Terra Nova Expedition Ship Discovered

by Sean McLachlan on


The ship that gave the name to Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition has been found in the waters off Greenland, the Schmidt Ocean Institute reports.

The SS Terra Nova took Scott’s British team to Antarctica in 1910. They raced to be the first to the South Pole but were beaten by Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian team by only a matter of days. On their way back, bad weather set in and Scott and several team members died.

The SS Terra Nova continued to work in Arctic and Antarctic waters before finally getting damaged by ice and sinking off Greenland in 1943. A ship from the Schmidt Ocean Institute was testing its multibeam mapping echo sounders when it discovered the ship deep in the frigid waters.

The testing was being carried out in preparation for a undersea survey planned for next year. Who knows what else they’ll discover!

[Photo of Terra Nova expedition courtesy NOAA]

Cache Of Severed Hands Discovered In Ancient Egyptian Palace

by Sean McLachlan on

Archaeologists digging at the ancient Egyptian site of Tell-el-Daba have made a grisly discovery – sixteen severed hands.

They were all right hands, and all large enough that they were probably from men, leading investigators to think they were trophies from a battle. Ancient Egyptian records mention the practice of collecting enemy hands to trade in for gold, but this is the first material evidence.

Like many sites in the country, Tell-el-Daba was inhabited for many centuries. Its high point, however, was actually a low point for the rest of Egypt. Around 1610 B.C., archaeologists believe it became the capital for the Hyksos, a little-understood Eastern people who conquered much of northern Egypt.

Known as Avaris, the town grew and a large palace was built. It was in the palace precinct that the team found the severed hands. According to the team’s press release, 14 were deposited in a pit in an outer courtyard, and two more in two pits in an outbuilding. One can imagine Hyksos warriors coming back from a successful battle against the Egyptians and showing off the hands to their ruler to claim their reward. The Good Old Days were pretty brutal.

The location didn’t stay in the invaders’ hands for long. It was reconquered by the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose around the year 1530 B.C.

Archaeologists Discover Funerary Boat Of One Of Ancient Egypt’s Earliest Pharaohs

by Sean McLachlan on


A funerary boat dating back 5,000 years has been discovered in Egypt, Ahram Online reports.

The boat was meant to take the Pharaoh Den to the afterlife and was buried in the northeast of the Giza Plateau, site of the famous (and later) pyramids. Den was a ruler of Ancient Egypt’s poorly understood First Dynasty, which saw the unification of Egypt and its development as a major civilization. Den, shown here smiting his enemies in this image courtesy CaptMondo, was the first to use the title “King of Lower and Upper Egypt.” He ruled for 42 years and was famed for his organization of the state. His tomb at Abydos, shown below in this Wikimedia Commons image, is one of the finest of the era.

The French team that made the discovery hope to restore the boat in time to put it on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization when it opens next year.

Welcome Home Taikonauts!

by Sean McLachlan on

China has made another great leap forward in their space program. At 2:05 GMT today, the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft landed safely in Inner Mongolia.

The capsule contained three Chinese taikonauts (astronauts), including Major Liu Yang, China’s first female taikonaut to go on a mission. The state press has nicknamed Major Liu Yang the “little Flying Knight,” which seems a wee bit condescending for such a brave pioneer.

The crew had been in space for 13 days and had docked with the Tiangong-1 space platform, the nucleus of what will become China’s space station by 2020. Above is a Wikimedia Commons diagram of Shenzhou-9 (right) docked with Tiangong-1 (left). The landing was broadcast live on state television.

As Chinese space missions become more common, the question becomes what to call their crews. The Chinese government doesn’t seem to be able to decide. Depending on the source and the language of the official statement, they’re variously referred to as astronauts, cosmonauts, “tàikōng rén” (“spacemen”) or taikonauts, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a hybrid of the Chinese term taikong (space) and the Greek naut (sailor).” Personally I think taikonaut sounds the coolest.

Want to learn more? Check out the Go Taikonauts! fan page.

World’s Oldest Cave Art Found In Spain

by Sean McLachlan on

Archaeologists analyzing prehistoric paintings in Spain have discovered the earliest example of cave art.

El Castillo Cave in Cantabria on Spain’s northern coast was one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites investigated for the study. The earliest dates were a minimum of 40,800 years ago for a red disk, 37,300 years for a hand stencil, and 35,600 years for a club-shaped symbol. The red disk is at least 4,000 years older than anything previously found in Europe and arguably the oldest cave art anywhere.

These early dates have sparked an interesting debate. The paintings are from the transition period between Neanderthals and the arrival of modern humans. No cave art has been firmly attributed to the Neanderthals and scholars have long debated the level of their intelligence.

Researchers used uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying art in eleven caves to determine the dates. Like radiocarbon dating, this technique measures the change in radioactive isotopes. Unlike the more common radiocarbon dating technique, however, which studies the half-life of carbon 14, this technique studies the rate of decay of uranium 234 into thorium 230, a process that happens at a precise rate. It can date calcite up to 300,000 years old.

Very thin films of calcite were sampled from just above the paintings. Being on top of the paintings, they are younger than the art, thus the paintings could be centuries older than the minimum dates given.

The results have been published in the journal Science. Meanwhile, the team is sampling more cave art in the hope of finding even earlier dates.