Time out!

So much to post, so little time.
I'll be off at the Chicago Pen Show for the next several days, so will once again have to play catch-up once I get back. Check out the links at left; Belmont Club was just been added to the blogroll -- it's had some noteworthy analysis of the ongoing urban warfare in Iraq recently.

Mummies galore

Archaeologists have discovered an underground maze in Egypt crammed with more than 50 mummies. The buried network was unearthed in Saqqara, 25 kilometres south of Cairo, by a team of Egyptian and French researchers. . . "It's a maze of corridors with mummies everywhere, right and left, up and down. When people came, there was no more space so they put the coffins in the wall, or they cut another shaft, or they put a mummy above a mummy," said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Antiquities Council, speaking to Reuters.

The team believes the site was used from about 660 BC to 30 BC

From New Scientist. It's not just the mummies, of course, but the fact that the entire burial complex was found intact.

Holocaust museum in Mussolini's villa

The former home of Italy's Benito Mussolini will be turned into a memorial of the Holocaust endured by Rome's Jews, the Independent reported Tuesday.

The Shoah Foundation, established 10 years ago by U.S. film director Steven Spielberg, will contribute funds to the museum, to be built on the Villa Torlonia, where the dictator lived.

From the Washington Times, noted thanks to Jim Davila, who also made note of the following:

Beneath the villa is an enormous network of Jewish catacombs. Some six miles in length, it dates to the third and fourth centuries and contains some of the best-preserved paintings and inscriptions of the Jewish community.

More on the Villa Torlonia catacombs here and here.

Unusual funeral customs, #2876549

Friends of a champion Irish clay pigeon shooter have fulfilled his dying wish by packing his ashes into shotgun cartridges and blasting his remains over firing ranges around the world.

From Reuters.

Hot body armor on eBay

Federal authorities have searched the Mebane home of a retired soldier, looking for military body armor that he may have planned to sell over the Internet. . .

An IRS agent said the probe began after an officer at Fort Belvoir in Virginia reported to military officials that he found protective gear for sale on the eBay auction Web site. The agent said the search was made because there is a shortage of the body armor.

Full story here.

Clive's Mughal loot sells high

Rare Mughal treasures that were brought to Britain by Robert Clive, who conquered much of India, were sold for £4.7 million yesterday at an auction at Christie's in London.

The collection, which was sold by Clive's descendants, fetched more than three times Christie's estimate as bidders competed fiercely for the historic 17th and 18th century works of art.

The highest price was more than £2.9 million paid by an anonymous bidder for a 17th century jewelled flask which until recently was on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Some items went way over estimate:

A fly whisk made from banded agate and inset with rubies, which had been expected to sell for only £5,000 to £8,000, fetched 113 times its upper estimate when it was sold for £901,250.

A dagger with a pistol-grip hilt inlaid with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, which had been estimated at £35,000 to £50,000, sold for £733,250, and a huqqa set decorated with sapphires was bought for £94,850.

Read the full article here. Previous post here; the flask was yesterday's Telegraph's Object of the Week. The Christie's page is here.

Civil liberties and partisan politics

Civil liberties have been under attack in the United States, but many seem to have forgotten that the Clinton administration was as active an attacker as any (ditto for Tony Blair in the UK). And during those years, it was a constant vexation that so few of my friends thought it cause for concern. Clinton was their man -- how could he do them wrong?

Now Democrats have taken up the civil liberties banner, yet partisan blindness still prevails -- as is neatly illustrated by an article in today's NY Times on a Saudi grad student in Idaho being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. Key passage follows:

Idaho, one of the most Republican states, has become an unlikely home of opposition to the act.

Allies are where you find them -- but you won't find them if you don't look.

The state's senior senator, the Republican Larry E. Craig, and Representative C. L. Otter, also a Republican, have sponsored bills to amend the act, which they have called a threat to civil liberties.

Mr. Hussayen's lead lawyer, David Nevin, is best known for his defense in 1993 of Kevin Harris, who was involved in a standoff with government agents at a cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, along with Randall C. Weaver. That case, in which Mr. Weaver's wife and teenage son were shot and killed by government agents, is a cause célebre among mainly right-leaning civil libertarians.

. . . and therefore isn't among mainly left-leaning civil libertarians. Shouldn't we all try to look beyond party politics here?

Da Vinci Code debunkers

From today's NY Times:

Fearing that the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" may be sowing doubt about basic Christian beliefs, a host of Christian churches, clergy members and Bible scholars are rushing to rebut it.

Not to mention historians, who by now are heartily sick and tired of fiction writers laying claim to historical accuracy based on extensive research -- a telling inversion of the historian's standard disclaimer that the writer is solely responsible for any errors, which clearly acknowledges that errors there inevitably will be.

Word that the director Ron Howard is making a movie based on the book has intensified the critics' urgency. More than 10 books are being released, most in April and May, with titles that promise to break, crack, unlock or decode "The Da Vinci Code." Churches are offering pamphlets and study guides for readers who may have been prompted by the novel to question their faith. Large audiences are showing up for Da Vinci Code lectures and sermons. . .

A wide spectrum of Christian scholars agree the depiction of the Council of Nicaea is one of the book's most blatant distortions. While there was a diversity of early expressions of Christianity, they agree, Jesus' divinity was part of the church's established canons well before 325, and predates most of the newly found Gnostic and other gospels. . .

Much of "The Da Vinci Code" scaffolding of conspiracies was constructed in an earlier best seller, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," published in the 1980's. It relies on a file of documents found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France that has since been exposed as one man's hoax.

It would have been welcome, not to mention accurate and responsible, if the article came right out and flatly stated that no scholar, Christian or otherwise, considers any of the book's "history" anything but fantasy. Not that that would do much to stem the tide:

There is evidence that Mr. Brown's novel may be shaping the beliefs of a generation that is famously biblically illiterate. Michael S. Martin, a high school French teacher in Burlington, Vt., said he decided to read the novel when he noticed that his students were reading it in Harry Potter proportions.

"We like conspiracy theories, so whether it's J.F.K. or Jesus, people want to think there's something more than what they are telling us — the they in this case being the church," Mr. Martin said. "The church has a long and documented history of really trying to crush the whole feminine side, the pagan side. I think that's really hard to debate."

Greco-Roman religion "feminine"? One of my classics professors used to compare the role of women in the ancient Mediterranean world to that in the most conservative Islamic societies of today.

Comic sonnets

Some amusing examples, with further links, over at Asymmetrical Information. "Taxidermist Barbie" is a favorite here.

Latin lovers

Is the popularity of Latin classes on the rise? Read about it (in English) at Number 2 Pencil.

Hitler mythical?

If only. . . .
Missed this story a few weeks back, but better late than never (spoken like a true historian!):

The Battle of Hastings never took place and Adolf Hitler is a fictional character.

Robin Hood really existed, Harold Wilson saved Britain during World War II and Conan the Barbarian is a bona fide figure from early Nordic history.

It might sound like the latest attempt by revisionist extremists to pervert the past but the reality is perhaps far more disturbing: this is how a significant chunk of the British population, confused by Hollywood and unmoved by academia, sees history.

A survey of the average adult's level of historical knowledge has uncovered "absurd and depressing" areas of ignorance about events, from battles to royal marriages, and widespread confusion between characters from cinema blockbusters and real figures from the past.

Read more here; the original news release from Blenheim Palace also notes:

The research, commissioned to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Blenheim, reveals that despite being one of the greatest victories in British military history, nearly three quarters of the population do not know it even took place. And less than one in eight have heard of John Churchill (1st Duke of Marlborough), who led the historic victory.

But researchers were amazed to discover Blenheim was not alone when it comes to forgotten history. Of the great battles, a quarter of Brits were not sure that the Battle of Trafalgar was a real historic event, and more than half believed that Horatio Nelson led British troops at the Battle of Waterloo.

Brits fared little better with modern history. One in five believed Harold Wilson was the British Prime Minister during World War II and one in ten did not think that Adolf Hitler was a real person.

Bunk science: children and TV

While I'm ranting about how the media is so quick to endorse bad science (see Chewing gum and memory below), something ought to be said about all the publicity given that recent study correlating TV-watching and attention deficits in children. Of all the newspapers I saw, it was only the NY Times (lost the link, sorry) that noted, in the last couple of paragraphs, that other scientists were critical of key aspects of the study -- most notably, that no causality was proven, just correlation. Even so, the Times article up to that point (and including the headline) was a straightforward report of the study's conclusions -- rather inconsistent, to say the least, and certainly not what would have been done had those conclusions not been so congenial to editorial preconceptions. Imagine, if you will, a study correlating race and intelligence: do you think many newspapers would simply report its conclusions, leaving any mention of disagreement to the very end? You can be sure the study's flaws would be highlighted from the headlines down; why not the same treatment here?

Now I'm no fan of parking little kids in front of the TV for hours on end, but it's important not to overreact and assume TV is inherently harmful. When one reads about 3-year-olds who watch several hours a day, it should be obvious that something is wrong beyond the watching itself. It's easier to blame the watching, though, instead of getting to grips with that something, whatever it may be -- whether parental indifference or children already having difficulties engaging with the real world.

DNA kits for bus drivers

This is sweet:

Edinburgh bus drivers are to be issued with DNA kits in an effort to catch people who spit on them while they're working.

More than 1,800 employees at the city's two main bus firms are to be given the kits to secure evidence and encourage more reporting of incidents.

About one driver a week is reported to police as having been spat on, although the actual figure is believed to be twice as high because many incidents go unreported.

The move, instigated by Lothian and Borders Police, follows the introduction of the "spit kits" on the London Underground, ScotRail services and on some buses in Glasgow.

From Ananova, which also notes:

New laws mean anyone arrested for any offence can be DNA-tested and their unique profile added to the national database. Any DNA matches can be made within a matter of seconds.

Chewing gum and memory

No, this isn't an American Proust post -- it's about a headline story two years back, when it was claimed that memory is improved by gum chewing. I missed the story at the time, but a friend recently mentioned that it had inspired her daughter's kindergarten teacher to hand out gum to her students -- which naturally spurred me to take a closer look.

As it turns out, the study behind all the subsequent reports involved all of 75 research subjects, all adults, divided up into three groups. One group chewed gum; another was instructed to simulate chewing; another did nothing. After three minutes, members of all three groups took a 25-minute series of tests.

I haven't been able to consult the actual published study, but from the news reports it sounds as if there are many potential problems with the study design. Perhaps most importantly, the study was intended to prove a hypothesis, so testers' bias (conscious or not) can be taken as a given -- yet there is no mention of any measures taken to neutralize such bias. Then there is the well-known effect of researcher interest, where special attention given to test subjects is itself sufficient to raise their performance. To this I would add the possibility that the physical and mental exertion resulting from being assigned a task, however minor, might well temporarily sharpen mental faculties, while being left to sit doing nothing might have the opposite effect. Finally, the study size is awfully small for its findings to have any statistical significance -- and I can find no mention of any studies corroborating the findings with larger samples and corrected methodologies.

I did find, however, another sort of followup carried out as a 2002 course project for USC's Biological Studies 230. Subjects were divided into just two groups, chewers and nonchewers; group size was just over twice as large as the original UK study, and testers appeared, if anything, to be skeptical of the original study's hypothesis. No difference in test results between chewers and nonchewers was found.

The invisible subculture

Sgt. Mom, over at Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing, penned a line that caught my eye last night (context: an essay on how the military was effectively rendered invisible in American civilian culture post-Vietnam):

Except for the occasional potboiler techno or adventure paperback novel, there were no military heroes or veterans in popular literature, certainly not in the high culture stuff. A scattering of shaggy, freaked out Vietnam vets were sprinkled over a decade of television drama and news like rancid anchovies, but that was about it. Only the show “Magnum PI”, some fifteen years after the end of the Vietnam War presented fairly well adjusted and interesting veteran heroes.

I remember that era all too well, and -- parallel to Sgt. Mom's experience -- the horror of their peers and families when a few of my friends enlisted.

Another restitution claim: Belgians want their looted bell

A historic church bell is at the centre of an Elgin Marbles-style ownership row between Scotland and Belgium.

For more than 300 years, parishioners of Kettins Parish Church near Dunkeld in Perthshire, have believed the 16th century bell, which proudly sits in the church graveyard within a stone turret, is their rightful property.

However, representatives from the Our Lady of Troon monastery in Grobbendonk, near Antwerp, claim the bell originally belonged to their abbey and was stolen in 1572 by mercenaries. . .

But although the bell’s inscription reveals a Flemish connection, the Kettins parishioners are reluctant to part with the 485-year-old antiquity. The inscription, which reads ‘My name is Marie Troon and Mr Hans Popenuyder made me in 1519’, identifies it as the work of the famous German cannon-maker who armed the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s favourite warship, and had connections with Grobbendonk.

Skilled bronze-founders often made both bells and cannon -- and large-scale sculptures, too. From the Scotsman.

Mona Lisa concerns

The Mona Lisa is showing her age, museum curators in Paris said while announcing a scientific study of the 500-year-old masterpiece. The thin poplar wood panel around Leonardo da Vinci's painting is showing signs of warping, causing curators at the Louvre "some worry".

The museum has commissioned a study to evaluate the Mona Lisa's vulnerability to climate changes. The painting will remain on display during the testing, the Louvre said.

From the BBC; other writeups all over the place.

Poplar was the usual support for Italian panel paintings; oak was typical north of the Alps. Studies have shown that the wood used for panels was used right away, not aged or seasoned (recent dendrochronological analysis has apparently shown much the same for the great Cremonese instrument makers of the 17th and 18th centuries), so it is not all that surprising that warpage and cracking can be a problem. Nonetheless, one would have thought the Mona Lisa's panel would be pretty stable by now, given that the painting has been sitting in a closed, climate-controlled box for some decades.

Royal tombs of Ur find

This one from excavations in the basement of the British Museum:

Gold and silver jewellery dating from 2,500BC has been discovered in a storeroom at the British Museum among relics first excavated in the 1920s. The adornments were part of the elaborate head-dresses worn by female attendants who had been buried alive in a royal tomb at the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in what is now southern Iraq.

Some of the material excavated from the site more than 70 years ago had been hurriedly preserved in blocks of paraffin wax before being shipped back to London. When the museum's scientists X-rayed two blocks of wax labelled "crushed skulls", they found two bejewelled head-dresses worn by female courtiers who had been buried with their king more than 4,000 years ago.

Read the full story in the Independent; for a bit about the touring exhibition of items from the royal tombs of Ur now at the University of Pennsylvania, look here.

Another "Leonardo invented the X" story

Leonardo (not "da Vinci", please) really did invent an astonishing range of devices. In many cases, it has only been recently that the intent of his sketches has been fully understood -- and one can be certain that many more remain to be (re)interpreted.

Most recently, a sketch from the Codex Atlanticus has been reread and made the basis for the reconstruction of a sort of spring-driven programmable cart, apparently intended for theatrical use. Typically, the story has been tarted up with misleading headlines and false comparisons ("Da Vinci Invented Car Forerunner"; "Looking at it carefully, it does resemble the Spirit space vehicle used on Mars") that unfortunately obscure the actual accomplishment.

More on Gibson's Passion

Want to know what biblical scholars think? One particularly noteworthy essay here, by Mark Goodacre. This and many other bits are referenced and ably commented upon at Palaeojudaica.