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Thursday Roundup: Pyramid Papyri, Mountains of the Moon, and Victorian Views of Cave People

9/24/2015

Thank you all for the well wishes for my cat. He has started on medication, and he had some food, which is a good sign.

I want to call your attention today to an article in the new issue of Smithsonian magazine outlining what archaeologists have learned over the past two years from the discovery of a set of Fourth Dynasty papyri in the ruins of a port at Wadi al-Jarf in 2013. According to the article, the papyri include the diary of Merer, an overseer who helped to transport goods. He describes working for Ankh-haf, the half-brother of Khufu, who was revealed to be the overseer in charge of some of the construction of the Great Pyramid. The journal also describes picking up material from the same town where the limestone for the Pyramid’s outer casing came from. When the diary and other documents were combined with the archaeological remains found at the site—from blocks inscribed with Khufu’s name to boats and copper tools—it quickly became clear that this site, located near the largest source of copper, in the Sinai, was an important supply station for moving the copper needed to carve the Pyramid’s stones. This find, in connection with the large worker’s village that once housed as many as 20,000 workers, offers key insights into how the Egyptians built the pyramids.

26 Comments

The Fossil Dragons of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland

9/22/2015

19 Comments

I’m going to start today with an apology to the many people who have sent me email over the last few days. I haven’t meant to ignore you, but my mind has been on other things. My cat is sick. He was diagnosed a few weeks ago with asthma but needs to see the vet again because of nausea and appetite loss. I hope you will understand that I’ve been a bit distracted. Fortunately, he ate some food today, and I hope that’s a good sign.

19 Comments

Saturday Roundup: Ancient Astronauts in Chess, Plus Colbert Hunts the Lizard Man of South Carolina

9/12/2015

11 Comments

Tonight is the premiere of Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar, the new show starring Barry Clifford and Scott Wolter modeled on the Curse of Oak Island, itself home to various Templar conspiracy theories. History is burning off the series UNESCO condemned for media-driven bad research, double-running episodes on Saturday nights. Believe it or not, I am not available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so I won’t be able to review the show immediately after it airs. Two hours is a little much to take, even if I were. My plan is to try to watch the show tomorrow, and I hope to have a review posted tomorrow afternoon. It will depend on how long it takes me to make it through them.

11 Comments

Friday Roundup: Alien Hybrid Follow-Up, Fictitious Treasure Hunts, and the Sad Fate of a Neolithic Tomb

8/28/2015

8 Comments

Since I’ll be reviewing Ancient Aliens later tonight, I have a couple of brief topics to discuss today in the few hours between then and now. First, in a follow up to a July story about a dead man whose fiancée and her assistant believed him to be an alien-human hybrid working for the CIA, legal documents obtained by the media reveal that the man was (surprise!) not an alien-human hybrid, and was not working for the CIA. I have a hard time understanding how someone could meet a man, become convinced that he was a space alien, and nevertheless decide to marry him. It is astonishing what people are willing to believe, and I hope that the History Channel is paying careful attention to this tragic and disturbing story—and not to turn it into a documentary!

8 Comments

On Monsters and Folklore: How Do We Select Which Stories to Believe?

8/20/2015

7 Comments

Yesterday the skeptic Sharon Hill posted an article discussing her views on folklore and cryptozoology. These views take the form of a book review of Michel Meurger’s Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, a book first published in 1988 from a 1982 French language edition, which I believe was focused primarily on Quebec. The English edition is apparently different from the French original since the author, who was also the translator, rewrote the book as he translated it. That’s neither here nor there, but Hill asks a very interesting question: How do we decide which folkloric stories are likely to represent real, discoverable animals and which are too embroidered with fiction to be of any use? “Should we be using folklore, traditional native tales, and historical texts as ‘evidence’ of, in this case, the existence of lake monsters? I would add, should we be using today’s modern media accounts (instant folklore) in the same vein?”

7 Comments

Russian Geologist Claims Automobiles Were Used in Turkey 12 Million Years Ago

8/18/2015

21 Comments

The media lit up today with claims that a “respected” Russian geologist had discovered the tracks of prehistoric tanks and heavy automobiles in a volcanic deposit in Turkey more than twelve million years old. But what the media left out helps to put into context a claim the media have reported based entirely on the perception that someone who carries an academic credential is necessarily making serious claims.

21 Comments

Tuesday Grab Bag: New Nostradamus Show and Fox News on Jonah and the Whale

2/10/2015

15 Comments

Those of you who regularly read my reviews of America Unearthed probably remember Will Yates, the scriptwriter and producer for the show who has from time to time shown up in the comments section of my reviews to take issue with my analysis of the show. Yates has put up new information on the British Talent Manager website in which he reveals that the History Channel has used his services for a new two-hour documentary on Nostradamus and his relevance to the twenty-first century. The program, entitled Nostradamus: 21st Century, is produced by Committee Films, the same company that produces America Unearthed.

15 Comments

Bigfoot Project Investments Offers IPO to Raise Cash to Sell DVDs about Hunting Bigfoot

1/22/2015

19 Comments

Are you looking for a sure-fire investment opportunity backed by the world’s only inexhaustible resource, stupidity? If you have money to throw away—well, you should give it to me—but if you aren’t willing to do that, you now have a new option for disposing of unwanted cash. It turns out that you can soon buy stock in Bigfoot! Or, rather, a company that wants you to pay them to search for Bigfoot. According to the Wall Street Journal, Carmine “Tom” Biscardi is looking to raise $3 million by selling shares in Bigfoot Project Investments, Inc. to help fund more than $100,000 per year in Bigfoot expeditions for raw material for associated media products.

19 Comments

Investigating the Roman Coin Found in Illinois in 1913

1/21/2015

18 Comments

Here’s another of those weird sidelights that form part of the tapestry of fringe history. Today’s example comes from Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned (1919) where the unsystematic compiler of the strange recorded the following paragraph based on a passage from the journal Records of the Past that he had chanced upon:

18 Comments

Novelist Chantel Tattoli Discusses Aliens and Mermaids

1/15/2015

10 Comments

In The Millions this week, journalist Chantel Tattoli has a piece about “Aliens, Mermaids and Other Flights of Fancy.” I wanted to like the article since it is a somewhat skeptical appraisal of fringe ideas on cable TV and the internet, but like so many journalistic appraisals, it settles for platitudes and generalities where a sharper focus might have built the article into something better. Even given the constraints of being a “quick hit,” it assumes agreement from the reader about the nature and value of monsters and aliens.

10 Comments

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Thursday Roundup: Pyramid Papyri, Mountains of the Moon, and Victorian Views of Cave People

The Fossil Dragons of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland

Saturday Roundup: Ancient Astronauts in Chess, Plus Colbert Hunts the Lizard Man of South Carolina

Friday Roundup: Alien Hybrid Follow-Up, Fictitious Treasure Hunts, and the Sad Fate of a Neolithic Tomb

On Monsters and Folklore: How Do We Select Which Stories to Believe?

Russian Geologist Claims Automobiles Were Used in Turkey 12 Million Years Ago

Tuesday Grab Bag: New Nostradamus Show and Fox News on Jonah and the Whale

Bigfoot Project Investments Offers IPO to Raise Cash to Sell DVDs about Hunting Bigfoot

Investigating the Roman Coin Found in Illinois in 1913

Novelist Chantel Tattoli Discusses Aliens and Mermaids

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