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This photo by Vanderlei Almeida, of a dog sitting by the grave of her owner who died in the catastrophic landslides in Brazil, captures the essence of loyalty in man’s best friend.
The dog named "Leao," sits for a second consecutive day next to the grave of Cristina Maria Cesario Santana – and something tells me that she could sit there for quite a long time.
Previously on Neatorama: Dog awaits return of his master for 11 years
Hamish Mowatt of South Ronaldsay, one of the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, unearthed a Neolithic tomb in his backyard garden. Now archaeologists are scrambling to document and preserve the 5,000 year old grave site.
Mr Mowatt said he had always wondered what lay under an 8ft stone in the garden and eventually curiosity got the better of him.
He dug a small hole close to the stone to see how thick it was. He then managed to get a thin wire pushed under the stone and confirmed there was definitely a space underneath. While doing this, a finger-hole size appeared in the earth to his right. This allowed him to push the wire in — to a depth of three feet.
By carefully removing a small area of earth and two stones, Mr Mowatt could see a rock face. Shining a torch inside, he saw a chamber with about nine inches of water lying in the bottom.
Mr Mowatt added: “I have an underwater camera, so I got it in through the hole and the monitor rigged up. On the screen, I could see the rock face clearly, but when I went further I could clearly see what I thought was a white skull, with two eye sockets, looking back at me.”
So far, three skulls are visible in the stone chamber, which is filling up with water. Experts think there might be multiple connected chambers on the site. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
(Image credit: Sigurd Towrie)
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Every January 19th, an unidentified person comes to the grave site of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and leaves three roses and a half bottle of cognac. It’s a tradition that goes back to at least 1949. About three dozen fans were waiting this morning for the toaster, but for the first time in over 60 years, he didn’t show up on what would have been Poe’s birthday.
Rafael Alvarez, President of the Baltimore Poe Society tells WBAL Radio he has a theory about why the mystery admirer did not show up this year. He thinks that person died last week.
Alvarez says e-mails have been circulating for the past several hours pointing to the late David Franks of Baltimore as the Poe toaster. Franks was found dead in his Baltimore apartment last week. He has been a writer, performer and poet in Baltimore for years.
“It fit David’s love of the prank and the practical joke. And particularly stunts that involve sort of high literary high-wire acts,” says Alvarez.
He says that Franks also wore the same clothes daily like that of the Poe toaster and he fit the physical description. “David had quite the late 19th century English dandy flair for scarves, gloves, and various caps. It would not be unusual for David to don a cape if the situation called for it,” says Alvarez.
There is also a possibility that the toaster decided to stop the tradition at Poe’s 200th birthday, which was last year. Link -via Metafilter
Time is tight if you are just starting to make Halloween decorations, but this one can be ready in a day. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has instructions for making your own concrete tombstone! It might not be fancy enough for an actual grave, but it is sturdy and customizable for Halloween. Link
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An exhumation of a mass grave of plague victims in Venice, Italy yielded the skeleton of a woman who was probably considered a vampire in her time. She was buried with a brick in her mouth. The skeleton was found by Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence.
At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by “vampires” which, rather than drinking people’s blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.
The belief in vampires probably arose because blood is sometimes expelled from the mouths of the dead, causing the shroud to sink inwards and tear. Borrini, who presented his findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver, Colorado, last week, claims this might be the first such vampire to have been forensically examined. The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.
(image credit: Matteo Borrini)
A 2,700-year-old grave unearthed in the Gobi Desert near Turpan, China revealed the world’s oldest marijuana stash! The grave belonged to a blue-eyed Caucasian man buried with a number of valuable items.
Scientists originally thought the plant material in the grave was coriander, but microscopic botanical analysis of the bowl contents, along with genetic testing, revealed that it was cannabis.
The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their color and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown.
Nearly two pounds of pot were found in the grave. No, it’s not fresh enough to get anyone high. Link -Thanks, Jorge Garcia!
(image credit: David Potter/Oxford University Press)
