INTERESTING

Interesting, especially given the differences of the cultures…

Il DNA dei moderni Greci è strettamente affine alla Civiltà Minoica e Micenea

Di Matteo Rubboli in data Lug 6, 2018

Dai tempi di Omero, i greci hanno idealizzato i loro antenati Micenei in poemi epici e tragedie classiche che glorificano le imprese di Ulisse, del re Agamennone e di altri eroi che entravano e uscivano dal favore degli dei ellenici. Sebbene i micenei raccontati nei poemi fossero frutto della fantasia, un team di studiosi ha compiuto una serie di analisi genetiche per appurare la discendenza dei moderni Greci.

Il DNA dei moderni greci è strettamente correlato agli antichissimi Micenei e Minoici

La Civiltà Micenea si sviluppò fra il 1.600 e il 1.200 a.C. nella zona di Micene, nel Peloponneso, per poi scomparire in modo repentino e misterioso, gettando però i semi per la cultura della Grecia Classica. I Minoici erano la popolazione dell’isola di Creta, oggi così chiamati grazie al nome del mitico Re Minosse, che costituirono la civiltà cretese fra il 2.000 e il 1.450 a.C.. I Micenei, contemporanei per lungo tempo dei Minoici, erano più combattivi di questi ultimi, che invece si dedicavano al commercio, e a un certo punto, fra il 1.450 e il 1.400 a.C., li assoggettarono al proprio controllo.

Sotto, la Porta dei Leoni a Micene. Fotografia di Andrea Trepte condivisa con licenza CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikipedia:

Epicamente non furono solo i Minoici a cadere, ma anche la città di Troia in Turchia, conquistata dai Micenei

In una ricerca del 2013, l’antico DNA di 19 persone vissute fra il 2.900 e il 1.700 a.C. (fra cui 10 minoici cretesi, 4 Micenei del sito archeologico di Micene e 5 persone di altre culture fra Grecia e Turchia) è stato confrontato con quello di 30 moderni Greci e altre 334 persone vissute in antichità in tutta l’area Mediterranea ed Eurasiatica.

I risultati sono stati sorprendenti

I micenei erano strettamente legati alle popolazioni minoiche, ed entrambi dovevano 3/4 del loro DNA ai primi agricoltori che vivevano in Grecia e nell’Anatolia sud-Occidentale. Entrambe le culture avevano un DNA connesso ai coltivatori caucasici nei pressi all’odierno Iran, suggerendo che la migrazione di persone dall’est avvenne prima che i micenei si separassero dai minoici. Tutte queste popolazioni, hanno un DNA profondamente diverso da quello delle popolazioni Africane ed Egiziane dell’epoca.

Rispetto agli abitanti di Creta, i Micenei portavano un’importante differenza:

Dal 4 al 16% del loro DNA proveniva da popolazioni del Nord-Europa o della Siberia

Uno degli autori dello studio, Iosif Lazaridis, genetista delle popolazioni presso l’Università di Harvard, afferma come sia quindi chiaro che le migrazioni dalla steppa eurasiatica proseguirono sino a poco prima del periodo Miceneo, ma non raggiunsero gli abitanti di Creta.

Sotto, affresco di una danzatrice al palazzo di Cnosso:

Non a caso, minoici e micenei si assomigliano. Negli affreschi, nelle ceramiche e in genere in tutte le opere d’arte, gli artisti di entrambe le culture dipingevano persone con gli occhi scuri e i capelli scuri, sebbene le due culture parlassero e scrivessero lingue diverse (Lineare A e Lineare B). I micenei erano più militaristi, e la loro arte era caratterizzata da lance e immagini di guerra, mentre l’arte minoica non era centrata sul culto della battaglia.

Sotto, una donna raffigurata a Micene:

E i greci moderni?

La parte forse più interessante dello studio è quella che raffronta la popolazione della moderna Grecia con quella degli antichissimi Greci. Fra i Micenei, i Minoici e i Greci Moderni esistono numerosissime sovrapposizioni genetiche. Per George Stamatoyannopoulos, co-autore dello studio, la continuità fra popolazioni vissute oltre 3.500 anni fa e i Greci moderni è sorprendente.

La Grecia subì le invasioni dei Persiani, dei Romani, dei popoli Barbari, il dominio dei Veneziani e dei Turchi Ottomani

Questo suggerisce che le componenti genetiche degli antenati dei Greci erano già consolidate durante l’età del bronzo (3.500-1.200 a.C.), dopo che la migrazione dei primi agricoltori dall’Anatolia stabilì il modello per il corredo genetico dei greci e, di fatto, per molti altri popoli europei.

Pittura a Cnosso:

La conclusione di Stamatoyannopoulos è che: “Ora sappiamo che i fondatori delle prima civiltà europea avanzata erano europei. Essi erano molto simili agli europei del neolitico e molto simili ai cretesi del giorno d’oggi“.

Il prossimo obiettivo dei genetisti è riuscire a identificare le connessioni fra il misterioso popolo Ittita e i moderni abitanti dell’odierna Anatolia.

Articolo parzialmente tradotto e da Science Mag., altre fonti sono le pagine Wikipedia riguardanti la Civiltà Micenea e Minoica.

NEW STUFF

A lot of nice new stuff on Wyrdroad.

Also, if you want to join us on Facebook then just send me a request to join. Then peruse or post as you wish…

WYRDROAD

 

SUBURBAN MEN

Although I am not a suburban man, I am a rural man, I like this site:

 

 

SAINT OLAF

Archaeologists in Norway discover church and altar of Viking King Olav Haraldsson

https://sketchfab.com/models/6729409680154b68b703c348e50d06e2/embedKirke/church at Søndregate 18/10 by nikunorway on Sketchfab

100SHARES

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN NORWAY CLAIM TO HAVE DISCOVERED A CHURCH WHERE THE VIKING KING, OLAF HARALDSSON WAS FIRST ENSHRINED AS A SAINT.

Archaeologists working on a site near Trondheim have unearthed the foundations of a wooden stave church and the alter where Olaf may have been enshrined immediately after being declared a saint. The discovery gives credibility to Norse saga accounts surrounding important events of that era.

Director of the project, Anna Petersén said “This is a unique site in Norwegian history in terms of religion, culture and politics. Much of the Norwegian national identity has been established on the cult of sainthood surrounding St. Olaf, and it was here it all began!”

Olaf II Haraldsson, later known as St. Olaf, was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028 till his death in the Battle of Stiklestad. His younger half-brother, Harald Hardrada, was also present at the battle who also became King of Norway in 1047, only to die in a failed invasion of England at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.

In his Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, the medieval Icelandic historian Snorri stated that “following King Olaf Haraldsson’s martyrdom in 1030, his body was buried in Trondheim, or Nidaros” (as it was known) and that the local populus soon reported portents and miracles attributed to the martyred king. A year after his death, Olaf’s coffin was dug up and opened in the presence of the bishop, revealing his miraculously well-preserved body. He was immediately declared a saint by popular acclaim and his body was enshrined above the high altar in the royal church of St. Clement’s church before being moved to the Cathedral some years later.

St. Clement’s church discovered

Archaeologists working for the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) have recently uncovered the stone foundations for a wooden stave church which they believe is the actual ruin of St. Clement’s Church from the dating evidence. Dating evidence and a study of the ruins places its construction at the time Olaf ruled.

During its excavation, the archaeologists uncovered a small rectangular stone-built platform at the building’s east end which is probably the foundation for an altar – probably the very same altar on which St. Olaf’s coffin was placed in 1031. In addition, a small well was also discovered which may be a holy well connected with the saint.

Niku

WHICH LEGEND?

Which Celtic Legend are You?

 

Actually, I suspect they got it right… with me anyway

Your legend is:
Finn MacCool

You are a seeker of knowledge, mystery, adventure–and of fish. When Finn was a young boy, he accidentally stole knowledge from a Druid. The Druid knew that if he ate a certain salmon, he’d have all of the world’s knowledge. He told Finn to catch it but not eat it. Still, when Finn touched the fish, it burned his hand. As he sucked on his burnt thumb to cool it, he absorbed all of the knowledge meant for the priest. He went on to success in many more adventures where he destroyed demons and traveled to the underworld to battle supernatural beings.

STC7 – EMBRACE THE WINDS

THE WYRDROAD OF WARFARE

https://www.facebook.com/groups/513044925567142/permalink/533644096840558/

 

You are also welcome to come and join Wyrdroad.

ROGUE ONE TOO

STC – FAIREST OF THEM ALL

 

http://www.startrekcontinues.com

THE WYRDROAD

By the way, I’ve mentioned this before but I have a new Facebook Gaming page up. It reflects the interests of this blog and you are welcome to go there and join and then participate and make your own posts.

Here is the Address: Wyrdroad

WYRDROAD

I have established a new Facebook Gaming Group.

I haven’t had much time to build up the membership yet because I’ve been busy but I have tried to build up some interesting content. The primary interest of the group is gaming, but like this blog it will cover history, archeology, warfare, science, technology, fantasy and science fiction, literature, pop culture, comics, etc.

You’re welcome to visit and to join. Just hit the links provided.

 

SPOOKED

If you are a young black male and you don’t understand that police are sometimes spooked by you, especially if you live in a high crime, urban area, then you aren’t thinking this out very far. Now as a black kid or man is that necessarily your fault? If you are law abiding and peaceful and doing the best you can, then no, it is not your fault. But at the moment anyway, it is the way it is. And no one can argue the way things actually are. You might not like it, and in this case you shouldn’t like it, but you can’t argue it’s not true.

If you are a police officer and you don’t understand that a lot of young black males (or others) are sometimes spooked by you, especially if you react to them with automatic suspicion or an assumption of guilt, then you aren’t thinking this out very far. Now as a cop is this your fault? If you are a good cop and doing the best you can, then no, it is not your fault. But at this moment, anyway, this is the way it is. And no one can argue the way things actually are. You might not like it, and in this case you shouldn’t like it, but you can’t argue it’s not true.

Everyone is spooked. Sometimes for entirely legitimate reasons and sometimes for assumptively dubious and entirely erroneous reasons. And when people are spooked, then rightly or wrongly, bad things tend to happen. People react instead of carefully observe, people are triggered by instinct rather than reason, people’s emotions become actively paramount rather than their common sense. The result of those habits are often very bad (certainly stupid and unnecessary), even murderous things.

But no one but criminals and terrorists and very bad men will benefit if young law abiding citizens and young men and the police are spooked of each other, and are reflexively hostile towards and automatically dubious of each other.

What’s the answer? Hell, I wish I could tell you the answer. The one that will work in every case. But no answer will work in every case. That’s just not real life. Not the way real people are. People are people. They will at times revert to their worst instincts or their most illogical and counter-productive habits. Or even to bad or incomplete or misguided training.

However I can tell you this much: When you are angry at each other, and vengeful towards each other, and automatically suspicious of each other, and spooked by each other then no real good can come of that. And no solutions either. Sometimes though, just really thinking and dwelling on the problem can give you an understanding of how to start.

However I can tell you what ought to be happening. What ought to be happening is that young black men, the law abiding and decent and good ones should be working with the police to take down criminals and thugs and terrorists in their own neighborhoods and to straighten out those neighborhoods for everyone else. (Including for the benefit and safety of their own children and women.) What ought to be happening is that cops should not to be automatically suspicious of all young black men who live in a dangerous area (and yes, they have every right to own personal firearms and maybe even more reason than most – because, well, think about it, they live in a bad or violent or high crime neighborhood) and instead the police ought to be conscripting the young, decent, good ones as allies and informants and friends to help clean up bad neighborhoods. (And good cops cannot stand beside or defend bad ones, or even wrong ones.) There should be an alliance and a true friendship and a partnership between citizen and police, but that has to run in both directions at once and respect and protection and cooperation and trust has to also run in both directions at once, and keep running in both directions at all times and as much as humanly possible.

Now I fully understand human beings and their true natures. I’m not fooled by how things will have to go or will go, or are even likely to go. And I’m not gonna try and deceive you with a bunch of feel good, talk-show, pop-psychology, fairy dust and glitterized bullshit. Mistakes will be made and will continue to be made. That’s human nature. Humans are imperfect. But no one should defend wrongdoing in either direction and over time the mistakes should become fewer and fewer, and even less and less egregious.

But this shit has got to stop people. My nation is already entirely fucked up enough as it is. Manslaughter and mass murder and unending suspicion and chaos and innocents being slaughtered and riots in cities and snipers on rooftops and kids shot dead out of suspicion is not the way. We’ve nowhere else to go from here but straight down to hell.

Being spooked all of the time will make spooks of far too many of us. Dead men in a dying land.It is a false hope to live as ghosts in a ghostland, to be half-men in a dead land, when we could be a Great Thing in a Great Land.

We should all be living and thriving and growing and developing, and at and about worthwhile, profitable enterprises.

What we’re doing right now ain’t working, and it can’t work. And, in the end, because it cannot hope to succeed, for anyone, it will have to be abandoned anyway. Or to stubborn self-ruin we go.

I hate even mentioning shit like this because I despise politics being interjected into life and death matters and matter of Right and Wrong. Right and Wrong should always stand on it’s own because, well hell, it’s fucking Right and Wrong. If you don’t get that then I can’t help you. Truth is you should never have to interject race or class or sex or any other far lesser considerations into Right and Wrong. But my wife is black, and my kids are half-black, and a lot of my good friends are black. And I grew up around cops and I’ve worked crime and tracked murders and rapists and thieves (and I know exactly how it works, I’m not in the least naïve or misguided about how criminals and terrorists are) and a lot of my good friends are cops and God-damnit it all to hell this ain’t fucking working.

I’m sitting here about to cry just thinking about all of the totally useless, murderous, violent shit I’ve seen over the years and I don’t fucking cry. And I keep thinking, Christ in Heaven, damn this mindless, habitual shit, don’t they ever, ever, ever fucking get it? How useless this shit is? How utterly unnecessary most of it is!!?

And if they don’t get it by now then what will it actually take?

Look, I’m under no illusion that most criminals are not gonna get what I’m saying. Nor are they gonna care. But by God, why can’t the rest of us? Get it?

So start now. For God’s sake. For your own sakes… Start doing things differently. Start treating each other differently. What in the fuck do any of us have to lose if we all do this differently?

Otherwise this shit is all you’re gonna have and this cycle of idiocy and death is all you’re going to have to hand down to your children and grandchildren.

You’ve already bankrupted them. Do you want to hand them down this useless shit too?

So man the fuck up already people, throw in together, and stop being so bucking spooked when you don’t need to be. And stop giving out reasons for others to be spooked by you too.

Because what we’re doing right now can’t possibly work over time.

And we’re running the hell out of it.

Pray for your nation folks. Pray for your own understanding. But just as importantly, if not more so, start doing things differently.

This shit is all on us. The solution will be on us too.

Or the doom and the fucking damnation will be.

And I for one have had a fucking nuff of the doom and the damnation.

I want to see things they way they ought to be. I want to see all men behaving as they should.

For God’s sake, for your own sakes, don’t you?

THE INDO-GREEKS

Archaeologists Discover Ancient Indo-Greek City in Pakistan

By Philip Chrysopoulos –

Jun 27, 2016

 1545  16 Google +0  1  0  1562

Italian and Pakistani Archaeologists have discovered large layers of an Indo-Greek city with weapons, coins and pottery forms, in Barikot, Pakistan, according to a Dawn report.

Barikot was called Bazira in ancient times, a city captured by Alexander the Great during his advance to India.

Dr. Luca Maria Olivieri, head of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan, told Dawn that during their recent excavation in April-June they unearthed some very important discoveries in Barikot, in the Swat river valley. Excavations at Barikot are funded by the Pakistan-Italian Debt Swap Program.

“Very little is known in the archaeology of the sub-continent about the material culture of the Indo-Greek. However, this time we discovered at Barikot ample layers associated not only to the Indo-Greek city (when the settlement was encompassed by the Defensive Wall, 2nd century BC), but also to the pre-Greek city, the Mauryan settlement (3rd century BC),” Olivieri told Dawn.

The archaeologist also said that during the excavations it was discovered that all pre-Greek layers were destroyed along the Defensive Wall at the time of its construction, to make space for the fortification, revealing conspicuous traces of the Iron Age village (7th century BC).

– See more at: http://world.greekreporter.com/2016/06/27/archaeologists-discover-ancient-indo-greek-city-in-pakistan/#sthash.mpaOZXsG.dpuf

GRAVEYARD ENCOUNTERS

10 Graveyard Encounters

A collection of graveyard encounters, adventure seeds, and half-baked thoughts…

1. The group stumbles upon a cemetery with tombstones a quarter of the standard size. Engraved on the tombstones are names like Kitty, Tiger, Max, etc. Half the grave soil has been disturbed as if something dug its way out. A meow can be heard in the distance as dozens of undead cats prowl the perimeter of their resting ground.

2. There are numerous mausoleums spread throughout the graveyard. Each one has four gargoyles leering at each of its roof corners. Anyone who crosses the shadow of any of the perched gargoyles will have the shadow come alive and attack. Once slain that gargoyle will no longer cast a shadow.

3. You encounter an elderly man who is digging up a grave. If questioned he tells you that he recently had a dream where his dead wife was calling for him to rescue her.

4. A young girl scream pierces through the cemetery. She is running frantically and crying for help. She and her partner came to the cemetery to make out when decaying arms rose up from the ground and dragged her lover beneath the surface. All that remains is a broken picnic basket, a shredded blanket, and a used sheepskin.

5. You cross paths with a half dozen gravediggers. Their cart is filled with dozens of bodies. Half of them deceased, the other half clinging to life. They tell you the other half will be dead soon enough and there is no point in waiting for the inevitable.

6. As you pass by a gravestone you hear scratching and clawing coming from the ground. The soil begins to break apart and you faintly hear mumbling asking for assistance. A few moments later a ghoulish man in victorian dress and a top hat pull himself out. He believes he is awfully late for a dinner engagement and ask your were Wilson Pub is.

7. A cemetery with a hundred gravestones and 12′ tall memorial plinth in the center. Once a living being enters the cemetery the dead begin to rise from their graves. Wave upon wave of zombies attack. Once a zombie is slain it will reanimate 1 hour later. The plinth in the center of the cemetery has the name of every person buried here. Only by crossing out their names will they stay dead.

8. You stumble upon a gravestone with a square glass in the center of it. Next to the glass are two dials. With the right combination on the dials or a successful disable trap check you are able to speak with the person who’s grave this belongs to. Their image will appear in the square glass and will gladly answer questions.

9. You enter into a graveyard and suddenly realize that the exit is no longer there. As far as the eye can see appears to be an endless rows of tombstones. You quickly realize that all gravestones bear the same name. Only by putting that soul to rest can you escape this distorted reality.

10. In a long abandoned cemetery you meet a farmer planting seeds on the burial plots. He claims that the dead are wonderful fertilizer and the crop yield has remnants of their past memories.

COME NOT BETWEEN THE DRAGONS – STC

I am really, really looking forward to this. If you haven’t seen Star Trek Continues then you really should. Superb work by everyone involved! It’s one of the best things on the internet. As a matter of fact it should be on TV.

And this episode has a Boarding Action!

I’m all about the boarding actions!

STAR TREK CONTINUES

 

 

Actually, I am finishing up a script for Star Trek Continues right now. Whether they will use it or not I don’t know, but I sure am having a ball writing it. And it’s science heavy and something I’ve always wanted to see in Star Trek.

 

 

THE TOMBS OF THE WHISPERING WORMS – LOST LIBRARY

THE TOMBS OF THE WHISPERING WORMS

Not my work but I fund the idea to be very interesting… see title link for .pdf download

 

JON SNOW AND CONSEQUENCES

THIS SNOW DON’T MELT, OR HOW THE RED WOMAN MAY HAVE GAINED A SOUL BY REALLY TRYING

Yeah, well Kit, it’s not like nobody saw through it. It was as transparent as transparent aluminum..

What interested me most was not the Resurrection, saw that coming the moment you were killed. What was really interesting was the way.

I was right about the Red Woman. She was obviously different than all the other followers of the Lord of Light.

But is she now? She was obviously remorseful about her “failure of vision and foresight” (though who else might be resurrected in some odd way – Stannis – were all her visions false, or all true just in unexpected ways) though is she remorseful about her pagan sorceries and human sacrifices? Maybe so. Has she now learned a lesson? Will the Resurrection move her to becoming a Priestess of Light and not just a man and child burner, and a demon-birther? We’ll see I reckon. If she is really changed, and if so, exactly how.

And how will that influence the Truth of her real mission, what she is hoping to accomplish, and everything else that lies underneath her shell? The shell of her necklace that is…

Game of Thrones: Kit Harington breaks his silence — Exclusive

BY JAMES HIBBERD • @JAMESHIBBERD

Game of Thrones

Posted May 1 2016 — 10:03 PM EDT

This story contains a major revelation from Sunday’s Game of Thrones episode “Home.”

Jon Snow has returned to the land of the living.

As fans of HBO’s Emmy-winning hit Game of Thrones have now learned, Kit Harington’s murdered fan-favorite character Jon Snow was revived at the end of Sunday night’s episode. The Lord Commander was resurrected by the sorceress Melisandre, a reveal that caps 10 months of worldwide speculation following Snow’s death at the hands of his Night’s Watch brothers in last year’s finale.

During an in-depth interview exclusively with EW, Harington spoke about his incredible journey shouldering the show’s biggest secret. Actors typically only have to perform while in front of the camera. But to protect the Jon Snow twist, Harington was asked by the show’s producers to deliver an off-camera performance too — the role of an actor who departed a series that’s become a worldwide sensation.

SEE ALSO

This Week’s Cover: Kit Harington on his ‘Game of Thrones’ revival

‘Game of Thrones’ star explains Ramsay’s horrifying ‘Home’ murders

‘Game of Thrones’ recap: ‘Home’

The first thing Harington wants viewers to know after seeing his revival: “Sorry!” the 29-year-old says in the above video excerpt. “I’d like to say sorry for lying to everyone. I’m glad that people were upset that he died. I think my biggest fear was that people were not going to care. Or it would just be, ‘Fine, Jon Snow’s dead.’ But it seems like people had a, similar to the Red Wedding episode, kind of grief about it. Which means something I’m doing — or the show is doing — is right.”

RELATED: Game of Thrones: 17 Biggest Changes from Books to TV

For months EW has been working on a top-secret cover story on the extraordinary behind-the-scenes tale of Jon Snow’s death and resurrection — including an exclusive conversation with Harington.Subscribe to receive the issue in digital format and exclusive online access the moment the story is posted. Or buy the issue right now here. Follow @jameshibberd for updates – and check out our recap of “Home” now. More coming Monday on the shocking episode, including our Game of Thrones podcast, where we’ll break down “Home” — plus talk about our Harington interview.

Check out our exclusive cover below.

20 Things to Loot from the Wizard’s Body

by Creighton Broadhurst

During the course of their adventures, our heroes are likely to slay many evil wizards (and loot their bodies).

By William McAusland (Outland Arts)

 

Sadly, most such individuals seem to never carry anything beyond a spell component pouch, a few magic items and some loose coinage. Not only is this boring it’s also utterly lacking in verisimilitude—after all, everyone carries odds and ends in their pockets. Use the table below, to generate such items of minor interest and make looting the body of a slain wizard much more interesting!

1. An amulet comprising a single, yellowed dragon’s tooth suspended from a leather thong. A rune for protection is carved into the tooth.
2. A small flask of powered silver (worth 50 gp). The leather flask itself has a small strap allowing it to be carried over the shoulder.
3. A silver dagger concealed is concealed in one of the wizard’s boots. The dagger is clearly unused—its blade is sharp and polished to a high sheen.
4. A silver bracelet from which hang a number of charms. Each is decorated with a single rune—fire, water, air, earth, dragon, devil, demon—among them. The whole thing is worth 75 gp.
5. A leather scroll tube crudely painted bright blue. It is stoppered with a leather bung that clips into the place. The bung has been painted red.
6. These fine leather boots have a number of small, unobtrusive pockets hidden inside. Most of the pockets hold commonly available spell components, but two hold a single platinum coin.
7. This plain scroll tube contains several pieces of parchment the wizard used to make observations of the stars. These comprise several complicated diagrams of various constellations and cryptic notes regarding “the wanderer.”
8. The torn and scorched cover of “Agananzar’s Workbook” is wrapped in cloth and hidden in the wizard’s pack. Sadly nothing else of the book’s contents remains.
9. A pouch contains a variety of small bones—probably finger bones—clearly “harvested” from a variety of different creatures. Each is in pristine condition—all the skin having been boiled away.
10. Three empty potion vials; one is marked “invisibility” while the other two smell slightly of cinnamon.
11. A locket holding a lock of coarse black hair. It is evident from the hair’s texture—and the slight smell of rotten eggs—the hair is not from a natural source.
12. A dozen small semi-circular stones worn perfectly smooth. An esoteric rune—depicting various types of magic—adorns each stone.
13. A slender belt pouch specially treated to be waterproof. Inside the pouch, the wizard stored a variety of dried herbs. Each bunch is tied together with twine.
14. The shattered stub of a wooden stake. Black blood covers the stake’s tip. Barely visible under the blood is some kind of rune, but its meaning is impossible to determine as part of it is missing.
15. Three quills wrapped in an ink-stained cloth and two small vials of ink—red and black—all carried in a small pouch along with several scraps of crumpled parchment.
16. A bent iron spike, the head of a hammer and a shard of incredibly tough stone.
17. A black velvet cloth inlaid with golden thread wrapped around a dried and perfectly preserved red rose. The rose’s thorns are yet sharp and its flower emits a particular heady scent.
18. A small treatise depicting the various protective circles—against good, evil and so on—along with notes on how to quickly create such protective barriers. A perceptive reader skilled in spellcraft spots several of the diagrams are fatally flawed.
19. A flask of holy water and a flask of unholy water—both clearly labelled in Elven—along with a fine painter’s brush, two owlbear feathers and one gigantic feather (perhaps from a roc or other huge bird).
20. A small red velvet pouch. The pouch is all but empty—however a determined examination reveals a few flecks of diamond dust stuck to the pouch’s lining.

BAM! THE ANCIENTS WERE ANCIENT BUT HIGHLY DEVELOPED

Archaeologists Unearth Spectacular 3,500-Year-Old Warrior’s Grave in Pylos

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The Greek culture ministry announced that an international team of archaeologists led by the Department of Classics from the University of Cincinnati have uncovered a spectacular 3,500-year-old, treasure-filled grave of a warrior has been discovered near an ancient palace in southern Greece.

UC’s Sharon Stocker with the 3,500 year-old skull found in the warrior’s tomb (Photo Department of Classics/University of Cincinnati)

The Culture Ministry says the grave is the most spectacular discovery of its kind from the Mycenaean era in more than 65 years on continental Greece. The discovery has revealed about 1,400 artifacts, including gold and silver jewelry, cups, bronze vases, engraved gemstones and an ornate ivory-and gilt-hilted sword.

The grave escaped plunderers who looted a monumental beehive tomb discovered decades ago in the area, near the palace of Pylos — one of the most important Mycenaean administrative centers.

The warrior’s remains were found with a yard-long bronze sword and a remarkable collection of gold rings, precious jewels and beautifully carved seals. Archaeologists expressed astonishment at the richness of the find and its potential for shedding light on the emergence of the Mycenaean civilization, the lost world of Agamemnon, Nestor, Odysseus and other heroes described in the epics of Homer.

It said the dead warrior, aged 30-35, must have been a “leading member” of Pylos’ aristocracy. The tomb, which stands at 2.4 meters (7 feet 10 inches) long and 1.5 meters wide, was unearthed during excavations begun in May near Pylos, on the site of the palace of Nestor.

“Probably not since the 1950s have we found such a rich tomb,” said James C. Wright, the director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Nicholas Wade wrote in The New York Times that the discovery could be a gateway to discovering unknown things about the relationships between the Minoan civilization on Crete and the Mycenaean civilization that flourished on the Greek mainland more than 3,000 years ago.

THINGS OF INTEREST AND USE – GAMEPLAY

THINGS OF INTEREST AND USE

I have a Pinterest account in which I have compiled things of interest and use for my writings, gaming, and inventions.

Some of you might find these things useful for designs, idea-generation, or mapping.

https://www.pinterest.com/occu77/games-and-maps/

Some of the other boards you might find useful are these:

https://www.pinterest.com/…/archeology-exploration-and-vad…/

https://www.pinterest.com/occu77/history/

https://www.pinterest.com/…/gadgets-invention-and-technolo…/

https://www.pinterest.com/…/entertainment-politics-pop-cul…/

https://www.pinterest.com/occu77/art-and-icons/