PHYSICISTS USE ROMAN LEAD INGOTS TO UNLOCK SECRETS OF DARK MATTER

PHYSICISTS are using pre-industrial age, pollution-free pure lead ingots recovered from Ancient Roman shipwrecks to study dark matter and neutrinos.

But archaeologists have raised alarm about the destruction and trading of cultural heritage that lies behind this.

At issue is a Roman vessel loaded with ingots of lead extracted from the Sierra of Cartagena which sank 2,000 years ago off the coast of Sardinia.

Since 2011, more than 100 of these ingots, devoid of modern industrial pollutants, have been used to build the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE), an advanced detector of neutrino subatomic particles at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy.

In the 18th century, another ship loaded with lead ingots was wrecked on the French coast. 

A company of treasure hunters retrieved this material and, despite problems with French authorities, managed to sell it to the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) team. 

This detector located in a mine in Minnesota (USA) looks for signs of the enigmatic dark matter, which is believed to constitute a quarter of the universe. 

These two examples have served as reference for the discussion that two researchers have opened between archaeologists, worried by the destruction of underwater cultural heritage, and particle physicists, pleased to have found a unique material for research on neutrinos and dark matter.

Elena Perez-Alvaro from the University of Birmingham said Roman lead is essential for conducting these experiments because it offers purity and such low levels of radioactivity-all the more so the longer it has spent underwater-which current methods for producing this metal cannot reach.

The underwater archaeologist and the physicists are encouraging dialogue between both collectives, as well as developing legislation that regulates these kinds of activities, without limiting them exclusively to archaeologists, and including scientists.

The study was published in the journal Science. 

NOW YOU CAN ADOPT A VIRTUAL STONE TO RAISE MONEY FOR HADRIAN's WALL

NOW you can adopt a cyber-stone as part of a fund-raising effort to maintain Hadrian's Wall.

Individual and corporate sponsors are invited to attach their names to a stone, not on Hadrian’s Wall itself but on a virtual realisation of it on the website http://adoptastone.co.uk/.

Volunteers are also being sought for a Wall Watch scheme aimed at keeping the World Heritage Site and adjoining Hadrian’s Wall Path, one of the country’s network of National Trails, in good condition.

Linda Tuttiett, chief executive of the trust which was set up in 2006 to oversee the management of the historic site, said the measures were to stave off what could be a serious situation for Hadrian’s Wall. 

She said the World Heritage Site lost more than £1m a year when the regional development agencies, including One North East, were wound up and was set to lose 40% of its funding from Natural England for the popular path which costs £200,000 a year to maintain.

While local authorities along the wall had responded to a call for extra funding, she feared their budgets would be further squeezed.

Ms Tuttiett said the trust’s full-time staff had been reduced from 21 to 10, meaning it was increasingly difficult to maintain the quality of the trail on whose popularity the wall and many small businesses depend.

MEET SANTA'S HELPERS KRAMPUS AND ANTINOUS/APOLLO

DECEMBER 5th-6th is the ancient Roman feast of the Faunalia ... which ironically is still celebrated in Europe and Latin America by millions of chidren ... who get a visit from Santa and his dark and spooky helpers.

But old St. Nick was never actually canonized for lack of evidence that he actually ever lived. 

He is only a "folk saint"  and few people are aware that he is related to Antinous/Apollo.

The pagan history shows that St. Nicholas is a vastly more complex being than most Christians could imagine, stemming from the Temples of Apollo and Artemis in Asia Minor (the birth country of Antinous) which would later be the birthplace of the mythical Nicholas.

The truth is that when you see a department store Santa, you are seeing only a composite being whose multitudinous composite aspects (many of them very dark and spooky) trace their origins back to the beginnings of mankind.

If you look very, very carefully, you will see the face of Antinous/Apollo shining through the centuries of folk customs under a variety of names including Santa, Sinter Klaas, das Christkind and Kriss Kringle.

In some parts of Central Europe, St. Nick goes from house to house on December 6th accompanied by a coterie that includes figures resembling Pan, Apollo and Artemis (Austrian Alps photo right).

 The legend of St. Nicholas begins in the Turkish town of Patara in Asia Minor which was also the birth land of Antinous. Patara was also the birth place of Apollo and a famous oracle was located there.

Apollo's sister Artemis also had a cult center in nearby Myra, where Nicholas grew up and allegedly became a "bishop." Myra's main cult was dedicated to Artemis Eleuthera, a distinctive form of Cybele, the ancient mother-goddess of Anatolia. She had a magnificent temple in Myra.

Unfortunately, St. Nicholas was zealous in his duties as bishop and took strong measures against paganism. The temple of Artemis and the Apollo oracle were among many other temples in the region that he destroyed. It is said that the very foundations were uprooted from the ground, so complete was its destruction, "and the evil spirits fled howling before him".

St. Nicholas was never officially canonized by the Church. He simply usurped the popularity of Artemis and Apollo and promoted his own reputation for being a protector and a giver of good things.

Antinous/Apollo more or less morphed into Old St. Nick, aka Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Sinter Klaas, das Christkind and Kriss Kringle.

And in a lot of places, Santa has several dark and scary sidekicks — all related to Pan, who also originated in Asia Minor.

In the Alps, Santa's helpers take the form of a demonized Pan who chases and abducts children who have been naughty. He is called Krampus and, thanks to the Internet, Krampus is becoming widely known in English-speaking countries.

In the Nordic and English version, of course, all that is left of Krampus with his horns and hooves and fur is the reindeer which accompany Santa's sleigh. 

In Holland, St. Nick is accompanied on December 6th by a Moorish youth wearing a turban and a fur-trimmed costume called Svarte Piet, who delights in teasing naughty children.

In English-speaking countries, prudish Victorians stripped Santa of all his impish devilry. Santa is nice to all and punishes no one. 

In Europe, Santa's Dark Side still prowls — marches defiantly, in fact. In a way, the Anglo-American Santa Claus was lobotomized by the Victorians so that he is only docile and sweet-humoured.

But to understand the REAL Santa Claus, you have to understand his Darker Side. You have to understand where Santa is coming from, literally....

He is composite spirit being who in English-speaking countries is called St. Nicholas, Santa Claus or Father Christmas. 

But the deeper you go back into the forests of Europe, the more differentiated this ancient being becomes so that you see his various component parts — including Antinous-Apollo — all competing against each other — sometimes morphing into each other.

THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEII GOES ON AS ANOTHER WALL CRUMBLES TO BITS

YET another wall has collapsed at Pompeii amid a rising cry of outrage over Italy's botched efforts to prevent the Roman city from crumbling to bits.

After weeks of heavy wind and rain which caused water to gush down the ancient streets (photo above), part of a wall collapsed on one of Pompeii's major streets early this week, site officials said.

Plaster has also fallen from the wall of the ornately frescoed House of the Small Fountain.

A €105 million ($145 million) project to save the buildings which were frozen in time after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD was launched in February.

But restoration work has also only partially begun because bids by companies for contracts are still being assessed.

A series of collapses in Pompeii over the last month led Italian media to dub it a "Black November" for the ancient city.

The declaration of a state of emergency five years ago failed to halt the deterioration amid allegations that funds were being siphoned off by the mafia, and reports of mismanagement and looting.

The collapse of the frescoed House of the Gladiators caused international outcry in 2010.

Italy's National Association of Archaeologists expressed 'regret and anger 'at the latest collapse and criticised the government for failing to appoint someone to lead the restoration.

"This is an incomprehensible delay. If culture is to be a priority in Italy we must start with Pompeii, now decimated by continuous collapses caused mainly by a lack of routine maintenance," the group said in a statement.

MARQUIS de SADE SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON December 2nd, the Religion of Antinous honors the Marquis de Sade for being the first person since ancient times to proclaim publicly his adoration of the beauty of Antinous.

The Marquis de Sade was himself probably what we would nowadays call ambi-sexual. At any rate, homosexual activity is an important item in his program of revolutionary sexual libertinism.

The Comte Donatien-Alphonse-François de Sade, more often called the Marquis de Sade, lent his name to the complex psycho-sexual phenomenon of "sadism" -- that is, the derivation of pleasure from cruelty through inflicting physical pain, mental suffering, or both.

To this day, "sadism" (which was named for him) is a provocative term which turns off conventional-minded people -- and turns on those other people who are into Fetish, BDSM and the many other related fields of sexual endeavour.

Yet there is more to Sade's writings than sadism -- the term coined by Krafft-Ebing in his "Psychopathia Sexualis" (1876). For running  throughout the Sadean oeuvre of plays, stories, essays, novellas, and letters -- and often overlapping with the most calculated outrages of his obscene novels -- is a philosophical discourse on freedom, power, evil and desire.

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade was born June 2, 1740, in Paris, France. The Marquis grew up in the decadent excesses of pre-revolution France's aristocracy.

Sade's father, for instance, was arrested while "cruising" the Tuileries Gardens for male hustlers. Throughout most of his life, the Marquis pursued bizarre forms of sexual gratification, he was arrested for his excesses numerous times and spent several periods of time imprisoned.

In 1772, he was sentenced to death as a "sodomite." Though the sentence was lifted in 1776, he was imprisoned for many years. Early in July 1789, as mobs rallied for the revolution, he screamed to the masses from his cell window in the Bastille, telling them that the prisoners were being slaughtered by the guards on orders of the aristocracy. 

The mob subsequently freed him, but the cloud of immorality never lifted and he died broken in mind and body.

And yet it was his imprisonment which resulted in his literary legacy. While serving that sentence in the Bastille, he began to turn his extreme imagination towards writing books and plays, which are a summit of erotic poetry.

It is from these works that the word Sadism is derived because the philosophy of sexual violence and domination was delineated and demonstrated for the first time by the Marquis in his numerous and detailed catalogues of perversions.

One of these works, entitled "The 120 Days of Sodom" was written  while in the Bastille. When the prison was stormed during the French Revolution, many of the works of the Marquis de Sade were lost, including this work. It was miraculously rediscovered in 1904, rolled up in the frame of a bed, and subsequently published.

We consecrate the memory of the Marquis de Sade because he was a sexual revolutionary, who spoke quite openly about homosexuality, and who freely acknowledged that his valet Latour was his personal sodomizer.

And he was among the first to take up the name of Antinous for beauty and homoerotic purposes, naming one of the characters in "The 120 Days of Sodom" after Antinous, describing him in this way:

"Antinous: so named because, like Hadrian's favorite, he had, together with the world's loveliest prick, its most voluptuous ass, and that is exceedingly rare. Antinous wielded a device measuring eight inches in circumference and twelve in length. He was thirty and had a face worthy of his other features."

The Marquis de Sade died December 2, 1814, in Charenton Insane Asylum.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT COMPOSES OPERA ABOUT HADRIAN AND ANTINOUS

THE Canadian Opera Company has commissioned an opera about Hadrian and Antinous composed by Rufus Wainwright.

The opera – simply titled "Hadrian" – with a libretto by Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor will have its world premiere as the opening production of the company's 2018 season.

It will be the first COC commission since 1999, as well as the first by COC General Director Alexander Neef. And with its celebrity creator and larger-than-life subject matter, it's almost certain to create a stir.

Wainwright, of course, is the gifted Canadian singer/songwriter/musical man about the world who has forged a unique career in mainstream contemporary music as an original, quirky, thinking person's pop star. And he's not new to the world of opera.

"Prima Donna," his 2009 debut, which told the story of an aging opera singer attempting to make a comeback, has been presented in Manchester, London, New York, Toronto and around the globe, to reviews that roamed from the enthusiastic ("a love song to opera," wrote The Times of London) to the outraged (The New York Times called it "an ultimately mystifying failure") – the quality of reaction being determined, more or less, by the closeness of the reviewer to the world of classical music.

Neef and Wainwright started talking about Hadrian around the time Wainwright was serenading his mother with the opera's overture in early 2010.

As his mother, Kate McGarrigle, faced her final days in January, 2010, Wainwright played his latest composition for her at the family piano ... the overture to his new opera about Antinous and Hadrian.

What attracted him to Hadrian was the power of the story Wainwright wanted to tell. 

Certainly the story of the Emperor Hadrian has plenty to offer contemporary audiences. Quixotic, domineering and visionary, Hadrian represented the end of the Classical era in Roman history, a fascinating period when the influence of Greek ideas began to predominate in Roman society, changing its political landscape in significant ways.

Wainwright adds, "And then there's Antinous, essentially the male equivalent to Helen of Troy - though we know he actually existed and exactly what he looked like. At one point he was neck and neck with Christ in terms of cult status after disappearing in the Nile. Imagine what a different world that would have been if he had lived!"

THE NEW STAR OF ANTINOUS

ON December 1st we remember the day in 1999 when a New Star was discovered in what had once been the Constellation of Antinous.

It reminded us of that dark night 1,800 years ago when grief-stricken Hadrian looked up into the heavens with tearful eyes and saw a new star in what had until then been the Constellation of Ganymede.

Hadrian proclaimed it the STAR OF ANTINOUS and renamed the constellation after Antinous. 

Flamen Antonyus sees parallels to the new discovery which coincides with the re-establishment of the Religion of Antinous for the new Millennium and writes:

"In 1999 on December 1st, a Super Nova was discovered in the constellation Aquila, visible with the naked eye. It was confirmation that the ancient celestial event criticized by Dio Cassius as a lie might indeed have occurred, prompting Hadrian to redraw the map of the constellations and include Antinous among the immortal heroes of antiquity. 

"This new star named by astronomers Nova Aquilae v1492 was a sign of the return of Antinous in the modern age. It was a signal to begin the reconsecration of His sacred religion. 

"The light of this new star passed over the face of the Earth, illuminating the hearts of all those who believe in him, effecting change and demonstrating those whose eyes were directed towards the heavens that the voice of Antinous was beckoning, and the time to revive his religion had finally come, after so many centuries of silence. 

"With this sign from Antinous we are compelled, out of love to inflame ourselves for his sake and to spread the light of the New Star to the world."