From My Fantasy Writing Desk:
This week I’ll offer you over one hundred free books to read. My fellow fantasy authors and I have banded together to introduce ourselves to each other’s readers. Each of us is making one of our books or short stories available to you for free. Just click through from July 15 to July 21 to download your choice of 100+ Fantasy/SciFi books. The only thing the authors ask is that you subscribe to their periodic newsletters. Stay subscribed if you like what you’ve read and want to hear more – and of course, unsubscribe at any time.
Archaeology I Enjoyed:
Mummies Found Near Oldest Pyramid
Polish archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered several dozen mummies. The mummies were discovered during excavations near the world’s oldest pyramid in the Saqqara ancient burial ground that served as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.
In contrast to the ornate sarcophagi and burial chambers associated with the Pharaohs, the majority of the mummies they discovered were laid to rest with only modest arrangements. “Most of the mummies we discovered in the past season were very modest, they were only subjected to basic embalming treatments and then wrapped in bandages and placed directly in hollows dug in the sand,” said Dr Kamil Kuraszkiewicz of the Department of Egyptology at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, who is leading the excavations. One of the coffins had decorations that look like hieroglyphics but are actually imitations done by someone who couldn’t write them, revealing the simple background of the artisan.
Click here for Archaeology News Network “Dozens of mummies dating back 2,000 years found in Saqqara”
Feeding the Masses or Greasing the Sledge?
This is an interesting case of misinterpreting the details of an archaeological site in a way that seems so logical and yet . . .
At Stonehenge pottery shards contain high amounts of pig fat. Researchers assumed that these remains arose from feeding the large numbers of people needed to construct the site.
But now there’s a new idea. The pottery shards are from dishes shaped and sized like buckets, not cooking or serving dishes (This part seems a bit odd to me. How different in size is a ceramic pot used as a bucket and a ceramic pot used as a cooking pot?) Researchers propose they could have been used for gathering and storing tallow, not cooking.
This pig tallow would have been applied as grease to the sledges used to drag the stones into place. The part that seems more supportive of this idea is that most of the excavated pig bones have been spit roasted not chopped up as you would expect if they were cooked in pots. Also, there is apparently a lot of pig fat residue on the shards.
Click here for Archaeology News Network “Stonehenge may have been built using pig fat”