From the sci-news.com website:
A new study reported in the journal Nature Communications indicates that the Minoans, who 5,000 years ago established the first advanced Bronze Age civilization in present-day Crete, probably were descendents of the first Neolithic humans to reach the island around 7,000 BC and that they have the greatest genetic similarity with modern European populations.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/article01078-dna-minoan-civilization-crete.html
From collider.com:
HISTORY has announced their cast for the scripted series, Vikings. Hoping to bank on the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones, writer Michael Hirst (The Tudors) created the series based on real life figures of Scandanavian history. The story follows the family saga and rise to power of Ragnar Lothbrok, a great hero who pushed the limits of exploration and rose to become King of the Viking tribes.
Read more here.
From the pbs.org website:
Host Michael Wood takes an epic journey, following in the path of the Queen of Sheba, searching for Shangri-La in Tibet, untangling the tales of King Arthur’s Celtic Brittan and tracing the trek of Jason who sought the Golden Fleece.
More info here.
From the kultur.com website:
This stunning program features dramatized reconstructions and ‘eye-witness’ accounts of Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous battle, plus Russian archive film footage from Bunderchuck’s masterpiece War and Peace. With 3D graphic mapping techniques and delightful period imagery, ‘The Battle of Austerlitz’ is a memorable account of a bloody battle which had a profound effect on the course of European history.
Other Napoleon related DVDs
The Napoleonic Wars
The Battle Of Trafalgar
The Battle Of Austerlitz
The Battle Of Borodino
Napoleon’s Road to Moscow
The Battle of Waterloo
Giuseppe Nogari “Archimedes (c.287-212 BC)”
From TED.com:
How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others.
See the video here.
from sci-news.com:
Oxford and Tübingen scientists have identified what they believe are the world’s oldest known musical instruments.
In their paper in the Journal of Human Evolution, the scientists report new results of radiocarbon dating for animal bones, excavated in the same archaeological layers as the musical instruments and early art, at Geißenklösterle Cave in the Swabian Jura of southern Germany.
The musical instruments take the form of flutes made from the bird bones and mammoth ivory. The animal bones bear cuts and marks from human hunting and eating. They were excavated at a key site, which is widely believed to have been occupied by some of first modern humans to arrive in Europe.
The researchers suggest that the Aurignacian, a culture linked with early modern humans and dating to the Upper Paleolithic period, began at the site between 42,000 and 43,000 years ago.
According to these findings, the artifacts from Geißenklösterle Cave are 2,000 to 3,000 years older than previously thought. So far these dates are the earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other regions.
From Amazon.com:
In 1880, Auguste Rodin was commissioned to create a set of bronze doors for a proposed museum in Paris. The museum was never built, but The Gates of Hell became Rodin’s most ambitious endeavor, taking over twenty years to complete.
During Rodin’s lifetime, The Gates was exhibited only once, in plaster. In 1977, Rodin’s intention of casting the plaster in bronze was fulfilled when American art collector and financier B. Gerald Cantor and his wife, Iris, commissioned a casting of the monumental work using the traditional and painstaking lost-wax process. When finished, it stood nearly 21 feet high and had taken more than three years to complete. This cast of The Gates of Hell was the first time in more than a century that such a large-scale lost wax bronze pouring had been attempted.
This DVD documents the triumphs and difficulties encountered during the casting of this eight-ton work and chronicles the life and work of Rodin –from the challengers of his early career to his later years of success and fame.
From the bbc.co.uk website:
The Industrial Revolution changed the world in countless ways – and produced many technical wonders in the process. Seven of the most notable are described here, each one proving that human creativity is as much alive in the modern world as it was in ancient times.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/seven_wonders_01.shtml
The ruins are a ‘sensational discovery’ with a structure to rival the Colosseum in Rome, archaeologists say.
Read the article here.
