Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Amazing 1,600-year-old biblical mosaics reveal a new perspective on Galilean life

Amazing 1,600-year-old biblical mosaics reveal a new perspective on Galilean life

In its eighth dig season, the vibrant mosaic flooring of a fifth-century synagogue excavated in the small ancient Galilee village of Huqoq continues to surprise. The 2018 Huqoq dig has uncovered unprecedented depictions of biblical stories, including the Israelite spies in Canaan. With its rich finds, the Byzantine-period synagogue busts scholars’ preconceived notions of a Jewish settlement in decline.

“What we found this year is extremely exciting,” the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Prof. Jodi Magness told The Times of Israel, saying the biblically-based depictions are “unparalleled” and not found in any other ancient synagogue.

“The synagogue just keeps producing mosaics that there’s just nothing like and is enriching our understanding of the Judaism of the period,” said Magness. A recently unearthed mosaic shows two men carrying between them a pole on their shoulders from which is hung a massive cluster of grapes (the same as the easily recognizable symbol of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism). With a clear Hebrew inscription stating, “a pole between two,” it illustrates Numbers 13:23, in which Moses sends two scouts to explore Canaan.

A mosaic found in the 2018 Huqoq excavation is labelled ‘a pole between two,’ depicting a biblical scene from Numbers 13:23. The images show two spies sent by Moses to explore Canaan carrying a pole with a cluster of grapes.

Before wrapping up the dig season last week, the team of 20 excavators uncovered a further biblical mosaic panel, which shows a youth leading an animal on a rope and includes the inscription, “a small child shall lead them.” It is a reference to Isaiah 11:6, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”

According to a 2013 Biblical Archaeology Review article by Magness, “Huqoq was a prosperous village about 3 miles west of Magdala (home of Mary Magdalene) and Capernaum (where Jesus taught in the synagogue),” located next to a fresh spring. It appears twice in the Hebrew Bible, in Joshua 19:32–34 and 1 Chronicles 6:74–75. “Our excavations have not reached these early occupation levels, however,” she writes.

These two newly published mosaics join a pantheon of others — from 2012 and 2013, two Samson depictions, to fantastical elephants and mythical creatures from 2013-2015, Noah’s Ark in 2016, and colourful and as yet unpublished Jonah and the whale in 2017. During this year’s dig, the team also continued to expose and study rare 1,600-year-old columns, first uncovered in previous seasons, which are covered in painted plaster with red, orange, and yellow vegetal motifs. Other discovered columns, said Magness, were painted to imitate marble.

However, despite these “imitation marble” columns, this was no poor man’s synagogue. Much in the manner of King Herod decorating his palaces with painted faux-marble frescos, the columns and gorgeous mosaics point to a wealthy, flourishing fifth-century Jewish settlement, said, Magness.

“In general, unless you’re in a really important church in the Byzantine period, you won’t find marble, rather this common local alternative,” she said. She laughed, saying there is a feeling of “one-ups-manship” in the construction of the Huqoq synagogue.

A fish swallows an Egyptian soldier in a mosaic scene depicting the splitting of the Red Sea from the Exodus story, from the fifth-century synagogue at Huqoq, in northern Israel.

“Every village has its own synagogue,” Magness said. “In Huqoq there’s a feeling that the villagers said, ‘We’re going to build the biggest and best.’ It’s as if they decided to throw everything into it.”

The obvious wealth and disposable income displayed in the synagogue is “contradicting a widespread view — not my view — that the Jewish community was in decline,” she said.

However, not only the synagogue was rich and diverse, but also the Judaism it housed.

“The mosaics decorating the floor of the Huqoq synagogue revolutionizes our understanding of Judaism in this period,” said Magness in a press release. “Ancient Jewish art is often thought to be aniconic, or lacking images. But these mosaics, colourful and filled with figured scenes, attest to a rich visual culture as well as to the dynamism and diversity of Judaism in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods.”

Galilean life
The Huqoq synagogue’s fifth-century mosaic, with the upper register showing a war elephant.

According to Magness, “Rabbinic sources indicate that Huqoq flourished during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (fourth–sixth centuries CE). The village is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud in connection with the cultivation of the mustard plant.”

Aside from the outstanding mosaics and colourfully painted columns, there are other features of note in this synagogue: Discovered in 2012, an inscription flanked by the faces of two women and a man (a fourth face, presumably of a man, is not preserved) might be the first donor portraits found in a Jewish house of prayer. The practice, said Magness, was “not uncommon in Byzantine churches,” but has no parallel example found in a synagogue of the era. Although there are aspects of the synagogue that may point to a Christian influence, for example, the possible donor portraits, Magness does not believe the Huqoq community was more impacted than other neighbouring congregations.

Detail from the Huqoq synagogue’s 5th-century mosaic showing Samson carrying the gate of Gaza, from Judges 16.

“In general there was some interaction between Jews and Christians, as well as Judaism and Christianity, in the sense that both religions laid claim to the same tradition and called themselves the ‘true Israel,’” said Magness. It is not coincidental that the same biblical themes appear in both forums.

“They are clearly some sort of dialogue, broadly speaking… A lot of what we see at Huqoq can be understood on the background of the rise of Christianity,” she said.

“There is evidence of occupation at the site during the Persian, Hellenistic, Early Roman, Abbasid, Fatimid and Crusader-Mamluke periods. The modern village was abandoned in 1948 during the fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. In the 1960s, the site was bulldozed,” writes Magness in BAR. It appears that the Huqoq synagogue is the ancestor of what seems to be a later, 12-13th century Jewish house of prayer. Faint, broken remnants of that incarnation’s mosaic flooring have also been discovered a meter above the dynamic mosaics of the Byzantine era.

2018 Huqoq excavation with students from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, surrounding dig director Dr Jodi Magness.

It is possible, said Magness, that this is a synagogue mentioned by French 14th century Jewish physician-turned-traveller Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses, aka Ishtori Haparchi, mentioned in his 1322 geography of the Holy Land, “Sefer Kaftor Vaferach.”

Regardless, there are no extant medieval synagogues in Israel today, making this find potentially no less important than the more attention-grabbing images in the fifth-century mosaic floors, said Magness.

Pair of donkeys in Noah’s Ark scene at the Huqoq excavation.

Both of these finds — the medieval synagogue and beautiful Byzantine mosaics — are all the more remarkable in that they are a by-product of a different scholarly quest: Magness decided to excavate at Huqoq to test a wide-spread Galilean synagogue dating system, which dated the buildings based on their architectural structures.

“Since the early 20th century, when these synagogues began coming to light, scholars developed a tripartite chronology: The earliest, these so-called ‘Galilean-type synagogues,’ were dated to the second and third centuries CE, followed by ‘transitional synagogues’ in the fourth century, and then by ‘Byzantine synagogues’ in the fifth and sixth centuries,” writes Magness in the BAR article. Although housed in a fifth-century village, based on its architectural features, according to previous scholarly consensus, the Huqoq synagogue should have been classified a “Galilean-type synagogue” and dated to the second or third centuries. This is, Magness has proven, clearly not the case.

Pictured is the Huqoq synagogue mosaic depicting the month of Teveth (December-January) with the sign of Capricorn.

What was originally to have been a brief excavation has turned into eight seasons. And although Magness is assisted by Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University, the excavation is funded independently of the IAA, by sponsors including UNC-Chapel Hill, Baylor University, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto, the Friends of Heritage Preservation, the National Geographic Society, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. There will be a 2019 dig season, said Magness, who estimated she needs at least another four years to complete the ever-evolving project.

“Every year, there is another mind-blowing, weird discovery,” said Magness.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

28,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave lion cub found frozen in Siberia, whiskers still intact

28,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave lion cub found frozen in Siberia, whiskers still intact

A nearly 28,000-year-old cave lion cub discovered frozen in the Siberian permafrost, is so well preserved, you can still make out each and every one of her whiskers.

28,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave lion cub found frozen in Siberia, whiskers still intact
A closeup of the head of the female Siberian cave lion cub mummy now known as Sparta.

Researchers in Sweden claim the cub, nicknamed Sparta, is probably the best-preserved Ice Age animal ever uncovered and describe Sparta in Quaternary. Her teeth, skin, and soft tissue have all been mummified by the ice. Even her organs remain intact.

To date, Sparta is the fourth cave lion cub (Panthera spelaea) found buried in the permafrost of Yakutia, which lies in the northeast corner of Russia. She was discovered in 2018 by local resident Boris Berezhnev who was looking for ancient mammoth tusks among the tundra.

As wildlife hunting and trade have become more restricted, ‘tusk hunters’ like Berezhnev have begun to search for ancient ivory in the icy north. With climate change weakening the permafrost and extending the tusk hunting season, we’re finding more ancient remains – and not just from woolly mammoths. In the past few years, residents in Siberia have pulled woolly rhinos, wolves, brown bears, horses, reindeer, and bison out of the permafrost, and some of these carcasses date as far back as 40,000 years.

Clearly, these icy steppes were once home to numerous large mammals. In fact, a year before finding Sparta near the Semyuelyakh River, Berezhnev found another cave lion carcass just 15 meters (49 feet) away. This one, named Boris, showed slightly more damage, possibly from its permafrost cave collapsing, but it was still remarkably intact. 

Researchers in Sweden, who have since helped analyze the carcasses, claim both Boris and Sparta are about one to two months old. Yet despite their physical proximity and similar appearances, Boris is thought to be roughly 15,000 years older, give or take a few centuries.

Today, the little we know about cave lions mostly comes from fossils, tracks, and ancient cave art.

Mummified bodies found in permafrost are some of the best evidence we have of their existence. Their frozen carcasses look remarkably similar to modern lions in many ways, just on a much larger scale and with a much warmer coat. But one of the most iconic features of African lions, their mane, seems to be missing on cave lions.

Figure 6 from the Quaternary study: The appearance of the frozen cave lion cub mummies: (a) female Sparta; (b) male Boris. Photos of lion cubs’ heads from the side: (c) Sparta; (d) Boris; (e) Sparta mummy as seen from above; (f) dark brown ‘brush’ of Sparta’s tail.

In fact, early human artwork from the time suggests cave lions rarely sported manes, or if they did, they were extremely discrete. Some Ice Age paintings, for instance, show dark patterns of colouring on the cave lion’s face, but it’s unclear what that represents.

Boris and Sparta are both juvenile cave lions, which means it’s hard to say how their coats would have developed as they aged. Apart from some dark colouring on the backs of their ears, researchers say they are mostly covered in yellowish-brown fur.

If the cubs had a chance to grow up, experts think their fur would probably have turned more of a light grey to help them camouflage in the cold Siberian Arctic.

The presence of a mane is important because it could tell us about the social structures of cave lions. For example, whether they live by themselves or in groups with clear hierarchies.

At the moment, scientists are still debating whether cave lions during the Ice Age roamed the steppes of Siberia on their own or in pride like modern African lions.

There’s one particular painting in France’s Chauvet cave from the Ice Age that depicts nearly a dozen cave lions, both male and female, in the act of hunting bison.

“Hunting in groups can be more effective than solitary hunting when the prey is large, and cave lions would have had many such prey species available in their ecosystem, for example, mammoths and rhinoceros, when there were no other options available to them,” the authors of the recent analysis write.

“In addition, large pride would have helped to protect their kill from the competition and also to protect the cubs and young from predators.”

For now, this is all just guesswork. Even though we have found some astonishingly intact cave lions in recent years, we still don’t have enough information about these extinct predators to reach any conclusions about their social structures.

Perhaps one day, that could change. Maybe we will unearth another cave lion with some hint about their long-lost lives. Or maybe one day, we will successfully bring cave lions back to life.

“There is a very realistic chance to recreate cave lions, and it would be a lot easier than to clone a woolly mammoth,” palaeontologist and one of the study’s authors Albert Protopopov told the Siberian Times.

Some scientists have suggested we do this with woolly mammoths as well, but cave lions are a much younger species. Protopopov suggests that we could supplement their clones with some of the genes from modern African lions, making the work a bit easier. That’s obviously a controversial idea, and the reality of it is probably still a ways off.

For now, the next step is to sequence the entire genome of both Sparta and Boris. Then, we can figure out what to do with the information we collect.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

Thousands of human and animal bones hoarded by hyenas in lava tube system, Saudi Arabia

Thousands of human and animal bones hoarded by hyenas in lava tube system, Saudi Arabia

Although hyenas look and hunt like canines, they’re members of the mongoose family and therefore more closely related to a cat. However, just like dogs, hyenas have an affinity for hiding bones — it’s just that they can tend to go a bit overboard.

Thousands of human and animal bones hoarded by hyenas in lava tube system, Saudi Arabia
The Umm Jirsan lava tube in Saudi Arabia.

Case in point, archaeologists were left speechless after they stumbled across a lava tube cavern in northwestern Saudi Arabia that is packed with hundreds of thousands of bones gathered by striped hyenas over the course of 7,000 years.

The ultimate hoarders

The gruesome floor filled with ancient animal bones was found deep in a lava tube system — a network of caverns carved by lava flow. The site, known as Umm Jirsan, was discovered in 2007, but it was only recently that researchers ventured deep into the dark caverns.

Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, led a team of researchers who catalogued nearly 2,000 bones and teeth belonging to at least 14 different species, including cattle, horses, camels, rodents, and even humans.

Hundreds of thousands of other bones that are yet to be analyzed still lie on the cavernous floor.

Radiocarbon dating of the samples suggests the animal remains range from 439 to 6,839 years ago, which can only mean these lava tubes had been used as dens for at least 6,000 years.

Images of Saudi Arabia’s Umm Jirsan “hyena cave”: A: Entrance to the western passage and surrounding area. B: Entrance to the western passage. Note the team members on the right-hand wall for scale. C: The back chamber in which the excavation was carried out. D: Plotted sampling square before surface collection and excavation. Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is a bit smaller than spotted and brown hyenas. They have a broad head with dark eyes, a thick muzzle, and large, pointed ears, with a mane of long hair growing along the back.

Their most striking feature is the legs: the front legs are much longer than the hind legs. This gives hyenas their distinctive walk, making them seem like they’re always limping uphill.

Hyenas are nocturnal or crepuscular predators that stay out of sight during the day, preferably in a natural cave or a burrow dug into the hillside. Sometimes they may take over the dens of other creatures where they transport bones to be eaten, fed to the young, or cached for later use.

It’s a well-established fact that hyena dens aren’t tidy at all, being normal to find leftover bones scattered across the floor. However, the lava tube horde stunned even the researchers who were most familiar with the hyenas.

Hyenas will eat an entire human body — except for the skull cap

Although they didn’t find hyenas at the site, the researchers are certain this was one of their dens judging from the cuts, bites, and digestion marks left on the bones.

The presence of human skull fragments was also telling of hyena presence since the animals are known to scavenge through burial grounds in search of food. They normally will consume everything except for the top of the skull.

“The size and composition of the bone accumulation, as well as the presence of hyena skeletal remains and coprolites, suggest that the assemblage was primarily accumulated by striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena),” the authors wrote in a study published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

Molars and mandibles belonging to wild cows, rabbits, wild goats, camels, and wolves.

It’s highly unlikely that the six skullcaps with gnaw marks on them found at the site belong to humans who were killed by a hyena hunting party.

The mammals are mostly scavengers but when they do hunt they prefer to target hares, birds, and antelopes. However, the possibility that some hunter-gatherers were killed by hyena packs cannot be entirely ruled out.

Today, striped hyenas are a threatened species in Saudia Arabia but thousands of years ago they were common across the Arabian Peninsula.

The current investigation at Umm Jirsan was undertaken as part of the Paleo deserts Project, a large-scale research initiative aimed at tracking environmental and climate change in the Arabian Desert region over the past one million years.

Of particular interest is how human and animal migration in the region waxed and waned with the changing climate. This is a challenging goal since the unforgiving desert climate in the region tends to destroy any exposed organic matter.  Luckily, the Umm Jirsan lava tubes create a perfect time capsule that will give scientists material to work with for years to come. 

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

Iron dagger with wooden handle, skeletal remains found at Konthagai, India

Iron dagger with wooden handle, skeletal remains found at Konthagai, India

The 40-cm-long weapon with a 6-cm-long wooden handle was found at a depth of 77 cm.

The sample will be sent to Beta Analytical Lab, Florida, USA, for exact dating.

An iron dagger with a wooden handle was found inside a burial urn unearthed at Konthagai village, which is part of the Keeladi cluster where the seventh phase of excavation is in full swing to establish the existence of urban civilisation in the Sangam era.

The second season of digging started in February at Konthagai where 25 burial urns have been unearthed so far and 11 of them have been opened, according to R. Kaviya, one of the four Site Archaeology Officers.

These urns measure 95 to 105 cm in height with a circumference of 80 cm. Some of the urns contained iron weapons, shaped like knives, and spears and small terracotta vessels.

The latest, a 40-cm-long iron dagger with a 6-cm-long wooden handle was found at a depth of 77 cm. The urn filled with soil sediment had the five-cm-thick dagger, associated with femur bones, a skull and an offering pot.

It is a type used by warriors belonging to the Sangam period, contemporary to Keeladi dating, according to R. Sivanandam, Director of Keeladi Excavations.

This was the first time that they had stumbled upon a weapon with a wooden handle, and it would be very useful for exact dating of the evidence found so far, he said.

Though extremely fragile, the wooden handle was preserved in rare natural phenomena and collected carefully in foil covers. The sample would be sent to Beta Analytical Lab, Florida, the USA, for an exact dating, added Mr. Sivanandam, who is also the Commissioner (FAC), Department of Archaeology.

25 burial urns have been unearthed so far in Keeladi

The skeleton samples were handed over to experts at Madurai Kamaraj University, where a DNA testing laboratory is coming up.

Ms. Kaviya said the urn was found with a disturbed lid. The broken portion of the lid was retrieved inside the urn at a depth of 80 cm.

There was a possibility that the broken portion of the urn lid fell on the iron dagger, as two urn lid pieces were found on either side of the dagger, which was also damaged.

The Keeladi excavations are being carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India under the supervision of Minister for Industries Thangam Thennarasu and B. Chandramohan, Principal Secretary, Tourism, Culture & Religious Endowments Department.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

Scientists Present 20,000-Year-Old Woolly Rhinoceros Unearthed in Siberia, Report Says

Scientists Present 20,000-Year-Old Woolly Rhinoceros Unearthed in Siberia, Report Says

Aided by melting permafrost, long-extinct creatures such as the woolly rhino are being uncovered and casting new light on prehistoric eras. Around 20,000 years ago, a young woolly rhinoceros went about its day like usual in the icy region of what is now northern Siberia.

Foraging for food, something likely went fatally wrong for the young animal as it drowned in the Tirekhtyakh River or a nearby area of water.

Fast forward a few millennia and that woolly rhino’s tragic fate that day has become a pathologist’s dream come true. Aided by the melting permafrost from a trend of rising temperatures, long-extinct creatures such as the woolly rhino are being uncovered and casting new light on unknown, prehistoric eras.

An exceptionally well-preserved woolly rhino with its last meal still intact found in Arctic Yakutia. The juvenile rhino with thick hazel-coloured coat was 3 to 4 four years old when it died at least 20,000 years ago; its horn was found next to the carcass

Permafrost is a permanently frozen layer of soil that has been frozen for a long period of time, sometimes several thousand years.

The ancient carcass was discovered by a local farmer in Yakutia, Siberia, in August 2020, about 15,000 years after the wooly rhinoceros is believed to have gone extinct. The fossil was found with a fully intact fur coat, hooves, and internal organs, giving scientists a crucial puzzle piece on the anatomy, behaviors and life of the creatures.

This photo taken in Aug. 2020 shows the carcass of a woolly rhino, taken in Yakutia, The well-preserved carcass with most of its internal organs still intact was released by permafrost in August and scientists hope to transport it to the lab for studies next month.

Video from the fossil excavation was recently shared online by The Siberian Times. As the footage shows, paleontologists took extensive care to keep as much of rhino’s structure preserved. Their successes resulted in 80% of the specimen remaining intact, a breakthrough effort.

“The young rhino was between 3 and 4 years old and lived separately from its mother when it died, most likely by drowning,” paleontologist Valery Plotnikov told The Siberian Times.

Plotnikov, who works with the Russian Academy of Sciences, added that the gender of the wooly rhino is still unknown and radiocarbon analysis is needed to confirm the general time range when the rhino likely lived.

Found next to the rhino carcass was the young animal’s horn, an exceptional find, according to Plotnikov, because of how quickly the cartilage usually decomposes. Markings on the horn, he said, also shed more light on how the species used it for food.

The recently found frozen creature isn’t the first woolly rhino to be discovered in the area, as another ice-preserved specimen was unearthed in 2015. That rhino, nicknamed Sasha, was the first baby woolly rhino ever discovered and is believed to have roamed the region around 34,000 years ago.

Like the recently discovered rhino, Sasha was found with a fully-intact coat of wool and was also believed to have drowned. However, unlike the recent rhino, Sasha’s fur was strawberry blonde and the carcass lacked the front horn.

Historically high temperatures in the normally icy region have revealed perfectl -preserved fossils that had previously been buried under thousands of years of thick ice. This past summer, shortly before the remains were found, record-high temperatures were recorded in towns around the Arctic Circle.

“Temperatures soared 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above average last month in Siberia, home to much of Earth’s permafrost, as the world experienced its warmest May on record,” according to the European Union’s climate monitoring network.

AccuWeather Meteorologist Maura Kelly wrote in June that the prolonged period of heat triggered the melting of permafrost across northern Siberia.

“The record-high temperatures in May followed a record-breaking start to 2020 across Russia,” she wrote at the time in a story for AccuWeather.com. “Temperatures from January to April across the country averaged about 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal.”

Recently, the new woolly rhino fossil was transported to scientists for further tests thanks to newly built ice roads in Yakutia. In the coming years, the slowly receding ice layer is sure to unveil even more frozen puzzle pieces, continually assembling the jigsaw of our ancestors and generations of previously hidden life.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Archaeologists unearth 1st Jerusalem evidence of quake from Bible’s Book of Amos

Archaeologists unearth 1st Jerusalem evidence of quake from Bible’s Book of Amos

Books of Amos and Zechariah in the Old Testament describe an earthquake that rocked the city of Jerusalem about 2,800 years ago and archaeologists have now found the first evidence of the biblical event.

The Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) excavations in the City of David National Park uncovered a layer of destruction during excavations, which consists of collapsed walls, broken pottery and bits and pieces of other goods.

Researchers say that since there was no signs of fire or an ancient conquest the destruction had to have been caused by an earthquake that hit Israel during the 8th century BC.

Archaeologists unearth 1st Jerusalem evidence of quake from Bible’s Book of Amos
The Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) excavations in the City of David National Park uncovered a layer of destruction during excavations, which consisted of collapsed walls, broken pottery and bits and pieces of other goods

Some evidence of the event has been found in surrounding areas, but this is the first time archaeologists can prove it hit the major city.

In the book of Amos, the passage reads: ‘The words of Amos, a sheep breeder from Tekoa, who prophesied concerning Israel in the reigns of Kings Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

‘And the Valley in the Hills shall be stopped up, for the Valley of the Hills shall reach only to Azal; it shall be stopped up as it was stopped up as a result of the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah,’ reads another passage in Zechariah, recalling the event some 200 years later, to suggest how strong of a collective memory it left.’

Among the artefacts, archaeologists found were fragments of pottery, some nearly intact that they could be put back together, and small tables, The Jerusalem Post reports.

Since the artefacts were discovered deep into the excavation site, experts say residents had to have built on top of the ruins following the earthquake, which preserved traces of the event that occurred.

Researchers say that since there was no signs of fire or an ancient conquest the destruction had to have been caused by an earthquake that hit Israel during the 8th century BC. Pictured are collapsed walls that ruin of the event
Among the artefacts, archaeologists found were fragments of pottery, some nearly intact that they could be put back together, and small tables

IAA excavation directors Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf said in a statement: ‘When we excavated the structure and uncovered an 8th century BCE layer of destruction, we were very surprised because we know that Jerusalem continued to exist in succession until the Babylonian destruction, which occurred about 200 years later.

‘We asked ourselves what could have caused that dramatic layer of destruction we uncovered.

‘Examining the excavation findings, we tried to check if there is a reference to it in the biblical text.

‘Interestingly, the earthquake that appears in the Bible, in the books of Amos and Zechariah, occurred at the time when the building we excavated in the City of David collapsed.’

Another biblical find was discovered in Israel last month – a pottery fragment unearthed in Israel bears the name of the biblical judge ‘Jerubbaal,’ which was inked on the artefact 3,100 years ago

Another biblical find was discovered in Israel last month – a pottery fragment unearthed in Israel bears the name of the biblical judge ‘Jerubbaal,’ which was inked on the artefact 3,100 years ago.

Mentioned in the Hebrew bible, Jerubbaal was a military leader, judge and prophet whose story is recounted in chapters 6 to 8 of the Book of Judges.

The ceramic artefact was discovered in an archaeological excavation at Horbat al-Ra’i, near Kiryat Gat in Israel, which experts say was part of a small jug that carried precious liquids.

‘The name is written on the jug, Yarubaal, may allude to biblical Jerubbaal, also known as the judge Gideon ben (son of) Yoash, but we cannot be sure if he owned the inscribed vessel,’ the Israel Antiquities Authority shared in a statement.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

World’s oldest-known coin mint identified in China

World’s oldest-known coin mint identified in China

A team of researchers from Zhengzhou University, the Modern Analysis and Computer Center of Zhengzhou University and Peking University, all in China, has found evidence of what appears to be the oldest coin-minting operation ever uncovered.

Spatial distribution of the minting remains in the foundry’s excavation area: red dots: deposit with clay molds; green dots: deposits with fragments of finished spade coins (drone photograph by Z. Qu; figure by H. Zhao).

In their paper published on the Cambridge University site Antiquity, the group describes their discovery and study of coins and minting molds found at a dig site in Henan Province, China, and what they have learned about it.

Up until now, researchers have believed that the use of coins as a form of currency was first developed in Greece or Turkey.

Coins dug up in what is now modern Turkey, created and used by people of the Lydian Empire, have been dated as far back as 630 B.C. But there is still debate as to their true age due to the dating techniques used.

In this new effort, the researchers found coins in China in the same location as a minting facility, which left behind ashes that could be used for carbon dating—a very accurate means of dating the minting operation.

The coins and molds were found at a site identified as the ancient city of Guanzhuang, which was founded around 800 B.C.

Items found by the researchers included multiple bronze, spade-shaped coins and the clay molds that were used to make them.

Testing of the ashes left by the fires used to melt the metal showed them to be approximately 2,600 years old, which would mean the facility was used to make coins as recently as 550 B.C. and as long ago as 640 B.C., making it the oldest known coin-making facility ever discovered.

Coin SP-1 (pictured) was found in such an excellent state of preservation that its complete shape could be reconstructed. Restored, it has a full length of 143mm, a thickness of 0.9mm, and an original weight of no less than 31g. It bears no inscriptions of its face value or where it was cast – as is typical of the earliest spade coins. Of the second spade coin discovered (Coin SP-2), only the handle and clay core survive.

The researchers suggest the facility was first used to make tools, weapons and other objects as early as 770 B.C. It took another century for the people there to start using their technology to create coins.

They also note that historians have still not agreed on the reason for the creation of currency in the form of coins; some suggest it made buying and selling things easier, while others believe it came about as a way for governments to collect taxes.

ASIA, IRAQ, WORLD

3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet rewrites the history of maths – and shows the Greeks did not develop trigonometry

3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet rewrites the history of maths – and shows the Greeks did not develop trigonometry

Tucked away in a seemingly forgotten corner of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Daniel Mansfield found what may solve one of ancient math’s biggest questions. First exhumed in 1894 from what is now Baghdad, the circular tablet — broken at the centre with small perpendicular indentations across it — was feared lost to antiquity. But in 2018, a photo of the tablet showed up in Mansfield’s inbox.

Mansfield, a senior lecturer of mathematics at the University of New South Wales Sydney, had suspected the tablet was real. He came across records of its excavation and began the hunt. Word got around about what he was looking for, and then the email came. He knew what he had to do: travel to Turkey and examine it at the museum.

Hidden within this tablet is not only the oldest known display of applied geometry but a new ancient understanding of triangles. It could rewrite what we know about the history of mathematics, Mansfield argues. These findings were published Wednesday in the journal Foundations of Science.

It’s generally thought that trigonometry — a subset of geometry and what’s displayed on the tablet in a crude sense — was developed by ancient Greeks like the philosopher Pythagoras. However, analysis of the tablet suggests it was created 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born. Babylonian mathematics, which already holds a place of renown in the pantheon of ancient math, might’ve been more sophisticated than historians have given it credit for.

“The way we understand trigonometry harks back to ancient Greek astronomers,” Mansfield tells Inverse. “I like to think of the Babylonian understanding of right triangles as an unexpected prequel, which really is an independent story because the Babylonians weren’t using it to measure the stars, they were using it to measure the ground.”

Dr. Mansfield observes the tablet.
Dr. Mansfield observes the tablet.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW FIRST — Mansfield is no stranger to a pair of white gloves and following his mathematical curiosity. Years before discovering this latest tablet, dubbed Si.427, Mansfield was hot on the trail of another ancient Babylonian “document:” Plimpton 322. While the location of this artefact was known (it’s located at Columbia University) its true purpose was not.

Like Si.427, which dates back to roughly 1900 to 1600 BCE, Plimpton 322 is covered in geometric markings — riddles academics have tried to decipher for years. While the reigning theory was that these markings were a kind of teacher’s cheat code for Babylonian homework problems, Mansfield and colleagues were not convinced. In a 2017 paper, Mansfield and colleagues propose Plimpton 322 might be a kind of proto-trigonometry table of values — suggesting it predates the development of trigonometry as we know it today.

The Plimpton 322 clay tablet: it’s about the size of a postcard.

“A modern analogy would be to say that it contains a mix of elementary school problems alongside the unsolved conjectures of mathematics,” writes Mansfield in the new paper.

WHAT’S NEW — Now, Mansfield argues the discovery of Si.427 could confirm his Plimpton 322 hunch. In essence, Si.427 is argued to be a case study of how this proto-trig could be used in practice.

Si.427 is what’s known as a cadastral document. These are used to document the boundaries of land ownership. There are other examples on record, but Mansfield argues this tablet is the oldest known example from the Old Babylonian period — a range that stretches from 1900 BCE to 1600 BCE. On the tablet are legal and geometry details about a field that was split after some of it were sold.

This research suggests Plimpton 322 was used similarly: It might have been a surveyor’s cheat sheet, instead of a teacher’s. It’s possible Plimpton 322 was the theoretical solution to the practical problems a surveyor using Si.427 might have encountered.

“It’s a discovery that has come to us far outside our mathematical culture,” Mansfield says. “It seems new and fresh to us, even though it’s almost 4,000 years old.”

Using the principles of right triangles and perpendicular lines, ancient surveyors could evenly divide the land to avoid disputing neighbours.

WHY IT MATTERS — While these tablets are the kind of thing you might easily walk past on display in a museum, Mansfield said this discovery could actually have a huge implication for how we understand these ancient mathematics. Namely, it means mathematicians were working with so-called Pythagorean triples (trios of numbers that satisfy the infamous a^2+b^2 = c^2 equation) long before Pythagoras himself was even born. It also helps answer a slightly less academic question: How do you evenly divide up disputed land?

“This is from a period where land is starting to become private — people started thinking about the land in terms of ‘my land and your land,’ wanting to establish a proper boundary to have positive neighbourly relationships,” Mansfield explains in a statement.

“And this is what this tablet immediately says. It’s a field being split, and new boundaries are made.”

HOW DOES IT WORK? — As for how triangles sketched in clay translate to farmer’s fields, it all comes down to perpendicular lines. Essentially, surveyors would choose two Pythagorean triples (which were inherently right triangles) and extend the boundary line of the resultant rectangle by eye to create true perpendicular lines that spread across the entire field.

“This proves that our Babylonian surveyor had a solid theoretical understanding of the geometry of rectangles and right triangles and used it to solve practical problems,” Mansfield says in the video.

Extending the boundary of these triangles allowed surveyors to create incredibly straight lines without manually measuring or laying them out beforehand.

There are also instances of resizing these triangles to better fit the physical shape of the field at hand, which surveyors would’ve liked done by referencing a table of trig values like Plimpton 322, the study suggests. This table would’ve been a comprehensive list of Pythagorean triples and the steps to resizing them.

WHAT’S NEXT — This discovery may have laid to rest one ancient math mystery, there’s still plenty more where that came from, Mansfield says.

“Ancient mathematics is not as sophisticated as modern mathematics,” he says. “But sometimes you want to simple answers instead of sophisticated ones.”

He’s not “just talking about how mathematics students want their exams to be.” The advantage of a simple approach is its quickness — and Mansfield wants to examine whether or not this approach has any real-world applications.

“This approach might be of benefit in computer graphics or any application where speed is more important than precision,” he says.

Abstract: Plimpton 322 is one of the most sophisticated and interesting mathematical objects from antiquity. It is often regarded as teacher’s list of school problems, however new analysis suggests that it relates to a particular geometric problem in contemporary surveying.