The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
21-11-2022
Nuclear War In Ancient Times: Theory and Evidence
Nuclear War In Ancient Times: Theory and Evidence
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 1:9
This holds true for many aspects of life. But how far can this idiom be taken?
As we all know, the first nuclear bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945 at the White Sands Proving Ground in Los Alamos, New Mexico. But was that really the first time the Earth had witnessed a nuclear explosion? According to the Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic of ancient India, nuclear war has already taken place, some 4,000 years ago.
This 1.8 million-word text tells the tale of a devastating conflict that culminated with the utter destruction typical in the case of an atomic blast.
The manuscripts say that using flying machines called Vimanas, humans deployed ” a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe.” Sounds familiar? They go on saying that this projectile caused an incandescent pillar of smoke and fire “as bright as ten thousand suns”.
The Earth shook and arrows of flame rained continuously. The scorching heat caused the death of animals and humans alike. The waters boiled, killing off all forms of aquatic life. Soon after, hair and nails started falling out, food was poisoned and pottery cracked without cause.
Birds lost their sense of direction and circled endlessly, became white and dropped dead. We now know that birds use the Earth’s magnetic lines for direction and losing their sense of direction would be probable in the case of a great magnetic anomaly.
The Mahabharata is regarded as mostly mythic but one would wonder how could people describe the particularities of a nuclear explosion without witnessing it firsthand. And the ancient Indian epic isn’t the only scripture that alludes to a disaster of this kind.
In the Bible we have the story of Joseph, recorded in the book of Genesis. After being sold as a slave in Egypt he manages to gain great favor from the pharaoh by interpreting his dream and warning him of the impending famine. What could have caused a seven-year famine in the entire world at the time?
Some say that this scenario is compatible with the nuclear winter following the detonation of a powerful enough nuclear bomb. Another interesting aspect is that the average lifespan of the generations preceding Joseph was around 200 years but those following him do not exceed 130 years.
According to the Bible, this event took place roughly 2000 years before the birth of Christ. Some would argue that the Bible cannot be considered a legitimate historical source but sometimes connecting the dots leads to interesting results.
And then we have the legend of Atlantis. The Atlanteans were a technologically advanced civilization. They too possessed flying machines called vailxi and they also had fearsome weapons of mass destruction. This is largely a work of fiction propagated by Plato, but the legend of Atlantis mentions an entire continent sinking to the bottom of the ocean in a cataclysmic manner.
Robert Oppenheimer had a leading role in the Manhattan Project – the program that created the atomic bomb. When a reporter asked him “How does it feel to be the father of the atomic bomb?” he responded with another question: “You mean in modern times?” Witnessing the detonation firsthand, he famously quoted the Bhagvad Gita, a part of the Mahabharata, saying “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
This subject is obstinately avoided by the scientific community but there is evidence supporting events such as this one. This evidence routinely comes in the form of fused glass fragments found in many deserts all over the world.
These pieces of glass closely resemble those found at the Alamogordo atomic proving grounds. Desert glass forms when temperatures in excess of 3,300 degrees Fahrenheit (1,800º Celsius) cause the sand grains to melt and fuse together.
They were first described by Patrick Clayton who encountered them while surveying the Sahara in 1932. Clayton discovered huge chunks of yellowish-green glass in the sand and presented them to fellow geologists. A possible explanation came almost 50 years later when one of the engineers that helped create the atomic bomb was revisiting the testing site in New Mexico. He noticed glass fragments that were similar to those he had seen in the desert, albeit much smaller.
New Mexico atomic glass, named Trinitite, after the Trinity Project
Being open-minded, he made a connection. Being an engineer, he did the math and was astounded by the results.
In order to produce desert glass the size of the pieces found by Clayton, the explosion had to have been 10,000 more powerful than the one in New Mexico.
A very plausible explanation was proposed: the glass had formed due to asteroid/ comet/ giant meteorite impacts. Such impacts would certainly fit the profile as they cold easily produce the tremendous amount of heat required to fuse silicon crystals.
But an impact that great would also leave behind a noticeably large crater and no such craters were found in the desert.
Glass was found in the Sahara, the Mojave and the Desert of Libya but neither sonar nor satellite imagery could find any accompanying craters.
Furthermore, the Libyan glass had a very high purity and clarity (over 99 percent). In the case of meteorite impact, the silicon is fused together with iron from the meteorite itself as well as other adulterants.
Meteoritic desert glass
When we piece together all the clues, the picture becomes clearer and we have to ask ourselves: is it truly impossible that ancient civilizations reached a technological level similar to others?
Have we truly explored all possibilities? After all, depictions of terrible weapons capable to obliterate entire cities are found in the legends of many cultures, separated by both space and time. Were those depictions nothing more than the work of human imagination envisioning the superlative weapon? What about the physical evidence then? Where does it fit?
In our opinion, considering ourselves the first and only civilization on Earth to have split the atom is nothing short of absolute vanity.
The pharaohs exchange the pyramids for the Valley of the Kings
The pharaohs exchange the pyramids for the Valley of the Kings
On November 26, 1922, the English Egyptologist Howard Carterpeered anxiously through a small hole he had made minutes before in that intact door.
Behind it was the antechamber in which the objects of the funerary trousseau of King Tutankhamun were piled up. To the anxious question of Lord Carnarvon, his companion and patron, if he could see anything in the dim light of the candle, Carter only said: “Yes, wonderful things.”
Three days later, the official opening of the tomb took place before illustrious personalities, privileged witnesses of what many already described as the most important archaeological discovery of the century.
The place that had served as an eternity abode for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom was regaining its leading role in history.
The necropolis was carved out of the mountainous slopes of the west bank of the Nile, facing present-day Luxor. The ancient Egyptians called this space “the place of the gods west of Thebes”.
Inaugurated by the kings of the 18th dynasty, it remained active until the end of the 20th dynasty. Its origin, its expansion and its final abandonment were a reflection of funerary customs developed throughout one of the most splendid periods of Egypt.
The location, architecture and decoration of the tombs are loaded with important magical-religious symbolism.
In search of eternity
The tomb was the most important work in the life of the ancient Egyptian, in which he invested all his efforts. It was not only the place that would house his remains, but it was conceived as a sacred space from which to achieve his survival in the afterlife.
This belief was based on the idea of overcoming death as a continuous and eternal rebirth.
However, the destiny reserved for the king of Egypt was very different from the one that the rest of the mortals were going to enjoy.
While for these the afterlife was an idyllic reproduction of earthly Egypt, which they entered after successfully passing the Judgment of Osiris, the pharaoh’s destiny was in heaven, together with the gods.
The king’s death was only the beginning of his regeneration, and the tomb was the architectural setting in which it would take place. The deceased king would ascend to heaven and merge with the sun disk.
The New Kingdom monarch was strongly assimilated to the god Osiris. This, king of the gods, was killed and brought back to life thanks to the magic of his wife Isis, then becoming the sovereign of the kingdom of the dead.
The entrance of the deceased king into his tomb is the entrance to the underworld dominated by Osiris, from which he will emerge regenerated like the sun at dawn. The delicate balance between the solar and Osiriac elements will characterize the tombs of the Valley.
The valley is born
Work on the tomb of a king was undertaken immediately after his coronation, under the orders of a high official or the vizier. Once the death of the monarch had occurred, there were only 70 days, once the embalming process had been completed, to finalize the details of the transfer of the mummy and to install the funerary trousseau.
The kings who inaugurated the 18th dynasty chose as their burial place an area of the Theban mountain dominated by a spectacular pyramid-shaped peak sculpted by erosion.
The choice of the place was determined by its proximity to the city of Thebes, named the new capital of Egypt. Throughout the New Kingdom, the Theban area arose as a great sacred space where both shores were closely related.
The eastern one housed the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. Meanwhile, in the west, the most important necropolises of the period were excavated: The Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Nobles.
The funerary temples, where the cult of the deceased king was celebrated, were separated for the first time from the tomb and were built on the same shore, but in the plain area.
The royalty had chosen to excavate their tombs in the prehistoric valleys of the desert, sheltered by the two goddesses who protected the place: Hathor, “the lady of the west”, and Meretseger, “the one who loves silence”.
The steep slopes and high cliffs were the perfect setting to recreate the new funerary conceptions that would be put into practice throughout the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
The kings ordered the work of their tombs to specialized workers. This was the origin of the artisan village of the “Place of Truth”, the current Deir el-Medina, a few kilometers from the Valley.
They were excellent stonemasons, specialists in cutting limestone strata and finding solutions to unexpected problems. Tombs like Hatshepsut’s show how they must have altered the direction of the tunnels because of the rock.
The frenetic activity in the Valley forced a strong organization of the workers, who organized themselves into two teams of 70 men each, working 10 days for one party.
The royal tomb underwent constant evolution throughout the New Kingdom, paralleling the religious development imposed by each dynasty.
This evolution was carried out according to the location and the design was simplified, but the size was enlarged and the decoration was increased.
The paths of the sun
On the occasion of the pharaoh’s death, the funeral procession transported the king from the eastern bank of Thebes to the western one.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the royal mummy reached the mountain and descended into the Valley of the Kings, making the same circuit as the setting sun.
Thus began the search for the regeneration of the deceased king linked to the destiny of the sun god Ra. The royal tomb became the architectural space that reproduced Ra’s journey through the underworld of Osiris.
That is why the type of tomb chosen was also underground, excavated in the rock, something that the kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty had already experienced for the first time. The type of pyramid tomb inspired solely by solar conceptions was definitively abandoned.
From the entrance of the tomb to the chamber of the sarcophagus, the pharaoh would follow the same path as the sun. Crossing the threshold, there was a sequence of corridors and stairs that reproduced the daily course of the sun during the day and night.
Each corridor was called the path of the sun (“first path of the sun, second path of the sun”…).
The first tombs of the 18th dynasty accentuated Osiris’ symbolism. They were conceived as entrances to the depths of the underworld, carving out steeply sloping corridors into the heart of the mountain.
The tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, the longest in the Valley with its more than two hundred meters, acquires a drop of almost one hundred. It was designed with the shaft bent into the characteristic “L” shape.
Later, the Ramesside tombs reinterpreted this idea and opted for a rectilinear east-west axis that underlined the solar character by representing the trajectory of the star.
The blue ceilings, sprinkled with stars, reproduced the diurnal journey of the sun , showing its transformation from a resplendent yellow disc in the form of a scarab to its entry into the night as an aged god with a ram’s head.
At the other end of the tomb was the chamber that would house the royal sarcophagus. Supported by four pillars, it was rectangular (occasionally it was cartridge-shaped).
It was called the “Room of Gold” because it was the place where the definitive regeneration of the king would take place.
In some tombs, such as that of Tutankhamun, the walls were painted yellow in clear allusion to their solar appearance. The sarcophagus was placed transversely in the chamber, but in the 20th dynasty it was symbolically aligned with the rectilinear solar axis. The ceiling simulated the celestial vault.
An astronomical ceiling with the representation of constellations and parts of the calendar is found for the first time in the tomb of Seti I.
When in 1817 Giovanni B. Belzoni, one of the great adventurers of the Valley, discovered the tomb, he already described it as one of the jewels of the necropolis.
landscapes of the beyond
The decorative program was adapted to the architecture of the tomb and was rigorously fixed. In the 18th dynasty, the decoration only affected the rooms, while in the Ramesside period it was extended to all surfaces.
The wall decorations illustrated Ra’s nocturnal journey through the underworld. This daily journey of the sun was understood by the Egyptians as a journey by boat on an underground river in imitation of the journey through the Nile.
On this journey, the god Ra is accompanied by other gods who assist him in his daily victory.
The themes of the scenes are drawn from compositions expressly created for the king. These funerary “books” constituted a detailed map of the geography of the underground world and an essential “guide” to know how to successfully overcome the obstacles that appeared along the way.
The key was to know all the secrets: the names, the charms… to defeat the enemies.
Thus, one of the most repeated episodes is the formulas for the annihilation of the serpent Apophis “Apep”, incarnation of the forces of chaos and eternal adversary of Ra. Every night it was dismembered to be reborn the next day.
The main composition represented what the Egyptians called “what is in the Lower World”, or Book of the Amduat. It described the sun’s journey through the 12 night hours, which corresponded to 12 regions of the underground world.
In the last hour the sun was reborn over the horizon in the shape of a snake. The sarcophagus chamber will become the reserved space at the twelfth hour.
On the basis of the Book of the Amduat , another of the great compositions was elaborated: The Book of the Doors.
Each of the 12 hours was now separated by a gate defended by jinn and fire-breathing serpents. The vision of a different subterranean world, conceived as a succession of caverns and holes that the sun had to pass through, was described in the Book of Caverns.
Other texts such as the Litany of Ra or the Book of Heaven were widely developed in the Ramesside period, and imagined an increasingly complex afterlife for the king.
The closure of the tomb
The burial of the pharaoh was carried out by the successor king, since it was understood as an act of legitimation. Thus, King Ay was in charge of organizing the tomb of Tutankhamun and directing the funerals.
In the burial chamber he was represented performing the rite of “opening the mouth” of the young monarch’s mummy, the purpose of which was to restore the physical faculties of speaking or eating.
The funerary equipment of the pharaoh was made up of objects that were useful to him in the afterlife, such as food offerings, furniture, jewelry or ritual figures. All of them with an inherent magical-religious charge.
But without a doubt the main piece was the sarcophagus. The mummy was placed inside a wooden coffin which, in turn, was inserted into several coffins.
A rectangular stone sarcophagus enclosed the complex. Most of the sarcophagi were opened as a result of looting and transfers. Only Thutmose I and Thutmose III kept their original coffin.
Near the sarcophagus the canopic jars were placed, which contained the organs extracted in the mummification.
Once the sarcophagus was placed in the chamber, and a ritual banquet was held, the successive corridors and rooms were sealed with large stone slabs.
Decline and abandonment
Although the arrival of the Ramessides to the throne meant the transfer of the capital to Memphis, Thebes remained as a religious capital and tombs continued to be built in its necropolis.
In fact, the latest burial discovered in the Valley is that of Ramses XI, although it was never finished.
At the end of the New Kingdom, the Valley of the Kings witnessed its most convulsive period, the result of the political instability and economic crisis that marked the last reigns of the 20th dynasty.
Surveillance in the necropolis decreased, and uncontrolled grave robbing proliferated. Looting networks often acted with the complicity of workers from Deir el-Medina.
The discontent among the artisans had led to several protests that even led, as in the 29th year of Ramses III, to a general strike.
From the beginning of the New Kingdom the violability of the necropolis was already evident. Tutankhamun’s tomb was desecrated on several occasions shortly after its closure. Some were looted before being occupied, as happened with Seti II.
The scandal would break out during the reign of Ramses IX, who ordered the opening of numerous legal proceedings against offenders. Various papyri recorded the trials and convictions, exposing the corruption of high-ranking Theban officials.
The weakness of the royal authority exercised by Ramses XI allowed the High Priest of the god Amun in Thebes to authorize the free looting of the Theban necropolises to finance the expenses of the temple.
This instability ended with a political division that would give way to another stage in the history of Egypt: The Third Intermediate Period.
The north was in the hands of the Twenty-first Dynasty, which built its own necropolis in the new capital of Tanis. Thebes and southern Egypt came under the control of the High Priests.
The Valley of the Kings was abandoned by the pharaohs, being reused only on occasion for non-royal burials. With the lack of work, the Deir el-Medina community evacuated the city.
The clergy of Amun began a slow dismantling of the royal tombs, scouring the Valley in a contradictory performance: The pious restoration of the royal mummies and the unrestrained search for the gold they contained.
The Horse Ring of Ramses II, also known as the Ring with Horses, is dated approximately between 1279 and 1213 BC. It... Horse Ring of King Ramses II Read more
Deir el-Medina is in the deserted hills on the west side of the Nile, near the Valley of the Kings and 4 km away from... Tomb of Nebamun (Amazing Photos) Read more
The world is big. Even in this modern day and age, we still don’t have a clue about what lurks in the remote corners of this planet. The oceans, vast and enigmatic, have only been partially explored - and what lurks in those blue depths is full of mystery. Could the same be said for land? Could we still be surprised to discover unique fauna species that we thought were long gone? The so-called Sivatherium is a likely candidate, and the possibility of its survival has scholars scratching their heads in confusion. This mystery began with the discovery of a unique copper rein ring in the remnants of ancient Kish in modern-day Iraq. The animal depicted on this object is uncannily similar to the Sivatherium. Could it be that ancient civilizations lived alongside this living relic of primordial times?
What is the Sivatherium of Kish, and Where’s the Mystery?
A Sivatherium is an extinct genus of primordial giraffids that once roamed the Indian subcontinent and throughout Africa. It was a robust, powerful animal, and one of the largest ruminants of all time. However, scholars agree that it has been extinct for a very long time. The species came to be around 7 million years ago in the Late Miocene, and was most likely gone by the Early Pleistocene, roughly 1 million years ago.
And that’s where the conundrum begins.
Digitally restored skeleton of Sivatherium giganteum from the Siwalik hills, India . ( Basu et al/CC BY 4.0 )
How could an animal of such ancient times slip through time and live on until the dawn of civilization? It sounds truly unimaginable, but evidence has appeared that tells us otherwise. Some of the earliest indications of this were found on ancient rock paintings in the Sahara and Central West India. These crude paintings show an animal much akin to a Sivatherium, suggesting that the animal actually went extinct as recently as 8,000 years ago!
But the main surprise came about during archaeological excavations of ancient Kish, a Sumerian city-state situated in the ancient cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia. A chance discovery offered tantalizing evidence that the Sivathere possibly survived to more recent times, particularly to the dawn of Mesopotamian civilizations and the first inventions of the wheel and the writing systems. The object in question was discovered during a joint archaeological expedition between the Field Museum and Oxford University in mid-1920’s: an elaborate copper rein ring created to fit onto the tongue of a chariot. This item was discovered in a deeper level and was dated to roughly 3,500 BC and lay alongside the remnants of a chariot and the skeletal remains of a horse.
A Masterful Rendition of an Elusive Ruminant Beast
Granted, copper rein rings were discovered several times before that, and were not a novelty to archaeologists. In fact, they were commonplace, especially the ones dated to that era. However, one thing made this find stand out: and that was the animal depicted on the ring.
Usually, rein rings from Mesopotamia depicted draft animals that we all know, chiefly horses and the like. But the one found at Kish showed an antlered ruminant that was totally unique - and oddly similar to a Sivathere! At first, researchers thought that the animal represented a stag, likely a Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) , considering the similarity of the horns. Early researchers thought that the Sumerians tamed deer as well, using them to pull chariots, as written in the following statement:
“Copper rein rings were known from Kish heretofore, but the previous ones were surmounted by the figure of a species of Equidae or simply by metal loops for the reins. In this case the figure was an unsuspected member of the Cervidae, and a long and heavy rope from the animal's muzzle indicates that stags must have been captured alive and tamed by the early Sumerians.”
But following deeper examination, it became clear that what was discovered at Kish was no animal known today. The artist’s hands carefully recreated a unique animal - down to the smallest details. And what can be seen is awfully like a Sivatherium of old, which can be thoroughly reconstructed from fossil remains.
Chiefly, the proportions are totally different from that of a stag, especially in the representation of the body. The animal on the rein ring is clearly a ruminant and a giraffid, and not a stag. Of course, the most important telltale clue are the horns. Sivatheriums had unique double antlers with two smaller horns right above the eyes. The exact same has been reproduced in copper form here.
Ancient Sumerian copper (alloy) rein rings from Kish. (Field Museum of Natural History/ CC BY-NC 4.0 )
A Prehistoric Being Surviving Through Millenia
Could it be that a Sivatherium survived until 3,500 BC? Judging by the attention to detail, anatomical proportions, and the accuracy of the sculpted head, the metalsmith of Kish who created this fascinating and exquisite piece was not creating some imaginary fantastical beast. In fact, everything points to the fact that the artist saw the animal firsthand - and several times - thus knowing very well what to sculpt. If this curious object is solid proof that the Sivatherium existed in ancient Sumer, then the modern narrative on the creature is thoroughly wrong. If this is the case, then it could be likely that a certain population of Sivathere survived in the region of ancient Mesopotamia and was known to the Sumerians.
However, when one looks at the area of Iraq today, one has to wonder how would a giraffid of old survive here? Today, the region is arid, sandy, hot, and dusty, without much vegetation whatsoever. The remnants of ancient city-states like Kish, Nippur, Lagash, Uruk, Ur, Eridu, and others, are now covered with nothing but sand. But five thousand years ago, the region was wholly different.
Kish was situated at the eastern edge of the vast region of Mesopotamia, also a part of the region called the Fertile Crescent. This was a vast arc of land watered by the powerful waters of the Tigris and Euphrates (and the Nile to the west), and one of the earliest cradles of civilization. Five millennia ago, rainfall was much higher in the region, and nothing was as arid as it is today. There was more greenery and vegetation, and an abundance of crops and food. It is no wonder that it was there that ancient hunter gatherer nomads first turned to a sedentary lifestyle, changing history as they did so.
Thus, the valleys of Mesopotamia were once verdant and fertile, and could have been the home to isolated populations of Sivatherium. Undoubtedly, by 4,000 - 3,500 BC, such an animal would have been rare. You can imagine how awesome it would have seemed for the people of Sumer.
If it did actually exist at that time, then it would surely be considered a mythical beast, or an elusive draft animal reserved only for the most powerful of rulers. Adding to this theory is another unique detail of the copper Sivatherium rein ring. And that is an alleged rope attached to the animal’s snout. Could it be that the Sumerians managed to capture and tame a certain number of Sivatherium beasts? Were these powerful and very strong ruminants used as draft animals, or for pulling war chariots ?
A Deer or a Sivatherium? The Discussion is Ongoing
In 1977, some 50 years after the “Sivatherium of Kish” was discovered, a German archaeologist and researcher, Michael Müller-Karpe, accidentally discovered some additional elements of the copper rein ring. While visiting, he discovered the broken-off tips of the horns that were thought lost. He found them in "a small box of dried mud in a Field Museum storeroom". These were recognized to be the missing tops of the Sivatherium horns, and they fit perfectly.
However, many immediately argued that the being is, in fact, a fallow deer . This led to a string of discussions, and the scientific and archaeological world is still somewhat divided on the subject. However, evidence for this being a Sivatherium is in abundance. In his 1936 work on the topic of the rein ring, Edwin Colbert presented 7 valid points in defense of the “Sivatherium theory”. He lists them as follows (direct quote):
Sivatherium was a very large animal having body proportions similar to those of a large ox; that is, the limbs and the neck were not elongated as in the modern African giraffe. The figurine represents an animal with a normal ruminant body.
In Sivatherium the skull carried two sets of horn cores, a relatively small conical pair directly over the eyes and a large palmate pair at the back of the skull. This same arrangement of “horns” or “antlers” is shown by the figurine from Kish.
The small conical horn cores of Sivatherium are of frontal origin, and such would seem to be the case in the figurine.
The large, palmate horn cores of Sivatherium are of parietal origin, that is they are located on the occiput. In the figurine the palmate “horn cores” or “antlers” would certainly seem to be located on the back of the skull, as in Sivatherium, rather than on the frontals as is the rule in the Cervidae.
The posterior horn cores of Sivatherium are typified by inwardly projecting points at their bases, and the same features are shown in the figurine.
In the posterior horn cores of Sivatherium the bases are transversely broadened, and somewhat flattened on their anterior and posterior surfaces, giving them elliptical cross sections. A similar condition would seem to be shown in the posterior antlers of the Kish figurine.
In the statuette from Kish it would appear as if the nose is swollen and somewhat dependent, as might have been the case in Sivatherium, a genus characterized in part by its abbreviated nasal bones. On the other hand, it may be possible that the peculiar appearance of the nasal region in the statuette can be explained as the representation of a halter on the muzzle of the animal.
Alas, even today the question is open to discussion and examination. Some consider the Sivatherium theory a fringe, kooky, belief. But when faced with other similar discoveries, they quickly realize that the possibility is totally real.
One such find was made in the Algerian Sahara. Here, the Tassili n’Ajjer rock paintings were discovered, presenting many ancient animals. One of these was a peculiar and out-of-place giraffid, which seems to be a Sivatherium. Other discoveries include an ancient Hittite cylinder seal, also depicting a strange horned animal similar to a Sivatherium. Some 8,000-year-old petroglyphs in the Sahara also depict a similar being, and the list just goes on. Is this the evidence we need?
An Enigma That We Might Never Solve
Nevertheless, the question still remains a mystery. If there is a logical explanation behind the Sivatherium of Kish, the scientific world has yet to find it. And just like the enigmatic paintings of pygmy elephants from an ancient Egyptian tomb, the Sivatherium seems out-of-place and out-of-time, giving researchers a proper headache.
Left: Detailed view of the rein ring figurine found at Kish. Right: Reconstruction of the head of a Silvatherium giganteum. (Drawn by Margaret Matthew Colbert.) ( Edwin H. Colbert )
In the end, we may never know the truth. After all, it could be simply a poor Sumerian rendition of a fallow deer. But then again, it could be an accurate rendition of a tamed Sivatherium. Either way, the question remains open to all. Just remember that the world can be full of wonders and surprises. We still don’t know for sure what beings lurk in the unexplored depths of the Amazon jungle, and other inhospitable, untouched places of this world. After all, one has to believe.
Piper, R. 2009. Dead as a Dodo. Scrubmuncher’s Blog.
Piper, R. 2009. Extinct Animals: An Encyclopedia of Species that Have Disappeared during Human History: An Encyclopedia of Species that Have Disappeared during Human History. ABC-CLIO.
Archaeologists sυrveyiпg the world’s oldest sυbmerged towп have foυпd ceramics datiпg back to the Fiпal Neolithic. Their discovery sυggests that Pavlopetri, off the soυtherп Lacoпia coast of Greece, was occυpied some 5,000 years ago — at least 1,200 years earlier thaп origiпally thoυght.
These remarkable fiпdiпgs have beeп made pυblic by the Greek goverпmeпt after the start of a five-year collaborative project iпvolviпg the Ephorate of Uпderwater Aпtiqυities of the Helleпic Miпistry of Cυltυre aпd The Uпiversity of Nottiпgham.
As a Myceпaeaп towп, the site offers poteпtial пew iпsights iпto the workiпgs of Myceпaeaп society. Pavlopetri has added importaпce as it was a maritime settlemeпt from which the iпhabitaпts coordiпated local aпd loпg-distaпce trade.
The Pavlopetri Uпderwater Archaeology Project aims to establish exactly wheп the site was occυpied, what it was υsed for aпd throυgh a systematic stυdy of the geomorphology of the area, how the towп became sυbmerged.
This sυmmer the team carried oυt a detailed digital υпderwater sυrvey aпd stυdy of the strυctυral remaiпs, which υпtil this year were thoυght to beloпg to the Myceпaeaп period — aroυпd 1600 to 1000 BC.
The sυrvey sυrpassed all their expectatioпs. Their iпvestigatioпs revealed aпother 150 sqυare metres of пew bυildiпgs as well as ceramics that sυggest the site was occυpied throυghoυt the Broпze Age — from at least 2800 BC to 1100 BC.
The work is beiпg carried oυt by a mυltidiscipliпary team led by Mr Elias Spoпdylis, Ephorate of Uпderwater Aпtiqυities of the Helleпic Miпistry of Cυltυre iп Greece aпd Dr Joп Heпdersoп, aп υпderwater archaeologist from the Departmeпt of Archaeology at The Uпiversity of Nottiпgham.
Dr Joп Heпdersoп said: “This site is υпiqυe iп that we have almost the complete towп plaп, the maiп streets aпd domestic bυildiпgs, coυrtyards, rock-cυt tombs aпd what appear to be religioυs bυildiпgs, clearly visible oп the seabed. Eqυally, as a harboυr settlemeпt, the stυdy of the archaeological material we have recovered will be extremely importaпt iп terms of revealiпg how maritime trade was coпdυcted aпd maпaged iп the Broпze Age.”
Possibly oпe of the most importaпt discoveries has beeп the ideпtificatioп of what coυld be a megaroп — a large rectaпgυlar great hall — from the Early Broпze Age period. They have also foυпd over 150 metres of пew bυildiпgs iпclυdiпg what coυld be the first example of a pillar crypt ever discovered oп the Greek maiпlaпd. Two пew stoпe-bυilt cist graves were also discovered aloпgside what appears to be a Middle Broпze Age pithos bυrial.
Mr Spoпdylis said: “It is a rare fiпd aпd it is sigпificaпt becaυse as a sυbmerged site it was пever re-occυpied aпd therefore represeпts a frozeп momeпt of the past.”
The Archaeological coordiпator Dr Chrysaпthi Galloυ a postdoctoral research fellow at The Uпiversity of Nottiпgham is aп expert iп Aegeaп Prehistory aпd the archaeology of Lacoпia.
Dr Galloυ said: “The пew ceramic fiпds form a complete aпd exceptioпal corpυs of pottery coveriпg all sυb-phases from the Fiпal Neolithic period (mid 4th milleппiυm BC) to the eпd of the Late Broпze Age (1100 BC).
Iп additioп, the iпterest from the local commυпity iп Lacoпia has beeп faпtastic.
The iпvestigatioп at Pavlopetri offers a great opportυпity for them to be actively iпvolved iп the preservatioп aпd maпagemeпt of the site, aпd sυbseqυeпtly for the cυltυral aпd toυristic developmeпt of the wider regioп.”
The team was joiпed by Dr Nicholas Flemmiпg, a mariпe geo-archaeologist from the Iпstitυte of Oceaпography at the Uпiversity of Soυthamptoп, who discovered the site iп 1967 aпd retυrпed the followiпg year with a team from Cambridge Uпiversity to carry oυt the first-ever sυrvey of the sυbmerged towп.
Usiпg jυst sпorkels aпd tape measυres they prodυced a detailed plaп of the prehistoric towп which coпsisted of at least 15 separate bυildiпgs, coυrtyards, streets, two-chamber tombs aпd at least 37 cist graves.
Despite the poteпtial iпterпatioпal importaпce of Pavlopetri, пo fυrther work was carried oυt at the site υпtil this year.
Throυgh a British School of Archaeology iп Atheпs permit, The Pavlopetri Uпderwater Archaeology Project begaп its five-year stυdy of the site with the aim of defiпiпg the history aпd developmeпt of Pavlopetri.
“Intriguing” Prehistoric Silver Jewelry in Omani Tomb Evidence of Regional Trade
“Intriguing” Prehistoric Silver Jewelry in Omani Tomb Evidence of Regional Trade
Several important archaeological discoveries that shed light on ancient trade settlements in the Oman region have been unearthed by nearly a decade of excavations at a site from the early Bronze Age in Oman.
This list includes the remains of floorplans, warehouses, administrative buildings, ritual buildings, a tomb, industrial infrastructure for processing copper ore, and silver jewelry dated to the 3rd millennium BC. The jewelry includes parts of beautiful necklaces with beads, spacers, and silver rings from the Umm-al Nar culture’s zenith, including one particularly interesting ring that highlights the complexities of global trade in the ancient world.
International Team Uncovers Umm-al Nar Sites
The joint American and Omani mission was recently announced on the sidelines of the International Conference on Archaeology and Arts in South Asia, in Barcelona, Spain. According to a press release by Oman’s Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, the team was headed by Prof. Dr. Nasser Al-Jahuri and Dr. Khaled Douglas from the Department of Archaeology at Sultan Qaboos University. They were assisted by Professor Kimberly Williams from Temple University Philadelphia, USA, who excavated the especially interesting tomb.
Explaining the importance of the site, Professor Nasser al-Jahuri, who discovered the site, said, “The archaeological site of Dahwa is considered among the important early Bronze Age sites in the Al-Batinah Plain due to the nature and quantity of archaeological finds that were uncovered during the various seasons of survey and excavation, which started in 2013 and continued until 2021. In 2013, the department began its field work by conducting a comprehensive archaeological survey in the Dahwa region, where five distinct archaeological sites were discovered that include ancient settlements dating back to the so-called Umm al-Nar culture (2600-2000 BC)".
The site, titled Dahwa 7, also included a mass grave , which ended up being the only grave found at the site. The grave yielded a large number of local and imported pottery items, among other important items.
A Prehistoric Silver Ring Illuminating Ancient Trade Networks
The fascinating tomb includes skeletal remains, as well as imported and local pottery and jewelry, including a distinctive seal on a silver ring belonging to the Harappan civilization. The seal depicted a bison from the Indus Valley, which lay a few hundred kilometers away in what constitutes modern-day India and Pakistan, Canada Today reported.
According to Dr. Dennis Frienz, an Italian expert on ancient trade routes between the Indus Valley and Oman, and a collaborator with the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Tourism: “The discovery of a silver ring in a tomb in North Al Batinah is likely to have been made in Mesopotamia (Iraq) using Anatolian silver (Turkey) for an individual associated with foreign trade with the Indus civilization (Pakistan and Western India) shows the great development of foreign trade, interaction and trade and cultural relations in prehistoric Eurasia, which can certainly be considered a prototype of modern global exchanges.”
What is most fascinating was the extent of the globalization the ring demonstrates. This provides additional evidence for the diversity and interconnectedness of ancient civilizations, considering that similar rings were found in Iran, Mesopotamia, and Bahrain as well. Moreover, those similar rings have been dated to later periods according to Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, professor of anthropology and archaeology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
The trade links are also gleaned from the quality of the seal’s decorative pattern and its distinctive shape, which are quintessentially Harappan. Another peculiarity is the fact that previously found seals were on smooth stone, but this is the first time that a bison image has been found on a metal ring, reported The Oman Observer . In 2020, bison stamp seals of local softstone were found at Salut and Al-Moyassar in Oman.
The bison image on this prehistoric silver ring found in Oman was typical of Harappan culture, indicating ancient global trade networks.
This suggests that the people of the Umm al-Narr culture were more intelligent and technologically advanced than previously thought. “… they introduced at a very early stage, administrative solutions that allowed economic growth in the later millennia,” he concluded.
Top image: The mass grave in Dahwa, Oman, where prehistoric silver jewelry was unearthed, along with pottery, stone containers, and personal ornaments.
There is no end to the multitude of close combatweapons, from swords to spears, scythes, pikes, maces, glaives, flails, partisans, and hundreds more. Often designed to inflict the greatest damage possible, historical combat weaponsare both terrifying and impressive.
Italian fauchard, c. 1525 AD. This is a weapon developed from an agricultural tool, the pruning hook, with which a farmer would lop off unwanted branches on his fruit tress. It was particularly popular in western European countries
16th Century Hunting Knife Combined with Wheellock Pistol. Wheellock pistols sometimes were combined with swords, knives, axes, maces, spears, and even crossbows, which could be used in the event the pistol misfired
Partisan Carried by the Bodyguard of Louis XIV (1638–1715). It bears the king’s motto and sunburst above the crowned arms of France and Navarre, which are encircled by the collars of the royal orders of the Holy Spirit and Saint Michael
An Italian glaive, c. 18th century. A glaive is a European polearm, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. They were sometimes forged with a small hook on the reverse side to better catch riders
Indian Parrying Weapon (Madu), 18th–19th century. A parrying weapon is a handheld weapon used to block or defend, usually in conjunction with a single-handed sword.
Fauchard of the Bodyguard of Cardinal Scipione Borghese-Caffarelli (1576–1633). An example of advanced metallurgy involving bluing, gilding, engraving, and damascening, as well as encrustation with gold and silver. The blade is decorated similarly on both sides with a series of medallions and ornamental strapwork cartouches outlined in silver-encrusted dots and set against a blued background finely damascened with gold scrolls
French Partisan c. 1700. A partisan is a type of polearm that consisted of a spearhead mounted on a long shaft with protrusions on the sides which aided in blocking sword thrusts.
A Flemish Halberd, c. 17th century. A halberd is a two-handed pole weapon consisting of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the back side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants
Ancient Egyptian Worker Took Sick Leave to Embalm his Mother
Ancient Egyptian Worker Took Sick Leave to Embalm his Mother
The British Museum houses a tablet which provides a peek into work-life balance in ancient Egypt. It documents the number of sick days and why 40 workers took time off from their workplace in 1250 BC. All sorts of fascinating reasons have been given for why people were away from their work, including a note about someone named Buqentuf, who needed time off for embalmingand wrapping the corpse of his dead mother.
The limestone tablet was found at Deir el-Medina (Thebes). It has New Egyptian hieratic script on it, with the text written in red and black ink. The writing covers both sides of the tablet, and the days of workers’ absence are marked by season and number, such as “month 4 of Winter, day 24.” This is useful information for researchers who want to know more about the administrative side of life in Egypt. For others, there’s the human-interest angle. They want to know why people were absent from work.
A limestone ostracon from ancient Egypt listing workers and their reasons for being absent from work on certain dates .
Like Buqentuf, several other workers also had to take time off to embalm and wrap their dead relatives. As we see today, family obligations and illness were the most common reasons why people had to take sick leave. Some workers, such as a man named Pennub, missed work because their mothers were ill. Others had causes that we wouldn’t expect to hear as often today, such as men who stayed home to help around the house due to a “wife or daughter bleeding” - a reference to menstruation.
Of course, people had to deal with their own health and manage their illnesses as well. For example, someone called Huynefer was frequently “suffering with his eye” and the scribe noted that a man named Seba couldn’t work after being bitten by a scorpion.
A person named Aapehti was said to have been ill on a regular basis and also took time off when he was “making offerings to god” – perhaps to improve his health? Illness was the most frequently recorded reason for sick leave, it appears over a hundred times on the tablet.
Workers also took days off when they had to perform tasks for their superiors – which was apparently permitted in moderate amounts. For example, Amenmose was allowed time away from work when he was “fetching stones for the scribe.”
Finally, there’s another reason people often had to excuse themselves from work - brewing beer. While this may sound like nothing more than a strange excuse for people to go out drinking, beer was an important beverage in ancient Egypt. It was a fortifying drink for people to consume daily and it was associated with some of their gods and rituals!
Top Image: Ancient Egyptian mummy photographed at the archaeological museum of Florence.
“Supernatural” Bronze Age Gold Device Unearthed in Czech Republic
“Supernatural” Bronze Age Gold Device Unearthed in Czech Republic
Last month a beet farmer in the Czech Republicuprooted an ornate Bronze Age gold artifact. It was well preserved in mud and the anonymous farmer photographed the golden treasure then sent the images to archaeologists at the Silesian Regional Museum in Opava, a city in the Moravian-Silesian Region.
The wafer thin and crumpled sheet of gold is estimated to have been created around 2,500 years ago.
The appearance of the Bronze Age gold artifact before preservation.
Dr. Jiří Juchelka is an Opava archaeologist who leads the archaeological sub-collection of the Silesian Regional Museum. The researcher told Radio Prague International (RPI) that the golden piece measures “51 centimetres (20 inches) long” and was found in a “near perfect condition” with silver, copper, and iron inclusions. The museologist said, “it’s decorated with raised concentric circles and topped with rose-shaped clasps at the end."
According to Live Science , museum conservator Tereza Alex Kilnar said that while nobody can be sure, the golden artifact was most likely “the front of a leather belt.” But this is no ordinary belt fastener either, because the archaeologists believe it was constructed with cosmological/supernatural concepts in mind.
Dr. Kilnar is currently preserving and analyzing the belt fastener at the Museum Bruntál . According to the museum website, this is a contributory organization of the Moravian-Silesian Region that administers important cultural heritage sites in northern Moravia - Bruntál Chateau, Sovinec Castle, and the Scythe Maker’s House in Karlovice in Silesia.
Without having tested the gold, and based only on the artistic style, Kilnar suspects the gold belt buckle dates to around the middle to late Bronze Age , which means the piece was worn around the 14th century BC. At this time small communities of farmers inhabited timber-frame houses and hadn’t yet begun forming the larger agricultural settlements which occurred in the following centuries.
Researchers believe the gold belt buckle dates to around the middle to late Bronze Age.
Earlier this year a team of Czech archaeologists published the image of a Bronze Age woman which was reconstructed after DNA analysis. The woman was unearthed from an ‘elite grave’ in Mikulovice, in Eastern Bohemia. According to a report in Expat.cz, she had “fair skin, brown hair, widely spaced brown eyes, a prominent chin, a petite figure,” and she died at around 35-years-old.
Described as having “one of the richest [Bronze Age burials] ever discovered in Europe,” the woman was from the Únětice culture, and she was found wearing bronze and gold jewelry, including a rare amber necklace. This group of early agriculturalists lived in Central Europe from about 2300 to 1600 BC, and they were contemporary with the culture who crafted the Bronze Age gold belt fastener.
Elite Connections with the Otherworld
It cannot be determined exactly which group made the gold buckle, for at that time ( 2000 B.C. to 1200 BC ) Central Europe was a rich fusion of different cultures. Smaller communities began coming together and formed a trade network by which livestock and crops such as wheat and barley were exchanged.
This period saw new social divisions emerging. Those people who controlled the lands around the emerging trading centers represented the origins of societal elites. At that time silver and gold became hallmarks of the controlling economic class and Kilnar told RPI that the gold item probably belonged to someone in “a high position in society, because items of such value were rarely produced at the time."
Professor Catherine Frieman at the Australian National University is a specialist in European Bronze Age metalworking. She agreed, and told RPI that the owner of the gold belt buckle “was someone of high status, either social or spiritual.”
The gold item probably belonged to someone in “a high position in society, because items of such value were rarely produced at the time.”
Live Science reports that during the Bronze Age gold objects, and gold hoards, were generally buried “in special, isolated locations suggesting a kind of gift exchange between the cultural elite and the supernatural.” Frieman told LiveScience in an email that gold objects with circular motifs are often linked to “Bronze Age cosmological systems believed to focus on solar cycles."
In 2013, Dr. Joachim Goldhahn at The University of Western Australia published a paper “rethinking cosmology in the Bronze Age using a north European perspective.” This researcher determined that the cosmologies of the Bronze Age world were based on “pragmatic ritualised practices, which were continuously repeated and recreated at certain times and occasions.”
Thus, the gold belt fastener most probably represents the annual cycle of the sun. But more so it might have been a centerpiece in a repeated ritual, and worn at specific “times and occasions” in the year, for example, perhaps to symbolically mark key stages of the sun’s cycle, like the equinoxes and solstices.
Top Image: The Bronze Age gold artifact found in a beet field in the Czech Republic.
The Pyramid of Djedefre at Abu Rawash: The pyramid of Djedefre is a pyramid built as a burial for the pharaoh Djedefre, in Abu Rawash, 8 kilometers from Giza ( Egypt ), in the 26th century BC.
It the most northerly pyramid in Egypt, and it has been in ruins since ancient times. Other pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty began the construction of Djedefre but remained unfinished.
It is believed that the pharaoh chose this hill and set his tomb there to be closer to Ra, god of the Sun.
But there is more, because until the end of the 20th century archaeologists did not know if the pyramid was finished or had been unfinished.
In the first case, the top of the pyramid would have been the highest in Egypt (220 meters above sea level, between 8 and 20 meters above the original top of the Great Pyramid of Khufu) and its current state would be fruit of the destruction and reuse of the stones for later constructions from Roman times onwards.
This seems to be the most likely scenario, as the latest excavations found that the funerary complex around the monument was completed and was active until long after the pharaoh’s death, which would not make sense if the pyramid had never been completed.
What is known for sure is that its construction began around the year 2580 BC by order of Pharaoh Djedefre, son and successor of Khufu.
The pyramid is on a hill overlooking the Giza plateau (hence its altitude could have been higher than that of the Great Pyramid, despite its smaller size similar to that of Menkaure).
The reasons why this place was chosen as well as those for the reduction of the size of the building are unknown, although some researchers point to theological reasons, since Djedefre was the first pharaoh to bear the title of son of Ra.
It was first explored in 1840 by John Shae Perring (who between 1837 and 1842 excavated Giza using gunpowder), who would be followed by other researchers such as Flinders Petrie and Émile Gaston Chassinat.
The most extensive excavation of the complex began in 1995 by a Franco-Swiss team led by Michel Valloggia.
The original length of its base was 106.2 meters, which at a 52-degree angle of inclination (similar to the Pyramid of Khufu) would have given the structure a height of 67 meters.
To save material, time and labor, the hill was used, which made up 44 percent of the total volume of the pyramid.
It is significant that the burial chamber is not inside the pyramid as it used to be, but below it, at a depth of 21 meters, and in its lower part it has depressions that indicate that it housed a sarcophagus and a canopic chest, just like the Pyramid of Khafre.
In inscriptions found in the pit the name of the pyramid appeared, which translates as Djedefre covered with stars or as Djedefre belongs to the firmament.
Émile Chassinat, during his excavations between 1901 and 1924, found numerous fragments of statues of Pharaoh Djedefre (including four heads) and of members of his family, his sons Baka, Hernet, Setka, Neferhetepes and Queen Hetepheres II.
Most of these fragments are kept today in the Louvre, the Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich, and the Cairo Museum.
Original measurements of the Pyramid of Djedefre
Remains of the pyramid of Djedefre
Ramp down to the burial chamber, pyramid of Djedefre
Elongated skulls are a very interesting global phenomenon. Across the planet, researchers keep discovering traces of these mysterious artifacts, the nature of which supposedly defies any explanation. Many researchers enthusiastically call elongated skulls evidence of the existence of forbidden archeology. And some of them even believe that they are proof that the real history of mankind is being hidden from most of people.
The analysis of this elongated skull, which has reddish hair, shows that it has a mitochondrial haplogroup U2e, which may signify it originated somewhere in the Caucasus… far from Paracas.
According to some DNA analysis, the deformation in the skull was not created artificially but due to the genetics. The elongated skulls of the Paracas culture have other strange features. Researchers concluded that the average volume of these skulls is 25% larger than that of the average modern person. Besides, they are 60% heavier than ordinary human skulls. But that is not all.
In 2018, a team of researchers led by Brien Foerster and L.A. Marzulli presented their DNS findings at the Elongated Skulls Symposium in Los Angeles. Foerster explained:
“The DNA results actually were incredibly complicated… It’s gonna take me some time to actually figure out what the results mean. What it does show for sure is that the Paracas elongated skull people were not 100% Native American. They were a mix or even you could say, in some ways, a hybrid of different people. Their blood types are very complicated as well, they should be blood type “O” if they’re 100% Native American and that’s not the case. We are likely looking at a sub-species of humanity as regards to the Paracas… Seems to be a lot of DNA evidence from extreme eastern Europe and extreme western Asia. More specifically I’m talking about the area in between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea where ancient elongated skull people lived I think about 3000 years ago. So I think we are looking at a migration pattern starting in the Caspian Black Sea area and then entering through the Persian Gulf and then moving eastwards eventually winding up on the coast of Peru.”
Source: YouTube screenshot
The earliest written reference to artificial cranial deformation dated back to 750 and 650 BC. In his book, “The Catalogues of Women,” the Greek poet Hesiod referred to a tribe from either Africa or India called the “Makrokephaloi” (or “Macrocephali”), which roughly translates to “the big heads.” The deformation of children’s skulls was already practiced by Huns, Goths, and Alans in the 4th and 5th centuries.
In April 2021, a video was posted on YouTube where a presenter showed elongated skulls he found in Huancavelica, a city in Peru. The presenter spoke Spanish through the video entitled “I found STRANGE and DEFORMED SKULLS in the mountains of Huancavelica.” The video went viral after some Facebook user posted it and pointed out the shape of the skull and the eye sockets as proof of alien origin.
Some experts came forward and said the skulls and eye sockets were completely normal. “The eye sockets are normal and perfectly within the range of human variation and look like eye sockets of other human skulls from Peru,” said Melissa S. Murphy, an anthropology professor at the University of Wyoming who specializes in the analysis of human remains from Peru.
The samples were sent to the genetic laboratory but to avoid influencing the result, the origin of the skulls was not informed. Interestingly, the mitochondrial DNA, inherited from the mother, presented mutations unknown to any man, primate or any other animal and the mutations suggested another human species different from Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals or Denisovans. It was reported that the people with Paracas skulls were biologically different and it would have been impossible for humans to interbreed with them.
So, who were those people? Did they evolve here on Earth on a path so different from us that they ended up looking drastically different? And what if the skulls of the Paracas culture are just the remains of aliens? The origin of the Paracas skulls is still a mystery for researchers but for now, the available evidence seems to suggest the Paracans were indeed human.
Stunned archaeologists: “Tombs of giants found in Crimea”
Stunned archaeologists: “Tombs of giants found in Crimea”
During archaeological excavations in Crimea , experts discovered a necropolis of the Byzantine Empire where the tomb of a giant was .
While the reconstruction work on the Mithridates Staircase in Kerch continues, archaeological excavation work has also started in the area.
This revealed up to 100 square meters of a necropolis, which had burials of people who once visited the temple of Juan Bautista .
To date there are 27 uncovered burials , some of children and twin burials. In addition to other elements, such as bronze pendants or bracelets.
They even managed to find felt clothing in one of the burials . This was very helpful as it allowed them to date the find .
Tomb of a giant in the necropolis
The find itself was not common and it became much more strange when they found a funerary box that exceeded 2.30 meters in length . When they uncovered it, they found what appeared to be the skeleton of a giant.
If the standard physique of the inhabitants of the area in the past is taken into account, finding a skeleton of a man that exceeded two meters in height is something that does not agree with the data.
The average height of the population of the date was 1.60 meters high , so there is no way to explain how the remains of this giant were buried in the area.
The remains were examined by the team’s anthropologist, who hopes to give an estimate of the age of the person buried there.
complicated excavation
The excavation work has been slow due to the complicated terrain, which is mixed . In ancient times, garbage was simply thrown on the ground.
Then, in the Middle Ages , the necropolis was created on top of all the ancient remains. For this reason it has become difficult for archaeologists to give an exact interpretation of the origin of everything found.
At the moment, the experts are in negotiations with the diocese of Kerch-Feodosia to be able to extract the remains found and examine them better.
Experts continue to investigate the origin of the mysterious skeleton and the reason for its abnormal size. In addition to finding an explanation for its origins.
IN 1922, EGYPTIAN EXCAVATORS LED BY HOWARD CARTER DISCOVERED THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMUN, AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH WHO WAS THE LAST OF HIS ROYAL FAMILY TO RULE DURING THE END OF THE 18TH DYNASTY.
Located in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes (modern Luxor), the tomb, KV62, was buried in mounds of debris from the cutting of KV9 for Pharaoh Ramesses V over 150 years after Tutankhamun’s death.
The discovery caused a media frenzy, revealing 5,398 items that included: a solid gold coffin, face mask, thrones, archery bows, trumpets, a lotus chalice, two Imiut fetishes, gold toe stalls, furniture, food, wine, sandals and fresh linen underwear.
Among the artefacts were a set of iron blades that resemble the PeseshKaf, a tool used in the “opening of the mouth ceremony,” a ritual performed for the deceased to enable them to breath, speak, eat and drink in the afterlife.
One of these blades is an iron dagger with an ornamental golden sheath, expertly produced by an ancient metalsmith.
The Howard Carter Archives describes the dagger as having a finely manufactured blade made from a homogeneous metal, while the handle is made of fine gold and is decorated with cloisonné and granulation work, ending with a pommel of rock crystal. On one side of the golden sheath is a floral lily motif, while on the other is a pattern of feathers terminating with a jackal’s head.
Examples in Egypt of contemporary smelting during the 18th Dynasty to produce Iron are very rare, and likely produced low-quality iron to be forged into precious objects. As the other blades found in the tomb are relatively crude, many scholars suggest that the ornamental dagger was imported to Egypt perhaps as a royal gift from a neighbouring territory or kingdom.
Diplomatic documents (the Amarna letters), that date from the 14th century BC mention royal gifts made of iron given to the pharaohs of Egypt from before Tutankhamun’s reign. Interestingly, one of these documents notes that Tushratta, King of Mitanni, sent iron objects to Amenhotep III (possibly Tutankhamun’s grandfather), which mentions iron blades in the lists.
Since the 1960’s, researchers suggested the nickel content in the blade was indicative of meteoric origin, with a more recent study in 2016 derived from an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer analysis, indicating that the blade’s composition is mainly iron (Fe), 10.8% nickel (Ni) and 0.58% cobalt (Co).
This study compared the blade composition to 11 meteorites of well-known compositions and 11 certified steel reference materials, concluding that the blade composition and homogeneity, closely correlates with meteorite composition and homogeneity from a source of extra-terrestrial origins.
This is further supported by a study published in February 2022, which conducted a non-destructive two-dimensional chemical analysis and suggests that the source meteorite of the blade is octahedrite, one of the most common structural classes of iron meteorites.
The discovery of an Egyptian tomb built with coral
The discovery of an Egyptian tomb built with coral
Archaeologists digging at a Red Sea trading port have uncovered a lavish tomb dated between the fourth and fifth centuries. Its walls and floor are made of white coral, highly unusual for Egypt at that period.
In collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a Polish-American archaeological team led by Steven E. Sidebotham of the University of Delaware, and Mariusz Gwiazda of the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archeology at the University of Warsaw, excavated an ancient port city located on the shores of the Red Sea in 2008.
Located in the eastern desert of Egypt at the Berenice Troglodytica site, it was originally founded by Ptolemy II in the third century BC.
According to the researchers, the project’s objective was to study the community that lived in this settlement after the Roman period, between the fourth and sixth centuries AD.
They were discovered to be the Blemmyes, nomadic people who inhabited the eastern desert from the current border between Egypt and Sudan.
Although the Romans no longer dominated the region, the Blemmyes apparently continued carrying out a great commercial activity over long distances (trade routes connected the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and Byzantium), with which the port of Berenice continued to be important.
Coral walls and floors
At the end of the last archaeological campaign, the researchers made the results public. Among the findings, the discovery of a monumental tomb with walls and floors made of high-quality white coral stands out.
This new discovery is the first explicit example of social differentiation in a little-recognized phase of the City’s occupation in the fourth-fifth centuries of our era.
The equipment and the shape of the burials are unique in all the east of Egypt.
“The use of plaster with corals as a building material is unique in the architecture of this period and was recorded for the first time in Berenice,” says Gwiazda, who also points out that the selection of the coral fragments must have been very carefully placed and would have taken a long time; something that surely increased the cost of construction, suggesting that members of the City’s elite were buried here.
The tomb is a rectangular space that measures five meters long. Inside, several communal burials were found endowed with rich grave goods of more than seven hundred necklace beads (some made with materials from South Asia), rings, silver earrings, and ivory bracelets.
The archaeologists also found wine amphorae, ceramic containers to hold water, incense burners (one of them beautifully made of stone in the shape of a lion’s head), and bowls.
All this is very possibly related to funerary rituals. For their part, the bodies of the people buried there were arranged in stone coffins located next to the walls and placed in a fetal position, possibly to gain space.
One of the aspects that most interests archaeologists excavating in Berenice is studying the different funerary customs that took place here, making the discovery of this tomb of enormous importance.
The team also plans to carry out various paleoanthropological analyzes of the human remains from multiple tombs in the town.
This will allow researchers to better understand the rituals and traditions related to the funerary world, as well as shed light on the diversity of the population of Berenice during the late ancient period.
Source: Carme Mayans, National Geographic
Set of ritual objects found inside the great tomb discovered in Berenice.
Fragments of white corals used in the construction of the tomb floor.
Censer in the form of a lion’s head discovered in the tomb of Berenice.
Strung green colored glass beads found in the excavated tomb at Berenice Troglodytica.
Panoramic view of the monumental tomb excavated by archaeologists at Berenice Troglodytica
BRITTEN HEBBEN TOTAAL VERSCHILLENDE VOOROUDERS BLIJKT UIT 15.000 JAAR OUD DNA UIT GROTTEN
BRITTEN HEBBEN TOTAAL VERSCHILLENDE VOOROUDERS BLIJKT UIT 15.000 JAAR OUD DNA UIT GROTTEN
Jeannette Kras
Het oudste menselijke DNA ooit gevonden in Groot-Brittannië vertelt het verhaal van twee verschillende bevolkingsgroepen die naar het eiland zijn gemigreerd aan het einde van de laatste ijstijd.
Duizenden jaar oud genetisch materiaal uit de overblijfselen van een vrouw – gevonden in de Gough’s Cave in Zuidwest-Engeland – en de genetische resten van een man – gevonden in de Kendrick’s Cave in Wales – zijn geanalyseerd door wetenschappers. De vrouw leefde ongeveer 14.900 jaar geleden en de man zo’n duizend jaar na haar. Dit was een periode waarin de temperaturen eindelijk begonnen te stijgen na een lange, steenkoude ijstijd. Schaars begroeide toendra veranderde in open dennenbos en de eerste moderne mensen verschenen op het toneel, net als in Nederland en de rest van Europa het geval was.
DNA uit de steentijd Het archeologische team van de Britse University of Oxford ontdekte dat deze twee oer-Britten totaal verschillende genetische voorouders hadden. Het lijkt er dus sterk op dat er lang geleden, binnen een tijdsbestek van duizend jaar, twee genetisch zeer verschillende groepen mensen in Groot-Brittannië rondliepen. Dat is niet uniek: er zijn meer zogenaamde ‘duale voorouder’-patronen in Europa vastgesteld in de loop der tijd.
Bedekt met ijskappen De conclusie van de studie die in vakblad Nature Ecology & Evolution verscheen, is dat verschillende bevolkingsgroepen tegen het einde van de laatste ijstijd naar Groot-Brittannië zijn gemigreerd, voorafgaand aan het Holoceen, dat 11.700 jaar geleden begon. Zij waren niet de eerste menselijke bewoners van de eilanden, maar vanwege de barre omstandigheden – een groot deel van het Britse grondgebied was bedekt met landijs en dus onbewoonbaar – was de bevolkingsdichtheid erg laag.
Reislustige Belg en Italiaan De onderzoekers analyseerden de DNA-strengen uit de eeuwenoude overblijfselen en combineerden die met een analyse van de leefomgeving en cultuurkenmerken op de beide vindlocaties. De vrouw uit de Gough’s Cave bleek veel genetische kenmerken te delen met de zogenaamde Goyet Q2-persoon, die ongeveer 15.000 jaar geleden in België leefde. Je zou dan verwachten dat de man uit de Kendrick’s Cave – circa 150 kilometer noordelijker – dezelfde voorouders zou hebben, maar niets is minder waar. De stokoude voorouder van de hedendaagse Welshman is genetisch verwant aan het Villabruna-individu, dat zo’n 14.000 jaar geleden in Italië rondliep.
‘Dual ancestry’ Dit geeft aan dat er twee genetisch verschillende groepen in Groot-Brittannië leefden binnen duizend jaar van elkaar. Dit ‘duale voorouder’-patroon kwam op meer plekken voor in Europa tijdens het late Pleistoceen. Verder archeologisch onderzoek en isotopenanalyse bracht nog meer verschillen aan het licht tussen de beide personen en zorgde zo voor aanvullend bewijs. Op cultuurgebied, wat betreft het dieet en hun begrafenisrituelen gaven ze een duidelijk andere invulling aan hun leven.
Opbouwende kritiek Professor en vroege prehistorie-expert Chantel Conneller geeft in een reactie aan blij te zijn met de studie en de bevindingen die eruit voortkomen met interesse te hebben gelezen, maar waarschuwt voor het trekken van al te snelle conclusies. De simplistische correlaties tussen genetische kenmerken, sociale groepen en archeologische culturen zijn volgens haar niet zaligmakend.
Paleoarcheologie-data zijn schaars Ze schrijft: “De paleolithische archeologie met zijn relatief onnauwkeurige tijdsaanduidingen en kleine datasets is bijzonder kwetsbaar voor foutieve claims van synchroniciteit. Het is goed mogelijk dat de migraties van verschillende bevolkingsgroepen in werkelijkheid toch langer of korter uit elkaar heeft gelegen. Hetzelfde geldt voor de veranderingen in cultuur, dieet enzovoort. We kunnen er als archeoloog zomaar honderden of zelfs duizenden jaren naast zitten. Verhalen over de oorsprong van volkeren zijn buitengewoon krachtig en hebben bijna altijd een politieke lading.”
Juist daarom maant ze tot voorzichtigheid. Het ontstaan van verschillende volkeren in bepaalde regio’s en waar zij heen zijn getrokken, ligt niet zelden gevoelig. Toch blijft het bijzonder dat er twee genetisch zulke verschillende mensen zijn aangetroffen in Groot-Brittannië.
The Hoodoos of Drumheller Valley: Tall Tales of Sandstone Towers
The Hoodoos of Drumheller Valley: Tall Tales of Sandstone Towers
In the badlands of Alberta, Canada, unusually shaped rock-formations which rise to 20 feet tall, grace the landscape. According to Blackfoot and Cree traditions, these rocks are petrified giants who come alive at night to protect their land by throwing stones at trespassers. A legend of the Paiute Indians, who inhabited the area for hundreds of years before the arrival of European Americans, claims the colorful hoodoos are ancient people who were turned to stone as punishment for bad deeds.
Today we know the rocks were created by erosion, shaped by wind and water. These hoodoos (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney or earth pyramid) have been carved over millions of years into pillar-like shapes. They’re formed from soft sandstone, and most are capped with a harder rock which sits on top like a hat. The cap rock slows the process of complete erosion by keeping them from disintegrating at the same speed as the surrounding sandstone. The sandstone structures will ultimately be worn away and break, and the harder top rock will eventually come crashing down.
Hoodoos are found mainly in the desert in hot, dry areas and smaller versions of these sandstone giants can be found all over the Badlands. In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles (or spires) is that hoodoos have a variable thickness while spires, have a smoother profile or uniform thickness that taper upward from the ground.
Hoodoos Around the World
Hoodoos, not unique to Alberta, Canada or the North American continent, are commonly found on the Colorado Plateau and abundant in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. Hoodoos are also prominent a few hundred miles away at Goblin Valley State Park on the eastern side of the San Rafael Swell as well as other parts of the world.
Several are found in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France and one of the most famous examples is the formation called ‘ Demoiselles Coiffées de Pontis ’ since hoodoos in French are called ‘ladies with hairdos’ ( demoiselles coiffées) or cheminées de fees which translates to ‘fairy chimneys’.
Hoodoos ( peribacası) houses have been carved into the formations found in the Cappadocia region of Turkey and were depicted on the reverse of a Turkish banknote.
Serbia has about 200 formations described as earth pyramids or towers by local inhabitants. The site is called Đavolja Varoš (Devil's Town) and since 1959 has been protected by the state and nominated in the New Seven Wonders of Nature campaign.
Devil's Town, near Kuršumlija, Serbia ( Nikolic / CC BY-SA 3.0 )
The hoodoo stones on the northern coast of Taiwan are unusual for their coastal setting. The stones formed as the seabed rose rapidly out of the ocean during the Miocene period.
Red Deer River Valley Is Rich in Fossils
The Drumheller portion of the Red Deer River Valley in the badlands of Alberta is approximately 1.2 miles (2 km) wide and 17 miles (27.3 km) long. The area is often referred to as Dinosaur Valley because of the abundance of fossils found in the area, beginning in the late 1800s.
In 1884, Joseph Burr Tyrrell, found the skull of a meat-eating dinosaur and named the dinosaur in honor of the newly founded Canadian Province: Albertosaurus sarcophagus .
Albertosaurus Skull Cast Geological Museum in Copenhagen (Michael BH / CC BY-SA 3.0 )
Over the years thousands of fossils have been collected and 101 years after Albertosaurus was discovered, the Tyrrell Museum opened. It is now one of the leading dinosaur museums in the world.
The semi-desert badlands surrounding the museum are very different to the lush forests where dinosaurs once roamed. Each year the sediments of the Red Deer River Valley are eroded by nature a little more, revealing more fossils at sites such as Dinosaur Provincial Park, and Hoodoo. Alberta is such a rich fossil province, the museum has multiple specimens for many of the species, enabling them to exhibit a wide collection.
Stiff Fines And Jail Time Await Vandals
Hoodoos take millions of years to form and are so incredibly fragile that the site is protected under the Historical Resources Act. Visitors convicted of defacing or removing property from the site could face a fine of up to $50,000 and/or a year in prison, and yet, some feel the need to leave their mark.
Recently, a Drumheller woman was appalled to see a man scratching into the formations, defacing the hoodoos with a small rock. The man had carved out the word ‘ METTEN’, the name of a town in Germany, and the lady sent a video recording to the police as evidence. Locals are rightly proud of the area.
By contrast, two ladies hiking near the popular tourist attraction found what appeared to be a dinosaur fossil, the leg bone of a hadrosaur, or duck billed dinosaur, and immediately contacted the museum. The rule for fossil collecting in Alberta is that anything still buried in the rock belongs to the government, which is the case with these remains.
Drone Footage Reveals Lost Mesopotamian City Built on Marsh Islands
Drone Footage Reveals Lost Mesopotamian City Built on Marsh Islands
Using remote sensing data technologies at the site of one of the oldest urban centers in world history, scientists have identified a vast Mesopotamian settlement called Lagash. Once upon a time, Lagash consisted of four marsh islands interconnected by waterways. A flourishing, watery lifestyle existed almost 5,000 years ago, in this ancient wetland area located between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in southern Iraq.
Drone Based and Other Technology
One of the participants of the project was Emily Hammer, an anthropological archaeologist from the University of Pennsylvania. Hammer employed a specially equipped drone that helped provide invaluable insight into Lagash, which formed the core of one of the world’s earliest states. The results of her work have now been published in The Journal of Anthropological Archaeology .
After initial remote-sensing data gathered from the ground level, a drone was used to photograph the area around Lagash over six weeks in 2019. It took high-resolution UAV photographs of the site’s surface that aided Hammer’s research. She was also able to obtain magnetic gradiometry data.
The drone was aided by the heavy rains that had just ended around that time, leading to heavy salt absorption and salt moisture. These made detection of buildings, walls, streets, and waterways that were buried near ground level much easier as they surveyed the ancient Mesopotamian city of wetland islands.
Mud brick foundations and a ziggurat are among the remains of the 3rd millennium BC Sumerian city state of Lagash (Tell al Hiba) northeast of Nasiriyah, Iraq.
Lagash was likely founded between 4,900 and 4,600 years ago, and is today known as Tell al-Hiba. Excavated more than 40 years ago for the first time, it was learnt that this site was abandoned around 3,600 years ago. Previous analysis by other anthropologists, historians, and scientists indicate that Lagash was built on raised mounds in the marshes, and possibly consisted of 33 small, marsh islands. “There could have been multiple evolving ways for Lagash to be a city of marsh islands as human occupation and environmental change reshaped the landscape,” Hammer says.
Critically, Hammer’s study has helped challenge a traditional notion that has presented Mesopotamian cities as nuclear and compact settlements located within an irrigated agricultural hinterland. These settlements have been understood to have expanded from a singular monumental temple complex. Nevertheless, Lagash is different and the curious city of wetland islands has been found to be unlike this presupposed model.
Early Dynastic Lagash, dating back to around 2900 to 2350 BC, was made up of distinctly separate sectors, each with multiple walls or moat-like water courses surrounding them, interspersed by open spaces. In fact, Lagash is characterized by dense architecture spread out over 300 hectares (approximately). Evidence also points to marshy and watery local environmental factors. This led Hammer to conclude that the city sectors originated as marsh islands.
Drone photographs also point to harbors that potentially connected city sectors by boat travel. The remains of potential footbridges also emerged, though only excavations can shed further light on the subject, according to a report on Science News .
Like Lagash, Eridu in southern Iraq was once located within a lush area filled with freshwater marshes.
An absence of a geographical or ritual center allowed each city sector to develop distinctive social and economic practices, to a certain extent. This is not dissimilar to the development of Venice, which evolved during a later historical time period.
Evidence of this was found at two of the marsh islands which were bordered by gated walls that had carefully laid out city streets and areas with large kilns. It was likely that crop growing and activities such as pottery making occurred here. On another island, waterways and canals crisscrossed each other, which likely suggests fishing and the collection of reeds for construction occurred.
In total, Hammer’s research points to three occupied islands near the Persian Gulf area, and a fourth one dominated by a huge temple. These islands were part of delta channels extending towards the sea, again reemphasizing the idea that Lagash was once a city of settled wetland islands which were interconnected by waterways.
The so-called cradle of civilization survived in what was once a lush, marsh-filled landscape, much like this imagined depiction of ancient Babylon.
The drone also revealed evidence of contrasting neighborhoods on different marsh islands, which reflect either some kind of urban planning or a haphazard arrangement. The latter could be symptomatic of waves of migrations that occurred between 4,600 and 4,350 years ago, according to Augusta McMahon. McMahon was one of the three co-field directors of the continuing excavations at the site.
These migrants were a mix of slave laborers captured from neighboring city states, mobile herders and residents from other cities and islands. At its peak, the city of wetland islands occupied four to six square kilometers (1.5 sq. mi.), which is the area equivalent to that of modern-day Chicago! It also housed tens of thousands of people during its heyday.
Just like other great historic cities, Lagash was doomed to collapse. In the end, it met its end when the marshy water levels fell due to a spike in temperatures. Since nearby cities continued to be occupied and inhabited for at least another thousand years, Lagash’s abandonment provides a window into a past that challenges the deeply held beliefs of what a Mesopotamian city looked like.
Top image: Remote sensing and drone footage of the Lagash / Tell al-Hiba site was deployed to conclude that the ancient Mesopotamian city was made up of four marsh islands.
Neanderthals might have lived in small groups, with females regularly arriving and leaving.
Credit: S. Plailly/E. Daynes/SPL
Set on a rocky outcrop in southern Siberia, Chagyrskaya Cave might not look like much. But for one family of Neanderthals, it was home.
For the first time, researchers have identified a set of closely related Neanderthals: a father and his teenage daughter and two other, more-distant relatives.
The discovery of the family — reported on 19 October in Nature1 — and seven other individuals (including a pair of possible cousins from another clan) in the same cave, along with two more from a nearby site, represents the largest ever cache of Neanderthal genomes. The findings also suggest that Neanderthal communities were small, and that females routinely left their families to join new groups.
Gleaning insights into kinship and social structure is new territory for ancient-genome studies, which have typically focused on broader population history, says Krishna Veeramah, a population geneticist at Stony Brook University in New York. “The fact that we can do this with Neanderthals is incredible.”
Buried treasure
Set on the banks of the Charysh River in the foothills of the Altai mountains, Chagyrskaya is 100 kilometres west of Denisova Cave, an archaeological treasure trove in which humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans (and at least one Neanderthal–Denisovan hybrid) all lived intermittently over some 300,000 years2,3. Excavations of Chagyrskaya, however, have so far revealed only Neanderthal remains, dated to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, and characteristic stone tools.
In 2020, a genome sequence from a female Neanderthal from Chagyrskaya suggested she belonged to a population distinct from those that occupied Denisova Cave much earlier4. To study the cave’s inhabitants in greater depth, a team of researchers led by palaeogeneticist Laurits Skov and population geneticist Benjamin Peter at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, extracted DNA from 17 other samples of ancient-human remains from Chagyrskaya, as well as several from a nearby cave, called Okladnikov.
The Chagyrskaya remains — teeth and bone fragments — yielded complete and partial genomes from 11 individuals (samples from Okladnikov were poorly preserved, and only two had enough DNA to extract and sequence).
With this trove, the researchers confirmed that Chagyrskaya’s residents were more closely related to Neanderthals living in Europe around the same time than to those who occupied Denisova Cave tens of thousands of years earlier.
When Skov started comparing the genomes from Chagyrskaya, he got the surprise of his career. Two individuals, an adult male and a teenage female, shared half of their DNA, a situation that could occur only if they were siblings or a parent and child. To determine the relationship, the researchers examined mitochondrial DNA — which is maternally inherited and would therefore be identical between siblings and between a mother and child, but not between a father and child. This differed between the male and female, suggesting that they were father and daughter.
The researchers found more family members as they continued to examine the genetic material. They found that the father had two types of mitochondrial DNA — a characteristic known as heteroplasmy — that were shared by two other adult males from the cave, suggesting that they were all from the same maternal lineage. Heteroplasmies usually vanish after a few generations, says Skov, so the three probably lived around the same time. His team also identified members of another Neanderthal family: a male and female who were second-degree relatives, such as cousins.
“It makes you wonder what the familial relationship between these individuals were and how they were interacting with each other,” says Skov. “It is a little glimpse into a Neanderthal family.”
Social structures
The glut of Neanderthal genomes — which nearly doubles the number now available — has allowed researchers to look at other aspects of Neanderthal life. The genomes of the Chagyrskaya Neanderthals all had low diversity between maternal and paternal copies, a sign that the interconnected population of breeding adults was low. Researchers have uncovered similar patterns in mountain gorillas, which typically live in communities of fewer than 20 individuals, and other threatened species.
The researchers also found that the maternally inherited mitochondrial genomes were vastly more diverse than were the Y chromosomes, which are passed down along the male line. One explanation for this is a steady influx of females from different Neanderthal communities, Skov says. Modelling from the team suggests that the patterns observed in genetic diversity would occur if more than half of women in small communities were born elsewhere.
“I think we can say this social structure was present in most Neanderthals,” says palaeogeneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox, director of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Spain. A decade ago, his team analysed 12 Neanderthals buried in a Spanish cave and found diverse mitochondrial DNA in women, but not in men, which they interpreted as evidence that females had left their communities5. This makes Lalueza-Fox wonder whether it was mobile Neanderthal women who encountered — and mated with — Homo sapiens in other parts of Eurasia. Other scientists caution that Neanderthal groups living elsewhere or at other times might have adopted different social customs. “Until you get more points on the board, you can’t tell,” says Veeramah.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes, a writer and archaeologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, is surprised that remains from so many related individuals — who were part of highly mobile hunter-gathering communities — have been recovered from one site. Especially perplexing is the presence of one baby tooth and two barely worn permanent teeth belonging to the same adolescent male. “To me, it suggests that this community of Neanderthals, either they tend to stay in their sites for quite a long time, or they revisit them very often,” she says.
Chagyrskaya Cave is also chock full of bison and horse remains, and Skov and his colleagues think that the site served as a hunting camp of sorts during these animals’ seasonal migrations. These hunts could have created opportunities for disparate Neanderthal communities to meet and mix, Sykes suggests. “I don’t think Neanderthals were planning to meet up with each other, but it offers that opportunity.”
The Chagyrskaya family is likely to grow. Only one-third of the cave has been excavated so far, and Skov and his colleagues have analysed less than one-quarter of the Neanderthal remains already discovered. Skov hopes that future studies can build more complete Neanderthal family trees — and perhaps find the teenage girl’s mother. “She’s probably also in there,” he says.
Modern Humans and Neanderthals Lived Together in Europe for 2,000 Years!
Modern Humans and Neanderthals Lived Together in Europe for 2,000 Years!
When Homo sapiens first arrived on the European continent about 42,500 years ago, the Neanderthals were still living there, and would remain there for another 1,400 to 2,900 years before finally disappearing from the face of the Earth. When the anatomically modern humans moved in, the Neanderthals did not move out, but stayed where they were and apparently lived peacefully alongside their Homo sapiens cousins for approximately 2,000 years, give or take a few centuries.
This is the conclusion of a trio of scientists from Leiden University in the Netherlands and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, who used a unique and sophisticated modeling method known as optimal linear estimation to pin down more exactly when the Neanderthals actually lived in western Europe. The evidence the archaeologists examined was collected from multiple excavation sites in France and northern Spain, where modern human and Neanderthal artifacts have proven relatively easy to find.
Speleofacts ring structure built by Neanderthal people in Bruniquel cave, France.
The results of this study, which have just been published in the journal Scientific Reports , offer no evidence to demonstrate that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals merged their genetic materials with each other 42,500 ago. But past research has proven that the modern human genome contains portions of Neanderthal DNA , which could have only gotten there if the two species of hominin had interbred at some point. People of European descent are among those who carry Neanderthal genetic material, so at least some of that interbreeding must have occurred on European soil.
The Stunning Convergence of Modern Humans and Neanderthals
Igor Djakovic, an archaeological PhD candidate at Leiden University and lead author of the Scientific Reports paper, acknowledges in an interview with the French press agency AFP that humans and Neanderthals “met and integrated in Europe,” at some point in the distant past, before adding that “we have no idea in which specific regions this actually happened.”
Scientists have also struggled to identify the precise years when modern humans and Neanderthals would have lived in Europe simultaneously, and this was what the scientists in the Leiden University-led study were trying to discover.
To apply their sophisticated modeling techniques to the question, the scientists gathered radiocarbon dating results connected to 56 artifacts taken from 17 archaeological sites across France and northern Spain. Half of these artifacts had been linked to Neanderthals, while the other half had been left by humans. The artifacts in question included skeletal remains of both species, plus different types of tools including distinctive stone knives believe to have been made by Neanderthals.
Distinctive stone knives thought to have been produced by the last Neanderthals in France and northern Spain. This specific and standardized technology is unknown in the preceding Neanderthal record, and may indicate a diffusion of technological behaviors between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals immediately prior to their disappearance from the region.
The idea was to cross-reference all of these dated materials, first through Bayesian statistical modeling and then through optimal linear estimation modeling, to search for signs of overlapping activity. Optimal linear estimation modeling is a technique originally developed for use in biology that has now been repurposed for examining and dating human remains and artifacts (and in this case, Neanderthal remains and artifacts as well) to relatively narrow periods of time.
In this study Baynesian modeling could only narrow the potential date ranges down so far, but optimal linear estimation allowed the scientists to achieve much further refinement.
When the final numbers were crunched, the data showed that Neanderthals went extinct in the region of France and northern Spain between 40,870 and 40,547 years ago, a range covering just over three hundred years of time. Meanwhile, it was confirmed that modern humans first migrated into this part of Europe approximately 42,500 years ago. With some variations in the approximate time frame for when the modern humans arrived, the researchers concluded that modern humans and Neanderthals would have occupied the same geographical region for between 1,400 and 2,900 years, after which Neanderthals disappeared forever.
Geographic appearance of dated occurrences for the Châtelperronian (grey circles – Neanderthal stone tools), Protoaurignacian (white squares – Homo sapiens stone tools), and directly-dated Neandertals (black skulls) in the study region between 43,400 (a) and 39,400 (f) years cal BP.
(Djakovic, I., Key, A. & M. Soressi / Nature 2022 )
Sharing Knowledge
While there is no proof, it is reasonable to conclude that interbreeding between the two genetically compatible species would have occurred at this time and at this place. Perhaps just as significantly, there are signs that an extensive “diffusion of ideas” occurred, according to Djakovic, meaning there was a meeting of the cultures and a meeting of the minds that accompanied the physical encounters.
This period of time is "associated with substantial transformations in the way that people are producing material culture," including the way they made tools and ornaments, Djakovic explained. He and his colleagues also noted a dramatic change in the types of physical artifacts being produced by Neanderthals, which started to closely resemble tools and utensils made by the modern humans.
The Death of the Neanderthals Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
The latest research reveals that the DNA of humans of European and Asian descent is between one and two percent Neanderthal. In Africans Neanderthal DNA is not found except in trace amounts , since Africans and Neanderthals did not come into contact before the latter went extinct.
With respect to the extinction of the Neanderthals, Igor Djakovic argues that the concept should be reconsidered
"When you combine that with what we know now—that most people living on Earth have Neanderthal DNA—you could make the argument that they never really went extinct, in a certain sense," Djakovic said. Instead, he hypothesized, they were “effectively swallowed into our gene pool,” where they continue to exert a small but real influence over human genetic development to this very day.
It remains a mystery why Neanderthals weren’t able to breed and produce enough offspring among themselves to preserve their viability as a distinct species after modern human contact . Many different theories have been offered, but none are universally accepted.
Nevertheless, through genetic exchanges with anatomically modern humans they were able to guarantee their survival in a different form. They are like a shadow inside us, still preserved and never to be completely forgotten.
Top image: A new study shows that modern humans and Neanderthals lived together in Europe for 2000 years.
In 1885, a group of miners has discovered what appears to be an underground city under Missouri, after excavating a buried shaft deep underground.
Dozens of amazing artifacts , ranging from stone benches to knives, including a set that flowed with pure water mixed with lime. All of this has supposedly been discovered within an underground city found in Missouri County.
mysterious underground city
Although the artifacts found are extremely enigmatic, something was discovered that surprised the experts much more; a human skeleton .
Next to the source of water and lime, parts of a human being were found. During his studies, it was discovered that it was up to 3 times larger than an ordinary human. In addition, given the robustness of the limbs, it is possible that it was much stronger muscularly and faster.
The defunct newspaper of St. Paul, Minn., the ST. Paul Daily , wrote the following:
“The bones of the leg were measured, the femur is 4 and 1/2 feet, the tibia four feet and three inches. The head bones had been separated into two pieces, and the sagittal and cornal suturis had been destroyed.
In addition to the strange artifacts, the miners also found several labyrinthine pathways leading away from the surface. These seemed to have some kind of configuration, as well as containing a number of pieces that seemed to be part of ancient machinery.
surprising discoveries
According to the promoters, all this information was perfectly documented by the miners in 1885.
The miners were the ones who explored the place for hours, until the oil from the gas lamps forced them to return to the surface, preventing visibility inside the mysterious underground tunnels .
Despite the fact that certain theorists and popularizers assure that this mysterious story is totally true, no evidence has been found to support it.
Even so, it would not be the first time that large structures have been found under the surface in the United States, such as an underground city. The presence of human remains that could have belonged to giants is not strange either .
In fact, the entire American continent is full of these stories and there is a whole debate around this theory. Is there really an underground city in Missouri? Here is an interesting video about another supposed city of giants
The Ancient Egyptians faced many foes during their long history, including the Hyksos, the Hittites and the ‘Sea Peoples’, all of which stimulated advancements in military technology.
Hemmed in by natural barriers – the desert, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea – the ancient Egyptians were mostly concerned with staving off threats from the desert tribes and the Nubians to the south.
A ‘forward policy’ emerged, by which the Egyptians pushed aggressively into neighbouring territories, and this evolved until the Egyptians were campaigning in Syria, Libya, Nubia and the Kush. The pharaoh’s status as a warrior king became of paramount importance.
During the New Kingdom period, ancient Egyptian military might reached its zenith, with war chariots and siege craft increasingly important, although the use of actual siege engines appears to have been limited.
Charioteers
Chariots were not a traditional part of the ancient Egyptian army until they encountered them in their expeditions into Asia, along with other new military technologies.
The ancient Egyptians of the Old and Middle Kingdoms did not even make much use of horses, except for scouting and delivering messages.
The Hyksos invasion of ancient Egypt, which resulted in them gaining control over areas in the eastern delta, was originally thought to have been facilitated by the widespread use of chariots, but that is now disputed.
What is clear is that the ancient Egyptians learned about chariots and quickly embraced the concept. Steady improvements in design – the wheels were at first solid, then made with four spokes and later with six – made chariots sturdier and faster, but they remained primarily a missile platform in the ancient Egyptian army.
This contrasted with the use of chariots by other peoples. The Hittites, for example, manned heavy chariots with three men – a driver and two spear-wielding troops. For the ancient Egyptians, two-man crews in a lighter chariot worked best, with a driver and an archer teaming up.
Thousands of these chariots could harass an enemy effectively from a safe distance, and by the time of the New Kingdom, arrowheads were bronze rather than the original flint.
The chariot soon became the most prestigious element on the battlefield, and pharaohs are often depicted wielding a bow from a chariot. The gold-plated example found in the tomb of Tutankhamun confirms that they were highly regarded symbols of military prowess.
Weaponry
The heavy spear was the main weapon throughout the different phases of the ancient Egyptian army. It was used as a thrusting weapon rather than being thrown like a javelin, and used in conjunction with a wide, wooden shield. Spearheads were originally flint or copper, becoming bronze in later periods.
Heavy infantry would advance towards an enemy in formation, presenting a wall of shields over which the spears could be thrust.
This should not be mistaken for the highly disciplined use of shields and spears in the Greek phalanx tactics, however – Egyptian spears were far shorter.
A shield would typically be about 85cm (33in) in length, and heavily decorated ceremonial shields were often buried with pharaohs and other dignitaries. They were also carried by chariot drivers.
Axes were an important secondary weapon, and a variety of axehead designs were developed. Strictly a close-range weapon, a bronze axehead would be affixed to a wooden pole and used in a slashing motion.
Bows were originally made from animal horn, then wood, and the composite design had been adopted by the time of the New Kingdom.
This design added range and power, but made the weapon harder to wield, so simpler bows never fell out of use completely.
Infantry
During the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptian military became a far more organized and effective fighting force. Nowhere was this more apparent than within the ranks of the infantry.
By the time of Ramesses II this was a highly sophisticated arm. Troops were divided into divisions of around 5,000 men. In the army Ramesses took into battle at Kadesh, he had four such divisions, named ‘Amun’, ‘Ra’, ‘Ptah’ and ‘Sutekh’.
Each division was divided into 20 companies of 250 men each, with further divisions down to platoons of 50. Platoons were commanded by the ‘great ones of the fifty’.
The heavy infantry wore no armour, but carried large shields and had spears as their main weapon, along with axes and swords.
Complementing the heavy foot soldiers were archers, by now recruited in ancient Egypt and armed with composite bows. Their job was to disrupt the enemy from a distance while the heavy infantry formations closed to engage.
Archers often went into battle on chariots, enabling them to keep their distance from the enemy. If forced to fight, they had small shields and daggers.
There was a solid logistical system to keep the men and horses fed and watered, including a sizeable baggage train and supply ships.
Navy
The ancient Egyptian navy was originally limited mainly to use on the Nile, but it did serve a function as a supply and transportation arm. It was never considered separate from the army itself.
Ships could either be made from reeds or from wooden planks, the latter being more suited to engaging in battle.
During the reign of Ramesses III, ancient Egypt was threatened by the ‘Sea Peoples’, and naval engagements were fought in which the ancient Egyptians appear to have won through superior tactics, despite having inferior ship designs.
In an echo of Egypt’s chariot tactics, they employed lighter ships to harass the enemy from a distance, peppering them with fire from bows and slingshots.
Source:
David Smith. All About History – Book of Pharaohs
Bas-relief of Thutmose III dominating his enemies. Karnak temple pylon.
Expedition ship to Punt: The ancient Egyptians sailed the high seas in large ships with oars and square sails, like this one. Papyrus copy of one of the ships sent to the country of Punt by Queen Hatshepsut, depicted at Deir el-Bahari.
Bronze Egyptian Khopesh with the name of Pharaoh Ramses II.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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