Thursday, March 7, 2013

What Roman Peasants Ate: Millet (aka birdseed)

http://www.livescience.com/27569-ancient-romans-ate-millet.html
Chemical analysis of skeltons from two cemeteries near Rome of the Imperial period suggest that people out in the boondocks ate a very monotonous diet: millet, millet, and more millet. Ancient literary sources refer to millet as feed for livestock.
Cool new way to study history.

Water/Sewage pipe burst in Khufu Boat museum near Pyramids

http://bikyanews.com/86316/breaking-ancient-egypt-pryamid-boat-threatened-after-sewage-burst/
Egypt! Get your act together! Protect your infrastructure, which protects your cultural heritage, which feeds your economy!
This is the museum that holds the wooden boat that dates to the time of the building of the Great Pyramids.

Good News from Mali, for a change

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/majority-of-timbuktu-manuscripts-were-smuggled-to-safety-a-885408.html
It appears that 80% of the manuscripts from the Timbuktu library were saved when German diplomats helped evacuate them from the area before the Islamist fighters could burn them.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Pater Noster: Benedict's last audience

Video of Pope Benedict XVI singing the Lord's Prayer in Latin at the end of his last public audience in St. Peter's Square, Feb. 27, 2013.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/50969249#50969249
Blogger apparently won't let me upload RealTime videos; it wants me to patronize YouTube instead.
Anyway, I think this is the link to some other footage of the Pope's departure with the MOST beautiful views of the helicopter zooming over the statues of saints in St. Peter's Square at sunset. Too amazing.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/50990151#50990536

News report of Pope's departure: great Rome views!

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/28/17129365-thank-you-for-your-friendship-benedict-leaves-vatican-for-final-time-as-pope?lite
The NBC Nightly News segment at the top of this story has great video of the Pope's helicopter as it flies out of Rome: flying over Colosseum, etc. Nice.
Yes, I care about the Pope's resignation mainly because it produces lots of news stories with footage of Rome AND because the mainstream media has to speak Latin more than they usually do. Sede vacante. Habemus papam. Et cetera.