Sardinian scientists say they’ve identified the plant used in antiquity to induce a “sardonic grin” in condemned men before they were put to death. “The Punics were convinced that death was the start of a new life, to be greeted with a smile,” said Mauro Ballero of Cagliari University.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities is trying to manage the population and environmental changes that are harming the country’s ancient sites. “The extraordinary monuments of Luxor survived for 5,000 years in large part because of the dry conditions and low population,” said Ray Johnson of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.    

Are the bones of a pirate resting in a box in North Carolina? Writer and filmmaker Kevin P. Duffus wants to know if skeletal remains in the custody of the state belonged to landowner and merchant Edward Salter, who died in 1735. Some think Salter was a cooper who was forced into piracy on the Queen Anne’s Revenge by Blackbeard.  

Construction workers in Nashville unearthed the remains of a Union soldier. Historians think he may have died in November 1864, when the Battle of Nashville occurred.  

Archaeologists unearthed 1,000-year-old tools and a small pit house in western Kansas.  

Torture in the ancient world is the topic of a new book in German by Martin Zimmerman titled, Extreme Violence in the Visuals and Texts of Antiquity. You can read an overview of its contents in English at Spiegel Online.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, May 15, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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