Shroud of Turin update Turin shroud older than thought
Chemical analysis shows the cloth that formed the Shroud of Turin is up to 3000 years old (Image: NASA)
The Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen long-believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, is much older than radiocarbon tests suggest, according to new microchemical research.
Published in the 20 January issue of Thermochimica Acta, a peer-reviewed chemistry journal, the study dismisses the results of the 1988 carbon-14 dating.
At that time, three reputable laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona, concluded that the cloth on which the smudged outline of the body of a man is indelibly impressed was a medieval fake dating from 1260 to 1390, and not the burial cloth wrapped around the body of Christ.
We'll reserve judgement on this. We are immediately skeptical of work conducted by a group that is apparently directed towards proving the Shroud is "real" to begin with, which STURP apparently does. Note this passage from the Shroud.com website: (http://www.shroud.com/message.htm): The only reason I am still involved with the Shroud of Turin is because knowing the unbiased facts continues to convince me of its authenticity. And I believe only a handful of people have really ever had access to all the unbiased facts. Anyone using the term "unbiased fact" that many times is clearly not at all unbiased.
We'll wait to see reaction to this from other specialists, especially regarding the dates obtained that seem to make the dumb thing "between 1300 and 3000 years old". Seems pretty reliable, fer sure.
Another useful headline Ancient tablets, coins found in Greece
The Greek Culture Ministry says residential construction in the city of Trikala has brought to light the remains of an ancient sanctuary to god Hermes.
The ministry says terracotta tablets dedicated to the deity of commerce were discovered near two greenish sandstone walls.
Other findings include bronze coins, pieces of broken bowls, as well as figurine fragments dating from Hellenistic and Roman times.
The find is located in the site of the ancient town of Trikke, home to the ancient world's oldest and most renowned sanctuary.
Known to the Romans as Mercury and a member of the 12 god pantheon, Hermes was the messenger and herald of the gods, deity of science, eloquence and cunning, as well as patron of thieves and travellers.
That's the whole thing.
Archaeologists eagerly home in on Parker digs
Five thousand years ago, a band of ancient people built homes on the edge of a stream in what is now Parker.
It was not a temporary camp, like so many of the archaeological discoveries made from that period of time. People here made large houses, some of them 24 feet across, with wood posts and walls of brush or hide. They probably spent months in the area and may have returned, again and again, over centuries.
News from Vietnam Archaeologists find ancient musical instruments
Musical instruments thought to be about 3,000 years old have been found by a team of Vietnamese archeologists.
Known as lithophones, the ancient instruments are typically made of 11 slabs of stone.
The lithophones were found in the southern province of Binh Duong in early January at a site that stretches some 20ha near a small hill in My Loc village in Tan My Commune of Tan Uyen District.
The broken instruments were buried deep in an 8sq.m pit, said Dr Bui Chi Hoang, deputy director of the Archaeology Centre of the Southern Institute for Social and Human Sciences.