September 2006 Archives
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September 30, 2006
A Neanderthal Slept Here
John Hawks directs us to an article in Spiegal Online (in German) on a recent discovery in the Rhineland: the remains of a 120,000 year old Neanderthal dwelling. I will steal John's translation of the most important paragraph. The researchers...Read all of "A Neanderthal Slept Here"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:11 AM
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September 29, 2006
On Swearing and Concubines and Other Palace Shenanigans
Simon at dawar akher has a great post on the etymology of Hebrew word šēgal. The word means something in the range of “concubine.” The etymological path Simon maps is abnormally interesting. It also has an important element missing from...Read all of "On Swearing and Concubines and Other Palace Shenanigans"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:00 PM
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Friday Pot Blogging
Last week I mentioned two dipper jugs that have found secondary usage as vases on our mantle. Here they are in situ. The one on the left likely comes from the Middle Bronze Age (1850-1550 BCE by one reckoning) notice...Read all of "Friday Pot Blogging"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:54 PM
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The Anticipatable Was Anticipated
Rumsfeld has a memory problem or some kind of a problem. "Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency...Read all of "The Anticipatable Was Anticipated"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:37 AM
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September 28, 2006
Not Completely Wasted Thoughts on the Manahat Sherd
I'm still working my way through the corpus of Late Bronze/Iron I Age texts that may have some bearing on scribal schools in Canaan during that period. Aside from seeking additional information on the Tel Zayit inscription, I think I...Read all of "Not Completely Wasted Thoughts on the Manahat Sherd"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:33 PM
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September 26, 2006
Karl Rove Owes Richard M. Smith an Overnight Stay at the Whitehouse
Karl Rove owes Richard M. Smith, the Chairman and Editor in Chief of Newsweek, an Over Night Stay at the Whitehouse because Smith decided to have a special cover on the October 2nd United States edition of his magazine. Both...Read all of "Karl Rove Owes Richard M. Smith an Overnight Stay at the Whitehouse"
Posted by Duane Smith at 8:07 AM
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September 25, 2006
We Aren't Creationists; We Just Believe in the Bible
I have a troll but not the normal kind. My troll comes to my door rather than my blog and tries to sell religion. Weirdly, he claims that it is not a religion. Religions are bad, even evil, and other...Read all of "We Aren't Creationists; We Just Believe in the Bible"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:27 PM
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September 23, 2006
Playing Legal with Torture
Legal Fiction has be best breakdown of the so-called compromise on torture. The bottom line, we are a nation that has put the definition of torture in the hands of one person, the President. And our current President has consistently...Read all of "Playing Legal with Torture"
Posted by Duane Smith at 11:27 AM
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September 22, 2006
Friday Pot Blogging
Today's pot is a "straight sided" bowl. It is rather typical of a class of bowls from the North of Israel that were made and used in the Iron IIC Age. Depending on whom you ask the Iron IIC Age...Read all of "Friday Pot Blogging"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:25 PM
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September 21, 2006
3.3-Million-year-old Child Found!
Well, it wasn't that old when it died. Kambiz Kamrani on Anthropology.net has the lowdown on the fossilized remains of a human-like child, from 3.3 million years ago. The pictures are great. He has links to news sources and the...Read all of "3.3-Million-year-old Child Found!"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:45 AM
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Following the Heard
Chris Heard took quiz on Beliefnet that supposedly identified his religion. So I thought I'd give it a try and see it worked any better for me. Here are my results. 1. Secular Humanism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (98%) 3....Read all of "Following the Heard"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:23 AM
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September 20, 2006
How to Recognize a Scribal School
Part 4: Evidence for the training of scribes in Late Bronze Age Canaan After a pause to gather thoughts and information I am at last ready to present my next installment in the series How to Recognize a Scribal School....Read all of "How to Recognize a Scribal School"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:54 PM
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September 19, 2006
John Adams on the Bible
Jonathan Rowe at Positive Liberty has a few quotations from John Adams on the Bible. This one from a November 4, 1816 letter to Thomas Jefferson is an interesting example of one element of his views. We have now, it...Read all of "John Adams on the Bible"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:51 AM
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September 18, 2006
Political Courage and Doing the Right Thing
If the good people of California were somehow to elect me to the United States Senate, I would not be a natural ally of Lindsey Graham the Republican Senator from South Carolina. I just disagree with him on too many...Read all of "Political Courage and Doing the Right Thing"
Posted by Duane Smith at 12:42 PM
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New Discovery of Late Bronze IV/Middle Bronze I Intermediate Age Cemetery
Last Friday I pictured a Late Bronze IV/ Middle Bronze I Intermediate Age jar as part my Friday Pot Blogging series. This morning I learned from Todd Bolen that a large, well preserved, Late Bronze IV/ Middle Bronze I Intermediate...Read all of "New Discovery of Late Bronze IV/Middle Bronze I Intermediate Age Cemetery"
Posted by Duane Smith at 8:30 AM
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September 17, 2006
Fail Not at Your Peril
Yesterday I took a break from my research to help Shirley with her research. As I've said a couple of times, she's trying to find an honorable person in either of our backgrounds. Actually, genealogy, after one get back a...Read all of "Fail Not at Your Peril"
Posted by Duane Smith at 6:27 PM
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The Non-carnival, "Vidi"
On a somewhat irregular basis but about once a week, Alun Salt at Archaeoastronomy has a roundup of blog posts and other web based things that interest him. If you think I have abnormal interests look at what Alun found...Read all of "The Non-carnival, "Vidi""
Posted by Duane Smith at 10:29 AM
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September 15, 2006
Friday Pot Blogging
This Friday's pot is my favorite in the whole collection. It's also the largest. This round bottomed, nearly spherical jar, possibly a cooking pot, is almost exactly 25 cm in every dimension. It was made in the Early Bronze IV...Read all of "Friday Pot Blogging"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:28 PM
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September 14, 2006
Was Abdi-Heba a New Man in Jerusalem?
I'm about three or four days away from my next mega post on Scribal Schools. The research is done (I hope) and there are just a couple of issues to wrap-up. One of those has to do with Abdi-Heba of...Read all of "Was Abdi-Heba a New Man in Jerusalem?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:28 PM
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September 13, 2006
On the Fine Art of Unavailability
As some of you may know I work very part time for a small company and something came my way last week that reminded me of two occasions in my more active professional life that now amuse me. Many years...Read all of "On the Fine Art of Unavailability"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:14 AM
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September 12, 2006
Ed Brayton on Drawing Religious Battle Lines
One of the things that goes with having a blog is reading other blogs and one of the blogs I read every day is Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I often agree with Ed; I also often disagree...Read all of "Ed Brayton on Drawing Religious Battle Lines"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:11 PM
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September 11, 2006
It Is Surely Fiction But That Doesn't Seem to Matter.
As I was driving to the library this morning, I happened to catch Ross Cristal's "Showbiz Express" on KFWB. I don't know a thing about Ross Cristal, in fact I don't know much about showbiz, but I can't help thinking...Read all of "It Is Surely Fiction But That Doesn't Seem to Matter."
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:22 PM
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Are We Safer?
Just about everyone else has commented on this, so why not me? My answer is, "it depends." It depends, first, on who you are and where you are and, second, it depends on how long you hope to be safe....
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:18 AM
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September 10, 2006
Professor Dr. Rudolf Wachter and The History of the Alphabet
I've been meaning to mention this for some time. Professor Dr. Rudolf Wachter of Universität Basel offers a course on the History of the Alphabet. Much of his course material is online. While the online text is in German, even...Read all of "Professor Dr. Rudolf Wachter and The History of the Alphabet"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:21 PM
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The Canaanites Were in Canaan
The other day I left the following comment on Chris Heard's great Higgaion post on The Exodus Decoded. Well, I tried to leave this comment but some of the formatting didn't work. Chris, As usual, this is a great post....Read all of "The Canaanites Were in Canaan"
Posted by Duane Smith at 10:32 AM
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September 9, 2006
More Crazies
Yisrayl Hawkins, well known completely unknown and incompetent Bible scholar exploiter and author of nonsense reports deludes himself into thinking that the Bible predicts the exact date and the location that nuclear war will begin. I may have improved this...
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:10 PM
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This May Explain a Few Things
While looking for some honorable person in either one of our backgrounds, Shirley found this interesting account concerning a person who was the second wife of John Porterfield, my twelfth great-grandfather. Sure, we likely don't share any unique family genes...Read all of "This May Explain a Few Things"
Posted by Duane Smith at 4:08 PM
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September 8, 2006
Friday Pot Blogging
Today I'd like to move away from lamps and take a look at two wide mouth round bottomed juglets. Perhaps they look more like cups and they may have been used for that purpose. Both juglets are from what is...Read all of "Friday Pot Blogging"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:17 PM
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The Wrong Conclusion with 8 Significant Figures of Precision
Scientific American is one of the few magazines that I read cover to cover. However, I don't necessarily read it from the front cover to the back cover. It is usually near the end of the month long life of...Read all of "The Wrong Conclusion with 8 Significant Figures of Precision"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:48 AM
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Complain Bitterly but Please Don't Threaten
John in DC of AMERICABlog reports something that I find disturbing. The Senate Democratic leadership has sent a letter to Mr. Robert A. Iger, President and CEO of Walt Disney Company justifiably complaining about the upcoming ABC broadcast of The...Read all of "Complain Bitterly but Please Don't Threaten"
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:42 AM
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September 7, 2006
Why Would ABC Need to Put a Disclaimer on What They Once Called a Documentary?
If you paid $40 million for a five hour show and then you found out its was full of errors and misrepresentations, what would you do? Well that is where ABC finds itself with their "docudrama" on 9/11. And that...Read all of "Why Would ABC Need to Put a Disclaimer on What They Once Called a Documentary?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 6:59 PM
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Every Day in Everyway, I'm Getting Better and Better
My nerd quiz results, Nuts, afarensis beat me by 2 percentage points. The last time I took this quiz I got 88%, "High Nerd."...Read all of "Every Day in Everyway, I'm Getting Better and Better"
Posted by Duane Smith at 6:51 PM
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A Not So Simple Quiz
What language once used these words? And for all the jokers out there, I mean the words to the left. The English translations in parentheses are there just to be helpful. I've never heard of a language that didn't have...Read all of "A Not So Simple Quiz"
Posted by Duane Smith at 4:00 PM
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September 6, 2006
Two Out of Three Is Not So Bad
My copy of Cuneiform in Canaan just arrived. While I wanted it for my next post on scribal schools, I thought I'd start by looking at how Sanders handled the three alphabetic texts that I had worked on as part...Read all of "Two Out of Three Is Not So Bad"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:45 PM
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September 5, 2006
Bin Laden Gets a Pass from Pakistan
Read this from ABC News. Here's a little something to harm your appetite, Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life," Pakistani officials tell ABC News. The...Read all of "Bin Laden Gets a Pass from Pakistan"
Posted by Duane Smith at 4:43 PM
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What's Up
I happened to glace at the SiteMeter statistics for Abnormal Interests and found that a post called "Another Can of Wedges" had acquired an uncalled for popularity among readers around the world but particularly readers in Korea. In this post,...
Posted by Duane Smith at 9:35 AM
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Who Said This?
"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities." According to an Associated Press article, it was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran who said these words. Here's a little...
Posted by Duane Smith at 8:04 AM
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September 4, 2006
If Pigs Have Minds, Do They Also Have Immortal Souls?
PZ Myers points to something truly abnormal and interesting: an argument for a dualistic mind based on differences in the behavior of cloned pigs. You can read the summary report by Austin Cline. The argument seems to go something like...Read all of "If Pigs Have Minds, Do They Also Have Immortal Souls?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 11:16 AM
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September 3, 2006
Thrice Scooped on Rediscovering Homer
I saw an article at Discovery News that I wanted to bring to your attention. The article tells of a new book by Andrew Dalby, Rediscovering Homer, in which he claims that Homer did not write these classic works: a...Read all of "Thrice Scooped on Rediscovering Homer"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:00 PM
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September 2, 2006
Literacy at Lachish
I continue to struggle with the primary evidence for scribal training in ancient Israel. Much of it is frankly confusing as to whether or not it addresses the issue with which I am struggling. So as I was reading Lemaire's...Read all of "Literacy at Lachish"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:32 PM
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September 1, 2006
Friday Pot Blogging
Over the last few weeks I have shown as series of pottery oil lamps each of which represents the next more recent archaeological era. Today, I would like to use a couple of the lamps I have presented to illustrate...Read all of "Friday Pot Blogging"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:58 PM
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