From all I have read about scarce archaeological findings in Saudia Arabia and more recent side scanning radar images showning ancient dewllings and roadways, there must be a hidden treasure trove of ancient stuff under the sands. This area must have once been a fertile region.
Archaeology
- RTH10260
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Re: Archaeology
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Re: Archaeology
“Norfolk seal inscription mystery solved by US man on Twitter”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-57678500
“The mystery of an inscription on a badly burned medieval silver seal has been been solved by a man in the US on Twitter.
Alex Cortez, from California, read online about a Norfolk-found artefact that was so damaged, its border inscription was too hard to read.
After painstaking research, he discovered the words could come from a particular biblical psalm.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-57678500
“The mystery of an inscription on a badly burned medieval silver seal has been been solved by a man in the US on Twitter.
Alex Cortez, from California, read online about a Norfolk-found artefact that was so damaged, its border inscription was too hard to read.
After painstaking research, he discovered the words could come from a particular biblical psalm.”
If you can't lie to yourself, who can you lie to?
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Re: Archaeology
Spectacular Visigoth sarcophagus discovered in Mula Roman villa site
The Villaricos Roman villa site is fairly close to the former Visigoth city of Begastri in Cehegín
A research team led by University of Murcia professor Rafael González Fernández, professor of Ancient History, has discovered a spectacular sarcophagus dating from the Visigoth period at the site of the Roman necropolis of Los Villaricos, in Mula during this summer’s two week long archaeological campaign which only began on Monday. (click for further information about the Villaricos Roman villa site)
Spectacular Visigoth sarcophagus discovered in Mula Roman villa site
The sarcophagus is a two meter long piece with geometric decoration interspersed with ivy leaves.
In the position occupied by the head of the deceased is a crismón, framed by a border.
A crismón (Christogram or Chi Rho) is an anagram formed by the first two letters of the name of Christ in Greek –Χριστος–, ji (X) and ro (P). Although originally used by the Emperor Constantine as part of a military standard it later became part of the official imperial insignia, and has been found on many early Christian artworks, symbolising the vistory of the Resurrection over death.
It’s believed that the piece dates from the 6th century.
https://murciatoday.com/spectacular-vis ... 323-a.html
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Re: Archaeology
a very long read on the history of this site
The Roman villa of Los Villaricos in Mula
The Roman villa of Los Villaricos in MulaThe municipality of Mula is the location of a major, large scale Roman agricultural villa in the area of Los Villaricos, close to the banks of the River Mula.
This is one of the most important villas of its kind in the Region of Murcia and is a substantial structure with evidence of several hundred years of occupation. It can be visited by groups on an appointment only basis and is open from time to time for general visits by the public, usually on days coinciding with the monthly artesan market.
Although it is an extensive site, there are still large areas of the villa remaining unexcavated to date.
https://murciatoday.com/the-roman-villa ... 711-a.html
Re: Archaeology
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... age-status
The oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been awarded Unesco world heritage status and dubbed “a masterpiece of human creative genius”.
The 2,300-year-old archaeological ruin Chankillo which lies in a desert valley in northern Peru was one of 13 new global sites added to the list of cultural monuments.
Thirteen towers that align on a ridge are the best-known feature of the ancient site which dates between 250 and 200 BCE. The towers functioned as a calendar using the rising and setting arcs of the sun to mark not only equinoxes and solstices but even to define the precise time of year to within one or two days. The site also includes an imposing triple-walled hilltop complex, known as the Fortified Temple set in the barren landscape of the Casma river valley.
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears… To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies." -Octavia E. Butler
- Foggy
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Re: Archaeology
OK, that's very cool.
Re: Archaeology
See also ...AndyinPA wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:06 pm https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... age-status
The oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been awarded Unesco world heritage status and dubbed “a masterpiece of human creative genius”.
Mind-blowing Ancient Solar Calender | Wonders of the Universe w/ Brian Cox | BBC Studios
Prof. Brian Cox at Chankillo. Cox has the greatest job in the world, making these documentaries.
Re: Archaeology
Stonehenge tunnel campaigners win court battle
The British government wanted to remove the road that runs right by Stonehenge and put it in a 2 mile tunnel that goes under Stonehenge instead. Opponents suggested a 5 mile tunnel instead. That whole area is so loaded with archeology that you really can't break ground anywhere between Bath and Salisbury without finding something (I get the impression that's pretty much the case for all of Britain). If they really wanted to dig a tunnel, they'd have to do it a thimbleful of dirt at a time.Campaigners have won a court battle to prevent the "scandalous" construction of a road tunnel near Stonehenge.
The £1.7bn Highways England project aimed to reduce A303 congestion but campaigners said it would detrimentally affect the world heritage site.
The government approved plans in 2020 for a two-mile (3.2km) tunnel to be created near the Wiltshire monument.
Mr Justice Holgate's ruling means the order granted by transport secretary Grant Shapps has been quashed.
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Re: Archaeology
Wine - well aged
- RTH10260
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Re: Archaeology
get your vitamines
Fruit baskets from fourth century BC found in ruins of Thonis-Heracleion
‘Incredible’ discoveries at submerged ancient city off coast of Egypt have lain untouched
Dalya Alberge
Mon 2 Aug 2021 05.00 BST
Wicker baskets filled with fruit that have survived from the 4th century BC and hundreds of ancient ceramic artefacts and bronze treasures have been discovered in the submerged ruins of the near-legendary city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Egypt.
They have lain untouched since the city disappeared beneath the waves in the second century BC, then sank further in the eight century AD, following cataclysmic natural disasters, including an earthquake and tidal waves.
Thonis-Heracleion – the city’s Egyptian and Greek names – was for centuries Egypt’s largest port on the Mediterranean before Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 331BC.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... heracleion
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Re: Archaeology
the other Atlantis
Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets
The land mass that linked Britain to continental Europe was rich in early human life until it flooded
Daniel Boffey
Sun 1 Aug 2021 09.45 BST
The idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th century, with evidence of human inhabitation of the forgotten world following in 1931 when the trawler Colinda dredged up a lump of peat containing a spear point.
But it is only now, after a decade of pioneering research and the extraordinary finds of an army of amateur archaeologists scouring the Dutch coastline for artefacts and fossils, that a major exhibition is able to offer a window into Doggerland, a vast expanse of territory submerged following a tsunami 8,000 years ago, cutting the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.
The exhibition, Doggerland: Lost World in the North Sea, at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, southern Holland, includes more than 200 objects, ranging from a deer bone in which an arrowhead is embedded, and fossils such as petrified hyena droppings and mammoth molars, to a fragment of a skull of a young male Neanderthal. Studies of the forehead bone, dredged up in 2001 off the coast of Zeeland, suggests he was a big meat eater. A small cavity behind the brow bone is believed to be a scar from a harmless subcutaneous tumour that would have been visible as a lump above his eye.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... nt-secrets
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Re: Archaeology
when Sterngard went to college
Australian mathematician discovers applied geometry engraved on 3,700-year-old tablet
Old Babylonian tablet likely used for surveying uses Pythagorean triples at least 1,000 years before Pythagoras
Donna Lu
Wed 4 Aug 2021 16.00 BST
An Australian mathematician has discovered what may be the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet.
Known as Si.427, the tablet bears a field plan measuring the boundaries of some land.
A montage of 39 photographs of the 17,300 year old kangaroo with an accompanying illustration.
17,300-year-old Kimberley kangaroo recognised as Australia's oldest rock artwork
Read more
The tablet dates from the Old Babylonian period between 1900 and 1600 BCE and was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now Iraq. It had been housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum before Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales tracked it down.
Mansfield and Norman Wildberger, an associate professor at UNSW, had previously identified another Babylonian tablet as containing the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table. At the time, they speculated the tablet was likely to have had some practical use, possibly in surveying or construction.
That tablet, Plimpton 322, described right-angle triangles using Pythagorean triples: three whole numbers in which the sum of the squares of the first two equals the square of the third – for example, 32 + 42 = 52.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... old-tablet
Re: Archaeology
Bizarrely, a lot of these discoveries come from oil exploration with robotic subs. After the oil boom fades in an area they turn the data over to the archeologists who find all sorts of things the oil companies weren't looking for. The data is decades old but is being reexamined. More frustratingly, the archeologists knew the remains were there, but they couldn't get at them until the oil companies were finished. I'm not going to live forever! I don't have time to wait!RTH10260 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:48 am the other AtlantisDoggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets
The land mass that linked Britain to continental Europe was rich in early human life until it flooded
Daniel Boffey
Sun 1 Aug 2021 09.45 BST
The idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th century, with evidence of human inhabitation of the forgotten world following in 1931 when the trawler Colinda dredged up a lump of peat containing a spear point.
But it is only now, after a decade of pioneering research and the extraordinary finds of an army of amateur archaeologists scouring the Dutch coastline for artefacts and fossils, that a major exhibition is able to offer a window into Doggerland, a vast expanse of territory submerged following a tsunami 8,000 years ago, cutting the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.
The exhibition, Doggerland: Lost World in the North Sea, at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, southern Holland, includes more than 200 objects, ranging from a deer bone in which an arrowhead is embedded, and fossils such as petrified hyena droppings and mammoth molars, to a fragment of a skull of a young male Neanderthal. Studies of the forehead bone, dredged up in 2001 off the coast of Zeeland, suggests he was a big meat eater. A small cavity behind the brow bone is believed to be a scar from a harmless subcutaneous tumour that would have been visible as a lump above his eye.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... nt-secrets
Re: Archaeology
I hate the internet sometimes... (just the way math formula get mangled.)
Code: Select all
3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2.
- RTH10260
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Re: Archaeology
1,000-year-old remains in Finland may be non-binary iron age leader
DNA suggests body buried in feminine attire with swords had Klinefelter syndrome, researchers say
Jon Henley
Mon 9 Aug 2021 14.23 BST
Modern analysis of a 1,000-year-old grave in Finland challenges long-held beliefs about gender roles in ancient societies, and may suggest non-binary people were not only accepted but respected members of their communities, researchers have said.
According to a peer-reviewed study in the European Journal of Archaeology, DNA analysis of remains in a late iron age grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki in Hattula, southern Finland, may have belonged to a high-status non-binary person.
First discovered in 1968 during building work, the grave contained jewellery in the form of oval brooches as well as fragments of woollen clothing suggesting the dead person was dressed in “a typical feminine costume of the era”, the researchers said.
But unusually, the grave also held a hiltless sword placed on the person’s left side, with another sword, probably deposited at a later date, buried above the original grave – accoutrements more often associated with masculinity.
For decades, the researchers said, archaeologists had assumed either that two bodies, a man and a woman, had been buried in the Suontaka grave, or that it was evidence strong female leaders, even woman warriors, existed in early medieval Finland.
“The buried individual seems to have been a highly respected member of their community,” said the study’s lead author, Ulla Moilanen, an archaeologist from the University of Turku. “They were laid in the grave on a soft feather blanket with valuable furs and objects.”
DNA analysis, however, showed the grave held the remains of only one person – and that they had Klinefelter syndrome. Usually, a female has two X chromosomes (XX) and a male has one X and one Y (XY). In Klinefelter syndrome, a male is born with an extra copy of the X chromosome (XXY).
Males with the syndrome, which affects about one in 660 men, are still genetically male and often do not realise they have the extra chromosome, but the condition can cause enlarged breasts, a small penis and testicles, a low sex drive and infertility.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... rchers-say
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Re: Archaeology
Levelling up Pompeii: grave shows how a former slave went far
Inscriptions by the body of Marcus Venerius Secundio proudly list his achievements after being liberated
Angela Giuffrida in Pompeii
Sat 21 Aug 2021 05.00 BST
The inscription on the gravestone proudly attests to how far Marcus Venerius Secundio, a former slave of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, went in life. In order of importance, he lists his achievements after being liberated. The first was his role as custodian of the Temple of Venus, built soon after the creation of Pompeii as a Roman colony.
He also joined the ranks of the Augustales, a college of priests who were in charge of a form of emperor worship. But perhaps the most telling indication of his eventual status was that he financed entertainment events in Greek and Latin.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... e-went-far
Re: Archaeology
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... e-pond-axe
Golfers are forever trying to avoid everything from bunkers, the rough and water to other players’ putting lines. In Lincolnshire the hazard was almost an incredibly rare telephone box-sized early bronze age coffin.
Historic England on Friday revealed details of a remarkable discovery as works were being carried out on a golf course pond in July 2018, during a spell of hot weather.
The log coffin, which measures about 3 metres long by 1 metre, is thought to be 4,000 years old. Inside are the remains of a man, who was buried with an axe.
Archaeologists have established that the coffin was made from hollowing out an oak tree trunk. Plants were then used to cushion the body and a gravel mound was raised over the grave – practices that were only afforded to people with high status in bronze age society.
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears… To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies." -Octavia E. Butler
Re: Archaeology
the axe appears to have been more a symbol of authority than a practical tool — signifies that the occupant of the grave would have been a high-status member of Bronze Age society.
The axe which was preserved with both its stone head and wooden haft — is an even rarer find than the coffin. According to the archaeologist, only 12 like it are known from Britain
Re: Archaeology
Ancient human footprints found in New Mexico are believed to be between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.
The prints were buried in layers of soil in the national park, with scientists from the US Geological Survey analyzing seeds embedded in the tracks to calculate the age of the fossils. Researchers also determined that the dozen footprints found belonged to a variety of people, mostly children and teenagers.
Previously, scientists had widely assumed that the earliest appearance of humans in the Americas was 11,000 to 13,000 years ago
- Sam the Centipede
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Re: Archaeology
Are others having difficulty persuading their brains to perceive the footprints as impressions rather than relief?
(The shadow from the ruler confirms the direction of illumination.)
(The shadow from the ruler confirms the direction of illumination.)
- sugar magnolia
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Re: Archaeology
I'm trying to figure out how a flat ruler lying on the ground casts a shadow like that at all.Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:15 pm Are others having difficulty persuading their brains to perceive the footprints as impressions rather than relief?
(The shadow from the ruler confirms the direction of illumination.)
Re: Archaeology
It's really bad for me because I have the sun shining in from a window to my left. If I can turn the picture upside down, I can see it properly, no problem.Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:15 pm Are others having difficulty persuading their brains to perceive the footprints as impressions rather than relief?
(The shadow from the ruler confirms the direction of illumination.)
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Re: Archaeology
Nowthey’re relief. It looks like they’ve had everything that isn’t footprint carved away.
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Re: Archaeology
The ground isn't flat.sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 5:10 pmI'm trying to figure out how a flat ruler lying on the ground casts a shadow like that at all.Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:15 pm Are others having difficulty persuading their brains to perceive the footprints as impressions rather than relief?
(The shadow from the ruler confirms the direction of illumination.)
I've always had the same problem looking at photos of craters on the moon.
Ain't the brain wonderful?
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls Would scarcely get your feet wet