The human skulls date back between 9,500 and 9,000 years ago, (on which) lifelike faces were modeled with clay earth.
DAMASCUS: Archaeologists said on Sunday they had uncovered decorated human skulls dating back as long as 9,500 years ago from a burial site near the Syrian capital Damascus.
“The human skulls date back between 9,500 and 9,000 years ago, (on which) lifelike faces were modelled with clay earth … then coloured to accentuate the features,” said Danielle Stordeur, head of the joint French-Syrian archaeological mission behind the discovery.
Located at a burial site near a prehistoric village, the five skulls were found earlier this month in a pit resting against one another, underneath the remains of an infant, said Stordeur.
The French archaeologist described as “extraordinary” the find at the Neolithic site of Tell Aswad, at Jaidet al-Khass village, 35 kilometers from Damascus.
The discovery was not the first of its kind in the Middle East, but “the realism of two of these skulls is striking,” stressed Stordeur, in charge of the excavation along with Bassam Jamous, the chief of antiquities of Syria’s National Museum.
“They surprise by the regularity and the smoothness of their features,” Stordeur said of the skulls.
“The eyes are shown as closed, underlined by black bitumen. The nose is straight and fine, with a pinched base to portray the nostrils.
The mouth is reduced to a slit,” said Stordeur, of the Asian research house of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France’s largest scientific establishment.
The decorated skulls were devoted “only to important individuals, chosen according to social or religious criteria,” she added.
Was Climate Change More Destructive Than Genghis Khan?
According to a statement released by the University of Lincoln, dryer conditions may be to blame for the collapse of medieval civilizations along Central Asia’s rivers, rather than the Mongol invasions led by Genghis Khan in the early thirteenth century.
The Aral Sea basin in Central Asia and the major rivers flowing through the region was once home to advanced river civilizations which used floodwater irrigation to farm.
The region’s decline is often attributed to the devastating Mongol invasion of the early 13th century, but new research of long-term river dynamics and ancient irrigation networks shows the changing climate and dryer conditions may have been the real cause.
Research led by the University of Lincoln, UK, reconstructed the effects of climate change on floodwater farming in the region and found that decreasing river flow was equally, if not more, important for the abandonment of these previously flourishing city-states.
Mark Macklin, author and Distinguished Professor of River Systems and Global Change, and Director of the Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health at the University of Lincoln said: “Our research shows that it was climate change, not Genghis Khan, that was the ultimate cause for the demise of Central Asia’s forgotten river civilizations.
Researchers investigate an abandoned medieval canal, Otrar oasis, Kazakhstan.
“We found that Central Asia recovered quickly following Arab invasions in the 7th and 8th centuries CE because of favourable wet conditions.
But prolonged drought during and following the later Mongol destruction reduced the resilience of local population and prevented the re-establishment of large-scale irrigation-based agriculture.”
The research focused on the archaeological sites and irrigation canals of the Otrar oasis, a UNESCO World Heritage site that was once a Silk Road trade hub located at the meeting point of the Syr Darya and Ary’s rivers in present southern Kazakhstan.
The researchers investigated the region to determine when the irrigation canals were abandoned and studied the past dynamics of the Arys river, whose waters fed the canals.
The abandonment of irrigation systems matches a phase of riverbed erosion between the 10th and 14th century CE, that coincided with a dry period with low river flows, rather than corresponding with the Mongol invasion.
The research was led by the University of Lincoln in collaboration with VU University Amsterdam, University College London, the University of Oxford and JSC Institute of Geography and Water Safety, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan.
It is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and highlights the critical role that rivers can have in shaping world history.
Surprising archaeologists find 1,000-year-old stainless steel in Iran
Stainless steel as we know it today was created in the early 20th century, in England. But researchers found evidence of the use of an alloy of iron and chromium quite similar to stainless steel – but almost a thousand years old.
Discovery, published in Journal of Archaeological Science, was made with the help of a series of manuscripts medieval Persians, who took the researchers to an archaeological site in Chahak, in southern Iran.
“This research not only provides the first known evidence of chrome steel production dating back to the 11th century AD, but it also provides a chemical tracker that can help identify similar artefacts in museums or archaeological collections since their origin in Chahak”, believes the author study, archaeologist Rahil Alipour.
Crucible remnant containing an embedded chunk of slag.
Chahak is described in a series of historical manuscripts dating from the 12th to the 19th century as a famous steelmaking centre – but its exact location has remained a mystery, as several villages in Iran bear the same name.
The manuscript “al-Jamahir fi Marifah al-Jawahir” (“A Compendium for Knowing the Gems”, dating from the 10th to the 11th centuries AD), written by the Persian polymath Abu-Rayhan Biruni, is one of those documents, which also details recipe steelmaking – but registers a mysterious ingredient called “rusakhtaj”.
Microscopic analysis of the sample collected in Chahak.
The team of archaeologists used radiocarbon dating on a series of pieces of coal recovered from the archaeological site to confirm their production as having been made between the 11th and 12th centuries AD.
Using scanning electron microscopy, the researchers identified remains of the chromite mineral, described in Biruni’s manuscript as an essential additive to the process.
The steel particles analyzed contained between 1% and 2% of chromium – therefore, they were not stainless like the modern alloys, which contain between 11% and 13% of the material.
“In a 13th-century Persian manuscript, Chahak steel was known for its fine and refined patterns, but its swords were also fragile – so they lost their market value,” explains Thilo Rehren, co-author of the study.
The researchers believe that this marks a distinct tradition of steelmaking separate from the traditional methods used in Central Asia.
“The previous evidence belongs to steelmaking centres in India, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,” said Alipour. “None of these, however, has any trace of chrome.
This is very important, as we can now search for this element in objects and track them back to their production centre or method ”, he adds.
12000 Years Old Body Of A Anunnaki King Found Completely Intact?
This discovery was made completely by chance in 2008, and if we know what happened is certainly thanks to the Russian media, and to the television press.
It happened in Kurdistan, Iran, a country quite closed to the world, at least in the western world, but with good relations with Russia. (Body of an Anunnaki King)
Although hidden until today, we get to know what has been published by the Russian press.
The discovery occurred in work when digging the ground to make the foundations of a house.
Then came a mausoleum containing three coffins, and after making more concise excavations, the remains of an ancient civilization and the ruins of a city were found in a layer of earth. (Body of an Anunnaki King)
Archaeologists determined that the monument and the city were built between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, a date quickly revised by the Islamic authorities after Find publication in the Russian press.
The Iranian authorities publicly stated that the ruins were 850 years old, which obviously does not correspond to the facts and is, again, an official lie.
Of the three sarcophagi found in the mausoleum, we only have video evidence of the first two.
We know nothing of the third, nor of its content, nor of who was inside.
As you can see, it is very difficult from the video to determine the height of the individual, although they appear to be very high.
Both seem to be in a state of suspended animation. One wears a crown, suggesting that he was the ruler of the city, and was buried, as can be observed, with his sorcerer, which leads him to conclude that in the third sarcophagus he must have contained his wife Reina.
There are gold coins placed in the eyes of the king, which is a well-attested habit of antiquity. This is a first blow to the official lie that the ruins are from the twelfth century.
It can be observed that it has Caucasian features, but copper skin: the second individual sarcophagus shares these same characteristics.
It looks like they are adorned with gold and precious stones.
These ornaments carry a cuneiform script that is not identifiable but has been translated, giving the name of the second man found in the second sarcophagus and thus his magician by profession.
The royal sarcophagus seems to be clothed with gold or metal that resembles it, and near the monarch can be seen a gold casket encrusted with strange gems, just like those found adorning the king, it is said strange because they seem luminescent. (Body of an Anunnaki King)
Incredible Footage as Giant Spinning ice disk is formed on a River in China
Residents in a northern Chinese city have flocked to see a giant ice disc rotating on a river, a rare natural phenomenon that occurs in cold climates.
Incredible footage shows the ice circle, measuring about 33 feet (10 metres) wide, spinning on the surface of the Taoer River in Inner Mongolia’s Ulanhot, a city with an average winter temperature of minus six degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit).
The captivating rarity, usually formed on the outer bends in a river, is created by accelerating water that breaks off a chunk of ice and smooths it into a circle.
Residents in the city of Ulanhot, northern China’s Inner Mongolia have flocked to see a giant ice disc rotating on a river, a rare natural phenomenon that occurs in cold climates
Footage filmed Wednesday by local newspaper Xing’an Daily shows the naturally-formed ice disc, with a reported diameter of 10 metres (33 feet), appearing to spin on its own in an anticlockwise direction.
The unusual sight has drawn local residents to the banks of the Taoer River running through the city of Ulanhot, where the temperatures in winter range between minus eight degrees Celsius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to two degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
‘It’s amazing,’ a resident told Chinese video news outlet Pear. ‘It’s the magnificent work crafted by nature, really captivating.’
Reporters can be seen in a picture standing at the centre of the ice disc as they hosted a live-streaming to promote local products.
Ice discs come into being due to the fact that warm water is less dense than cold water, therefore when the ice melts and sinks, the motion creates a vortex underneath the chunk, causing it to turn, according to National Geographic, citing a 2016 study.
Ice discs (pictured in Ulanhot, northern China on December 4) come into being due to the fact that warm water is less dense than cold water, therefore when ice melts and sinks, the motion creates a vortex underneath the chunk, causing it to turn, according to National Geographic
The unusual sight has drawn local residents to the banks of the Taoer River running through the city of Ulanhot in Inner Mongolia region. Reporters can be seen in a picture standing at the centre of the ice disc as they hosted a live-streaming to promote local products
The unusual sight has drawn local residents to the banks of the Taoer River (pictured) running through the city of Ulanhot, where the temperatures in winter range between minus eight degrees Celsius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to two degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit)
The ‘whirlpool effect’ slowly erodes the plate of ice until its edges are smooth and its overall shape is perfectly round.
Ice discs even rotate in water that is not moving, because the ice lowers the temperature of the surrounding water, making it denser and causing it to sink, creating a circular motion.
One of the most famous ice discs in recent times was sighted early last year in Presumpscot River in downtown Westbrook, Maine.
The spectacle was said to be about 300 feet in diameter and likely the largest spinning ice disc on record.
Last month, the natural rarity was spotted in Inner Mongolia’s Genhe, a city dubbed ‘China’s pole of cold’.
The ice disc was seen on the Genhe River, which has an average temperature of minus 5.3 degrees Celsius, and is frozen over more than 200 days per year.
Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal
For not just its lush, fiery hues, but also its elaborate contributions to the fossil record of the Earth, Amber has long been prized. As Vasika Udurawane writes for Earth Archives, the petrified tree resin starts out as a viscous liquid, slowly hardening over millions of years and preserving the entrapped remains of creatures that find themselves caught up in the process.
To date, researchers have recovered amber fossils featuring such lively scenes as a spider attacking a wasp, an ant beleaguered by a parasitic mite, and even a lizard seemingly suspended in mid-air—or rather mid-amber.
Until now, Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum reports, most scientists believed that such high-quality fossil specimens were unique to amber. But an intriguing find by gemologist Brian Berger could upend this notion, proving that the slow-forming gemstone opal is also capable of preserving the remains of ancient animals.
Writing in a blog post for Entomology Today, Berger explains that he recently purchased an opal originating from the Indonesian island of Java. Dotted with a rainbow of colors—from amber-Esque shades of yellow and red to neon green and dark blue—the gemstone is impressive in and of itself. Add in the insect seemingly entombed within, however, and the opal transforms from a precious stone into a significant scientific discovery.
“You can see what appears to be a complete insect encased beautifully inside,” Berger notes. “… The insect appears to have an open mouth and to be very well preserved, with even fibrous structures extending from the appendages.”
Gemologist Brian Berger purchased the Indonesian opal last year (Brian Berger)
According to Gizmodo’s Mandelbaum, it’s possible the bug was trapped in amber that then underwent a process known as opalization. Much like fossilization turns bone into stone, opalization can render organic specimens opals’ hapless prisoners.
Michelle Starr of Science Alert points out that researchers currently have a limited understanding of opal formation. Right now, the dominant theory involves silica-laden water, which flows across sediment and fills cracks and cavities in its path. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind silica deposits, starting a process that repeats until an opal finally forms.
In Indonesia, home of Berger’s specimen, opalization takes on an added twist. Volcanic fluid, rather than simply water, races over the Earth and fills faults. As the fluid cools down, water contained within leaves behind silica deposits, launching the lengthy journey of opal formation.
It’s worth noting, according to Starr, that opalization appears to require a hollow cavity. Amber, however, does not fit these parameters, leaving scientists puzzled over how the opal in question if it indeed started out as amber, came to be.
Ben McHenry, senior collection manager of Earth sciences at the South Australian Museum, tells Starr that the specimen could share similarities with opalized wood, which is a common occurrence in Indonesia.
In an interview with Gizmodo’s Mandelbaum, Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, adds that Berger’s opal reminds him of a specimen featuring wood partially embedded in resin.
The section of the wood covered in amber was preserved much like a fossilized insect, but the other side, exposed to the natural environment, transformed into petrified wood.
Moving forward, Berger hopes to recruit an entomologist or paleontologist better equipped to study the unusual opal and its insect resident.
As Science Alert’s Starr notes, the gemologist has already submitted the stone to the Gemological Institute of America, which issued a report authenticating the specimen as “unaltered, untampered precious opal, with a genuine insect inclusion.”
Reflecting on the find’s potential significance in an interview with Starr, Berger concludes, “If the process of formation is correct, from tree sap with an insect through a sedimentary process, to copal, to amber, to opal it could mean the insect has the possibility to be one of the oldest ever discovered.”
5,000-year-old Bryde’s whale skeleton unearthed in Thailand
An unusual, partly fossilized skeleton belonging to a Bryde whale, estimated to be about 5,000 years old, has been discovered by researchers in Thailand at an inland site west of Bangkok.
At the beginning of November, a skeleton weighing 12.5 meters (41ft), about the length of a truck, was discovered by a cyclist who saw some of the vertebrae coming out of the ground.
Since then, a team of scientists has been excavating the site.
Scientists say the bones need to be carbon-dated to determine the exact age of the skeleton
“This whale skeleton is thought to be the only one in Asia,” said Pannipa Saetian, a geologist in the Fossil Protection division of the Department of Mineral Resources.
“It’s very rare to find such a discovery in near-perfect condition,” said Pannipa, estimating that about 90 percent of the whale’s skeleton had been recovered.
“Yesterday, we found the right shoulder and fin,” she said, noting that about 36 backbone pieces had been unearthed. The bones needed to be carbon-dated to determine the exact age of the skeleton, she said.
An archaeologist works at the excavation site at Samut Sakhon on Friday.
Once the painstaking process of cleaning and preserving the fragile skeleton is complete, it will be exhibited.
Scientists hope the skeleton will provide more information to aid research into Bryde’s whale populations existing today as well as the geological conditions at the time.
Bryde’s whales, sometimes known as tropical whales for their preference for warmer waters, are found in coastal waters in parts of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, including in the Gulf of Thailand.
Highly endangered, there are some 200 remaining of the whales in the South Pacific nation’s waters, and about 100,000 worldwide.
In 2016, New Zealand researchers gained insight into a pair of Bryde’s whales feeding off an Auckland coast in one of the first uses of drone technology to study the animals.
The footage revealed an adult and calf frolicking in the water and using a “lunge” feeding technique to feast on plankton and shoals of small fish.
In 2014, a 10.8-meter-long whale thought to be a Bryde’s whale, washed up at a remote beach in Hong Kong’s New Territories.
Conservationists said it could have died at sea before drifting to an the inner bay off Hung Shek Mun, in Plover Cove Country Park.
Israeli Archaeological Dig Uncovers 9,000-year-old Mega City
The largest ever Neolithic settlement discovered in Israel and the Levant, say archaeologists — is currently being excavated ahead of highway construction five kilometres from Jerusalem.
Because of its scale and the preservation of its material culture, the 9,000-year-old site, situated near the town of Motza, is the ‘Big Bang’ for prehistory settlement research, said Jacob Vardi, co-director of the excavations at Motza on behalf of the Antiquities Authority,
Vardi said It’s a game-changer, a site that will shift what we know about the Neolithic era drastically.” He said that some international scholars are beginning to realize the existence of the site may necessitate revisions to their work, he said.
“So far, it was believed that the Judea area was empty and that sites of that size existed only on the other bank of the Jordan river, or in the Northern Levant. Instead of an uninhabited area from that period, we have found a complex site, where varied economic means of subsistence existed, and all these only several dozens of centimeters below the surface,” according to Vardi and co-director Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily in an IAA press release.
Roughly half a kilometer from point to point, the site would have housed an expected population of some 3,000 residents. In today’s terms, said Vardi, prehistoric Motza would be comparable to the stature of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv — “a real metropolis.”
According to an IAA press release, the project was initiated and financed by the Netivei Israel Company (the National Transport Infrastructure company) as part of the Route 16 Project, which includes building a new entrance road to Jerusalem from the west running from the Route 1 highway at the Motza Interchange to the capital.
According to co-director Khalaily, the people who lived in this town had trade and cultural connections to widespread populations, including Anatolia, which is the origin for obsidian artifacts discovered at the site. Other excavated materials indicate intensive hunting, animal husbandry, and agriculture.
Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily, Antiquities Authority Excavation director at the Motza site, holding a bowl from the Neolithic Period.
“The society was at its peak” and appeared to increasingly specialize in raising sheep, said Khalaily.
In addition to prehistoric tools such as thousands of arrowheads, axes, sickle blades, and knives, storage sheds containing large stores of legumes, especially lentils, were uncovered. “The fact that the seeds were preserved is astonishing in the light of the site’s age,” said the archaeologists.
Archaeologists recovered thousands of flint tools crafted by early farmers, such as sickles to harvest crops and arrowheads for hunting and warfare.
Alongside utilitarian tools, a number of small statues were unearthed, including a clay figurine of an ox and a stone face, which Khalaily joked was either a human representation “or aliens, even.”
9,000-year-old figurine of an ox, discovered during archaeological excavations at Motza near Jerusalem.
In the ancient, unrecorded past as well as today, the site is situated on the banks of Nahal Sorek and other water sources. The fertile valley is on an ancient path connecting the Shefela (foothills) region to Jerusalem, said the IAA. “These optimal conditions are a central reason for long-term settlement on this site, from the Epipaleolithic Period, around 20,000 years ago, to the present day,” according to the press release.
“Thousands of years before the construction of the pyramids, what we see in the neolithic period is that more and more populations turn to live in a permanent settlement,” said Vardi. “They migrate less and they deal more and more in agriculture.”
Among the architecture uncovered in the excavation are large buildings that show signs of habitation, as well as what the archaeologists identify as public halls and spaces used for worship. In a brief video published by the IAA, archaeologist Lauren Davis walks a narrow path between remains of buildings — a prehistoric alleyway. “Very much like we see in buildings today, separated by alleys between,” said Davis.
Excavation works on the Motza Neolithic site
According to the archaeologists, this alleyway is “evidence of the settlement’s advanced level of planning.” Likewise, the archaeologists discovered that plaster was sometimes used for creating floors and sealing various facilities during the construction of the residents’ domiciles and buildings.
In addition to signs of life, the archaeologists uncovered several graves. According to Davis, in the midst of a layer dating to 10,000 years ago, archaeologists found a tomb from 4,000 years ago. “In this tomb are two individuals — warriors — who were buried together with a dagger and a spearhead,” she said.
“There’s also an amazing find,” said Davis, “which is a whole donkey, domesticated, that was buried in front of the tomb probably when they sealed it.” Added Vardi, the donkey was apparently meant to serve the warriors in the world to come.
According to Amit Re’em, the IAA’s Jerusalem District archaeologist, despite the roadworks, a significant percentage of the prehistoric site around the excavation is being preserved and all of it is being documented.
Each architectural structure is being documented through 3-D modeling. “When we finish the excavation here,” said Vardi, “we will be able to continue to research the site in the laboratory,” adding that this is an unprecedented use of technology.
“In addition, the IAA plans to tell the story of the site at the site by means of a display and illustration. At Tel Motza, adjacent to this excavation, archaeological remains are being preserved for the public at large, and conservation and accessibility activities are being carried out in Tel Bet Shemesh and Tel Yarmut,” announced the IAA release.
