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A excavation on the eastern slopes of the dried Lake Kopaida in central Greece has unearthed a rich Early Archaic-era burial of a noble woman wearing an upside-down bronze diadem. The burial dates to the second half of the 7th century B.C., a period when the power of ancestral hereditary kingship in Boeotia was waning while the nobility’s was on the rise. Her diadem was symbolic of the new power of the non-monarchical elites. Archaeologists with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Phthiotis and Evrytania have been carrying out a rescue excavation in advance of construction of a photovoltaic park. They have so far unearthed 40 graves from the Archaic and Classical periods. Different types of burials, including pit graves, burial pyres and graves with tile roofs, were found grouped in clusters. The lady with the diadem was found in a cluster of three pit graves. Analysis of her teeth identified her as an adult woman between 20 and 30 years of age. She was buried wearing a banded bronze diadem with a large rosette shaped like a radiant sun in the center of her forehead. The band of the diadem is embossed with pairs of male and female lions facing each other, symbols of royal authority. The crown was placed upside-down, so the lions are on their backs. This likely symbolized the fall of a monarch, in this case dethroned by death. She was buried with a multitude of other valuable objects, including two oversized bronze brooches of the Boeotian type, ornamented with stylized geometric horses, a necklace with a large central vase-shaped amulet, bone and ivory beads and bronze rosettes, copper earrings, a bracelet, and spiral rings on all of her fingers. This was a woman of immense wealth and status in the community, not a queen, but powerful enough to adopt the symbols of monarchy. One of the other pit burials in the cluster with her also contained the remains of a bronze diadem with rosettes. This one belonged to a young girl about four years of age, and in addition to the diadem on her head, she wore similar jewelry to the noblewoman, including a necklace with a vase-shaped amulet. The burial dates to the same period, so it’s possible the two were related in some way. Other notable finds from the cemetery include a Siana-type kylix (drinking cup) decorated with roosters and a trefoil-shaped oenochoe (wine pitcher) decorated with Hermes as psychopomp (guide of souls) and harpies discovered in a mid-6th-century B.C. grave, bronze flasks and black-figure and black-lettered pottery from the renown ceramic workshops of Akraiphia.

[View Article at Source]The Human Equation with Joe Pangaro – In many ways, holiday movies serve as bridges between generations. Grandparents may prefer classics like Miracle on 34th Street, while younger…

[View Article at Source]After a rocky start to his NFL career, Deion Sanders’s son earns a chance to shine. The post The Shedeur Sanders Show Gets Its Greenlight appeared first on The American Conservative.…

[View Article at Source]The small Central American country goes to the polls Sunday. The post Trump Wades Into the Honduran Elections to Prop Up the Right appeared first on The American Conservative.

[View Article at Source]This is a positive development for Ukraine. The post Zelensky’s Top Adviser Is Out. What’s Next? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Culture The Shedeur Sanders Show Gets Its Greenlight After a rocky start to his NFL career, Deion Sanders’s son earns a chance to shine. Sunday afternoon looks like it will be tough sledding for Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders. I suppose that statement is true for most any quarterback to have donned a Browns uniform in the 21st century, but especially for Sanders, who has the whole world watching and waiting for him to fall flat on his face. What’s worse, in only his second start, he’ll face the San Francisco 49ers, one of the league’s toughest squads, who are only days removed from clobbering the Carolina Panthers at home in California this past Monday.  Sanders is, of course, the son of Deion “Prime Time” Sanders, among the greatest cornerbacks and showmen to ever play the game of American football. His parentage cannot be removed from this story; it seems to have played an outsized role in the young Sanders’s tumultuous first season in the National Football League. It all began when he fell like a rock on Draft Night—and into the next day. Sanders dropped all the way into the fifth round, a space usually reserved for players deemed projects who might not even make the 53-man active roster. Sanders’s draft free-fall was one of the most controversial moments in the history of the NFL’s rookie selection process. Once considered first-round talent, Sanders sat and waited as teams in need of a quarterback passed on him. Analysts of all sorts weighed in on the moment. Some suggested Sanders was too “entitled” and would be tough to coach. Others cried racism. President Donald Trump even spoke out, calling NFL owners “STUPID” and predicting that the young Sanders was “all set for Greatness.”  Last Sunday, after Cleveland exhausted all other options, the legend’s son finally got his chance on the big stage. The lowly Browns sit at 2–8 and don’t have much left to play for this season. Head coach Kevin Stefanski made the call: Shedeur would start against the Las Vegas Raiders. Despite the fact that the Raiders are suffering through a terrible season of their own, the collective NFL was tuned in to the meeting of the League’s worst teams to see if Sanders would sink or swim. He swam.  Sanders completed 11 of 20 passes for 209 yards with one touchdown and an interception while leading the Browns to their first road win in a franchise record 13 tries. Though those numbers may sound pedestrian, Sanders showed why some analysts graded him so highly heading into the pros. In one particularly impressive moment against the Raiders, Sanders showed off his arm strength, throwing a 50-yard dart to wide receiver Isaiah Bond.  More impressive still was the way in which Sanders guided the team. Despite the questions about his maturity swirling in the press, Sanders looked the part. Most importantly, he was only sacked once against the Raiders. At the University of Colorado, holding on to the ball for too long was a major issue with his game. Oftentimes, when smarter quarterbacks would simply throw the ball away under pressure, Sanders would hold onto the pigskin in an attempt to make a play, only to be sacked. This would lead to Sanders and the Buffs consistently getting into poor field position and to long second- and third-down scenarios, where Sanders’s questionable decision-making would only compound.  But on Sunday against the Raiders, Shedeur got the ball out of his hand quickly and efficiently, throwing only one interception. The win snapped a franchise record for road losses and also earned Sanders the designation as the first Browns quarterback since Eric Zeier in 1995 to win his debut start in a Browns uniform. It all made for the sort of Hollywood story that helps make the NFL the most prized viewing experience in American sports. Everyone had a take, including the president, who couldn’t help but share his thoughts on Truth Social after the game. “Shedeur Sanders was GREAT,” Trump wrote. “Wins first game, career start, as a pro (for Cleveland). Great Genes. I TOLD YOU SO!” But it was only one game, and one game does not equal greatness. Sanders will now face the 49ers squad, which, despite starting quarterback Brock Purdy’s three interceptions, easily defeated the Panthers by two scores on Monday Night Football. The 49ers are powered by star running back Christian McCaffrey, the all-catching, all-running, endless motor of a man who touches the ball as much as any player in the NFL. The 49ers will hold the ball for much of the game, meaning Sanders will have to be at his best.  One thing Sanders will have going for him: The game will be played in Cleveland, in a stadium full of diehard fans who have been waiting the whole season to see if he can breathe life into the flailing franchise. For the Ohioans who have suffered greatly as fans of the Browns, Sunday holds the potential promise of a new era. Where other flashy quarterbacks such as Baker Mayfield and Johnny Manziel have failed before, perhaps Sanders can now succeed. It’ll be an uphill climb for Sanders and the young Browns offense who lean on fellow offensive rookie running back Quinshon Judkins for points.  One thing is for sure: Trump and millions of football fans will be wishing the best for a player who has endured great criticism in his brief career, some earned, some not. For those of us who enjoy a good show, Sunday will be a moment to see if Sanders has the ‘it’ factor that initially drove his star turn at lower levels. Good luck, Mr. Sanders.  The post The Shedeur Sanders Show Gets Its Greenlight appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Trump Wades Into the Honduran Elections to Prop Up the Right The small Central American country goes to the polls Sunday. (Photo by Orlando SIERRA / AFP via Getty Images) President Donald Trump issued an endorsement Wednesday for the upcoming presidential elections in Honduras, promoting the right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura of the National Party and attacking his rivals Rixi Moncada of the Libre Party and Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party. “The man who is standing up for Democracy, and fighting against Maduro, is Tito Asfura, the Presidential Candidate of the National Party,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account, touting Asfura’s accomplishments as mayor of Tegucigalpa and calling him “the only real friend of freedom.”“Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras,” Trump added. Asfura, who is popular for his successful revitalization projects in the country’s capital and calls himself “papi a la Orden” (“Daddy at your service”), has promised a major crackdown on crime in the country, with a particular focus on the widespread extortion that plagues Honduran citizens. He is also a proponent of strengthening ties and trade with the U.S. The National Party, under whose banner Asfura is running, has cultivated ties with the Republican Party in the U.S.—but its reputation at home and abroad took a beating after a former president and party member, Juan Orlando Hernández, was arrested and extradited to the U.S. Hernández made millions by conspiring with infamous drug lord El Chapo to ship tons of cocaine into the U.S. American authorities sentenced Hernández to 45 years in prison. Moncada, the principal left-wing candidate, represents the Libre Party and the continuation of the policies of Honduras’s current president, Xiomara Castro. Castro—who is the wife of Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras who was removed from office in a military coup in 2009—has governed since 2022, with Moncada serving first as her finance minister and then as secretary of defense. Moncada resigned her post earlier this year to run in the presidential election. Under Castro, Honduras has strengthened its relations with Cuba and Venezuela and grown much closer to China. In 2023, Honduras, a close ally of Taiwan and one of the few countries that still maintained official relations with it, cut ties with Taipei to establish formal relations with Beijing. Trump attacked Moncada as a communist who “says Fidel Castro is her idol.” “Normally, the smart people of Honduras, would reject her, and elect Tito Asfura,” Trump said,  “but the Communists are trying to trick the people by running a third Candidate, Salvador Nasralla.” Nasralla, the third major candidate in the race, is running on a centrist platform aimed at attacking corruption and increasing Honduras’s economic competitiveness. Nasralla, a former television presenter, founded the Anti-Corruption Party in 2013 and has run for president three times since, narrowly losing to the incumbent Hernández in 2017, an election year characterized by accusations of fraud and abuse. He joined Castro on the Libre Party ticket in 2021 and served as her vice president until 2024, when he resigned to begin his campaign for the 2025 presidential election. Trump dismissed Nasralla’s centrism as a leftist ploy to damage Asfura, calling Nasralla “a borderline Communist.” Nasralla “is now pretending to be an anti-Communist only for the purposes of splitting Asfura’s vote,” he wrote. Honduras, which will hold its national elections Sunday, is a fragile nation suffering from massive organized crime problems. One of the most violent countries in the world, it has been under a continuous state of emergency since the end of 2022. It is also a vital node in the transportation network for illicit drugs; every year, hundreds of tons of Colombian cocaine pass through the country to markets in the U.S., and even fentanyl has begun flowing through the country’s disordered ports and unguarded borders. Honduras’s role in the drug trade, its ties to China and regional left-wing powers appear to have put it directly in Trump’s sights. His administration has made asserting American influence in Latin America and tackling the flow of drugs and organized crime into the U.S. central to its foreign policy platform, inaugurating an era of American intervention in Latin America at a level not seen since the end of the Cold War.  Castro’s proximity to Venezuela and its strongman leader Nicolás Maduro seem to be a particular sore point: “Will Maduro and his Narcoterrorists take over another country like they have taken over Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela?” Trump asked in his Truth Social post. The Trump administration has declared Maduro a narcoterrorist, has accused him of deliberately funneling drugs and criminals into the United States, and has placed a $50 million bounty on his head. The administration is currently deploying significant naval and air forces around Venezuela in an attempt to put pressure on his regime. Asfura’s election would eliminate one of Maduro’s few remaining allies in the region, isolating him yet further. The post Trump Wades Into the Honduran Elections to Prop Up the Right appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Zelensky’s Top Adviser Is Out. What’s Next? This is a positive development for Ukraine. A political earthquake just hit Ukraine. Andriy Yermak—the chief of staff and right-hand man of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky—resigned on Friday after anticorruption watchdogs raided his home and office. Such investigations have heated up in Ukraine the last few weeks but until now haven’t burned anyone nearly as prominent as Yermak, whose political power arguably rivaled that of the president himself. Assuming you’ve read my article on Yermak from October, you can probably guess that I consider this a salutary development. Depending on how Zelensky handles the crisis, Yermak’s ouster could signal a beginning of the end of the war with Russia and even herald a post-war Ukraine that is sovereign, free, and democratic. If that seems hyperbolic, consider the multifaceted and extremely damaging role that Yermak has played in Ukrainian politics since Russia’s 2022 invasion.  He has consolidated power to an outrageous extent, sidelining political opponents, appointing allies to top government positions, and controlling access to the president. Yermak is even reported to sleep near Zelensky in the presidential bunker, an indication of the strange codependence that has developed between the two men. When word broke recently about a $100 million embezzlement scandal in the energy sector, suspicions arose that Yermak was implicated. Long before this latest scandal, Ukrainians had worried that Yermak was using his immense power to revitalize the corrupt, post-Soviet oligarchic structures for which their country is sadly known. He’s done little to disabuse them of this notion. This summer, Yermak devised a crackdown on the very watchdogs that are now investigating him—a power grab that Zelensky reversed following street protests. “Yermak out!” the demonstrators yelled. “F— Yermak!” Yermak hasn’t always responded well to dissent. He’s even created lists of domestic political enemies for national security organs to sanction. This month, Zelensky, facing growing pressure to fire Yermak amid the corruption scandal, instead made him head of the Ukrainian team negotiating a new U.S. peace plan for Russia–Ukraine. This was a setback for the White House, which was plainly trying to use Zelensky’s weakened position as an opportunity to push a plan that makes concessions to Moscow. Yermak has long enforced a hardline bargaining position and opposed the kind of concessions that analysts say would be necessary to get a peace deal. This week he declared that Zelensky will never exchange land for peace, though the U.S. proposal had allowed that some Ukrainian territory be evacuated and turned into a demilitarized zone. Last year, Yermak coauthored a Foreign Affairs article that presented “victory” as the only path to peace for Ukraine—a pipe dream considering Russia’s military advantages.  Yermak’s departure from the negotiating team increases the chances that Kiev will take a more concessive approach to negotiations, closing the gap between the Ukrainian and Russian positions. Yermak hasn’t just hampered the peace process but also the war effort. He is widely believed to have engineered Valery Zaluzhny’s removal as commander-in-chief last year. In the war’s early years, Zaluzhny came to be regarded by Ukrainians as an almost mythic national hero—and by Yermak as a political threat. Back in America, the DC political class has found rare bipartisan agreement in deeming Yermak an irritant and political malefactor, and the Trump administration has certainly been no exception to that consensus. When Vice President JD Vance’s office phoned Zaluzhny in March to probe whether he’d be a worthy successor to Zelensky, whose term officially had ended one year prior, Yermak intervened, convincing him to reject the calls. Now that Yermak is out, the Trump team will find fewer obstacles to their geopolitical maneuvering around Ukraine. So, does Yermak’s resignation mean peace is at hand and Ukraine’s democracy will bloom? Not necessarily.  Announcing the resignation, Zelensky said that Yermak had represented well Ukraine’s negotiating position. Thus, a change in diplomatic strategy might not be forthcoming. And even if Ukraine becomes more concessive, President Vladimir Putin may still prove averse to making peace while Russia has the battlefield momentum. Nevertheless, Zelensky should seize this chance to reverse course and embrace the U.S. peace plan, which Yermak had worked to modify in ways unpalatable to Moscow. Of course, much hinges on who Zelensky chooses to replace Yermak as chief of staff. One rumor says that person will be Yuliia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s prime minister and a strong ally of Yermak. This would be a serious mistake by Zelensky. To truly take Ukraine beyond the sordid Yermak era, he should choose a more credible successor, someone hailing from outside the orbit of the disgraced former chief of staff. Whatever happens next, the investigation and resignation of Yermak are good signs for Ukraine. Though he and Zelensky increasingly governed Ukraine as a wartime diarchy, the stunning spectacle of independent watchdogs searching Yermak’s office showed that the country’s liberal institutions remain strong. This is a fragile and uncertain moment for Ukraine, but also a hopeful and necessary one. The post Zelensky’s Top Adviser Is Out. What’s Next? appeared first on The American Conservative.