Winner of $1.3B Powerball Jackpot Is an Immigrant Who Has Cancer

Tasos Kokkinidis
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Winner of $1.3B Powerball Jackpot Is an Immigrant Who Has Cancer
Powerball Jackpot
“I will be able to provide for my family and my health… I’ll find a good doctor for myself,” the winner of the jackpot said. Public Domain

The winner of the historic $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot has been revealed as an immigrant from Laos who is battling cancer and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.

Cheng “Charlie” Saephan, 46, of Portland, who has had cancer for eight years, said he and his wife, Duanpen Saephan, 37, would split the prize evenly with a friend who contributed $100 to buy some tickets with them.

They are taking a lump sum payment — $422 million after taxes.

“I am grateful for the lottery and how I have been blessed,” he said at a news conference Monday held by the Oregon Lottery, adding that his “life has been changed.”

“I will be able to provide for my family and my health… I’ll find a good doctor for myself.”

He said that as a cancer patient, he wondered, “How am I going to have time to spend all of this money? How long will I live?”

After they bought the tickets with Laiza Chao, 55, of Milwaukie, Chao sent a photo of them to Saephan and said, “We’re billionaires.”

It was a joke before the actual drawing, he said, but the next day it came true. According to Saephan, he called Chao to tell her the life-changing news. After discovering he was holding the winning ticket, he called her to share the news.

“I said, ‘Laiza, where are you?’ and she said, ‘I’m going to work,’” said Saephan. “I replied, ‘You don’t have to go anymore.’”

Powerball Jackpot winner plans to purchase a home

According to KOIN, Saephan also told reporters he plans to first purchase a home for his family in Oregon. He also said he will likely continue to play the lottery after his winnings.

“I might get lucky again,” he said. “I’ll keep playing.”

The single ticket, which matched all six numbers drawn to win the jackpot, was sold off at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in a Portland neighborhood in early April, ending a winless streak that had stretched more than three months.

“This is an unprecedented jackpot win for Oregon Lottery,” Oregon Lottery Director Mike Wells said in a statement before security measures were taken and the winner was named.

“We’re taking every precaution to verify the winner before awarding the prize money.”

Until the latest drawing, no one had won Powerball’s top prize since New Year’s Day, amounting to 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner — tying a streak set twice before in 2022 and 2021.

The drawing, too, was marred by a delay of more than three hours after a participating lottery needed “additional time to complete required pre-draw procedures.”

“Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn,” Powerball officials said at the time.

“This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process.”

Related: $1.765 Billion Powerball Jackpot Goes to Lucky Player in California

Hymn of Kassiane Reverberates Across Greece on Holy Tuesday

John Smith
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Hymn of Kassiane Reverberates Across Greece on Holy Tuesday
Holy Tuesday Hymn of Kassiane
Detail from the Rossano Gospels, an illuminated manuscript written in Greek during the 6th Century AD. Credit: Public domain

The Hymn of Kassiane takes center stage on Holy Tuesday in the Orthodox Church, as Greeks move closer to the end of Lent and the great feast of Easter Sunday.

The Gospels and Parables chosen to be read on the Tuesday leading up to Greek Easter are all meant to prepare the faithful for the resurrection of Jesus on what is the most important day for Orthodox Christians.

Firstly, the Gospel of Matthew regarding Christ’s condemnation of the Pharisees, in which he argues against religious hypocrisy, is read during Tuesday’s Matins, or Orthros, service.

Next comes the Parable of the Ten Virgins, one of the most well-known of all Jesus’ parables. This story has a clear eschatological meaning, namely that we must be prepared for the Day of Judgment.

Holy Tuesday Greek easter
Page from the Rossano Gospels, an illuminated manuscript written in Greek during the 6th Century AD. Credit: Public domain

According to the Gospel of Matthew, the five virgins who are prepared for the bridegroom’s arrival are rewarded, while the five who are not prepared are disowned.

The bridal chamber is used as a symbol not only for the Tomb of Christ but also for the blessed state of the saved, which will be experienced on the Day of Judgement.

Kassiane
Icon of St. Kassiane the Hymnographer. Public domain

The Hymn of Kassiane, the great choral work of Greek Orthodox Lent

This hymn, composed by Kassiane, sung every Tuesday of Holy Week in Orthodox churches around the world, is one of the many hymns composed by one of the few women known to have written music during Byzantine times.

Born sometime around 805 to 810, Kassiane (the female form of the male name Cassius) passed away before 865. She was a Byzantine abbess, poet, composer, and hymnographer.

Her most well-known hymn, called the Doxastikon on the Aposticha of the Bridegroom for Orthros, or “Hymn of Kassiane,” is always sung on Tuesday evening of Holy Week as the most anticipated part of the service on that day.

St. Kassiane wrote fifty hymns still sung today

She is remarkable for being one of the first medieval composers whose scores are both extant and able to be interpreted by modern scholars and musicians. Approximately fifty of her hymns survive today, and twenty-three of them are included in Orthodox Church liturgical books.

Born into a prominent family in the Byzantine court, Kassiane founded a convent in Constantinople in 843, becoming its first abbess and devoting her life ever after to asceticism and the composing of liturgical works.

The scholar George Poulos, in his work “Orthodox Saints,” says that Kassiane was not taken seriously at first because of male domination in this field. However, she soon established herself as a hymnographer of the highest caliber.

Holy Tuesday liturgy full of rich symbolism before Greek Easter

Lastly, the Parable of the Talents is read during the Tuesday liturgy, which has been seen as an exhortation to Christians to use their God-given gifts in the service of the Almighty — just as Kassiane did.

The Parable of the Talents, according to the Gospel of Matthew, tells the story of a master who entrusts his property to his three servants, and in accordance to the abilities of each man, each servant received talent coins, which were weights used as currency at the time. One of the three servants received five talents, the second servant received two talents, and the third servant received just one talent.

The servants were sent out to make use of whatever talents they had received. When they returned home, the master asked his three servants for an accounting of the talents with which he had entrusted them.

The first and second servants explained they each put their talents to work and doubled the value of the property with which they had been entrusted. Each servant was duly rewarded by the master.

However, the third servant had not utilized his gift and merely hid his talent, so he was punished by his master. This is seen as a cautionary tale for all the faithful, as we are called on to make use of whatever gifts we have been given to the greatest extent that we can.

Are Byzantine Monuments From Constantinople Being Covered up in Modern Istanbul?

Matthew Norman
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Are Byzantine Monuments From Constantinople Being Covered up in Modern Istanbul?
Basilica Cistern - A Byzantine Underground Water Cistern - Istanbul.
Basilica Cistern of Constantinople – A Byzantine Underground Water Cistern – Istanbul. Credit: artorusrex. CC BY 2.0/flickr

The fate of Byzantine-era monuments in Istanbul, Turkey, formerly the Byzantine capital city of Constantinople, has been the subject of international debate, as Turkey’s government is slowly attempting to hide Istanbul’s broader Byzantine history by targeting selective and low-grade restoration works, according to some historians.

Today’s Istanbul would be a very different city if it weren’t for the Byzantines. Before it became the capital of the Christian, Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire in the fourth century AD, the Greek colony known as Byzantium was a small but well-situated trading port on the shores of the Bosporus.

Renamed Constantinople, it served as the center of power for an empire that endured for more than a millennium until the city was conquered by the Ottomans in 1453.

At its peak, the Byzantine Empire commanded territory extending from the Balkans to North Africa, and it played a crucial role in connecting Christian and Islamic civilizations and conserving ancient Greek and Roman culture to the present day.

European travelers to the Byzantine capital in the 12th century described palaces adorned with jewels, gold, and marble statues, but a visitor today requires a keen eye and a lot of imagination to try and grasp the magnificence of the pre-Ottoman city.

“You have to work hard at understanding Byzantine Istanbul because so much is hidden or misrepresented,” Veronica Kalas, an independent historian specializing in the art and architecture of the Byzantine Empire, told National Geographic. “There are all these bits and pieces, but how they fit together doesn’t reveal itself easily,” she added.

Sections of the huge system of aqueducts and cisterns that provided Constantinople with water can be found in parking lots and along roadways, lining the sides of soccer stadiums and playgrounds, and sitting beneath carpet shops and hotels.

A faded inscription under the eaves of a building may also be seen, or a chunk of carved marble half-covered by weeds may be the only visible hint of a specific structure’s Byzantine past. These hidden layers, however, belie long-lasting influence.

Examples of Byzantine culture from Constantinople drowned out in Istanbul

The site of the Hippodrome, where Byzantine crowds gathered and cheered the brave charioteers and later Ottoman soldiers and horses trained for war, is now a quiet park. The grand Fatih Mosque, named for the sultan who conquered Istanbul for the Ottomans, was constructed over the site where Byzantine emperors were buried hundreds of years earlier. The roads of the Sultanahmet tourist region are still aligned with the Byzantine street plan.

There are also smaller Byzantine continuities in daily life, however, including much of Istanbul’s street food and its famed meyhane culture of boozy nights sharing small plates of food in tavern-like restaurants.

“Turkey’s Byzantine heritage is an emotional matter that also gets projected onto contemporary politics due to its association with the idea of Ottoman conquest,” archaeologist Alessandra Ricci, a professor at Istanbul’s Koç University, told National Geographic.

Many Orthodox Christian communities, the Greek one in particular, still feel a connection to the Eastern Christian capital of Constantinople. Despite Greece and Turkey being neighbors and NATO allies, the countries are also frequent adversaries, and “as a result, many Turks have difficulty embedding this heritage in their cultural understanding of the city,” according to Ricci.

Evidence of this lies in the lack of Byzantine objects on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums with the city also failing to build a planned museum to house artifacts from 37 Byzantine shipwrecks discovered in 2005 during the construction of a subway station.

Some scholars highlight the erasure of Byzantine history during restoration work at various churches-turned-mosques. A central example is the former Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, a significant monastic center built in the sixth century that is known as the Little Hagia Sophia Mosque today.

“Too many of Istanbul’s Byzantine monuments, like Küçük Aya Sofya, have been overly restored within an inch of their lives, with no serious analysis or documentation done of what is discovered during the restoration process,” Robert Ousterhout, a professor emeritus of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania told National Geographic. “So we end up with a new mosque but don’t learn anything new about the building’s history.”

Küçük Aya Sofya Camii.
Küçük Aya Sofya Camii. Credit: Marmontel. CC BY 2.0/flickr

The fortified walls of Istanbul which are some thirteen miles long once formed the boundaries of Byzantine Constantinople, keeping it safe from both land and sea attacks, are also a point of tension. Restoration work carried out in the 1980s and 1990s was agreed by preservationists to be a poor-quality reconstruction misaligned with the walls’ initial texture and materials.

The reopening of Tekfur Sarayi in 2019, a Byzantine palace embedded in the inland section of the walls, has been criticized for highlighting the building’s years as an Ottoman ceramics factory rather than for its multifaceted history.

In 2020, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality began a new effort to protect and preserve the walls that, officials said, would become more sensitive than those carried out in the past.

Istanbul municipality authorities claim not to differentiate between Byzantine, Ottoman, or the Turkish Republic when it comes to Istanbul’s cultural heritage, but the municipality does not have the final say when it comes to Istanbul’s monuments.

President Erdogan’s central government Culture and Tourism Ministry has the final say, and the national government and municipality have clashed many times over the direction of Istanbul’s Byzantine cultural heritage.

The Diet of Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers Before Agriculture

Abdul Moeed
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The Diet of Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers Before Agriculture
what hunter-gatherers used to eat before agriculture
Researchers found that hunter-gatherers used to eat a diet of wild plants before agriculture. Credit: Hans Splinter / Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0

Around 11,500 years ago, farming started in the Middle East. It was a revolution for humans. Before that, people mainly hunted and gathered food, a lifestyle they followed for over 300,000 years since humans evolved in Africa.

There are very few well-preserved human remains that predate the advent of agriculture, which makes it challenging to determine what the diets of pre-agricultural humans consisted of.

But, new research is shedding light on this mystery. Scientists looked at the diet of a group of people from North Africa before they started farming. Their research suggests that these people mainly ate plant-based diets.

Isotopic analysis of ancient remains from Iberomaurusian culture

The researchers studied the chemical clues in bones and teeth from seven individuals and some isolated teeth. These remains were from about 15,000 years ago and were found in a cave near the village of Taforalt in northeastern Morocco. These people belonged to the Iberomaurusian culture.

By looking at different forms of elements like carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur, and strontium in these remains, the researchers could figure out what kinds of plants and meat they ate.

They found traces of various edible wild plants at the site, like sweet acorns, pine nuts, pistachios, oats, and legumes known as pulses. The main meat they hunted, based on the bones found in the cave, was a type of sheep called Barbary sheep.

Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student in archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the main author of the study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, said that people used to think that hunter-gatherers mostly ate animal proteins. But, the evidence from Taforalt shows that plants were a big part of their diet.

Archaeochemist and co-author of the study, Klervia Jaouen from the French research agency CNRS, stated, “It is important as it suggests that possibly several populations in the world already started to include a substantial amount of plants in their diet.”

Inhabited Morocco and Libya around 25,000 to 11,000 years ago

The Iberomaurusians were hunter-gatherers who lived in regions of Morocco and Libya from approximately 25,000 to 11,000 years ago. It’s clear from the evidence that the cave they inhabited was both a living space and a burial ground.

Researchers noted that these people spent a considerable amount of time in the cave throughout the year, indicating a lifestyle that was less nomadic and more settled than just wandering around looking for food.

They made use of various wild plants that grew at different times of the year, and their dental cavities showed they depended on starchy plants for sustenance, according to research.

NASA’s Telescope Captures Sharpest Image of Horsehead Nebula

Abdul Moeed
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NASA’s Telescope Captures Sharpest Image of Horsehead Nebula
Sharpest Image of Horsehead Nebula
Sharpest image of Horsehead Nebula captured by NASA’s JWST. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)

The latest images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) provide the clearest view ever of a well-known space object: the Horsehead Nebula. These new pictures focus on the top part of the nebula, showing its intricate details like never before.

The JWST telescope has captured the fine details of the “horse’s mane” or the edge of the nebula with remarkable clarity, revealing its complexity in a whole new way.

The recent images from Webb highlight a section of the sky in the Orion constellation, located in the western part of a dense area called the Orion B molecular cloud. Within this cloud lies the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, situated approximately 1,300 light-years away, according to NASA.

This nebula took shape from a collapsing cloud of material in space, and it shines because it’s lit up by a nearby hot star. While the gas clouds around the Horsehead have mostly disappeared, the prominent pillar remains intact due to its dense clumps of material, making it more resistant to erosion.

Astronomers predict that the Horsehead Nebula has about five million years left before it breaks apart completely.

Horsehead Nebula is a photodissociation region

The Horsehead Nebula is recognized as a photodissociation region, abbreviated as PDR. In these areas, the ultraviolet (UV) light emitted by young, massive stars generates a primarily neutral and warm space filled with gas and dust.

This space sits between the fully ionized gas that encircles the massive stars and the clouds where they originate. UV radiation plays an important role in shaping the chemistry of these regions and serves as a major heat source, as explained by NASA.

In regions where interstellar gas is dense enough to stay mostly neutral but not too dense to block UV light from massive stars, photodissociation regions (PDRs) form. The light emitted by these PDRs is a valuable tool for scientists studying the physical and chemical processes shaping interstellar matter evolution from early star formation to the present era both in our galaxy and beyond.

The Horsehead Nebula stands out as an excellent target for astronomers due to its proximity and nearly edge-on orientation. This unique position allows scientists to closely examine the physical structures of PDRs and track molecular changes occurring in the gas and dust within these regions, as well as the transition zones between them.

It’s widely recognized as one of the most important areas in the sky for studying the interaction between radiation and interstellar matter.

Did the Trojans Migrate to Britain After the Trojan War?

Caleb Howells
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Did the Trojans Migrate to Britain After the Trojan War?
Tapestry depiction Brutus leaving the Temple of Diana and journeying towards Gaul.
Tapestry depicting Brutus leaving the Temple of Diana and journeying towards Gaul. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0

According to medieval legends, there was a Trojan migration to Britain several generations after the Trojan War. For centuries, the British believed this legend wholeheartedly. Today, most scholars dismiss it as medieval fiction. However, a new book presents an argument that this legend actually has a firm basis in fact.

The legend of Brutus and the Trojan migration to Britain

The legend that there was a migration of Trojans to Britain first appears in full in the Historia Brittonum. This is a text about the history of the Britons. It was written by a Welshman around the year 830.

According to this document, Aeneas of Troy and his family migrated to Italy after the Trojan War. This part of the legend also appears in ancient Greek and Roman records. After Aeneas came Ascanius and Silvius, both of whom also appear in ancient sources.

However, according to the Historia Brittonum, Aeneas’ grandson or great-grandson was named Brutus. After tragically being responsible for the deaths of his parents, he was exiled. He traveled around part of the Mediterranean for a while, but then he and his band of followers arrived in Britain and settled there, founding a new kingdom. His descendants were named Britons in his honor, and the island was called Britain for the same reason.

The Trojan kings of Britain: Myth or history?

April 2024 saw the release of a new book which examines this legend, entitled The Trojan Kings of Britain: Myth or History? This book makes the case that the key reason why most scholars today dismiss this legend as fiction is because of a chronological mistake concerning Brutus.

Based on the fact that Brutus supposedly lived only a few generations after Aeneas, this would apparently place him around 1100 BCE. Modern sources regularly claim Brutus does not appear in any record prior to the Historia Brittonum, making it obvious that he is fictional.

However, there are some issues with this conclusion. As The Trojan Kings of Britain highlights, the Historia Brittonum actually calls Brutus a Roman consul. In fact, it describes him directly as the “first to hold the consulship.” This would identify him as Lucius Junius Brutus, a figure who appears in many ancient Roman records.

Confirming this is the fact that the Historia Brittonum provides an alternative genealogy for Brutus. This alternative tradition places Brutus several generations after Numa Pompilius, a king who likely lived in the seventh century BCE.

The historical Brutus of Troy

What this means is that the Brutus who appears in the Historia Brittonum was not invented by the writer of that document. Rather, he is simply a distorted version of the historical Lucius Junius Brutus. This Brutus really was the first to hold the consulship, and he really did live a few generations after Numa Pompilius.

This would mean that the supposedly fictional Brutus of Troy was not fictional at all. He really existed, and, in fact, he is very well attested to in the ancient Roman sources. He lived in the second half of the sixth century BCE.

How does this harmonise with the tradition that Brutus lived just a few generations after Aeneas? The book The Trojan Kings of Britain points out that many genealogies in medieval British documents are demonstrably abbreviated. Therefore, there is no reason why this could not also be the case with Brutus.

More significantly, however, the book highlights how modern research and discoveries support the conclusion that the Trojan War occurred centuries after the traditional date. In fact, the earliest records on the founding of Rome actually place Aeneas just a few generations before Lucius Junius Brutus, too.

Capitoline Brutus, an ancient bust traditionally held to be a portrait of Lucius Junius Brutus.
Capitoline Brutus, an ancient bust traditionally held to be a portrait of Lucius Junius Brutus. Credit: Public Domain

The Trojan migration to Britain

Having established that the legendary Brutus of Troy was really nothing more than the historical Lucius Junius Brutus, the book The Trojan Kings of Britain investigates whether or not there is any evidence for a migration from Italy to Britain around 500 BCE.

To be clear, the legend does not claim that Trojans migrated directly from Troy to Britain after the fall of their city. As we have seen, the claim is that Brutus and his men traveled from Italy to Britain. The Trojan connection only exists inasmuch as the Romans believed themselves to be Trojan descendants.

Furthermore, the legend of Brutus also states that he settled in Gaul (France) for some time before moving on to Britain. With this in mind, we would expect to see evidence of Italics settling in Gaul around 500 BCE. Sometime shortly after, we would expect to see evidence of whatever new Italo-Gallic culture resulted from that migration spreading across to Britain.

Evidence of Italics in Gaul

The book The Trojan Kings of Britain highlights evidence that Italics (alleged Trojan descendants) did settle in Gaul around 500 BCE. This was exactly when the La Tène culture emerged among the Celts in Gaul. Scholars acknowledge that the style which characterizes the La Tène culture is based on Etruscan art.

Furthermore, the La Tène Celts used Etruscan chariots. They also buried the chariots in the graves of the elite class just like the Etruscans did. In addition, they created statues in the Italic style and placed them above or outside elite graves, as per an early Etruscan custom.

The graves themselves were square or rectangular in shape in contrast to the circular mounds used in the pre-La Tène era. This may relate to the fact that the houses of the Gallic Celts were rectangular, and it was an Etruscan custom to style tombs on the houses of the living.

This is just some of the evidence for an Italic migration to Gaul around 500 BCE that The Trojan Kings of Britain highlights. There is also evidence from the culture, language, and religion of the La Tène Celts.

Across to Britain

Shortly after the La Tène culture emerged in Gaul, there is evidence it spread to Britain. For example, the fifth-century BCE saw the arrival of La Tène artifacts in Britain. More significantly, the practice of elite chariot burials spread to Britain by at least as early as 450 BCE. Most scholars agree this was a result of a migration of a warrior elite class from Gaul, although there continues to be debate over the size of the migration.

In any case, the book The Trojan Kings of Britain highlights evidence that a warrior elite class traveled from Italy and settled in Gaul circa 500 BCE and then continued on from there to Britain shortly after. In this way, it can be argued that the archaeology confirms the legend of Trojan descendants migrating to Gaul and then Britain in the time of Lucius Junius Brutus.

What Happened to the Gold Treasure of Troy’s King Priam?

Matthew Norman
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What Happened to the Gold Treasure of Troy’s King Priam?
One of the prize gold treasure pieces of the Priam hoard. Golden diadem with pendants in the shape of idols
One of the prize gold treasure pieces of the Priam hoard. Golden diadem with pendants in the shape of idols. Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.

Until the 19th century, when German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the city of Troy, the focus of Homer’s epic the Iliad, was considered a myth. Upon its discovery, certain other aspects of Homeric legend became more tangible, such as the so-called gold Treasure of Priam, apparently belonging to the Trojan king of the same name.

The discovery of King Priam of Troy’s gold treasure

In 1871, Schliemann began excavation work on the site of Hisarlik, now recognized as the ancient city of Troy. After discovering a level known as Troy II and identifying it as the same Troy written about in the Iliad, his next aim was to find the gold Treasure of Priam.

Being that Priam was the monarch of Troy, Schliemann deduced he must have hidden his treasure somewhere in the city to prevent it from being stolen by the Greeks if his city fell. On May 31, 1873, Schliemann unearthed the legendary treasure he was seeking.

He supposedly stumbled upon it by chance, as he is said to have caught a glimpse of gold in the trench-face while straightening the side of a trench on the southwestern side of the site.

A view of Schliemann's Trench.
A view of Schliemann’s Trench. Credit: Winstonza. CC BY 3.0/Wikimedia Commons/Winstonza

After excavating the treasure and retrieving it from the ground, Schliemann took the finds and stored them in his wooden house. Aside from the gold and silver objects, the Treasure of Priam included several weapons, a copper cauldron, a shallow bronze pan, and a bronze kettle.

Despite Schliemann’s report that the Treasure of Priam was a singular find, other scholars have doubted this claim, arguing it was but a section of the full treasure, of which most of the significant objects were unearthed by Schliemann. Other artifacts were discovered at an earlier date.

Once the treasure had been found, Ottoman authorities were keen to get their hands on it. However, Schliemann was against this and devised a strategy to get the artifacts out of Ottoman territory.

A mystery still surrounds the manner in which Schliemann managed to do this, and many posited suggestions and theories have tried to explain it. One tale has it that Schliemann’s wife, Sophia, smuggled bits of the treasure through Ottoman customs by hiding them in her knickers. Schliemann was eventually sued by the Ottoman government.

Sophia Schliemann wearing some of the Priam treasures. It is believed she helped her husband smuggle them through customs
Sophia Schliemann wearing some of the Priam treasures. It is believed she helped her husband smuggle them through customs. Public Domain.

He lost the case and was fined £400 ($500) as compensation to the Ottomans, but he voluntarily paid £2,000 ($2,500) for reasons that remain unknown.

Where is the treasure now?

Subsequent to the unearthing of the gold Treasure of Priam, Schliemann concentrated his efforts on finding a suitable museum to display the artifacts. In the meantime, the hoard was being kept in Schliemann’s house. This was supposedly a cause of anxiety for him.

It was in 1877 that the gold Treasure of Priam had its first public display in London’s South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). After being on display for many years in London, the gold Treasure of Priam was moved to Berlin in 1881, and between 1882 and 1885, the artifacts were temporarily displayed in the Kunstgewerbe Museum before being transferred to the newly built Ethnological Museum.

In the following decades, the gold Treasure of Priam was housed in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. Following the defeat of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II, however, the hoard disappeared.

It is widely suspected that Soviet troops occupying Berlin were responsible for looting the treasure and countless other invaluable objects and artwork, which they then transferred to Moscow.

Items from the Troy II treasure discovered by Heinrich Schliemann.
Items from the Troy II treasure, discovered by Heinrich Schliemann. Public Domain.

That the Soviets took the gold Treasure of Priam was denied by them until 1993, when it was first officially admitted that the treasure was in fact in Russia. Today, the gold Treasure of Priam remains in Russia. While the Russians consider the hoard to be war plunder, to compensate for their losses during World War II, the Germans see it as looted property and want to see it returned.

Walking Up Stairs Can Prevent Cardiovascular Disease, Study Claims

Matthew Norman
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Walking Up Stairs Can Prevent Cardiovascular Disease, Study Claims
Climbing the stairs linked to rediced risk of cardiovascular disease, study claims.
Climbing the stairs is linked to reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, study claims. Credit: Johan Larkander. CC BY 2.0/flickr

According to research presented today at the European Society of Cardiology’s (ESC) Preventive Cardiology 2024 congress, in Athens, climbing the stairs is associated with a longer life and reduced cardiovascular disease.

“If you have the choice of taking the stairs or the lift, go for the stairs as it will help your heart,” said study author Dr. Sophie Paddock of the University of East Anglia and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Foundation Trust, Norwich, UK. “Even brief bursts of physical activity have beneficial health impacts, and short bouts of stair climbing should be an achievable target to integrate into daily routines.”

Cardiovascular disease is largely preventable through activities like exercise, but more than one in four adults worldwide do not meet recommended levels of physical activity. Stair climbing is regarded as a practical and easily accessible form of physical activity which is apparently overlooked. The study investigated whether climbing stairs, as a form of physical activity, could play a role in reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease and premature death.

How did the cardiovascular-stair climbing study work?

The authors collected the best available evidence on the topic and carried out a meta-analysis. Studies were included regardless of the number of flights of stairs and the speed they were being climbed at. There were nine studies with 480,479 participants in the final analysis.

The study population included both healthy participants and those with a previous history of heart attack or peripheral arterial disease. Ages ranged from 35 to 84 years old and 53 percent of participants were women.

Compared with not climbing stairs, stair climbing was associated with a 24 percent reduced risk of dying from any cause and a 39 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease. Stair climbing was also associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.

In a press release from the ESC, Dr. Paddock said: “Based on these results, we would encourage people to incorporate stair climbing into their day-to-day lives. Our study suggested that the more stairs climbed, the greater the benefits – but this needs to be confirmed. So, whether at work, home, or elsewhere, take the stairs.”

The ESC brings together healthcare professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people to live longer, healthier lives.

There was no direct funding for this study. Three authors are National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded academic clinical fellows, and one author is funded by a NIHR doctoral research fellowship.

ESC Preventive Cardiology 2024 took place from April 25th to April 27th at the Megaron – Athens International Conference Centre, Greece.

Antarctica Volcano Spits $6000 Worth in Gold Every Day

Tasos Kokkinidis
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Antarctica Volcano Spits $6000 Worth in Gold Every Day
Volcano emits Gold particles
Aerial view of Mount Erebus craters. Credit: United States Antarctic Program, Public Domain

An active volcano in Antarctica is shooting $6,000 in gold dust into the air every single day, NASA’s Earth Observatory revealed last week.

The volcano on Mount Erebus spits pockets of gas containing 80 grams of crystallized gold daily, it said.

Mount Erebus, is arguably Antarctica’s most famous volcano. It holds the titles of the tallest active volcano on the continent, with its summit reaching 12,448 feet (3,794 meters), and the southernmost active volcano on Earth.

Named after the personification of darkness in Greek mythology, Mount Erebus was erupting when Captain Sir James Clark Ross first discovered it in 1841. It sits alongside two other volcanoes on Ross Island, which bears the name of the aforementioned British explorer.

The new finding remains consistent with the 1991 spotting of gold emission from the volcano. Both then and now, researchers have detected gold particles in the volcanic gases emitted by the volcano, as well as in surrounding snow.

Gold deposits likely originated from volcanic rock

Philip Kyle, from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, clarified that gold deposits can originate in volcanic rock.

When lava from the mountain emits hot gas, this carries some of the gold particles into the air.

Mount Erebus apparently spits gold flecks measured between ‘0.1 and 20 micrometers’ in the volcanic gases and ’60 micrometers’ in surrounding snow.

This volcano is among Antarctica‘s 138 active volcanoes. Located on Ross Island in Antarctica, the volcano holds importance due to a tragic event in 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into its side, resulting in the loss of all passengers and crew.

Gold detected 621 miles from Erebus’ volcano

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observatory reported that the precious metal dust has been detected as far as 621 miles from Erebus’ southernmost lava-spewer. This is 12,448 feet high (3,794.02 meters), as part of other spewing phenomena.

NASA stated, “It regularly emits plumes of gas and steam and occasionally spits out rock (bombs).”

Conor Bacon of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, New York, says that this volcano has been continuously erupting since 1972.

Bacon said that Erebus is also understood to comprise a “lava lake” at one of its summit craters.

Minimal impact on the gold market

While the concept of a volcano that spews gold daily is fascinating, its impact on global demand for gold would likely be minimal unless the conditions for collection and processing undergo significant changes, making it much more economically practical, per Mugglehead.com.

The impact of a volcano that produces about 80 grams of gold per day is minimal when considered against the global annual gold production of over 3,000 tones, making the volcanic contribution relatively insignificant.

Even if collectors could efficiently gather this gold and integrate it into the global market, there might be a slight increase in the overall gold supply.

However, the challenging and remote conditions of Antarctica pose significant logistical hurdles that could prevent this.

Additionally, the costs of extracting and transporting the gold from such an inhospitable location are likely to outweigh the value of the gold itself, rendering the operation economically unfeasible with current technology and market prices, Mugglehead.com says.

Related: The River Of Gold in British Columbia

 

Where Was the Entrance to Hades in Greek Mythology?

Caleb Howells
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Where Was the Entrance to Hades in Greek Mythology?
Cerberus, guarding the entrance to Hades
Cerberus, guardian of the entrance of Hades in Greek mythology. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Hades was the underworld of Greek mythology. As such, it was a purely mythical location. Yet despite this, the ancient Greeks associated it with a number of real-world places. This is particularly so regarding its entrance. Ancient Greek texts place the entrance to Hades at a specific location in Greece. Where was this place?

Heracles and the entrance to Hades

In the legend of Heracles engaging on his twelve labors, the final labor required him to go down through the entrance of Hades. He needed to journey into the underworld to capture Cerberus, the hound of Hades who guarded the entrance. He also rescued Theseus while he was there.

This story of Heracles going through the entrance of Hades has contributed considerably to popularizing its location in modern sources. Famously, Heracles went to Cape Taenarum to find the entrance of Hades. This is the tip of the Mani peninsula, the western headland forming the Gulf of Laconia.

However, independent of this story pertaining to Heracles, there are many other records that place the entrance to Hades at this location. This is a tradition which unambiguously goes back at least as far as Pindar, writing in the early fifth century BCE. However, there is also good evidence that it goes back to the time of Homer and Hesiod in the seventh century BCE.

Cape Taenarum

What do we know about Cape Taenarum? For what reason did the ancient Greeks place the entrance to Hades there? One important fact is that this headland is the southernmost part of Greece. Therefore, from a certain perspective, it could very easily be considered ‘the ends of the earth.’

Another notable fact is that Cape Taenarum has a very foreboding appearance. It is not a pleasant part of Greece. Historian and explorer Tim Severin described it in the following way:

“The Mani peninsula is among the bleakest, most foreboding parts of Greece, a raw and blasted ridge of rock which protrudes into the Mediterranean…From the sea the Mani looks grim, a parched dun and grey jumble of steep cliffs, ravines, and the high crest of a central ridge with scarcely a living plant to be seen…Cape Taenarum was a natural end-of-the-world. The place was literally the uttermost place of habitation in mainland Greece.”

In addition, we know that there was an oracle of the dead on Cape Taenarum, further emphasizing its location as the entrance to Hades.

The entrance to Hades in earlier records

Although the earliest record explicitly placing the entrance to Hades at Cape Taenarum appears to be Pindar, there is evidence for this tradition as early as Hesiod and Homer. In Hesiod’s Theogony, the Greek poet wrote about Tartarus. This was a level of the underworld even further down than Hades.

In the Theogony, Hesiod mentions the three guards of Tartarus and places them at “a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth.” He also refers to this as being “where Night and Day draw near and greet one another.”

The first description clearly fits Cape Taenarum. The second description is virtually the same as a line in Homer’s Odyssey, where he describes the land of the Laestrygonians. It is where “the paths of day and night are close together.” Based on a real-life recreation of the journey in the Odyssey, Tim Severin convincingly identified the land of the Laestrygonians with a spot on the southern Mani peninsula.

This evidence indicates that the entrance to Hades (and by extension, Tartarus) was associated with Cape Taenarum at least as early as the time of Hesiod and Homer in the seventh century BCE.

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