Ace History Desk – Then he produced an all-girl band. He was a radio producer, an underground political activist, an accused gold smuggler, a flight instructor and the producer of one of Indonesia’s most significant bands.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published:Apr.30:  2024: ABC History News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

Mohammad Sidik Tamimi, also known as Dick Tamimi, was one of Indonesia’s most colourful characters and his life story was intertwined with much of that country’s turbulent past.

Yet many people don’t know anything about him. Musician and art producer Julien Poulson wants to fix this. The ethnomusicologist stumbled upon some of Tamimi’s story while he was flicking through a crate of old vinyls at a flea market in Surabaya, Indonesia. He found a record by Dara Puspita, Indonesia’s first all-female rock band, who were popular in the 1960s. Dick Tamimi was their producer during that period. “ What fascinates me about Dara Puspita is that they wrote a flippant song in a recording session called Surabaya, named after their hometown … and it became a hit,” Poulson says. “ If you catch the train into Surabaya today, you’ll hear that on the PA system. It’s played as the train arrives “ But show anybody in the streets a picture of the band or one of their records [and] they won’t know who it is.” Now Poulson plans to bring the story of the band and their eccentric producer into the spotlight. He’s developing a musical about their extraordinary adventures, and it’ll include gold-smuggling, plane crashes, and a Hungarian circus.

Melting down gold jewellery

Before he became a legendary record producer, Dick Tamimi’s life revolved around radios. Born in West Java in 1922, he studied electrical engineering and later he opened a radio repair shop. But when the Japanese troops invaded Indonesia in 1942 as part of World War II, it transformed his life. Indonesia had been ruled by the Dutch, until the Japanese invasion and occupation brought this to an end. The Japanese occupied the country for three and a half years, but surrendered in 1945. The Dutch took control once again but there was a growing Indonesian independence movement. In the 1940s, Tamimi became a flight lieutenant in the Indonesian Air Force. He helped topple the Dutch colonial government and aided the emerging independence movement. These Indonesian rebels formed an alternative government in the jungle, called the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia or PDRI. They moved around the West Sumatran jungles evading the Dutch.

So, in September 1947, Vice President Mohammad Hatta called for donors and set up checkpoints across Sumatra for donations of gold jewellery.

“[Tamimi] was tasked with joining the government in the jungle in Sumatra, with a special mission to acquire a plane for the new [Indonesian] government-in-waiting, and the plane was this beautiful looking 1930s Avro Anson,” Poulson explains. But the fledgling Indonesian government, led by president Sukarno, didn’t have the funds to purchase it. In less than two months, local Sumatran women gave nearly 15 kilograms of jewellery for the cause, which was melted down into gold bars. They planned to purchase the plane for 12 kilograms of gold from a former Australian pilot Paul Keegan, who wanted the transaction to take place in Thailand. Tamimi was part of the group who went to meet the pilot, but unfortunately, the purchase didn’t go to plan.

When the group arrived in Thailand, the Thai military wanted to charge everyone with smuggling gold.

Tamimi escaped over land while two others attempted to escape in the plane. Unfortunately the plane crashed off the coast of Malaysia. The gold bars were reportedly onboard, but when the plane was recovered, Poulson says there was only one body — and no gold.

From the jungle to the studio

Tamimi returned to Indonesia and rejoined the rebels fighting against the Dutch, who were refusing to relinquish their remaining power.

To help them, Tamimi returned to his first love, radio. His skills were invaluable to the revolutionary efforts as he helped broadcast their refusal to accept Dutch rule from the jungle. Finally sovereignty was formally transferred in 1949, and Tamimi retired from the air force. He moved to Jakarta and started his own record company in 1956, discovering and producing two of the most seminal groups in Indonesian recording history — Koes Plus and Dara Puspita. Poulson says Dara Puspita was often described as Indonesia’s female version of the Beatles. But the increasingly autocratic Sukarno regime was threatened by their music and their outrageous style on stage.

In 1965 they were arrested for playing outlawed music. They were told that they were “being too Western and too provocative”, and they weren’t allowed to shake their bodies on stage. 

“[Authorities said] ‘Don’t move like that or go into exile’, which is, of course, what happened,” Poulson says. Poulson says the group went into self-exile, travelling to Thailand and then Europe. At one point, they were contracted to a Hungarian circus where they performed five nights a week. After their stint in Hungary, they moved to the Netherlands in the early 1970s, where their music merged into hard rock, which was on the rise at the time. “ Then they returned triumphantly to Jakarta, to a concert of some 20,000 in a stadium. They returned as heroes,” Poulson says. While the group was in Europe, Tamimi changed careers yet again and became a flight instructor. But, just like the gold-smuggling incident, this path also ended in tragedy.

Just five years after he retired from the record business, the plane Tamimi was flying crashed in South Sumatra, and he was killed in 1978 at the age of 56.

Yet Tamimi’s legacy lives on with Dara Puspita’s records, just as many are set to rediscover his extraordinary life when Poulson’s musical comes to fruition.

AceHistoryDesk – A mysterious Roman artefact found during an amateur archaeological dig is going on public display in Lincolnshire for the first time.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published:Apr.29:  2024: BBC England News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

The object is one of only 33 dodecahedrons ever found in Britain, and the first to have been discovered in the Midlands.

It was found in Norton Disney, near Lincoln, in the summer of 2023. The artefact is also one of the largest ever found, measuring about 3in (8cm) tall and weighing half a pound (245g). The 12-sided object was unearthed by a group of local volunteers.

Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group

The group of volunteers plans to return to the area where the dodecahedron was found in the hope of unearthing more clues

Richard Parker, secretary of the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, said it was a “privilege to have handled” the object, thought to have been buried about 1,700 years ago.

However, he said:

Despite all the research that has gone into our dodecahedron, and others like it, we are no closer to finding out exactly what it is and what it might have been used for. “ The imagination races when thinking about what the Romans may have used it for. Magic, rituals or religion – we perhaps may never know.

“ What we do know is the Norton Disney dodecahedron was found on the top of a hill in a former large pit of some kind. It seems it was deliberately placed there.”

The mysterious objects date back as far as the 1st Century. Some experts believe they were possibly linked to Roman rituals or religion, but there are no references to them in any Roman texts.

The volunteers plan to return to the area where the dodecahedron was found in the hope of unearthing more clues.

The Norton Disney dodecahedron, which featured in a recent episode of the BBC Show Digging for Britain, will be on display at Lincoln Museum as part of the city’s Festival of History from Saturday.

Richard Croft/Geograph

Visitors to the festival will also be able to learn more about Lincoln’s Roman past. Alongside the dodecahedron display, visitors can learn more about Lincoln’s Roman past, and explore other finds unearthed across the city and county. Andrea Martin, exhibitions and interpretations manager at the museum, said having the dodecahedron on show was “a real coup” for local history fans and visitors to the city. She said the festival was also a chance for residents and visitors alike “to discover more about Lincoln’s story”.

AceHistoryDesk – A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England, belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating back to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published:Apr.29:  2024: Reuters News Agency: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

Researchers said the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur.

Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22 and 26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would rival some of the largest baleen whales alive today. The blue whale, considered the largest animal ever on the planet, can reach about 30 meters long.

Marine reptiles ruled the world’s oceans when dinosaurs dominated the land.

Ichthyosaurs, which evolved from terrestrial ancestors and prospered for about 160 million years before disappearing roughly 90 million years ago, came in various sizes and shapes, eating fish, squid relatives and other marine reptiles and giving birth to live young.

Ichthyotitan is known only from two jawbones, the one found by Ruby Reynolds and her father Justin Reynolds in 2020 at Blue Anchor, Somerset, and another from a different Ichthyotitan individual found in 2016, along the Somerset coast at Lilstock.

“It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around the time that dinosaurs were walking on land in what is now the UK during the Triassic Period,” paleontologist Dean Lomax said.

Fossil discovered by young girl and father

Ruby Reynolds, who was 11 at the time and is now 15, was fossil hunting on the beach with her father when they spotted a piece of the surangular. Ruby continued to search the area and found a second piece — much larger than the first — partly buried in a mud slope. They subsequently contacted Dr Lomax, an ichthyosaur expert, and additional sections of the bone were unearthed.

“It has been an amazing, enlightening and fun experience to work with these experts, and we are proud to be part of the team and co-authors of a scientific paper which names a new species and genus,” Justin Reynolds added.

Ichthyotitan was a member of a family of giant ichthyosaurs called shastasauridae, and lived 13 million years later than any of the others known to date, suggesting these behemoths survived until a global mass extinction event that doomed numerous types of animals about 201 million years ago at the end of the Triassic.

No fossils of the rest of Ichthyotitan’s skeleton have been discovered, but the researchers have been able to discern its appearance based on other members of its family including Shonisaurus from British Columbia, Canada.

The surangular is a long, curved bone at the top of the lower jaw, just behind the teeth, present in nearly every vertebrate living or extinct, apart from mammals. Muscles attached to this bone generate bite force.

At Sterling Publishing & Media Service Agency, we value transparency and accountability. We want to inform you that we are not responsible for any external content, links, or posts. Nonetheless, we are dedicated to providing exceptional services and sincerely appreciate your support. Thank you.

AceHistoryDesk – For decades, scientists thought the teeth pointed downward, similar to those of a sabre-toothed cat, but now they believe the fish’s chompers jutted out sideways

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published:Apr.28: 2024: Smithsonian Magazine By Sarah KutaApril 25, 2024 4:35PM: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

Between 5 million and 12 million years ago, enormous salmon swam through the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Weighing up to 400 pounds and measuring more than eight feet long, these hulking creatures—the most significant salmon that ever lived—had long, curved teeth protruding from the top jaw.

For decades, scientists thought these two-inch-long chompers pointed downward—similar to those of a saber-toothed cat. However, a new analysis is painting a different picture: Now, scientists believe the teeth jutted out sideways, like a warthog’s tusks. They described their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

Called Oncorhynchus rastrosus, the extinct species was first described from fossils in 1972.

But in these preserved remains, the upper jaw bones and long teeth were separated from the rest of the skull. Scientists inferred the teeth had pointed down, so they nicknamed the creatures “saber-toothed salmon.” “ It was just natural to assume that when you put this [tooth] back into place, that’s the arrangement that it’s going to be,” says study co-author Kerin Claeson, a paleoecologist at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, to Live Science’s Caroline Tien.

But in 2014, scientists discovered new O. rastrosus fossils in Oregon—with the jaw and teeth still attached, giving palaeontologists a much more transparent look at their orientation.

Researchers also decided to revisit older fossils, using new technologies, including CT scans, to give them a second look. Now, they’ve given O. rastrosus a brand-new nickname: “spike-toothed salmon.”

The newer fossils revealed that male and female members of the species had spikes, which likely started growing as they matured into adulthood.

“This is all part of the scientific process,” says study co-author Edward Davis, a paleobiologist at the University of Oregon, to Popular Science’s Laura Baisas. “You have an idea, and you get new information. It’s a good reminder of the humility you need to have as a scientist.” “ The new reconstruction is supported by very convincing evidence,” says Mark Wilson, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta in Canada who was not involved with the study, to National Geographic’s Riley Black.

But while scientists have solved one big mystery about the giant fish, they still have lots of questions. Chief among them: Why did the salmon evolve to have such long spikes on their heads? And what did they use these odd teeth for?

One theory is that the fish used the spikes to defend themselves against competitors or predators—or, at least for males, to give off the appearance of being tough and scary. The defense hypothesis makes sense in the context of how fish move through the water—by flexing their bodies side to side. The salmon could’ve easily used these same, strong muscles to swing the spikes against rivals.

“ Imagine a one-pound geology hammer, sharpened and wielded by 200 pounds of lateral muscle,” says Claeson to National Geographic.

This idea also makes sense given the large size of O. rastrosus, which would’ve made the species a target for hungry carnivores. One 400-pound fish, after all, is “a lot of meat,” Claeson tells Live Science. “ Discoveries like ours show they probably weren’t gentle giants,” she says in a statement.

Another possibility is that the salmon used their spiky teeth to dig nests in riverbeds or to latch onto something for a quick rest break while swimming upstream—“sort of like if you’re holding on to the side of the swimming pool,” Davis tells Popular Science.

Researchers have mostly ruled out the idea that the salmon used their spikes to catch and kill prey. They believe this because O. rastrosus had lots of “gill rakers,” or bony protuberances that modern fish use to filter plankton out of the water for food. The extinct salmon’s massive size also supports this idea, since many of today’s largest living fish—including the whale shark—are also filter feeders that subsist on plankton.

No matter how the species used its large teeth, O. rastrosus could offer a window into the past—and, possibly, the future.

The enormous salmon lived during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, when Earth was much warmer, and went extinct as the planet began to cool off. As global temperatures rise once again, O. rastrosus might give scientists some clues about what to expect amid the changing climate. By looking at how the giant salmon lived on this much warmer Earth, we can think about what resources are going to change over the next 80 years if our Earth is returning to that warmer state,” Davis tells Popular Science.

At Sterling Publishing & Media Service Agency, we value transparency and accountability. We want to inform you that we are not responsible for any external content, links, or posts. Nonetheless, we are dedicated to providing exceptional services and sincerely appreciate your support. Thank you.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published:Apr.26: 2024: Smithsonian Magazine by Julia BinswangerApril 25, 2024 4:01PM: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2 

A one-inch bronze portrait of Alexander the Great dating to around 200 C.E. has been unearthed on an island in Denmark.

Two metal detectorists, Finn Ibsen and Lars Danielsen, were searching a field outside of Ringsted, a city on the island of Zealand, when Ibsen came across the unusual object. “ I stand and jump on the spot and … wave Lars over,” Ibsen recalls to Kristoffer Koch of the Danish news outlet TV2 Øst, per Google Translate. “He comes running, and we can see that it is unique. It is a face.”

The friends handed the portrait over to Denmark’s Museum West Zealand. Archaeologists aren’t certain about the small disc’s function, but they say it could have been a decoration attached to a shield or sword belt.

Freerk Oldenburger, an archaeologist at the museum, tells Live Science’s Jennifer Nalewicki that the disc is “almost identical” to a silver artifact found several years ago in Jutland, Denmark.

“ It’s quite a remarkable piece,” he says.

“ When it showed up on my desk, I nearly fell out of my chair because it’s almost the exact same portrait as the other, but this one is a little more coarse and is made of cast bronze and not gilded silver. Oldenburger called the metal detectorists and explained what he’d pieced together. Ibsen was thrilled to hear more about his discovery. As he tells TV2 Øst, “Being taken 2,000 years back in time gives a huge rush.”

Alexander the Great was an ancient Macedonian king who ruled in the fourth century B.C.E. His empire was one of the largest in the ancient world, spanning multiple continents and stretching from Greece and Egypt to India.

According to a statement from Museum West Zealand, researchers recognized the ruler’s visage from the figure’s signature wavy hair and decorative crown of twisted ram horns.

The metal disc was made some 500 years after Alexander’s reign, and researchers speculate that it may be linked to the Roman Empire.

According to the museum, Alexander was a “great role model” for Roman leaders—and a particularly influential figure for the emperor Caracalla, who reigned from 198 to 217 C.E.

The disc dates to “around the same time as Caracalla,” Oldenburger tells Live Science.

“ We know that he was completely obsessed with Alexander the Great and was interested and inspired by him, since he was the greatest conqueror of that time period.” Caracalla was so consumed with him that he even “dressed with the same style and believed he was Alexander the Great reincarnated,” Oldenburger adds. “Caracalla is also the only emperor of his time to be depicted with a shield containing a portrait of Alexander the Great.”

If the disc is connected to ancient Rome, how did it travel all the way to Denmark? Researchers aren’t sure, but they note that trade routes likely connected the two societies.

“[The bronze disk] shows that even the smallest archaeological objects can hide absolutely incredible stories,” says Oldenburger in the statement. “This is a unique find in Scandinavia with connections to one of the most famous personalities in world history.”

At Sterling Publishing & Media Service Agency, we value transparency and accountability. We want to inform you that we are not responsible for any external content, links, or posts. Nonetheless, we are dedicated to providing exceptional services and sincerely appreciate your support. Thank you.