Explorator

Religious group performs mummification rituals in Utah pyramid

On the west side of Salt Lake City, amidst bland warehouses and the hum of I-15 traffic, the Summum Pyramid strikes a stark contrast with its surroundings. Nearly 30 feet high and accessible only through a metal hatch that rises up and out like the door of a Delorean, the Pyramid has presided over 707 Genesee Avenue since 1979. This is the primary instruction and worship center for Utah-based religion Summum. It’s also where the group performs ancient mummification rituals.

Summum’s reverence for pyramids dates back to its origin. Claude “Corky” Nowell founded the church in 1975, claiming to have visited extraterrestrial beings in a pyramid, where they taught him life-changing concepts about creation, the nature of the universe and eternal destiny.

The first of Nowell’s visions took place in his Utah apartment, though he described it as an out-of-body experience that underscored the importance of pyramids to the religion he later established:  "Instantly, I opened my eyes and found myself standing next to an enormous pyramid. … Passing through the wall, I found myself in a large room resonant with light radiating from the air. The walls, floor and ceiling looked as if they were made of very thick glass. Ahead of me, about 30 feet away, stood a group of individuals. They looked like humans, yet they were different. … Their facial features and bodies were so perfectly formed, it seemed as if they were divine in their physical appearance. … They established a high-level telepathic link with my mind, and instantaneously I understood them.” article continues
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Stray cat colony in ancient Roman temple is declared a health hazard
Cats thrive in the ruins of the Largo Argentina, where Caesar was assassinated by Brutus, but they won't for much longer if the municipality gets its way.  For as long as anyone can remember, cats have roamed the marble columns of the ancient site in Rome where Julius Caesar was murdered by Marcus Brutus and his band of senators.  Now, though, the felines of the Largo Argentina archaeological site have fallen victim to a conspiracy themselves. Rome's modern-day rulers have declared them a health hazard.

Both the cats and the staff at the informal sanctuary that looks after them have been given their marching orders, despite the animals becoming a popular tourist attraction in their own right.  City heritage officials say that the sanctuary, which lies just on a pedestal just a few yards from where Caesar was hacked down, must close because it is unhygienic, was built without proper planning permission and compromises one of Italy's most important archaeological sites.  "How was it possible that these cat lovers were able to construct their refuge on an ancient monument?" asked Andrea Carandini, a former president of the national cultural heritage council.

But the volunteers who run the refuge, a tiny, cave-like space packed with cats of every colour and pattern, have vowed to fight the eviction order. They said they provide a vital service for the city, taking in strays, sterilising them, and giving them food and medicine.  The cats – there are currently 250 of them – have free run of the adjoining remains and can be seen lounging in the sun on broken bits of marble, padding along fallen pillars and sleeping curled up on the corrugated iron roofs which protect the monuments from rain. article continues
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Saxon find in Lyminge has historians partying like it's 599
Remains of great hall, the first unearthed in 30 years, dug up on Kent village green
The foundations of a spectacular Anglo-Saxon feasting hall, a place where a king and his warriors would have gathered for days of drinking and eating – as vividly described in the poem Beowulf – have been found inches below the village green of Lyminge in Kent.

There was one last celebration by the light of flickering flames at the site, 1,300 years after the hall was abandoned, as archaeologists marked the find by picking out the outline of the hall in candles, lighting up the end-of-excavation party. Heaps of animal bones buried in pits around the edge of the hall bore testimony to many epic parties of the past.

The unexpected find, by a team from the University of Reading funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and working with local archaeologists and villagers, is exceptionally rare. Digging under the curious gaze of drinkers in the garden of the Coach and Horses pub a few metres away, it is the first great hall from the period to be discovered in more than 30 years.

At 21 metres by 8.5 metres, it would have been the most imposing structure for miles, large enough to hold at least 60 people. Beowulf, the most famous of all surviving Anglo-Saxon poems, describes the hero coming to just such a hall, Heorot – "the timbered hall / splendid and ornamented with gold. / The building in which that powerful man held court / Was the foremost of halls under heaven; / Its radiance shone over many lands."  article continues
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Protecting Afghanistan’s environment and tourist future

If the high mountain lakes of Band-e Amir were not in a country in its fourth decade of war they would be world famous.  Outsiders lucky enough to see them today are often lost for words when they first set eyes on the ethereal blue of their waters and the Martian-orange and red cliffs surrounding them. 

The lakes, in Bamiyan province, are Afghanistan's first-ever national park, and draw thousands of local visitors every year. The government hopes foreign tourists will one day come too.  If that sounds quixotic now, so too may the UN and the government's launch here of the country's first-ever environmental protection plan - with a solar-powered kettle one of its signature initiatives.

But for those living in Bamiyan's isolated mountain valleys, the most immediate threat is not the Taliban but drought, partly induced by human activity.  Climate change is making things worse and the lakes could be at risk too.  Glaciers in the province's Koh-e Baba mountains, the western end of the Hindu Kush, recede further each year.

The climate adaptation programme, as it's known, "is not luxury, it's life", says Bamiyan Governor Habiba Sarabi after climbing up to Qazan, one of 18 mountain farming communities involved in the $6m (£3.75m) scheme.  article continues with photos and video
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An Oyster in the Storm
DOWN here at the end of Manhattan, on the border between evacuation zones B and C, I’m prepared, mostly. My bathtub is full of water, as is every container I own. My flashlights are battery-ed up, the pantry is crammed with canned goods and I even roasted a pork shoulder that I plan to gnaw on in the darkness if ConEd shuts down the power.

But as I confidently tick off all the things that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recommends for my defense as Hurricane Sandy bears down on me, I find I’m desperately missing one thing. I wish I had some oysters.

I’m not talking about oysters to eat — although a dozen would be nice to go with that leftover bottle of Champagne that I really should drink if the fridge goes off. I’m talking about the oysters that once protected New Yorkers from storm surges, a bivalve population that numbered in the trillions and that played a critical role in stabilizing the shoreline from Washington to Boston.

Crassostrea virginica, the American oyster, the same one that we eat on the half shell, is endemic to New York Harbor. Which isn’t surprising: the best place for oysters is the margin between saltwater and freshwater, where river meets sea. Our harbor is chock-a-block with such places. Myriad rivers and streams, not just the Hudson and the East, but the Raritan, the Passaic, the Kill Van Kull, the Arthur Kill — the list goes on and on — flow into the upper and lower bay of the harbor, bringing nutrients from deep inland and distributing them throughout the water column.

Until European colonists arrived, oysters took advantage of the spectacular estuarine algae blooms that resulted from all these nutrients and built themselves a kingdom. Generation after generation of oyster larvae rooted themselves on layers of mature oyster shells for more than 7,000 years until enormous underwater reefs were built up around nearly every shore of greater New York.

Just as corals protect tropical islands, these oyster beds created undulation and contour on the harbor bottom that broke up wave action before it could pound the shore with its full force. Beds closer to shore clarified the water through their assiduous filtration (a single oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day); this allowed marsh grasses to grow, which in turn held the shores together with their extensive root structure.

But 400 years of poor behavior on the part of humans have ruined all that. As Mark Kurlansky details in his fine book “The Big Oyster,” during their first 300 years on these shores colonists nearly ate the wild creatures out of existence. We mined the natural beds throughout the waterways of greater New York and burned them down for lime or crushed them up for road beds. article continues
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‘Extravagant Inventions,’ Roentgen Furniture at the Met