Tutankhamun’s Tomb

Tutankhamun – Egyptian Pharaoh of 18th Dynasty

The discovery of 1922 by Howard Carter and George Herbert of Tutankhamum, the Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty received worldwide coverage due to his nearly intact tomb. It 'had ignited public interest in ancient Egypt wherein Tutankhamum’s facade is now on display in the Egyptian Museum tends to be the popular symbol. Exhibits of artifacts recovered from his tomb have been touring the world. The results of DNA tests done in February 2010 have indicated that he was the son of Akhenaten – mummy KV55 and his mother was the sister of Akhenaten and wife whose name is not known though whose remains seemed to be identified as `The Younger Lady’ mummy found in KV35.

 The mysterious death of some of those involved in unearthing the tomb of Tutankhamum had been attributed to the spell of the pharaohs. Archaeologist were of the opinion that the last burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt was discovered much before Howard Carter had opened the faultless tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamum in 1922. Tut had ruled for only a decade in Egypt from 1332 to 1322 BC and had died at the age of 19. The tomb’s amazing golden artifacts, untouched by looters before its discovery, drewt he attention of the people making him one of the most famous and intensively studied mummies of Egypt.

Storage Space for Coffin/Burial Provision

However, Tut was not the last secret that the valley had. In the past there were two additional chambers which had been located wherein one was a storage space for coffins and burial provisions, while the other had the mummy of a woman who was a singer at the Temple of Karnak. A radar specialist Hirokatsu Watanabe had conducted a series of ground penetrating radar scans in November 2015.

The study of those scans has been done and it has been suggested that there could be more chambers probably comprising of burials, hidden behind walls of the king’s tomb. Ground penetrating radar seems difficult to be used on the rocks in the Valley of the Kings. As per Zahi Hawass, who was the former Minister of State for Antiquities, the natural cracks in the rock could reflect heat waves which could make them seem like man-made chambers and hence another round of scan has been scheduled to confirm that chambers tend to exist.

Forty Scans of Five Various Levels

Khaled el-Anani, Antiquities Minister had informed reporters that had gathered opposite the southern city of Luxor, the popular site on the western bank of the Nile River, that experts had worked for 11 hours all through the night to retrieve 40 scans of five various levels of the area behind the burial chamber of Tut. He had mentioned that additional scans would be following and had invited archaeologists from various parts of the world to come to Cairo in May to inspect the discoveries.

The scans are part of a search for the remains of Queen Nefertiti and would answer the queries on whether her mummy remains behind the false walls of the Luxur complex. Nicholas Reeves, British Egyptologist had stated that he is of the belief that Tut’s tomb is `simply the outer element of a larger tomb that belongs to Nefertiti.

Some Unknown Facts about John F. Kennedy

Surprising Facts of JFK

John Fitzgerald `Jack’ Kennedy, commonly referred by his initials JFK was an American politician who had served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 till his assassination in November 1963 and was the youngest man elected to the office. When he had hardly completed his first thousand days in office, he had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas thus becoming the youngest President to die. There are some surprising facts regarding JFK that is not known to many.

JFK & Jackie Kennedy had four children

Besides Caroline and John Jr., the Ke nnedys had two other children. Jackie had given birth to a stillborn girl in 1956 whom the couple decided to name Arabella and Patrick Bouvier Kenned was born five and a half week early on August 7, 1963. The baby had weighed below five pounds and died two days later due to pulmonary disease. The bodies of the two children had been removed from Massachusetts in 1963 to be placed next to their father in Arlington National Cemetery.

Kennedy received last rites three times before his presidency

Kennedy had been suffering from poor health all through his life and fearing imminent death, America’s first Catholic president had received the sacramental last rites of the church on three occasions. In 1947, on a trip to England, Kennedy fell ill and was given possibly a year to live after he was diagnosed with Addison’s disease which was a rare disorder of the adrenal glands. While returning to America aboard the Queen Mary, he had been so ill that a priest had to be summoned to administer the last rites. He once again received the sacrament again in 1951 after suffering from a very high fever while traveling in Asia and in 1954, after he had slipped into a coma from an infection after a surgery to treat his chronic back problems.

Medically disqualified from service by the army

In the months earlier to the United States had entered World War II, Kennedy tried to register in the military but due to his intestinal and back problems, had failed the physical examination for the Army’s as well as the Navy’s officer candidate schools. With the help of his father’s influence, however, the future president got admitted in October 1941 to the Navy. He became a wartime hero after helping his crewmates survive the gunboats’ 1943 sinking, as a commanding officer of PT-109.

He won a Pulitzer Prize

At the age of 22, Kennedy authored his first book - `Why England Slept’ and in 1945, he spent some months as a newspaper correspondent for William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper covering the United Nations conference in San Francisco and the repercussion of World War II in Europe. A Pulitzer Prize in biography had been awarded to Kennedy in 1957, for `Profiles in Courage’, though there had been controversy since then as to how much of the book was ghost-written by his aide Theodore Sorensen.

Kennedy installed a secret taping system in the White House

Richard Nixon had not been the first president to record his private White House conversation.Kennedy had secretly installed a taping system in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room which transmitted recording to a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the White House basement, in the summer of 1962. The president probably installed the system to help him in writing his future memoir which captured several historical discussions between Kennedy and his staff, comprising of discussion during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Kennedy proposed a joint Soviet mission to the moon

Kennedy, though had notably challenged the country during his first month of presidency to land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, by September 1963 he had so much concern regarding the space program’s high cost that he planned partnering with the Soviet Union on a joint expedition to the moon. In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, he had asked `Why, should man’s first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplication of research, construction and expenditure?’

Rumours that he considered dropping Lyndon Johnson from the 1964 ticket

Having over a year before the 1964 presidential election, there were rumours circulating that Kennedy had been considering replacing Johnson as his running mate with Florida Senator George Smathers, North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford or another Democrat. Evelyn Lincoln, Secretary of Kennedy had written in her 1968 memoir that the president had mentioned a possible switch to her three day before his death and hours before the assassination. The November 22, 1963 edition of the Dallas Morning News had printed an interview with Nixon who had been in the city on business, with the headlines – Nixon Predicts JFK May Drop Johnson.

Kennedy feared running for re-election against Mitt Romney’s father

Kennedy welcomed the prospect of running against Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater who had eventually received his party’s nomination, while evaluating prospective Republican candidates for the 1964 presidential campaign, but was apprehensive regarding the prospect of facing more moderate Michigan governor George Romney, father of the Republican presidential nominee of 2012. He had privately confided with a friend in 1963, that the one fellow he did not want to run against was Romney and that guy could be tough.

A Secret Bedroom was Discovered in the Berlin Subway

Designers: Homify

Home – Bedroom, a Space for Relaxing With Ease

A home is a place where all the members of the family stay together in peace and harmony. The rooms in the home are very important and tend to convey a lot about the members in the household. The bedroom is one of those places providing the much needed space for relaxing at the end of a hectic schedule and great attention needs to be placed on the décor of the room. It should be a place where a member can feel relaxed in the midst of soft furnishings, flooring, and textures together with the furniture. Homify is the one of the best place to get best bedroom design ideas.

We have several service providers offering great taste while decorating a bedroom that can be tailored according to the design creating a serene atmosphere for a restful slumber. While considering the bedroom design, one should have a specific style and associated themes not forgetting the storage space. There are various style categories to suit the needs of individuals which come in the range of Minimalist, Modern, Eclectic, Colonial and much more.

While on the topic of bedroom, a secret bedroom had recently been discovered in an abandoned subway tunnel below the city of Berlin which was no lean-to bedroom. It had been carpeted as well as wall-papered in colour scheme that was very appealing.

Secret Subway Bedroom

The secret subway bedroom had a bed that was decked with clean, luxurious linen and the one living there had theTV set together with a remote control which had been lying on the bed. Besides this the room also had artwork, a hanging light and an armchair. For one to move all these objects across the tracks, deep into the tunnel to change the room into their home would indicate that the subway security had been careless.

No one had been aware of this room down there till a team of supervisors came across these cosy quarters at a time of a recent subway fire inspection. It was not known about the person who had erected this bedroom or who had been using it as their dwelling place. However it had gone viral online. On February, the images of the room in question were made available on online sources which had published the article regarding the secret room.

A Viral Sensation across the Globe

On checking the images one will be astonished on how the bedroom seems to appear. It seems to belong to a posh apartment while in another image where the camera tends to catch the surroundings of the room; one will see the cold cement as well as the steel rails in the subway together with the graffiti. This brings the realization that the room seems out of place with its surroundings.

As per Curbed today, no one is aware where this bedroom has come from and the mystery seems to stir among the Berlin subway passengers. It appeared that when the room had been revealed during inspection one of the inspectors had taken a few images of the room in question and had sent it to the media and the rest is history. The said eerie hidden subway bedroom has now become a viral sensation all across the globe.

The Princes in the Tower

Disappearance of Princes Edward & Richard

Edward and Richard, the sons of Edward IV were the Princes in the Tower who had disappeared and were never seen alive again, shortly after Edward had been crowned Edward V. Edward was born in 1470 in London and his brother Richard, Duke of York was born in Shrewsbury in 1473. Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Woodville were their parents. Edward IV had come to the throne as a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and had managed to restore some amount of stability in the country.

Edward IV had died suddenly on 9 April 1493 after an illness that lasted for three weeks and his eldest son had been declared Edward V at Ludlow. His uncle, the brother of his father, Richard, Duke of Gloucester had been named as protector.

Elizabeth Woodville together with her supporters, made attempts to replace Gloucester, with a regency Council, knowing of the dislike that Gloucester had for them. Edward V, as the new king travelled towards London and was met by Gloucester who escorted him to the capital and lodged in the Tower of London. Edward was joined by his brother the Duke of York in June. The boys had been declared illegitimate since it was assumed that their father was contracted to marry someone else before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.

The Accession That Never Took Place

Richard, Duke of Gloucester was crowned Richard III in July 1483 and the two boys were never seen again. It was believed that their uncle had murdered them. Historians who tend to believe their disappearance will forever remain a mystery, need to think again. The Independent can reveal that the historian and screenwriter who organized the Looking for Richard project which resulted in one of the greatest historical discoveries of modern times, the grave of Richard III situated below a car park in Leicester is back again, trying to crack the case.

 It is widely presumed that the Plantagenet King Richard II had killed his nephews in the summer of 1483 after the death of their father Edward IV. Anticipating his coronation, twelve year old Edward V was taken to the Tower of London together with his nine year old brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. However, the accession never seemed to take place.

No Definitive Answer till Date

Towards 1674, workmen started preparation for some rebuilding work on the White Tower at the Tower of London and while clearing the rubble at the base of a staircase, they found two skeletons that were small enough to recommend that they belonged to two youths. The immediate presumption made at that time was that they were the skeletons of Edward and Richard, the Princes in the Tower.

 Had such a discovery been made in present times, a forensic examination would have been made or perhaps a DNA confirmation may have been collected in an attempt to conclude if the skeletons were those of the unfortunate princes. But such practices were not available then and the bones had been moved to Westminster Abbey for reburial.

Thereafter there have been many attempts to re-examine the skeletons in an effort to decide if the skeletons had indeed been of the princes. No definite answers have come up till date but the question may be asked - `if these are not the remains of Edward and Richard, then who are they and the most compelling question is that if these are the skeletons of the Princes in the Tower were they murdered and by whom?

Cinco Saltos

Image Credit: hauntednorthamerica .org

Cinco Saltos – City of Witches

Cinco Saltos a city in the province of Rio Negro, Argentina, is situated towards the eastern side of the valley of the Neuquén River in the vicinity of the Pellegrini Lake around 20 kilometres from the northwest of Neuquén and 25 kilometres from Allen. According to the 2001 census, it had around 19,819 inhabitants. Cinco Saltos literally means Five Waterfalls and is referred to the five level steps of the canal which begins upstream at the Ingeniero Ballester Dam, and passes by the eastern limit of the city.

Cinco Saltos tends to have a black reputation. Located in the rural Rio Negro region, it is said to receive little sunlight and this pervasive gloom seems to hide the many necromancers and witches from inquisitive eyes. Actually, there are several black magicians in Cinco Saltos that the town is frequently referred as the `City of Witches’. Some of the shameful stories regarding Cinco Saltos concern the large cemetery of the town where one story claims that workers had found the body of a 12 year old girl while renovating the cemetery. Though she had been dead for around 70 years, the body of the girl had barely decomposed due to mummification.

Supernatural Activity in Cinco Saltos

Strangely still, the workers had also noticed that body of the girl had been chained to her coffin. On learning about the discovery, the superstitious inhabitants of Cinco Saltos claimed that the girl’s body had been used in some kind of occult ritual by the town’s several covens. Soon thereafter, some began seeing the ghost of the girl near the cemetery. Regarding the supernatural activity in Cinco Saltos, another disturbing story concerns a crossing which spans Pellegrini Lake that runs through the town.

 Witches had once perfumed child sacrifices on the lake and so visitors who tend to cross at night, at times have reported of hearing the ghostly screams of children. Whenever someone made attempts to locate the source of these screams, they would return back without any clue. The first settlers had come to this land in 1914 and the layout, at first of the town was made in the north area of the railroad. However in 1918, the floods had covered most of the area, which prevented further building.

Village Development Committee Formed – September 16, 1925

The Village Development Committee was formed on September 16, 1925. The city did not have health care, safe medical mobile during the early years and on January 3, 1960, it opened the local rural hospital in the presence of the then Governor Edgardo Castello. The growth of the city was enhanced with the development of the plant production of caustic soda, chlorine and vinyl chloride monomer.

The factory had developed the income of ordinary workers as well as professionals, aided the creation of the industrial School No 1 Dr Armando Novelli, Chemical orientation, but had caused pollution and though the company had filed for bankruptcy in 1992 and in 1995 had closed its doors resulting in huge depression in the city job and emigration workers in the city. The population seemed to increase in 2004, owing to the change in oil exploration and exploitation, using the professionals in the city and serving as a city of residence of the complex population Neuquén.

The Last Minutes of the Dinosaurs

Excavation Sites in Patagonia – Hundreds of Fossil Fragments

At the excavation sites in Patagonia, hundreds of fossil fragments seemed to be scattered, revealing the mass graves of duck-billed dinosaurs. The discovery is a part of year’s long research wherein researchers had set out to excavate and study fossil remains from the base of South American to the northern tip of Antarctica. This would enable scientists to understand better the varying conditions since the continents started to form millions of years back.

According to Scientific American, the researchers have disclosed over four miles of hadrosaur bone comprising of parts of the rib, femur, cage and vertebrae. These dinosaurs are said to be duck-billed herbivores and seem to be the southernmost dinosaurs that are found in South America. Marcelo Leppe, a paleobotanist as well as chief scientist at the Chilean Antarctic Institute – Inach, informed Scientific American that, `something big happened here.

There were thousands of animals whose bones are partially burned, perhaps they were victims of a paleo-wildfire and it is somewhat strange’. The sites throughout Patagonia inclusive of El Puesto, Las Chinas as well as Gerro Guido together with part of the Dorotea and Cerro Fortalexa formations in the vicinity of the border of Argentina had been excavated by the researchers.

Discoveries Support Earlier Theories

Together with the hadrosaur fossils, titanosaurid sauropods were also discovered at the site, which is the largest dinosaurs in Chile, along with the marine reptiles and the fragments of plants. Scientific Americans explained that these provided an insight of the continents between 72 and 66 million years back, the times just before the Chicxulub meteorite struck. Researchers now state that the time period had been active with new species and competition.

Accounts of this type were said to be a missing factor and now can be helpful in explaining the events at the end of the Cretaceous era. So far, the discoveries of the team tend to support the earlier theories on the era’s changing climate. It is presumed that this period faced severe drop in sea level around 25 meters over a million years.

In Patagonia and Antarctica’s James Ross Basin as well as the South Shetland Islands, the researchers had discovered evidence which supported the decline sea levels together with three cooling events 73 million, 70 million and 68 million years ago.

Financed by National Commission for Scientific & Technology Research

The international team of researchers, over the period of many years, had only three weeks of every summer to excavate sites in the mountain area of Patagonia. In the archaeological site in Chile, the researchers had also discovered the oldest fossil leaves of the Nothofagus tree together with other forest features that had also been located in the Antarctica.

All these discoveries have been helpful in supporting the theories of a land bridge connecting the two continents. The team is financed mainly by the National Commission for Scientific and Technology Research of Chile comprises of experts in paleomagnetism, plants, pollen, geology, dinosaurs together with marine reptiles.

 The research is said to continue for many years and is already working on biostratigraphy, paleodiversity, past climate utilising plant fossils and isotopic analysis of strontium carbon and oxygen. It will also look at microglendonites – hydrated crystals formed in marine environment besides other investigation that will take place at the research centres in the five countries and very soon in U.K.

Robot Finds 'Monster' Remains in Loch Ness

Remains of Monster Loch Ness Found

The remains of a monster in Loch Ness have been found by scientist, though it was not the one they had been searching. The 30 foot long model is presumed to have got there when it was disposed off. The model used in 1970 film, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, directed by Billy Wilder, had been discovered by an underwater robot which had been carrying out what had been described as `the most in depth survey of Loch Ness ever’.

When the filming was completed, the team had taken parts off the model, including its humps which were removed and it sank to the bottom of the lake to get rid of it. A retired fisherman, earlier this year stated that he had discovered a new crevice large enough to fit the legendary monster.

The leader of the Loch Ness Project, Adrian Shine, informed that the robot which was called Munin could approach areas of interest and image them at `extremely high resolution. It used sonar imaging to map vast areas to a depth of 1,500m. He informed Sky News that Loch Ness is 230m deep but that there had been claims that it was deeper and had a `special trench’.

Survey Conducted by Munin

He added that the torpedo-like robot had searched the area but `sadly the trench is not there. So the Nessie’s lair of a few weeks ago does not exist’.A spokesman for Visit Scotland, supporting the project stated that operation Ground truth had discovered a recognisable creature and though it has the shape of Nessie, it is not the remains of the monster that has mystified the world for 80 years but a star of the silver screen’. The discovery somewhat reflected the plot of the original film, starring Christopher Lee, comprising of a monster which turned out to be a hidden naval submarine.

The model had been found on the loch bed during a pioneering survey of the huge stretch of water, which some expected would find the real creature. However the survey seemed to disappoint them It revealed that the `Nessie trench’ which some believed, existed at the northern basin of the loch and could be hiding the monster, which does not really exist. The survey is said to be conducted by Munin, capable of swimming around and exploring areas of the bed which have never been explored before.

A Sense of Mystery Around What Lies Beneath Loch Ness

The survey which is the first of its kind in Scotland is being done over two weeks by Kongsberg Maritime and supported by Visit Scotland and the LochNess Project.In the past, Loch Ness had been difficult to survey owing to its depth and steeply sloping side walls.

It is said that Munin can map massive areas to depth of 4,921ft and has been utilised to search for downed aircraft and sunken vessels in the past. Adrian Shine had commented that `since Munin can dive and navigate itself safely at great depth, it can approach features of interest and image them at tremendously high resolution. He further added that they have already excellent images of the difficult side wall topography and are looking forward to discover artefacts symbolic of the human history of the area.

Malcolm Roughead chief executive of VisitScotland has stated that they are excited to see the findings from this in-depth survey by Kongsberg, but no matter how state-of-the-art the equipment may be and what it could reveal, there would always be a sense of mystery around what may lie beneath Loch Ness.