The ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq
An ancient city called ‘Idu’ has been discovered in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Hidden beneath a 32 foot (10 metres) mound, the city is thought to have been a hub of activity between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago.
Inscriptions made for kings in walls, tablets and stone plinths, reveal that it was once filled with luxurious palaces.
The discovery was made five years ago after a local villager found a clay tablet with the name ‘Idu’ carved in.
The ancient city of Idu is now part of a Tell that rises about 32 feet (10 metres) above the surrounding plain. The modern-day name of the site is Satu Qala and a village lies on top of the Tell
It is thought the inscription was made by the local kings celebrating the construction of the royal palace. Archaeologists at the University of Leipzig in Germany spent the next few years excavating the area.
They believe the city of Idu spent much of its time under the control of the Assyrian Empire about 3,300 years ago. But archaeologists also found evidence that it was a fiercely independent city.
A domestic structure, with at least two rooms, that may date to relatively late in the life of the newfound ancient city, perhaps around 2,000 years ago when the Parthian Empire controlled the area in Iraq.
Its people fought for and won, 140 years of independence before they were reconquered by the Assyrians. Among the treasures found were artwork showing a bearded sphinx with a human head and the body of a winged lion.
Above it was the words: ‘Palace of Ba’auri, king of the land of Idu, son of Edima, also king of the land of Idu.’
They also found a cylinder seal dating back roughly 2,600 years depicting a man crouching before a griffon.
‘We were lucky to be one of the first teams to begin excavations in Iraq after the 2003 war,’ archaeologists Cinzia Pappi told MailOnline.
‘The discovery of ancient Idu at Satu Qala revealed a multicultural capital and a crossroad between northern and southern Iraq and between Iraq and Western Iran in the second and first millennia BC.
‘Particularly the discovery of a local dynasty of kings fills a gap in what scholars had previously thought of as a dark age in the history of ancient Iraq.
‘Together these results have helped to redraw the political and historical map of the development of the Assyrian Empire.’
This work shows a bearded sphinx with a human male head and the body of a winged lion. Found in four fragments it was also created for King Ba’auri and has almost the exact same inscription as the depiction of the horse.
The city was hidden beneath a mound, called a tell, which is currently home to a village called Satu Qala.
‘For wide-scale excavations to continue, at least some of these houses will have to be removed,’ said archaeologists Cinzia Pappi
‘Unfortunately, until a settlement is reached between the villagers and the Kurdistan regional government, further work is currently not possible.’
Archaeologists plan to continue excavating the site once they reach an agreement.
In the meantime, a study on the materials from the site, now stored in the Erbil Museum of Antiquities, has just been completed in co-operation with the University of Pennsylvania.
Together, the researchers will explore the surrounding area to determine the extent of the kingdom of Idu in its regional context
The findings have been reported in the journal Anatolica.
Archaeologists are currently busy analysing artefacts already excavated. They also plan to survey the surrounding area to get a better sense of how large the kingdom of Idu was
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
Photo provided by the Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology on Jan. 5, 2022, shows a horse buried with the dead at the Shaojiapeng site, which is decorated with shell strings. (Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology/Handout via Xinhua)
A large-scale tomb cluster dating back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) was recently discovered in Shaojiapeng Village, Anyang City of central China’s Henan Province, according to the city’s institute of cultural relics and archaeology.
Located 2.4 km away from the palace and ancestral temple of the Yin Ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Shaojiapeng site is believed to be a major living area for a clan named “Ce” in the Shang Dynasty.
The Chinese character “Ce” was found on the inscription of bronzeware uncovered in the cemetery relics, which indicates the identity of the clan.
A total of 18 building foundations, 24 tombs, four-horse and chariot pits, along with relics including exquisite bronzeware, jade and stone objects, bone ware and mussels, were found during the two-year excavation of the site.
Six carriages and several warriors and horses buried with the dead were uncovered in the pits, with luxurious decorations on the relics.
Some warriors were found wearing hats with shell strings and the foreheads of some horses were decorated with gold veneer and bronze backing.
“This is very rare among the ancient discoveries of Anyang, reflecting the extraordinary status and power of the carriage owner,” said Kong Deming, director of the institute.
The researchers are still working on unlocking the remaining mysteries of the site, including the social status of the clan, their division of labour and their relationship with the Shang royal family.
The relics at the site are diverse and relatively well-preserved, making them of great significance to studies on the scope and layout of the Yin Ruins, according to Kong.
Europe’s first farmers came from Turkey confirmed by DNA
It was an innovation that changed the course of human history forever, leading to the rise of the first civilisations and transforming the way of life of our ancestors.
Now researchers believe they have pinpointed where the first farmers who spread into Europe 8,000 years ago came from – Anatolia in Turkey. Using ancient DNA from human remains found in the region, a study has been able to trace the lineage of early European farmers back to the Anatolian plateau in Turkey.
They said farmers from Anatolia appear to have moved into Europe around 8,000 years ago, replacing the hunter-gatherer cultures that lived there.
Ancient DNA from human remains (pictured) found in Anatolia, Turkey, has revealed that the farmers who lived there 8,000 years ago were among the first to spread into Europe. The farming revolution brought about changes in human culture that led to some of the first civilisations in history emerging
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the farming revolution then spread.
Anders Götherstörm, head of archaeogenetic research at the archaeological research laboratory at Stockholm University, said: ‘Our results stress the importance Anatolia has had on Europe’s prehistory.
‘But to fully understand how the agricultural development proceeded we need to dive deeper down into material from the Levant.’
The researchers extracted DNA from human remains found at the site of an ancient settlement in Kumtepe in Troas, northwestern Anatolia, in Turkey.
The remains are thought to belong to Neolithic farmers who were among the first inhabitants of the settlement, which eventually gave rise to the city of Troy.
The team behind the study compared the DNA with genetic material from other ancient farmers in Europe along with DNA from modern Europeans.
Ayca Omrak, who was the first author of the research at Stockholm University, said: ‘I have never worked with more complicated material.
‘I could use the DNA from the Kumptepe material to trace the European farmers back to Anatolia.
‘It is also fun to have worked with this material from the Kumtepe site, as this is the precursor to Troy.’
A separate study recently found that a rise in farming and metalwork in Ireland led to a ‘genetic shift’ in the region, fuelled by an influx of people from the Black Sea and the Middle East.
This led to the traits that make Celtic people so distinct to emerge around 4,000 years ago. In particular, the researchers said that the adoption of agriculture led to ‘waves of immigration’ in Ireland which ultimately shifted their genetics.
The study was led by Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin. Researchers analysed the DNA of an early Neolithic farmer, a woman who is believed to have lived in the Belfast area 5,200 years ago.
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the revolution spread. The researchers extracted DNA from remains found at Kumtepe in Troas, Turkey
Neolithic farmers spread to replace hunter-gatherer populations in Europe. Wall paintings of hunters (pictured) found in Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia, Turkey is thought to have been made in 6,000BC, just as farming was beginning to spread into Europe. The new study suggests the area was a hub for the farming revolution
They also analysed the DNA of three men found in Rathlin Island in County Down, who lived 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.
While the early farmer woman more closely resembled people from Southern Europe, with black hair and brown eyes, the later men had blue eyes.
One even had an inherited iron disorder, haemochromatosis, commonly found in Irish people. Elsewhere, the woman’s genome was a ‘genetic cocktail’ of early hunter-gatherer DNA mixed with that of Near East farmers.
It is thought these farmers migrated to the region thousands of years ago, bringing farming to the region in around 3,750 BC. However, the genetic traits found in the Bronze Age males were found to be much closer to modern Irish people.
Mysteries Of Ancient ‘Computer’ Found In Greek Shipwreck Solved By Scientists
Archaeologists claim to have solved the mysteries behind an ancient Greek “computer” that shouldn’t even exist. Known for its hidden relics archaeological treasures, Greece has offered great insights into a world long lost.
In fact, some of the earliest advances in understanding space and the position of Earth around the sun were made in ancient Greece.
The very first astronomical calculator was also built in ancient Greece. This “computer” has continued to stun scientists and archaeologists alike.
Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, the 2,000-year-old Greek hand-powered orrey is a mechanical model of the solar system. It’s also considered the world’s oldest analogue computer.
World’s oldest “analogue computer”
Using the Antikythera, Greek scientists used to track eclipses and astronomical positions. In addition, they used to trace the cycle of the Olympic Games (yes, the same ones we all have now).
The Antikythera Mechanism was first found in ruins of a shipwreck in 1901 off the coast of Greek island Antikythera (hence its name). A year later, it was identified as carrying gear by archaeologist Valerios Stais.
At first sight, the Antikythera Mechanism appeared as a hunk of corroded metal that “no one knew quite what to do with.”
In conversation with BBC, Professor Tony Freeth of the University College London said that “it was not recognised at all as being anything interesting when it was discovered, it was just a corroded lump about the size of a large dictionary.”
Using its bronze gear and calculative prowess, ancient Greeks used the Antikythera Mechanism to assess the cycle of the cosmos.
It is now kept in a museum in Athens – split into 82 fragments. But nobody really knew what it was for until Professor Freeth put it under the magical lens of x-ray.
Besides thousands of text characters in Greece, scientists discovered certain cogs that made the computer function. It could predict eclipses, follow the motion of the moon among a series of things.
Researchers Date Horned Helmets Discovered in Denmark
The two Viksø helmets were found in pieces a bog in eastern Denmark in 1942. Archaeologists think they were deliberately deposited there as religious offerings
Two spectacular bronze helmets decorated with bull-like, curved horns may have inspired the idea that more than 1,500 years later, Vikings wore bulls’ horns on their helmets, although there is no evidence they ever did.
Rather, the two helmets were likely emblems of the growing power of leaders in Bronze Age Scandinavia. In 1942, a worker cutting peat for fuel discovered the helmets — which sport “eyes” and “beaks” — in a bog near the town of Viksø (also spelled Veksø) in eastern Denmark, a few miles northwest of Copenhagen.
The helmets’ design suggested to some archaeologists that the artefacts originated in the Nordic Bronze Age (roughly from 1750 B.C. to 500 B.C.), but until now no firm date had been determined. The researchers of the new study used radiocarbon methods to date a plug of birch tar on one of the horns.
“For many years in popular culture, people associated the Viksø helmets with the Vikings,” said Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “But actually, it’s nonsense. The horned theme is from the Bronze Age and is traceable back to the ancient Near East.”
The new research by Vandkilde and her colleagues confirms that the helmets were deposited in the bog in about 900 B.C. — almost 3,000 years ago and many centuries before the Vikings or Norse dominated the region.
That dates the helmets to the late Nordic Bronze Age, a time when archaeologists think the regular trade of metals and other items had become common throughout Europe and foreign ideas were influencing Indigenous cultures, the researchers wrote in the journal Praehistorische Zeitschrift.
The elaborately-horned Viksø helmets have been associated with medieval Vikings. But a new study fixes their date to about 900 B.C. – over a thousand years before any Vikings.
Horned helmets
In 1942, a man cutting peat for fuel found broken pieces of the helmets, according to the Danish Ministry of Culture.
When the muddy helmet fragments were first discovered, the man who found them thought they were bits of buried waste, so he set them aside. Later, a foreman noticed the fragments and stored them in a shed for later examination. Later examinations by archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark showed that the “buried waste” fragments were actually parts of two bronze helmets decorated with curved horns. When excavating the peat pit, researchers also found the remains of a wooden slab that one of the helmets seemed to have stood on, which suggested they had been deliberately deposited in the bog.
But metal can’t be reliably dated, and further research suggested the wooden slab might have been placed in the bog earlier than the helmets. It wasn’t until 2019 that one of Vandkilde’s colleagues spotted the birch tar on one of the horns when she was preparing to take new photographs of the helmets at the National Museum of Denmark.
“She noticed that there was primary organic material in the horns and spoke to a colleague at the National Museum responsible for the collection, and they agreed to send a sample for absolute dating,” Vandkilde said.
Previously, any information about the helmets was based on their typology — the style they were made in and any symbols they were decorated with. But the new date is based on the radioactive decay of the isotope carbon 14, which can determine when the organic matter originated. This method let archaeologists pinpoint when the helmets were created and theorize their purpose, she said.
“Typology is quite often a good first step, chronologically speaking, but it is very important when we can have absolute dates, as we can with carbon 14,” Vandkilde said. “We now know with this new date that the helmets were deposited in the bog, perhaps by someone standing on a wooden platform, around 900 B.C.”
Sun symbolism
As well as the having eyes and beak of a bird of prey and curving bull’s horns, archaeologists think the helmets were decorated with plumes of feathers and manes of horsehair.
As well as their prominent horns, the Viksø helmets are adorned with symbols meant to look like the eyes and beak of a bird of prey; plumage that has since eroded was likely stuck into the ends of the horns with birch tar, and each helmet also may have had a mane of horsehair.
Both the bulls’ horns and the bird of prey were probably symbols of the sun, as similar iconography from the time has been found in other parts of Europe, such as on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia and in southwest Iberia. “It’s certainly not coincidental — there must have been some sort of connection there,” Vandkilde said.
It’s possible that the symbology of sun worship may have reached Scandinavia along a sea route, from the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coast, that was used by the seafaring Phoenicians for trade after about 1000 B.C., “independent of the otherwise flourishing transalpine trading route,” the researchers wrote.
There is no sign that the Viksø helmets were ever used for war, which was usually carried out in Bronze Age Scandinavia with only rudimentary helmets or no helmets at all. “They were never used for battle,” Vandkilde said.
Instead, leaders probably wore the helmets as symbols of authority at a time when the region was becoming more politicized and centralized, she said.
“There are many signs of this, and our new dating of the Viksø helmets actually suits this very well — this picture of centralization and the importance of political leadership,” she said. “And those leaders must have used religious beliefs and innovative traits, like the horns, to further their power.”
Scientists Hope to Solve the Mystery of 163 Child Mummies Discovered in Italy
The 200-year-old secrets of the child mummies of the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo in northern Sicily are to be revealed by a British-led team of scientists using X-ray technology.
The Catacombs contain 1,284 mummified and skeletonised bodies, the largest collection of mummies in Europe. While many of the children contained there are now skeletal, others have been described as appearing as if they are sleeping.
Scientists Hope to Solve the Mystery of 163 Child Mummies Discovered in Italy
The two-year investigation will focus on the children who died between 1787 and 1880 and, initially, on 41 bodies residing within a bespoke “child chapel”.
None of the children’s identity, cause of death and medical history is known, and descriptive tags attached to them have long eroded away.
It is hoped that a better picture of the children’s lives and passing will be revealed by cross-referencing the anatomical findings with archival records, including two books containing names and years of death.
“We are going in January to carry out our fieldwork,” Squires said. “We will take a portable X-ray unit and take hundreds of images of the children from different angles.
“We are hoping to better understand their development, health and identity, comparing the biological fundings with the more cultural kind of things: the way the individuals have been mummified and the clothes they are wearing as well.”
The catacombs, once solely for the deceased friars of the Capuchin order, have become a popular, if macabre, tourist attraction, with every niche and crevice bearing bodies on open display. The preserved dead were often dressed in their finery and would be visited by their relatives.
The friars first established themselves at the church of Santa Maria della Pace in 1534. They created a mass grave for their dead which opened like a tank under an altar but, when that became full, the deceased was held in a vault, or charnel house, while a new crypt was dug.
When it came to relocating the bodies from the overfull vault, 45 of the deceased friars exhumed were found to have been naturally mummified, with their faces recognisable, a development that was taken to be an act of God.
Rather than bury the remains, the bodies were displayed as relics, propped in niches along the walls of the first corridor of the new cemetery. In 1787, a letter was published stating that everyone, including children, in the region had the right to be accommodated in the catacombs after death.
Almost all the research until today has been on the adult mummies, excepting a headline-grabbing examination of Rosalia Lombardo, who died of pneumonia a week shy of her second birthday on 6 December 1920.
Her startlingly complete preservation was investigated a decade ago by Dr Dario Piombino-Mascali, who is working with Squires on the latest project at the catacombs.
He said: “Many of the mummies are a result of natural dehydration. Other mummies were chemically treated. Those chemically treated are normally better preserved.
“Some of them are superbly preserved. Some really look like sleeping children. They are darkened by the time but some of them have got even fake eyes so they seem to be looking at you. They look like tiny little dolls.
“Of course, you want to do something to preserve them and to make sure their stories are told and give a sense that they are children. It is very upsetting when you deal with children in anthropology.”
Radiographic images – 14 per mummy, from head-to-toe – will be taken and examined by Dr Robert Loynes, a retired orthopaedic surgeon who has previously investigated ancient Egyptian mummies. Piombino-Mascali said it was vital that the work on the fragile corpses was “non-invasive”.
Images will be drawn by an artist from Los Angeles, Eduardo Hernandez, who will produce illustrations for use in educational leaflets for handing out at the catacombs and elsewhere. The project has received over £70,000 in funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. The last bodies interned in the catacombs died in the early 20th century.
Mind-Blowing Fossil Site Found in ‘Dead’ Heart of Australia
A spider fossil from McGraths Flat.
The arid heart of Australia may not easily support life now, but once, many aeons ago, it was lush and teeming. What is now arid desert and dry shrub- and grasslands were once thick with dense forests, alive with life.
In one of these grasslands, in the Central Tablelands of NSW, palaeontologists have found new evidence of this abundance of life. A new fossil site that can most aptly be described as “exceptional” has turned up fossils of spiders, insects, fish, plants and even a bird feather, dating to the Miocene 11 to 16 million years ago.
“The fossils we have found proof that the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest and that life was rich and abundant here in the Central Tablelands, NSW,” said palaeontologist Matthew McCurry from the Australian Museum Research Institute.
“Many of the fossils that we are finding our new to science and include trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas, wasps and a variety of fish. Until now it has been difficult to tell what these ancient ecosystems were like, but the level of preservation at this new fossil site means that even small fragile organisms like insects turned into well-preserved fossils.”
Plant fossils from McGraths Flat.
The assemblage, named McGraths Flat, is so exceptional that it has been classified as a Lagerstätte – a sedimentary fossil bed that’s so extraordinary that sometimes even soft tissues have been preserved. In McGraths Flat, organisms have been so well preserved that even subcellular structures can be made out in some fossils.
Even more amazingly, it’s a type of rock in which exceptional fossils are not usually seen, an iron-rich rock called goethite.
“We think that the process that turned these organisms into fossils is key to why they are so well preserved,” McCurry said. “Our analyses suggest that the fossils formed when iron-rich groundwaters drained into a billabong and that a precipitation of iron minerals encased organisms that were living in or fell into the water.”
The fossils in the assemblage bear a resemblance to the ecosystems in modern Australian rainforests, the researchers said, but it’s the fine details that really make a difference.
For instance, subcellular structures called melanosomes that give tissues their pigment have been preserved in the site’s fossilized feather and also in the eyes of a fish and a fly.
The feather fossil.
Although the melanosomes themselves are unpigmented, their structure can be compared to the structure of modern melanosomes to help figure out how the tissues might have been hued. This allows the researchers to figure out what colours the various McGraths flat animals were, including the feather.
“The fossils also preserve evidence of interactions between species,” said microbiologist Michael Frese of the University of Canberra.
“For instance, we have fish stomach contents preserved in the fish, meaning that we can figure out what they were eating. We have also found examples of pollen preserved on the bodies of insects so we can tell which species were pollinating which plants.”
Animal fossils from McGraths Flat.
Soberingly, the fossils also might contain a hint of what’s in store for our future.
According to an analysis of the pollen grains in the assemblage, the McGraths Flat rainforest was being encroached upon by arid climate areas. This is not unexpected; during the Miocene, global temperatures had started to rise; it was during this period that the Australian continent started to transform from lush to arid.
Since global mean temperatures are rising, the ecosystem found in McGraths Flat could show us how life might change in Australia’s current rainforests in the years to come.
“The McGraths Flat plant fossils give us a window into the vegetation and ecosystems of a warmer world, one that we are likely to experience in the future,” said botanist David Cantrill of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Australia.
“The preservation of the plant fossils is unique and provides important insights into a time period for which the fossil record in Australia is rather poor.”
7,200-year-old skeleton unearthed in Indonesia reveals unknown human group
The ancient remains of a hunter-gatherer girl who died over 7,000 years ago in Indonesia, has revealed clues to a mysterious group of humans from the past. The discovery, made in 2015, in the Leang Panninge cave on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is the first discovery of ancient human DNA in the region, known as Wallacea.
In a study published, Griffith University archaeology professor and study co-author Adam Brumm said the girl, nicknamed Bessé,’ belonged to a mysterious group of modern humans from the Holocene era who archaeologists have named the Toaleans.
It is the first time an intact skeleton of the Toalean people had been found.
“We’ve got ancient DNA from the bones of this woman, but we could only reconstruct about 2 per cent of her complete genome,” Brumm told the ABC. “So that’s how degraded it was and it took a lot of work to get even that.”
Sulawesi is the largest island in Wallacea. White shaded areas represent landmasses exposed during periods of lower sea level in the Late Pleistocene.
Burial of the hunter-gatherer Toalean woman.
Through DNA analysis, archaeologists have confirmed a theory that the Toaleans were related to the first humans who lived in Wallacea around 65,000 years ago and could also tie the girl to the Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.
Half of Bessé’s genome is shared with present-day Aboriginals, Papuans, and Western Pacific Islander peoples. She was also partly related to the older human ancestors the Denisovans, whose remains have been found in Tibet and Siberia.
Further analysis found that Bessé’ also had strong genetic ties to an ancient Asian group of people who did not mingle with the ancestors of Aboriginals and Papuans.
“A really unexpected discovery is that within the DNA of this ancient woman, we found ancestry from a very ancient Asian population,” Brumm said. “We don’t know quite who they were.”
Excavations at Leang Panninge cave.
Prof. Akin Duli from the University of Hasanuddin said this meant the population and genetic history of early humans in the region were more complex than previously thought.
“It is unlikely we will know much about the identity of these early ancestors of the Toaleans until more ancient human DNA samples are available from Wallacea,” Duli said.
However, finding more preserved remains, like Bessé’s, is extremely difficult given the tropical, humid weather of the region.
Just two other DNA samples have been found in the whole region and they come from Laos and Malaysia.
Bessé’ has no relation to the present-day people of Sulawesi, which is unsurprising given they are known to be largely descended from people who came from the Taiwanese region 3,500 years ago.
The Toaleans have been a century-old archaeological mystery since the discovery of unique, finely crafted arrowheads in several southern Sulawesi caves in 1902.
Undated Toalean stone arrowheads, backed microliths, and bone projectile points.
