QuoteReplyTopic: Archaeology news updates Posted: 27-Apr-2014 at 19:38
Cold War Spy-Satellite Images Unveil
Lost Cities
Cold War reconnaissance photos triple the number of known archaeology sites across the Middle East.
This 1961 satellite photo shows Tell Rifaat in northwest Syria; it's now completely surrounded by a modern town.
A study of Cold War spy-satellite photos has tripled the number of known archaeological sites across the Middle East, revealing thousands of ancient cities, roads, canals, and other ruins.
In recent decades archaeologists have often used declassified satellite images to spot archaeological sites in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
But the new Corona Atlas of the Middle East, unveiled Thursday at the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting, moves spy-satellite science to a new level. Surveying land from Egypt to Iran—and encompassing the Fertile Crescent, the renowned cradle of civilization and location of some of humanity's earliest cities—the atlas reveals numerous sites that had been lost to history.
"Some of these sites are gigantic, and they were completely unknown," says atlas-team archaeologist Jesse Casana of the University of Arkansas, who presented the results. "We can see all kinds of things—ancient roads and canals. The images provide a very comprehensive picture."
The team had started with a list of roughly 4,500 known archaeological sites across the Middle East, says Casana. The spy-satellite images revealed another 10,000 that had previously been unknown.
The largest sites, in Syria and Turkey, are most likely Bronze Age cities, he says, and include ruined walls and citadels. Two of them cover more than 123 acres (50 hectares).
Signs of ancient habitation are visible in this satellite image of Tell Hamoukar in eastern Syria.
But, says Casana, "it's not just new places to excavate. We have a real way with all these sites to look across the whole Middle East and see how it was connected."
The new Middle East atlas reflects both the opportunities and challenges facing archaeologists, who must handle ever larger amounts of data from excavation sites and entire regions, says information-science scholar Eric Kansa of theAlexandria Archive Institute in San Francisco, who spoke at the meeting. "This is big data," Kansa says. "We have the opportunity to really blow up the scale of our efforts in archaeology."
Cold Warrior
The end of the Cold War led to the public release of Corona spy-satellite images by U.S. defense officials almost two decades ago. The spy satellite made images from 1960 to 1972, and the atlas samples only some of the 188,000 images taken from 1967 to 1972 by the last generation of the satellites. The images of the Earth's surface, intended to expose Soviet missile bases and military camps, had a resolution of two meters (6.6 feet).
A missile launch site near Chelyabinsk in the USSR is outlined in this 1969 image.
Current imaging satellites, such as the privately owned Digital Globebased in Longmont, Colorado, return betterresolution images,but "they can't go back in time," says Casana.
The Corona images, he explains, were made before cities such as Mosul in Iraq and Amman in Jordan overran the many archaeological sites near them. Dams have also flooded river valleys, covering many other archaeological sites. As cities grew, the industrial farming and irrigation that supported them grew too,obscuring roads and sites clearly visible in the spy-satellite images.
"Even with much better resolution, we can't see a site that someone has covered up with a building," Casana says.
Information Warfare
"This project is just incredible," says Syro-Palestinian archaeologistDavid Schloen of the University of Chicago. "It's amazing what their atlas can do."
The mapping team, for example, set up their site to allow you to look at the 1960s images of a given location side by side with views of it today.
The 1960s image at left captures an area of southern Iraq's marshes, many of which have since been drained. The photo at right is of the same location in the early 2000s.
Corona satellites photographed the Earth in swaths 120 miles (193 kilometers) long by 10 miles (16 kilometers) wide. Film strips were delivered from space inside parachute-equipped buckets, and the film's stretched and distorted views of the Earth required special optics to sort out. The existence of the photographs was officially kept secret until 1992.
Much of the atlas team's work has involved tying landmarks in the Corona images, purchased from the U.S. Geological Survey, to mapped landmarks in modern-day images. The landmarks also helped computers remove distortions in the original spy-satellite images.
"We don't want to stop here," Casana says. Many of the Corona images cover other areas of great interest to archaeologists, including Africa and China.
"Corona is amazing," he says. "We really have coverage from almost everywhere."
The concept of love during the ancient Greek times isn’t that different from nowadays. The only change is the way people used to express their feelings. A lovestruck person today may use graffiti to express passion for his beloved, while ancient Greeks inscribed love messages on stones.
According to Ethnos, ancient love inscriptions dating back to the early 6th and the late 5th centuries B.C., were recently discovered in Astypalea.
Spirals, shapes of ships, tools in triangular shapes were mostly drawn by the Neolithic inhabitants of Astypalea.
One of the first findings of the Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, Andreas Vlachopoulos, was rock paintings located in Vathi at the Pirgos Peninsula and date back to 4th-3rd millennium B.C.
In 2013, more unexpected findings were discovered, which present an aspect of privacy of the ancient Greek inhabitants in the early 6th and late 5th centuries B.C. The Secretary General of the Archaeological Society, VasiliosPetrakos, made extensive reference to two love inscriptions that were discovered which depict two phalluses from the right angle.
Archaeologists discover Britain's longest road to be 10,000 year old
Archaeologists were stunned to discover evidence of a Mesolithic settlement alongside the A1, which stretches 410 miles from London to Edinburgh.
The site, near Catterick in North Yorkshire, is believed to have been used by people travelling north and south as an overnight shelter, similar to today’s motorway service stations.
Items discovered at the settlement include flint tools that date back to between 6000 and 8000 BC.
Archaeologist Steve Sherlock said: “This was a place that people knew of – a place they could return to on many occasions to stay overnight during their travels. There is evidence of people using the route and moving through the area over periods of time. It is also adding to our knowledge of the early Mesolithic period, a time we don’t know very much about.
“We found a small structure that resembled a type of shelter where they were making the flint tools that were also present at the site.”
This rare discovery came during the excavation of known Roman settlements in advance of plans to upgrade the junctions from 51 to 56 to motorway status.
It was designated the A1 by the Ministry of Transport in 1921.
Archaeologists are excavating all the ancient monuments before they become less accessible.
They are focusing on a Roman town located by the road near to the River Swale, called Cataractonium.
Mr Sherlock added: “It was fascinating to find one of those was a Mesolithic site, a further 8,000 years into the past beyond the Romans.
“We are finding buildings on the edge of the Roman road – which runs alongside the A1 – including shop frontages and a bath house.”
Estonian researchers believe they may have finally discovered the whereabouts of “Dracula’s” grave, which is in Italy and not the Romanian Transylvanian Alps as first thought. The inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel “Dracula” is thought to be Vlad III, the 15th century Prince of Wallachia in Eastern Europe. Known posthumously as Vlad the Impaler, the ruler was known for his brand of cruelty across Europe, which included impaling his enemies.
Born in 1431, Count Vlad Tepes was part of a noble family who belonged to the Order of the Dragon, a group that was founded as a means of protecting Christianity in Eastern Europe from Ottoman expansion. His father was nicknamed Dracul, meaning “Dragon,” so the young Vlad became known as Dracula, or “son of Dragon.”
In 1476, Vlad Tepes disappeared in battle. While some sources have claimed he died, researchers claim he was in fact imprisoned by the Turks, who hauled him away in chains. His daughter Maria was meanwhile brought to the Neapolitan court, whose ruling family was allied with her own family, where she was adopted and eventually married to a Neapolitan nobleman.
Scholars from the University of Tallinn say they have discovered evidence that suggests the count was taken prisoner, ransomed to his daughter in Italy and then buried in a church in Naples.
Researchers are claiming a newly uncovered headstone in Naples’ Piazza Santa Maria la Nova, in the same graveyard as his daughter and son-in-law, could be his final resting place.
The headstone was discovered by Neapolitan student, Erika Stella, who was writing a dissertation on the history of the church. Stella shared the photograph on the Internet and experts identified it with a certain level of confidence after years of research.
Medieval history scholar Raffaello Glinni said the 16th century tomb is covered in images and symbols of the House of the Transylvanian “Carpathians,” and not the tomb of an Italian nobleman.
“When you look at the bas-relief sculptures, the symbolism is obvious. The dragon means Dracula and the two opposing sphinxes represent the city of Thebes, also known as Tepes. In these symbols, the very name of the count Dracula Tepes is written,” Glinni told reporters.
For almost three decades since being raised from the Solent in 1982, the hull of the Mary Rose – Henry VIII’s 500-year-old flagship which sank in battle in 1545 – sits in a custom built museum, with three levels of interactive exhibits. But what still lies on the seabed and in what condition? It was the mission of a dive team to find out.
Experts described the investigation – the first major dive to the underwater remains of the Mary Rose shipwreck in nine years – as “very successful”.
Coinciding with the anniversary of the new Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, divers placed a datalogger on the seabed and a high-tech buoy on the surface of the water, beaming back information to scientists via satellite.
“Everything is now deeply buried and this will preserve what remains on the seabed into the future,” said Christopher Dobbs, a Maritime Archaeologist from the Mary Rose Trust who has dived at the site more than 1,000 times.
“It was wonderful to go down to the site again and see how well it continues to be protected in the silts.
“The visibility was not good, but it was good enough to position the monitoring equipment and for Serco Marine to carry out the dives needed to put new sinkers on the seabed and to replace the ageing wreck buoy that marks the protected wreck area.”
Professor Mark Jones, Head of Conservation, said the new equipment would help monitor seawater and sediment conditions.
“There are still significant numbers of timbers and objects buried in the seabed,” he explained. “The information collected will help us protect the buried materials for the future.’’
4,000-Year-Old Burial with Chariots Discovered in South Caucasus
Here, the roof of a 4,000-year-old burial chamber buried in a Kurgan (mound) in the country of Georgia.
An ancient burial containing chariots, gold artifacts and possible human sacrifices has been discovered by archaeologists in the country of Georgia, in the south Caucasus.
The burial site, which would've been intended for a chief, dates back over 4,000 years to a time archaeologists call the Early Bronze Age, said Zurab Makharadze, head of the Centre of Archaeology at the Georgian National Museum.
Archaeologists discoveredthe timber burial chamber within a 39-foot-high (12 meters) mound called a kurgan. When the archaeologists reached the chamber they found an assortment of treasures, including two chariots, each with four wooden wheels. [See Images of the Burial Chamber & Chariots]
The team discovered ornamented clay and wooden vessels, flint and obsidian arrowheads, leather and textile artifacts, a unique wooden armchair, carnelian and amber beads and 23 golden artifacts, including rare and artistic crafted jewelry, wrote Makharadze in the summary of a presentation he gave recently at the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, held at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
"In the burial chamber were placed two four-wheeled chariots, both in good condition, [the] design of which represents fine ornamental details of various styles," Makharadze wrote. Thechamber also contained wild fruits, he added.
While the human remains had been disturbed by a robbery, which probably occurred in ancient times, and were in a disordered position, the archaeologists found that seven people were buried in the chamber. "One of them was a chief and others should be the members of his family, sacrificed slaves or servants," Makharadze told Live Science in an email.
A time before the horse
The burial dates back to a time before domesticated horses appeared in the area, Makharadze said. While no animals were found buried with the chariots, he said, oxen would have pulled them.
Other rich kurgan burials dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. have also been found in the south Caucasus,said Makharadze in another paper he presented in February at the College de France in Paris. The appearance of these rich burials appears to be connected to interactions that occurred between nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes and farming communities within and near the south Caucasus, Makharadze said.
These interactions appear to have led to some individuals, like this chief, getting elaborate burials. The newly discovered armchair symbolizes the power that individuals like the chief had. "The purpose of the wooden armchair was the indication to power, and it was put in the kurgan as a symbol of power," Makharadze said in the email.
The kurgan was found in eastern Georgia near the municipality of Lagodekhi and was excavated in 2012.
Five 6,000-year-old sarcophagi unearthed in western Turkey
Five sarcophagi approximated to be about 6,000 years old were uncovered during an excavation at a stone quarry in the western province of Afyonkarahisar's Sandıklı district. According to media reports, workers came across the sarcophagus while using heavy machinery to excavate a quarry. Upon discovering a sarcophagus, the workers immediately informed the Afyonkarahisar Archeology Museum about the historical items they had accidentally found. The museum's archeologists were then able to uncover four more sarcophagi during an excavation they conducted. Apart from the sarcophagi, the archeologists also found pieces of glass, plates and bones during the excavation. The museum will preserve the artifacts.
Bones of elephant ancestor unearthed: Meet the gomphothere
Gomphothere mandible uncovered at El Fin del Mundo. Archaeologists working in northwestern Mexico were not sure what kind of animal they had unearthed until they found this telltale jawbone, which belonged to a gomphothere.
An animal once believed to have disappeared from North America before humans ever arrived there might actually have roamed the continent longer than previously thought -- and it was likely on the list of prey for some of continent's earliest humans, researchers from the University of Arizona and elsewhere have found.
Archaeologists have discovered artifacts of the prehistoric Clovis culture mingled with the bones of two gomphotheres, ancient ancestors of the elephant, at an archaeological site in northwestern Mexico.
The discovery suggests that the Clovis -- the earliest widespread group of hunter-gatherers to inhabit North America -- likely hunted and ate gomphotheres. The members of the Clovis culture were already well-known as hunters of the gomphotheres' cousins, mammoths and mastodons.
Although humans were known to have hunted gomphotheres in Central America and South America, this is the first time a human-gomphothere connection has been made in North America, says archaeologist Vance Holliday, who co-authored a new paper on the findings, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"This is the first archaeological gomphothere found in North America, and it's the only one known," said Holliday, a professor of anthropology and geology at the UA.
Holliday and colleagues from the U.S. and Mexico began excavating the skeletal remains of two juvenile gomphotheres in 2007 after ranchers alerted them that the bones had been found in northwestern Sonora, Mexico.
They didn't know at first what kind of animal they were dealing with.
"At first, just based on the size of the bone, we thought maybe it was a bison, because the extinct bison were a little bigger than our modern bison," Holliday said.
Then, in 2008, they discovered a jawbone with teeth, buried upside down in the dirt.
"We finally found the mandible, and that's what told the tale," Holliday said.
Gomphotheres were smaller than mammoths -- about the same size as modern elephants. They once were widespread in North America, but until now they seemed to have disappeared from the continent's fossil record long before humans arrived in North America, which happened some 13,000 to 13,500 years ago, during the late Ice Age.
However, the bones that Holliday and his colleagues uncovered date back 13,400 years, making them the last known gomphotheres in North America.
The gomphothere remains weren't all Holliday and his colleagues unearthed at the site, which they dubbed El Fin del Mundo -- Spanish for The End of the World -- because of its remote location.
As their excavation of the bones progressed, they also uncovered numerous Clovis artifacts, including signature Clovis projectile points, or spear tips, as well as cutting tools and flint flakes from stone tool-making. The Clovis culture is so named for its distinctive stone tools, first discovered by archaeologists near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1930s.
Radiocarbon dating, done at the UA, puts the El Fin del Mundo site at about 13,400 years old, making it one of the two oldest known Clovis sites in North America; the other is the Aubrey Clovis site in north Texas.
The position and proximity of Clovis weapon fragments relative to the gomphothere bones at the site suggest that humans did in fact kill the two animals there. Of the seven Clovis points found at the site, four were in place among the bones, including one with bone and teeth fragments above and below. The other three points had clearly eroded away from the bone bed and were found scattered nearby.
"This is the first Clovis gomphothere, it's the first archaeological gomphothere found in North America, it's the first evidence that people were hunting gomphotheres in North America, and it adds another item to the Clovis menu," Holliday said.
The dig at El Fin del Mundo, a joint effort between the U.S. and Mexico, was funded by the UA School of Anthropology's Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund, the National Geographic Society, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and The Center for Desert Archaeology in Tucson.
In addition to Holliday, authors of the PNAS paper include: lead author Guadalupe Sanchez, who has a doctorate in anthropology from the UA; UA alumni Edmund P. Gaines and Susan M. Mentzer; UA doctoral candidates Natalia Martínez-Tagüeña and Andrew Kowler; UA master's student Ismael Sanchez-Morales; UA scientists Todd Lange and Gregory Hodgins; and Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
New feathered predatory fossil sheds light on dinosaur flight
This is an illustration of newly discovered feathered dinosaur, Changyuraptor yangi.
A new raptorial dinosaur fossil with exceptionally long feathers has provided exciting insights into dinosaur flight. A paper published inNature Communicationson July 15, 2014 asserts that the fossil -- discovered by an international team led by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) paleontologist Dr. Luis Chiappe -- has a long feathered tail that Chiappe and co-authors believe was instrumental for decreasing descent speed and assuring safe landings.
The 125-million-year-old dinosaur, named Changyuraptor yangi, was found in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. The location has seen a surge of discoveries in feathered dinosaurs over the last decade. The newly discovered, remarkably preserved dinosaur sports a full set of feathers cloaking its entire body, including the extra-long tail feathers. "At a foot in length, the amazing tail feathers of Changyuraptorare by far the longest of any feathered dinosaur," said Chiappe.
Analyses of the bone microstructure by University of Cape Town (South Africa) scientist, Dr. Anusuya Chinsamy, shows that the raptor was a fully grown adult, and tipping the scale at nine pounds, the four-foot-long Changyuraptor is the biggest of all four-winged dinosaurs. These microraptorine dinosaurs are dubbed "four-winged" because the long feathers attached to the legs have the appearance of a second set of wings. In fact, the long feathers attached to both legs and arms of these ancient predators have led researchers to conclude that the four-winged dinosaurs were capable of flying. "Numerous features that we have long associated with birds in fact evolved in dinosaurs long before the first birds arrived on the scene," said co-author Dr. Alan Turner of Stony Brook University (New York). "This includes things such as hollow bones, nesting behavior, feathers…and possibly flight."
How well these creatures used the sky as a thoroughfare has remained controversial. The new discovery explains the role that the tail feathers played during flight control. For larger flyers, safe landings are of particular importance. "It makes sense that the largest microraptorines had especially large tail feathers -- they would have needed the additional control," added Dr. Michael Habib, a researcher at the University of Southern California and a co-author of the paper.
The discovery of Changyuraptor consolidates the notion that flight preceded the origin of birds, being inherited by the latter from their dinosaurian forerunners. "The new fossil documents that dinosaur flight was not limited to very small animals but to dinosaurs of more substantial size," said Chiappe. "Clearly far more evidence is needed to understand the nuances of dinosaur flight, but Changyuraptor is a major leap in the right direction."
Science and art bring back to life 300-million-year-old specimens of a primitive reptile-like vertebrate
Cranial reconstruction of Gephyrostegus bohemicus.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of Lincoln
Paleontologists from the Natural History Museum and acedemics from Lincoln, Cambridge andSlovakia have recrated the cranial structure of a 308-million-year-old lizard-like vertebrate that could be the earliest example of a reptile and explain the origin of all vertebrates that belong to reptiles, birds and mammals.
Dr Marcello Ruta, from the School of Life Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK, was one of the authors of the paper which is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and produced a series of intricate hand-drawn recreations of the cranial structure ofGephyrostegus.
Paleontologists have provided a new cranial reconstruction of a long-extinct limbed vertebrate (tetrapod) from previously unrecognised specimens found in coal deposits from the Czech Republic.
The team of academics reviewed the cranial structural features of the Late Carboniferous Gephyrostegus bohemicus -- a small animal of generally lizard-like build that lived 308 million years ago.
This early tetrapod could be the earliest example of a reptile and explain the origin of amniotes, all vertebrates that belong to reptiles, birds and mammals.
Experts from, Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia), University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, The Natural History Museum in London, and the University of Lincoln, UK, have been able to study additional specimens unavailable in previous works.
Their aim was to provide an analysis of early tetrapod relationships incorporating their new observations of Gephyrostegus. Their analysis used skeletal traits across a sample of early tetrapod groups to identify the likely affinities of Gephyrostegus.
Their results are detailed in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Dr Marcello Ruta, from the School of Life Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK, was one of the authors and produced a series of intricate hand-drawn recreations of the cranial structure of Gephyrostegus.
He explained: "Gephyrostegus has always been an elusive beast. Several researchers have long considered the possibility that the superficially reptile-like features of this animal might tell us something about amniote ancestry. But Gephyrostegus also shows some much generalised skeletal features that make the issue of its origin even more problematic. We conducted a new study that brings together data from a large number of early tetrapods. The study shows that Gephyrostegus is closely related to another group of Eurasiatic and North American tetrapods called seymouriamorphs, also involved in debates about amniote ancestry. We found some interesting new cranial features in Gephyrostegus that helped us establish this link.
"Staring at specimens for a long time down a microscope and trying to make sense of their anatomy may be frustrating and tiring at times, but always immensely rewarding."
I may have dated a sister, strong family resemblance.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
Archaeology: Fifth century Christian basilica found in Bulgaria’s Bourgas
Archaeologists working in the Kraimorie area of Bourgas on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast have found a Christian basilica said to date from the fifth century.
The discovery of the early Christian basilica is a rare one for Bulgaria, according to Milen Nikolov, leader of the Bourgas Regional History Museum team that made the find.
The church building is 19.5 metres long and 15 metres wide.
At the site, the archaeological team found a chamber for storing relics and a holy water vessel.
The find was announced at an August 7 news conference also attended by Todor Batkov, the business person who has a 200 million leva (about 100 million euro) project to build a residential and holiday complex in Kraimorie.
Batkov said that Bourgas municipality would apply for European Union funding for the preservation of antiquities. The archaeological studies at the site have been financed by one of Batkov’s companies, Foros Development AD, and carried out with logistical support from Bourgas municipality.
Nikolov said that he believed that the find confirmed Bourgas as an early Christian centre.
The museum said that the find was the most significant for the city this year and shed new light on the history of the region.
Other discoveries in the area have included a massive city wall, towers and the remains of a luxurious Roman villa adjoining the beach.
In 2013, archaeologists found an extremely rare stamp with the image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which it was said to have been used to seal correspondence with the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Prehistoric barbeque? Sounds smoky...
"...GALWAY, IRELAND—On Ireland's western coastline, archaeologists have unearthed an oaken structure that they suspect is a complete Bronze Age fulacht fiadh, or wooden cooking trough. The structure was was exposed by storms last winter and spotted by a local resident. "It is very significant, as it is unusual to find a fulacht fiadh at such a level of preservation, but the sea obviously conserved it when levels began to rise,” Ireland's Underwater Archaeology Unit's Finnbar Moore told the Irish Times. Radiocarbon dating of the structure puts its construction around 1700 B.C., when the area would have been covered in forests and lagoons...."
"...LAWRENCE, KANSAS—Rolfe Mandel and a team of students from the University of Kansas are waiting for the results of tests to date the sediment samples they took from the Coffey Site, located in northeast Kansas along Tuttle Creek. “It will tell us a lot about the history of the peopling of the Americas and in particular the peopling of the Great Plains, especially the Central Great Plains, where it’s been pretty much a black hole in terms of unraveling that story,” he told Phys.org. They are hoping to find evidence of Clovis and Pre-Clovis people. “We are talking about small family units, hunters and gatherers. It’s a group of five or six, maybe a little bit larger wandering across the landscape. They’re following herds of animals. ..."
http://www.archaeology.org/news/2477-140829-kansas-clovis-excavation
Göbeklitepe: The world’s oldest sculpture workshop
The world’s oldest discovered temple, Göbeklitepe, is also the oldest known sculpture workshop, according to excavation findings at the site, which have been ongoing for 20 years. The excavations at Göbeklitepe, which is located in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa and is described as the “zero point in history,” are being carried out by theGerman Archaeology Institute and the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry. Germanarchaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who died a few months ago, had been the head of the excavations.
Associate Professor Cihat Kürkçüoğlu from the nearby Harran University’s (HRU) Arts and History Department, said works in Göbeklitepe had revealed human sculptures from the Neolithic age, wild boar, fox and bird limestone fossils, as well as many arrow heads made of tinderbox.
Kürkçüoğlu said these findings revealed that the art of sculpture and stone relief dated back to 12,000 years ago. “These are the oldest monumental sculptures in the world,” he added.
He said they had found small sculptures from between 10,000 and 20,000 B.C., called the “Venus sculptures,” but the stone reliefs on T-shaped stelas in Göbeklitepe and in the Nevali desert are “the oldest sculptures in the world.”
A 1.80 meter-high limestone sculpture, known as “Balıklıgöl Man” or “Urfa Man,” which was found during the excavations close to the Balıklıgöl lake in 1995, dated back to 10,000 B.C.
“This shows us that Göbeklitepe is the birthplace of plastic arts. It is a temple but at the same time it’s the world’s oldest sculpture workshop. You expect primitive examples of stone sculptures but you find very improved, aesthetic and artistic sculptures. This surprised us greatly. Some compositions in Göbeklitepe are even good enough to make today’s graphics jealous. As the archaeological excavations progress, I believe we will find older prototypes,” he said.
Kürkçüoğlu added that he had asked university groups visiting the ancient site to teach their students that the history of sculpture started at Göbeklitepe. “Just like the alphabet starts with A, the history of plastic arts starts with Göbeklitepe,” he said.
Ancient Last Supper charm found in John Rylands Library
A 1,500-year-old papyrus charm thought to be "the first ever found to refer to the Last Supper and use magic in the Christian context" has been discovered in the vaults of a Manchester library.
The fragment was found at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library by researcher Dr Roberta Mazza.
Dr Mazza said it was an "incredibly rare example of the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people".
She said it would have been put in a locket to protect wearers from danger.
The document, written in Greek, has been held by the library since 1901, but was largely ignored until Dr Mazza came across it.
'Doubly fascinating'
On one side, it has a combination of biblical passages from the books of Psalms and Matthew, while on the other is part of a receipt for payment of grain tax.
Dr Mazza said the amulet maker "would have cut a piece of the receipt, written the charm on the other side and then folded the papyrus to be kept in a locket".
She said the use of written charms was an ancient Egyptian practice, which was adopted by early Christians, who replaced prayers to Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods with passages from the Bible.
The papyrus may have been originally owned by a villager living near Hermopolis - now called Al Ashmunin - in east Egypt and "we now think knowledge of the Bible was more embedded in sixth century AD Egypt than we realised," she said.
EAST DEVON, ENGLAND—Archaeologists and conservators from the British Museum have announced that an amateur metal detectorist has found one of the largest hoards of coins ever discovered in Britain. The hoard is comprised of no less than 22,000 coins dating to between A.D. 260 and 350 that were in very good condition when they emerged from the ground, Devon County Council archaeologist Bill Horner told The Independent. Since the hoard was found ten months ago—its discovery was kept quiet to avoid looting at the site while archaeologists conducted a proper excavation—the coins have been cleaned, identified, and catalogued. Many bear portraits of the family of the emperor Constantine and of the emperor himself. The Seaton Down Hoard, as it is now called, is thought to be the fifth largest find of Roman coins in Britain and one of the largest in the whole of the Roman Empire. To read more about another remarkable hoard found in Britain, see ARCHAEOLOGY’S “Anglo-Saxon Hoard.”
http://www.archaeology.org/news/
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
S. T. Friedman
Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'
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