Freethought Nation

Fossil Fish with Fingers

Here's a video of Dr. Ted Daeschler, one my best friends at Franklin & Marshall College, appearing on the Stephen Colbert Show. Ted has since become a world renowned paleontologist - perhaps the most famous of the modern era. He discovered a fossil fish with fingers that he says is the "precursor to all limbed animals." He is also an evolutionary scientist.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... -daeschler

Ted has also been on "Nightline" and featured in other major media because of his discoveries.

I don't have many pictures from college, but here's one of Ted I took at a college party.



And here's a photo of Ted and me, taking a photo of Ted and me. We were both blondies back then.



Ted taught me how to use an SLR camera. His favorite brand - which became mine - was a totally manual Minolta SRT-201. After he taught me how to use it, I bought my own and used it all over Greece and the rest of Europe. I once called Ted from the island of Santorini, back in the day when overseas phone calls took hours to place and cost an arm and a leg.

I do have a bunch of photos that Ted took of me as well. Unfortunately, I don't have access to them right now.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

World Class Chef

Here's another of my old college buddies from Franklin & Marshall, Rahul Akerkar, who has gone on to become a world-class chef, as in this Wall Street Journal article:

http://www.livemint.com/2008/08/0823593 ... -Chef.html

Here's another article about Rahul and his restaurant in India called "Indigo," which the WSJ deemed possibly the best of its kind in the country.

http://www.uppercrustindia.com/10crust/ten/mumbai4.htm

Here's a picture of Rahul, his roommate Toto and me in NYC, back when Rahul had hair!



Here's another photo of Rahul I took:



Rahul gave me a lesson in Hindi once - it was not an easy language to pronounce. I love the Indian culture and Indian food!

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Infamous Debunking Anthropologist

My professor during a summer archaeological dig at Connecticut State College was Dr. Kenneth Feder, who has written and has appeared on several TV documentaries, including on National Geographic. The author of Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Ken is famous for gently and kindly debunking esoteric mysteries such as Atlantis and ancient aliens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Feder

Here's a video of Ken:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay-VRIMjpxw

Ken's a very friendly fellow and has a great sense of humor.

Here's a picture of me with Ken during our excavation together.



Here's my trench partner on the dig.



Here are my trench partner and me:



And here's an artifact we found at a 3,000-year-old Paleo-Indian tool-making camp.



Back at the lab - I'm in the very back with the white shirt.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Professor of History and Caesarea Archaeologist

I was good friends at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, with Dr. Clayton Lehmann, who is a professor of History at the University of South Dakota.

http://www.usd.edu/~clehmann/

Clayton is listed here as a Member of the Managing Committee for 2007-2008 at the American School of Classical Studies:

http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/about/mc-listing

He was also an archaeologist at the important site of Caesarea in Israel.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-143339921.html

I have a picture of Clayton, but unfortunately with all the running around over the years, it's not available. Most of my pictures from ASCSA are slides, so they'd have to be converted first, but I don't have most of them anyway.

Clayton and I traveled all around the mainland of Greece with the American School. I recall having a series of beers with him at a pub in Sparta - yes, that Sparta.

Well, here's one image from the year at the American School, of a fellow named Preston Kaufman, III (?), who was a Princeton graduate.



Clayton, Preston and I went for a very long hike up the back of Mt. Parnassos, if memory serves me correctly. At one point we were lost, but some other hikers mysteriously showed up out of nowhere to point us in the right direction.

Here's one of my professors at the American School of Classical Studies, Dr. Fred Cooper. I didn't take this photo, but he was an unforgettable character.



Here's another of my professors, Dr. John McK Camp, who runs the dig at the Athenian Agora.



Dr. Camp was the tour guide for Hillary and Chelsea Clinton when they visited the Acropolis. I didn't take this picture, but I did play poker with Dr. Camp - he always won.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Thanks for sharing those pics, Acharya.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

You're welcome, Mriana.

I meant to include one of my professors from Franklin & Marshall as well.

Noted MesoAmerican Anthropologist

One of my professors at Franklin & Marshall College was Dr. James M. Taggart, who is still teaching at F&M, in the Department of Anthropology. I studied MesoAmerican anthropology with Dr. Taggart, who has authored several important books and papers on the subject.



Here's a little gem from Dr. Taggart's book Nahuat Myth and Social Structure, describing the beliefs of Catholicized Nahua (Aztec) Indians who equate Jesus with the sun god:


And you all wondered where I got my love for the subject from. Actually, I had no idea Dr. Taggart was writing about such topics until recently, but I had to congratulate him for being one of the few credentialed authorities to venture forth in this regard. According to one of his fellow anthropologists, the equation of Christ with the sun god by the Nahau is "widely known" among specialists in this field.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Lassies from ASCSA

Well, I found some lassies to accompany the laddies with whom I was friends at the American School of Classical Studies.

One of the nicest lassies around was Dr. Elizabeth Ann ("Beth") Fisher, a professor of Classics at Randolph-Macon College.

http://www.rmc.edu/academics/classics/fisher.aspx

Here's a photo of some of her archaeology students:



Beth was a very lovely and helpful person who cared about everyone else. I was delighted to count her among my friends that year.

Another lassie from ASCSA was Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" McGowan, an associate professor of Art at Williams College.

http://www.williams.edu/Art/wcart/facul ... cgowan.htm



Liz was into New Wave music like the Eurythmics. I remember her as being very hip and cool - a great haircut I tried to emulate with an Athenian haircutter. Never could get it right.

Here's a slide I took of Liz at the excavation at Corinth during our year at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Her trench was right next to mine. The excavation at Corinth was headed by Dr. Charles K. Williams, II, while the head of the Corinth Museum at that time was Dr. Nancy Bookidis - I ate breakfast at the dig house with them every morning. The Corinth dig is now run by the British School's Dr. Guy Sanders, whom I met during my sojourn there. He was the husband of another of my fellow members at ASCSA, Jan Sanders.



Here's a photo I took of the view every day as we walked to the excavation.



I took these shots with Kodak slide film, with its nice warm reddish tones, but for some reason they were put on a disc using a FujiFilm Imager, which made them bluish. I never liked Fuji film for that reason.

Anyway, it was truly exquisite excavating at this magnificent place. I used to chat with the workmen in Greek - some of them had worked at the dig for 25 years and really knew the place. They were very helpful to us students, and I told them so.

Beth and Liz are both listed on ASCSA's page of Cooperating Institutions and Their Representatives:

http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/about ... ing-instit

You can see the list of the rest of the professors I studied under at ASCSA in my credentials page. I would be willing to bet that Dr. Steven Miller still remembers me, as I was a bit of a troublemaker. (As if anything has changed.) His wife at the time, Dr. Stella Miller, was somewhat uptight and tended to yell at people - I was very intimidated! At the opening party at ASCSA the Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri, a famous Greek actress, and the Greek President's wife both showed up. Mercouri spearheaded the campaign to get the Elgin Marbles returned to Greece.

Another person I met was the German head of the excavation at Olympia, Greece, one of my favorite places on Earth. I don't exactly recall his name, but it was probably Dr. Alfred Mallwitz. I remember being fascinated by him because he was the first person I saw in situ excavating a major archaeological site. The other members were peeved at me for pushing my way to the front when he was lecturing.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Minister Headmaster

During my junior year, I did a semester abroad in Greece with Lake Forest College, under the direction of Rev. Dr. Dan P. Cole, a professor emeritus or Religion.

http://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/cat ... tories.asp

Dan - yes, he let us call him that - was a wonderful man, and his wife was very lovely as well. He was a patient and excellent guide - we were very fortunate to have him as our teacher. Especially since he had his hands full with a bunch of wild college students in a foreign country where retsina flowed like water.

During my year with ASCSA, Dan hired me to be the assistant teacher on Crete for the class he led there with the Lake Forest program that year.

I wish I had some pics of Dr. Cole, but here's a page with a DVD for which he wrote the captions:



http://www.easycart.net/ecarts/bib-arch ... l?img#8H69

Here's a photo I took of a lovely man at a giant farmer's market in Thessaloniki, where I went with my friend Tracey from Oberlin College.



He initially stepped out of the picture, thinking I would just want the fish, but I told him (in Greek) that I wanted him in it. He was so excited and proud - you can see it in his face - he had tears in his eyes. This is one of my favorite pictures. You can tell his buddy wanted in on the pic too, so I didn't crop him out. This was back in the days when there weren't all that many fancy cameras around, so the whole market thought Tracey and I were professional photogs from Ameriki. They were SO thrilled I spoke Greek - and Tracey did a little as well.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Lovely Lawyer

Another good friend of mine at Franklin & Marshall, Frank Marciano, who is a lawyer in New Jersey, has been in the media.

http://www.hobokenattorney.com/

Here's a photo I took of Frank at college:



Frank always had a warm heart and a friendly ear. He was a very popular fellow at F&M.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Merci Acharya, Your photos bring back fond memories of a summer in Greece mapping Tanagra (4th C BCE) in '85. I long for retsina, tatziki, bread and evenings on rooftops. Thank you also for your diligent scholarship in researching and writing your books of which I'm now enjoying the Fingerprints of Christ, alongside of Fraser's 'the golden bough' and Dawkins 'the god delusion'. Christ in Egypt will be next, among others. A first year "Roots of Western Religions" course by a Professor Fisher had inspired me and now I'm finally making more time to delve deeper into the subject years later. If ever in southern France, our door is always open.

Lol! It's awesome seeing a person as passionate as you, Acharya. You are a great role model for my little 17 year old cousin (she wants to become an archeologist and discover the truth too! )

Wow, that was great seeing myself thin and young and quite serious, also great seeing Rahul cooking it up in India. But it great seeing you shaking it all up. What is so amazing is how the mainstream press censor so much truth without government intervention which allows even common sense to questioned. It is great to see you follow the logical paths your intellect take you on to a conclusion that is really just common sense. You were always especially smart and kind and I remember your great laugh. Another great F and M truth teller is Scott Ritter who famously and courageously went public on the truth that Iraq had no WMDs. [url].

Totally cool as you ever were, and I cant wait to read your books

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Frank P Marciano

Thanks guys, for all the lovely and inspiring comments. I am honored to be considered a young woman's role model.

And -

OMIGOD, Frank! How great to hear from you. Check out what I also have - I don't have many pictures with me, but I just happened to have TWO of you. I guess that says something, eh? And fine ones they are.

You wrote on the back of the first one above, "A true punk rocker."

How about this lovely shot?



I watched your video, Mr. Legal Eagle. Seems many of us have remained inspired in life!

Speaking of Rahul - remember this guy?



That would be Niccolo, along with Margie and Marcie. I stayed with Niccolo's family at their 30-room villa in Florence, Italy. The room I was in was part of a tower that was built by the Romans in the fifth century. It was sitting on top of one of the hills in Florence, as a watchtower. What a view!

Yes, Scott Ritter - I don't recall him at F&M, but we all sat up and took notice when he blew that whistle. Phew! He may just take more heat than I do.

So great to hear from you, my friend. We had some seriously great times together - and a lotta laughs! I hope you enjoy my books.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Mysterious Mason Marks on Crete

I've been to the glorious island of Crete several times - it's one of my favorite places on Earth. Naturally, there is the fabulous architecture of the palaces of the Minoan era and all the beautiful scenery. But while I was wandering around one of the palaces - I believe it was at Phaistos - I was suddenly fascinated by the mysterious mason's marks all around. I found myself taking pictures of them at every turn, although I only have a few pics in my possession.

The palaces of the Minoan culture date from around 2500 BCE to about 1600 BCE when some of them were largely destroyed by the tsunami from the massive eruption of the volcanic island of Thera/Santorini to the northeast. Phaistos was on a hill in the southern and western part of the island, so it did not get destroyed by the same cataclysm.

Here are some of the mason marks I photographed there:









Notice the cross in the middle of the circle in this last one, while this apparent solar symbol seems to be sitting on top of a pyramid, which could represent a mountain.

I believe a scientific study of the mason marks on the old palaces of Crete would be fascinating and important.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Mysterious? Somehow they look a little familiar. I think one is missing a P or something like that.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison