They can be found in the Museo del Oro, in Bogota, Columbia. They are solidly dated and accepted as being some centuries old. Those are the real thing.

Golden object coming from a pre-Columbian tomb which, though an estimated age of 1800 years, evidently represents a scale-model of an airplane with delta wings, place for the engine, cabin, windshield, tail with flaps and elevators. It’s only one of many similar findings in South America.

One can identify vertical and horizontal stabilizers and swept-wings, ideal for supersonic flights. We can even see what could be looked as corrugated metal or underlining structures. And there are not one, but many of these artifacts, like the other one at right.

On its wings, in this case smooth, we can also see what could be a symbol, much like the ones adorning our planes today.

Some years ago, the AAS-RA (Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association) even tried to actually reproduce those ancient jets.

One was fitted with propellers, while the other was actually fitted with a small jet engine, in the exact location they assumed it was in the original jets.

If you are still skeptic, then swallow this: the models by Algund Eenboom and Peter Belting flew. They didn’t brake the sound barrier, but they flew quite well.

by Donald B. MacGowan

Pu'ukohola at Sunset Kohala, Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Whether you visit the Big Island for a few days, a couple weeks or a few months, you want to make the most of your time in Paradise. With such a wide variety of natural and commercial attractions, it is natural for the visitor to get a little overwhelmed in the “Option Overload” and not be able to make a balanced and informed decision on what they want to do and how best to spend their time.

Even choosing which beach you want to spend time on, or where you want to hike can be an exercise in confusion and conflicting advice.  Clearly, visitors to Hawaii could use help making quality decisions about how best to spend their time.

Pelakane Beach near Hale O Kapuni, Pu'ukohola National Historic Park, Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Tour Guide Hawaii is excited and proud to announce the release of their new GPS/WiFi enabled App for iPhone and iPod that helps you navigate your trip to Hawaii with hours of informative, location-aware video and information. Although our video guide will lead you to dozens of unusual, untamed and unspoiled spots, let’s look at one of Hawaii’s most significant historical and cultural parks, Pu’u Kohola National Historic Park and highlight just a bit of the information you might not be able to find from maps and guidebooks that could otherwise cause you to miss some very interesting places and amazing sights if you did not have Tour Guide Hawaii’s new App.

Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Park

Autmun Afternoon at Pu'ukohola Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

The fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, the devotion of a powerful young King and the first steps toward a new kingdom; the temple at Pu’ukohola stands a mute testament to the facts of Hawaiian history that read like the most dramatic of legends. Forever brooding seaward, Pu’ukohola is an enormous temple inspired by a god-sent vision of greatness. Kamehameha built Pu’ukohola on top of its eponymous hill at Mailekini, in fulfillment of the prophecy by Kaua’i kahuna Kapoukahi. The prophecy foretold if Kamehameha built a great temple to his war god Ku, he would prevail in his wars of conquest and unite the Hawai’ian Islands. In or around the year 1791, perhaps as many as 20,000 people passing stones hand-to-hand 14 miles from Pololu Valley raised this massive Heiau.

When it was finished, Kamehameha invited his cousin and chief rival for the throne of Hawai’i, the Ali’i of Ka’u, Keoua, to the dedication. Some versions of the story tell that when Keoua arrived with a contingent of his Ka’u warriors, a scuffle broke out and he was killed by a spear thrown by the warrior Ke’eaumoku. Kamehameha had the rest of the Ali’i in Keoua’s party seized and they were made the first sacrifice at the new temple.

MaunaKea from Pu'ukohola National Historic Park, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. Macgowan

Another version of the story tells that Ke’eaumoku took hold of Keoua and ducked him into the sea; as a result, Keoua drowned. This account contends that Keoua was not killed by a spear because Kamehameha believed there should be no blemish on the body of Keoua for the consecration of the temple to Ku.

Brooding Seaward, Pu'ukohola looms over Kawaihae Harbor, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Yet another version of the story holds that Keoua was in fact shot and killed by the Brits John Young and Isaac Davis, from somewhere below Mailekini Heiau. This story contends that this is how Pelekane Beach, which means “British Beach”, got its name. All accounts agree that because of the ease with which the Ali’i had been captured and sacrificed, all the rest of Keoua’s party were spared.

After long years of fierce battle and earnest negotiation, in 1810 after having united the islands by force or agreement, and having fulfilled the prophecy, Kamehameha became the first ruler of the united Hawai’ian Islands.

Looking Down Onto Pelakane Beach From Near Mailekini Heiau, Pu'ukohola National Historic Park, Kohala, Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Pu’ukohola is the largest stone structure in Hawaii, not counting the modern rock wall in front of the Kailua Lowe’s Hardware store.

Below Pu’ukohola and Mailekini lies Pelekane Beach at the mouth of Pelekane Gulch. Submerged just offshore between here and the Kawaihae Harbor jetty, are the largely unexplored, ruined remains of Hale O Kapuni Heiau, a temple dedicated to the shark god Mano. Here worship rites included human flesh being fed to sharks. One reason this temple is not better known is that the bay is still home to several large tiger sharks.

Overlooking the Site of the Submerged Hale O Kapuni Heiau from Near Mailekini Heiau to the Kawaihae Jetty, Pu'ukohola National Historic Park, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

A full range of facilities exist at Pu’ukohola and the adjacent Samuel Spencer Beach Park.

To see the new iPhone/iPod Touch App, please visit http://www.tourguidehawaii.com/iphone.html. The best of Tour Guide Hawaii’s free content about traveling to, and exploring, the Big island, can be found here. For more information on traveling to Hawaii in general and on touring the Big Island in particular, please also visit www.tourguidehawaii.com and www.tourguidehawaii.blogspot.com.

Sunrise on Pu'ukohola Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Copyright 2009 by Donald B. MacGowan. All rights reserved.

Orote point, is another hike-down-the-cliff, on-base beach that is absolutely beautiful.
Through the jungle you have a rope to hold on to for most of the steep, slippery rocky trail down the cliffside. Spanish steps can be found all over Guam, one of the main pieces of evidence of early Spanish colonial occupation of Guam. You crawl over a few of these spanish steps, and at the end you can see remnants of a well from the same time period at the bottom.
At the bottom there is a thick palm forest between the cliffside and the beach (similar to Haputo but here you actually have to hike through it).
A palm forest is beautiful and different than any other forest. Like a pine forest, nothing seems to decay on the ground. Instead there is just a nice bed of palms blanketing the floor, that stay perfectly in shape and makes you realize why we have so many fossils of these trees and why they were lay down in front of Jesus on Palm Sunday, they a literally like a carpet! Tony baby coconuts and big one’s are scattered all along, and some of them even move as you come close — until you realize those are actually just giant hermit crabs. Although the canopy is so thick above that hardly any light shines through, except a few slices between non-overlapping palms here and there, there is a lot of SPACE underneath that canopy’s. After all, there’s nothing but a skinny little trunk beneath the top of the tree. However, despite all this space, its quite confusing and easy to lost in the forest if you take more than 3 seconds to wander without paying attention to your direction. The curves of all the different trees in every direction, overlapping and underlapping, makes it hard to distinguish any specific branch or tree from another. Luckily, the trail through is marked with hot pink hunter’s tape and its you can find your way to the beach really easily. Straight across the water is the point of the harbor peninsula, and because it was raining the day I went to the beach huge waves were crashing up against the rocks. On this beach too, your feet sink a good 3 inches into the sand when you walk because it is so soft. The water is all different shades, and you can tell where it drops off to a new depth about every 10 feet out you go. There are caves (around the point) I believe that have evidence of early Chamorro inhabitation (they lived in caves and in lean-to-like structures. However, because of the the storm I decided not to hobble around the point on the slippy volcanic rocks. Still a worthwhile hike down though, and I will definitely head back there on a sunny day.

A long time ago (two months, I suppose), Rob and I went to the palace of Nik An, in the complex of Chan Chan. For S/.11 you get a ticket good for 2 days that lets you into four different sites, including Nik An, the Site Museum, Huaca Esmerelda, and Huaca Arco Iris. Now, we started a bit late in the afternoon and because the sites are all pretty spread out (Chan Chan was home to 30,000 people back in the day), we only got to see Nik An and the Site Museum.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. We still had our Chan Chan tickets, and we’d not yet gone to visit either Huaca Esmerelda or Huaca Arco Iris. Sure, the tickets were time-stamped and had expired two months ago. Would anyone really look at them?

This bus goes from the city center to Esperanza and El Milagro. Hop on and check it out.

After our morning class at Fairmail we hopped on the first bus that said it would take us close, the “Esperanza Express” (Buenos Aires/Milagro, red and white, letter A). It was packed, and we got to sit up in the front next to the driver. Rob was snapping photos like a madman, and the bus driver and the wrangler were grinning as they watched him brace himself against the bumps and lurches.

One thing we’ve noticed about buses: If you’re a gringo, they get a kick out of you. The wrangler and bus driver (brothers, we suspect) both had the most amazing smiles. The wrangler had a mouthful of gold teeth that just gleamed as he shook his head and watched us bounce around on our seats (he smiled unnaturally with his mouth closed when posing for this portrait—I was disappointed).

Hiding his awesome gold teeth.

The wrangler got us off at the correct stop and we waved goodbye. He just grinned at us again and laughed.

Chan Chan was a massive city, with settlements and temples sprawling from the center of Trujillo all the way up here to Huanchaco. The outcome of this is that while you’re walking through the suburbs of Trujillo you’re constantly wandering past huge mounds of dirt that once were temples.

Maybe not the best angle on a Peruvian Hairless Dog, but the other sides aren't great, either.

The Huaca Arco Iris is one of these ancient temples that now sits squarely beside a busy, traffic-clogged street. We were met by a pair of Peruvian Hairless Dogs (a must for any fashionable archeological site), and I handed our long-expired tickets to the gatekeeper. She glanced at the date, tore the tickets and waved us toward the temple.

It was as we had suspected. No one particularly cared about the “two-day” rule.

This temple has two names: Arco Iris (rainbow) and Dragon. Any guesses as to why?

Two dragons kiss under a rainbow. My guess is that dragons were the Chimú's version of bears.

The temple must have been fully covered with these Dragon-under-Rainbow carvings, both inside and out. The temple has been restored, its walls plastered smooth and the carvings exposed, and the pattern is repeated without deviation over all the surface that remains intact,

It’s not the same eerie silence that you find out in Chan Chan. Even with the high cement walls around the huaca you can still hear the honking of horns from the major street outside and the giggling of the highschoolers who had been trucked in for a field trip.

After we spent some time there we brought out the map. Something was wrong—we were definitely not where the map said that Huaca Arco Iris was. We finally figured out that we were about 5 blocks up and on the other side of the street, so we decided to wander down to check out where the map thought Arco Iris was.

We found a walled-off temple there, with “Huaca Takaynamo” stenciled on the side. We walked all the way around, and found a closed gate. We opened it and stuck our heads in.

Huaca Takaynamo is not a full-fledged tourist site yet. You can tell because of the stacks of mud bricks that are being used for reconstruction, the fact that the gate is closed and that we interrupted the caretaker while he was eating lunch, and especially because the guard dog that’s barking ferociously at us isn’t a Peruvian Hairless Dog. He looks a lot healthier, and a lot more vicious.

The caretaker put down his fork and came over to tell us that we really weren’t supposed to be there, but he permitted a couple of photos. I asked if they had plans to open the temple to tourism, and he shrugged. “They’re reconstructing it,” he said, waving his hand at the empty temple, the mud bricks and ladders and scaffolding. Who? I wanted to ask, but it was clear that no one had been by for a while.

‘An amateur British treasure hunter and the owner of the field where he struck gold are in for a big payday: His find turns out to be a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon cache of the precious metal. The collection is worth about $5.4 million, British Museum tells the AP.
The treasure—all 1,500 pieces of it—was found this summer in Staffordshire and generated much excitement among British archaeologists. Two central England museums hope to acquire it jointly. -AP

The exiles’ return to Jerusalem was first and foremost a symbolic, national and political act. The scenario described, moreover, is consistent with the Biblical account: “The city was large and spacious; there were few people in it and no houses had yet been built” (Nehemiah 7:14). That living in Jerusalem at this time was a symbolic act is indicated by the fact that few of the returning exiles wanted to reside here—and those that did were blessed. As the Bible describes the situation: “The leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem; and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one in every ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the remaining nine lived in other towns. And the people gave their blessing to all those who volunteered to live in Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 11:1–2).

Jerusalem in the Persian period is not the only case in which a large city includes many unsettled areas surrounded by a strong city wall. A similar situation existed, for example, in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in the period just before its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in ‘3 CE Steven Runciman vividly describes the situation in Constantinople at that time:

“The city itself, within its fourteen miles of encircling walls, had even in its greatest days been full of parks and gardens, dividing the various quarters. But now many quarters had disappeared, and fields and orchards separated those that remained. [To one observer in the first years of the 15th century,] it was astounding that so huge a city should be so full of ruins.” [1]

Persian period Jerusalem was much the same: A magnificent metropolis, heavily fortified, which, due to tragic historical circumstances, was emptied of the majority of its population, while the walls encircled an area as large as it had been before.
This leaves me with one small point concerning the location of the Persian period wall on the eastern slope of the City of David, where large portions of the MB wall have been found, as well as portions of the eighth-century BCE wall (in places a double wall). Kenyon uncovered a structure further up the slope that she identified as the new wall built in the Persian period. According to the minimalists, the exiles constructed here a new wall rather than restoring the old one further down the slope. In my view, here, too, Nehemiah restored the line of the previously existing First Temple wall: Even on the difficult lower slope, it would be easier to restore the wall than to build an entirely new one upslope.

NOTES:

[1] Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 9–10

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States Licens

PALACE OF KANS

When the guide showed us a mound of earth, describing it as the Palace of Kans, Krishna’s uncle at Mathura, we all laughed. That was in 1967.

When I read Alexander Cunningham’s tour notes, I realized that it was no joke. He has said the same thing about the mound at Mathura. He is considered the father of Archeology in India. It was at his instance, that we started digging the” earthen hills” at Nalanda in 1914, and lo!; what a discovery! About the famous university, he had read. Following the foot steps of Huen Tsang, he reached the village, which was just a waste land. Cunningham realized that it must be the location of the famous Nalanda University.

 When I stood there and looked at the workers still digging there, I thanked the Englishman!

There is too much talk of Ram Janmabhoomi and building a temple there. Why not dig the palace of Kans? After all, it is Krishna Janmabhoomi.

The only certain thing to my job is uncertainty.

I feel like I jinxed myself telling people I was going to be doing a 3-week data recovery at Fort Hood. Less than 24 hours later, my boss comes in and tells me that the plans have changed. Now, I’ll only be going to Fort Hood for the first week. Then, back out to East Texas for another pipeline survey.

Just when there was a glimmer of hope at work, it’s snatched away from me. As I’ve said a lot recently, I do love my job, but I’ve hated the work I’ve been doing for a while now. I’m happy to have a job doing what I went to school for, and I work for a really good company. But the endless surveys and report writing are really wearing on me. It’s even harder when you know there’s a cool project going on, and you’re not a part of it.

I’ve always said that I’ll go where they tell me to go and do what they ask me to do. I’m being sent on the survey because they need a solid, experienced person to help out the field director, so getting sent is a positive commentary on my work and the way my bosses feel about me. But still, I’m disappointed, and I’m going to have to try really hard not to let that show while I’m out on the survey.

At least I’m done with the massive report, and drinking a beer in an airport bar as I travel to visit my family for Thankgsiving.

by Donald B. MacGowan

Sacred Ki'i Guard the Place of Refuge at Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Whether you visit the Big Island for a few days, a couple weeks or a few months, you want to make the most of your time in Paradise. With such a wide variety of natural and commercial attractions, it is natural for the visitor to get a little overwhelmed in the “Option Overload” and not be able to make a balanced and informed decision on what they want to do and how best to spend their time.

Pu'u Honua O Honaunau, the Place of Refuge, As Seen from Two-Step Snorkeling Beach, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

Even choosing which beach you want to spend time on, or where you want to hike can be an exercise in confusion and conflicting advice.  Clearly, visitors to Hawaii could use help making quality decisions about how best to spend their time.

Sacred Ki'i at Pu'u Honua O Honaunau, the Place of Refuge. The "Kona Style" of Polynesian Wood Carving is Considered Among the Best in the World and These Sacred Iki are Fine Examples, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Tour Guide Hawaii is excited and proud to announce the release of their new GPS/WiFi enabled App for iPhone and iPod that helps you navigate your trip to Hawaii with hours of informative, location-aware video and information. Although our video guide will lead you to dozens of unusual, untamed and unspoiled spots, let’s look at what may be Hawaii’s most spiritual, historically important and beautiful attraction, Pu’u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park, and highlight just a bit of the information you might not be able to find from maps and guidebooks that could otherwise cause you to miss some very interesting places and amazing sights if you did not have Tour Guide Hawaii’s new App.

Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park Entrance, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

Pu’u Honua O Hounaunau National Historic Park: The Place of Refuge

Hale O' Keawe Heiau and Keone'ele, Pu'u Honua O' Hounaunau National Historic Park: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Introduction: Writing about the Place of Refuge in 1889, Robert Louis Stevenson said: “There are times and places where the past becomes more vivid than the present, and the memory dominates the ear and eye…”

Royal Fishpond, Place of Refuge, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

Easily the most beautiful, peaceful and restful spot in all the Hawai’ian Islands, Pu’u Honua O Honaunau is a place of ease and regeneration for even the most weary and jaded soul. Of enormous historical and cultural significance, the sacred grounds at Honaunau are the best-preserved and largest remaining Pu’u Honua, or Place of Refuge, complex in Hawai’i. It is also a wonderful area to wander, swim, hike, snorkel, relax, picnic or SCUBA dive

Sacred Ki'i Guard Secrets as Old as Hawaii Itself, Pu'u Honua O Honaunau, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Samuel Clemens and Kamehameha III passed many days in idle chat along the Great Wall of Honaunau; one can still sit upon the rock where they reclined and see the holes bored into the lava to support poles for awnings. For anyone who had any doubts about what Old Hawai’i was like, a trip to Honaunau will fill your imagination, your camera and your soul.

Hale o Keawe and Temple Precincts, Place of Refuge, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

The Place of Refuge: A complex and strict order of law, known as the kapu system, controlled and governed everything in ancient Hawai’i from the order of crop rotation to proper sexual relations, what fish may be caught and in what season, what foods could be eaten by women and proper respect for the royalty (for instance, it was to break kapu for men and women to eat together, for women to eat pork or bananas, or for commoners to look upon the king or to step upon ground he had trod). Under the kapu law system, punishment for any transgression was swift and severe: immediate death by stabbing, clubbing, strangulation, drowning or burning. There was no appeal and no recourse; judgment was immediate and final.

Path from the Temple Grounds to the Royal Precincts, Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Unless the accused could escape to one of the designated heiau at a place of refuge. Once there, the accused would undergo a cleansing ceremony by the kahuna and would be absolved of all crimes and allowed to return to his family and previous life, free of onus. Women, children and the infirm also took refuge at the Pu’u Honua in times of war, as did vanquished warriors wishing to submit to the winning chief. Not often mentioned, however, is the grisly sport the king’s men sometimes made of the unfortunate accused, chasing them across sharp a’a fields, through the surf, over mountains, toying with their victims only to butcher them upon the Refuges’ outer wall, seeming seconds from salvation. This too, was sanctioned by the law.

A Passage Through The Massive Wall of Honaunau, Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

The complex at Pu’u Honua O Honaunau, established as a National Historical Park in 1961, is vast, well preserved and pervaded by a soul-filling peace. Down the center of the complex runs the Wall of Honaunau, 100 feet long, 10 feet tall and 17 feet thick. It separated the palace grounds of the Ali’ from the temple grounds of the Pu’u Honua. The wall was made without mortar or dressing the stones and has survived for over 500 years.

The Dry-Stack Masonry Employed by the Ancient Hawaiians, Using No Mortar, Has Survived Over Half a Millenium of Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes With No Apparent Damage: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

The royal residence area includes the canoe landing at Keone’ele Cove, Heleipolala Fishpond, several reconstructed residences and a canoe hale as well as the famous Hale Keawe, where the iwi (bones) of as many as 23 Ali’i ancestors of Kamehameha were once stored and venerated.

The 'Ale'ale'a Athletic Field, Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

On the grounds of the refuge itself stands the stone platform, ‘Ale’ale’a, which was used for sports, the Keoua Stone, legendary resting place of the Ali’i and the Ka’ahumanu Stone, where it is said the favorite wife of Kamehameha the Great hid after quarrels with her husband.

An Ocean View Through Waiuohina Lava Tube View, Pu'u Honua O Honaunau National Historic Park, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Leading south out of the refuge is the 1871 Trail, so named because area residence paid their 1871 taxes by improving and maintaining it. This trail leads to many important archeological sites such as the Ki’ilae Village, ‘Oma’o Heiau, Alahaka Heiau, Keokua Holua and the Waiuohina Lava tube.

Sunset in the Vog Cast an Eerie Light on this Sacred Iki, Place of Refuge, Honaunau, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

To see the new iPhone/iPod Touch App, please visit http://www.tourguidehawaii.com/iphone.html. The best of Tour Guide Hawaii’s free content about traveling to, and exploring, the Big island, can be found here. For more information on traveling to Hawaii in general and on touring the Big Island in particular, please also visit www.tourguidehawaii.com and www.tourguidehawaii.blogspot.com.

The Place of Refuge, Pu'u Honua O Hounaunau National Historic Park, From Across Honaunau Bay, Kona Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

Copyright 2009 by Donald B. MacGowan. All rights reserved.

Did you miss me?  So did I.  In this post, I’ll talk about the museum I visited the weekend before last and about flintknapping.

As I said, the weekend was a lot of fun.  My father took me to visit the Connecticut Museum of Mining & Mineral Science in Kent, CT.  There a man named John A. Pawloski spent a good deal of his time showing me the museum and teaching me about primitive technologies.

Courtesy of John A. Pawloski

The exterior of the museum was paved with bricks, but not in the usual way.  Historically, brick makers have frequently imprinted their bricks with a mark indicating the manufacturer.  Usually brick is laid so that this part is hidden.  But at this museum, the brick marks are all turned outward so we can see them.  That’s a good place to begin describing the character of the place.  It’s about technology, but more fundamentally it’s about people.  Everywhere you look it tells you a story not just about the way something worked, but who made it work and how it affected people.  When I saw that, I felt I had really come to the right place.

First, John showed me around the museum.  It’s amazing.  A lot of work has gone into it and when John tells me about it I can hear in his voice that he is proud – as he should be.  The mineral collection is beautiful, with samples far more impressive than I’ve seen at more famous museums.  He told me about many improvements planned and in-the-works.  It is an ongoing labor of love, and it definitely shows.

Here are some more photos (courtesy of John A. Pawloski).  Click to enlarge:

Courtesy of John A. Pawloski

John is a primitive technologist.  What that means can range from hobby to profession.  I think in John’s case, it’s a little of both.  It turns out there are many organizations devoted to studying, teaching, and practicing primitive technologies.  Here are some links to the websites of a few of them:

• http://www.primitive.org/
• http://www.primitiveways.com/
• http://www.neoanderthal.com/
• http://www.onagocag.com/

Primitive technologists are frequently involved with experimental archeology.  Experimental archeology seeks to learn about the distant past not just by examining artifacts but by actually trying to experience aspects of ancient life.  Sound familiar?  ;-)  By making a concrete attempt to reconstruct a way of doing things conjectured based on material evidence, archeologists can discover which theories are plausible, from a practical standpoint, and which are not (i.e. “We have discovered, by trying it out, that this would not have been a practical way to do it.”).  It is the same question of practical plausibility that leads archeologists to look at indigenous American cultures to help answer questions about cultures in the paleolithic era – using similar materials and pattern of subsistence, they are an example of a way of life that we know works.

Although I specifically asked about making stone tools (flintknapping), John told me a lot about all kinds of ways a paleolithic person might make tools (and other useful things).  Tools can be made from plant parts, animal parts, stones, and combinations thereof.  As discussed in a prior post, you can use vines for tying things and fibrous plants to make cord / rope, for tying things even better.  You can also use sap, and other plant products, as an adhesive.  And of course, woody plants give you … wood!  Wood can be carved into all kinds of useful shapes.  Soaking strips of wood in water can temporarily soften them so they can be bent into shape.  Sticks and tree branches can often be used as-is.  Wood, and dry leaves, also do something else very important.  They burn.  But there will be another post all about that.  ;-)

Dead animals are also extremely useful for making things.  Bones can be turned into cutting tools, skin can be used for clothing and as a covering for a shelter, and strips of skin can tie things together as can ligaments.  Mollusk shells can be used for scraping or they can be fractured to form a sharp edge and used for cutting.

Finally, rocks.  Rocks come in many varieties and shapes naturally, so you can often pick one up and find that it’s already a useful tool.  At the very least many of them are good for banging on things to break or dent them.  But some very useful rock shapes are hard to come by in nature, so humans have devised ways to reshape rocks to meet their needs.  It’s called “flintknapping” and it amounts to chipping pieces off of rocks until they’re the right shape.

But the name is misleading.  Flint is one type of rock, but there are many kinds of rock out there, often more plentiful than flint, that can be chipped with varying degrees of difficulty.  Why does flint get all the fame and glory?  It is easier to chip than many other kinds of rock, but its main advantage is the way it fractures.  Geologists call it “conchoidal fracture”.  Named after the curved shape of a conch, it is the fracture pattern seen when the fracture is not constrained directionally by the properties of the material.  In addition to flint, most notably, obsidian (a volcanic glass) fractures this way.  Not surprisingly, it is also a favored rock for making tools.

Conchoidal fracture is useful for two reasons.  Firstly, the way the rock breaks depends on how you strike it, not on the orientation of a crystalline structure.  That makes it easier to work with.  Secondly, the edge formed by the crossing of two conchoidal fractures can be extraordinarily sharp.  Sharper, even, than the sharpest steel blades (but more brittle).  So this makes for some really good cutting tools.

Courtesy of John A. Pawloski

John sat with me and demonstrated the various techniques of flintknapping along with ways the resulting tools can be used.  Here and there my father also chimed in with helpful information.  As it happens, he is a geologist.  Now I will tell you about those techniques, but I will also use the book “Flintknapping”, by John C. Whittaker, as a reference.

First we have hard-hammer percussion.  The idea is simple: just hit the core (the piece you are knocking flakes off of) with another rock.  It works best if you use a fast motion, grazing the edge of the core.  If you hit the middle of the core hard, the whole thing will shatter into many small pieces.  Hard-hammer percussion can get you long, smooth, sharp edges … if you do it just right.  This takes a lot of skill.

Photo by Stanley Schleifer, courtesy of John A. Powloski

A technique which is easier to control, but which creates a more “serrated” edge, is pressure flaking.  This is how the typical arrowhead is made.  The idea is that you apply controlled pressure to a spot on the core and increase the pressure until a small piece breaks off.  This is done using another tool.  John demonstrated using a piece of antler.  The book also recommends wearing something to protect your wrists while pressure flaking, as sharp flakes are likely to strike you there.  And, of course, eye protection is a given for all of these techniques.

Soft-hammer percussion is often used for creating finely shaped edges.  This is like hard-hammer percussion, but you strike the core with something softer such as a bone or piece of wood, rather than another rock.  Generally, the “soft hammer” would be hit on the other side by a rock to drive it percussively into the edge of the core.

John also demonstrated shaping other, softer rocks, such as soapstone, by grinding them with harder rocks (or bones).  He also let me try drilling the soapstone with a bow drill (a tool I’ll discuss more for fire-making).

I did get an opportunity to try some of these techniques there at the museum, but I didn’t have any eye protection, so most of my work has to wait until I get some.  John wears prescription eyeglasses, so he was fine.

The mining museum is actually part of a larger site called the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association.  So before I left, John and some of his fellow antique machinery enthusiasts took me to another building at the same site.  It was the “Industrial Hall of Steam Power”.  Incredible.  Huge, historical steam engines rebuilt and operational.  I’ll write more about that later, because I’ll surely return there when I get to steam engines!  In the mean time, I recommend this place.  Go see it for yourself.  …when it opens again.  It was closed for the season, but John agreed to show me around anyway.  :-)

When it was time to go, John sent me home with plenty of materials to practice on.  Thank you, again, John!  And also thank you to my dad.  I’d better get cracking!  Er … flaking, I mean.

Thank you for reading!

Most of us read newspapers or journals and magazines of some kind. There’s always a section I like to read, that is the reader’s letters to the magazine. But unless i know what those letter writers reacted to, their lines often make less sense to make, and some make hardly any sense at all. So if I want to really understand what those people wanted to say, I have to take the time to learn about the background of their letters, opinions, questions, appreciations or sometimes harsh reactions.

The same is true for the Bible. If we really want to understand better Torah, we have to take the time to delve into the times during which the Bible was written – which is quite a long time span. But all so often I see this dismissed as “too theoretical”, with the remark added that the “Bible is eternal” and speaks today the same as on the day it was written.

I don’t question at all the fact that God still speaks to us today through the Bible, and that his word is still as authoritative as it was, say, 2000 years ago – but I believe that to better grasp what the authors intended to say, and what happened, it is vital to learn about the historical and cultural background. Sometimes, even when words stay the same, their meaning can change, concepts evolve, things pass away and new understandings are born. Even if neither God nor the Bible have changed, our understanding of it and its concepts have changed, and if we don’t look at what certain things would have meant to the hearer or reader back then, there is a big danger to understand wrongly what was meant.

Why is Judaism called a historical religion? Because our story is grounded not just on some more or less vague metaphysical concepts, but on the manifestations of God in time, throughout history. It was at a particular moment in time that God told Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees, that he cut a covenant with the people of Israel through Moshe, and that Yeshua appeared taught, healed, called to repentance and “was crucified under Pontius Pilate”. This means also that to understand the life of Yeshua, or anyone else in the Bible, one must understand the historical context in which they lived, complete with their cultural struggles, practices, religious debates and so on.

There are different ways of learning about that time, even if it seems so far away from us. Of course, we cannot just jump the time-gap of more than 2,000 years, but there are ways and sources to make them seemingly come closer to us, and help us understand more the biblical times. There is, of course archeology and all the artifacts and historical places; there are the writings of contemporaries that have come down to us such as Josephus and Philo of Alexandria; there are, of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other writings such as First and Second Enoch, Talmudic Literature and Targumim, the Chreia, but also the religious traditions of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Mesopotamians which are relatively well documented.

The background for understanding Yeshua begins with the Tanakh, which christians generally call the Old Testament. I have often encountered christians who sort of imagined “Jesus reading the Bible, both New and Old Testament”, and the first christians of course as well. Each time they read “Scriptures”, the thought of the same Bible they had in their hands (or bookshelves). However, what were the Scriptures for Yeshua, for Paul, for all those first followers of Yeshua was the Tanakh, and the Tanakh only. Yeshua and his talmidim, his disciples, were familiar with the stories of Adam and Eve, of Abraham, of Moshe and King David, and would have know the prophets and other writings, and these were not just records of past events not mattering anymore, but seen as speaking to them in their own time, of events they were living through as well – which is made explicit by Yeshua stating in Luke 4:21: “Today, as you heard it read, this passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled” (CJB).

We have lost another great anthropologist recently. I have already announced the news and here is a few more links about Prof. Dell Hymes. and more of other stuff below…

Vale Dell Hymes

As Kerim noted, Dell Hymes passed away. My connection to Hymes is tangential—mostly the odd personal connections that come with the small world of academics—and others will be able to memorialize him better than I. The passing of Hymes and Lévi-Strauss so closely together is sad but also offers a time for us to reflect on these academics, their legacies, and their different personal style. Lévi-Strauss loved culture and, at times, seemed almost traumatized that he was forced to study people in order to get at it. Hymes’s writings are equally scrupulous, but deeply honor human life and are dedicated to finding the beauty and complexity in the ephemeral moments of our speaking and story-telling. In 1968 Lévi-Strauss’s structures took to the streets. In 1972 Dell Hymes published Reinventing Anthropology.

Dell Hymes’ Passing

While no obituary has appeared yet, there seems to be conclusive understanding via the moccasin telegraph that Dell Hymes has passed away. So soon after the death of Claude Lévi-Strauss, this is another significant loss in the fields of Native American studies, anthropology and folklore studies.

Dell Hathaway Hymes, 82, Penn education dean
Philadelphia Inquirer
Dr. Hymes joined Penn as a professor of anthropology in 1965. He was appointed dean in 1975. He left in 1987 to became a professor of anthropology and

AAA Mourns Passing of Dell Hymes, Past President

from American Anthropological Association by Dinah

We sadly report the passing of former AAA president Dell H. Hymes, who died Friday, Nov 13, 2009, at the age of 82. Hymes was Commonwealth Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Prior to retiring, he taught courses in linguistic anthropology, Native American mythology, ethnopoetics, and Native American poetry. He authored numerous publications, including Ethnography, Linguistics, Inequality: Essays in Education, 1978-1994 (1997), and Now I Know Only So Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics (2003). AAA will publish a full obituary honoring Dell Hymes in a future issue of AN.

Dell Hymes, 82 Linguistics, anthropology scholar
Washington Post
Dell Hymes, an influential scholar of linguistics and anthropology who helped pioneer the study of how people use language in their everyday

Dell Hymes, Linguist With a Wide Net, Dies at 82
El Paso Inc
At his death, Professor Hymes was the Commonwealth professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of Virginia, where he had taught from 1987 till his

American Anthropological Association 2009 Annual Meeting

The American Anthropological Association will hold its annual meeting December 2nd through the 6th at the Philadelphia Mariott Downtown hotel in Philadelphia, PA. The theme for the 2009 meeting is “The End/s of Anthropology”.Below is my annual partial list of panels and meetings of interest to linguistic anthropologists, including those sponsored by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology.There

LSE academic awarded prestigious Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing The FINANCIAL The FINANCIAL — Dr Matthew Engelke|, a senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at LSE, has won the 2009 Victor Turner Prize for his ethnography,

Archaeology & Interpretation

“There is always a tension between past and present in archaeological interpretation; between the past meanings and processes which we wish to reconstruct from the material remains, and the meanings which we wish those remains to reveal to us in the present. This tension is nowhere greater than in accounts of past cultural groups.”

Surfing the credit crunch with Abdul Aziz

Keith Hart www.thememorybank.co.uk

The fall of the Berlin Wall was famously heralded as ‘the end of history’, but in fact it restored a sense of history for many of us by catapulting us back to before the Cold War and even to the origins of the USSR in the Russian revolution. Questions that had been frozen for decades reappeared, such as ‘What will be the glue of the new Russian Federation?’, ‘Will Germany resume its dominance of Central Europe?’, ‘What should be the boundaries of the European Union?’ and so on. The war in former Yugoslavia reopened the history of genocide in Europe and Serbian nationalism confronted the complacent powers of Western Europe with an ugly reminder of their own history.

Anthropology and Journalism: Submit Your AN Article Proposal by Dec 18

Anthropology has long had a complex relationship with news media. In many ways, increasing collaboration between anthropologists and print, broadcast or online journalists offers great potential for making our research more accessible and theoretical perspectives more mainstream, in addition to boosting public understanding of and engagement with anthropological research findings. However, journalistic anthropology and anthropological journalism also pose several key challenges for practitioners in both fields, including difficulties in balancing the goals, priorities, timelines and communication styles of journalism and anthropology.

Policy Events @ the Annual Meeting

The Committee on Public Policy has compiled a list of policy-related events taking place at the annual meeting.  To view the detailed list, please click here.

The Autopsies Project

The Autopsies Project explores how objects die. Just as the twentieth century was transformed by the advent of new forms of media – the typewriter, gramophone, and film, for example – the arrival of the twenty-first century has brought the phasing out of many public and private objects that only recently seemed essential to “modern life.” ………..

Further information on this new research project, seminars, lectures, as well as the regular ‘Autopsies’ blog can be found here: http://www.autopsiesgroup.com

Psychoanalytic metaphors and mythical medical realities in Claude Lévi-Strauss’s contribution to medical anthropology

There are few subject areas in anthropology untouched by the seminal thought of the late Professor Claude Lévi-Strauss. Though he published only two or three essays concerned expressly with medical subject matter, his theorization in those places of the role of myth and shamanistic authority in symbolic/magical healing opened up questions with lasting significance. I would like to briefly review his ideas with the aim of proposing an alternative reading of them, particularly as they may be applied to contemporary debates in psychiatric anthropology.

0.179: Imperialism, Americanization, and the Social Sciences

Cultural imperialism rests on the power to universalize particularisms linked to a singular historical tradition by causing them to be misrecognized as such. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1999, p. 41)

If the social sciences are Eurocentric, does this also mean that they are imperialist?

Where Immanuel Wallerstein finds liberalism as the underpinning of the geoculture of the capitalist world-system, rooted in Eurocentrism, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1999) find their counterparts in the hegemonic theories current in academia. They speak of commonplace notions and theses with which one thinks, but about which one does not think (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1999, p. 41). And why not?

Man happy with simple life in Utah cave United Press International Suelo took up his lifestyle nine years ago despite having a master’s degree in accounting and a degree in anthropology. He says he will never embrace a

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (277-196 BC), knew that at noon on the summer solstice the sun shone directly down a well in Cyrene – 800 km from Alexandria. By measuring the angle that the sun hit the ground at Alexandria at this time, Eratosthenes could use geometry to calculate the circumference of the earth very accurately. He figured it to be just under 40,000 km. Interestingly the idea of a spherical earth was well established by the time of Aristotle (384-322 BC) (Robin Kerrod, 1999). I am surprised at how often historical accounts seem to understate the intelligence of the ancients; something  Graham Hancock and others have referred to as ‘aping the ancients’.

by Donald B. MacGowan

Moiokini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Whether you visit the Big Island for a few days, a couple weeks or a few months, you want to make the most of your time in Paradise. With such a wide variety of natural and commercial attractions, it is natural for the visitor to get a little overwhelmed in the “Option Overload” and not be able to make a balanced and informed decision on what they want to do and how best to spend their time.

Kapakai Kokoiki (Kamehameha Akahi Aina Hanau) Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Even choosing which beach you want to spend time on, or where you want to hike can be an exercise in confusion and conflicting advice.  Clearly, visitors to Hawaii could use help making quality decisions about how best to spend their time.

Offerings Left at Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Tour Guide Hawaii is excited and proud to announce the release of their new GPS/WiFi enabled App for iPhone and iPod that helps you navigate your trip to Hawaii with hours of informative, location-aware video and information. Although our video guide will lead you to dozens of unusual, untamed and unspoiled spots, let’s look at a pair of important historical sights reached via a great hike, or a really good mountain biking trek, that you might have heard about, but might not be able to find from maps and guidebooks and could otherwise miss if you did not have Tour Guide Hawaii’s new App.

Kohala History and the Birthplace of King Kamehameha: Mo’okini Luakini Heiau and Kapakai Kokoiki (Kamehameha Akahi Aina Hanau) Heiau

Holerhole Stone at Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Introduction: Have you ever been somewhere stark, impressive, primitive and ancient, that was able to raise the hackles on your neck? Mo’okini Heiau on the windswept northern tip of Hawaii Island is just one such place.

A Windfarm on the Windswept Grasslands of Kohala, Near Mo'okini Heiau, Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

The history of Hawaii as a kingdom starts in the grasslands and jungle canyons of North Kohala at two prominent temples, or heiau, which were the respective foci of the swirl of great events and sweep of history that culminated in Kamehameha the Great’s creation of the Kingdom of Hawaii by conquering and uniting all the islands of Hawaii.

The Windswept Grasslands Around Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

It was here in North Kohala, at Mo’okini Heiau, that a new religion was born. Passionate priests and princes from Tahiti reconstituted and revived the laws and society of Hawaii in the 11 and 12^th centuries. New practices of religious worship were introduced and untold thousands of people were sacrificed at Mo’okini to worship a new god, the war god Kuka’ilimoku (also called “Ku”). Born nearby at Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau in about the year 1758, Kamehameha the Great was brought to Mo’okini for his birth rituals.

The Approach to Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

History: During the 11th century, warlike Tahitians arrived in the Hawai’ian Islands, conquering, enslaving, sacrificing and largely displacing the descendants of the original Marquesan settlers. Into this bloody landscape came Pa’ao, the terrible and powerful Tahitian kahuna who was affronted at the lack of respect the Hawai’ian Ali’i commanded and at the apparent weakness of the Hawai’ian gods. He sent back to Tahiti for the warrior chief Pili and together they brought worship of the powerful war god Ku to Hawai’i and strengthened the kapu system of laws and power of the Ali’i.

Inside Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Worship of Ku demanded human sacrifice, which was performed at luakini heiau throughout the parts of Polynesia where Ku was venerated. Pa’ao caused Mo’okini Heiau (literally meaning “many lineages”) to be raised (it is said to have happened in a single night) by as many as 20,000 men passing stones hand to hand from Pololu Valley, 14 miles distant. During this process, if a stone was dropped it was left where it lay to preserve the rhythm of passing; the scattered line of dropped stones can be followed all the way back to Pololu to this day.

Inner Precincts of Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

The alter stones were brought by war canoe from Pa’ao’s home heiau of Taputapuatea (lit. sacrifices from abroad), the most powerful and most feared heiau in Polynesia and the center of Ku worship. Boulders for cornerstones brought hundreds of miles across the sea from Taputapuatea were laid with sacrificed humans beneath them. This gave the heiau a formidable power and an air of menace and despair that clings to it to this day.

Offerings at Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Outside the heiau walls can be found a large phallic rock and a flat stone with a cup-like depression near the top. Here, on this holehole stone, the baked bodies of human sacrifices were stripped of flesh and the bones saved to be rendered into fishhooks and dagger blades. Not much mention of the fate of the human flesh from these sacrifices is made, but it is universally documented that Polynesians everywhere were cannibals. This is a topic that is sometimes difficult for the modern descendants of these people to come to terms with and one which is best, and most polite, to simply accept and not comment or speculate upon.

Framing for a hale pili (grass house) at Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

There is no counting the tens of thousands of Hawai’ians who were made sacrifice here on this stone at barren, terrible Mo’okini over the centuries, but the sacrificial victims were all gathered by a class of kahuna called the Mu, or “body catcher”; the foundation of the dwelling of the Mu can still be found among the ruins of Mo’okini.

One of the Great Wals at Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Well preserved, Mo’okini Heiau stands today at the north end of Hawai’i, the first temple of human sacrifice in Hawai’i and the first site in Hawai’i to be preserved as a National Historic Landmark under the Historic Sites Act of 1935. Mo’okini Heiau is now part of Lapakahi State Historic Park. As Mo’okini is an active Heiau, visitors are reminded to stay away if religious observances are being celebrated.

Kamehameha Akahi Aina Hanau Heiau at Kapakai Kokoiki, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donnie MacGowan

Four tenths of a mile past Mo’okini is the unlikely, lonely and windswept site of fulfillment of a long-standing prophesy amongst the ancient Hawai’ians, Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau, now named Kamehameha Akahi Aina Hanau. Long-foretold was the coming of a warrior king who would unite all the islands into a single kingdom and who would rule wisely, piously and long. Prophecy and legend held that this Ali’i would be terrible in his fierceness, unstoppable in his strength, just in his laws and faithful in his observances to the gods. The prophecy continued that the ruler would be born along the wild northern coast of Hawai’i, the most sacred of the Hawai’ian islands. This ruler would, according to the prophecy, wield power of proportion unknown to previous Hawai’ian Ali’i, but for all this destined greatness, he was prophesied to live a lonely life.

Legendary Birthplace of Kamehameha at Kapakai Kokoiki, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Into this mythic context was born Kamehameha the Great, whose very name means “The Lonely One” in about the year 1758. The large boulders inside the enclosure at Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau are thought to be the same birthing stones on which Kamehameha’s mother, Chiefess Keku’iapoiwa, gave birth to the future ruler.

Hawaii Bureau of Tourism's Idea of a Good Joke, Mo'okini Heiau, Kohala Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

Getting There: To reach these impressive sites, turn off Highway 270 onto the Upolu Airport Road near mile 20 (just west of Hawi) and continue 2 miles to the airport. We recommend that you park in the obvious dirt car park by the airport and hike or mountain bike the road 1.6 miles to Mo’okini Heiau, continuing on a further 0.4 miles to Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau. It is possible to drive 4-wheel drive vehicles down this road, but deep ruts, potholes and rocks make it impassable for most passenger vehicles. Also, Kohala is infamous for its ferocious and unpredictable rainstorms which render this road an ordeal in deep oozing mud and slime, unusable to motorized vehicles.

Not far from Mo'okini Heiau is the Original King Kamehameha Statue in Kapa'a, Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

This dirt road goes all the way (about 4 miles) past Mo’okini Heiau and the Kamehameha Birthplace to the old Coast Guard Loran Lookout; this makes a wonderful beginner’s mountain biking trip or day hike, especially considering the amazing historical sites along the way.

Retracing your path to the airport and back up to Highway 270, treat yourself to a visit in real Old Hawaii at the small towns of Hawi and Kapa’a. In these small towns you can find restrooms, many of the island’s best restaurants, interesting shops, fantastic art galleries and grocery stores.

Sacred Stones at Mo'okini Heiau, Hawaii: Photo by Donald B. MacGowan

To see the new iPhone/iPod Touch App, please visit http://www.tourguidehawaii.com/iphone.html. The best of Tour Guide Hawaii’s free content about traveling to, and exploring, the Big island, can be found here. For more information on traveling to Hawaii in general and on touring the Big Island in particular, please also visit www.tourguidehawaii.com and www.tourguidehawaii.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2009 by Donald B. MacGowan. All rights reserved.

The next day we had the experience of a grand taxi. There are two types of taxis in Morocco: petit taxis and grand taxis. Both are easily recognizable on the streets: the petit taxis are small and blue, the grand taxis are large and white, silver or blue. The former are like taxis we are accustomed all over the world: they carry a single passenger or party directly to the desired destination, and payment is determined by meter. The grand taxis take a car load of strangers who are going in the one general direction.

The grand taxis gather at very informal taxi ’stations’ in several places around the cities. The taxis seem to park in no particular order; the only way to find a ride to one’s destination is by listening to the shouting of the drivers, or by walking around asking.

The grands taxis take six passengers per trip–two in front, four in back. As you can imagine, it is a bit of a squeeze to fit all these passengers in a standard 5-seat saloon car.

We endured a 35 min ride squashed in one from Meknes to Moulay Idriss.

Moulay Idriss is an important religious site and place of pilgrimage for Muslims in Morocco. The town is named after the Moroccan saint Moulay Idriss, a descendant of Muhammad, who died and was buried in 792 AD in the city that was eventually named after him. During his life in Morocco Idriss founded Morocco’s first Arab dynasty as well as the city of Fes and is accredited with converting the majority of Morocco’s population to Islam.

After shaking off the inevitable attention of the guides and taxi drivers, we headed off uphill through the steep village which is perched on a hillside. We were fascinated to find we were walking right through the middle of a local market with stalls selling everything from sweeping brushes to fruit to meat – including live hens. the butcher had several cages of live hens and a large machete on his counter. We were pleased to be ignored as we meandered here – no hard sell like at the tourist markets.

However a little later we picked up an unofficial guide. Or more truthfully he picked us up! We had wandered towards the entrance to the mosque and he got chatting to us and pointed out the way to the upper village. Then he followed us and the next thing we knew he was leading us up and up. Once we had negotiated a price we had a rather nice tour of the town with him!

Moulay Idriss’ tomb is a revered site and the town is considered to be the holiest town in Morocco. The tomb is considered to be a shrine and is accepted as a substitute pilgrimage for Muslims who cannot travel to Mecca.

Every August an important Moussem, or Muslim festival, is held in Moulay Idriss and Muslims from around the world travel to the town.

The wooden barrier is to prevent non-Muslims (and mules, which wander the streets) from entering.

Idriss Medersa, an ancient Qur’an school was built using materials from taken from the nearby Roman site of Volubilis, The Idriss Medersa is famous for its unusual Minaret, added to the building by a wealthy pilgrim in 1939. The Minaret is circular, an unusual design throughout the Muslim world, and is decorated with white and green geometric shapes that spell out a passage from the Qur’an in Arabic

Our helpful guide led us back to the taxi rank and helped us negotiate a price for the next part of our journey. He may have taken us to his brother or cousin’s taxi and charged us double the rate for all we know, but it was was still cheap to us!

Our next stop was the ancient Roman archaeological site of Volubilis. This is an amazing site – even for non-historians, due to it’s large size and the fact that many of the mosaics are still pretty clear despite being exposed to the elements.

The Romans began building the city of Volubilis somewhere around 40 AD in order to keep control of this north African region which was successively occupied by the Greeks, Berbers, Jews and Carthaginian merchants. In the second and third centuries, the region began to develop more rapidly when the Romans began cultivating grain.

The Victory Arch, facing the main route was built in 217, in honour the Roman emperor Caracalla. It formerly had a bronze chariot atop its ancient stones. It was restored in 1962.

The Romans evacuated most of Morocco at the end of the 3rd century AD but, unlike some other Roman cities, Volubilis was not abandoned.People continued to live here for more than 1,000 years after this until it was abandoned in the 18th century.

Volubilis’ structures were damaged by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, while in the 18th century part of the marble was taken for constructions in nearby Meknes.

The mosaics at Volubilis are simply amazing.

I think it was long ago, at a neighbors’ birthday party. We were playing by the swings and asking each other what we wanted to be when we grew up, and amidst all the firemen, doctors and policemen; I wanted to be an archeologist.

But that is not the exact moment when it all began, it goes back to that year’s carnival party, where a girl from my school dressed as a witch.
What does carnival and a witch have to do with becoming an archeologist, you might wonder?

Well, she was carrying a walking stick, with a human skull on it. The skull had a hole in its base and she had inserted her walking stick through it. Of course all human skulls have that hole, it is called foramen magnum; but since this was the first skull I had ever seen, I just thought “oooh lucky it has a hole so you can put your stick in it!”.
The hole was not that big a deal, the big deal was that it was a REAL human skull, a skull that once belonged to an indian living in the lake basin.

That was the first time I was face to face with human remains. I touched it and examined it, I wanted to take it home with me, it was the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life! Not that it had been a particularly long life, I must have been around eight or nine at the time.

I think that year I went to the carnival party dressed as princess of the flowers. Everyone dresses up as something for carnival, something recognizable; but I dressed up as something that only existed in my imagination, there was no such thing as a “princess of the flowers”, except in my head.

I wanted to wear an old dress I had used when I was a flower girl at a wedding, it was very pretty, but I didn’t remember then how itchy it was. I wanted tiny flowers all over it  and  my nanny following my directions dutifully sewed them on. I had grown quite a bit since that wedding, so the dress’ length was just below the knee, instead of ankle length as it was supposed to.

In retrospect I think I looked pretty ridiculous, and dorky but that carnival was not as bad as when I decided to dress up as a gorilla. At least it wasn’t something that only existed in my head. I wore  a pretty convincing mask and some pillows wrapped around my waist under some of my dad’s clothes. Most people had a hard time recognizing me, but as soon as they saw my blue eyes through the holes in the mask, the secret was up. Eventually after consuming large amounts of soda I needed to relieve myself,  and so I went to the little girls’ room.

Bad idea, really bad idea. I think the girls thought I was a boy, but I can’t really know for sure if it was that or they had finally found a legit excuse to beat me down to a pulp. So amidst high-pitched screams, I went down onto the bathroom tiles.

My mom would let me wear anything or so I like to think, its better to think that I have a permissive mom who supported her daughter’s awkwardness, than to think I had a mom who was just too busy to notice. I remember I went to a party wearing a navy sailor’s dress, navy pantyhose and lilac colored sneakers. LILAC SNEAKERS, with navy pantyhose!!!

Why? I don’t know – I loved those shoes. Just so you can get a picture of how out-of-place I was: it was the early 80’s, neon colors were in fashion, and while all the kids ran around wearing neon pink, yellow, orange; I walked around in my sailor dress and my lilac sneakers. I know for a fact that the other kids did not appreciate my fashion sense at all.

Anyway, the witch-girl was a redhead, a very rare thing in that part of the world. I asked her about the skull, and at first of course it would have never crossed my mind it was real, it had to be plastic. I asked where I could get one and  she told me that her father was an archeologist, and that he had gotten the skull out of a dig site around the lake.  She told me about her family’s travels and his father’s profession and I just stood there in awe, listening. I wanted to be her, I wanted to be like her father, I wanted to be a redhead!

How do I know the skull was real?
I don’t.

Who cares anyway, to me it was real and still is. On the other hand I wonder what kind of parent would send their grade-school-aged daughter to a school carnival party with a human skull?

Maybe her dad wasn’t really an archeologist, but a serial killer who collected bones of his victims. Good thing she didn’t say that or I might have said “I want to be a serial killer” at the neighbors party instead. I don’t think it would have been a good thing.

I was all set to write my blog tonight based on my reading of the new issue of National Wildlife by the National Wildlife Federation when I got drawn in to watch tonight’s PBS Television NOVA Episode Becoming Human Part 3. It was too fascinating. I had to watch. This link is good until 12/31/09 to watch it right on-line. So, tonight’s blog will be short to write but long for you to explore if you want to!

What is so fascinating is how it compares and contrasts with the National Wildlife article I was planning to tell you about – only it is about wildlife instead of humans. The article is called Desperate Measures: Struggling to adapt to global warming, wildlife species are changing their diets, behaviors and, in a few cases, even their genetic makeup by Jessica Snyder Sachs. The photos are great – especially the baby birds, baby squirrels, red and arctic foxes, and polar bears – actually they are all super! And… the article is very much worth reading!

This theme really is the same one that is in the NOVA program! Enjoy!

More info on http://mygrandmasue.wordpress.com

First, the Bible is true because it gives us the experience it claims it will. For example, the Bible says God will forgive our sin (1 John 1:9). I believe that, and I can truly say that I have a sense of freedom from guilt. The Bible also says that “if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That’s what happened to me when I came to Jesus Christ. The Bible changes lives. Someone has said that a Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t. That’s true because the Bible can put lives together. Millions of people all over the world are living proof that that is true. Maybe you know one or two of them. They’ve experienced the Bible’s power.

“So what is the task of apologetics? In the first place, it is not to tell the world that we’re sorry that we’re Christians. We don’t apologize for being believers in Christ.”

- R.C. Sproul

(I think that quote is meant to be taken as a joke in one sense, and a rebuke in another.)

Here R.C. Sproul discusses why apologetics is important and why it isn’t just for “people in ivory towers”.

In 2006 two archeologists found a couple of boxes of whiskey trapped under ice in the Antarctic from a 1907 expedition.

They couldn’t take the boxes then so a group of archeologists from New Zealand will start a new expedition just to find these boxes!

That’s kind of a waste, I think, but it gets worse. The whole point of this expedition is not to recover the whiskey and drink it but to restore the boxes and the bottles and bring them back to where they found them???

Anyway, a little strange, but not surprising… some people just have too much time on their hands or can’t figure out what to do with their money.

If you have spare money and want good and interesting ideas, I’m your man!

These skulls were photographed by Robert Connolly on his trip around the world during which he was collecting materials about ancient civilizations. The discovery of unusual skulls was thus an unintended ”spinoff” of his efforts. Robert Connolly published his photographs on a CD-ROM, titled ”The Search For Ancient Wisdom”, Cambrix, 1-800-992-8781, in 1995.

One of the skulls coming from Ica (Peru) and Merida (Mexico). It’s equivalent to the modern skull type, but with several factors out of proportion. The eye sockets are about 15% larger than the ones of a modern man skull, but the most significant thing is the cranial capacity, that ranges between minimum of 2600 and maximum of 3200 ccm (our current cranial capacity is about 1450 ccm!).

The data about the skulls is incomplete, and that makes the correct assessment of their age, context with other hominids, as well as placement of their origin extremely difficult. Some of the skulls are very distinct, as if they belong to entirely different species, remotely similar to genus Homo. The first thing that attracts attention is the size and shape of the cranium in all the specimens. There are 4 different groups represented in the pictures. As a matter of convenience, I labeled them ”conehead”, ”jack-o-lantern” or ”J” and ”M” based on the shape of the skull, except the first and possibly earliest type of skull, which I call ”premodern”.

When some of these pictures (the first two) were posted on CompuServe more than year ago, the majority of people assumed that they represented an example of binding of the head, well known to be in fashion in ancient Nubia, Egypt and other cultures. The problem with this theory is that the inside of the cranium of the mentioned skulls, although elongated and with a back sloping, flattened forehead, have the same capacity as normal human skulls; the only difference is the shape achieved by frontal and side deformations. They are actually more similar to the first type of skull (premodern) with the rounded back, than the conehead type. The cone-shaped types of skull are not found amongst the usual skull-binding samples.

The first skull presents problems of its own. The frontal part of the skull seems to belong to an individual of the pre-Neanderthal family, but the lower jaw, though more robust than modern human type, has a modern shape and characteristics. The shape of the cranium does not have any comparison with the Erectus, Neanderthal types, nor the modern human type. Some minor Neanderthal characteristics are present, as is the occipital ridge on the bottom back of the skull and the flattened bottom of the cranium, other characteristics point more towards Homo Erectus. The angle of the cranial bottom is, though, unusual. We cannot exclude the possibility of a deformed individual in this case, but it is highly unlikely that the angle of the frontal part would require a modification of the lower jaw in the process of growing to resemble modern human types with their projected chin rim. The answer seems to be that the skull belongs to a representative of an unknown premodern human or humanoid type.

As is obvious from the comparison with a modern human skull, the cranial capacity lies within the modern human range. This is not surprising, since the late Neanderthals and early modern humans (Cro-Magnon) had larger cranial capacities (both roughly 1600 ccm to 1750 ccm) than modern humans (av. 1450 ccm). The decrease of the cranial capacity (sudden at that – the specimens of modern humans after about 10500 BCE have smaller craniums) is a puzzling matter, but that’s another story.

No less puzzling is what a representative of a premodern human type is doing on the South American continent. According to the orthodox anthropology, this skull simply does not exist, because it cannot be. Textbooks’ oldest date of appearance of humans in North America is about 35000 BCE and much later for South America, based on the diffusion theory assumptions. The only accepted human types entering the continent are of the modern anatomy. There are some other sources that place all types of human genus in both Americas at much earlier dates based on numerous anomalous finds, but the academe sticks to its preconceived notions, no matter what. It’s safer.

http://www.watsonsupply.com/charley/skulls/skulls.htm

From the www.khm.uio.no website:

A new stone with a Proto-Norse runic inscription was discovered on 26 September 2009 at Hogganvik in Mandal, Vest-Agder, Norway. The inscription with elder runes must date to the period of the Germanic tribal migrations, roughly 350-500 AD. With its sixty-two runes, one a bind-rune, the text is the second or third longest from this period of time, following well behind the Tune stone, and about equivalent to the Rö stone from Bohuslen (where several runes are entirely missing/unreadable).

See more here.

Thanks to Markku at Runes of Christ for providing notice about this story.

Recently I have found a passion for a couple of subjects that I have 
begun to study in earnest. One is archeology particularly ancient 
Egypt. I am finding the hieroglyphics totally fascinating. The other 
subject is space. Broad subject I know, so I’m jumping in from our own 
neighborhood.

I’ve spent so much time exploring the inner space of my life 
neglecting the fact that there is so much life out there, both past, 
present, and future to be explored and celebrated.

So many times people stop studying and really learning once school is 
done. That’s so wrong. For one it is a great escape to other places 
and times. Two, it really helps to expand your mind and open up your 
world.

Too many times I think we rely too much on tv and movies for our 
escape hatches…I know I do.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need expensive college 
courses to broaden your horizons. There is the Internet and in case 
you have forgotten. Every city has an archive…otherwise known as the 
library:) Most have museums, science centers, and historical archives. 
Check them out. I know a lot of folk are busy. Don’t let that stop 
you…these days most libraries are fully automated…meaning you can 
explore and check out without even leaving home.

So you may see posts of my personal studies. Whether that’s 
interesting or not…I don’t know:/)

Krys