Neolithic pottery excavated ahead of work on a £16m flood scheme has added to archaeologists’ understanding of a city’s past.
Digging up the past. University of Salford archaeology team looking for the remains of Etherstone Hall which dates from 1415. Leigh, England.
The archaeological site of Bhanbore holds the remains of three civilizations – the Scytho-Parthian period, Hindu-Sassanian Period, and Islamic period can be seen side by side at Bhanbore. Interestingly, remains of a temple have also been discovered from the area.
The site was also an important trade route and a military post during different periods. It is also famous for the folk love story of Sassui and Punhoon.
After 40 years, the culture department of Sindh has decided to resume excavations at the site.
Scholars also consider Bhanbore as Debal – the famous port which was conquered by a young Arab general, Muhammad Bin Qasim in 712 CE.
There are many theories about the collapse of the city, which is widely believed to have been caused by the change in the path of river Indus in the 13th Century.
Mike Harlow, legal director at English Heritage, said he believed internet mapping services and his own organisation risked leaving heritage sites vulnerable…
For similar news stories visit http://culturalsecurity.net/newssummary.htm
This is the Great Wall of China. Well, part of it. A really sad-looking part. It was recently discovered in Mongolia by a British explorer.
“If you walk through the desert in southern Arizona you can find evidence of a major migration. Water bottles, shoes, food wrappers — these are some of the things left behind by the thousands of people who try to cross the border between Mexico and the United States every year.
For some people, the items are trash to be cleaned up; for others, they offer a window into a perilous voyage.”
Click through to read more!
The Catacombs of Paris
Paris has a deeper and stranger connection to its underground than almost any city, and that underground is one of the richest. The arteries and intestines of Paris, the hundreds of miles of tunnels that make up some of the oldest and densest subway and sewer networks in the world, are just the start of it. Under Paris there are spaces of all kinds: canals and reservoirs, crypts and bank vaults, wine cellars transformed into nightclubs and galleries. Most surprising of all are the carrières—the old stone quarries that fan out in a deep and intricate web under many neighborhoods, mostly in the southern part of the metropolis.
These sections of caverns and tunnels have been transformed into underground ossuaries, holding the remains of about 6 million people. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1874.
The official name for these subterranean veins is l’Ossuaire Municipal. Although the cemetery portion covers only a small section of underground tunnels comprising “les carrières de Paris”, Parisians today often refer to the entire tunnel network as “The Catacombs.”
The Battersea Shield Celtic (England), 350-50 BCE, Located in The British Museum
“Bronze shield facing; scrolls in relief; made of several pieces of sheet bronze. With twenty-seven red glass ‘enamel’ framed studs.
The Battersea shield is not in fact a complete shield, but only the facing, a metal cover that was attached to the front of wooden shield. It is made from different parts of sheet bronze (4 sheets and 3 decorated panels), held together with bronze rivets and enclosed in a binding strip. All the rivets are hidden by overlaps between different components where the panels and roundels were originally attached to the organic backing.
The decoration is concentrated in the three roundels. A high domed boss in the middle of the central roundel is over where the handle was located. The La Tène-style decoration is made using the repoussé technique, emphasized with engraving and stippling. The overall design is highlighted with twenty-seven framed studs of red glass ‘enamel’ (opaque red glass) in four different sizes, the largest set at the centre of the boss. The dominant repoussé forms on the shield are the palmette and interlocking S-motifs.
Stylistically, the La Tène-style decoration is not closely related to any other object. Because of this, closely dating this object is difficult. The shield was almost certainly made in Britain becuase of the use of a specifically British form of central circular shield boss.”
Beautiful face typical of those at ‘Ain Dara: rounded nose, almond-shaped eyes, and slightly smiling lips. Perhaps a goddess or a priestess. Around her head she wears a circlet decorated with rosettes, in Mesopotamia a symbol of the goddess Inanna/Ishtar. Originally found in many pieces, restored. Basalt.
“A stunning parallel to Solomon’s Temple has been discovered in northern Syria. The temple at ‘Ain Dara has far more in common with the Jerusalem Temple described in the Book of Kings than any other known building. Yet the newly excavated temple has received almost no attention in this country, at least partially because the impressive excavation report, published a decade ago, was written in German by a Syrian scholar and archaeologist.”
(PDF by John Monson)
Ain Dara is well known for its Neo-Hittite finds. At the beginning of the first century BC it was one of the fragmented principalities established following the invasion by the Sea Peoples in the Levant. It seems to have been incorporated into the Seleucid domains lying on the direct road from Antioch to Cyrrhus and on to Zeugma. The temple is described by Ross Burns from whom I quote as “The eclectic nature of the Neo-Hittite period is reflected in the temple which is the main point of interest on the mound. The format of the temple comprises main hall and inner chamber, antechamber and peripteral corridor.
The Burtele partial foot (BRT-VP-2/73). A laboratory photo after cleaning and preparation. It is shown here in its anatomically articulated form. (Credit: © The Cleveland Museum of Natural History Photo courtesy: Yohannes Haile-Selassie)
ScienceDaily —
“A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossil foot did not belong to a member of “Lucy’s” species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous early human ancestor. Research on this new specimen indicates that more than one species of early human ancestor existed between 3 and 4 million years ago with different methods of locomotion. ”
Read More Here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120328135930.htm
Long before the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1530 and brought with them a written language with which to record history, legends about ancient Peru were passed down through generations by oral “historians” who were trained to flawlessly recount these stories of mythical heroes and villains.
Read More Here: http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/archaeologist-sets-out-to-validate-230460.aspx
“There are likely scores of programs that deserve kudos for outstanding efforts at reaching out to students, volunteers, and the interested public in the field of archaeology. This has often been done through field schools, volunteer opportunities, special exhibitions and educational programs, and news releases of new developments and discoveries for public readership consumption. In support of these efforts, the prestigious Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) recently launched a program designed to recognize programs that exemplified a dedication to promoting archaeology to the wider public. Beginning new in 2011, AIA’s Excavation Outreach Contest has considered application entries from a variety of archaeological excavation and research programs, evaluating them based on the Institute’s professed motto, “Excavate, Educate, Advocate”. They chose their winner for 2012 — the Maya Research Program (MRP). ”
Read More Here: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2012/article/archaeological-research-program-receives-special-recognition-from-archaeological-institute-of-america
“Millennia before modern-day military recruiters talked up potential soldiers in shopping malls or put up posters, one Roman city took a rather different approach to recruiting soldiers for the emperor’s army.
A newly translated inscription, dating back about 1,800 years, reveals that Oinoanda, a Roman city in southwest Turkey, turned to a mixed martial art champion to recruit for the Roman army and bring the new soldiers to a city named Hierapolis, located hundreds of miles to the east, in Syria.
His name was Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus and he was a champion at wrestling and pankration, the latter a bloody, and at times lethal, mixed martial art where contestants would try to pound each other unconscious or into submission.
Flavillianus proved to be so successful as a military recruiter that it was decreed that he be made a “cult figure in the band of heroes” after he died, with each tribe of the city erecting statues in his honor. The inscription, written in Greek, was engraved on the base of a statue found in Oinoanda’s agora (a central public space) and would have been erected by the people of the city. Discovered by a team in 2002, it wasn’t until now that researchers translated and published it…. “
Miami, FL —
“Harvard University educated archaeologist and president of the Paleontological Research Corporation, Dr. Joel Klenck, conducted an ethnoarchaeological study of modern Bedouin sacrificial practices in the Levant to provide insight on the deposition of remains at ancient cult sites. Ethno-archaeology comprises the analysis of modern behaviors and the remains left over from these activities. These studies are linked with a concept in archaeology called middle range theory where observations of natural processes or human behaviors are used to explain the deposition of archaeological finds. Deriving his theories from the sociologist Robert Merton, the American archaeologist Lewis Binford strongly encouraged middle range theory and completed ethnographic studies of Australian aborigines, Nunamiut Eskimo and other groups. Binford then compared his data to remains from archaeological sites.”
Read More Here: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/bedouin-animal-sacrifice-rituals-provide-clues-to-archaeological-remains-133733.htm
