And in other news

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,360121,00.html

So now the latest theory is that Stonehenge was a burial site.  Ok, I can see the stones as large gravemarkers and especially when you go through the whole thing of how they line up with the stars, sun, etc. 

What I love when I read these stories are the attempts to understand a people we have no real records of.  One of the greatest things I ever read was written many years ago and it was a supposedly archeaological study conducted a few thousand years from now of a culture who uncovered a bathroom of our times.  I can’t remember all of the items and how they were represented but it went along the lines that the throne (toliet) seat was a sign of power and the container on the back of the throne was a place for tributes to be placed.  I can’t remember the religous significance of the bathtub but I remember the bath stopper on a chain was seen as an amulet.  Oh and the plunger was a scepter.  You can let your imagination go wild from here.  But it goes to show the possibilities of how a future culture could totally misunderstand what we use today and what it is for.  So when I read these studies by archaeologists, I love them because they could be right or they could be so far from the truth.  And the great thing is that we won’t know.

 

The Lost Ark

It is once again time for someone to declare they have found the lost ark of the covenant. 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,355264,00.html

I don’t know why they keep searching.  I keep telling them it is hidden in my closet.  Sportzmom and Hip Shaker keep certain men locked away in their closets, I hide great pieces of archeology treasure in mine, waiting for Indiana Jones to come find it.  Unfortunately with the way he has aged, I think I need to give him a bigger clue.  So here I am, on the internet, telling him where to come look.

Any other archaeologists interested in the treasures I have hidden will need to email me a current picture of themselves.

 

Monticello and Mere here I come

I feel a countdown beginning in my head.  Next Thursday I get to combine two favorite things into one.  First of all, it has been a life long dream of mine to go to Monticello for a visit.  Jefferson has always been a very interesting historical figure to me, the brilliance of his mind, his duality in thought process, etc. 

And I get to go to Mere’s.  I get to see her boys.  I get to see her yard for what it is and rumored to be. 

 

I can’t wait to read this

No, not on Prince Charles’ backyard.  Oh please, like I would want to know (but I will look since I will have this issue in hand).  I know, what a nerd.  Yes this is exactly the sort of thing I obsess over reading.  I love articles like this.  Now this is going to be interesting, because it is NG’s recanting an article published in their magazine 2 years ago and how new interpretations cast doubts on the original findings.  Hmmm, interesting stuff.

 

A new tangent

I go off on weird tangents every once in a while.  Something captures my fancy and I become obsessed with it.  So indulge me a minute while I explain the latest and greatest.

When I was in the fourth grade, I got a subscription when National Geographic first came out with a new magazine aimed at kids, called World.  The first cover was on the Pompeii ruins.  I was fascinated and wanted to become an archaeologist.  That didn’t last long as I don’t like getting hot and dirty.  When I was a junior in high school we had to write a research paper.  Most people selected the standard topics.  Not me.  I wanted to write on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Biblical archaeology is one of my favorite subjects.  I will stop on the History channel almost every time something about Biblical history is on.

So now move to the present.  For the last few years I have been fascinated with the Gnostic Gospels.  While I’m a spiritual person, I have moved to something that doesn’t work well with organized religion.  Most of this is because the more I learn about how the Bible was developed, the less I see it as a manifestation of God’s words to us and more of a tool written by men and manipulated by men.  So my latest tangent is learning all I can on the subject.  Thank goodness for the internet because given the location of a certain large Baptist university nearby, getting my hands on this information is not easy.  If you want to have a good understanding of where I am coming from, I just finished reading a book of fiction that has a lot of fact weaved into it that pinpoints my thought process.  I was surprised to find a mainstream author writing about many of the conclusions and theories I have laid in bed at night and wondered about.  Now I’m a mission to validate and better verbalize my thinking.  I think I’m going to do a private blog on the subject to help me structure my thought process.  I’m not looking to a published author on the subject, I don’t think I will be enough of an authority given my lack of credentials.  But I can crystalize my thinking on the subject.