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Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,300-year-old clay tablet depicting a catastrophic foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire in Büklükale, about 100 km from Turkey’s capital Ankara. A translation of the tablet’s cuneiform text indicates that the invasion occurred during a Hittite civil war, presumably in an attempt to support one of the fighting factions. Previously, only broken clay tablets had been found in the excavations at Büklükale, but this one is in almost perfect condition. Based on the typology and distribution of the collected pottery shards, Büklükale is thought to be a single-period city belonging to the Hittite Empire Period and...

...Çavuştepe Castle is located in the Çavuştepe neighborhood on the Van-Hakkari-Iran highway in the Gürpınar District, 25 km southeast of Van. It was built in the middle of the 8th century BC by the Urartian King Sarduri II.The first excavations in Çavuştepe Castle were carried out under the presidency of Prof. Dr. Afif Erzen and continued to be done for 25 years between 1961 and 1986 while the second-period excavations started in 2014 and have been carried out under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Rafet Çavuşoğlu since then..."In our work this year, as in every year, we encountered a new...

Located in the eastern province of Van in Turkey, the falling water level of Lake Van, with the decrease in precipitation and excessive evaporation caused by the increase in temperature, revealed the 11-step harbor at the bottom of the Urartu period castle...Due to the decrease in the lake level, the 11-step port of that period became visible in the coastal part of the castle, which was used by the Urartians for sea transportation, in the district where many structures and boats previously emerged.Experts examined the area, which was opened in the bedrock with a width of 3 meters and which...

Etruscan Origins | Ancient Myths and DNAStudy of Antiquity and the Middle Ages | February 20, 2022

Growing up in Greece, Iosif Lazaridis shared his compatriots’ appreciation that they lived in “the crossroads of Europe and Asia,” past and present...Featuring the genomes of more than 1,300 ancient people, 727 of them sequenced for the first time, the work represents one of the largest analyses to date of ancient human DNA...In addition to illuminating shifts in different populations’ genetic makeup across the centuries, the analyses provide fresh genetic insights into old mysteries such as the identities of Minoan and Mycenaean peoples and the geographic origin of Indo-European languages...Until a few years ago, it was difficult or impossible to...

Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw discovered evidence of destruction and capture of the ancient city of Metsamor, one of the most famous archaeological sites in the vicinity of Yerevan. "In the entire area of research we found layers of burning and ash. The city was probably captured by the army of Argishti I, the ruler of Urartu," told PAP Krzysztof Jakubiak, head of the project. Argishti I was the king of Urartu, the biblical Kingdom of Ararat in the Armenian Highlands. During his reign, the boundaries of the state expanded to the Caucasus, the area of...

The researchers found a Philistine cemetery in Israel – home to 145 human remains dating back to between the 11th and the 8th centuries BC. The discovery, made in 2013 and finally revealed in 2016, may yield answers to an enduring mystery surrounding the origins of the Philistines. It came at the end of a 30-year excavation by the Leon Levy Expedition. The Philistines were an ancient people who lived from the 12th century BC until 604 BC. They are known for their biblical conflict with the Israelites.

Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from? As it turns out, the Philistines were exactly who the Bible says they were, and they came from where the Bible says they did. Amos 9 speaks of God bringing up the Philistines from Caphtor, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 2...

Unique flagstones of Rabat Tepe Raise QuestionsThe discovery of 3000-year-old flagstones in Rabat Tepe has surprised archaeologists. Tehran, 20 October 2005 (CHN) -- The first season of archaeological excavations in Rabat Tepe led to the discovery of 3000-year-old 180x180 cm flagstone, which have never been seen before in any Urartu historical sites. Similar flagstones have been found in Ancient Rome and Ancient Iran historical sites. Rabat Tepe is located near the town of Sardasht in West Azarbaijan province of Iran. It is believed that hill used to be the capital of Musasir government about 3000 years ago. Before setting on...

Cave paintings of the Spanish Altamira Cave and the French Lascaux Cave, to the Hurrian Hymns from "Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greeks." They're around 17,000 years old.

The tablets containing the Song of Liberation were excavated in 1983 under a Byzantine period church in the Hittite capital city of Hattusha. Writing for the July–October 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Eva von Dassow of the University of Minnesota reports on an intriguing, fictitious account of subjugation and liberation from Late Bronze Age Levant. The epic poem was originally composed in the Hurrian language, around 1600 B.C.E., but the surviving text comes from a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual edition from around 1400 B.C.E. It is recorded in cuneiform writing on a series of clay tablets, which came to light only...

JERUSALEM — Goliath the Greek? Human remains from an ancient cemetery in southern Israel have yielded precious bits of DNA that a new study says help prove the European origin of the Philistines — the enigmatic nemeses of the biblical Israelites. The Philistines mostly resided in five cities along the southern coast of what is today Israel and the Gaza Strip during the early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago. In the Bible, David fought the Philistine giant Goliath in a duel, and Samson slew a thousand of their warriors with the jawbone of an ass. Many archaeologists have proposed...

Hasanlu developed into a significant commercial and production center during the early Iron Age (1400-800 B.C.), owing to its location on important trade and communication routes between Mesopotamia and Anatolia. The citadel at the center of the settlement contained an array of monumental buildings, including palaces, temples, and large multi-columned halls. The evidence Danti is studying confirms that the citadel met with a violent end. Many buildings were ransacked and burned, which caused them to collapse. In addition, the remains of more than 250 people were uncovered, some with signs of systematic execution. "The horrific level of violence evident in...

An inscription carved into a limestone slab found at Tel Miqne, 23 miles southwest of Jerusalem, confirms the identification of the site as Ekron, one of the five Philistine capital cities mentioned in the Bible. The inscription is unique because it contains the name of a biblical city and five of its rulers, two of whom are mentioned as kings in texts other than the Bible. The only such inscription found in situ in a securely defined, datable archaeological context, it has far-reaching implications for our understanding of the history of Ekron and Philistia... The inscription was found in the...

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore September 27, 2016 In 1950, a collection of 29 tablets was discovered in the ruins of Ugarit, an ancient city in the northern region of present-day Syria, but only one had survived the intervening centuries well enough to be deciphered. Known as H6, the 3,500-year-old clay tablet revealed a simple hymn specifying the use of nine lyre strings and the intervals between them, much like an "ancient guitar tab," reports ClassicFM, which has recently picked up the story. The resulting melody, it says, isn't just the oldest discovered in the world, but "utterly enchanting." Musician and composer...

University of Tübingen archaeologists headed by Professor Peter Pfälzner have made sensational finds in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The researchers from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies found a cuneiform archive of 93 clay tablets dating from... the Middle Assyrian Empire. The tablets were found at the Bronze Age city site of Bassetki, which was only discovered in 2013... The researchers unearthed a layer from the little-known Mittani Kingdom (approx. 1550 - 1300) for the first time at this location. Two Mittani cuneiform tablets found in this level document intense trade conducted by the city's inhabitants around...

Burial chambers of Urartian King Argishti and his family in the western wing of the ancient castle in the eastern province of Van was opened for the first time. The Anatolia news agency took photographs and video of the burial chambers which were closed to visitors. Centered around the Lake Van in the eastern Turkey, the Urartian Kingdom ruled from the mid 9th century BC till its defeat by Media in the early 6th century BC. The most splendid monuments of the Urartian Kingdom take place in Van since the city was the capital of the kingdom. Built on a...

Sometimes legends are true. Sunken cities are typically the stuff of legend, but now archaeologists have found the real thing hiding deep within Lake Van in Turkey. After a decade of searching the Middle East's second largest lake, the home of a lost kingdom has been found hundreds of metres beneath the surface. Archaeologists from the Van Yüzüncü Yıl University announced the incredible discovery - a vast 3,000-year-old castle preserved deep within the lake in amazing condition. The researchers worked closely with an independent team of divers to find their prize. Lost underwater cities and castles are a popular motif...

BOFFINS have discovered the ruins of a 3,000-year old castle underwater – and believe they have finally found what they’ve been looking for. Archaeologists who have been searching Lake Van – the second largest lake in Turkey – for decades have discovered what they believe is a lost city. The castle is thought to be an Iron Age relic of the Urartu civilisation – also called the Kingdom of Van – which lived in the area from the 6th to the 9th century BC. The remarkable discovery was made by archaeologists from the Van Yüzüncü Yıl University and a team...

Baked clay tablets from ancient Assyria, dating back as much as 4,000 years, could reveal the locations of 11 'lost cities' in modern-day Turkey. Harvard researchers analysed tablets found in the ancient city of Kanesh, the 12,000 cuneiform trade records include business transactions, accounts, seals and contracts. The researchers used mathematical models based on the price of goods and how frequently goods travelled between trade hubs to track down the locations of the ancient cities. Researchers reconstructed an economic network of trade goods such as wool, wine and precious metals across the Anatolian plateau in the 19th Century BC. The...