20 October 1999: Indonesia: Abdurrahman Wahid elected president, defeating Megawati Sukarnoputri. By 26 October, Wahid appoints a 35-member "rainbow" or unity cabinet.

1205BC: Approx: Map leads to Egyptian goldmine?: A Perth, Australia, geologist, who grew up in Egypt, Siami El-Raghy, feels he may have found a map that will lead to the gold mines used at the time of King Seti I, in the 19th Dynasty, 1350BC-1205BC. Question: did the gold of Tutankhamun's day come from these mines. The geologist seven years ago noticed a copy of a map in a Cairo government office, "the oldest known geological map in the world". (Reported in Australia, 19 October 1999)

16 October, 1999: This week the world's human population passed 6 billion. More significant than the turning into the New Millennium? The most recent baby was born, it is said, at Sarajevo.

16 October 1999: FBI agents at Atlanta have arrested two men trying to sell an eagle-feather head-dress worn by Geronimo in 1907 for $1.2 million. (It is a US crime to sell eagle feathers).

Pizzaro an outright murderer: Australian researchers using refined new technology have examined a fragment of a letter with a beeswax seal written by a Jesuit in Inca territory, to find a date for the writing of the letter. A mystery of conquest may now be solved - Pizzaro and his few troops overwhelmed the Incas by the simple expedient of murdering their emperor and his general. (Reported in Australia 13 October 1999)

On Thursday, 7 October 1999: Elvis Presley fans and collectors in general get a crack at more than 2,000 pieces of Elvis stuff in an online auction (www.icollector.com).

The loot included a pair of Elvis' pajamas, Army fatigues and Tiger karate jacket, as well as the King's 6th grade report card (he got A's in Music and Spelling, but D's in Math and Geography). Bidders could also wind up owning a set of keys to the front door at Graceland or one of Elvis' shooting targets - complete with bullet holes.

Online bids were forwarded to auctioneers and introduced during a live auction 8-10 October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

October 1999: Conflict continues in China as the government offensive against the Falun Gong meditation group (or religious sect?) continues, after the government outlawed the quietist sect in July 1999. One western analyst is quoted: "The Communist Party has lost its grip on the grassroots of Chinese society." By December 1999, China had expelled three Australian-Chinese for demonstrating in Beijing. By 10 January, 2000, three Australian members of the sect were believed to have been detained in China after having written directly to the president and the premier of China on treatment given to sect members. The sect claims 100 million members world-wide with 80 million in China.
A high-profile Falun Gong member is a former Chinese airforce general, now sentenced to 17 years in prison, named Yu Changxin. (Reported by 15 January 2000)

Michelangelo - The received wisdom that he is a homosexual is dismissed. From a book review, September 1999. See James Beck, Three Worlds of Michelangelo. Norton, 1999.

8 September 1999, TV screening by NBN network in NSW of documentary, Prophecy and Predictions: Threat or Warning? Modern visionaries have predicted a monster tidal wave in the Pacific, caused by earthquakes near Fiji. Beware the Australian eastern seaboard. Check Website:
http://www.prophecyandprediction.com.au/

First South Americans?: Claims have arisen in a BBC documentary that Australian Aboriginals may have become the "first South Americans". The documentary is Ancient Voices, to be screened on BBC2, and a claim is based on the 12,000-year-old skull of a girl found in Brazil, plus a report that a "20,000-year-old Western Australian painting depicts an ocean-going vessel". The skull was examined by Walter Neves, professor of biological anthropology at University of Sao Paulo, then given to forensic artist Richard Neave at Manchester University for reconstruction work. The girl's skull did not appear to be Mongoloid, as expected, but appeared to have arisen from human stock of South-East Asian Islands, or Australia-Melanesia. Australian researchers have derided such claims. "Preposterous", said Greg Dening, adjunct professor of Australian National University, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. Prof. John Mulvaney, author of Prehistory of Australia, said no watercraft of 12,000 years ago could have crossed the Pacific Ocean. (Reported 23 August 1999)

Amazon visions: Amazon tribes have long used "the vine of the soul", a brew called ayahuasca. "The vine has been a staple of their religious life for millennia and produces euphoria, then visions of gods". An American businessman has tried to take out a patent on the brew. He complains he has received "thinly-veiled physical threats" from tribespeople angry at his use of their drug. (Reported mid-1999)

Maybe a new ancestor for humanity? Researchers in Kenya have reported finding a 15-million-year-old skeleton of a creature like a modern male baboon, which could be one of our ancient relatives. This find predates other possible common ancestors by several million years. The creature weighed about 25kg, stood 1.2-1.5 metres tall, and had a long, flexible spine, and strong hands. A co-discoverer is US academic, Steve Ward, from an unnamed institution. If this find represents a new genus, it may be called Equatorius. (Reported 28 August 1999)

A recent issue of Archaeology, the magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America, carried an article by Dr Zahi Hawass on a cemetery find near Cairo which has archaeologists excited about Roman Egypt.
At an oasis 370km south-west of Cairo is a Roman-period cemetery which may yield up to 10,000 mummies. Some 105 mummies have already been found, some in family groups, some with elaborate masks, or waistcoats covered in gold. The site is Bahariya Oasis.
Dr Hawass is director of the excavations and Egypt's under-secretary of state for the Giza monuments. (The site remains under guard.) (Reported 28 August 1999)

Is God adapting to the theory of evolution, or is the theory adapting to God? The Times recently carried an article by Ben Macintyre on how creationists in the US are "slyly driving Darwin" out of many US schools. Early in August, the school board of Kansas "voted to delete evolution from the state school curriculum". Macintyre writes, Creationism is "surviving by adaptation", and is fitter than ever, surviving by the principles of the theory it wants to discredit. (Reported 24 August 1999)

What percentage is there in evolution anyway?: August 1999: In the US, a recent survey found that 52 per cent of US folk think early humans lived alongside dinosaurs and 55 per cent do not think humans evolved from animals.

Predictions for the future?: of August 1999: A new book warns that globalisation will rob us all of our cultural individuality. A single marketplace to deal in? Cultural homogenisation? Environments devoured? Less ecological diversity? Beware the "electronic herd" using the technology that brings you this very website, in fact! Not just globalisation, but Americanized-globalisation. Should the problem be called glocalism? What about act-local/think-global? See Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Published August 1999 by HarperCollins.

July 1999: Speculation arises about "a new form of matter" called strangelets, which convert other matter they touch into strange matter, as an article is published in Scientific American. World's leading expert on strangelets is Dr. Robert Jaffe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In July 1999 London's Sunday Times ran a story headlined "Big Bang machine could destroy earth". Let us just say, the physics of strangelets and their companions such as quarks and gluons, is rather difficult, and one needs a "relatively heavy ion collider" (RHIC). Which is probably fairly expensive.

July 1999: Freemasons bone up on life and death: Claims arise that Masonic lodges in Western Australia have been using sets of remains of Aboriginals for esoteric use in "secret teaching ceremonies" on life and death. At Newman, some Aboriginal children stole a skull and bones from a lodge, leading to outrage expressed by their elders. Freemason Grand Lodge secretary Peter Bloor is quoted as saying that about one-third of WA's 180 lodges had been using real skulls and bones for decades for "teaching" purposes. However, WA police say it is not an offence to have skeletons for teaching. (Lost Worlds says, in this context, "Teaching?") (Reported 23 July 1999)

July 1999: Australian Catholics "fed to the secular lions": "Catholics were held in widespread contempt by Australia's overwhelmingly secular society, which has adopted the "religion of me", a national Catholic conference on evangelisation has been told. The church in Australia will undergo a profound transformation, according to Father Michael Mason, director of Catholic Church Life Survey. Scandals in the church have not helped, he admits. (The Church has just published an ethics document, Integrity in Ministry: A Document of Principles and Standards for Catholic Clergy and Religious in Australia.) (Reported 15 July 1999)

2035 slaves freed for $75 each: "A controversial human rights group says it has freed a record 2035 slaves in a seven-day trip to Southern Sudan. It has now redeemed more than 11,000 slaves since 1995. The group is Christian Solidarity International (CSI), based in Switzerland. The slave buyers -and owners - deal with Arab middlemen, though enslavement is not unrelated to Sudanese civil war. Khartoum, however, is said to enslave its own people. It is alleged that there are tens of thousands of slaves from the south in northern Sudan. (All Lost Worlds can say about this report is that the United Nations could be more united against such practices. And why isn't it? Too busy building websites maybe?) (Reported 10 July 1999)

Where did English mariner Sir Francis Drake make a Pacific landfall (Nova Albion?) on North American land. Did he leave a "Drake was here" plate at Campbell Cove, Bodega Head, California in the summer of June 1579 as he repaired his ship, Golden Hind? In 1997, writer Brian Kelleher of Cupertino began asking questions about such a site. Or was the landing spot at a Marin County Bay, or on the Oregon coast? Researchers including archaeologist Dr. Kent Lightfoot, at University of California may follow up Kelleher's suggestions. Drake's five-ship expedition was the second attempt to circumnavigate the world, following up Magellan. From the western Pacific coast, Drake sailed to Indonesia, then across the Indian Ocean, around Cape of Good Hope and home to England. (Reported 10 July 1999)

FIFTY eight coins with a likeness of Jesus have been found in Israel, according to researchers from Hebrew University. The coins have been untouched for 1000 years, and on one side the coins bear inscriptions in Greek.
(Reported in Australia 8 July 1999)

LATINISTS can take heart! Finland, of all places, is looking after them by trying to keep the dead language alive. Finland has lately published a communique to the European Union in Latin from an official website.

Being: Finnia praesidentiam Unionis Europaeae senorum mensium a Germania Kalendis Iulius aacepit. The communique was written by university Latinists, and other such statements will be issued by Finland each Wednesday. Radio Finland also runs an international news service in Latin. Finnish radio stations also air rock songs with lyrics in Latin. (Item found in mid-1999)

Mid-1999: Pakistan: A combined force of soldiers and militants launch a sneak attack into Kashmir, India. "The Pakistan army had become a covert organisation with an unhealthy relationship to radical Islamic groups." (Item, Sydney Morning Herald, 13-14 October 2001, article by Christopher Kremmer)

Stonehenge, England. About 200 people, some naked, have invaded the 5000-year-old Stonehenge site and clashed with police as they wish to observe the summer solstice (year's longest day). The site at such times is opened to a limited number of Druids who perform ceremonies. The site is owned by English Heritage and those clashing with police were extra to the number of people the group allowed on the site to observe ceremonies. (Reported 29 June 1999)

26 June 1999: Serbia's wall of silence on atrocities is about to be exploded by the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has already angered Slobodan Milosevic by calling for his resignation.

A PHOENICIAN find has been made off the coast of Israel. Divers have found the oldest Phoenician shipwrecks ever found, sunken in about 500 metres of water. The vessels are dated at about 750-700BC, and were from Tyre sailing either for Egypt or Carthage with cargoes of wine.
(Reported in Australia, 24 June 1999)

Slavery: In Africa, the uncared for continent: Human rights and UN officials report that in Lesotho, Africa, are about 60,000 "herder boys" living and working in indentured servitude. Some are as young as six. Their poverty-stricken parents hire them to cattle owners for food, small cash amounts or to pay debts. When they become adults, they have no education and are unemployable. A spokesperson is Malineo Motsephe, of UNICEF in the capital of Lesotho, Maseru. The World Bank has been examining the system behind this sort of "child labour". Another commentator is Charles Jacobs, co-founder of a one-year-old American Anti-Slavery Group in Boston, which has formed mainly to end the slave trade in Sudan. (Reported 12 June 1999)

May 1999: More to come

Where was Jesus baptized? Efforts are being made to establish he was baptized on the Jordan not the Israeli side of the River Jordan. But is this claim a ploy to capture the expenditure of the estimated two million tourists interested in pilgrimage to the spot? Some say that Jesus was baptized near Jericho, on the West Bank of the Jordan as controlled by Israel since the 1967 war, and still under military control, rarely opened. The Jordan argument is that the baptism happened near Bethany, on the Jordanian side. Tradition seems to side with those who believe that Jesus stepped from the river's eastern bank. (Reported 24 April 1999)

Problem with Chinese medicines? It is reported in Australia that there is to be a clamp-down on Chinese medicines containing material from endangered species such as tigers, bears, rhinos and some plant species. Sympathetic magic, where were you when we needed you? (Reported March 1999)

Sect-watching: Report arrives on the leader of a Taiwanese sect-leader, Chen Hon-ming, of The Way of Truth. Chen claims he is a reincarnation of Joseph, the father of Jesus. In 1998 Chen predicted that God would appear on Pay TV in the US. Some followers of the sect live in Dallas, Texas. (March 1999)

Buenos Aires: 1999: THE MUMMY of a child sacrificed to local gods has been found on an icy mountain top in Argentina by the archaeologists who discovered the famous Jaunita mummy in Peru.

The body was found two weeks ago on top of Nevada de Querhuar, 1600km west of Buenos Aires, according to the head of Cultural Heritage Dept., Northern Province of Salta, Mario Lazarovich.

A 10-12 year-old child, sex not yet determined, had been sacrificed by Incas. circa 1440, long before the arrival of Spanish conquerors in 1535.

The child's head is missing, possibly taken by site desecrators in the early 1980s. An expedition had been headed by US archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Peruvian Jose Chaves, who in 1995 discovered "Juanita" in the Peruvian Andes. The latest mummy find was wrapped in blankets of what seems to be llama wool.
(Reported in Australia, 5 March 1999)

Cook's ship, Endeavour: Word comes from Newport, Rhode Island, New York, that the possibility exists that the remains of Capt. James Cook's exploration ship, Endeavour, may lie on the harbour bottom. By November, 1999, this is confirmed as fact. (Reported 2 March 1999)

FAITH healing, 1999, There is no medical evidence to support a belief in the healing power of religious faith, according to a new study by American researchers. Reported in Australia, 20-2-1999.

Russian Orthodox Church authorities are making efforts to see Nicholas II canonised, the last czar of Russia. (Reported February 1999)

Cleopatra's seduction ship located

THE PALACE in which Cleopatra probably had her affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony is revealing its secrets afresh.

Cleopatra's ship has (probably) been found in Alexandria's harbour, which suffered a tidal wave in AD35. The ship sank after a collision.

Head of research on this fascinating reclamation project is a French underwater explorer, Franck Goddio. Another researcher is Peter Jones, an Egyptologist with Newcastle University (England). (Reported early 1999)

"The Jesus Boat", the remains of a Galileean fishing vessel from the days of Jesus, has become subject of controversy since a plan arose to move it from Israel for a visit to Rome. Now being slowly restored, the small vessel had been preserved in lake mud until revealed by drought. Carbon dating reveals the vessel was probably sailing while Jesus was alive, so the proposition is that... he laid eyes on it. An Israeli antiquities authority wants to send the relic to the Vatican, but locals are appalled, partly as the boat now draws about 70,000 tourists per year. (Reported 31 January 1999)

1999: By now the Vatican has acknowledged the validity of the Jewish Covenant of God. The Jewish Chronicle, 22 January 1999. (Cited in Robert Feather, the Copper Scroll Decoded, notes)

January, 1999: Beginning of Christian versus Muslim sectarian violence on Ambon (the Indonesian Spice Islands), which by 24 June 2000 means almost 3000 people have been killed.

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