Monthly Archives: April 2017

South of Cairo, at the Dahshur royal necropolis, the remains of a pyramid that may date back some 3,700 years ago have been discovered.

The pyramid was discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission working approximately 25 miles south of Cairo, near the location of King Sneferus Bent Pyramid. Adel Okasha, the head of the Dahshur necropolis site, confirmed that the team uncovered an interior corridor leading to the inside of the pyramid, a hall leading to a southern ramp and a room at the western end. Inside the corridor, they also discovered an alabaster block measuring 15-by-17 centimeters (roughly 6-by-6 inches), engraved with 10 vertical hieroglyphic lines.

The head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector, Mahmoud Afifi, confirmed in a statement that a granite lintel (likely used to support a door or entrance) and a collection of stone blocks showing the interior design of the pyramid were also found. Luckily, the pyramid remains are reported to be in good condition.

This forgotten pyramid at Dahshur is already unique. While the vast majority of Egypts pyramids were constructed during the Old and Middle Kingdoms (from the 3rd to the 12th dynasties). This newly found pyramid is believed to date to the 13th dynasty, when only a few pyramids were constructed. The last structure built during this dynasty was the pyramid of Ahmose, an 18th dynasty king, but historians believe it was used as a cenotaph (or monument) rather than a tomb.

Dahshur is a royal necropolis on the west bank of the Nile. Its home to numerous pyramids, including two of the oldest, largest and best preserved examples, both built by King Senferu during Egypts 4th Dynasty, a golden age that lasted from 2613 to 2494 B.C. The first, known as the Bent Pyramid, was constructed with slopes that change angles from 54 degrees to 43 degrees about halfway up. The second, known as the Red Pyramid for its limestone hue, is the third-largest pyramid ever constructed, and has been seen by many (at least until now) as Egypts first success at constructing a true smooth-sided pyramid.

While King Sneferus Bent Pyramid is seen by some as the first attempt to build a smooth-sided pyramid, other researchers have argued that it was the transitional form between step-sided and smooth-sided pyramids. The bent slope sides of this newly discovered pyramid begs the question, could this forgotten pyramid actually be ancient Egypts first successful smooth-sided pyramid?

The Dashur necropolis was used as a burial site for courtiers and high-ranking officials, as well as royals, and authorities have not yet confirmed the identity of who was buried there. Further excavations are planned to continue to unearth more of the pyramid and identify who may have been buried within.

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3700-Year-Old Pyramid May Yield Clues to Tomb Evolution - History

April 5, 2017 Credit: Elena Poiata

A classicist, biologist and computer scientist all walk into a roomwhat comes next isn't the punchline but a new method to analyze relationships among ancient Latin and Greek texts, developed in part by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin.

Their work, referred to as quantitative criticism, is highlighted in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper identifies subtle literary patterns in order to map relationships between texts and more broadly to trace the cultural evolution of literature.

"As scholars of the humanities well know, literature is a system within which texts bear a multitude of relationships to one another. Understanding what is distinctive about one text entails knowing how it fits within that system," said Pramit Chaudhuri, associate professor in the Department of Classics at UT Austin. "Our work seeks to harness the power of quantification and computation to describe those relationships at macro and micro levels not easily achieved by conventional reading alone."

In the study, the researchers create literary profiles based on stylometric features, such as word usage, punctuation and sentence structure, and use techniques from machine learning to understand these complex datasets. Taking a computational approach enables the discovery of small but important characteristics that distinguish one work from anothera process that could require years using manual counting methods.

"One aspect of the technical novelty of our work lies in the unusual types of literary features studied," Chaudhuri said. "Much computational text analysis focuses on words, but there are many other important hallmarks of style, such as sound, rhythm and syntax."

Another component of their work builds on Matthew Jockers' literary "macroanalysis," which uses machine learning to identify stylistic signatures of particular genres within a large body of English literature. Implementing related approaches, Chaudhuri and his colleagues have begun to trace the evolution of Latin prose style, providing new, quantitative evidence for the sweeping impact of writers such as Caesar and Livy on the subsequent development of Roman prose literature.

"There is a growing appreciation that culture evolves and that language can be studied as a cultural artifact, but there has been less research focused specifically on the cultural evolution of literature," said the study's lead author Joseph Dexter, a Ph.D. candidate in systems biology at Harvard University. "Working in the area of classics offers two advantages: the literary tradition is a long and influential one well served by digital resources, and classical scholarship maintains a strong interest in close linguistic study of literature."

Unusually for a publication in a science journal, the paper contains several examples of the types of more speculative literary reading enabled by the quantitative methods introduced. The authors discuss the poetic use of rhyming sounds for emphasis and of particular vocabulary to evoke mood, among other literary features.

"Computation has long been employed for attribution and dating of literary works, problems that are unambiguous in scope and invite binary or numerical answers," Dexter said. "The recent explosion of interest in the digital humanities, however, has led to the key insight that similar computational methods can be repurposed to address questions of literary significance and style, which are often more ambiguous and open ended. For our group, this humanist work of criticism is just as important as quantitative methods and data."

Explore further: The 'close reading' of multicultural literature expands racial literacy, scholar says

More information: Joseph P. Dexter et al, Quantitative criticism of literary relationships, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611910114

While the phrase "close reading" may not resonate for someone outside of an English department, Stanford literary scholar Paula Moya wants to reclaim the useful literary tool, especially when it comes to multicultural writers.

Heated debates about the quantifiable value of arts and literature are a common feature of American social discourse. Now, two researchers from The New School for Social Research have published a paper in Science demonstrating ...

Maps help us locate landmarks and can even trace historical change.

The social networks behind one of the most famous literary controversies of all time have been uncovered using modern networks science.

When a 2013 study published in Science concluded that reading literary fiction for as few as 20 minutes could improve someone's social abilities, it made quite the splash. However, when researchers from the University of ...

University of Illinois English professor Ted Underwood recently wrapped up a research project involving more than 4,200 books. Since that work revealed dramatic shifts in the English language between the 18th and 19th centuries, ...

Oxford University researchers have tracked how recent aircraft incidents or accidents trigger past events and how some are consistently more memorable than others. Using the English version of Wikipedia, they analysed articles ...

A classicist, biologist and computer scientist all walk into a roomwhat comes next isn't the punchline but a new method to analyze relationships among ancient Latin and Greek texts, developed in part by researchers from ...

Approximately 13,500 years after nomadic Clovis hunters crossed the frozen land bridge from Asia to North America, researchers are still asking questions and putting together clues as to how they not only survived in a new ...

A study of the DNA in ancient skeletal remains adds to the evidence that indigenous groups living today in southern Alaska and the western coast of British Columbia are descendants of the first humans to make their home in ...

A cave in southern Oregon that is the site of some the oldest preserved evidence of human activity in North America was also once home to not-too-distant cousins of the common bed bug.

Reader preferences for liberal or conservative political books also attract them to different types of science books, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Chicago and Yale and Cornell universities. ...

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New approach developed by humanists and scientists maps evolution of literature - Phys.Org

Kitt Johnson in Rankefod, part of World Stage at Harbourfront. ( WORLD STAGE )

Kitt Johnson X-act: Rankefod

Choreography by Kitt Johnson

Until Apr. 8, at Harbourfront Centre Theatre, 235 Queens Quay W., or 416-973-4000.

Danish dance artist Kitt Johnson is not the first to attempt to evoke our primordial past through movement. Such efforts can too easily appear corny or, worse still, cute. Instead Johnsons Rankefod is epic and awe-inspiring.

In her 50-minute solo that opened at Harbourfront Centre on Tuesday Johnson takes us on a journey at once strange and haunting, from the infinite vastness of a universe devoid of life to an evolutionary moment when our primitive ancestors took to dry land and hind legs.

An improvised electronic soundscape by Johnsons longtime artistic collaborator Sture Ericson roars deafeningly in the darkness; the birth of the universe perhaps. It then diminishes to a whispering, unworldly ambience.

A dim circle of light gradually intensifies to reveal an unidentifiable creature, a mound of animal matter with a prominent spine suggestive of an exoskeleton. It begins to breathe and pulsate, shooting out stunted bodily appendages in staccato bursts of movement. The creature unfurls, becomes increasingly mobile and scampers about as if exploring unknown terrain.

By now, of course, we know its Johnsons human form generating these images of primitive existence yet, naked except for a rough-textured loincloth and with a blank, glassy-eyed expression on her pale-painted face, we never for a moment see her as anything but pre-human. Now in her late fifties, Johnson remains a formidable presence and performer, her body lithe and expressive.

The solos title is the Danish word for a subclass of crustacea known as cirripedia. Barnacles qualify as such along with various other arthropoda. Its not necessary to know this to appreciate Rankefod although it does help explain some of Johnsons oddly contorted modes of locomotion, redolent of leggy insects or sideways-moving crabs.

Rankefods overall poetic resonance is enigmatic, more easily felt than explained. The image conveyed by designer Charlotte Ostergaards deeply textured backdrop varies according to how it is lit by Mogens Kjempff. It can be a rocky cliff or transform into a barren, gullied landscape. It is towards this that Johnson turns her glance before finally staring out beyond us towards an unseen and, we ponder, threatening future.

This is a return visit to Toronto for Rankefod. Johnson first performed it here nine years ago as part of Harbourfront Centres World Stage, a series presenting both international and Canadian artists from a range of contemporary performance disciplines and their evolving hybrid forms. Now Johnson is the opening event of World Stage Redux, a compact 18-day festival comprising eight programs, three of them featuring Canadian artists.

Launched in 1986, World Stage was once a high-profile festival that introduced Toronto to a host of major international theatre artists but when munificent corporate sponsorships began to dry up World Stage became a more modest although still artistically adventurous series of performances.

This year, as Harbourfront Centre re-evaluates its place in the local cultural landscape, it has opted for an interim to dip into its past with a festival of encore appearances. A combination of timing, logistics and available funding doubtless determined the choices. Five of the eight shows feature solo performers, which of course makes them no less interesting.

This week World Stage Redux also features a fresh iteration of actor Clare Coulter and director Philip McKees exploration of Shakespeares Lear as well as dancer/choreographer William Yongs Steer, an unnerving portrayal of how technology may denude us of our humanity; as if it hasnt already. Among next weeks highlights, if that can properly describe a theatrical memorial to the Holocaust, is Rotterdam-based Hotel Moderns chilling Kamp in which three performers animate the occupants of a roughly 1:20 scale model of Auschwitz. World Stage Redux will end with Mies Julie, South African Yael Frabers contemporary re-imagining of August Strindbergs torrid drama.

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Rankefod takes human evolution on a poetic journey: review - Toronto Star

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When you think of someone with autism, what do you see? It might be someone with a special set of talents or unique skills such as a natural artistic ability or remarkable memory. It could be someone with enhanced abilities in engineering or mathematics, or an increased focus on detail. This is because despite the negative stories of an "epidemic of autism", most of us recognise that people with autism spectrum conditions bring a whole range of valued skills and talents both technical and social to the workplace and beyond.

Research has shown that some key autism genes are part of a shared ape heritage, which predates the split that led us along a human path. Other autism genes are more recent in evolutionary terms, although they are still more than 100,000 years old.

Research has also shown autism, for the most part, is highly hereditary. Although a third of the cases of autism can be put down to the random appearance of genetic mistakes or spontaneously occurring mutations, high rates of autism are found in certain families.

This suggests autism is with us for a reason, and as our recent book and journal paper show, ancestors with autism played an important role in their social groups through human evolution because of their unique skills and talents.

Going back thousands of years, people who displayed autistic traits would not only have been accepted by their societies, they would have been highly respected. Many people with autism have exceptional memory skills, heightened visual perception, taste and smell and in some contexts, an enhanced understanding of natural systems such as animal behaviour. The incorporation of some of these skills into a community would have played a vital role in the development of specialists and it is very likely these specialists would have become vitally important for the survival of the group.

Further evidence can be found in traits shared between some cave art and talented autistic artists such as those paintings found in the Chauvet Cave, in southern France. This contains some of the best preserved figurative cave paintings in the world.

The paintings show exceptional realism, remarkable memory skills, strong attention to detail, along with a focus on parts rather than wholes. These autistic traits can also be found in talented artists who dont have autism but they are much more common in talented autistic artists.

Unfortunately, despite the potential evidence, archaeology and narratives about human origins have been slow to catch up. What is autism spectrum disorder? WIRED explains

Diversity has never been a part of our reconstructions of human origins. It has taken researchers a long time to move beyond the image of a man evolving from an ape-like form that we so typically associate with evolution. It is only relatively recently that women have been recognised as playing a key role in our evolutionary past before this, evolution narratives tended to focus on the role of men.

It is, therefore, no wonder that including autism something which is still seen as a disorder by some is considered to be controversial and this is undoubtedly why arguments about the inclusion of autism and the way it must have influenced such art have been ridiculed.

Given what we know, it is clearly time for a reappraisal of what autism has brought to human origins. Michael Fitzgerald, the first professor of child and adolescent psychiatry in Ireland to specialise in autism spectrum disorder, boldly claimed in an interview in 2006: "All human evolution was driven by slightly autistic Aspergers and autistic people. The human race would still be sitting around in caves chattering to each other if it were not for them."

While I wouldnt go that far, I have to agree that without that dash of autism in our human communities, we probably wouldnt be where we are today.

Penny Spikins is a senior lecturer in the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of York.

Read more about autism and evolution at The Conversation.

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Did autism help drive human evolution? - Wired.co.uk

A concert that celebrates the combination of classical music and opera with classic rock, ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolution, a touring musical that stops at the State Theatre on Thursday, April 13, features world-class vocalists and top rock musicians with the aim of celebrating the combination of classical music and opera with classic rock.

The show here will involve the locally based Contemporary Youth Orchestra.

For co-founder Randall Craig Fleischer, who attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the musical represents the culmination of a life-long pursuit.

Ive been doing rock fusion projects for pretty much my whole career, for 30 years or so, says Fleischer via phone from Alaska where he works as music director/conductor of the Anchorage Symphony. He also serves as the music director/conductor of the Youngstown Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. I was a rock n roll fan from the beginning. I remember when Stairway to Heaven was the top song on the Top 40 for I dont know how many weeks. Im old enough to remember those things. All the music that was classic rock was huge when I was a kid. I then became interested in classical music after singing in the high school choir.

I met Rob Evan on a show we worked together called Broadway Rocks, he says. Then, I invited him to Youngstown to sing with me in a project called Rock Fusion. At the time, he was working on a show called Rock Tenor. We were doing similar things. Weve been friends this whole time. Rob came up with the name ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolution, and weve been working on it for five years.

The first performance took place in Youngstown with the Youngstown Symphony. Though the current show has changed some since that first performance, Fleischer says the present-day incarnation retains the originals approach.

Several of the same sequences that were in that show are in that show today, Fleischer says. The first show was an enormous success. Rob then brought in executive producer William Franzblau, and between the two of them they could get the interest from PBS, and we shot a special last year in Budapest and have been off and running.

In Budapest, the group performed at the Budapest Opera, which Fleischer says is an exact replica of the Paris Opera.

Its one of the most beautiful classic music venues in the world, he says. To put in a big rock 'n' roll show in a gorgeous old 19th century opera house makes sense. The visual metaphor is clear as a bell. We are building a bridge between the two worlds.

The group puts strings and horns on Queen's "We Are the Champions," Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and Pink Floyd's "On the Turning Away," and the show features music by classical composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and rock bands such as Foreigner, Heart, Journey, Styx, the Who and U2.

Evan sings in the group, and the cast also includes singers Ximena Borges, Chloe Lowery, Kimberly Nichole and Tony Vincent and musicians Alex Alexander, Henry Aronson, Tony Bruno, Mat Fieldes and Mairead Nesbitt. Nesbitt is a former fiddler for the group Celtic Woman, Evan and Lowery are both members of the progressive rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Nichole and Vincent both competed on the TV series The Voice.

Oh my God theyre all really stars in their own right, Fleischer says when asked about the cast. They have a whole lot going on as individual artists. They have Broadway credits and things like that. Were just really lucky that the chemistry between them, on stage and off, is so positive. Its the same with the band. [Guitarist] Tony Bruno [whos played with Enrique Iglesias, Rihanna, E Knaan, Karmin, Delta Goodrem]is a star. Music director Henry Aronson is an extremely accomplishd Broadway musical director and [drummer] Alex [Alexander] and [bassist] Mat [Fieldes] have careers as well.

Fleischer says ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolutionworks simply because the rock and classical worlds are very similar.

Who knows where well take this show in the future,"he says, adding that Rocktopia 2 is a possibility as is Rocktopia Hip-hop. "Its all about the expression.Both forms of music [classical and rock] are about passion and all the expressions of the human experience. The music is about emotion. I hope people are really moved and excited by the show.

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Rock and Classical Worlds Collide in 'ROCKTOPIA : A Classical (R)evolution' - Cleveland Scene Weekly