Easter Island Red Hat Mystery Revealed

Today, a team of British archaeologists believe they have solved the mystery of how the giant stone statues of Easter Island, known as moai, acquired their red hats. This mystery was solved with the discovery of a nearby road on the small island. This road is constructed out of cement made from red scoria dust and has a raised platform along one side. The hats were constructed in a hidden quarry, known as Puna Pau, inside the crater of an ancient volcano. Dr. Sue Hamilton, of University College London, said that “The hat quarry is inside the crater of an ancient volcano and on its outer lip. A third of the crater has been quarried away by hat production”. There is also evidence that the quarry had been used to create statues before it had been used to build the hats. Once they were finished, the hats were rolled down the road either by hand or on top of logs to the current site of the statues. These hats were moved to their current location between 500 and 750 years ago. Once the hats were near the moai, they were lifted up and placed on the heads of the carved human statues. The moai themselves were standing upon large stone platforms that circle the island’s coast. However, we have yet to determine how the red hats, which weighed several tons, were raised and attached to the top of the human figures.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/easter-island-red-hats.html

Tyler L.
Period 5

Maya "Painted Pyramid" Reveals 1st Murals of Daily Life

Mayan Murals depicting a Mayan's daily life have been discovered on the exterior of a Mayan pyramid. The murals show the empire from about 620 to 700 AD. The paintings were discovered in 2004 at the site of Calakmul. This pyramid had many murals of Mayans living their day to day life. Other paintings that have been found of the Mayans are of royalty and other sacred traditions, but these paintings are of a common Mayan's lifestyle. The murals show people of all different social classes. The pictures show what kind of clothes the people wore and the food they ate. These murals show a lot about what food was important to the Mayans and how they prepared it. The painting shows the "salt person" and the "tobacco person" and it also shows people making foods out of corn. These paintings also show the fashions of that time period. These murals are unique because other murals have only been discovered inside the pyramids, but these are painted on the exterior so the public could view them. These murals have been helpful because researchers can see what the Mayan's valued in their culture, and how they survived.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-maya-pictures-murals-pyramid-food.html

-Mikaela Y.
Period 5

2012

Will the world really end in December 2012? Some people seem to think so, basing their claims off of the ancient Mayan calendar. However, not everyone thinks that the world will be affected in a negative way. The world is just to be changed as we know it, but it could be for the good of the human population.

One theory is that, in December 2012, the sun will align with the black hole at the center of the galaxy, and this will throw our entire solar system “off kilter”. This could cause the sun to experience more, and more intense, solar flares, sending a wave of solar particles towards Earth. This could change the direction of the magnetic field of the planet, disrupting all communications, and creating natural disasters worse than ever seen before. However, other’s say good events may happen. When the sun passes through a dark band of the Milky Way called the “Great Rift” and that this will cause us all to “reconnect with our cosmic hearts”.

Many people claim that monuments like Stela 25, a temple, were designed to predict what the sky would look like at the end of the Long Count calendar. However, it has been noted that the northward orientation occurs every year, and would not be specific to just 2012. This is the case with many other theories that link temples and other monuments to the heavens and the end of the long count calendar. So far, no one has found any true evidence that the Mayans predicted the end of the world, and then left a monument to warn us about it.

http://www.archaeology.org/0911/2012/

-Ana S.

Period 5

A Crashed Hellcat Rises Again…From Lake Michigan?

A F6F-3 Hellcat was recently lifted out of the 250 feet deep waters in Lake Michigan. This is the latest of a series of Navy aircraft recovered from the lake, including a recently discovered SBD Dauntless. The Hellcat was designed as a replacement for the F4F Wildcats which were far inferior to their rival, the Japanese Mitsubishi AM6 Zero. The F6F Hellcat improved on the Wildcat as it provided a much more powerful and maneuverable platform than the aging F4Fs. The pilot of the Hellcat, Lieutenant Walter Elcock, was attempting a practice landing aboard the USS Sable, a steamship converted into a training carrier by the US Navy when it was acquired in 1942, and was later sold for scrap after the end of the war. Elcock stated that while trying to land aboard the carrier during the fairly routine training mission, he lost the lift under his wings and was forced to ditch his plane in the lake. Instances like this are somewhat common while landing aboard an aircraft carrier, especially without fly-by-wire controls available in today’s jets. It is very difficult to land a moving object on another moving object, both of which are going dramatically different speeds. It is most likely that Elcock descended too fast and flared his nose up too much and the Hellcats 2000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine simply could not sustain the 13,000 lb airplane’s altitude. Lt. Elcock, now 89, survived the crash landing and lives in Atlanta. The plane is destined for substantial restoration as 60 years at the bottom of a lake destroys the instrumentation, corrodes the metal, and most likely affects the plane’s structural integrity, delegating it to the role of a static display at an air museum.

http://news.discovery.com/history/world-war-ii-fighter-plane-recovered.html

-Daniel Q

Period 5

Navajo Code Talkers: World War II

The Navajo code talkers played a vital role in every assault the U.S. Marines carried out in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They were used to transmit messages by telephone and radio in their indigenous language, a code that the Japanese never broke. The Navajo language met the military requirement for an undecipherable code, for the reason that Navajo is an unwritten language of tremendous complexity. Its sentence structure and tonal qualities, not to mention vernacular, make it incomprehensible to anyone without widespread exposure and training. This language contains no alphabet or any symbols, and is only spoken on the Navajo territories of the American Southwest. It is estimated that less than 30 non-Navajos, could understand the language during World War II, none of which were Japanese. A test was staged under simulated combat situations to test the Navajos effectiveness. This test revealed that Navajos could encode, transmit, and decipher a three-line English letter in 20 seconds while the machines of the time took half an hour to perform the same function. The Marine Corps was convinced, and it was recommended that the Marines recruit 200 Navajos. After completing their training, Navajos were sent to a Marine unit, stationed in the Pacific. The code talkers' main task was to talk, transmitting information on strategy and troop activities, commands and other imperative combat zone communications over telephones and radios. Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, acknowledged, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." The Japanese were skilled code breakers, they were able to decipher the codes utilized by the U.S. Army and Air Corps, yet they remained baffled by the Navajo language used by the Marines. The Navajo code breakers were recently recognized for their skill and courage, which saved both military engagements and American lives.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm

Leandro Praseli
Period 5

It is All in the Eyes

Nefertiti’s name translates to “the beautiful one has come.” The Egyptians valued her eye shape and it became a cultural phenomenon, symbolizing beauty, wealth, and power. Mummies were discovered in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, that upon closer inspection, had a similar almond shape look to the eyes for 3 of the 7 coffins found. Art of during her reign is known for its realism. These coffins might be relatives of hers, because she might have had a number of different syndromes that could have caused an epicanthic fold, a piece of skin from the upper eyelid covering the inner edge of the eye, to appear. This feature is found not just in people of East Asian descent, but also in individuals with some different genetic defect. However, the distinctive eye shape led to the symbolism of royalty and the coffins might be trying to impersonate her. Since Queen Nefertiti’s tomb has not been found, the world may never know.

http://www.archaeology.org/0803/etc/nefertiti.html

-Mika B.

Period 5

Buried Coins Speak of Population Declines in Ancient Rome

During the period of time after Julius Caesar's assassination, Rome's government and peoples were in turmoil. But according to records, it it hard to tell whether Roman population declined or increased during that period due to discrepancies on who was counted in censuses at that time. Recently, Peter Turchin, a theoretical biologist, decided to answer the population question with buried coins. Apparently, during times of trouble, people would bury their wealth for safety until they could come back to it. However, if they where killed in the resulting trouble they would be unable to come back for the coins. So now it becomes possible to guess at population changes by counting the number of stashes that are, or where, still buried at that time. More buried coins could indicate population loss. The coin model when used for known populations in Rome proves that it is accurate. The large amounts of coins found from the questionable period in Rome, shows that the population was most likely on the decrease. “It is very difficult to see how a population could grow during such a period of such violence...” said Turchin.

http://blogs.discovery.com/news_archaeorama/

-Niki S.

Period 5

The Return of a Genius

A thumb and forefinger as well as a tooth have been found and proven to belong to the famous physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher of the Scientific Revolution, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). At an auction, there was a wooden box and inside there was an 18th century blown glass container with the two fingers and a tooth contained inside which were noticed by a collector. These were removed from the genius’ body when he was being moved from an unconsecrated grave to a Florentine church, the Santa Croce, in 1737, nearly 100 years after his death. During the ceremony when Galileo was being dug up and about to be transferred, Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti took out a knife and removed the fingers and tooth as soon as the coffin lid was raised. Galileo’s middle finger and vertebra were also removed on this occasion and can now be viewed on display at the Galluzzi museum located in Florence. Galileo is well known for his observations of solar spots, his invention of the thermometer, and the modification of and studies made with the telescope. He used the telescope to come to the conclusion that the Earth revolves around the sun. However, at the time such radical ideas were seen to threaten the power of the church, and this great thinker was convicted of heresy and spent the last nine years of his life on house arrest. After they had been removed from the body, the fingers and tooth traded hands through various owners and eventually disappeared from view completely about a century ago, only to be discovered again recently. Galileo was parted from his fingers under the reason that he had created and unearthed many ideas with them in his life and they therefore needed to be kept as symbolic representations of his great works. The question is whether it is morally ethical to separate a person from their body parts and put them on display after their death.

http://news.discovery.com/history/galileo-fingers-tooth-remains.html

Yasmine B.
Per. 5

New Amusement Park...of History?

In the peaks of Switzerland, a new amusement park, called Mystery Park, has just opened. However, this park isn't like anything we're used to with rides, carnival games, and characters ready to take your picture. No this amusement park is defanitly the opposite to what we'd ever gone to, this park is half amusement park half museum.

This unique tourist attraction is credited to Erich von Däniken. In his Mystery Park, you'll find yourself transported to a place of history and aliens. That's right aliens. As you explore some of the best known landmarks of all time, like the Egyptian pyramids, Easter Island heads, and the Temple of the Feathered Snake, there are different attractions with most of them consiting of alien encounters. Though Mystery Park is not the first place to spend your money for fun, it does give you a whole new experience about history.

http://www.archaeology.org/0401/abstracts/letter.html

Lindsay Scott

Period 7

A New Painting by Leonardo Da Vinci?

A painting of a young woman, known as the “Profile of the Bella Principessa,” was always believed to be a nineteenth century German painting. However, in 2007 different thoughts arose among the art collector, Peter Silverman, and his Swiss friend. Silverman’s friend first spotted this lovely painting in the Ganz gallery of New York. He observed that the style of the painting was not of the nineteenth century, but possibly a work of Leonardo Da Vinci. He convinced Silverman to buy the painting, and they immediately began to research it. During this process, they found a fingerprint on the painting. After having the fingerprint examined, it was confirmed that the fingerprint belongs to Leonardo Da Vinci. While several art experts support the notion that this is a true artwork of Leonardo Da Vinci, many people still doubt it.

http://news.discovery.com/history/da-vinci-painting.html

Angela B.
Period 5