Sideswipe: October 15: And the best petrol station name is…

Dark tale of a fake princess

In October 2000, a mummy was offered for sale on the black antiquities market in Baluchistan. Tribal leader Wali Mohammed Reeki claimed that it had been found after an earthquake near Quetta in southern Pakistan. At first an archaeologist suggested that the mummy had been a princess in ancient Egypt, or perhaps a daughter of Persian king Cyrus the Second. Iran and Pakistan began to argue for its ownership, but then American archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella came forward to say he'd been offered a similarly uncertified mummy the previous March which had turned out to be a forgery. On examination, the "Persian Princess" turned out to be substantially younger than her coffin — in fact, the mat under her body was only 5 years old. In the end, Asma Ibrahim, curator of the National Museum of Pakistan, reported that the woman had in fact died only around 1996, possibly even murdered to provide a corpse. She was eventually interred with proper burial rites, but her identity remains unknown. (Via Futility Closet)

Disappointment hits woman at her core

Life is full of disappointments, but for Elizabeth from Birkdale this deceptive ice cream packaging the ultimate. "It should be called "double choc," she declared before quickly moving on.

Road rage...avoided

Annalise writes: "I was driving north from Auckland on State Highway One on Saturday and had just come through the tunnel at around noon. Suddenly, my lane was a parking lot, with the potential to very quickly become a two lane parking lot, with drivers using the passing lane to rush past those stuck in the normal lane. The driver of a white Holden truck with a bit of black on the hood came roaring up in the passing lane. Just as I was starting to grimace and ready to curse him for being a Holden driver, he stopped. He stayed at the appropriate traffic place where he would have been if he had joined the traffic in the normal lane, driving slowly to maintain his place and preventing the 15 or so cars after him that had roared up in the passing lane wanting to push in — which would have made the whole thing a gruelling 16km-but-takes-an-hour situation. I would like to buy this man a drink. He helped prevent a small traffic jam from becoming a huge one, and without him I know I would have been stuck in that traffic for a long, long time. Props!"