Ancient World Review

Trash And Tombs In Ancient Pompeii

"Cemeteries in ancient Pompeii were 'mixed-use developments' with a variety of purposes that included serving as an appropriate site to toss out the trash," according to Science Daily.

New Collection Of Julian Jaynes Papers Released

"Princeton University psychologist Julian Jayne's revolutionary theory on the origin of consciousness or the 'modern mind' remains as relevant and thought-provoking as when it was first proposed. Supported by recent discoveries in neuroscience, Jaynes's ideas force us to rethink conventional views of human history and psychology, and have profound implications for many aspects of modern life." More on Jaynes here and here.

"Included in this volume are rare and never before seen articles, lectures, interviews, and in-depth discussions that both clear up misconceptions as well as extend Jaynes's theory into new areas such as the nature of the self, dreams, emotions, art, music, therapy, and the consequences and future of consciousness." More information can be found on the Julian Jaynes Society web site.

Delphi: The Belly Button Of The Ancient World

"Pagans" Celebrate Winter Solstice At Stonehenge

Comment: Every year, these "pagans, Druids and pantheists" celebrate the Winter Solstice at the most famous prehistoric monolith in the world, but since no one knows what kind of rituals were held at Stonehenge, their "ceremonies," by necessity, have to be improvised. As a result, they end up whooping like Hollywood Apaches in a hippie drum circle, surrounded by spectators with cell-phone cameras, and when it's all over, they get in their cars and drive back to their jobs in the city, leaving Stonehenge behind, just as enigmatic as it was a thousand years ago.

The problem with these modern "pagans" is that they really aren't pagans at all. They're too civilized for that. Too liberal. I can sympathize with their rejection of Christianity and the modern world, but it's going to take more than some robes, drums and solstice wreaths to bridge the gap between 2011 A.D. and 3000 B.C. Real paganism, for lack of a better term, has long since vanished from the West and ceremonies like this won't bring it back to life. The ancients understood that blood was necessary to propitiate the gods and the forces of nature. If these pagans want to celebrate the Solstice properly, they should leave their cameras at home, forget the drum circles and start conducting human sacrifices. No one knows if there were ritual killings at Stonehenge, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The Caves of Ajanta in India

"The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art (which depict the Jataka tales)as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka.The caves were built in two phases starting around 200 BCE, with the second group of caves built around 600 CE." (Source: Wikipedia)

Know The Romans Web Site

Know The Romans is a new UK website covering various aspects of Roman civilization. The site includes a large collection of videos about Roman architecture, building methods, legions, weapons, roads, aqueducts, etc. Very nicely done.

Richard Attenborough On Easter Island

Ancient India-Mauryan Empire

Find Casts Further Doubt On Shroud Of Turin

A burial shroud discovered in "a first century [Jerusalem] cemetery filled with priestly and aristocratic burials" provides further evidence that the Shroud of Turin "did not wrap the body of Christ," according to National Geographic News.

This new shroud, "radiocarbon-dated to between A.D. 1 and 50," is apparently the first burial shroud ever discovered from this period and location, and the bones it contained show evidence that the dead man wrapped in the shroud probably had leprosy--"the earliest known case of the disease." And the weave of the shroud doesn't match that of the Shroud of Turin, which was apparently manufactured at a later date.

The Extraterrestrial Sumerian Gods

A slide show of Sumerian gods (the Annunaki) with a heavy metal soundtrack and a couple of gratuitous inserts of Saddam Hussein and other modern Iraqi figures. Ancient Sumer in southern Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia) is the earliest known civilization, dating back to around 6000 BC, and there are a lot of "alternate history" types who believe that these weird images constitute evidence of extraterrestrial contact with humans in the ancient world. David Icke, in particular, thinks the modern world is ruled by ancient bloodlines of carnivorous, shape-shifting alien reptoids who can trace their ancestry back to the Annunaki. In other words, aliens created human civilization, set themselves up as gods and continue to rule the planet for their own sinister purposes. This is science fiction, of course, but it's entertaining science fiction and when I look at our political "elites," I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually true.