But he did come to Belize, hacking through jungles, meeting Mayan villagers and exploring deserted, tropical archipelagos, and he did excavate the ruins at Lubaantun. Clutching a dusty copy of his Belizean travelogue, Land of Wonder and Fear, I set out on the Hummingbird Highway to follow the route of his real-life adventure. Ecosystems range from mountainous pine forests to reefs, savannahs to jungles. These support a plethora of flora and fauna, including species of bird and species of mammal.
The human population is diverse too. Mayan teenagers in hoodies shop in the Ah Fang Taiwanese supermarket. South Asian youths play pool in a roadside shack. Creoles and Canadians dance the night away to Garifuna music, the unique blend of African and Amerindian cultures created when, in , escaped African slaves from a Spanish ship allied with the native Caribs on St Vincent, and later spread to Belize. Even in remote villages, most people will happily chat away to you in perfect English.
Belize is the only Anglophone country in Central America, making it easy and pleasurable to explore, and to meet new friends along the way. It is not long before we reach the colourful seaside town of Dangriga. No disappointment is in store for, aside from having both legs and being Creole, Captain Buck looks the part of Captain Ahab.
He is a grizzled old seadog in a booth near the bar, tucking into the local delicacy of crispy pastries — known as fry jack, and served with everything. He nods towards his motorboat, moored just outside. It is a searingly bright Caribbean day, and the sea glitters as if filled with sequins. Ten minutes out of the harbour, a shiny grey fin breaks the surface.
Captain Buck veers the boat over towards it. For a fleeting second, four or five bottlenose dolphins curve out of the surf by the bow, before plunging back into the depths. But the specks in the air are not flies. They are hundreds of magnificent frigatebirds, swooping and gliding over their nesting spot.
Captain Buck takes the boat so close that we are enveloped in their flock: the males puffing up scarlet throats, the females circling the trees. An inquisitive pelican paddles up to the boat to see if we have fish to spare. It is filled with manatees, giant sea mammals that were supposedly mistaken for mermaids by the sailors of yore. The manatee is a noble beast but, with its sunken eyes, bloated cigar-shaped body and lumpy face, it is not the prettiest. Those sailors had not seen a woman for a very long time.
These days, it is home to a cluster of cabanas for snorkelers, divers and kayakers. Belize is famous for its dive sites, particularly the Great Blue Hole — a perfectly circular sinkhole, as wide as the Eiffel Tower is tall, set in the middle of Lighthouse Reef. Plunging to metres, the hole is a favourite lurking ground of sharks, and was made famous by Jacques Cousteau.
Even for the casual snorkeler, there are plenty of thrills to be had, and Tobacco Caye is an ideal spot to start having them: the reef starts just a few yards offshore. If you can persuade Captain Buck to take you out to a channel, you can jump in amid eagle rays, turtles, tarpon, barracudas and even whale sharks.
True color of the Shroud of Turin on left, negative image to display details on right. The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the single most-studied artifact in human history, alleges shroud. The 14 foot linen first surfaced in when it was gifted to a church in France by a knight. She then took it on a tour for people to see the shroud and later sold it in exchange for two castles in After a period of time, it came to its final place in the Cathedral of St.
John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, hence the name. It has been there since The Shroud of Turin, behind the Ark of the Covenant, is probably one of the biggest biblical artifact mysteries to plague modern minds. The shroud, of course, has its proponents. Since modern times, science has attempted to back up these claims. A report in the s says the bloodstains on the shroud are consistent with a crucified body and also says the bloodstains were real and not purposely placed.
As recently as , Italian scientists used infrared lights and spectroscopy to date the shroud to BCE - CE, making it the correct age. The first two indications of the shroud as a fake come from history. In , an artist claimed they had faked the shroud. And it was said the dean of the French church knew it was a fake. Further scientific evidence comes in the form of radiocarbon dating.
In , three independent teams from Switzerland, England, and the United States studied samples from the shroud, which dated the textile to around CE. The study, however, has been criticized for its lack of peer review, which is important for authenticity in scientific and academic communities.
I, personally, am skeptical of the preservation of the shroud. It is in wonderful condition for linen, which is very biodegradable , and would have been in a Mediterranean climate if outside of Jerusalem, as claimed, which has mild, wet winters.
This weather would have adverse effects on the preservation of the shroud. Certain situations could have kept it preserved, however, so this is not the strongest argument. However, another nail in the proverbial coffin seems to be the difference between this and burial practices. This, however, is just from a cursory search and I am by no means an expert in 1st century funerary rites in Palestine. With the real question being: are these fakes?
This blog post will be continued next week with the Dyatlov Pass Incident, which was originally meant to be part of this post. However, it got quite long and deserved its own blog post. Cart 0. Walsh has seen her share of fakes. In fact, she has become something of a specialist on the subject. In , according to Walsh, the museum received an unsolicited donation of a larger-than-life, ten-inch-high skull carved from milky-hued quartz. Some time later, Walsh, an expert in Mexican archaeology, was asked to research the skull, one of several known to exist.
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