M.J. Rose

They had me at “shoe ornaments” —

From The Vintage News,

The Hochdorf Chieftain’s Grave – intact and richly furnished grave of an Early Celtic chieftain

“Discovered in 1968 by an amateur archaeologist near Hochdorf an der Enz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and excavated in 1978/79, the Hochdorf Chieftain’s Grave is a richly furnished Celtic burial chamber dating from 530 BC.

It is one of about 100 such graves dating from the second half of the sixth century BC found in France, Switzerland, and Germany.

The man in the grave,who was laid out on a lavishly decorated 9 ft (275 cm) bronze couch on wheels, was about 40 years old and unusually tall for the Iron Ages, being just over 6ft tall. Judging by other objects found there, this man had probably been a Celtic chieftain.

He had been buried with a gold-plated torc on his neck, amber jewelry, a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, a bracelet on his right arm, a nail clipper, a comb, fishing hooks, a flat cone-shaped hat made of birch bark adorned with circle patterns and punched decorations, arrows, a razor knife, and most notably, thin embossed gold plaques were on his now-disintegrated shoes….”

For the rest (many lovely photos), click here.

Time crystals? This sounds more like a Star Trek technology than something incredibly real that scientists just discovered…

From Science Alert,

Scientists have confirmed a brand new phase of matter: time crystals
Constant motion without energy.
by Fiona McDonald

“For months now, there’s been speculation that researchers might have finally created time crystals – strange crystals that have an atomic structure that repeats not just in space, but in time, putting them in constant oscillation without energy.

Now it’s official – researchers have just reported in detail how to make and measure these bizarre crystals. And two independent teams of scientists claim they’ve actually created time crystals in the lab based off this blueprint, confirming the existence of an entirely new phase of matter.

The discovery might sound pretty abstract, but it heralds in a whole new era in physics – for decades we’ve been studying matter that’s defined as being ‘in equilibrium’, such as metals and insulators.

But it’s been predicted that there are many more strange types of matter out there in the Universe that aren’t in equilibrium that we haven’t even begun to look into, including time crystals. And now we know they’re real.

The fact that we now have the first example of non-equilibrium matter could lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of the world around us, as well as new technology such as quantum computing.

“This is a new phase of matter, period, but it is also really cool because it is one of the first examples of non-equilibrium matter,” said lead researcher Norman Yao from the University of California, Berkeley.

“For the last half-century, we have been exploring equilibrium matter, like metals and insulators. We are just now starting to explore a whole new landscape of non-equilibrium matter.”

Let’s take a step back for a second, because the concept of time crystals has been floating around for a few years now…

For the rest, click here.

Bronze! An incredible find sheds new light on the origins of Western civilization…

From Smithsonian Magazine,

This 3,500-Year-Old Greek Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization

The recent discovery of the grave of an ancient soldier is challenging accepted wisdom among archaeologists

For the rest, click here.