Archaeologists are exploring tombs underneath these pyramids. This project is complicated because these tombs have been flooded by the Nile River, just over a mile away. Hard to believe, but there are green fields just a quarter mile away from these pyramids.
I posted a map of some pyramids in Sudan once before. The new site is at the upper left in the above map, the old site is at the lower right. Both sites can be located using "Pyramids of Meroë", though you need to use Arabic to find the new one. To orient you in time and place, these pyramids date from 300 to 700 BC. Khartoum is 100 miles south, Cairo is almost a thousand miles to the north.
The town is considerable; there is a handsome cathedral with an immense dial; an arrow-hand makes the circuit of it once in a hundred years.
Cremona Cathedral Clock Face
It looks like this clock has 5 hands and one or two rotating dials. The face has six scales, from the outside in:
the hour in Roman Numerals, from 1 to 24, clockwise starting at the bottom
the names of the constellations of the zodiac
a line of approximately 100 black dashes
icons of the constellations
the 12 months of the year
another line of 100 dashes, this time in red
numbers indicating day of the month or something.
The innermost black faced dial might be showing the phase of the moon, currently showing it as 'full'.
The numbered scale around it shows the day of the month and goes from 1 to 29 and a plus sign.
Detail of inner portion of clock face
I am not sure what the five hands are for. The one that reaches the central pivot is the time in hours. The other four have so sort of icon attached near the base. One is the sun, another is the moon, and seems to be attached to the moon phase disk. I have no idea what the other two symbols are, or how you would interpret what they are pointing to.
And I still don't know which hand indicates the passing of the years.
When asked about his spending plans and plans to cut taxes, Boris Johnson responds “as the great Tunisian scholar and sage Ibn Khaldun pointed out as early as the 14th century, there are plenty of taxes that you can cut which will actually increase your revenues”.
Boris might become the next prime minister of Great Britain. Found on Roger Pearse. He roots around to see if the sage actually said anything like that and he finds it. Huh, words from out of the past.
They had quite a time of it as they were dragging cannons along with them. The path over the pass was just that, a path, not a road, so they had to disassemble the cannons and carry all the pieces. You can see a horse loaded with wheels in the lower center of the above picture. It sounds like they put the cannon barrels on sledges and dragged them.
I've been plotting the locations mentioned in the book on a Google Map (above). The blue markers indicate places mentioned in the book. The one in the lower right is Fort Bard, which was kind of a sticking point.
Looking for more stuff about this pass, I came across this video which shows some of the terrain in the in the nearby Nivolet Pass. It's the intro to The Italian Job.
Update July 2022 replaced missing video with the intro to the original movie.
Moving on, Joseph Moore is writing a science fiction story:
I’m attempting to deal with the central problem Star Trek solves by its most egregious handwavium: in a super cool high tech socialist paradise, what do people *do*? Some tiny percent explore strange new worlds, etc., but most, it is implied, become Trobriand Islanders, only with better toys and manners. They have no hope to better themselves or the world in any objective sense, so they raise yams, figuratively, and screw, trade ‘art’ to reinforce social standing and improve self-esteem , and scheme for enhanced social position.
The people of the Trobriand Islands are mostly subsistence horticulturalists who live in traditional settlements. The social structure is based on matrilineal clans that control land and resources. People participate in the regional circuit of exchange of shells called kula, sailing to visit trade partners on seagoing canoes. In the late twentieth century, anti-colonial and cultural autonomy movements gained followers from the Trobriand societies. When inter-group warfare was forbidden by colonial rulers, the islanders developed a unique, aggressive form of cricket.
Although an understanding of reproduction and modern medicine is widespread in Trobriand society, their traditional beliefs have been remarkably resilient. For example, the real cause of pregnancy is believed to be a baloma, or ancestral spirit, that enters the body of a woman, and without whose existence a woman could not become pregnant; all babies are made or come into existence (ibubulisi) in Tuma. These tenets form the main stratum of what can be termed popular or universal belief. In the past, many held this traditional belief because the yam, a major food of the island, included chemicals (phytoestrogens and plant sterols) whose effects are contraceptive, so the practical link between sex and pregnancy was not very evident.
Living in a High Tech Socialist Paradise reminds me of:
"Weird" Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise (Official Parody of "Gangsta's Paradise")
I've heard Al's version, but have I ever heard the original?
Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise (feat. L.V.) [Official Music Video]
