Free Republic

Archaeologists unearth Roman era artefacts in Kerala From our ANI Correspondent Pattanam (Kerala), Mar 23: What began as exploratory studies in Kerala, has thrown up enough artefacts and structures of two millennia old Indo-Roman trade era to delight archaeologists, who are looking for the lost port of Muziris. Archaeological teams in Pattanam village, near the port city of Kochi have been working on a site, which has yielded pottery, amphora, beads and other artefacts that are reminiscent of the ancient Romans. "The initial studies carried out in this region have amply indicated that there was a Roman presence. The Roman...

Coins dating from the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire (66 CE-70 CE) were discovered by archeologists during excavations near the southern wall of the Temple Mount on Monday, according to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The archeological dig, run by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, uncovered dozens of bronze coins measuring approximately 1.5 cm., as well as numerous fragments of pottery vessels. The vessels, mainly jars and cooking pots, were left behind by Jewish residents who hid in a large cave that measured seven meters by 14 m. The...

The first construction boom began about 2,000 years ago, when Ashoka the Great was founding the first Indian empire, when Julius Caesar reigned over Rome, when traders from the Mediterranean found their way to what is now an obscure Maharastra village... But another construction boom threatens the existence of an area they say could well reveal itself as "the Pompeii of India", the legendary Roman city buried by a volcano and lost for 1,600 years... A dusty village museum houses a treasure-trove of 23,852 pieces of stone and terracotta sculptures, replicas of Roman coins and lamps, miniature inkpots, jewellery and...

Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris and sung in praise by the Tamil Sangam poets as Muciri. Every year since 2005, excavations have yielded artefacts, structures and even a canoe in one instance to confirm this conclusion. This year has also been productive for archaeologists. A figure of a pouncing lion carved in great detail on a semi precious stone and a bright micro metal object with intricate designs...

For those who think financial fraud or circulating fake currencies is a modern day phenomenon, an ancient Roman coin mould on display at the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage in the city is a startling revelation. The Roman coin mould, which is being displayed for the first time since its excavation in 1993, indicates that fake coins were in circulation around 19 to 20 centuries ago. The terracotta mould is among the most important objects displayed at the exhibition, apart from terracotta figurines, iron objects, bronze dies, stone beads. M S Krishnamurthy, a retired professor of Archaeology who led...

Pompeii pottery may rewrite history Heather Catchpole ABC Science Online Monday, 8 November 2004 A broken plate is one of the pieces in the puzzle of how ancient cultures traded (Image: Jaye Pont) Archaeologists may need to change their view of Pompeii's role in trade and commerce, after a ceramics expert's recent discovery. Australian researcher Jaye Pont from the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Sydney's Macquarie University says people who lived in Pompeii bought their pottery locally and didn't import it. Pont said the find could "make waves" among archaeologists looking at trade in the Mediterranean. And she said researchers...

Search for India's ancient city Roman amphora pieces abound in Pattanam Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala. For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals. Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared. Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP...

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other. This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt...

A SEVEN-year investigation into the mystery of flight MH370 has found the doomed Malaysian plane may have been shot from the sky. In an exclusive interview to mark her explosive new book, investigative journalist Florence de Changy today reveals her shock findings about the flight on March 8, 2014, that disappeared with 239 people on board. Official accounts concluded the Boeing-777 executed a dramatic U-turn less than an hour into its planned flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, before plummeting into the Indian Ocean. Yet Florence claims it stayed on course for a further 80 MINUTES before plunging into the...

International research led by geologists from Curtin University has found that a volcanic province in the Indian Ocean was the world's most continuously active—erupting for 30 million years—fuelled by a constantly moving conveyor belt of magma. It's believed this magma conveyor belt, created by shifts in the seabed, continuously made space available for the molten rock to flow for millions of years, beginning around 120 million years ago. Research lead Qiang Jiang, a Ph.D. candidate from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the studied volcanoes were in the Kerguelen Plateau, located in the Indian Ocean, about 3,000 kilometers...

India has recently renewed its attention to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean, which occupy a key location in West-East maritime trade, with a series of infrastructure, economic, and defense projects that experts say will help India and its Indo-Pacific allies.The country is upgrading two airstrips on the islands into full-fledged fighter aircraft bases, according to Aug. 25 media reports, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has begun other development projects in the past few weeks.“The Andaman and Nicobar Islands provide critical access and key entry and exit points for the Indian Ocean. They oversee the Strait...

Image credit: WMG, University of Warwick Researchers at the University of Warwick have identified what is believed to be the earliest known marine navigation tool ever discovered. The artifact, now determined to be an astrolabe, was excavated in 2014 from the wreck of a Portuguese explorer ship which sank during a storm in the Indian Ocean in 1503. The ship was called the Esmeralda, part of a fleet led by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, the first person to sail directly from Europe to India. The astrolabe is believed to date from between 1495 and 1500, which would make it...

India is likely to pose an increased challenge to China at sea following their recent confrontation on land, analysts said. Last week, the Indian Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force held a joint exercise in the Indian Ocean, as part of the nascent “Quad” that also involves the United States and Australia. India has already held regular bilateral exercises with the other three armed forces and has said it might invite Australia to join the “Malabar” war games it holds with Japan and the US. Lin Minwang, deputy director of Fudan University’s Centre for South Asian Studies, said the country’s...

JOHANNESBURG -- Locusts by the millions are nibbling their way across a large part of Africa in the worst outbreak some places have seen in 70 years. Is this another effect of a changing climate? Yes, researchers say. An unprecedented food security crisis may be the result. The locusts “reproduce rapidly and, if left unchecked, their current numbers could grow 500 times by June,” the United Nations says. Heavy rains in East Africa made 2019 one of the region’s wettest years on record, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Bawanker. He blamed rapidly warming waters in the Indian Ocean off...

Pope Francis has accused Britain of placing greed over humanity by refusing to hand over a disputed island archipelago in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. In an unusually muscular foreign policy intervention, the pope suggested that Britain’s failure to heed a United Nations vote calling on it relinquish sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory was uncivilised. “Not all things that are right for humanity are right for our pocket, but international institutions must be obeyed,” the pope told journalists as he left Mauritius at the end of a three-nation tour of Africa. “If there is an internal dispute or...

Hundreds of Indian Ocean islanders who were forcibly deported from their homeland by Britain 40 years ago won a battle yesterday which could see them set sail for an emotional return within days. The court of appeal in London found the British government guilty of "abuse of power" for attempting to prevent the Chagos Islanders from reclaiming land leased from under their feet by Britain to the US in the 1960s. Three judges upheld a ruling in the islanders' favour last year, ordered the government to pay their legal costs and withheld support for an appeal to the House of...

A sign commemorating the arrival of the first Africans is displayed at Chesapeake Bay, in Hampton, Va., August 24, 2019. (Michael A. McCoy/Reuters) It didn’t begin or end in the United States. The same people most obsessed with slavery seem to have little interest in the full scope of its history. There has been an effort for decades now — although with new momentum lately, as exemplified by the New York Times’ 1619 project — to identify the United States and its founding with slavery. To the extent that this campaign excavates uncomfortable truths about our history and underlines...

The Chinese military is guilty of “irresponsible actions” toward American forces stationed at Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier on the Horn of Africa, a senior U.S. military intelligence officer said. The home of U.S. military operations in the region and the biggest U.S. base on the continent, Camp Lemonnier is near the People’s Liberation Army’s first overseas military base, and the proximity has been a continuing source of tension. Rear Adm. Heidi Berg, director of intelligence at the U.S. Africa Command, told a small group of African-based journalists in a telephone media roundtable that China tried to “constrain international airspace” by barring...

New Delhi: Chinese submarine movements in the Indian Ocean Region have reduced significantly, with no detected presence since October last year when a deployment had to be aborted midway due to a suspected technical fault, government sources have told ET. While the Chinese 32nd escort task force is replacing the 31st in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy duties, military watchers have been keeping a sharp eye on its submarines deployments, which had intensified starting 2013 with a nuclear submarine being spotted in the region. Meanwhile, the Indian Navy has been maintaining operational deployment in the Arabian Sea since the...

On the morning of November 11, just before 9:30 UT, a mysterious rumble rolled around the world. The seismic waves began roughly 15 miles off the shores of Mayotte, a French island sandwiched between Africa and the northern tip of Madagascar. The waves buzzed across Africa, ringing sensors in Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. They traversed vast oceans, humming across Chile, New Zealand, Canada, and even Hawaii nearly 11,000 miles away. These waves didn't just zip by; they rang for more than 20 minutes. And yet, it seems, no human felt them. Only one person noticed the odd signal on the...