Tag Archives: archaeology

PumaPunku Ruins in Bolivia

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Pumapunku, also called “Puma Pumku” or “Puma Puncu”, is part of a large temple complex or monument group that is part of the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanaku, Bolivia. In Aymara, its name means, “The Door of the Cougar”. The processes and technologies involved in the creation of these temples are still not fully understood by modern scholars. Our current ideas of the Tiwanaku culture hold that they had no writing system and also that the invention of the wheel was most likely unknown to them. The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple’s discovery.

Puma Punku, truly startles the imagination. It seems to be the remains of a great wharf (for Lake Titicaca long ago lapped upon the shores of Tiahuanaco) and a massive, four-part, now collapsed building. One of the construction blocks from which the pier was fashioned weighs an estimated 440 tons (equal to nearly 600 full-size cars) and several other blocks laying about are between 100 and 150 tons.

Puma Punku ruins, Tiahuanaco, Bolivia
(courtesy of www.sacredsites.com and Martin Gray)

The quarry for these giant blocks was on the western shore of Titicaca, some ten miles away. There is no known technology in all the ancient world that could have transported stones of such massive weight and size. The Andean people of 500 AD, with their simple reed boats, could certainly not have moved them. Even today, with all the modern advances in engineering and mathematics, we could not fashion such a structure.

Just out of the aerial picture (below) to the bottom left is the site of the Puma Punku. This is another ‘temple area’ with many finely cut stones some weighing over 100 tonnes. Its position to the south of the Akapana may have been important because it gave a good view to a sacred mountain far to the east.

Of course there is no certainty that this was the reason as the ancient builders left no written records.
All the legends have been handed down through the generations.

Puma Punku ruins, Tiahuanaco, Bolivia
(courtesy of www.sacredsites.com and Martin Gray)

How were these monstrous stones moved and what was their purpose?
Posnansky suggested an answer, based upon his studies of the astronomical alignments of Tiahuanaco, but that answer is considered so controversial, even impossible, that it has been ignored and censured by the scientific community for fifty years.

Carved stone block at Puma Punku. This precision-made 6 mm wide
groove contains equidistant, drilled holes. It seems impossible that this
cuts were made with use of stone or copper tools.

The so-called Gate of the Sun seen at the back side.
Made of one piece of hard rock. Possibly it was a part of a large wall.
By the courtesy of www.inkatour.com, nr. 3696

Puma Punku doesn’t look impressive: a hill as remains of an old pyramid and a large number of megalithic block of stone on the ground, evidently smashed by a devastating earthquake. However, closer inspection shows that these stone blocks have been fabricated with a very advanced technology. Even more surprising is the technical design of these blocks shown in the drawing below. All blocks fit together like interlocking building blocks.

Source: Jean-Pierre Protzen & Stella E.Nair, “On Reconstructing Tiwanaku Architecture”, Jpurnal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 59, Nr.3, 2000, pp. 358-371


Artistic interpretation © World-Mysteries.com


Artistic interpretation © World-Mysteries.com

A wall of the Akapana, the pyramid of Tiahuanacu, shows similar modular design.
Blocks that are piled one on top of the other but the underside of the upper stone is cut at an angle. The top of the standing stone is cut at the same angle, as shown on the figure below.

Source: Jean-Pierre Protzen & Stella E.Nair, “On Reconstructing Tiwanaku Architecture”, Jpurnal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 59, Nr.3, 2000, pp. 358-371

This stone technology plainly contradicts what official archaeology suggests about the general state of development of the ancient peoples of South-America.


Source:
“Die Ruinenstätte von Tiahuanaco im Hochlande des alten Peru”
(The Ruins of Tiahuanaco in the Highlands of Ancient Peru)
1892 book about Tiahanaco written by two German
discoverers and engineers Alphons Stübel and Max Uhle

The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple’s discovery.  The largest of these stone blocks is 7.81 meters long, 5.17 meters wide, averages 1.07 meters thick, and is estimated to weigh about 131 metric tons. The second largest stone block found within the Pumapunka is 7.90 meters long, 2.50 meters wide, and averages 1.86 meters thick. Its weight has been estimated to be 85.21 metric tons. Both of these stone blocks are part of the Plataforma Lítica and composed of red sandstone. Based upon detailed petrographic and chemical analyses of samples from both individual stones and known quarry sites, archaeologists concluded that these and other red sandstone blocks were transported up a steep incline from a quarry near Lake Titicaca roughly 10 km away. Smaller andesite blocks that were used for stone facing and carvings came from quarries within the Copacabana Peninsula about 90 km away from and across Lake Titicaca from the Pumapunka and the rest of the Tiwanaku Site.

to read more, go to:    http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_PumaPunku.htm

Enduring Ancient Mysteries to Ponder

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Top ancient mysteries of 2011

 

Peter Schmid / Lee Berger / Univ. of Wits.

The skeletal hand of an adult female Australopithecus sediba is nestled within a modern human hand. The analysis of the A. sediba bones led to what some experts called a “game-changing” view of evolution in 2011.

By Alan Boyle

Do archaeologists ever get tired of delving into ancient mysteries? One of my all-time favorite articles from The Onion is the one about the archaeologist who’s fed up with“unearthing unspeakable ancient evils,” but in real life, you can’t beat a good story about archaeology, paleontology or paleoanthropology.

I’m combining several different scientific disciplines in this end-of-year roundup of ancient mysteries. Archaeology has to do with studying the peoples of the past through an analysis of the things they’ve left behind, ranging from the bones of Ötzi the Iceman to the pigeon nests built in a cave near Jerusalem. Paleontology is the branch of geology that focuses on the fossil record left behind by bygone organisms, including dinosaur dung. And paleoanthropology focuses on our prehistoric ancestors and theirrelationships to other species.

It’s been a busy year for archaeologists coping with the tumult that swept over Egypt and Libya … for paleontologists debating where different species fit on the org chart for extinct organisms … and for anthropologists analyzing how humans swapped DNA with heaven knows what other kinds of hominids. Here’s a quick rundown, with assists from the editors of Archaeology magazine and paleo-blogger Brian Switek.

Archaeology
The top 10 discoveries of 2011, as rated by Archaeology, include revelations about these ancient mysteries:

I would add two late-breaking stories to the mix: one about the mysterious markings on the floor of an ancient complex in Jerusalem, and another about long-hidden 16-foot-wide pits in the ground near Stonehenge.

Paleontology
I asked Switek to help me sort through the year’s top stories in paleontology, and he was kind enough to send this recap:

“Last year the big news was that paleontologists had restored the colors of two feathered dinosaurs. This year, there doesn’t seem to be any major story that competes. But that’s not to say that nothing significant happened in 2011. Here’s a rundown of what I thought was interesting and important.

“Dinosaur growth: Over the past few years, paleontologists have been tussling over how many dinosaur species we have collected so far. The great Triceratops-Torosaurus debate of 2010 really brought this ongoing argument into focus, and there were several 2011 papers which continued the conversation. Early in the year paleontologist Andy Farkecriticized the ‘Torosaurus as Triceratops’ hypothesis, and a reply to his reply has just appeared. Likewise, paleontologists suggested that the hadrosaur Anatotitan and the tyrannosaur Raptorex were really just growth stages of already-known dinosaurs (the latter being similar to Tarbosaurus, a juvenile of which was also described this year).” [Here’s another take on the tussle over Triceratops.]

“Dinosaur senses: Two big papers – published at about the same time – probed dinosaur senses. One focused on smell, and the other vision. Studies like these represent our broadening understanding of dinosaur biology. It’s not all about naming new species.” [Learn more about thesmell and night vision research]

“Archaeopteryx: This year marked the 150th anniversary of when Archaeopteryx was discovered. The year has been full of ups and downs. Even though an 11th specimen of the feathered dinosaur was announced,a ballyhooed paper proposed that the creature was not an early bird but rather a non-avian dinosaur more distantly related to the first birds.”[Here’s more ballyhoo about the claim that Archaeopteryx wasn’t a bird.]

“New species: New dinosaurs are named just about every week, but there were at least two that caught my eye. One was Brontomerus – a sauropod whose name translates to “thunder thighs” – andTeratophoneus, a short-snouted tyrannosaur. (I just realized that both were found in Utah, though, so perhaps I have a bias for my adoptive state!)” [Learn more about “Thunder Thighs” as well as other ancient wonders in Utah.]

“Other paleo: I usually don’t cover the really big stories – I like to root around for tales no one is telling – but a few studies from this year got my attention.”

• Plesiosaurs gave birth to live young
• Marsupial “wolf” hunted more like a cat
• Late-surviving predator was similar to those that swam the Cambrian
• Earliest saber-toothed herbivore found
• Ammonoids trapped parasites in pearls
• Cache of fossil feathers found in amber
• Woolly and Columbian mammoths may have interbred

Paleoanthropology
To round out this big list, here are a few of the tales of human ancestors that caught my eye over the past year:

That’s more than 30 tales of ancient mysteries to ponder

from:    http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/15/9478098-top-ancient-mysteries-of-2011

Crusader’s Arabic Inscription Translated

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Crusader’s Arabic Inscription No Longer Lost in Translation

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Date: 14 November 2011 Time: 06:24 PM ET
christian crusader's arabic inscription engraved in marble
The 800-year-old inscription was created with special Arabi characters, making it tricky to translate.
CREDIT: courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

A rare Arabic inscription from the Crusades has been deciphered, with scientists finding the marble slab bears the name of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, a colorful Christian ruler known for his tolerance of the Muslim world.

Part of the inscription reads: “1229 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.”

The 800-year-old inscription was fixed years ago in the wall of a building in Tel Aviv, though the researchers think it originally sat in Jaffa’s city wall. To date, no other Crusader inscription in the Arabic language has been found in the Middle East.

“He was a Christian king who came from Sicily, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and he wrote his inscription in Arabic,” said Moshe Sharon, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, adding that it would be like the U.S. president traveling to a region and leaving an inscription in that area’s language.

Tricky translation

Until now, others who had examined the inscription had suggested it came from a 19th-century gravestone, not realizing the date in the last line referred to the Christian calendar, according to Sharon.

“It’s not so easy to read Arabic inscriptions, and particularly this one, which was written in an unusual script, and it is on stone and it is 800 years old,” Sharon said of the difficulty in translating the engraving.

Though Frederick II, who was known to have a deep familiarity with Arabic, may not have directly engraved the stone, “it was written by an artist and this artist decided to create a special script for this royal inscription and it took us a very long time until we were able to find out that, in fact, we were reading a Christian inscription,” Sharon said during a telephone interview.

Sharon and Hebrew University colleague Ami Shrager are preparing to submit a manuscript describing the work to the scientific journal Crusades.

“The emperor gives his name, and he lists all the countries in which he rules, which is not usual in inscriptions, although we find it in literary sources,” Sharon said.

A peaceful crusader

The Crusades were religious wars whose goal was to restore Christianity to holy places in and near Jerusalem, with the First Crusade beginning in 1095 and the Seventh and Eighth Crusades ending in 1291.

Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade, and succeeded without resorting to violence, it seems.

“Basically, the emperor went as a crusader to the Holy Land in 1228 in order to conquer that part of the Holy Land,” Sharon told LiveScience, “but instead of fighting they discussed things and in the end of the story the sultan of Egypt ceded to the emperor all these territories including the city of Jerusalem, which was fantastically unusual.”

Before signing the agreement, the emperor fortified the castle of Jaffa, and, it now appears, left in its walls two inscriptions, one in Latin and the other in Arabic. The small bit of the Latin inscription that remains was previously attributed to Frederick II, Sharon said.

In the Arabic inscription, Frederick II refers to himself as the king of Jerusalem, suggesting that although Pope Gregory IX had excommunicated him for not starting the Crusade earlier, Frederick II came to power with consent from the sultan, Sharon said.

“It was all diplomacy, which is very interesting,” Sharon said, adding, “Although he got the home of Jerusalem, what he didn’t get or want was a temple mount, he thought it was a Muslim sanctuary and should remain in the Muslim hands.”

As for Frederick II’s colorful personality, Sharon said that in addition to opening a zoo and a university, the ruler had a harem that included a Muslim woman.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17027-crusader-arabic-inscription-translated.html

Record of Ancient Pilgrimages Found

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Long Pilgrimages Revealed in Ancient Sudan Art

Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 03 November 2011 Time: 08:33 AM ET
Banganarti Upper Church
A 3-D reconstruction of the upper church at Banganarti. Built almost 1,000 years ago this medieval church was one of two that archaeologists excavated at the site.
CREDIT: Bogdan Zurawski

Excavations of a series of medieval churches in central Sudan have revealed a treasure trove of art, including a European-influenced work, along with evidence of journeys undertaken by travelers from western Europe that were equivalent to the distance between New York City and the Grand Canyon.

A visit by a Catalonian man named Benesec is recorded in one of the churches, along with visits from other pilgrims of the Middle Ages, according to lead researcher Bogdan Zurawski of the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The discoveries were made at Banganarti and Selib, two sites along the Nile that were part of Makuria, a Christian kingdom ruled by a dynasty of kings throughout the Middle Ages

The art there tells stories of kings, saints, pilgrims and even a female demon, said Zurawski, who presented his findings recently at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Inside medieval churches

Zurawski said the most recent of the churches uncovered in Banganarti, built nearly 1,000 years ago, is unique. “It has no parallel in Nubia and elsewhere,” he said. [See images of Banganarti church discoveries]

The church contains 18 square rooms, two staircases and, at its center, a domed area that probably contained holy relics. The team believes the building was dedicated to the archangel Raphael and was used for healing rituals. “The multitude of inscriptions addressed to this archangel are more than suggestive” that the church was dedicated to him, Zurawski said.

Beneath this building lies a structure, built about 300 years earlier, which also appears to have been dedicated to Raphael. This lower church, as the archaeologists refer to it, contains a ninth-century mural depicting “the Harrowing of Hell,” which shows Jesus visiting the underworld to rescue the firstborn. [See images of the lower church]

A Catalonian journey

The team uncovered numerous inscriptions at the two sites, many left by pilgrims visiting the churches in hopes of being healed.

One of the inscriptions at Banganartiis written in Catalonian and appears to have been inscribed sometime in the 13th or 14th century by the man named Benesec. It reads: “When Benesec came to pay homage to Raphael.”

Banganarti Lower Church
In addition to the monograms of Raphael, a prayer to the archangel, written by a King Zacharias, was found inscribed in the ruins near Banganarti.
CREDIT: Bogdan Zurawski

Zurawski told LiveScience that “Benesec” was a very popular name in 13th- and 14th-century southern France. This particular Benesec had probably traveled some 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from southern France or northern Spain.  The journey took him east across the Mediterranean Sea and far up the Nile into the interior of Africa.

The inscription and a Catalonian playing card found downriver by another team, which may or may not have been left by Benesec, were the only traces found of these visitors from Europe.

Zurawski said Benesec may have been a trader who, along with other Catalonians, received permission from the Mamluk rulers of Egypt to pass through their territory. “The Catalonians were granted trade privileges, trade rights, to exchange goods and to trade with Egypt, and apparently they also came to Nubia,” he said

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/16854-sudan-yields-medieval-art-signs-long-pilgrimages.html

 

 

Original Language as Yoda-Talk

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The Original Human Language Like Yoda Sounded
Natalie Wolchover, Life’s Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Date: 13 October 2011 Time: 04:08 PM ET
Yoda credit: Lucasfilm. Background credit: Gunawan Kartapranata | Creative Commons

Many linguists believe all human languages derived from a single tongue spoken in East Africa around 50,000 years ago. They’ve found clues scattered throughout the vocabularies and grammars of the world as to how that original “proto-human language” might have sounded. New research suggests that it sounded somewhat like the speech of Yoda, the tiny green Jedi from “Star Wars.”

There are various word orders used in the languages of the world. Some, like English, use subject-verb-object (SVO) ordering, as in the sentence “I like you.” Others, such as Latin, use subject-object-verb (SOV) ordering, as in “I you like.” In rare cases, OSV, OVS, VOS and VSO are used. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Merritt Ruhlen and Murray Gell-Mann, co-directors of the Santa Fe Institute Program on the Evolution of Human Languages, argue that the original language used SOV ordering (“I you like”).

“This language would have been spoken by a small East African population who seemingly invented fully modern language and then spread around the world, replacing everyone else,” Ruhlen told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience

The researchers came to their conclusion after creating a language family tree, which shows the historical relationships between all the languages of the world. For example, all the Romance languages (Italian, Rumanian, French, Spanish) derive from Latin, which was spoken in Rome 2,000 years ago; that Latin family is itself a branch of an even larger tree, whose other branches include Germanic, Slavic, Greek, Indic and others. Together, all those languages make up the Indo-European language family, which fits like a puzzle piece with all the other language families in the world. [What’s the Hardest Language to Learn?]

“These families — all families — are identified by finding words in a set of languages that are similar to each other but not found elsewhere,” Ruhlen explained in an email.

In the language family tree, Ruhlen and Gell-Mann discovered a distinct pattern in how word orders change as languages branch off from their mother tongues. “What we found was that the distribution of the six possible word orders did not vary randomly. … Rather, the distribution of these six types was highly structured, and the paths of linguistic change in word order were clear,” Ruhlen said.

Out of the 2,000 modern languages that fit in the family tree, the researchers found that more than half are SOV languages. The ones that are SVO, OVS and OSV all derive directly from SOV languages — never the other way around. For example, French, which is SVO, derives from Latin, which is SOV.

Furthermore, languages that are VSO and VOS always derive from SVO languages. Thus, all languages descend from an original SOV word order  –  “which leads to the conclusion that the word order in the language from which all modern languages derive must have been SOV,” Ruhlen wrote.

Was it just an accident that the mother of all mother tongues was probably SOV, rather than one of the other five possibilities? The researchers think not. Predating Ruhlen’s and Gell-Mann’s work, Tom Givon, a linguist at the University of Oregon, argued that SOV had to have been the first word order, based on how children learn language. He found that the SOV word ordering seems to come most naturally to humans.

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/16541-original-human-language-yoda-sounded.html

Celtic “Stonehenge” in Germany

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Early Celtic ‘Stonehenge’ Discovered in Germany’s Black Forest

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2011) — A huge early Celtic calendar construction has been discovered in the royal tomb of Magdalenenberg, nearby Villingen-Schwenningen in Germany’s Black Forest. This discovery was made by researchers at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum at Mainz in Germany when they evaluated old excavation plans. The order of the burials around the central royal tomb fits exactly with the sky constellations of the Northern hemisphere.

Whereas Stonehenge was orientated towards the sun, the more then 100 meter width burial mound of Magdalenenberg was focused towards the moon. The builders positioned long rows of wooden posts in the burial mound to be able to focus on the Lunar Standstills. These Lunar Standstills happen every 18,6 year and were the ‘corner stones’ of the Celtic calendar.

The position of the burials at Magdeleneberg represents a constellation pattern which can be seen between Midwinter and Midsummer. With the help of special computer programs, Dr. Allard Mees, researcher at the Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseum, could reconstruct the position of the sky constellations in the early Celtic period and following from that those which were visible at Midsummer. This archaeo-astronomic research resulted in a date of Midsummer 618 BC, which makes it the earliest and most complete example of a Celtic calendar focused on the moon.

Julius Caesar reported in his war commentaries about the moon based calendar of the Celtic culture. Following his conquest of Gaul and the destruction of the Gallic culture, these types of calendar were completely forgotten in Europe. With the Romans, a sun based calendar was adopted throughout Europe. The full dimensions of the lost Celtic calendar system have now come to light again in the monumental burial mound of Magdalenenberg.

from:    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111011074624.htm

New Minister of Antiquities in Egypt

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New antiquities head, new plan, protestors satisfied
The newly appointed secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities says he will meet protestors’ demands, promises reform
Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 2 Oct 2011
Today, in his first day in office, newly appointed Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Mostafa Amine met with protestors camped in front of the SCA’s Abassiya building for four days.

Amine told Ahram Online that he told protestors that he agreed with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to immediately resolve their problems and to appoint all temporary staff who have spent more than three years working at SCA.

As a first step, he asserted, 4065 temporary employees will be immediately appointed to be followed by more appointments until the almost 12,000 temporary employees are all made permanent. The protestors were convinced and promised to end their protest.

But what about fresh graduates?

Amine responded that for the time being it is impossible to hire new graduates as “We have to appoint the temporary staff first, as they have priority.” “They are among the SCA’s staff and its office echelon,” Amine pointed out, asserting, “I have to first fix the conditions of the SCA’s temporary staff and then see about outsiders.”

Amine said the delay in appointing the temporary staff is not the fault of the SCA’s last secretary general, but rather is the fault of the previous government. Even the 4065 temporary employees that former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass had approved appointing were not appointed due to government reluctance amid fears that other ministries would ask for the appointment of their temporary staff.

Amine also met top SCA officials and listened to their complaints. He informed them of the details of his meeting with Sharaf in an attempt to open a new page with them and other SCA staff. “I am the son of the SCA and all the staff are my colleagues,” Amine said.

Asked about the fate of Egypt’s ancient monuments under his tenure, given his specialty in Islamic and Coptic monuments, Amine assured that his training would not be an obstacle to caring for ancient Egyptian monuments. “My duty is to preserve Egypt’s antiquities, whether Islamic, Coptic, Jewish and Pharaonic,” Amine confirmed.

Amine told Ahram Online that he wants some time to reorganise the SCA and its administrative and archaeological works, but he promises to complete the SCA’s mega projects such as the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC), as well as removing all encroachment at Al-Muizz Street and at Sphinxes Avenue in Luxor in order to reopen it soon.

Amine said that his first decisions as SCA secretary general were to appoint former secretary general Mohamed Abdel Fatah as the head of the NMEC Supreme Committee, and Adel Abdel Satar to head the Islamic and Coptic Antiquities Department. Amine was formerly head of that department.

for more, go to:    http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContent/9/40/23109/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/New-antiquities-head,-new-plan,-protestors-satisfi.aspx

 

Earliest Christian Engraving Has Pagan Elements

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World’s Earliest Christian Engraving Shows Surprising Pagan Elements

Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 30 September 2011 Time: 10:09 AM ET
museum holding the earliest christian inscription
Scholars have identified what appears to be the world’s earliest Christian inscription, dating to the second century. It is in the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome which could not release an image at press time. Also shown, examples of other early Christian inscriptions, copied in 1880.
CREDIT: Left: © Zach123 | Dreamstime.com; Right: Christian Archaeology, Charles Wesley Bennett

Researchers have identified what is believed to be the world’s earliest surviving Christian inscription, shedding light on an ancient sect that followed the teachings of a second-century philosopher named Valentinus.

Officially called NCE 156, the inscription is written in Greek and is dated to the latter half of the second century, a time when the Roman Empire was at the height of its power.

An inscription is an artifact containing writing that is carved on stone. The only other written Christian remains that survive from that time period are fragments of papyri that quote part of the gospels and are written in ink. Stone inscriptions are more durable than papyri and are easier to display. NCE 156 also doesn’t quote the gospels directly, instead its inscription alludes to Christian beliefs.

“If it is in fact a second-century inscription, as I think it probably is, it is about the earliest Christian material object that we possess,” study researcher Gregory Snyder, of Davidson College in North Carolina, told LiveScience.

Snyder, who detailed the finding in the most recent issue of the Journal of Early Christian Studies, believes it to be a funeral epigram, incorporating both Christian and pagan elements. His work caps 50 years of research done by multiple scholars, much of it in Italian. The inscription is in the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

“Assuming that Professor Snyder is right, it’s clearly the earliest identifiable Christian inscription,” said Paul McKechnie, a professor of ancient history at Macquarie University in Australia, who has also studied the inscription.

As translated by Snyder, the inscription reads:

To my bath, the brothers of the bridal chamber carry the torches,
[here] in our halls, they hunger for the [true] banquets,
even while praising the Father and glorifying the Son.
There [with the Father and the Son] is the only spring and source of truth.

Details on the provenance of the inscription are sketchy. It was first published in 1953 by Luigi Moretti in the “Bullettino della commissione archeologica comunale di Roma,” an Italian archaeological journal published annually.

The only reference to where it was found is a note scribbled on a squeeze (a paper impression) of the inscription, Snyder said. According to that note, it was found in the suburbs of Rome near Tor Fiscale, a medieval tower. In ancient times, the location of the tower would have been near mile four of a roadway called the Via Latina.

How was it dated?

Margherita Guarducci, a well-known Italian epigrapher who passed away in 1999, proposed a second-century date for the inscription more than four decades ago. She argued that the way it was written, with a classical style of Greek letters, was only used in Rome during the first and second centuries.

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/16319-earliest-christian-inscription-pagan-artifacts.html

Nazca Lines in Mideast

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Visible Only From Above, Mystifying ‘Nazca Lines’ Discovered in Mideast

Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 14 September 2011 Time: 10:33 AM ET
wheel stone structure in jordan
The giant stone structures form wheel shapes with spokes often radiating inside. Here a cluster of wheels in the Azraq Oasis.
CREDIT: David D. Boyer APAAME_20080925_DDB-0237

They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.

They are the Middle East’s own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient “geolyphs,” or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.

Referred to by archaeologists as “wheels,” these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across.

“In Jordan alone we’ve got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older,” said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia.

Kennedy’s new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.

His team’s studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what meaning they held.

New Light On Human Origins

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(These kinds of things just add more questions to the whole question of origins)

African fossils put new spin on human origins story

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News

Professor Chris Stringer, with the help of a cast of a fossil skull, describes the similarities that this species has with modern humans

The ancient remains of two human-like creatures found in South Africa could change the way we view our origins.

The 1.9-million-year-old fossils were first described in 2010, and given the species nameAustralopithecus sediba.

But the team behind the discovery has now come back with a deeper analysis.

It tells Science magazine that features seen in the brain, feet, hands and pelvis of A. sediba all suggest this species was on the direct evolutionary line to us – Homo sapiens.

“We have examined the critical areas of anatomy that have been used consistently for identifying the uniqueness of human beings,” said Professor Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg

“Any one of these features could have evolved separately, but it is highly unlikely that all of them would have evolved together if A. sediba was not related to our lineage,” the team leader informed BBC News.

A. sediba hand (L.Berger/Uni of Witwatersrand)The female’s right hand is missing only a few bones

It is a big claim and, if correct, would sideline other candidates in the fossil record for which similar assertions have been made in the past.

Theory holds that modern humans can trace a line back to a creature known as Homo erectus which lived more than a million years ago. This animal, according to many palaeoanthropologists, may in turn have had its origins in more primitive hominins, as they are known, such asHomo habilis or Homo rudolfensis.

The contention now made for A. sediba is that, although older than its “rivals”, some of its anatomy and capabilities were more advanced than these younger forms. Put simply, it is a more credible ancestor for H. erectus, Berger’s team claims.

The sediba specimens were unearthed at Malapa in the famous Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, just to the northwest of Jo’burg.

to read more, go to:    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14824435