Gaza farmer finds a 4,500-year-old statue of the Canaanite goddess
A farmer in the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture while working on his land. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said Monday that the 22-centimetre-tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat and is estimated to be dated to around 2,500 B.C.
The sculpture is 22 cm tall, made of limestone, with a head but without a body, and attached to the head was the crown of the snake, which was used by the gods as a symbol of strength and invincibility.
“Anat was the goodness of love, beauty, and war in the Canaanite mythology,” said Jamal Abu Rida, the ministry´s director, in a statement.
Anat, Anath, or Anatha is a major northwest Semitic goddess. Syria, particularly Ugarit and Mount Lebanon. Canaanites, Amorites, Egyptians (Elephantine), Libyans, and Hebrews all worshipped him.
Gaza, which was on important trade routes for ancient civilisations, is home to numerous ancient treasures
Goddess Anat of fertility, sexual love, hunting, and war. From the fertile agricultural area along the eastern Mediterranean coast, her cult spread throughout the Levant by the middle of the third millennium BC.
Her attributes vary widely among different cultures and over time, and even within particular myths. She likely heavily influenced the character of the Greek goddess Athena.
Gaza, a narrow enclave on the Mediterranean, boasts a trove of antiquities and archaeological sites as it was a major land route connecting ancient civilizations in Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia.
However, unearthed artefacts regularly vanish, and development projects are given priority over the preservation of archaeological sites.
Bulldozers working for an Egyptian-funded housing project discovered the remnants of a Roman-era tomb in January, Gaza.
Ruins of an ancient temple for Zeus unearthed in Egypt’s Sinai
Egyptian archaeologists unearthed the ruins of a temple for the ancient Greek god Zeus in the Sinai Peninsula, antiquities authorities said Monday. The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement the temple ruins were found in the Tell el-Farma archaeological site in northwestern Sinai.
Archaeologists work in the ruins of a temple for Zeus-Kasios, the ancient Greek god, at the Tell el-Farma archaeological site in the northwestern corner of the Sinai Peninsula. Tell el-Farma, also known by its ancient name Pelusium, dates back to the late Pharaonic period and was also used during Greco-Roman and Byzantine times.
Tell el-Farma, also known by its ancient name Pelusium, dates back to the late Pharaonic period and was also used during Greco-Roman and Byzantine times.
There are also remains dating to the Christian and early Islamic periods.
Archaeologists work at the Tell el-Farma archaeological site.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said archaeologists excavated the temple ruins through its entrance gate, where two huge fallen granite columns were visible. The gate was destroyed in a powerful earthquake in ancient times, he said.
Waziri said the ruins were found between the Pelusium Fort and a memorial church at the site. Archaeologists found a set of granite blocks probably used to build a staircase for worshipers to reach the temple.
Excavations at the area date back to early 1900 when French Egyptologist Jean Clédat found ancient Greek inscriptions that showed the existence of the Zeus-Kasios temple but he didn’t unearth it, according to the ministry.
Tell el-Farma, also known by its ancient name Pelusium, dates back to the late Pharaonic period and was also used during Greco-Roman and Byzantine times.
Zeus-Kasios is a conflation of Zeus, the God of the sky in ancient Greek mythology, and Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus once worshipped.
Hisham Hussein, the director of Sinai archaeological sites, said inscriptions found in the area show that Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138) renovated the temple.
He said experts will study the unearthed blocks and do a photogrammetry survey to help determine the architectural design of the temple.
The temple ruins are the latest in a series of ancient discoveries Egypt has touted in the past couple of years in the hope of attracting more tourists.
The tourism industry has been reeling from the political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The sector was also dealt further blows by the coronavirus pandemic and most recently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ancient eggshell in the Northern Cape hiding 300,000 years of history
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.
The yellow pin shows the location of Bundu Farm in 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 community 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 that 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.
A fragment of ancient ostrich shell embedded in calcrete from Bundu Farm.
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 of 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 of 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 an 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.
Oldest Gynaecological Treatment On Record Performed In Ancient Egypt 4,000 Years Ago
In their latest research, scientists have come across a treatment practice in a mummy from 4000 years ago, as written in ancient Egyptian medical papyri. This treatment has been recorded as the first gynaecological treatment to date.
Scientists from the Universities of Granada and Jaén examined the physical evidence found in the mummified remains of a woman who suffered severe trauma in the pelvis and link them to a treatment described in Egyptian medical papyri of the time.
During the Qubbet al-Hawa Project, led by the University of Jaén (UJA) in Aswan (Egypt), in which scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) participated, researchers reported on a woman living in ancient Egypt who on a woman who died approximately in 1878-1797 BC and They found evidence of the oldest gynaecological treatment in the record.
During the 2017 archaeological excavations in Qubbet al-Hawa on the west bank of the Nile River, Andalusian researchers found a vertical shaft dug into the rock in tomb number QH34, which also opened the door to a burial chamber with ten sturdy skeletons.
Mummification techniques were not very effective in this region in upper Egypt. However, individuals buried there often belonged to the upper classes of society, which meant special attention should be paid to them. These particular mummies were wrapped in thick linen strips and very well preserved.
Professor Miguel Botella said, “mummies had grave gifts with different types of necklaces and masks on their faces, placed in two interlocking rectangular sarcophagi. It had hieroglyphic inscriptions, but it was badly damaged by the termite infestation. “she said.
Observed fracture in the groin.
One of the mummies excavated by the team of anthropologists was perhaps the last mummy buried in the room.
The remains of the outer coffin belonged to a high social class woman, whose name was Sattgen. This woman, named Sattgeni A, is a name widely used among the upper classes of the region, so it can be thought that an adverb is added.
The researchers found a ceramic bowl with signs of use, containing burnt organic debris, between her bandaged legs, in the lower part of the pelvis, and under the linen dressings.
Analysis of the skeletal remains was carried out by a team of anthropologists from the UGR (coordinated by Professor Botella) and confirmed that the woman had survived a severe fracture in her pelvis, possibly due to a fall that caused severe pain.
As written in medical papyri that describe the solutions for gynaecological problems, it is highly likely that the woman will be treated with fumigation to relieve these pains.
UJA Egyptologist and Qubbet al-Hawa Project manager Dr. Alejandro Jimenez,” The most interesting feature of the discovery made by researchers from the University of Jaén is not only the documentation of palliative gynaecological treatment that is quite unique in Egyptian archaeology, but also that this type of fumigation therapy is defined in the contemporary medical literature.
But until now, no evidence could not be found to prove that such a treatment was actually applied” saying he expressed the importance of the research conducted.
‘Garbage dump’ discovered in ancient Egyptian tomb dedicated to the fertility goddess
Figurines of deities and priests as well as vessels with a breast motif are among several hundred items discovered by archaeologists at an ancient garbage dump in Egypt.
Polish researchers at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor in the south of the country, came across the extraordinary find while working on the reconstruction of the 3,500-year-old Chapel of the Goddess Hathor.
Exploring a tomb carved into the rock face, the team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology first came across the rubbish dump.
Hundreds of artefacts once used as offerings to the ancient Egyptian goddess of love and fertility have been uncovered in a 3,500-year-old garbage dump in Luxor.
Head of research Dr. Patryk Chudzik said: “We were concerned that our work could lead to the collapse of the tomb ceiling, which is why we wanted to secure it.
“After entering we found that it had never been studied and cleaned because the debris stacked up to a height of about half a meter.”
Buried within the rubble they came across the ancient artefacts.
Chudzik said: “The amount and quality of the artefacts we have found is astounding. They include a wooden figurine most likely depicting the owner of the tomb with a wig on his head.”
The trove of artefacts includes figurines painted a stunning blue color, along with cups, decorative plates, bowls and ceramic flasks with breast designs.
Other items discovered included dozens of women figurines, as well as ceramic flasks with breast motifs and floral patterns symbolising the rebirth of the Land of the Dead, and cow figurines from the early 18th dynasty, the period of the New Kingdom.
According to Dr. Chudzik, these were offerings to the Egyptian Goddess Hathor.
He said: “The offerings were made by local residents asking Hathor for support. After a while, there were too many of them and priests and temple staff had to clear them.
“We have already known a few places right at the temple entrance gates, where they were disposed of. Now we have discovered another, previously unknown place.”
The tomb was originally discovered in the late 19th century by Professor Henri Édouard Naville. However, the information he published about it was quite scarce. The researcher mentioned the rubble filling the tomb, but did not mention any excavations conducted in this place.
Archaeologists from an American expedition working at the Temple of Hatshepsut in the 1920s also missed this precious rubble.
It appears that the rubble with votive offerings to Hathor remained intact since the time of the deposit, almost 3,500 years ago.
The pile of rubble was also determined to be 500 years older than the Temple of Hatshepsut. Pictured is a figurine uncovered from the trash pile
The trash pile was discovered when researchers were reconstructing a tomb inside the Temple of Hatshepsut. Pictured is a piece of the tomb wall
Polish researchers have been working at the Temple of Hatshepsut since 1961 when Professor Kazimierz Michałowski founded Polish-Egyptian Archaeology and Conservation Expedition.
Since then, archaeologists, restorers and architects associated with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology have been working on documentation and reconstruction of the temple. Currently, their efforts are focused on rebuilding the Hathor shrine. Partly underneath it, there is a tomb carved the rock, which they recently explored.
Figurines of deities and priests as well as vessels with a breast motif are among several hundred items discovered by archaeologists at an ancient garbage dump in Egypt.
The tomb is carved in the rock. It consists of a passage more than 15 meters long which leads to a chamber with a recess in the stone floor where the coffin with the body of the owner of the tomb was originally placed.
The discovery was made and research carried out in the spring of 2021. This season, the experts intend to support the ceiling of the tomb to enable reconstruction work in the Hathor shrine located above it.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient pottery workshop — with the remains of rounded vessels, coins, figurines and even a ‘ritual room’ — dating to the beginning of the Roman period in Tabba Matouh, West Alexandria.
Archaeologists discovered a number of fragments of terracotta statues at the site in Alexandria.
Ancient workers primarily used the site for crafting amphorae — two-handed vessels with a neck narrower than the main body that was used for the storage and transportation of goods such as oil and grain, according to the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Center.
Archaeologists with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities discovered a number of buildings at the site, including a workshop containing a group of kilns.
During the Byzantine era (A.D. 330 to 1453), long after ceramic production ended at the site, the buildings were likely used for another purpose: lime production, Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.
The archaeologists also uncovered graves, with burial holes dug into the rock, suggesting the site was later used as a cemetery during the medieval period. One of the graves held the remains of a pregnant woman.
A view of the site at Tabba Matouh, west Alexandria, Egypt
The archaeologists also discovered a storage room, which contained cooking utensils and tableware. A number of limestone buildings were most likely used as temporary residences for workers at the site. One room was discovered with a raised platform and the remains of terracotta statues, suggesting it was likely used for rituals.
Some of these statues represent the god Harpocrates, the juvenile form of the falcon-headed god Horus.
Another room that had stoves and the remains of amphorae containing preserved fish bones was most likely used for cooking and selling food, according to the statement.
The site dates back to early Roman Egypt, which began in 30 B.C. following future Roman emperor Octavian’s defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Following the Roman conquest, Egypt became a highly prosperous Roman province that supplied the rest of the Roman Empire with a variety of craft-based products, including pottery.
“Pottery is the most common artefact recovered through excavation and survey of Roman sites [in ancient Egypt],” Scott Gallimore, an archaeologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada who was not involved in the new excavation, wrote in a 2010 paper for the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.
The archaeological team also unearthed a number of smaller items at the site, such as firewood, small statues, animal bones and a number of coins featuring the likeness of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, according to Heritage Daily.
An amulet of the ancient Egyptian god Bes and a feathered crown associated with Bes were also discovered. Bes was seen as the god of music, merriment and childbirth, according to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in California. Fishing hooks and the anchor of a boat were also among the items discovered.
A Massive, Black Sarcophagus Has Been Unearthed in Egypt, And Nobody Knows Who’s Inside
Archaeological digs around ancient Egyptian sites still have plenty of secrets to give up yet – like the huge, black granite sarcophagus just discovered at an excavation in the city of Alexandria, on the northern coast of Egypt.
What really stands out about the solemn-looking coffin is its size. At 185 cm (72.8 inches) tall, 265 cm (104.3 inches) long, and 165 cm (65 inches) wide, it’s the biggest ever found in Alexandria.
Oh, and then there’s the large alabaster head discovered in the same underground tomb. Experts are assuming it represents whoever is buried in the sarcophagus, though that’s yet to be confirmed.
It’s a fascinating find for archaeologists. Ayman Ashmawy from the Egypt Ministry of Antiquities says the layer of mortar still intact between the lid and the body of the coffin indicates it hasn’t been opened since it was sealed more than 2,000 years ago.
That’s particularly rare for a site like this – ancient Egyptian tombs have often been plundered and damaged over the centuries, which means archaeologists rarely find a final resting place that’s still intact like this one appears to be.
The site as a whole dates back to the Ptolemaic period between 305 BCE and 30 BCE, with this particular, find uncovered five meters (16.4 feet) below the ground.
Originally found while clearing the site for a new building, the tomb is now under guard while experts can work out what exactly lies inside the black sarcophagus. It could almost be the start of a new Indiana Jones film.
As Jason Daley at the Smithsonian reports, down the centuries Alexandria has developed to be such a busy, crowded city that finding relics can be a challenge – anything that has managed to survive is often difficult to get to.
Those are all the details we have of the new find, so we’ll have to wait and see if the identity of the buried Egyptian can be determined. But a sarcophagus of this size could mean someone of pretty high status.
We haven’t been short of incredible finds in Egypt this year.
In February, archaeologists found a hidden network of tombs south of Cairo in the Minya Governorate, which – like the giant granite sarcophagus – have probably lain untouched for 2,000 years. Experts say it’ll take them five years to work through that site.
Then in April, a rare Greco-Roman temple was found. It promises to reveal secrets about the Siwa Oasis, one of the most remote settlements in Egypt, including how foreign rule affected the country between 200-300 BCE.
Every discovery paints a little more detail about how people lived and worked in these ancient times. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this sarcophagus to see what it might reveal.
What Ancient DNA Reveals About Life in Africa 20,000 Years Ago
Kondoa Irangi rock art in present-day Tanzania features the cultural expressions of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists over a 2,000-year span.
Every person alive on the planet today is descended from people who lived as hunter-gatherers in Africa. The continent is the cradle of human origins and ingenuity, and with each new fossil and archaeological discovery, we learn more about our shared African past. Such research tends to focus on when our species, Homo sapiens, spread out to other landmasses 80,000–60,000 years ago. But what happened in Africa after that, and why don’t we know more about the people who remained?
Our new study, conducted by an interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers based in 12 countries, helps answer these questions. By sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) from people who lived as long ago as 18,000 years, we roughly doubled the age of sequenced aDNA from sub-Saharan Africa. And this genetic information helps anthropologists like us understand more about how modern humans were moving and mingling in Africa long ago.
TRACING OUR HUMAN PAST IN AFRICA
Beginning about 300,000 years ago, people in Africa who looked like us—the earliest anatomically modern humans—also started behaving in ways that seem very human. They made new kinds of stone tools and began transporting raw materials up to 250 miles, likely through trade networks. By 140,000–120,000 years ago, people made clothing from animal skins and began to decorate themselves with pierced marine shell beads.
While early innovations appeared in a patchwork fashion, a more widespread shift happened around 50,000 years ago—around the same time that people started moving into places as distant as Australia. New types of stone and bone tools became common, and people began fashioning and exchanging ostrich eggshell beads. And while most rock art in Africa is undated and badly weathered, an increase in ochre pigment at archaeological sites hints at an explosion of art.
Ostrich eggshell beads were popular trade items, tracing the reach of ancient social networks.
What caused this shift, known as the Later Stone Age transition, has been a longstanding archaeological mystery. Why would certain tools and behaviours, which up until that point had appeared in a piecemeal way across Africa, suddenly become widespread? Did it have something to do with changes in the number of people or how they interacted?
THE CHALLENGE OF ACCESSING THE DEEP PAST
Archaeologists reconstruct human behaviour in the past mainly through things people left behind—remains of their meals, tools, ornaments, and sometimes even their bodies. These records may accumulate over thousands of years, creating views of daily livelihoods that are really averaged over long periods of time. However, it’s hard to study ancient demography, or how populations changed, from the archaeological record alone.
This is where DNA can help. When combined with evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and oral and written history, scientists can piece together how people moved and interacted based on which groups share genetic similarities.
But DNA from living people can’t tell the whole story. African populations have been transformed over the past 5,000 years by the spread of herding and farming, the development of cities, ancient pandemics, and the ravages of colonialism and slavery. These processes caused some lineages to vanish and brought others together, forming new populations. Using present-day DNA to reconstruct ancient genetic landscapes is like reading a letter that was left out in the rain: Some words are there but blurred, and some are gone completely. Researchers need ancient DNA from archaeological human remains to explore human diversity in different places and times, and to understand what factors shaped it.
Unfortunately, aDNA from Africa is particularly hard to recover because the continent straddles the equator and heat and humidity degrade DNA. While the oldest aDNA from Eurasia is roughly 400,000 years old, all sequences from sub-Saharan Africa to date have been younger than around 9,000 years.
BREAKING THE “TROPICAL CEILING”
Because each person carries genetic legacies inherited from generations of their ancestors, our team was able to use DNA from individuals who lived between 18,000–and 400 years ago to explore how people interacted as far back as the last 80,000–50,000 years. This allowed us, for the first time, to test whether demographic change played a role in the Later Stone Age transition.
Our team sequenced aDNA from six individuals buried in what are now Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia. We compared these sequences to previously studied aDNA from 28 individuals buried at sites stretching from Cameroon to Ethiopia and down to South Africa. We also generated new and improved DNA data for 15 of these people, trying to extract as much information as possible from the small handful of ancient African individuals whose DNA is preserved well enough to study.
Genetic data reveals people’s movements and engagements across the Eastern African Rift Valley during the ice ages.
This created the largest genetic dataset so far for studying the population history of ancient African foragers—people who hunted, gathered, or fished. We used it to explore population structures that existed prior to the sweeping changes of the past few thousand years.
DNA WEIGHS IN ON A LONGSTANDING DEBATE
We found that people did in fact change how they moved and interacted around the Later Stone Age transition. Despite being separated by thousands of miles and years, all the ancient individuals in this study were descended from the same three populations related to ancient and present-day Eastern, Southern, and Central Africans. The presence of Eastern African ancestry as far south as Zambia, and Southern African ancestry as far north as Kenya, indicate that people were moving long distances and having children with people located far away from where they were born. The only way this population structure could have emerged is if people were moving long distances over many millennia.
Additionally, our research showed that almost all ancient Eastern Africans shared an unexpectedly high number of genetic variations with hunter-gatherers who today live in Central African rainforests, making ancient Eastern Africa truly a genetic melting pot. We could tell that this mixing and moving happened about 50,000 years ago when there was a major split in Central African forager populations.
We don’t know why people began “living locally” again. Changing environments as the last ice age peaked and waned between about 26,000 and 11,500 years ago may have made it more economical to forage closer to home, or perhaps elaborate exchange networks reduced the need for people to travel with objects. We also noted that the individuals in our study were genetically most like only their closest geographic neighbours. This tells us that around 20,000 years ago, the foragers in some African regions were almost exclusively finding their partners locally. This practice must have been extremely strong and persisted for a very long time, as our results show that some groups remained genetically independent of their neighbours over several thousand years. It was especially clear in Malawi and Zambia, where the only close relationships we detected were between people buried around the same time at the same sites.
Alternatively, new group identities may have emerged, restructuring marriage rules. If so, we would expect to see artefacts and other traditions, like rock art, diversify, with specific types clumped into different regions. Indeed, this is exactly what archaeologists find—a trend known as regionalization. Now we know that this phenomenon not only affected cultural traditions, but also the flow of genes.
NEW DATA, NEW QUESTIONS
As always, aDNA research raises as many questions as answers. Finding Central African ancestry throughout Eastern and Southern Africa prompts anthropologists to reconsider how interconnected these regions were in the distant past. This is important because Central Africa has remained archaeologically understudied, in part because of political, economic, and logistical challenges that make research there difficult.
Additionally, while genetic evidence supports a major demographic transition in Africa 50,000 years ago, we still don’t know the key drivers. Determining what triggered the Later Stone Age transition will require closer examination of regional environmental, archaeological, and genetic records to understand how this process unfolded across sub-Saharan Africa.
Finally, this study is a stark reminder that researchers still have much to learn from ancient individuals and artefacts held in African museums, and highlights the critical role of the curators who steward these collections. While some human remains in this study were recovered within the past decade, others have been in museums for a half-century.
Even though technological advances are pushing back the time limits for aDNA, it is important to remember that scientists have only just begun to understand human diversity in Africa, past and present.
