Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

200-year-old temple buried in the sand, excavated in Southeastern India

200-year-old temple buried in the sand, excavated in Southeastern India

The Hindu reports that a brick temple was revealed during sand mining in southeastern India’s Penna River. Estimated to be about 200 years old, the temple may have been submerged and buried as the river changed its course after flooding in 1850, according to Rama Subba Reddy of the Archaeological Survey of India.

The ancient temple of Nageswara Swamy, which was believed to have been buried in the sand for eight decades, was located on the banks of the Penna River in the Indian Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh.   Some local youth from the village of Perumallapadu under Chejerla Mandal (block) excavated the sand and discovered the temple of Siva, which it was said was consecrated by Lord Parasurama.

Archeology officials say that after 1850 floods in the Penna River the temple may have begun to bury by the sand. The floods had submerged the village and the people relocated away from the river banks.

A historical temple of Nageswara Swamy buried in the sand was unearthed at Perumallapadu, near Chejerla, in Nellore district on Tuesday.

Locals say their elders told them that sand dunes covered the entire structure about 80 years ago. They wanted to continue the sand excavation, the authorities stopped them saying this could damage the structure.

Archaeology Assistant Director Ramasubba Reddy said the higher officials would inspect the site soon and decide on the excavation and preservation works.

People from Perumallapadu and surrounding villages are thronging the place to see the temple and worship. A few policemen were deployed to guard the site.

The officials of the Archaeology and Endowments departments said they would work out a plan to restore the temple respecting the sentiments of the villagers.

It is believed that Sri Nageswara Swamy temple along with Kotiteertham temple and Sangam Sivalayam in the district were built 300 years ago. Some youth, who had returned home from various places due to the lockdown, took up sand excavation to unearth the temple.

“This has been the dream of the villagers. We had heard about the ancient temple from our elders and since we were sitting idle home, we decided to start digging work to find it. Our dream has come true,” said one of the youth.

The group of about 35 villagers said they had taken permission from the local officials before taking up the work. The villagers claimed that the temple had 110 acres of land in various villages under the Mandal.

Since the temple was buried in the sand, the revenue from the lands was being deposited in the Endowments department.

Stating that there are no accounts of the revenue earned from these lands, they demanded the authorities come out with all details and take up restoration of the temple.

A local official of Endowments department said Rs four lakh earned as rentals from the 68 acres of land was deposited in the bank. The Archaeology Department plans to hold talks with public representatives on the restoration of the temple.

Hindu religious leader Swamy Kamalananda Bharati also visited the temple on Wednesday.

Swamy, who heads the Hindu Temples Protection Committee, demanded that the authorities immediately take up works to restore the temple.

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

6th century Gold Coin Discovered in Southern India

6th century Gold Coin Discovered in Southern India

The Times of India reports that a sixth-century gold coin measuring less than one-half inch in diameter was unearthed in the Agaram neighborhood of southern India’s city of Chennai.

One side of the coin bears a U-shaped symbol called a Naaman, a religious mark usually placed on the forehead, he explained. This side of the coin also bears an image that looks like the sun, with a figure of a lion below it, he added.

According to the leading Tamil weekly magazine, ‘Anantha Vikatan’, the gold coin found during the excavation seems to be 6th century AH coins.

The coin has a U-Shaped symbol referred to as 'Naamam' infront along with a sun like symbol in the middle and a lion below it.
The coin has a U-Shaped symbol referred to as ‘Naamam’ infront along with a sun like symbol in the middle and a lion below it.

In Keezhadi, the outskirts of Madurai and the border of Sivagangai district, now the 6th phase of excavation is going on, this was inaugurated by the state Chief Minister Edapadi Palanisami before lockdown on February 19, 2020. 

During the lockdown period, the excavation work was halted which has been now started again. 

Archeological activist Gemini Ramesh told the Tamil weekly that 6th Century Syrian Gold Coin was found under the earth at Elandhakkarai near Kalaiyar Koil, Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu. 

The unearthing of the gold coin shows the advent of Islam very early in the Madurai area.

The Keeladi findings have led academics to describe the site as part of the Vaigai Valley Civilization. Pieces of evidence of civilization before 2300 years have been found here in Keezhadi a few years back. That is why the excavation has been going on since 2015.

Mohamed Yusuff, Madurai resident who is a lawyer by profession, told Times Now that Islam arrived in Madurai even before Malik Kafur’s invasion of Madurai in the 14th century.

Quoting History professor R Venkataraman,  Yusuff said even before the advent of Islam, Arabs maintained trade links with South India, especially for the pearls the Madurai Pandya Kingdom was famous for.

“Sufis, Muslim saints, started coming to Tamil Nadu by 900 AD. The entry of Islam to the region was peaceful as Sufis conceived God as love,” he said.

 According to Venkataraman, the short-lived Madurai Sultanate and Islamic influence did have their impact on the city, especially on warfare and town planning.

“Muslim rulers introduced arch construction they learned from the Romans. It changed the style of architecture here in a significant way.”

Yusuff further said that his home is situated at the riverbank of Vaigai and the excavation sites his not far away from his locality.

Meanwhile, the excavation work has been revived after the lockdown was lifted in the area. He hoped that many things related to Islam’s early presence would be uncovered during the excavation.

ASIA, IRAN, WORLD

Excavation in Northern Iran Recovers Early Islamic Artifacts

Excavation in Northern Iran Recovers Early Islamic Artifacts

During an archeological excavation process that is currently being carried out in a century-long congregational mosque in Rasht, the capital of the Gilan province in northern Iran, historical artifacts have been discovered.

Saturday, the Deputy Provincial Tourism Chief Vali Jahani announced that “the excavations within the historic Saphi Mosque of Rasht had led to the discovery of items with historical values which appear to have been discovered below Islamic era tombs.

“A glass scent-bottle, a pottery handmade bowl, and other glassware are the objects. And the placement of these objects in the lower layers of Islamic-era tombs shows the importance of this historical area,” the official said, CHTN reported.

Excavations at Iranian mosque unearth new evidence on life in early Islamic era

Earlier this month, several ancient glazed tiles were unearthed beneath the mosque while a team of restorers was digging into its mihrab.

Mihrab is a semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that points out the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca and hence the direction that Muslims should face when praying.

Referring to a restoration project, which initially led to such discoveries in the mosque, the official explained “The restoration project has been temporarily suspended to leave the ground for archaeological surveys.”

“Given that the discovered objects will be very useful in the dating of the city of Rasht, so fragments of these works will be sent to advanced laboratories in the country to obtain the absolute antiquity of the objects, and dating will be conducted via the thermoluminescent approach.”

“According to the present evidence, these historical objects discovered from the Safi Mosque belong to the Ilkanind and Timurid periods,” he concluded.

In the month of Farvardin (Mach 20 – April 19) a trench measuring 1.5 m by 1.5 m was carved in the mosque’s shabestan (an underground space that can be usually found in the traditional architecture of mosques in ancient Iran), which resulted in recognizing some additional sections.

Safi Mosque, also known as Sefid and Shahidiyeh Mosque, which is widely considered as the oldest standing monuments in Rasht, was reportedly established before Shah Ismail, the Safavid monarch, assumed power (in 1501).

ASIA, KAZAKHSTAN, WORLD

A Fossilised Skull Has Revealed When The Last ‘Siberian Unicorn’ Lived on Earth

A Fossilised Skull Has Revealed When The Last ‘Siberian Unicorn’ Lived on Earth

The unicorn first emerged nearly 2.5 million years ago but is believed to have disappeared 350,000 years ago.

However, researchers from Tomsk State University in Siberia, Russia, now believe that Elasmotherium Sibiricum may have been around till as recently as 29,000 years ago.

“Most likely, it was a very large male of very large individual age. The dimensions of this rhino are the biggest of those described in the literature, and the proportions are typical,” said Andrey Shpanski, a paleontologist at Tomsk State University.

A 1903 reconstruction of the Siberian Elasmotherium by W. Kobelt gave the animal a thick coat of shaggy hair.

The researchers are still trying to find out how the unicorn survived longer than other species that became extinct hundreds of thousands of years earlier.

According to early descriptions, the Siberian unicorn stood at roughly 2 metres (6.6 feet) tall, was 4.5 metres (14.7 feet) long, and weighed about 4 tonnes.

That’s closer to woolly mammoth-sized than horse-sized. Despite its very impressive stature, the unicorn probably was a grazer that ate mostly grass.

So, if you want a correct image in your head, think of a fuzzy rhinoceros with one long, slender horn protruding from its face instead of a short, stubby one like today’s rhinos. 

The skull, which was remarkably well-preserved, was found in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. Researchers from Tomsk State University were able to date it to around 29,000 years ago via radiocarbon dating techniques.

Skeleton of the rhino at the Stavropol Museum

Based on the size and condition of the skull, it was likely a very old male, they suggest, but how it actually died remains unknown. 

The question on researchers’ minds is how this unicorn lasted so much longer than those that died out hundreds of thousands of years earlier.

“Most likely, the south of Western Siberia was a refúgium, where this rhino persevered the longest in comparison with the rest of its range,” said one of the team, Andrey Shpanski.

“There is another possibility that it could migrate and dwell for a while in the more southern areas.”

The team hopes that the find will help them better understand how environmental factors played a role in the creature’s extinction, since it seems like some may have lasted a lot longer than previously thought by migrating across great distances. 

Knowing how the species survived for so long, and potentially what wiped it out in the end, could allow us to make more informed choices about the future of our own species, as we find ourselves in a rather perilous situation. 

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Archaeologists Find 13,500-Year-Old Bird Figurine in China

Archaeologists Find 13,500-Year-Old Bird Figurine in China

The oldest known statuette found in China is an ancient bird recovered from a refuse heap that sheds new light on how our ancestors created 3D art and a new study finds.

Lingjing bird carving: (A) photographs of the six aspects of the carvings; (B) 3D renderings of the carving obtained by CT scan. Scale bars – 2 mm.

Researchers uncovered the miniature carving at the Lingjing site in china, where previous excavations revealed 11 layers each of different ages, from 120,000 years ago to the Bronze Age ..

The item was found in a refuse heap leftover from well diggers who removed most of the fifth layer in 1958.

The location possesses a spring, which “may have attracted prehistoric populations at different times,” said study co-author Francesco d’Errico, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France.

The figurine depicts a songbird on a rectangular pedestal. The artist deliberately added weight to the sculpture by oversizing the tail to prevent the bird from falling forward, d’Errico said. “The artist knew that making a sculpture is a matter of finding the right balance.”

Francesco D’Errico and Luc DoyonA small bird carving is the oldest piece of East Asian three-dimensional art ever discovered.

The sculpture is made of bone that likely came from the limb of an adult medium-size mammal such as a deer, boar, gazelle, or wolf and was burned before carving.

At only 1.9 centimeters (about .75 inches) long and 1.25 centimeters high, the statuette “is so small that it is possible similar carvings were not recognized in previous excavations in which the sediment was not systematically sieved,” d’Errico said.

Other artifacts uncovered from the refuse heap include ceramic potsherds, stone blades, and a pendant made from ostrich eggshell.

Radiocarbon dating of unearthed burned animal remains from the fifth layer, including a bone fragment with gouging marks also seen on the statuette, suggested the artifact is about 13,500 years old, meaning it originated during the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age when the first human art appeared.

Until now, the oldest known Chinese figurine was a jade songbird about 5,000 years old found near Beijing. This new discovery pushes back the origins of animal sculpture in East Asia by roughly 8,500 years.

Markings on the figurine suggest it was carried around for some time in a leather bag, the researchers said. “Was it a toy? A gaming piece? A religious effigy? Is it art for art’s sake? Something deeper? It’s fascinating to speculate,” said Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia, who did not take part in this research.

Until recently, the earliest human art was found in Europe. However, increasingly scientists have discovered similarly old artwork elsewhere in the world, such as roughly 44,000-year-old cave paintings found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Until now, the carving of small figurines was the only artistic practice left that might have potentially originated in Europe, with examples including statuettes carved from mammoth ivory found in Germany dating up to roughly 40,000 years old.

These new findings suggest that prehistoric humans living in China might have independently developed the concept of three-dimensionally representing the world around them — for instance, the bird figurine has a number of features not seen in other Paleolithic sculptures, such as how it was carved from burnt bone, and how it depicts a bird on a pedestal, the researchers noted.

“Before this discovery, we thought that 3D representations were a recent phenomenon in East Asia,” d’Errico said. “This diminutive carving supports the hypothesis that the production of 3D representations does not have a single origin.”

“No doubt, with researchers focusing their attention on East Asia and Southeast Asia at this time, we will see more figurines — of animals or people or other items from life or myths — being recovered over the next few years,” said Michelle Langley, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia, who did not participate in this study.

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

500-year-old temple submerged in the Indian state of Odisha’s Mahanadi river resurfaces

A 500-year-old temple submerged in the Indian state of Odisha’s Mahanadi river resurfaces.

An old temple was found in Mahanadi in Odisha, experts who lead a documentation project for heritage sites throughout the river valley.

Approximately 500 years old, the 60-foot temple was recently held during a workout in the framework of the project, according to Anil Dhir, project coordinator of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) in Odisha.

It was found in the middle of the river near Baideswar in Cuttack’s Padmavati region, he said on Sunday.

An archaeological survey team from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage that visited the village in Nayagarh district, said the top of the Gopinath Dev temple was visible due to the reduction in the water-level of the river.

The temple dates back to the late 15th or early 16th century, considering the construction style of the Mastaka and the materials used for the construction, Dhir said, adding that INTACH would approach the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to take steps for relocating and restoring the temple.

We will soon write to the ASI requesting it to take steps to relocate the temple to a suitable site. They have the required technology to do it. The state government should also take up the matter with the ASI, he said.

Stating that INTACH has so far located as many as 65 ancient temples in the Mahanadi river during its documentation project, Dhir said many of the temples in the Hirakud reservoir too can be dismantled and reconstructed.

INTACH’s project assistant Deepak Kumar Nayak, who with the help of a local heritage enthusiast Rabindra Rana located the temple, said he was aware of its existence.

The temple was dedicated to Gopinath Dev, he said. The region used to be known as “Satapatana” in the early days. However, with the river changing its course due to catastrophic floodings, the entire village was submerged, Nayak said.

In the mid 19th century, the deities of the vulnerable temple were shifted and installed in a safer and higher place, which is presently the Gopinath Dev temple of Padmavati village, he said.

Dhir said INTACH Odisha had launched its project on the documentation of the heritage of the Mahanadi valley early last year.

A systemic survey of all the tangible and intangible heritage of the entire length of the Mahanadi, from the source to the sea, covering a distance of nearly 1,700 km, is in its final stage of completion, he said.

A multi-volume report of the nearly 800 monuments that have been documented will be released next year, he added.

Amiya Bhusan Tripathy, the state convener of INTACH, said this will be the first of its type study on any river in India and is the pilot project of the trust.

A comprehensive survey of the heritage, on either bank, has been undertaken in the nine districts through which the Mahanadi flows, he said.

Dhir, who had earlier led the Old Jagannath Sadak and the Prachi valley documentation projects, said the richness and diversity of the Mahanadi valley have not been studied properly to date.

He lamented that many of the ancient monuments have been destroyed, or are in a state of advanced decay.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

The world’s most Amazing Meteorite found

The world’s most Amazing Meteorite found

When the Fukang meteorite came soaring through the Earth’s atmosphere and crashed on the ground, it showed little sign of beauty. Then they opened it.

Undoubtedly the world’s most amazing meteorite landed was found in China in 2000. It crashed into a mountain range near Fukang, China, which is where it earned its name.

When it slammed into the surface of Earth, there was little sign of the beauty that lay inside. But cutting the Fukang meteorite open yielded a breathtaking sight.

Cosmic wonder: Marvin Killgore of the Arizona Meteorite Laboratory lets the sunshine through a polished slice of the Fukang rock

Within the rock, translucent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine gleamed among a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron.

The rare meteorite weighed about the same as a hatchback when it was discovered in 2000, in the Gobi Desert in China’s Xinjiang Province.

It has since been divided into slices which give the effect of stained glass when the sun shines through them.

An anonymous collector holds the largest portion, which weighs 925lb. in 2008, this piece was expected to fetch $2million (£1.26million) at auction at Bonham’s in New York – but it remained unsold.

It is so valuable that even tiny chunks sell in the region of £20-30 per gram.

Arizona’s Southwest Meteorite Laboratory, which holds about 70lb of the rock, says the remarkable find will turn out to be ‘one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of the 21st century’.

It says the Fukang specimen outshines all other known examples of the pallasite class, which makes up just one percent of all meteorites. However, it is not the biggest – in 2005 space rock hunter Steve Arnold dug up a 1,400lb sample in Kansas.

Valuable: The main mass of the Fukang meteorite, which failed to sell after being valued at $2million. The intact space rock weighed as much as a small car

The Arizona lab’s experts say pallasites, whose make-up of half nickel-iron, half olivine gives them their mosaic-like appearance, are ‘thought to be relics of forming planets’.

They are believed to originate from deep inside intact meteors created during the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago and very few specimens are thought to have survived their descent through Earth’s atmosphere.

February 2005 saw the Chinese space rock transported all the way to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, in Tucson, Arizona.

The U.S. lab claims their polished slice of the original meteorite is the world’s biggest pallasite cross-section, measuring 36in by 19in.

4.5 billion years in the making: Golden olivine meets silvery nickel-iron to create a stunningly beautiful mosaic effect.
ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Researchers Map Great Wall of China’s Northern Line

Researchers Map Great Wall of China’s Northern Line

Tuesday, an Israeli archeology specialist said that the northern line of China’s Great Wall was not designed to stop invading armies but rather to track civilian movements.

The observations of scientists who first traced the 740 kilometers (460-mile), Northern Line, for the first time, their findings challenged previous assumptions.

Gideon Shelach-Lavi, of Hebrew University, who oversaw the two-year report, said, “Before analysis, most people thought the wall was to stop Genghis Khan ‘s army.

But the Northern Line, lying mostly in Mongolia, winds through valleys, is relatively low in height and close to paths, pointing to non-military functions.

“Our conclusion is that it was more about monitoring or blocking the movement of people and livestock, maybe to tax them,” Shelach-Lavi said.

Aerial view of part of the Northern Line.

He suggested people may have been seeking warmer southern pastures during a medieval cold spell.

Construction of the Great Wall, which is split into sections that in total stretch for thousands of kilometers, first began in the third century BC and continued for centuries.

Wall and structural remains.

The Northern Line, also known as “Genghis Khan’s Wall” in reference to the legendary Mongolian conqueror, was built between the 11th and 13th centuries with pounded earth and dotted with 72 structures in small clusters.

Shelach-Lavi and his team of Israeli, Mongolian and American researchers used drones, high-resolution satellite images and traditional archaeological tools to map out the wall and find artefacts that helped pin down dates.

According to Shelach-Lavi, whose findings from the ongoing study were published in the journal Antiquity, the Northern Line has been largely overlooked by contemporary scientists.