Ancient Road Found at Maya Village Buried by Volcanic Ash 1,400 Years Ago

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash.

The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren near the city of San Salvador in 1978. In Yucatan Maya, the word "sacbe" (SOCK'-bay) literally means "white way" or "white road" and is used to describe elevated ancient roads typically lined with stone and paved with white lime plaster and that sometimes connected temples, plazas and towns.

The sacbe at the buried village of Ceren -- which had canals of water running on each side -- is the first ever discovered at a Maya archaeology site that was built without bordering paving stones, said Sheets. The road was serendipitously discovered by the team while digging a test pit through 17 feet of volcanic ash in July to analyze agricultural activity on the edges of Ceren, considered the best preserved Maya village in Central America.

Yom Kippur-A History

Friday, October 7, 2011 is the date in which most American Jews will take time to observe Yom Kippur.  For many Christians, Jewish traditions are very foreign even though Christianity finds it's roots in Judaism.

Yom Kippur is known as the Day of Atonement.  It is considered the holiest day of the year for most Jews.  In the Torah, Yom Kippur is called Yom HaKippurim.  In the book of Leviticus, chapter 23 and verse 27, it forbids work on Yom Kippur.

Held on the tenth day of the seventh month, called Tishrei, Yom Kippur is traditionally known as the date when Moses received the second set of Ten Commandments.  It happened after the completion of the second 40 days of God's instructions.  It was at this time that the Israelites were granted atonement for building the golden calf to worship.  Therefore it is known as the Day of Atonement.

At the time the Temple was in Jerusalem, the High Priest was mandated by the Torah to apply a very detailed set of required services and sacrifices for Yom Kippur to become a Day of Atonement.  These were considered to be the most sacred of services performed by the Jews.  They would provide atonement to all Jews and the world.

Oktoberfest: The World's Largest Festival

It is billed as the world's largest festival.  Oktoberfest, which began as a German festival, circumvents the globe and is virtually celebrated in all parts of the world.

Oktoberfest's roots begin in the Bavarian capital, Munich.  It began as a celebration of the October 12, 1810 marriage of Prince Ludwig, who later became King Ludwig I, to Princess Theresa of Saxony-Hildburghausen.  The Prince organized a horse race and issued an invitation to all the people of Munich.  It has been said that this grand celebration was attended by more than 40,000 guests.  The guests consumed copious amounts of beer.  In 1811, the celebration  with massive amounts of beer  and the horse race was reinstated as part of the state agricultural show.

Eventually, the horse racing segment of the celebration was dropped and the celebration was extended to a two-week period beginning in late September and running through the first weekend in October.

The celebration has grown.  In 1997, 6.4 million people attended the event.  Oktoberfest in Munich continues to be held in the same site, Theresienwiese (which means field or meadow of Theresa) as the 1811 party.  It opens each year with a parade of what is called the Oktoberfest "landlords" and breweries.  The parade highlights included traditional Bavarian dancers in costumes, the Riflemen' Process, and of course music.  Even though the agricultural show is held only every third year, the brewery celebration is held annually.

Ancient Music Books Accessible To All

Fragile treasures of 16th Century music are now freely available online, thanks to a partnership between Royal Holloway, University of London, the British Library and JISC.

The Early Music Online project has digitised more than 300 books of the world’s earliest printed music from holdings at the British Library. Some of the books date back as far as the 1500s and, due to their fragile nature, would not be freely available to researchers, but thanks to this digitization project, musicians from around the world can now source the original music free of charge using the Early Music Online website.

Almost Never Happened: The story of one encounter during World War I that might have prevented World War II

93 years ago on September 28, 1918 a young British soldier, Private Henry Tandey found himself near the small village of Marcoing, France.  He was about to make a decision that profoundly affected human history for many years to come.

It was World War I, and life on earth was a tumultuous blood bath that no one ever could have comprehended.  The age of toxic gases being used as weapons was upon the world and automatic weapons were now officially part of the reality of war.  Life was no longer made of the simple days on the farm as it had been for so long for many young men of the time.

An original resident of Warwickshire, Tandey had taken part in the First Battle of Ypres in October of 1914.  He again found himself in the cross-hairs of war while at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  It at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 that Tandey was wounded in the leg.  He was later released from the hospital and moved to the 9th Battalion which was in France at the time.  During the summer of 1917, he was again wounded.  This time he was hurt at the Third Battle of Ypres at Passchendaele.  From July 1918 to October of that same year Tandey was placed with the 5th Duke of Wellington Regiment.  While with that Regiment he helped take part in the British capture of Marcoing.

Dominating the Known World: Archaeologists Uncover Evidence of a Large Ancient Shipyard Near Rome

A Digital reconstruction of the shipyard from the west.  Inside, ships can be seen still while in construction.
(Photo by the University of Southamption)

University of Southampton and British School at Rome (BSR) archaeologists, leading an international excavation of Portus – the ancient port of Rome, believe they have discovered a large Roman shipyard.

The team, working with the Italian Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, has uncovered the remains of a massive building close to the distinctive hexagonal basin or ‘harbour’, at the centre of the port complex.

University of Southampton Professor and Portus Project Director, Simon Keay comments, “At first we thought this large rectangular building was used as a warehouse, but our latest excavation has uncovered evidence that there may have been another, earlier use, connected to the building and maintenance of ships.

The First Wild West: In America's first West, one animal proved himself to be someone not to mess with.

Skeletal reconstruction of Talos sampsoni. (Photo by Scott Hartman.  Paper authors: Lindsay E. Zanno,
David J. Varricchio3, Patrick M. O'Connor, Alan L. Titus, Michael J. Knell)

Raptor dinosaurs like the iconic Velociraptor from the movie franchise Jurassic Park are renowned for their "fear-factor." Their terrifying image has been popularized in part because members of this group possess a greatly enlarged talon on their foot—analogous to a butcher's hook. Yet the function of the highly recurved claw on the foot of raptor dinosaurs has largely remained a mystery to paleontologists. This week a collaboration of scientists unveil a new species of raptor dinosaur discovered in southern Utah that sheds new light on this and several other long-standing questions in paleontology, including how dinosaurs evolved on the "lost continent" of Laramidia (western North America) during the Late Cretaceous—a period known as the zenith of dinosaur diversity. Their findings will be published in the journal PLoS ONE.