Tomb of Shangguan Wan'er, 664-710 CE, Discovered in China!

What a great discovery!  I am not familiar with written Chinese herstory, but it seems that during the Tang and Song Dynasties, in particular, women played important roles not only in family matters and behind-the-scenes in politics, they also served important official roles at the royal courts.  This is, perhaps, reflected in xiang qi (Chinese chess) in excavated pieces dating to the Song Dynasty that have female advisors ("guards"), which hold the place of a queen on western chess boards, but with the 9x9 board, flank the General on either side. 

In xiang qi, played on a 9 x 9 board, the pieces are placed on the intersections of the squares themselves, not inside the squares as pieces are placed in western chess.  There are 9 pieces across the back rank on each side and only one General (western chess equivalent is the King).  There is no "queen" in xiang qi as we know her in western chess.  Therefore, the presence of those female
advisors or guards in that Tang Dynasty era chess pieces is all the more important and perhaps indicative of the important positions women held in Tang and Song Dynasty courts.

Chinese archaeology has confirmed in many instances what ancient historians (from the east and the west) wrote about -- the presence of powerful female empresses or queens, duchesses, and consorts of high-ranking officials and nobles.  And now we have the tomb of Shangguan Wan'er of the early Tang Dynasty!  It was a time of expanding contacts between the East and the West, when the Tang emperors sent out missions to establish trade and diplomatic contacts with western cities and empires. Cultural exchange flourished and ideas, goods and people flowed both ways across the ancient Silk Road, as well as on the seas.

Not very good images of those Song Dynasty xiang qi pieces showing the female guard piece (there would have been at least two for one color of pieces) can be found at a Chinese Chess Art Gallery at Yutopian online. 

From BBC News
2 September 2013 Last updated at 06:29 ET

China finds ancient tomb of 'female prime minister'

The ancient tomb of a female politician in China, described as the country's "female prime minister", has been discovered, Chinese media say.

The tomb of Shangguan Wan'er, who lived from 664-710 AD, was recently found in Shaanxi province. Archaeologists confirmed the tomb was hers this week.

She was a famous politician and poet who served empress Wu Zetian, China's first female ruler.  However, the tomb was badly damaged, reports said.

The grave was discovered near an airport in Xianyang, Shaanxi province, reports said.  A badly damaged epitaph on the tomb helped archaeologists confirm that the tomb was Shangguan Wan'er's, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Experts described the discovery as one of "major significance", even though it had been subject to "large-scale damage".

"The roof had completely collapsed, the four walls were damaged, and all the tiles on the floor had been lifted up," Geng Qinggang, an archaeology research associate in Shaanxi, told Chinese media. 
"Hence, we think it must have been subject to large-scale, organised damage... quite possibly damage organised by officials," he said.

Shangguan Wan'er was a trusted aide of Wu Zetian, who ruled during China's prosperous Tang dynasty. She [Empress Wu Zetian] was killed in a palace coup in 710 AD.

Her [Sjangguan Wan'er's] story has intrigued many in China, and has even inspired a TV series.

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

Oh yeah, Wu Zetian was much hated for many years both before and after she took the Chinese throne for herself and was ultimately, finally, shoved aside in her old age.  When her husband died, she took control of the throne in place of a, frankly, idiotic son who played the role of puppet for many ambitious men behind the scenes, along with many ambitious concubines of the deceased emperor touting their own sons as potential worthy heirs to the throne.  See what kind of trouble happens when a man can't keep his penis inside his pants - ha!  But Wu Zetian outfoxed them all for a good 40 years or more. She was replaced on the throne, but not killed, and died a short time thereafter at the age of 80. The Dynasty died within a generation of Wu Zetian.  You can find a lot of information online about Empress Wu Zetian, here are some interesting links:

Empress Wu Zetian, from Women in World History
Empress Wu Zetian, from Wikipedia
Yeah, she wasn't a very nice lady sometimes...

For more information on Shangguan Wan'er:

Wikipedia
Tomb of China's woman prime minister Shangguan Wan'er, from The Daily Mail online (video in Chinese)
Huffington Post news report from September 12, 2013

Hales Corners Chess Challenge XVIII

Hola Darlings!

I cannot believe it, but Challenge XVIII will soon be here -- October 12, 2013 in Milwaukee, four games in one day.  Whew!

Goddesschess, which these days is reduced to moi (low in number but mighty in spirit), is once again sponsoring prizes for the chess femmes as well as a separate $50 prize for best game (anyone can enter), to spread a little love just in case a chess dude should have the best game.  Now who will judge the best game and all that, I leave that entirely to the folks at Southwest Chess Club.  I HEART Southwest Chess Club!

When Goddesschess was more than just me, way back at Challenge VIII, we put up our first modest amount of prize money.  So, Challenge XVIII is - get this - the 11th Challenge (not the 10th -- count it on your fingers if you do not believe me) to which we/I have provided prize money.  Whoop whoop! 

Link to flyer for more information!

Two or three or four Challenges ago (I forget, my memory isn't so good these days, damn it all!), I started a little bit extra for the chess femmes by creating gift bags for the top female finisher in each of the Open and Reserve Sections.  This year, the tradition continues! 

Let me tell you, it's no easy task scouring the internet and local stores for suitable chessly items.  But I love the challenge.  And I succeeded in finding some new chessly gifts for the femmes, which I sincerely hope they will enjoy! 

Will I be up to the challenge of playing in the Challenge?  Ahem, bad pun, yes.  Frankly, maybe not.  As some of you may know, my health has not been the best since last summer.  What I have doesn't go away, it is controlled at best, and right now it is not controlled despite the efforts of a cardiologist and an electrophysiologist, and if that isn't a mouthful I don't know what is.  Angry and frustrated am I, yes.  I will probably have to undergo another heart zapping procedure in an attempt to get my heart back into a normal rhythm.  The first one, done in November 2012 not a month after much loved Don McLean (my Mr. Don) died from a similar ailment, did not last more than six months.  Argggghhhh! 

I have, nonetheless, stuck to my pledge made this spring to train relentlessly and try to improve my OTB game.  Well, I'm not so sure I've improved any.  In fact, at times I think I have regressed and play worse now than I did years ago.  EEK!  But I persevere, darlings, I persevere.  Not much else to say, except

BE THERE OR BE ROUND!  HAR :))))

Get it? Not square, because square represents the 64 squares (plus one) of the chessboard, and that is tres cool.  We WANT to be square!  Well, technically I suppose ancient Byzantine Zatrikion, played on a round board, was a derivative form of chess.  But who the heck knows that who reads this blog -- probably no one, ha ha ha !  Okay, enough wine for tonight...

Does anybody really know what time it is:

British/German 19th Century Chess Propaganda Continues Unabated!

Read this article with several grains of salt on your tongue and try not to gag, it is so full of stinky garbage -- a  veritable charnel house of odiferous nonsense!

From Gulf News Online, Weekend Review

Chess: a chequered history

How chess explains the rise and decline of the empires and superpowers

By John Arquilla

Published: 21:30 September 5, 2013

Oh for GODDESS' SAKE!  I can't believe that after so many years of publishing the TRUTH about the real meaning of the term shah mat, writers who should know better are still publishing the bullshit that shah mat means "the King is dead."

What sheer utter nonsense!  I wrote about this TEN FRIGGING YEARS AGO, people!  Here's a link to my article at Goddesschess (the website).  Read the truth of the matter, please! 

The original term shah mat -- the oldest that we know of in a written text as far as I'm aware, from an ancient Persian epic, no less -- was in an ancient Persian language, NOT ARABIC!  Shah is a Persian word - NOT ARABIC!  The phrase was Persian, NOT ARABIC!  When the Arabs conquered Persia in the 7th century CE, they didn't know a Shah mat from a hole in the ground!  And they didn't know chess, either.  By coincidence, mat in Arabic means dead or death.  Hence, lots of 19th century Germans and English "historians" were eager to jump to the WRONG CONCLUSION that the phrase meant -- la da la da.  THEY - WERE - WRONG! 

The Arabs got chess from the Persians.  The Arabs renamed some pieces because they had difficulties pronouncing some of the Persian namess for the pieces, and substituted names that made sense to them in their culture at the time.  But the Shah always remained the Shah. He was still the Shah when the last of a long line of actual Shahs was overthrown by the Islamic Nazis in Iran in 1979 and a couple hundred Americans were held captive by the Islamic Nazis for over a year.   Remember that, do you? 

Consider this -- the king piece was NOT NAMED RAJA(H) when the Arabs conquered Persia and adopted the game of chess from them, which one would think would be the case if the game had originated in northwest India (Pakistan).  It was only much later, in about the 11th century CE, that abundant references begin to appear in Indian literature and references, including art work, to chess, and the Indians renamed the king to what they called their kings at the time - Raja(h).  Duh!  How difficult is that to follow, heh? 

While many 19th century German and English chess "historians" claimed that the Persians got chess from the Indians, many prominent scholars and historians have (sometimes vehemently) contested that claim over the years and provided evidence to support their own hypotheses about the origins of chess.  China has been proposed by several researchers; Persia has been proposed by others.  Goddesschess' Don McLean (may he rest in peace), thought it likely the original inspirations and symbolism that ultimately culminated in the game of chess arose out of ancient Egypt.  Unfortunately, while Don was a wonderful speaker who could captivate an audience, he was not a very good writer, and when he unexpected passed away in October, 2012, what he did have in writing was locked away on his trusty old Mac notebook, in storage since his death. 

Most of the counter-vailing hypotheses and evidence put forth have been ignored by supporters of the 19th century school of thought because, frankly, they cannot come up with convincing counter-arguments to shore up the hoary old hypotheses (accepted as Gospel Truth for so many years) proposed by H.J.R. Murray in his "A History of Chess."

Today, some Indian scholars have their own reputations and vested interests to protect since they backed the German hypothesis of "chess out of India" seconded by Murray, and are not actually interested in uncovering the truth; they are as eager as the Germans to pooh-pooh anything counter to their own pet hypotheses and conclusions drawn therefrom.  Reputations and money are at stake.

Who'd have thunk that such an esoteric subject that 99.9% of the world's population doesn't give a bloody damn about could generate such controversy and fire!  WHHOOOOSSSHHHH! 

Don't fall for the standard line of crap that:

(1) Chess is a war game (it was not initially, at all, but it did evolve into a SUBSTITUTE for war, based upon the ancient Persian tradition of the King's Champion or RUHKH  -- does that name ring any bells with you?  RUHKH was a war charioteer, and in today's western chess we call the piece the Rook or Castle.  And that herstory is mighty interesting how that switcheroo came about).

(2) Chess was invented in India (it wasn't).

(3) Shah mat (in English, checkmate) means "the King is dead" (it doesn't).

Possibly of Interest to Collectors: Skyline Chess - London (Needs Funding to Bring to Market - Check It Out)

Hmmm....  I don't know if this set will ever make it to production.  Some collector(s) might want to consider pursuing the prototype, which looks pretty dang cool!

From Realty Today (of all places!)

Posted by Rapti Gupta on Sep 06, 2013 03:40 AM EDT

Checkmate: 'Skyline Chess' Casts London’s Architecture into Board Pieces

Remember how a whole island in Japan was turned into the board game "Game of Life"? [Really? I never knew that!] Something similar is happening in London. Recently, a couple of London-based architects decided to combine their passion for the game of chess and architecture and converted the chessboard pieces to resemble the London skyline, literally.
The 3D printed prototype of the game called "Skyline Chess" shows 'hand cast chessmen based on the iconic buildings of London'. The two architects, Chris Posser and Ian Flood, took to KickStarter to fund the project and commercialize the unique chess set.

The ambitious designers don't want to stop at London. If the London one does well, they hope to create games where one can play city vs. city, for ex: New York vs. Rome, Dubai vs. Shanghai, etc.

In the Skyline Chess set, each piece of the game will be represented by a famous building of London. While a common two story residence will signify the pawn, the 50 St Mary Axe or the Gherkin will be the bishop (as its shape suits the piece). The knight will be portrayed by the London Eye and the rook by the historic Big Ben. The London Shard will play the queen and the Canary Wharf building will signify the king.

A lot of thought and detail went into developing the pieces. The chessmen were conceptualized over a few games of chess and 'were scaled to best represent the quality of the chosen building'.

Their KickStarter page reads:

Our vision is to take our prototype chess set and bring it to market. We are currently in discussions with manufacturers and we hope to be able to market the sets in a weighted acrylic as well as cast them in metal.

However, this project will only be funded if at least $39,000 is pledged by September 26. You can back the creation to win customized stuff and also get a mention on their website.

There is a video at the article link (title at beginning of post). 

European Individual Women's Chess Championship 2013

From The Week in Chess and the official website (check it out - lots of photographs of the action and interviews with the chess femmes, among other things). 

169 players.  Here are the top finishers only (see The Week in Chess for full table):

ch-EUR Ind w 2013 Belgrade SRB Tue 23rd Jul 2013 - Sat 3rd Aug 2013 Leading Final Round 11 Standings:
Rk	Name	Ti	FED	Rtg	Pts	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	Hoang Thanh Trang	GM	HUN	2467	9.0	2421	73.0	79.0
2	Melia Salome	IM	GEO	2428	8.0	2452	72.5	77.0
3	Mkrtchian Lilit	IM	ARM	2454	8.0	2404	70.5	75.5
4	Cmilyte Viktorija	GM	LTU	2497	8.0	2393	68.5	73.5
5	Kosteniuk Alexandra	GM	RUS	2489	8.0	2393	67.0	71.5
6	Khotenashvili Bela	IM	GEO	2512	8.0	2388	69.0	74.5
7	Socko Monika	GM	POL	2435	8.0	2360	65.0	69.5
8	Kashlinskaya Alina	WGM	RUS	2334	7.5	2433	69.5	73.0
9	Arabidze Meri	WGM	GEO	2320	7.5	2432	73.5	77.5
10	Pogonina Natalija	WGM	RUS	2478	7.5	2407	68.0	72.5
11	Kovanova Baira	WGM	RUS	2371	7.5	2398	70.0	74.5
12	Muzychuk Anna	GM	SLO	2594	7.5	2393	69.0	73.5
13	Girya Olga	WGM	RUS	2437	7.5	2391	69.5	75.0
14	Stefanova Antoaneta	GM	BUL	2497	7.5	2362	65.0	70.0
15	Ozturk Kubra	WGM	TUR	2293	7.5	2360	65.0	69.0
16	Cramling Pia	GM	SWE	2523	7.5	2356	64.5	70.0
17	Javakhishvili Lela	IM	GEO	2465	7.5	2324	59.0	63.5
18	Atalik Ekaterina	IM	EUR	2430	7.5	2319	59.0	63.5
19	Milliet Sophie	IM	FRA	2396	7.5	2298	60.5	65.0
20	Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan	GM	SCO	2385	7.5	2280	59.0	63.5

Good to see IM Salome Melia doing so well - and she looks fabulous too!  Melia was a WGM at the time we brought her from Europe to participate in the 2009 City of Montreal Chess Championships, and a city fell in love with her.  Best of all, she earned a second GM norm, whoop whoop! 

It seems like yesterday when Hoang Thanh Trang was a shy teenager with a bad haircut and thick glasses.  She was always a good chessplayer, and has maintained her high level of play.  Lilit Mkrtchian from Armenia (the place where the eight-spoke chariot wheel was first invented in the 19th century BCE, which revolutionized warfare and is, perhaps, memorialized in ancient chess pieces as the 'ruhkh' [often depicted as a horse-drawn war chariot]) has been near the top ranks of female players since her breakthrough performance a few years back in one of FIDE's knock-out format Women's World Chess Chamionships where, I believe (working from my badly leaking memory) she made it all the way into the quarter-finals.  Here's a pic from the official website of the top three finishers:

Salome Melia left, Hoang Thanh Trang center, Lilit Mkrtchian right.

Congratulations to the winners and also to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk who tied with 6 players with 8.0/11 (including Melia and Mrktchian). 

2013 Spanish Women's Chess Championship

Taking place before the "main" event, the chess femmes faced off in Linares, Spain August 19th through August 25, 2013.  Here is the final ranking table, courtesy of The Week in Chess:

ch-ESP w 2013 Linares ESP Mon 19th Aug 2013 - Sun 25th Aug 2013 Leading Final Round 9 Standings:
Rk	SNo	Name	FED	Rtg	Pts	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	1	Alexandrova Olga	ESP	2431	6.5	38.0	48.0	44.5
2	8	Calzetta Ruiz Monica	ESP	2221	6.5	36.5	43.5	43.0
3	3	Matnadze Ana	ESP	2390	6.0	39.0	50.5	45.5
4	6	Hernandez Estevez Yudania	ESP	2230	6.0	37.0	47.5	43.5
5	2	Vega Gutierrez Sabrina	ESP	2402	6.0	36.5	47.5	43.0
6	4	Nicolas Zapata Irene	ESP	2253	5.5	37.0	46.5	43.5
7	5	Aranaz Murillo Amalia	ESP	2246	5.5	36.0	46.5	42.5
8	11	Vega Gutierrez Belinda	ESP	2148	5.0	38.0	48.5	44.5
9	15	Perera Borrego Mariela	ESP	2062	5.0	35.5	46.0	42.0
10	7	Garcia Vicente Nieves	ESP	2227	5.0	35.0	45.5	41.0
11	9	Guadamuro Torrente Anabel	ESP	2195	5.0	33.5	43.0	39.5
12	10	Collado Barbas Laura	ESP	2151	5.0	33.0	42.0	39.5
13	12	Cerrato Torrijos Maria	ESP	2148	5.0	32.5	41.5	38.5
14	17	Redondo Arguelles Graciela	ESP	2008	5.0	31.5	38.0	37.5
15	18	Gonzalez Berruga Ana Isabel	ESP	2004	4.5	33.5	42.0	39.5
16	16	Ruiz Font Elisabet	ESP	2059	4.5	32.5	42.0	39.0
17	13	Fidalgo Fernandez Lucia	ESP	2137	4.5	32.5	41.5	39.0
18	14	Alfonso Nogue Beatriz	ESP	2085	4.5	31.0	39.5	37.0
19	22	Beltran Ortiz Edda Georgina	ESP	1906	4.5	30.5	39.5	37.0
20	21	Iza Abete Amaia	ESP	1991	4.5	30.5	38.0	35.5
21	20	Riera Morilla Elizabeth	ESP	1991	4.5	29.5	38.5	35.5
22	19	Ordonez Torres Maria Del Carm	ESP	1994	4.5	27.5	33.5	33.0
23	25	Buiza Prieto Eihartze	ESP	1723	4.0	27.0	32.5	32.0
24	23	Romero Diez Sandra	ESP	1822	4.0	26.0	33.0	32.5
25	27	Erades Berenguer Ana	ESP	1551	3.5	26.5	31.5	31.0
26	26	Martin Dinares Sonia	ESP	1708	3.5	26.0	34.0	31.5
27	24	Barrio Ugidos Ainhoa	ESP	1752	3.0	25.0	30.5	30.0
28	28	Gonzalez Benavides Pilar	ESP	1537	3.0	25.0	30.0	29.5
29	29	Acebal Muniz Maria Concepcion	ESP	1292	1.0	26.0	35.0	32.5
29 players

Interestingly, IM Ana Matnadze, with the third highest ELO in this group, finished in third place overall with 6.0/9, while relatively speaking she performed much better in the Spanish Championship with 96 players, finishing in 15th place overall, also with 6.0/9.  Does that mean anything?  Does that mean, for instance, that the chess femmes are perhaps better players overall than their ratings would suggest, due to the effect of playing in women's ratings ghetto events?  Does it mean that some of the male players are not as good as their ELOs would indicate?  Inquiring minds want to know...

78th Spanish Chess Championship 2013

Hola darlings!  I'm still among the living, just been busy with other things.  Today too, but I'm stealing time today to post because I haven't been here since August 27th, eek!  Are there any readers left out there, echo echo echo...

The 78th Spanish Chess Championship was held in the famous chess city, Linares, from August 29th through September 26, 2013.  Coming in clear first with 7.5/9 was GM Ivan Salgado Lopez (ESP 2614).

The highest placing female player (96 players) was IM Ana Matnadze (ESP 2390) with 6.0, tying with several other players also at 6.0/9:

8	6	Perez Candelario Manuel	GM	ESP	2569	6	52	35	0
9	10	Castellanos Rodriguez Renier	IM	ESP	2510	6	51.5	36	0
10	9	Ibarra Jerez Jose Carlos	GM	ESP	2538	6	51.5	35.5	0
11	17	Teran Alvarez Ismael	IM	ESP	2422	6	51.5	32.5	0
12	29	Andres Gonzalez Ivan	FM	ESP	2311	6	48	30	0
13	26	Torres Ventosa Pedro Eugenio	FM	ESP	2317	6	47.5	30	0
14	20	Astasio Lopez David	FM	ESP	2392	6	47	32	0
15	21	Matnadze Ana	IM	ESP	2390	6	47	30	0
16	7	Alonso Rosell Alvar	GM	ESP	2550	6	46.5	31.5	0
17	16	Recuero Guerra David	IM	ESP	2454	6	46.5	29	0
18	15	Gonzalez De La Torre Santiago	IM	ESP	2472	6	45.5	29	0
19	42	Gavilan Diaz Mario	FM	ESP	2225	6	44	27	0

Other chess femmes who participated:

24

40

Hernandez Estevez Yudania

WIM

ESP

2230

5.5

48

29

0

27

18

Vega Gutierrez Sabrina

IM

ESP

2402

5

49

29

0

31

33

Nicolas Zapata Irene

WIM

ESP

2253

5

46.5

28

0

37

36

Aranaz Murillo Amalia

WIM

ESP

2246

5

43.5

25

0

45

58

Perera Borrego Mariela

ESP

2062

4.5

42.5

21.5

0

56

53

Vega Gutierrez Belinda

WIM

ESP

2148

4

43

21

0

74	93	Redondo Benavente Ana		ESP	1549	3.5	33.5	15.5	0
75	87	Represa Perez Mireya		ESP	1705	3.5	32	13.5	0

Possible Evidence of Ancient Bear Cult in Siberia

From The International Business Times

2,000-Year-Old Bear Ring Found In Siberia, Used In Ancient ‘Bear Cult’

By Zoe Mintz

on August 27 2013 8:59 PM

 

 

A Russian student has made a rare discovery in Siberia.

Alexander Korchagin, a student at Novosibirsk State University, discovered a 2,000-year-old bronze ring that may have belonged to an ancient tribe that saw polar bears as sacred animals, the Siberian Times reports.

“The ring is tiny in diameter so even a young girl, let alone a woman, cannot wear it. We concluded that it was used in a ritual connected with a bear cult and was put on the bear claw,” said archaeologist Andrey Gusev, from the Scientific Research Centre of the Arctic in Salekhard.

 

The ring was found during an excavation at Ust-Polui, an ancient sanctuary in Salekhard that sits on a bank of the Polui River, not far from the confluence with the Ob River. Since 1932, excavations have taken place at the site, which is believed to have functioned as a spiritual center since the first century B.C.

“Ust-Polui is rich in such objects. More than this, many of them have genuine artistic value and help us understand something about the beliefs of these ancient inhabitants. This is the case with this ring showing the head and paws of a bear, which we have found this year,” Gusev said.

While the Khanty tribes left no written evidence for their existence, the ring’s discovery may help fill in the gaps on how the ancient tribe lived.

“After killing the bear they had a bear festival to honor the animal's memory,” Gusev said. “The head and front paws of the bear was adorned with a handkerchief, rings, and left lying a few days in the house. This combination of images on the ring and the fact that it was found in the sanctuary of Ust-Polui led us to believe that there was also practiced a bear cult.”

This isn’t the first relic uncovered at the site. This past year archaeologists unearthed a bird with a mask on its chest and a pendant showing a furry animal biting a bird -- both made from bronze.
Natalia Fedorova, a senior fellow from the Center for the Study of the Arctic, says the remote location functioned as an “intertribal sacred place” in the first century BC.

"It was located on the crossroads of the natural zones and the cultural traditions,” Fedorova said.  While meeting there during the sacred ceremonies the people from various territories of the Ob region exchanged knowledge, technology and cultural achievements, in these meetings they created new cycles of magic legends and epic tales, the motifs of which inspired the ancient artists.”
Yearly excavations have taken place at the site since 2006 and are scheduled to continue until 2015.

More photos and a biography of the article's author at the original link. 

Neolithic "Venus" Figurine Discovered in Racibórz, Silesia

From Science and Scholarship in Poland

Archaeologists discovered a unique woman figurine in Silesia
28.08.2013

Unique on the Polish scale clay figurine from the Neolithic period (fourth millennium BC) depicting a stylised woman figure has been found during the excavations in Racibórz.

"This find is a sensation in the archaeological world, because so far only a few and small fragments of human figurines from this period have been discovered" - told PAP Jacek Pierzak from the Silesian Regional Office for the Protection of Monuments.

Photo by Piotr Szejnoga

The object was discovered during the survey of the planned flood reservoir Dolna Odra, conducted by the Archaeological Rescue Research Team at the Centre for Prehistoric and Medieval Studies of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS in Poznań.

The figurine was dubbed "Venus of Racibórz" because it is similar to other finds of this type known from Paleolithic sites. It has clearly shown legs, wide hips, breasts, and three nodules at the top, the central of which is a schematic representation of the head, while the outer two are interpreted as hands raised in a gesture of oration. Figurine from Racibórz, however, is made of different material, than Venus - it is made of clay, while Venus was sculpted in stone. Discoverer of the "Venus of Racibórz" is Marek Anioła, archaeologist who conducts work at the site.

"Female figurines are associated with the worship of fertility and the mother goddess, they are also considered by some scientists to be evidence of the importance of women in the Neolithic period" - said the coordinator of the archaeological work Dr. Przemysław Bobrowski.

It's not only interesting archaeological discovery made during the work in the Racibórz area. The study includes 15 archaeological sites from different periods. They are part of a larger project conducted by the Consortium of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the University of Wroclaw and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, at the request of the Regional Water Management Authority in Gliwice.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
szz/ tot/ mrt/
tr. RL

Note the description above.  I don't know about you, dear readers, but what I see is a headdress, not a symbolic representation of a woman with a pin-sized head and raised hands.  Nope - this figurine's arms/hands are held behind her back (Is she bound???)  The image shows the front (on the left) and back (on the right) sides of the figurine.  I cannot see any other explanation for what look like arms to me held behind one's back than that -- they are arms.  So, if this lady's arms are behind her back, they cannot simultaneously be held above her head in a gesture of adoration, exultation or greeting, unless she had two sets of arms.  But why would one set of arms be so clearly depicted, and the arms held above her head not be depicted at all?

Doesn't make sense to me.  I'm going with the easiest explanation for what appear to be arms held behind her back is probably the correct one.  That makes the headdress idea extremely intriguing, doesn't it, because to my eyes, that headdress looks more or less like a crown -- or perhaps it's a 4th millenium BCE rendition of a spikey punk style hairdo, held in place with gel made from the hoofs of aurochs...

New Timeline for Establishment of Dynasties "Zero" and I in Ancient Egypt

Tres interesting.  I'm eager to see what other conventional timelines are erased and redrawn as modern techniques continue to be applied to re-analyze old discoveries and new ones, alike.

From BBC News Online
3 September 2013 Last updated at 20:51 ET

New timeline for origin of ancient Egypt

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service

 

A team from the UK found that the transformation from a land of disparate farmers into a state ruled by a king was more rapid than previously thought.

Using radiocarbon dating and computer models, they believe the civilisation's first ruler - King Aha - came to power in about 3100BC.  The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Lead researcher Dr Michael Dee, from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: "The formation of Egypt was unique in the ancient world. It was a territorial state; a state from which the moment it formed had established borders over a territory in much the same way we think of nations today.

"Trying to understand what happened in human history to lead people to establish this sort of polity we felt was a gap in understanding that needed to be filled."
First dynasty

Until now, the chronology of the earliest days of Egypt has been based on rough estimates.

With no written records from this very early period, a timeline has been based on the evolving styles of ceramics unearthed from human burial sites.

Now though, scientists have used radiocarbon dating of excavated hair, bones and plants, with established archaeological evidence and computer models to pinpoint when the ancient state came into existence.

Previous records suggested the pre-Dynastic period, a time when early groups began to settle along the Nile and farm the land, began in 4000BC. But the new analysis revealed this process started later, between 3700 or 3600BC.

The team found that just a few hundred years later, by about 3100BC, society had transformed to one ruled by a king.

Dr Dee told the BBC World Service programme Science in Action: "The time period is shorter than was previously thought - about 300 or 400 years shorter. Egypt was a state that emerged quickly - over that time one has immense social change.

"This is interesting when one compares it with other places. In Mesopotamia, for example, you have agriculture for several thousand years before you have anything like a state."

Archaeologists believe Egypt's first king, Aha, came to power after another prominent leader, Narmer, unified the land.

The team was also able to date the reigns of the next seven kings and queens - Djer, Djet, Queen Merneith, Den, Anedjib, Semerkhet and Qa'a - who with Aha formed Egypt's first dynasty.

The model suggests that King Djer may have ruled for more than 50 years. This is such a long period, it raises the possibility that there may have been other kings or queens of Egypt that we do not know about or that the state may have collapsed and reformed.

Commenting on the research, Prof Joann Fletcher from the department of archaeology at the University of York, said: "This is highly significant work, which pulls the beginnings of Egypt's dynastic history into much sharper focus - it is tremendously valuable to have such a precise timeline for Egypt's first rulers.

"The study also has ramifications for the earlier pre-Dynastic period, allowing us to better understand these key periods of transition."

Looting and Destruction Continue in Egypt, Oh Egypt

Hola darlings! 

I have now 62 birthdays under my belt, hope for at least 30 more (knock on wood, and may it be in relatively no worse "health" than I am right now, oh the irony the irony, Mr. Don would have appreciated it!)  But while my blog stops when I'm not up to posting, the world continues on, oblivious to little ol' me.  So it goes.  And thus it should be. 

Horror continues to go on in Egypt.  Well, we knew it was happening but it just is not getting the coverage it deserves in the mainstream press.  Unfortunately, people do not value the past as much as they should -- but the uber-rich jerks who are sucking up these stolen artifacts just as fast as they can be looted and shipped out of the country know their value.  And we may never ever see any of them again. They will sit in sterile wonder inside some air-controlled vault-room somewhere in Beijing, or St. Petersburg, or New York, or Los Angeles, or Hong Kong, or Hanoi. 

People who follow this horror story and are cognizant of the international illicit trade in antiquities mourn their loss, but most of us won't even realize the enormity of the loss we, as a world, have suffered.  It makes me sick to my stomach, people.  While all eyes are on Cairo, check out this story about the latest "out of sight, out of mind" museum to be destroyed by looters.  They took everything that could be easily carried, and I've no doubt that if given the chance, the larger objects will disappear in short order, too:

Pictures: Looters Shatter Museum of Ancient Egyptian Treasures

Aftermath of the Attack

Photograph by Roger Anis, El Shorouk/AP

Amid the deadly chaos that has erupted in Egypt, the country's cultural heritage took a hit last week when looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi.

 

Located about 190 miles (300 kilometers) south of Cairo, the museum was opened in 1963 to showcase the finds from excavations at nearby sites.

 

"The museum contained irreplaceable artifacts, many not yet studied," says Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. "The looting leaves enormous gaps in our understanding of ancient Egyptian religious and funerary rites."

 

Housed in a modest, two-story building, the museum's galleries displayed a wide range of objects—animal mummies, votive statues, religious offerings, brightly painted wooden coffins, necklaces of stone beads, a ritual rattle known as a sistrum, funerary masks, amulets, statues from tombs, stone trays for sacred oils, jars that once held the internal organs of an Egyptian now long dead—all of which had survived in remarkably good condition for more than 2,000 years.

 

According to local news reports, looters—as yet unidentified—broke into the museum while supporters of recently deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi were holding a sit-in protest in the museum's garden. From the 1,089 artifacts on exhibit, an estimated 1,050 were stolen.

After the looters had departed, gangs of what one source calls "local bad boys" entered the building and began to burn and smash what was left. ...

More coverage, giving a quick "review" of the latest destruction and attempted break-ins all over Egypt, from Al-Ahram:

Saving Egypt’s heritage

How have Egypt’s monuments and museums fared in the ongoing violence, asks Nevine El-Aref 20-08-2013 02:56PM ET
... Malawi, once the capital of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaten, was disturbed by violence and deadly clashes between protesters supporting the deposed former president Mohamed Morsi and the security forces after the latter had broken up the sit-ins in the Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda Square in Cairo.

 The pro-Morsi protesters broke into the Malawi police station and town council building and then invaded the neighbouring Malawi Museum (MM), clashing with guards and shooting one of them dead. They then damaged the museum garden, damaged the entrance gates, and managed to enter the museum building, breaking into display cases and looting the collection.

 The museum is now devastated, its showrooms converted into a mess of broken glass, damaged sarcophagi and the statues of ancient Egyptian kings. Inspections carried out by the MM’s curators revealed that 1,040 of 1,080 objects in the Museum’s collection were missing. Large and heavy artefacts were found broken and scattered over the Museum’s floor.

 A full list of the missing objects has been put on the International Council of Museums’ (ICOM) Red List for Egypt in order to prevent them from being illegally smuggled and traded on the international antiquities market. Such lists help police and customs authorities all over the world to recognise missing items. ...


From Boston.com
Egypt's devastating museum looting latest casualty
By AYA BATRAWY / Associated Press / August 19, 2013 [that was my 62nd birthday]

... In the past two years of instability since Mubarak’s ouster, illegal digs have multiplied and illegal construction has encroached on ancient, largely unexplored pyramids.

 

Also threatening sites is the view held by some hard-line religious allies of Morsi who view Egypt’s ancient history as pagan. ...

 

Of course, all of this violence, terror and looting (whatever news is trickling out), has practically destroyed the Egyptian tourist industry.  I mean, really, people -- did you REALLY think "wealthy" (according to your standards, like me, for instance) tourists would continue to flock to the Nile River Valley?  This video tells us all we need to know about that Islamic Brotherhood fantasy:

 

 

Moche Society WAS Run by Women

From PhysOrg

Tomb find confirms powerful women ruled Peru long ago

Aug 22, 2013 by Roberto Corti

Another tomb of a female "priestess" and the conclusions being drawn from this, the eighth such tomb to be found (but no burials of high-ranking men), have lead the archaeologists toward the conclusion that powerful women did, indeed, rule in Mocha (Mochica) society, in pre-Columbia Peru, about 1200 CE. I wasn't able to copy any of the text here, please read the entire article and check out the photos at the link:

 

 

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.”

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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.