Hot Fun in the (Ancient Egyptian) Summertime...

Hola darlings!

Been working up my own version of hot fun in the (not quite yet) summertime around Maison Newton today cutting grass and raking my butt off in the backyard that is an absolute Rocky Horror Picture Show hot mess.  And so tonight, trying to catch up on stuff, I came across the article below that struck me as gloriously hilarious and profound at the same time, and reminded me of this grand old song by Sly and the Family Stone (do any of you remember them?) from way back in 1969 - yep, the same year I graduated from high school at the ripe old age of 17, darlings.  So here's the song, listen and enjoy, and then read the article below, and you'll totally understand why I so much wanted to post this youtube song, heh heh:

Cemetery Reveals Baby-Making Season in Ancient Egypt

By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com – Fri, May 17, 2013

The peak period for baby-making sex in ancient Egypt was in July and August, when the weather was at its hottest.

Researchers made this discovery at a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt whose burials date back around 1,800 years. The oasis is located about 450 miles (720 kilometers) southwest of Cairo. The people buried in the cemetery lived in the ancient town of Kellis, with a population of at least several thousand. These people lived at a time when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, when Christianity was spreading but also when traditional Egyptian religious beliefs were still strong.

So far, researchers have uncovered 765 graves, including the remains of 124 individuals that date to between 18 weeks and 45 weeks after conception. The excellent preservation let researchers date the age of the remains at death. The researchers could also pinpoint month of death, as the graves were oriented toward the rising sun, something that changes predictably throughout the year. [See Images of the Ancient Egypt Cemetery]

The results, combined with other information, suggested the peak period for births at the site was in March and April, and the peak period for conceptions was in July and August, when temperatures at the Dakhleh Oasis can easily reach more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).
The peak period for the death of women of childbearing age was also in March and April (exactly mirroring the births), indicating that a substantial number of women died in childbirth.

Although attempts have been made in the past to piece together ancient Egyptian birth patterns using census records, researchers say this is the first time that these patterns have been determined by looking at burials.

"No one has ever looked at it using the actual individuals themselves, the biological aspects of it," said lead researcher Lana Williams, a professor at the University of Central Florida, in an interview with LiveScience.

The team presented their research recently at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Honolulu.

Sex in the summer

Conception didn't peak in summer months for other ancient Mediterranean cultures, Williams noted; the hot weather is thought to have lowered sexual libido and possibly sperm count.

In ancient Egypt, however, the new findings indicate that at Kellis conceptions increased by more than 20 percent above the site's annual average.

A summer baby-making boon in ancient Egypt may have been due to traditional beliefs regarding fertility and the Nile flood. The people who lived at the Dakhleh Oasis in ancient times believed that the Nile River was the source of their water and that the flooding of the Nile, which takes place in the summer, was key to the fertility of their land.

"Even though this was a Christian community, we know that they were still practicing, or having these social beliefs of, fertility being at its highest in the months of July and August," Williams said. "We have local temple reliefs that show this, the annual inundation of the Nile being celebrated at Dakhleh."

She added that the annual flood of the Nile River was a pivotal event throughout Egyptian history.

"This was a very strong aspect of social beliefs of fertility," she said. "The Nile is the gift to Egypt — without it, there's really no way that this civilization could have survived through 3,000 years of history."

These patterns of conceptions and births would have likely continued back further into ancient times and occurred at other Egyptian sites as well, said Williams. In fact, they appear to have also continued into relatively modern times.

"Interestingly, all the way up into the 1920s and 1930s, we still see this maxima in birth taking place at the same season [around March and April]," Williams said in regards to birth records from the World Health Organization that looked at rural Egypt.

Sexual prohibitions
While the summer was prime time for ancient Egyptian baby-making, the period around January seems to have been a low point, when conception fell to 20 percent below the site's annual average. The baby dip was likely due to the new religion, Christianity, which in ancient times called for prohibitions on sex during certain periods, such as during Advent and Lent.

Ancient texts indicate that early Egyptian Christians were, ideally, supposed to avoid intercourse "on Saturday, on Sunday, on Wednesday, and on Friday, in the 40 days of Lent and before the other feasts at which they might take the Eucharist," writes Peter Brown, a professor of classics at Princeton University, in his book "The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity" (Columbia University Press, 2008 edition).

The people of Kellis may not have been as strict as these texts recommend, but conception did fall to a low point around January, a time close to both Advent and Lent, Williams pointed out.

Ancient contraceptives
The patterns also suggest some form of ancient contraceptives were in use.

"If you have this much of a tightly patterned conception, there has to be some form of contraception that was taking place," Williams said, noting that ancient Egyptian medical texts tell of several methods that they believed acted to prevent pregnancy.

For instance, contraceptive recipes from the Kahun Medical Papyrus, dating back about 3,800 years, included crocodile dung and honey in their ingredients. It isn’t clear from the surviving papyrus exactly how they were to be inserted into the body. One fragment reads that for honey one was to "sprinkle [it] over her womb, this to be done on natron bed," (translation by Stephen Quirke).

Williams said that the prospect of having to take dung filled medicine, and having sex with it in you, probably discouraged intercourse. "By aversion alone, it would probably work for contraception," Williams said.

"The interesting thing is when you start to look at the ingredients, the high acid content that would be in crocodile dung, the anti-bacterial qualities of honey, it probably would take down the possibility of pregnancy by acting as a spermicide," said Williams, adding that it would not have been as effective as modern-day contraceptives.

Avoiding the taxman
When the team compared their research results with Roman census records, they found that the records were a bit off, indicating May and June as the time of maximum births.

As the census records were tied to taxation, the people living in Roman-controlled Egypt seem to have put off recording them.

"We don't want to pay our taxes until the last moment, so let's not do it, let's put off filing that document until we have to," said Williams, speculating on why they would have put off recording births. For the ancient Egyptians living under Roman rule, it seems sex, birth, death and taxes were all linked together.

Did "Neanderthal" Man Make Art After All?

From nature.com

Neanderthal culture: Old masters

The earliest known cave paintings fuel arguments about whether Neanderthals were the mental equals of modern humans.

• Tim Appenzeller¹

15 May 2013

 

Spots and stencils in El Castillo cave, Spain — one at least 40,800 years old — might be the handiwork of Neanderthals.

PEDRO SAURA

 

In a damp Spanish cave, Alistair Pike applies a small grinder to the world's oldest known paintings. Every few minutes, the dentist-drill sound stops and Pike, an archaeologist from the University of Southampton, UK, stands aside so that a party of tourists can admire the simple artwork — hazy red disks, stencilled handprints, the outlines of bison — daubed on the cave wall tens of thousands of years ago. He hopes that the visitors won't notice the small scuff marks he has left.

In fact, Pike's grinder — and the scalpel that he wields to scrape off tiny samples — is doing no harm to the actual paintings, and he is working with the full approval of the Spanish authorities. Pike is after the crust of calcite that has built up over the millennia from groundwater dripping down the wall. The white flecks that he dislodges hold a smattering of uranium atoms, whose decay acts as a radioactive clock. A clock that has been ticking ever since the calcite formed on top of the art.

The results of an earlier round of sampling in El Castillo cave, published last June¹, showed that the oldest of the paintings, a simple red spot, dates to at least 40,800 years ago, roughly when the first modern humans reached western Europe. Pike and his colleagues think that when they analyse the latest samples, the paintings may turn out to be older still, perhaps by thousands of years — too old to have been made by modern humans. If so, the artists must have been Neanderthals, the brawny, archaic people who were already living in Europe.

The answer won't be known for at least a year, but if it favours the Neanderthals, it could tip — if not resolve — a debate that has rumbled for decades: did the Neanderthals, once caricatured as brute cavemen, have minds like our own, capable of abstract thinking, symbolism and even art? It is one of the most haunting questions about the people who once shared a continent with us, then mysteriously vanished.

An early date for the paintings would also be a vindication for the slight, dark-haired man watching as Pike works: João Zilhão, who has emerged as the leading advocate for Neanderthals, relentlessly pressing the case that these ice-age Europeans were our cognitive equals. Zilhão, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies at the University of Barcelona in Spain, believes that other signs of sophisticated Neanderthal culture have already proved his point. But he is willing to debate on his opponents' terms. “To my mind, we don't need that evidence,” he says of the paintings. “But I guess for many of my colleagues this would be the smoking gun.”

The front line in the Neanderthal wars runs through another cave: Grotte du Renne, 1,000 kilometres away in central France. As early as the 1950s, excavations there unearthed a collection of puzzling artefacts. Among them were bone awls, distinctive stone blades and palaeolithic baubles — the teeth of animals such as foxes or marmots, grooved or pierced so that they could be worn on a string. They were buried beneath artefacts typical of the first modern humans in Europe, suggesting that these objects were older. A startling possibility loomed: that artefacts of this style, collectively known as the Châtelperronian industry, were made by Neanderthals.

Close cousins of modern humans, Neanderthals evolved in western Eurasia and had Europe to themselves for more than 200,000 years, enduring several ice ages. In spite of their survival skills and big brains — comparable to our own — they had never been linked to sophisticated tools of this kind, or to ornaments. Yet in 1980, archaeologists reported finding a Neanderthal skeleton among Châtelperronian tools at another site in France². And in 1996, French palaeoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin and his colleagues reported that a skull fragment from the ornament layer in the Grotte du Renne was unmistakably Neanderthal³.

Ever since then, the Grotte du Renne has been exhibit A in the case that Neanderthals, like ourselves, trafficked in symbols, using ornaments as badges of identity for individuals or groups. [Oh please - from discovering these artifacts to claiming that "Neanderthal" used them as "badges of identity" -- what is the basis for this assertion?  Most people today, and I expect "back then" too, did not wear jewelry as "badges of identity" but for the pure pleasure of wearing a unique and/or beautiful and/or rare object!  Taking pleasure in a beautiful, rare, unique thing does not make it a "badge of identity."  Geez!] 

Hublin himself did not go that far. He suggested that the Neanderthals had fallen under the spell of strange new neighbours: modern humans, who were thought to have reached Europe around the time of the Châtelperronian industry. Neanderthals might have acquired the ice-age bling from modern humans, or made the pendants themselves under the influence of the new arrivals. [So, "Neanderthals" were either sophisticated enough to establish a trading network with these "newcomer humans" or were sophisticated enough to copy their designs...]

That conclusion infuriated Zilhão, turning him into the passionate advocate he is today. He questioned the evidence that modern humans were already on the scene and detected a bias against our extinct cousins. “Why was the equally if not more legitimate hypothesis — that the Neanderthals themselves had been the authors of this stuff and made it for their own use — not even considered?” asks Zilhão.

On a visit to rock-art sites in Portugal, he discussed the paper with Francesco d'Errico, an archaeologist who is now at the University of Bordeaux in France. D'Errico had the same reaction, Zilhão recalls. “And he said: 'OK, let's do something about it.'” Since then, the pair has fought a two-front war, advancing evidence for Neanderthal capabilities while challenging studies that reserve symbolism and abstract thinking for modern humans.

Unknown artists

More than 15 years later, the Grotte du Renne continues to be a battleground. Since 2010, three papers have given duelling interpretations of the artefact-bearing layers. In the first, a group led by dating expert Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford, UK, used new carbon dates to argue that the layers were scrambled, mixing older remains with younger⁴. If that was correct, said Higham's team, the relics adjacent to the telltale skull fragment might not have belonged to Neanderthals after all.

Within months, Zilhão, d'Errico and their colleagues fired back with an analysis⁵ of how artefacts of different types were distributed in the Grotte du Renne, concluding that the layers were undisturbed and that the Neanderthal link could be trusted. A group led by Hublin (now at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany) presented its own dates last year, backing Zilhão's claim⁶. But Hublin still denied the Neanderthals full credit. Neanderthals did make the objects, now dated to between 45,000 and 40,000 years ago, he said — but only after they encountered modern humans. And this time he had fresh evidence to draw on.

Carbon dates measured by Higham and others at caves in Italy, Britain and Germany suggest that modern humans began expanding into Europe as early as 45,000 years ago, several thousand years earlier than was thought (see Nature 485, 27–29; 2012). Zilhão strenuously disputes those claims, doubting whether the shells or animal bones used for dating truly reflect the age of the human fossils at the sites, or whether the human remains are modern. “The evidence to show an early presence of modern humans in Europe is worse today than it was 20 years ago,” he declares.

Hublin, however, has no doubt that our ancestors had already entered the picture when Neanderthals in France began making bone awls and animal-tooth pendants. To assume that Neanderthals invented these technologies on their own is to accept “an incredible coincidence”, he says. “Just as modern humans arrive with these things in their pocket — bingo!”

Like minds

Despite the stalemate, Zilhão says that the record of Neanderthal behaviour tens of thousands of years before modern humans arrived in Europe proves his point (see 'Minds at work'). Neanderthals are believed to have buried their dead, suggesting that they had some kind of spirituality. They made glue for securing spear points by heating birch sap while protecting it from the air, a feat that even modern experimental archaeologists have trouble replicating. Many Neanderthal sites include lumps of pigment — red ochre and black manganese — that sometimes seem to be worn down like stone-age crayons. Zilhão and others think that the Neanderthals painted themselves, creating striking patterns on their pale, northern skin that were every bit as symbolic as the art and ornaments of modern humans.

“You don't need to have shell beads, you don't need to have artefacts with graphical representation to have behaviour that can be defined archaeologically as symbolic,” he says. “Burying your dead is symbolic behaviour. Making sophisticated chemical compounds in order to haft your stone tools implies a capacity to think in abstract ways, a capacity to plan ahead, that's fundamentally similar to ours.”

Where Zilhão sees a clear pattern, sceptics see uncertainties. Harold Dibble, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is re-examining supposed Neanderthal burial sites. At one, the French cave of Roc de Marsal, he says that what seemed to be a deliberately excavated grave is actually a natural pit. At another, La Ferrassie, he sees evidence that sediments swept into the cave by water — not grieving kin — could have buried Neanderthal remains.

As for the ochre crayons, Dibble is dismissive. “You see some wear on a piece of ochre and soon you've got Neanderthal body painting,” he says. “What a lot of logical leaps.” [No more a logical leap than assuming that a decorative object worn by an ancient individual was worn as a "badge of identity."] He and others say that the pigment has many possible uses: as an insect repellent, a preservative for food or animal skins, an ingredient in adhesives. Even Wil Roebroeks of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, who found evidence for ochre use as early as 250,000 years ago at a Dutch Neanderthal site⁷, says that Zilhão “jumps too fast from the presence of ochre to body decoration”.

Ask Dibble, Hublin and other sceptics what would persuade them that Neanderthals had minds like ours, and their answer is simple: a pattern of art or other sophisticated symbolic expression from a time when no modern humans could possibly have been around. “But I don't think it exists,” says Hublin. [Maybe we're not looking at what is left behind correctly; maybe most of it was wiped out in the intervening years.  After all, 50,000 to 100,000 years ago was a fricking LONG time ago to expect something to survive.]

Zilhão, however, points to a singular finding from a Neanderthal site in southern Spain that he reported three years ago⁸: three cockle shells each with holes near one edge, as if they had been worn as ornaments. One contains a trace of red pigment, and a fourth shell is stained with a mixture of colours, as if it had been used as a paint container. The shells, says Zilhão, imply symbolic thinking fully equivalent to that of the modern humans who left troves of beads in South Africa 75,000 years ago. And at roughly 50,000 years old, he says, the Spanish shells date from a time well before modern humans reached the region.

Critics are not satisfied. The perforations are natural, as Zilhão himself noted, which suggests to Hublin and Dibble that rather than systematically fashioning ornaments, Neanderthals might have picked up a few odd shells on a whim. “When you've got isolated occurrences, one-offs, that's not going to convince most of us,” says Dibble.

The paintings in El Castillo could help to establish a pattern. The research group was conservative with the ages it reported last June¹, which put the earliest calcite at nearly 41,000 years old. Nervous about damaging the pigment, the team left several millimetres of the veneer intact at each sampled spot. Deeper, older layers might push back the paintings' minimum ages by several thousand years.

That prospect brought the team back to El Castillo last October. Grinding and scraping through a long day, the researchers concentrate on the red disks and hand stencils that had yielded the earliest dates last time around. The goal, says Zilhão, is “to date pigments in these paintings to an age that is clearly and to everyone's satisfaction beyond the range of modern humans in Europe”.

Yet an early date may not settle the long-running dispute. Hublin sets the bar high. “If Zilhão finds a date of earlier than 50,000 years ago, I'll be convinced!” he says. Any younger, and modern human influence would remain a possibility, he says, noting recent hints that our ancestors had advanced into Turkey or even central Europe by 50,000 years ago. And one example of crude painting — what Dibble calls “Neanderthal doodling” — might not be enough to win over the doubters. Zilhão's knockout blow may simply lead to more fighting.

Yet signs of a middle ground are emerging. Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, says that 20 years ago, he believed that if the Neanderthals made the Châtelperronian ornaments, they were blindly imitating modern humans. “Our interpretation was that they were copying but that they didn't have the brainpower to give full value” to the objects. He wouldn't say so now. Two decades of discoveries of sophisticated Neanderthal tools and weapons have made him think that “the gulf was not as great”: that the difference between Neanderthals and ourselves was a matter more of culture than of ability.

“You can see the Neanderthals were held back by various factors that were not down to their brains,” he adds. The climate of ice-age Europe kept their population size “frighteningly small”, he says — at times just a few thousand people across a whole continent, most of them dead by the age of 30. How could such a sparse, beleaguered people develop and sustain a sophisticated culture?

That's not so different from what d'Errico, Zilhão's comrade-in-arms for almost 20 years, now says. He still thinks that the Neanderthals probably invented the Châtelperronian artefacts before modern humans were on the scene. But he is open to the idea that aspects of modern human culture preceded their wholesale arrival in Europe. “It's possible that some influence did spread,” says d'Errico. “I'm less militant than João.” That takes nothing away from the Neanderthals, he adds. “The fact that Neanderthals can absorb influences, can re-elaborate them, can make them part of their own culture, is very modern behaviour.”

But there is a final stretch of ground that neither side will concede. Were the Neanderthals truly the same as us, cognitively? No, says Stringer. The Neanderthal genome, decoded⁹ in 2010, differs from that of modern humans in some regions linked to brain function, he notes. And this year, he suggested that, compared with modern humans, larger volumes of Neanderthals' brains were devoted to vision and to controlling their heavier bodies¹⁰ (see ‘Two kinds of human’). That might have left them with less capacity for social awareness and interaction. “If you imagine a Neanderthal in modern society, there would still be differences,” says Stringer.

Zilhão rejects any distinctions. Emerging from the cave into a rainy evening, he muses that if he pushes back the age of the El Castillo paintings, his critics may argue that he has simply proved an earlier presence of modern humans in Europe. “To which I will say, 'Of course. Neanderthals were modern humans too.'”

Nature

Volume:

497,

Pages:

302–304

Date published:

(16 May 2013)

DOI:

doi:10.1038/497302a

References

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14th European Individual Chess Championship

The party's over, it's over, my friends....

Closing ceremonies today for the 14th European Individual Chess Championship.  From the official website, I learned that the following chess femmes earned IM norms:

IM

BULMAGA Irina (ROU)
CHEREDNICHENKO Svetlana (UKR)       
WOREK Joanna (POL)ZAWADZKA Jolanta (POL)

Congratulations, ladies!

And then, there is this article (short) at the official website:  Without Women, Chess Would Be Much Less Interesting...

Top score was 8.0/11 and on tie breaks the Championship was won by

1

GM

MOISEENKO Alexander

UKR

2698

8.0

2643

71.5

72.0

6

2714

10

13.4

and the chess femmes' final ranking (out of 281 players):

119

IM

MUZYCHUK Mariya

UKR

2483

6.0

2482

55.0

59.0

5

2490

10

1.1

157

GM

DANIELIAN Elina

ARM

2478

5.5

2474

54.5

58.5

4

2454

10

-3.3

174

WGM

BULMAGA Irina

ROU

2393

5.0

2514

58.0

60.5

4

2432

15

10.1

177

WGM

ZAWADZKA Jolanta

POL

2383

5.0

2506

55.5

59.5

3

2439

10

8.3

178

WIM

WOREK Joanna

POL

2299

5.0

2501

55.0

59.0

3

2456

15

32.8

194

WIM

IWANOW Anna

POL

2195

5.0

2396

49.5

53.5

4

2350

15

32.4

225

WGM

CHEREDNICHENKO Svetlana

UKR

2274

4.0

2533

54.0

58.0

2

2420

15

26.5

231

WGM

PRZEZDZIECKA Marta

POL

2302

4.0

2434

50.5

53.5

3

2298

15

-2.4

253		WIM	PAVLIDOU Ekaterini	GRE	2209	3.5	2409	47.5	48.0	2	2193	15	1.4
254		WFM	CHEREDNICHENKO Elena	UKR	2168	3.5	2400	48.5	52.0	1	2231	15	8.9

258

WGM

YILDIZ Betul Cemre

TUR

2325

3.5

2310

46.5

49.5

2

2135

15

-39.9

2nd Annual Online National Chess Championship

My name is Amanda, co-scholastic coordinator for ChessKid.com, and I'm excited to announce that ChessKid will be hosting the 2nd Annual Online National Chess Championship, June 14th-17th 2013!

 

The nation's best scholastic chess players will come together online in each respective age group to battle over the web for a national title. Rachel Ulrich, 12, from Appleton, WI, will be competing in the Girls U13 division.

 

All games will be broadcast live at http://www.chesskid.com/chesskidtv/%21!! ChessKid.com is the "scholastic extension" of the world's largest chess website - Chess.com.This is a great opportunity for the chess community to support Rachel!

Below is the link for the press release, and I have attached a flyer with the main details of the event. Please feel free to distribute the flyer to chess players in your area.

Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have about the event!

http://www.chesskid.com/article/view/chesskidcom-national-online-invitational-championship

 

Thank you,

Amanda Mateer

Co-Scholastic Coordinator for ChessKid.com

(480) 580-9113

**************************************************

Hola darlings! I play chess online at chess.com.  I'm also a big fan of Rachel Ulrich, who has played in several Hales Corners Chess Challenges to which Goddesschess has provided separate prizes since October, 2008.  Wow, how time flies!

Good luck, Rachel! 

From Boys to Dogs...

If I were the Goddess, I would be VERY pissed off at whoever ritually killed one of my faithful companions!  However that may be, this article confirms prior research by others that I've written about in this blog that dogs were seen as symbols of death and the underworld, and were closely associated with the Great Mother Goddess who performed a myriad of roles in various cultures across the globe, including the role of the Death Goddess/Goddess of Rebirth.  Remember the ancient triad of goddesses: Virgin, Mother, Crone (or Old Woman).  An eternal cycle of birth, life, and death, and then again, rebirth, life, and death, and again and again.  So, if one believes in the "rebirth" part of this incredibly old belief system, any faithful canine companion killed could or would eventually be resurrected again -- maybe.  Where these ancient myths and beliefs get nebulous is in explaining the precise method for getting the hell out of Hell (okay, couldn't resist the pun) once you were there! 

As you know, some ancient board games' playing pieces included dogs or other canines, and in some ancient board games pieces were called "dogs."  Check out this exquisite surviving example of a dog gamine piece from ancient Abydos, Egypt (c. 2850 BCE), below.  Given it's age, I assume it was a gaming piece from a Mehen game.  Mehen was played on a circular board formed out of a coiled serpent, one of the ancient protectoress goddesses of Egypt.

Gives a whole new twist to "The Dogs of War."

See enlarged description below.

(From The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)  This piece is an ivory dog which was probably intended as a gaming piece. It is prone, looking straight ahead and it's tail is curled over its right haunch. It has pendant ears and is depicted wearing a collar around its neck. This piece is well carved, and because of the precious material, was likely made for a noble person.

Period:  ca. 2850 BCE (Archaic)
Medium:  hippopotamus ivory    
Accesion Number: 71.622
Measurements:  1 3/16 x 2 9/16 x 13/16 in. (3 x 6.5 x 2.1 cm)
Place of Origin:  Abydos (present day El Balyana, Egypt)

 

The ancient Egyptians didn't believe in reincarnation; they believed, instead, in an entirely different existence after death that took place in the Land of the Dead, traditionally placed in the western Desert in the very early times and then later up in the sky somewhere.  So, a sort of parallel existence in this other realm, where the worthy souls who made it there (remember the weighing of the heart ceremony against the Feather of Justice of the Goddess Ma'at) also ate, slept, made love, hunted, fished, and generally lived a fantastic life.  I figure it had to be up in the "heavens" because how else could Horus be pooped out of Goddess Mut's body every morning to begin his journey across the sky all over again? 

Whatever the ancient Egyptians believed (and are we really sure we've got it right -- I have my doubts), other cultures were pretty darn blunt about believing in this cycle of life/death and - I think it is implied - actual physical reincarnation.  Just exactly how the process of being reincarnated worked, though, I've no idea, and I don't think they did either. 

This underlying belief in some kind of reincarnation, however, and however nebulous it was, may be a key to understanding what to most civilized people's way of thinking today was an inordinately cruel and vicious ritual!  Killing one's faithful and loving companion?  I'd as soon turn my knife on the killer of his own dog than kill my own!  Or kill myself instead.  But, I will try to keep this archaic belief system in mind while recording this research here:

The National Geographic

Boys Killed Pets to Become Warriors in Early Russia

In Russia, dismembered dogs point to ancient initiation rite.

 

Heather Pringle

for National Geographic

Published May 14, 2013

At first, archaeologists Dorcas Brown and David Anthony were deeply puzzled. While excavating the Bronze Age site of Krasnosamarkskoe in Russia's Volga region, they unearthed the bones of at least 51 dogs and 7 wolves. All the animals had died during the winter months, judging from the telltale banding pattern on their teeth, and all were subsequently skinned, dismembered, burned, and chopped with an ax.

Moreover, the butcher had worked in a precise, standardized way, chopping the dogs' snouts into three pieces and their skulls into geometrically shaped fragments just an inch or so in size. "It was very strange," says Anthony.

To him and Brown, both of whom teach at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, the skilled and standardized method of butchering the dogs pointed to some sort of ritual. Pam Crabtree, an archaeozoologist at New York University, who was not a member of the team, agrees. She notes that the butchery pattern was entirely different from those used in prehistoric Europe and other parts of the world for slicing off dog meat to eat.

"The bone was chopped into small bits, and it was not the way you would do it if you were looking at getting the major muscle groups," Crabtree says.

So how to account for the mysterious remains at Krasnosamarskoe? Why did someone apparently sacrifice these animals?

Ancient Rite of Passage

In search of clues, Anthony and Brown combed the mythology, songs, and scriptures in Eurasia's early and closely related Indo-European languages. Many ancient Indo-European speakers associated dogs with death and the underworld. Reading through prayers composed by tribes in India possibly as early as 1400 B.C., the researchers found a description of secret initiation rites for boys destined to become roving warriors.

At the age of eight, the boys were sent to ritualists, who bathed them, shaved their heads, and gave them animal skins to wear. Eight years later, the initiates underwent a midwinter ceremony in which they ritually died and journeyed to the underworld. After this, the boys left their homes and families, painted their bodies black, donned a dog-skin cloak, and joined a band of warriors.

Brown and Anthony think that similar rites may have taken place at Krasnosamarskoe at the onset of the raiding season, which ran from the winter solstice to the summer solstice. And they speculate that part of the ceremony required the boys to kill their own dogs. The dead canines ranged in age from 7 to 12 years, suggesting that they were longtime companions—possibly even hounds raised with the boys from birth.

"That makes a lot of sense," concludes Brown. To take on the mantle of a warrior, an innocent boy had to become a killer.

Recent research conducted by military psychologists, moreover, suggests that the transition from civilian to soldier can be very difficult. In other words, "you have to train people to kill," says Brown.
For the Bronze Age boys at Krasnosamarskoe, this training may have included killing one of their childhood companions—their faithful dog.

*******************************************************

Not all cultures taught their children to be so monstrous, however.  There are many examples of surviving dog burials where it was apparent, given the care with which the canine was entombed, that the dog was treated with great respect, dignity, and love - yeah, love. 

One can only wonder how many boys ran away with their dogs before their "numbers came up" for the ceremony/test?  How many of them died in the wilderness trying to escape?  Were they allowed to just leave and never be seen again?  How many boys balked when it came to killing their dogs, and what were the consequences for doing so?  Besides this "butchering" process that took place - which the researchers assume the boy had to do (OHMYGODDES!) was there a ritual cooking and eating of the sacrificed dog's flesh?  What happened to the heart of any boy who "chose" to kill his dog because of cultural pressure to do so?  What would that boy feel, and think, about his elders, and the "rules" that made him do such a thing? 

2013 FIDE Women's Grand Prix: Geneva

Hola darlings!

The final round was held today.  Here are the results, courtesy of The Week in Chess:

Round 11 (May 15, 2013)
Muzychuk, Anna	- Kosteniuk, Alexandra	½-½	29	B11	Caro Kann Two Knights
Ushenina, Anna	- Khotenashvili, Bela	½-½	40	D31	Semi-Slav Defence
Ju, Wenjun	- Kosintseva, Tatiana	1-0	62	A00	Irregular Openings
Lagno, Kateryna	- Batchimeg, Tuvshintugs	½-½	50	A14	Reti Opening
Hou, Yifan	- Dzagnidze, Nana	0-1	58	B43	Sicilian Paulsen
Girya, Olga	- Cmilyte, Viktorija	0-1	38	A61	Benoni

And the final standings cross-table (from Chess-Results):

Final Ranking crosstable after 11 Rounds

Rk.			Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		IM	Bela Khotenashvili	2505	GEO	*	½	0	1	1	½	1	0	1	1	1	1	8.0	0.0	7	39.75
2		GM	Anna Muzychuk	2585	SLO	½	*	1	½	½	½	½	1	½	½	1	1	7.5	0.0	4	37.75
3		GM	Tatiana Kosintseva	2517	RUS	1	0	*	½	0	½	1	½	½	1	½	1	6.5	0.5	4	33.00
4		GM	Nana Dzagnidze	2545	GEO	0	½	½	*	1	½	0	1	½	½	1	1	6.5	0.5	4	31.25
5		WGM	Wenjun Ju	2544	CHN	0	½	1	0	*	1	½	½	0	½	1	1	6.0	1.0	4	29.25
6		GM	Anna Ushenina	2491	UKR	½	½	½	½	0	*	½	1	1	½	½	½	6.0	0.0	2	32.00
7		GM	Kateryna Lagno	2548	UKR	0	½	0	1	½	½	*	0	1	½	½	1	5.5	0.0	3	27.25
8		GM	Yifan HOU	2617	CHN	1	0	½	0	½	0	1	*	½	1	0	½	5.0	0.5	3	27.75
9		GM	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2491	RUS	0	½	½	½	1	0	0	½	*	½	1	½	5.0	0.5	2	25.50
10		GM	Viktorija Cmilyte	2522	LTU	0	½	0	½	½	½	½	0	½	*	½	1	4.5	0.0	1	22.00
11		WGM	Tuvshintugs Batchimeg	2298	MGL	0	0	½	0	0	½	½	1	0	½	*	½	3.5	0.0	1	17.25
12		WGM	Olga Girya	2463	RUS	0	0	0	0	0	½	0	½	½	0	½	*	2.0	0.0	0	9.75

Annotation:
Tie Break1: Direct Encounter (The results of the players in the same point group)
Tie Break2: The greater number of victories
Tie Break3: Sonneborn-Berger-Tie-Break variable

 

And this table from The Week in Chess shows the performance ratings:

 

Geneva WGP 2013 Geneva SUI (SUI), 3-15 v 2013															cat. XI (2511)
					1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2
1.	Khotenashvili, Bela	m	GEO	2505	*	½	0	1	½	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	8	2686
2.	Muzychuk, Anna	g	SLO	2585	½	*	1	½	½	½	½	1	½	½	1	1	7½	2636
3.	Kosintseva, Tatiana	g	RUS	2517	1	0	*	½	½	0	1	½	½	1	½	1	6½	2574
4.	Dzagnidze, Nana	g	GEO	2545	0	½	½	*	½	1	0	1	½	½	1	1	6½	2572
5.	Ushenina, Anna	g	UKR	2491	½	½	½	½	*	0	½	1	1	½	½	½	6	2548
6.	Ju, Wenjun	wg	CHN	2544	0	½	1	0	1	*	½	½	0	½	1	1	6	2543
7.	Lagno, Kateryna	g	UKR	2548	0	½	0	1	½	½	*	0	1	½	½	1	5½	2507
8.	Hou, Yifan	g	CHN	2617	1	0	½	0	0	½	1	*	½	1	0	½	5	2464
9.	Kosteniuk, Alexandra	g	RUS	2491	0	½	½	½	0	1	0	½	*	½	1	½	5	2476
10.	Cmilyte, Viktorija	g	LTU	2522	0	½	0	½	½	½	½	0	½	*	½	1	4½	2444
11.	Batchimeg, Tuvshintugs	wg	MGL	2298	0	0	½	0	½	0	½	1	0	½	*	½	3½	2396
12.	Girya, Olga	wg	RUS	2463	0	0	0	0	½	0	0	½	½	0	½	*	2	2252

Once again, the Georgian players show that their country's herstory of producing great female chessplayers is no fluke.  Holy Hathor, what performances by Khotenashvili (I confess I did not recognize her name prior to this tournament, or maybe I just wasn't paying sufficient attention!) and Dzagnidze. 

I was rooting for my favorites (Kosteniuk, Lahno/Lagno), but the Chess Goddess wasn't paying any attention to me this time around, alas.

Some commentary from the official website:

In the last round Georgian player Bela Khotenashvili managed to make a draw against Anna Ushenina and won the tournament. Her nearest rival Anna Muzychuk had to win the game in order to catch the leader but Slovenian player didn’t get anything out of the opening and drew against Alexandra Kosteniuk. “I’m very happy to win this tournament and consider this result as the best one in my career so far. I would like to thank Georgian chess federation, President of GCF Giya Giorgadze and our coach Davit Jojua for their help”, said Bela Khotenashvili at the final press conference.

It became clear today how tired all players are as they were making such mistakes which don’t appear in their games normally. Ukrainian player Katerina Lagno overlooked the piece blunder of her opponent Batchimeg Tuvshintugs, Hou Yifan missed winning chances in the endgame and lost the game against Nana Dzagnidze. Tatiana Kosintseva had a very good position after the opening but was spending a lot of time and lost against Ju Wenjun. Viktorija Cmilyte outplay Olga Girya. As a result, Nana Dzagnidze tied for the third place with Tatiana Kosintseva.
 
Muzychuk-Kosteniuk 1/2-1/2

Photo by Anastasiya Karlovich

It was an important game for Anna Muzychuk, as in case of victory she had a chance to catch Bela Khotenashvili. “If I could manage to get better position I would definitely play for win”, said Anna Muzychuk but I seems White didn’t get this opportunity during the game. Slovenian player didn’t expect Alexandra Kosteniuk to play Caro-Kann and Russian player managed to equalize the position quite easily. There was no way to improve the position for both sides and the game finished in a draw after 29 moves. Anna Muzychuk finished the tournament without losing any game.

Lagno–Batchimeg 1/2-1/2

Photo by Anastasiya Karlovich

Once again Mongolian player showed good opening preparation and didn’t get any problems with Black. Both players started to play unpredictably after 25 moves and for some time we had doubts in the press-center if there were problems with transmission or not. As it was proved at the press conference, Mongolian player simply blundered a piece by playing Ba4 but surprisingly Katerina Lagno didn’t take the bishop. As both players pointed out, they simply missed Na4! Katerina Lagno simply followed her plan Nc1-Ne2 and could not imagine that Black blundered a bishop. Black had advantage in the endgame but Katerina Lagno managed to transfer the position into the endgame with the opposite color bishops.

And how about this commentary about the Hou-Dzagnidze game!

 Hou-Dzagnidze 0-1

Nana Dzagnidze used to play 9…0-0 but feeling sleepy she mixed moves in the opening. White had slightly better position after the opening and Nana decided to sacrifice the exchange to complicate the game. “I think Black is just worse if I don’t do anything”, said Georgian player at the press conference. However, Hou Yifan managed to get absolutely winning position but had to play precisely as Nana was creating threats all the time. Black used his last chance - brought the king to the center and tried to advance e-pawn. Under the time pressure former world champion started to play inaccurately and even lost the game.

**************************************************************

According to the FIDE calendar for FIDE events, the next Women's Grand Prix is:

Women's FIDE Grand Prix Series

Dilijan, Armenia

15-Jun-2013

29-Jun-2013

But there is not yet an official website.

2013 FIDE Women's Grand Prix: Geneva

Round 10 on 2013/05/14 at 14:00
Bo.	No.	Rtg			Name	Result		Name		Rtg	No.
1	12	2491		GM	Alexandra Kosteniuk	½ - ½	GM	Yifan HOU		2617	11
2	1	2545		GM	Nana Dzagnidze	1 - 0	WGM	Wenjun Ju		2544	10
3	2	2517		GM	Tatiana Kosintseva	½ - ½	GM	Anna Ushenina		2491	9
4	3	2505		IM	Bela Khotenashvili	1 - 0	GM	Kateryna Lagno		2548	8
5	4	2298		WGM	Tuvshintugs Batchimeg	½ - ½	WGM	Olga Girya		2463	7
6	5	2522		GM	Viktorija Cmilyte	½ - ½	GM	Anna Muzychuk		2585	6

Ranking crosstable after Round 10

Rk.			Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		IM	Bela Khotenashvili	2505	GEO	*	½	0	1		0	1	1	1	1	1	1	7.5	0.0	7	32.00
2		GM	Anna Muzychuk	2585	SLO	½	*	1	½	½	1	½	½		½	1	1	7.0	0.0	4	32.50
3		GM	Tatiana Kosintseva	2517	RUS	1	0	*	½	½	½		1	½	1	½	1	6.5	0.0	4	29.75
4		GM	Nana Dzagnidze	2545	GEO	0	½	½	*	½		1	0	½	½	1	1	5.5	0.5	3	23.50
5		GM	Anna Ushenina	2491	UKR		½	½	½	*	1	0	½	1	½	½	½	5.5	0.5	2	25.75
6		GM	Yifan HOU	2617	CHN	1	0	½		0	*	½	1	½	1	0	½	5.0	1.5	3	25.00
7		WGM	Wenjun Ju	2544	CHN	0	½		0	1	½	*	½	0	½	1	1	5.0	1.0	3	20.75
8		GM	Kateryna Lagno	2548	UKR	0	½	0	1	½	0	½	*	1	½		1	5.0	0.5	3	22.50
9		GM	Alexandra Kosteniuk	2491	RUS	0		½	½	0	½	1	0	*	½	1	½	4.5	0.0	2	19.25
10		GM	Viktorija Cmilyte	2522	LTU	0	½	0	½	½	0	½	½	½	*	½		3.5	0.0	0	17.75
11		WGM	Tuvshintugs Batchimeg	2298	MGL	0	0	½	0	½	1	0		0	½	*	½	3.0	0.0	1	13.75
12		WGM	Olga Girya	2463	RUS	0	0	0	0	½	½	0	0	½		½	*	2.0	0.0	0	9.00

From the official website:

In the tenth round of Neva Fondation Women Grand Prix Georgian player Bela Khotenashvili confidently won against Katerina Lagno and is half a point above of Anna Muzychuk, who made a draw against Viktorija Cmilyte. Tatiana Kosintseva drew against Anna Ushenina and remains on the third place before the last round. Nana Dzagnidze defeated Ju Wenjun and shares the fourth place with Anna Ushenina one point behind of Tatiana Kosintseva. Olga Girya and Tuvshintugs Batchimeg made a relatively quick draw while Alexandra Kosteniuk and Hou Yifan played 6 hours to finish their game in a draw too.

Wow!  An epic battle between Kosteniuk and Hou Yifan!

Kosteniuk-Hou 1/2-1/2
A very complicated and the longest game of the round between two former world champions. After the opening Alexandra could not find the right plan and “was choosing strange moves”, as she pointed out during the press-conference. White lost a pawn but was hoping to get some counter chances due to the pair of bishops. Black missed some opportunities to get huge advantage and later on the players ended up in a very complicated endgame with unbalanced material (2 bishops, knight and 4 pawns against rook, bishop and 6 pawns). After 95 moves players signed a peace.

Ancient Chinese Diviners Used Trickery...

Gee - ya think!  Duh!

Researchers find trickery in ancient Chinese divination

English.news.cn 2013-05-13 16:54:20

ZHENGZHOU, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Archaeologists revealed Monday that the divination rituals used by ancient Chinese thousands of years ago may have featured some behind-the-scenes trickery.

During the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC -- 1046 BC), emperors relied heavily on prophecy and divination to help them make decisions on matters ranging from domestic policy to the meanings of their dreams.

Zhou Era tortoise shell used for divinination.  From my
stash of images - source not recorded in my description.
 

One divination technique involved burning turtle shells or cattle bones, with the diviner predicting the future based on the patterns of cracks left in the materials after burning them.

"We have learned from our experiments that the appearance of certain crack patterns is basically controllable," said Hou Yanfeng, a researcher at an archaeology laboratory under the Henan Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage.




"During the Shang Dynasty, the emperor was the leader of the diviners. Thus, it is possible that he controlled public opinion via oracle bone divination," he said. [Of course!  They who controlled the "media" of the day controlled the message... No different today.]

Ma Xiaolin, deputy director of the administration, said researchers made replicas of oracle bones excavated from central Henan and carried out a month's worth of experiments to figure out precisely how they were created and how they were used in divination.

"Based on saw, cut and burn marks on 185 fragments of oracle bones and shells, our researchers gained insight into the manufacturing techniques that were used to make oracle bones during the late Shang period," Ma said.

The experiments have been recognized by experts from the U.S., France and Spain, Ma said.
The lab went into operation in 2005 and has participated in major archaeological research projects.

Editor: Fu Peng

Elephant Kills Poacher

Good.  Fricking jerks need to be castrated, their balls shoved down their throats to slowly choke on, strung up on a high pole in the village square until the vultures pick out their eyeballs and livers, and then drawn, quartered, and their carcases dragged through every village within 25 miles.  Ha!  Guess you can tell I'm somewhat passionate on the subject of the slaughter of these magnificent animals for profit -- just to provide powdered ivory for some fat cat Chinese asshole who thinks it will increase his erection.  Send the schmucks Viagra, geez! 

Elephant Tramples Poacher in Zimbabwe

Megan Gannon, News Editor

Date: 13 May 2013 Time: 02:30 PM ET

In a grim karmic twist, a suspected poacher illegally hunting African elephants was trampled to death by his prey, according to news reports.

The bloodied remains of Solomon Manjoro were found by rangers in Charara National Park near Lake Kariba in northwestern Zimbabwe, the country's Sunday Mail reported. Authorities say Manjoro and his accomplice, Noluck Tafuruka, 29, went into the park with two rifles looking for elephants when one of the animals apparently attacked. Tafuruka and another man, Godfrey Shonge, 52, were reportedly arrested in connection with the incident.

An international ban on the ivory trade was established in 1989, but poachers still strip elephants of their ivory tusks to sell on lucrative global markets, with a high demand coming from East Asia. The Wildlife Conservation Society estimates that some 25,000 African elephants are killed each year. Last week, a group of armed poachers raided a protected sanctuary in the Central African Republic and killed at least 26 elephants.