Tuesday, November 16, 2010

IM Harika Dronavalli Wins Individual Bronze in Chess at the Asian Games

From The Times of IndiaHarika wins bronze in women's individual chess
IANS, Nov 16, 2010, 05.29pm IST
Harika wins bronze in women's individual chess - The Times of India

GUANGZHOU: India's Harika Dronavalli defeated Iran's [Sukandar plays for Indonesia, not Iran] Sukandar Irine Kharisma in the final and ninth round to win bronze in the women's individual chess at the Asian Games on Tuesday.

China's Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue, both grand masters, claimed the gold and silver.

Top seed Hou won eight rounds and drew one to score 8.5 points. Zhao won seven matches, drew one and lost one to finish with 7.5 points. International Master Harika, with five wins, one loss and three draws, scored 6.5 points to come third.

Harika, who was lying fourth on Monday, split points with compatriot Tania Sachdev and then playing with black pieces, she defeated Sukandar in the ninth round to move to the third place.

Harika had drawn with Nguyen Pham Le Thao of Vietnam Monday in the seventh round to take her score to five points.

Her medal chances were high after she held the strongest woman player in the world, Hou in the sixth round, after beating Atousa Pourkashiyan of Iran in the fifth.

Tania was also on five points overnight after seven rounds, following victories over Altanulzi Enkhtuul and Batchimeg Tuvshintugs of Mongolia in the last two rounds.

The two Indians after drawing their match Tuesday, were on 5.5 points.

But Tania lost to Hou in the last round Tuesday, to finish at sixth place with 5.5 points.
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Here is the final cross-table for the Women's Rapid Championship at the Asian Games (from chess-results.com):

Rk. NameRtgFED1.Rd2.Rd3.Rd4.Rd5.Rd6.Rd7.Rd8.Rd9.RdPts. TB1  TB2  TB3 
1CHNGMHou Yifan2591CHN19s15w112s14w12s13w½8s17w16s18,50,0235447,5
2CHNGMZhao Xue2474CHN23w110s17w16s11w08s½12w14w19s17,50,0233246,5
3INDIMHarika Dronavalli2525IND24w17s09s118w117w11s½4s½6w½12s16,50,0232844,5
4VIEWIMPham Le Thao Nguyen2337VIE22s116w18w11s06w19s13w½2s05w½6,00,5234850,0
5MGLWGMBathimeg Tuvshintugs2327MGL25w11s024w111s½20w16s-18s18w14s½6,00,5217744,5
6INDIMTania Sachdev2385IND31s118w115s12w04s05w+13w13s½1w05,50,0230548,5
7VIEWGMHoang Thi Bao Tram2271VIE28s13w12s019w18w015s117w11s010w½5,50,0230147,5
8QATGMZhu Chen2477QAT29s114w14s015w17s12w½1w05s013w15,50,0228549,5
9UZBWIMMuminova Nafisa2360UZB26w113s½3w023s110w14w011s117s12w05,50,0222845,0
10IRIWGMParidar Shadi2253IRI33s12w031s112w½9s020w114s½15w17s½5,50,0218341,0
11TKMWFMHallaeva Bahar2184TKM35s022w136s15w½12s019w19w029s120w15,50,0193836,0
12INAWGMSukandar Irine Kharisma2382INA30w120s11w010s½11w113s½2s014w13w05,00,0227548,0
13MGLWCMEnkhtuul Altanulzii2121MGL36s-9w½37s129w114s112w½6s018w18s05,00,0213139,5
14TKMWGMGeldyeva Mekhri2279TKM21w18s023w120s½13w030s110w½12s019s15,00,0211738,5
15KAZWIMNakhbayeva Guliskhan2209KAZ34w117s16w08s021w17w024s110s022w15,00,0208738,5
16UZBNodirjano A Nodira2149UZB27w14s026w117s025w118w022s030s124w15,00,0188435,0
17IRIWGMPourkashiyan Atousa2367IRI37s115w029s116w13s022w17s09w018s½4,50,0216139,5
18KAZWIMDauletova Gulmira2263KAZ32w16s030w13s026w116s15w013s017w½4,50,0215440,5
19SYRMir Mahmoud Afamia2010SYR1w021s125w17s030w½11s032w126s114w04,50,0198540,5
20BANWFMShamima Akter Liza2161BAN38s+12w035s114w½5s010s023w122w111s04,50,0195539,5
21JPNWFMUchida Narumi1834JPN14s019w033s131w115s029w½26s034w132s14,50,0188332,5
22MASWCMNur Nabila Azman Hisham1845MAS4w011s034w132s124w117s016w120s015s04,00,0205837,5
23IRQWIMIbrahim Delbak Ismael1929IRQ2s028w114s09w035s125w½20s031w½29w14,00,0192637,0
24BANSultana Sharmin Shirin1998BAN3s035w15s028w122s026w115w025s116s04,00,0190339,0
25SYRAl-Jeldah Fatemah0SYR5s037w119s033w116s023s½30w½24w038s14,00,0188732,0
26UAEWFMAl-Zarouni Kholoud Essa1864UAE9s027w116s036w118s024s021w119w037s14,00,0187734,5
27JORNuimat Rayah0JOR16s026s032w034s137w131w½29s038w128s½4,00,0176328,0
28JORBoshra Alshaeby1807JOR7w023s038w124s029s036w131s½33w127w½4,00,0169630,5
29MASWFMBakri Alia Anin Azwa1953MAS8w032s117w013s028w121s½27w111w023s03,50,0196437,5
30UAEWIMSaleh Nora Mohd1884UAE12s033w118s035w119s½14w025s½16w031s½3,50,0188835,0
31IRQWFMMohammed Qane jannar Worya1901IRQ6w034s110w021s032w½27s½28w½23s½30w½3,50,0182334,0
32QATWFMAl-Khelaifi Salama1761QAT18s029w027s122w031s½35w119s036w121w03,50,0171231,5
33KORWCMByun Sungwon1612KOR10w030s021w025s038w137s134w½28s036s13,50,0162328,5
34KORKim Hyoyoung1355KOR15s031w022s027w036s138w133s½21s035w13,50,0157830,0
35NEPAdhikari Asmita0NEP11w124s020w030s023w032s038s137w134s03,00,0181729,0
36MDVNusra Abdul Rahman0MDV13w-38s111w026s034w028s037w132s033w02,00,0175327,5
37NEPKhamboo Monalisa1877NEP17w025s013w038s127s033w036s035s026w01,00,0155231,0
38MDVMoomina Mohamed0MDV20w-36w028s037w033s034s035w027s025w00,00,0151225,5

Annotation:
Tie Break1: The results of the players in the same point group#results against
Tie Break2: rating average of the opponents (variabel with parameters)
Tie Break3: Buchholz Tie-Breaks (variabel with parameter)
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Temple of Diana Discovered

From adnkronos.com

Italy: Temple of goddess of virgins, wild animals, unearthed
Rome, 16 Nov. (AKI) - An almost 2,000 year-old Roman temple dedicated to Diana, the goddess of virgins and wild animals, has been unearthed in a protected park in the Italian region of Tuscany.

The ancient religious sanctuary, found in the Maremma national park is 350 square metres large, and was discovered in perfect condition by a team of Italian and other European archaeologists following a two-year dig.

Traditionally, Diana is known as the 'virgin' goddess charged with protecting women. According to mythology, Diana, along with goddesses Minerva and Vesta, swore to never marry, but the goddess is also associated with wild animals and nature, and so bears a second title of 'Diana, goddess of the hunt.'

The temple, which has some seven internal rooms, also contained several items that were unearthed during the dig including 35 oil lamps, 10 coins, a bronze dog-shaped votive, two glass vials and mosaic decorations. Three statues of Diana and her twin brother, Apollo, were also uncovered.

The temple dates between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD.
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Monday, November 15, 2010

1st Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational

Half-time report.  Er, sorry - football on the brain.  Did you HEAR the game the Badgers put on - oh, never mind.  We scored over 80 fricking points, har!  Oh - back to chess--

Check out the half-way there report at chess.com.  There are a couple of games to play through, some photographs, and of course, a cross-table, along with a description of some of the action through the mid-way point.  The tournament concludes this coming weekend.

Tatev Abrahamyan has 2.0/5 and has a real uphill battle to score a norm.  Here's the cross-table:

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Treasure! Secret Code! Undeciphered Writing!

A new novel?  No - real life, darlings!  Nothing is more amazing.  Read on...

From the northernecho.co.uk
Mystery treasure could be in forgotten medieval code
8:35am Monday 15th November 2010
By Mark Tallentire


Recovered seal, about 1 inch tall.
 AN amateur enthusiast has unearthed a mysterious treasure said to bear inscriptions from a forgotten medieval code.

Ivor Miller’s find is thought to be a medieval silver seal containing a Roman-era jewel and engraved with as-yet undeciphered lettering.

Some have speculated a medieval farm labourer may have found the Roman jewel, a semi-precious stone, and handed it to their noble or lord, who placed it into their correspondence seal.

Although it has not yet been valued, it could be worth about £2,000.

Mr Miller discovered the piece 5 in[ches] under the surface of a crop field, near Catterick, in North Yorkshire, two weeks ago.

The 43-year-old, from Ludworth, near Durham City, was searching with fellow members of the Northumberland Search Society when his metal detector picked up a strong signal.

He said: “I had found nothing all morning but then I got the signal about 1.30 p.m. I had a feeling it was something nice.

“At first I thought it was a medieval horse pendant, but when I took it back and showed it to the others, they said straight away that it was a medieval seal and it was very rare.”

Mr Miller is planning to hand over the treasure to Durham County Council officials for analysis today.

He said: “Sometimes I can go out for months and find nothing but shotgun cartridges and ringpulls.”

Although he has had an interest in history since an early age, Mr Miller only began using a metal detector about four years ago.

He goes out searching with the society once or twice every weekend, with up to 70 others.

His haul to date includes medieval and Roman coins, but he had never found anything valuable until now.
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There are probably amateur code-breakers all over the world already at work on figuring out what the mystery writing says! This is as good as a Dan Brown story...
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Amazing Discovery in "Old Europe"

A new Random Round-Up is at Goddesschess (for one week only, then it goes into the archives) - please check it out, particularly the information about the symbols from Vinca.  It's all a part of the continuing discoveries coming out of what Gimbutas called "Old Europe" and they are very very old, indeed.  This one is extremely significant.  The copper tools were discovered at a level dated to 7,000 years ago - c. 5,000 BCE!  An incredible find.

Reported at the Hindustan Times Online
World's oldest Copper Age settlement found
Indo-Asian News Service
Belgrade, November 15, 2010

A "sensational" discovery of 75-century-old copper tools in Serbia is compelling scientists to reconsider existing theories about where and when man began using metal. Belgrade - axes, hammers, hooks and needles - were found interspersed with other artefacts from a settlement that burned down some 7,000 years ago at Plocnik, near Prokuplje and 200 km south of Belgrade.

The village had been there for some eight centuries before its demise. After the big fire, its unknown inhabitants moved away. But what they left behind points to man's earliest known extraction and shaping of metal.

"It really is sensational," said Ernst Pernicka, a renowned archaeology professor at Germany's Tuebingen University who recently visited the Ploce locality.

Scientists had previously believed that the mining, extraction and manipulation of copper began in Asia Minor, spreading from there. With the find in Plocnik, parallel and simultaneous developments of those skills in several places now seem more likely, Pernicka said. [Or - heresy! - it spread from Plocnik elsewhere via "diffusion."]

Indeed, the tools discovered in southern Serbia were made some 75 centuries ago - up to eight centuries older than what has been found to date.

The site at Plocnik, believed to cover some 120 hectares in all, is buried under several metres of soil. Serbian archaeologists have so far exposed three homes - the largest of them, measuring eight by five metres, discovered this year.

The layer of earth it stood on is still blackened from the scorching heat that destroyed the village. It is unclear what caused the fire, but no damage that would indicate an outside attack has been found.

The huts collapsed on their contents, with mud bricks and ashes burying all that was inside - pottery, statues, tools and a worktable. After dusting the still embedded artefacts off, archaeologists began extracting them, most of all hoping to find more precious copper tools.

Scientists are debating whether the Plocnik village led the world to the Copper Age in the 6th millennium BC, particularly as remains of primitive copper smelters were recently found not far away, near today's mines and smelters in Majdanpek and Bor.

The find, which stems from "certainly very, very early in the Copper Age", was a very lucky one, said another expert from Tuebingen, Raiko Kraus.

The Ploce locality was discovered by railroad builders in 1927, but was largely disregarded until 1996, when serious excavations began, eventually yielding the sensational finds.

According to Krause, old settlements may similarly surface in eastern Anatolia when Turkey launches some massive earth-moving project, such as building a dam.

It remains unclear why a comparatively large quantity of copper tools were found at Plocnik. The head archaeologist on site, Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic, said that the village may have been a tool-making or trading centre.

There is also much more to be learned about the ancient inhabitants, apart from the key question of how man developed his tools.

"These people were not wild," Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic stressed, pointing to fine pieces such as statuettes. "They had finely combed hair and adorned themselves with necklaces."

One statue of a woman shows her wearing some sort of a mini skirt. Others wore long and broad scarves. Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic actually helped a Serbian fashion designer set up a show inspired by the clothes of the people who lived there millennia earlier.

Whatever remains to be found at Ploce and elsewhere, "mankind took a major step toward the modern era" during that time, Pernicka said.
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A Different Avenue of Sphinxes Grows by Twelve

I love this photograph of the excavation site - I think it says it all about working in a country as old as Egypt.  Check out the background - ancient temple on the left, what looks like "modern" construction in the center and I have no idea what that is on the right, sort of looks like a quasi-castle with crenellated walls.


[Excerpted] Mansour Boraik, Supervisor of Luxor Antiquities, indicated this is the first time a new road that runs from east to west – towards the Nile – has been found.

The total length of the road to the Nile is estimated to be about 600 metres, with 20 metres excavated so far.

These 20 metres were built from sandstone, brought in from the quarries at Gebel Silsila, north of Aswan.

“The discovery is not located within the known road of the Avenue of the Sphinxes between Karnak and Luxor Temples, but instead at the end of the newly discovered road of Nectanebo I,” explained Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA.

Dr. Hawass added that along this way the sacred boat of Amun, king of the gods, traveled on the god’s annual trip to visit his wife, Mut, at Luxor temple.

The Avenue of Sphinxes is about 2,700 meters long and 76 meters wide. Although the path was already in use during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, it was the 30th Dynasty Pharaoh Nectenabo I (380 to 362 BC) who constructed the avenue itself. He lined it with 1350 sphinxes, all inscribed with his name.

Full article at Heritage Key.
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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Those Barbarians at the Gate (see a few posts below) Are Very Very Rich

This could fall under "are you kidding me?" except it really happened.  So, ask yourself, who in China can bid over $69 million for a single vase and pay an additional 20% buyer's premium - total price over $89 million.

Report from The New York Times
Qing Dynasty Relic Yields Record Price at Auction
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 12, 2010

LONDON — As treasure-in-the-attic stories go, the 18th-century Chinese vase sold at a suburban auction house in outer London on Thursday night will be hard to beat.

The delicate, decorative 16-inch vase started at a not-inconsequential $800,000, but after a half-hour of unexpectedly spirited bidding, the gavel fell at $69.5 million. It was the highest price ever paid at auction for a Chinese antiquity.

Adding in the 20 percent buyer’s premium levied by the auction house and Britain’s value-added tax, the total came to $85.9 million. Auction insiders said the buyer was from mainland China and bid by telephone.

Of the sellers, the auction house, Bainbridge’s, said only that they were a brother and sister who had found the vase “in a dusty attic” when they were clearing out the family home in west London, near Heathrow Airport, after their parents died. The other Chinese knickknacks they found sold for as little as $65.

“They had no idea what they had,” said Helen Porter, a spokeswoman for Bainbridge’s. “They were hopeful, but they didn’t dare believe until the hammer went down. When it did, the sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air.”

The vase dated from the period of the emperor Qianlong, who reigned from 1735 to 1796, at the height of the Qing dynasty. He vastly expanded China’s western territories and left a legacy as a great patron of Chinese arts, including ceramics. Experts who have examined the vase, which bore an imperial seal, have said it was likely to have been made for one of the imperial palaces.

Ovoid in shape and predominantly pastel yellow and sky-blue in color, the vase has a narrow neck, four enameled circular motifs known as cartouches that show colorful fish and flowers, and elaborate perforations in the outer vase that give onto a smaller vase inside. It was believed to have been fired in the imperial potteries in Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi Province, west of modern-day Shanghai, which functioned for 1,000 years as the porcelain capital of China.

Ms. Porter said the sellers had no knowledge of how the vase came to be in their parents’ possession, although they believed it had been in the family since the 1930s. One theory, according to Ivan Macquisten, the editor of Antiques Trade Gazette, a British magazine, was that it could have been among the treasures looted by British troops when they sacked the imperial palaces in Beijing during the second Opium War, from 1856 to 1860.

It was one of Mr. Macquisten’s reporters who found out what little was known about the buyer.

With China’s wealth rapidly rising, mainland Chinese buyers have been a major force in pushing up the prices of Chinese antiquities, reversing, at least in small measure, the flow of Chinese artworks to the West during the centuries before the Communist revolution in 1949 — and the loss of imperial treasures when the Chinese nationalists fled the Communist victory for Taiwan, taking huge quantities of antiquities with them.

The vase’s price exceeded the record for Chinese antiquities set just last month in Hong Kong, when another Qianlong vase sold for $34.2 million.

For Bainbridge’s, the sale price of the vase represented a huge leap, putting the auction house, at least momentarily, in a league with the blue-ribbon art houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, where sales running into the tens of millions of dollars have become almost routine in recent decades. Bainbridge’s biggest sale before Thursday was $160,000 for a Ming enamel piece it sold two years ago.

The sale was held in the London suburb of Ruislip, neighboring Pinner, where the vase was found. Pinner is best known in modern times as the place where the singers Elton John and Simon Le Bon went to school.

As the auction house was trying to establish a selling price, Ms. Porter said, the vase had been taken for viewing at the Arts Club in London, where it was deposited for some time on a “metal table next to the kitchen.”

The auction house itself began to realize its rarity only when a consultant on Chinese ceramics, Luan Grocholski, was called in to evaluate it. “Luan took a long, hard look at it and could hardly believe his eyes,” Ms. Porter said.

Still, Bainbridge’s had set its presale estimate between $1.3 million and $2 million.

“We are absolutely stunned,” Ms. Porter said after the auction. “This must be one of the most important Chinese vases to be offered for sale this century. How it reached Ruislip is something we will never know, and that it is in such fine condition is amazing.

“We’re just a very typical local auction house, so as you can imagine it was something of a surprise.”
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Mummified Dogs Uncovered at Peruvian Pyramid Complex

This story reminds me of the old practice found in Europe and the ancient Middle East of burying dogs in the foundations of buildings.

From physorg.com

Mummies of 15th century dogs discovered in Peru
November 10, 2010

Peruvian archaeologists have discovered six mummified dogs, all dating from the 15th century and apparently presented as religious offerings at a major pre-Columbian site just south of Lima.

The dogs "have hair and complete teeth," said Jesus Holguin, an archaeologist at the museum in Pachacamac, located some 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Lima.

Holguin told AFP Wednesday that experts were still trying to determine their breed.

The mummified remains of four children were also found at the site, archaeologists said.

The mummified dogs were found two weeks ago wrapped in cloth and buried in one of Pachacamac's adobe brick pyramids.

Archaeologists believe the animals were offerings related to a funeral, "although we do not know if this was related to an important personality of the Inca period," said archaeologist Isabel Cornejo.

The experts believe the dogs are neither Hairless Peruvian Dogs -- an ancient native breed -- nor sheepdogs found at gravesites of the Chiribaya culture, which flourished in southern Peru between the years 900 and 1350.

"Their strong teeth lead us to believe that they are domestic dogs that were used for hunting," added another expert, Enrique Angulo.

Researchers will x-ray the finds in an attempt to determine the breed of the animals and whether the dogs were slaughtered.

Pachacamac museum director Denise Pozzi-Escot said that the find will let researchers broaden their knowledge of ancient Peruvian canines.

The remains are well preserved due to the type of soil and the dry weather along the Peruvian coastline, where it rarely rains.

At its height, Pachacamac was the most important ceremonial center on Peru's central coast, where thousands of pilgrims flocked from afar bringing rich offerings. Human sacrifices took place at the site.

At least three different societies occupied Pachacamac for hundreds before the Incas took it over around 1400. The Incas in turn were defeated by Spanish conquistadors who arrived in 1532.

(c) 2010 AFP
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New Barbarians at the Gate

Story from the DeKalb County Times-Journal Online

Chinese mine in Afghanistan threatens ancient find
Posted: Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:17 pm
Heidi Vogt, The Associated Press

MES AYNAK, Afghanistan (AP) - It was another day on the rocky hillside, as archaeologists and laborers dug out statues of Buddha and excavated a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery. A Chinese woman in slacks, carrying an umbrella against the Afghan sun, politely inquired about their progress.

She had more than a passing interest. The woman represents a Chinese company eager to develop the world's second-biggest unexploited copper mine, lying beneath the ruins.

The mine is the centerpiece of China's drive to invest in Afghanistan, a country trying to get its economy off the ground while still mired in war. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine - the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan by far - gets its foot in the door for future deals to exploit Afghanistan's largely untapped mineral wealth, including iron, gold, and cobalt. The Afghan government stands to reap a potential $1.2 billion a year in revenues from the mine, as well as the creation of much-needed jobs.

But Mes Aynak is caught between Afghanistan's hopes for the future and its history. Archaeologists are rushing to salvage what they can from a major 7th Century B.C. religious site along the famed Silk Road connecting Asia and the Middle East. The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as "stupas," will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins.

Hanging over the situation is the memory of the Buddhas of Bamiyan - statues towering up to 180 feet high in central Afghanistan that were dynamited to the ground in 2001 by the country's then-rulers, the Taliban, who considered them symbols of paganism.

No one wants to be blamed for similarly razing history at Mes Aynak, in the eastern province of Logar. The Chinese government-backed China Metallurgical Group Corp., or MCC, wanted to start building the mine by the end of 2011. But under an informal understanding with the Kabul government, it has has given archaeologists three years for a salvage excavation.

Archaeologists working on the site since May say that won't be enough time for full preservation.

"That site is so massive that it's easily a 10-year campaign of archaeology," said Laura Tedesco, an archaeologist brought in by the U.S. Embassy to work on sites in Afghanistan. Three years may be enough time just to document what's there, she said.

Philippe Marquis, a French archaeologist advising the Afghans, said the salvage effort is piecemeal and "minimal," held back by lack of funds and personnel.

Around 15 Afghan archaeologists, three French advisers and a few dozen laborers are working within the 2-sq. kilometer (0.77 sq.-mile) area - a far smaller team than the two dozen archaeologists and 100 laborers normally needed for a site of such size and richness.

"This is probably one of the most important points along the Silk Road," said Marquis. "What we have at this site, already in excavation, should be enough to fill the (Afghan) national museum."

The monastery complex has been dug out, revealing hallways and rooms decorated with frescoes and filled with clay and stone statues of standing and reclining Buddhas, some as high as 10 feet tall. An area that was once a courtyard is dotted with stupas standing four or five feet high.

More than 150 statues have been found so far, though many remain in place. Large ones are too heavy to be moved, and the team lacks the chemicals needed to keep small ones from disintegrating when extracted.

MCC appears to be pushing the archaeologists to finish ahead of schedule. In July, the archaeologists received a letter from the company asking that parts of the dig be wrapped up by August and the rest to be done by the end of 2010.

A copy of the letter - signed by MJAM, the acronym for the joint venture in charge of the mine, MCC-JCL Aynak Minerals Co. - was provided to The Associated Press by the head of the archaeological team. MCC and MJAM officials did not respond to requests for comment.

August has come and gone, and excavations at Mes Aynak continue. But the Afghan archaeologist overseeing the dig said he has no idea when MCC representatives might tell him his work is over. So he tries not to think about deadlines.

"We would like to work according to our principles. If we don't work according to the principles of archaeology, then we are no different from traffickers," Abdul Rauf Zakir said.

The team hopes to lift some of the larger statues and shrines out before winter sets in this month, but they still haven't procured the crane and other equipment needed.

Mes Aynak, 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Kabul, lies in a province that is still considered a major transit route for insurgents coming from Pakistan. In July, two U.S. sailors were kidnapped and killed in Logar. Around 1,500 Afghan police guard the mine site and the road.

Promised funding from foreign governments has yet to materialize. The Afghan government has alloted $2 million for the dig and is trying to find another $5-10 million, said Deputy Culture Minister Omar Sultan.

The United States has promised funding but hasn't yet figured out how much, said a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, Mireille Zieseniss.

Mes Aynak's religious sites and copper deposits have been bound together for centuries - "mes" means "copper" in the local Dari language. Throughout the site's history, artisanal miners have dug up copper to adorn statues and shrines.

Afghan archaeologists have known since the 1960s about the importance of Mes Aynak, but almost nothing had been excavated. When the Chinese won the contract to exploit the mine in 2008, there was no discussion with Kabul about the ruins - only about money, security and building a railroad to transport the copper out of Logar's dusty hills.

But a small band of Afghan and French archaeologists raised a stir and put the antiquities on the agenda.

The mine could be a major boost for the Afghan economy. According to the Afghan Mining Ministry, it holds some 6 million tons of copper (5.52 million metric tons), worth tens of billions of dollars at today's prices. Developing the mine and related transport infrastructure will generate much needed jobs and economic activity.

Waheedullah Qaderi, a Mining Ministry official working on the antiquities issue, said MCC shares the government goal of protecting heritage while starting mining as soon as possible.

A good resolution is important for MCC "because it is their first-ever project in Afghanistan," Qaderi said. MCC is expected to make an offer for another lucrative mineral prize - the Hajigak iron mine in central Afghanistan, estimated to hold 1.9 billion tons (1.8 billion metric tonnes) of iron ore. Kabul opened bidding to develop the mine in late September and is expected to award the contract late this year or in early 2011.

Still, a diplomat briefed on internal meetings says MCC has pressured Kabul to stop archaeologists from looking for new places to dig beyond the 12 sites already found. The diplomat spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Marquis said MCC has been cooperative and has helped the archaeologists, hauling dirt away and asking what more needs to be done.

Zakir, the Afghan archaeologist, laughs. "Yes, they are very helpful. They want to help so that we can finish quickly. They want us gone."
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Ancient Egyptians Tracked the Big Dipper

Horus applying the 'peshenkepf'' to
the deceased's mummy in the Opening
of the Mouth Ceremony.
The constellation we call the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) was very important in the iconography of the ancient Egyptians having to to with their death-to-life rites and rituals.  As the article below points out, the ancient Egyptians viewed Ursa Major as a shape similar to a ox's leg.  In many surviving tomb paintings these legs of meat were almost always present - but probably the representation served multiple purposes:  first, as what it appeared to be - an offering of food for the deceased's dining table; second, as a representation of the Imperisable Stars embodied in Ursa Major; and third, possibly as a representation of Hathor, the very old mother goddess who sometimes was represented as a sacred cow or a woman with a cow's head and horns.  I want to also point out that the tool used in the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony is shaped just like an ox's leg - another representation of the Big Dipper.  The ancient Egyptians were very clever at using one symbol to represent many things. 


From newkerala.com
2,400 yr-old star table reveals secrets of ancient Egyptian 'star-gazing'

London, Nov 11 : The Ancient Egyptians kept close tabs on the Big Dipper, monitoring changes in the constellation's orientation throughout the course of an entire year, a new research on a 2,400 year old star table has shown.

Faience ox-shaped
Egyptian amulets,
c. 500 BCE.
The Big Dipper is composed of seven stars and is easily viewable in the northern hemisphere. Its shape looks like a ladle with a scoop attached. Ancient Egyptians represented it as an ox''s foreleg.

If a person were to observe the constellation at the exact same time every night they would see it gradually move counter-clockwise each time they saw it.

Professor Sarah Symons, of McMaster University in Hamilton Canada, carried out the new research. The star table she analyzed is located inside the lid of a 2,400 year old granite sarcophagus, constructed in the shape of a bull, which is now in the Egyptian Museum, reports The Heritage Key.

The table is, "unique, though interesting, a very provocative astronomical object," she said.

Indeed the sarcophagus dates to the 30th dynasty, an important period in Egyptian history. It is the last point of time in antiquity where Egypt would be ruled by native born rulers.

Inside the sarcophagus there is an astronomical table, a section of which has rows that show the foreleg of an ox in a wide range of different positions. "It''s quite a jumble," Symons said.

This section, although confusing to read, includes notation for the three Egyptian seasons, Akhet, Peret and Shemu. Each season is broken down into four months. It also has symbols representing the beginning, middle and end of the night - although it isn''t known at what exact time these points would have been set.

"(Its) location throughout the course of the night, across the course of the year, was important for them to report."

Symons decided to focus on the orientation of the forelegs, re-drawing them as arrows. When she did this a pattern started to appear.

"In general the motion that it follows is the counter-clockwise motion that we would expect."

But there were problems. Over the course of a year the forelegs sometimes went the wrong way - as if the stars had stopped obeying the rules of astronomy. She believes that this was a scribal error, caused by someone writing down the information in the wrong format.

When the observations were first made they were written on papyrus and the months were probably organized into columns. On the other hand they were written in as rows on the sarcophagus.

"What happens to our table if we just keep all the months together?" And work with them as columns, she wondered. She found that the table had fewer errors and the information fell into place.

"Overall the motion is counter-clockwise throughout the year in general," she said.

The results were presented at an Egyptology symposium in Toronto.


--ANI
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1st Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational

A norm event, being held November 12-14 and 20-21, 2010.  WFM Tatev Abrahamyan, two-time winner of the Goddesschess Fighting Chess Award for her performances at U.S. Women's Chess Championships, is vying for an IM norm.  Ankit Gupta sent me several photographs of R1 action.  Thanks!

IM Enrico Sevillano
Konstantin Kavutskiy




















Roman Yanovsky

WFM Tatev Abrahamyan



















First round results:

Tatev Abrahamyan (1) - Konstantin Kavutskiy (0)
Ankit Gupta (0) - Zhanibek Amanov (1)
Enrico Sevillano (1/2) - Joel Banawa (1/2)
Timothy Taylor (0) - Roman Yankovsky (1)

Round 2 results:

Kretchetov - Amanov 1/2
Yankovsky - Sevillano 1/2
Banawa - Gupta 1/2
Kavutskiy - Taylor 1-0
Manukyan - Abrahamyan 1/2
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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ilkley Moor Stone Carvings to be Preserved in 3D

Story from BBC News
Prehistoric Ilkley Moor carvings to be preserved in 3D
Monday, 8 November 2010

Prehistoric carvings on Ilkley Moor are to be preserved with help from the latest technology so future generations will be able to enjoy and study them.

An Ilkley Moor rock carving.  Mancala, anyone?
Archaeologists hope to create digital 3D models of the carvings amid fears the originals could be eroded away.

Community archaeologist Gavin Edwards said this was an important development.

He said: "We have the opportunity to create three-dimensional models so they can be studied in the future as they exist in the landscape itself."

The carvings were made in what is known as the Mesolithic - or Middle Stone Age - era which started at the end of the last ice age in about 10,000 BC.

It is thought they were made by some of the first hunter-gatherers to reach what is now Ilkley Moor - an area which now has the highest concentration of Mesolithic sites in the world.

Human interaction

Gavin Edwards explained: "What we have is a dense concentration of evidence telling us about how the very first people who moved back into this area were exploiting the landscape and how they were surviving.

"They are part of the story of how human interaction with their surroundings started to change the very appearance of the landscape."

The Prehistoric Carved Rocks project has been launched by Pennine Prospects, an organisation dedicated to the regeneration of the South Pennines.


More carvings at Ilkley Moor
 The project's aim is to ensure that even if the original carvings erode away due to the effects of the weather they will still available for study in centuries to come.

Gavin Edwards said it was all down to the latest technology that the project could be launched.

He said: "Up until now the only way we have been able to represent them is in two dimensions.

"But a new technique has become available to us whereby we can photograph them with digital images.

"Then, then there is a very complicated piece of software which can combine the images to produce a three-dimensional model of the actual carvings."

Volunteers are now being urged to come forward to join in the Prehistoric Carved Rocks project in Ilkley.

They will be given the chance to find out more about the project and register their interest.

Training sessions

In the coming months, training sessions covering surveying, recording and photographic techniques will take place.

It it is hoped volunteers will then be able to put all these skills into action on Ilkley Moor over the next three years.

Volunteer Eddie Nash said he thought it was well worth getting involved for a number of reasons.

He explained: "It is an interest I have. I find it fascinating looking back and trying to understand how our ancestors lived and developed and gave us what we have today.

"It is the usual situation where people do not understand and use what they have on their own doorstep.

"Once you start to make them aware of things, they are very surprised about what is to be found."
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Cohokia Mounds

A new article revisits Cohokia Mounds State Historic Park, a World Heritage site, located in southern Illinois at Collinsville (USA) a short distance across the mighty Mississippi  from St. Louis, Missouri.  At its height around 1200 CE, the city was populated by as many as 50,000 people (larger than London) and the great pyramid was 4 blocks square and 10 stories tall, including an expansive wooden temple on top dedicated to the Sun God - larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt.

Cahokia Mounds and the remnants of a sprawling metropolis
November 12th, 2010 1:22 pm PT.
Brad Olsen, San Francisco Examiner Sacred Sites Travel Examiner

An artist's depiction of part of Cohokia Mounds.
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Pythagoras' Math More Than 1,000 Years Before He Was Born

From Art Daily:

Saturday November 13, 2010
Ancient Tablets Reveal Mathematical Achievements of Ancient Babylonian Culture

Tablet Plimpton 322, a table of Pythagorean triangles
a(2) + b(2) = c(2) 1,000 years before the Theorem existed
NEW YORK, NY.- An illuminating exhibition of thirteen ancient Babylonian tablets, along with supplemental documentary material, opens at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) on November 12, 2010. Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics reveals the highly sophisticated mathematical practice and education that flourished in Babylonia—present-day Iraq—more than 1,000 years before the time of the Greek sages Thales and Pythagoras, with whom mathematics is traditionally said to have begun.

The tablets in the exhibition, at once beautiful and enlightening, date from the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1900–1700 BCE). They have been assembled from three important collections: the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; and the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University.

Before Pythagoras has been curated by Alexander Jones, ISAW Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity, and ISAW visiting scholar Christine Proust, historian of mathematics and ancient sciences at the Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, in Marseille. The exhibition remains on view at ISAW through December 17, 2010.

Jennifer Chi, ISAW director for exhibitions and public programs, states, “It has long been widely recognized that many of the critical achievements of Western Civilization, including writing and the code of law that is the basis for our present-day legal system, developed in ancient Mesopotamia. However, the stunningly advanced state of mathematics in this region has largely been known only to scholars. By demonstrating the richness and sophistication of ancient Mesopotamian mathematics, Before Pythagoras adds an important dimension to the public knowledge of the history of historic cultures and attainments of present-day Iraq.”

Babylonian mathematics is known to the modern world through the work of scribes, primarily young men who, coming from wealthy families in which literacy and professional expertise were handed down through generations, were formally trained in reading and writing. Destined to work in such fields as accounting, building-project planning, and other professions in which mathematics is essential, the scribes learned and practiced mathematics by copying symbols and solving problems—some practical, others theoretical—such as those seen in the tablets in the exhibition.

Alexander Jones notes, “The evidence we have for Old Babylonian mathematics is amazing not only in its abundance, but also in its range, from basic arithmetic to really challenging problems and investigations. And since the documents are the actual manuscripts of the scribes, not copies selected and edited by later generations, we feel as if we were looking over their shoulders as they work; we can even see them getting confused and making mistakes. Recent research has made this human dimension very vivid, using archeological evidence to re-imagine the schools and the process of teaching and learning. Moreover, the contents of the tablets are still recognizable, as they continue to be taught in contemporary mathematics.”

The tablets in Before Pythagoras, inscribed in cuneiform script, cover the full spectrum of mathematical activity, from arithmetical tables copied by scribes-in-training to sophisticated work on topics that today would be classified as number theory and algebra. In so doing, they illuminate three major themes: arithmetic exploiting a notation of numbers based entirely on two basic symbols; the scribal schools of Nippur, which was the most prestigious center of scribal education; and advanced mathematical training.

Many of the problems solved by scribes at the advanced level of training were in fact much more difficult than any they would have to deal with in their careers, and their solutions depended on principles that, before the rediscovery of the Babylonian tablets, were believed to have been discovered by the Greeks of the sixth century BCE and later. One of the tablets, for example, is an extremely unusual diagram showing a square with its two diagonals and three numbers that demonstrate that what we call the Pythagorean Theorem existed 1,000 years before Pythagoras lived. The content of other tablets ranges from mathematical tables for training, to practical calculations for professionals, to abstract algebraic problems.

The meaning of these and other tablets from the Old Babylonian Period were first elucidated by mathematician and historian of science Otto Neugebauer (1899–1990), who spent some two decades, beginning in the 1920s, transcribing and interpreting tablets that had come to light in ancient Mesopotamia since the nineteenth century. It is his pioneering research, as well as the work of his associates, rivals, and successors, that revealed to modern scholars the period’s rich culture of mathematics. Before Pythagoras includes a selection of manuscripts and correspondence, on loan from the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey), that offers a glimpse of Neugebauer’s methods and his central role in this “heroic age” of scientific discovery.

In order to enable visitors to appreciate the cuneiform tablets more fully, ISAW has developed an extended exhibition pamphlet that will guide viewers in reading cuneiform numbers. The exhibition features a content-rich website.
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Karpov-Hou Match

Former World Chess Champion GM Anatoly Karpov won the match (November 6 - 11, 2010, Sanya, Hainan, China) against a Chinese chess star GM Hou Yifan:  3.5/2.5.  The following information is courtesy of Susan Polgar's chess blog:

Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619 3½
Hou Yifan g CHN 2591 2½

Day 1 (6 November 2010): Game 1 Hou Yifan g CHN 2591 0-1 Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619

Day 2 (7 November 2010): Game 2 Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619 ½-½ Hou Yifan g CHN 2591

Day 3 (8 November 2010): Game 3 Hou Yifan g CHN 2591 ½-½ Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619

Day 4 (9 November 2010): Rest Day

Day 5 (10 November 2010): Game 4 Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619 ½-½ Hou Yifan g CHN 2591

Day 6 (11 November 2010): 2 Rapid games

Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619 ½-½ Hou Yifan g CHN 2591
Hou Yifan g CHN 2591 ½-½ Anatoly Karpov g RUS 2619

Source: http://blog.sina.com.cn/chessnews
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