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Seven centuries after their demise, the skeletons of 12 plague victims have been unearthed in the City of London, a find which archaeologists believe to be just the tip of a long-lost Black Death mass burial ground. Arranged in careful rows, the bodies were discovered 2.5 metres below the ground in Charterhouse Square in works for a Crossrail tunnel shaft beside the future ticketing hall for Farringdon station. Tests are needed to confirm the skeletons' provenance, but the discovery should shed more light on life and death in 14th-century Britain and help scientists to understand how the plague mutated.

A new mobile device app called “BillionGraves,” which combines GPS location data with the pictures users take of gravestones...

Cemetery Guns and Grave Torpedoes Newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane once said, “The fence around a cemetery is foolish, for those inside can't get out and those outside don't want to get in." However, this has not always been the case. For centuries graveyards had to content with the scourge of grave robbers who preyed on the valuables of corpses, and even the corpses themselves. This threat led to an industry solution—grave guns. Cemetery Guns Set-guns, defined as a gun that is set to fire on any intruder that encounters the wire that sets it off, have been around since at...

A Blount County woman arrested on a gun possession charge while visiting New York City has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, according to the Associated Press. Meredith Graves, a registered nurse from Louisville, was spared jail time under the plea deal. She pleaded guilty Monday to criminal possession of a weapon, according to the AP. Charged with felony gun possession, Graves posted a $2,000 bond and faced a minimum sentence of 3½ years in prison after reportedly requesting to check her loaded, .32-caliber handgun with police at the World Trade Center Memorial on Dec. 22.

Maybe the most widely known of the out-of-towners recently snagged by NYC’s web of anti-gun laws, Meredith Graves took a misdemeanor plea deal this morning, paid a $200 fine and, do doubt, got the hell out of Dodge. Almost no one who purports to be in charge in the Big Apple wanted to see Graves, a nursing student from Tennessee, do any time. As we pointed out earlier, making a sympathetic example of her would only have provided a never-ending supply of ammo to HR 822 proponents and made it that much harder for New York to keep its crazily...

On December 22, registered nurse and fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves, from Tennessee, was visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Ms. Graves, rather than abdicating responsibility for her security to others, was carrying a defensive handgun, as she is licensed to do in Tennessee. That, unfortunately, avails her nothing in New York. When she saw the "No Guns" sign before entering, she did her best to comply with the law, asking a security guard where she could check her gun. The guard directed her to a police officer, who promptly arrested her for violation of New York's laws...

A new mobile device app called “BillionGraves,” which combines GPS location data with the pictures users take of gravestones, will be highlighted by FamilySearch presenter Tim Cross at this month’s Utah Genealogical Association webinar on Thursday, November 17, at 7:00 p.m. mountain standard time. Those interested may watch the live webinar—a virtual meeting broadcast on the Internet—free of charge at the UGA website. After the presentation is over, a UGA membership is required to access the recording. The BillionGraves app, which is available free of charge on Google Android and Apple iOS devices, enables users to upload photos of headstones...

PALM CITY, Fla. - Holly Purkey, 28, is one of many Floridians trying to sell her pre-purchased burial plots for some quick cash. She is selling two burial plots in Forest Hills Memorial Park in Palm City. "This is new to me. Kind of a weird investment," said Purkey, of Port St. Lucie. The side-by-side plots belonged to her grandparents, who had moved out of state. She bought them seven years ago. Now Purkey, a stay at home mother, wants this cemetery real estate off her hands. She would like $3,000 for the pair of plots in return. "The money...

Tombstone mystery in drug case San Bernardino County Sheriff's investigators are left with a mystery following the discovery of 24 cemetery headstones in the backyard of a Loma Linda home they were searching for evidence in a drug case Tuesday. One of the headstones was tentatively traced to Montecito Memorial Park in Colton, sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said. But a spokeswoman for the cemetery's parent company said workmen found a headstone in place on the grave in question. Lisa Marshall, spokeswoman for Service Corporation International, said no markers were reported missing and that the company is cooperating with investigators. Deputies...

JERUSALEM – Israeli scholars say they have confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old burial box bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament. The ossuary bears an inscription with the name "Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri." To confirm the authenticity of the ossuary, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), who discovered the ancient burial box turned to Dr. Boaz Zissu of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology of Bar Ilan University and Professor Yuval Goren of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient...

Across the country, the soaring cost of metal has created a boom market for scrap copper, tin, brass, iron -- whatever. And in several New Jersey communities, that market has created a new generation of grave robbers who steal the metal markers that have adorned the final resting places of fallen troops dating back to the Civil War. "It's absolutely horrific," said Det. William "Bill" Covert of the Cinnaminson Police Department, who investigated the theft of hundreds of such markers in the area's cemeteries. On June 6, police there announced the arrests of three women. "I am a veteran, so...

Three New Jersey women are behind bars for a crime that is becoming more and more common, according to police. Authorities say they stole brass markers from the graves of veterans at local cemeteries, and sold the stolen markers to a scrap yard. Authorities tell Eyewitness News the suspects needed drug money.

Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) is questioning President Obama's use of an autopen in signing an extension of the Patriot Act. In a letter Friday, Graves asks Obama to confirm that he saw the law prior to its autopen signing. "Mr. President, I write to request your confirmation that S. 990, as passed by Congress, was presented to you prior to the autopen signing, as well as a detailed, written explanation of your Constitutional authority to assign a surrogate the responsibility of signing bills passed into law," Graves wrote. Obama signed the bill into law late Thursday night. The autopen was...

"This is total, total discrimination," said F. Lee Hart III of Suffolk, chairman of the SCV Oakwood Restoration Committee. "I don't think they want to see an Arlington of Richmond, with all of the positive media and tourism that this cemetery will draw, this being the largest combat casualty Confederate cemetery." Virginia Senator James Webb to the rescue. As the Richmond Times Dispatch piece notes, James Webb recently reminded the V.A. that "Confederate and Union soldiers have the same legal status."

A new poll from SurveyUSA predicts a statistical tie in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup between Republican Rep. Sam Graves and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill for her seat in Missouri. The poll showed McCaskill with 48 percent to Graves’ 44 percent if the 2012 general election were held now, with a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. Missouri-based Republican consultants Axiom Strategies commissioned the poll, which surveyed 700 adults in the state from Jan. 21 to Monday. The firm did not release polling numbers for contests pitting other Republicans against McCaskill or for GOP primary challenges to Graves. However, Axiom...

Scientists say they have identified an embalmed head as belonging to King Henri IV of France, who was assassinated in 1610 at the age of 57. The head was lost after revolutionaries ransacked the royal chapel at Saint Denis, near Paris, in 1793. A head, presumed to be that of Henri IV, has passed between private collectors since then. A team of scientists used the latest forensic techniques to identify features seen in portraits of the king. A lesion near his nose, a pierced ear and a healed facial wound - from a previous assassination attempt - were among the...

Buena High School JROTC cadets place wreaths at grave markers on Saturday. (Ty Holland • For the Herald/Review) SIERRA VISTA — A year ago, when just 242 holiday wreaths were laid on the graves of veterans in Sierra Vista, a group of local women thought those who served this country deserved better, and they decided to do something about it. On Saturday morning, each and every one of the nearly 1,400 graves at the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery was adorned with a touch of red and green as a result of their effort.

his year 323 hallowed Catholic sites have been desecrated. All of this happens under the pall of unholy silence. [kreuz.net] Since the 1st of January 2010 there have been 140 Catholic cemeteries and 183 Catholic churches and chapels desecrated. Bruce Hortefeux (52), French Interior Minister, said this in a conference on the 22nd of September. The reason for the Minister's explanation was the violation of almost twenty Catholic graves in the 2,700 population community Frontenay-Rohan-Rohan in Western France.

Estimates of the number of graves potentially affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew to as many as 6,600 today, as the cemetery’s former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.

There is a small but dedicated faction of collectors and aficionados which considers Philmore Graves to be among the best turners in the renowned group of masters of the North Carolina art pottery genre. I count myself among the Phil Graves fans, but perhaps I am biased, as I will explain.

MEDINA, Saudi Arabia – At the cemetery where the Prophet Muhammad's family is buried, an Iranian Shiite Muslim pilgrim overcome with emotion was jerked by a Saudi soldier, who barked a sharp order: "Stop crying!" The soldier, a gun at his hip, then hovered over the pilgrim as he wrapped up his prayers to make sure he didn't start weeping again. The Baqee cemetery is where the bitter rivalry between Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran gets personal. Iranians and other Shiites flock to the graves to pay respects to several revered descendants of Islam's prophet, while Saudi soldiers...

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) is criticizing the new ethics office that recommended he be reviewed by the House ethics panel. Graves issues a statement Thursday thanking the House ethics committee for dismissing the charges against him and lashed out at the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Graves struck early by releasing the statement before the ethics panel publicly announced that it had unanimously dismissed the complaint against him. Graves lashed out at the OCE in his statement, accusing it of investigating an anonymous complaint and looking into a matter that even if true did not violate House ethics rules. “I...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing mounting pressure to intervene in an intense dispute between an outside ethics office she pushed through the House and the full ethics committee. The stakes are high for the future of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a new entity Democrats created to help police lawmakers. Its board members and top staff are threatening to resign if the ethics committee doesn’t meet a deadline the OCE believes is critical to its role, according to several sources within the ethics community. Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the Speaker believes cooler heads will prevail and the...

She was dumped by a boyfriend who no longer wished to follow her around the world. She found herself heartbroken and sick and finally went to a doctor who said he had news -- at 39, she was with child. Impossible, she replied: Throughout her previous 17-year marriage she tried repeatedly to get pregnant,

JERUSALEM – Palestinian Christians in a normally quiet village are reeling from a series of grave desecrations this week that they say are indicative of intimidation tactics from the town's growing Muslim population. "Christians don't feel free anymore. Our way of life is changing while the Muslim population grows," a local Christian told WND. The Christian would only give his first name, Anis, for fear of Muslim retaliation if he speaks out. He pointed out there are several other Anis's in his village, Jisna, which is located near the West Bank city of Ramallah. This week, 70 Christian grave sites...

On this Memorial Day, thousands of small American flags will fly in cemeteries near your home, next to the headstones of men and women who defended this country. Flags also will decorate the thousands of graves at Arlington National Cemetery as well as sacred ground throughout Europe and the Pacific that bears long, straight rows of ivory-white crosses and stars. Many of the young Americans who rest under these simple markers did not live past the age of 19 or 20. There also are tens of thousands of equally young men who fought gallantly for this country during World War...

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - Construction workers at a city lot in downtown Montgomery stumbled upon numerous bodies Tuesday morning.

Clues to the mysterious deaths of 57 Irish immigrants came first from a secret file that had been locked in a vault until 1970. The men, who sailed from Ireland in 1832, arrived in Chester County to work on the railroad. They died about eight weeks later, most of cholera. Until the file was read six years ago by two brothers, both historians, the immigrants were the stuff mostly of legend and ghost tale. On Friday, another milestone in their story was found in East Whiteland Township. An archaeology research team based at Immaculata University in Chester County uncovered 90...

The remains of a woman's skull with a rock thrust into its jaws is evidence of the mediaeval fear of vampires, Italian anthropologists have claimed. Scientists found the skull, with its mouth agape and a large slab of rock forced into its mouth, while excavating a mass grave dating from the Middle Ages on an island near Venice. Female "vampires" were often blamed for spreading the plague epidemics through Europe, said Matteo Borrini of Florence University. Wedging a rock or brick into the mouth of a suspected vampire was a way of preventing the person from feeding on the bodies...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Two historic cemeteries in Colorado Springs face a troubled future -- and not because the death rate is slowing.

A United Nations human rights expert will travel to the Twin Cities next month to listen to Hmong families upset about the desecration of graves in Thailand. The expert will hear testimony about the unearthing of hundreds of graves where thousands of Hmong refugees once lived. The site is near a Buddhist temple in Thailand. The hearing will be at the University of Minnesota, where the Human Rights Program has taken up a project to study and help resolve the issue.

Police in northern Baghdad found a mass grave Tuesday that contained the remains of 15 people, an Interior Ministry official said. The grave was in a house under construction in the Ur neighborhood, which used to be controlled by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. Authorities were attempting to determine who the victims were and when they died. In other incidents, two bombs in a car exploded in Nineveh province's Sinjar area Tuesday. A civilian was killed and 11 were wounded, authorities in Mosul said. A roadside bomb exploded in front of the western Baghdad house of an Electricity...

(Republican) Graves' for Congress new campaign video 'The Axis of Taxes' newly released on YouTube: Promo: "Kay Barnes raised over $1 billion in new taxes as a liberal big city mayor..."

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A Justice Department investigation finds former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of the Western District of Missouri was forced out because of opposition from Missouri Sen. Kit Bond's office. The report by the department's internal watchdog says Bond's legal counsel, Jack Bartling, asked the White House at least twice in 2005 to remove Graves. Bartling told investigators that he wanted to remove Graves because of conflicts between the staffs of Bond and Graves' brother, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, a Republican who represents northwest Missouri. Bartling said Rep. Graves' operation "did not run business" the way that Bond's office...

When Paul C. Sereno went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green. The first traces of pottery, stone tools and human skeletons were discovered eight years ago at a site in the southern Sahara, in Niger. After preliminary research, Dr. Sereno, a University of Chicago scientist who had previously uncovered remains of the dinosaur Nigersaurus there, organized an international team of archaeologists to investigate what had...

snip...Tens of thousands of skeletons that lie hidden beneath the streets, houses and offices of London have been revealed for the first time on a map, in a collaboration between the Museum of London and The Times. snip...Another skeleton was found with a metal spike lodged in its spine. Its owner, a man who was buried in Smithfield, East London, in about 1350, was probably hit with an arrow or spear, but the attack did not kill him. He survived only to catch bubonic plague in his late thirties or early forties. “Somehow the injury didn't cause an infection,” Mr...

Ramhormoz graves may be Elamite royal burials: experts TEHRAN, May 20 (MNA) -- A team of archaeologists studying two graves discovered in the city of Ramhormoz in southern Iran said that they bear their remains of a girl and a woman who were most likely members of an Elamite royal family. The team led by Arman Shishegar was assigned to carry out a series of rescue excavations in the Jubji region of the city in Khuzestan Province in May 2007 after the Khuzestan Water and Waste Water Company stumbled on two U-shaped coffins containing skeletons of a girl and a...

HARTLAND, Vt. (AP) — The 130-acre property was exactly what Michel Guite and his family wanted: an old Vermont farm with mountain views, rolling hills and meadows. There was, however, one wrinkle: The property included a small family cemetery — with the grave of a War of 1812 veteran — surrounded by a fence on a scenic knoll. His proposal to move the graveyard so he can build a house and barn has set off protests. The town has passed a resolution aimed at blocking the move, a descendant of one occupant of the graveyard is trying to fight him...

Exodus 3 1 Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There an angel of the LORD appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed. 3 So Moses decided, "I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned." 4When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more...

Archaeologists uncover unique cremation graves By ÄŒTK / Published 20 March 2008 Prostejov, South Moravia, March 19 (CTK) - Czech archaeologists have uncovered unique cremation graves in Prostejov that date back to the Neolithic period of the Linear Pottery culture and that indicate that people believed in human soul's existence 7,000 years ago already, daily Mlada fronta Dnes wrote Wednesday. The graves were uncovered during construction of a new industrial zone on the eastern edge of the town. "This is the first cremation burial site of the Linear-Pottery-culture to be uncovered on Czech soil. Below it there are skeleton graves...

Irish and Dutch vessels found in Scottish graves Evidence that some of our prehistoric ancestors travelled considerable distances has come from two graves in Upper Largie, near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute. One grave contained three distinctive beakers which Alison Sheridan, of the National Museums Scotland, describes as belonging to an early, international style, best paralleled by finds from the lower Rhine region of the modern-day Netherlands. Radiocarbon dates of 2500-2280 BC from hazel charcoal from within the grave confirms an early Bronze Age date. Though no bone was found because of the acidic nature of the local soils, the...

Greek workers discovered around 1,000 graves, some filled with ancient treasures, while excavating for a subway system in the historic city of Thessaloniki, the state archaeological authority said Monday. Some of the graves, which dated from the first century B.C. to the 5th century A.D., contained jewelry, coins and various pieces of art, the Greek archaeological service said in a statement. Thessaloniki was founded around 315 B.C. and flourished during the Roman and Byzantine eras. Today it is the Mediterranean country's second largest city. Most of the graves — 886 — were just east of the city center in what...

Dig at homes site uncovers skeletons of eight monks By Nicola Fenwick BURIAL SITE: Mark Randerson, of Durham University's archaeology department, with two of the monks uncovered at the site in Northallerton ARCHAEOLOGISTS have discovered the complete skeletons of eight Carmelite monks. The excavation in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, also revealed that the town's priory is unique, because its layout differs from all other known Carmelite priories and monasteries in Europe. Housing developer Castle Homes owns the site and will be building a residential development there. But it has given assurances that the design of the building will ensure the preservation...

Dozens of gravestones at a Jewish cemetery near Norridge were desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti in an attack that Cook County authorities are calling a hate crime. The vandalism caused an estimated $100,000 damage to 57 tombstones scarred with spray-painted swastikas, other symbols and slurs that included "Aryan Power" and "white power." "To see the physical damage and the disrespect for people who are dead, it's so sad," said Phil Ferkel, executive director of Westlawn Cemetery. Several vandals -- described as "cowards who ply hate" by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart -- apparently invaded the cemetery last weekend. "What they did...

ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 16, 2007 – They came from around the country, some with tears in their eyes, putting holiday demands on hold to honor veterans most never knew. In a few hours in freezing temperatures, about 3,000 volunteers yesterday placed more than 10,000 balsam fir wreaths with blazing red bows on graves at Arlington National Cemetery here. “I wish I could lay one on all of them,” said Charles Wright, a Vietnam War Marine veteran and commander of the Kansas City Composite Squadron, a civil air patrol unit. “This is a tribute I’ll remember forever.” Morrill Worcester, owner...

Mass Plague Graves Found on Venice "Quarantine" Island Maria Cristina Valsecchi for National Geographic News August 29, 2007 Ancient mass graves containing more than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been discovered on a small island in Italy's Venetian Lagoon. Workers came across the skeletons while digging the foundation for a new museum on Lazzaretto Vecchio, a small island in the lagoon's south, located a couple of miles from Venice's famed Piazza San Marco (see a map of the Venetian Lagoon). The island is believed to be the world's first lazaret—a quarantine colony intended to help prevent the spread...

Graves of Ancient Russian Rulers Discovered at Altai 30.08.2007 Rurik, legendary Russian rulerArcheologsts have recently discovered graves of ancient Russian family of Ruriks (“Rurik” means “famous ruler”) in the town of Zmeinogorsk, reports famous Russian historian. The discovery was totally unexpected – fellows of local historical centre have taken children from historical society to perform diggings on the city’s cemetery, and among other pre-revolutionary burials they found graves of Ruriks. Now scientists start enormous research – they are going to identify the graves and bodies in them.

The riddle of Afghan graves By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul On a dusty desert plain a few kilometres north of Kabul, Afghan security officials recently revealed to reporters the latest mass grave discovered in the country. Some of the bodies were still in a sitting position in rooms built underground the former weapons depot in the Shomali plain. Others were in a lying position. Some still had clothes on. What is known is that the bodies are of victims of Afghanistan's war-torn past. But what is not known is - from which war? Afghanistan is no stranger to such...