All posts tagged "Archeology"

The cross leading King Charles’ upcoming coronation will contain supposed relics from the cross Jesus was crucified on, following a gift from the Vatican on Wednesday. Relics from the “True Cross” have been used for centuries to mark certain objects as holy and significant — though given the implausibly high number of such relics, many people doubt their authenticity. The Vatican gifted Charles with two wooden splinters measuring 0.2 and 0.4 inches, according to The Times of London. Those pieces will be placed into the Cross of Wales, which will lead the coronation procession May 6. “In a sign......

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Some begin their day with a cup of coffee. Every morning when he wakes up, Bobby Donaldson checks the obituaries. Obituaries commemorate birth dates and death dates. But it’s the dashes between the two that Donaldson is interested in. Those dashes represent peoples’ lives. Donaldson is a scholar of African American history and a history professor at the University of South Carolina. His work is built around Black South Carolinians, whose history has been neglected, lost with time or erased. These stories motivate Donaldson every day. Reading obituaries gives him a sense of ur......

MIAMI — For the past year and a half, with scant public attention, squads of archaeologists digging at the Miami River site of a planned Related Group residential tower complex have unearthed remarkable finds, consisting of thousands of fragmentary prehistoric tools and artifacts, rare and well-preserved animal and plant remnants, vestiges of ancient structures and human remains — including some relics dating back to the earliest days of civilization on the planet. Independent scientists say the findings, which include 7,000-year-old spearheads, are clear and abundant evidence of a continuous ......

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis is a town of believers: in traditions, in community and, perhaps most especially, in second chances. That grace is extended to its buildings as well as its people. “St. Louis likes to save old things, not tear old things down,” says Chris Hansen, executive director of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. The nonprofit runs the Grandel, built in 1884 as a First Congregational Church, which now includes a 600-seat theater and the Dark Room, a bar, music venue and gallery. The Grand Center structure is one of dozens of left-for-dead houses of worship across the region that have b......

It looks like any other state park. There are picnic tables, hiking trails, campgrounds. But this is not any other state park. A cult once called this place home. Koreshan State Park, 135 acres along the Estero River near Fort Myers, preserves several of the cult’s buildings, and all of the history of a group of people who thought of the world in a different way. The Koreshans, a late-1800s religious cult, believed immortality could be achieved through celibacy, community and equality. They also believed the earth was hollow and that they lived on the inner surface. The group — not related to ......

PHILADELPHIA -- When Kip Jacobs, 63, was growing up in West Philly, his great-grandmother was the only family member who talked much about their ancestor James Forten, a free Black man who became a wealthy sailmaker in post-Revolutionary War Philadelphia. “I knew that he had saved nine people from drowning in the Delaware, according to my great-grandmother, Daisy Parker,” Jacobs said. But there wasn’t much talk about abolitionism, or Forten’s old friends, like Absalom Jones, founder of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, or William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator newspaper. Gra......