Concept Cars never made

The Mazda Furai debuted at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and marked the final concept in Mazda’s fluid Nagare line. Its name, meaning “sound of the wind”, was fitting: the Furai was powered by an all-new 20B 3-rotor wankel engine that was good for over 400 hp.

Lamborghini has never built a production sedan. The Estoque was revealed in Geneva in 2008 and looked like it was intended to be a production model. The Estoque had all the makings of a top-end sedan, including a powerful 5.2-liter V10 engine.

The Renault DeZir Concept. Though it was only powered by a 150 hp electric motor, its sexy sheet metal stole the show at the 2010 Paris Motor Show.

The HX Concept was going to be the one that saved Hummer. Smaller than the H3, the HX still had Hummer DNA but in a far less clumsy manner. The HX came far too late to save Hummer.

The Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina is a one-off sports car made by Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari but redesigned by Pininfarina. The car was an Enzo Ferrari. The project cost US$ 4 million and was officially presented to the public in August 2006.

Cadillac Sixteen Concept. The Cadillac Sixteen is a high performance concept car first presented by Cadillac in 2003. The vehicle is equipped with a Cadillac proprietary-developed 32-valve V16 engine displacing 13.6 liters (~830 cu. in) mated to a four-speed, electronically controlled, automatic transmission driving the rear wheels. The Sixteen would seamlessly shut down twelve cylinders in light driving, eight during strenuous driving, and only awaken the entire engine under full acceleration. The engine was said to produce a minimum of 1,000 horsepower.

BMW M1 Hommage Concept. The M1 Hommage was unveiled at the Concorso d’Eleganza at Villa d’Este in Italy in 2008.

The concept marked a celebration of the 30-year anniversary of the original German supercar.

The Citroën GT Concept. In a partnership between the French automaker and racing simulation developer Polyphony Digital, the GT was designed and created for Gran Turismo 5. The car weighs a mere 3,086 pounds and houses a Ford V8 with 646 horsepower.

The Ford Interceptor is a concept car debuted at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It features a Ford Racing 5.0-liter Cammer engine producing 600 hp (450 kW), with the capability of running on E-85 ethanol. It includes a manual six-speed transmission.

No single machine from the film Mad Max was as memorable as Max's Pursuit Special, a 1973 Ford XB Falcon GT351.

The Madoff Auctions

In late 2010, two years after he was first arrested for an $ 18 billion Ponzi scheme, Madoff possessions hit the auction market. Thousands of belongings from his New York City penthouse, including his used shoes, went on the auction block.

An anonymous bidder paid $550,000, for a 10.5-carat diamond engagement ring that belonged to Madoff's wife, Ruth. Ruth Madoff's French diamond earrings fetched the next highest price. They went for $135,000.

The man who became a symbol of greed and deceit on Wall Street had a lavish collection of watches. One of his vintage steel Rolex "Moon Phase" watches sold for $67,500. The watch was part of Madoff's 40-plus watch collection that also included 16 other Rolexes. U.S. marshals seized everything in the Madoffs' Manhattan apartment and Long Island beach house: worn socks, new monogrammed boxer shorts, even the used Italian velveteen slippers bearing the initials "BLM" in gold embroidery.

Madoff's mini fleet of boats were auction stars. A restored 55-foot Rybovich yacht named Bull fetched $700,000. Madoff's former 38-foot Shelter Island sport runabout, named Sitting Bull, went for $320,000. And the 24-foot Maverick center console he dubbed Little Bull got a winning bid of $21,000. A black 1999 Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 convertible that belonged to Madoff's wife, Ruth, went for $30,000.

Madoff's 4,000-square-foot duplex Manhattan penthouse sold for $8m, and a 8,750-square-foot home in Palm Beach $7.4m. Madoff's Montauk beach home sold for $9.4m

Morrell Wine Auctions auctioned off 262 bottles of wine and liquor that had been seized by federal authorities from Madoff's mansion in Palm Beach. The collection sold for over $41,500.

While Bernard Madoff serves a 150-year prison term in South Carolina, five former employees were found guilty of conspiracy on Monday, March 24 2014. A jury ruled they had for years helped conceal his massive Ponzi scheme. The verdicts are the first jury convictions since Madoff’s $20bn scam was exposed six years ago, and come after a trial that lasted nearly six months. One defendant, Annette Bongiorno, worked for Madoff for 40 years as his secretary and at one point had as much as $50m in her accounts. Bongiorno, 65, had multi-million dollar homes in Long Island and Florida and drives a Mercedes worth $100,000. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/24/bernie-madoff-five-former-aides-guilty

Ancient Gold Returned to Romania

The first of what archaeologists called the "most sensational finds of the last century" surfaced not in a museum but at Christie's New York.

Among more than a hundred pieces of ancient jewelry for sale on December 8, 1999, was Lot 26, a spiraling, snake-shaped gold bracelet that the auction house identified as a "massive Greek or Thracian gold armband." Christie's estimated it would sell for as much as $100,000. When the bidding stalled at $65,000, the sale was called off—and the bracelet and its owner disappeared back into the shadowy underworld of ancient artifacts.

Lot 26, a "massive Greek or Thracian gold arm band," circa 2nd-1st Century, B. C.

Lot 26 set off an international search to recover the lost heirlooms of Dacia, an empire that was once a mighty rival to ancient Rome. After nearly a decade of sleuthing by everyone from FBI agents to Interpol investigators and Romanian prosecutors, more than a dozen similar bracelets have been found, along with hundreds of gold and silver coins. Their discovery has led to new insights into Dacian society and religion. Sarmizegetusa was once the capital and sacred center of the Dacians, a civilization crushed by the Roman Emperor Trajan in two bloody wars more than 1,900 years ago. The victory, Roman chroniclers boasted, yielded one of the largest treasures the ancient world had ever known: half a million pounds of gold and a million pounds of silver.

After his victory, Trajan took the spoils to Rome, where they paid for his famous forum. In that same complex, the Roman Senate erected a column dedicated to Trajan and illustrating the story of the wars. Sarmizegetusa was leveled and forgotten for centuries. But stories of Dacia's gold lived on, inspiring generations of peasants who lived nearby to dig in the steep valleys. It wasn't until Romania's communist dictatorship collapsed in 1989 that dreams of striking it rich came true. Groups of local treasure hunters started using metal detectors (unavailable in communist times) to hunt for artifacts in the thick forests at the rugged site.

Treasure hunters hit the mother lode in May 2000, according to Romanian police. Their metal detector pinged over a stone slab about two feet wide, embedded in a steep hillside. Underneath, in a small chamber made of flat stones propped against each other, they found ten spiraling, elaborately decorated Dacian bracelets—all solid gold. One weighed a hefty two and a half pounds (1.2 kilograms). Over the next two years, Romanian police say, looters found at least 14 more bracelets at Sarmizegetusa.

Sarmizegetusa's stolen gold was nearly lost. Recovering it involved authorities in Europe and the United States and a decade of dogged sleuthing by Romanian prosecutors and museum curators.

In all, Romanian authorities have recovered 13 hammered gold bracelets and more than 27.5 pounds (12.5 kilograms) of gold.

The recovered bracelets—now on display in Bucharest, the capital—are the only ones of their kind discovered in Romania. At least another dozen, including the one still known as Lot 26, remain missing.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150320-romanian-dacian-sarmizegetusa-gold-looted-recovered/

Bronze Age Weapons

Archaeologists excavating on land and divers exploring the riverbed of the River Tollense valley of north-east Germany have uncovered what may be the remains of the earliest Bronze Age battlefield ever found. Evidence of human-on-human violence has been discovered as far back as the early Stone Age, but nothing indicating a large-scale battle between opposing factions. The finds on the River Tollense site include the remains of 100 bodies, most of them apparently young men, plus wooden bludgeoning weapons, an arrowhead embedded deep into an upper arm, and horse bones.

In late 2012 bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones were found in the Sahara desert. The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries. The lost army of Persian King Cambyses II was said to be over 50,000 warriors who were buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

Short sword was made between 3200 and 1150BC. The decorated hilt and round pommel were later replacements.

Technology to refine, smelt and cast metal ores were first used during the Bronze Age (3500—700BC). Early civilizations began to combine bronze or copper alloys to produce spears, daggers, swords and axes. Later, swordsmiths started producing finely detailed swords with stronger iron blades. These techniques spread and had a profound influence on future warfare.

With the introduction of copper alloys (90% copper and 10% tin), the bronzesmith was able to produce a much harder metal. Its hardness and consequent durability were dependent on the temperature achieved during smelting. The higher the temperature, the harder the metal became. Iron ore was also discovered and soon became the material of choice for the production of bladed weapons. Iron ore was abundant and, like copper alloys, it could be heated to high temperatures by using charcoal. Immersion of the blade in water and continuous hammering to form a well-tempered blade developed a consistent surface that was far less prone to breakage than bronze or copper. Most blades would have been cast in stone, metal or clay moulds.

Ancient Greece, 5th-2nd century BC. Bronze arrowhead. Bi-lobate and barbed type (leaf-shaped with 2 blades). Enlarged hole likely made a screeching-whistling sound when hurtled through the air to strike fear upon the enemy.

The crossbow was first developed by the Greeks in 5th Century BC and was used widely throughout the Bronze Age.