All posts by Archaeology World Team

3,000-Year-Old Inscription Found in Israel

3,000-Year-Old Inscription Found in Israel

An inscription from the time of the Biblical Judges, linked to the Book of Judges, has been discovered for the first time at Khirbat er-Ra‘i, near Kiryat Gat, during excavations.

The rare inscription bears the name ‘Jerubbaal’ in alphabetic script and dates from around 1,100 BCE. It was written in ink on a pottery vessel and found inside a storage pit that was dug into the ground and lined with stones.

The site, which is located at the Shahariya forest of the KKL-JNF, has been excavated every summer since 2015 and the current excavation season is it’s seventh.

The Jerubbaal inscription, written in ink on a pottery vessel.

The excavations are being conducted on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, under the direction of Prof. Yossef Garfinkel, Sa‘ar Ganor, Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davies.

The program is funded by Joseph B. Silver and the Nathan and Lily Silver Foundation, the Roth Families Sydney, Aron Levy, and the Roger and Susan Hartog Center for Archaeology at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology. ​

The inscription was written in ink on a jug – a small personal pottery vessel that holds approximately one litre, and may well have contained a precious liquid such as oil, perfume or medicine. Apparently, much like today, the vessel’s owner wrote his name on it to assert his ownership.

The inscription has been deciphered by epigraphic expert Christopher Rolston of George Washington University, Washington DC. It clearly shows the letters yod (broken at the top), resh, bet, ayin, lamed, and remnants of other letters indicate that the original inscription was longer.

Prof. Garfinkel and Ganor explain, “The name Jerubbaal is familiar from biblical tradition in the Book of Judges as an alternative name for the judge Gideon ben Yoash. Gideon is first mentioned as combatting idolatry by breaking the altar to Baal and cutting down the Asherah pole.

In biblical tradition, he is then remembered as triumphing over the Midianites, who used to cross over the Jordan to plunder agricultural crops.

According to the Bible, Gideon organized a small army of 300 soldiers and attacked the Midianites by night near Ma‘ayan Harod. In view of the geographical distance between the Shephelah and the Jezreel Valley, this inscription may refer to another Jerubbaal and not the Gideon of biblical tradition, although the possibility cannot be ruled out that the jug belonged to judge Gideon. In any event, the name Jerubbaal was evidently in common usage at the time of the Biblical Judges.”

Inscriptions from the period of the Judges are extremely rare and almost unparalleled in Israeli archaeology. Only a handful of inscriptions found in the past bear a number of unrelated letters. This is the first time that the name Jerubbaal has ever been found outside the Bible in an archaeological context – in a stratum dated to around 1,100 BCE, the period of the Judges. 

“As we know, there is considerable debate as to whether biblical tradition reflects reality and whether it is faithful to historical memories from the days of the Judges and the days of David,” say the archaeologists.

“The name Jerubbaal only appears in the Bible in the period of the Judges, yet now it has also been discovered in an archaeological context, in a stratum dating from this period. In a similar manner, the name Ishbaal, which is only mentioned in the Bible during the monarchy of King David, has been found in strata dated to that period at the site of Khirbat Qeiyafa.

The fact that identical names are mentioned in the Bible and also found in inscriptions recovered from archaeological excavations shows that memories were preserved and passed down through the generations.” 

The Jerubbaal inscription also contributes to our understanding of the spread of alphabetic script in the transition from the Canaanite period to the Israelite period. The alphabet was developed by the Canaanites under Egyptian influence in around 1,800 BCE, during the Middle Bronze Age. In the Late Bronze Age (1,550–1,150 BCE), only a few such inscriptions are known in Israel, most from Tel Lachish near present-day Moshav Lachish.

The Canaanite city of Lachish was probably the centre where the tradition of writing the alphabet was maintained and preserved. Canaanite Lachish was destroyed around 1,150 BCE and remained abandoned for about two centuries. Until now, there was considerable uncertainty as to where the tradition of the alphabetic script was preserved after the fall of Lachish.

The newly-discovered inscription shows that the script was preserved at Khirbat er-Ra‘i — roughly 4 km from Lachish and the largest site in the area at the time of the Judges — during the transition from the Canaanite to the Israelite and Judahite cultures.

Additional inscriptions, from the time of the monarchy (tenth century BCE onwards), have been found in the Shephelah, including two from Khirbat Qeiyafa and others from Tel es-Safi (Tel Tzafit) and Tel Bet Shemesh.

Archaeologists in Turkey Unearth 2,500-Year-Old Temple of Aphrodite

Archaeologists in Turkey Unearth 2,500-Year-Old Temple of Aphrodite

During excavations at the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos, one of Anatolia’s best-preserved Roman temples, in the western province of Mula, two 2,500-year-old marble statues and an inscription were discovered.

Archaeologists in Turkey Unearth 2,500-Year-Old Temple of Aphrodite

Built with donations in the second century B.C., the temple is located in the ancient city of Euromos.

Abuzer Kızıl, the head of the excavation committee and faculty member at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University’s Archeology Department, told the state-run Anadolu Agency on July 11 that they were currently carrying out works in the temple, agora, theatre, bath and the city walls.

Expressing that Euromos is “one of the luckiest ancient cities in Anatolia” due to its location, Kızıl said that they started to implement important projects related to the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos.

“We took approximately 250 blocks stacked on top of each other on the southern facade of the temple and moved them to the appropriate area to be used in restoration works.

We then started the excavation work, hoping that there were architectural blocks under the ground. While waiting to explore the architectural blocks, we encountered great surprises.

Two statues and an inscription were discovered under the ground. We got very excited. In fact, it excited not only us but also the world of archaeology, as here we have unearthed two very important links of the missing archaic sculpture of the Caria region and an inscription dating to the Hellenistic period,” Kızıl said.

Kızıl added that the sculptures were categorized as kouros, a modern term given to free-standing ancient Greek sculptures.

“One of the two kouros unearthed at Euromos is naked while the other is wearing armour and a short skirt. The armour is made of leather, and it is remarkable to see that both statues have a lion in their hands. Ichnographically, the lion has great significance; we have not been able to find exact copies of either of the statues so far,” Kızıl said.

The naked statue with a lion in his hand indicates that it is most likely to be Apollo.

Kızıl said the inscription from the Hellenistic period was expected to reveal important insights on the Carian history, and efforts to decipher it were ongoing.

Pointing out that temples and artefacts are the common heritage of humanity, Kızıl said their primary goal was to restore the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos to its former glory.

Oldest known cosmetics found in ceramic bottles on Balkan Peninsula

Oldest known cosmetics found in ceramic bottles on Balkan Peninsula

Three researchers from the Center for Preventive Archeology in Germany and the Slovenian Institute for Cultural Heritage Conservation at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen have found evidence of the oldest known cosmetic use at the Balkan excavation site.

In their paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Report, Bine Kramberger, Christoph Berthold, and Cynthianne Spiteri describe ceramic bottles containing cosmetics and what’s inside them.

In 2014, team member Bine Kramberger discovered a small one Bottle At the excavation site of Zgornje Radvanje in Slovenia. Shortly thereafter, other bargains found similar bottles.

Oldest known cosmetics found in ceramic bottles on Balkan Peninsula
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Over the next few years, more than 100 bottles have been discovered in the area.

The first review of the bottle suggested that it was some kind of children’s toy, or perhaps a medicine bottle, due to its small size. I also found that the handle of the bottle had a hole.

This suggests that the bottle was hanging around the waist or perhaps the neck. In this new initiative, researchers scrutinized the inside of some bottles to learn more about what they might have once had.

A close examination of more than a dozen bottles revealed traces of cerussite, also known as “white lead” or carbonite. It has been found in various containers from multiple locations around the world throughout history.

It was even used in modern paints until it turned out to be addictive to children who consumed it.

Researchers also note that many of the small bottles were found nearby in elongated stone tools. This could be an extractor.

The team also found small pieces of animal fat, beeswax, and vegetable oil in the bottle. All signs of material intended for application to the skin.

The bottle dates from 4350 to 4100 BC and is evidence of Europe’s oldest known cosmetic use. It also lags behind the use of cosmetics in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The bottle is believed to have been created and used by a Neolithic hunter-gatherer known as Rasinja.

First Human Traces Buried in an Ancient Gold Mine in Eastern Sahara

First Human Traces Buried in an Ancient Gold Mine in Eastern Sahara

In an ancient gold mine in the Eastern Sahara, some of the earliest evidence of human existence going back 1.8 million years have been unearthed. Archaeologists from the University of Wroclaw discovered a cache of artefacts from the African variety of Homo erectus, the ancestor of humans (Homo sapiens), around 70 kilometres east of Atbara.

Included among the hundreds of artefacts were massive, almond-shaped cleavers resembling fists, weighing several kilograms, and with chipped edges on both sides forming a pointed tip at the junction.

“In the eastern part of Sudan, in the Eastern Desert, like in many places in the Sahara, a gold rush broke out. People were looking for this valuable ore in makeshift, open-cast mines. While exposing subsequent layers, miners came across several-hundred-thousand-year-old tools.”

By examining layers of soil and sand above the objects using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) method the archaeologists were able to determine the age of the tools. 

Research project leader Professor Mirosław Masojć from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Wrocław said: “It turned out that they were about 390,000 years old.

Archaeologists excavated several undisturbed areas within the abandoned gold mine in Sahara and found hundreds of ancient tools.

This means that the layers below are certainly older. Based on the workmanship, I believe that the tools may be over 700,000 years old, perhaps even a million years old, like their counterparts discovered further in the south of Africa.”

Previously, Professor Masojć’s team previously had discovered hand axes and other tools, but never ones that were technologically so close to those from equatorial Africa, or that old. 

It is now thought that in the place where the artefacts were discovered, there used to be a workshop where tools were made because both finished ‘products, as well as flakes formed during their production, have been preserved.

Masojć added that these are the oldest known human creations with such a well-confirmed chronology from Egypt and Sudan. He said: “Ancient tools are found in deserts, but never before have they come from layers that would allow to safely determine their age.”

So far, researchers have found nearly 200 sites where Palaeolithic stone products have been preserved. Some of them are in mines (these are located about 350 km north of Khartoum).

Quartzite unidirectional cores from the mine. Credit: Mirosław Masojć

They find all sorts of tools used by both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. The age of the tools varies greatly, from over half a million to 60,000 years.

Masojć said it cannot be ruled out that there are even older artefacts in the deeper parts of the mines, but added that accessing them is currently difficult.

He said: “The last research season took place at the end of 2019 when the political situation was very tense, and ultimately there was a coup in Sudan and the long-standing regime was overthrown.

The work was very difficult in terms of logistics: there were fuel shortages, we had to avoid protests, people were dying.”

Researchers from Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Germany and the US were involved in the project financed by the National Science Centre. The research results have just been published in the prestigious journal Plos One

Climate changed the size of our bodies and, to some extent, our brains

Climate changed the size of our bodies and, to some extent, our brains

An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by the Universities of Cambridge and Tübingen, has gathered measurements of body and brain size for over 300 fossils from the genus Homo found across the globe.

By combining this data with a reconstruction of the world’s regional climates over the last million years, they have pinpointed the specific climate experienced by each fossil when it was a living human.

The study reveals that the average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years, with larger bodies evolving in colder regions.

Skulls: Left: Amud 1, Neanderthal, 55.000 years ago, ~1750 cm³, Middle: Cro Magnon, Homo sapiens, 32.000 years ago, ~1570 cm³, Right: Atapuerca 5, Middle Pleistocene Homo, 430.000 years ago, ~1100 cm³. Femora: Top: Middle Pleistocene Homo, Trinil, 540.000 years ago, ~50 kg- Bottom: Neanderthal, La Ferrassie 1, 44.000 years ago, ~90 kg.

Larger size is thought to act as a buffer against colder temperatures: less heat is lost from a body when its mass is large relative to its surface area. The results are published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Our species, Homo sapiens, emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa. The genus Homo has existed for much longer and includes the Neanderthals and other extinct, related species such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

A defining trait of the evolution of our genus is a trend of increasing body and brain size; compared to earlier species such as Homo habilis, we are 50% heavier and our brains are three times larger. But the drivers behind such changes remain highly debated.

“Our study indicates that climate—particularly temperature—has been the main driver of changes in body size for the past million years,” said Professor Andrea Manica, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology who led the study.

He added: “We can see from people living today that those in warmer climates tend to be smaller, and those living in colder climates tend to be bigger. We now know that the same climatic influences have been at work for the last million years.”

The researchers also looked at the effect of environmental factors on brain size in the genus Homo, but correlations were generally weak.

Brain size tended to be larger when Homo was living in habitats with less vegetation, like open steppes and grasslands, but also in ecologically more stable areas. In combination with archaeological data, the results suggest that people living in these habitats hunted large animals as food—a complex task that might have driven the evolution of larger brains.

“We found that different factors determine brain size and body size—they’re not under the same evolutionary pressures. The environment has a much greater influence on our body size than our brain size,” said Dr. Manuel Will at the University of Tubingen, Germany, the first author of the study.

He added: “There is an indirect environmental influence on brain size in more stable and open areas: the amount of nutrients gained from the environment had to be sufficient to allow for the maintenance and growth of our large and particularly energy-demanding brains.”

This research also suggests that non-environmental factors were more important for driving larger brains than climate, prime candidates being the added cognitive challenges of increasingly complex social lives, more diverse diets, and more sophisticated technology.

The researchers say there is good evidence that the human body and brain size continue to evolve. The human physique is still adapting to different temperatures, with on average larger-bodied people living in colder climates today.

Brain size in our species appears to have been shrinking since the beginning of the Holocene (around 11,650 years ago). The increasing dependence on technology, such as outsourcing of complex tasks to computers, may cause brains to shrink even more over the next few thousand years.

“It’s fun to speculate about what will happen to body and brain sizes in the future, but we should be careful not to extrapolate too much based on the last million years because so many factors can change,” said Manica.

Ancient ostrich eggshell reveals new evidence of extreme climate change thousands of years ago

Ancient ostrich eggshell reveals new evidence of extreme climate change thousands of years ago

Evidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors.

The research shows parts of the interior of South Africa that today are dry and sparsely populated, were once wetland and grassland 250,000 to 350,000 years ago, at a key time in human evolution.

Philip Kiberd and Dr Alex Pryor, from the University of Exeter, studied isotopes and the amino acid from ostrich eggshell fragments excavated at the early Middle Stone Age site of Bundu Farm, in the upper Karoo region of the Northern Cape.

It is one of very few archaeological sites dated to 250,000 to 350,000 in southern Africa, a time period associated with the earliest appearance of communities with the genetic signatures of Homo sapiens.

This new research supports other evidence, from fossil animal bones, that past communities in the region lived among grazing herds of wildebeest, zebra, small antelope, hippos, baboons and extinct species of Megalotragus priscus and Equus capensis, and hunted these alongside other carnivores, hyena and lions.

After this period of equitable climate and environment the eggshell evidence — and previous finds from the site — suggests after 200,000 years ago cooler and wetter climates gave way to increasing aridity. A process of changing wet and dry climates recognised as driving the turnover and evolution of species, including Homo sapiens.

The study, published in the South African Archaeological Bulletin, shows that extracting isotopic data from ostrich eggshells, which are commonly found on archaeological sites in southern Africa, is a viable option for open-air sites greater than 200,000 years old.

The technique which involves grinding a small part of the eggshell, to a powder allows experts to analyse and date the shell, which in turn gives a fix on the climate and environment in the past.

Mandible of small antelope in calcrete.

Using eggshells to investigate past climates is possible as ostriches eat the freshest leaves of shrubs and grasses available in their environment, meaning eggshell composition reflects their diet.

As eggs are laid in the breeding season across a short window, the information found in ostrich eggshells provides a picture of the prevailing environment and climate for a precise period in time.

Bundu Farm, where the eggshell was recovered is a remote farm 50km from the nearest small town, sitting within a dry semi-desert environment, which supports a small flock of sheep.

The site was first excavated in the late 1990s the site with material stored at the McGregor Museum, Kimberley (MMK). The study helps fill a gap in our knowledge for this part of South Africa and firmly puts the Bundu Farm site on the map.

Philip Kiberd, who led the study, said: “This part of South Africa is now extremely arid, but thousands of years ago it would have been Eden-like landscape with lakes and rivers and abundant species of flora and fauna.

Our analysis of the ostrich eggshell helps us to better understand the environments in which our ancestors were evolving and provides an important context in which to interpret the behaviours and adaptations of people in the past and how this ultimately led to the evolution of our species.

Fossil hunters uncover complete 252 million-year-old underwater world

Fossil hunters uncover complete 252 Million year-old underwater world

Fossil hunters have uncovered the remains of an ancient marine ecosystem that arose in the aftermath of the most devastating mass extinction in Earth’s history. The spectacular haul of 20,000 fossils from a hillside in southwestern China represents the first discovery of a complete ecosystem that bounced back afterlife was nearly wiped off the face of the planet 252m years ago.

Fossil hunters uncover complete 252 Million year-old underwater world
This Ichthyosaur fossil was one of more than 20,000 that were recently uncovered in Luoping, China.

The beautifully preserved remains include molluscs, sea urchins and arthropods, alongside much larger animals that occupied the top of the food chain, such as carnivorous fish and the first ichthyosaur’s, predatory marine reptiles that grew to four metres long.

Among the remnants are rare fragments of land life that survived the same period, including part of a conifer plant and the tooth of an archosaur reptile.

The fossils were excavated from rocks that formed when ocean sediments settled out and solidified many millions of years ago in what is now Luoping county in the Yunnan Province of China.

The Earth has witnessed several mass extinctions in its 4.5bn year history, but the event that struck at the end of the Permian was unequalled in scale. Some 96% of marine species and 70% of land vertebrates were lost in what has been called “the great dying”.

What caused such global havoc is still open to debate, but Michael Benton, a palaeontologist at Bristol University who led the latest research, said evidence points to prolonged and violent eruptions from the Siberian Traps, a huge region of volcanic rock.

In this scenario, mass eruptions triggered environmental catastrophe by belching an overwhelming quantity of gas into the atmosphere for half a million years.

“The main follow on was a flash warming of the Earth. That caused stagnation in the oceans, as normal circulation shut down.

On land, the consequence of all the carbon dioxide and other gases appears to have been massive acid rain that killed the forests and stripped the landscape bare,” Benton said. “This was the greatest of all mass extinctions, the time when life was most nearly completely wiped out.”

What life survived became the starting point for a recovery that played out over the next ten million years.

Some of these organisms, known as “disaster species” clung on through sheer hardiness, somehow coping with the harsh conditions of scarce food, wild variations in temperature and little oxygen in the oceans.

By studying the fossils, Benton and his colleagues at the Chengdu Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources and the University of Western Australia, hope to piece together how life can come back from the brink.

“The recovery from mass extinction touches on current concerns about biodiversity and conservation. Why do certain species go extinct? Which species come back? How do you rebuild an ecosystem and how long does it take?” said Benton. The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The Luoping fossils show that many small organisms at the bottom of the food chain came back within two to three million years. Once their populations stabilised, other creatures that could feed on them recovered, including molluscs and shellfish.

The familiar spiralled ammonites bounced back surprisingly fast. Only later did the larger predators reappear in the oceans.

The loss of so many species at the end of the Permian gave new creatures the chance to take their place. Before the mass extinction, the top ocean predators were primitive sharks. Some survived and recovered, but they were joined by the first predatory ichthyosaurs. “Part of it is a rebuilding of the ecosystem from the grim survivors, but there are also opportunities for new groups. There were essentially no marine reptiles before the extinction, but this gave them a way in,” said Benton.

Palaeontologists have unearthed other fossils that give a glimpse of life coming back from the Permian extinction, but the extensive remains at Luoping are unique in having the rich biodiversity of a fully functioning ecosystem, from the lowliest plankton to carnivorous apex predators.

Chinese scientists uncover 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles

Chinese scientists uncover 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles

Chinese scientists uncover 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles
A 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles unearthed in China is the earliest example ever found of one of the world’s most popular foods, scientists reported today. It also suggests an Asian—not Italian—origin for the staple dish.

Since 1999, when Lajia villagers are busy with the autumn harvest every autumn, it is also the time for archaeologists to actively carry out their work. For six years, Ye Maolin, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been working hard at the Lajia site.

God rewards hard work. God will also prefer people who work hard. Important research results from the Lajia site follow one after another, many of which are results. Going internationally, it has attracted worldwide attention.

On November 22, 2002, archaeologists carried out excavations on the eastern platform of the Lajia site.

This platform was very special. The hard soil surface was found in its Qijia cultural strata, which means that there used to be a lot of people collectively.

The trample is a square. In the northern part of this platform, traces of settlement sacrificial sites were once found. The work on the 22nd was just north of the platform. Cai Linhai of the Qinghai Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology unearthed an orange-red pottery bowl.

This kind of pottery bowl can be seen everywhere in the Lajia ruins. It is very common and extraordinary. When the soil in the bowl is poured, it is found to be white noodles.

The relics have been weathered, leaving only a thin skin, but the noodle-like shape remains the same, with a length of tens of centimetres. The experienced researcher Ye Maolin quickly put the noodle-like relics back into the bowl, covered the soil intact, did some simple treatments, and brought them back to Beijing.

After Ye Maolin asked researcher Lu Houyuan from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to do the ancient work. In botanical identification, researcher Lu Houyuan used a technique called plant silicate to identify this noodle-like relic.

It is indeed food noodles, but it is not noodles made with the wheat flour we use today, but with millet and a small amount. It is made of millet, figuratively speaking, it is a bowl of miscellaneous noodles.

The so-called plant silicate technology means that the roots of plants absorb silicon during the growth process. They accumulate in the tissue cells of the plant in the form of hydrated silicon and aggregate into various forms of opal minerals. This is plant silicate.

It is generally deposited in situ and can be stored for a long time. Different plant types have different plant silicates. Therefore, plant silicates can be used to distinguish plant families, genera and even species.

Experts estimate that this bowl of noodles may be used for sacrifices. It was placed at the ceremonial place in the square. When an earthquake occurred, the pottery bowl was inverted in the soil, sealing the pottery bowl and isolating the air, so the noodles were well preserved. . What a blessing! The nightmare earthquake destroyed everything but saved us a bowl of precious noodles.

This is a bowl of noodles 4000 years ago! It is the oldest noodle found in the world so far. In October 2005, the world’s authoritative scientific magazine, the British “Nature”, published the research results of Ye Maolin and Lu Houyuan. This is an affirmation of their years of hard work and a demonstration of the value of the Lajia site.

Qinghai Lajia National Archaeological Site

Talking about his work, Ye Maolin was very humble. He said this: “Over the years, there have been some new discoveries and new developments in the excavations of the Lajia site almost every year. Of course, this is mainly because the Lajia site is important.

The special burial phenomenon and the special preservation environment of China contain rich connotations and precious remains. As long as the ground is broken, special new discoveries may appear. Our work only conforms to the actual situation.”