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Archaeologists in Israel say that they have found a clay seal mark that may bear the signature of the Biblical Prophet Isaiah. The 2,700-year-old stamped clay artifact was found during an excavation at the foot of the southern wall of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. In ancient times a seal stamp, or bulla, was used to authenticate documents or items. “We found the eighth-century B.C.E. seal mark that may have been made by the prophet Isaiah himself only 10 feet away from where we earlier discovered the highly-publicized bulla of King Hezekiah of Judah," said Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University...

If you asked people whom their favorite biblical prophet is, there’s a strong chance they would answer Isaiah. Sure, Moses gets all the accolades, received the tablets, and is the most important; but Isaiah is the prophetic book most quoted by authors of the New Testament. For Christians, Isaiah predicts the coming of the Messiah, the death of Jesus and the Virgin Birth. So, it is particularly auspicious that in a stunning article published today in Biblical Archaeology Review archaeologists announced that they have stumbled upon the first physical evidence for the existence of the prophet Isaiah.

Puzzle: fragments of 2,000-year-old scrolls before reassembly. Credit: Shay Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority, The Leon Levy Library of the Dead Sea Scrolls ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About 1,000 Dead Sea Scrolls discovered just over 70 years ago near Khirbet Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea have been officially published since the turn of the millennium. But in the case of some, all that was left were poorly preserved remains of texts written in a cryptic script – and all that had been released to the world were photos of small pieces of manuscript, in a preliminary order. There have been...

"The Secret of Kells" is an anachronism many times over, and what a good thing that turned out to be. A ravishing, continually surprising example of largely hand-drawn animation in the heyday of computer-generated imagery, an inexpensive and sophisticated European production in an age of broad-stroke studio films, even a spirited defense of books and bookishness while Kindles walk the earth, "Kells" fights the tide every way it can. Yet this longshot that began as a college project for Irish director Tomm Moore edged Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo" for one of five feature animation Oscar nominations, and in a year without...

Of the estimated 900 documents that comprise the Dead Sea Scrolls, two remain unpublished -- until now. Scholars Eshbal Ratson and Jonathan Ben-Dov of the Department of Bible Studies at the University of Haifa recently published one of the last two... the scholars diligently pieced together 62 Dead Sea Scroll fragments, on which there was writing in code. Ratson and Ben-Dov deciphered the code on the reconstructed scroll, called Scroll 4Q324d, and revealed that the scroll describes a 364-day calendar used by the Qumran community that lived in the Judean Desert. This Qumran calendar gives us insight into how the...

"We can now say that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News. The finding offers evidence against another leading theory that King Tut was sired by the minor king Smenkhkare. Hawass discovered the missing part of a broken limestone block a few months ago in a storeroom at el Ashmunein, a village on the west bank of the Nile some 150 miles south of Cairo. Once reassembled, the slab has become "an accurate piece of evidence that proves Tut lived in el Amarna with Akhenaten and he married his...

A 500-year-old secret code used in letters between one of Spain's most famous monarchs and a military commander has been cracked. Ferdinand of Aragon's letters have tantalised historians for centuries. Constructed using more than 200 special characters, they were deciphered by the country's intelligence agency. He was behind the final recapture - Reconquista - of Spain from the Moors in 1492 and Columbus's journeys to the Americas. The letters between Ferdinand and Gonzalo de Córdoba include instructions on strategy during military campaigns in Italy in the early 16th Century. They were written using secret code in case they fell into...

he world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes. Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American...

Proto-Sinaitic led to the development of the Phoenician alphabet and its variants, many characters from which are clearly visible within the Uruguayan petroglyphs. Based upon this hypothesis, the characters would be dated from 1850 BC to 1100 BC. After this date (1100 BC) came the fully developed, 22 character, Phoenician 'international' writing system subsequently used by all West Semitic languages. I observed that many of the 'new international' characters do not appear among the petroglyphs suggesting movement away from this particular coastline 'port of call' some time after 1100 BC... Proto-Sinaitic has, allegedly, been found in Brazil at Itacoatiara, near...

A semitrailer driver ignored warning signs and drove over Peru's famous Nazca Lines on Saturday, causing significant damage to the UNESCO World Heritage site. The driver, identified as 40-year-old Jainer Jesús Flores Vigo, was detained and released, according to newspaper Peru21. The lines were scratched into the ground approximately 2,000 years ago and depict animals, plants, imaginary creatures and geometric figures miles long. Nazca's lines and geoglyphs stretch across an area of about 280 square miles. A magistrate concluded that there wasn't sufficient evidence to indicate the driver acted with intent, Peru21 reports. Peru's public minister announced that Nazca's prosecutor's...

Just a week after scientists reported evidence that our species left Africa earlier than we thought, another discovery is suggesting the date might be pushed back further. omo sapiens arose in Africa at least 300,000 years ago and left to colonize the globe. Scientists think there were several dispersals from Africa, not all equally successful. Last week's report of a human jaw showed some members of our species had reached Israel by 177,000 to 194,000 years ago. Now comes a discovery in India of stone tools, showing a style that has been associated elsewhere with our species. They were fashioned...

For centuries people have tried to decipher the meaning of the Voynich manuscript, and now a computer scientist claims to have cracked it using AI. The 600-year-old document is described as 'the world's most mysterious medieval text', and is full of illustrations of exotic plants, stars, and mysterious human figures. The 240-page manual's intriguing mix of elegant writing and drawings of strange plants and naked women has some believing it holds magical powers. But even the cryptographers from Bletchley Park, the team that broke the Nazi enigma code, couldn't make sense of the manuscript. Now a computer scientist says the...

An artificial intelligence system being developed at Facebook has created its own language. It developed a system of code words to make communication more efficient. The researchers shut the system down as it prompted concerns we could lose control of AI. The observations made at Facebook are the latest in a long line of similar cases. In each instance, an AI being monitored by humans has diverged from its training in English to develop its own language. The resulting phrases appear to be nonsensical gibberish to humans but contain semantic meaning when interpreted by AI "agents." Negotiating in a new...

Romano-British citizens who no longer had the protection of the Roman Empire were so terrified of the raiding Saxons, Angles, Picts and others that they buried their most valuable belongings. According to an entry from 418 in the 9th-century text Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "In this year the Romans collected all the treasures which were in Britain and hid some in the earth so that no one afterwards could find them, and some they took with them into Gaul." ... Because no organic materials survived in the Hoxne hoard, radiocarbon can't be used as a dating technique. Instead, archaeologists use the age...

The inscription shown below occurs above the original entrance of the Great Pyramid.  I don't think it is original, but it could be relatively old.  If you have any idea what it may mean, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Historian Taner Akçam decpihred the telegram by executive of Teşikilat-ı Mahsusa (Secret Organization) and Commitee of Union and Progress Bahaettin Şakir dated July 4, 1915. The telegram is about coordination of deportation and annihilation of Armenians. The letterhead on the telegram proves that it is indeed original.We have a telegram written by Bahaettin Şakir on July 4, 1915, which was sent to Governor Sabit Bey for delivering it to Elağız (Harput/Kharpet) Inspector of CUP Nazım Bey. The purpose of the telegram was to coordinate deportation and annihilation of Armenians. The telegram reads: “Are the Armenians who were deported from...

When is a penny worth $300,000? When it's one of the first copper coins struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, in 1793. The annual Florida United Numismatists (FUN) convention is being held in Tampa this week, and three historic coins, including the pricey penny, went up for auction Thursday evening. Mark Borckardt, a senior numismatist with Heritage Auctions in Dallas, said the George Washington-era penny is one of about 500 in existence. The 63rd annual FUN Convention also features 'over 600 dealer booths, a competitive exhibit area, 15 educational programs' and a host of other activities. FUN describes itself...

Researchers have known for many years that workers in ancient Egypt recycled papyrus for different purposes -- one particular use was creating decorated boxes into which mummies were placed. Papyrus scraps were glued together using paste and plaster, similar to modern paper-mâché projects... The technique involved using a digital imaging method that interpreted light bounced back from a subject. Prior research had shown that the pigment in ink used by the ancient Egyptians over 2000 years ago could fluoresce under the proper infrared filter. By using such filters with digital imaging technology, the team was able to see the ink...

Israeli archaeologists made a rare discovery in the Western Wall Plaza, unearthing a 2,700-year-old clay seal impression that experts say belonged to a biblical governor of Jerusalem. The artifact, as first reported by Reuters, is inscribed in an ancient Hebrew script “belonging to the governor of the city” and was likely attached to a shipment or sent as a souvenir on behalf of the governor, the most prominent local position held in Jerusalem at the time, the Israel Antiquities Authority said. The impression, the size of a small coin, depicts two standing men, facing each other in a mirror-like manner...

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Monday that a unique stamped piece of clay from the First Temple period, inscribed in ancient Hebrew script, was unearthed in the authority excavations in the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem's Old City. The artifact originally belonged to the “governor of the city” of Jerusalem – the most prominent local position to be held in Jerusalem of 2700 years ago. According to the excavator, Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, "the Bible mentions two governors of Jerusalem, and this finding thus reveals that such a position was actually held by someone in the city some 2700 years...