M.J. Rose

“In Egypt excavations for tombs of the Pharaohs reveal sphinxes and a mummy of a priest who lived 4,000 years ago. In the Cairo Museum we see a vase made 1,300 years BC…”

Enjoy!

P.S. Happy Blue Moon to you all!

We love it when they find the really ancient stuff…

Archaeologists uncover human settlement dated to the dawn of civilization
from Popular Archaeology

In Turkey, the excavation of a small ancient community dated to Neolithic times has informed our image of the beginnings of civilization.

“A??kl? Höyük, a mound near the banks of the Melendiz River in southern Turkey, lies not far from the site of Çatalhöyük. Dated to about 7500 B.C., Çatalhöyük is famous for being one of the oldest and largest Neolithic sites ever found.

But A??kl? Höyük dates back even earlier, to about 8000 B.C. Though less known and considerably smaller than Çatalhöyük, archaeological excavations at A??kl? Höyük have revealed a richly informative window on small-town life about 10,000 years ago, long before the pyramids, ziggurats, palaces, and other monumental features of the emerging, more expansive ancient cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt emerged on the landscape.

First investigated by Professor Ian A. Todd in 1964, full-scale excavations of the site didn’t take place until 1989 under Ufuk Esin of the University of Istanbul. It became one of the largest excavations of the region, and is still the subject of archaeological investigations and research. The site finds included simple adobe house structures for a total of at least 400 rooms and as many as 70 burials beneath the house floors. The 1-to-2-room houses typically featured hearths, some houses with built-in earthen benches. Curiously, the houses were relatively dark inside, built essentially without doors and windows”…

For the rest, click here.

When writing, authors find that it can be tempting to describe the feelings of our characters with a cliche such as “her heart dropped.” Why is such an odd statement something that makes so much sense to us that it has become such a typical way to describe emotional plain?

Why Do We Feel Intense Emotions In Our Chest?
by Aamna Mohdin (IFLS)

“When you hear bad news, you might feel your ‘heart drop’ or have to deal with ‘heart ache.’ There’s more to these metaphors than simply describing intense emotions – they point to the fascinating way our bodies experience these feelings, both emotionally and physically. But surely that doesn’t make sense – we all know that the heart is simply a symbol for love and pain, and that all the “feeling” is done by our brains. So how exactly do intense emotions trigger specific sensations in our chest?

The simple answer is: scientists aren’t really sure…”

For the rest, click here to go to IFLS.