Articles of Interest – Page 4

Were the ancient British tongues related to Hebrew?

At present, Welsh is spoken only in Wales, and Breton in Brittany, yet there was a time when it was spoken not only over the British Isles, but over parts of Continental Europe. For it has been maintained, falsely in my view, that the Celts, or ancient Gauls, were one and the same with the Britons, and making allowance for dialect, used the same language. Although most modern researchers deny this, the widespread knowledge of early Welsh must hold true.

Very many of the Celtic or Gallic words agree very well with the Welsh, both in sound and in sense. In addition, many of the names of cities, mountains, rivers etc. in France (anciently, Gaul), cannot be accounted for without a knowledge of Welsh. Here are a few examples. Arles (Latin: Arelatum) derived from Ar (upon) and Llaith (moist); because situated upon moist ground, Ysloudun, Guienne (Latin: Uxellodunum) derived from Uchel (high), and Din (fortified mound). The Cevennes comes from the root Cefn (back or ridge), and the Apennine mountains, Pen (head, top or chief, etc.). The river Arar, in French, La Saonne, from Araf (slow, soft), the Garumna, now called La Garronne, from Garw(rough, harsh)” (Thomas Richards’ Welsh &English Dictionary (1839).

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Dragons or Dinosaurs?

What is behind the history of dragons? Ancient peoples from all over the world spoke about unusual, reptile-like creatures (large and small) that once roamed the earth. Europeans called them “dragons,” originally from the Greek drakon apparently from drak-, strong aorist stem of derkesthai.” Perhaps the literal sense is “the one with (deadly) sight.” Scientists agree that legends are often based on facts, not just imagination. Dragon pictures are found in Africa, India, Europe, the Middle East, the Orient and every other part of the world. Dragon history is universal throughout the world’s ancient cultures. Where did this global concept originate? How did societies throughout the world describe, record, draw, etch, sew and carve such creatures in consistently similar ways?

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Conspiracy Theory (Part Two)

(Completes the earlier Post Conspiracy Theory-part one ,May 25th 2010)

Part Two: Seeing the wood for the trees

The very fact that there are so many theories, and people who believe in them, raises an important question: Amid so much evidence to the contrary, why do people believe in conspiracy theories at all?

The Third Man, Alida Valli, Joseph Cotten, 1949

Tragedy is usually the result of a randomly cruel world, ‘time and unforeseen occurrence’. That, however, doesn’t demean people who were victimized by or who are afraid of tragedy should not feel the need to blame someone or something. After all, we are uncomfortable with ‘randomness’ – we feel if something happens, it must be because ‘someone’ caused it, there’s no such thing as an ‘accident’, ‘someone’ must be to blame, and the more prominent a person is, the more in the public eye, the greater the forces needed to pull them down or kill them. Accidents and lone gunmen are for ‘ordinary’ people, not ‘special’ ones, and they certainly don’t commit suicide, do they?

The term “conspiracy theory” is frequently used by scholars and in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political actions aimed at stealing power, money, or freedom, from the general populace.

Today, there are more conspiracy theories and more conspiracy theory believers than ever before.In the article ‘Paranoia and the roots of Conspiracy Theories‘ for ‘Psychology Today’, Ilan Shrira wrote: “Conspiracy theories help us cope with distressing events and make sense out of them. Conspiracies assure us that bad things don’t just happen randomly. Conspiracies tell us that someone out there is accountable, however unwittingly or secretly or incomprehensibly, so it’s possible to stop these people and punish them and in due course let everyone else re-establish control over their own lives. Conspiracies also remind us that we shouldn’t blame ourselves for our predicaments; it’s not our fault, it’s them! In these ways, believing in conspiracies serves many of the same self-protective functions as scapegoating.” That is one view..

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Samson’s sweet riddle

One of Britain’s iconic foodstuffs is Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Everyone knows the century-old design: a round tin can with a lid you prise off with a knife; racing green bodywork with the golden words arching over a central picture of a dried dead lion, and emanating from its stomach is a swarm of bees. A strange image for a foodstuff?

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Millau Bridge, France

The Millau Bridge is in southern France and crosses the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains. It was designed by the British architect Norman Foster and French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux. At 300m (984 feet), it is the highest road bridge in the world, weighing 36,000 tonnes. The central pillar is higher than the famous French icon, the Eiffel Tower. The Bridge opened in December 2004 and is possibly one of the most breath-taking bridges ever built.

The bridge towers above the Tarn Valley and the aim of Lord Foster was to design a bridge with the ‘delicacy of a butterfly’. Lord Foster designed a bridge that enhances the natural beauty of the valley, with the environment dominating the scene rather than the bridge. The bridge appears to float on the clouds despite the fact that it has seven pillars and a roadway of 1½ miles in length. On first sight, the impression is of boats sailing on a sea of mist. The roadway threads through the seven pillars like thread through the eye of a needle..

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The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple Treasure

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA – A stream of bare-chested religious devotees step gingerly through metal detectors at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in southern India as armed commandos with AK-47’s guard perhaps one of the world’s greatest treasures to surface in recent times. For months now, following a court order to pry open subterranean vaults sealed for centuries at the heart of sleepy Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of balmy Kerala state, shell-shocked experts have been coming to terms with the vast hidden hoard, estimated at one trillion Indian rupees, or $22 billion. In a nation where 500 million people live in poverty, the find has been a revelation, stoking debate over how to best safeguard and use this newly discovered wealth at a time of financial uncertainty and modernization across India.

Put in a broader context, the wealthy temple in the lush, spice-growing but relatively undeveloped Kerala, where infrastructure is patchy and per capita income lags behind the richer northern Indian states, could salvage the rickety finances of the country, lift millions out of poverty and even help wipe out a quarter of India’s overall fiscal deficit.

The treasure, a long accumulation of religious offerings to the Hindu deity Vishnu, includes a four-foot high gold idol studded with emeralds, gold and silver ornaments and sacks of diamonds.

Local legend has held that vast riches had been interred in the walls and vaults of the temple by the Maharajahs of Travancore and their subjects over many years.

70 year old retired police officer TP Sundara Rajan went to the Supreme Court asking that the state take over control of the temple, saying the current temple trust were incapable of protecting the wealth inside. The court ordered an inspection of the temple vaults..

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Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Dr. Mercola is the founder of the world’s most visited natural health web site,www.Mercola.com. You can learn the hazardous side effects of ‘over the counter’ remedies by getting a FREE copy of his latest special report The Dangers of Over the Counter Remedies by going to his Report Page

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939)by Dr Weston Price

Review by Dr. Stephen Byrnes

In the 1900s, Dr Weston A. Price, a dentist, did extensive research on the link between oral health and physical diseases. He was one of the major nutritional pioneers of all time, and his classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is full of wonderful pictures documenting the perfect teeth of the native tribes he visited who were still eating their traditional diets.

Your Diet May be Even More Important Than Your Toothbrush

In the quest for healthy teeth and gums, nothing may be more important than your diet. Dr Price found that the native people’s teeth were perfectly straight and white, with high dental arches and well-formed facial features. And there was something more astonishing: none of the people Price examined practiced any sort of dental hygiene — not one of his subjects had ever used a toothbrush!

Dr Price noticed some similarities between the native diets that allowed the people to thrive and maintain such healthy smiles. Among them:

The foods were natural, unprocessed, and organic (and contained no sugar except for the occasional bit of honey or maple syrup).
The people ate foods that grew in their native environment. In other words, they ate locally grown, seasonal foods.
Many of the cultures ate unpasteurized dairy products, and all of them ate fermented foods.
The people ate a significant portion of their food raw.
All of the cultures ate animal products, including animal fat and, often, full-fat butter and fatty meats.

If you, too, eat properly and maintain optimal health, you’re highly unlikely to develop cavities or other dental problems. They really only occur when you’re eating the wrong foods. So pay attention to your diet, as this is a key to keeping you safely out of the dentist’s chair — at least for visits that involve more than routine cleaning..

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Medieval Inlaid(Encaustic)Floor Tiles

Medieval Tiles (Shire Album) by Hans Van Lemmen (2004)

Inlaid tiles, or ‘encaustic’ tiles as they are also known, are fired clay tiles with a simple pattern such as an heraldic motif picked out in a clay inlay of a contrasting colour, usually in white on a red ground. The tiles are glazed and were originally fired in a wood burning kiln. They depend entirely upon the raw clays and glazes for their colours, and not pigments, paint or enamels. The tiles developed from about 1220 to about 1550, probably earliest on continental Europe, although the basic technique is likely of earlier Middle-eastern origin. They represent a significant development over earlier mosaic tile designs. They were probably inspired, at least in part, by the Italian marble mosaic floors, and attempts to achieve patterned floors with local materials.

Encaustic or inlaid tiles enjoyed two periods of great popularity. The first lasted until Henry the Eighth’s reformation in the 16th century, and the second came when the tiles caught the attention of craftsmen during the Victorian Gothic Revival era, who after much trial and error mass-produced these tiles, made them available to the general public. During both periods tiles were made across Western Europe though the centre of tile production was in England. Companies in the United States also made encaustic tile during the Gothic Revival architecture style’s period.

The use of the word ‘encaustic’ to describe an inlaid tile of two or more colours is technically incorrect. The word ‘encaustic’ literally means “burning in”. The term originally described a process of painting with a beeswax-based paint that was then fixed with heat. It was also applied to a process of medieval enamelling. The term did not come into use when describing tile until the 19th century. Supposedly, Victorians thought that the two-colour tiles strongly resembled enamel work and so called them encaustic. Despite the error, the term has now been in common use for so long that it is an accepted name for inlaid tile work.

In both medieval times and in the 19th and 20th Century Gothic Revival, these tiles were most often made for and laid in churches. Even tiles that were laid in secular buildings appear to be copies of those found in religious settings. Encaustic tile floors exist all over Europe but are most prevalent in England where the greatest numbers of inlaid tiles were made..

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