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Exploring the mysteries of Xi'an's imperial tombs By David Fullbrook (That's Beijing) Updated: 2004-09-03 13:49 Dynasties and empires rose and fell along the Wei He River valley, where Xi'an lies. While the emperors are gone, their legacy awaits the spades and brushes of archaeologists exploring this crucible of Chinese history and culture. Terra-Cotta Warriors in the surburb of Xi'an [file photo] The terracotta warriors, one of archaeology's greatest accidental finds, hint at what else could lie under the barely scratched fields where emperors and aristocrats lie interred beneath 500 burial mounds. These tombs rise out of a fertile plain where...

Ancient vessel retraces voyages of the past By Stefanos Evripidou IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it's the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation. The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six- tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep. The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the...

It's been five months since I stopped reviewing mysteries and crime fiction for the Boston Globe, and still my stomach clenches whenever a UPS or FedEx truck approaches my front door. I dread the thought that the driver will hop out and deliver yet another big shipment of books, all demanding immediate attention, few displaying the craft and precision required to create a vibrant novel and at least one or two gems readers might prize forever. Writing that monthly column for the Globe was easily the worse job I've ever had, and this coming from a man once responsible for...

Towering Mysteries Who built them and why? An amateur archaeologist tries to get to the bottom of some astonishing structures in Tibet and Sichuan Province, China Martine "Frederique" Darragon set out from New York City for the hinterlands of western China and Tibet in 1998 to pursue an interest in the endangered snow leopard when she fell under the spell of another elusive phenomenon: old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped and some more than 100 feet tall, scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Yet when she asked local residents about the towers—Who built them? When? Why?—nobody seemed to have...

Mysteries of bog butter uncoveredWax found in Celtic bogs is the remains of ancient meat and milk. 17 March 2004 PHILIP BALL Peat cutters often stumble on chunks of butter in the bogs. © Stockbyte Chemical detectives have traced deposits of fat in Scottish peat bogs to foodstuffs buried by people hundreds of years ago. The 'bog butter' is the remains of both dairy products and meat encased in the peat, say Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol and colleagues. Those who live in the countryside of Ireland and Scotland and dig up chunks of peat for fuel have...

At NASA's Thursday JPL briefing on the Mars rovers, the issue of an unusual object in one of the photos from the microscopic imager at the Opportunity landing site was discussed. On SOL 19, several images taken with the microscopic imager of the soil and the "mars berries" appear to show a hair-like object. Steve Squires with NASA has speculated that the airbags bouncing around that crater may have shed a whole lot of fabric and this could simply be a stray thread. Squires also suggested that as they move away from the bounce-down sites they will continue to look...

Source: University At Buffalo Date: 2004-01-05 Professor Works To Unravel Mysteries Of Khipu: Colored, Knotted Strings Used By The Ancient Incas BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Although the ancient Inca are renowned for their highly organized society and extraordinary skill in working with gold, stone and pottery, few are familiar with the khipu -- an elaborate system of colored, knotted strings that many researchers believe to be primarily mnemonic in nature, like a rosary -- that was used by the ancient conquerors to record census, tribute, genealogies and calendrical information. Because the Inca didn't employ a recognizable system of writing, researchers like...

Video Captures Canine Seeking Shelter Inside Family CarMembers of the Leroy family in Washington thought they were the target of a prankster when they kept finding a stray dog inside their parked car. Intent on catching the culprit, they set up a video camera to record the vehicle. However, they were surprised at what they caught on film. The video captured the dog as she opened the car door on her own and climbed inside. The family is now circulating posters of the dog and has contacted the local Humane Society. So far, no one has claimed the canine.

MITHRAISM The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras by David Ulansey Author of THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES (Oxford University Press, 1991) The following essay is adapted from my article,"Solving the Mithraic Mysteries" Biblical Archaeology Review (vol. 20, #5 [September/October 1994] pp. 40-53) This article is a summary of my book on Mithraism, THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES(Oxford University Press, revised paperback, 1991) [To order this book (for $13.95), click here.]   The Encyclopedia Britannica has given this page its "Web's Best Sites" award. The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras (Note: complete documentation for the following essay can be found...

In the old times there were two suns above the Earth. Unfortunately one got broken to pieces; the pieces dropped into the ocean that now casts bits of "the solar stone" ashore. People call these pieces amber. It is a nice legend about amber; it slightly reminds of the story of creation, loss and restoration of the famous amber chamber in Tsarskoye Selo. One woman from the Russian city of Rostov was one of the first people who believed that the amber chamber could be restored. What is more, she made first considerable contribution into the reconstruction process. In 1976,...

<p>LOS ANGELES — Robert Stack, whose granite-eyed stare and menacing baritone spelled trouble for television's fictional criminals in The Untouchables and real ones in Unsolved Mysteries, died at his home. He was 84.</p> <p>Stack's wife Rosemarie found him slumped over at about 5 p.m. Wednesday. He died of heart failure, she said. The actor had undergone radiation treatment for prostate cancer in October.</p>

The Middle-earth MysteriesPart of the joy of reading about Middle-earth is finding out more about some obscure dude or tribe long after they show up somewhere else in the "canon". Take the Druedain, the Woses as they are called in The Lord of the Rings. When you read the book for the first time, they just sort of show up and lead the Rohirrim around an army of Orcs and Easterlings.Do they have a point other than to move the story forward? Yes and no. They are there to give the Rohirrim a viable passage around the blocking force, and...

MYSORE: As a three-member committee formed by the Chief Justice of India began its probe, owner of the resort, where an alleged “sex scandal” involving three Karnataka High Court judges took place, on Saturday deposed before it that no such incident took place, but it was contradicted by two journalists who said they stood by their stories.Appearing before the committee, owner K Dilip Bidappa said the resort, where the incident had allegedly taken place, had no connection with it nor had he any links with persons whose names were related to the reported incident in November.During its seven-hour sitting here,...

A BIZARRE PHENOMENON first observed in the 1940s became a crime-fiction epidemic by the 1990s. Famous entertainers, athletes, and presidential relatives began sitting down at the typewriter to bang out mystery novels. Or so they would have us believe. In truth, nearly every one of those celebrities made a deal through an agent or book packager, collected a nice advance for the use of the name, and left to a professional ghostwriter all the actual writing. Ghostwriting is a time-honored practice, and most readers surely realize that movie stars and baseball players have help with their memoirs--just as all politicians...

Introduction - Investigations of Bolivia Fuente Magna and the Monolith of Pokotia The following material is reprinted by permission from Bernardo Biadós Yacovazzo & Freddy Arce, OIIB - Omega Institute Investigations (Bolivia), INTI - NonGovernmental Organizacion (Bolivia). A large stone vessel, resembling a libation bowl, and now known as the Fuente Magna, was originally discovered in a rather casual fashion by a country peasant from the ex-hacienda CHUA, property of the Manjon family situated in the surrounding areas of Lake Titicaca about 75/80 km from the city of La Paz. The site where it was found has not been...

If reports are true, John Paul II drew his inspiration for adding five "Mysteries of Light" to the Rosary from an obscure holy man who lived on the island of Malta and died in 1962 at the age of 82. His name was Blessed George Preca, founder of a small group called the Society of Christian Doctrine, and his legacy is now permanently etched into the Rosary, which has now undergone the greatest addition in centuries. According to reports, it was in 1957 that Preca -- a priest long devoted to the Rosary and apparitions like that of the...

The Mongol mysteries: Are 'deer stones' a clue? By Guy Gugliotta The Washington Post Sometime around 1000 B.C., a Mongolian tribesman climbed on the back of a horse and surveyed the windblown steppe that stretched as far as the eye could see. The weather was turning colder, and there wasn't enough grass for his goats. It was time to move. From the moment that decision was made, a tradition was born. Horses — yesterday's beasts of burden — became a means of escape. Soon they would become the tool of conquest, and the people of the steppe — whether Scythian,...

Bloodless Cat Mutilations in Bellingham, Washington © 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe Bellingham Washington is southeast of Vancouver, British Columbia where back in 1993, the Animal Control for the Vancouver City Pound was coping with several crimes of cats found cut in half without blood at the scene. Now in 2002, five domestic cats in Bellingham since September 2001 have been found slit from throat to pelvis and internal organs removed, all without blood. May 31, 2002 Bellingham, Washington - In the week between Thursday, May 16 and Thursday, May 23, 2002, four domestic cats were found in the Fairhaven...

GALACTIC ENCOUNTERS, APOLLO OBJECTS AND ATLANTIS: A CATASTROPHICAL SCENARIO FOR DISCONTINUITIES IN HUMAN HISTORY Emilio SpedicatoUniversity of Bergamo Acknowledgements The author acknowledges stimulating discussions with Thor Heyerdahl (Colle Micheri, Liguria and Guimar, Tenerife), Laurence Dixon (University of Hertfordhshire), Victor Clube (Oxford University), Emmanuel Anati (Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici), Zdenek Kukal (Central Geological Survey, Prague), Donald Patten (Seattle), Flavio Barbiero (Livorno), Antonino Del Popolo (Bergamo), Lia Mangolini (Milano), Graham Hancock (Leat Mill, Lifton) and Andrew Collins (Leigh on Sea). Third revised version. First version published in 1985 as Quaderno 85/3. First revised version published in 1990 as Quaderno 90/22...

It may be exactly what millions of people believe that it is. If so, it is the greatest archaeological find in centuries. Its official name is "The Ararat Anomaly". An independent correlation of maps of the region with information released in 1995 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency places the Ararat Anomaly at "approximately 39 42' 10" N 044 16' 30" E at an elevation of approximately 14-15,000 feet and approximately 2.2 KM horizontal distance west of the summit". It is located by the Ahora Gorge, near the summit of Mt. Ararat, in Turkey. Turkey, in turn, is...