Tag: Archeology

Dust To Dust

My weekend is progressing well….I have left the mundane crap (especially the crap about attacks because None are serious…they just want to hear themselves talk) and have done what I truly enjoy…..history and archeology…..

When I was in the Middle East working I had the chance to visit Petra in Jordan…..most people that have not been to the site think that it is this structure….

It is called the “treasury” and has been in many movies and TV shows….but the site is an entire complex…not limited to this one structure……

File:Urn Tomb, Petra 01.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

There is so much more to Petra than the one icon building and it seems that my friend Sarah Parcak may have found even more to the site…..

The sandstone Monastery and Treasury Building of Petra, carved by the Nabataeans nearly 2,000 years ago, astonish hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit southern Jordan each year. Unbeknownst to them, another enormous monument has been “hiding in plain sight” half a mile away. Satellite and drone imagery and ground surveys have revealed a platform as long as an Olympic-size swimming pool and twice as wide buried beneath the sand at the World Heritage site, reports National Geographic. Inside sat a smaller platform that would have housed a 28-by-28-foot building facing a staircase that study author Christopher Tuttle calls “fascinating,” per the Guardian; the staircase is atypical in that it does not face the heart of Petra. “I find it interesting that such a monumental feature doesn’t have a visible relationship to the city,” he says.

He says archaeologists previously suspected something was at the location of his find, but “the structure’s sides resembled terrace walls common to the city” and so were seemingly ignored. Pottery found on the surface suggests the structure may date to about 150BC—or Petra’s first glory age, per the BBC. Many of Petra’s most iconic structures were built later, from the end of the first century BC to the second century AD. The city was eventually abandoned in the seventh century AD, rediscovered in 1812, and named one of the 7 new wonders of the world in 2007. No excavations are scheduled, but co-author Sarah Parcak notes satellite surveys of sites elsewhere in the world are underway. Expect “some pretty amazing discoveries over the next year,” she says.

It is a fascinating site to visit…I recommend it if one ever gets the chance…..you will not be disappointed.

There is more archeology…..this time in Southeast Asia….Cambodia to be exact…..

All is not as it has seemed in Cambodia, according to new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Using aerial scanning technology that determines precise elevation points beneath even dense jungle foliage, archaeologists say they have uncovered multiple metropolises between 900 and 1,400 years old that might have made up the largest empire on the planet at the time, reports the Guardian. The findings also upend a key chapter in the history of Southeast Asia. Historians have long thought that the city of Angkor was abandoned in the 15th century amid a Siamese attack and occupation, but the research finds no evidence to suggest that a million people uprooted themselves in a mass migration, reports Cambodia Daily. Instead, it appears that the population remained and thrived, boasting complex waterway systems that emerged centuries earlier than thought.

“What we had was basically a scatter of disconnected points on the map denoting temple sites,” lead archaeologist Damian Evans of Australia tells AFP. “Now it’s like having a detailed street map of the entire city.” He says more maps will be published in the months ahead, but his second round of scans, which were taken in 2015 after the first round in 2012, has his peers abuzz. “It is as if a bright light has been switched on to illuminate the previous dark veil that covered these great sites,” says New Zealand archaeologist Charles Higham. “It is wonderful to be alive as these new discoveries are being made.” The technology, called Lidar, forms a 3D model of any stark changes in ground height. The maps illustrate just how extensively developed the area was around Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

And that is your archeological round-up for June 2016…..

They Came Out Of The Cave(Closet)

My weekend continues and I am arguing with my daughter….nothing new there….move along…..and I read an article that made me sit up and think….maybe it will do the same for my readers…..

The debate these days is over LGBT rights and most recently we have been overly concerned on where one person pees…..but guess what….none of this is anything new…..is it possible that there were some sort of LGBT thing going on in the early days of human history?

Caveman was buried like a woman, leading scientists to question his sexual orientation.

Archaeologists investigating a 5,000-year-old Copper Age grave in the Czech Republic believe they may have unearthed the first known remains of a gay or transvestite caveman, reports the Telegraph.

The man was apparently buried as if he were a woman, an aberrant practice for an ancient culture known for its strict burial procedures.

Since the grave dates to between 2900 and 2500 BC, the man would have been a member of the Corded Ware culture, a late Stone Age and Copper Age people named after the unique kind of pottery they produced. Men in this culture were traditionally buried lying on their right side with their heads pointing west, but this man was instead buried on his left side with his head pointing east, which is how women were typically buried.

Source: Archaeologists unearth 5,000-year-old ‘third-gender’ caveman | MNN – Mother Nature Network

Is it more possible that our ancient ancestors were far more mature about this than we are here in the present day?

Ya see…there is NOTHING new under the sun……gays in society have been around since the beginning……GET OVER IT!

I will spend the day trying to get back to normal…not having a good weekend so far…..enjoy your time and see you guys tomorrow…..

Archeology Update

It is once again the weekend and I get to spend time with family and friends….you see they have to work and I have time to fart around…..now it is time to get caught up…..

My readers are aware that I love some history ergo archeology also…..this past week there were several stories in the field of archeology that were amazing…well at least to me…..

First, Stonehenge….few decades, probably longer man has been trying to figure out how the ancients moved the stones so many ages ago….I mean they were barely out of the knuckle dragging stage…..well they may have their answer…..

Researchers in London think they have solved one of the most enduring mysteries of Stonehenge: How did a bunch of prehistoric Britons haul massive stones from a quarry in Wales to the site of the monument more than 100 miles? “The answer,” per the Telegraph, “is surprisingly simple.” By mounting a giant stone on a wooden sleigh and dragging it along a track of timbers, a team from University College London found that just 10 people were able to move a more than 2,000-pound stone at a rate of about 1mph. “We were expecting to need at least 15 people to move the stone so to find we could do it with 10 was quite interesting,” doctoral student Barney Harris tells the Telegraph. The rocks in question, the ones at the center of the monument known as bluestones, were quarried in Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, Wales, according to a separate study last year.

They were laid at Stonehenge, some 140 miles away in Wiltshire, around 2400 BC, according to Seeker.com. The larger stones around the perimeter, called sarsens, are local sandstone and were laid during a second phase of construction about 500 years later. The sleigh-and-track method, if that’s what Stonehenge’s architects used, is not unique, Harris tells the Telegraph. “We know that pre-industrialized societies like the Maram Naga in India still use this kind of sledge to construct huge stone monuments, he says, adding that the Japanese are known to have used similar sleighs thousands of years ago. Could oxen have been used to pull the stones along the track? “Oxen are quite belligerent and difficult to control,” Harris says. “This experiment shows that humans could have carried out the task fairly easily.”

Next, on to Egypt…..Please do not let those whacked out stoners of the ancient alien theories know of this news…..

King Tut’s dagger is out of this world—or at least it was at some point. Italian and Egyptian researchers teamed up to analyze the blade found in the boy king’s sarcophagus (placed on his right thigh) using portable fluorescence spectrometry. They found that the iron used to make the dagger came from a meteor, reports Discovery News. (As Gizmodo puts it: “King Tut Had a Space Dagger.”) “Since its discovery in 1925, the meteoritic origin of the iron dagger blade … has been the subject of debate and previous analyses yielded controversial results,” the researchers write in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. However, the recent analysis “strongly supports its meteoritic origin.” The tipoff? Nickel, researcher Daniela Comelli tells Discovery News. While many iron artifacts have a maximum of 4% nickel, the blade of Tut’s dagger (complete with a gold handle and decorated gold sheath) contains nearly 11%.

And then there’s the cobalt concentration, a slim 0.58%. “The nickel and cobalt ratio in the dagger blade is consistent with that of iron meteorites,” Comelli says. Researchers also think they may have identified the meteor the iron came from. Of the 20 they looked at, just one’s nickel and cobalt measurements are in the ballpark. That meteor, called Kharga, was discovered in 2000 on a limestone plateau about 150 miles west of Alexandria. The researchers say the quality of the blade indicates that Egyptians of the 14th century BC already were skilled ironsmiths. And then, a linguistic insight: The researchers note a “composite term” introduced one century later means “iron of the sky,” and “suggests that the ancient Egyptians … were aware that these rare chunks of iron fell from the sky already … anticipating Western culture by more than two millennia.”

Dagger of King Tutankhamun

With this news they can turn it into a hour show for their series…(BTW how did these guys get a series?)

That is the archeology update for now….please start your weekend and enjoy some time for yourself……be safe and have a day, my friends.

Eye In The Sky

Welcome friends and I do hope you have a great weekend…..I will be posting little and enjoying nice weather……

I have written about an archaeologists , Sarah Parcak, who uses satellites top find long missing historical sites…..she has found hundreds of once unknown sites, most of which wait for excavation……she is just amazing and I am glad to see that she is getting the recognition that she deserves……

I have written about Dr. Parcak before for her new program to locate unknown historical sites worldwide…….

Source: “Space Archaeology” – In Saner Thought

Scientists have been trying to locate another North American site for the Vikings…..it appears that Dr. Parcak and her “space” equipment may have done just that…….

A “high-tech Indiana Jones” may have just done what no one else has been able to for 55 years: find a second Viking settlement in North America, the Washington Post reports. “Typically in archaeology, you only ever get to write a footnote in the history books, but what we seem to have at Point Rosee may be the beginning of an entirely new chapter,” archaeologist Sara Parcak tells the BBC. Parcak used images taken by satellites 400 miles above the Earth to find what appeared to be evidence that Vikings made it hundreds of miles further into North America than previously known. Parcak has used the same technique to find 17 pyramids, 1,000 tombs, and 3,000 forgotten settlements. But this newest discovery could change everything we know about Vikings in North America.

The first—and so far only—Viking settlement in North America was found in 1960 at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, the New York Times reports. Parcak’s site is 300 miles southwest at Point Rosee. After spotting discolorations and patterns in the satellite images, she had to hike through bogs and forests while worrying about bear attacks to confirm her suspicions. Some digging revealed a stone cracked by fire, scraps of iron ore, and Viking-style turf walls. “Either it’s … an entirely new culture that looks exactly like the Norse,” Parcak tells the Post, “or it’s the westernmost Norse site that’s ever been discovered.” And that means there could more undiscovered sites showing Vikings settled deep into North America hundreds of years before the arrival of Columbus. (A hiker found a 1,200-year-old Viking sword.)

If you would like to learn more about this young lady’s amazing discoveries……

Source: Possible Viking Find Could Rewrite North American History

I am very impressed this woman’s work….so much so I have volunteered to be part of the “group” that pours over satellite images looking for undiscovered sites….I am hoping that I can view the Middle East for these sites.

The Mummy’s Return

My weekend and more with the granddaughter.

I have always been a fan of Egypt since when I saw the Mummy when I was a child…..that would be the original mummy with Boris and not the modern day one with Brendan….although I will admit that I liked the special effects in the later day movie more so than the older one….

I bring all this up because of King Tut…….when he toured the US I saw the exhibit in New Orleans….amazing stuff truly mesmerizing….

It appears that Tut is making news yet again (he never stops impressing people)……

King Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in 1922, and nearly 100 years later, it my be giving up a millennia-old secret: Analysis of radar scans of his burial chamber carried out in November have revealed two hidden rooms, Egypt’s antiquities minister Mamdouh El-Damaty announced in a Thursday news conference. Further, the scans indicate the presence of metal and organic materials. A new scan will take place on March 31, NBC News reports, with CNN explaining that the subsequent test will reveal the dimensions of the rooms and the thickness of the walls, which will allow Egypt to plan a way forward. British archaeologist Nicolas Reeves in August theorized that the remains of Queen Nefertiti might be inside, and National Geographic fills in the timeline:

Egypt allowed Reeves and radar expert Hirokatsu Watanabe to scan Tut’s tomb over two nights in November; the scans did suggest the presence of a chamber on the north side, with El-Damaty saying at the time he was 90% certain of the existence of one room. But Watanabe had not completed a full analysis of the scans then. Now he has, hence El-Damaty’s Thursday announcement and the revelation of a chamber on the west wall as well. CNN explains that the size of Tut’s tomb seems inappropriately small considering his importance, with Reeves suggesting the king was placed in a hastily constructed extension of a tomb intended for a queen upon his death at 17. The AP reports El-Damaty thinks the new chambers could contain a royal tomb, but he wouldn’t speculate on Nefertiti—who was one of the wives of Tut’s father but is not believed to be Tut’s mother. Read more on Reeves’ theory here.

There is more if one cares to check out the rest of the story……

Source: Scans show ‘90% chance’ of hidden chambers in King Tut’s tomb | The National

For those that may not know the story of Tut……..

Source: Flash – Facts on Tutankhamun’s tomb – France 24

This whole thing is just incredible and really cool…….

“Space Archaeology”

Today I will give props where props are due…..

The title might lead one to think that I am about to go off on some weird rant about Ancient Astronauts or aliens….or possible something about a face on mars or maybe even a robot part found on the moon….or other such nonsense…..if so then……you would be mistaken…..

It is no secret that I appreciate history and archaeology and try to pass on as much info as I can when I feel it is appropriate……today is one of those times…….

I want to talk about an archaeologist that uses satellites to find ancient historical sites….the History Channel even did a program on her discoveries, it was entitled “Egypt:  What Lies Beneath”….she has found many more possible pyramid sites and even some other types of structures……about 1250 sites I believe,  that were unknown before her……she is brilliant.

And she is asking for help…….

The winner of this year’s $1 million TED Prize has the unique title of “space archaeologist,” and she plans to use the money to recruit a network of digital helpers to identify and protect sites around the world, reports the BBC. As National Geographic explains, Dr. Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham is a pioneer in the field of using satellite technology to pinpoint previously undiscovered archaeological sites. With the prize money, Parcak plans to develop a website that will use volunteer crowdsourcing to amplify that effort and to spot looting. She says the latter is more vital than ever now that groups such as the Islamic State are bent on destroying antiquities.

“We can’t keep up,” she says. “We are losing the battle. It is heartbreaking.” Parcak’s plan is to turn the process into something like a game for users, explains NPR. They’ll get cards with images representing about 50 square meters of land. “As the crowd populates these images with their tags, after 10, 20, or 50 users tell us that something is there, we’ll know to be able to check, to confirm, one way or another,” she says. On-the-ground archaeologists would then investigate, sharing their progress on social media. “The coolest part—they’ll be taking you with them,” Parcak tells the New York Times. The program is expected to launch this summer.

I like this….we are losing historic sites at an alarming rate and we all need to do all we can to help save them from the insanity of the world today…..

Source: Space Archaeologist Wants Your Help To Find Ancient Sites : All Tech Considered : NPR

I am old and retired…..so I shall apply to see if there is anything I can do to help…..if you would like to feel that you could make a difference then by all means join me and help this young lady in her quest……

Now with all that said……go out and enjoy what is left of your weekend…..

Peace….Out

Oh Brother! Another Theory!

My weekend begins and I am so happy to be away from the mind numbing effect of constant news up-dates…..a few days to relax the mind and ignore the clutter……

Stonehenge!  It seems that there is a new theory pertaining to this historic structure….no I am not talking about one of those crazy things that the Ancient alien nuts would have you believe….this is a real theory (sort of)…….

Stonehenge may reside in England, but it “was a Welsh monument from its very beginning.” So says Professor Mike Parker Pearson in reference to what is a big step forward in our understanding of Stonehenge, reports the BBC. His team’s research, published Monday in the journal Antiquity, establishes the source of the monument’s “bluestones,” the smaller of its stones, which for nine decades were known to generally hail from the Preseli Hills in Wales. Now, scientists say they know exactly where in Wales they came from: the “spotted dolerite” bluestones hail from Carn Goedog, while the “rhyolite” were extracted from Craig Rhos-y-felin, reports Phys.org. The burnt hazelnuts and charcoal that persist as remnants of millennia-old campfires at the quarries further flesh out the tale of the rocks.

“We have dates of around 3400 BC for Craig Rhos-y-felin and 3200 BC for Carn Goedog, which is intriguing because the bluestones didn’t get put up at Stonehenge until around 2900 BC,” says Parker Pearson per Phys.org. “It could have taken those Neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to Stonehenge, but that’s pretty improbable.” His theory: The stones were put to use in a local monument, which was latter disassembled. His team suspects the remnants of that monument could sit between the two quarries; “we may find something big in 2016,” says one scientist. If they do, Parker Pearson believes it could reveal “the mystery of why Stonehenge was built and why some of its stones were brought so far.” One theory he shares with the Guardian: that it’s a “monument of unification, bringing together people from across the many parts of Britain.

Or maybe they thought the stones were…….pretty.

Well it is a better theory than the one that it is somehow connected to cute little grey guys from space……but I still want someone to tell me how they lifted those stones into place.

Any thoughts?

What’s New in Archaeology?

Once again I look forward to the weekend…..always nice to recover some mental clarity……

Most know I am a history buff….I enjoy learning new historical stuff and last week there were two stories that were very interesting…..

First, this discovery will get all those ancient alien geeks jerking off all over their out dated keyboards…….

A project to scan Egypt’s pyramids for 4,500-year-old secrets is turning up “anomalies” that may lead to hidden passages and more, Discovery reports. Two weeks of thermal scanning have revealed signs of internal cavities and structures in several pyramids and a standout anomaly at the so-called Great Pyramid, also known as Cheops. “This anomaly is really quite impressive and it’s just in front of us, at the ground level,” says researcher Mehdi Tayoubi. He called the anomaly “impressive and obvious” but inconclusive. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty was more specific: “There is something like a small passage in the ground that you can see, leading up to the pyramids ground, reaching an area with a different temperature,” he said, per the AP. “What will be behind it?”

In this first phase of the Scan Pyramids project, a team from Cairo University and the Heritage, Innovation and Preservation organization explored the pyramids with technologies including a thermal camera. The idea was to see how pyramid stones heated up in the morning and cooled down in the evening, and big temperature differences between adjacent stones could indicate structural differences inside the pyramid. Led by Tayoubi, researchers spotted a 6-degree difference in a block of stones on the ground level at Cheops. “We need now to build models and thermal simulations to test different hypotheses in order to understand what we have found,” says Tayoubi. The project is slated to continue next year with an infrared scan of the pyramids. (Also giving up potential secrets? King Tut’s tomb.)

Will this help Carson’s claim that they were grain storage?  Or is it some secret library that the ancient aliens have been talking about for a couple of seasons on that “reality” show?  What will be the final determination?

Second, another fave of the ancient alien nerds….Stonehenge…..

The New York Times has an interesting roundup of recent discoveries made at and around Stonehenge that could shed new light on the famous monument and the people who built it nearly 5,000 years ago. Last month, archaeologists dug up an ancient house at an area called Blick Mead about a mile from Stonehenge. Built around 4300 BC, they believe the house is one of the oldest in England. In September, a team of archaeologists using radar imaging found what they believe are 90 standing stones buried at another nearby site called Durrington Walls. Teams also think they’ve found where Stonehenge’s builders lived around 2600 BC. Fatty acids still inside ancient pots show the people of the time had a “very meat-heavy diet” of grilled and boiled pork and beef with some apples, berries, and hazelnuts.

But despite the recent discoveries, the major question remains: Why was Stonehenge built? Some archaeologists believe it was a “land of the dead” used to honor the builders’ ancestors, the Times reports. Others believe it was the opposite: an area renowned for its life-giving healing properties. A team used an isotope contained in ancient cattle teeth to deduce people came to the area around Stonehenge from far and wide. Archaeologists are also left wondering if Stonehenge was built atop a site that was already revered by ancient peoples. For example, charcoal and bones found in nearby pits left by large posts—possibly totem poles—date back to nearly 8000 BC. “The stone monument is iconic,” one archaeologist says. “But it’s only a little part of the whole thing.” Read the full story here.

That is my short round-up of archaeology finds…….what say you?

Atlantis Found (Again)!

A beautiful Saturday and the start of my weekend….days of wine and roses…..relax and enjoy the show……

How many stories have you seen with the title “Atlantis Found”?  Well, there is yet another of those…….

There have been how many references to the location of Atlantis?  SyFy has made movies about it….aliens have created it……books written….historical papers delivered……on and on.

The island has been in the imagination of everyone since it was written about by Plato in those years before Alexander the Great…..people have used every source available to place the exact location of the legendary island……is it in Bimini?  How about in the Aegean Sea…..off Spain….somewhere in the India Ocean?  Lots of speculation…..little factual information.

And now we have another “discovery” about Atlantis…….

Some say the lost city of Atlantis lies not at the bottom of the ocean but in plain sight off the coast of Italy on the island of Sardinia. Herodotus and Aristotle were two who thought Plato’s description of a land beyond the strait between Sicily and Tunisia, which disappeared beneath the waves, referenced the island. Writer and journalist Sergio Frau is another. After researching the island for a decade, Frau suspects a mysterious disaster that devastated Sardinia 3,200 years ago was in fact a tidal wave, which boosts the theory that Sardinia and Atlantis are one and the same, reports the Guardian. Stefano Tinti, an expert on tidal waves who recently visited the island with Frau along with a dozen other experts, says 350 tidal waves have occurred in the Mediterranean over the last 2,500 years and one might explain why all of Sardinia’s ancient megalithic edifices below 1,640 feet of elevation are hidden beneath dirt.

Frau explains at least 20,000 nuraghi—fortresses with a main tower—can be found across the island, dating between the 16th and 12th centuries BC. But below 1,640 feet in the south, the structures are buried. Excavations in this area have found a jumble of ceramics, cups, pots, oil lamps, sharpening stones, metal implements, knives, chisels, needles, and arrow tips; gold, silver, amber, and rock crystal jewellery have also been found. Tinti notes the 2003 earthquake in Algeria “triggered a shockwave that reached the Balearics and Sardinia an hour later,” but only a comet hitting “very close to the coast and in a very specific direction” could have created a wall of water 1,640 feet high. The Guardian reports researchers could search for evidence of such an impact, including comet fragments, underwater. The initial purpose of the nuraghi, used later for moon worship, is also a subject of interest.

All these people know the location…..and yet there is little proof that they are right in the declarations…….

Will the elusive island of wonder ever truly be pinpointed?  Better yet,,,,did it ever exist?

Were mere copies of Iraq’s national treasures destroyed? | Middle East | DW.DE | 11.03.2015

About a week ago one of the big stories was that ISIS was destroying ancient Assyrian artifacts in Iraq…….the competent world was aghast.

As a history buff especially the Middle East, I was appalled at the wonton destruction of history by ISIS….I also said at the time that, to me they did not appear to be the genuine relics, that they were too difficult to break up for them to be sandstone………

Iraq went from the “cradle of civilization” to the “cradle of barbarism”………

I am pleased to see that my observations were not inaccurate…..others seem to agree with me……

 

Were mere copies of Iraq’s national treasures destroyed? | Middle East | DW.DE | 11.03.2015.