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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #429
Saturday, October 6, 2012 |
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| Epigraphy & Language |
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The Sea Peoples, from Cuneiform Tablets to Carbon Dating
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· 10/04/2012 3:01:40 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 25 replies ·
· PLOS ONE · |
Whereas the Sea People event constitutes a major turning point in ancient world history, attested by both written and archaeological (e.g. Ugarit, Enkomi, Kition, Byblos) evidence, our knowledge of when these waves of destructions occurred rests on translation of cuneiform tablets preceding the invasions (terminus ante quem) and on Ramses III's reign (terminus post quem). Here, we report the first absolute chronology of the invasion from a rare, well-preserved Sea People destruction layer (Fig. 2) from a Levantine harbour town of the Ugarit kingdom. The destruction layer contains remains of conflicts (bronze arrowheads scattered around the town, fallen walls, burnt...
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| Oh So Mysteriouso |
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The Unsolved Mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae
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· 10/04/2012 5:34:56 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 11 replies ·
· Past Imperfect 'blog · |
According to legend, the sibyl traveled to Tarquin's palace bearing nine books of prophecy that set out the whole of the future of Rome. She offered the set to the king for a price so enormous that he summarily declined -- at which the prophetess went away, burned the first three of the books, and returned, offering the remaining six to Tarquin at the same price. Once again, the king refused, though less arrogantly this time, and the sibyl burned three more of the precious volumes. The third time she approached the king, he thought it wise to accede to...
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| Underwater Archaeology |
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Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found
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· 10/04/2012 5:39:19 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 23 replies ·
· Guardian UK · |
In 1900, Greek sponge divers stumbled across "a pile of dead, naked women" on the seabed near the tiny island of Antikythera. It turned out the figures were not corpses but bronze and marble statues, part of a cargo of stolen Greek treasure that was lost when the Roman ship carrying them sank two thousand years ago on the island's treacherous rocks. It was the first marine wreck to be studied by archaeologists, and yielded the greatest haul of ancient treasure that had ever been found. Yet the salvage project -- carried out in treacherous conditions with desperately crude equipment...
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| Metallurgy |
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The Fire Piston: Ancient Firemaking Machine
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· 10/05/2012 8:08:08 PM PDT ·
· Posted by djone ·
· 27 replies ·
· primitiveways.com · |
History/how to of this ancient device: "Air gets very hot when it is compressed under high pressure. A classic example would be the heat that is created when one uses a bicycle pump. But when the air is compressed in a firepiston it is done so quickly and efficiently that it can reach a temperature in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit. This is hot enough to ignite the tinder that is placed in the end of the piston which has been hollowed out to accept it."
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry |
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Ancient Stinging Nettles Reveal Bronze Age Trade Connections
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· 10/06/2012 7:00:45 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 8 replies ·
· Science News · |
A piece of nettle cloth retrieved from Denmark's richest known Bronze Age burial mound Lusehøj may actually derive from Austria, new findings suggest. The cloth thus tells a surprising story about long-distance Bronze Age trade connections around 800 BC. 2,800 years ago, one of Denmark's richest and most powerful men died. His body was burned. And the bereaved wrapped his bones in a cloth made from stinging nettle and put them in a stately bronze container, which also functioned as urn... Karin Margarita Frei's work and the grave's archaeological remains suggest that the cloth may have been produced as far...
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| Prehistoric Europe |
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La Bastida unearths 4,200-year-old fortification, unique in continental Europe
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· 10/06/2012 6:42:28 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 17 replies ·
· Eurekalert! · |
...The discovery, together with all other discoveries made in recent years, reaffirm that the city was the most advanced settlement in Europe in political and military terms during the Bronze Age (ca. 4,200 years ago - 2,200 BCE), and is comparable only to the Minoan civilisation of Crete... The fortification consisted of a wall measuring two to three metres thick, built with large stones and lime mortar and supported by thick pyramid-based towers located at short distances of some four metres. The original height of the defensive wall was approximately 6 or 7 metres. Until now six towers have been discovered...
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Oldest ivory workshop in the world discovered in Saxony-Anhalt
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· 10/06/2012 5:58:37 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 1 replies ·
· Heritage Daily · |
In an international co-operation project, archaeologists from the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for the Evolution of Hominin Behaviour, part of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, (RGZM) and the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege and Archäologie in Saxony-Anhalt are excavating the 35,000 year old site of Breitenbach, close to Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt... During this year's campaign, site directors Dr. Olaf Jöris and Tim Matthies and their team found the oldest evidence for clearly distinct working areas which are interpreted as standardized workshops for working mammoth ivory. It was possible to identify a zone where pieces of ivory were split into lamella, as well ...
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double |
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When humans broke off sex with neanderthals
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· 10/05/2012 12:48:49 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Sopater ·
· 109 replies ·
· Fox News · |
Neanderthals apparently last interbred with the ancestors of today's Europeans after modern humans with advanced stone tools expanded out of Africa, researchers say. The last sex between Neanderthals and modern humans likely occurred as recently as 47,000 years ago, the researchers added. Modern humans once shared the globe with now-departed human lineages, including the Neanderthals, our closest known extinct relatives. Neanderthals had been around for about 30,000 years when modern humans appeared in the fossil record about 200,000 years ago. Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 year ago. In 2010, scientists completed the first sequence of the Neanderthal genome using DNA extracted...
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| Neandertals / Neanderthals |
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Neanderthals and human lived side by side in Middle Eastern caves and even interbred
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· 09/30/2012 5:19:02 AM PDT ·
· Posted by Renfield ·
· 110 replies ·
· Daily Mail (UK) · |
Neanderthals may have lived side by side with early humans and possibly interbred with them, according to new research. Stone axes and sharp flint arrowheads of both branches of the human race have been discovered in limestone caves in northern Israel. The findings, reported in the Times, have led archeologists to believe the two sub-species found harmony in a coastal mountain range that today is in a state of war with its neighbours...
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A Neanderthal trove in Madrid
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· 10/05/2012 5:25:53 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 20 replies ·
· el Pais · |
The Lozoya River Valley, in the Madrid mountain range of Guadarrama, could easily be called "Neanderthal Valley," says the paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga. "It is protected by two strings of mountains, it is rich in fauna, it is a privileged spot from an environmental viewpoint, and it is ideal for the Neanderthal, given that it provided the[m] with good hunting grounds." ... "There are around 15 sites in Spain: in the Cantabrian mountain range, along the eastern Mediterranean coast and in Andalusia, but none on the plateau, where there are no limestone formations and no adequate caves to preserve human...
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| Biology & Cryptobiology |
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Boy discovers almost complete woolly mammoth carcass
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· 10/04/2012 12:47:07 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Renfield ·
· 22 replies ·
· New Scientist · |
An 11-year-old Russian boy stumbled across the 30,000-year-old remains of a woolly mammoth, an experience that was surely either incredibly exciting or permanently traumatising. According to the Moscow News, Yevgeny Salinder found the 500-kilogram beast in the tundra of the Taymyr peninsula in northern Russia. Scientists laboured for a week with axes and steam to dig it out of the permafrost it's been encased in for centuries. Woolly mammoths have been found in the permafrost in Siberia since at least 1929, but this is one of the best preserved. Its tusks, mouth and rib cage are clearly visible....
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| Paleontology |
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Prehistoric-super-tooth dentists drill DIAMONDS into duck-billed 'saur riddle
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· 10/05/2012 10:13:05 AM PDT ·
· Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach ·
· 11 replies ·
· The Register · |
Some dentistry work on a 70-million-year-old tooth has provided an insight into the evolutionary success of duck-billed dinosaurs. Hadrosaurs' unique tooth structure is now a vital clue in the mystery of how the billed herbivores, dubbed "the cows of the Cretaceous era", spread so far and lived for so long. The ancient monsters survived until the very end of the dinosaur age, roughly 65 million years ago. Biologist Gregory Erickson, of Florida State University in Tallahassee, led a team of scientists who rubbed diamonds on the ancient tooth, provided by the American Museum of Natural History, to simulate the processes...
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| Egypt |
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Ancient Nile Delta City in Egypt Reveals its Secrets
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· 10/06/2012 9:55:32 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 2 replies ·
· Popular Archaeology · |
A team of archaeologists and students are excavating a site in the Nile Delta region of Egypt where, set within desert desolation, ruins still bespeak an important port city that flourished by the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C. Near the present-day city of El-Mansoura, a clearly human-made rise with visible ruins mark the spot of Tel Timai, what remains of the city of Thmuis, an ancient port city and capital of the Ptolemies... "Little excavation has been done in Tell El-Timai," reports Littman, "...At the end of the 19th century Edouard Naville discovered what he labeled as a library in...
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| Diet & Cuisine |
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Archaeologists find 2,000 year-old beef portion in ancient tomb in northwest China
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· 10/06/2012 10:08:37 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 1 replies ·
· New Straits Times · |
Archaeologists said a black substance found in an ancient tomb in northwest China's Shaanxi province is a 2,000-year-old portion of beef. Scientists arrived at the conclusion after months of analysis confirmed the substance's makeup, according to Hu Songmei, a paleontologist from the provincial archaeological institute. Xinhua news agency reports that according to Hu, the beef -- most of which had been carbonised -- is the earliest beef product discovered in China. The beef was discovered two years ago in a bronze pot placed in a tomb believed to date back to the Warring States Period (475 B.C. -- 221 B.C.),...
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| Archaeoastronomy & Megaliths |
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Ancient calendar unearthed in Tuyen Quang
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· 10/06/2012 8:33:03 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 5 replies ·
· VNA/VOV · |
Archaeologists have found a stone tool assumed to be an early calendar dating back 4,000 years in a cave in the northern province of Tuyen Quang. According to Prof. Trinh Nang Chung from the Vietnam Archaeology Institute, the stone tool, with 23 parallel carved lines, seemed to be a counting instrument involving the lunar calendar. A similar tool was found in Na Cooc Cave in the northern province of Thai Nguyen's Phu Luong District in 1985, Chung said. Similar items have been found in various areas in the world, including China, Israel and the UK, suggesting that people 5,000 years...
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis |
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Warrior queen's tomb in Guatemala gives up Mayan secrets
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· 10/04/2012 4:30:08 AM PDT ·
· Posted by Squawk 8888 ·
· 15 replies ·
· Toronto Sun · |
GUATEMALA CITY - Archaeologists in Guatemala have discovered the tomb of an ancient Mayan warrior queen packed with jade jewels and other artifacts that shed light on the long-vanished civilization, experts said on Wednesday. Researchers from Guatemala and the United States uncovered the remains of Queen Kalomt'e K'abel, who reigned in the seventh century, at the Peru-Waka dig site in the sweltering Peten jungle region in northern Guatemala. Inside the tomb, the team found a hoard of glistening jade jewels and a small alabaster vase decorated with the image of an older woman's face and inscribed with the queen's name,...
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Archaeologists Discover Tomb of Maya Queen Lady K'abel in Guatemala
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· 10/06/2012 5:08:35 AM PDT ·
· Posted by csvset ·
· 4 replies ·
· Sci-News · |
During excavations of the royal Maya city of El PerË™-Waka' in northwestern Petén, Guatemala, an international team of archaeologists has discovered the tomb of Lady K'abel, one of the great queens of Classic Maya civilization.El Peru-Waka', located approximately 75 km west of the famous city of Tikal, is an ancient Maya city in northwestern Petén, Guatemala. It was part of Classic Maya civilization (200-900 AD) in the southern lowlands and consists of nearly a square kilometer of plazas, palaces, temple pyramids and residences surrounded by many square kilometers of dispersed residences and temples. A small, carved alabaster jar found in...
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| Cave Art |
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Archeology: Prehistoric rock art found in caves on Terceira Island -- Azores
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· 10/06/2012 9:36:23 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 4 replies ·
· Portuguese American Journal · |
The president of the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA), Nuno Ribeiro, revealed Monday having found rock art on the island of Terceira, supporting his believe that human occupation of the Azores predates the arrival of the Portuguese by many thousands of years, Lusa reported. "We have found a rock art site with representations we believe can be dated back to the Bronze Age," Ribeiro told Lusa in Ponta Delgada, at a presentation in University of the Azores on the topic of early human occupation of the Azores. The oldest cave art known in Europe is of prehistoric origin, dating...
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| Roman Empire |
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Coin hoards and pottery bring new insights to an ancient illyrian stronghold
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· 10/06/2012 9:23:22 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 2 replies ·
· Past Horizons · |
Ancient Rhizon was also a political centre for the illyrians and it was here that Teuta, Queen of the Ardiaei tribe, established her capital. After negotiations broke down between Teuta and the Romans (who requested her to put an end to piracy in the Adriatic), the First illyrian War broke out in 229 BC. However, the illyrians could not withstand the might of Rome and the war was a short lived affair. Not much else is known about Rhizon's place in history as hardly any documentary accounts exist which refer to it by name. Most of the archaeological evidence has...
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| Climate |
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Romans, Han Dynasty were greenhouse gas emitters: study
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· 10/04/2012 8:37:26 AM PDT ·
· Posted by jmcenanly ·
· 23 replies ·
· Reuters.com · |
(Reuters) - A 200-year period covering the heyday of both the Roman Empire and China's Han dynasty saw a big rise in greenhouse gases, according to a study that challenges the U.N. view that man-made climate change only began around 1800. A record of the atmosphere trapped in Greenland's ice found the level of heat-trapping methane rose about 2,000 years ago and stayed at that higher level for about two centuries. Methane was probably released during deforestation to clear land for farming and from the use of charcoal as fuel, for instance to smelt metal to make weapons, lead author...
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Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions Traced to Roman Times
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· 10/05/2012 4:04:55 PM PDT ·
· Posted by presidio9 ·
· 12 replies ·
· LiveScience · |
By burning wood, humans have been significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions as far back as the Roman Empire, researchers say. The finding may lead scientists to rethink some aspects of climate change models, which assume humans weren't responsible for much greenhouse gas before the Industrial Revolution. "It was believed that emissions started in 1850. We showed that humans already started to impact greenhouse effects much before," study co-author Célia Sapart of Utretcht University in the Netherlands said. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 20 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, Sapart told LiveScience. Forest fires, wetlands and...
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| Alexander the Great |
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NYP: ALEX THE GAY -- Greeks fuming at 'flaming' film by Oliver Stone
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· 11/20/2004 8:04:44 PM PST ·
· Posted by OESY ·
· 92 replies ·
· 3,035+ views ·
· New York Post · |
Oliver Stone and the studio releasing his $150 million historical epic "Alexander" should beware of Greeks bearing writs -- over the film's depiction of Alexander the Great as Alexander the Fabulous. The controversial director and Warner Bros. were yesterday threatened with a lawsuit by a group of Greek lawyers who are incensed that the new movie "Alexander" portrays the hero as bisexual. The group of 25 Athens-based lawyers said they sent a letter to Warner Bros. demanding that it label "Alexander" ... as a work of fiction.... "We are not saying that were are against gays, but we are saying...
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| Let's Have Jerusalem |
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Archaeologists discover second Lycian synagogue
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· 10/06/2012 7:07:23 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 7 replies ·
· Hurriyet Daily News · |
Archaeological teams digging in the ancient city of Limyra in the Mediterranean province of Antalya have announced the discovery of a second synagogue from the Lycian civilization. Researchers initially thought the house of worship was a glass furnace, according to the head of the excavations, Dr. Martin Seyer of the Austrian Archaeology Institute. "We first found a bath and a menorah. After some [further] investigation, we found out that it was a synagogue," he said. Second synagogue in the Lycian city The synagogue in Limyra, which is located in Turunçova in Antalya's Finike district, is the second to be found...
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| Ancient Autopsies |
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Bene Israel hail DNA result {Indian Jewish history dating back 2000 years}
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· 10/04/2012 11:14:35 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Cronos ·
· 24 replies ·
· Times of India · |
They have adopted mehendi and haldi ceremonies from Indian weddings, they speak fluent Marathi and many of them have enrolled their children in Marathi medium schools. As fond as they are of their adoptive home, the 250-odd members of the Bene Israel community in the city were pleasantly surprised to open the Sunday Times of India on July 21. An STOI exclusive report highlighted the results of four-year-long DNA tests in London which confirms their genetical link to the "original children of Israel" (literal translation of Bene Israel), who are said to have migrated to this country 2,000 years ago....
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| Longer Perspectives |
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He hated Britain and excused Stalin's genocide. But was hero of the BBC.., Eric Hobsbawm
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· 10/03/2012 6:41:51 AM PDT ·
· Posted by C19fan ·
· 13 replies ·
· UK Daily Mail · |
On Monday evening, the BBC altered its programme schedule to broadcast an hour-long tribute to an old man who had died aged 95, with fawning contributions from the likes of historian Simon Schama and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg. The next day, the Left-leaning Guardian filled not only the front page and the whole of an inside page but also devoted almost its entire G2 Supplement to the news. The Times devoted a leading article to the death, and a two-page obituary. You might imagine, given all this coverage and the fact that Tony Blair and Ed Miliband also went out...
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany |
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Another way of speaking English disappears as fisherman's death spells demise of rare dialect
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· 10/03/2012 10:21:04 AM PDT ·
· Posted by FeliciaCat ·
· 151 replies ·
· Fox News · |
In a remote fishing town on the tip of Scotland's Black Isle, the last native speaker of the Cromarty dialect has died, taking with him another little piece of the English linguistic mosaic. Scottish academics said Wednesday that Bobby Hogg, who passed away last week at age 92, was the last person fluent in the dialect once common in the seaside town of Cromarty, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of Scottish capital Edinburgh. The Biblically-influenced speech -- complete with "thee" and "thou" -- is one of many fading dialects which have been snuffed out across the British Isles.
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| end of digest #429 20121006 |
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