Dig Uncovers Sculptures of Emperors

It's not often anymore that digs in Rome yield exciting results, yet such is the case with a recent find announced by Italy's culture ministry.

Seems a team of archaeologists have found, in an ancient fountain, a group of marble sculptures of some large import and value, specifically because they contain marble heads that represent members of the imperial dynasty of the emperor Septimius Severus.

He it was who brought stability and a bit of respectability back to the emperor's throne after the free-for-all reign of Commodus (made famous in the relatively recent Ridley Scott film Gladiator) and the Year of the Five Emperors. Severus it was also who made the empire a military monarchy: The commander of the largest of Rome's armies, he was named emperor by his troops and set about making the army more of a force than the Senate in Roman government.

This emperor also started a dynasty, named after him (Severan Dynasty), and it is those emperors who are represented on the sculptures just dug up.

The way in which imperial officials were buried in those days suggests to modern historians that the sculptures, found on land that also contained the remains of an expansive villa, represent the onetime presence of someone very important indeed. (Also found in the dig was a statue of Zeus.) Mere plebeians didn't have money to either buy or bury such sculptures, so the owner of the villa and the burial ground must have been wealthy or at least influential.

The sculptures will soon reside at the Diocletian Baths, under the auspices of the National Museum of Rome.

Leonardo Exhibition Goes High-tech

Now this is a good use of 3D technology.

The Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia, is opening its doors on an exhibition of the paintings and drawings of Leonardo, and modern technology will be very much the star of the show.

OK, we've all gazed into the crystal ball to try to divine what Leonardo was thinking while he was painting The Last Supper. Turns out the folks at the Franklin Institute have some surprises in store for visitors, including results of digital restoration that clearly show something new — some fish and orange slices on plates on the table and a bell tower towering in the distance.

The buzz will most certainly be on the touchscreens, though, which can reveal not only a 2D representation of crossbows, flying machines, and robots that sprung from the fertile mind of the genius Leonardo but also a 3D simulation of what those things would have been like in real life. (Some of the inventions never made it off the page, so this will be a first indeed.)

One thing sure to stop people in their tracks will be a representation of the famed Mechanical Lion, a gift to King Francis I of France in 1515.

Also on display will be pages from Leonardo's famed Codex Atlanticus, his book of drawings in which he wrote backwards. Surely that touchscreen technology can be used to flip the writing and read what the true Renaissance Man had to say without getting out a pocket mirror.

More here.

Civil War Protest a Smokescreen for Stop Wal-Mart Drive

Sometimes, splitting hairs is the appropriate course of action, moreso than the broad brush approach. The case of Wal-Mart versus the ghosts of wounded Civil War soldiers is such a time.

The problem is this: Wal-Mart has gained permission to build a big-box store, the thing that the company does best, very near the borders of the national park that commemorates the American Civil War battle of the Wilderness. The key words in that sentence are very near — not inside, not right outside, but very near. The actual distance is more than a mile.

Wal-Mart has done all the right things, according to the local laws. The company has secured permission from the county Board of Supervisors. The special use permit gives the Bentonville, Ark., retailing giant all the permission it needs to build a Supercenter that would create 300 jobs in a county that needs them.

But the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been swayed by some angry local residents and their argument that the Supercenter will be built on some sort of sacred ground.

The Wilderness was a very bloody affair, a three-day gorefest that numbered 30,000 of dead, injured, or missing. The battle ended with neither Union nor Confederacy able to claim a solid victory. The war continued to drag on and grind both sides down for almost another whole year.

The Wal-Mart opponents' argument is that the place where the Supercenter is supposed to go was the site of Union hospital areas, where thousands of wounded soldiers were treated, and that therefore, the area is sacred ground, or some such silliness. This argument seems a bit weak on the surface anyway and gets even weaker when you factor in that a few other retail outlets are already squatting on the sacred ground, even the part that was the headquarters of Union commanding General U.S. Grant.

The Wal-Mart opponents have employed such Civil War luminaries as Ken Burns and James McPherson to stoke up the fires of remembrances past, recalling the glory days of brother versus brother — never mind the hundreds of local people who gave their approval for the Supercenter, knowing full well how "sacred" the ground was.

Really, does protecting the national heritage extend to things like this? There's a rather large national park that encompasses the Wilderness battlefield, filled with exhibits containing all manner of horrific details of how brother killed brother. That national park isn't going anywhere. People who visit that national park won't forget that Grant's headquarters were nearby or that Union soldiers were treated in medical tents very near the battlefield.

No, this classless action is all about stopping Wal-Mart from building a Supercenter. It's an economic stop action request dressed up to look like an appeal to historical legacy.

No one wants to forget the horrors of war — lest we repeat them; however, the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter on top of a paved area once populated by bleeding, maimed Union soldiers will not make people forget "the last full measure of devotion" — especially when we can still drive a mile down the road and see for ourselves.

Bring Back the Mammoth? That is SO Yesteryear

I would have thought that we had all learned our lesson in Jurassic Park: "You bred raptors?"

Yet here are a bunch of scientists announcing their plans to bring back the mammoth. Remember those big, woolly beasts, with the tusks and the footsteps that sounded like Richter scale-breaking earthquakes? No? Well, there's a good reason for that. They haven't been around for a few million years!

For my money, that's the way it should stay. Can you imagine a bunch of mammoths getting loose from the zoo or wherever these Japanese scientists are planning the new not-so-wee beasties? Rampage City! (And no, that's not a new release by some punk or alternative band.)

I blame Dolly. That blasted cloned sheep made headlines a few years ago, and now cloning is all the rage. We're cloning mice (even some that can tweet like birds). Really, where does it end?

See, the researchers have found some tissue samples. Unlike the dinosaur cloning fictionally popularized in Michael Crichton's novel, which couldn't take place in real life because the only dinosaur remains we have are fossils, these mammoths can be created out still-usable tissue, placed in an elephant (after the proper DNA manipulations, of course), and brought to fruition a few months later — Viola! Woolly at your service.

That's probably OK, as far as biology and genetics go, because the mammoth is really just an ancestor of the modern pachyderm anyway. The female elephant in question probably won't even know the difference. (Yeah, right: tell it to the mother who has to bear that big woolly beast.)

Then, there's the question of where the team of scientists is going to keep these mammoths. All that big woolly fur was there for a reason — to keep the animal warm in the harsh winter climates the mammoth called home. Japan does have its wintry parts, but it's not exactly known for its bone-crushing cold the way Siberia is.

The scientists say that, what with experimentation and trial-and-error, they're probably five years away from success. That gives us plenty of time to run for the hills.

Oldest Winery Found in Armenia

What is with Armenia? In 2010, archaeologists in Areni-1 announced the discovery of the oldest known leather shoe. Remarkably well preserved (it was leather, after all), the shoe took place alongside other oldest known artifacts in the pantheon of archaeology. And now, that same archaeological site is home to another oldest known, this one a bit more exciting to the alcohol-drinking segment of the world. The National Geographic Society has announced the discovery of the oldest known winery.

Granted, archaeologists didn't find an instruction manual or a full set of wine glasses or even a cave painting or two showing people stomping on grapes. But what they did find has convinced some of them that they have indeed found a winery.

First of all, they found fermentation jars. Now that is a big clue. They also found a cup and a drinking bowl — again, these things could have myriad purposes. No, what has convinced the dedicated diggers of the importance of their find is not only all of those jars, cup and bowl, but also a big underground vat, into which drained a shallow basin about three feet across.

It probably hasn't hurt that the dig has turned up huge signpost-size clues that it's a winery such as grape seeds, some pressed-grape remains, and a dried vine or two. OK, so that's the real irrefutable evidence. (Maybe the shoe belonged a grape-smasher?)

The key is how old all of this stuff is.

Remember that wooden shoe? It was abandoned about 5,500 years ago. The winery is even older, dating to about 6,000 years ago. (Yes, I was thinking the same: Those are some remarkably well preserved seeds and vines.) And those seeds? They're the same type used in winemaking today (Vitis vinifera vinifera, for those who really want to know).

The winery is in the middle of a group of graves, and archaeologists have theorized that the wine that came resulted from all of that grape-smashing was used in ceremonial contexts, such as at funeral feasts (not much help for the living, but those left behind would have really given the deceased a proper toast and sendoff).

Shipwreck Find Suggests a Fascinating What If

Ah, the what if. It's tantalizing to the student of history, the possibility of rewinding the clocks and changing one or more details to see if the outcome would be different. Given the current understanding of the laws of the universe, we must be satisfied with the laws of speculation, which state simply that the sky's the limit.

One recent archaeological announcement qualifies for what if. Divers say that they have discovered the wreck of a U.S. Navy ship from 1811, the Revenge, captained by none other than Oliver Hazard Perry, the "hero of Lake Erie." Perry, you'll remember, was the American commander who famously defeated a British force on Lake Erie during the War of 1812, announcing his victory with the modest succinctness of "We have met the enemy and they are ours." That naval victory, the first American victory over British warships, took a lot of pressure off the American forces in the west, in particular making it much more difficult for the British Army and Navy to do simple things like communicate and swap supplies. The outcome of the war in the south and east was still in doubt, but Perry's victory sealed the west for the Americans.

As for the wreck, well, it's not entirely certain that the divers have found that specific ship. They say that they have enough evidence to prove their assertion, including a bunch of cannons, canister shots, and an anchor. The cannons seem to be the clincher, since no other ship carrying cannons is known to sunk in the area.

Seems Perry was aboard that the Revenge when it ran aground off Rhode Island in 1811. As a result, the U.S. Navy sent Perry to Lake Erie, not on a more high-profile assignment overseas, as he would have expected because of his long years of service. So there Perry was when the Battle of Lake Erie took place, and there Perry was not giving up the ship (to paraphrase his famous slogan), his steely resolve seeing the Americans through a difficult, hard-fought naval battle. What might have been indeed.

Pardon Billy the Kid? As If!

Poor Billy the Kid? Perhaps.

The suddenly popular outlaw had a chance of being pardoned more than a century after his death, but the outgoing governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, couldn't find it in his heart — or, most likely, his jurisdiction — to do it, despite the pardon papers having been drawn up.

The story is that William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, made a deal with Lew Wallace, the territorial governor of New Mexico at the time, to testify in court about killings he witnessed, presumably to help convict other outlaws. The operative word there is story, since no papers proving this agreement have ever been found.

The recent exposure of what has been a long-dead issue is thanks in part to the diligence of an attorney, Randi McGinn, who has no doubt made a name for herself arguing on behalf of someone long dead and unable to provide evidence in his own behalf.

What is a fact is that Bonney was a killer. He was in jail awaiting hanging for the killing of a sheriff when escaped, killing two deputies along the way. New Mexico government officials say that Bonney killed at least nine people. Popular lore puts the figure at more than 20. The final killing belonged to Sheriff Pat Garrett, who killed Bonney himself in 1881.

The issue has caught on with a small segment of the world population. The governor's office set up a website asking for public comment and received 809 emails from all round the world. The final tally was 430 in favor of a pardon and 379 against.

So who has the last word? Apparently, it's Richardson, because the incoming governor, Susana Martinez, has gone on record as saying that the State of New Mexico has more pressing matters to attend to in these tough economic times.

Enough said.