But it’s probably not a Civil War vessel

Ike-uncovered vessel’s identity remains in doubt – al.com

It was partially uncovered way back when by Camille, and the Army Corps of Engineers said it had 20th century elements like steel cables and was probably the Rachel, which ran aground in 1933. Which is moderately cool, but not nearly as cool as a Civil War boat.

Kind of makes you reevaluate Big Bird

Scientists: Velociraptor had feathers – CNN.com

Happy Bigfeet

Giant penguins may have roamed Peru – Yahoo! News

A five-foot-tall penguin with a “long sharp beak” that was “remarkably spearlike”. Who’s cute now, huh?

(Via Meryl.)

This may be some sort of irony

Vote on selling museum site to St. Cecilia nuns expected- al.com

The Red Mountain Museum was dedicated to paleontology. And now the building will be torn down and replaced by parking for nuns. Nuns have cars?

Oh, sure

300 bronze vases stolen from cemetery recovered

You take a bronze vase from a 2000-year-old grave and sell it to a museum, you’re an “archaeologist”. You take a new bronze vase from a new grave and sell it to a scrap dealer and you’re a “thief”. That’s hardly fair.

UPDATE: “Bob” came via an automatically generated link from Fox News. Why am I not surprised?

Sutton Too

CNN.com – Treasure hunters find possible Viking burial boat – Feb. 18, 2004

Bear with me, but I think this sort of thing is just neat. “Amateur metal detector enthusiasts” — is there any other kind? — found a few little ninth-century artifacts in Yorkshire. Some of the findings were nails normally used to build boats; archaeologists think it’s the site of a longship burial.

More ruins of Tuscaloosa

This is roughly 150, 160 degrees clockwise from the other picture, showing the other side of the old capitol’s mini-rotunda. (I’m standing roughly five feet in front of where the front door — or possibly the back — was.) This side’s plastered and painted kind of a peach or beige color, presumably for preservation. (I couldn’t find any reason for this on the site, but any original paint would be long gone in this climate.) Through the doorway you can see one of the more intact of the building’s Greek columns.

Ruins of Tuscaloosa

Went out with the digital camera this afternoon, took some pictures, mostly at Capitol Park. Tuscaloosa was the state capital in the 1830s and 1840s, and the park holds the remains of the capitol building. It’s kind of weird living in a city with ruins. Eventually, I’ll try to get all the pictures up, but here’s one:

On the right is the outside of the northern part of the old central chamber, facing towards the river. The low wall on the left front must be the outside wall of the building. The building was a small place, but it was a small state.