Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

Worms Frozen for 42,000 Years in Siberian Permafrost Wriggle to Life

Worms Frozen for 42,000 Years in Siberian Permafrost Wriggle to Life

Sample of Permafrost sediment has been frozen for 42,000 years and has been recently thawed to expose live nematodes.  the roundworms began to move and eat, setting a record for the time an animal can survive cryogenic preservation.

In addition to revealing new limits of endurance, it just might prove useful when it comes to preserving our own tissues. Russian biologists dug up more than 300 samples of frozen soil of different ages and locations throughout the Arctic and took them back to their lab in Moscow for a closer look.

The samples collected from remote parts of northeastern Russia contained nematodes from two different genera, which the researchers placed into Petri dishes with a nutrient medium.

Tiny nematodes like this one were found to be unexpectedly hardy, reviving after thousands of years frozen in Arctic ice

The worms were left for several weeks at a relatively warm 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) as they gradually showed signs of life.

Some of the worms – belonging to the genus Panagrolaimus – were found 30 metres (100 feet) underground in what had once been a ground squirrel burrow which caved in and froze over around 32,000 years ago.

Others from the genus Plectus were found in a bore sample at a depth of around 3.5 metres (about 11.5 feet). Carbon dating was used to determine that sample to be about 42,000 years old.

Contamination can’t be ruled out, but the researchers maintain they adhered to strict sterility procedures.

They aren’t known for burrowing so deep into permafrost, seasonal thawing is limited to around 80 centimetres (under 3 feet), and there’s been no hint of thawing beyond 1.5 metres (5 feet) when the area was at its warmest around 9000 years ago.

So we can be fairly confident these worms really did awaken from one incredibly long nap.

Reviving ancient organisms is itself nothing new. In 2000, scientists pulled spores from Bacillus bacteria hidden inside 250 million-year-old salt crystals and managed to return them to life.

We might be impressed by their fortitude, but we can’t apply bacteria’s life-preserving tricks to our own complicated tissues. So finding animals that can remain dormant for tens of thousands of years is a discovery well worth paying attention to.

Roundworms are known to be hardy creatures. Nematodes have been revived in 39-year-old herbarium samples, but nothing has previously been seen on a scale quite like this.

Close relatives, the tardigrade, are also well known for having a talent for surviving extreme conditions, repairing broken DNA and producing a vitrifying material when they dry out.

Even those superpowered critters have never been seen to survive so long in states of preservation, with the current tardigrade record being only around 30 years. Learning more about the biochemical mechanisms nematodes use to limit the damage of ice and hold off the ravages of oxidation on DNA over the millennia might point the way to better cryopreservation technologies.

We’ve studied other organisms that can handle having their liquids turned to ice for inspiration, such as wood frogs, in the hope of finding better ways to store human tissues for transplants, or even – just maybe – whole bodies for revival.

 “It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,” the researchers write in their report.

But the find does have a slightly darker side. There are concerns that the melting of permafrost could release pathogens locked up in deep freeze for tens of thousands of years.

Nematodes are unlikely to pose much of a concern, but their survival is evidence that a diverse array of organisms – from bacteria to animals, plants to fungi – could potentially return after a long absence.

Exactly what this means for surrounding ecosystems is still anybody’s guess. We can only hope a few groggy worms are all we have to worry about in Siberia’s melting ice. This research was published in Doklady Biological Sciences.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

12,000-Year-Old Elongated Skulls Discovered in Asia Stun Experts

12,000-Year-Old Elongated Skulls Discovered in Asia Stun Experts

A new study has found that elderly people in China had a human head shaping about 12,000 years ago — meaning they bound some children’s maturing skulls, encouraging the heads to grow into elongated ovals — making them the oldest group on record to purposefully squash their skulls, a new study finds.

The skull is known as M45, the earliest known case of head modification on record. It dates to about 12,000 years ago.

While excavating a Neolithic site (the last period of the Stone Age) at Houtaomuga, Jilin province, in northeast China, the archaeologists found 11 elongated skulls — belonging to both males and females and ranging from toddlers to adults — that showed signs of deliberate skull reshaping, also known as intentional cranial modification (ICM).

“This is the earliest discovery of signs of intentional head modification in Eurasia continent, perhaps in the world,” said study co-researcher Qian Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Texas A&M University College of Dentistry.

“If this practice began in East Asia, it likely spread westward to the Middle East, Russia, and Europe through the steppes as well as eastward across the Bering land bridge to the Americas.” 

The Houtaomuga site is a treasure trove, holding burials and artifacts from 12,000 to 5,000 years ago.

During an excavation there between 2011 and 2015, archaeologists found the remains of 25 individuals, 19 of which were preserved enough to be studied for ICM.

After putting these skulls in a CT scanner, which produced 3D digital images of each specimen, the researchers confirmed that 11 had indisputable signs of skull shaping, such as flattening and elongation of the frontal bone, or forehead.

The oldest ICM skull belonged to an adult male, who lived between 12,027 and 11,747 years ago, according to radiocarbon dating.

The M72 skull is between 6,300 and 5,500 years old.

Archaeologists have found reshaped human skulls all around the world, from every inhabited continent. But this particular finding, if confirmed, “will [be] the earliest evidence of the intentional head modification, which lasted for 7,000 years at the same site after its first emergence,” Wang told Foxnews.

The 11 ICM individuals died between ages 3 and 40, indicating that skull shaping began at a young age when human skulls are still malleable, Wang said.

An excavation at the site during 2010.

It’s unclear why this particular culture practiced skull modification, but it’s possible that fertility, social status, and beauty could be factors, Wang said. The people with ICM buried at Houtaomuga were likely from a privileged class, as these individuals tended to have grave goods and funeral decorations.

“Apparently, these youth were treated with a decent funeral, which might suggest a high socioeconomic class,” Wang said.

Even though the Houtaomuga man is the oldest known case of ICM in history, it’s a mystery whether other known instances of ICM spread from this group, or whether they rose independently of one another, Wang said.

“It is still too early to claim intentional cranial modification first emerged in East Asia and spread elsewhere; it may have originated independently in different places,” Wang said. More ancient DNA research and skull examinations throughout the world may shed light on this practice’s spread, he said.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

Amazingly preserved 46000-year-old frozen horned lark found in Siberia

Frozen bird discovered in Siberia is 46,000 years old, scientists discover

Researchers in Siberia discovered a frozen bird in the permafrost in 2018.

A frozen bird, pictured, was so well preserved that fossil hunters thought that it had ‘died yesterday’ has turned out to be 46,000 years old, from the middle of the last ice age

Examination of the remains of the bird found that it had lived there more than experts expected. The analysis revealed that the bird is about 46,000 years old and covered by permafrost in Siberia.

An analysis of the DNA found that the bird was a ancestor of two different lark subspecies — one in Mongolia and one in Siberia. It provides unique insight into the ecosystem this lark lived in during the last Ice Age.

The specimen — an ancestor of the modern horned lark, pictured — was found preserved in permafrost in a mine tunnel near the village of Belaya Gora in north-east Siberia
The specimen — an ancestor of the horned lark — was found preserved in permafrost in a mine tunnel near the village of Belaya Gora in north-east Siberia

Scientists from the University of Stockholm and the Swedish Museum of Natural history studied the frozen bird and determined it was a horned lark that roamed the sky of our planet between 44,000 and 49,000 years ago.

“Not only can we identify the bird as a horned lark. The genetic analysis also suggests that the bird belonged to a population that was a joint ancestor of two subspecies of horned lark living today, one in Siberia, and one in the steppe in Mongolia. This helps us understand how the diversity of subspecies evolves,” revealed Nicolas Dussex, a researcher at the Department of Zoology at Stockholm University.

The study of the frozen bird revealed its distinct charcoal-colored feathers, typical of the horned lark. Despite its age, the feathers are in excellent condition.

Such well-preserved animals “allow for studies of morphological traits, as well as the ecology and evolution of a range of extinct and extant animal species,” the researchers revealed.

Experts also explained that the fact that such a miniature and fragile specimen was found nearly intact suggests that mud and dirt were most likely deposited gradually, or that the ground where it once lived was relatively stable.

The discovery of the bird, as well as its age, comes as a big surprise to experts. They say that although frozen remains of large mammals have been discovered many times, the remains of a frozen bird dating back from the late Pleistocene permafrost deposits has never before been found.

The next step for experts is to map the ancient bird’s genome in order to better understand how the species compares to modern subspecies of horned larks.

Speaking to CNN, Love Dalén from the Swedish Museum of Natural History explained that “this finding implies that the climatic changes that took place at the end of the last Ice Age led to the formation of new subspecies.”

A study detailing the discovery has been published in the Journal Communications Biology.

Scientists working in Siberia have also found the preserved remains of other animals such as ancient wolves, woolly mammoths as well as wooly rhinos among other species.

Such discoveries are described by scientists as “priceless treasures,” that allow them to recover DNA and even RNA samples.

Scientists at the Centre for Palaeogenetics have access to abundant samples from similar discoveries from the same site in Siberia. Among the more fascinating is an 18 000-year-old puppy named “Dogor” which is currently being studied in order to determine if it is a wolf or a dog.

Other findings include a 50 000-year-old cave lion cub “Spartak.”

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

39000 Years Old Frozen Woolly Mammoth found in Siberia, goes on display in Tokyo

39000 Years Old Frozen Woolly Mammoth found in Siberia, goes on display in Tokyo

After 39,000 years, a baby wooly mammoth is making her public debut. The prehistoric creature, nicknamed Yuka, is being put on public display in Japan, after being shipped from her home in Siberia, Russia.

Yuka, a 39,000-year-old baby mammoth, was found with liquid blood in her veins, a positive sign for scientists wishing to study the animal’s DNA.

Yuka was found trapped in ice on the New Siberian Islands. Though parts of her body were exposed to the elements and predators, the young animal is thought to be the most well-preserved mammoth specimen known to science.

She has been carefully shipped in a large crate packed with dry ice to an exhibition hall in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

Baby mammoth Yuka was discovered earlier this year in Siberia.

Visitors can stroll past the creature and see its orange-brown tufted hair and soft tissue, and imagine it wandering the icy planes thousands of years ago.

Yuka was first believed to be 10,000 years old, but subsequent tests showed the two-year-old mammoth was much older, dating to about 39,000 years, according to the Siberian Times.

Scientists were able to extract blood for testing, the first time the extinct creature’s blood has been harvested by scientists.

According to a May report by the Times, Russian and South Korean scientists are working on extracting the mammoth’s DNA to bring the species back to life.

Visitors to the Japanese museum can see Yuka on display with her trunk fully extended and her legs sprawled.

A worker looks at 39,000-year-old female woolly mammoth Yuka upon her arrival at the exhibition hall in Yokohama, Japan.

She is also covered in a layer of permafrost.

The majority of woolly mammoths died out some 10,000 years ago, though a small group of mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic until around 1700 B.C.

Mammoth expert Norihisa Inuzuka ssays aid that Yuka allows scientists to “dig deeper into the reasons why species became extinct and apply the lessons learned to the human race, which might be facing its own dangers of extinction.”

ASIA, WORLD

one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world

One of the World’s Oldest Cities is 8,000 Years Older Than the Pyramids

One of the World’s Oldest Cities is 8,000 Years Older Than the Pyramids
Aleppo, Syria

Within present-day Syria an ancient city has been built thousands of years before the first pyramid of Egypt was constructed.

The city of Aleppo is considered one of the oldest cities in the world with signs of habitation that date from the last ice age when the settlement began as a small populated area. 

Excavations at a site located no more than 15 miles from the center of the ancient city have yielded archeological evidence which clearly shows that the city, as well as its surrounding region, was inhabited for at least 13,000 years.

This sole fact makes the ancient city of Aleppo and its surrounding area one of the oldest continuously occupied cities on the surface of the planet.

Ancient to ancient civilizations, the settlements that would eventually give birth to Aleppo predates even the oldest of Egyptian pyramids. Its original name, like the name of many other ancient cities, remains an enigma since ancient texts originating from the founding of the ancient settlements have never been discovered.

Although its history dates back to a time when history was probably not even reported, the city was mentioned for the first time in clay cuneiform tablets that were crafted some 5000 years ago, which already mentioned the city as a commercial and military power.

This means that the city was already an important center in the region, something that tells us that long before 5,000 years ago, the city was popular among people in the area. Its more central parts were probably inhabited since the 6th millennium BC.

 Excavations at Tell as-Sawda and Tell al-Ansari, just south of the old city of Aleppo, show that the area was occupied by Amorites since at least the latter part of the 3rd millennium BC.

An image of the Hadad Temple Inside the Citadel of Aleppo.

This popularity may have been due to its geographical location, situated between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia–precisely at the end of the Silk Road, which passed all the way from central Asia to Mesopotamia.

In other words, the city’s prime location made sure it became one of the more important trading centers in that part of the world. Aleppo appears in the historical record as a prominent city much sooner than Damascus (the capital of present-day Syria), which suggests that by the time Damascus became an important city, Aleppo was way ahead of them. In regards to Damascus, numerous scholars argue it is older than Aleppo, however, evidence of habitation at Damascus can be traced back to around 11,000 years.

This was proven by archaeological excavations at a site called Tell Ramad, not far from the center of the city. Analysis of the archaeological remains suggests habitation in the area can be placed at around 9,000 BC. That’s why it isn’t surprising to learn that there are ancient accounts that suggest how people in ancient times considered Aleppo as the center of the ancient world.

Despite its importance and age, the ancient city of Aleppo has not been studied much by archeologists, partially because the modern city was built on top of the ancient site. Experts estimate that the ancient city of Aleppo comprises an approximate area of around 160 hectares (400 acres; 1.6 km2). The historical record suggests that the ancient city was surrounded within a historic wall of 5 km (3 mi) that was last rebuilt by the Mamlukes.

However, since much of the ancient city has been destroyed, the wall as well has since nearly disappeared. Nonetheless, we know it had nine gates, out of which 5 are–luckily–well preserved. The wall that surrounded the city was in turn circled by a broad, deep ditch, that offered extra protection from potential intruders.

In the Ebla tablets, the ancient city of Aleppo was referred to as Ha-lam. The first record of Aleppo most likely originates from the third millennium BC if the identification of Aleppo as Armi, a city-state closely related to Ebla is correct.

A side view of the citadel of Aleppo.

One of its most famous parts–although not as ancient as the city itself–is the so-called Citadel of Aleppo, a large medieval fortified palace located at the very center of the ancient city. In fact, this structure is considered one of the oldest and largest castles constructed on the surface of the planet.

Evidence of the citadel’s history can be traced back to the 3rd millennium BC. Although the city was conquered by many ancient civilizations, the majority of the citadel’s construction is attributed to the Ayyubid period.

The hill atop which the citadel was built is considered of great importance since it is where there the prophet Abraham is said to have milked his sheep. Researchers estimate that around 30% of the Ancient City of Aleppo has been destroyed in the recent military fights. The Egyptian Pyramids are thought to have arisen during the Third Dynasty reign of Pharaoh Djoser if the historical timeline set out by Egyptologists is correct.

The Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara is widely acknowledged as the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt as well as the earliest large-scale cut stone construction. The pyramid was completed in no more than 19 years, during which the builders not only erected the pyramid, its temples, and surrounding limestone wall but a massive subterranean world with a length of around 5.7 kilometers.

It is noteworthy to mention that by the time Aleppo was established as a settlement, a mysterious group of people built not far from Syria what is considered the oldest temple on the surface of the planet. Predating Stonehenge by around 6,000 years, Göbekli Tepe is located in southeastern Turkey and is thought to have been erected by hunter-gatherers between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago.

The massive pillars at Göbekli Tepe

To date, archeologists have discovered more than 200 pillars at Göbekli Tepe, all of which have been built inside 20 circles. Some of the pillars at Göbekli Tepe weigh more than 10 tons. This fact has led many experts to question whether hunter-gatherers were sophisticated enough to construct an ancient temple complex the site of Göbekli Tepe at the end of the Last Glacial period on Earth. Göbekli Tepe is located around 13 kilometers from the city of Şanlıurfa. 

Şanlıurfa, in turn, is located around 230 kilometers from the ancient city of Aleppo. Given the relatively close proximity of the two sites, it suggests that between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, the wider region was inhabited by people that were much more sophisticated than hunter-gatherers or nomads. All of the above would suggest that some 8,000 years before the Pyramid of Saqqara, people in the region of Aleppo had the ability to erect standing stone structures.

ASIA, IRAQ, WORLD

A Stunning Neanderthal Skeleton Was Just Unearthed at a Famous Burial Site

A Stunning Neanderthal Skeleton Was Just Unearthed at a Famous Burial Site

A skeleton uncovered in an Iraqi cave already famous for fossils of these extinct cousins of Neanderthal species is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead – and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such rituals.

The remains, consisting of a crushed but complete skull, upper thorax, and both hands, were recently unearthed at the Shanidar Cave site 500 miles north of Baghdad.

Scientists said on Tuesday they had discovered in Shanidar Cave in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq the well-preserved upper body skeleton of an adult Neanderthal who lived about 70,000 years ago. The individual – dubbed Shanidar Z – was perhaps in his or her 40s or 50s. The sex was undetermined.

On Tuesday scientists discovered in Shanidar Cave in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq the well-preserved upper body skeleton of an adult Neanderthal who lived about 70,000 years ago. The individual – dubbed Shanidar Z – was perhaps in his or her 40s or 50s. The sex was undetermined.

The cave was a pivotal site for mid-20th century archaeology. Remains of 10 Neanderthals – seven adults and three infants – were dug up there six decades ago, offering insight into the physical characteristics, behavior, and diet of this species.

Clusters of flower pollen were found at that time in soil samples associated with one of the skeletons, a discovery that prompted scientists involved in that research to propose that Neanderthals buried their dead and conducted funerary rites with flowers.

That hypothesis helped change the prevailing popular view at the time of Neanderthals as dimwitted and brutish, a notion increasingly discredited by new discoveries. Critics cast doubt, however, on the “flower burial,” arguing the pollen could have been modern contamination from people working and living in the cave or from burrowing rodents or insects.

But Shanidar Z’s bones, which appear to be the top half of a partial skeleton unearthed in 1960, were found in sediment containing ancient pollen and other mineralized plant remains, reviving the possibility of flower burials. The material is being examined to determine its age and the plants represented.

“So from initially being a skeptic based on many of the other published critiques of the flower-burial evidence, I am coming round to think this scenario is much more plausible and I am excited to see the full results of our new analyses,” said University of Cambridge osteologist and paleoanthropologist Emma Pomeroy, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity.

Scholars have argued for years about whether Neanderthals buried their dead with mortuary rituals much as our species does, part of the larger debate over their levels of cognitive sophistication.

Shanidar Z’s bones are believed to be the top half of a partial skeleton unearthed in 1960.

“What is key here is the intentionality behind the burial. You might bury a body for purely practical reasons, in order to avoid attracting dangerous scavengers and/or to reduce the smell. But when this goes beyond practical elements it is important because that indicates more complex, symbolic and abstract thinking, compassion and care for the dead, and perhaps feelings of mourning and loss,” Pomeroy said.

Shanidar Z appears to have been deliberately placed in an intentionally dug depression cut into the subsoil and part of a cluster of four individuals.

“Whether the Neanderthal group of dead placed around 70,000 years ago in the cave were a few years, a few decades or centuries – or even millennia – apart, it seems clear that Shanidar was a special place, with bodies being placed just in one part of a large cave,” said University of Cambridge archeologist and study co-author Graeme Barker.

Neanderthals – more robustly built than Homo sapiens and with larger brows – inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains from about 400,000 years ago until a bit after 40,000 years ago, disappearing after our species established itself in the region.

The two species interbred, with modern non-African human populations bearing residual Neanderthal DNA.

Shanidar Z was found to be reclining on his or her back, with the left arm tucked under the head and the right arm bent and sticking out to the side.

ASIA, WORLD

Study Suggests New Dates for Spread of Farming Across Eurasia

Study Suggests New Dates for Spread of Farming Across Eurasia

Many people are familiar with the ancient Silk Road but fewer know that the exchange of items, ideas, technology, and human genes through the mountain valleys of Central Asia started almost three millennia before organized trade networks formed.

These pre-Silk Road exchange routes played an important role in shaping human cultural developments across Europe and Asia and facilitated the dispersal of technologies such as horse breeding and metal smelting into East Asia.

One of the most impactful effects of this process of ancient cultural dispersal was the westward spread of northeast Asian crops and the eastward spread of southwest Asian crops. However, until the past few years, a lack of archaeobotanical studies in Central Asia left a dearth of data relating to when and how this process occurred.

Dr. Xinying Zhou and his team from the IVPP in Beijing excavated the Tangtian Cave site during the summer of 2016

This new study, led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, provides details of recently recovered ancient grains from the far northern regions of Inner Asia.

Radiocarbon dating shows that the grains include the oldest examples of wheat and barley ever recovered this far north in Asia, pushing back the dates for early farming in the region by at least a millennium.

These are also the earliest domesticated plants reported from the northern half of Central Asia, the core of the ancient exchange corridor. This study pulls together sedimentary pollen and ancient wood charcoal data with archaeobotanical remains from the Tiangtian archaeological site in the Chinese Altai Mountains to reveal how humans cultivated crops at such northern latitudes.

This study illustrates how adaptable ancient crop plants were to new ecological constraints and how human cultural practices allowed people to survive in unpredictable environments.

The ancient relatives of wheat and barley plants evolved to grow in the warm and dry climate of the eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia. However, this study illustrates that ancient peoples were cultivating these grasses over five and a half thousand kilometers to the northeast of where they originally evolved to grow.

In this study, Dr. Xinying Zhou and his colleagues integrate paleoenvironmental proxies to determine how extreme the ecology was around the archaeological cave site of Tangtian more than five millennia ago, at the time of its occupation.

The site is located high in the Altai Mountains on a cold, dry landscape today; however, the study shows that the ecological setting around the site was slightly warmer and more humid at the time when people lived in and around this cave.

The slightly warmer regional conditions were likely the result of shifting air masses bringing warmer, wetter air from the south. In addition to early farmers using a specific regional climate pocket to grow crops in North Asia, the analysis showed that the crops they grew evolved to survive in such northern regions.

The results of this study provide scholars with evidence for when certain evolutionary changes in these grasses occurred, including changes in the programed reliance of day length, which signals to the plant when to flower, and greater resistance to cold climates.

The ancient dispersal of crops across Inner Asia has received a lot of attention from biologists and archaeologists in recent years; as Dr. Spengler, one of the study’s lead authors, discusses in his recent book Fruit from the Sands, these ancient exchange routes shaped the course of human history.

The mingling of crops originating from opposite ends of Asia resulted in the crop-rotation cycles that fueled demographic growth and led to the imperial formation. East Asian millets would become one of the most important crops in ancient Europe and wheat would become one of the most important crops in East Asia by the Han Dynasty. While the long tradition of rice cultivation in East Asia made rice a staple of the Asian kitchen, Chinese cuisine would be unrecognizable without wheat-based food items like steamed buns, dumplings, and noodles.

The discovery that these plants dispersed across Eurasia earlier than previously understood will have lasting impacts on the study of cultivation and labor practices in ancient Eurasia, as well as the history of cultural contact and shifts in culinary systems throughout time.

These new discoveries provide a reason to question these views and seem to suggest that mixed small-scale human populations made major contributions to world history through migration and cultural and technological exchange.

“This study not only presents the earliest dates for domesticated grains in far North Asia,” says Professor Xiaoqiang Li, director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, “it represents the earliest beginning of a trans-Eurasian exchange that would eventually develop into the great Silk Road”.

Dr. Xinying Zhou, who headed the study and directs a research team at the IVPP in Beijing, emphasizes that “this discovery is a testament to human ingenuity and the amazing coevolutionary bond between people and the plants that they maintain in their cultivated fields.”

ASIA, BIBLICAL, ISRAEL, WORLD

3,000-year-old Canaanite temple discovered in southern Israel

3,000-year-old Canaanite temple discovered in southern Israel

In southern central Israel, Tel Lachish’s new discovery consists of very rare inscriptions showing early precursors of Hebrew alphabet

An aerial view of the newly found temple at Tel Lachish.

In Tel Lachish National Park, the 3,000-year-old temple of Canaanite has unearthed by a team of Israelis and American archeologists.

Under the guidance of Prof. Yosef Garfinkel from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Prof. Michael Hasel from the University of southern Advent at Tennessee, the team published their findings in the Levant journal last month following years of excavations.

Located in south-central Israel, Tel Lachish is the site of the biblical Lachish, a major Canaanite city during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages that was later conquered by the Israelites. It was one of the only Canaanite cities to survive into the 12th century BCE.

“We excavated a new temple in the northeast corner of the site that [dates] to the 12th century BCE,” Garfinkel told The Media Line. “It was extremely rich with objects and also [had] an inscription, which is very, very rare. The last time a Canaanite inscription was found was about 40 years ago.”

The aforementioned inscription was found on a pottery shard and features the oldest-known example of the letter “samekh.”

An extremely rare find found at Tel Lachish shows a Caananite inscription and the oldest-known example of the letter “samekh” (highlighted). (T. Rogovski)

“Our inscription is Semitic: It’s Canaanite and later the Hebrew script developed from the same type of writing,” Garfinkel explained, adding that the discovery was “of tremendous importance to the history of the [Hebrew alphabet].”

The new temple marks the first time in a long while that a new Canaanite temple has been found; in fact, the majority of such structures were already unearthed in the early 20th century.

In addition, the Lachish temple was built in a symmetrical style which has only been seen in a few other places in Israel, among them Tel Megiddo, Hazor and Nablus.

“This is the first time that we have a symmetrical temple at Lachish,” Garfinkel said. “There are fewer than 10 of these in Israel.”

Itamar Weissbein, the lead co-author of the study and one of the excavators, told The Media Line that this is the third Canaanite temple found at Lachish.

The first two temples were discovered by a British expedition in the 1930s and an Israeli team in the 1970s, respectively.

“In general, temples in the ancient Near East were not like churches or synagogues that you [could] enter,” Weissbein said. “It’s a different type of cultic activity. Only a few elites – priests or maybe kings – entered to do some rituals there because it was a house of gods, not a house of worship in a way.”

Weissbein emphasized that worshippers would likely have been standing outside the temple in the courtyard, an area that has not been well-preserved over the centuries. Researchers were, however, able to glean some ideas about the cultic activities that took place inside the temple based on artifacts that they dug up.

“We found two figurines of male deities,” Weissbein stated. “They probably represent Baal, [who was] one of the main deities of the Canaanites, like a storm god or a fertility god … and another deity called Resheph, [who was] more of a warlike deity.”

Two ancient figurines found at the temple in Tel Lachish likely represent Baal and Resheph, deities worshipped by the Canaanites.

In addition to the ruins, the figurines and the inscription, Garfinkel’s team also found bronze cauldrons, jewelry, daggers, scarabs and a gold-plated bottle bearing an inscription with the name of the powerful Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II.