Category Archives: ASIA

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Dagger Linked to Enigmatic Indian Civilization

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Dagger Linked to Enigmatic Indian Civilization

Archaeologists working in the village of Konthagai in southern India have found a rusted iron dagger preserved in a burial urn alongside skeletal remains, the Times of India reports. The discovery is part of a major excavation effort in the state of Tamil Nadu that seeks to shine a light on the ancient Keeladi civilization.

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Dagger Linked to Enigmatic Indian Civilization
This iron dagger’s well-preserved wooden handle may help researchers date artefacts found in Konthagai.

Though the dagger’s 16-inch steel blade was rusted and broken in half, part of its wooden handle remained intact. R. Sivanandam, director of the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology, tells the Hindu that this type of weapon was used by warriors during the Sangam period, which spanned roughly the third century B.C.E. through the third century C.E.

The wood’s unusual preservation may allow researchers to precisely date the artefacts found at the site. Sivanandam says a lab in the United States will attempt to date the dagger handle.

Since the start of the digging season in February, archaeologists in Konthagai have discovered 25 burial urns. Some were filled with bones, weapons and other objects. Scientists at Madurai Kamaraj University in Tamil Nadu are conducting DNA tests on human remains.

As the Times notes, the researchers think that Konthagai was a burial site for the Keeladi civilization. Teams are also excavating ancient Keeladi sites in the villages of Agaram, Manulur and Keeladi—the place that gives the civilization its name.

Per the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology, carbon dating of artefacts dated some to as early as 580 B.C.E. The digs have yielded large numbers of cow, ox, buffalo and goat skeletons, suggesting agricultural activity by the ancient Keeladi people.

Archaeologists have also found structures with clay floors; brick walls; and post-holes, which may have held wooden poles used to support roofs. Artefacts recovered at the site show that members of the civilization played board games and inscribed letters on pottery using the Tamil-Brahmi script.

The Keeladi civilization may be linked to the famed Indus Valley, or Harappan, civilization.

Many discoveries made in the area date to around 500 B.C., when an agricultural surplus allowed people to build urban centres in what’s known as the subcontinent’s “second urbanization.” (The name reflects a contrast with the much earlier “first urbanization” of the Harappan, or Indus Valley, civilization, which began around 2500 B.C.E.) While scholars previously believed that the second urbanization happened mostly along the Central Ganges Plain in northern India, the new evidence suggests a similar phenomenon occurred in the south as well.

Sivanandam tells DT Next’s J. Praveen Paul Joseph that findings at the Keeladi sites show evidence of ancient industrial production sites. Archaeologists have found spinning and weaving tools, cloth dyeing operations, brick kilns, and ceramic workshops.

In 2019, M.C. Rajan of the Hindustan Times reported that discoveries at Keeladi suggest the community that lived there—also referred to as the Vaigai civilization after a nearby river—may have descended from the Harappan civilization. As it declined, its people may have travelled south to start new lives.

The findings also offer material evidence about the Sangam period, which is known mainly for its Tamil literature.

Based on the archaeological evidence, some researchers now say the Sangam period began earlier than previously thought, around 600 B.C.E.

T. Udayachandran, secretary of the state archaeological department, told the Hindustan Times that the civilization was “an Indigenous, well developed self-sustaining urban culture with an industry and script, indicating that the people of that era were highly literate.”

The mystery of a 300-year-old mummified ‘mermaid’ with a ‘human face’ and tail has baffled scientists

Mystery of a 300-year-old mummified ‘mermaid’ with ‘human face’ and tail has baffled scientists

Japanese scientists are probing a mysterious 12-inch creature, which was allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese island of Shikoku, between 1736 and 1741. The baffling mummified creature is now kept in a temple in the city of Asakuchi. Shaped like a mermaid, the creature has hair, teeth, nails, and a lower body with scales.

Mystery of a 300-year-old mummified 'mermaid' with 'human face' and tail has baffled scientists
It’s not yet clear how or when the mummy came to the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi.

With a grimacing face, pointed teeth, two hands, and hair on its head and brow, it has an eerily human appearance – except for its fish-like lower half.

Researchers from the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts have taken the mummy for CT scanning in a bid to unravel its secrets, as per an NYT report.

Hiroshi Kinoshita of the Okayama Folklore Society, who came up with the project, told NYT the bizarre creature could have religious significance.

“Japanese mermaids have a legend of immortality,” he added.

“It is said that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid, you will never die.”

“There is a legend in many parts of Japan that a woman accidentally ate the flesh of a mermaid and lived for 800 years.”

“This ‘Yao-Bikuni’ legend is also preserved near the temple where the mermaid mummy was found.”

“I heard that some people, believing in the legend, used to eat the scales of mermaid mummies.”

“There is also a legend that a mermaid predicted an infectious disease,” Hiroshi stated.

Also, a historic letter from 1903, apparently penned by a former owner, was stored alongside the mummy and gives a story about its provenance.

“A mermaid was caught in a fish-catching net in the sea off Kochi Prefecture,” the letter states.

“The fishermen who caught it did not know it was a mermaid, but took it to Osaka and sold it as unusual fish. My ancestors bought it and kept it as a family treasure.”

It’s not yet clear how or when the mummy came to the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi.

But chief priest, Kozen Kuida, said it was put on display in a glass case some 40 years ago and is now kept in a fireproof safe.

“We have worshipped it, hoping that it would help alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly,” he told The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper.

Kinoshita, however, takes a more pragmatic view of the creature.

One claim of the origins is that it might be a hoax and the creature may be an article of the show meant to be exported to Europe, according to another report.

The findings of the scientists are expected to be published later in 2022.

Archaeologists Find Evidence for 40,000-year-old Modern Culture in China

Archaeologists Find Evidence for 40,000-year-old Modern Culture in China

Scientists discovered remnants of an Old Stone Age culture, less than 100 miles (160 kilometres) west of Beijing, where ancient hominins used a reddish pigment called ochre and crafted tiny, blade-like tools from stone. The archaeological site, called Xiamabei, offers a rare glimpse into the life of Homo sapiens and now-extinct human relatives who inhabited the region some 40,000 years ago. 

Archaeologists Find Evidence for 40,000-year-old Modern Culture in China

The newly excavated site lies within the Nihewan Basin, a depression in a mountainous region of northern China. The excavation team found evidence of the culture about 8 feet (2.5 meters) underground, when they spotted a layer of dark, silty sediment that dated to between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dating and other analyses. This Stone Age sediment contained a treasure trove of artefacts and animal remains, including more than 430 mammal bones; a hearth; physical evidence of ochre use and processing; a tool made of bone; and more than 380 miniaturized lithics, or small tools and artefacts made of chipped or ground stone.

“The remains seemed to be in their original spots after the site was abandoned by the residents,” co-first author Shixia Yang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, told Live Science in an email. “Based on this, we can reveal a vivid picture of how people lived 40,000 years ago in Eastern Asia.”

This well-preserved, bladelet-like lithic found at Xiamabei bears microscopic evidence of having been attached to a bone handle with plant fibres.

Identifying a 40,000-year-old sediment layer strewn with such artefacts was “a surprise,” co-senior author Francesco d’Errico, a CNRS Director of Research at the Bordeaux University and professor at the University of Bergen, told Live Science in an email. Notably, “this is the earliest-known ochre workshop for East Asia,” and the collection of tiny stone tools suggests that the makers likely produced and used specialized tool kits, he said. 

Yang, d’Errico and their colleagues published a report about the site and artefacts on Wednesday (March 2) in the journal Nature.

The evidence of ochre processing at Xiamabei includes two pieces of ochre with slightly different mineral compositions, as well as an elongated limestone slab with smoothed areas stained with crimson pigment. The team found these artefacts in close proximity to one another, laying atop an area of reddened sediment. 

“I do not think that anyone should find it shocking that the inhabitants of what is now northern China [40,000 years ago] were collecting and using ochre,” as in general, humans and their relatives had been using the pigment for many years at that point, said Andrew M. Zipkin, an adjunct professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and an associate scientist at Eurofins EAG Laboratories, who was not involved in the study. 

“The ochre artefacts in this study are pretty limited in number, but I would be excited [to] see follow-up work on them that seeks to identify where the ochre was collected,” Zipkin told Live Science in an email. Regarding the new study, “for me, the important bit here is not the ochre in its own right, but its presence as part of a suite of technologies and behaviours,” he said.  

The first ochre piece found at the site bore signs of having been “repeatedly abraded to produce a bright dark red ochre powder,” the authors reported; the second, smaller piece of ochre had a more crumbly texture, by comparison, and likely originated from a larger ochre piece that had been crushed. An analysis led by d’Errico revealed that the different types of ochre had been pounded and scraped into powders of varying consistency.

Ochre pieces and processing equipment found at the site were discovered on a red-stained patch of sediment.

Another analysis showed that the reddish sediment found near the ochre contained rocky fragments rich in hematite, a mineral that contains oxidized iron and gives red ochre its distinct hue. (Other types of ochre, including yellow ochre and so-called specularite, a sparkly, reddish-purple pigment, have slightly different mineral compositions, according to Discover.)

Based on the available evidence, however, they could not determine exactly how the pigment was used. Ochre can be used in adhesives, for example, or in “symbolic applications” such as rock art paint or paint that’s applied to the body as both cosmetic decoration and sunscreen, Zipkin said. “Distinguishing between symbolic and functional uses of ochre in the material culture record is an ongoing challenge for prehistoric archaeologists,” he noted.

Traces of ochre did crop up on several stone tools at the site, and the nature of these tools hinted that the pigment may have been used as an additive used in hide processing and as an ingredient in a hafting adhesive — meaning a sticky substance used to affix handles to stone tools. This evidence does not negate the possibility that the pigment may have also been used symbolically, Zipkin said.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of ochre processing in Africa and Europe, to a lesser extent, dating back to about 300,000 years ago, and there’s evidence of ochre use in Australia starting about 50,000 years ago, d’Errico told Live Science. But prior to the excavation of Xiamabei, “the evidence for ochre use in Asia before [28,000 years ago] was, however, very scant,” he said. 

Based on patterns of wear and lingering residues on hafted lithics found at the site, the team determined that these artifacts were likely used for multiple purposes, including boring through materials, hide scraping, whittling plant material and cutting soft animal matter. Likewise, the unhafted lithics were likely for several purposes, such as boring hard materials and cutting softer materials. 

“We are therefore facing a complex technical system exploiting different raw materials to create highly effective, portable tools, used in a variety of activities,” d’Errico said.

Small stone blades known as microblades, or bladelets, became widely used in northeastern Asia by the end of the Pleistocene era (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), Yang said; specifically, the technology began to spread throughout the region about 29,000 years ago, the authors noted in their report. The lithics at Xiambei are not microblades but show similar features to the small stone tools, which lead Yang to wonder whether these objects represent the “root” of later microblade technology, she said. 

The study raises another big question: Which archaic hominins actually occupied Xiamabei 40,000 years ago? Some clues point to modern humans, but the authors cannot be sure that human relatives — namely Neanderthals and Denisovans — weren’t present at the site.  

“We cannot be certain that Homo sapiens occupied Xiamabei, owing to the lack of human fossils on site,” Yang told Live Science. That said, modern human fossils have been found at a younger site called Tianyuandong, which lies about 68 miles (110 km) away, as well as another site in the region called the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave, she said. These nearby fossils hint that the ochre-processing, tool-crafting hominins that visited Xiamabei may have also been H. sapiens.

“We cannot, however, entirely disregard the possibility that other closely-related human ancestors were not still present in the vast landscapes of northern Asia, as it’s clear that earlier groups of Homo sapiens were mating and mixing with Neanderthals and Denisovans,” Yang said. In addition, since Neanderthals also used ochre, the evidence of ochre use doesn’t offer any clues as to which hominins were present at the site, Zipkin said. 

“Further planned excavations at Xiamabei will help us to better understand our evolutionary story,” Yang said. 

1,900-year-old Roman ‘battle spoils’ recovered from robbers in Jerusalem

1,900-year-old Roman ‘battle spoils’ recovered from robbers in Jerusalem

Police in Jerusalem seized a hoard of stolen antiquities that date to a 1,900-year-old Jewish rebellion against the Romans. The cache had been dug up by tomb robbers from a tunnel complex. 

1,900-year-old Roman 'battle spoils' recovered from robbers in Jerusalem
Police in Jerusalem has seized a hoard of stolen antiquities in Jerusalem, including coins, incense burners and ceramics.

The hoard included hundreds of coins, incense burners and a number of ceramics with decorations on them, including a jug that has a carving of a reclining figure holding a jug of wine.

Researchers believe that during the Bar Kokhba revolt (A.D. 132-135), Jewish rebels captured the items from Roman soldiers and stored them in a tunnel complex where modern-day robbers found them, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement released on their Facebook page on Wednesday. 

Inspectors from the Robbery Prevention Unit examine the artefacts seized in Jerusalem.
Police in Jerusalem has seized a hoard of stolen antiquities in Jerusalem, including coins, incense burners and ceramics.

During the Bar Kokhba revolt, Shimon Ben Kosva (also called Simon Bar-Kokhba or just Bar-Kokhba) led the Jews in a revolt against Roman rule.

The rebels initially captured a substantial amount of territory. However, the Romans counterattacked and gradually wiped out the rebels and killed many civilians.

The ancient writer Cassius Dio claimed that more than 500,000 Jewish men were killed in the revolts. Archaeologists have found numerous hideouts that the Jews used to hide goods or people from the Roman army. 

Despite stealing the goods, the Jewish rebels may not have used many of the artefacts, because they had images that may have gone against Jewish religious beliefs.

“The Jewish fighters did not use them, since they are typical Roman cult artefacts and are decorated with figures and pagan symbols,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said in the statement. 

Police officers found the artefacts after they stopped a car that was “driving in the wrong direction up a one-way street,” the statement said.

Inside the car, they found the artefacts, which researchers think the robbers stole during illegal excavations of a tunnel complex.

While the artefacts were seized in the Musrara neighbourhood of Jerusalem the precise location of the tunnel complex was not released. 

Pendants from Holocaust victims found near gas chamber in Poland

Pendants from Holocaust victims found near gas chamber in Poland

Three pendants bearing the Hebrew prayer Shema Yisrael (“Hear O Israel”) have been excavated at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Thursday.

Two of the amulets depict Moses holding the Ten Commandments on the reverse side.

Researchers have been able to identify that the three pendants, all different from one another and made by hand, originated in Eastern Europe.

Pendants from Holocaust victims found near gas chamber in Poland
A pendant featuring Moses holding the Ten Commandments was found by the gas chambers located in Camp II at Sobibor.

One came from Lviv in Ukraine, and the other two from Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The nearly decade-long excavations of the site — where approximately 250,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis between 1942 and 1943 — were directed by Wojciech Mazurek from Poland, Yoram Haimi from the IAI and Ivar Schute from the Netherlands, assisted by local residents.

“Little is known about the stories behind the pendants, which are heartbreaking,” Haimi said in a statement.

“It has been possible to identify a kind of tradition or fashion among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe with pendants that were inscribed with ‘Shema Yisrael’ on one side and a depiction of Moses and the tablets of the Law on the opposite side,” he said.

A figure of Moses and the Ten Commandments on a pendant that was found in the women’s barracks before they entered the gas chambers.

“But were they distributed in synagogues by local Jewish communities or possibly produced for individual orders? Research of the pendants is ongoing and we invite the public to provide us with details concerning them.”

One of the pendants was discovered in the remains of a building where Jews were undressed before being led to the gas chambers. Another, on which Latin numbers were inscribed, was uncovered in the area where victims were undressed in Camp II. A third was next to a mass grave.

“The personal and human aspect of the discovery of these pendants is chilling,” said Eli Eskozido, director of the IAA.

“They represent a thread running between generations of Jews – actually a thick thread, thousands of years old, of prayer and faith.”

The World’s Oldest Stash: Scientists Find 2,700-Year-Old Pot

The World’s Oldest Stash: Scientists Find 2,700-Year-Old Pot

Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.

A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.

They apparently were getting high too.

The World’s Oldest Stash: Scientists Find 2,700-Year-Old Pot

Lead author Ethan Russo told Discovery News that marijuana “is quite similar” to what’s grown today.

“We know from both the chemical analysis and genetics that it could produce THC (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, the main psychoactive chemical in the plant),” he explained, adding that no one could feel its effects today, due to decomposition over the millennia.

Russo served as a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany while conducting the study. He and his international team analyzed the cannabis, which was excavated at the Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, China.

It was found lightly pounded in a wooden bowl in a leather basket near the head of a blue-eyed Caucasian man who died when he was about 45.

“This individual was buried with an unusual number of high value, rare items,” Russo said, mentioning that the objects included a make-up bag, bridles, pots, archery equipment and a kongou harp. The researchers believe the individual was a shaman from the Gushi people, who spoke a now-extinct language called Tocharian that was similar to Celtic.

Scientists originally thought the plant material in the grave was coriander, but microscopic botanical analysis of the bowl contents, along with genetic testing, revealed that it was cannabis.

The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their colour and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown.

What is in question, however, is how the marijuana was administered, since no pipes or other objects associated with smoking were found in the grave.

“Perhaps it was ingested orally,” Russo said. “It might also have been fumigated, as the Scythian tribes to the north did subsequently.”

Although other cultures in the area used hemp to make various goods as early as 7,000 years ago, additional tomb finds indicate the Gushi fabricated their clothing from wool and made their rope out of reed fibres.

The scientists are unsure if the marijuana was grown for more spiritual or medical purposes, but it’s evident that the blue-eyed man was buried with a lot of it.

“As with other grave goods, it was traditional to place items needed for the afterlife in the tomb with the departed,” Russo said.

The ancient marijuana stash is now housed at Turpan Museum in China. In the future, Russo hopes to conduct further research at the Yanghai site, which has 2,000 other tombs

A Message From a Mysterious Ancient Culture in Siberia

A Message From a Mysterious Ancient Culture in Siberia

On the right bank of the Askiz river, a unique archaeological site from the early first millennium C.E. has been found. It is associated with the enigmatic Tashtyk culture in ancient Siberia and for a change, it sheds light not only on how they died, but who they were.

The Tashtyks’ unusual funerary practices had already been described in numerous articles and research but we know little about how they lived before the evil day. Now at the new site dubbed Kazanovka 14, archaeologists have gained rare insight into their culture, their adaptations to the environment and their relationships in this “oasis” in southern Siberia.

The Askiz is a tributary of the Abakan River. It passes through the balmy Minusinsk Basin in the southern Siberian republic of Khakassia, where the previously unknown site was found during the field season of 2021.

The Minusinsk Basin is a territory bordered by mountains and forests, with abundant lakes, fertile land and the mildest climate in Siberia. One might call it an oasis of the steppe. The winter winds blow the snow away from the mountains, making the area a perfect place to keep sheep, who can roam freely. It is therefore little wonder that the Minusinsk hollow attracted semi-nomadic tribes and their flocks throughout history. Archaeologists over the years have uncovered sites of a number of cultures from the third millennia B.C.E. onward.

While performing construction works along the Mezhdurechensk–Tayshet railroad from 2019 to 2021, various sites from the Early Bronze Age to the later Middle Ages were discovered. These included burials of many cultures and settlements. One of the sites, called “Kazanovka 14,” was excavated in 2021.

The salvage excavation of Kazanovka 14 was carried out by Anton Vybornov of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS Novosibirsk, Russia, under the leadership of Timoshenko Alexey. It was here that the scholars found new evidence of how the Tashtyks lived their life, after finding the remains of a burned-down wooden structure, and a remarkable petroglyph – an engraved sandstone slab.

Kazanovka 14, to the right of the track
Excavating the Tashtyk site of Kazanovka 14

Their discoveries were reported in the journal of Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories. As Anton Vybornov told Haaretz, Kazanovka 14 was a Tashtyk seasonal camp, as indicated by characteristic finds known from the vast majority of burial grounds of which this “culture” is famous.

A little bit Scythian

The Tashtyk culture was common in the Khakassian Minusink basin, in southern Siberia, from almost 2,000 to about 1,600 years ago. But the culture is not easy to define, Vybornov says. In some ways, they seem to have carried on some Scythian traditions. In other ways, they evince Hunnic – Sarmatian types of cultures, mixed with local traditions known in the Basin. The Tashtyk culture is also considered to be a local southern Siberian phenomenon on which basis the later medieval Yenisei Kirgizian state would arise.

Weapons and artefacts found in Tashtyk context

One thing we can be sure about is their idiosyncratic and colourful burial practices.

Tashtyk funerary practices involved either cremation or inhumation. The remains were buried either in box graves dug into the ground and lined by wood, or massive crypt burial mounds. The ash and cremated bones were put inside a leather bag that was then stuffed with dry grass. The bag was arranged inside a leather-dressed dummy, and a mask was placed on the area of the face.

In the case of Inhumation, which was also common, the deceased was dressed in leather. Their heads were wrapped with shrouds, orin any case a cloth tissue, and a mask was placed on top.

Tashtyk burial masks
Illustration of a mask on a Tashtyk woman’s body

The masks were the most extraordinary feature of these burials. They were essentially portraits of the dead made using clay and plaster and embellished with red paint. On the forehead, a spiral was drawn, and the cheeks and chin were blushed with the paint as well.

Once the dummies or bodies had been prepared, they were placed in box graves or crypts, among grave goods, including pottery and metal vessels. The crypts were big, with a corridor leading inside. When its mortuary duty was finished, the crypt was sealed, burned, and covered, to stand for eternity overlooking the Basin. While we can say plenty about their way of death, as revealed by the abundance of Tashtyk burial sites and practices, we cannot say much about their way of life. Barely any Tashtyk settlements have been found, hence the importance of Kazanovka 14.

Just below the surface, three to 20 centimetres below the modern deposits, the archaeologists unearthed what seems to have been a seasonal campsite of this semi-nomads, who moved from winter to summer camps and practised farming throughout the years in this fertile land. In the southern part of the camp, they found a charred destruction layer that they believe came from a collapsed structure built of wooden sticks attached horizontally or vertically together. The excavators also detected holes in the ground in the area of the structure, indicating the placement of wooden posts that supported the walls and/or the ceiling.

Pottery vessels found in Kazanovka 14

There was also a hearth, and together with pottery vessels, bone and metal objects, and animal remains, there were several spots of burnt clay accumulations. This leads Anton to surmise that the structure might have been a potter’s workshop, a possibility worth considering even though the research is still basic and further analysis is required. Alternatively, the structure could have been a simple house, a hut, or even a yurt. It seems the site ceased to exist when the fire consumed the wooden structure and what was within, sealing the place for good – until it was uncovered by the expedition in 2021.

Kazanovka 14 not only sheds light on the Tashtyk way of life. It also opens a window to their artistic world and their perception of themselves and their surroundings. The fire might have burned down their house, but signs of the Tashtyks’ artistic spirit survived the conflagration long after their death. Among the ash and debris, the archaeologists found astragalus bones, which are animal ankle bones, with marks incised on them, including crosses, circles, and lines. These are familiar from other sites and might have been used as game pieces. A sense of spaceBut the most exciting discovery of the season was the engraved sandstone slab.

The sandstone slab in situ
A Message From a Mysterious Ancient Culture in Siberia
The petroglyph

The depictions on the sandstone are divided into three panels. The lower has what seemed to be a stylistic representation of trees. The upper features three horizontal lines with smaller stripes in between. The middle panel was bordered by three vertical lines on each side with stripes in between, similar to the upper panel.

The panel’s centre is oddly empty, with some elements on the side and a semicircle in the middle. Despite its cryptic nature, Vybornov and his team were extremely excited by the find, a whisper left behind by these enigmatic people about themselves and their world, an unintentional message from the past. Learning about the finds and the burnt structure found in Kazanovka 14, and the petroglyphs on the slab, one wonders if it might show that very structure.

When asked about it, Vybornov said that it had been his first thought as well, but at this stage that remains pure speculation. Only further research and analysis of the material, and correlation to old and new finds hopefully to be made, can unveil what the message the Tashtykians wanted to deliver actually was.

Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert

Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert

A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.

Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert
This photo shows two carved standing stones at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert. A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine.

The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.

Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure and are found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.

“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”

Within the shrine were two carved standing stones bearing anthropomorphic figures, one accompanied by a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells and miniature model of the gazelle trap.

The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entirely new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations.”

The proximity of the site to the traps suggests the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the centre of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this marginal zone,” the statement said.

The team included archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East. The site was excavated during the most recent digging season in 2021.