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13. Sparple This word is not only fun to say, it can also come in handy. It means to deflect attention from one thing by making a big deal of something else entirely.

A £560,000 prize was on offer for scholars who could read the ancient Roman texts buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Scrolls cocooned in volcanic ash that consumed the Roman city of Pompeii have been deciphered for the first time in 2,000 years. Using AI researchers were able to discern some meaning from the writings which were discovered in the doomed ancient Italian city that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. ...In a statement the Vesuvius Challenge revealed some of the information hidden until now in the scrolls which appear to be philosophical treatises concerning...

This late-medieval document is covered in illustrations of stars and planets, plants, zodiac symbols, naked women, and blue and green fluids. But the text itself – thought to be the work of five different scribes – is enciphered and yet to be understood.In an article published in Social History of Medicine, my coauthor Michelle L. Lewis and I propose that sex is one of the subjects detailed in the manuscript – and that the largest diagram represents both sex and conception.Late-medieval sexology and gynaecologyResearch on the Voynich manuscript has revealed some clues about its origins. Carbon dating provides a 95%...

The 600-year-old document is described as 'the world's most mysterious medieval text.' It is full of illustrations of exotic plants, stars, and mysterious human figures, as well as many pages written in an unknown text. Now, one British academic claims the document is in fact a health manual for a 'well-to-do' lady looking to treat gynaecological conditions.

When in Vietnam, Build Boats as the Romans Do Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA In December 2004, researchers drained a canal in northern Vietnam in search of ancient textiles from graves. They found that and a whole lot more. Protruding from the canal bank at Dong Xa was a 2000-year-old log boat that had been used as a coffin. After a closer look at the woodwork, archaeologists Peter Bellwood and Judith Cameron of Australia National University in Canberra and their colleagues were astounded to find that the method for fitting planks to hull matched that...

Antiquities and Archaeology Conservation News Spain Prehistoric hunting scenes unearthed in Spanish cave Threat of vandalism puts ancient paintings at risk By Belén Palanco. Web onlyPublished online: 23 May 2014 A cave painting of a bull, with colours accentuated by archaeologists. Credit: Courtesy of Ines Domingo A series of hunting scenes dating from 7,000 years ago have been found by archaeologists on the six-metre long wall of a small cave in the region of Vilafranca in Castellón, eastern Spain—but it is being kept a secret for now. A layer of dust and dirt covered ten figures, including bulls, two...

Romans in Okinawa - Japan? | 5:58 | Dr Raoul McLaughlin | 10.4K subscribers | 11,457 views | January 7, 2019The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean | Raoul McLaughlin | full text PDF | Shiver Me Timbers!

Wealthy politician Aulus Rustius Verus owned a house in Pompeii.Archaeologist Dr Sophie Hay explains how he left his mark.BBC [0:47]

An amateur metal detectorist in Denmark has unearthed a rare gold ring that may have belonged to a previously unknown royal family with ties to the Kingdom of France.Lars Nielsen discovered the large, ornately decorated gold ring, set with a red semiprecious stone, while exploring Emmerlev, a parish in Southern Jutland, Denmark, according to a translated statement. The ring dates to the fifth or sixth century...Researchers at the National Museum of Denmark determined that the piece of jewelry has much "historical significance" and may have belonged to local royalty connected to the Merovingians, a dynasty of Frankish kings who ruled...

A new study, published in the journal Numismatic Chronicle, suggests that the village of Vindelev in Jelling, Denmark, likely had connections to a network of European elite.In 2020, one of the largest gold hoards ever found in Denmark was discovered at Vindelev by a metal detectorist.The hoard consists of 23 gold objects dating to the Migration Period during the Germanic Iron Age (a period seen by some researchers as a prelude to the actual Viking Age), which includes: 13 gold bracteates from the 5th century AD, a granulated gold fitting from a sword or knife, and four mounted Roman medallions...

A pair of archaeologists, one with Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the other with the University of Warsaw, both in Poland, has found evidence suggesting that rock carvings found in a southern part of Peru may have been inspired by people singing while consuming hallucinogenic plants. In their study, published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Andrzej Rozwadowski and Janusz Wołoszyn analyzed rock carvings found in Toro Muerto. Toro Muerto, ("dead bull" in Spanish) is a rock art complex in South America situated in a desert gorge near the Majes River Valley, spanning 10 km2. It hosts approximately 2,600 volcanic boulders,...

The Korean alphabet, hangul, is “the most scientific writing system.” One often hears that in South Korea, a society that has taken to heart Asia scholar Edwin O. Reischauer’s description of hangul as “perhaps the most scientific system of writing in general use in any country.” But whatever their scientific credentials, all the other writing systems in use (and indeed out of use) have fascinating qualities of their own, a range of which are explained in the UsefulCharts video above on the writing systems of the world — not just the alphabets of the world, mind you, but also the...

In this video I respond to the claim that English does not exist, but is instead merely badly pronounced French. I explain just how much the French have influenced our language, but why it is still a distinct, Germanic language.Chapters0:00 Does English exist?0:26 Where English comes from1:14 England's French kings2:12 French words in English4:46 Lingoda6:01 More French words6:49 Different dialects8:41 After the French kings10:42 English words in French12:27 French grammar13:52 H dropping15:19 Poetry17:12 ConclusionIs English just badly pronounced French? | 18:08RobWords | 432K subscribers | 246,530 views | March 30, 2024

Why The Ancient Greeks Couldn't See Blue | 6:39AsapSCIENCE | 10.6M subscribers | 7,637,162 views | November 24, 2020

At the start of the week of the Summer Solstice, many will once again marvel at the magnificent structures built across Ireland thousands of years ago, including Newgrange in Co Meath. The structures were built by the descendants of the first peoples that landed on the island in what is believed to be two migratory waves from around 10,000 years ago. Until recently it was argued that much of the population of Ireland was descended from this group of people, mainly from what is now Spain and southern France, with the arrival of the Celts around 500 BC adding what...

Explanation: Discovered by accident, this manuscript page provides graphical insight to astronomy in medieval times, before the Renaissance and the influence of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho de Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo. The intriguing page is from lecture notes on astronomy compiled by the monk Magister Wolfgang de Styria before the year 1490. The top panels clearly illustrate the necessary geometry for a lunar (left) and solar eclipse in the Earth-centered Ptolemaic system. At lower left is a diagram of the Ptolemaic view of the Solar System with text at the upper right to explain the movement of the planets according...

At an American Mathematical Society meeting, high school students presented a proof of the Pythagorean theorem that used trigonometry—an approach that some once considered impossibleTwo high school students have proved the Pythagorean theorem in a way that one early 20th-century mathematician thought was impossible: using trigonometry. Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, both at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, announced their achievement last month at an American Mathematical Society meeting. “It’s an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing like it, being able to do something that ... people don’t think that young people can do,” Johnson told WWL-TV, a...

Incan Counting System Decoded? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Learn how to add 9+7 on the yupana abacus. Jan. 29, 2004 ? The Inca invented a powerful counting system that could be used to make complex calculations without the tiniest mistake, according to an Italian engineer who claims to have cracked the mathematics of this still mysterious ancient population. Begun in the Andean highlands in about 1200, the Inca ruled the largest empire on Earth by the time their last emperor, Atahualpa, was garroted by Spanish conquistadors in 1533. Long been considered the only major Bronze Age civilization without a...

The ancient science of Vedic mathematics may well give calculators a run for their money Does your mind wobble when confronted by a mathematical challenge more forbidding than two plus two? Do you dream of becoming the kind of person who can rattle off answers to the most complicated sums in the fraction of a second? If the answer is yes, you need Vedic mathematics. Try this for size. What's the square of 65? Simple: just multiply the first digit, 6, with its successor, 7. The answer is 42. Now find the square of the second digit, five, which is...

Knotted threads carry signs of ancient accountancy.Scientists have picked apart some 500-year-old calculations from the Inca empire. The team deciphered the maths from a series of 'khipus': elaborate structures of coloured, knotted strings. Researchers have long known that the Inca, who lived along the west coast of South America from AD 1400-1532, used such cords to record numbers. But this is the first mathematical relationship found between khipu. And that may help to work out what kind of information they stored. Khipus encode numbers as knots in strings hanging from a cord. The closer a knot is to the cord,...