Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

Researchers Say 5000-year-old Metal Tubes May’ve Been Used As Straws For Drinking

Researchers Say 5000-year-old Metal Tubes May’ve Been Used As Straws For Drinking

Researchers Say 5000-year-old Metal Tubes May've Been Used As Straws For Drinking
Artist’s interpretation of the straws in use.

A set of gold and silver tubes found 125 years ago in the northern Caucasus are likely drinking straws, not sceptres, according to a re-analysis of the ancient artefacts.

Russian archaeologist Nikolai Veselovsky uncovered the items in 1897 at the Maikop Kurgan burial mound in the northern Caucasus. This is a Bronze Age site of great significance, as it was found to contain three skeletons and hundreds of objects, including beads of semi-precious stone and gold, ceramic vessels, metal cups, and weapons.

The 4th millennia BCE mound dates back to the Maikop Early Bronze Age Culture (3700 to 2900 BCE), which were named after the burial site.

Illustration showing the eight tubes, four of which were decorated with bull figurines.
(Photographs by V. Trifonov; Courtesy of the Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia)

It was among these many objects that Veselovsky found eight long, thin tubes—burial goods carefully and deliberately placed to the right-hand side of a high-ranking individual found buried in ornate clothing.

The tubes, made from gold and silver, measured over 3 feet (1 meter) in length, four of which were decorated with a small gold or silver bull figurine. The items were eventually relocated to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, where they’re kept to this day.

In his accounting of the ancient relics, Veselovsky referred to the tubes as “scepters”—a reasonable guess, given the apparent status of the buried individual and the oh-so-careful positioning of the items. That these 5,000-year-old objects were used as scepters (i.e. wands or staffs held by ruling monarchs) seemed plausible, but new research published in Antiquity is now questioning this interpretation, arguing instead that the items were drinking straws.

Should this interpretation be correct, “these fancy devices would be the earliest surviving drinking straws to date,” Viktor Trifonov, an archaeologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and a co-author of the new paper, said in a press release.

Of critical importance to the reanalysis was the detection of barley granules inside one of the straws, in addition to cereal phytoliths (fossilized particles of plant tissue) and pollen grains from a lime tree.

This was taken as direct evidence that the tubes were used for drinking. And because traces of barley were found, the scientists say the beverage in question was likely beer.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Bronze Age Maikop people consumed fermented barley. The practise dates back some 13,000 years to the Natufian period, while large-scale brewing operations began to appear in Asia during the 5th and 4th millennia BCE.

The notion that Maikop households were drinking barley beer flavoured with herbs and lime flowers is entirely plausible, but as the researchers point out, they “cannot prove conclusively the presence of a fermented beverage,” so “results should therefore be treated with caution, as further analyses are needed.”

The reconstruction shows eight straws being used communally and one being used individually.

Importantly, the tips of the Maikop straws were equipped with metal strainers, which likely performed the function of filtering out impurities—a common feature of ancient beer.

The scientists hypothesize that the drinking tubes, with straw-tip strainers, were “designed for sipping a type of beverage that required filtration during consumption,” and that this was done as a communal activity. A large vessel found at Maikop Kurgan would’ve been capable of holding seven pints for eight drinkers, the scientists say.

The straw-tip strainers found at Maikop Kurgan bear a striking resemblance to those found on Sumerian drinking straws. Ancient Sumerians of the 3rd millennium BCE are known to have sipped beer from communal vessels, as evidenced by archaeological artefacts and artworks depicting the practice.

As for the oldest evidence of drinking straws, that dates back to the 5th and 4th millennia BCE, as evidenced by artwork found in northern Iraq and western Iran.

A silver tube tip-strainer yielded evidence of (2-3) barley starch granules, (4) pollen grain from a lime tree, and (5) ceretal phytolith.

The Maikop straws—if that’s indeed what they are—are special in that they’re the oldest surviving drinking straws in the archaeological record, but they appear to have originated in the Middle East, hundreds of miles away from the northern Caucasus. The presence of drinking straws so far away suggests this practice had spread to the surrounding areas.

“The finds contribute to a better understanding of the ritual banquets’ early beginnings and drinking culture in hierarchical societies,” Trifonov said. “Such practices must have been important and popular enough to spread between the two regions.”

Indeed, the presence of drinking straws in the Maikop Kurgan hint at cultural and economic ties between the regions. What’s more, the scientists say a “taste for Sumerian luxury and commensality” had emerged in the Caucasus by the fourth millennium BCE, and that the drinking straws would go on to carry significant symbolic importance given their use as funerary items for elite individuals.

As this and other archaeological finds have shown, drinking is fun, but it’s even better—and more socially useful—when performed in the company of others.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

4,500-year-old avenues lined with ancient tombs discovered in Saudi Arabia

4,500-year-old avenues lined with ancient tombs discovered in Saudi Arabia

A vast 4,500-year-old network of ‘funerary avenues’ lined with well-preserved Bronze Age tombs has been uncovered in Saudi Arabia. In a new paper, researchers detail the arrangement of around 18,000 tombs, spanning thousands of miles in the Saudi Arabian counties of Al-‘Ula and Khaybar.

They consist of small piles of stone arranged in elaborate shapes, marking the spot where either single individuals or small groups were buried, experts say.

The burials are described as ‘pendant’ tombs because they resemble circular pieces of jewellery attached to a chain, or ‘tail’.

University of Western Australia archaeologists describes ancient highways in their new paper. Pictured is a dense funerary avenue with ‘wedge-tailed’ pendants and infilled ringed cairns, emanating from Khaybar Oasis in Saudi Arabia
The tombs as described as ‘pendant’ because they resemble circular pieces of jewellery, or ‘heads’, attached to a chain, or ‘tail’
Small piles of stone arranged in elaborate shapes (pictured) mark the spot where either single individuals or small groups were buried

Pendant tombs are already known to have yielded human remains dating to as early as the mid-third millennium BC, during the Bronze Age. 

In total, the experts have observed around 18,000 tombs along ‘funerary avenues’ – long-distance ‘corridors’ linking oases and pastures lined by burials – only 80 of which have been sampled or excavated. 

It’s thought that the tombs may have been built as memorials (‘cenotaphs’) or for other, as yet unclear symbolic or ritual purposes. 

Dr Matthew Dalton, from the University of Western Australia’s School of Humanities, is the lead author of the findings. He and his team used satellite imagery, helicopter-based aerial photography, ground survey and excavation to locate and analyse the funerary avenues.

‘The people who live in these areas have known about them for thousands of years,’ Dr Dalton told CNN. 

‘But I think it wasn’t really known until we got satellite imagery that just how widespread they are.’

Desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant are known to be criss-crossed by innumerable pathways, flanked by stone monuments, the vast majority of which are ancient tombs. Thousands of miles of these paths and monument features, collectively known as ‘funerary avenues’, can be traced across the landscape, especially around and between major perennial water sources. 

Funerary avenues were the major highway networks of their day, according to Dr Dalton. Their existence today shows that the populations living in the Arabian Peninsula 4,500 years ago were more socially and economically connected to one another than previously thought.  

Researchers found that the highest concentrations of funerary monuments on these avenues were located near permanent water sources. 

The direction of the avenues indicated that populations used them to travel between major oases, including those of Khaybar, Al-‘Ula and Tayma.

Lesser avenues fade into the landscapes surrounding oases, suggesting the routes were also used to move herds of domestic animals into nearby pastures during periods of rain.

The researchers used satellite imagery, helicopter-based aerial photography, ground survey and excavation to locate and analyse the funerary avenues

‘These oases, especially Khaybar, exhibit some of the densest concentrations of funerary monuments known worldwide,’ Dr Dalton said.

‘The sheer number of Bronze Age tombs built around them suggests that populations had already begun to settle more permanently in these favourable locations at this time.’  

READ ALSO: THOUSANDS OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL BONES HOARDED BY HYENAS IN LAVA TUBE SYSTEM, SAUDI ARABIA

Continued excavation and analysis of human remains within these monuments will be essential going forward, according to the researchers.

‘Primary inhumations, where identifiable and suitably preserved, may reveal the demographics of those for whom avenue monuments were originally constructed, allowing better reconstructions of these societies and their funerary practices,’ they say. 

The findings have been published in the journal The Holocene. 

ASIA, SYRIA, WORLD

Hybrid animal in the 4500-year-old tomb is earliest known bred by humans

Hybrid animal in 4500-year-old tomb is earliest known bred by humans

Mesopotamians were using hybrids of domesticated donkeys and wild asses to pull their war wagons 4,500 years ago — at least 500 years before horses were bred for the purpose, a new study reveals.

Hybrid animal in 4500-year-old tomb is earliest known bred by humans
The animal bones at Umm el-Marra were thought to be from kungas because their teeth had marks from bit harnesses and wear patterns that showed they had been fed, rather than left to graze.

The analysis of ancient DNA from animal bones unearthed in northern Syria resolves a long-standing question of just what type of animals were the “kungas” described in ancient sources as pulling war wagons.

“From the skeletons, we knew they were equids [horse-like animals], but they did not fit the measurements of donkeys and they did not fit the measurements of Syrian wild asses,” said study co-author Eva-Maria Geigl, a genomicist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. “So they were somehow different, but it was not clear what the difference was.”

The new study shows, however, that kungas were strong, fast and yet sterile hybrids of a female domestic donkey and a male Syrian wild ass, or hemione — an equid species native to the region. Ancient records mentioned kungas as highly prized and very expensive beasts, which could be explained by the rather difficult process of breeding them, Geigl said.

Because each kunga was sterile, like many hybrid animals such as mules, they had to be produced by mating a female domesticated donkey with a male wild ass, which had to be captured, she said.

That was an especially difficult task because wild asses could run faster than donkeys and even kungas, and were impossible to tame, she said. 

“They really bio-engineered these hybrids,” Geigl told Live Science. “There were the earliest hybrids ever, as far as we know, and they had to do that each time for each kunga that was produced — so this explains why they were so valuable.”

War donkeys

The war panel from the “Standard of Ur,” a 4500-year-old Sumerian mosaic now in the British Museum, shows teams of kungas drawing four-wheeled wall wagons.

Kungas is mentioned in several ancient texts in cuneiform on clay tablets from Mesopotamia, and they are portrayed drawing four-wheeled war wagons on the famous “Standard of Ur,” a Sumerian mosaic from about 4,500 years ago that’s now on display at the British Museum in London.

Archaeologists had suspected that they were some sort of hybrid donkey, but they didn’t know the equid it was hybridized with, Geigl said.

Some experts thought Syrian wild asses were much too small — smaller than donkeys — to be bred to produce kungas, she said.

The bones of the kungas were excavated about 10 years ago from a burial mound at Tell Umm el-Marra in northern Syria by University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Jill Weber.

The species is now extinct, and the last Syrian wild ass — not much more than a meter (3 feet) tall — died in 1927 at the world’s oldest zoo, the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna in Austria; its remains are now preserved in that city’s natural history museum.

In the new study, the researchers compared the genome from the bones of the last Syrian wild ass from Vienna with the genome from the 11,000-year-old bones of a wild ass unearthed at the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe, in what is now southeastern Turkey.

That comparison showed both animals were the same species, but the ancient wild ass was much larger, Geigl said. That suggested that the Syrian wild ass species had become much smaller in recent times than it had been in antiquity, probably due to environmental pressures such as hunting, she said.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Historians think that the Sumerians were the first to breed kungas from before 2500 B.C. — at least 500 years before the first domesticated horses were introduced from the steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains, according to a 2020 study in the journal Science Advances by many of the same researchers. 

Ancient records show the successor states of the Sumerians — such as the Assyrians — continued to breed and sell kungas for centuries — and a carved stone panel from the Assyrian capital Nineveh, now in the British Museum, shows two men leading a wild ass they had captured.

The kunga bones for the latest study came from a princely burial complex at Tell Umm el-Marra in Northern Syria, which has been dated to around the early Bronze Age between 3000 B.C. and 2000 B.C.; the site is thought to be the ruins of the ancient city of Tuba mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions.

Study co-author Jill Weber, an archaeologist at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, excavated the bones about 10 years ago. Weber had proposed that the animals from Tell Umm el-Marra were kungas because their teeth had marks from bit harnesses and patterns of wear that showed they had been purposefully fed, rather than left to graze like regular donkeys, she said. 

Kungas could run faster than horses, and so the practice of using them to pull war wagons probably continued after the introduction of domesticated horses into Mesopotamia, she said.

But eventually, the last kungas died and no more were bred from donkeys and wild asses, probably because domesticated horses were easier to breed, Geigl said.

ASIA, OMAN, WORLD

An Old Classic Bronze Age board game ‘played 4,000 years ago’ uncovered in the Oman desert

An Old Classic Bronze Age board game ‘played 4,000 years ago’ uncovered in the Oman desert

While innovative and artistic board games may hold our attention today, settlers four millennia ago in the Arabian Peninsula whiled away the time on a stone board game.

An Old Classic Bronze Age board game ‘played 4,000 years ago’ uncovered in the Oman desert
The stone board game featured a grid-like pattern and cup holes to hold game pieces.

Last month, archaeologists discovered a stone slab carved with a grid and cup holes to hold game pieces at a prehistoric settlement in the Qumayrah Valley, located in modern-day Oman, reports Samuel Kutty for the Oman Daily Observer.

The team, led by Piotr Bieliński of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and Sultan al-Bakri, Oman’s director-general of antiquities, found the large stone board in a structure near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah.

In a statement, Bieliński said that similar kinds of games have been found in “areas stretching from India, through Mesopotamia even to the eastern Mediterranean.” She cited, as an example, one of the earliest-known game boards found in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur’s royal cemetery in 1922, dated around 4,500 years ago. Known today as the Royal Game of Ur, the two-player strategy game was similar to backgammon.

Archaeologists search for Bronze and Iron age artefacts at the Oman dig site, located in the Arabian Peninsula.

Board games have been played across the world for thousands of years. In Jerusalem, bored Roman soldiers were believed to have carved a grid for a board game on the steps of the Damascus Gate some 1,800 years ago, possibly an early form of modern-day checkers, as reported by Ruth Schuster for the Jerusalem Post in November.

The stone board game in Oman was just one of several discoveries made at the excavation site, reports Ashley Cowie for Ancient Origins.

Archaeologists also unearthed the remains of stone towers—one of which is believed to have been 60 feet tall—and evidence of copper production all dated to the Bronze Age, from 3200 to 1200 B.C.E.

“The settlement is exceptional for including at least four towers: three round ones and an angular one,” says Agnieszka Pieńkowska of the Polish Center, who is analyzing the site’s artefacts and stone structures.

Researchers at Ayn Bani Saidah dated the settlement to the Umm an-Nar period, between 2600 to 2000 B.C.E. They discovered several copper items and smelting remains at the site, indicating the site was involved in the early copper trade, reports the Jerusalem Post.

An archaeologist examines a copper artefact found at an exvacation site in the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in Oman.

“This shows that our settlement participated in the lucrative copper trade for which Oman was famous at that time, with mentions of Omani copper present in the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia,” says Bieliński in the statement.

The team also found evidence that the region remained an important trade and production site through the second phase of the Iron Age, dating from 1100 to 600 B.C.E.

Per the Oman Observer, the Qumayrah Valley has yielded many archaeological finds, likely due to serving as a major trade route between several Arab cities.

“This abundance of settlement traces proves that this valley was an important spot in Oman’s prehistory,” Bieliński tells Ian Randall of the Daily Mail. “Ayn Bani Sadah is strategically located at a junction of [trade] routes.”

The team plans to continue its excavations this year, focusing on areas surrounding the settlement and other parts of the Qumayrah Valley.

ASIA, IRAQ, WORLD

Ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq

The ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq

An ancient city called ‘Idu’ has been discovered in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Hidden beneath a 32 foot (10 metres) mound, the city is thought to have been a hub of activity between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago. 

Inscriptions made for kings in walls, tablets and stone plinths, reveal that it was once filled with luxurious palaces.

The discovery was made five years ago after a local villager found a clay tablet with the name ‘Idu’ carved in.

The ancient city of Idu is now part of a Tell that rises about 32 feet (10 metres) above the surrounding plain. The modern-day name of the site is Satu Qala and a village lies on top of the Tell

It is thought the inscription was made by the local kings celebrating the construction of the royal palace. Archaeologists at the University of Leipzig in Germany spent the next few years excavating the area.

They believe the city of Idu spent much of its time under the control of the Assyrian Empire about 3,300 years ago. But archaeologists also found evidence that it was a fiercely independent city.

Ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq
A domestic structure, with at least two rooms, that may date to relatively late in the life of the newfound ancient city, perhaps around 2,000 years ago when the Parthian Empire controlled the area in Iraq.

Its people fought for and won, 140 years of independence before they were reconquered by the Assyrians. Among the treasures found were artwork showing a bearded sphinx with a human head and the body of a winged lion.

Above it was the words: ‘Palace of Ba’auri, king of the land of Idu, son of Edima, also king of the land of Idu.’

They also found a cylinder seal dating back roughly 2,600 years depicting a man crouching before a griffon.

‘We were lucky to be one of the first teams to begin excavations in Iraq after the 2003 war,’ archaeologists Cinzia Pappi told MailOnline.

‘The discovery of ancient Idu at Satu Qala revealed a multicultural capital and a crossroad between northern and southern Iraq and between Iraq and Western Iran in the second and first millennia BC.

‘Particularly the discovery of a local dynasty of kings fills a gap in what scholars had previously thought of as a dark age in the history of ancient Iraq.

‘Together these results have helped to redraw the political and historical map of the development of the Assyrian Empire.’

This work shows a bearded sphinx with a human male head and the body of a winged lion. Found in four fragments it was also created for King Ba’auri and has almost the exact same inscription as the depiction of the horse.

The city was hidden beneath a mound, called a tell, which is currently home to a village called Satu Qala.

‘For wide-scale excavations to continue, at least some of these houses will have to be removed,’ said archaeologists Cinzia Pappi

‘Unfortunately, until a settlement is reached between the villagers and the Kurdistan regional government, further work is currently not possible.’

Archaeologists plan to continue excavating the site once they reach an agreement.

In the meantime, a study on the materials from the site, now stored in the Erbil Museum of Antiquities, has just been completed in co-operation with the University of Pennsylvania.

Together, the researchers will explore the surrounding area to determine the extent of the kingdom of Idu in its regional context

The findings have been reported in the journal Anatolica.

Archaeologists are currently busy analysing artefacts already excavated. They also plan to survey the surrounding area to get a better sense of how large the kingdom of Idu was
ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China

3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China

3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China

Photo provided by the Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology on Jan. 5, 2022, shows a horse buried with the dead at the Shaojiapeng site, which is decorated with shell strings. (Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology/Handout via Xinhua)

A large-scale tomb cluster dating back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) was recently discovered in Shaojiapeng Village, Anyang City of central China’s Henan Province, according to the city’s institute of cultural relics and archaeology.

Located 2.4 km away from the palace and ancestral temple of the Yin Ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Shaojiapeng site is believed to be a major living area for a clan named “Ce” in the Shang Dynasty.

The Chinese character “Ce” was found on the inscription of bronzeware uncovered in the cemetery relics, which indicates the identity of the clan.

A total of 18 building foundations, 24 tombs, four-horse and chariot pits, along with relics including exquisite bronzeware, jade and stone objects, bone ware and mussels, were found during the two-year excavation of the site.

Six carriages and several warriors and horses buried with the dead were uncovered in the pits, with luxurious decorations on the relics.

Some warriors were found wearing hats with shell strings and the foreheads of some horses were decorated with gold veneer and bronze backing.

“This is very rare among the ancient discoveries of Anyang, reflecting the extraordinary status and power of the carriage owner,” said Kong Deming, director of the institute.

The researchers are still working on unlocking the remaining mysteries of the site, including the social status of the clan, their division of labour and their relationship with the Shang royal family.

The relics at the site are diverse and relatively well-preserved, making them of great significance to studies on the scope and layout of the Yin Ruins, according to Kong.

ASIA, INDONESIA, WORLD

7,200-year-old skeleton unearthed in Indonesia reveals an unknown human group

7,200-year-old skeleton unearthed in Indonesia reveals unknown human group

The ancient remains of a hunter-gatherer girl who died over 7,000 years ago in Indonesia, has revealed clues to a mysterious group of humans from the past. The discovery, made in 2015, in the Leang Panninge cave on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is the first discovery of ancient human DNA in the region, known as Wallacea.

In a study published, Griffith University archaeology professor and study co-author Adam Brumm said the girl, nicknamed Bessé,’ belonged to a mysterious group of modern humans from the Holocene era who archaeologists have named the Toaleans.

It is the first time an intact skeleton of the Toalean people had been found.

“We’ve got ancient DNA from the bones of this woman, but we could only reconstruct about 2 per cent of her complete genome,” Brumm told the ABC. “So that’s how degraded it was and it took a lot of work to get even that.”

Sulawesi is the largest island in Wallacea. White shaded areas represent landmasses exposed during periods of lower sea level in the Late Pleistocene.
Burial of the hunter-gatherer Toalean woman.

Through DNA analysis, archaeologists have confirmed a theory that the Toaleans were related to the first humans who lived in Wallacea around 65,000 years ago and could also tie the girl to the Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.

Half of Bessé’s genome is shared with present-day Aboriginals, Papuans, and Western Pacific Islander peoples. She was also partly related to the older human ancestors the Denisovans, whose remains have been found in Tibet and Siberia.

Further analysis found that Bessé’ also had strong genetic ties to an ancient Asian group of people who did not mingle with the ancestors of Aboriginals and Papuans.

“A really unexpected discovery is that within the DNA of this ancient woman, we found ancestry from a very ancient Asian population,” Brumm said. “We don’t know quite who they were.”

Excavations at Leang Panninge cave.

Prof. Akin Duli from the University of Hasanuddin said this meant the population and genetic history of early humans in the region were more complex than previously thought.

“It is unlikely we will know much about the identity of these early ancestors of the Toaleans until more ancient human DNA samples are available from Wallacea,” Duli said.

However, finding more preserved remains, like Bessé’s, is extremely difficult given the tropical, humid weather of the region.

Just two other DNA samples have been found in the whole region and they come from Laos and Malaysia.

Bessé’ has no relation to the present-day people of Sulawesi, which is unsurprising given they are known to be largely descended from people who came from the Taiwanese region 3,500 years ago.

The Toaleans have been a century-old archaeological mystery since the discovery of unique, finely crafted arrowheads in several southern Sulawesi caves in 1902.

Undated Toalean stone arrowheads, backed microliths, and bone projectile points.
ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

India’s largest known burial site is 4,000 yrs old, confirms carbon dating

India’s largest known burial site is 4,000 yrs old, confirms carbon dating

One day in 2005, Shriram Sharma, a farmer from Sanauli village Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district, was carrying about his day, and ploughing his field. Little did he know that what was otherwise part of his daily routine would lead to an accidental discovery of skeletons and copper pots, which would one day raise questions on ancient global history. 

He alerted the local media about his discovery, and soon, a team from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) had arrived at the scene, to begin digging deep into three bighas (0.40052356 acres) of Sharma’s land. The first round of excavations lasted for 13 months, during which they found chariots, coffins, pots, skeletons, what could arguably be the world’s oldest copper helmet, and more, tentatively dating back to 2000 BCE. 

Interestingly, most wooden artefacts were layered with copper sheaths, inlays, and wires,  which prevented them from decomposing for nearly 4,000 years. “In the area where we excavated furnaces, we suspect that the superstructure was made of wood. But the sediment is very difficult to work with and retrieving wood impression is particularly tricky. Thank God for the copper inlays and covering, which helped us identify the findings,” Disha Ahluwalia, who was appointed the site-in charge in February, tells The Better India.

India’s largest known burial site is 4,000 yrs old, confirms carbon dating

The carbon dating tests confirmed that the burial site — where 125 burials were discovered — is 4,000 years old.  

The most striking aspect of the excavation has been the discovery of three chariots, which bring up questions regarding the Aryan Invasion theory. The design and size of the chariot indicate they were horse-driven and were contemporary to the Mesopotamian and Sumerian culture. According to historians, the horses were brought from Central Asia by the invading Aryan army around 1500 BC. Besides, the Harappan civilisation had chariots driven by bulls. 

The ASI carried two more rounds (in 2018 and 2019) of meticulous digging thereafter, bringing forth several intriguing theories and discoveries about the Sanauli burial site.

Needless to say, Sanauli has caught everyone’s attention, as these discoveries could be a major chapter piecing together history in this century. Discovery Plus recently released a 55-minute documentary called ‘Secrets of Sanauli — Discovery of the Century, made by director Neeraj Pandey and compered by Manoj Bajpayee. It follows the archaeological findings and questions the western hegemonic narratives. The theories, history and language have been simplified by experts including Dr VN Prabhakar – IIT Gandhinagar, Dr BR Mani – National Museum, and so on. 

Did Sanuali coexist with the Harappan civilisation? 

The archaeologists found a slew of antiques such as chariots, a torch, an antenna sword, highly decorated coffins, and helmets. The astonishingly well-preserved remains are similar to those found in the late Harappan phase. However, the Orche-Coloured Pottery (OCP) and copper-coated items are reasons enough to dismiss that Sanauli was part of the late Harappan phase. Hence, it could be that Sanauli was another Chalcolithic culture that existed alongside Harappa.

“The 2005 excavations helped us discover pottery of different sizes, besides beads and other material that were similar to those used in the Harappan civilisation. However, a chariot near a coffin is not seen anywhere in the Harappan sites,” Dr Sanjay Kumar Manjul, director of the ASI’s Institute of Archaeology and in-charge of the excavation, told Outlook.

Further, the bricks found on the in-situ site are different as well, “The Harappan bricks are smaller than Sanauli, but excavators could not identify the alignment or make sense of the structure. This has left many questions unanswered,” says Disha.  

Explaining the process of identifying the bricks and discovering a new element with Dr Manjul, she says, “After days of strenuous work, we noticed one brick in the structure was perfectly horizontal, and others which were falling. This one brick gave the impression that it is supported by some sort of structure or more bricks underneath. I decided to undercut the section and we found the fourth side of the collapsed wall. We understood that there are two layers to this structure and that it’s not a platform, but instead a walled structure. What was interesting was that two sides of the structure had collapsed inwards, whereas the third wall that I found after undercutting the section was outwards. As the level of the base was the same as that of the burial pits, it suggested that this was a structure built in a pit, where the two sides that collapsed inwards were supported by the natural sediment and then the rest of the structure was above the ground with a wooden superstructure. We could see the heavy use of wood everywhere.”

Of royalty & warfare

In 2018’s digging, the ASI team unearthed other items that gave further insight into the culture of Sanauli including warfare and royal borough.

The fresh evidence, comprising eight burials, screams of evidence of an elite class. A decorated horn comb with a peacock motif, copper mirror, armlet made of agate beads, vases, and bowls are a few examples of this. One royal coffin had a decorated lid with eight anthropomorphic figures such as headgear, and pipal leaf. A copper armour shaped like a torso was another item. Besides, ceramic pots were found next to the coffins, suggesting the possibility of rituals that were performed before the person was buried. 

The burials also hinted that the tribe consisted of warriors who used technologically advanced weaponry. For example, the antenna sword was placed in an upright position next to the skeletons of both, males and females (yes, women also may have fought wars as per Dr Manjul). Additionally, the swords have copper-covered hilts and medial ridge, which are sturdy enough for war. 

The three chariots made of wood and covered with thick copper sheets also denote wars. Unlike the ones found in Harappan culture, these chariots were smaller in size with thinner carts. This means that they could accommodate a maximum of two people according to Dr Manjul. Hence, they weren’t used as carriers. The chariots are two-wheeled and are fixed on an axle. This was supposedly linked to the yoke of a pair of animals by a long rope. 

Helmets and shields further affirm the possibility. Interestingly, the ASI team believes that the helmet could be the world’s oldest. “If you see the documentary, the excavator says ‘helmet’ or ‘copper pot’. But earlier, the excavator suggested that it’s a copper helmet. We are yet to be sure. It could be the earliest, because if it is a helmet, then no other such object predates Sanauli. The ones in the West are of later dates. But in my opinion, we should conduct more analysis,” says Disha. 

Meanwhile, the shields had two gender-specific designs. The ones found next to women had steatite inlay work and men burials had ones with copper designs. 

According to Dr Manjul, the ASI team had used modern and scientific techniques such as X-Ray, Handheld XRF, 3D scanning, CT scan and drone and Magnetometer surveys to analyse the startling findings. Both Dr Manjul, as well as Disha, reiterate that more studies will be conducted to unearth specific historic events and significance in future. 

Watch Dr Manjul’s presentation on the artefacts here: