Posted by Sane Spirit on Sunday, March 17, 2013,
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“When digging first began in the soil of Troy, in 1863, the excavations were directed by Frank Calvert,” Aslan said. “It was later continued by German archaeologist Professor Manfred Osman Korfmann, in 1988. During that time the excavation area underwent huge changes.” [,,,] Excavations at the site have also been carried out by foreign institutions. Germany’s Tübingen University has been conducting excavations since 1988, first headed by Professor Korfmann and then taken over by Prof... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, February 4, 2013,
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Marine archaeologists report they have uncovered new secrets of an ancient Roman shipwreck famed for yielding an amazingly sophisticated astronomical calculator. An international survey team says the ship is twice as long as originally thought and contains many more calcified objects amid the ship’s lost cargo that hint at new discoveries. [,,,] The wreck is best known for yielding a bronze astronomical calculator, the “Antikythera Mechanism” widely seen as the most complex device known f... Continue reading ...
"Figurines were thought to typically depict the female form, but our find is not only extraordinary in terms of quantity, but also quite diverse — male, female and non-gender specific ones have been found and several depict a hybrid human-bird figure," Yannis Hamilakis, co-director of the Koutroulou Magoula Archaeology and Archaeological Ethnography project, said in a statement. "We still have a lot of work to do studying the figurines, but they should be able to give us an enormous amount o... Continue reading ...
The new insight, published in the December issue of the journal Antiquity, came because two archaeologists decided to use a decidedly low-tech method to understand the sand drawing's ancient secrets: by walking it.
[,,,]
The Nazca Lines have been a mystery since they were first discovered in the 1920s by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe. Long-forgotten people from the Nasca culture created the drawings between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500 by brushing away the dark top layer of barren de... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, January 10, 2013,
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A 2,750-year-old temple and a cache of sacred vessels from biblical times were discovered in an archaeological excavation near Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.
The finds, unearthed at Tel Motza on the western outskirts of the capital, date from the early monarchic period and include pottery figurines of men and horses, providing rare evidence for the existence of a ritual cult in the Jerusalem region at the beginning of the Judean monarchy. The precise signifi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, November 22, 2012,
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Perched on a seaside cliff in the village of Kåseberga stands the Ales Stenar, also called Ale's Stones, 59 massive boulders arranged in the 220-foot (67-meter)-long outline of a ship. Most researchers believe the 1,400-year-old ship structure is a burial monument built toward the end of Sweden's Iron Age. Local legend has it that the mythic King Ale lies beneath the site. [,,,] Based on the layout, the dolmen may be up to 5,500 years old — possibly older than Stonehenge. The large burial ch... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, November 12, 2012,
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Archeologists from the University of Tübingen have found eight extremely well-preserved spears – an astonishing 300,000 years old, making them the oldest known weapons anywhere. The spears and other artifacts as well as animal remains found at the site demonstrate that their users were highly skilled craftsmen and hunters, well adapted to their environment – with a capacity for abstract thought and complex planning comparable to our own. It is likely that they were members of the species... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, November 12, 2012,
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The first hint that something stunning lay underground in southern Turkey came in 2002, when Purdue University classics professor Nick Rauh walked through a freshly-plowed farmer's field near the ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum. The plow had churned up bits of mosaic tile, Hoff said. Rauh consulted other archaeologists, including experts at the local museum in Alanya, Turkey. The museum did not have funds to excavate more than a sliver of the mosaic, so archaeologists left the site alone.... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Sunday, November 11, 2012,
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The enlarged breasts, he argues, are indicative of a condition known as gynecomastia, which, when added to a host of historical and familial evidence, indicates that Tutankhamun might have suffered and eventually died from temporal lobe epilepsy. Ashrafian says the first clue is in the relatively early deaths of other rulers who were directly related to Tutankhamun. "For all of them to die sequentially at younger ages is a sign of a genetic inheritance of some sort," Ashrafian said, adding "you... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Sunday, November 11, 2012,
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Hungarian archaeologists have found what they believe may be an intact medieval shipwreck in the Danube river. [,,,] The archaeologists could distinguish oak floor-planks, floor-timbers, and L-shaped ribs. They also noticed that the junction piece of the bottom and the side wall of the wreck is carved from a single log. [,,,] The largest river of Central Europe, the Danube connected in the Middle Ages Hungary with the German Empire to the west and the Byzantine Empire to the south, serving as a ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Sunday, November 11, 2012,
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A child’s grave and pits full of bone shards, tooth enamel, bead necklaces and Roman roofing have been discovered in the massive archaeological dig which has turned Camp Farm, in Maryport, into a hotbed of Roman finds this [past] summer. [,,,] “If this is the case then this is a very exciting discovery - an early post-Roman Christian religious site occupied at the same time as other famous early Christian sites at Whithorn and at Hoddom in nearby Dumfriesshire.” [,,,] Speculation that the... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Saturday, September 22, 2012,
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"The discoveries so far leave us in no doubt that we are on the site of Leicester's Franciscan Friary, meaning we have crossed the first significant hurdle of the investigation," Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the dig, said in a statement. [,,,] After his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard III was brought to Leicester and buried at Greyfriars. The location of the grave, and the church itself, was eventually lost to history, though University of Leicester archaeologists t... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Wednesday, September 19, 2012,
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"This is a very valuable finding," said Carlos Wester La Torre, head of the excavation and director of the Brüning National Archaeological Museum in the Lambayeque region—a region named after the little-known culture that built the stacked tomb. "The amount of information of this funerary complex is very important, because it changes [what we know of] the political and religious structures of the Andean region." [,,,] Four sets of waterlogged human remains were found in the flooded tomb, one... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, September 13, 2012,
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The cistern, which held 250 cubic meters of water, was discovered adjacent to the western side of the Temple Mount during an ongoing excavation at the site, the IAA said in a statement. The discovery shows that the city’s water supply at the time did not rely solely on the Gihon Spring, Jerusalem’s only natural water source, but rather included large man-made reservoirs of the kind now uncovered, according to the IAA. [,,,] “It is possible that the large cistern found next to the Temple Mo... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Friday, September 7, 2012,
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The burial, dating to the 1480s, lies at the foot of the main temple in the sacred ceremonial precinct of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, founded by the Aztecs in 1325. The Aztecs dominated central Mexico until falling to Spanish conquistadores in 1521. Although several burials with multiple remains have been uncovered previously in this precinct, this is the first that includes human bones from such a wide span of ages.
Pictures: Mass Sacrifice Found Near Aztec Temple Continue reading ...
The results of recent research suggests that ancient, or prehistoric, builders of the monumental structures found in such diverse places as Ireland, Malta, southern Turkey and Peru all have a peculiarly common characteristic -- they may have been specially designed to conduct and manipulate sound to produce certain sensory effects. [,,,] Now, scientists are suggesting that certain sound vibration frequencies created when sound is emitted within its walls are actually altering human brain funct... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, September 6, 2012,
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One of the objects is shaped like a ram and made of limestone. The other depicts an ox and is made of dolomite. Both are 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) long. Wednesday’s statement says the figurines could have been either good luck hunting icons or a representation of the animal’s domestication.
Israeli archeologists find 9,500-year-old figurines that shed light on stone age Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, September 6, 2012,
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"I dug down about one foot but my wife just wanted to me to cover it back up because we had three children running around at the time," he said. "I always wanted to dig it out to see if I could find a pot of gold at the bottom, so when I retired at the end of last year that's what I started to do." Steer is seeking help from experts to determine exactly how old the well is. In the meantime, he has installed lights along its shaft and covered up the opening with a trap door. At one point during ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Friday, August 31, 2012,
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Historical records show that Richard III was buried in the church of a Franciscan friary in Leicester shortly after his defeat and death at the hands of Henry Tudor's army in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. But the destruction of the friary as Britain's monasteries were dissolved under Henry VIII and subsequent removal of its stone ruins meant that over the ensuing centuries the king's exact burial site was forgotten. [,,,] Richard III has gone down in history as a monstrous tyrant with a hunch... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Friday, August 31, 2012,
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The gold coins are from the 14th century while the silver ones are from the end of the 13th century. The coins have been found dispersed in what has been used as a toilet hole with a 2-meter diameter, leading the experts to believe that they were hidden and buried during the Ottoman invasion of the area. Such treasures were usually placed in clay pots or similar vessels and then concealed, while for the latest find it is believed that the coins were put in some sort of a purse, which has decom... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, August 30, 2012,
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Experts believe it would have been used by Romans to cast spells on people accused of theft and other misdeeds. The tablets, which have been found throughout Europe, were rolled up to conceal their inscriptions, then hidden in places considered to be close to the underworld, such as graves, springs or wells. [,,,] He said it is difficult to date the tablet but believes it was made in the third century AD. Dr Roger Tomlin Dr Roger Tomlin said the tablet is likely to date from the third century AD "... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, August 30, 2012,
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The settlement is very close in location to the town church "Uspenie Bogorodichno." The find proves that Tsarevo and nearby areas have a history more ancient that what was believed until now. During the excavations, the archaeologists have found remnants showing that as early as the 4th – 5th century BC Thracians have built a town that existed until the 1st century AC
Archaeologists Find Thracian Town on Bulgarian Sea Coast Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, August 30, 2012,
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Found by UK researchers, the brain was found in a decapitated skull aged 2,684 years. The brain is the oldest found brain in Europe or Asia, and is thought to be the best-preserved in the world. [,,,] Though it is difficult to ascertain cause of death after so many years, the damage to the neck vertebrae was consistent with a hanging. Sonia O'Connor and her colleagues believe that the person was hanged, and then the skull was decapitated. [,,,] Unfortunately, while the brain's appearance has been... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, August 30, 2012,
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Why would a Hollywood beauty risk life and limb (not to mention some likely teasing) in search of what many people believe to be a myth? D'Errico said that she was inspired to search for Noah's Ark ever since she was a child after seeing a movie about it. D'Errico told ABC News, "I know what I'm doing and I know that this is my lifelong dream and I believe in the Bible," she said—referring to Genesis 8:4, which states "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, August 30, 2012,
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Science has a macabre side. Archaeologists and forensic scientists routinely uncover evidence of all sorts of past horrors: Bones gnawed by prehistoric cannibals, the graves of murdered infants, as well as the gruesome transformations that time and decomposition bring, such as bones wrapped in death wax. And don't forget zombie insects, nature's own undead; the neurology of decapitation and near-death experiences. Here's a selection of some of our most delightfully morbid stories, listed in n... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 28, 2012,
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The head of an Iron Age man who died almost 2,000 years ago has been scanned in a Manchester hospital to shed light on how he died.
Worsley Man is thought to have lived around 100 AD when Romans occupied much of Britain.
[,,,]
Bryan Sitch, curator of archaeology at Manchester Museum, said it now appeared the man was bludgeoned over the head, garrotted then beheaded.
[,,,]
The death of Worsley Man shares some similarities with another Iron Age body found in a Cheshire peat bog in 1984.
Te... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 28, 2012,
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In archeology, bone fragments and other haunting reminders of long-dead people are a given. But some discoveries paint particularly gruesome pictures of past lives and deaths. At LiveScience, we've collected a list of the top eight archeological discoveries that give us the creeps.
Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 21, 2012,
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,,, dating back to the time of the West Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C.-771 B.C.), archaeologists said.
The wine vessel made of bronze was found in a tomb of a noble man of the dynasty in Shigushan Mountain in Baoji city, Xinhua reported.
The liquid is likely the oldest wine discovered in China, said Liu Jun, director of the Baoji Archaeology Institute.
[,,,]
During the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.), the dynasty before the Zhou Dynasty, wine became a symbol of corruption as Shang officials u... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 21, 2012,
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Two sculptures of life-size lions, each weighing about 5 tons in antiquity, have been discovered in what is now Turkey, with archaeologists perplexed over what the granite cats were used for.
[,,,]
"The lions are prowling forward, their heads slightly lowered; the tops of their heads are barely higher than the napes," write Geoffrey Summers, of the Middle East Technical University, and researcher Erol Özen in an article published in the most recent edition of the American Journal of Archaeo... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 21, 2012,
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About 1,800 years ago, at a time when China was breaking apart into three warring kingdoms, a warrior was laid to rest.
Buried in a tomb with domed roofs, along with his wife, he was about 45 years old when he died. Their skeletal remains were found inside two wooden coffins that had rotted away. Archaeologists don't know their names but, based on the tomb design and grave goods, they believe he was a general who had served one or more of the country's warring lords, perhaps Cao Cao and his ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times.
Researcher Alejandra Jasso Pena says they also found ceramic flutes, bowls, incense burners, the remains of a dog that was sacrificed to accompany a child in the afterlife and other artifacts of a pre-Columbian civilization.
Remains of 15 found in ancient Mexican settlement
Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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In archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting at the foot of Akko’s southern seawall, installations were exposed that belong to a harbor that was operating in the city already in the Hellenistic period (third-second centuries BCE) and was the most important port in Israel at that time.
[,,,]
The first evidence indicating the possible existence of this quay was in 2009 when a section of pavement was discovered comprised of large kurkar flagstones dressed in a... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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A new analysis of artifacts from a cave in South Africa reveals that the residents were carving bone tools, using pigments, making beads and even using poison 44,000 years ago. These sorts of artifacts had previously been linked to the San culture, which was thought to have emerged around 20,000 years ago.
[,,,]
Traces of civilization have been found going back nearly 80,000 years in Africa, but these fragments — bone tools, carved beads — vanish from the archaeological record by about 6... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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The church, a monastery and other surrounding ruins have emerged from the sand over the past five years with the expansion of the airport serving the city of Najaf, and have excited scholars who think this may be Hira, a legendary Arab Christian center.
"This is the oldest sign of Christianity in Iraq," said al-Fatli, pointing to the ancient tablets with designs of grapes that litter the sand next to intricately carved monastery walls.
[,,,]
Legend traces Christianity in Iraq to Thomas, one... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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An excavation on Salisbury plain has proved an unusually emotional experience for the volunteer archaeologists, as soldiers recovering from injuries received in Afghanistan have made a surprise discovery: the remains of warriors who died more than 1,400 years ago.
[,,,]
Mike Kelly, from 1 Rifles, found a skeleton with its head covered by a shield. He believes the position was a sign of respect to a fallen warrior. "I have been to war myself and I can imagine what the soldier would have felt ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 20, 2012,
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They uncovered a 2000-year-old Roman vessel buried 70-100 metres deep and encased in layers of mud that promises to reveal secrets about the way of life in the 1st century AD, not only in Rome but in other regions that traded with the empire.
The discovery of the food transport vessel, with an estimated 200 clay amphorae on board - and with caps of pine and pitch intact - sent ripples of excitement through archaeological communities partly because the ship and its contents are remarkably wel... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 14, 2012,
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As much as I like reading about archeology, I some times wonder when the subject matter falls within the prevue of biblical archeology. As much as I would like to see validation of biblical events (even as one who has a secular world view) this appears to be a huge leap of faith,,,
Archaeologists excavating the tell of Beit Shemesh in the Judaean Hills near Jerusalem disclosed they had discovered an ancient stone seal that appeared to depict the Old Testament story of Samson's fight with a ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 14, 2012,
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Excavators have uncovered what they believe to be the 1,300-year-old remains of a Mayan prince entombed within a royal complex of the ancient city of Uxul, located in Mexico near the Guatemalan border.
[,,,]
They found a total of nine pieces of ceramics, including a plate painted in the distinctively black-lined Mayan Codex-Style covering the man's skull. At Mayan sites, it is not uncommon to find plates placed over the skulls of the deceased, Delvendahl, said.
[,,,]
The Mayan city of Uxul ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 14, 2012,
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Some of the most interesting discoveries in archaeology come from sifting through ancient garbage dumps. Scientists working in Oregon have found one that has yielded what they say are the oldest human remains in the Americas and a puzzle about the earliest American tools.
[,,,]
And the scientists now have reliable dates for all this stuff. Some of the coprolites appear to be 14,500 years old. They say it's the oldest direct evidence of people in America, because it's based on carbon dating o... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, August 14, 2012,
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For almost two millennia, the piles of wood lay undisturbed and largely intact under layers of hardened volcanic material. Now, after three years of painstaking work, archaeologists at Herculaneum have not only excavated and preserved the pieces, but worked out how they fitted together, achieving the first-ever full reconstruction of the timberwork of a Roman roof.
[,,,]
What his archaeologists uncovered, however, was something altogether more comprehensive – almost 250 pieces, which they ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 13, 2012,
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"Painted motifs in funerary contexts are quite usual in this culture," excavation director Nelly Robles García said. "But at other sites they show important people: priests, warriors, and rulers—most likely the deceased."
Pictures: New Pyramid Found With Vivid Murals, Stacked Tombs Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, August 13, 2012,
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The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands.
They are all right hands; there are no lefts.
[,,,]
The hands appear to be the first physical evidence of a practice attested to in ancient Egyptian writing and art, in which a soldier would pres... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Wednesday, July 25, 2012,
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Archeologists say the temple was likely built to honour the leader buried under the Diablo Pyramid tomb, the governor and founder of the first El Zotz dynasty called Pa’Chan, or “fortified sky.” Mayan civilisation, which spread through southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize, was at its height between 250 and 900 AD. Carbon dating places construction of the temple at the early part of that era, somewhere between 350 and 400 AD, the archeologists said. Archeologists un... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Wednesday, July 25, 2012,
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The treasure was dug up from the ruins of a castle in Arsuf, a strategic stronghold during the religious conflict waged in the 12th and 13th centuries. The 108 coins - one of the biggest collections of ancient coins discovered in Israel - were found hidden in a ceramic jug beneath a tile floor at the cliff-top coastal ruins, 15 km (9 miles) from Tel Aviv. "It is a rare find. We don't have a lot of gold that had been circulated by the Crusaders," said Oren Tal, a professor at Tel Aviv Universi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Wednesday, July 25, 2012,
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The archaeological find, provisionally dated 4th c. AD, is part of the southern necropolis of ancient Philippopolis and measures 1 by 2 metres. Its two large walls are covered with a depiction of the Resurrection of Lazarus, painted in five colours. The two short walls are covered with a number of Christian symbols, but the Lazarus murals are believed to be unique for Bulgaria, said archaeologist Maya Martinova. Important Christian Archaeology Site Pops Up in Bulgaria Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Wednesday, July 25, 2012,
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Inside, fragments have been found that help explain the site's significance: an offering to Demeter, the goddess of grain and agriculture; a small flute, made of bone and dating to 570 BC; a small Corinthian vase. These findings are critically important in helping archeologists to date the temple where they were found, to around the 6th century BC - possibly the oldest in the archaeological area of Selinunte in Sicily. Archaeologists unearth temple to Demeter in Sicily Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Tuesday, July 17, 2012,
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As one commenter so aptly stated, ",,,Our own origins are so shrouded in mystery--we are a race of "advanced" beings that knows almost nothing about it's earliest history......"
[,,,] Finally, the oldest level is exceptional. Dated to at least 300 000 years, it belongs to the Palaeolithic, Acheulian culture. The flint tools found at this level were shaped either by the last Homo heidelbergensis or by early Neanderthals. [,,,] The contents of the 300,000 year layer are perfectly preserved in mo... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Thursday, July 12, 2012,
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Today New York City is the Big Apple of the Northeast but new research reveals that 500 years ago, at a time when Europeans were just beginning to visit the New World, a settlement on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in Canada, was the biggest, most complex, cosmopolitan place in the region.
[,,,]
Now, a scholarly book detailing the discoveries is being prepared and a documentary about the site called "Curse of the Axe" aired this week on the History Channel in Canada.
[,,,]
"It's the large... Continue reading ...
Posted by Sane Spirit on Monday, May 28, 2012,
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New photographs reveal what lies beneath the surface of Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world -- the carved bodies of the island's 887 famous guardians.
“It’s the first time that one has been excavated in such a way that the documentation was complete and scientific,” she told FoxNews.com. Other groups have dug in the past, and looters have found their way to the remote island as well.
Easter Island archaeology project digs up island's secrets
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