Prehistoric flute found in cave is oldest known musical instrument

Flutes are found in nearly every culture. In this image taken at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, Airman Fredy Pasco, a native of Peru, plays the zampoña, an Inca instrument he has been playing since he was 6 years old. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Harold Barnes III.
Flutes are found in nearly every culture. In this image taken at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, Airman Fredy Pasco, a native of Peru, plays the zampoña, an Inca instrument he has been playing since he was 6 years old. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Harold Barnes III.
Flutes are found in nearly every culture. In this image taken at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, Airman Fredy Pasco, a native of Peru, plays the zampoña, an Inca instrument he has been playing since he was 6 years old. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Harold Barnes III.

BERLIN (AP) – A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.

A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.

Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch (22-centimeter) instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old.

“It’s unambiguously the oldest instrument in the world,” Conard told The Associated Press this week. His findings were published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.
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Movie artifacts caught in lawsuit over museum

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) – A lawsuit over a failed effort to open a Hollywood memorabilia museum may force the sale of items owned by actress Debbie Reynolds.

In 2002, Gregory J. Orman lent more than $1 million at 10 percent interest to the project, intended to showcase Reynolds’ Hollywood memorabilia.

But now the proposed Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum hasn’t opened, the project is in bankruptcy and Orman, an Olathe businessman, wants his money and interest back – even if it means selling some of the collection.

“I have no desire to hurt the museum or Debbie,” Orman, 40, said on Tuesday. “After almost six years of nonperformance, I just wanted them to live up to their agreements.”

Reynolds’ collection, valued at between $30 million and $60 million, includes such iconic items as the white dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, the fur coat worn by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, and Judy Garland’s blue gingham dress from The Wizard of Oz.

“My mom has virtually single-handedly worked to preserve what is the most significant piece of Hollywood history anywhere,” Reynolds’ son, Todd Fisher, told The Kansas City Star on Tuesday. “It’s not about the money to her but about preserving that history. She’s dedicated her life to this.”

Fisher, Reynolds’ son from her marriage to 1950s crooner Eddie Fisher, runs the museum. He said there’s no dispute that the museum owes Orman money. It’s just a question of how much.

“We originally borrowed $1.6 million. Now he wants to collect more than $8 million,” Fisher said. “So you can understand why our board, which consists of some pretty savvy people, isn’t thrilled.”

Museum board members include Reynolds’ daughter Carrie Fisher, director George Lucas and actress Elizabeth Taylor.

The museum has been under construction in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where developers are trying to build a tourist destination called Belle Island. The developers filed for bankruptcy in March, however, and the museum is in limbo.

The museum has had its own financial problems, which prompted Orman to grant it loan extensions in 2003 and again in 2005. In return for not going after the memorabilia securing the loan at that time, the museum agreed to pay various fees and interest that amounted to a 30 percent interest rate.

In 2007, with the loan still unpaid, Orman sued the museum in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. In addition to the principal – another loan brought the amount to just over $2 million – the lawsuit sought interest that by then approached $3 million.

In June 2008, Orman voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit and refiled it in Johnson County, Kan. There it sat until last weekend, when the museum, having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection itself two weeks ago in California, moved to have the case consolidated with the bankruptcy case.

The bankruptcy filing was intended to stop Orman’s suit, according to the museum’s attorney, Peter Susi.

Orman “is by far and away the major creditor” in the case, he said.

Orman’s attorney, Grant Davis, said his client had “bent over backwards to accommodate the museum.”

“The fact that they haven’t repaid him is driven by choice, not necessity,” he said.
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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Received Id 1230296764 on Jun 24 2009 14:33

Ro Gallery’s July 1 auction includes salute to Lady Liberty

This Picasso lithograph of his 1934 ‘Visage de Femme sur Fond Raye' was published between 1979 and 1982. Image courtesy Ro Gallery.
This Picasso lithograph of his 1934 ‘Visage de Femme sur Fond Raye' was published between 1979 and 1982. Image courtesy Ro Gallery.
This Picasso lithograph of his 1934 ‘Visage de Femme sur Fond Raye’ was published between 1979 and 1982. Image courtesy Ro Gallery.

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. – Ro Gallery will conduct a Summer Fine Arts Auction on July 1 that will feature a ton of Fourth of July fireworks. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

A prime example of the summer holiday theme is 1776, a painting in red, white and blue by William Nelson Copley (American, 1919-1996).  “That’s a cool painting and he’s a major pop artist that’s hot right now,” said Jaime Villamarin, assistant director of Ro Gallery.

The, tempera on paper painting is 23 1/2 by 18 inches. Signed and, or course, dated, it carries a $25,000-$35,000 estimate.

Villamarin also noted a collection of Lady Liberty silkscreens to be sold by the likes of Arman, Loretta Bozung, Vance Caines, Greg Constantine, George Drexel, Loren Munk, Frances Myers and Kenneth Tisa.
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Ancient well, and woman’s body of same era, found in Cyprus

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – Archaeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday.

Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation’s top antiquities official, said the 16-foot (5-meter) deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation’s southwestern coast.

After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked flints, stone beads and pendants from the island’s early Neolithic period, Flourentzos said.

The skeleton could be as old as the well itself, but archaeologists don’t know how the girl died or when and why the skeleton was left there, he said. Radiocarbon dating found the well is between 9,000 to 10,500 years old, he said.

That was around the time migrating humans started to build permanent settlements on the island. Before then, temporary settlements were inhabited by sea-borne migrants using Cyprus as a way station to other destinations.
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