Build your own crystal palace

Mother Nature’s secret recipe for cooking up the staggeringly huge, pillar-like crystals of Mexico's newfound Cave of Crystals has been worked out by mineral researchers.

It turns out that with just the right pinch of minerals added at the right times for a few million years to a warm subterranean broth, you too can grow gypsum crystals 35 feet long and as thick as tree trunks.

From Discovery News. News on exploration of the Cueva de los Cristales here. The environment within is appallingly unfriendly; as another site notes about the mine in which the cave (and the also-spectacular Cueva de las Espadas, found in 1910) is located:

This mine is no show mine, but a still working and producing mine. It is very hot and has a huge underground well of 52°C hot water. The air of the mine is cooled down by a ventilation system to about 40°C, but the humidity of the air is about 100%. . .

As the temperature inside the cave is 60°C and the humidity 100%, a visit of the cave always includes a perfect steam bath. But for work in the cave it is really problematic. First it was absolutely impossible to take any picture of the cave as cameras first steamed up, and when they reached the temperature of the cavern, the electronic was dead. The researchers developed special techniques for the temperature, but more than 10 minutes are not possible inside the cave. Typically two or three minute visits are applicable.

A mine worker who tried to steal some crystals died in the cave: the temperature and the bad air causes dehydration and after a few minutes he was too weak to leave the cave and suffocated. When he was found, his body was cooked (well done to be exact).

A more visitor-friendly crystal cave was found in Spain in 2000, and was written up (with photos) by the BBC. At last check, it was in the record books as the world's largest geode.

Cephalonia finds

Greek archaeologists have uncovered an intact tomb and what was likely a Roman theater on the Ionian Sea island of Cephalonia, the culture ministry announced Wednesday.

The findings include a space of about 26 feet by 20 feet with a vaulted tomb, a stone coffin and two funeral vases, among other items, the ministry said. . .

The vases in the tomb are made of glass and ceramic. There were also gold rings and earrings, copper keys and coins.

From Discovery News.

Evolution in action: invasion of the giant toads

The infamous quick-evolving cane toads that have been invading Australia for 70 years appear to have adapted so well that they might conquer twice as much of the continent than was first predicted.

The original invasion models apparently failed to predict that the toads would adapt to Australian habitats so quickly. The fact that the toads are becoming more Australian as they invade — spreading further, faster — has big implications for the study of invasive species around the world. . .

"All of a sudden in the last ten years it changes," said Skelly. "They're moving into areas where they physical environment is not like anything in their native range."

That implies that the cane toads have evolved more tolerance for the hotter climates they are now encountering. This is on top of the discovery last year that the toads at the forefront of the invasion had evolved longer legs than those in the interior of their range.

From Discovery News.

Rescue work at Nara

Mold has spread widely over a ceiling slab removed from the stone chamber of the 1,300-year-old Takamatsuzuka tomb in Asukamura, Nara Prefecture, the Cultural Affairs Agency said.

The mold was detected while the chamber was being dismantled for the restoration of its deteriorated murals, and agency staff quickly tried to treat the affected areas.

From Daily Yomiuri. The beginning of the dismantling work was reported here:

The Cultural Affairs Agency on Tuesday started dismantling the stone chamber of Takamatsuzuka tomb in Asukamura, Nara Prefecture, as part of efforts to repair and preserve its deteriorated murals, which are considered national treasures. . .

The dismantling of the stone chamber and removal of murals, badly damaged by fungi, among other factors, reflects important policy changes at the agency, which has sought to preserve archaeological findings at the site they were discovered.

One of the stone ceiling slabs located at the northern end of the chamber is to be removed Thursday. By the end of June, all of the chamber's 12 stone plates, excluding its four floor plates, will be removed.

The plates have weakened and cracked as a result of being underground for over 1,300 years, raising questions over whether the work will be successful.

Yet another progress report here.

Whence the Etruscans?

Once again, historians dismiss ancient sources at their peril:

Geneticists have added an edge to a 2,500-year-old debate over the origin of the Etruscans, a people whose brilliant and mysterious civilization dominated northwestern Italy for centuries until the rise of the Roman republic in 510 B.C. Several new findings support a view held by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus - but unpopular among archaeologists - that the Etruscans originally migrated to Italy from the Near East.

Full article in the International Herald Tribune.

But what about the Hatfields?

The most infamous feud in American folklore, the long-running battle between the Hatfields and McCoys, may be partly explained by a rare, inherited disease that can lead to hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts.

Dozens of McCoy descendants apparently have the disease, which causes high blood pressure, racing hearts, severe headaches and too much adrenaline and other "fight or flight" stress hormones. . .

"The McCoy temperament is legendary. Whether or not we can blame it on genes, I don't know," said Ron McCoy, 43, of Durham, N.C., one of the organizers of the annual Hatfield-McCoy reunion.

That must be a lively event.

These days, the "feud" has taken a far more civil tone and all but disappeared, members of both families say. The last time it surfaced was in January 2003. McCoy descendants sued Hatfield descendants over visitation rights to a small cemetery on an Appalachian hillside in eastern Kentucky. It holds the remains of six McCoys, some allegedly killed by the Hatfields.

Full article here.

Now this is a swimming pool

I've never had any desire to have a conventional swimming pool, even when I lived in California. A pool -- more a pond, really -- such as this would be another matter entirely:

Total Habitat, in Bonner Springs, Kan., specializes in what could be called the opposite of the white- or blue-tiled things found in millions of backyards across the country.

The “natural pools” that Total Habitat builds are bordered with wood, planted with lush vegetation and free of chemicals like chlorine; they resemble nothing so much as a swimming hole. “It’s natural-looking, like a pond,” Mr. Hilleary said. “But the water looks so clean. People really want to swim in it, more than in a farm pond.”

Natural swimming pools (or swimming ponds, as they are called in Europe, where the concept originated 20 years ago) are self-cleaning pools that combine swimming areas and water gardens. Materials and designs vary — the pools can be lined with rubber or reinforced polyethylene, as in the case of Total Habitat’s, and may look rustic or modern — but all natural pools rely on “regeneration” zones, areas given over to aquatic plants that act as organic cleansers.

From today's NY Times.

Joan of Arc "relics" fake

Not such a surprise that they weren't the real thing, but what they turned out to be was unexpected:

In 1867, a jar was found in a Paris pharmacy attic, along with a label claiming it held relics of Joan's body.

But new forensic tests suggest that the remains date from between the third and sixth centuries BC - hundreds of years before Joan was even born. . .

The remains consisted of a charred-looking human rib, chunks of what appeared to be blackened wood, a 15-centimetre fragment of linen, and a cat thigh bone.

In medieval Europe it was common practice to throw black cats into the pyres of supposed witches.

Though you don't have to go nearly that far back to find bizarre practices:

In medieval times and later, powdered mummy remains were used for medicinal purposes, "to treat stomach ailments, long or painful periods, all blood problems," Philippe Charlier told the Associated Press.

The researchers' assumption is that a 19th Century apothecary was behind the fake, and transformed the remains of an Egyptian mummy into a fake relic, Dr Charlier said.

From the BBC. A citation on "mummy medicine" here:

The medicinal use of mummy continued right up until the 19th century but, according to the 1905 edition of a German pharmaceutical text, by this time it consisted of 'resinous red-brown or brown-black pieces, mixed with some browned bone remnants and little pieces of linen'.

Goudstikker paintings on view in New York

Examples from the largest known collection of Old Master paintings stolen by the Nazis are to go on view at Christie's in New York next week, before being sold on April 19. But a large part of the proceeds will go to paying mounting bills accumulated by lawyers and researchers on the project. . .

Toussaint estimates the cost of research in this case at "several hundred thousand dollars a year". Then there are the lawyers' fees. Last month, one of von Saher's former lawyers was awarded £5 million by a Dutch court after a dispute over fees charged.

The evidence at the hearing suggested von Saher would also have to pay 20 per cent of the value of the collection to another Dutch lawyer, 10 per cent to her US lawyers, and another 10 per cent for art-historical research. . .

The sale in New York comprises just 45 lots estimated to make up to £13 million. Reflecting Goudstikker's taste for 17th-century Dutch painting is a rich array of landscapes (a river view by Salomon van Ruysdael is estimated at £1.5 million to £2.5 million) and portraits (a portrait by Frans Hals's contemporary Johannes Verspronck could make £500,000). Goudstikker also sought to develop a more international style dealing in early Renaissance Italian paintings. An example in the sale is a 4ft-high, Giotto-esque tempera-and-gold panel painting of St Lucy by the Florentine painter Jacopo del Casentino (£400,000 to £600,000).

A further 95 works will be sold later this year in London and Amsterdam, but what will happen to the other 66 restituted paintings is yet to be decided. And then there are 1,000 paintings still missing, including, it is thought, works by Rembrandt, Velázquez, Rubens and Titian.

One of the most valuable to be identified is Lucas Cranach's diptych of Adam and Eve in the Norton Simon Museum in California, estimated to be worth some £50 million. The Christie's sale therefore promises to be the first of many Goudstikker sales as the costs rise and the bills have to be paid.

That estimate for the Cranach seems awfully high. From the Telegraph.

Sanitized for your protection

Some schools avoid teaching the Holocaust and other controversial history subjects as they do not want to cause offence, research has claimed.

Teachers fear meeting anti-Semitic sentiment, particularly from Muslim pupils, the government-funded study by the Historical Association said.

It also said the way the slave trade was taught could leave both white and black children feeling alienated.

Ministers in England had asked for guidance on teaching emotive subjects.

From the BBC. History is messy -- but that's exactly why it must be taught, in all its messy complexity. Ignoring or idealizing the past denies us realistic guidelines for the present. Perhaps the most disturbing passage of the article:

The Historical Association report claimed: "Teachers and schools avoid emotive and controversial history for a variety of reasons, some of which are well-intentioned.

"Staff may wish to avoid causing offence or appearing insensitive to individuals or groups in their classes.

"In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."

The report gave the example of a history department in a northern city which decided not to teach the Holocaust as a topic for GCSE coursework.

It cited another school which taught the Holocaust, but then avoided teaching the Crusades because "balanced treatment" of the topic would have challenged what some local mosques were teaching.

Spitfire on rails

A French high-speed train (TGV) has smashed the world record for a train on conventional rails by a big margin, reaching 574.8km/h (356mph). . .

The record attempt by a modified TGV took place on a track between Paris and the eastern city of Strasbourg.

The absolute train speed record was set by a Japanese magnetic levitation train - Maglev - in 2003. It reached a top speed of 581km/h (361mph). . .

The train travelled almost as fast as a World War II Spitfire fighter at top speed.

From the BBC (with video footage). Note that the Spitfire comparison really applies only to early models (specs here and here).

Cashing in on Turner

The Belgian collector Baron Guy Ullens has consigned 14 Turner watercolours to auction, because he wants to focus on contemporary Chinese art. The works, which will be sold at Sotheby’s London on 5 July, are expected to fetch £10m-£15m ($19.7m-$29.55m).

Baron Ullens has founded the first private museum for both Chinese and international contemporary art in Beijing, which is to open in October. Titled the Ullens Centre for the Arts, it is located in Beijing’s Dashanzi art district and its first chairman is Jan Debbaut, former head of collections at Tate.

Ullens' timing looks to be excellent:

Last year saw new Turner records established for an oil and for a work on paper: a Venetian oil, Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio sold for $35.86m at Christie’s New York while the watercolour The Blue Rigi sold for £5.83m ($11m) at Christie’s London. Christie’s has traditionally dominated the Turner market so the sale of this collection, which is the biggest to come to auction since the Munro sales in 1878 and 1879, is a coup for Sotheby’s, which offered a guarantee on the group.

From the Art Newspaper.

Technicolor Gods

Not my title -- it is in fact the title of an exhibition at the Hamburg Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. Not the first essay at illustrating how colorful ancient sculpture originally was, but the lesson is one that can't be stated often enough:

Some 70 originals, reconstructions and examples from research show the original colourful appearance of sculptures from classical antiquity

It is impressive to see how colour is staging a comeback in our perception of Classical art. Temples and sculptures were not originally created in the pure, shining white of marble, but were painted in colour and decorated with colourful motifs. The impressive reconstructions of Classical sculptures specially created for this exhibition, attractive and pleasing to the eye, give an impression of the original colourfulness of the works.

Munch theft postscript

An appeals court Friday convicted three men and acquitted three others of involvement in the 2004 theft of the Edvard Munch masterpieces “The Scream” and “Madonna.”

Two of the rulings by a jury reversed a lower court’s decision.

One man previously acquitted was convicted; another, previously convicted, was acquitted. The sentences don't seem very long, but I think I'll still stick to legitimate employment. Full article here.

Temple Denial/Pyramid Denial

When it comes to the Middle East, certain disputes manifest themselves absolutely everywhere.

In the year 2007, many prominent Egyptologists in Cairo refute the idea that the pyramids were built by slaves at all. The list of scholars who align themselves with this train of thought is headed by Egypt's Chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass. In 2002, a team led by Hawass explored unopened chambers inside the pyramids using new technology, and at the end of the process a triumphant Hawass told the world press that his findings, particularly the skeleton of a fourth-century Egyptian, showed that the pyramids were "not built by slaves," but rather by the "great Egyptians."

So far so good -- nothing very controversial here at all, despite the jingoistic kicker. But then drops the other shoe . . .

Following the exploration, which was broadcast worldwide by National Geographic, Dr. Hawass held an interview with the Arab daily El Gomhoreya, in which he said his findings "refute the allegations reiterated by Jews and some Western countries that the Jews built the pyramids."

This is plainly nuts. Aside from the sort of lunatic fringe that claims that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, no one makes such a claim: neither Jews, nor historians and archeologists. Manufactured allegations of a conspiracy to lay claim to the pyramids is xenophobic demagoguery of the worst sort.

Hawass and Egypt's Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, launched a campaign in 2002 to secure Giza's legacy for Egypt. Their campaign to "strike back" on those with different views on the subject was reported by Egyptian-born, London-based writer Ahmed Osman, who quoted Hosny in an interview with the Associated Foreign Press as vowing to "wage a war to protect the Pyramids... from an organized campaign by Israel."

In the AFP interview, the pair were quoted as saying, "Israeli allegations that they built the Pyramids abound, and we must face up to this even if it triggers a crisis with Israel! This is piracy! Our history and our civilization must be respected but the Israelis want to take over everything! We must counterattack with full strength because this is how they took Palestine. They think Palestine belongs to them and now they are doing on saying the same with the Pyramids."

Full article in the Jerusalem Post.

No more A-levels in ancient history

Ancient history is to become a thing of the past, with the only exam board offering it as an A-level subject now planning to ditch the course.

The decision by the Oxford and Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts (OCR) exam board has led to concerns that pupils will no longer understand the legacies of ancient civilisations.

The subject has introduced students to topics such as the birth of Athenian democracy, the growth of the Roman Empire, the beginnings of Christianity, the revolt by Spartacus against slavery and the battle of Thermopylae, where the stand by an small Greek force against the Persians in 480 BCE became the byword for heroic struggles.

Last night experts were saying that all these were examples of history that would be lost on future generations.

The irony is that the subject is being ditched at a time when it is growing in popularity - with 1,000 students taking the exam compared with just 300 at the turn of the century. The rise is partly being put down to recent television programmes, such as Boris Johnson's series on the Roman Empire, films such as Gladiator and 300, and the BBC drama series, The Romans.

From the Independent.

Prado extension opens

Spain's most famous art museum took a step into the 21st century at the weekend when it unveiled a budget-busting modernist new annex after five years' work.

The red-brick, granite and oak, £92m extension to Madrid's Prado Museum was designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo.

It will give one of Spain's most popular attractions badly needed extra space to show scores of paintings which are at present languishing in store rooms. . .

Moneo, a winner of architecture's Nobel, the Pritzker Prize, initially caused controversy with his design because he wanted to incorporate the cloister of the 15th-century Los Jeronimos church, which was removed stone by stone and reassembled inside the extension. . .

The new complex adds 183,000 square feet to the 312,000 sq ft museum.

Full article here.

Bronze Age burial in Roman necropolis

Italian archaeologists say they have unearthed a Bronze Age-era skeleton in an ancient necropolis in the heart of Rome.

The well-preserved skeleton appears to be that of a woman aged about 30, said archaeologist Anna De Santis, who took part in the excavations under the Caesar's Forum, part of the sprawling complex of the Imperial Forums in central Rome.

The skeleton dates to the 10th century B.C., long before the founding of Rome, thought to be in 753 B.C.

From Discovery News.

Ancient acoustics: Epidauros

Greeks exploited acoustic physics to hear plays from the back row, a new research published in the magazine Nature, has shown.

This conclusion was reached after examining the ancient Greek theatre of Epidaurus. . .

Its acoustics are extraordinary. According to Nico Declercq and Cindy Dekeyser of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, a performer standing on the open-air stage could be heard in the back rows almost 60 metres away.

Both claimed that the key to it lies in the arrangement of the stepped rows of seats. They calculate that this structure is perfectly shaped to act as an acoustic filter, suppressing low-frequency sound - the major component of background noise - while passing on the high frequencies of performers' voices1.

From DailyIndia. The Nature article is here, but is available only to subscribers.