Tea at Trianon: 300,000-year-old Elephant Skeleton In Europe

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, June 26, 2020

300,000-year-old Elephant Skeleton In Europe

From Ancient Origins:

The fact that there were numerous elephants around the Schöningen lake is proven by footprints left behind and documented approximately 100 meters (328 ft) from the elephant excavation site. Flavio Altamura from Sapienza University of Rome who analyzed the tracks, told us that this is the first find of its kind in Germany. "A small herd of adults and younger animals must have passed through. The heavy animals were walking parallel to the lake shore. Their feet sank into the mud, leaving behind circular tracks with a maximum diameter of about 60 centimeters [24 in]."

The Schöningen sites have already provided a great deal of information about plants, animals and human existence 300,000 years ago during the Reinsdorf interglacial. The climate at that time was comparable to that of today, but the landscape was much richer in wildlife. About 20 large mammal species lived around the lake in Schöningen at that time, including not only elephants but also lions, bears, saber-toothed cats, rhinoceros, wild horses, deer and large bovids. "The wealth of wildlife was similar to that of modern Africa," says Serangeli. (Read more.)

Meanwhile, in Mexico, mammoths have been found. Share