Friday Archaeology Blogging
Ripped from the headlines edition...

Zeus devotees worship in Athens
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Athens

Worshippers who believe in the 12 gods of ancient Greece have held a ceremony at the Temple of Zeus in Athens.

Well, I confess to mixed feelings about this. Understand, I have absolutely nothing against the concept of people worshipping the ancient Greek gods, so long as they do it correctly. In fact, I think it's a rather nice idea, and I fully commend the Greek courts for recognizing the religion officially, despite the grumpiness of the Greek Orthodox Church on the subject:

The president of the Association of Greek Clergymen, Father Efstathios Kollas, has described the followers of the Olympic gods as a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past.

That's a very silly attitude, if you ask me. Anyway, what I do have a bit of a problem with is the concept of holding ceremonies at the actual Temple of Zeus in Athens.


The aforementioned temple - click to enlarge

My worry is that there is significant potential for damage to the site, if people aren't careful. That building is 2500 or so years old, and has not been maintained in the meantime, at least not until recently. Such structures do not, generally, respond well to being put back into use, as the curators of Stonehenge can testify. Anyway, hopefully the Greek Ministry of Culture is keeping a close eye on this.

And now, skipping lightly across most of a sea, an ocean, and a millenium or two, we have this interesting discovery from the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick:

600-year-old canoe found
January 25, 2007
(CP)

SAINT JOHN, N.B. —Storms usually sink boats, not bring them back to life.

But it took a tempest to release a link to Canada’s pre-European past from its prison beneath a salt marsh on New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula.

Ella and Jean-Claude Robichaud of Val-Comeau, N.B. were walking on the beach in the summer of 2003 when they discovered a dugout canoe that experts have determined was carved by aboriginals 600 years ago.

Not much to say about this yet, but I will post pictures of the boat if and when I can find any!

Generic Punk Related Photograph of the Day



Well, I know I've been away for a bit here, but I am back, and set to blog again... Hooray. Part of the reason that I haven't been posting much is that I took some time off and took a little jaunt to British Columbia to watch some exhibition soccer. I stayed in a wonderful place on South Granville in Vancouver, with a strip joint for a pub and glue-sniffers in the parking lot. The soccer was good, and the bus trip there and back actually bearable. And, with that, not a hell of a lot else has been going on, except that we're absolutely swamped at work. However, a couple of wee things have come to my attention. First off:


Friendly fire bomber denied his final appeal
AP AND CP

NEW ORLEANS -- The Illinois National Guard pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian troops in Afghanistan, killing four and wounding eight, lost his last U.S. air force appeal yesterday. The commander of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia upheld the punishment ordered last month for Maj. Harry Schmidt - a severe reprimand and loss of a month's pay.
Schmidt, 39, who was found guilty of dereliction of duty, also has agreed that he will never fly U.S. air force jets again, although he remains in the National Guard.

As I think I've said before, for my money, the flying ban is the big part of this story. Some people up here are upset at the small size of his fine, but I couldn't care less about that. Nothing's going to bring our boys back, so all we can really ask for is reassurance that dumbass will never again be able to fly a heavily-armed aircraft.

And secondly, big and very very very late propz to these guys:



Yes, as everybody who cares is already well aware, unheralded Greece won the 2004 European soccer championship. I should also mention that Brazil defeated arch-rivals Argentina for the Copa America. Again, not news.