Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, WORLD

Mosaics From The Roman Era Were Just Uncovered In Lebanon

Mosaics From The Roman Era Were Just Uncovered In Lebanon

Arab News reports that a six-foot section of Roman mosaic dated to between 60 B.C. and A.D. 300 was uncovered in the city of Baalbek, which is located in eastern Lebanon, during work to install sewage pipes.

The two-meter-long artefact was uncovered under a municipality building by a team of workers from the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training who were carrying out excavations to extend a drainage network.

A technical team from the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baalbek protected the coloured mosaic with sand and special geotextile covering.

City Mayor Fouad Blog said: “Baalbek is one of the most important cities in Lebanon and, indeed, the world because of its archaeological monuments and riches dating back to the Phoenician, Roman, Greek, Byzantine, Arabic and Islamic eras.”

He called on state authorities “to give Baalbek more care and attention, and to meet our vision with a strategic plan to search for lost treasures, and highlight the cultural, human and civilizational value of the city.”

Baalbek was famous throughout the ages due to its location at the intersection of several major trading routes.

The Romans built huge temples, the ruins of which are still perched on the edge of the city after an earthquake around 600 A.D. destroyed many landmarks. The Temple of Jupiter, one of the most imposing Roman sites, has only six of its original 54 columns remaining.

Dr Jaafar Fadlallah, professor of archaeology, told Arab News: “The Lebanese should not be surprised by the antiquities that can be found in Baalbek.

The extent of the ancient city is not known yet. No one knows where the graveyards of that era are located.”

He added: “The coloured mosaic found on Tuesday indicates that the place was a huge hall within a Roman palace. Roman Baalbek was inhabited by many emperors, and it is rich with the distinctive architecture that surrounded the ancient temples.”

Fadlallah said that during the second half of the 20th century, the Department of Antiquities failed to stop people from building on land that could be rich in antiquities.

During the civil war in the 1970s, people built on archaeological sites in violation of the law. Any excavation work “could reveal buried monuments,” he added.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Investigation in Israel Reveals Wide Range of Artifacts

3,800-year-old baby in a jar unearthed in Israel

Live Science reports that recent archaeological investigations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the ancient port city of Jaffa, which is located on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, have uncovered a middle Bronze Age burial, a pit filled with Hellenistic pottery dated from the fourth to first centuries B.C, coins, and pieces of Roman and medieval glass.

Team member Yoav Arbel said the 3,800-year-old skeletal remains of an infant were found in a jar that may have been intended to protect the delicate remains. “

While such burials of babies are not that rare, it is a mystery why the infants were buried this way, said Yoav Arbel, an archaeologist from the Israel Antiquities Authority who was part of the team that discovered the jar.

3,800-year-old baby in a jar unearthed in Israel
Archaeologists found an infant jar burial about 10 feet (3 meters) under street level in Jaffa, which dated to the Middle Bronze Age II.

Arbel told Live Science, “You might go to the practical thing and say that the bodies were so fragile, [maybe] they felt the need to protect it from the environment, even though it is dead,” Arbel told Live Science.

“But there’s always the interpretation that the jar is almost like a womb, so basically the idea is to return [the] baby back into Mother Earth, or into the symbolic protection of his mother.”

The 4,000-year-old city of Jaffa, where the jar was found, is the older part of Tel Aviv, the second most populated city in Israel after Jerusalem. It was one of the earliest port cities in the world, and has been almost continuously occupied since about 900 B.C., Arbel said

“We’re talking about a city that was ruled by a lot of different people,” Arbel said. “Let’s say that a lot of flags flew from its mast before Israel’s flag of today.”

Despite how strange the baby burial seems to modern eyes, it’s not an unusual find for the region.

“There are different periods when people buried infants in jars in Israel,” Arbel said. “The Bronze Age all the way to less than 100 years ago.” 

The finds were detailed in the 100th issue of the journal Atiqot, which includes more than 50 other studies on archaeology from Jaffa.

A roof tile with a bear stamp found in Jaffa.
A stone with a cross discovered in a Persian period cemetery located in Jaffa.
A stone with a cross discovered in a Persian period cemetery located in Jaffa.
An early Byzantine period mosaic written in Greek from Jaffa saying, in essence, “That’s life!”

Because Jaffa has been almost continuously used for four millennia, the other finds described in the journal span the Hellenistic, Crusader and Ottoman periods.

For instance, at another site, Arbel and his team found a big rubbish pit brimming with pieces of imported amphorae (ceramic vessels) dating to the Hellenistic period, from the fourth to the first centuries B.C.

These roughly 2,300-year-old amphorae, which were used to hold wine, were crafted on various Greek Aegean Islands such as Rhodes and Kos, Arbel said. This one pit provides more evidence that trade routes between Jaffa and Greece were robust, Arbel said.

Archaeologists also found: 30 coins dating to the Hellenistic, Crusader (12th–13th centuries), late Ottoman (late 18th–early 20th centuries) and British Mandate (1942) periods; the remains of at least two horses and pottery dating to the Ottoman Empire; 95 glass vessel fragments from Roman and Crusader times; and 232 seashells, including those from the Mediterranean Sea, land snails and three mother-of-pearl buttons.

There’s also the witty, ancient Greek mosaic discovered near an A.D. fourth- or fifth-century necropolis, saying “Be of good courage, all who are buried here. This is it!”

In essence, it means “this is life!” and that death is everyone’s shared destiny, said Zvi Greenhut, head of the publication department at the IAA, told Live Science.

ASIA, SYRIA, WORLD

9,500-year-old Syrian decorated skulls

9,500-year-old Syrian decorated skulls

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.  

ASIA, KAZAKHSTAN, WORLD

Was Climate Change More Destructive Than Genghis Khan?

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.
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.

ASIA, IRAN, WORLD

Surprising archaeologists find 1,000-year-old stainless steel in Iran

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.

Surprising archaeologists find 1,000-year-old stainless steel in Iran
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.

ASIA, IRAN, WORLD

12000 Years Old Body Of A Anunnaki King Found Completely Intact?

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)

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Incredible Footage as Giant Spinning ice disk is formed on a River in China

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.

ASIA, INDONESIA, WORLD

Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

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.”