| From: Snowshoe | 4/5/2016 1:18:46 PM | | | | | | Has Hannibal's route across the Alps been uncovered? Scientists use 2,000-year-old trail of dung to track legendary general
telegraph.co.uk
Hannibal's 30,000-strong army trudged through deep snow in the grip of winter in 218BC with more than 15,000 mules and horses before crossing into Italy where they nearly made it to the gates of ancient Rome.
But, according to experts, such a large movement of men and animals must have left what they describe as a "mass animal deposition event".
And at a patch of swampy ground near the Col de la Traversette, a narrow pass between Grenoble in France and Turin in Italy, they think they have found it in an unusual layer of muck about 16in beneath the surface.
In a blog post, Chris Allen, a senior lecturer in environmental microbiology at Queen's University Belfast, said: "Using a combination of microbial genetic analysis, environmental chemistry, pollen analysis and various geophysical techniques, we unveiled a mass animal deposition of faecal materials – probably from horses – at a site near the Col de Traversette.
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| From: isopatch | 4/5/2016 10:01:20 PM | | | | | | Reminder from Dante for us all no matter what our personal challenges might be. That we don't sit around in idleness and shirk our responsibilities to ourselves AWA others who care about us.
OK, enough with the preaching..))
Cool 17th Century painting on marble. Don't see many of those.
Iso
Italian School, 17th Century
Dante and Virgil at the terrace of the Slothful, Purgatory; and A further scene from the Divine Comedy
a pair, oil on marble
8.4 x 13.9cm (3 5/16 x 5 1/2in). (2)
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23252/lot/1/
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| From: isopatch | 4/6/2016 8:58:50 AM | | | | | | Yet another discovery showing the surprising resourcefulness of the neolithic/mesolithic peoples of Northern Europe.
Extended excerpt:
<April 5, 2016
Paris (AFP) - Stone Age humans populated the Scottish islands with red deer transported "considerable distances" by boat, said researchers Wednesday who admitted surprise at our prehistoric ancestors' seafaring prowess.
DNA analysis revealed that deer on Scotland's northermost islands were unlikely to have come from the closest and seemingly most obvious places -- mainland Scotland, Ireland or Norway, said a study in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"Our results imply that Neolithic humans were transporting deer considerable distances, by sea, from an unknown source" some 4,500-5,500 years ago, co-author David Stanton of Cardiff University told AFP by email.
"These results are surprising... The evidence suggests that we have misunderstood our relationship with this species," he added.
"Perhaps humans managed deer, having long-term relationships with herds that allowed them to plan, capture and transport deer on longer voyages."
It was known that late Stone Age humans had transported cattle, sheep and pigs by boat, but not large wild animals, and not over such vast distances.
Red deer, said Stanton, were central to life in Britain from the end of the last Ice Age about 11,000 years ago to the arrival of the first late Stone Age farmers.
The animals provided crucial nourishment, skins, sinew, bones and antlers -- used to till the soil, among other things.
Scientists say all animals, including deer, found on the islands today must have been introduced by seafaring people.
The islands were covered in ice during the last "glacial maximum", a period of deep Earth freeze, and have since been separated from each other and the mainland by spans of ocean too wide for deer to swim.
It was therefore thought the deer must have been brought from nearby, possibly from mainland Scotland, boat-hopping from island to island with short spurts of swimming in between.
But DNA analysis of Neolithic deer bones found that those on the most distant, northern islands, were genetically dissimilar to deer from Britain, Ireland, the western European mainland or Scandinavia.
"The hunt is now on to find the ancestors of these deer," said Stanton.>
yahoo.com |
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| From: Tom Clarke | 4/7/2016 6:44:47 PM | | | | | | 'Astonishing' Shakespeare first edition found
A very singular copy of the first known collection of Shakespeare's plays has been uncovered in an aristocratic country house in Scotland. The First Folio is among the most valuable books in the world.
A rare First Folio has been discovered in Scotland, the University of Oxford announced on Thursday. A First Folio is a scarce collection of 36 of William Shakespeare's plays published in 1623. It is not only in essence a "first edition," of the Bard's work but also the only reliable source for twenty of his most famous pieces, such as Macbeth and Julius Caesar.
The tome was uncovered at Mount Stuart, a large manor house on the Isle of Bute off the western coast of Scotland. The find makes a total of 234 known copies of the First Folio in the world, with nearly all the others are held by libraries and available only to academics.
"In terms of literary discoveries, they do not come much bigger than a new First Folio, and we are really excited that this has happened on Bute," said Alice Martin, head of collections at the house. The director of the Mount Stuart House Trust, Adam Ellis-Jones, described the revelation as "genuinely astonishing."
What is unique about this particular iteration, according to Oxford Professor Emma Smith, is that the First Folio has usually only been seen as one large volume. Instead, the Bute copy has been split into three, separated by categories of history, tragedy, and comedy.
"This is something that you could take to the fireside and enjoy," Smith told the BBC. "It's a book we most likely now see ... in a glass case, and one of the things that this copy ... shows us is a time when people just really used this book, they enjoyed it, they scribbled on it, they spilt their wine on it, their pet cats jumped on it."
Smith said the three volumes were worth between 2 and 2.5 million pounds ($2.8-3.5 million). She described her initially incredulous attitude towards the authenticity of the book, but said "when I went up to investigate, I could tell from the story of the book's origins, the watermarks and the idiosyncrasies of the text that it was genuine. It was a really exciting moment."
The discovery comes just in time for celebrations planned to mark the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death, which came on April 23, 1616.
dw.com |
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| To: Carolyn who wrote (4453) | 4/11/2016 10:21:48 AM | | From: Tom Clarke | | | | Was Shakespeare a crypto Catholic?
Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare Hardcover
by Clare Asquith
A revelatory new look at how Shakespeare secretly addressed the most profound political issues of his day, and how his plays embody a hidden history of England In 16th-century England many loyal subjects to the crown were asked to make a terrible choice: to follow their monarch or their God. The era was one of unprecedented authoritarianism: England, it seemed, had become a police state, fearful of threats from abroad and plotters at home. The age of terror was also the era of the greatest creative genius the world has ever known: William Shakespeare. How, then, could such a remarkable man born into such violently volatile times apparently make no comment about the state of England in his work? He did. But it was hidden. Revealing Shakespeare's sophisticated version of a forgotten code developed by 16th-century dissidents. Clare Asquith shows how he was both a genius for all time and utterly a creature of his own era: a writer who was supported by dissident Catholic aristocrats, who agonized about the fate of England's spiritual and political life and who used the stage to attack and expose a regime which he believed had seized illegal control of the country he loved. Shakespeare's plays offer an acute insight into the politics and personalities of his era. And Clare Asquith's decoding of them offers answers to several mysteries surrounding Shakespeare's own life, including most notably why he stopped writing while still at the height of his powers. An utterly compelling combination of literary detection and political revelation, Shadowplay is the definitive expose of how Shakespeare lived through and understood the agonies of his time, and what he had to say about them.
amazon.com |
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