Nowhere in the world is archaeology as tied to politics as it is in Israel. Different factions have a stake in determining where the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel were ruled from, and how powerful its leaders were. At the heart of the matter is King David.

He has persisted for three millennia—an omnipresence in art, folklore, churches, and census rolls. To Muslims, he is Daoud, the venerated emperor and servant of Allah. To Christians, he is the natural and spiritual ancestor of Jesus, who thereby inherits David's messianic mantle. To the Jews, he is the father of Israel—the shepherd king anointed by God—and they in turn are his descendants and God's Chosen People. That he might be something lesser, or a myth altogether, is to many unthinkable.

"Our claim to being one of the senior nations in the world, to being a real player in civilization's realm of ideas, is that we wrote this book of books, the Bible," says Daniel Polisar, president of the Shalem Center, the Israeli research institute that helped fund Eilat Mazar's excavation work. "You take David and his kingdom out of the book, and you have a different book. The narrative is no longer a historical work, but a work of fiction. And then the rest of the Bible is just a propagandistic effort to create something that never was. And if you can't find the evidence for it, then it probably didn't happen. That's why the stakes are so high."

National Geographic looks at competing theories about the archaeological finds in Israel and the few hard facts that we have about them. Link

(Image credit: Greg Girard)

(YouTube link)

"Follow the path you're on" is not always the best advice -especially if the path maker is a prankster! I don't where this video originated; the short description in Polish was not helpful. -via Arbroath

Hope all you Neatoramanauts are enjoying a wonderful holiday season! The big news this week is that we are teaming up with mentalfloss.com and resila.com and giving you a chance to win a brand new Ford Fiesta on December 21st in NYC. The details we have so far are here. Watch for more to come!

This week we completed the two-part story of the Pearl Harbor Spy from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, so you can read both parts one and two.

Jill Harness brought us some holiday fun in Neatorama Facts: Christmas At Disneyland.

We read about The Whale that Started the Green Movement from or friends at mental_floss.

From the Annals of Improbable Research, we had a study on The Need for Double-Strength Placebos.

The most commented-on post of the week (besides the contests) was Mispronounced in Your Head. Everyone reads words they don't know how to pronounce at first; you can still add yours to the conversation.

At the Neatorama Art Blog we welcomed a new gallery from Julia Feld, who carves discarded and obsolete books into works of art.

Neato-Puzzle #9 came around on Tuesday; give if a try if you haven't already.

We have winners in the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Congratulations to Gauldar, who came up with The Hygenie 2000, and to haricotvert  who named this item the Roto-Toother! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.

In the What Is It? game on Thursday, the very first comment had the correct answer! UnderpantsGnome knew the object is a spring winder for making conical bedsprings. The award for the funniest answer goes to lonewolfe13, who gave us this gem:

It is obviously for making giant spaghetti balls. First you take your pot of pasta and you tilt it sideways so you can get the tip if the spiral cone into the pasta. Then a friend of yours would spin the crank until you have a flying spaghetti monster worthy dinner.

Both win T-shirts from the NeatoShop. Congratulations, guys!

In Mal and Chad's Fill in the Bubble Frenzy, the winning text was contributed by Mark Wrede, with "Sort of makes you feel huge and significant, doesn't it?" However, he did not select a t-shirt prize.

Over at our Facebook page, the discussion theme is "31 Days of Television". Questions include who is/was the prettiest woman on TV ever, which is the funniest sitcom ever, and what's the best TV commercial of all time. Oh yes, you can win prizes for participating!

(YouTube link)

This video from Friskies was filmed entirely by cats wearing cat cams. The camera operators are Charlene Butterbean, Fudge, Gizmo, Jett, Milo, Moca, Mousse, Nutkins, and Penelope. Read more about the movie at the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. Link -via Metafilter

We just love to quote our favorite movies. Think you'll do well when someone else picks the films? That's the challenge in today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You'll be given a movie quote, and you have to decide what movie it's from. Simple! I scored 80%, far better than the current average. Link

When you think of prehistoric cats, you probably think of Smilodon, the saber-toothed tiger. There were plenty of other big cat species you may have never heard of, like the Xenosmilus, the cave lion, or the American lion. Pictured here is Machairodus kabir, which probably resembled a modern tiger with the addition of huge fangs. Oh, and it weighed over a thousand pounds! Link -via the Presurfer

Cracked looks at studies that have compared the amount of time people spend watching TV and the differences between those who watch a lot and those who don't. The results show that watching more TV over years make folks more likely to commit violent acts, gain weight, and have short attention spans. But the news isn't all bad.

Using a combination of four studies, scientists have shown that television shows can instill a sense of belonging in people with low self-esteem who have been rejected by friends or family. This is called the social surrogacy hypothesis, which figures that in order to fill the emotional void of social deprivation, a person will establish relationships with fictional characters (as teenagers, many of us had a similar type of relationship with late-night Cinemax).

One study showed that subjects who were experiencing feelings of loneliness felt better after turning on their favorite television programs. Another had subjects writing essays about either their favorite shows or some other random subject as a control. The subjects who wrote about their favorite shows used fewer words expressing loneliness than the control group.

The article is surprisingly SFW. Link

(YouTube link)

Do you remember the Hamster Dance from 1997? It's back again. Katie the hamster is dancing on the computer! -via Arbroath

(YouTube link)

The new music video for "We Got More" by Eskmo was directed by animator Cyriak Harris. You may be familiar with his work, as he's been featured previously at Neatorama. -via The Daily What

Costas Schuler ("The Pen Guy") sent a picture of a Christmas wreath he made and decorated with ink pens for his car. I was more interested in the car itself, because it is also covered with pens! It turns out we linked this car a few years ago, but it's certainly worth another look. The "Mercedes Pens" is covered with 10,000 pens and markers as an art and recycling project. Oh yeah, it also now has a Christmas wreath on it. Link

Considering the pollution and congestion on our roads, could it be time for the return of pneumatic tubes for deliveries? A British project called Foodtubes proposed that a network of high-speed pipelines be built underneath the United Kingdom to deliver food shipments from source to city.

The food would sail along in small capsules at upwards of 60 miles per hour. As many as 900,000 capsules could be in circulation in the nearly 2,000 miles of air pressure pipe, all of which would be controlled by smart grids that would keep food from crashing into each other. To give some semblance of order, the capsules would generally be organized into little trains of about 300 linked capsules, each spaced about a meter apart.

Now, this idea might seem a little nutty - I'll admit it seems rather fanciful. But the people behind Foodtubes point out the UK transports 180 times more water than food everyday, and all of that is done using pipelines with minimal pollution and no traffic jams.

Up to 200,000 food-carrying trucks could be taken off British roads, which would save 40 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.

Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

The new movie The King's Speech is about George VI and his problem with stuttering. The film is being hailed for its sensitive portrayal of stuttering, which is relative to the quite insensitive way previous movies have presented the disorder.

The movie, as formulaic in its way as Rocky or Rudy, is buoyed by its good acting and by its entirely new portrayal of a grown man who stutters: Colin Firth's King George gulps and strangles himself trying to get the words out, yet retains his dignity and invites our empathy. For the 1 percent of the population that stutters, and has withstood the additional ignominy of watching stuttering characters in Hollywood films, the movie is a rare catharsis. A likable king struggling to speak is significantly more attractive than the violent criminals (Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Primal Fear), or abused, suicidal inpatients (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) of yore.

Slate has a slide show of video clips from movies that address stuttering, but even more interesting is their short history of attempts to cure stuttering. Link -Thanks, Jocelyn!

(YouTube link)

The class of 2013 perform a medley of songs from The Wizard of Oz for the annual Nykerk Cup competition at Hope College. Sure, they sing well, but where are they hiding all those props? You can also watch the performance of their competition, the freshman class. -via Buzzfeed

(YouTube link)

The Swingtop Philharmonic Orchestra, an all-star combo assembled especially for this project, plays "Oh, Christmas Tree" on instruments made from beer bottles in this ad from Belgian Dutch brewer Grolsch. -via the Presurfer

A new gallery is up at the Neatorama Art Blog! We welcome Julia Feld, who carves discarded and obsolete books into works of art.

I am a scientist by trade and have always enjoyed the visual elements of science (graphical representations of data, figures of theoretical models, diagrams of complex systems, etc).  People often focus on the information these elements contain, rather than appreciating their aesthetics.  I started carving books to draw attention to their beauty rather than their content.  I have made carvings that display the illustrations the books contain as well as some that depict topographical landscapes and “specimen boxes” that hold paper butterflies

Link