Posted on 07/22/2010 6:40:28 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A joint Jordanian-German archaeological team has discovered a statue in Jordan's eastern desert that dates back 6,000 years, media reports said Wednesday.
The discovery shed new light on a little-known ancient Bedouin civilization that once thrived in the desert connecting Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the Department of Antiquities was quoted as saying.
The 35-centimetre-high statue, nicknamed 'Dalish,' was found near the Jordanian-Saudi border by the team, which is co-led by Hans Georg Gebel of the Free University in Berlin and Hamzeh Mahasneh of the Jordanian Mutah University.
The statue, which has a long nose and a bearded, abstract face, was part of a burial cairn, a mound of stones marking a burial site from the late Chalcolithic era.
Experts believe hundreds of such burial sites were left behind by the nomadic and semi-nomadic prehistoric communities that once roamed the eastern desert.
The director general of the Department of Antiquities, Ziyad al- Saad, called the find an 'important discovery.'
'We have new discoveries daily, but one such as this is important and tells us more about our culture and history,' he said.
The Jordanian-German team has been working for four years in the Hamad area, a stretch in the north-eastern desert that is home to extensive burial cairns and other remnants from ancient Bedouin life.
(Excerpt) Read more at monstersandcritics.com ...
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I have this feeling that this topic is going to be a bloodbath. |
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ROTFLMAO!!
couldn’t resist
You mean that isn’t the real statue?
Bedouin
c.1400, from Fr. bédouin, from Arabic badawin "desert-dwellers," pl. of badawi, from badw "desert, camp." The Arabic plural suffix was mistaken for part of the word. A word from the Crusades, it probably was lost in English and then reborrowed from French in 17c.
LOL!!!
can’t find a dang pic yet.. found this tho. give ya an idea of the area this was found in..
Qulban Beni Murra, witnessing a new culture found east of al-Jafr
http://www.exoriente.org/eastern_jafr/qulban_beni_murra.php
Dr. Hans Georg K. Gebel, Berlin Free University
Dr. Hamzeh Mahasneh, Mu‘tah University
Department of Antiquities Director General Ziad Al Saad holds the 6,000-year-old basalt statuette ‘Dalish’ (Photo by Taylor Luck)
By Taylor Luck
AMMAN - The discovery of a 6,000-year-old statue in the Northern Badia sheds new light on a little-known ancient bedouin civilisation that once thrived in the region, according to archaeologists.
The discovery of a small basalt statue, announced by the Department of Antiquities (DoA) on Tuesday, dates back to the Late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, between 5,500 and 6,000 years ago.
The 35-centimetre-high statuette, nicknamed “Dalish”, was recently uncovered by a joint Jordanian-German team near the Jordan-Saudi border, some 130 kilometres east of Al Jafr, according to the DoA.
The statue, which has a long nose and a bearded, abstract face, adorned a burial cairn, a mound of stones marking a burial site from the Late Chalcolithic era. Experts believe that hundreds of such burials were left behind by the nomadic and semi-nomadic prehistoric communities that once roamed the eastern desert.
The finding marks one of the most complete artefacts from the time and is a rare depiction of the daily life and culture of the Badia’s early inhabitants.
Grooves on the statue indicate that residents at the time wore the dishdasha, indicating that the Arab garment dates back to over 6,000 years, the department said.
The joint team, led by Hans Georg K. Gebel of the Free University of Berlin and Mutah University Professor Hamzeh Mahasneh, also discovered the head of a second statue made of sandstone near the same burial cairn, according to the DoA.
For four years the team has been working in Qulban Beni Murra in the Hamad, a stretch in the northeastern Badia which is home to extensive burial cairns and other remnants from ancient bedouin life.
At a press conference to announce the finding yesterday, DoA Director General Ziad Al Saad called the statue an “important discovery”.
“We have new discoveries daily, but one such as this is important and tells us more about our culture and history,” he said.
He pointed out that the Northern Badia, in addition to its early Islamic desert castles, is home to a wealth of prehistoric sites that still need to be identified, protected and promoted.
“It is important for us to focus our efforts on the eastern desert, from which this discovery shows we still have much to learn,” he added.
Over the last three decades, there have been several surveys of prehistoric settlements in the northeastern desert, which was once part of strategic trade routes running from the Arabian Peninsula to Basra and Damascus.
With seasonal water sources, the area has been home to nomadic and semi-settled peoples for thousands of years and is believed to have served as a link between ancient Mesopotamia and Pharaonic Egypt.
Due to the remoteness and harsh desert conditions of the region, however, the Northern Badia is difficult to survey and monitor, according to archaeologists, who believe there is much left to be discovered about the earliest bedouins.
Fig. 4. Qulban Beni Murra, Area C: (looted and destroyed) chamber grave with standing stones in the E. (photo courtesy of the Eastern Jafr Project)
Cool.. Thanks, That’s a little fella.. I hate metric, was expecting bigger. :-)
Thanks csvset!
That’s not funny, that’s sick!
Yeah, okay, it was funny. ;’)
That coat she’s wearing is of an extinct species, but it’s okay — it went extinct in the last Ice Age, and her father traded some obsidian for the hide.
Shaped like a typical phallic totem.
Thanks E.
They probably suffered from phallic totem envy.
LOL!!
And she doesn’t exactly resemble Wilma Flintstone.
For a minute there, I thought that Lorenna Bobbit was on the loose again.
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