Our last stop on the Historic 30 route was Horsetail Falls. If you look at the next photo you can see people sitting on the log stretching out into the pool for scale. .( Read more... )

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Massive blocks that were once part of the monumental gate of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, have been raised from the Mediterranean seabed. Twenty-two of the largest stone blocks, including door lintels, the threshold, base slabs and a pylon with a door crafted in the Ptolemaic era in ancient Egyptian style, have been lifted out of the water.

The great lighthouse was built on Pharos island in the 3rd century B.C. during the reign of Ptolemy I Philadelphus. At more than 330 feet high, it was the tallest man-made structure in the world for centuries. It stood for 1600 years, until it suffered so much damage from an earthquake in 1303 that it was abandoned and the last of its stone above-ground were reused by Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf al-Din Qa’it Bay to build a fortress on the island.

The underwater ruins of the lighthouse were rediscovered in 1968, but were not explored until 1994. French archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur led diving expeditions to photograph and document more than 3,300 pieces of the lighthouse, including sphinxes, obelisks, columns, arch bases and massive granite blocks weighing up to 60 tons.

Since then, 36 blocks, columns and statues have been raised and a hundred more have been digitally scanned underwater. Now a new French program, dubbed PHAROS, has begun to lift more of the colossal structural stones weighing up to 80 tons.

The goal of this exceptional and spectacular operation is to study and scan these architectural elements, adding them to a collection of over 100 blocks already digitized underwater over the past decade. After photogrammetric processing, the scanned blocks will be handed over to volunteer engineers with La Fondation Dassault Systèmes. Like pieces of a giant archaeological puzzle, each block will be analyzed and repositioned virtually. Using scientific simulations and virtual worlds, the team of engineers will test hypotheses about the lighthouse’s construction and collapse, creating a digital twin of this lost wonder. The virtual model will revive the lighthouse’s original grandeur, allowing visitors to explore it as if they were on site. […]

Funded by La Fondation Dassault Systèmes and led by Isabelle Hairy (CNRS – UMR 8167, Orient & Méditerranée), the PHAROS project brings together historians, numismatists, archaeologists, and architects to collect ancient depictions and descriptions of the lighthouse from the late fourth century BCE until its destruction in the early 15th century CE. This research helps to fill gaps left by the highly fragmented archaeological remains, as the lighthouse was quarried for building materials after it ceased operation in 1303 until the construction of the Qaitbay Fortress in 1477.

These findings complement the parameters already available for the ongoing digital reconstruction, shedding light on the lighthouse’s unique architecture—crucial since no major ancient lighthouse survives today. The Alexandria Lighthouse was the first of its kind and understanding its history offers insightful clues about how and why it collapsed.

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Emilie de Ravin in Hallmark Channel's 2025 movie The Reluctant Royal.

Watch on YouTube

It's good to see her in something new!!

Hi! Here's the monthly chat thread.

Posted by livius drusus

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Archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved Roman well made of woven wicker that still contains what appears to be the remains of a rung ladder.

Oxford Archaeology has been excavating the site of a larger Roman agrarian settlement. This is one of several wells they’ve discovered so far, and it is remarkably intact, the organic materials preserved by the anaerobic waterlogged conditions.

The well was constructed by cutting a shaft down to the water line, then intricately weaving the wicker wall to create what is basically a large, bottomless basket with sails (uprights) woven into the horizontal weavers lining the shaft. The gap between the wicker and the cut shaft was filled with large timbers which the archaeologists believe was waste wood.

The probable ladder consists of only one rail, angled to the top of the wicker, and one rung at the top of the rail. It is missing the second rail and its other rungs, which is why archaeologists cannot decisively conclude that it was a ladder, but it seems the likeliest possibility.

The well is still being excavated, and archaeologists hope to find significant remains at the bottom of it. Valuable objects, deliberately deposited in the ritually significant depths or simply lost, organic remains, broken pottery, kitchen trash, murder victims — you never know what you might find at the bottom of a well-preserved ancient well.

Meanwhile, the top of the well that has been excavated thus far has already been 3D scanned and a model created to give people a close view of the intricate weaving of the wicker construction.

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Wishlist Wednesdays are intended as a catch-all for anything you'd like to ask for in a casual, low-stress setting. No need to create a separate entry to the comm (although you are always welcome to do that, too), just leave a comment with your request right here under this entry.

It can be anything. Are you looking for icons of a specific drama or actor? Do you need a beta for your fic? Do you want to know where to buy merchandise of something? You can ask for recs of any kind (fanfic, drama, novel, music, whatever), or even leave specific fic prompts that others might be able to fill. Or whatever else that you can think of. Right now we're still kinda experimenting with this format, after all.

Feel free to discuss wishes/requests in the comments. And if you want to fill a request, feel free to do so right in the comments, too, or make a separate entry to the comm.

And please also check out the previous entries!

Multiple wishes/requests are definitely all right, just post a new top level comment for each. It would make it easier for people who might be interested in helping you out. The only thing I'd suggest for now is that you hide possible spoilers in the usual ways:

<b>Highlight for spoilers!</b> *<span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Write your spoilery text here.</span>* or <details> <summary>Write a non-spoilery summary of what's hidden under the arrow here.</summary> Write your spoilery text here. </details>

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The earliest known steel acupuncture needles in the world have been discovered in the archaeological wonderland that is the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in eastern China’s Jiangxi Province. With a cross-sectional diameter of only 0.3-0.5 mm, it is comparable in fineness to modern acupuncture needles and attests to the high level of metallurgical technology in the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.).

At least five needles were found in a gilded lacquer box placed in the inner coffin of the deceased, Liu He, the disgraced 27-day emperor who was later re-enobled with the title Marquis of Haihun. He died in 59 B.C. and was buried with tens of thousands of artifacts, two million bronze coins, a library’s worth of books on wood and bamboo, numerous weapons and a set of fish scale armor of unprecedented complexity.

The needles, likely wrapped in cloth, now decomposed, had been inserted into a hollow jade tube. When archaeologists opened the lacquer box, they found the broken jade tube and what looked like needles inside. They were corroded and fragmented, giving researchers the opportunity to analyze small fragments that had already broken off instead of taking samples from the larger sections.

Tests confirmed the needles were made of steel created through an advanced “frying” process that made it possible to achieve their extraordinary thinness. Their identity was confirmed by a wooden label found near the box inscribed “Nine Needles Complete.”

“This definitively identifies them as one type of the ‘Nine Needles’ described in ancient medical texts,” explained Wang Chuning, a doctoral researcher at Peking University, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The significance of this steel innovation was emphasized by experts.

“Iron needles rust easily, risking infection. Gold or silver needles are too soft and difficult to make this thin,” noted Zhou Qi, a research fellow at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, adding that steel needles enabled more sophisticated techniques and longer retention in the body, representing a major leap from stone or crude metal tools.

“This is the earliest physical evidence of steel medical needles in China,” Gu Man, director of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, told the Global Times.

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Today I finished watching Patlabor and it was a very satisfying series to say the least, even though the final episode felt more like a normal instance than having closure after all the aventures and misadventures the team went through. I do believe the episode before the last would had been better left as THE last episode since it closed so nicely in comparison, but I digress.

But for now...




Mission accomplished.