A recent series of lectures on ancient Egyptian humor given by a leading historian reveals that people thousands of years ago enjoyed bawdy jokes, political satire, parodies and cartoon-like art.
Related evidence found in texts, sketches, paintings, and even in temples and tombs, suggests that humor provided a social outlet and comic relief for the ancient Egyptians, particularly commoners who labored in the working classes.
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They included political satire, scatological and vomiting humor, jokes concerning sex, slapstick, and animal-based parodies.
We need more of this sort of thing. We also have no idea what the photo next to the article has to do with said article. We kept looking for some obscene aspect of the poor woman, but found none.
Centuries of discovery see the light
A REMARKABLE collection of maps, artefacts and pictures giving a revealing insight into the endeavours of some of Britain’s finest explorers is being released by the Royal Geographical Society.
The 174-year-old British institution that sent explorers to the South Pole, up Mount Everest and in search of the source of the Nile, is to open its doors to the public in a new £7.1 million venture in Kensington, London.
Among the treasure trove of charts, books, photographs and other artefacts is the oxygen canister that Sir Edmund Hillary carried for his ascent of Everest, a watercolour sketch of the Victoria Falls made by David Livingstone in 1860 and the pocket sextant that Charles Darwin carried with him on his Beagle expeditions.
Study considers Indigenous settlement
A project is underway to map the early settlement sites of Aborigines in far west New South Wales.
The Environment Department says the study is looking at where NSW's Indigenous population was originally located, before many were relocated as part of the Stolen Generations.
Historical archaeologist Katrina Stankowski says about 800 sites of significance have been found across NSW and field work will start in the future on those in the west of the state.
"There are over a 100 that have been researched in the west all the references for these sites come from historical documents that were uncovered by our historian," she said.
"These sites are again covering a vast array of reserves, pastoral station camps."
Don't bother clicking, that's it.
Heading for battle
The helmet was made of a single piece of bronze, 27 centuries ago, heated and hammered and annealed by a technique used as late as the Florentine renaissance but now lost for ever. It was forged from an alloy of copper and tin, with traces of lead and iron.
The noseguard is a 19th-century mix of copper and zinc, probably welded to the helmet after it was unearthed from a temple sanctuary such as at Olympia in Greece. Invisible traces of quartz, calcite, gypsum and feldspar, the dust of its resting place for more than two millennia, cling to the bronze. There has been some corrosion, but that stopped long ago. Known to the Greeks as a Corinthian helmet, it was probably tailor-made for one careful owner in an unknown Greek city state in the 7th century BC. It went into battle with him, protected him from bronze swords and lances, and when he died, in Greek ritual fashion it may well have died with him.