see it at  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X13003486
BBC continues "Ralph Lorenz, from Johns Hopkins University, ...  visited the Mos Espa site in 2009, and noted that part of a nearby set used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had already been overrun. Using satellite images of the site, they were able to determine the speed of dune movement, which is approaching the buildings once inhabited by such luminaries as Anakin, his slave owner Watto, and rival podracer Sebulba".
Before these "Dunes on the planet Tatooine",  on 4 January 2013 it was published  my "Moving Dunes on the Google Earth", as you can find at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1290, where I showed how to use the time series of the Google Earth to estimate the motion of the barchans. I used the barchans in Peru. I have also  discussed how to use reference points and adjust the Google images to have a "movie".
It seems that the authors of "Dunes on planet Tatooine: Observation of barchan migration at the Star Wars film set in Tunisia" do not know my "Moving dunes on the Google Earth" because my paper is not cited.
Therefore I cite myself!

And show you a "movie" of the barchan which is threatening Luke Skywalker's home.








Moving sand dunes on the Google Earth

"Moving dunes on the Google Earth" is my paper on arXiv, published 4 January 2013. It shows how using GH time series you can see the motion of dunes. Here an example.


To see a movie, please visit Moving sand dunes ... post

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Dharmadhatu



Dharmadhatuvagishvara Manjushri, gilded bronze, Nepal, 19th century
MAO, Museo d'Arte Orientale, Torino

Angeli e Demoni


Il Tibet al Museo d'Arte Orientale di Torino

Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II (Amun is Satisfied) was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III.  His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC.


Museo Egizio Torino

Kongorikishi



"Kongōrikishi (金剛力士) or Niō (仁王) are two wrath-filled and muscular guardians of the Buddha, standing today at the entrance of many Buddhist temples all across Asia including China, Japan and Korea in the form of frightening wrestler-like statues.
They are manifestations of the Bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi protector deity and the oldest and most powerful of the Mahayana pantheon. According to Japanese tradition, they travelled with the historical Buddha to protect him and there are references to this in the Theravada Scriptures as well as the Ambatta Sutta. Within the generally pacifist tradition of   Buddhism, stories of Niō guardians like Kongōrikishi justified the use of  physical force to protect cherished values and beliefs against evil. Nio-Vajrapani is also seen as a manifestation of Mahasthamaprapta or the Bodhisattva of Power that flanks Amida in the Pure Land Tradition and as Vajrasattva, the Dharmapala of the Tibetan tradition...

...Kongōrikishi are a possible case of the transmission of the image of the Greek hero Heracles to East Asia along the Silk Road.  Heracles was used in Greco-Buddhist art to represent Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha (See also Image), and his representation
was then used in China and Japan to depict the protector gods of Buddhist temples. This transmission is part of the wider Greco-Buddhist syncretic phenomenon, where Buddhism interacted with the Hellenistic  culture of Central Asia from the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD.[4]

Source: Wikipedia

See also http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2011/04/kongo-rikishi.html

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Solar orientation of Ales Stenar

Ales Stenar and the direction of the sun during the day as given by sollumis.com, on the Winter and Summer solstices. The image shows a good agreement with the solar orientation suggested in
Andrew M. Kobos, January/February, 2001. Ales Stenar: When? Who? What for?,
http://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/as/aleseng.html

More 
On the solar orientation of Ales Stenar site, A.C. Sparavigna


UPDATE AND UPGRADE (2016)
To see Ales Stenar and its orientaton to the MOON see this:


Monumentum anacyranum

Index rerum a se gestarum: sive Monumentum anacyranum. Ex reliquiis Graecae interpretationis

The name Monumentum Ancyranum refers to the Temple of Augustus and Rome in Ancyra (modern Ankara, Turkey), or to the inscription Res Gestae Divi Augusti, a text recounting the deeds of the first Roman emperor Augustus, the most intact copy of which is preserved on the walls of this temple.





The Roman Centuriation in the Middlesex District

The Roman Centuriation in the Middlesex District. (Brentford Printing and » 20 Jun 1908 » The Spectator Archive

The Roman Centuriation in the Middlesex District.
(Brentford Printing and Publishing Company. 3s. 6&)—
This is an addendum to Mr. Montagu Sharpe'e "Antiquities of Middlesex" A centuria was a square plot of land containing fifty iugera, equivalent to thirty-one and a quarter acres. This was the measure used in dividing the land of a conquered country. Each Roman citizen had four centuriac ; part was restored to the natives ; odd bits and unoccupied lands were leased out; forests, &c., were dealt with on the same principles. Mr. Sharpe writes about the details of this division—boundaries, landmarks, &c.—and applies his deductions to the Middlesex region, with some portions of the adjoining counties. He makes out eight territories (named "Break- spear's," "Colne," "Pontes "—these are in the west—" Ridge," "Sulloniacae," " Harrow," " Home," "Lea "). We cannot discuss the details, but we may point out a highly interesting list of landmarks as related to the road system given on p. 14.

More at
http://www.cantab.net/users/michael.behrend/repubs/sharpe_middx/pages/ehr.html
"Evidence that this area had been settled by a Romano-British agricultural population was obtained in this way. For some time past it had been noticed that many fragments of its ancient rural ways ran in parallel lines, and were crossed at right angles by similar ones, which in the several districts of the county were distinguished by a different orientation. Thus in the northeastern division the direction of the cardinal ways was from north to south: in the southern portion between the Brent and the Lea rivers, and into Essex, they pointed south-south-east. Over the south-western area and beyond the Colne into Buckinghamshire the course was south by west, and in the north-western district they were again south-south-east. Passing into that part of the Middlesaxon province lying south of the upper Colne and Lea, but now in Hertfordshire, the two orientations were {490} respectively south-east by south, and south by east. A further feature was that many crossways occurred at equal intervals, and along one road five in succession were found at distances of 120 Roman poles or 388 yards, two being roads, two foot paths, and the other an ancient field boundary, presumed to have been formerly a plough balk or a footway.
It was manifest that this laying out of land amounting to 181,000 acres could not have been the result of chance, but must have been carried out at a time when the soil was mostly in its primitive condition, by a conquering race who had seized it, and who were accompanied by skilled land measurers. All this pointed unmistakably to the Romans and their corps of agrimensores, trained in applied geometry and using scientific instruments. The writings of the Gromatici Veteres were next consulted for information as to the manner in which Roman lands were surveyed and laid out, and it is worthy of note that one of the most eminent of these writers was Sextus Frontinus, Propraetor over Britain from a. d. 74. Among the more enduring bench or land marks used by Roman surveyors were mounds of earth (up to the size of a small haystack), stones, and trenches, and in these three respects important discoveries have been made in the county. A mound (botontinus) is to be seen both in Cranford and in Syon parks, also at Hampstead, Stanmore, Hadley—where there are two—and just out of the county at Salthill, Slough. Two others have not long ago been levelled, one by Bushy Park and the other at Hillingdon, while local names apparently preserve the sites of half a dozen more. Four stones are still in situ; two marked on old maps no longer exist, and the former positions of several others can be located. Two trenches are still to be seen.
A map showed that these boundary marks and the remnants of the oriented ways were naturally co-related, that each district had been of nearly equal area, rectangular in form, and contained by a boundary line, the course of which was disclosed by the botontini and stones. It was also seen that these districts or pagi were in general identical in area with those of the later hundreds of the Saxon period, as set forth in Domesday. From the orientation of the pagi, the territorium of the Londinium canton appeared to extend from the foot of the Chiltern hills across Middlesex and into Essex; the pagi had been laid out by lines (quintarii) crossing one another at right angles, and so forming possessae, each of which according to the text-book, and in fact, contained 1,300 jugera equal to 810 statute acres. These in turn could be divided into 25 laterculi or small centuriae of 50 jugera lying in rows of five, plus an area equal to a centuria distributable over a possessa for lanes and paths. This provision, equal to one-{491}twenty-fifth of a surveyed area, was later on found to have an important bearing when comparing the total acreage of the Roman and Domesday surveys of the county, for the latter did not include road surface. A side of this square centuria measured 120 Roman poles or 388 yards, and five of them lining the face of a possessa accounted for those five successive equal intervals formed by crossways which were noticed upon a Middlesex road between Greenford and Ealing as above mentioned."


http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXXIII/CXXXII/489.citation

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/dha_0755-7256_1990_num_16_2_1489

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~jwmp/NAHRG04.pdf


Saturday, June 29, 2013

On Ancient Chinese Towns


Sculpture of lion with three cubs from Dadu, discovered underneath the Ming era city wall, now on display in the Beijing Stone Carving Museum
Courtesy: Shizhao, Wikipedia    

Khanbaliq or Dadu  refers to a city which is the core of Beijing.   Dadu or Ta-Tu (大都, pinyin: Dàdū, Wade-Giles: Ta-tu), means "great capital" or "grand capital" in Chinese, the name for the capital of the Yuan Dynasty founded by Kublai Khan in China, and was called Daidu by the Mongols, which was a transliteration directly from the Chinese. It is known as Khanbaliq (汗八里), also spelled as Khanbalikh in Turkic languages, meaning "Great residence of the Khan", and Marco Polo wrote of it as Cambaluc.

On Khanbalik and other Chinese Towns, see please:

A possible role of sunrise/sunset azimuth in the planning of ancient Chinese towns by  A.C. Sparavigna,
PORTO POLITO, http://porto.polito.it/2519296/

Friday, June 28, 2013

Nosce te ipsum

"Il Gnôr Grassiadiô e il Gnôr Côlômbô erano due amici-nemici che, secondo la leggenda, abitarono per tempo immemorabile a fronte a fronte, sui due lati di uno stretto vicolo della città di Moncalvo. Il Gnôr Grassiadiô era massone e ricchissimo: si vergognava un poco di essere ebreo, ed aveva sposato una gôià, e cioè una cristiana, dai capelli biondi lunghi fino al suolo, che gli metteva le corna. Questa gôià, benché appunto gôià, si chiamava Magna Ausilia, il che indica un certo grado di accettazione da parte degli epigoni; era figlia di un capitano di mare, che aveva regalato al Gnôr Grassiadiô un grosso pappagallo di tutti i colori che veniva dalle Guyane, e diceva in latino "Conosci te stesso". Il Gnôr Côlômbò era povero e mazziniano: quando arrivò il pappagallo, si era comperata una cornacchia tutta spelacchiata e le aveva insegnato a parlare. Quando il pappagallo diceva "Nosce te ipsum" la cornacchia rispondeva "Fate furb", "fatti furbo"."
da Il Sistema Periodico, di Primo Levi
http://areeweb.polito.it/strutture/cemed/sistemaperiodico/s16/e16_1_02.html

Gnôr Grassiadiô and Gnôr Côlômbô were two friendly enemies who, according to the legend, had lived from time immemorial face to face on the two sides of an alleyway in the town of Moncalvo. Gnôr Grassiadiô was a Mason and very rich. He was a bit ashamed of being a Jew and had married a goyà, that is, a Christian, with blond hair so long it touched the ground, who cuckolded him. This goyà, although really a goyà, was called Magna Ausilia, which indicates a certain degree of acceptance on the part of the epigones; she was the daughter of a sea captain who had presented Gnôr Grassiadiô with a large, varicolored parrot which came from Guyana and would say in Latin, “Know thyself.” Gnôr Côlômbô was poor and a Mazzinian. When the parrot arrived he bought a crow without a feather on its back and taught it to speak. When the parrot croaked, “Nosce te ipsum,” the crow answered, “Wise up.“
Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
Translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Remarkable Properties of Mythological Social Networks | MIT Technology Review

"Today,  P J Miranda at the Federal Technological University of Paraná in Brazil and a couple of pals study the social network between characters in Homer’s ancient Greek poem, the Odyssey. Their conclusion is that this social network bears remarkable similarities to Facebook, Twitter and the like and that this may offer an important clue about the origin of this ancient story."
The Remarkable Properties of Mythological Social Networks | MIT Technology Review

Monday, June 17, 2013

Festival Beethoven


Dal 24 al 30 giugno 2013, Piazza San Carlo

Le 9 Sinfonie con l’Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI e il Coro del Teatro Regio. I Concerti con l’Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino e grandi interpreti.
Tutte le sere, ore 21, Ingresso libero


Immagine non-photorealistic rendering; vedi A.C. Sparavigna, B Montrucchio,  
Non-photorealistic image rendering with a labyrinthine tiling, http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0609084
FESTIVAL BEETHOVEN

From 24th to 30th June in Piazza San Carlo, seven evenings of free classical music by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI (RAI National Symphonic Orchestra) and Torino Philharmonic Orchestra.

Festival Beethoven. The RAI National Symphonic Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Nine symphonies and Torino Philharmonic Orchestra, with young talents already nationally affirmed, four of five Concerts for the Piano, the Concert for Orchestra and Violins and the Triple Concert.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Ancient trading

"Joakim Wehlin of the University of Gothenburg and Gotland University has examined Bronze Age stone monuments that sit along Sweden’s Baltic Sea coasts. It had been thought that the monuments, which resemble stone ships, were used primarily as grave sites. Wehlin, however, thinks that they were used by maritime groups trading in metal objects. “It seems like the whole body was typically not buried in the ship, and some stone ships don’t even have graves in them. Instead, they sometimes show remains of other types of activities. So with the absence of the dead, the traces of the survivors tend to appear,” he explained. The monuments may have been used to mark ports, waterways leading inland, and potential meeting places." From http://www.archaeology.org/news/690-130322-sweden-stone-ships-bronze-age

https://sites.google.com/site/stoneships/

Stone ship at Blomsholm



The stone ship at Blomsholm near Strömstad in Bohuslän measures more than 40 metres in length and consists of 49 large menhirs. The bow and stern are about 4 metres high. There are several other large megaliths in the area. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_ship


Lindholm Høje



"Lindholm Høje (Lindholm Hills, from the word for hill or mound) is a major Viking burial site and former settlement situated to the north of and overlooking the city of Aalborg in Denmark. The southern (lower) part of Lindholm Høje dates to 1000 – 1050 AD, the Viking Age, while the northern (higher) part is significantly earlier, dating back to the 5th century AD.[1] An unknown number of rocks were removed from the site over the centuries, many, for example, being broken up in the 19th century for use in building roads..." 

Monday, May 20, 2013

Anundshög




Anundshög is a tumulus in Sweden. It has a diameter of 60 metres (200 ft) and is about 9 metres (30 ft) high, dated between the Bronze Age and the late Iron Age. A fireplace under it has been dated by radiocarbon dating to sometime between AD 210 and 540. Some historians have associated the mound with the legendary King Anundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anundsh%C3%B6g
At the foot of the mound are 2 large stone ships placed end to end, 51 metres (167 ft) and 54 metres (177 ft) long. Two other stone ships are visible. The site was a thing-place and the ship settings may be associated with this function, according to Wikipedia.

On the Ales Stenar and its solar orientation, please visit http://porto.polito.it/2507517/

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Astrophile: Saturn's egg moon Methone is made of fluff - space - 17 May 2013 - New Scientist

"Out among Saturn's menagerie of moons, a shiny white egg rests in a nest of ice crystals.
Named Methone, this small, oval moon was seen in close-up for the first time last year by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Methone is utterly unlike the other small balls of ice and rock that dot the solar system, which are deeply scarred by impacts. Instead it is smooth, with not a hill or pockmark in sight. Now astronomers may have a clue as to why: Methone is made of lightweight fluff."Astrophile: Saturn's egg moon Methone is made of fluff - space - 17 May 2013 - New Scientist

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Assembly line

"The assembly line was invented 100 years ago. It’s time to invent the disassembly line", Steven Cherry is telling at http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/innovation/the-future-of-the-assembly-line
in a conversation with David Nye, professor of American history at the University of Southern Denmark.


Deep Space Beacon


Pulsed gamma rays from the Vela pulsar from photons detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope. The Vela pulsar is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays in the sky. The bluer colour in the latter part of the pulse indicates the presence of gamma rays with energies exceeding a billion electron volts (1 GeV). For comparison, visible light has energies between two and three electron volts. Red indicates gamma rays with energies less than 300 million electron volts (MeV); green, gamma rays between 300 MeV and 1 GeV; and blue shows gamma rays greater than 1 GeV. The image frame is 30 degrees across. The background, which shows diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Milky Way, is about 15 times brighter here than it actually is.
Source Goddard Space Flight Center
Author Roger Romani (Stanford University) (Lead), Lucas Guillemot (CENBG), Francis Reddy (SPSYS)

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Earth seen from Apollo


Courtesy: NASA, Apollo 11

Bellissima!


Courtesy: NASA Apollo 8

Sun reflection


Courtesy: NASA Apollo 8

View of Earth as photographed by the Apollo 8 astronauts on their return trip from the moon. The terminator crosses Australia. India is visible. The sun reflection is within the Indian Ocean.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

 Brookhaven National Laboratory:  A scanning electron microscope captured this from the bottom of a trench carved by reactive ion etching. 

Caesar and Arles



Image processing of the Arles bust 

It was probably between 49 and 46 BC, when Caesar had close relationships with Arles that, according to the French archaeologist Luc Long, who found it in 2007 after struggling with poor visibility, strong currents and the catfishes of Rhone, the famous marble bust of Arles had been carved. This beautiful portrait, discovered in the depths of the right bank of the river near Arles, has been undoubtedly attributed by Long to Julius Caesar. Here we compare the Arles bust with some others and propose the application of image processing and multimodal biometric systems to the ancient artifact. ... More at SSRN

Dancing Men in Renaissance Painting May Be Native Americans

Dancing Men in Renaissance Painting May Be Native Americans
Friday, May 03, 2013
VATICAN CITY—While restoring a fresco painted in 1494 by Pinturicchio on the walls of the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments, Maria Pustka found small images of dancing men that may be the first Western depictions of Native Americans. “The Borgia Pope was interested in the New World, as were the great chancelleries of Europe. It is hard to believe that the papal court, especially under a Spanish pope, would have remained in the dark about what Columbus encountered,” wrote Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums. That pope would eventually arbitrate the division of New World lands between Spain and Portugal.

Friday, May 3, 2013

A Year Without a Summer

The 'Year Without a Summer' AAAS
"In many parts of the country winter refuses to release its icy grip, and records are being broken for spring’s late arrival. Although we know that spring and summer will come eventually, we are still a far cry from rivaling the “Year Without a Summer.”  That year was 1816. It was near the end of the Little Ice Age, a period that began around 1350 AD. It was also in the middle of what became known as the Dalton Minimum, an unusual period of low solar activity named after English meteorologist John Dalton that lasted from 1790 to 1830...."

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Caesar and Caesarion


Quello sguardo amaro: i volti di Cesare e Cesarione. Intervista a Paolo Moreno
24/01/2011 - UmbriaLeft, by Giovanni Corazzi
Giusto un anno fa, nella nostra Umbrialeft veniva pubblicato un articolo in cui si parlava di una grande mostra, iniziata allora da qualche settimana (ottobre 2009) nel centro francese di Arles (presso il Musée départemental Arles antique) e dedicata agli oggetti riemersi dal fiume Rodano (riva destra, all’altezza, appunto, della cittadina provenzale) nel corso di una ventennale campagna condotta dal Drassm, il dipartimento ministeriale francese delle ricerche archeologiche, subacquee e sottomarine, guidato da Luc Long. .. tra cui un bellissimo busto. .. il Long sin dall’inizio avesse proposto senza esitazioni il nome di Cesare per il busto riemerso. Tale attribuzione, sebbene confermata da studiosi di valore quali lo storico Christian Goudineau (un classico il suo saggio su Cesare e la Gallia) e l’esperto di iconografia cesariana Flemming Johansen (autore di un importante lavoro del 1967, revisionato vent’anni dopo, dedicato ai ritratti in marmo di Cesare), è stata inizialmente contestata da altri studiosi, che hanno pensato a un magistrato romano o a un notabile di Arles. Fin dall’annuncio della scoperta (maggio 2008) era intervenuto al dibattito uno dei più importanti archeologi italiani, Paolo Moreno, ... Il Moreno ha toccato la questione anche nel 2009, con l’interessante ed elegante volume Cleopatra Capitolina (Editinera), e lo scorso ottobre in una lezione tenuta a Torino in occasione del «FestivalStoria». I suoi interventi hanno fornito nuove indicazioni sul ritratto, inserendolo in un ampio contesto che abbraccia il tratto mediterraneo da Arles ad Alessandria e che parla di una famiglia tanto grande quanto sfortunata. Divengono, infatti, protagonisti anche la regina d’Egitto Cleopatra e il figlio da lei avuto con Cesare, Tolemeo XV Cesare, meglio noto come Cesarione. Questi, nato nel 47 a.C., venne associato al regno a soli tre anni per volontà della madre, che evidentemente nutriva per il piccolo grandi progetti. ... 




http://www.umbrialeft.it/approfondimenti/quello-sguardo-cos%C3%AC-amaro-volti-cesare-e-cesarione-intervista-paolo-mor

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Monte Viso

 "Monte Viso is the location of a neolithic jadeite quarry, at an elevation of 2000 to 2400 metres. Its productivity peaked around 5000 BC. The jadeite was used to make cult axes, which are found all over western Europe." From Wiki

Geheimnisvolle Kult-Beile: Statussymbole der Steinzeit, Von Almut Bick
Sie sind ein Mysterium, eines der größten Rätsel aus der Zeit der Jäger und Sammler: Steinklingen aus kostbarstem Jadeit. Wozu dienten diese Äxte, die Archäologen in halb Europa gefunden haben? Forscher sind dem Geheimnis nun dicht auf der Spur ...Über sechstausend Jahre ist es her, dass die steinzeitlichen Bergleute mit dem äußerst seltenen Jadeit heimkehrten. Hoch oben, jenseits der Schneegrenze des Monte Viso in den italienischen Alpen, betrieben sie einen regelrechten Steinbruch für das grüne Mineral. ...

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/geheimnisvolle-kult-beile-statussymbole-der-steinzeit-a-477917.html

See also:
Zwischen Atlantik und Schwarzem Meer , Die großen Beile aus alpinem Jadeit im 5. und 4.Jt. v. Chr
by Serge Cassen
http://www.academia.edu/1954923/Zwischen_Atlantik_und_Schwarzem_Meer_Die_grossen_Beile_aus_alpinem_Jadeit_im_5._und_4.Jt._v.Chr

Zu den Jadeit-Quellen am Monte Viso
by Rengert Elburg
http://www.academia.edu/3119319/Zu_den_Jadeit-Quellen_am_Monte_Viso

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Liath Meisicith

From "The Mystery of Fire", by Mainly Palmer Hall, 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_Palmer_Hall

The burning glass of Druids


Saturday, March 23, 2013

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS as seen from Mount Dale, Western Australia. Image credit: Astronomy Education Services/Gingin Observatory


Image obtained after processing with AstroFracTool the original at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/comet20130307.html




Sunday, March 3, 2013

Air curtains for Terracotta Warriors

"New system can shield national relics from damage by pollution. Even the Terracotta Warriors are feeling the effects of China's choking air pollution. Chinese scientists have found that the indoor environment where the Terracotta Warriors are housed could cause them to deteriorate, prompting some scientists to raise the idea of using air curtain technology to help control the environment in the pits."
More at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-03/02/content_16268606.htm


Adapted from Wikipedia, courtesy Maros

Physics of archaeology

"Physics is breaking new ground in the field of archaeology and human evolution.
So much so that in just a few years the gains in archaeology now equal the gains made from the past 100 years of using traditional methods, explains nuclear physicist and University of Wollongong visiting Professor Claudio Tuniz. Dr Tuniz, who began his career in the United States using physics to analyse moon rocks and meteorites, has spent almost two decades examining how advanced scientific technology in nuclear physics and X-rays can tell us more about palaeoanthropology and human evolution. ..."
more at
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1333188/hi-tech-discoveries-archaeology-transformed/?cs=12

Mosaic - Palazzo Madama, Turin


XI-XII Century, Palazzo Madama, Torino

Friday, March 1, 2013

Karazuri - A ghost


Nishiki-e print with Karazuri; a work by Utagawa Toyokuni II (Toyoshige), 1825-1830, representing a ghost, Museo di Arte Orientale, Torino.


On Karazuri, read please
The Japanese art of using an inkless printing
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2747878

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Leonardo da Vinci and Amboise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Château_d'Amboise

 "The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. Confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century, it became a favoured royal residence and was extensively rebuilt. 
...
King Francis I was raised at Amboise, which belonged to his mother, Louise of Savoy, and during the first few years of his reign the château reached the pinnacle of its glory. As a guest of the King, Leonardo da Vinci came to Château Amboise in December 1515 and lived and worked in the nearby Clos Lucé, connected to the château by an underground passage." 

In 1516, Francis I invited Leonardo da Vinci to Amboise and hosted him in the Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux. Leonardo arrived in Amboise with three of his famous paintings:  Mona Lisa, Sainte Anne, and Saint Jean Baptiste. Leonardo lived at the Clos Lucé for the last three years of his life. He died there on 2 May 1519.


Image processing from a picture of the modern statue in Amboise of Leonardo in the pose of a river god.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_IMG_1759.JPG

Horned frog - Robert Wilson




Horned frog
Robert Wilson
Palazzo Madama, Torino