Clipmarks | invictus's 'archaeology' clips

"Armchair Archaeology" with Google Earth

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:04:20 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks:

“Google Earth gives you free access to imagery that would otherwise cost a fortune, and require specialist training to make use of,” says Dr Ur. And being able to pan and zoom the satellite images quickly makes it much easier to spot archaeological features and relate them to each other.

Clip Source: www.economist.com

INDIANA JONES, it is fair to say, would not approve. A small band of archaeologists are using Google Earth to make discoveries without getting their hands dirty. Although archaeologists have used satellite imagery for decades, the technique remained out of reach of most researchers because of the prohibitive costs and specialist skills needed to rectify distortions in raw satellite images caused by the angle of capture. But Google Earth, a free program that can be downloaded from the internet giant’s website, makes high-quality satellite images of much of the world’s surface available to anyone with a broadband connection. Archaeologists are now embracing the technology.

Tags: archaeology, google earth, technology, satellite maps, science

Afghanistan’s Secret Treasure

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:36:14 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Afghanistan has probably one of the richest cultural and historical heritage, dating back to the third millennium BCE and the land had been a melting pot of Mesopotamian, Harappan, Greek and Chinese civilizations. Unfortunately, the wars and oppressive/dogmatic regimes tried their best to destroy the traces of this brilliant cultural background. Archaeology Magazine's latest issue tells the story of an amazing treasure of ancient artifacts, 95 percent of which was luckily recovered and brought to museums worldwide to be exhibited.

Clip Source: www.archaeology.org

For 20 years the archaeological community believed the artifacts had been destroyed or had disappeared into the antiquities market as a succession of mujahideen warlords won and lost control of Kabul. Finally the Taliban came, and smashed any artifact that seemed vaguely like a religious idol. With the museum collections destroyed or in hiding and the Afghan people struggling to survive, a two-decade rift has opened between the Afghans and the history that defines their nation. An entire generation now entering adulthood has grown up knowing almost nothing about Afghanistan’s place as a melting pot of civilizations from Greece to China.

Tags: archaeology, afghanistan, artifacts, kabul museum

6,000-year-old house discovered in China

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:25:11 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

Remains of 6,000-year-old house discovered in Shaanxi

Chinese archaeologists have discovered the remains of houses dating back 6,000 years in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The remains were located on a section of a farming terrace in Linglong Village, Chencang District of Baoji City. The remains were about one fifth the size of the original houses which are estimated to be nearly 200 square meters, archaeologists said.
The houses were built on two 8 to 10-cm-thick layers of hard earth. The remains of a wall is nearly 15 meters long and 40 to 50 cm wide, and 103 cm tall. A 1.6 meter ditch was found outside the wall, which archaeologists believe was used to discharge water. The remains were destroyed during the middle or end of the Yangshao Culture dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years when people usually lived in houses built partly underground, said an expert with an archaeology team of Baoji. However, the remains show the houses were built above ground, indicating that people during the Yangshao Culture period had already begun to built houses above ground. The discovery also shows that ancient people were aware of the advantages of building houses on the ground. They were more convenient to entry, dryer and let in more sunlight, the expert said.
The Yangshao Culture, known for its painted pottery with a variety of finely designed geometrical patterns, was centered in the middle reaches of the Yellow River and extended to central China's Hubei Province and north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It remains unclear whether the houses had a special purpose such as offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors, said archaeologists.

Tags: archaeology, china, neolithic

Is Phaistos Disc a forgery?

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:52:04 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: If Dr. Jerome Eisenberg's claims are true, then it means the Phaistos Disc discovery of 1908 deserves to be recorded as "the biggest archaeological hoax of the century". Could it be possible? Could all the archaeologists and experts of the past 100 years who curiously examined the disc, fail to spot a professionally done forgery? I doubt it but we'll learn the truth soon.

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Some say that its 45 mysterious symbols are the words of a 4,000-year-old poem, or perhaps a sacred text. Others contest that they are a magical inscription, a piece of ancient music or the world's oldest example of punctuation.

But now an American scholar believes that the markings on the Phaistos Disc, one of archaeology's most famous unsolved mysteries, mean nothing at all — because the disc is a hoax.

Jerome Eisenberg, a specialist in faked ancient art, is claiming that the disc and its indecipherable text is not a relic dating from 1,700BC, but a forgery that has duped scholars since Luigi Pernier, an Italian archaeologist, “discovered” it in 1908 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete.

Tags: phaistos disc, archaeology, forgery, hoax, minos, undeciphered scripts

Little arrow that rewrites history books

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:25:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.pretorianews.co.za

Two researchers from Wits University believe that what they have discovered is a 60 000-year-old arrow that was fired from the earliest known bow. Their discovery has pushed back the origins of bow-and-arrow technology by 20 000 years.

The bow, probably made of wood and long since decayed, was used at a time when Neanderthals in Europe were using large spears in duels with woolly mammoths and other large prehistoric game.

The bone arrow, just 5cm long, was excavated by Wadley at the Sibudu cave, near the coastal town of Ballito in KwaZulu Natal, two years ago.

It's mystery who the people were who fashioned the arrow.

Also at this time, humankind was leaving an ever-increasing archaeological record of the first inklings of modern human behaviour. They were burying the dead, using coloured pigments and wearing jewellery.

"This at a time a few thousand years before they walked out of Africa, to become the ancestors of all humans," said Backwell.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, south africa, prehistory, arrow, science

5000-year-old site discovered in Iran

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:33:25 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.tehrantimes.com

TEHRAN -- A broad site dating back to the third millennium BC was discovered during the latest excavations in Bampur region in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran.

“In the Bampur valley, there is an ancient site covered with sand mounds, which is as large as the Burnt City and may belong to a civilization as great as the civilization of that the city,” Mehdi Mortazavi, an archaeologist of the University of Sistan-Baluchestan, told the Persian service of CHN on Saturday.

According to Mortazavi, the site measures 1x1.5 kilometer.

“I feel sure that there are a large number of sites like this here. Such sites may even exist in nearby regions like Saravan,” he stated.

Twenty sites -- mostly prehistoric -- have been discovered by the archaeologists of the University of Sistan-Baluchestan over the past few years.

Tags: archaeology, iran, prehistory, burnt city

Mesopotamian Mystery: Who Were The Hurrians?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:23:25 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Abstract from a very interesting article that appears on Archaeology magazine's latest (July/August) issue.

Clip Source: www.archaeology.org

Scholars long assumed that the Hurrians arrived in the middle of the third millennium B.C., and eventually settled down and adopted cuneiform as a script and built their own cities. That theory is based on linguistic associations with Caucasus' languages and the fact that Hurrian names are absent from the historical record until Akkadian times.

But Piotr Michaelowski, an Assyriologist at the University of Michigan, notes that Hurrian, like Sumerian, is a language unrelated to Semitic or Indo-European tongues that dominated the region during and after the third millennium B.C. Perhaps, he suggests, the Hurrians were earlier inhabitants of the region, who, like the Sumerians, had to make room for the Semitic-speaking people who created the world's first empire based at Akkad in central Mesopotamia around 2350 B.C.

Tags: archaeology, mesopotamia, hurrians, syria, akkad, sumer, bronze age

Lost ancient city of Marhashi found in Iran - Claims

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:09:31 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Very interesting, but we need to wait and see the further reports.

Clip Source: www.andhranews.net

Tehran, May 7 : Archaeologists have come up with a new theory, which suggests that the prehistoric site of Jiroft in Iran is the lost ancient city of Marhashi.

Marhashi, (also known as Warahshe) was a 3rd millennium BC polity situated east of Elam, on the Iranian plateau. It is known from Mesopotamian sources, and its precise location has not been identified.

An inscription of Lugal-Anne-Mundu, the most important king of the Adab city-state in Sumer, locates it, along with Elam, to the south of Gutium, an ancient polity in upper Mesopotamia.

The inscription also explains that Lugal-Anne-Mundu confronted the Warahshe king, Migir-Enlil.

Steinkeller had previously been searching the Kerman region in order to identify a site from the 3rd millennium BC, which he could consider it as Marhashi.

But, Steinkeller found that Jiroft, which had been located between Anshan and Meluhha, lies in the heart of the ancient city of Marhashi, which led him to come up with his theory.

Tags: archaeology, mesopotamia, iran, jiroft, marhashi, sumer, elam

Ancient cave found under church

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:37:13 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Half a dozen sources (including Fox News) used this news story with the headline "First Church In The World". Of course, they also omitted archaeologist Thomas Parker's words:

"It's quite possible that there was a cave with earlier occupation which was later converted to Christian use. But to make the jump that this was actually used by Christians fleeing Jerusalem in the 1st century A.D. seems like a stretch to me."

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

AMMAN, Jordan - Archaeologists in Jordan said Monday they have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches that may have once been an even more ancient site of Christian worship.

Archaeologist Abdel-Qader Hussein, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, says the cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.

Thomas Parker, a historian at the University of North Carolina-Raleigh, who led the discovery of the church in Aqaba, said that while he hadn't seen the Rihab site, any such claim should be taken with a degree of caution.

"An extraordinary claim like this requires extraordinary evidence," he said. "We need to see the artifacts and dating evidence to suggest such an occupation in the 1st century A.D."

Parker asked how archeologists could be certain whether the "cave was actually a center of Christian worship."

Tags: archaeology, jordan, amman, christianity, rihab

Montezuma's Palace was discovered in Mexico

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:25:14 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The remains of an Aztec palace once inhabited by the emperor Montezuma have been discovered in the heart of downtown Mexico City, archaeologists said today.

During a routine renovation project on a colonial-era building, experts uncovered pieces of a wall as well as a basalt floor believed to have been part of a dark room where Montezuma meditated, team leader Elsa Hernandez said.

Montezuma was the Aztec emperor when Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés marched into the Mexico Valley in 1519. He died after being taken hostage by the Spaniards, while the city and the Aztec empire fell in 1521.

His palace complex, known as the Casas Nuevas, or New Houses, to distinguish them from his predecessors' palaces, is thought to have comprised five interconnected buildings containing the emperor's office, chambers for children and several wives and even a zoo.

The Aztec constructions were razed by the Spanish, who built what is now Mexico City atop their ruins.

Tags: archaeology, aztec, mexico, montezuma

Who found Machu Picchu?

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:30:27 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: An interesting "archaeology story" - reminded me C. W. Ceram's "Gods, Tombs and Scholars".

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

When Peruvian locals led Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu in 1911, it was a discovery which would make the Yale professor famous, highly respected and richer.

Bingham went on to become a governor of Connecticut and member of the US senate, and his book on Machu Picchu became a bestseller. Such was his prominence in early 20th century archaeology, that some have speculated that Bingham was the inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.

But Bingham's claim to be the first to discover Peru's lost city of the Incas is looking more than a little doubtful. Detailed investigations by a US historian have revealed that Machu Picchu was, in fact, discovered over 40 years earlier by a German businessman.

Tags: archaeology, peru, inca, machu picchu, south america, hiram bingham, augusto berns

Puzzling pagan burials at the famous Christian catacomb

Sat, 17 May 2008 15:47:16 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: A very interesting article on the new discoveries at one of Rome's biggest catacomb complex, which was thought to be a Christian site for years. The latest foundings revealed the skeletons of more than 100 humans which predate Christianity and possibly "pagan burials". Puzzled scientists are working at the site for further details and clues. From the Archaeology Magazine.

Clip Source: www.archaeology.org

When a sinkhole opened up after a pipe broke underneath the convent and school of the Instituto Sacra Famiglia on Rome's Via Casilina, the sisters there received a surprise--about 1,200 surprises, in fact. The partial collapse of the building's foundation revealed five large chambers in which the remains of more than a thousand individuals had been interred almost simultaneously sometime at the beginning of the third century A.D.

Perhaps equally surprising is the location in which they were found. The convent under which the burial chambers are located sits atop the vast catacomb complex of San Pietro and Marcellinus. With three distinct gallery levels, the deepest of which is 36 feet (11m) below the surface, it is one of the largest such burial complexes in the city.

"there is at the moment no conclusive proof that can exclude the possibility that these may in fact be pagan burials." Which begs the question: What would pagan burials be doing in the middle of a Christian catacomb?

Tags: archaeology, ancient rome, christianity, via casilina, san pietro, marcellinus, pre-christian, pagan, roman empire, science

Solving the mystery of Nazca Lines

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:00:10 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.dailyindia.com

Washington, May 23: Two British archaeologists are trying to solve the mystery of the Nazca Lines in Peru by locating and measuring the lines with high-precision GPS, photographing the distribution of 1,500-year old pottery, and working out the chronological sequence of overlying lines and designs.

Funded by the Anglo-Peruvian Cultural Association in Lima, their research hopes to unlock the purpose of the dazzling but confusing array of desert drawings.

Professor Ruggles and Dr Saunders agree with other experts that some lines were pathways across the desert, others had a more religious significance, while some appear associated with desert scars caused by flash-floods, and are probably linked to the veneration of water.

According to Dr Saunders, "Identifying which lines came first, whether they were spiritual or functional, and exactly how they were used during a thousand years of prehistory is a great challenge."

Tags: archaeology, south america, peru, nazca, mystery

Archaeologist claims discovery of Cleopatra's tomb

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:05:55 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Probably a new Zahi Hawass media show. Let's wait and see.

Clip Source: www.dailyindia.com

London, May 25: A flamboyant archeologist claims to have identified the final resting place of Cleopatra, the Hellenistic ruler of Egypt, who originally shared power with her father Ptolemy XII and eventually gained sole rule of Egypt.

Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities along with a team of 12 archaeologists and 70 excavators, has started searching for the entrance to her tomb.

And after a breakthrough two weeks ago, he suspects Cleopatra is buried with her Roman lover Mark Antony at a temple 30km from Alexandra called Tabusiris Magna.

Hawass has found a 400ft tunnel beneath the temple containing clues that the supposedly beautiful queen may lie beneath.

"Our theory is that both Cleopatra and Mark Antony are buried here," said Hawass.

Tags: archaeology, egyptology, cleopatra, zahi hawass

Ancient Egyptian temple discovered beneath the Nile

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:54:19 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Archaeologists have discovered a portico, or covered entryway, of an ancient Egyptian temple beneath the surface of the Nile River.

The entryway once led to the temple of the ram-headed fertility god Khnum, experts say.

A team of Egyptian archaeologist-divers found the portico in Aswan while conducting the first-ever underwater surveys of the Nile, which began earlier this year.

Today's Nile obscures many objects from ancient times, and archaeologists believe the underwater excavations will reveal other significant artifacts.

Tags: archaeology, egyptology, aswan, nile, temple, science