One of the First Known Chemical Attacks Took Place 1,700 Years Ago in Syria
A researcher from the University of Leicester has identified what looks to be the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare — from Roman times.
At the meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, University of Leicester archaeologist Simon James presented CSI-style arguments that about twenty Roman soldiers, found in a siege-mine at the city of Dura-Europos, Syria, met their deaths not as a result of sword or spear, but through asphyxiation.
Dura-Europos on the Euphrates was conquered by the Romans who installed a large garrison. Around AD 256, the city was subjected to a ferocious siege by an army from the powerful new Sasanian Persian empire.
The dramatic story is told entirely from archaeological remains; no ancient text describes it. Excavations during the 1920s-30s, renewed in recent years, have resulted in spectacular and gruesome discoveries.
The Sasanians used the full range of ancient siege techniques to break into the city, including mining operations to breach the walls. Roman defenders responded with ‘counter-mines’ to thwart the attackers. In one of these narrow, low galleries, a pile of bodies, representing about twenty Roman soldiers still with their arms, was found in the 1930s.
The ancient Roman fort Dura Europos, in Syria Heretiq
While also conducting new fieldwork at the site, James has recently reappraised this coldest of cold-case ‘crime scenes’, in an attempt to understand exactly how these Romans died, and came to be lying where they were found.
Dr James, Reader in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, said: “It is evident that, when mine and countermine met, the Romans lost the ensuing struggle.
Careful analysis of the disposition of the corpses shows they had been stacked at the mouth of the countermine by the Persians, using their victims to create a wall of bodies and shields, keeping Roman counterattack at bay while they set fire to the countermine, collapsing it, allowing the Persians to resume sapping the walls.
This explains why the bodies were where they were found. But how did they die? For the Persians to kill twenty men in a space less than 2m high or wide, and about 11m long, required superhuman combat powers—or something more insidious.”
Finds from the Roman tunnel revealed that the Persians used bitumen and sulphur crystals to get it burning. These provided a vital clue. When ignited, such materials give off dense clouds of choking gases. “The Persians will have heard the Romans tunnelling,” says James, “and prepared a nasty surprise for them.
I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery, and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds into the Roman tunnel.
One of the skeletons is believed to have died during an ancient poison gas attack
The Roman assault party were unconscious in seconds, dead in minutes. Use of such smoke generators in siege mines is actually mentioned in classical texts, and it is clear from the archaeological evidence at Dura that the Sasanian Persians were as knowledgeable in siege warfare as the Romans; they surely knew of this grim tactic.”
Ironically, this Persian mine failed to bring the walls down, but it is clear that the Sasanians somehow broke into the city.
James recently excavated a ‘machine-gun belt’, a row of catapult bolts, ready to use by the wall of the Roman camp inside the city, representing the last stand of the garrison during the final street fighting.
The defenders and inhabitants were slaughtered or deported to Persia, the city abandoned forever, leaving its gruesome secrets undisturbed until modern archaeological research began to reveal them.
8,000 years old Stone Tools Found on Iran’s Gav-Bast Mountain
Archaeologists have found arrays of stone tools and relics on top of Gav-Bast Mountain, which is situated in southern Iran, north of the Persian Gulf.
Fereidoun Biglari, an archaeologist and cultural deputy of the National Museum of Iran, briefed attendees on the discovery during the 19th Annual Symposium on the Iranian Archaeology held in Tehran.
Gav-Bast Mountain is of great importance in Iranian rock art archaeology due to the existence of a prehistoric rock shelter that contains a hunting scene including archers, animal games, and a large carnivore.
In his lecture, Biglari first reviewed the history of archaeological research in Eshkat-e Ahou Rockshelter, which began with Khaled Sadeghi’s efforts in 2001 that later led to the registration of this prehistoric site in the National Monuments List in 2005 by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of Hormozgan.
Regarding his motivation for starting a new study in Gav-Bast Mountain, Biglari said that the focus of previous studies was more on the rock art panel in the shelter itself and the surrounding areas have not been surveyed by archaeologists.
As a result of several short field surveys in 2010 and 2021, which were carried out with the support of the municipality and Bastak Charity Association and the permission of the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research and the General Directorate of Hormozgan Cultural Heritage, new information about prehistoric settlements on these mountain highlands was obtained.
He added that this research proved that Neolithic human groups used natural resources of these highlands- between 1,100 and 1,800 meters above sea level – probably on a seasonal basis about 7,000 – 8,000 years before present.
Archaeologists have found arrays of stone tools and relics on top of Gav-Bast Mountain, which is situated in southern Iran, north of the Persian Gulf.
The researcher also spoke about the importance of preservation of the prehistoric motifs of Gav-Bast and the measures taken to document the art and its context, including drone mapping, 3D model of the shelter, and its panel using photogrammetry, and other related measures.
In conclusion, Biglari expressed hope that in the near future, the detailed 3D model of the shelter and its paintings will be displayed in the Bastak Museum and the National Museum of Iran would allow visitors to see this remote site and its painting panel in the museum.
Furthermore, he emphasized that this research would not have been possible without the help and support of the Bastak Municipality and Charity Association.
Gav-Bast Mountain is lined with the Zagros Mountains, extending northwest-southeast from the border areas of eastern Turkey and northern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz. The Zagros range is about 1,600 km long and more than 240 km wide.
Situated mostly in what is now Iran, it forms the extreme western boundary of the Iranian plateau, though its foothills to the north and west extend into adjacent countries.
The first well-documented evidence of human habitation is in deposits from several excavated cave and rock-shelter sites, located mainly in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran and dated to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c. 100,000 BC).
From the Caspian in the northwest to Baluchistan in the south-east, the Iranian Plateau extends for close to 2,000 km. It encompasses the greater part of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan west of the Indus River containing some 3,700,000 square kilometres.
Despite being called a “plateau”, it is far from flat but contains several mountain ranges, the highest peak being Damavand in the Alborz mountain range at 5610 m, and the Dasht-e Loot east of Kerman in Central Iran falling below 300 m.
Japan’s 1,000-year-old ‘killing stone’ said to contain an ancient demon cracked open
According to the legend, the 1000-year-old killing stone trapped the spirit of a malevolent being. Now, due to rainwater, the rock has split open, sending believers into a state of frenzy.
The legend warns anyone who comes in contact with the stone will die. This volcanic rock, which is officially called Sessho-Seki, is rumoured to contain the mythical Tamomo-No-Mae, also known as the Nine-Tailed Fox.
Tamomo-No-Mae was an ancient demon from Japanese mythology that took the form of a beautiful woman.
The creature was storied to be a part of a plot to kill Emperor Toba, ruler of Japan from 1107 to 1123.
The volcanic rock is actually a popular tourist attraction, located in the mountainous northern region of Tochigi, near Tokyo.
The region is famous for its sulphurous hot springs.
Japan’s 1,000-year-old ‘killing stone’ said to contain an ancient demon cracked open
According to folklore, this killing stone earned its named by spewing poisonous gas at people.
However, since the rock cracked open, visitors have been fearful of approaching the site.
Some users online have even expressed fears the evil spirit has been unleashed once again.
Lily0727K, a user on Twitter, shared an image of the split rock, writing: “I came alone to Sesshoseki, where the legend of the nine-tailed fox remains.
The nine-tailed fox from Japanese mythology
“It was supposed to be, but the rock was split in half and the rope was also detached.
“If it’s a manga, it’s a pattern that the seal is broken and it’s possessed by the nine-tailed fox, and I feel like I’ve seen something that shouldn’t be seen.
“I’m getting really scared.”
According to local reports, the rock had actually begun cracking a couple of years ago. Most likely, rainwater seeped into the rock, degrading it over the years until it finally split open.
The rock was split open by rainwater
Local officials are now figuring out what to do with the rock’s remains and are looking into whether they could attempt to restore it. Others have commented on the split rock, saying: “Here I thought 2022 couldn’t get worse.
“Now a furious Japanese spirit is freed from its ‘killing stone’.”
But another joked: “My guess is the demon is going to look around at 2022 and want to go back into the rock for another millennium.”
The Japanese newspaper quoted a tourism official as saying he would like to see the Sessho-Seki restored to its original form.
Hopefully, the rumoured demon within the stone would be restored to its rocky prison as well. The killing stone was registered as a local historical site in 1957 and was also mentioned in Matsuo Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
The site has inspired a Noh play, a novel and an anime film.
7,000-Year-Old Evidence of Geese Domestication Found in China
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Japan and China has found evidence of goose domestication in China approximately 7,000 years ago.
Modern Chinese domestic geese (Anser cygnoides domesticus).
In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of goose bones found at Tianluoshan—a dig site in east China.
Over the past several years, scientists have debated the timeline of the domestication of birds—most have suggested that chickens, which are believed to have once been a type of junglefowl, were the first to be domesticated, though there is still much debate about when it first occurred.
Estimates have ranged from five to ten thousand years ago. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence of the domestication of wild geese, as far back as 7,000 years ago.
The team found goose bones at the Tianluoshan site and used radiocarbon dating to find out how old they are.
They have also studied the bones in other ways to learn more about their characteristics, such as the age of the birds at death.
The bones were found at what had once been a settlement of stone-age people who were both hunter/gatherers and farmers—they grew rice to supplement their foraging efforts.
The researchers found 232 goose bones at the site, four of which were from goslings ranging from 8 to 16 weeks old.
They suggest this shows the birds were hatched near the site because it is believed that wild geese did not live in that area at the time the birds were alive.
They also found evidence suggesting that the birds had been locally bred based on chemicals in their bones that likely came from a local water source. And all of the adults were approximately the same size, which indicates captive breeding.
Goose bones were found at Tianluoshan, China.
The researchers suggest that the evidence they found provides strong evidence for the domestication of geese in China nearly 7,000 years ago.
A finding that could mean that geese were the first birds to be domesticated.
Archaeologists find more than 6,500-year-old pearl beads in Qatar tomb
The discovery of the oldest known natural pearl bead in Qatar has yet again shone the spotlight on the pearl-diving history of the peninsular country that is on its toes as the host of the upcoming FIFA 2022 World Cup to be played about eight months later.
A local excavation mission led by Ferhan Sakal, Head of Excavation and Site Management at Qatar Museums, dug out the oldest known natural pearl bead in Qatar, corresponding to the earliest human settlements on the peninsula.
Dated to 4600 BCE, the bead was found within a grave at Wadi Al Debaian, one of the country’s oldest Neolithic sites.
The oldest pearl bead found in Qatar recently reveals just how long pearl trading and diving has been practised in the region. (Qatar Marine)
Until oil was discovered on the peninsula close to 1940, fishing for pearls was the mainstay of the local population. People went on months-long voyages on wooden boats known as ‘dhows’ and would dive into the sea without oxygen tanks or diving suits to bring up oysters that would be later opened up to yield natural pearls. One might have to open scores or even hundreds of oysters to find one which has a pearl.
“With each new remnant of Qatar’s past that comes to light, we gain a clearer understanding of and appreciation for our religious history and identity, which ultimately inform our aspirations for a sustainable future.”
The recently discovered grave points to the earliest known evidence of Qatar’s antique pearl diving industry, which over centuries formed the centre of trade and economic influx to the country.
It also offers new insights into the early civilizations occupying the peninsula, including prevalent social structures and wealth distribution.
Located a few kilometres south of Al Zubarah on Qatar’s northwest coastline, Wadi Al Debaian has yielded several important archaeological finds over the years with pottery originating from the Ubaid period (ca. 6500 to 3800 BCE) of South Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), obsidian from Anatolia (modern Turkey) and further burial sites among the ancient remnants.
Wadi Al Debaian falls under Qatar Museums’ conservation and outreach scope.
Through its year-round excavations and fieldwork, Qatar Museums aims to preserve and document Qatar’s heritage through the epochs, and to construct a link between modern communities and their past.
The Wadi Al Debaian Neolithic cemetery was excavated as part of the National Priority Research Programme “Human Populations and Demographics in Qatar from the Neolithic to the Late Iron Age” led by Sidra Medicine and funded by the Qatar National Research Fund. IANS
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.
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.”
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.
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
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.
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 .
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.
