CT Scans Reveal 'Faces' of Mummies

Modern technology has revealed the faces of four people embalmed 2,000 years ago.

A group of New York scientists combined CT scans and the artwork of a crime artist to create sketches of the faces of those embalmed. Then, the scientists compared the new sketches to the portraits that were stored next to the mummies. In two of the four cases, the matches were nearly exact.

The artist, who knew only the age and gender of the deceased, took seven days to produce each sketch. The sketches of the two mummies from the British Museum matched their portraits almost exactly. The other two mummies, one from the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen and the other from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, didn't fare so well in the portrait-matching department. Still, they weren't far away.

The art historians involved will be happy to have some evidence that portrait production was more about realism in the 1st Century A.D.

The relative success of the sketching suggests more uses for modern technology.

Study: Alexandria City Design Followed the Sun

Leave it to Alexander to bring the Aten into it.

The Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria was built so that the main road aligned with the rising Sun on Alexander's birthday, according to a study out of Italy. The study, which was reported in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, quoted computer simulation data that reinforced the idea that the Canopic Road, the city's main east-west road, was so oriented on July 20, the day of Alexander's birth.

Using sophisticated equipment and calculations, a team led by Milan archaeoastronomer Giulio Magli found that in the fourth century B.C., the Sun rose less than half a degree off the direction of the road. (Alexander was born in 356 B.C., and he founded Alexandria in 331 B.C.) The study also found that a second star, Regulus, would have risen in the same part of the sky at about the same time on that date. Incorporating Regulus, known as the "King's Star," would have been a nice touch for Alexander and his city planners.

Using the Sun as an architectural tool would have been nothing new to the Egyptians, who often cited Ra (or, in Akhenaten's terms, the Aten) as inspiration for all manner of things, including rulers and their grand buildings. That Alexander chose to do so would have been entirely in keeping with his status as the new pharaoh of Egypt.

Cat's Grotto Hideaway an Ancient Tomb

In a story of the living and the dead, two Romans followed a cat into a grotto and discovered a 2,000-year-old tomb. This happened not many years ago but mere days ago.

Seems the men found a cat in a residential area near one of the city's main streets and then, when the cat disappeared into a grotto, followed it inside. What they found was human bones in various places on the floor and niches on the walls similar to what ancient Romans used to hold funeral urns.

Sure enough, archaeologists arriving at the scene later confirmed the discovery of a burial chamber, dating from between the 1st Century B.C. and the 2nd Century A.D. The bones, the archaeologists said, probably fell from a higher spot.

As to why the tomb hadn't been discovered before, the theory is that recent heavy rains have caused erosion that sheared away what had been rocks that, intentionally or not, had concealed the chamber.

What to call the newly found chamber? A cat - a - comb, of course.

Bonnie & Clyde Guns Bound Together at Auction

Their owners were lovers and partners, and their guns stay together as well.

They are Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their guns survive them as a pair, thanks to an anonymous Texas collector who paid a collective $504,000 for the two pistols sold at a New Hampshire auction.

Barrow was 25 and Parker 23 when they were killed in 1934, the result of a two-year manhunt following a multi-state crime spree involving killings, kidnappings, bank robberies, auto thefts, and a prison break. A combination of Louisiana police and Texas Rangers found Bonnie and Clyde in a northern Louisiana hideout, and the following firefight left the outlaws dead.

The two were lovers, and their story captured the popular imagination for a time during the Great Depression. But it's the tangible things they left behind that were on display at auction.

Parker's gun, a .38 special that was found taped to the inside of her thigh, brought in $264,000, slightly more than the $240,000 paid for Barrow's gun, a Colt .45 that was found in his waistband.

The guns came from the collection of another memorabilia enthusiast, who bought them for about $100,000 total in 1986.

Other items sold at this most recent auction included Barrow's gold pocket watch ($36,000), a silver dollar taken from his pocket ($32,400), and one of Parker's silk stockings ($11,400).

Ben Gone, Ben Recovered: Stolen Franklin Bust Retrieved from Thief

The missing Benjamin has been found.

It's Benjamin Franklin, of course, but it's not missing money we're talking about here. No, we're talking about a lot of money, actually, in the form of a bust worth $3 million that was stolen from an elderly Pennsylvania man.

George D'Angelo, an 85-year-old retired lawyer living in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr, reported the theft of the bust, one of three made in 1778 by noted artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, on August 24. The culprit is apparently a woman who goes by various names and used to clean D'Angelo's house. She was arrested as she got off a bus in Maryland. Investigators found the missing bust in a duffle bag she was carrying. (It's not a huge bust, weighting in at 25 pounds and measuring up at 28 inches tall.)

The cleaner, by whatever name she goes these days, faces charges of theft, fraud, and (since she crossed state lines with the bust) interstate transportation of stolen property. She had apparently been fired by her employer, the cleaning company responsible for cleaning D'Angelo's house, three days before the bust went missing. She was then, apparently, seen driving away from Angelo's house on the day that the bust went missing. The evidence would have been entirely circumstantial but for the fact that she had the bust on her person when she got off that interstate bus.

So Mr. D'Angelo can look forward to having his rare Benjamin Franklin bust back on his mantle stand soon, as soon as the FBI finish dusting for fingerprints.

Great Caesar's Ghost Sandals

Like a good Shakespearean ghost, Caesar keeps on rising. Julius Caesar, that is, the subject of yet another story about ancient times, back in the news today, with the sandals giving it all away.

Archaeologists doing a dig in Germany have found evidence convincing them that they've uncovered the oldest known Roman military fortress in that country and that the fortress was probably built by none other than Caesar and his troops as they ripped through Gaul in the 1st Century B.C.

The dig is close to Hermeskeil, near the German border with France, and parts of the fort have been known for a few hundred years but have been covered up or eliminated through the normal wear-and-tear of civilization.

Now, though, the archaeologists who have been working at the site for the past couple of years have identified nails from sandals belonging to Caesar's soldiers (along with potsherds, of course) that tie the time to the place and the man to the time, as it were. 

The fort, by the way, is impressive, measuring about 45 acres, along with an 18-acre annex, which was once complete with a water spring.

So far, no Veni Vidi Vici graffiti (conjugated or not) has been found. It's only a matter of time, though. Caesar had a high opinion of himself and would have left some kind of calling card. Maybe they'll find some dice.

Drought Reveals Sunken Treasures

Mother Nature will always have the last laugh. Sometimes, we can share in it.

That's the situation in Poland, where a record low in the level of water in the Vistula River caused by a recent drought has unveiled a bunch of treasures stolen by Sweden invaders in the 17th Century. Seems the Swedes were eager to get away or too greedy or whatever and they loaded the barge too much and the whole thing sunk to the bottom of the river. They had planned to move the marble up the river from Warsaw to Gdansk and then out through the Baltic Sea, but it wasn't to be. And, not being skilled in dredging (or for some other mysterious reason), the Swedes decided to leave the stuff behind.

 The Vistula, the country's longest river, was a bit of a dumping ground during World War Two as well, as first Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Union occupied cities along the river. The same low water levels have revealed artifacts from the 1940s as well, and researchers have said that some recently uncovered Jewish gravestones would be turned over to Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute.

 The heavy stuff stolen by the Swedes includes large blocks of carved marble that formed part of the foundation and interior of some splendid Polish palaces. It's not exactly lightweight, which is another reason that it has remained on the bottom of the river bed all these years. But, the drop in the water level of the river has effectively brought the marble closer to the surface and so modern technology can, without a supreme effort, get that marble out of the river and onto archaeologists' work tables where it belongs.

Paradoxically, the water level is a bit too low for the floating cranes needed to do the job. Mother Nature, always having the last laugh indeed.