This article about buried spiral cities in the steppes of Russia dated to 4,000 years ago brings to mind tales from Gurdjieff of leading herds of sheep through deserts while on stilts to avoid being blinded by sandstorms or Borges describing Uqbar. The sites are near the border of Kazakhstan.
Posts Tagged ‘archaeology’
buried spiral cities
Friday, October 8th, 2010“lost army” of Persia found buried in Egypt on way to Bosnian Pyramid?
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009Getting around to posting a link to that story about the lost Persian army found buried by a sandstorm in Egypt never happened. Just laziness.
However, Rogue Classicist does a great job debunking it. There is even a Bosnian Pyramid hoax connection.
Damavand and Dmanisi?
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008Tim at Remote Central notes an article from an Iranian news agency that states rather blandly that artifacts “very similar to those found in East Africa” are being excavated by Iranian teams from caves near Damavand.
Know what would make that cooler? If fossils turned up looking like Homo georgicus.
4,000 year old amber necklace found near Manchester, England
Monday, December 1st, 20084,000 year old amber necklace has been unearthed from a grave near Manchester, England. Yeah, yeah… lots of stuff in the ground… what’s special about this one?The amber…
“It’s associated with burials in the prehistoric period but it’s not readily available, the nearest source is in the Baltic [region].”
The goods that support the existence of an extensive trade network in prehistoric times always warm the cockles of my heart.
three 9,000 year old skulls found at Yiftahel site, Israel
Friday, August 15th, 2008Normally i studiously ignore anything remotely related to archaeology that comes out of Israeli and its vicinity. It raises my hackles whenever someone finds some bones or ruins, and then uses that as evidence that everything in the Bible is literally true.
Three 9,000 year old skulls have been unearthed at Yiftahel dig in the Lower Galilee in Israel.
Washington, August 14 (ANI): Archaeologists have discovered three 9,000-year-old skulls at the Yiftahel dig in the Lower Galilee in Israel.
According to experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the placement of the skulls confirms the worship of ancestors from during that time, practiced by displaying skulls inside houses.
The skulls were apparently placed on benches in a house where they would inspire the younger generation to continue in the ways of their forefathers.
A similar custom was also identified in Syria, Turkey and Jordan.
The skulls are 8,000-9,000 years old and were buried in a pit adjacent to an excavated large public building.
They were discovered during excavations for a new highway interchange at the Movil Junction, a major intersection .
The skulls were found plastered that is to say sculpted which is a phenomenon that is identified with the New Stone Age, said site director Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily.
The practice included the reconstruction of all of the facial features of the deceased by means of sculpting the skull with a variety of materials such as plaster that was specifically intended for this. On the skulls that were found in the excavation, the nose was entirely reconstructed, he added.
The pit where the skulls were found showed depressions that probably were used for graves underneath floors.
According to Dr. Khalaily, Some time thereafter, the residents would dig up the grave, retrieve the skull from the rest of the skeleton and recover the grave. Later they would then mold the skull in the image of the deceased and keep it inside the house.
This custom is known in the scientific literature as ancestor worship, he added.
The three molded skulls that were found at Yiftahel join 15 other similar skulls that have been found to date. (ANI)
Honor your father and mother indeed.
“The City of Infidels”
Friday, August 15th, 2008I think that my favorite detail from this AP story about the excavation of Cheshm-e-Shafa is that the local name for the site is “The City of Infidels.”
That’s somewhere i could proudly call home.
new contender for oldest human skeleton found in the Americas
Friday, August 15th, 2008American Egypt posts that human female skeleton dating to 13,600 years old has been found near the site of Tulum, in Mexico. The skeleton was in an underwater cave, at a depth of 23 meters.
2,000 year old skeleton in southeast Englad with ties to La Tène culture
Saturday, August 9th, 2008The 2,000 year old skeleton found in southeast England with a shield decorated with patterns invoking the La Tène culture and a Mannheim helmet is pretty cool. The theory is that he was a tribal nobleman from mainland Europe with Roman ties. The bones are to be tested for isotopes to see where he lived in his youth. Anything that proves that humans have always been widely traveled is fun.
milk drinking dated to 6,000 BC in the Near East & Balkans
Thursday, August 7th, 2008Pottery shards from the Near East and the Balkans have been tested for milk fats, to find that humans were drinking milk around 6,000 BC. The researchers noticed that the milk use was more frequent in areas where agriculture was not as prevalent. It’s interesting to see the mild drinking here at this time, as the skeletons of Europeans to the north were not genetically able to metabolize milk at 5,000 BC. I wonder where that gene that allows for the production of lactase originated.
Antikythera Mechanism and the Metonic calendar
Thursday, July 31st, 2008The new detail about the Antikythera Mechanism possibly being used to calculate Olympic Games strikes me as slightly bullshit, since the announcement of this discovery is so perfectly timed. (All right, i concede that i was wrong.) I want more explanation. However, the device having the names of the Metonic calendar is quite a find. That the month names suggests its origin in Corinthian colonies, possibly Syracuse, is pure gravy.
Archimedes! “Do not disturb my circles.”1 Hell yes.
- Those last words are too great to worry about whether they are apocryphal. [↩]