Zoroastrian fire temple in West Azarbaijan, Iran. It was destroyed at the order of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in the 7th century AD. Folk legends later sprang up that Solomon had imprisoned demons in the depths of in the crater lake.
The remains of Adur Gushnasp
July 2nd, 2009 by badgerCheshma-e-Shafa to be bulldozed: save the City of Infidels!
July 2nd, 2009 by badger
A company contracted to build a road in Afghanistan wants to bulldoze the Cheshma-e-Shafa gorge to clear a path for a road. Archaeologists have practically had to lay down in front of the bulldozers tosave the site. It’s illegal in Afghanistan to demolish a site like this, but it’s Afghanistan. They have bigger problems to worry about at the moment.
Here’s an older story on Cheshma-e-Shafa from last year. A detail that i missed first time around:
archaeologists have uncovered a 6-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) anvil-like stone believed to have been an altar at a fire temple originating from the Persian Empire period around the 6th century B.C.
Zoroastrian fire temple! Fragments of the empire of Alexander the Great! The mosque of Non-Gonbad!
Really? Does this need to be bulldozed? I wouldn’t be surprised if this construction company took a bribe from the Taliban in their ongoing efforts to erase history.
new oldest human settlement in the Aegean Islands
July 2nd, 2009 by badgerThe new oldest human settlement in the Aegean Islands has been located. It’s 14,000 years old, on the island of Lemnos. The previous oldest site identified was 10,000 years old, on the island of Yioura.
Stone tools and the like. Hunters, fishers, gatherers… you know the routine…. nice date on the area, but it doesn’t seem like a huge surprise.
new 7,000 year old site identified in northeastern Bulgaria
July 2nd, 2009 by badgerAdmittedly not too much specific information here:
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a 7 000-years-old settlement close to the northeast city of Shumen.
The village dates back to the Stone-Copper Age, and is located in the locality of Chanadzhik, near the village of Sushina and the Ticha Dam.
The archaeologists have discovered over 300 finds, most of which are made of marble.
“These items are extremely rare. They were worn by very specific people. These are decorations that were not available to the masses. There are also others that are made of clay or bone,” explained Stefan Chohadzhiev, an archaeology professor at the Veliko Tarnovo University, as quoted by bTV.
The most valuable find of the archaeologists, however, is a fortification that protected the village mound from the west.
According to Ivan Babadzhanov, an archaeologist from the Regional History Museum in Shumen, the fortification probably consisted of a stone wall; the items discovered there are Chalcolithic (Copper Age) ceramics.
Very specific people, eh? Name names, please. It’s Vin?a Culture, right? Isn’t 7,000 years ago early for using Chalcolithic period though?
who needs cowbells when one has police whistles?
July 2nd, 2009 by badger
and a hairshirt?
Dr. Ferral to Moravagine
July 2nd, 2009 by badger“You have freed yourself from your double, whereas most men of letters remain victims and prisoners of their doubles until the day they die, which is what they call being faithful to oneself, although nine times out of ten it is just a typical case of possession.”1
The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis
July 2nd, 2009 by badger(This post has been stuck in Drafts since May 8th. Ouch. It’s still an unfinished post.)
Anyone read this recently? I picked up this Humberto Costantini book a year or two ago, but last weekend grabbed it up in a fit, trying to break myself temporarily from a two month long Cortázar binge.1 Hell, even this has a big Cortázar blurb on the cover, so this wasn’t a plunge into something widly different.
What’s odd is that it was reminding me of a more gentle, forgiving Bolaño… without the punkish attitude, self-mythologizing references, and hellbent ambition…. so another altogether author, really?
Yeah.
However, i cannot get the idea out of my head that Constantini’s mystery woman is the template for Bolano’s awkward student who develops an obsession with Alberto Ruiz-Tagle in Distant Star. In The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis, she first appears as a memory of a student, homely and awkward, who was in love with an idealized revolutionary poet, but matures into a glamorous paranoid who is married to an Argentine Air Force officer. Distant Star has a similar student who is infatuated with Alberto Ruiz-Tagle (future Chliean air Force officer,) but then discovers he’s a true monster.
It feels like a homage or comment is being made there.
- Have i neglected to mention that? [↩]
girl, mask, glove
July 2nd, 2009 by badger
ice cream for crow
July 2nd, 2009 by badger
((I’d never seen this video before this morning. Nary a single clip from it. Shocked to discover it exists.))
bring me the shattered skull of Michael Bay
July 2nd, 2009 by badger