World's oldest temple may have been built to worship the dog star

Article
16 August 2013 by Anil Ananthaswamy

Magazine issue 2930

 

THE world's oldest temple, Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, may have been built to worship the dog star, Sirius.

 

The 11,000-year-old site consists of a series of at least 20 circular enclosures, although only a few have been uncovered since excavations began in the mid-1990s. Each one is surrounded by a ring of huge, T-shaped stone pillars, some of which are decorated with carvings of fierce animals. Two more megaliths stand parallel to each other at the centre of each ring. (Illustration, below, from article).

 

 

 

Göbekli Tepe put a dent in the idea of the Neolithic revolution, which said that the invention of agriculture spurred humans to build settlements and develop civilisation, art and religion. There is no evidence of agriculture near the temple, hinting that religion came first in this instance.

 

"We have a lot of contemporaneous sites which are settlements of hunter-gatherers. Göbekli Tepe was a sanctuary site for people living in these settlements," says Klaus Schmidt, chief archaeologist for the project at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin.

 

But it is still anybody's guess what type of religion the temple served. Giulio Magli, an archaeoastronomer at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy, looked to the night sky for an answer. After all, the arrangement of the pillars at Stonehenge in the UK suggests it could have been built as an astronomical observatory, maybe even to worship the moon.

 

Magli simulated what the sky would have looked like from Turkey when Göbekli Tepe was built. Over millennia, the positions of the stars change due to Earth wobbling as it spins on its axis. Stars that are near the horizon will rise and set at different points, and they can even disappear completely, only to reappear thousands of years later.

 

Today, Sirius can be seen almost worldwide as the brightest star in the sky – excluding the sun – and the fourth brightest night-sky object after the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Sirius is so noticeable that its rising and setting was used as the basis for the ancient Egyptian calendar, says Magli. At the latitude of Göbekli Tepe, Sirius would have been below the horizon until around 9300 BC, when it would have suddenly popped into view.

 

"I propose that the temple was built to follow the 'birth' of this star," says Magli. "You can imagine that the appearance of a new object in the sky could even have triggered a new religion."

 

Using existing maps of Göbekli Tepe and satellite images of the region, Magli drew an imaginary line running between and parallel to the two megaliths inside each enclosure. Three of the excavated rings seem to be aligned with the points on the horizon where Sirius would have risen in 9100 BC, 8750 BC and 8300 BC, respectively (arxiv.org/abs/1307.8397).

 

The results are preliminary, Magli stresses. More accurate calculations will need a full survey using instruments such as a theodolite, a device for measuring horizontal and vertical angles. Also, the sequence in which the structures were built is unclear, so it is hard to say if rings were built to follow Sirius as it rose at different points along the horizon.

 

Ongoing excavations might rule out any astronomical significance, says Jens Notroff, also at DAI. "We are still discussing whether the monumental enclosures at Göbekli Tepe were open or roofed," he says. "In the latter case, any activity regarding monitoring the sky would, of course, have been rather difficult."

 

This article appeared in print under the headline "Stone Age temple tracked the dog star"

 

 

Coincidence???? See article in the prior post about the discovery of circa 5,000 year old gaming pieces from a tomb in Turkey that include four (?) dog gaming pieces. And now we have some suggestions that the circular structures constructed at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey may have been centered (pun!) around the rising and trajectory of Sirius across the sky, the so-called "dog" star.

Many ancient board games in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent utilized dog and/or canine pieces (such as the Egyptian game Hounds and Jackals, both being canine species). The discovery of the dog (and other) gaming pieces in one tomb in Turkey at Basur Hoyuk I believe pushes back the use of dog-styled gaming pieces to its earliest known date.  I've written quite a bit at this blog about the close association between dogs (canines) and various incarnations of the Great Mother Goddess. Check out some of the connections that I wrote about in these posts (these are just a few of the related posts):

Dog Graves Uncovered in Colonial Virginia
September 5, 2010

Dogs in Myth and Legend
December 27, 2009

Deities of the Canine Kind
February 10, 2009

One of the co-founders of Goddesschess, Georgia Albert a/k/a Isis, wondered way back in 1998 at the long-defunct Art Bell website message board "Is chess the game of the Goddess?" and from there, Goddesschess was born in May 1999. Those posts were all saved at what we call "the Weave" and can be viewed in their entirety - over 1000 of them! - at the Goddesschess website. Certainly much food for thought in those posts from our earliest days -- before any of us embarked on this long road of study and research about ancient history and board games. 

Ancient (Very) Gaming Pieces Discovered in Bronze Age Tombs in Turkey

Hola darlings! Today I am being terrorized by some kind of insect I haven't seen before.  I think it is a new-born and stupid and doesn't know any better than to continually hang around my patio door. It was hanging on my screen door this morning when I wanted to go out and sweep the deck, about 8:30 a.m. -- and it was translucent, so translucent I could see it's insides quite clearly through the screen.  It was lovely - but also icky.  At first I thought it was a new-born tree frog, but after checking to see if it had moved away every 15 minutes or so over the next several hours, it began to look more and more like an insect.  ICK!

I have thus far refrained from freaking out and, er, eliminating it, hoping IT WILL JUST GO AWAY!  So far, no luck.  So my plan for enjoying a beautiful afternoon on my deck in the shade at my table, under the umbrella with my feet up, and a LARGE glass of wine -- gone to Hades!  Maybe it it is a newly-hatched circada -- it's translucent and emerald green - at least, right now it still is.  I do not enjoy killing insects -- I just do not want them anywhere NEAR where I am, at least, not where they are visible and I can SEE them creeping about.  Particularly not in or about my living area.  EEEUUUUUWWWWWWWW!

Okay, so to the important news!  Here's the article:

Oldest Gaming Tokens Found in Turkey

Aug 14, 2013 12:50 PM ET //by Rossella Lorenzi

Small carved stones unearthed in a nearly 5,000-year-old burial could represent the earliest gaming tokens ever found, according to Turkish archaeologists who are excavating early Bronze Age graves.

Found in a burial at Başur Höyük, a 820- by 492-foot mound near Siirt in southeast Turkey, the elaborate pieces consist of 49 small stones sculpted in different shapes and painted in green, red, blue, black and white.

These small sculpted stones unearthed from an early Bronze Age burial in Turkey could be the earliest
gaming tokens ever found.  Haluk Sağlamtimur

"Some depict pigs, dogs and pyramids, others feature round and bullet shapes. We also found dice as well as three circular tokens made of white shell and topped with a black round stone," Haluk Sağlamtimur of Ege University in İzmir, Turkey, told Discovery News.

According to the archaeologist, who presented his finding at the annual symposium of excavations, surveys and archaeometry in Muğla, similar pieces were previously found in Tell Brak and Jemdet Nasr, two settlement mounds in northeastern Syria and in Iraq respectively. "But they were found as isolated, single objects, therefore they were believed to be counting stones," Sağlamtimur said.

"On the contrary, our gaming pieces were found all together in the same cluster. It's a unique finding, a rather complete set of a chess like game. We are puzzling over its strategy," he added.

The find confirms that board games likely originated and spread from the Fertile Crescent regions and Egypt more than 5,000 years ago (Senet from predynastic Egypt is considered the world's oldest game board). The tokens were accompanied by badly preserved wooden pieces or sticks. Sağlamtimur hopes they'll provide some hints on the rules and logic behind the game.

"According to distribution, shape and numbers of the stone pieces, it appears that the game is based on the number 4," he said.

Archaeological records indicate that board games were widely played in Mesopotamia. Several beautifully crafted boards were found by British archaeologist Leonard Wooley in the Royal cemetery of Ur, the ancient Sumerian city near the modern Iraqi city of Nasiriya which many consider the cradle of civilization.

Dating from the First Dynasty of Ur, around 2550-2400 B.C., the boards were associated with the "Game of Twenty Squares," a board game played around 3000 B.C. Beautiful tokens related to the game were found arranged in a row, with the colors alternating, in another Ur tomb. The set consisted of seven shell roundels inlaid with of five lapis lazuli dots and seven roundels of black shale inlaid with five dots of white shell.

Much more elaborate, the newly discovered gaming stones were recovered from one of nine graves found at Başur Höyük. The site was inhabited as early as from 7,000 B.C. and was on a trade route between Mesopotamia and East Anatolia.

Overall, the graves revealed a unique treasure made of painted and unpainted pottery, bronze spearhead, various ritual artifacts, seals with geometric motifs and about 300 well-preserved amorphous bronze artifacts.

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

Let's be clear about this -- these pieces evidently represent the oldest positively identified gaming pieces discovered in Turkey -- not in the entire world.  Nonetheless, a very important discovery in the ongoing quest to discover the earliest roots of board games. 

How I wish Mr. Don was alive to read about this discovery.  He would feel SO vindicated, and rightly so, I think.  From the beginning of Goddesschess back in the ancient days of the internet (1998) we've followed the trail of the development of ancient board games and tried to leave no stone (pun for gaming piece, har :)) unturned in our quest to go back as far as we could and see if we could uncover the very beginnings of ancient board games, particularly the game of chess. 

And so now, some 10 months after his passing, there is this YES! The "Ah HA! moment!!! Don never believed "chess" first arose in India and neither do I.  I've seen nothing since 1998 to convince me otherwise and up to his death, neither did Don.   While amateur historian H.J.R. Murray did an invaluable service by gathering a compendium of ancient gaming pieces and game boards using information that was available to him back in the late 1890's and early 1900's, he was just wrong to conclude on the available evidence that chess was invented in India and spread out into the known world at the time from there.

I am NOT proclaiming that these pieces represent a precursor to chess, although it is extremely interesting that the archeologists think the game the peices were used in may be based on the number FOUR.  Chess is based on 64 -- two sides of 16 pieces each in "western" chess.  The total pieces in a game of modern western chess are: 16 pawns; 2 kings; 2 queens; 4 bishops; 4 knights, 4 castles or rooks.  Hmmmm..... 

It will be extremely difficult to deny that the Basur Hoyuk pieces are gaming pieces when SO MANY OF THEM HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE -- A TOMB. I seem to recall that the Initiativ Gruppe Konigstein, composed of some scholars, some chess collectors, and a lot of "amateurs" who have educated themselves on the whys and wherefores of ancient games, back in the late 1990's or so set forth certain criteria for identifying an object as a game piece (a chess piece or otherwise); one is that more than one object/piece should be discovered in a group in one spot or at least within close proximity to each other so that it would not be illogical to conclude that the pieces were originally a group or set. A single piece that might otherwise be identified as a gaming piece discovered in isolation cannot positively be identified as such (except when it is owned by an extremely wealthy collector, but we won't go there...). 

So, I look forward to the development of examination and debate on this latest discovery.  The pieces themselves, are quite beautiful.  The pyramids, "bullet-shaped" and pig pieces are easily identified, as are the "button" pieces.  Where are the dog pieces?  I know my eyes are not as good as they used to be, darlings, but do you see anything that looks like a dog?  I only ask because "dogs" and other canines, were used as game pieces throughout the ancient Middle East and Fertile Crescent as well as in board games in ancient Greece -- millenia later the Basur Hoyuk pieces are dated! 

Will report any further news on this discovery as I find it.

Men and Hair and Strength and Sex and All That Jazz.... Part 2

Hola darlings!

I'm continuing this absolutely fascinating encyclopedia entry by Barbara G. Walker in her "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends" under Hair, picking up from the blog entry a few posts ago:

The same idea prevailed among prophetic priestesses or witches, who operated with unbound hair on the theory that their tresses could control the spirit world.  Mother Goddesses like Isis, Cybele, and many emanations of Kali were said to command the weather by braiding or releasing their hair.  Their corresponding mortal representatives could cause to be bound or loosed in heaven what they bound or loosed on earth -- hence the unflagging superstition belief in Christian Europe that witches' hair controlled the weather.  Churchmen said witches raised storms, summoned demons, and produced all sorts of destruction by unbinding their hair.  As late as the 17th century the Compendium Maleficarum said witches could control rain, hail, wind, and lightning in such a way.(7)   In the Tyrol, it was believed that every thunderstorm was caused by a woman combing her hair.  Scottish girls were forbidden to comb their hair at night while their brothers were at sea, lest they raise a storm and sink the boats.(8)   A Syrian exorcism for werewolves invoked "that Angel" who judged the woman that combed the hair of her head on the Eve of Holy Sunday," suggesting a connection between hair-combing women and the "werewolves" mythologized as dogs of doomsday.(9) [Note the supernatural connection between females and dogs -- a connection well expressed in ancient mythologies around the world -- I've posted about it elsewhere, check under "dogs" and "goddesses and dogs"]. 

St. Paul greatly feared The "angels" (spirits) that women could command by letting their hair flow loose.  He insisted that women's heads must be covered "because of the angels" (1 Corinthians 11:10.)  Thus it became a Christian rule that women's heads must be covered in church, lest they draw demons into the building.  Modern women wearing hats or head shawls to church unconsciously defer to the ancient superstition about their hair.  [Nothing unconscious about it, darlings!  I was born in 1951 and in the "mixed" marriage of my Luthern mother and Roman Catholic father, was pledged to be raised as a Roman Catholic in order for the two of them to receive permission to wed.  I was thus raised in the Roman Catholic Church until I finally rebelled at age 14 or so and refused to continue what was clear to me even at that age was sheer nonsense and very demeaning to females! We were taught - not unconsciously - that we must wear a head covering when we entered a church.  Period.  No exceptions. We weren't given any explanations or scriptural authority for such a law, and it seemed like baloney sausage even then.  So, in the early 1960's, before I quit, it was quite the thing to see just how far we (teens, some single women and even some married owmen) could go with wearng as little a head covering as possible.  We ended up wearing on our heads what were basically lace doilies -- the machine-made kind, not the hand-crocheted kind like my Grandma Jablonski used to make with thicker thread that may have provided a bit of more "substantial" coverage for our "shame."  We plopped the little lace circles on top of our head, added a few hair pins, and off we went.  We were not called out by the priest for being Jezebels or agents of Satan, as far as I can recall!]  Due to identification of bats with demons, the erroneous notion that bats tend to tangle themselves in women's hair arose from the same superstition.(10)


I will continue to post the rest of Barbara Walker's excellent encyclopedia entry on this fascinating subject of hair, but not tonight!  But before I say goodnight, I want to share with you the biblical text surrounding Paul's infamous injunction againt women appearing in "church" with their hair uncovered.  Pay close attention, please.  You will be tested on this later on :)  I believe it gives great insight into what Paul wanted the true role of woman in "his" vision of The True Church to be (sounds very Islamic, actually).

From the King James Version of the Bible, 1 Corinthians Chapter 11, verses as follows:

11.  Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. [Notice how Paul emphasizes HIS importance - BE followers of ME - and puts Christ second!] 
2.  Now I praise you, brethern, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.
3.  But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of the Christ is God. [This, of course, totally ignores that women are eligible to become the "elect" 144,000 as spoken of in Revelation; but of course, Revelation was written by John, and everyone knows that John was a "wussy."  One must examine the historic record further, to reveal that there was a great deal of turmoil in the early church congregations at this time, because as many female as males were being blessed with the Holy Spirit and able to prophesy and "teach" and perform miracles as men -- but in the Jewish tradition, this was a NO GO!  And, where was the early church established -- in the heart of the Judaic system!  So you can imagine that as the "Word" of  christianity spread across the Roman empire, different peoples who did NOT have the tradition of treating their women as gutter vermin created some, er, problems... And so "St." Paul took it upon himself to treat the infidels a little bit about how the Jews of his day actually treated women.]
4.  Every man praying or propheysying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
5.  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head for that it even all one as if she were shaven.
6.  For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn; but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. [Why then, did practicing Jews shave the heads of women who married -- a shaved head was a mark of shame -- that is what I was raised to believe! And why did nuns have their hair cut off short or even sometimes, their heads shaved, upon entering the convent (coven????)
7.  For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. [WHAT BULLSHIT!]
8.  For the man is not out of the woman, but the woman is out of the man [the old myth about Eve being created out of one of Adam's ribs.]
9.  Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. [Totally ignores biology, of course, that shows all fetuses begin as females, har!  One would have thought that a man inspired with the TRUE word of God Almighty would have least have got that little fact right.  Geez!]
10.  For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. [Yes, this is what the King James Version says:  That the woman has power on her - uncovered? - head because of the angels.]
11.  Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. [Oh, a reprieve from the men killing off ALL the females because of those pesky angels giving them "power" IN OR ON THEIR HEADS.  Can you imagine?  Can't have uppity women running around teaching us about the real meaning of Christ's words.  Oh no!  But hey, if we kill them all off, all we've got left is each other -- and sheep...  Not a way to continue the species, ahem...] 
12.  For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God.

Food for thought, indeed.  And one doesn't need any hair, bound or othewise, on one's head in order to appreciate it!

'night, darlings. 

DNA Study Reveals How The Peopling of the Americas Took Place

Hola darlings!

How cool is this - check it out:

DNA reveals details of the peopling of the Americas

Migrants came in three distinct waves that interbred once in the New World

By Tina Hesman Saey

Web edition: August 12, 2013

 

The first people to settle the Americas had a distinctive genetic style, and additional waves of migrants added regional flair, a new analysis of mitochondrial DNA from Native Americans from Canada and the United States suggests.

About 15,000 to 18,000 years ago, the first migrant wave spilled from Asia down the Pacific coast and then pushed inland, eventually peopling the land from “the tip of South America all the way to Hudson Bay,” says Andrew Kitchen, a genetic anthropologist at the University of Iowa who was not involved in the new research. That first migrant wave contained the ancestors of all South and Central American tribes, and North Americans, too. But something different was going on in North America, an international team of researchers has discovered.

The scientists examined the DNA of mitochondria, tiny power plants within cells that get passed down from mother to child. Scientists use mitochondrial DNA from living populations to decipher ancient movements of their ancestors. Most studies have examined only a small part of the mitochondria’s circular piece of DNA. But Antonio Torroni, a geneticist at the University of Pavia in Italy, and his coauthors compiled complete mitochondrial genomes from 41 native North Americans and combined that data with information from previous studies.

The result is the clearest picture yet of the complicated movements of people into the Americas, says Theodore Schurr, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

The analysis, published August 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the widely accepted notion of an initial coastal migration wave. A second wave of migration probably left Siberia only a couple thousand years after the first wave. Instead of trickling down the coast, the second group slipped through an ice-free corridor running from Alaska into what is now southern Canada, the team found. The second wave never made it south of the present-day United States.
The mixture of first-wave and second-wave genetic signatures in some Native Americans today indicates that the newcomers and existing populations interbred.

A third wave of migration started around 4,000 years ago in Alaska and swept mostly eastward across Canada.

Previous studies of human migration into the Americas have sometimes focused on two types of languages that emerged among the tribes: the Na-Dene language family, including Navajo, Apache and Tlingit, and non-Na-Dene languages, including Algonquin, Ojibwe and Chippewa. Scientists had thought the language groups reflected genetic separation, with the second wave being restricted to the Na-Dene language family. But Torroni and his colleagues discovered that second-wave genetic marks occurred in people who spoke languages from both groups. The finding suggests that the languages developed after the people arrived, and gives a more dynamic picture of what was happening in eastern North America, says Kitchen.

And the cultural change could even have happened within a generation, Torroni says. “Language mutates much faster than the DNA.”

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

This information about the language "families" is particularly important, because it demonstrates just how arbitrary such distinctions can be!  Here we have genetically related founding populations that probably spoke a mother language at the point of arrival; it mutated over time as the founding population grew and divergerd across the continents.

Geez, are we back once again to Merritt Ruehlen...  Oh Yeah!

2013 FIDE World Cup

Hola darlings!

Lots of interesting things going on during Round 1.  I am concentrating on the chess femmes for now (but see my comments below the results table):

Deysi Cori - eliminated by Hikaru Nakamura

Anna Ushenina, current Women's WCC, defeated Peter Svidler in the 2nd round of their mini-match, forcing a play-off.  You go, Girlfriend!

Hou Yifan and Alexi Shirov tied both of their games and face play-offs.  Can she win to advance?

Judit Polgar - eliminated by someone I've never heard of, Isan Reynald Ortiz Suarez. If I knew at one time that Judit Polgar was playing in this event, I sure didn't remember it tonight. I thought she was retired.  Maybe she should have stayed retired.  Okay - OUCH.  Call me a bitch.  She wasn't ready for this event!

Bd	Player	Player	Game 1	Game 2	Score	Qualified
1	Aronian, Levon	Markov, Mikhail	1-0	1-0	2-0	Aronian, Levon
2	G., Akash	Caruana, Fabiano	0-1	1/2	0.5-1.5	Caruana, Fabiano
3	Kramnik, Vladimir	Bwalya, Gillan	1-0	1-0	2-0	Kramnik, Vladimir
4	Bjelobrk, Igor	Grischuk, Alexander	0-1	0-1	0-2	Grischuk, Alexander
5	Karjakin, Sergey	Ali, Sebbar	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Karjakin, Sergey
6	Cori T., Deysi	Nakamura, Hikaru	0-1	0-1	0-2	Nakamura, Hikaru
7	Gelfand, Boris	Rahman, Ziaur	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Gelfand, Boris
8	Lou, Yiping	Kamsky, Gata	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
9	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	Shoker, Samy	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
10	El Gindy, Essam	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	0-1	0-1	0-2	Dominguez Perez, Leinier
11	Ponomariov, Ruslan	Hansen, Torbjorn Ringdal	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Ponomariov, Ruslan
12	Liu, Qingnan	Wang, Hao	1/2	0-1	0.5-1.5	Wang, Hao
13	Svidler, Peter	Ushenina, Anna	1-0	0-1	1.0-1.0
14	Wan, Yunguo	Adams, Michael	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
15	Leko, Peter	Johannessen, Leif Erlend	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Leko, Peter
16	Sambuev, Bator	Morozevich, Alexander	1-0	0-1	1.0-1.0
17	Vitiugov, Nikita	Holt, Conrad	1-0	1-0	2-0	Vitiugov, Nikita
18	Salem, A.R. Saleh	Giri, Anish	0-1	1/2	0.5-1.5	Giri, Anish
19	Ivanchuk, Vassily	Duda, Jan-Krzysztof	1/2	1-0	1.5-0.5	Ivanchuk, Vassily
20	Cori, Jorge	Radjabov, Teimour	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
21	Andreikin, Dmitry	Darini, Pouria	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
22	Durarbayli, Vasif	Korobov, Anton	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
23	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	Shabalov, Alexander	1-0	1-0	2-0	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
24	Wei, Yi	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	1/2	1-0	1.5-0.5	Wei, Yi
25	Navara, David	Mareco, Sandro	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Navara, David
26	Agdestein, Simen	Bacrot, Etienne	0-1	0-1	0-2	Bacrot, Etienne
27	Alekseev, Evgeny	Adhiban, B.	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
28	Paragua, Mark	Jakovenko, Dmitry	0-1	0-1	0-2	Jakovenko, Dmitry
29	Le, Quang Liem	Barbosa, Oliver	1-0	1-0	2-0	Le, Quang Liem
30	Kaidanov, Gregory S	Areshchenko, Alexander	0-1	1/2	0.5-1.5	Areshchenko, Alexander
31	Malakhov, Vladimir	Hansen, Eric	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Malakhov, Vladimir
32	Ramirez, Alejandro	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
33	So, Wesley	Ipatov, Alexander	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	So, Wesley
34	Christiansen, Larry M	Fressinet, Laurent	0-1	1/2	0.5-1.5	Fressinet, Laurent
35	Riazantsev, Alexander	Felgaer, Ruben	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
36	Flores, Diego	Vallejo Pons, Francisco	0-1	0-1	0-2	Vallejo Pons, Francisco
37	Eljanov, Pavel	Brunello, Sabino	1/2	1-0	1.5-0.5	Eljanov, Pavel
38	Fier, Alexandr	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	1/2	1/2	1 .0-1.0
39	Moiseenko, Alexander	Adly, Ahmed	1-0 w/o	1-0 w/o	2-0	Moiseenko, Alexander
40	Hammer, Jon Ludvig	Movsesian, Sergei	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
41	Shirov, Alexei	Hou, Yifan	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
42	Ortiz Suarez, Isan Reynaldo	Polgar, Judit	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Ortiz Suarez, Isan Reynaldo
43	Jobava, Baadur	Kravtsiv, Martyn	1-0	0-1	1.0-1.0
44	Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son	Akopian, Vladimir	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son
45	Bruzon Batista, Lazaro	Najer, Evgeniy	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
46	Robson, Ray	Volokitin, Andrei	1-0	1-0	2-0	Robson, Ray
47	Li, Chao b	Postny, Evgeny	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
48	Popov, Ivan	Ragger, Markus	1-0	0-1	1.0-1.0
49	Inarkiev, Ernesto	Leitao, Rafael	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
50	Melkumyan, Hrant	Granda Zuniga, Julio E	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
51	Kryvoruchko, Yuriy	Negi, Parimarjan	0-1	1-0	1.0-1.0
52	Hracek, Zbynek	Bologan, Viktor	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
53	Dreev, Aleksey	Azarov, Sergei	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
54	Dubov, Daniil	Fedorchuk, Sergey A.	1-0	1-0	2-0	Dubov, Daniil
55	Onischuk, Alexander	Iturrizaga, Eduardo	1-0	1/2	1.5-0.5	Onischuk, Alexander
56	Smeets, Jan	Matlakov, Maxim	1/2	0-1	0.5-1.5	Matlakov, Maxim
57	Shimanov, Aleksandr	Jones, Gawain C B	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
58	Filippov, Anton	Romanov, Evgeny	1/2	1-0	1.5-0.5	Filippov, Anton
59	Safarli, Eltaj	Amin, Bassem	0-1	1-0	1.0-1.0
60	Lupulescu, Constantin	Sasikiran, Krishnan	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
61	Zvjaginsev, Vadim	Swiercz, Dariusz	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
62	Kobalia, Mikhail	Khismatullin, Denis	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
63	Yu, Yangyi	Beliavsky, Alexander G	1/2	1/2	1.0-1.0
64	Istratescu, Andrei	Lysyj, Igor	0-1	1/2	0.5-1.5	Lysyj, Igor

Oh my, I saw several players that I've been watching for years and cheering for -- they didn't do too well.  I am getting old, and so are they, I think. Sigh.  Several more players I give a shout-out to, for sentimental and with respect to some players working hard under the USA flag, patriotic purposes:"

Gata Kamsky heads for a play-off.  Dude, you can do it. 

GM Bator Sambuev who now plays for Canada, also heads to a play-off after tying his mini-match score with that great (to my heart) swashbuckler, Alexander Morozevich!  Cheering for the GM from our neighbor to the north.  Mr. Don became acquainted with him a little bit while covering some of the events that Goddesschess provided some sponsorship and/or prize money for in Canada.  Good luck. Sentimental favorite.

Ray Robson advances to Round 2 with two win under his belt.  Well done!  Another sentimental favorite.

Fellow American player Alexander Onischuk did what he needed to do to also advance to Round 2.

For this report, information obtained from The Week in Chess. 

Men and Hair and Strength and Sex and All That Jazz....

Hola darlings!

Since writing the post on Samson last Saturday, in which I copied out Barbara G. Walker's interesting observations on Samson from her The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, I couldn't get HAIR out of my mind. I wondered what on earth would possess the ancients to believe that a man's strength was somehow connected with his hair?  I wondered is this some kind of inborn genetic thing, and is that why men start to panic and use all kinds of chemicals and drugs and even resort to hair transplants when their hair starts falling out, leaving them looking like Prince William by the age of 28???  They feel the need for hair, but they don't understand WHY.

And what is the WHY, anyway?

But before I get into that, I can't help myself, darlings, I've just got to put up this You Tube video of the fab song Hair from the musical by the same name.  I saw a live performance of it in 1970 at the old Palace Theatre in Milwaukee, WI (my hometown) way back in 1970 I think it was.  The Palace has long since disappeared, but the memories live on.  We were in the nosebleed section of the balcony but the music was SO loud, and once again my affinity for the stage and performing was confirmed.  I SHOULD have followed my instincts as a child and turned myself into the next Debbie Reynolds.  Oh well. A road not followed.  Maybe in my next life...

So bear with me, and I do hope you enjoy this as much as I do!  This is the 1969 version by the Cowsills -- Yes, the COWSILLS?  Is anyone out there still alive who remembers THEM?  Talk about wholesome middle-America!  LOL!  And then they came out with Hair and of all the versions I've heard, even the stage versions, I love this one best of all!  The pronunciation of the words and how the music flows together, just fabulous!  I could understand every single word in this version of the song, and the lyrics are JUST.SO.AWESOME!  Even 40 plus years later, I still sing that damn song every now and then...




So, now, on to the serious stuff!!!!

Hair

As shown by its importance in witch-charms and in the mutual exchange of talismans between lovers, hair was usually viewed as a repository of at least a part of the soul.  At the ancient temple of Troezen, youths and maidens dedicated locks of their hair to the savior-god Hippolytus before marriage; this was "designed to strengthen his union with the Goddess." (1)

When the Goddess-mother became Queen of Shades for each god or man at the end of his life, his soul was likened to a child seeking safety in the mother's shadow.  The Great Mother's hair cast its shadow over the approaching soul.  An Egyptian found salvation by identifying himself with Osiris, for whom the Goddess made resurrection-magic with her hair: "He is found with her hair spread over him; it is shaken out over his brow."(2)  When Isis put on mourning garments for Osiris, she cut a lock of her hair to preserve his soul.  Egyptian widows similarly buried locks of their hair with deceased husbands, as a charm of protection in the after-world.

When Isis restored vitality to the dead Osiris, entitled the Still Heart, she created his new life with her hair, made his heart beat again and his penis move so she could conceive his reincarnation, Horus.  She "produced warmth from her hair, she caused air to come...She caused movement to take place in what was inert in the Still Heart, she drew essence (semen) from him, she made flesh and blood, she suckled her babe alone."(3)  She further protected her Divine Child by "shaking out her hair over him."(4)

Mortal women often claimed the same preservative magic for their own hair.  Ptolemy III was protected from harm on his Syrian campaign in 247 B.C. by his wife Berenice, who dedicated locks of her hair on Aphrodite's altar for this purpose.  When the hair vanished from the temple, it was discovered among the divine figures in heaven, where it appears to this day as the constellation Coma Berenices, "Berenice's Hair."(5)

Signs and wonders in the heavens were usually intepreted as significant omens of future catastrophes, particularly a comet, "spirit of hair."  A comet was supposed to be a tendril of the Great Mother's hair appearing in the sky as the world was slowly overshadowed by her twilight shadow of doomsday.  Most forms of the Death-goddess showed masses of hair standing out from her head, sometimes in the shape of serpents, as in the Gorgoneum of Medusa-Meta-Neith-Ananti-Athene.  On the magic principle of "as above, so below," women's hair partook of the same mystic powers as the Goddess's hair.  Tantric sages declared that the binding or unbinding of women's hair activated cosmic forces of creation and destruction.(6)

WOW!  That is totally awesome information.  I'm calling it a night now.  My energy level is not what it used to be.

I will continue with Barbara Walker's fascinating information on HAIR tomorrow night.

Turks Claim Finding a Piece of the "True Cross" of Jesus Christ - What Crap!

Yeah, since the Muslims have taken over the government in Turkey and are trying to turn the country into a Muslim theocracy (but the army and the judges are fighting back -- does this sound familiar...), tourism has decreased significantly by the biggest spenders, that is, us folks from North America.  Gee, I wonder why???

Stoopid politicians have now ordered all departments to do whatever is necessary in order to re-generate that lucrative tourism.  What better way than the recent story about potential new evidence for verifying the existence of Noah's Ark and, even better, because it appeals to 1 billion "Christians," that possibly a piece of the TRUE CROSS has been discovered.

Yeah, right.  But, never say I've a cynical eye (despite having two). Here's the story, darlings!  From no less reliable source than THE MAIL ONLINE.  Oh yeah!  There is nothing quite like an English tabloid to throw baloney sausage at one (that's B.S. in long-hand for the dyslexic, ahem...) and, since they're still selling in-print newspapers these days and showing a profit, no less, they must be doing SOMETHING right... 

Anyway, reading this article is nearly as good as reading a quote from Governor Scott (Scooter) Walker of the venerable state of Wisconsin, USA.  Stay tuned.  This silly ass tool may actually run as a candidate in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election - as a Republican.  Bwwwwwaaahhhhaaaaa!  Oh, I can hardly wait to see what the suck-me-off Cock Koch Brothers have up their sleeves when they offer up Scooter as a candidate.  Who knows, he could win! Ever seen a President try to destroy one of "his" own nuclear submarines just to present a "scenario" to Congress in order to start a nuclear war? Except the submarine's commander refuses to accept the order because the correct codes weren't given.  Gee, wasn't that just on television????  It actually was a pretty damn good show.

Is this Jesus's true cross? Archaeologists in Turkey may have uncovered a relic from the crucifixion

• Relic was discovered in a stone chest on the site of a church in Sinop
• Legend claims parts of the cross were sent to religious leaders

By Victoria Woollaston
PUBLISHED: 07:09 EST, 2 August 2013 | UPDATED: 05:00 EST, 4 August 2013



Archaeologists in Turkey believe they have found a small piece of the cross used to crucify Jesus.
It was discovered in a stone chest on the site of seventh-century Balatlar Church in Sinop and tests are now being carried out to try to determine its authenticity.
Legend has it that the cross was discovered in 325 AD and parts were sent to religious leaders around the world and this may explain how the piece ended up in Turkey.

Professor Gülgün Koroglu who headed up the excavation told the Hurriyet Daily News: 'We have found a holy thing in a chest. It is a piece of a cross, and we think it was [part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified]. This stone chest is very important to us. It has a history and is the most important artifact we have unearthed so far.'

Professor Koroglu believes the relics inside the chest are holy because crosses were carved into the sides. [GASP! Imagine that!] 

According to religious legend, Helene Augustus, the mother of Constantine travelled to Jerusalem in around 325 AD to learn more about the crucifixion and try to find the True Cross.

The cross was said to have been divided - part of it is believed to have remained in Jerusalem while other parts were sent to religious leaders in Rome and Constantinople, the modern-day Istanbul in Turkey.

A number of relics purported to be parts of the True Cross, or nails used during the crucifixion have been found by churches, including a 2,000-year-old chest discovered in 1981.

French archaeologist Charles Rohault de Fleury supposedly said in the 19th-century that if all of these catalogued relics were put together they would still only make up less than a third of the cross, which is thought to have been around 12ft high.
This suggests that there may still be parts of the cross that are yet to be uncovered.  Koroglu and her team began working on the site at the Balatlar Church, built in 660 AD, site in 2009.
The excavation has already uncovered more than 1,000 skeletons. 

Samson Mosaic Uncovered in Ancient Jewish Synagogue

From The Jewish Press (online):

Ancient Mosaic Depicting Samson Uncovered in a Galilee Synagogue
By Rachel Avraham
Published July 4, 2013

Excavations in a late Roman era synagogue at Huqoq in Israel’s eastern lower Galilee have uncovered a new mosaic depicting the biblical hero and judge, Samson. Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has been conducting archaeological excavations at Huqoq since 2011, notes that while scenes from the Bible are not uncommon in ancient synagogues, mosaics featuring Samson are. Last summer (2012), excavations in the Huqoq synagogue brought to light a scene depicting Samson and the foxes (Judges 15:4). This summer, another section of the mosaic floor was discovered which shows Samson carrying the gate of Gaza (Judges 16:1-3).

[Okay - Google Blogger is being pissy today and will not allow me to upload photographs all of a sudden -- tried several times during this post and the prior post done this evening and NADA.  Assholes!  So, where the image SHOULD  BE, there is THIS, instead. When will I finally run out of patience and move this blog to Wordpress...]

Wadi Hamam is the only other ancient synagogue in Israel which has a mosaic with a scene of Samson, while outside of Israel only one ancient building in Turkey which may be a synagogue has a Samson mosaic. However, the Samson mosaics are not the only unusual aspect about the excavations at Huqoq. Magness states, “In most ancient synagogues in Israel with a decorated floor featuring figured designs such as people and animals, the figured decoration is in the center of the synagogue and the aisles have geometric patterns.” However, at Huqoq, there are mosaics with figured scenes in the aisles.”

Magness is puzzled by why mosaics depicting Samson are found at Huqoq, as it was not in the tribal area of Dan. Furthermore, many rabbis of the Talmudic period were not fond of Samson because of his attraction to non-Jewish women. While Magness stated that some positive depictions of Samson survive in rabbinic literature, these traditions are preserved mainly in the Babylonian Talmud, not in the Jerusalem Talmud. Thus, the glorification of Samson in a synagogue mosaic in Galilee goes against the generally negative view of Samson held by many rabbis at that time.

According to Magness, the surviving rabbinic traditions that depict Samson positively “suggest that some Jews considered Samson as a prototype or forerunner of the messiah. He had the potential to be the messiah but wasn’t. The popularity of Samson is connected with those traditions, with traditions that viewed Samson as a deliver and redeemer of Israel. In the area of Mount Arbel and Tiberias, these traditions were popular. This may be why the Samson scenes appear here.”

Interestingly, the mosaics of Samson depict him as a giant figure, even though Samson was not described as such in the Tanakh. However, Magness notes that some rabbinic literature describes Samson as a giant. She emphasized, “By the time of the Mishna and Talmud, there were all sorts of traditions about different figures in the Bible.” Depicting Samson as a giant accords with traditions that considered Samson as a redeemer of the Jewish people!

Adjacent to Samson carrying the gates of Gaza on his shoulders are riders with horses, who apparently represent Philistines. According to Magness, “In the Bible, they have chariots; they are not riding horses. In later Aramaic translations (Targumim), there are descriptions of Philistines riding horses. It is a reflection again of something that doesn’t occur in the biblical account, but in later traditions.”

DEMISE OF THE HUQOQ JEWISH COMMUNITY

Magness is unsure how the Huqoq synagogue met its demise. In front of the synagogue’s bema, there was a pile of stones mixed with ash that was found elsewhere in the synagogue, apparently from the later robbing-out of the bema. Above the synagogue, a medieval structure was built. There are no signs that the synagogue suffered a violent or sudden destruction. Although the synagogue was built in the 5th century, Huqoq is mentioned in the Tanakh in connection with the settlement of the tribes of Asher and Naphtali, and it was a Jewish village in the late Second Temple period and in the time of the Mishna and Talmud. Ishtori Haparchi (1280-1355) mentions a synagogue in Huqoq in his time, perhaps referring to the medieval building above the late Roman synagogue. By the Ottoman period, Huqoq was a Muslim village.

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

On a whim, I checked "Samson" in Barbara G. Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, and lo and behold, here is what I found:

Samson

Hebrew version of the sun god called Shams-On in Arabia, Shamash in Babylon, identical with Egypt's Ra-Harakhti and Greece's Heracles, Samson's lion-killing, pillar-carrying, and oher feats were copied from the Labors of Heracles, signifying the sun's progress through the zodiac.  Samson's "mill" was the same as Omphale's wheel, to which Heracles was bound.  His loss of hair meant the cutting of the sun god's rays, in the season when he became weak.

As Heracles was controlled by Omphale, and Ra was "made weak" by Isis, so Samson was deprived of his strength in due season by Delilah, "She Who Makes Weak."  Another interpretation of her name was Lily of the Yoni, that is, the female principle that deprived the phallic god of strength by drawing his "rays" or energy into herself.  Hair-cutting was a common mythic symbol of castration, since phallic power was supposed to reside in a man's hair, according to ancient eastern beliefs. (1)  The castrating priestess Delilah was a Semitic copy of Heracle's deadly consort Deianira [note the DEI - means goddess/god], the instrument of his destruction.  Blinding, also, meant putting out the "phallic eye."

Talmudic tradition viewed Samson's "grinding" in Philistia as a symbol of fornitication - suggesting a sacred-king cult in which a strongman assumed the role of the sun hereo, deflowered all the virgins until his strength was gone, then faced castration and sacrifice.(2) [In other words, another version of ancient king sacrifice.]  It has been supposed that Sampson's wrecking of the Philistine temple stood for the sun's power to dry and crumble a structure made of mud and bricks. [Nah.  I think it's a rather more recent gloss added by archivists who didn't want to see an old, traditiuonal hero made so wimpy due to a female's power, while at the same time demonstrating the strength of their phony patriarchal god, Yawheh/Jehovah.]

Notes: 

(1)  Rawson, E.A., 25.
(2)  Legman, 520; Silberer, 97.

Lettuce and the Ancient Egyptian God Min

Min - a creator god.  You may not know the name but you may recognize the sillouhette:

You know, the mummy with the erection...

Turns out the dude luuuuvvvveeeeedddd lettuce - so much so that it was coveted by the ancient Egyptians as an aphrodisiac (wonder if today's Egyptians still believe the same thing, hmmm.....)

Read all about it, tres cool!

From the Smithsonian online, see also story at the Daily Mail online.

July 16, 2013

When Lettuce Was a Sacred Sex Symbol

Lettuce has been harvested for millenia—it was depicted by ancient Egyptians on the walls of tombs dating back to at least 2,700 B.C. The earliest version of the greens resembled two modern lettuces: romaine, from the French word “romaine” (from Rome), and cos lettuce, believed to have been found on the island of Kos, located along the coast of modern day Turkey. 

 

But in Ancient Egypt around 2,000 B.C., lettuce was not a popular appetizer, it was an aphrodisiac, a phallic symbol that represented the celebrated food of the Egyptian god of fertility, Min. (It is unclear whether the lettuce’s development in Egypt predates its appearance on the island of Kos.) The god, often pictured with an erect penis in wall paintings and reliefs was also known as the “great of love” as he is called in a text from Edfu Temple. The plant was believed to help the god “perform the sexual act untiringly.”

 

Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo who specializes in Ancient Egyptian food explains Min’s part in lettuce history. “Over 3,000 years, [Min's] role did change, but he was constantly associated with lettuce,” she says.

The first of these depictions appeared around 1970-80 B.C. in the The White Chapel of Senusret I, though there may be earlier examples, Ikram says.

This relief, from the funerary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, for example, depicts Min’s harvest festival. At the center is a statue of Min. Behind him, a procession of priests holds a small garden of lettuce. Min is also sometimes depicted wearing a long, red ribbon around his forehead that some say represents sexual energy.

“One of the reasons why [the Egyptians] associated the lettuce with Min was because it grows straight and tall—an obvious phallic symbol,” Ikram says. “But if you broke off a leaf it oozed a sort of white-ish, milky substance—basically it looked like semen.”
When the butt of modern Romaine lettuce is cut off, a similar substance oozes from the plant and gives it a bitter flavor. Lettuce’s scientific classification lactuca sativa, is derived from the Latin word for milk and shares the same root as lactose, the sugar enzyme found in dairy products. (Ed. — corrected thanks to feedback from reader joelfinkle) (While we’re talking etymology, raw lettuce dishes known as herba salata (“salted greens”) gave rise to the English word “salad.”) Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book provides further options for what the lettuce milk of the “ithyphallic god of increase” may represent:

Lettuce was sacred to him because of the “straight vertical surge” of their growth, milky juice they exude which could be taken as a symbol of mothers milk or semen.

Ancient Egyptians used the lettuce differently than those who would come later. The leaves had a greenish blue color and were often removed from the plant due to their bitter taste. Instead of being part of a meal, the seeds from the bud of the flowers were harvested and pressed for their natural oils which were used for cooking, medication—even mummification. Lettuce oil was a standard in the Egyptian materia medica and even today is used as a traditional remedy for hair regrowth.

The Greeks and Romans later popularized the leafy veggie as an appetizer during the 81-96 A.D. reign of Domitian. When they first introduced a set order of courses, the meal included a salad at the beginning to stimulate the appetite and also at the end to encourage digestion, according to author Gil Marks. It was still considered a medicinal goldmine by the Greeks and Romans, but for a different reason than the Egyptians—they believed it helped people sleep. Under Domitian’s reign, as the story goes, the ruler would force his guests to eat lettuce before the meal so as to make them struggle to remain awake for the remainder of the visit.

Another interesting lettuce-related story in Ancient Egypt, not for the faint-of-stomach: In Egyptian history there are many battles between the Egyptian deity Horus and Set, the god of the desert. Though the argument was usually over which of the two had the rightful claim to rule Egypt, one rather odd battle involves lettuce. According to Papyrus Chester-Beatty I, as interpreted by Ikram, Set at one point tries to overpower Horus by seducing him and then having intercourse with him. Horus places his hand between his legs, catches Set’s semen and throws it into the river. “Horus [then] tricks Set by basically spurting his sperm and throwing it into a lettuce plant, ” Ikram says. Because Set eats the semen-covered lettuce, in the eyes of the gods, Horus was dominant—at least until the next battle.

Got to love me a little Min, darlings :)

What's Happening at the World Chess Hall of Fame

Hola Darlings!

I have been on hiatus and may be so (although on good days I will be here) for the foreseeable future.  I have been dealing with health issues, which is an absolute fricking bummer, let me tell you!  I have experienced a set-back and at the present time, I do not know if things will get better. This sucks, big time!  But I'm here tonight, at least for a short time -- nope, I haven't croaked yet, Thank Goddess.  I'll do what I can, when I can.   

Received this email today from the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and it's really cool, about all the goings-on in St. Louis.  Enjoy!  Some day, Goddess willing, I will travel there again.  It's only about a 30 minute jet ride from Milwaukee.  Would love once again to visit the World Chess Museum and the Scholastic Center and Chess Club right across the street from it, and walk the surrounding neighborhood.  It is a beautiful area.  I posted tons of photographs during my visit  - when the hell was that?  September, 2011?  Don't take my word for it. The heart meds I'm on causes "fuzzy brain" syndrome, unfortunately.  Ach!  If you're interested in reading about the Chess Collectors International Regional Meeting that took place in St. Louis, MO that coincided with the Kings Versus Queens Chess Tournament hosted by the St. Louis Scholastic Center and Chess Club, please do a word search on this blog.  Without further ado, here's the email:

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

July was a great month here at the World Chess Hall of Fame! We received some exciting press coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for our upcoming exhibition A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fashion and Chess, celebrated International Chess Day on July 20, and hosted Jon Crumiller, who led a fantastic guided tour and discussion of Prized and Played. Looking ahead, we're excited to see what the rest of summer and fall will bring!

Due to upcoming exhibition needs, please note that Bill Smith: Beyond the Humanities has a new closing date of August 25. From September 4 - 15, we will host a small exhibition in our first floor gallery highlighting the Piatagorsky Cup, a series of high-profile chess tournaments during the 1960s sponsored by chess benefactor Jacqueline Piatagorsky. This exhibition will coincide with the groundbreaking Sinquefield Cup tournament taking place at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis and serve as a preview to Jacqueline Piatagorsky: Patron, Player, Pioneer, appearing on our third floor October 25, 2013 - April 18, 2014.

Following the closing of Prized and Played: Highlights from the Jon Crumiller Collection on September 15, we will be closed to the public September 16 - October 18 for the installation of A Queen Within. But even though our exhibitions will be in transition, we will be keeping busy behind the scenes! In addition to preparing our upcoming shows, we are thrilled to host two concerts on September 18 and 25, in coordination with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra respectively. Stay tuned for more information on these special events!

Whether your plans this month involve vacations, back-to-school errands, or just staying in the air conditioning, we at the WCHOF wish you a safe and happy August, and hope you will make time to visit us soon!

Checkmate,

Susan Barrett, Director

The Mother of All Carved Lionesses? 40,000 Years Old!

Just about fell off my chair reading this article!  This lioness is an incredibly beautiful work of art -- and 40,000 years old.  Best of all is the re-uniting of the head with the body after so many years.

I've featured many carved lions and lionesses at this blog since it's founding back in April 2007.  I believe this one is the oldest thus far discovered. 

Ice Age Figurine's Head Found: Archaeologists Put New and Old Finds Together to Reassemble Ancient Work of Art

July 18, 2013 — Researchers from the University of Tübingen have successfully re-attached the newly discovered head of a prehistoric mammoth-ivory figurine discovered in 1931. The head was found during renewed excavations at Vogelherd Cave, site of the original dig in 1931. The recent excavations, between 2005 and 2012, have yielded a number of important finds. The discovery of this ivory head helps to complete a figurine which now can be recognized as a lion -- and demonstrates that it is possible to reassemble often fragmentary figurines from the earlier excavation.

The new discovery is presented in the 2013 edition of the journal Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg.

Vogelherd Cave is located in the Lone Valley of southwestern Germany and is by far the richest of the four caves in the region that have produced examples of the earliest figurative art, dating as far back as 40,000 years ago. Overall, Vogelherd Cave has yielded more than two dozen figurines and fragments of figurines. While the work of fitting together thousands of small fragments of mammoth ivory from Vogelherd is just beginning, the remarkable lion figurine, now with its head, forms an important part of the display of the earliest art at the Museum of the University of Tübingen (MUT) in Hohentübingen Castle.

Professor Nicholas Conard and his excavation assistant Mohsen Zeidi today presented the new discovery and discussed its scientific importance, after which the find rejoined the permanent exhibit at MUT.

Research Reveals World's First Calendar from 10,000 Years Ago

I would add the caveat -- that we have thus far uncovered...  This is really really cool!

Found after 10,000 years: the world’s first calendar

David Keys

Monday 15 July 2013

 

Humans had a sophisticated calendrical system thousands of years earlier than previously thought, according to new research.

The discovery is based on a detailed analysis of data from an archaeological site in northern Scotland – a row of ancient pits which archaeologists believe is the world’s oldest calendar. It is almost five thousand years older than its nearest rival – an ancient calendar from Bronze Age Mesopotamia.
Created by Stone Age Britons some 10,000 years ago, archaeologists believe that the complex of pits was designed to represent the months of the year and the lunar phases of the month. They believe it also allowed the observation of the mid-winter sunrise – in effect the birth of the new year – so that the lunar calendar could be annually re-calibrated to bring it back into line with the solar year.
Remarkably the monument was in use for some 4,000 years – from around 8,000BC (the early Mesolithic period) to around 4,000BC (the early Neolithic).

The pits were periodically re-cut – probably dozens of times, possibly hundreds of times – over those four millennia. It is therefore impossible to know whether or not they originally held timber posts or standing stones after they were first dug 10,000 years ago. However variations in the depths of the pits suggest that the arc had a complex design - with each lunar month potentially divided into three roughly ten day ‘weeks’ – representing the waxing moon, the gibbous/full moon and the waning moon.

The 50 metre long row of 12 main pits was arranged as an arc facing a v-shaped dip in the horizon out of which the sun rose on mid-winter’s day. There are 12.37 lunar cycles (lunar months) in a solar year – and the archaeologists believe that each pit represented a particular month, with the entire arc representing a year.

The 12 pits may also have played a second role by representing the lunar month. Mirroring the phases of the moon, the waxing and the waning of which takes 29 and half days, the succession of pits, arranged in a shallow arc (perhaps symbolizing the movement of the moon across the sky), starts small and shallow at one end, grows in diameter and depth towards the middle of the arc and then wanes in size at the other end.

In its role as an annual calendar (covering 12 months – one for each pit), a pattern of alternating pit depths suggests that adjacent months may have been paired in some way, potentially reflecting some sort of dualistic cosmological belief system – known in the ethnographic and historical record in many parts of the world, but not previously detected archaeologically from the Stone Age.

Keeping track of time would have been of immense economic and spiritual use to the hunter gatherer communities of the Mesolithic period. Their calendar would have helped them to pinpoint the precise time that animal herds could be expected to migrate or the most likely time that salmon might begin to run.

But Stone Age communal leaders – potentially including Shamans – may also have used the calendar to give themselves the appearance of being able to predict or control the seasons or the behaviour of the moon and the sun.

The site – at Warren Field, Crathes, Aberdeenshire – was excavated in 2004 by the National Trust for Scotland, but the data was only analysed in detail over the past six months using the specially written software which permitted an interactive exploration of the relationship between the 12 pits, the local topography and the movements of the moon and the sun.

The analysis has been carried out by a team of specialists led by Professor Vincent Gaffney of the University of Birmingham.

“The research demonstrates that Stone Age society 10,000 years ago was much more sophisticated than we had previously suspected. The site has implications for the way we understand how Mesolithic society developed in economic, social and cosmological terms, ” said Professor Gaffney.

“The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East. In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself,” he said.

More On the Controversy Surrounding Claim of Oldest Chinese Inscriptions Uncovered

Ooooh, it just makes me tingle all over when the experts get all bitchy with each other :)  Prior post.

From Art Daily, July 14-15, 2013

Experts row over 'earliest' Chinese inscriptions find at the Zhuangqiaofen archaeological site

BEIJING (AFP).- Fierce debate has erupted among experts in China over the discovery of 5,000-year-old inscriptions that some believe represent the earliest record of Chinese characters.

Pottery pieces and stone vessels unearthed at the Zhuangqiaofen archaeological site in the eastern province of Zhejiang push "the origin of the written language back 1,000 years", the state-run Global Times newspaper reported.

The inscriptions predate the oracles, writings on turtle shells dating back to the Shang Dynasty (C.1600-1046BC), which are commonly believed to be the origin of the written Chinese language system.

Some of the inscriptions were written together in what some experts believe resembles a short sentence.

Li Boqian, an archaeology professor from Peking University, said the symbols reveal the ancient Liangzhu civilisation -- which existed in Zhejiang and neighbouring Jiangsu in the Neolithic Age -- had already developed the basic structure of sentences from independent words, the Global Times said earlier this week.

Other specialists dismissed the significance of such a find. Xu Hong, an archaeology researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expressed scepticism on links between the inscriptions and the development of Chinese script.

"Even if those signs on the stones were characters, they were simply from a long dead east Asian country before the Middle Kingdom existed," he said on Sina Weibo, China's version of the social network Twitter.

"Many signs and character lookalikes earlier than the oracles have been found in east Asia."

Xia Jingchun, a professor of Chinese language from Beijing Technology and Business University, also wrote on Weibo: "It's long been believed by experts that there were more ancient characters than the oracles, because the oracles were too mature, and older languages are supposed to be less developed."

The inscriptions were found among artefacts unearthed between 2003 and 2006, state media said.



© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse     

Chess Femme News

Unless otherwise noted, information from The Week in Chess.

Judit Polgar sighting!  She surprised me by coming out of retirement to play in this event.  She cut her eye teeth playing rapid and blitz chess, as did 12th Women's World Chess Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, who also played in this event.  It was evident Polgar was rusty.

Geneva Chess Masters 2013 (Geneva SUI) Mon 24th Jun 2013 - Sun 30th Jun 2013 -Official Site - Live

Geneva Masters GpA (4 players 3 Rds DRR Indiv TC:25m+10spm) - Games in PGN: GpA Games

Geneva Masters GpB (4 players 3 Rds DRR Indiv TC:25m+10spm) - Games in PGN: GpB Games

Geneva Masters KO (4 players 2 Rds KO Indiv TC:25m+10spm) - Games in PGN: KO Games

Geneva Open A 2013 (43 players 9 Rds Swiss Indiv ) - Games in PGN: Open A

Geneva Masters GpA Geneva SUI Mon 24th Jun 2013 - Sun 30th Jun 2013 Leading Final Round 3 Standings:
Rk	Name	Rtg	1	2	3	4	Pts	TB1
1	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	2753	*	1	1	1	3	8
2	Kramnik, Vladimir	2803	0	*	1	1	2	5
2	Pelletier, Yannick	2574	0	0	*	1	1	4
4	Polgar, Judit	2696	0	0	0	*	0	1
4 players Geneva Masters GpB Geneva SUI Mon 24th Jun 2013 - Sun 30th Jun 2013 Leading Final Round 3 Standings: Rk Name Rtg 1 2 3 4 Pts TB1 1 Nakamura, Hikaru 2784 * 1 1 1 3 8 2 Bacrot, Etienne 2725 0 * 1 1 2 6 3 Kosteniuk, Alexandra 2489 0 0 * 1 1 3 4 Edouard, Romain 2666 0 0 0 * 0 1 4 players  In the Open, two chess femmes finished in the top 10: Geneva Open A 2013 Geneva SUI Mon 24th Jun 2013 - Sun 30th Jun 2013 Leading Final Round 9 Standings: Rk Name Ti FED Rtg Pts TB1 TB2 TB3 1 Cornette Matthieu GM FRA 2578 8.0 42.0 55.5 2724 2 Bauer Christian GM FRA 2637 8.0 39.0 54.5 2730 3 Hambleton Aman IM CAN 2461 6.5 35.0 53.5 2455 4 Cherniaev Alexander GM RUS 2447 6.0 33.5 51.5 2427 5 Manea Alexandru IM ROU 2389 6.0 30.0 48.5 2423 6 Mamedjarova Turkan WGM AZE 2249 6.0 29.0 49.0 2339 7 Le Roux Jean-Pierre GM FRA 2576 5.5 33.0 55.5 2468 8 Bondar Yevgen SUI 2307 5.5 31.0 53.0 2417 9 Mamedjarova Zeinab WGM AZE 2264 5.5 30.0 51.5 2340

WGM Deysi Cori and her brother both played in the 21st Montacado Open (101 players):

21st Montcada Open Montcada i Reixac ESP Tue 25th Jun 2013 - Wed 3rd Jul 2013 Leading Final Round 9 Standings:
Rk	Name	Ti	FED	Rtg	Pts	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Flores Rios Mauricio	GM	CHI	2492	7.5	40.5	0.0	40.0
2	Cabrera Alexis	GM	ESP	2525	7.0	36.5	0.0	37.0
3	Cori Jorge	GM	PER	2549	7.0	35.5	0.0	38.5
4	Gleizerov Evgeny	GM	RUS	2553	7.0	34.0	0.0	35.5
5	Burmakin Vladimir	GM	RUS	2575	6.5	36.0	0.0	42.0
6	Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter	GM	ROU	2667	6.5	34.0	0.0	39.5
7	Cuartas Jaime Alexander	GM	COL	2484	6.5	33.5	0.0	37.0
8	Guerra Mendez Jose Angel	IM	CUB	2505	6.5	30.5	0.0	34.0
9	Saptarshi Roy	IM	IND	2447	6.5	29.0	0.0	34.5
10	Ortiz Suarez Isan Reynaldo	GM	CUB	2612	6.0	35.0	0.0	42.5
11	Ulibin Mikhail	GM	RUS	2523	6.0	30.5	0.0	35.0
12	Fluvia Poyatos Jordi	IM	ESP	2445	6.0	29.0	0.0	33.0
13	Anurag Mhamal	FM	IND	2401	6.0	27.5	0.0	30.5
14	Cruz Cristhian	GM	PER	2499	5.5	31.5	0.0	36.5
15	Cori T. Deysi	WGM	PER	2437	5.5	31.0	0.0	36.0

If I were the organizers, I would consider coming up with a somewhat different name for this tournament (45 players).  Okay, it's probably just in American English that "Lazy" is lazy (meaning something similar to no-account slothfulness) - sorry, I couldn't resist!

9th Lazy Open 2013 Lazy POL Sat 29th Jun 2013 - Mon 8th Jul 2013 Leading Final Round 9 Standings:
Rk	Name	Ti	FED	Rtg	+	Pts	TB1	TB2
1	SHISHKIN, Vadim	GM	UKR	2502	4	6.5	39.50	50.00
2	WARAKOMSKI, Tomasz	IM	POL	2488	5	6.5	38.50	46.50
3	MAJDAN-GAJEWSKA, Joanna	WGM	POL	2375	5	6.5	36.00	46.00
4	SIECIECHOWICZ, Marcin	IM	POL	2462	3	6.0	40.00	50.00
5	WEICHHOLD, Pawel	k+	POL	2382	5	6.0	39.00	49.50
6	URBAN, Klaudiusz	IM	POL	2462	4	6.0	39.00	48.50
7	ALIAVDIN, Nikolai	IM	BLR	2349	4	6.0	35.50	45.00
8	KANAREK, Marcel	IM	POL	2478	4	6.0	35.00	43.00
9	BUGALSKI, Michal	k	POL	2161	5	5.5	36.50	45.50
10	EGGINK, Ryszard	I++	POL	2121	5	5.5	35.50	46.00

WGM Joanna Majdan-Gajewska -- I'm not familiar with her but she finished plus 5 and in 3rd place overall.  Now if I could ever achieve a result like this I'd next run for President of the United States.  Holy Hathor! 


The top finishing female in the 41st World Open  took place 29th June to 7th July 2013) was IM Irina Krush. There was a 10 way tie on 6/9. Varuzhan Akobian drew with black in an Armageddon game vs Yuniesky Quesada to win the event. (113 players)

41st Annual World Op Arlington USA Sat 29th Jun 2013 - Sun 7th Jul 2013 Leading Final Round 9 Standings:
Rk	Name	Ti	Rtg	Pts
1	Akobian, Varuzhan	GM	2612	6
2	Yuniesky, Quesada	GM	2639	6
3	Bruzon Batista, Lazaro	GM	2689	6
3	Laznicka, Viktor	GM	2684	6
3	Negi, Parimarjan	GM	2634	6
3	Erenburg, Sergey	GM	2615	6
3	Gelashvili, Tamaz	GM	2572	6
3	Holt, Conrad	GM	2531	6
9	Milov, Vadim	GM	2643	5.5
10	Shankland, Sam	GM	2601	5.5
11	Panchanathan, Magesh	GM	2583	5.5
12	Ramirez, Alejandro	GM	2583	5.5
13	Mikhalevski, Victo	GM	2552	5.5
14	Shulman, Yury	GM	2542	5.5
15	Arnold, Marc Tyler	GM	2525	5.5
16	Fishbein, Alexander	GM	2504	5.5
17	Robson, Ray	GM	2628	5
18	Kacheishvili, Giorgi	GM	2588	5
19	Izoria, Zviad	GM	2574	5
20	Shabalov, Alex	GM	2553	5
21	Lenderman, Aleksandr	GM	2548	5
22	Molner, Mackenzie S	IM	2501	5
23	Yang, Darwin	IM	2485	5
24	Krush, Irina	IM	2480	5
25	Vioreanu, Bogdan	IM	2404	5
26	Neimer, Vitaly	IM	2393	5
27	Harmon-Vellotti, Luke C	FM	2368	5