Tag: Archeology

Iraq: Preserving The History

There have been reports that are truly disgusting and at the same time pathetic……ISIS is destroying archeological sites…..what kind of MORONs want to destroy their history?

Hopeful my readers have seen the reports of ISIS in Northern Iraq destroying historical sites…..ISIS has set about destroying some ancient Assyrian sites…..

ISIS militants have trashed museum pieces in Mosul with sledgehammers, bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, and yesterday destroyed the Hatra ruins in Iraq, reports the BBC. But while the New York Times catalogs everything that antiquities ministers and workers are doing to stave off the annihilation of some of the world’s oldest artifacts in Iraq and Syria, Iraq’s tourism ministry is pointing the finger at the rest of the world for just watching it happen. “The delay in international support for Iraq has encouraged terrorists to commit another crime of stealing and demolishing the remains of the city of Hatra,” a statement read, per the BBC. “A fool criminal can come with one hit of a hammer and destroy all our efforts, and we can do nothing,” Qais Hussein Rashid, deputy minister for tourism and antiquities, tells the Times. “It’s a great grief.”

Why this destructive mission? To ISIS, ancient art represents idolatry and must be destroyed, the Times notes. But militants have also pilfered many of the artifacts to raise money, experts tracking the thefts tell the Times. Rashid and Minister Adel Shirshab have been lobbying for the US to redirect airstrikes to target militants heading toward other historic sites, the Times notes. And officials took another step yesterday toward designating the ancient Babylon ruins as a Unesco World Heritage Site to offer it more protection. A Babylon “preservation” plan is also in the works, which would include a brick-by-brick rendering of the site so if it were ever destroyed, it could be rebuilt. “This is Iraq’s history,” a visitor at the National Museum of Iraq’s reopening yesterday tells the Times. “You can say it’s the world’s history.”

I think it is great that there is so much concern over the preservation of these sites and antiquities…..but then where was the concern back in 2003 when the protecting of the oil ministry was far more important than protecting the antiquities in the Baghdad Museum?

Now there is a call for  air power to be used to help save the historic sites…….

Iraq urged a U.S.-led military coalition on Sunday to use air power to protect the country’s antiquities from Islamic State fighters looting and destroying some of the world’s greatest archaeological treasures.

Iraqi Tourism and Antiquities Minister Adel Shirshab said only the U.S.-led coalition could put an end to the pillaging.

“Our airspace is not in our hands. It’s in their hands,” he told reporters. “I am calling on the international community and coalition to activate its air strikes and target terrorism wherever it exists.”

Shirshab and the head of Iraq’s state body for antiquities and heritage said Iraqi authorities were still trying to assess the full extent of the damage in Hatra and Nineveh.

“We have confirmation that they bulldozed sites at Nimrud and Hatra. What we don’t have is information about the size of the area which has been razed,” said Qais Rasheed, head of the antiquities board.

I think it is great that someone cares enough to consider the protection of these sites…..but how serious would the US and its coalition partners be about such protection?  It is touching that they seemingly care about these sites…..and yet a bit pathetic.

It is a shame that the Cradle of Civilization is now the Cradle of Barbarism.

What’s New In Religion?

It is the weekend and a Sunday so what better time to post on religion?

There is always news about religion….sad part is that much of it is hoaxes or fake……and then there are those mental midgets that call themselves Christian and yet they lie, name call, accuse, show NO compassion or tolerance…..sounds like a complete disregard of the teachings of their deity………

Anyway there have been some discoveries that need to be mentioned……

Ancients apparently used various papyrus documents to create mummy masks—including what may be the earliest known fragment of a New Testament gospel, LiveScience reports. Confirming information that leaked in 2012, professor Craig Evans says he’s among the researchers who peeled apart the glued layers of a mummy mask and discovered a Gospel of Mark fragment dating to 90AD or earlier. That’s at least a decade older than any known gospel copy, so the fragment could potentially show how the gospel was changed over time. The find will be published this year, but Evans won’t say more because he’s signed a non-disclosure agreement. In fact, he says, he’s only talking now because another researcher already blabbed about it. “[We] have to honor the [privacy] request of the museums, universities, private owners, so forth,” says Evans.

Other scholars are fuming over the practice of ungluing the ancient papyri, saying it destroys bona fide mummy masks. Evans is “totally oblivious to the destruction of archaeological material,” writes an archaeologist in what LiveScience calls a “scathing blog post.” (But Evans says the masks are just ordinary people’s “low-end,” papyrus-and-glue fare—not the Pharaohs’ magnificent gold versions.) Another blogger contends that Josh McDowell, “a Christian evangelical apologist with no scholarly credentials,” is part of the project and admits in a video “that he doesn’t know what he is doing.” Evans, however, says the team will recover hundreds “if not thousands” of papyri from the first three centuries AD, including Christian documents, “classical Greek texts, business papers … personal letters” and copies of stories by Homer.

There is more many……….

Some ancient Egyptians apparently used a tiny “gospel,” believing it could tell their future—even though its oracles were rather vague. Princeton University professor Marie Luijendijk discovered a 1,500-year-old book called the “Gospel of the Lots of Mary” and figured it would tell Jesus’ life story or collect his sayings, LiveScience reports. Then she read its 37 oracles, a few of which mention Jesus, and realized “gospel” was used in the original sense of “good news.” And like other “lot books,” it was designed to predict the future. The book’s title “is very significant,” says Luijendijk. It indicates the importance of predictions “being [seen] as good news. Nobody who wants to know the future wants to hear bad news in a sense.” She says the book’s owner randomly selected oracles and interpreted them to predict the future.

The text is inspired by Mary, “the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, she to whom Gabriel the Archangel brought the good news,” the book says. Written in the Egyptian language of Coptic, the oracles include material from Matthew, Luke, Proverbs, Job, and Psalms, and are “Christian in nature,” the Daily Mail reports. They include advice like, “If you are patient a little, the matter will prosper through the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and “Go forward immediately. This is a thing from God.” Remarkably, the book is just 3 inches by 2.7 inches, possibly to conceal it from church leaders who frowned on divination. The book was also inexpensive to produce, New Historian notes, and appears much used, with ancient fingerprints still in the margins.

People are running all over the Middle East trying to find historical fact to make their points…….

Curious to see the possible site of Jesus’ trial? The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem has begun offering tours to the suspected remains of Herod’s palace, where some say Jesus was tried and sentenced to death, the Washington Post reports. “There is, of course, no inscription stating it happened here, but everything—archaeological, historical, and gospel accounts—all falls into place and makes sense,” says a US archaeology professor. The Gospel of John, for example, describes the trial as occurring on uneven stone pavement close to a gate, details that jibe with earlier discoveries near the tower. A minister who runs a nearby Anglican congregation (including heritage center and guesthouse) says the discovery confirms “what everyone expected all along.” The tour costs about $11.40 for adults and $8.90 for students, the International Business Times reports.

The finding began 15 years ago with a plan to expand the Tower of David Museum, and started digging under the floor in an adjacent building that had been a prison under the Ottoman Turks and British rule. Archaeologists found suspected remains of Herod’s palace, where some believe Jesus stood trial. Others debate the location, which is described in the Gospels as Pontius Pilate’s “praetorium,” a Latin word meaning a general’s tent in a Roman camp. Whether Pontius had his praetorium in a military barracks or Herod’s palace seems open to dispute. So will the old prison become a new Christian holy site? “I don’t think that will happen anytime soon,” says the Anglican minister, who adds that places only become holy after people “have gone there for hundreds of years, prayed, cried, and even celebrated there.” (Archaeologists may also have recently found a site where Jesus preached.)

On stolen land the Israelis have possibly found where Jesus preached…….in a historical sweep of the land before settlements are built……..

Israel requires that archaeologists perform a sweep of any historically significant land where construction is planned, and they were surprised to find a 20-acre parcel of land along the western side of the Sea of Galilee may have ties to Jesus. Haaretz revisits a story that has the Rev. Juan Solana at its root. The Catholic priest set out a decade ago to purchase four plots near the Israeli town of Migdal. Solana’s goal: to build a resort for Christian pilgrims there. In anticipation of that, in 2009 architects with the Israel Antiquities Authority began to dig, expecting to find nothing of note. Instead, they found the remnants of a synagogue that experts believe was originally constructed in the year 1AD. The Wall Street Journal earlier this year described it as the only known one from the period in Galilee; the Bible describes Jesus as “teaching in [Galilee’s] synagogues, preaching the good news.”

In terms of its location, Migdal was named for the ancient town of Magdala, where Mary Magdalene is believed to have hailed from, and the dig revealed the site in question “was not just near Magdala; this was Magdala,” as the Journal puts it. In Haaretz’s telling, experts say it’s probable that Jesus preached there. Dina Gorni, one of the archaeologists who worked on the dig, was a bit more cautious in a 2012 interview with the Global Mail. Gorni notes the synagogue was likely built to hold 120, though thousands lived in Magdala. “We believe, we suggest, that this was a special community, not large, that put itself at the edge of the main Jewish village,” said Gorni. “They may be connected to Jesus and Mary Magdalene. We know that Jesus was not involved in the main Jewish community and preferred to live aside. Perhaps he was the leader around whom this synagogue was built.”

A tour of the religious news of the year so far……….just in case you were interested…..keep in mind that there is a wealth of hoaxes coming out of Israel……Biblical artifacts are big business……..

 

What’s New In Archeology?

I am a bit of a history buff (an understatement) and I am always reading about the discoveries these people are making….

Let me bring you up to date……

A lot of people are interested in the Maya, especially what happened to make them all but disappear…..

(Newser) – Everything from overhunting and a peasant uprising to deforestation and an alien invasion has been proposed to explain why the Mayan civilization collapsed, Smithsonian notes. But one theory has been gaining ground in recent years: extreme drought. Now more evidence has surfaced to support the drought postulation—and the proof may just lie in Belize’s most famous underwater cave. Rice University professor Andre Droxler’s team analyzed sediment found in the “Great Blue Hole,” a 410-foot-deep sinkhole in the middle of Lighthouse Reef, LiveScience reports. Not only did the chemical composition of the silt indicate periods of sparse rainfall during the Mayan decline (likely between AD800 and AD1000): It also showed that a second huge drought probably occurred between AD1000 and AD1100—right around the time the Mayans’ relocation site of Chichen Itza is said to have fallen.

Over thousands of years, runoff from rivers and streams during periods of ample rainfall deposited layers of sediment in the Blue Hole’s lagoon, offering scientists a geological timeline to examine. “It’s like a big bucket,” Droxler tells LiveScience. “It’s a sediment trap.” Excessive rain also erodes volcanic rock, which contains titanium. Droxler’s team found that the sediment’s mineral composition—specifically, the low ratio of titanium to aluminum—in the lagoon indicated periods of low rainfall during the times when the Mayas, for the most part, disappeared. Scientists surmise that due to a climate glitch, monsoons may have skipped over the Yucatan Peninsula during these periods, leading to eventual catastrophe all around. “When you have major droughts, you start to get famines and unrest,” Droxler explains. (A “lost” Mayan city with 15 pyramids was discovered in Mexico last year.)

Let’s move on to China……..

For years, researchers have been stumped by an ancient Chinese civilization on the banks of the Minjiang River that suddenly vanished around 3,000 years ago. “The current explanations for why it disappeared are war and flood, but both are not very convincing,” says the co-author of a new study that thinks it’s solved the mystery of Sanxingdui’s abandonment. Researchers say an earthquake caused massive landslides that dammed Sanxingdui’s main water source and diverted it elsewhere between 2,800 and 3,000 years ago, LiveScience reports. The study concludes that the civilization—capable of producing impressive 8-foot-tall bronze sculptures unlike anything else in the world at the time—deliberately packed up and followed the water to a new location.

That new location may have been the ancient city of Jinsha nearby. Some believe a gold crown at Jinsha, similar in design to a golden staff at Sanxingdui, is proof. Elephant tusks, sculptures, and jade and stone artifacts found in two pits in 1986 were perhaps purposefully hidden before the move. There’s more evidence of an earthquake: Geographical data shows a temblor occurred in the walled city’s general region sometime between 3,330 and 2,200 years ago and that massive flooding occurred. Researchers note that ancient writers recorded an earthquake 250 miles from Sanxingdui in 1099 BC; Sanxingdui didn’t have writing at the time, so it’s possible the quake was closer but went unrecorded.

Fast forward to the Middle East……..

Israel requires that archaeologists perform a sweep of any historically significant land where construction is planned, and they were surprised to find a 20-acre parcel of land along the western side of the Sea of Galilee may have ties to Jesus. Haaretz revisits a story that has the Rev. Juan Solana at its root. The Catholic priest set out a decade ago to purchase four plots near the Israeli town of Migdal. Solana’s goal: to build a resort for Christian pilgrims there. In anticipation of that, in 2009 architects with the Israel Antiquities Authority began to dig, expecting to find nothing of note. Instead, they found the remnants of a synagogue that experts believe was originally constructed in the year 1AD. The Wall Street Journal earlier this year described it as the only known one from the period in Galilee; the Bible describes Jesus as “teaching in [Galilee’s] synagogues, preaching the good news.”

In terms of its location, Migdal was named for the ancient town of Magdala, where Mary Magdalene is believed to have hailed from, and the dig revealed the site in question “was not just near Magdala; this was Magdala,” as the Journal puts it. In Haaretz’s telling, experts say it’s probable that Jesus preached there. Dina Gorni, one of the archaeologists who worked on the dig, was a bit more cautious in a 2012 interview with the Global Mail. Gorni notes the synagogue was likely built to hold 120, though thousands lived in Magdala. “We believe, we suggest, that this was a special community, not large, that put itself at the edge of the main Jewish village,” said Gorni. “They may be connected to Jesus and Mary Magdalene. We know that Jesus was not involved in the main Jewish community and preferred to live aside. Perhaps he was the leader around whom this synagogue was built.” (A new book claims Jesus had two children.)

Mummies!  Always a good subject……

When researchers claimed to have found a million burials at a dig site in Egypt, the supposed news was widely reported—including on this site. But officials in the country say the claim is false, and they’ve revoked the scientists’ dig licenses in connection with it, io9 reports. Archaeologist Kerry Muhlestein’s team said in a statement that “the math suggests that there are over a million mummies in the cemetery, though we cannot be certain of this without further exploration and a thorough academic review process,” the Luxor Times reports. To be fair, at Live Science, Muhlestein was quoted as qualifying the word “mummy,” given the natural, not artificial, processes reportedly involved: “If we want to use the term loosely, then they were mummified,” he said.

But Dr. Youssef Khalifa, who, Newsweek reports, heads the ancient Egypt department at the country’s antiquities ministry, suggests that neither the number nor the word “mummy” are correct. The statement, which was published in the Daily Mail, “is not true,” he says. “There are no million mummies; a mummy definition to begin with means a complete mummified body, and there is only one mummy found at the site of Fag el-Gamous, in 1980.” In recent years, says Dr. Khalifa, “only poor skeletons were found,” along with a few thousand bones. Researchers broke rules on press statements, and “that’s why the committee of the ancient Egypt department took the decision to stop their permission to work at the site after 28 years,” he says. Muhlestein says it’s a matter of “misunderstandings.”

And there you have all the info you NEVER asked for….you are welcome!

Could It Be Atlantis?

Probably not….but it made a good title……..

Newser) – It was believed that underwater ruins off the Greek island of Delos were simply ancient docks—but now experts are telling a much more exciting story. They’ve found what’s left of several buildings, including a pottery workshop, at the site just six feet below the surface.The ruins likely date to the first century BC, the Huffington Post reports. They were home to 16 pots and parts of a kiln, as well as what’s left of walls and colonnades. Greek media is calling the site an “underwater Pompeii,” Discovery reports.

Indeed, “similar workshops have been found in Pompeii and Herculaneum,” Greek officials say. It’s unclear how the site, which seems to have collapsed, met its underwater fate. Greek myth holds that the island of Delos is where the god Apollo was born, and the area was home to both an Apollo cult and a major slave trade. It declined after many of its inhabitants were slaughtered by attackers in 88 BC, and it was finally abandoned around 500 AD, Discovery notes. The site is central to Greek history, the Independent reports, and the area is subject to continuing excavation. (Click to read about the biggest ancient stone block ever found.)

And the myth continues.

The First Computer?

Saturday and Lived through Black Friday…..now move on to other important stuff…..but first, the Macy’s Parade….ever notice that those inflated nightmares are a symbol of the inflated egos of most Americans?

The first computer?  A device found in the Aegan many years ago is a complex mechanism from an era that may not have had such knowledge (according to mainstream archeologists)…….there has been a wealth of opinions on just what it is……and the research has continued…..

(Newser) – The incredible Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical calculator unlike anything else that appeared for the next 1,000 years, is a “device out of time,” experts say—and they now have a better idea what time it is out of. The mechanism, which was apparently able to accurately predict eclipses and the positions of the planets, was initially believed to have been built around 100BC. But researchers analyzing the device’s own calendar and comparing it to Babylonian eclipse records discovered that it begins more than a century earlier, in 205BC, reports the New York Times. The machine found on an ancient shipwreck appears to use Babylonian arithmetical methods known to the Greeks instead of trigonometry, the researchers write in the journal Archive for History of Exact Sciences.

The finding means that the mysterious device was already pretty ancient by the time it went down some time around 70BC to 60BC with a ship carrying a bride and her dowry, io9 reports. Researchers have long speculated that great Greek thinkers like Archimedes, Hipparchus, or Posidonius must have been involved in the construction of the dazzlingly advanced mechanism, but they say the new date makes an Archimedes connection unlikely. The new research also offers some clues to the place where it may have been made: An inscription on part of the device used to date the Olympic Games refers to a competition held on the island of Rhodes. (A new excavation that finished last month found that the wreck the mechanism came from was much bigger than thought, leading researchers to call it the “Titanic of the ancient world.”)

Of course this does not take in account the “Ancient Alien Theory”……that is a whole other post after I have been heavily medicated…….

If you have a thought please share!

Wassup South of The Border?

Saturday and my mind is free of the manure left in it by the mainstream media….all the crap that they want us to believe blindly……..oh well, today and tomorrow I can post on things that interest me…….

I like history and archeology helps to make history more alive…….I have always found the Maya to be extraordinary people….the pyramids, the astronomy……..the cities that are some of the greatest features of the New World…..scientists say that a very small percentage of the Mayan culture has bee uncovered and from time to time a new find is discovered…….

Archaeologists have long known of a “lost” Mayan city boasting an incredible “earth monster” facade—and now someone has found it. Slovenian explorer Ivan Sprajc came out of the Yucatan jungle in Mexico with photos of the city, Lagunita, and a second, previously unknown city he’s calling Tamchen, the Washington Post reports. Both were apparently abandoned around 1,000 AD along with other cities in the area. But only Lagunita has the “profusely decorated facade with a monster-mouth doorway,” as the Slovenia Academy of Sciences and Arts puts it. The facade depicts “the gaping maws of the earth and fertility diety.”

Which diety is that, again? “A Maya earth deity related with fertility,” Sprajc tells Discovery News. “These doorways symbolize the entrance to a cave and, in general, to the watery underworld, place of mythologized origin of maize and abode of ancestors.” An American explorer spotted the city (and its famous mouth) in the 1970s, but no one had been able to retrace his steps in the dense jungle. Now we have Lagunita, with its “monumental buildings,” game court for Maya ball, and roughly 65-foot-high pyramid, the Yucatan Times reports. Judging by its buildings and inscriptions on monuments, “Lagunita must have been the seat of a relatively powerful polity,” says an expert on the project

That is just cool….but let’s continue South….to the magical land of the Inca….Peru.

Ever heard of the Nazca lines?  Lines etched in the top of a mountain that cannot be identified until one is up in the air and then there are spiders, whales, birds, etc…..some people say that aliens made these as beacons for other space travelers….it seems that the ones discovered back in the 20th century are not the only ones….

Sandstorms in Peru have revealed mysterious designs believed to have been etched into the desert thousands of years ago. The newly exposed geoglyphs, discovered last week by a pilot flying over the region, include a snake nearly 200 feet long as well as a bird and some llama-like creatures, reports the Independent. Other designs, known as the Nazca Lines, were first spotted in the desert region from the air in 1939, the Daily Mail notes, and archaeologists are now working to confirm that the new lines are genuine.

The Nazca Lines—described by UNESCO as “a unique and magnificent artistic achievement that is unrivaled” elsewhere in the prehistoric world—are thought to have been etched into the desert by the Nazca people sometime before 500AD, and they include long lines and geometric shapes as well the shapes of animals and plants. Many scholars believe they were used for astronomic rituals, but one of Peru’s top experts tells El Comercio that the new finds confirm the relationship between “the ancient people who occupied this arid desert with rain and worship of water.”

There is the round-up of recent archeological discoveries…..

Anyone got anything to add?

Digging Up The Past

My weekend and all I can say is thank you for the days of calm reflection……I have studied archeology while in school and I like the history behind the field….so today I will post on a couple of archeological finds recently………

Iraq has been in the news a lot in the last couple of months and not in a good way…..but with all the death and destruction there has been an archeological find……..

An archaeologist is closing in on the location of an ancient temple so venerated that when it was sacked in 714 BC, its king tore off his crown, “pulled out his hair, pounded his chest with both hands”—then killed himself, according to an early account. The long-lost temple in question was in the city of Musasir, and Dutch doctoral student Dlshad Marf Zamua thinks he’s found its column bases in Kurdistan, in modern day Iraq, LiveScience reports. The temple was dedicated to Haldi, the supreme god of the Uratu kingdom, and its bases were found by villagers and date back 2,500 years to the Iron Age, when several groups competed for control of the region. The aforementioned drama king was the Urartu king Rusa I, after the Assyrians looted it.

Discovery of the column bases isn’t the end of the story. Marf Zamua has found a bronze statuette of a wild goat with cuneiform inscriptions that need decoding, and several 7 1/2-foot-tall statues of bearded men that were once raised above burial sites. An ancient carving of Musasir also revealed architecture similar to that found in modern villages, Marf Zamua says. His discoveries in Kurdistan have been made under the growing cloud of ISIS. LiveScience has photos of the finds here, but it’s not the only Iron Age story in the news today.

Have you seen the terracotta soldiers that were found in the tomb of the first emperor of China…..each one is unique in facial expression, size, etc…….now the mystery of these statues may have been solved……

Every member of First Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Terracotta Army—thousands of replicas of Chinese imperial guards rendered in clay around 221 BC—is unique and incredibly realistic, which is why they’ve fascinated researchers since they were discovered in 1974. Now, scientists in China say they’ve peeled back another layer of mystery—they’ve figured out the binding media used to paint the more than 8,000 soldiers, chariots, and horses, Science China Press announces. The army was covered with a couple layers of lacquer; layers of pigment and binding media went on top of this. The pigment was identified, but the binding media was a mystery, making it difficult to conserve or restore the figures—until now. By comparing “artificially aged” replica samples to the historical samples, researchers pinpointed the binding material as animal glue.

The Terracotta Army was built on the emperor’s orders to guard the underground palace where he was buried, to protect him in the afterlife. Just as the palace mirrored the imperial capital, the warriors replicated the imperial guard. The intricately detailed statues were posed as if ready for a fight—and now they look set to join the ranks of movie superheroes, thanks to a planned collaboration between movie companies in the US, UK, and China, the Sunday Express reports. But the plot of the potential movie—which could end up being just the first in a new franchise—is probably not what the First Emperor envisioned. On the silver screen, rather than protecting the emperor, they’ll come alive to protect the modern world from aliens. The movie studios have some pretty awesome-sounding working titles, including Rise of the Terracotta Warriors and Super Terracotta Warriors.

A few of the mysteries in archeology that may have an answer after years of questions……

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war, 13,000 years ago

My final day of calm……after witnessing the occurrences in Ferguson I realize that the race issue in the US still has not been resolved.  Race has been an issue in the US for decades and we still have not resolved the problem………even though the conversation is not happening and then ask how long can this go on?

Then read this and realized that race and the problems of racial integration have been around a lot longer than a few decades……

 

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war, 13,000 years ago.

The Vanishing Army

It is Sunday my last day of mental clarity…..my regular readers know that I am a history buff…..especially when it is history on or about the Middle East…..I have always been interested in the army sent into the desert by a persian king to put down a revolt and the army was lost…..some say a massive sandstorm swallowed them….but people have looked for remains of this army since around 600BCE…..and some say they found the object of their search…..

An expert on Egyptian history thinks he’s figured out what happened to an army of 50,000 men that seemingly vanished in the Egyptian desert around 524 BC, reports Nature World News. Legend has it that the “lost army of Cambyses” got swallowed up in a sandstorm, an account passed on by none other than Greek historian Herodotus. But if so, then why hasn’t any trace of the men turned up despite scores of archaeological expeditions? Because there was no sandstorm, says professor Olaf Kaper at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Instead, he argues via a university news release, the soldiers suffered a far more conventional fate: They got whupped by a rebel army.

“Since the 19th century, people have been looking for this army: amateurs, as well as professional archaeologists,” says Kaper. “Some expect to find somewhere under the ground an entire army, fully equipped.” By his account, Persian King Cambyses sent the troops into the desert toward a place called the Dachla Oasis to put down a revolt, but a rebel leader named Petubastis III ambushed and defeated them, then named himself pharaoh. Two years later, Persian King Darius I put an end to the revolt and, according to Kaper’s theory, practiced some spin control. He made up the story about the sandstorm because he figured it would be better for people to think that natural elements, not a military foes, were responsible. Kaper says he pieced all this together based on inscriptions of ancient temple blocks unearthed in the Dachla Oasis, reports Sci-News. He was to present his theory at an international conference, and there’s no word yet whether other Egyptologists are on board

If  true then a mystery of the ages has been solved…….any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Sex Is Where You Find It

It is no secret that I am a history buff……since it is the start of my weekend I think I will dedicate it to historical stuff…….when I was traveling I got to go to the ruins in Pompeii…..a very interesting tour by the way……I especially was fascinated by the erotic graffiti that was found in the ruins…..I have also seen what some call the Porno Scroll, a piece of Egyptian papyrus with some explicit drawings……I bring all this up because of a report I read last week……..

Think phallic graffiti art exclusively belongs to the baseless present? Think again. An archaeologist has uncovered what the Guardian touts as the earliest erotic graffiti on the planet, found in Greece—and predating, in one case, even Athens’ Acropolis. Since 2011, Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos has been directing fieldwork on the Aegean island of Astypalaia, and the professor may have given the students working with him a little more insight than he’d at first intended when he happened upon extremely explicit erotica chiseled into the limestone rocks that line the cape. In one instance, dating back to 5th century BC, two gigantic penises are etched next to the name Dion; in another, dating to 6th century BC, one man boasted: “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona.”

“We know that in ancient Greece sexual desire between men was not a taboo,” Vlachopoulos tells the Guardian. “But this graffiti … is not just among the earliest ever discovered. By using the verb in the past continuous [tense], it clearly says that these two men were making love over a long period of time, emphasizing the sexual act in a way that is highly unusual in erotic artwork.” One theory is that soldiers were once stationed at this outpost overlooking the bay; other carvings include that of ships, daggers, and wave-symbolizing spirals. Either way Astypalaia, best known for what Archaeology International called “the largest ancient children’s cemetery in the world,” with at least 2,700 infant burials identified in one place, can now add ancient porn among its claims to fame. (Meanwhile, in Italy, art restorers have been accused of scrubbing away the erotic…)

Our ancestors were NO different from us…….they enjoyed the same things we enjoy…….anybody got an opinion they would like to share?