Archive for history
The world won’t end in 2012: newfound Mayan calendar goes way past Dec. 21
Posted by: | Comments
In a striking find, archaeologists in Guatemala report the discovery of a small building whose walls display not only a stunningly preserved mural of a brightly adorned Mayan king, but also calendars that destroy any notion that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012.
The painted figure of a man through the doorway of an ancient dwelling in the Maya city Zultun in northeastern Guatemala. Archaeologists have found the small room where royal scribes apparently used walls like a blackboard to keep track of astronomical records and the society’s intricate calendar some 1,200 years ago.
Data theft: the greatest data thefts in history
Posted by: | Comments
Stealing information can be just as lucrative–and destructive–as stealing anything else. Our look at the history of data theft touches on some of the major crimes in history. The father of the American Industrial Revolution? A glorified data thief. That tea you’re drinking (let’s say just for the duration of this sentence, you are drinking tea)? That’s a stolen secret recipe, the theft of which involved a Scotsman dressed up in "traditional mandarin garb."
Antiquity: Biblical, Greek, and Roman Spies
Before the internet, before written language, before countries as we know them, there were still spies, and there was still data theft. Espionage is sometimes cheekily known as one of the world’s oldest professions, and just about every empire you can name employed networks of spies tasked with gathering intelligence on enemies both perceived and real. According to the A to Z of Middle Eastern Intelligence, "Egyptian hieroglyphs and papyri reveal the presence of court spies. From 1,000 BCE onward, Egyptian espionage operations focused on foreign intelligence about the political and military strength of rivals Greece and Rome." But one of the best sources of information about early intelligence-gathering is actually the Bible itself.
Timeline: the advance of the data civilization
Posted by: | Comments
In 2009, English scientist Stephen Wolfram started a website–an "answer" engine–to redefine how information is gathered on its greatest-ever conduit. In this timeline, he catalogs "how our civilization has systematized knowledge, and gradually made it amenable to automation. This is about data and how it came to be the way it is in our world."
20,000 B.C. to 2,500 B.C.
Steve McAlister/Getty Images
20,000 B.C.: The invention of arithmetic provides a way to abstractly compute numbers of objects.
15,000 B.C.: The Lascaux cave paintings record some of the first known narrative constructions.
3,800 B.C.: The Babylonian census begins the practice of systematically counting and recording people.
3,500 B.C.: Written language emerges [pictured: an early cuneiform tablet], providing a systematic way to record and transmit knowledge.
2,500 B.C.: The first known calendar system is established in Mesopotamia, creating a 360-day year.
The dead sea scrolls are now available for your online perusal
Posted by: | Comments
Google, in partnership with the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, has photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls for the first time since the 1950s, and made them available online for those who can’t make the trek to see them in person.
