Interesting article (apparently free) from Scientific American: Atomic tests allow carbon dating of baby boomers
To learn the true age of a cell, Frisén needed something that is formed at the moment of the cell's birth and remains stable throughout its life, which meant he needed to isolate and date its DNA.
By measuring the amount of carbon 14 incorporated into the DNA molecule at its creation, then correlating it with atmospheric carbon 14 levels, Frisén finally had a test that could give him answers. As it turns out, the team reported in the journal Cell this past summer, many parts of our bodies are much younger than the whole. Jejunum cells from the gut tissue of subjects in their mid-30s were less than 16 years old. Skeletal muscle from two subjects in their late 30s was just over 15 years old.
No real comments on this, we just thought it was an interesting application of a technique we're all familiar with.
Maya woman portrait update Ancient Portrait of Maya Woman Found—Who Was She?
Archaeologists have found the earliest known Maya stone carving bearing the portrait of a woman.
The discovery was made earlier this year in the jungles of northern Guatemala at a site called Naachtun, some 55 miles (90 kilometers) north of the Maya city of Tikal.
The portrait, which is carved into a stone monument known as a stela, shows a woman's face with her hands upheld.
It dates back to the fourth century A.D., suggesting that women held powerful positions early in Maya society either as queens or as deities.
"The individual depicted must have been exceptionally important to the people of Naachtun," said Kathryn Reese-Taylor, director of the University of Calgary team that made the discovery.
From National Geographic. Little more background than preceding stories.
Archaeologists block development. . . .again Found: Old Wall in New York, and It's Blocking the Subway
Three weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority started digging a subway tunnel under Battery Park, the project hit a wall. A really old wall. Possibly the oldest wall still standing in Manhattan.The top of an old wall was discovered by workers digging a new subway tunnel under Battery Park.
It was a 45-foot-long section of a stone wall that archaeologists believe is a remnant of the original battery that protected the Colonial settlement at the southern tip of the island. Depending on which archaeologist you ask, it was built in the 1760's or as long ago as the late 17th century.
Either way, it would be the oldest piece of a fortification known to exist in Manhattan and the only one to survive the Revolutionary War period, said Joan H. Geismar, president of the Professional Archaeologists of New York City.
"To my knowledge, it's the only remain of its kind in Manhattan," Ms. Geismar said. "It's a surviving Colonial military structure. That's what makes it unique."
News from the EEF
Press report: "Helwan necropolis attracts Egyptologists"
Lebanon's Daily Star Newspaper has a brief article regarding
the ongoing Australian Centre for Egyptology excavations at the
Egyptian necropolis of Helwan:
http://snipurl.com/klsd
Press report: "Celebrating Tut's birthday"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/772/he1.htm
"Egypt celebrates the 83rd anniversary of thediscovery of the boy king's tomb. "
Dr Hawass's Dig Days column: "Queen Sophia of Spain"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/772/he2.htm
Among the topics are "the four tunnels inside the Sphinx."
Press report: "German probe into sarcophagus claimed by Egypt"
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20051202-074840-9050r
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14023735
"The Berlin state prosecutor has opened an inquiry into the origin of
an Egyptian sarcophagus from the Pharaonic period, recently seized
in Germany and which Cairo wants returned." Much more deatils in
the German reports below, which speak of a wooden sarcophagus,
an inner coffin, a mummy mask, wooden goddesses and 308 ushabtis,
with a worth of 2 million dollar. The objects would stem from the
(unknown?) tomb of a 4th century BC princess called Meretites.
[Submitted by Hedvig Gyory (egyip@szepmuveszeti.hu)]
* I have put on my website the texts of the exhibition
"Repelling Demons - Protecting Newborns" which was
in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, October 21 -
November 20, 2005. With a lot of information about
the newly acquired "magic wand".
http://www.freeweb.hu/ibisz/hun/hazai/kiallit/idoszak/kama2005a.html
Digitized book from the ETANA project
-- E. A. Wallis Budge, A Vocabulary in Hieroglyphic to the Theban Recension
of the Book of the Dead, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, London, 1898 -
pdf-file (14 MB) [There was a 2nd rev. ed. in 1911]
http://library.case.edu/ksl/ecoll/books/budvoc00/budvoc00.html
Online version of: Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament,
Tyndale Press, London, 1966. 191 pp. - pdf-files
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/book_ancientorient.html
"In this study intended to be a critical assessment of problems and methods
in the Old Testament field and the contribution that Ancient Near Eastern
studies can make to it, the author quotes in many instances Egyptian
evidence." [AEB]
John F. Henry, "The Social Origins of Money: The Case of Egypt",
16 pp, in PDF, 52 kB.
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/h/henryjf/PDFS/Egypt.PDF
An economist looks at the social and economic evolution of
ancient Egypt and the introduction of a unit of account.
Bishoy Morris, "Surgery on Papyrus", in: studentBMJ vol. 12
(Sept. 2004), 338-339; in PDF (179kB):
http://www.studentbmj.com/search/pdf/04/09/sbmj338.pdf
A medical student takes a look at Edwin Smith's papyrus,
one of the oldest known surgical texts. [The EOA reference
given in the article seems not to work.]
End of EEF news