Coins of Armenian king Tigranes the Great clearly reveal a star with a tail on the royal tiara which may be associated with the Halley's passage of 87 BC. Tigranes II the Great (95-55 BC) had made Armenia one of powerful kingdoms in Western Asia, extending from the Caucasus to the eastern Mediterranean. The economical needs and the expansion of the empire resulted in diverse silver and copper-b...

In the early 20th century, the attention of Assyriologists and archaeologists was directed to a number of cuneiform tablets coming from a remote archaeological tell in Kültepe, Turkey. After the first series of excavations, archaeologists discovered a large collection of texts and the remains of a Bronze Age trade colony, referred to in the texts as kārum Kaneš. Once these initial ca. 5,000 tex...

In the past decades of the history of Estonia, there have occurred few events which have profoundly affected and touched more or less the entire population of the country. One of these events was undoubtedly the loss of the motor vessel “Estonia” on September 28th 1994 on its way from Tallinn to Stockholm with 989 persons on board, of whom over 800 died1. More recently, the events which took pl...

Accurate understanding of crop biogeography facilitates comprehension of agronomic potential, genetic diversity, and crop–pathogen evolution. Classic perspectives are exemplified by Vavilov (1987), a posthumous compilation, and Harlan (1971). Origin and geographic spread of a given crop provide clues as to environmental interactions, including relative adaption to pests, pathogens, and abiotic ...

Siganus insomnis sp. nov. is described from the Maldives, Sri Lanka and southern India. It most closely resembles S. lineatus (Valenciennes) from the Western Pacific but differs in coloration, principally in that most if not all of the bronze bands on its mid and upper sides continue horizontally and unbroken through to the nape and opercular slit. By contrast, in S. lineatus, typically the ant...

BACKGROUND Although many studies have compared the properties of ultrasonic scaling instruments, it remains controversial as to which is most suitable for implant scaling. This study evaluated the safety and efficiency of novel metallic ultrasonic scaler tips made by the powder injection molding (PIM) technique on titanium surfaces. METHODS Mechanical instrumentation was carried out using fou...

To many Near Eastern archaeologists, the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition in the southern Levant indicates the emergence of a new ethnicity. The question remains, however, whether changes in the material culture are the result of an invasion of foreigners, or instead arose from shifting cultural and technical practices by indigenous peoples. This study utilized dental morphological tra...