Saturday 27 October 2018
Thursday 25 October 2018
Golden treasure exposed due to low level of Danube River
![]() | Due to the record low level of the Danube River, a treasure trove has been exposed, including hundreds of gold and silver coins and ancient weapons. | ![]() |
Saturday 20 October 2018
Lunar Meteorite brings $ 612k
A 12-pound (5.5 kilogram) meteorite discovered in Northwest Africa in 2017 has been sold at auction for US$612,500. Boston-based RR Auction announced the winning bid for the meteorite, composed of six fragments that fit together like a puzzle. It is considered one of the most significant lunar meteorites ever found because of its large size and because it has “partial fusion crust” caused by the tremendous heat that sears the rock as it falls to Earth. |
Friday 19 October 2018
Gold from the Pulaski
![]() ![]() | A stash of gold coins found in January is the latest piece of evidence that a shipwreck 40-plus miles off the North Carolina coast is that of the steamship Pulaski, which exploded and took half its wealthy passengers to the bottom of the Atlantic in 1838.
Divers found 14 gold coins and 24 silver coins in a spot “no bigger than a cigar box.” All predate the ship’s sinking. Those involved have one particular passenger in mind: Charles Ridge, a man who survived but lost $20,000 in the disaster, all of it in gold coins. So far, divers have found 51 U.S., Spanish and Mexican coins during a half dozen visits. |
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Thursday 18 October 2018
Ancient Chinese Four-goat Square Zun
![]() | Four-goat Square Zun. Height: 58.3cm Weight: around 34.5kg. Bronze. Late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC)
The zun is a vase-like vessel used as a ritual container to hold wine in ancient China. This vessel is the largest square zun from the Shang Dynasty known. It is displayed in the National Museum of China in Beijing. | ![]() |
Wednesday 17 October 2018
1,900-year-old branded designer lamps found in shipwreck
![]() | A Greek-U.S. team of marine archaeologists has located three ancient shipwrecks with pottery cargoes, including 1,900-year-old branded designer lamps, in a rich graveyard of ships in the eastern Aegean. The wrecks were found off Fourni island in notoriously treacherous waters between the larger islands of Ikaria and Samos. Two of its 13 islets bear the ominous name Anthropofas, or Man-eater, in reference to the seamen who drowned off them. |

Tuesday 16 October 2018
Archaeologists use ground-penetrating radar to discover buried Viking ship
Saturday 13 October 2018
Fifth-century child had “vampire burial”
![]() | Archaeologists have discovered the skeleton of a 10-year-old at an ancient Roman site in Italy with a rock carefully placed in its mouth. This suggests those who buried the child—who probably died of malaria during a deadly fifth century outbreak—feared it might rise from the dead and spread the disease to those who survived. Virtually every culture has some version of a vampire (or proto-vampire) myth. | ![]() Locals are calling it the "Vampire of Lugnano." |
Friday 12 October 2018
Minoan Gold
![]() | According to Greek mythology, King Minos of Crete had the craftsman Daedalus construct the Labyrinth in order to conceal the Minotaur. The Minotaur was a half bull and half man creature that yearly ate the Athernian tribute of fourteen young men and women.![]() | ![]() |
![]() ![]() | The Bronze Age began in Crete as locals on the island developed centers of commerce. This enabled the upper classes to expand their influence. Eventually the ground would be laid for a monarchist power structure - a precondition for the creation of great empires. Around 1450 BCE, Minoan culture experienced a turning point due to a natural catastrophe, possibly the massive eruption on Thera. The palace in Knossos seems to have remained largely intact. The Minoan palace sites were occupied by the Myceneans around 1420 BC. By 1200 BC the Minoans had faded into history. | ![]() ![]() |
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See ----->Grave of ‘Griffin Warrior’ at Pylos
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Minoan Gold
'Egyptian blue' has modern applications
![]() | Researchers have found that 'Egyptian blue' is 10 times more fluorescent than previously thought. Fluorescence is the emission of light from an object as a result of bombardment by other kinds of light or electromagnetic radiation. Previous research has shown that when Egyptian blue absorbs visible light, it subsequently emits light in the near-infrared range. Considered to be the first synthetic pigment, Egyptian blue—which is derived from calcium copper silicate—was routinely used on ancient depictions of gods and royalty in ancient Egypt. It was known to the Romans as "caeruleum," but after the Roman era the pigment fell from use. As well as its potential to cool buildings, the fluorescence of Egyptian blue could also be harnessed to generate energy. If solar cells are applied to the edges of windows tinted with the blue pigment, they could convert the high quantities of reflected near-infrared energy to produce electricity. |
Wednesday 10 October 2018
The Cup of Janus
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The Cup of Janus
Tuesday 9 October 2018
The Coelacanth
![]() | The coelacanth is a living fossil, its appearance little changed in hundreds of millions of years. It evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago. A new analysis of its scaly armour may reveal how it has stuck around for so long. The coelacanth fish has scales that can change their internal structure if they are pierced by a predator to stop cracks spreading. |
![]() | Isopedin is a network of collagen bundles present in the scales of most fishes. The scales of coelacanths have a three-dimensional arrangement of this network which is similar to twisted plywood. The successive fibrous layers cross at an angle. These highly modified scales are known as cosmoid scales, and are only found on extinct fish species. |
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The Coelacanth
Monday 8 October 2018
The solidus
![]() | The solidus was introduced circa 310 in the Western part of the empire by Constantine I ‘the Great’ (307-337). The new gold standard of the empire, the solidus was struck at 72 per pound (about 4.5 grams) on a comparatively broad and thin planchet. Solidus of Constantine I was struck at Antioch in about 324. It features a portrait of Constantine I on the obverse and the figure of the emperor on horseback on the reverse. The solidus remained the standard gold coin for the rest of the Roman Empire and filled the same role for most of Byzantine history. |
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The solidus
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