M.J. Rose

We would love it if someone would write a new series of novels about these fellows as perhaps they really were–quite advanced indeed….

From NBC News.com,

Neanderthal Used Early Version of Penicillin and Aspirin

“WASHINGTON — Eating like a caveman meant chowing down on woolly rhinos and sheep in Belgium, but munching on mushrooms, pine nuts and moss in Spain. It all depended on where they lived, new research shows.

Scientists got a sneak peek into the kitchen of three Neanderthals by scraping off the plaque stuck on their teeth and examining the DNA. What they found smashes a common public misconception that the caveman diet was mostly meat. They also found hints that one sickly teen used primitive versions of penicillin and aspirin to help ease his pain.

The dental plaque provides a lifelong record of what went in the Neanderthals’ mouths and the bacteria that lived in their guts, said study co-author Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA in Adelaide.

“It’s like a fossil,” he said…

For the rest, click here.

These are the kind of incredible and rare discoveries we cannot get enough of!

A quartzite colossus possibly of Ramses II and limestone bust of Seti II have been discovered at the ancient Heliopolis archaeological site in the Matariya area of Cairo. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

From Reuters,

Colossus probably depicting Ramses II found in Egypt

By Ahmed Aboulenein | CAIRO

 
“Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a massive eight-meter statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum that they say probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

The discovery, hailed by the Antiquities Ministry as one of the most important ever, was made near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.

Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite,” Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani told Reuters on Thursday at the site of the statue’s unveiling.

The most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt, the pharaoh also known as Ramses the Great was the third of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE.

He led several military expeditions and expanded the Egyptian Empire to stretch from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south. His successors called him the “Great Ancestor”.

“We found the bust of the statue and the lower part of the head and now we removed the head and we found the crown and the right ear and a fragment of the right eye,” Anani said.

On Thursday, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a massive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water…”

For the rest, click here. NPR has a story on this also, here.

We think that if you still haven’t danced in an attic in Paris, it’s time…

From MessyNessy,

Dancing in the Attic of the Paris Opera House

“Classical ballet as we know it today was born within the Paris Opera. In 1930, LIFE magazine staff photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, was given access to the sacred world of the prima ballerina at the Grand Opera de Paris. He sat in on a rehearsal for Swan Lake, photographing the dancers doing their barre exercises, perfecting choreography, as well as capturing the girls at ease, standing around chatting or looking out over Paris from those fabulous round windows.

There’s something eerily beautiful about these photographs of the glamorous ballerinas against the backdrop of that dim and dusty attic space of the Grand Opera, a stark contrast from their gilded stage below. I wonder if that room still exists as it was on that day, with those big round windows, black walls and the ballet barre with a view….”

Click here for many captivating photos of this scene, and if you want to be inspired to do some dancing–perhaps in your own attic? Why not!