Mexico built on top of this lost city? Thousands of discovered artifacts unfold mystery

7,000 objects, including sculptures, votive offerings and skulls of sacrificed victims were discovered from that particular area

By Bhaswati Guha Majumder

10 Facts About the Aztec Empire

{ https://www.ibtimes.sg/ }

26-12-2019 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

Why The Ark of the Covenant Is The Most Extraordinary Ancient Artifact in History

COAST TO COAST AM - The Ark of the Covenant has to be one of the most extraordinary artifacts in history. In the latter half of the show, historical detective Graham Phillips presented evidence that this remarkable relic really existed and was discovered by the crusader knights, the Templars, during the Middle Ages and brought back to Europe and Phillips now believes he knows where it’s located.

“I think there’s enough information, enough evidence that there was a historical artifact that was considered holy by the ancient Israelites,” he said. Phillips detailed the biblical story of the origin of the Ark, which was purportedly built by the Israelites to house the Ten Commandment tablets.

Why The Ark of the Covenant Is The Most Extraordinary Ancient Artifact in History

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

25-12-2019 om 20:37 geschreven door peter  

1,000-yr-old Untouched Mayan “Ritual Cave” Found Full of Precious Relics

It remained unknown and undisturbed until 2018, when it was rediscovered again.  This time the Balamku was found by an explorer from National Geographic, along with his team.  They were part of the Great Maya Aquifer Project, and were trying to find the water table beneath the Mayan city.

While he was creeping his way through a series of small tunnels, the explorer, Guillermo De Anda, suddenly came upon a sizable cache of vases, incense burners, and many other objects that had been left as offerings by the ancient people of Chichen Itza.  Even more of a surprise, the collection was in a remarkable state of preservation, despite being surrounded by stalagmites.

Since De Anda found that first cache, seven chambers holding ritual offerings have been discovered in the caves. The chambers are deep under the city, and can presently only be accessed by traveling through a long series of tunnels, many of which are so narrow and low that researchers have to go through on their stomachs.

Despite the difficulty of getting to the chambers, the first archaeologist to visit the caves back in the ‘60s also clearly made the trip.  His original report was finally found not very long ago by an archaeologist from University of California.  That report noted that there were more than 150 objects in the cave, many of them bearing images of the Toltec rain god and other sacred symbols.

A similar cave was found not far away, back in 1959.  It also held sacred objects, but less than half as many as at this site.  That find was also more accessible.  De Anda thinks that’s important.  He remarked that while quantity isn’t more important than information, he found it telling that such a huge repository of artifacts was located in a place that was so hard to get to.

De Anda’s rediscovery of the find means that Modern archaeologists who specialize in Mayan culture may be able to learn some new things about the level of contact and interaction between different Mesoamerican cultures of the time, and other information about the history of the Mayan people prior to the city’s fall. None of that answers the question, however, of why Pinto decided to reseal the caves back in the ‘60s, rather than study them.

A similar cave was found not far away, back in 1959.  It also held sacred objects, but less than half as many as at this site.  That find was also more accessible.  De Anda thinks that’s important.  He remarked that while quantity isn’t more important than information, he found it telling that such a huge repository of artifacts was located in a place that was so hard to get to.

De Anda’s rediscovery of the find means that Modern archaeologists who specialize in Mayan culture may be able to learn some new things about the level of contact and interaction between different Mesoamerican cultures of the time, and other information about the history of the Mayan people prior to the city’s fall. None of that answers the question, however, of why Pinto decided to reseal the caves back in the ‘60s, rather than study them.

Historians do know that among the Mayan people, a ritual cave was considered entrances to the underworld, and were thus considered extremely sacred, even to the extent that they played a role in social organization and site planning, according to Mayan archaeology expert Holley Moyes.

The technology available to scientists has improved dramatically since the middle of the last century, which means that they may be able to get a lot more useful information by using methods like 3-D mapping.  That information could help answer questions about not only the sorts of rituals that went on in the caves, but also about the city above them.

According to De Anda, it’s not currently known why Chichen Itza declined and fell, but Balamku should be able to help answer that question with its collection of artifacts and organic matter. It’s been speculated that the area was devastated by severe droughts. Some researchers further believe that the extreme weather cycles in the area were exacerbated by deforestation further south.

• Related Article: Laser Mapping Reveals Bizarre New Rituals of the Ancient Mayans

Once the contents of Mayan ritual cave have been fully catalogued and analysed, the actual circumstances of the time will be much clearer. In fact, it may even offer some insights into the sustainability of cultures during periods of environmental instability, which has modern-day applications, despite its historic roots.

{ https://www.thevintagenews.com/ }

24-12-2019 om 23:24 geschreven door peter  

The 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight

By Alexander Rose 

On the western flank of the Hoover Dam stands a little-understood monument, commissioned by the US Bureau of Reclamation when construction of the dam began in 01931. The most noticeable parts of this corner of the dam, now known as Monument Plaza, are the massive winged bronze sculptures and central flagpole which are often photographed by visitors. The most amazing feature of this plaza, however, is under their feet as they take those pictures.

The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth.

I was particularly interested in this monument because this axial precession is also the slowest cycle that we track in Long Now’s 10,000 Year Clock. Strangely, little to no documentation of this installation seemed to be available, except for a few vacation pictures on Flickr. So the last time I was in Las Vegas, I made a special trip out to Hoover Dam to see if I could learn more about this obscure 26,000-year monument.

I parked my rental car on the Nevada side of the dam on a day pushing 100 degrees. I quickly found Monument Plaza just opposite the visitor center where tours of the dam are offered. While the plaza is easy to find, it stands apart from all the main tours and stories about the dam. With the exception of the writing in the plaza floor itself, the only information I could find came from a speaker running on loop, broadcasting a basic description of the monument while visitors walked around the area. When I asked my tour guide about it, he suggested that there may be some historical documentation and directed me to Emme Woodward, the dam’s historian.

I was able to get in touch with her after returning home. As she sent me a few items, I began to see why the Bureau of Reclamation doesn’t explain very much about the monument’s background. The first thing she sent me was a description of the plaza by Oskar J. W. Hansen, the artist himself, which I thought would tell me everything I wanted to know. While parts of it were helpful, the artist’s statement of intention was also highly convoluted and opaque. An excerpt:

These [human] postures may be matched to their corresponding reflexes in terms of angle and degree much as one would join cams in a worm-gear drive. There is an angle for doubt, for sorrow, for hate, for joy, for contemplation, and for devotion. There are as many others as there are fleeting emotions within the brain of each individual who inhabits the Earth. Who knows not all these postures of the mind if he would but stop to think of them as usable factors for determining proclivities of character? It is a knowledge bred down to us through the past experience of the whole race of men.

It is pretty hard to imagine the US Bureau of Reclamation using this type of write-up to interpret the monument… and they don’t. And so there it stands, a 26,000-year clock of sorts, for all the world to see, and yet still mired in obscurity.

While I may never totally understand the inner motivations of the monument’s designer, I did want to understand it on a technical level. How did Hansen create a celestial clock face frozen in time that we can interpret and understand as the date of the dam’s completion? The earth’s axial precession is a rather obscure piece of astronomy, and our understanding of it through history has been spotty at best. That this major engineering feat was celebrated through this monument to the axial precession still held great interest to me, and I wanted to understand it better.

I pressed for more documentation, and the historian sent me instructions for using the Bureau of Reclamation’s image archive site as well as some keywords to search for. The black and white images you see here come from this resource. Using the convoluted web site was a challenge, and at first I had difficulty finding any photos of the plaza before or during its construction. As I discovered, the problem was that I was searching with the term “Monument Plaza,” a name only given to it after its completion in 01936. In order to find images during its construction, I had to search for “Safety Island,” so named because at the time of the dam’s construction, it was an island in the road where workers could stand behind a berm to protect themselves from the never-ending onslaught of cement trucks.

I now had some historical text and photos, but I was still missing a complete diagram of the plaza that would allow me to really understand it. I contacted the historian again, and she obtained permission from her superiors to release the actual building plans. I suspect that they generally don’t like to release technical plans of the dam for security reasons, but it seems they deemed my request a low security risk as the monument is not part of the structure of the dam. The historian sent me a tube full of large blueprints and a CD of the same prints already scanned. With this in hand I was finally able to re-construct the technical intent of the plaza and how it works.

In order to understand how the plaza marks the date of the dam’s construction in the nearly 26,000-year cycle of the earth’s precession, it is worth explaining what exactly axial precession is. In the simplest terms, it is the earth “wobbling” on its tilted axis like a gyroscope — but very, very slowly. This wobbling effectively moves what we see as the center point that stars appear to revolve around each evening.

Presently, this center point lies very close to the conveniently bright star Polaris. The reason we have historically paid so much attention to this celestial center, or North Star, is because it is the star that stays put all through the course of the night. Having this one fixed point in the sky is the foundation of all celestial navigation.

But that point near Polaris, which we call the North Star, is actually slowly moving and tracing a circle through the night sky. While Polaris is our North Star, Hansen’s terrazzo floor points out that the North Star of the ancient Egyptians, as they built the great pyramids, was Thuban. And in about 12,000 years, our North Star will be Vega. The workings of this precession are best explained with an animation, as in figure 1. Here you can see how the axis of the earth traces a circle in the sky over the course of 25,772 years.

Unfortunately it is a bit difficult to see how this all works in the inlaid floor at Monument Plaza. The view that you really want to have of the plaza is directly from above. You would need a crane to get this view of the real thing, but by using the original technical drawing as an underlay I was able to mark up a diagram which hopefully clarifies it (Fig. 2).

In this diagram, you can see that the center of the circle traced by the axial precession is actually the massive flag pole in the center of the plaza. This axial circle is prominently marked around the pole, and the angle of Polaris was depicted as precisely as possible to show where it would have been on the date of the dam’s opening. Hansen used the rest of the plaza floor to show the location of the planets visible that evening, and many of the bright stars that appear in the night sky at that location.

By combining planet locations with the angle of precession, we are able to pinpoint the time of the dam’s completion down to within a day. We are now designing a similar system — though with moving parts — in the dials of the 10,000 Year Clock. It is likely that at least major portions of the Hoover Dam will still be in place hundreds of thousands of years from now. Hopefully the Clock will still be ticking and Hansen’s terrazzo floor will still be there, even if it continues to baffle visitors.

I would like to thank Emme Woodward of the US Bureau of Reclamation for all her help in finding the original images and plans of Monument Plaza. If you have further interest in reading Hansen’s original writings about the plaza or in seeing the plans, I have uploaded all the scans to the Internet Archive.

{ http://longnow.org/ }

23-12-2019 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

In bad times, farmers have been known to lose their heads over what to do when their crops won’t grow. Smart farmers in these situations learn to use their heads, not lose them. On Easter Island (Rapa Nui), a place known for its heads, it turns out farmers did both. New research has discovered that by creating and then removing those giant stone heads from a single quarry, the area around it became lush farmland. Will we soon be seeing giant heads coming out of Nebraska?

Easter Island Statue Project

Two Moai are shown during excavations by Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her team at Rano Raraku quarry on Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island.

“Our excavation broadens our perspective of the Moai and encourages us to realise that nothing, no matter how obvious, is ever exactly as it seems. I think our new analysis humanises the production process of the Moai.”

In a paper published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science, UCLA researcher Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project on Rapa Nui, described the surprising discovery during a five-year project focusing on just two of the more than 1,000 moai or statues on the island. These two, labeled Moai 156 and 157, are located in Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater where over 90 percent of the statues were quarried. Moai 156 and 157 are unique in two ways – they were placed upright with one on a pedestal and the other sunken into the ground, meaning they were not to be moved; and they were covered with engraved petroglyph motifs, indicating that they had a special purpose for being there. What purpose might that be?

“When we got the chemistry results back, I did a double take.”

Researcher and study co-author Sarah Sherwood of Tennessee’s University of the South, was referring to the soil analysis done on samples taken at the foot of each statue, which were erected between 1510 CE and 1645 CE. Those samples contained evidence of taro (a root vegetable), bananas and sweet potatoes. Further study of the soil in Rano Raraku found it to be a lot more fertile than the barren dirt on the rest of the island, containing calcium, phosphorus and moisture. That means Rano Raraku was much more than just a quarry for stone statues to be moved around the island and baffle visitors to this day.

“That is, these and probably other upright Moai in Rano Raraku were retained in place to ensure the sacred nature of the quarry itself. The Moai were central to the idea of fertility, and in Rapanui belief their presence here stimulated agricultural food production.”

So, which came first – the fertile soil or the belief that the statues helped make it and keep it that way?

“Everywhere else on the island the soil was being quickly worn out, eroding, being leeched of elements that feed plants, but in the quarry, with its constant new influx of small fragments of the bedrock generated by the quarrying process, there is a perfect feedback system of water, natural fertiliser and nutrients.”

I love the smell of fresh taro in the morning.

It sounds like the act of carving out the stone statues contributed to the natural system that made Rano Raraku the Nebraska of Easter Island. Perhaps the foods helped the islanders grow bigger and stronger like the farm boys of Nebraska and gave them the strength to move the giant statues around the island – a process that’s still a mystery.

All the corn does in Nebraska is turn those farm boys into linemen for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/  }

20-12-2019 om 23:40 geschreven door peter  

A Race of Giant Humans Existed in North America but the Evidence Disappeared - Coast to Coast AM

COAST TO COAST AM – Author Xaviant Haze revealed how giants were a dominant feature of native origin myths as well as extraordinary first-person tales by early explorers. He began by pointing out that Abraham Lincoln was “definitely a believer” in the idea that giants inhabited the ancient Americas.

Haze says that there is evidence for a prehistoric giant race of humans throughout the oral traditions of many North American tribes, who regarded them with dread as cannibals. He described the first books published by the Smithsonian Institution on excavations where giant bones were uncovered in the ancient mound complexes of North America.

By the 1880s though, Haze said that bones and other evidence would be shipped off to the Smithsonian, and that “without fail, that’s where the trail ends.”

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

20-12-2019 om 20:44 geschreven door peter  

Easter Island mystery solved? 'Radical' study cracks meaning behind Easter Island statues

THE EASTER ISLAND mystery may have just been solved by a group of archaeologists uncovering the ancient secrets and meaning of the Easter Island statues.

20-12-2019 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

17-12-2019 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

A very unique royal bust of King Ramses II has been unearthed during an Egyptian archaeological mission from the Ministry of Antiquities. Archaeologists discovered the statue on private land in Mit Rahina, Egypt. The land owner had been arrested for performing illegal excavations on the land which is located near the Temple of Ptah – not far from the Pyramids of Giza.

Ramses II (also known as “Ozymandias” and “Ramesses the Great”) ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1213 B.C. He was the third pharaoh of Egypt’s 19^th Dynasty. Ramses II was known for his impressive building programs with Abu Simbel being one of his greatest achievements. Abu Simbel consists of two temples with the smaller one being dedicated to his wife, Queen Nefertari.

Abu Simbel

The unique bust was made from red granite and showed the king wearing a wig and a crown with the symbol “Ka” which symbolizes power, life force, and spirit. On the back pillar, his name is engraved as “Nakht Mari Maat” which translates to “strong bull”. The statue is 105 cm tall (approximately three and a half feet) by 55 cm wide and 45 cm thick.

Mostafa Waziri, who is the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, stated that the statue is extremely rare because it’s the only ever “Ka” statue found that was made from granite. The only other one that was similar to it was made from wood and was owned by the 13^th Dynasty King Hor Awibre – it is currently on display at the Egyptian Museum which is located in Cairo. Waziri explained that the statue was “intended to provide a resting place for the Ka (life-force or spirit) of the person after death.”

Ramses II

In addition to the bust, several large blocks made from red granite and limestone were also found. The blocks were engraved with different scenes depicting Ramses II during the Heb-Seb religious ritual. This suggests that the blocks could possibly belong to the Temple of Ptah. It’s still unclear as to when the statue and the blocks were originally created. Pictures of the bust as well as one of the blocks can be seen here.

File-A unique royal bust of King Ramses II made of red granite.

The bust and the blocks were brought to Mit Rahina open air museum where they will be restored. Excavations will continue at the site where they were unearthed.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

16-12-2019 om 11:54 geschreven door peter  

8 Mysterious Underwater Ruins of Lost Civilizations

Tales and myths of lost civilizations have been told since the dawn of time. The most famous is the story of Atlantis: a quasi-mythical city that sunk beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Whether the story is true or not, it fills people with intrigue.

Today, archaeologists have discovered there are many sunken cities around the globe. Underwater excavations are difficult and expensive, so these investigations have only recently revealed many lost civilizations.

Around the planet, there are many not so mythical cities found underwater. Some can be traced back through history, yet many remain mysterious and continue to spark people’s imagination as candidates for lost civilizations.

Here are 8 underwater cities of lost civilizations you may not have heard of:

1) Ancient Greece: the sunken city of Pavlopetri.

The underwater city of Pavlopetri in Greece. Source

Found in the south of modern-day Greece is the sunken city of Pavlopetri. Dating back 5000 years it is now more than four meters underwater and is the first lost city to be found around Greece. It is thought to have sunk around 1000BC due to an earthquake that shifted the land around many of the Greek islands.

From what has been so far uncovered at the site, the ancient cities layout resembles many modern-day cities. Well-designed roads, houses, gardens, temples, complex water management systems, and huge buildings have so far been found.

The entire city is so far known to be at least 80,000 square meters in size, with a vast open plaza in the center of these sunken ruins

2) Yonaguni Jima, The Japanese Atlantis.

The sunken ruins of a lost civilization in Yonaguni in Japan. Source

The Island of Yonaguni is just miles away from Taiwan and is the last of the Ryukyu islands. It is the westernmost inhabited Japanese island. During the ice age, Yonaguni Island was part of the Chinese mainland. Then due to rising oceans and land shifts, it became one of the many islands that were spread out in between China and Japan. It was once part of the Ryukyu Kingdom until it was overtaken by Japan.

Although these ruins have never been properly researched, many claims are surrounding its origins and dating. These vary from between 10,000 to 5,000 years old. Controversy surrounds the validity of the sunken city, which according to some researchers, was once home to the legendary Jomon civilization that flourished in ancient Japan from around 12,000 to 300BC. It was this civilization that has some of the oldest found forms of pottery.

Regardless of their validity, the ruins have been submerged for at least two thousand years, meaning whatever was once there, would be extremely degraded.

Some geologists argue the formations found at Yonaguni Jima are naturally occurring. They comprise of many 90-degree angles that appear as manmade steps and passageways, as well as a few circular holes carved in stones around the site.

Although these sorts of formations are found in nature, the high amount in such close proximity has inspired many to investigate the mysterious underwater ruins in search of a lost civilization.

3) The Submerged castle in Lake Van, Turkey.

The underwater castle ruins of a lost civilization in Turkey.

Sitting below the waters of the Middle-East’s second largest lake is a 3000-year-old castle. Thought to be the remains of the ancient Urartu civilization, the castle is around a kilometer in length, with walls of up to four meters tall.

This lost civilization once thrived in modern-day Turkey, Iran, and Armenia. Although much of the ruins are under the lake, there are still remnants that can be seen by the lakes edges.

4) Mahabalipuram, India

A shore temple of the lost city of Mahabalipuram in India.

The sunken ruins of Mahabalipuram lie between 6-8 meters below the current sea level off the coast of South Eastern India. Local folklore long spoke of the existence of ancient ruins, although was mainly confined to fishermen’s tales and thought of as myth.

However, when a tsunami devastated much of Asia in 2004, it revealed that the stories of the lost civilization were true after all.

As the waters receded around 500 meters before the tsunami hit, they pulled away silt and sand that had built up around the monuments that were until then buried at sea.

Since then, there has been a much more serious attempt in researching these sunken ruins.

5) Heracleion, Egypt. The Lost City of Cleopatra.

Sunken ruins of the lost city of Heracleion.

Submerged for at least 1600 years, the lost city of Cleopatra has been found off the shores of Alexandria in Egypt. Cleopatra was the last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, and it was thought that her city was lost to rising seas as a consequence of an earthquake and resulting tidal waves. Pristine statues, and temples have been discovered at the site so far, many of which are in excellent condition.

Statues of Isis, a sphinx, and large red granite columns, as well as foundations of a palace, are among the relics found at the site. Around 20,000 objects have been located in the lost underwater city.

One object recovered from the water is a 2,000-year-old stone figurine of Cleopatra III: a Ptolemaic queen, but depicted as the Egyptian goddess Isis and sculpted in a style that combines both Egyptian and Greek aesthetics.

The findings revealed that Thonis (Egyptian) and Heracleion (Greek) were the same cities.

Cleopatra reigned during the times of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled over Egypt from around 305bc to 30bc. 

6) The Sunken City of Olous, Crete.

The island of Crete is bordered by an ancient Sunken Minoan City.

What was once part of the Minoan civilization, Olous is an underwater city that was once home to over 40,000 people. Between the 5^th and 2^nd century BC, Olous is thought to have reached its peak, making up one of around 100 Minoan cities that thrived around ancient Crete.

Although no one knows exactly what happened to Olous, it is thought that it gradually submerged due to rising sea levels. It is interesting to note that the east coast of Crete is sinking into the sea, while the west coast is rising slowly.

Crete is slowly but surely migrating west. This natural phenomenon started around the 4^th century AD and could have been responsible for causing Olous to sink.

7) The Ancient Underwater City in Fuxian Lake, China

Underwater ruins of a lost Chinese Civilization. Source

Fuxian Lake is one of the most intriguing underwater cities ever found. Many stories have emerged from this lake about a lost city dating back thousands of years. There isn’t too much written about the excavations, but what is known is there have been many findings dating back into antiquity.

There are many legends in the Yunnan Province (which is located in southwest China) that talk about sunken cities.

One of the ancient cities that researchers first believed to be at the bottom of the lake was the city of Yuyuan. The city was occupied from around 590-900AD and supposedly sunk to the bottom of the sea.

However, researchers have since concluded that the underwater city could not be that of Yuyuan as all artifacts have so far been made of stone, and not clay, which Yuyuan was almost entirely made from.

In 2001, a team of marine archaeologists decided to explore the lake and reported seeing pyramid-like structures as well as other buildings and stone objects. They claim the ruins are over 2000 years old and belong to the lost civilization known as the Dian Kingdom.

There are many varying stories about these underwater ruins. Further research is required to confirm its origin.

8) Port Royal, Jamaica’s lost city

The mysterious sunken ruins of Port Royal in Jamaica.

Up until 1692, Port Royal was one of the most important trading ports of the New World. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted though, with it being known across the world as the ‘wickedest city on earth.’

An earthquake and resulting tsunami brought the Jamaican city to its end, submerging it beneath the sea. The ruins are still accessible today, with travelers able to dive and explore the lost city.

Conclusion:

The human origin story is littered with sunken cities and lost ancient civilizations.

Today underwater archeological research may reveal an entirely new chapter our story.

Now it’s up to you. What lost civilizations and sunken ruins do you believe should be studied more closely?

Videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://humanoriginproject.com/ }

16-12-2019 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

Researchers in Indonesia have discovered ancient cave paintings that are believed to be the oldest rock art ever found. The drawings were discovered in 2017 in the limestone cave of Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 located in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

In an interview with Live Science, Adam Brumm, who is an archaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, as well as a co-author of the study (which can be read in full here), explained that Pak Hamrullah (who is another co-author of the study) saw “what appeared to be the entrance to a cave located high up in a limestone cliff face, and he climbed several meters up a fig tree vine to investigate it.”

Island of Sulawesi where the cave art was found.

Once inside of the cave, researchers noticed cave paintings that depicted half-animal, half-human beings that were hunting wild pigs and dwarf buffaloes. To be more precise, dark red pigment was used on the 14.75-foot-long painting to draw at least eight small human/animal figures hunting six animals (2 Sulawesi warty pigs and 4 dwarf buffalo called anoas) with spears and ropes.

“Anoas are small in size, but they are reportedly very fierce, especially when cornered,” Brumm explained, adding, “From what I have heard from local people, these elusive dwarf bovids have been known to seriously gore and even kill unwary hunters on the island. Indeed, the reputation of anoas is such that the Indonesian army even named their armored personnel carrier, the Anoa, after these creatures.”

As for the hunters that were depicted in the paintings, it could be the oldest evidence ever found of ancient humans imagining supernatural beings. The hunters were drawn with muzzles, snouts and beaks of birds, reptiles and other animals, as well as tails. The half-human, half-animal creatures are called therianthropes which have been referred to as spirits, ancestral beings, and gods from several different religions.

Brumm explained this better by stating, “In Europe, scholars have long been interested in the oldest known images of therianthropes in prehistoric art, because they are generally accepted to represent the earliest evidence for our ability to conceive of abstract entities that do not exist in the natural world,” adding, “Depictions of therianthropes are also seen as an indication of early spirituality or religious-like thinking.”

Map of Sulawesi

Prior to this discovery, the oldest example of a therianthrope was a carved figurine of a human with a feline head that was found in Germany and dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago. This new discovery of the cave art in Indonesia is said to be from nearly 44,000 years ago. It’s also the earliest known depiction of storytelling as well as of a hunting scene.

Researchers analyzed the uranium levels as well as other radioactive isotopes in mineral growths called “cave popcorn” in order to find out exactly how old the cave art was and they were able to determine that it was created at least 43,900 years ago. Pictures of the art work can be seen here.

There are at least 242 caves or shelters with ancient imagery on Sulawesi island alone, and new sites are being discovered annually

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

15-12-2019 om 14:54 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Aliens Related To American Indians, Proof Is In Grand Canyon, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Jan 24, 2011

Location of sighting: Grand Canyon, USA
Live Grand Canyon Cam: 

• http://grand-canyon.com/grand_canyon_cam.htm
  

I guess I just want to share with you something I found long ago. I was using a live cam at the grand canyon. Sadly the cam no longer works, but I did make a recording of what I found. In this video of mine I found a huge tall face of an proud American Indian looking out over the horizon. Not far from the face was the shadow of a Indian brave, legs spread, arms folded across his chest looking straight up. 

For such hidden evidence to be visible at only certain times of a day to occur...there must have been significant meaning behind the creation of it. I believe aliens planted a human population in this area...an Indian tribe. And these signs we see are proof that the indians are descendants of aliens. 
Scott C. Waring

Other videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

14-12-2019 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

First physical evidence of Egyptian 'head cones' found in 3,300-year-old tomb reveal they were made of WAX and may have been designed to scent the hair and purify the soul

• Research team reveals exciting discovery of two head cones in Egyptian graves  
• Some scholars argued the distinctive headwear only ever existed in artworks
• The cones were found in the ancient city of Armarna, 194 miles south of Cairo
• The Egyptian city was abandoned in 1332 BC after being occupied for just 15 years after the death of its 'heretic' founder

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE

Ancient Egyptian art frequently depicts people wearing cone-shaped headgear, but none has ever been found. 

Now an international team of archaeologists has uncovered the first ever physical evidence of Egyptian head cones in the ancient city of Armarna, 194 miles south of the capital Cairo.  

The head cones, made from wax, were discovered at two graves in 2010 and 2015. They were found in fragments but researchers have been able to reconstruct their shape. 

They provide the first conclusive evidence that the objects actually existed and were worn by Egyptians, according to the archaeologists.

Due to the lack of material evidence, scholars have previously speculated that the head cones only ever existed as mere depictions in art. 

Some believed that they were entirely symbolic - like halos given to religious figures in Christian art - while others argued that they did exist but were made of materials that did not survive. 

Cone 1 excavated at the South Tombs Cemetery in 2010,  on the remains of an individual estimated to be a 20–29-year-old female

The Egyptian city of Amarna, 194 miles south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, was abandoned in 1332 after being occupied for only 15 years

The graves in which the cones were discovered are thought to have belonged to the non-elite, suggesting that the cones were not a particular mark of status.  

'These are the first archaeological examples of this usual headwear yet known from Egypt, although we have many images of people wearing them’, said Anna Stevens, lead author of the study.

‘Many questions remain about the meaning and function of the head cones – and the excavated examples won’t answer them all. 

‘But careful excavation has now shown that the cones certainly existed in 3D form, that they could be worn by the deceased and that they were not only for the elite.'

Spectroscopy analysis of the cones revealed that they were hollow and made of plant or animal wax - most likely beeswax.

It is believed they may have been infused with perfume to purify the wearer so they could engage with the rituals and deities of the afterlife.  

Other theories suggest they may be connected with ideas of fertility and resurrection. 

Based on cranial and pelvic observations of the human remains found with the head cones, one of the bodies is believed to be of a woman aged between 20-29 years at her time of death, still with well-preserved hair under the cone.

The adult female remains in its original place of discovery, compelete with headcone and well-preserved hair

Excavations taking place at the North Tombs Cemetery in 2017 as part of the Amarna project

The second cone, found in 2015, belonged to a 15-20 year-old of indeterminate sex. 

Researchers say it's probable that these two cones were ‘model’ versions made for a burial environment, and that cones intended to be worn by the living could have been constructed differently. 

Ancient Egyptians are often depicted wearing cones in artwork depicting banquets, worship and the afterlife.

Scholars often link the cones with sensuality and sexuality, as they frequently appear in artistic imagery of women - sometimes unclothed. 

One popular theory is was that they were an unguent – pieces of fat or wax perfumed, perhaps with myrrh. 

As the cone melted, the scent was released, with some ancient Egyptian literature suggesting that this process would scent and cleanse the hair and body. 

Head cones are worn by females and males in Ancient Egyptian art depicting banqueting scenes, including those honouring the dead, funerals, or people being rewarded by the king

A reconstruction of the two cones, revealing they are both hollow 

It is not known why these cones were included in the burials, but researchers suggest they may have been symbols meant to enhance the rebirth or personal fertility of the deceased in the afterlife.

They have also previously simply been interpreted more broadly as symbols of the tomb owner's contentedness in the afterlife. 

The city of Amarna was built by the pharaoh Akhenaten as home for the cult of the sun god Aten and now contains thousands of graves.

Akhenaten controversially placed much emphasis on the worship of the Egyptian sun, and away from Egyptian tradition of polytheism, the worship of multiple deities.

The city was abandoned around 10 years after the pharaoh’s death, despite only being occupied for 15 years from 1347 to 1332 BC.

But the abandoned city attracted ancient looters, who stole from all four cemeteries at the site.

This has made the task of piecing together all the disturbed burials all the more difficult for archaeologists of the Amarna Project, who have been excavating the site since2005.

The study of the two head cones has been published in the journal Antiquity.  

Read more:

• From representation to reality: ancient Egyptian wax head cones from Amarna | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

{  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

13-12-2019 om 17:25 geschreven door peter  

Egyptian pyramids under a night sky. Several researchers believe astronomical at this site point to signs of an ancient advanced civilization.alignments 

Ancient Astronomical Alignments: Reading and Mapping the Stars at Early Advanced Civilization Sites

Many of the cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia and hieroglyphs of Egypt make reference to the sun, stars, or planetary positions. Also, a number of ancient structures in many parts of the world are aligned with, or directly oriented toward, the cardinal points (East, North, South, and West) or celestial objects. A recent study by astronomy historian Michael Horkin involved cataloging 2000 Neolithic tombs and researching over 1000 others in France, Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. His paper, presented to the Royal Astronomical Society in England, points out that thousands of Neolithic structures erected prior to 1000 BC were apparently built to face the sun or key constellations.

Commenting on the study, E.C. Krupp, an archaeoastronomer with the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, states, “It implies a certain social organization in the commitment to build the construction of these monuments, as well as a system of celestial observation.” Yet, Horkin says about one part of the study, “We do not know much about the constellations as viewed by the [ancient peoples], since they were not literate.” Illiteracy is the common assumption about ancient and unknown cultures – but what are we to make of the vast number of megalithic structures, dolmans, cairns, and henges (like Stonehenge) that we find built and precisely aligned with astronomical coordinates?

Stonehenge. 

( LuckyStep/Fotolia)

A Belief that ‘Prior’ Meant ‘Primitive’

If myth tells us there was a time when man was regularly reading the stars, communing with the Earth and the heavens, and generally studying from the book of Nature rather than symbols on paper, can we really say he was illiterate?

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Most early and literate explorers did not recognize the astronomical alignments and mathematical characteristics inherent in the pyramids , Egyptian temple ruins, and other ancient megaliths. Since it was assumed that the people who built them must have been more primitive than the later people of Greece, and especially Rome, no one was looking for architectural features that required celestial calculations.

It wasn’t until the late 19th century, when the prominent British Astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer first seriously began to look at ancient temples around the world, that many astronomical alignments were noted. And even then, most archaeologists downplayed such observations as coincidence or merely structural aspects of primitive religious beliefs.

British Astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer.

( Public Domain )

Astronomical Alignment and Mathematical Feats at the Great Pyramid

Astonishingly, we had to wait until the 1960’s before any serious study of celestial alignment was undertaken at Stonehenge (which we now know can be used to predict eclipses), one of the most famous megalithic sites in the world. Because of this lack of interest in connecting the dots, so to speak, important clues that resided in temple alignments with solstices, equinoxes, and other celestial phenomena were completely missed and went undiscovered for centuries. Still today, many archaeologists dismiss much of this astronomical information as unimportant because it does not fit well with accepted interpretations of archaic civilizations.

Over the past few decades, though, the tide has slowly begun to turn, as irrefutable evidence reveals that sophisticated astronomy, mathematics, and other higher sciences were indeed incorporated into many ancient structures. The most obvious candidate for study is the Great Pyramid at Giza , which is larger than anything the Romans or Greeks ever built, and still the largest stone building on Earth.

The Great Pyramid of Egypt.

Credit: BigStockPhoto

With its original white (or possibly gold) capstone and limestone siding, it must have been an amazing sight, visible for miles (some ancient people referred to it as “The Light”). It is aligned to within 1/20th of a degree of the direction of the Earth’s rotation – not an easy feat. The massive base of the pyramid today appears to be level to within one centimeter, yet this accomplishment is said to have been performed with stone hammers, an assumption impossible to believe.

J. H. Cole, using modern surveying techniques, has accurately measured the pyramid, finding the ratio of the perimeter to the height a perfect imitation of a sphere (2 times Pi, the radius to circumference ratio of a sphere). Peter Tompkins, in his Secrets of the Great Pyramid , points out several other mathematical representations as well. Dividing the surface area of the Great Pyramid by the area of its base results in a number very near the golden mean (1.618), “a famous ratio in art and architecture.” In addition, he shows that the three great pyramids as they are laid out fit exactly into a rectangle aligned to the cardinal directions, measuring 1414 cubits by 1732 cubits, “a thousand times the square roots of 2 and 3 respectively.”

Still more interesting, in 1993 Robert Bauval (co-author of several books on the pyramids) noticed that the three main pyramids on the Giza Plateau were a mirror reflection of the three belt stars in the constellation Orion, a constellation important to the Egyptians . Bauval and others have also pointed out that the shafts in the Great Pyramid extending from the King’s and Queen’s Chambers also represent stellar alignments. Cutting such stones to the precise angles, placing them in a position so that their sides form a diagonal shaft that aligns with key astronomical coordinates (which must be calculated when most of the stars are not visible in that position, due to precession), embedding them in a massive structure comprised of millions of stones – some up to 70 tons – and doing it all without harder-than-stone tools or instruments or math, or even wheels, is pretty amazing stuff for a “primitive” culture. Or maybe that simplistic assumption is wrong.

Giza pyramids superimposed over the three stars of Orion's Belt.

(Davkal/ CC BY SA 3.0 )

The Mark of Early Advanced Civilizations?

One of the great enigmas presented by the ruins of many of these ancient cultures, most notably Egypt, is that they seemed to have arisen very quickly out of nothing. The Great Pyramid is supposed to have been built near the presumed beginning of this mysterious civilization. As author and rebel Egyptologist John Anthony West states, “The evidence for these advanced civilizations is almost universal in the sense that they all seem to be at their height near the beginning...practically all of them have deluge myths, practically all of them talk about earlier times, Golden Ages when people lived longer and were much more enlightened and advanced.”

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• Wild Animals in the Sky? Prehistoric Cave Art Suggests Ancient Advanced Astronomy

When Mesopotamia was being unearthed and some of the Biblical royal and city names could for the first time be confirmed as actual historical sites, there began to be good reason to take the stories of the Old Testament more literally, as well as some of the other myths and legends from prehistory.

There really might have been a flood of Biblical proportions , and a type of Noah’s Ark and the near loss of all that came before. It may not have happened exactly like the story, but there could have been massive flooding in some parts of the world that wiped away much evidence of prior civilizations. How else could civilization seem to develop out of nothing in Mesopotamia or Egypt 5000 years ago? The plant may have been chopped to the ground, but the roots would still be there.

‘The Deluge’ by Francis Danby, 1840.

( Public Domain )

• Top Image: Egyptian pyramids under a night sky. Several researchers believe astronomical alignments at this site point to signs of an ancient advanced civilization. Source: CC0

By Walter Cruttenden

• Extract from Chapter 1: Astronomical Alignments in ‘ Lost Star of Myth and Time ’ by Walter Cruttenden.

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

13-12-2019 om 01:10 geschreven door peter  

44,000-Year-Old Cave Painting Could Be the Earliest Known Depiction of Hunting

A section of the cave painting.
Image: Griffith University

Archaeologists in Indonesia have stumbled upon an extraordinarily old cave painting which appears to depict human-like figures in pursuit of wild pigs and buffaloes. It’s quite possibly the oldest portrayal of a hunting scene in the archaeological record, but the vague nature of the artwork leaves it open to interpretation.

New research published today in Nature describes the discovery of an approximately 43,900-year-old cave painting found at the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 site in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The lead authors of the new study, archaeologists Adam Brumm and Maxime Aubert from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, say it’s a hunting scene, making it the oldest on record—assuming their interpretation is correct. One of the experts we spoke to said the painting, which depicts a series of human-like figures around several animals, may represent something else entirely.

A wide view of the entire painting, with annotations.
Image: Griffith University

Regardless of what exactly it depicts, this piece is significant due to its extreme age, the sophistication of the artwork, and its geographical location. Assuming the dating was done correctly, it’s now the oldest known figurative art drawn by early modern humans.

“This is a very important paper,” said Chris Stringer, a physical anthropologist from the Natural History Museum in London who wasn’t involved with the new research, in an email to Gizmodo.

First, some important context before we dive into the details.

Older cave art dating to around 64,000 years ago has been discovered in Europe, but those drawings, featuring animals, dots, geometric signs, and hand stencils, were almost certainly produced by Neanderthals. An older, non-figurative art piece attributed to our species was recently unearthed in South Africa in the form of a 73,000-year-old cross-hatched pattern drawn onto a smooth rock. And in 2014, the same Griffith University researchers from the new study found the oldest known cave paintings produced by early modern humans—a series of hand stencils dating back some 40,000 years, also in Sulawesi.

As for cave paintings depicting hunting scenes, in which both humans and animals are unambiguously shown together, that’s surprisingly rare. Prior to the new discovery, the oldest known hunting scenes belonged to Upper Paleolithic European cultures, sometimes referred to as Magdalenian cultures, dating to around 21,000 to 14,000 years ago, including the famous drawing found at The Shaft in Lascaux France, which depicts a wounded bison charging a bird-headed humanoid. These artworks inspired the idea that Magdalenian cultures kickstarted these sorts of figurative, or representational, drawings, to which all subsequent cave artists owe their inspiration. The new discovery at Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 effectively overturns this Eurocentric assumption.

Found in 2017, the 43,900-year-old cave painting appears to be a single composition that measures around 4 meters (13 feet) wide. The painting isn’t perfectly legible due to bright splotches that formed over it, but much of the scene is still visible. The artist, or artists, appears to be depicting tiny human-like figures who are brandishing spears and/or ropes as they pursue buffaloes and pigs.

Possible therianthropes, in which hunters are depicted as part-human, part-animal beings (the red arrow up top shows the figure’s ‘beak’)

Image: Griffith University

Fascinatingly, the figures were drawn as human-animal hybrids—an abstraction or impression known as therianthropes. While rare, anthropologists and archaeologists have seen this sort of representation before.

“Previously, the earliest relatively unambiguous image of a therianthrope known to archaeology was the so-named ‘Lion-man’ figurine from Germany, a sculpture of a part-human, part-cave lion being carved out of mammoth tusk,” Brumm told Gizmodo in an email. “This was found in 1939 in cave deposits believed to around 40,000 years old. The meaning of this image has been extensively debated for decades; some think it represents a trancing shaman transforming into a lion, others think it is an image of a spirit or god or some sort of supernatural creature, and others think it just depicts a guy wearing an animal skin.”

Clearly, therianthropes are evidence of highly developed thinking. In this case, the figures, with body parts borrowed from lizards and birds, were used to convey a story or possibly some kind of spiritual meaning. Consequently, this might be the oldest known depiction of spiritual or mythical beings, highlighting the existential or metaphysical sophistication of this early culture.

“These images represent some of the oldest storytelling anywhere in the world and contain elements that have never been seen together—a hunting scene depicting hunting strategies combined with the use of therianthropes,” Kira Westaway, an associate professor from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University in Australia, told Gizmodo. “This is not just a simple representation of themselves, such as a hand stencil, but a complex representation of their existence and potentially their beliefs—to find this at this early age is astonishing,” said Westaway, who wasn’t involved with the new research.

A section of the cave painting, showing six human-like figures surrounding an anoa, or dwarf buffalo.
Image: Griffith University

As noted, much of the painting is covered in splotches, which turned out to be as much of a blessing as it was a curse.

“These features are small, hard, popcorn-like nodular growths comprised of calcium carbonate materials that form naturally on the limestone cave walls and ceilings over very long periods of time and sometimes, fortunately, as in this case, over the prehistoric paintings,” said Brumm. “I say fortunately because in some instances it is possible to date when these mineral deposits formed using the uranium-series method, which essentially measures the radioactive decay of elements within the calcium carbonate.”

So the popcorn-like growths, which formed well after the drawing was made, were used to date the piece, which means the painting could be older—perhaps considerably older—than the date given of 43,900 years ago. The earliest fossil evidence of Homo sapiens in this part of the world dates to around 70,000 years ago in Sumatra, but evidence of archaic humans, namely Homo erectus, living in Indonesia date back to—get this—around 1.5 million years ago in Java. Intriguingly, Denisovans, a sister group to the Neanderthals, were still around when this cave painting was made, and fossil and genetic evidence suggests they made it into southeast Asia and Melanesia. We asked Dr. Stringer if this art could’ve been produced by other humans, Denisovans included.

“Well, they might still have survived in Asia at this date, but this kind of art was certainly demonstrably created by Homo sapiens at later dates in various parts of the world, so it is most likely to be the work of our species, which is represented in the region at more than 70,000 years ago in Sumatra (Lida Ajer) and about 40,000 years ago in Borneo (Niah Cave) and Australia (Mungo),” said Stringer.

The Indonesian island of Sulawesi, showing the location of Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 in the limestone karst region of Pangkep, near Makassar.
Image: Kim Newman

The painting was drawn with natural mineral pigments, including ochre and ironstone hematite. According to the authors, the scene depicts several therianthropes in the act of killing or subduing six animals: two Sulawesi warty pigs and four dwarf buffaloes known as anoas, both of which were common to Sulawesi at the time.

“Although these animals were depicted in outline profile with irregular patterns of infill the figures were executed with a relatively high degree of anatomical realism and certain [anatomical features] of these species are clearly represented, such as, in the case of Sulawesi warty pig, its distinctive head crest, and, with the anoas, their characteristic straight, dagger-like horns,” Brumm told Gizmodo.

Brumm said “we can’t ever know the real meanings of this cave painting,” but the “depiction of armed human-like figures surrounding the animals and confronting them with what seem to be ropes or spears, at least in our view, is fairly convincing evidence that this is a hunting scene of some description,” he explained, adding that it’s wholly plausible that “the presence of therianthropes possibly implies a spiritual dimension to the art” and it could represent “some kind of myth or religious story, but of course we can only guess.”

Given the extreme date and location of this cave painting, it’s exceptionally unlikely that artworks seen later in Europe had any cultural connection.

“Certainly these paintings show that any Eurocentric narrative of the development of such complex representational art must be wrong,” Stringer told Gizmodo. “In my view, comparable artistic creations in Australia will eventually be placed to this same remote period of time, and even older representational art may one day be found in Africa, preceding significant dispersals of modern humans from there, beginning around 60,000 years ago.”

Relatedly, Westaway said “religious thoughts and hunting strategies that are older than those depicted in European rock art certainly changes our perspectives on the abilities of the modern humans that traveled down through Asia en route to Australia.”

Close-up view of an animal-like figure with the red arrow indicating a possible ‘tail’.
Image: Griffith University

But does the cave painting actually portray a hunting scene? Paul Bahn, author of The First Artists: In Search of the World’s Oldest Art, isn’t convinced, saying the interpretation of the piece is “somewhat excessive and simplistic.” Here’s what he said to Gizmodo in an email:

The big animals are fine, and seem straightforward to our modern eyes. The ‘humanoid’ figures, on the other hand, are so tiny and badly weathered that their interpretation is by no means clear. They might be therianthropes, but this is highly uncertain. Therianthropes are extremely rare in European Ice Age art, and in fact this collection—if valid—almost outnumbers those in Europe! For example, the supposed ‘tail’ on [one of the figures pictured above] could just as easily be a backward-pointing phallus, like the one on Europe’s most famous therianthrope in Les Trois Frères cave [see here].

I agree with the authors that, if they are indeed therianthropes, then their status and their tiny size would suggest that this is not a straightforward hunting scene. It is far more likely to be a story or myth, and may not involve hunting at all—I see no clear weapons, and the lines may not even be ropes. They could be many things. One could argue that the small creatures are creating the big ones, or vice versa! In short, there is a lot of wishful thinking in the chosen interpretation. Personally I would have rested content with presenting some very fine early art in a part of the world which has only recently come to the fore in this field. It is especially hard to judge since we do not have a single clear hunting scene in the whole of European Ice Age art!

In addition to this, Bahn said the European examples of therianthropes are equally worthy of criticism in terms of how they’ve been interpreted, and he felt the authors made a mistake by failing to mention a complex stone-bone figure known as the “Mask”—a 70,000-year-old artifact found in La Roche-Cotard, France, that was produced by Neanderthals and which is in his opinion is an early example of figurative art.

Stringer, on the other hand, said some experts might question the uranium-series dating of the wall markings, but the “method looks to have been applied carefully, and this is almost certainly the oldest dated representational art so far,” he told Gizmodo. As for the interpretation of the therianthropes and the ropes, Stringer said that was “more speculative,” but he found the authors’ interpretations to be “reasonable.”

It’s pretty amazing how a single old painting can cause so much conversation and speculation—but such is the nature of art and science. It’s a magical thing when these two disciplines converge, and it’s safe to say this cave painting will continue to spark discussions and arguments over the years to come.

{ https://gizmodo.com/ }

12-12-2019 om 23:41 geschreven door peter  

This Ancient Civilization Was so Advanced, it Has Confounded All the Experts

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

12-12-2019 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

A remarkably well-preserved Iron Age shield found in Yorkshire has been hailed "the most important British Celtic art object of the millennium"

An Iron Age shield that was discovered in Yorkshire, England has been called “the most important British Celtic art object of the millennium”. The shield was found in a “warrior grave” that was unearthed in Pocklington last year at a housing development site called “The Mile”.

The shield was part of an astonishing 'warrior grave' featuring the remains of a Celtic man, weapons, a chariot and two upright pony skeletons

The face of the 30-inch bronze shield (pictures can be seen here) contained swirling and asymmetrical patterns along with a central raised boss. In fact, the swirling pattern was quite common in early Celtic art and the “La Tène” culture that inhabited Europe from approximately 450-1 B.C. Additionally, it had a puncture hole that would have been made by a sword and there was evidence of repair work done to the shield.

The fact that there was a puncture hole from a sword is very interesting, as that type of shield was previously thought to have been more of a ceremonial item than something used in battle. “The shield features a scalloped border. This previously unknown design feature is not comparable to any other Iron Age finds across Europe, adding to its valuable uniqueness,” explained Paula Ware from MAP Archaeological Practice.

The shield when it was first unearthed

Archaeologists unearthing the warrior shield together with the remains of the man

( MAP Archaeological Practice Limited )

She went on to say, “The popular belief is that elaborate metal-faced shields were purely ceremonial, reflecting status, but not used in battle,” adding, “Our investigation challenges this with the evidence of a puncture wound in the shield typical of a sword. Signs of repairs can also be seen, suggesting the shield was not only old but likely to have been well-used.” There was one other similar shield uncovered from the Thames River in 1849 – called the Wandsworth shield – and is currently in the British Museum.

In addition to the shield, other remains found in the grave include two humans, two horses, and sacrificial pigs. In fact, the two horses were positioned in such a way that they appeared as though they were leaping out of the grave, indicating a belief in the afterlife. There was also an upright chariot as well as other artifacts such as a brooch that was made from bronze and red glass.

The shield was discovered lying face down underneath a man’s skeleton. The remains are believed to date back to around 320-174 B.C. The owner of the shield was a man who passed away after the age of 46 and was probably a much respected member of the community because there were six pigs that were buried beside him as sacrificial offerings. He was buried adjacent to a younger man who was injured before his death.

As for what caused the older man’s death, it’s highly likely that he didn’t die in battle but from natural causes associated with old age. “We don’t know how the man died. There are some blunt force traumas but they wouldn’t have killed him,” said Ware.

This Iron Age discovery is certainly a significant find. “The magnitude and preservation of the Pocklington chariot burial has no British parallel, providing a greater insight into the Iron Age epoch,” Ware noted.

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

10-12-2019 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Archaeologists have unearthed a Neolithic-era temple with three almost-intact stelae similar in form to the famous and controversial Göbekli Tepe.

The ancient temple was unearthed in the Ilısu neighborhood of Dargeçit in southeastern Turkey’s Mardin province and archaeologists estimate that it was built 11,300 years-old. Dr. Ergül Kodaş of Mardin Artuklu University’s Archaeology Department is the scientific counselor to the excavations at the Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field) site, which is the earliest known human settlement in the city. He told press that this ancient spiritual center was active in the same era as the famous Göbekli Tepe which is considered the birthplace of early civilization and the oldest temple on earth.

Earliest Known Settlement at the Mini Göbekli Tepe

Dr. Kodaş and his team of archaeologists discovered that the 11,000 year-old temple walls were made of rubble and held in place with a hardened clay base, but they haven’t yet reached the base of the structure. It is estimated that it might take at least a month to reach into the sacred building’s foundations. According to a report in Daily Sabah , within the excavation site, the archaeologists found four stone stelae, three of which were described as being “very well preserved” but “no figurative inscription” were found on any of the four stelae.

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Four stelae were found at the Mini Göbekli Tepe discovery.

(Diren arkeoloji / Facebook)

This 861 square foot (80 square meter) temple shares certain features with Göbekli Tepe and a Hürriyet report says “intense work” has been carried out in a large area which also includes the site known as Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field), the earliest known human settlement in Mardin which was discovered in 2008 during a field survey.

Ancient Finds In The Beaded Field

Erdoğan said that it was in the Aceramic Neolithic period that the “first sedentary society” emerged and that artifacts from this phase have been found in only a handful of places in Anatolia with “ stone or bone tools and weapons, ornamental items, and the first resident villages”. However, there are further ancient sites which when interpreted with the new discovery reveal the building traditions of the ancient architects .

The mini Göbekli Tepe site is only one of a few similar sites.

(Musa Kılıç / Facebook)

A 2017 Daily Sabah article says archaeological excavations conducted by Mardin Museum Director Nihat Erdoğan and his team in the Boncuklu Tarla settlement uncovered the buildings, cultures, social lives, and burial traditions of the people who lived in northern Mesopotamia during the Aceramic Neolithic period between 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC. And just like this new discovery, their buildings had “rubble stone walls with foundations hardened by clay”.

Göbekli Tepe: Crown Of The Ancient World

While the discovery of this new temple adds volumes to our understanding of the religious and spiritual traditions of our forebears, it falls short of the mystique contained within Göbekli Tepe , the most ancient temple structure ever discovered. This ancient site in southeastern Turkey is changing the way archaeologists think about the origins of human civilization and within its circular structure of elaborately carved T-shaped pillars dating to over 12,000 years ago, it is not only older than the invention of pottery, but it was built before agriculture was even conceived.

According to National Geographic the early dates associated with Göbekli Tepe “have upended the idea that agriculture led to civilization” because scholars had long thought hunter-gatherers had settled and began growing crops providing food surplus”, making it possible for complex societies to emerge, but no evidence of a permanent agricultural settlement at Göbekli Tepe has ever been discovered. This leads many scientists to settle on the idea that because the temple is situated on the top of a hill commanding views southwards over plains, it was “a regional gathering place”.

A Cathedral Of Deep History?

Jens Notroff, a German Archaeological Institute archaeologist who works at Göbekli Tepe , says “back then”, 12,000 years ago, people would have to meet regularly to keep “the gene pool fresh” and to exchange information. Now, with smaller versions of the pillars, symbols, and architecture of Göbekli Tepe being found , does this mean Göbekli Tepe was similar in function to Ness of Brodgar on Orkney; a vast Neolithic cathedral serving regional churches ( temples)?

Archaeologists believe the mini Göbekli Tepe was used as a meeting place.

(Düzgün Avseren / Facebook)

Forgetting Ness of Brodgar was built around 3,000 BC while Göbekli Tepe was active before 12,000 BC, both buildings were early spiritual landmarks, spiritual sentinels, and organized spaces in wild and unpredictable landscapes. Maybe the most successful hunter-gatherer groups met at Göbekli Tepe on key dates through the year, with each one having its own local monumental structure for feasts and to display the first excesses resources - wealth.

• Top image: Ancient mini Göbekli Tepe discovered in Turkey. Source: Cumhuriyet Gazetesi / Facebook

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

07-12-2019 om 23:05 geschreven door peter  

Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed an ancient site that could be up to 1,000 years older than Göbeklitepe – the world’s oldest temple. Excavations at Boncuklu Tarla, which is located in southeastern Turkey’s Mardin, began in 2012.

The ancient site was believed to have been from the Neolithic period and throughout the years several groups of people have lived there, including Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans, Seljuks, and Ottomans.

İbrahim Özcoşar, who is the rector of Mardin Artuklu University, told Anadolu Agency, “This area is important in terms of being one of the first settled areas of humanity and shows that the first people settling here were believers.” (A picture of the site can be seen here.)

Göbeklitepe

The history of Boncuklu Tarla goes back to approximately 12,000 years ago, according to Ergül Kodaş who is an archaeologist at Artuklu University. “Several special structures, which we can call temples and special buildings were unearthed in the settlement, in addition to many houses and dwellings,” he said, adding, “This is a new key point to inform us on many topics such as how the [people] in northern Mesopotamia and the upper Tigris began to settle, how the transition from hunter-gatherer life to food production happened and how cultural and religious structures changed.”

And while Boncuklu Tarla is located nearly 300 kilometers from the world’s oldest temple, several of the buildings unearthed there are quite similar to those found at Göbeklitepe, but up to 1,000 older. “We have identified examples of buildings which we call public area, temples, religious places in Boncuklu Tarla that are older compared to discoveries in Göbeklitepe,” Kodaş stated.

Göbeklitepe

Several researchers from the universities of Istanbul and Chicago unearthed Göbeklitepe in 1963 and it was officially declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018. Since 1995, the Sanliurfa Museum and the German Archaeological Institute have been excavating the site.

They have made some pretty interesting discoveries which included 10-20 foot tall T-shaped obelisks from the Neolithic period that weighed 40-60 tons. They unearthed several more historical artifacts, including a 26-inch tall human statue from 12,000 years ago.

While many fascinating discoveries have been unearthed in Göbeklitepe, the fact that the Boncuklu Tarla site could be as much as a thousand years older is certainly a significant archaeological find.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-12-2019 om 21:44 geschreven door peter  

Quest for The Ark of the Covenant: New Clues Found! | In Search Of

The search continues with new episodes of In Search Of Fridays at 10/9c! Treasure hunter Jim Barfield follows new clues to an ancient city where he believes he has found the contents and location of the Ark of the Covenant in this clip from Season 2, “Secrets of the Bible.” #InSearchOf

Adams makes the pilgrimage from Lalibela to Gondar in the northern wilds of Ethiopia, and paddles by papyrus kayak across lake Tana. His quest: to find the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony, and in a few verses across various translations as the Ark of God, is a gold-covered wooden chest with lid cover described in the Book of Exodus as containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

04-12-2019 om 18:18 geschreven door peter