I wrote a new article for the site Bits of News. This time it was on the new Etruscan tomb discovery. The article is at: http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5971/.

Found while doing my daily search for "Early History News":

Archaeologists Recreate Ancient Irish Beer
IndiPRWire
Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, two archaeologists with Moore Archaeological & Environmental Services (Moore Group) in Galway, believe that an extensive brewing tradition existed in Ireland as far back as 2500 BC. In an article to be published in Archaeology Ireland next month, they detail their experiments and research into the enigmatic site that is the fulacht fiadh...
http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/environmental-services/200708104056.htm

I couldn't help but think of Methos when I read it.

I've written another article for "Bits of News". This one's on the new discoveries at Alexandria. If anyone's interested, the URL is: http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5895/.

I've been asked to write for the online magazine . I wrote my first article today on the discovery of Scone Abbey which was announced this morning. The article is at, if you're interested: http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5876/

Scientists Link Housecats to Wildcat Subspecies
New York Times
Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East, an audacious wild cat crept into one of the crude villages of early human settlers, the first to domesticate wheat and barley. There she felt safe from her many predators in the region, such as hyenas and larger cats, and the rodents that infested the settlers’ homes and granaries were sufficient prey for her...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/science/28cnd-cat.html?ref=science

I'm putting together the morning post to Early History News. It looks like the big story of the day concerns this website: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/rome_reborn/test/RomeReborn1.0.html. There's not much there yet, but it looks like something worth keeping an eye on for the future.

This is just sad. I've been seeing a lot of articles about replacing the seven wonders of the world lately. So far, the articles all sound as though it's a foregone conclusion. What's more, it looks like the one surviving wonder might not even make the new list.

One of the articles is this one: http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,23483,21766842-27977,00.html.

History in the news today includes more stories on the discovery of the tomb of King Herod, and a story about a mysterious item found a century ago off the coast of Greece. The links to the articles can be found at Early History News.

Would you be interested in my posting a link here to each day's post at Early History News?

It's something which I'm finding to be quite interesting, searching out the history news of the day. Today it was the discovery of the 2700 year old cloth and fruit, with the first news stories being posted mid-morning. Yesterday, and even the evening before, it was the discovery of the tomb of King Herod.

In addition to this blog, I've started a new one: http://earlyhistorynews.blogspot.com/ on history in the news. Each day I'm going through the news and collecting all the articles to do with Classical History and Medieval history and posting them to this blog.

I seem to have picked the right time to start, with the discovery of Herod's tomb yesterday.

This month I seem to have been on a history kick. The reason for that is that while I was working in the bookstore over Christmas, I was able to buy a set of books on history at an incredble deal. Four of the five books are on this month's list.

( The list of books )

Does anyone know the significance of the number 16? It's used at least three times in the Alliterative Morte Arthur.

Got the first draft of the term paper finished in time (think midnight last night).

Did my regular run to my favourite second-hand book store last week. Took in two boxes of books and picked up the following:
Marion Zimmer Bradley:
Hunters of the Red Moon
Survivors
The Bloody Sun

Harry Turtledove:
The North Kingdom
Thessalonia

Andre Norton:
Fur Magic

Mercedes Lackey:
The Black Swan

Misc:
Tacitus (translation)
Dante The Divine Comedy the Inferno (The Musa translation. Anyone have any opinions on whether this or the Sayers translation is better?)
The Canterbury Tales (translation)