The headscarf 3000BC

The message here for those with deeply held religious convictions is: don't look back - you never know what you might find. Of course, if you do find it, then you've got no choice but to do something ... drastic ... preferably to somebody else.

An eminent 92-year-old Turkish archaeologist is to go on trial for inciting religious hatred, because she angered Islamist circles with a scientific paper saying that the use of headscarves by women dated back to pre-Islamic sexual rites.

Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, who devoted her career to studying the Sumerians, the first known urban civilization dating from the fourth millennium BC, is to appear in court November 1 in Istanbul, her editor Ismet Ogutucu said.

In a book published last year, Cig said that the headscarf - a controversial issue in Turkey - was first worn by Sumerian priestesses initiating young people into sex, but without prostituting themselves.

A lawyer from the western city of Izmir took offense and filed a complaint against Cig, resulting in a prosecutor charging both her and her publisher with "inciting hatred based on religious differences." If convicted, the two risk up to three years in jail.

(via Dorothy King)