Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus’ childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood.

Archaeologists and present-day residents of Nazareth imagined Jesus as a youngster, playing with other children in the isolated village, not far from the spot where the Archangel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the boy.

Today the ornate Basilica of the Annunciation marks that spot, and Nazareth is the largest Arab city in northern Israel, with about 65,000 residents. Muslims now outnumber Christians two to one in the noisy, crowded city.

The archaeological find shows how different it was 2000 years ago: There were no Christians or Muslims, the Jewish Temple stood in Jerusalem and tiny Nazareth stood near a battleground between Roman rulers and Jewish guerrillas.

Reverend Jack Karam, left, stands near Israel’s Antiquities Authority workers at the excavation site of the remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth, Israel that can be dated back to the time of Jesus,

The Jews of Nazareth dug camouflaged grottos to hide from Roman invaders, said archaeologist Yardena Alexandre, excavations director at the Israel Antiquities Authority. But the hamlet was so far off the beaten path that the caves were apparently not needed, she said.

Based on clay and chalk shards found at the site, the dwelling appeared to house a “simple Jewish family,” Alexandre added, as workers carefully chipped away at mud with small pickaxes to reveal stone walls.

“This may well have been a place that Jesus and his contemporaries were familiar with,” Alexandre said. A young Jesus may have played around the house with his cousins and friends. “It’s a logical suggestion.”

The discovery so close to Christmas pleased local Christians.

“They say if the people do not speak, the stones will speak,” said the Rev. Jack Karam of the nearby basilica.

Archaeologist Stephen Pfann, president of the University of The Holy Land, noted: “It’s the only witness that we have from that area that shows us what the walls and floors were like inside Nazareth in the first century.” Pfann was not involved in the dig.

Alexandre said workers uncovered the first signs of the dwelling last summer, but it became clear only this month that it was a structure from the days of Jesus.

Alexandre’s team found remains of a wall, a hideout, a courtyard and a water system that appeared to collect water from the roof and supply it to the home. The discovery was made when builders dug up the courtyard of a former convent to make room for a new Christian center, just yards from the Basilica.

It is not clear how big the dwelling is. Alexandre’s team has uncovered about 900 square feet of the house, but it may have been for an extended family and could be much larger, she said.

Archaeologists also found a camouflaged entry way into a grotto, which Alexandre believes was used by Jews to hide from Roman soldiers who were battling Jewish rebels for control of the area.

The grotto could have hidden around six people for a few hours, she said.

However, Roman soldiers did not end up battling Nazareth’s Jews because the hamlet had little strategic value. The Roman army was more interested in larger towns and strategic hilltop communities, she said.

Alexandre said similar camouflaged grottos were found in other ancient Jewish communities of the lower Galilee, such as the nearby biblical village of Cana, which did witness battles between Jews and Romans.

Archaeologists also found clay and chalk vessels likely used by Galilean Jews of the time. The scientists concluded a Jewish family lived there because of the chalk, which Jews used to ensure the ritual purity of the food and water kept inside the vessels.

The shards also date back to the time of Jesus, which includes the late Hellenic, early Roman period that ranges from around 100 B.C. to the first century, Alexandre said. The determination was made by comparing the findings to shards and remains typical of that period found in other parts of the Galilee, she said.

The absence of any remains of glass vessels or imported products suggested the people who lived in the dwelling were simple, but Alexandre said the remains did not indicate whether they were traders or farmers.

The only other artifacts from the time of Jesus found in the Nazareth area are ancient burial caves that provided a rough idea of the village’s population at the time, Alexandre said.

Work is now taking place to clear newer ruins built above the dwelling, which will be preserved. The dwelling will become part of a new international Christian center being built close to the site and funded by a French Roman Catholic group, said Marc Hodara of the Chemin Neuf Community overseeing construction.

Alexandre said limited space and population density makes it unlikely that archaeologists can carry out further excavations in the area, leaving this dwelling to tell the story of what Jesus’ boyhood home may have looked like.

The discovery at “this time, this period, is very interesting, especially as a Christian,” Karam said. “For me it is a great gift.”

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I was surfing the web today (this is just one of the things we do when you are away) and discovered this video of a kitty vacuuming. I call it ride-em kitty.

Check it out here:  

And who says Cats don’t help around the house.

Users of certain versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could have their system seriously compromised, according to the information in this security bulletin. If you use IE 5.01 or IE 5.5, Microsoft recommends you install this patch immediately.

 

I heard this track at the G-Star Raw opening party last night, X’Ho was spinning.

Found it really familiar and realized that it’s actually the third track in the Armani Prive Spring 2008 show.

Wicked, wicked track.

The largest ever hoard of Anglo Saxon treasure has been valued. The gold, which was found on 5th July this year in Staffordshire, was discovered by Terry Herbert while he was out practicing metal detecting on farmland belonging to Fred Johnson. It has now been valued at £3.28 million by the independant Treasure Valuation Committee. The money will be split equally between the two men. The treasure consists of  more than 1,500 individual pieces. The collection includes pommel caps and hilt plates. All in all there is 5kg of gold. The significance of the find is being compared to being, at least equal to, the Sutton Hoo discovery of 1939. Highlights of the collection can currently be seen at the British Museum in London. Thanks for reading.

I finished pulling up the floorboards in the croft-house last week, all except a narrow walkway along the middle length.

While pulling up the section of floor over what would have originally been the living room, I found that the underside of the boards were white-washed except where they were nailed onto the joists, meaning that the second story floor used to be the first story ceiling — in Canadian terms, that is.  In UK terms, the first story floor was the ground floor ceiling.  (That’s right.  Over here, the elevator buttons read: G, 1, 2, 3…  It makes no sense to me, but neither does the inside lane of a round-about being called the outside lane.  Caused a few fights between Graeme and me, that one did, during my driving lessons phase.)

I am really enjoying finding little quirks about the house that have been hidden for goodness knows how many years.  First there were the feedbags, and now the whitewash.  Another one is a wee fireplace on the South wall of the second story that was hidden behind these wall-boards (picture to come later).

What intrigues me about the underside of the floorboards, is that some of them were lined with newspaper and then nailed down.  Were some of the floorboards originally wall boards?  Why else would newspaper be glued to the board?  Why put all that work into something and then hide it? I’ll never know, I guess.  I do wish there was a date visible on the newsprint to help me with the timeline of the house, but no luck there.  An answer never did come back from the feed company about the likely date of the feedbags, so I keep hoping for something else that will help me nail things down in time.

Filling the blanks

Rahul George is into theatre and uses it not only as a tool for personality-building, but also for education. You are surprised when he walks in as he looks more like an executive, than an artiste. “Well, I actually am a blend of both,” he says as he takes his seat.

“You know I started off as an advertising guy. Worked in Mumbai before making Bangalore my home. Continued working but always felt that there was a vacuum,” says this MBA graduate. Then he quit his job, just took “time to realise what I actually wanted to do. That’s when I started meeting people from various walks of life and took to theatre for I always had a passion for it. You know, given a choice, I would have taken to theatre as a vocation in the beginning itself.”

As he got involved in theatre, he discovered that he liked being with people and working with them. “I also realised that people opened up a lot and took very easily to me. And I started counselling them too.”

So to be able to help better, he did a counselling course with Ali Khwaja in 2003. “I did this just to pursue my interest in psychology. It was an extension of my interest in the subject. I could never see myself doing a chalk and talk method. I realised that a combination of theatre and counselling worked wonders for people.”

So he went on to do intensive research on applied theatre and also studied theatre in education at Christ University before starting his own group called Join the Dots.

“The name intrigued me. It is inspired from the games in puzzle books, where you join the dots and the picture becomes clear. It is the same when we work and get people to connect the dots. Things become clear. Most people know the answers themselves,” he observes.

As he was not looking at a typical curriculum, he started reaching out to schools, colleges and corporates and designing workshops for them. His wife, Meenakshi, a teacher, also helps him in his work. And together they have designed various workshops where they have used theatre to teach subjects like history and civics.

“We were called by schools at the point of revision. We took their syllabus and using theatre we elicited dialogues and poetry from the children themselves. We worked for one-and-a half hours with them for 10 days. It refreshed their memory, gave them a fresh understanding of their lessons and also equipped them with a memory hook to write their examinations,” recalls Rahul.

If any establishment wants him to devise a programme for them, he is willing to do it, and adds: “My aim is to train teachers so that they can incorporate theatre in their own individualistic styles into their syllabus.” He says that it is possible to use theatre to even teach subjects like physics!

Besides educational programmes he also conducts regular theatre workshops in Cubbon Park and at the Time Foundation Nalanda. The former is held every Saturday at 2.30 p.m. and is open for those aged between 14 to 65. “It is a paid membership, where the basics of a performance are taught. One is equipped with the various skills s/he needs before going on stage. This is a weekend class and is for those who want to be involved in theatre but lack the time. After every workshop we perform at the Nani Arena. In a year I conduct three to four workshops.”

He does not choose themes with a social message but works with people to overcome their inhibitions and inner conflicts. “The other workshop, at Nalanda, is solely for personal use and development. The classes are also structured in such a way that it helps you understand the self, emotions, dealing with certain fears. This one offers people the space and the time to talk about their conflicts and also confront them. It is amazing how honest people are and how these workshops have helped them. We have had people coming in to us on the verge of quitting a job or a marriage, but have worked it out through these various theatre exercises.”

Theatre is an effective tool that helps build relationships at home or at work, he believes. “Theatre is a tool. It creates an emotion of trust, it can build new ideas, and also creates a sense of acceptance. I have only used it as a facilitating tool. The environment is light and fun. Theatre is an experience where people are able to take back their experience to their life.”

Rahul also organizes couples’ workshops, where he devices exercises to get the couple to connect with each other. “Once things are out in the open they are able to hear different perspectives. This enhances their understanding of the simplicity of the situation. Most of the time the problem just looks big. A simple lesson is that there is more to life than just picking at each other.”

Rahul George can be contacted on 9845014330 or rahul@jointhedots.in

Where?  Some crappy little town somewhere, right?

What?  Around the corner from my house, backing on to the park that all the local kids play at, and what is this I hear about the backyard being booby-trapped.  A neighbour was told by the police this afternoon that the backyard – whose gate was open – was booby-trapped in order to keep trespassers out.   Turns out the police scared a squirrel that was in the yard before they walked in, and the squirrel did not make it.

Nice.  Safe.  And to think I actually had one foot in this backyard picking up my neighbours soccer ball.

So this is what happened last night that lead to the surrounding area being roped off by the cops.

A suspicious chemical odour (acetone – which smells like nail polish remover) led authorities to a meth lab inside a home in one of the city’s most sought-after neighbourhoods.

Toronto police closed off a block of Woburn Avenue near Avenue Road, located in Toronto’s quiet Bedford Park community, while they investigated the duplex. The street address was 438 and 440 Woburn. These properties were sold in 2008 for $810,000.00 each to a developer who was going to tear them down and put up three houses.  The economy went south and the developer rented them out, in this case to an individual met over the internet.  

“This was a full methamphetamine lab,” Staff Sgt. Jim Qualtrough of the Toronto Police drug squad told reporters on Wednesday.

“What is particularly disturbing in this case is this lab is right in the middle of a residential neighbourhood,” said Staff Inspector Mario Di Tomaso. “Because of the volatile chemicals that are used, they are a great danger to neighbours.” 

If you look in this picture you see the house on the left and behind is the “chicken park” called that because of the KFC right beside it.  Pretty much anytime you are in the park, you can smell the fried chicken.  Local kids play there during the day with their parents and nannies.

No one was inside the home at the time of the discovery and as of Wednesday evening, no arrests had been made.

I guess there are some lessons to be learned from this fiasco.

1) Never rent to someone you meet over the internet

2) If you are going to run a meth lab, please keep it away from parks

3) Know your neighbours!

4) This area has been called desirable and ritzy.  What do you think that will do to my property value?

Embark on a brain-bending adventure that’s full of unique Hidden Object fun! Journalist Nicole Rankwist has always been close to her archaeologist father, so when he goes missing, Nicole knows she has to find him! After all, he had apparently just made a discovery that could change the course of humanity. Join Nicole as she searches the globe on an eye-popping quest to find her father and discover The Mystery of the Crystal Portal.

Stunning scenes

Fun gameplay

Save Nicole’s father!

System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP/Vista

CPU: 800 Mhz

RAM: 128 MB

DirectX: 7.0

Hard Drive: 86 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

The Mystery Of The Crystal Portal

Thought by many to be lost to the sands of time, archaeologists recently unearthed the body of the first president of the United States, George Washington. For hundreds of years, the disappearance and presumed death of the first president was shrouded in mystery, but now it appears that many shocking details are finally coming to light. Groundbreaking as this discovery is, it appears that for the scientific community, there are now more questions than answers.

Professor Keith Buhrningman, head of the American History department at Stanford University, has openly stated that he “will never think of ol’ Georgie boy the same again.” When pressed for actual details, prof. Buhrningman declined to comment further. However, a factual rumour overheard in the lab stated that the famous legend of the late president’s wooden teeth was grossly understated and perhaps even downplayed.
Doctor Thomas Wūdstock, Harvard drop-out, is soon to release a book, The Six Hundred Dollar Man, detailing the scientific community’s findings.
“I can’t give too much away, but I will say that from our early observations, it appears that his teeth weren’t the only wooden part of George Washington. Over two-thirds of Washington’s body was replaced with rich, polished wood! And not just bones; a few major organs were replaced with extremely intricate wooden cogs and machinery. Buy my book.”
When asked which organs were replaced, and what powered the wooden machinery, Wūdstock replied,”It’s easy to get swept up in all this “wooden man” hooplah, but people are forgetting the most important mystery of all: what kind of wood it is. My money is on mahogany. Keith and most other scientists have bet on oak, so if I’m right, more winnings for me! Oh, also, his body was riddled with bullet holes, which is important to historians, but not important to scientists. Buy my book.”

Secret reports passed between scientists contain Da Vinci-esque diagrams of what can only be described as a half-human, half-wooden cyborg.
This new information has sparked endless speculation, not only in the scientific community, but also in popular online chat communities or “chatmunities”.

Self-named “Doc” “Reginald” “McSteamery” runs the website Steampunkjunkie.com, where chat topics have ranged from the light-hearted “Washington costume ideas!” to the cryptic “Ye olde conspiracie? WTF?!”
Doc McSteamery states, “This is so totally awesome! Did you see the gears and machinery? Made of REAL WOOD?! God, that’s just so… I mean the craftsmanship… wow! If they find out he has brass parts too or was steam-powered, I’ll die. I’ll literally die. This is truly another great first for America; we’re the greatest great in the entire great!”

The implications this information has for America’s- and even maybe the world’s- history, is staggering. A wooden cyborg as first president might possibly mean taking a second glance at the rules regarding presidential elections and appointments. If this seems sure to raise political controversy, it won’t be the first time; this presidential secret stirred the controversy kettle, even in Washington’s time.

Alongside Washington’s body was found a partially-burned confession letter. In it, Aaron Burr writes that “two hired goons” coerced him into “murdering [his] only friend, Alexander Hamilton.” The letter then states the two goons, “Franklin and Adams”, told Burr that “Hamilton knew too much for his own big mouth” and that Burr “had to shut him up real bullet-like.” The confession goes on to say that Washington was intending to silence Hamilton himself, but that he ultimately “didn’t want to get his greasy wooden mitts dirty” in connection with the murder. It’s certainly difficult to envision America’s first president as a wooden cyborg president, but a wooden cyborg assassin president sounds even more fantastical. Is there any proof of George Washington as a killer, aside from the well-documented accounts of his battles?
A third item was found in Washington’s hidden tomb: A wooden gun held in his human right hand, next to several wooden bullets. The gun appears to have fit neatly inside the president’s hollow right thigh, which was entirely wooden, velvet-lined, and opened up specifically for gun-storage. The last item in the casket, a wooden pepper mill labeled “Whompin’ Washington’s pepper spray” was found resting in a holster in Washington’s leather belt. The gun and pepper spray combination has led top police experts to believe Washington may have served as a kind of judge, jury, and executionary robotic law enforcer.
“No doubt about it, Washington ran this country with a wooden fist,” says New York Chief of Police Randy Fish. Fish is not pleased with Buhrningman, Wūdstock or any of the other music festivals scientists.
“At first I thought those scientists were doing good work, but any first-year cop can tell you that only most of the holes in Washington’s body are bullet holes; the rest of ‘em are termites holes. From the angle of the bullet entry wounds, my forensics department has concluded that Washington was such a badass, he actually shot the termites out of himself from time to time.”

But what of the larger picture? Does this evidence of primitive technology mean there may now be cyborgs living among us constructed of stone, or bronze or even iron? Only time will tell. Until then, one thing is certain: we “soft-skins” can only hope they’re as wonderful and patriotic as our beloved wooden cyborg assassin president, who could apparently tell a lie.

About 18 fish have been found alive and well in a sewage tank at a water treatment works in South Elmsall…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: water sea. The blog is also related to: mediterranean ocean.

Great isn’t it?  I don’t see the problem.  I mean who doesn’t want a cool Rich Ashley photo?  Click here to read more.