Word: anciently
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...yarn about the farmer's daughter are unlikely to argue. The story is the first English translation in poetry of The Curmudgeon (Greek: ∆σνκολς), written in 316 B.C. by the Greek Playwright Menander, whose 100-odd comedies were outranked in the ancient world only by those of Aristophanes. Out of Egypt. Even more intriguing. The Curmudgeon is the first complete play by Menander discovered by the modem world. Two years ago the only known copy, scrawled on papyrus possibly by a schoolmaster in the 3rd century A.D., turned up mysteriously in the hands...
...white man's magic. Sometimes believers dress in European clothes and sit around tables with bottles of flowers on them, sometimes they pretend to write on pieces of paper. Many of the cults seek to bring on the new by destroying the old; they deliberately violate the ancient taboos of their people, kill their livestock, stop cultivating their fields. "Sometimes they spend days sitting gazing at the horizon for a glimpse of the long-awaited ship or airplane; sometimes they dance, pray and sing in mass congregations, becoming possessed and 'speaking with tongues...
...ancient Aryan invaders of India found that from the fermented juice of a vine (probably Asdepias acida) they could get a drink that made them feel happy, courageous and of superhuman strength. They called it "soma." It was so potent that it gained the status of a deity (the Rigveda is repetitive with praises of the divine potion). That was about 3,500 years...
...like a household tabby. Natives of many parts of Africa believe in a 30-ft., dragonlike reptile with a long neck, that lives in swamps as did the long-extinct brontosaurus. Heuvelmans thinks it may be the strange, scaly creature shown in bas-relief on the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon...
...South America, giant sloths (Mylo-dons) as big as men survived long enough in the high wilds of Patagonia to be killed by ancient Indians. Their skins have been found in caves. A giant armadillo with a shell 12 ft. long was hunted too. The strange beasts reported by Indians living in Patagonia today may be giant sloths or armadillos that the ancient hunters missed...