Celebrating Yalda in Iran

Throughout history religions and governments have tried to remove the Goddess from the world, but people always have and always will pay homage to her in one way or another: Yalda, the victory of light over darkness Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:00:40 By Tamara Ebrahimpour, Press TV, Tehran On Yalda festival, Iranians celebrate the arrival of winter, the renewal of the sun and the victory of light over darkness. Considered the longest night of the year, Yalda eve is the night when ancient Iranians celebrated the birth of Mithra, the goddess of light. Every 21st of December Iranians celebrate Yalda which means birth in Syriac. It is believed that when this night ends, days become longer as light (Sun) has defeated darkness. Ancient Persians believed that evil forces were dominant on the longest night of the year and that the next day belonged to the Lord of Wisdom, Ahura Mazda. The Persians would burn fires all night to ensure the defeat of evil. They would hold feasts, raise charity, honor their deities and pray to the goddess Mithra. As Yalda coincides with the beginning of winter, people also celebrated the end of the previous harvest by eating dried and fresh fruits and praying to the deities for a bumper winter crop next year. One of the main features of the Yalda festival was the temporary subversion of order, which lasted up to the Sassanid period. Masters served servants, children headed the family and a mock king was crowned. Today the Yalda festival is a time when family members gather at the home of the elders until after midnight. Guests are served with dried fruits, nuts, and winter fruits like pomegranates and watermelons, which symbolize the red color of dawn in the sky. They also practice bibliomancy with the poetry of the highly respected mystic Iranian poet Hafez. Persians believe whenever one is faced with difficulties or has a general question, one can ask the poet for an answer. Hafiz sings to the questioner in his own enigmatic way and allows individuals to look in the mirror of their soul through his poems. TE/HGH/MG

Iraqi Cuneiform Tablet Offered on eBay

From BBC online: eBay Iraq relic auction stopped December 18, 2007 Swiss authorities have blocked the sale of an ancient clay tablet, thought to have been smuggled from Iraq, on the internet auction site eBay. A German archaeologist spotted the 4,000-tear-old tablet on eBay's Swiss site. It is carved with cuneiform - one of the oldest known types of writing. Swiss authorities were alerted and eBay stopped the auction minutes before the end of the bidding deadline. Police confiscated the tablet at a storage facility in Zurich. Swiss officials said that criminal proceedings have been started against the seller, who has not been named but faces a fine of up to 500,000 Swiss francs (300,000 euros) or a prison term. Switzerland has a ban on trading Iraqi cultural artefacts exported from the country after 1990. 'Invaluable' Yves Fischer, a senior official in Switzerland's culture department, said the tablet had been offered at a starting price of 250 euros ($360) on eBay but it was not clear if any bids were made. Cuneiform tablets are on a list of endangered Iraqi cultural objects drawn up by the International Council of Museums. "This Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet has an invaluable historical value," but the seller "could have acquired it for less than 300 euros," Mr Fischer said. "If it's a tainted object, then the goal will be to return it to Iraq," he added. The tablet has not yet been deciphered. Cuneiform tablets were used throughout the Middle East and ancient Persia for recording the deeds of leaders as well as correspondence and book-keeping. The Iraqi National Library and the country's National Museum were both heavily looted in the days following the US-led invasion in 2003.

Goddess Padmavati

From newindpress.com Diamond-studded gold armour to Padmavati Wednesday December 19 2007 07:33 IST TIRUPATI: J Rameshwara Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of My Home group of companies, will offer diamond-studded golden armour to Goddess Padmavati on Wednesday. Rao will hand over the 'Swarna Vajra Kavacham', which costs about Rs 1 crore, to Sri Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swamy who, in turn, will hand it over to priests at the pre-designated time on Wednesday evening. ******************************************************************************** Just how much money (in US dollars) is RS 1 crore? RS 1 crore = 10,000,000.00 INR = 253,119.65 USD

Anand Says: Koneru Humpy - Our Best Hope

Anand Speaks: From The telegraphindia.com December 19, 2007 Calcutta: Not many were aware of Viswanathan Anand’s visit to the city late on Tuesday evening, his first after being crowned world champion. The occasion was the felicitation of NIIT’s zonal chess champions, DPS Ruby Park. The lateness of the hour was the cause of a sparse turnout at the function, at which state sports minister Subhas Chakraborty was also present, but Anand had no complaints. He even said he felt proud to be in the “sports city”. The following are excerpts from his interaction with the media: On his goals for the New Year Anything I attain in chess gives me great joy. I will be playing in the Corus event next month. Although I have won the title there five times, I am motivated to do really well this time too. I would also like to defend my world title. On whether he was satisfied with the reception he received when he got back to India I must say that I was satisfied with the reception. It was fantastic on my return in New Delhi and Chennai. There are no complaints. On whether he has plans of settling down in Chennai I have been operating out of Spain for the past few years… It’s not that I haven’t been in touch with India but the thing is that I spend a lot of time travelling. In October I moved to Chennai and will gradually settle down there. But I will still have to travel a lot to play in different tournaments across the world… A lot of Indian players have emerged strongly in the last few years. I regularly work with Sandipan Chanda, Surya Sekhar Ganguly and others. Lack of practice partners was one of the reasons for my moving out but now things have changed. I can now spend more and more time at home. On whether he is keen on fighting Garri Kasparov again If Kasparov changes his mind about his retirement I would welcome that. We can have a great match. We didn’t have an opportunity after 1995 and that’s a pity. On whether he is feeling the pressure of being world champion October was pleasant and passed off in a haze… The feeling was funny. But thereafter, as things settled down, the feeling was no different. I’ve stopped thinking about it. For me things have remained the same. Maybe when you go here and there and people refer to you as the world champion it will hit you. I think I have enough experience to cope with the pressures involved. Maybe I will have a new feeling when I go to Linares the next time. On how he looks at the new crop of Indian talent Youngsters have been emerging but the progress has been slow. Sasikiran has made steady progress over the years. The next set of players behind him are also making progress though it has been slower than expected. There are other players coming through. (G.N.) Gopal was impressive in Russia. Koneru (Humpy) has done well too and remains our best hope to become the second world champion. On the lack of international tournaments in India I agree there has been lack of showpiece tournaments. We really need to do a bit more here… I hope something is done. On the lack of infrastructure in the game We need to develop more sponsorship for the national championships and other showcase events. On Sourav Ganguly’s ensuing 100th Test in Melbourne All the best Sourav… We are waiting… Just go for it.

Ancient Egyptians Ahead of Time

From The Times of India 18 Dec 2007, 0107 hrs IST, AGENCIES The recent discovery of an industrial complex in Egypt has led researchers to revise their conceptions over what level of advancement the Nile civilization had actually reached, with their advanced glass-making abilities proving that the ancient Egyptians were technologically much more ahead of their time than scholars previously thought, according to LiveScience.com. The site, at Amarna, is on the banks of the Nile and dates back to the reign of Akhenaten (1352-1336 B C), just a few years before the rule of Tutankhamun. Historians have said Egyptians of that time imported their glass. But a team led by archaeologist Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University in Wales has reconstructed a 3,000-year-old glass furnace, showing that ancient Egyptian glassmaking methods were much more advanced than thought. The researchers used local sand to produce a glass ingot from their own experimental reconstruction of an ancient furnace near the site. They also discovered that the glassworks was part of an "industrial complex," as they've described it. The site contained a potter's workshop and facilities for making blue pigment and materials used in architectural inlays. The site was near one of the main temples at Amarna and may have been used to produce materials for state buildings, the researchers figure. "It has been argued that the Egyptians imported their glass and worked it into the artefacts that have been discovered from this time," Nicholson said. "I believe there is now enough evidence to show that skilled craftsmen could make their own glass and were probably involved in a range of other manufacturing industries as well." The findings, announced today, are detailed in the book "Brilliant Things for Akhenaten" (Egypt Exploration Society, 2007).

Saudi Rape Victim "Pardoned"

Original article posted on November 16, 2007. From The New York Times. Saudi King Pardons Rape Victim Sentenced to Be Lashed, Saudi Paper Reports By KATHERINE ZOEPF Published: December 18, 2007 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes after pressing charges against seven men who raped her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday. There was no immediate confirmation from the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Information, but the paper, Al Jazirah, is close to the religious establishment that controls the Justice Ministry, Reuters reported. The case has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for an overhaul of the Saudi judicial system. The rape took place a year and a half ago in Qatif, a small Shiite town in the Eastern Province, the center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The woman, who has been publicly identified only as the “Qatif girl,” said she met a former boyfriend to retrieve a photograph of herself. They were sitting in a car when seven men attacked, raping them both. The woman and her former boyfriend were originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being together in private, while the attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1,000 lashes. For a woman to be meeting in private with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, where the legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law. The woman’s lawyer, Abdulrahman al-Lahem, a well-known human rights activist, appealed, saying that the attackers’ sentences were too lenient and that of the victim was too harsh. The appeal brought down the wrath of the court. In November, it doubled the woman’s sentence and stripped Mr. Lahem of his license to practice, but it also increased the sentences of her attackers to prison terms of two to nine years. Mr. Lahem could not be reached by phone late Monday, but the editor in chief of Al Watan, a Saudi daily that Mr. Lahem writes for, said it had been known in Riyadh political circles since early this month that the woman would be pardoned. The editor, Jamal Khashoggi, said he believed that the timing of the pardon, on the eve of the Id al-Adha holiday, was coincidental. “I’ve been hearing for two or three weeks now that the pardon would be issued,” Mr. Khashoggi said in a telephone interview. “It has been expected that the girl would be pardoned in the end — in similar cases, very public cases like this, it has been the same,” he said. “One of our writers was recently sentenced to a number of lashes and received a pardon from the king.” Mr. Khashoggi said the woman, who has married, was not jailed while she appealed. There have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her to remove the “stain” to the family’s honor, and bloggers and international human rights activists have expressed concern for her safety. The Saudi minister of social affairs, Abdul Mohsin al-Akkas, reached by telephone, said Saudi women who ran into trouble with the law frequently feared retribution from their relatives. Some women who serve prison time refuse to leave prison at the end of their sentences, he said. The Ministry of Social Affairs operates shelters for those women, and Mr. Akkas said the Qatif victim would be able to live in one. “If after the pardon she decides that she needs housing because of her circumstances, then we will offer that,” he said. Commenting on the pardon, the Saudi justice minister, Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Sheik, told Al Jazirah that the king fully supported the verdicts against the woman but had decided to pardon her because it was in the “interests of the people.” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University who specializes in Saudi Arabia, said that was a kind of “double message” commonly employed by the Saudi government. “On one hand this tells people, ‘We support our system and we will punish you if you violate it,’” he said. “Yet he’s also showing mercy. Throughout, he’s making it clear that he is not disagreeing with the judge’s opinion on this sensitive issue of sexual chastity, but he believes that there is a higher interest to be served by the pardon, whether that’s relationships between Shiites and Sunnis, or international opinion.” “Conservative scholars and judges will still take this pardon as a slap in the face,” Mr. Haykel continued. “These decisions are always made like this, ad hoc, so that the core values and institutions of the Saudi state are not questioned or threatened.” ********************************************************************************** What about the "sexual chastity" of the men who committed the rape - remember, both the female AND the male who was with her in the car were gang raped. What does this say about the "sexual chastity" of Saudi males? And - never mentioned - what kind of sentence did the male who was raped receive from the Islamic Court?

We're Mad as Hell, and We Ain't Gonna Take It Anymore

Using Webster's newest word "WOOT WOOT WOOT WOOT..." From theage.com.au Pretty in pink, female vigilantes also handy with an axe Amrit Dhillon, New Delhi December 15, 2007 THE day her sister was dragged by the hair around the courtyard by an alcoholic husband was the day Sampat Devi decided that men needed to be given a taste of their own medicine. Her brother-in-law was angry at being reproached for squandering his wages on liquor rather than on food for their children. She rounded up other women in Banda, a remote region of north India, and ran after the malefactor with whatever "weapons" were lying around — walking sticks, iron rods, a child's cricket bat. The women chased him into a sugar cane field and thrashed him. That was two years ago. Now, more than 100 women, dressed in pink nylon saris and known as the "Gulabi Gang" or Pink Gang, are the scourge of violent husbands, inefficient policemen and corrupt officials. "None of the men here pay any attention to us. The only way to get them to listen is to scare them. I'm not scared of any of them. But to make sure we have the upper hand, we always go with sticks and axes to deal with someone," said Ms Devi, 50, speaking from Banda on her mobile phone. Ms Devi decided on the uniform of a pink sari for the vigilantes so that they would be easily recognised. The Pink Gang's activities range from beating up men who abuse their wives for not bearing a son to shaming officials who have sold subsidised grain intended for the poor on the black market for a profit. In Maharashtra, western India, women in some villages have forcibly shut down liquor shops to stop their families being ruined by the man's alcohol addiction, but this is the first time women have taken the law into their own hands. The Pink Gang has even stormed the local police station to confront policemen who refused to file a complaint from a low-caste man against a moneylender simply because of his caste. Women in Indian villages are traditionally in thrall to husbands and social conventions that restrict their freedom. The countryside is still feudal in its attitudes towards women. When they walk on the street, it is usually two paces behind the husband, to show his superior "god-like" status. The worst-treated women are poor and low-caste. Few have the courage to stand up for themselves. But Ms Devi is feisty and forceful. She marches at the front of her female storm-troopers whenever a deviant man needs to be put right. Her husband, who supports her activities, sells ice-cream and earns a small income with which they raise five children. They were married when Ms Devi was 12 years old. "Women are at the bottom of society with no help from anyone. We can't keep waiting forever. That's why I formed the group so that the moment a woman calls me to say she's in trouble, we're on the spot fast," she said. "A woman on her own would be ineffective. Men would just laugh at her. But when we're in a group, men get nervous. "Even the local criminals are scared of us," she said, adding that her husband supports her.

The "Portable Antiquities Scheme"

The PAS has been a resounding success in Great Britain since enacted, but it's now under threat:

From The Guardian Unlimited

Rare find highlights antiquities fears

Maev Kennedy

Monday December 17, 2007

Some 1,650 years ago someone was so comprehensively fed up with the state of the Roman empire that they committed an act of treason, blasphemy and probably criminal defacing of the coinage. They cursed the emperor Valens by hammering a coin with his image into lead, then folding the lead over his face.

The battered scraps of metal discovered by Tom Redmayne, an amateur metal detector, in a muddy field in Lincolnshire are a unique find.

The mid-fourth century was a time of turmoil in Roman Britain. A Roman aristocrat, Valentinus, had been exiled to Britain where he was stirring up trouble.

Thousands of Roman cursing charms survive, scrawled on pieces of lead with a hole punched to hang them up. Many were found thrown into the hot springs in Bath, demanding revenge on those guilty of petty theft.

Nothing as audacious as cursing an emperor has ever been found before. However, Sam Moorhead, a coins expert at the British Museum and expert adviser to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which encourages voluntary reporting of finds, is convinced it is the only explanation.

Redmayne's find is unprecedented, but is just one of a torrent of 300,000 valuable, fascinating or downright weird object finds reported by amateurs in the 10 years since PAS was created.

It is a time of turmoil for the scheme itself. Leading and amateur archaeologists are joining forces to lobby the government to ring-fence its funding. Lord Renfrew, retired professor of archaeology at Cambridge, calls on the culture department to transfer PAS and its funding to the British Museum, which is facing a budget cut of 25% in the wake of the recent government spending review.

Caral - Oldest Civilization in the World?

From the Times of India:

The mother of all civilisations

16 Dec 2007, 0001 hrs IST

Shobhan Saxena,TNN

The ruins were so magnificent and sprawling that some people believed that the aliens from a faraway galaxy had built the huge pyramids that stood in the desert across the Andes.

Some historians believed that the complex society, which existed at that time, was born out of fear and war. They looked for the telltale signs of violence that they believed led to the creation of this civilisation. But, they could not find even a hint of any warfare. It was baffling. Even years after Ruth Shady Solis found the ancient city of pyramids at Caral in Peru, it continues to surprise historians around the world. It took Ruth Shady many years and many rounds of carbon dating to prove that the earliest known civilisation in South Americas—at 2,627 BC–was much older than the Harappa Valley towns and the pyramids of Egypt.

Solis, an archaeologist at the National University of San Marcos, Lima, was looking for the fabled missing link of archaeology— a ‘mother city’—when she stumbled upon the ancient city of Caral in the Supe Valley of Peru a few years ago. Her findings were stunning.

It showed that a full-fledged urban civilisation existed at the place around 2700 BC. The archaeologist and her team found a huge compound at Caral: 65 hectares in the central zone, encompassing six large pyramids, many smaller pyramids, two circular plazas, temples, amphitheatres and other architectural features including residential districts spread in the desert, 23 km from the coast.

The discovery of Caral has pushed back the history of the Americas: Caral is more than 1,000 years older than Machu Picchu of the Incas. They built huge structures in Caral hundreds of years before the famous drainage system of Harappa and the pyramids of Egypt were even designed.

But, it was not easy for Ruth Shady to prove this. It was only in 2001 that the journal Science reported the Peruvian archaeologist’s discovery. And, despite the hard evidence backing her, she is still trying to convince people that Caral was indeed the oldest urban civilisation in the world.

"There were many problems, many of them in my own country," says Ruth Shady, on a visit to India to discuss her discovery with other historians. "The discovery of Caral challenged the accepted beliefs. Some historians were not ready to believe that an urban civilisation existed in Peru even before the pyramids were built in Egypt," she says.

Basically, there were two problems. First, for decades archaeologist have been looking for a ‘mother city’ to find an answer to the question: why did humans become civilised?

The historians had been searching for this answer in Egypt, Mesopotamia (Iraq), India and China. They didn’t expect to find the first signs of city life in a Peruvian desert. Secondly, most historians believed that only the fear of war could motivate people to form complex societies. And, since Caral did not show any trace of warfare; no battlements, no weapons, and no mutilated bodies, they found it hard to accept it as the mother city.

That’s when Ruth Shady stepped in with her discovery. "This place is somewhere between the seat of the gods and the home of man," she says, adding that Caral was a gentle society, built on trade and pleasure. "This great civilisation was based on trade in cotton. Caral made the cotton for the nets, which were sold to the fishermen living near the coast. Caral became a booming trading centre and the trade spread," she says.

Caral was born in trade and not bloodshed. Warfare came much later. This is what this mother city shows: great civilisations are born in peace. Ruth Shady continues to battle for this great truth.

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We've got several articles about Caral archived at our Delphi discussion board "On Chess." You do not have to be a member to read any post at "On Chess," but if you wish to make a post you need to sign up. Membership is free and it takes only a few moments to sign up.

2007 Russian Championship Superfinals

I saw this report at The Week in Chess: The Russian Championship Superfinals take place 17th-30th December 2007. Players are: Men: Alekseev, Amonatov, Vitjugov, Grischuk, Dreev, Inarkiev, Morozevich, Rychagov, Svidler, Timofeev, Tomashevsky, Jakovenko. Women: Galliamova, Gunina, Matveeva, Kovalevskaya, Korbut, N.Kosintseva, T.Kosintseva, Kosteniuk, Ovod, Stepovaya, Tairova, Shadrina. Official site: http://www.russiachess.org/ Unfortunately for me, the official site is in Russian (can't read it). The players' lists are quite impressive. Some of the best male and female players in the world (and some very promising up-and-coming players) will participate in this event.

2007 World Cup

Wow! USA's GM Gata Kamsky beat Spain's GM Alexei Shirov 2.5 to 1.5 and takes the World Cup. In defeating Shirov, Kamsky has won the right t0 play - someone - and if he wins, he gets the right to eventually play - someone else - for a future chance at the world championship - at some future time. LOL! Well, that's how I understand it, darlings. Check the official website if you want to review the action going all the way back to the first round of knock-out games. In any event, this is a big WIN for US chess. Too bad the event hasn't been covered by the American press - although there's lots of blog and chess website coverage. Perhaps if Kamsky succeeds in advancing to the world championship match he will get some decent press coverage by non-chess folks! There's great commentary about the Kamsky win at Mig's Daily Dirt.

Cleopatra's Needle (London)

There are three "Cleopatra's Needles" (0belisks) from ancient Egypt that were given as gifts from Egypt to England (London), France (Paris) and the United States (New York). A fascinating story from the Timesonline about the transport of the London obelisk:

December 16, 2007
Steady as she goes: the day Cleopatra’s Needle arrived in London

IT required some true Victorian ingenuity to bring Cleopatra’s Needle from Alexandria to the banks of the Thames.

Photographs to be auctioned next month show it in the final stages of its trip, encased in an iron cylinder, having been transported some 2,000 miles from Egypt in a specially built vessel.

The rare photographs, dating from January 1878, capture the moment when the 69ft-high, 187-ton red granite monument was lifted onto its site on the Thames Embankment.

It had survived an eventful journey. It was given to Britain by Mehmet Ali, the Albanian-born viceroy of Egypt, to commemorate Lord Nelson’s victory over Napoleon in the battle of the Nile in 1798, but the vessel carrying it was caught up in a storm and had to be abandoned before it was safely towed to harbour.

Etched with hieroglyphs, it became known as Cleopatra’s Needle because of its association with her home city, Alexandria, even though it was made in Egypt for Thotmes III, the pharaoh, in 1460BC, about 1,400 years before her reign.

The archive, whose owner wishes to remain anonymous, is expected to raise £20,000 when it is auctioned by the Exeter-based Hampton & Littlewood. It also includes letters that belonged to Waynman Dixon, one of the people responsible for transporting the 3,500-year-old obelisk to Britain.

Rachel Littlewood, a director of Hampton & Littlewood, said: “The photographs chart the progress of the Needle as it was lowered into a 93ft-long cigar-shaped container ship called the Cleopatra.

“On October 14, 1877 disaster struck in storm-force seas in the Bay of Biscay. With the Cleopatra in danger of sinking, the steam ship Olga, which was towing her, sent six volunteers in a boat to take off the Cleopatra’s five crew and skipper. But the boat was swamped and the volunteers drowned.

“Eventually the Olga cut the tow rope, leaving the Cleopatra adrift in the Bay of Biscay. It remained afloat and was spotted five days later floating peacefully off the northern coast of Spain. It was towed into Falmouth, Cornwall, and from there to the Embankment in London.”

More information from HistoricUK.com.

Follow-Up: Antiquities Fraud Back in the News

Here's a follow-up to a recent post from BBC News:

British forger fools US museum

December 13, 2007

A sculpture which has drawn crowds to a Chicago museum has been unmasked as a fake created by a British forger.

The Art Institute of Chicago reportedly paid $125,000 (£61,225) for the faun in 1997, believing it to be by the 19th Century French artist Paul Gauguin.

But it was created by Shaun Greenhalgh, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, who was jailed last month for fraud. His mother, Olive, received a suspended sentence for fraud. His father, George, 84, will be sentenced later.

The institute's director of public affairs, Eric Hogan, told the Chicago Tribune: "No one could think of any other instance in which anything like this happened here."

Last month, British police said the Greenhalgh family were behind "the most sustained and diverse" art forgery case ever. The family had conspired to defraud art institutions between June 1989 and March 2006. All three admitted fraud and money laundering at Bolton Crown Court in November.

Following the court case, police said they had evidence of a forged Gauguin ceramic, although they did not know its whereabouts. This prompted investigators from the Art Newspaper to step in.

It revealed that the half-man, half-goat ceramic figure in Chicago was a fake. Mr Hogan said "everyone who bought and sold [the work] did so in good faith", and the institute did not "have experience in this area".

Shaun Greenhalgh passed off scores of faked artefacts and artworks as genuine. Last month he was jailed for four years and eight months. His 83-year-old mother was given a 12-month suspended sentence for her part in the con. And his father will be sentenced after medical reports.

The trio made about £850,000 ($1.74m) from the sale of art and antiques. Bolton Council paid thousands of pounds for the so-called Amarna Princess believing it was 3,300 years old - but three years later experts found it was counterfeit. The statue was said to represent one of the daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, the mother of Tutankhamun.

The scam came to light after George Greenhalgh presented three faked Assyrian reliefs - ancient stone wall art - to the British Museum for examination in 2005. Errors in the cuneiform script - in effect, spelling mistakes - prompted museum officials to doubt their authenticity. They alerted the Metropolitan Police's Art and Antiques Unit which began an investigation.

Antiquities: The Hottest Investment

From Time.com By Maria Baugh Wednesday, December 12, 2007 The sculpture is just three and a half inches tall and looks like a female body-builder with a lion's head. But there's no question that the 1948 purchase of the "Guennol Lioness" by Alistair Bradley Martin was a brilliant investment. The 5,000 year-old piece of Mesopotamian religious art — presumably of Inanna, goddess of sex and war — was sold at auction by Sotheby's New York last week for a record-shattering $57.2 million. Found at an archaeological dig near Baghdad, it is an extremely rare representation of the goddess — known elsewhere as Ishtar — in animal form. She is one of the earliest of the gods whose names have survived through history. Before her sale, the most expensive piece of sculpture of any period sold at auction was a piece by Pablo Picasso which went for $29 million. The previous antiquities record was set by a Roman bronze which sold for $28 million. Such prices may scare away ordinary investors from even considering antiquities, which are defined as relics of ancient times that include coins, sculpture, tools, pottery and jewelry. among other objects. Can such objects even be a possibility for folks of much more modest means? The good news is that it is possible for the individual investor to buy antiquities — and for a surprisingly moderate sum. According to John Ambrose, founder and director of Fragments of Time, a Boston-area antiquities dealer, they're within even a modest investor's reach. "For under $10,000 a year you could acquire two to four quality objects with good provenance that you could expect would not only hold their value but increase in value over time," he says. In the past, the increase was anywhere from 8 to 9% annually, but in recent years that figure has gone up. Hicham Aboutaam, who is co-owner with his brother, Ali, of Phoenix Ancient Art in New York City and Geneva, attributes the increasing value to a couple of factors. For one, there is now a finite number of legitimate objects circulating in the U.S. due to more stringent art import legislation, enacted within the last few years. In addition, there is an increased interest in art and antiquities as investment. "People have started to appreciate the fact that this is a field where you can still get high quality objects for a fraction of what you would spend on a contemporary art object, where speculation is the biggest element determining value," he says. Ambrose agrees: "The art market has gained status as a respected asset class." So what should the novice collector know before jumping in and buying the first Greek vase they find? Ambrose advises that they study up on an era or object that they are truly interested in. He also suggests building rapport with a dealer. "A respected dealer will work with you...and they love to share their knowledge," he says. Aboutaam says that the new collector needs to understand the importance of the provenance, or history, of the object. "Check the authenticity of the piece. Who is selling it and who has seen it in terms of scholars or experts?" he says. "And it's crucial to get a condition report from a third party." Are there particular eras that the investor should look at now? "In terms of investments I do think there are still pockets of antiquities that are generally undervalued," says Ambrose, sounding as much like a stock broker as an art dealer. He lists Roman lamps, Roman bronze brooches, Greek pottery (especially south Italian Greek pottery) and Egyptian amulets, which, he says, are overlooked. "There can be fascinating intact examples," says Ambrose. And, no matter how ornate a stock certificate might be, an Egyptian amulet is always going to look better in your living room display case.

Nearly 1,000 Ancient Tombs Discovered in China

A fantastic discovery in China - I wish there were some photographs of the artifacts excavated: From United Press International Nearly 1,000 ancient tombs found in China Published: Dec. 9, 2007 at 3:33 PM ZHENGHOU, China, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Archaeologists in China recently discovered nearly 1,000 tombs in Henan Province, some of which may have been created 2,200 years ago. A significant portion of the 972 discovered tombs are thought to date back to China's Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which occurred between 770-221 B.C., while others have been linked to the later Han and Northern Wei Dynasties, China's official Xinhua news agency said Saturday. The hundreds of tombs were found near the ancient city of Luoyang, which served as the capital of six major Chinese dynasties.The discovery was made during a State Administration of Cultural Heritage archaeological effort that began in 2003 and had been attempting to preserve the area's ancient relics. The dig also unearthed 20,000 artifacts ranging from bronze basins to jade ornaments, Xinhua reported.An expert with the excavation effort said those artifacts will offer a glimpse into the funeral customs and daily rituals of the ancient cultures. © 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.

There Be Giants...

Giants. Did they exist? Who the heck knows? Giants are mentioned in the early part of the Old Testament of the Bible as the "Nephilim" - fellers of men. Those "Nephilim" were specifically described as half-breeds created by the mating of "male" angels from Heaven and the female "daughters of the earth." They are, I believe, the equivalent of the demigods often written of by the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians and - much later - the ancient Greeks: big, strong, powerful, certainly super-human in strength, intelligence and ability, but not immortal. There are countless blogs (and before blogs, message board entries) about these giants, and countless theories about their origins. From my early internet days, the mesage boards entries I remember the best have to do with alien origins from outer space. Ahem. Now, The National Geographic has weighed in, presenting a couple of enhanced and doctored-up photographs that had been presented on the internet as evidence of these giants. Because of the legitimacy that The National Geographic Society enjoys in the eyes of the public, such an article is tantamount to telling the general public that giants are phoney and never existed and do not exist, end of story. Period. Take a look at the photos presented in the article. It is obvious to me that these images of "giant" burials are phoney. For one thing, the scale of these "giants" in relation to the average human is so out of whack in relation to the little bit of information we have about them, that they cannot be taken as real. Those photos most remind me of the "Amazing Amazon Woman" from a 1950's "B" movie. For another thing, the condition of the "bones" is utterly amazing, just based on the little bit I know about how water and soil conditions can degrade the human body, including its bones. And so, common sense to the rescue! I don't recall reading any description of any giant as big as those presented in these "photographs" except, perhaps, the giant from the fairy-tale "Jack and the Beanstalk." I freely admit, this may reflect my utter lack of discretion in choosing reading material, darlings :) But, since The National Geographic has said - without saying - that ALL accounts of giants are to be dismissed as frauds and fakes, those voices out there who say otherwise, legitimate or not, will now have a harder row to hoe. I don't care for this type of archaeology by innuendo - on the part of the fraudsters, or on the part of The National Geographic Society.

American Library Association 2008 Mid-Winter Meeting

What would our world be without libraries? Think about it for a moment. In the not-so-good olden days, the barbarians always attacked and burned the libraries, and killed every "learned" person they could get their hands on. Wipe out knowledge, wipe out history. Re-write everything according to your own credo. It happened again and again and again. In more recent times, many cultures have been guilty of committing this most horrid of sins; think about "Fahreinheit 451." In this day of the internet and practically instantaneous communication, think about the proverbial "Chinese Wall" that many countries put up around their internet access. To me. it's the equivalent of the multiple burnings of the library at Alexandria. Libraries are under attack in the United States. Oh, they may not be facing fire-bomb throwing hordes of barbarians, but the chilling effect on freedom of speech and ease of accessibility is the equivalent. Most libraries are funded by public taxes. Cut-backs in funding have become the norm. Decreased staffing of trained librarians; decreased funds to purchase new books; decreased hours of accessibility. Library branches closed permanently, with remaining libraries too far away to reach readily by public transportation, cutting off access to those of us who don't have cars. For those libraries that remain open, there are incessant attacks from various groups objecting to this book or that book, or objecting to free computer access that is offered at some libraries. You can read about these in the newspapers all the time. Against this background, the American Library Association has announced its 2008 Mid-Winter Meeting, to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) January 11-16, 2008. The key-note speaker is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Cool!

Friday Night Miscellany - One Day Late

A few interesting items for your reading pleasure:

There’s a new translation of the epic Medieval poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Man" and it sounds worth a read. Trying to read the poem in the original Middle English – practically impossible, despite some intriguing words. For instance:

Thou wyl grant me godly the gomen that I ask / bi ryght"

translates to:

You’ll gracefully grant me this game which I ask for / by right."

The word "gomen" in the sentence means "game!" I would never have guessed that in a million years – I was thinking the word meant something like favor or boon!

Read the review of Simon Armitage’s translation in "A Stranger in Camelot."
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In the same Book Reviews section at The New York Times, I saw that Joe McGinniss has published a new book about a murder – or was it?

I remember McGinniss from reading his bestseller "Fatal Vision," about the Green Beret surgeon – Jeffrey McDonald, who was convicted of murdering his wife and children whom, he claimed, were murdered by hippies high on drugs, who’d invaded his home (on a military base) in the middle of the night. The case hinged on forensic evidence painstakingly gathered and analyzed, long before CSI type shows became popular on television and long before DNA analysis and other technical analytical tools existed that seem to make crime-solving so easy today (at least, on television). "Fatal Vision" was made into a highly acclaimed mini-series on television, with Gary Cole playing the role of Jeffrey McDonald and Karl Mulden playing his father-in-law, who at first firmly believed in McDonald’s version of events and supported his son-in-law, until the slowly accumulated forensic evidence led him, painfully, to conclude otherwise. The slow revelation of the evidence in the book was relentless – and chilling. Mulden played the role superbly.

Read the review by Bob Shacochis of McGinnis’ new book, "Never Enough."
The "First Chapter" is also available – a verbatim preview.
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Okay – so this clerk at a Dunkin’ Donuts store named Dustin Hoffman hits this would-be robber over the head with a coffee cup, and says he was more worried about what he would look like on the surveillance video and whether he could become famous on YouTube than concerned for his safety. Darlings, I couldn’t make this up!
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Another – can you believe this – with a Christmas twist. A Christmas card mailed on December 23, 1914 has finally been delivered by the United States Postal Service. Geez, these guys are really efficient, ya know?

Shopping, shopping, shopping...

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful... Yes, soon I'll be settling in front of the fireplace for the evening, but I wanted to drop by and post a few things before further induling myself. Indulge myself today - I did - in droves, darlings! Today was another ladies of the investment club spa-and-shop-til-we-drop day. Oh, we had so much fun! We had a wonderful time despite the never-ending snow (started with small gritty snow sometime late last night or early this morning, then it turned to big fluffy flakes and now it's back to small gritty snow. We may get up to 9 inches by tomorrow morning and the winds are going to whip up to around 20 mph, meaning I'll have 3 foot high drifts by sunbreak tomorrow). The constant snow made for rather slippery road conditions off the expressways, and we did a fishtail worthy of the name on the way back to my house while Ms. P was pulling onto 83rd Street in my subdivision - the last street in the entire city, I swear, to ever be salted or plowed. So, tomorrow I will be totally stressed as I haul out the shovel yet again and attack the drifts and attempt to fling the snow sufficiently out of the way to create a pathway from my front door down to the road - and pray that I don't get plowed in. I already have 3 feet of ice boulders at the base of my driveway that I could not shovel out because of their sheer weight when we had ice/sleet/snow/ ice/sleet on December 1st. Sigh. But today - ahhhh, today. My spa de-stressing treatment and wash/cut/ style was just what the doctor ordered. I had two more inches of hair chopped off. Perhaps this length (about an inch below shoulder length) will give me the fullness I want... Our friend Ms. G was totally transformed - she hasn't had a professional hair cut in TEN FRIGGING YEARS! She went from Old School Marm Bun to a snazzy layered short cut that frames her face perfectly! I couldn't stop looking at her during lunch and finally blurted out that she looked 15 years younger. Well, she does! Amazing what a good "do" can do for one! But perhaps not the most tactful comment I've ever made... After the Aveda spa visit we had a leisurely lunch, then we did some shopping, then Ms. G had to leave us. Ms. P and I continued, braving the blowing snow as we trod the streets of Bayshore Town Center and hit several stores. Altogether we visited Sears; Brooks Bros. that is not really Brooks Bros. but I can never remember the name of the store and for some reason it reminds me of Brooks Bros. or perhaps Brooks & Dunn; Boston Store; Kohls; Yankee Candle Shoppe; Bath & Body Works; Coldwater Creek; J. Jill. I think that's all of them. I finished up my shopping for dondelion, bought a new pair of Sketchers, a new pair of Totes waterproof boots, some scented tea light candles, hair spray from Aveda, and five beautifully scented products (I mixed and matched after-bath/shower body spritz and silky body cream) for the fabulous price of $25 at Bath & Body Works. Speaking of Bath & Body Works, there were several guys (those trailing behind their wives and girlfriends) huddled in a small cul de sac near the entrance doors, making jokes and laughing with each other - they were so cute! I couldn't help but overhear them as I was perusing the "Velvet Tuberose" and "Japanese Cherry Blossom" displays and had to chuckle at their comments and bon amie. Those guys get extra kudos for following their gals into such a shop instead of begging off and heading toward the nearest video store! A super-special treat as we shopped was coming across two groups of carolers, one group of four women, one group of four men. Both groups were excellent, singing winter/Christmas-y songs a capella. It was a perfect cherry on top of our wonderful ladies' day. Tonight I will wrap gifts in front of the fire and admire my beautiful Yule tree. It's particularly sparkling this year as I added extra gold bead garland and some new crystal and gold ornaments.

Ancient Games: Toguz Kumalak

While I was doing some follow-up research tonight on the "other" Kumalak (a form of divination practiced in Kazakhstan and Central Asia), I came across this game. It is a mancala game. I don't know how long it has been played in Central Asia, but my guess is that it is related to the "other" Kumalak.

Mancala-type games are very old, but I don't know how far back they've been traced. I have only a vague idea about how the game is played - mancala is not a subject I've studied. I can relate some general information: the earliest games were played on "boards" scooped out of the ground (therefore leaving no trace, and therefore dating is problematical) and I believe were first played in sub-Sarahan Africa. Mancala-type games have been found carved in the stone blocks at Kurna in Egypt (dating to c. 1400 BCE) and lots of boards carved in stone blocks have been found in Petra (in Jordan). Mancala-type games have not gone extinct (such as Senet and 20-squares) and continue to be very popular today.

This information is from "Wikimanqala.org":

Тоғызқұмалақ (toğızqumalaq, sometimes spelled toghyzqumalaq or togyzqumalaq, according to different transliterations, or toguz kumalak, "nine balls") is the Kazakh name of a mancala game also known as toguz korgool in Kyrgyz.

It is played traditionally in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, parts of Russia (Altay, Khakassia, Tuva), Western Mongolia and in China in regions close to the aforementioned countries.

There are regular toğızqumalaq championships held in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The first western tournament was in August 2006 at the Mindsports Olympiad (MSO) in London, England. It was won by Aidos Seitzhanov from Kazakhstan.

Complete rules are given at Wikimanqala, with illustrations. I've abstracted the rules here, without the illustrations:

Rules

Toğızqumalaq is played on a wooden (nowadays also plastic) board made of two rows of nine holes, plus two kazans ("boilers"), either in the middle of the board or one at each end of it. The players own the kazan at their right, if at the ends, or the one on the other half of ther board, if in the middle.
As captures are made by pairs, the holes are usually made in a way so it is evident whether the contents are odd or even.

To begin the game, there must be nine balls per hole, except the kazans, which are empty. That is, 162 balls are needed.

The game is played by taking turns.

On his turn, a player takes all the balls of a hole on his side of the board, and distribute them anticlockwise, one per hole, on the following holes, starting from the very same hole he has taken them.

If the last ball falls into a hole on the opponent's side, and the contents of this hole become an even number of balls, these are captured and stored on the player's kazan.

If the movement is done from a hole containing just a single ball, it is moved to the next hole, leaving the starting hole empty.

Tuzdyq
If the last ball falls into a hole on the opponent's side, and the contents of this hole number then three balls, the hole becomes your тұздық, tuzdyq, (or түз үй according to Maksat Shotayev, tüz üy, i.e. "sacred place" in Kazakh; or tuz in Kyrgyz which means "salt") and it is marked as such.

Only a tuzdyq per player can be made in a game.

A tuzdyq cannot be done on the opponent's last hole (ninth, the one on his right).

A tuzdyq cannot be done if it is symmetrical to the opponent's one (if the opponent has his tuzdyq in our first hole, we can not make ours on his first hole).

In the cases a tuzdyq cannot be done, we can finish a movement there, but the hole does not become a tuzdyq.

A movement cannot begin from a tuzdyq.

The balls that fall into a tuzdyq are captured by his owner. If it is overcharged, we can take the balls and store them in the kazan.

End of the game
The game ends when a player cannot move at his turn, because all the holes on his side (except a possible tuzdyq) are empty.

When the game is over, the player who has still balls on his side (except in a possible tuzdyq) gets them and adds them to his kazan.

Both players add the contents of their tuzdyq (the one on the opponent's side) to their kazan.

The winner is the player with more balls at the end of the game. If both players have captured 81 balls, the game is a draw.

Well, I confess, I can't make heads nor tails out of the rules. I can only learn a game by actually having it shown to me by someone who knows how to play! I plan on doing some more posts about some interesting aspects of this game - as time permits.