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Thank you.
My faith in God is still strong....just not in childish way.
Thanks for all the nice messages ...been a hell of a year!
Thanks.
Interesting
The ancestors of people from across Europe and Asia may have spoken a common language about 15,000 years ago, new research suggests.
Now, researchers have reconstructed words, such as "mother," "to pull" and "man," which would have been spoken by ancient hunter-gatherers, possibly in an area such as the Caucuses or the modern-day country of Georgia. The word list, detailed today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers retrace the history of ancient migrations and contacts between prehistoric cultures.
"We can trace echoes of language back 15,000 years to a time that corresponds to about the end of the last ice age," said study co-author Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Tower of Babel
The idea of a universal human language goes back at least to the Bible, in which humanity spoke a common tongue, but were punished with mutual unintelligibility after trying to build the Tower of Babel all the way to heaven. [Image Gallery: Ancient Middle-Eastern Texts]
But not all linguists believe in a single common origin of language, and trying to reconstruct that language seemed impossible. Most researchers thought they could only trace a language's roots back 3,000 to 4,000 years. (Even so, researchers recently said they had traced the roots of a common mother tongue to many Eurasian languages back 8,000 to 9,500 years to Anatolia, a southwestern Asian peninsula that is now part of Turkey.)
Pagel, however, wondered whether language evolution proceeds much like biological evolution. If so, the most critical words, such as the frequently used words that define our social relationships, would change much more slowly.
To find out if he could uncover those ancient words, Pagel and his colleagues in a previous study tracked how quickly words changed in modern languages. They identified the most stable words. They also mapped out how different modern languages were related.
They then reconstructed ancient words based on the frequency at which certain sounds tend to change in different languages — for instance, p's and f's often change over time in many languages, as in the change from "pater" in Latin to the more recent term "father" in English.
The researchers could predict what 23 words, including "I," "ye," "mother," "male," "fire," "hand" and "to hear" might sound like in an ancestral language dating to 15,000 years ago.
In other words, if modern-day humans could somehow encounter their Stone Age ancestors, they could say one or two very simple statements and make themselves understood, Pagel said.
Limitations of tracing language
Unfortunately, this language technique may have reached its limits in terms of how far back in history it can go.
"It's going to be very difficult to go much beyond that, even these slowly evolving words are starting to run out of steam," Pagel told LiveScience.
The study raises the possibility that researchers could combine linguistic data with archaeology and anthropology "to tell the story of human prehistory," for instance by recreating ancient migrations and contacts between people, said William Croft, a comparative linguist at the University of New Mexico, who was not involved in the study.
"That has been held back because most linguists say you can only go so far back in time," Croft said. "So this is an intriguing suggestion that you can go further back in time."
Sorry I have been away...my life got messy!
Archaeologists exploring tunnels under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, a pyramid 30 miles from Mexico City, not only found three chambers (when they only expected one), but came across hundreds of mysterious metal spheres with unknown purpose.
spheres in chamber_DMC, INAH:M. MARATThe spheres found in a chamber off the tunnel seen on the ground. (Photo: DMC, INAH/M. MARAT via Discovery News)
According an article on Mexico's National Institute of Archaeology and History's website, the unexcavated portion of the tunnel under the temple in Teotihuacan was traversed by an infrared camera-equipped robot - Tlaloc II-TC -- that also had the ability to scan the area to generate a 3D picture.
Getting through the tunnel was a challenge with the robot because of its weight and the presence of mud, according to archaeologist Sergio Gómez Chávez. He said the wet conditions were to create a scene like that the Teotihuacanos believed to be similar to the underworld.
With information from the robot, archaeologists were able to find that they need to remove 30 more meters of debris in the tunnel to reach the three chambers.
chamber_ temple of feathered serpentOne of the chambers in an already excavated portion of tunnel under the temple. (Photo: DMC, INAH/M. MARAT via Discovery News)
Two additional chambers that are within the already excavated portion of the tunnel is where archaeologists found the spheres, which they believe were placed inside at the last closing of the tunnel about 1,800 years ago.
"We can not yet establish its role because it is an unprecedented discovery. They should have a sphere, ranging from 4 to 12 inches and have a core of clay with organic matter, then covered them with pyrite, a mineral that underwent a process of oxidation and became jarosite, hence have a tone yellow," archaeologist Jorge Zavala said, according to the National Institute of Archaeology and History.
sphers in temple of feathered serpentSpheres found in this chamber are on the ground. Archaeologists say in their original state, they would have shone as a golden color. (Photo: DMC, INAH/M. MARAT via Discovery News)
Discovery News reported George Cowgill, professor emeritus at Arizona State University who has authored publications on Teotihuacan, saying the spheres in their original condition "would have shown brilliantly." Still, he said he had no idea what they could mean.
The researchers hope the tunnels and chambers will offer clues about rituals, like burials of important figures, that were conducted in Teotihuacan.
"We believe that high-ranking people, priests or even rulers, went down to the tunnel to perform rituals," Gómez Chávez to Discovery News. "Maybe in this place, we will find the remains of those who ruled Teotihuacan."
And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing.
Most general Bible readers have the mistaken impression that Matthew, the opening book of the New Testament, must be our first and earliest Gospel, with Mark, Luke and John following. The assumption is that this order of the Gospels is a chronological one, when in fact it is a theological one. Scholars and historians are almost universally agreed that Mark is our earliest Gospel–by several decades, and this insight turns out to have profound implications for our understanding of the “Jesus story” and how it was passed down to us in our New Testament Gospel traditions.
The problem with the Gospel of Mark for the final editors of the New Testament was that it was grossly deficient. First it is significantly shorter than the other Gospels–with only 16 chapters compared to Matthew (28), Luke (24) and John (21). But more important is how Mark begins his Gospel and how he ends it.
He has no account of the virgin birth of Jesus–or for that matter, any birth of Jesus at all. In fact, Joseph, husband of Mary, is never named in Mark’s Gospel at all–and Jesus is called a “son of Mary,” see my previous post on this here. But even more significant is Mark’s strange ending. He has no appearances of Jesus following the visit of the women on Easter morning to the empty tomb!
Like the other three Gospels Mark recounts the visit of Mary Magdalene and her companions to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning. Upon arriving they find the blocking stone at the entrance of the tomb removed and a young man–notice–not an angel–tells them:
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:6-8)
And there the Gospel simply ends!
Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
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FYI
Berlin's Pergamon Museum is offering visitors a glimpse of perhaps the world's first real metropolis in a new exhibition that traces the long history of Uruk, in present-day Iraq.
Artifacts, including clay masks of demons, figurines of rulers, limestone ducks used as weights, a prism listing Sumerian kings and clay vessels used as water pipes, grace the exhibition "Uruk — 5,000 Years of the Megacity." They date back as far as the 4th millennium B.C.
The show marks a century of excavations at Uruk in which German experts have played a prominent part. But even now, organizers say, less than 5 percent of the sprawling site in the Iraqi desert about 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Baghdad has been explored.
Michael Eissenhauer, the director of Berlin's city museums, said Wednesday the exhibition aims to illustrate the importance of Uruk, "the first identifiable major city in the history of mankind" — believed to have had about 40,000 inhabitants in the 4th millennium B.C. and city walls more than 9 kilometers (5 1/2 miles) long.
It was in Uruk where "highly developed organizational forms of city life were developed," with writings and archives among the things discovered there, Eissenhauer said. "Uruk is the cradle of a sophisticated economic and administrative system."
The exhibition includes clay tablets detailing agreements and transactions, such as a payment in silver for delivering valuable stones, and a fragment of an early administrative text.
Uruk is commemorated in the epic poem of Gilgamesh, written on clay tablets about 2,000 B.C. and telling story of a legendary king. A figurine of Gilgamesh features in the exhibition.
The pieces on show at the Pergamon Museum, which is also home to Babylon's famous Ishtar Gate, include items from collections in Berlin and Heidelberg as well as pieces on loan from London's British Museum, Paris' Louvre and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.
Organizers hoped to secure exhibits from Iraq, but the idea fell apart because export permits would have needed the approval of the entire Iraqi Cabinet. That "is not feasible in the current political circumstances," Margarete van Ess of the German Archaeological Institute said
The exhibition opens to the public Thursday and runs through Sept. 8.
God!
Doctor....heal thy self.
He was a white guy who did Elvis impersonations.
Lettuce growers are known to be seedy.
Did he raise lettuce?
Your mom called...told you to stop this foolishness and take your Meds.
Life spans where much shorter back then
The "old white guys" were mostly in their 30's at the time of the Declaration. Washington himself was only 44 in 1776
Maybe but he is a professed Christian....Amen. So be it.
Not you...but labeling a man outside of his religion is a serious charge.
He seems too.
He got us out of 2 wars ...however, do you think he is a Muslim?
You think he is a Muslim?
That un American Wall! Lol!
Be honest Jesus is watching...are you pissed Obama is black?
Jesus was Jew don't forget that!
Lol Really? Hmmm! Lot of good men and women of color have been killed and wounded in the military so you can post shit on IHUB.
How so? Has he screwed up yes......is he the worst? Not by a long shot?
Some Redneck in MS just sent The President Ricin in the mail... Wanna bet he is a rootin tootin gun toatin conservative who thinks Obama is a Muslim in the White House?
Show me that number...please.
My wife is black.... So what?
Really.... Lol Grant was Horrible.
The Senate is people....lol ...take another hit off that bong.
Conspiracy Theories become too complex to work. They end up being based on fantastical odd events happening at the same time. Two guys or more laid down book bags and walked off....how they detonated them is key.....by cell phone....foreign ....some low tek means........ domestic.
I'm pretty good with the Bible.....don't think he had a gun......let me double check.
The word you are looking for is Whoremonger.
I watched this live and they reported an explosion at the Library.....that makes 3......now they say only 2. Odd to say the least.
And the rumor mill flies...it's normal......so many departments......so much info. It's going to take some time.
Come on man.....you of all people know the rules of war.