Infrared and variable wavelength aerial photography reveal the outlines of the lost city

The Roman city of Altinum is one of the rare ancient cities of importance not continuously inhabited and built over in modern times.

The city’s history went back far into Antiquity. It was already a significant commercial center in the 5th century B.C. Its mild climate attracted wealthy Romans who built luxury villas there, mentioned by Martial. Marcus Aurelius’ co-emperor Lucius Verus perished during an epidemic at Altinum. In the Christian era, Altinum was the seat of a bishopric.

The history of Altinum came to an abrupt end when the city was destroyed by Attila the Hun in 452 A.D. Its inhabitants fled to nearby coastal islands where they founded what became the city of Venice.

Daily Mail:

(T)hanks to sophisticated aerial imagery, the lost city has been brought to life once again more than 1,500 years on.

From the ground, the 100-hectare site just north of Italy’s Venice airport looks like nothing more than rolling fields of corn and soybeans.

But researchers have managed to map out the remains of the buried city, revealing a detailed street plan of the city walls, the street network, dwellings, theatres and other structures.

They also show a complex network of rivers and canals, revealing how the people mastered the marshy environment in what is now the lagoon of Venice.

In July 2007 Paolo Mozzi, a geomorphologist at the University of Padua in Italy, and his team took aerial photos of the site in several wavelengths of visible light and in near-infrared.

The photos were taken during a severe drought in 2007, which made it possible to pick up the presence of stones, bricks and other solid structures beneath the surface.

When the images were processed to tease out subtle variations in plant water stress, a buried metropolis emerged.

The BBC story has animated video flyover.

Eugéne Delacroix (1798-1863), Atilla suivi de ses hordes, foule aux pieds l’Italie et les arts (Attila followed by his Horde, Trampling under Foot Italy and the Arts), Bibliothèque, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 1843-47

Divulged by Shiplord Kirel to Charles Johnson.

Tammy Bruce reports that posters depicting Barack Obama as the villainous and insane Joker (as portrayed by Heath Ledger in the 2008 film The Dark Knight) have been appearing recently in public places in Los Angeles.

Noel Sheppard (who is not easy to get to, since he is being flooded by readers from Drudge) says it has been seen in LA since last April and links a copy (with unreadable inscription on forehead) posted at a KFC near Atlanta.

Austrian Times reports on an intriguing prank gift item from Germany.

A bikini that dissolves in water has outraged killjoy women’s rights campaigners.

The saucy thong swimsuit – sold as the perfect present for dumped boyfriends – looks like a real bikini but disappears completely after just a few seconds in water.

Sellers in Germany bill the Get Naked costume as a chance for men to get their own back after a break-up.

But women’s rights campaigner Rosmarie Zapfl stormed: “It is an absolute insult to women that this has been invented.”

Revenge Shop web-site.

Karen notes that women commonly wash swim suits before wearing them, and wonders who would accept a bikini from an ex-boy friend?

More likely, a few mischievous guys will be presenting these to soon-to-be ex-girl friends.

We’re probably getting the red male with the black mask

A friend from the sporting literature community got in touch with me to inform me that a retired Russian zoologist who is a keen aficionado of aboriginal dogs had bred his first litter of Kazakh Tazis.

Tazis are hounds used for coursing, the pursuit of game using swift hounds which hunt by sight rather than by scent.

He will look like his mother as an adult

Tazi is really just one regional term for the saluki, probably the oldest type of domesticated dog.

Kazakhstan is renowned in coursing circles as the last refuge of native-bred saluki of first-rate hunting ability, unmixed with Western or show dog strains. A few enthusiasts have actually traveled to Central Asia in recent years in search of the canine equivalent of the Holy Grail.

Looking at photos of those puppies had the inevitable result, I succumbed and mailed in a deposit. The opportunity to own so rare and exotic a hunting dog is very unusual. Of course, house-breaking and trying to bring up a fierce aboriginal hunter from the steppes of Central Asia in a house full of cats and antiques is probably going to be a lot like trying to establish peace and order in the neighborhood of the Khyber Pass.

Kazakhstan looks upon tazis as an important cultural treasure

According to this Free Republic post, an attorney named Orly Taitz, representing Alan Keyes, has filed a petition to have the above Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama II authenticated.

Web searches produced no other news sources reporting any such development. So I think we need to be just a little skeptical here.

The Orly Taitz web-site has a distinct flavor of the fever swamp about it. Still, it has clearly gotten some lefties excited. When I tried to open Dr. Taitz’s blog, the Trend Micro antivirus software I use blocked it, informing me that this site has been reported as a site distributing malware.

Too bad that its reliability is so dubious. This website does offer a sample long form Hawaiian birth certificate, which, if real, would be a very interesting piece of data. Not as good as Barack Obama’s actual Kenyan birth record, but pretty good.

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UPDATE 8/3:

You read it here first, but the story is everywhere today, being reported with skepticism similar to my own.

Daily Kos’s David Waldman notes that the Kenyan birth record is labelled “Republic of Kenya,” Obama’s date of birth is August 4, 1961, and the new birth record is dated February 17, 1964, but Kenya became independent December 12, 1963 and changed status from a Dominion to a Republic on December 12, 1964.

Below the Beltway discusses the problem with the purported Kenyan document at length.

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UPDATE 8/4:

David Weigel seems to have found the source of that Kenyan birth record: an Australian birth record taken from an Internet genealogy site.

Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza try improving on the participants’ beer choices for Barack Obama’s rose garden meeting with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his arresting officer James Crowley. The duo proceed to assign beer choices to a variety of other Washington figures.

3:28 video

The Washington Post already pulled this once, presumably because of an uncomplimentary reference to Hillary Clinton. I would not count on the link remaining good terribly long.

Thomas Lifson thinks the photo of Sergeant James Crowley helping Henry Louis Gates Jr down the White House steps toward that rose garden beer summit, while Barack Obama strides blissfully ahead tells us a lot about Obama.

It certainly makes an effective contrast to the other photo of President Bush assisting Senator Robert Byrd.