We don't need no stinking Super Bowl trophy.
Or for that matter, a Stanley Cup.
No, we will build the world's largest ice maze instead. And then have Guinness World Records Ltd. make it all official.
On the steps of HSBC Center, dozens of volunteers are unloading and stacking 300-pound blocks of ice with the hope that, come Friday, they can boast of total and absolute supremacy in the world of outdoor ice mazes.
Their goal?
To build a nearly half-mile-long maze of ice with an open center shaped to look like a buffalo and filled with sparkling ice sculptures.
It will be, weather permitting, a puzzle big and beautiful enough to break the current record held by our cold-weather nemesis to the north.
Think of it. What better sequel to Team USA's win over Canada in Olympic hockey than stealing away Toronto's world record?
"The Guinness rep will fly in Thursday, and we'll have the coronation Friday," said an optimistic Jeff Empric of Roaming Buffaloes, one of the groups organizing the record-shattering event.
Coronation? In Buffalo?
It's all part of the first Buffalo Powder Keg Winter Festival, and the world's largest ice maze is just one of the attractions.
The two-day festival, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, is an attempt to exploit Buffalo's harsh winters, not apologize for them.
"This seemed like something that could boost Buffalo," said Ted Nitterauer of Clarence, one of the 20 or so volunteers who showed up Monday to move blocks of ice.
While the maze takes center stage, there is more to the event, including a transportation first: tubing down the Seneca Street off-ramp from the Skyway. The ramp will be closed Friday as workers prepare it for the tubing.
And if that's not enough, there will be a snowman-building contest on the plaza of HSBC Center, broom ball tournaments in a parking lot near Pearl Street Grill and Brewery and open snow tennis along Main Street.
The festival also coincides with the annual Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament on man-made rinks at nearby Erie Basin Marina.
Of course, all of that may pale in comparison to the Great Ice Maze, the only attraction so big that it may set a new global standard for mazes.
The ice blocks, all 2,200 of them, will continue arriving over the next few days, carried by 16 tractor-trailers making their way, first from an ice-making plant in the Bronx and, more recently, a warehouse outside Rochester.
"I think we started making them the day after New Year's," said Raymond Tortorice of Arctic Glacier, the company hired to produce and deliver the ice blocks.
The first of those blocks was put in place Saturday, and by Monday afternoon, the first walls of the maze were starting to take shape.
By Thursday night, Empric is predicting an ice creation so big, it will surpass the current record holder, the 2005 Pontiac Ice Maze and its 1,940 blocks of ice in Toronto.
If there's one wild card, it's the weather.
A few days of above-freezing weather is not a big deal, said Tortorice, as long as it dips below freezing each night.
For Empric, the biggest headache Monday was not the temperature but the rain.
"It's going to be a time constraint," he said, as the wet stuff alternated between rain and sleet. "It's going to pinch our windows [of opportunity]."
He noted that volunteers are always needed and welcome. They can simply show up at the HSBC Center plaza to help out.
The two-day festival will include a beer tent, music stage and pancake breakfast for those who prefer the indoors. It starts at 8 a.m. Saturday and ends at 6 p.m. Sunday.
- Also Click on this image to enlarge - Team Of Monkeys Pit Crew for Race car
- Click to enlarge -
Want more works by Yonatan Frimer, such as Mazes and Portraits:
Team Of Monkeys Maze Cartoons
Ink Blot Mazes - Maze Art
The Team of Monkeys Pirate ship. Where is the rum?
Want more works by Yonatan Frimer, such as Mazes and Portraits:
Team Of Monkeys Maze Cartoons
Ink Blot Mazes - Maze Art
King Tut, the best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt, has been puzzling scientists ever since his mummy- and treasure-packed tomb were discovered in 1922 the Valley of the Kings by British archaeologist Howard Carter.
Only a few facts about his life are known.
While he lived in Amarna, his name was Tutankhaton ("honoring Aton" -- the sun god).
When he ascended the throne in 1333 B.C., at the age of nine, and moved to Thebes, he changed his name to Tutankamun ("honoring Amun" -- a traditional cult).
He married 13-year-old Ankhesenpaaten, the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, on his accession to the throne and reigned until his death in 1325 B.C., aged 19.
He was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, probably the greatest of the Egyptian royal families.
He has been believed to be either the son of the minor king Smenkhkare or the offspring of Amenhotep III, the father of the "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 B.C.)
Another leading theory suggested that King Tut was sired by Akhenaten, the revolutionary pharoah who established the capital of his kingdom in Amarna, introducing a monotheistic religion that overthrew the pantheon of the gods to worship the sun god Aton.
Doubts also remain about King Tut's mother. Scholars have long debated whether he is the son of Kiya, Akhenaten's minor wife, or Queen Nefertiti, Akhenaten's other wife.
Evidence that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten has come from an inscribed limestone block pieced together by Hawass in December 2008.
The block shows the young Tutankhamun and his wife, Ankhesenamun, seated together. The text identifies Tutankhamun as the "king's son of his body, Tutankhaten," and his wife as the "king's daughter of his body, Ankhesenaten.”
According to Hawass, "the only king to whom the text could refer as the father of both children is Akhenaten."
Egyptologists also debated whether two fetuses found in his tomb were the stillborn children of King Tut and his wife Ankhesenpaaten, who had changed her name to Ankhesenamun, or if they were placed in the tomb with the symbolic purpose of allowing the boy king to live as newborns in the afterlife.
A series of X-rays taken by British scientist Ronald Harrison in 1968 revealed a bone fragment in his skull, prompting speculation that a blow to the head killed the boy pharaoh.
In 2005 the mummy underwent a series of CT scans, which revealed that the fragments were not broken because of an injury incurred before death, but during the embalming process.
It also ruled out that the boy pharaoh crushed his chest when falling from his chariot, as suggested by American Egyptologist Denis Forbes.
While establishing that the boy king was about 1.70 metres (4 feet, 9 inches) tall, the CT scan showed that the king had a small cleft in his hard palette, the lower teeth slightly misaligned, and the overbite characteristic of other kings of from his family.
It rejected the diagnosis of an abnormal curvature of the spine and fusion of the upper vertebrae, which would have indicated King Tut suffered from a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil syndrome, a condition often associated with scoliosis which makes sufferers look as if they have a short neck.
The most important anomaly was a fracture of the left lower femur (thighbone). Some members of the team who examined the 17,000 images of the CT scan, suggested that King Tut suffered an accident in which he broke his leg badly, leaving an open wound, with infection setting in.
Other members of the team believed it was also possible that the fracture was caused by the embalmers.
In 2007, a black, leathery, shriveled and cracked King Tut emerged with a toothy smile from his sarcophagus, showing his face to the world for the first time.
The rest of the body, which despite restoration work carried out over the past two years resembles a badly burnt skeleton, remain covered with beige linen.
Other Puzzles:
Simon and Garfunkel Maze
For more mazes like this one, check out:
Team of Monkeys . com - Maze Cartoons
Ink Blot Mazes : Maze Art
