The Penguin Bar

Very old artworks provide a fascinating glimpse of ancient life, but not without limitations: They typically portray the lifestyles of the rich and famous (rulers, royals, generals, and priests), abandoning the masses to the mists of history.

That’s why the recent discovery of a 1,300-year-old mural at Calakmul, Mexico, is so significant. It is the only known pre-Columbian artwork depicting ordinary Maya engaged in everyday activities, rather than serving the wealthy.

Archaeologists first unearthed the pyramid bearing the painted exterior walls in 2004 and are still in the process of restoring it. The murals show Maya of both sexes preparing and dispensing food, or carrying baskets, sacks, and large vessels. (Previously discovered images mainly show men.) The women wear face paint, and both sexes sport broad-brimmed hats, earrings, necklaces, and pendants. Hieroglyphic captions identify some people by their trades: salt person, tobacco person, and maize-gruel person, for example.

via Ancient Mural Portrays Ordinary Mayans | LiveScience.

Wine in Roman society had a long and changeable history. At certain times prohibited to certain social groups, it was believed to be a health drink. It was also enjoyed in a variety of different ways.

The Romans and Alcohol

Wine was the Roman’s alcoholic drink of choice. Viticulture was established in long before the influence of the Greeks. The Romans had their own god of wine, Liber, a deity with very particular Roman characteristics which were incompatible with the Greek wine God Dionysus. This indicates that Liber developed separately and could not be directly associated with any Greek gods.

Beer was available but regarded as an inferior drink. Roman beer was made from rye and was extremely cheap, half the price of the worst kinds of wine. It was not a drink for the sophisticated although beer foam was used in the cosmetics of roman ladies.

via Wine Drinking in the Roman World: The History of Roman Wine.

30 January 1948, Gandhi is assassinated. The above is his speech on non-violence, in South Africa, taken from the movie “Gandhi“.

His actual voice, 1931 – speaking about god:

Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.

via Rome’s Tremendous Tunnel: The Ancient World’s Longest Underground Aqueduct – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Read the whole article – fascinating!

British newspapers have been thumbing their noses at the Italians this week, following an announcement by researchers that they have discovered lasagne is in fact an English dish that was described in “the world’s oldest recipe book”.

via World Wide Words: Lasagne.

[Read the whole article....]

Culture lovers, visitors and the city authorities of Berlin were reveling in the reopening Friday of the Neues Museum in the heart of the German capital by Chancellor Angela Merkel, the culmination of decades of efforts to renovate a special site destroyed during World War II.

But the celebrations have been marred by a growing dispute between the German and Egyptian governments about the star of the show: the 3,300-year-old limestone and stucco bust of Queen Nefertiti, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten.

The Nefertiti sculpture has been in Germany since 1913. But it is only now that Egypt is demanding that this fragile and haunting object, perched alone in a domed room that overlooks the length of the museum, be returned.

via Egypt Demands Return of Nefertiti Statue – NYTimes.com.

Explored by an Anglo-Greek team of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer’s heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.

“There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world,” said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. “It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique.”

The site, which straddles 30,000 square meters of ocean floor off the southern Peloponnese, is believed to have been consumed by the sea around 1000 BC. Although discovered by a British oceanographer some 40 years ago, it was only this year that marine archaeologists, aided by digital technology, were able to properly survey the ruins.

via Lost Greek city that may have inspired Atlantis myth gives up secrets | Science | The Guardian.

I write to ask you to take 10 minutes out of your day to pause … I invite you to watch this young girl tell the story of war in her country, the Ukraine, tell it with art, with sand…

One of the songs that plays is “A Dark Night”, by Mark Bernes:
A dark gloomy night
only bullets whistle in the steppe
only the wind roars in the wires
the stars dimly shine

In the dark gloomy night
you my beloved I know do not sleep
and at the child’s crib out of sight
you wipe a tear

How I love
the depth of you sweet eyes
how I want
to press against them now with my lips

The dark gloomy night
separates us my beloved
and the cold dark steppe
has lain between us

Death doesn’t frighten me
I’ve met her not once in the steppe
and here now
it is circling above me

You are awaiting me
and at the cribb do not sleep
and so I know
nothing will happen to me
—–
The monument drawn is, I believe, the memorial to the unknown soldier in Kiev, Ukraine.

The words she writes at the end are:
“Ty vsegda ryadom”- “You always close/near ”

About the artist.

DNA analysis has revealed the identity of the “cursed blood” disorder that afflicted the British Royal Family in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Scientists say the disease inherited by Queen Victoria’s descendants was probably a severe form of the blood clotting disorder haemophilia B.

The scientists examined DNA samples extracted from the skeletal remains of Russia’s Romanov family.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Royal blood disorder identified.