207-year-old whaling ship discovered in the Gulf of Mexico

207-year-old whaling ship discovered in the Gulf of Mexico

The wreck of a 19th-century whaling ship has been identified on the sea bottom in the Gulf of Mexico. Its discovery was announced Wednesday (March 23) in a statement released by representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and their partners in the expedition. 

207-year-old whaling ship discovered in the Gulf of Mexico
This image of the try-works was taken from the shipwreck site of the whaler Industry by an NOAA ROV. The try-works was a cast-iron stove with two deep kettles that were used to render whale blubber into oil.

Researchers onboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer spotted the wreck on Feb. 25 at a depth of 6,000 feet (1,800 meters).

They used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore a seafloor location where the shipwreck had previously been glimpsed, but not investigated, in 2011 and 2017, and their search received additional guidance via satellite communication with a scientific team onshore, according to the statement. 

A team of experts then confirmed that the vessel was the Industry, which sank May 26, 1836, while the crew was hunting sperm whales. It was built in 1815, and for 20 years, the 64-foot-long (19.5 meters) ship had pursued whales across the Gulf, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean, until a storm breached its hull and snapped its masts. 

Though 214 whaling voyages crisscrossed the Gulf from the 1780s until the 1870s, this is the only known shipwreck in the region, NOAA representatives said.

The crew list for Industry’s last voyage was lost at sea, but past ship records show that among Industry’s essential crew were Native American people and free Black descendants of enslaved African people.

The discovery of the wreck could offer important clues about the role that Black and Native American sailors played in America’s maritime industry at the time, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said in the statement. 

“This 19th-century whaling ship will help us learn about the lives of the Black and Native American mariners and their communities, as well as the immense challenges they faced on land and at sea,” Graves said.

Life on a whaling ship would certainly have been challenging, with long hours, hard physical labour and poor food that was likely to be infested with vermin, according to the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.

Living conditions could also be extremely unpleasant; a whaler’s account from 1846 described the crew’s quarters, known as the forecastle, as “black and slimy with filth, very small and hot as an oven,” J. Ross Browne wrote in the book “Etchings of a Whaling Cruise,” according to the museum.

“It was filled with a compound of foul air, smoke, sea-chests, soap-kegs, greasy pans, [and] tainted meat,” Browne wrote.

This image of an anchor was taken from the 1836 shipwreck site of the whaler Industry in the Gulf of Mexico by the NOAA ROV deployed from NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, on Feb. 25, 2022.

A deep dive

NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer collects data on unknown or little-explored seafloor regions of the deep ocean, mapping seamounts and discovering mysterious forms of elusive marine life at depths from 820 to 19,700 feet (250 to 6,000 m), according to NOAA.

Past expeditions have revealed “mud monsters” in the Mariana Trench, the “most bizarre squid” an NOAA zoologist had ever seen, and a real-life SpongeBob and Patrick living side by side on the seafloor, Live Science previously reported.

Video from the ROV combined with Industry records enabled the scientists to confirm that they had discovered the long-lost whaling brig.

A mosaic of images from the NOAA video of the brig Industry wreck site shows the outline in sediment and debris of the hull of the 64-foot by 20-foot whaling brig.

Another clue that helped experts to identify Industry was that there was little onboard evidence of its whaling activities; when the ship was sinking, another whaling vessel visited the foundering Industry and salvaged its equipment, removing 230 barrels of whale oil, as well as parts of the rigging and one of the ship’s four anchors, according to the NOAA statement.

“We knew it was salvaged before it sank,” Scott Sorset, a marine archaeologist for the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and a member of the expedition’s shore team, said in the statement. “That there were so few artefacts on board was another big piece of evidence it was Industry.” 

New research has also shed light on what happened to Industry’s crew on that final voyage.

Robin Winters, a librarian at the Westport Free Public Library in Massachusetts, unearthed an 1836 article from The Inquirer and Mirror (a Nantucket weekly newspaper) reporting that Industry’s crew was rescued by another whaling ship and brought to Westport.

That was a lucky turn of events for Industry’s Black whalers in particular, who could have been jailed under local laws had they reached shore with no proof of identity, said expedition researcher James Delgado, a senior vice president at the archaeology firm SEARCH. 

“And if they could not pay for their keep while in prison, they would have been sold into slavery,” Delgado said in the statement.

How the ancient Greeks proved Earth was round over 2,000 years ago

How the ancient Greeks proved Earth was round over 2,000 years ago

Long before NASA was sending satellites up into space, the ancient Greeks developed a way to determine the world was spherical over 2000 years ago.

How the ancient Greeks proved Earth was round over 2,000 years ago

Despite it being obvious that the world is has a round spherical shape, ‘flat-earthers’ will live and die by their convictions under the belief Planet Earth is well and truly falt.

While it may seem futile to engage in such debates if you do happen to be drawn into a discussion that makes you question your own logic/common sense just remembered – the Greeks proved the Earth was around 2000 years ago.

And they did it without leaving the comfort of their own home.

By the mid-20th century, we discovered the Earth’s circumference was exactly 40,030 km but over 2000 years earlier in ancient Greece, a mathematician by the name of Eratosthenes arrived at the same exact figure and all he had on him was a stick.

As well as being a mathematical savant Eratosthenes was head of the library at Alexandria – the capital of the Greek empire, he came to upon his discovery when he found out the city of Syene, a neighbouring metropolitan to the south, cast no vertical shadows during noon on the summer solstice.

This was because the sun was directly overhead, at its highest point so to speak. Eratosthenes wanted to find out if this was the same for Alexandria as well, so on June 21, he planted a stick into the ground and waited to see if a shadow would be cast at noon. It happened to show one shadow, which measured at seven degrees.

By this logic, if rays from the sun are coming at the same exact angle at the same exact time of the day, with a stick showing a shadow in Alexandria but not in Syene it means the Earth is curved. It’s something which Eratosthenes, and later his contemporaries, already knew.

The concept of a ‘spherical Earth’ was theorised by Greek philosopher Pythagoras around 500 BC and later validated by the great philosopher Aristotle a few centuries later.

So this is where the hardcore maths come into play, if the Earth was round it meant Eratosthenes could use his discovery to determine the ‘circumference of the entire planet’.

Because the difference in shadow length between Alexandria and Syene is seven degrees it means the two cities are seven degrees apart on Earth’s 360-degree surface. To confirm this Eratosthenes hired a man to walk the distance between Alexandria and Syene, he later learned ‘they were 5,000 stadia apart’ from each other, which equates to 800 kilometres

Eratosthenes could use simple measurements to discover Earth’s circumference – which is ‘7.2 degrees is 1/50 of 360 degrees’ according to The Independent. If you multiply 800 by 50 you get 40,000 kilometres.

So without any fancy technology or huge government funding, a man from Ancient Greece discovered the circumference of our little green planet. All he required was his brains and a stick.

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Mummies uncovered in Portugal date back 8,000 years and could be oldest in the world

Mummies uncovered in Portugal date back 8,000 years and could be oldest in the world

Archaeologists are set to rewrite the history books after they uncovered new evidence that suggests the oldest instances of mummification occurred 8,000 years ago.

Researchers have taken a second look at photographs snapped 60 years ago of several skeletons that were buried in southern Portugal.

A new analysis of these photos has led them to believe that the oldest evidence of mummification actually originated in Europe, not Egypt or Chile as previously thought. During excavations in the 1960s, archaeologists discovered nearly a dozen ancient bodies in Portugal’s Sado Valley.

Analysing previously undeveloped photos, researchers now believe that at least one of those bodies had been mummified.

They theorise that this was done to possibly make it easier to transport before its burial.

Experts also found evidence that suggests that other bodies that were buried at the site may have been similarly preserved as mummies, implying that this was a widespread practice in the region.

Mummification is most commonly associated with Ancient Egypt, where elaborate burial procedures were used more than 4,500 years ago.

Archaeology breakthrough as world’s oldest mummy found in Portugal rewrites history
Archaeology breakthrough as world’s oldest mummy found in Portugal rewrites history
Archaeologists were able to reconstruct the burial sites from photographs

Other evidence of mummification outside Egypt is found in other parts of Europe, dating from about 1000 BC.

However, archaeologists have now dated this person as the oldest mummy ever discovered, predating all previous instances by a long time.

This newly identified mummy in Portugal pushes back the previous record by about 1,000 years, then held by mummies found in the coastal region of Chile’s the Atacama Desert.

When it comes to hot and dry regions like Egypt and the Atacama desert, mummification is a relatively straightforward process.

However, it is generally difficult to find evidence of mummies in Europe, where much wetter conditions mean that mummified soft tissues rarely stay preserved, according to Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna, a bioarchaeologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Speaking to Live Science, Ms Peyroteo-Stjerna, the lead author of the study said: “It’s very hard to make these observations, but it’s possible with combined methods and experimental work.”

Other authors of the study added: “These burials generally conform to the pattern characteristic of the mortuary practices known for these hunter-gatherer communities, but aspects of the treatment of the body, including its transformation and curation before burial, are new elements.

One of the bodies was in a hyperflexed state
The remains are believed to be 8000 years old

“New insights into the use of burial places, such as a very tight clustering of burials, and the proposed cases of mummification and the subsequent internment of hyperflexed, intact bodies highlight the significance of both the body and the burial place in the wider hunter-gatherer landscape of south-western Portugal.”

After observing the photographs, the archaeologists noted that the bones of the buried skeletons were “hyperflexed”, meaning that their limbs have been bent far beyond their natural limits.

This indicates that after the person’s death, the body had been tied up with bindings that have disintegrated since then.

The team also found that the bones of the skeleton were in excellent condition, particularly the small bones of the feet, which generally fall apart completely from the skeleton as the body decomposes.

Archaeology breakthrough as experts retrace human roots with 518 million-year-old rocks

Archaeology breakthrough as experts retrace human roots with 518 million year-old rocks

The new study is based on an analysis of 518 million-year-old rocks that contain the oldest collection of fossils that researchers have on record.

The researchers believe that Chengjian, a city in the mountainous Yunnan Province of China, is the origin of many of today’s species, including humans. This site is where complex organisms first developed, an event known as the ‘Cambrian Explosion’, a major time period in the history of the Earth.

The Cambrian explosion is the 13-25 million year-long period where all major animal species began to develop. The collection of fossils includes 250 different lifeforms that range from the first worms to primitive arthropods which led to shrimps, insects, spiders and scorpions.

The researchers, who published their findings in Nature Communications, have also discovered some of the earliest vertebrates, including the ancestors of modern fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Senior author Dr Xiaoya Ma, of Exeter University, said: “The Cambrian Explosion is now universally accepted as a genuine rapid evolutionary event.

“But the causal factors have been long debated – with hypotheses on environmental, genetic or ecological triggers.”

Archaeology breakthrough as experts retrace human roots with 518 million year-old rocks
Archaeology breakthrough as expert retrace human roots with 518-million-year-old rocks.
The rocks contain the oldest collection of fossils that researchers have on record.

At the time, the area was a vast wetland feeding the mouth of a river – ideal for organisms to thrive.

Dr Ma said: “The discovery of a deltaic environment shed new light on understanding the possible causal factors for the flourishing of these Cambrian bilaterian animal-dominated marine communities and their exceptional soft-tissue preservation.

“The unstable environmental stressors might also contribute to the adaptive radiation of these early animals.”

Some key prehistoric discoveries

Only true animals are ‘bilaterian’ – with both a front and back, two symmetrical sides and openings at either end connected by a gut.

An analysis of ancient sediment samples identified evidence of marine currents. The area was a shallow, nutrient-rich delta affected by storm-floods – shedding fresh light on evolution.

Co-lead author Dr Farid Saleh, of Yunnan University, said: “We can see from the association of numerous sedimentary flows the environment hosting the Chengjiang Biota was complex.

The Cambrian explosion is the 13-25 million year-long period where all major animal species began.

“It was certainly shallower than what has been previously suggested in the literature for similar animal communities.”

The era was a key period when the diversity of life began to resemble that of today. Most organisms were simple until then – composed of individual cells occasionally assembled into colonies.

Co-lead author Dr Changshi Qi, also from Yunnan, said: “Our research shows that the Chengjiang Biota mainly lived in a well-oxygenated shallow-water deltaic environment.

The collection of fossils includes 250 different lifeforms

“Storm floods transported these organisms down to the adjacent deep oxygen-deficient settings, leading to the exceptional preservation we see today.”

The study also confirms a long-held theory that a large spike in oxygen triggered the burst.

Co-author Professor Luis Buatois, of Saskatchewan University in Canada, said: “The Chengjiang Biota – as is the case of similar faunas described elsewhere – is preserved in fine-grained deposits.

“Our understanding of how these muddy sediments were deposited has changed dramatically during the last 15 years.

“Application of this recently acquired knowledge to the study of fossiliferous deposits of exceptional preservation will change dramatically our understanding of how and where these sediments accumulated.”

Analysis Links the Origins of the Maya and Corn Cultivation

Analysis Links the Origins of the Maya and Corn Cultivation

In Maya creation myths, the gods created humans out of corn. Now, a new study from a site in Belize suggests corn really was important in the origin of the ancient Maya: More than half of their ancestry can be traced to migrants who arrived from South America sometime before 5600 years ago, likely bringing with them new cultivars of the crop that sustained one of Mesoamerica’s great cultures.

These previously unknown migrants “were the first pioneers who essentially planted the seeds of Maya civilization,” which emerged about 4000 years ago, says archaeologist and co-author Jaime Awe.

A native Belizean now at Northern Arizona University, he, like many people in Belize, has some Maya ancestry. “Without corn, there would have been no Mayans.”

Archaeologists found human remains at this rock shelter in the Maya Mountains of southwestern Belize.
Archaeologists found human remains at this rock shelter in the Maya Mountains of southwestern Belize.

The discovery reveals a significant new source of ancestry for the Maya, whose civilization spanned one-third of Central America and Mexico, dotting the region with cities and monuments at its height more than 1000 years ago.

Today, the Maya are an ethnolinguistic group of at least 7 million Indigenous peoples in Central America.

The study also suggests that as in Europe, where farming arrived with immigrants from the Middle East, farming in the Americas spread as least in part with people on the move, rather than simply as know-how passed between cultures.

“This paper is really groundbreaking,” says Mary Pohl, a Maya archaeologist at Florida State University. “This is a dramatic revelation and is really stirring things up.”

Awe, a Maya archaeologist and former director of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, had long wondered how the Maya were related to the hunter-gatherers and early farmers who brought maize, manioc, and chiles to what is now Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. But poor preservation of bones and DNA in the hot and humid climate had left few clues.

The new study analyzes remain from two rock shelters on the steep slopes of old-growth rainforest in the Bladen Nature Reserve in southwestern Belize, a 2.5-kilometre hike from the nearest road.

Since 2014, archaeologist Keith Prufer of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, wildlife biologist Said Gutierrez of the Ya’axché Conservation Trust, and their colleagues have unearthed more than 85 skeletons from shallow graves in the rock shelters’ dry dirt floors.

The archaeologists directly dated 50 individuals with radiocarbon, finding they lived between 1000 to 9600 years ago. Then, population geneticist David Reich of Harvard University and his team managed to extract high-quality ancient DNA from the inner ear bones of 20 individuals—“the oldest human DNA from a tropical rainforest site,” Reich says.

They analyzed 1.2 million nucleotide bases across the genomes and compared them to DNA from ancient and living people from the Americas.

The comparisons showed the earliest people buried at the rock shelters, 9600 to 7300 years ago, closely resembled that of hunter-gatherers descended from an ancient migration from North to South America. But after 5600 years ago, the DNA recorded a major shift: All 15 individuals tested were most closely related to another group of Indigenous people who today live from northern Colombia to Costa Rica and who speak Chibchan languages. “It’s clearly a major movement into the Maya region of people related to Chibchan speakers,” Reich says.

The migration had a lasting impact: Reich’s team found that living Maya has inherited more than half of their DNA from this influx from the south, they reported today in Nature Communications. Half of the remainder came from the ancient hunter-gatherers who were first in the region, the rest from ancestors of people in the Mexican highlands.

The population shift eventually led to a new diet. Prufer and archaeologist Douglas Kennett at the University of California, Santa Barbara, had previously analyzed carbon isotopes from the teeth of the people in the rock shelters, which shows the kind of food they ate. As reported in Science in 2020, they found a steady increase in maize consumption over time. The ancient hunter-gatherers got less than 10% of their diet on average from maize. The first migrants from the south also ate relatively little corn. But then, between about 5600 years ago and 4000 years ago the proportion of maize surged, from 10% to 50%, providing “the earliest evidence of maize as a staple grain,” Prufer says.

The shift to maize happened hundreds of years after the influx of migrants, but the team says its results fit with the emerging story of maize cultivation. The plant was partially domesticated as early as 9000 years ago in southwest Mexico, but over the past 8 years, genetic and archaeological evidence has shown that it wasn’t fully domesticated until 6500 years ago—at sites in Peru and Bolivia. There, farmers developed larger, more nutritious cobs than the partially domesticated maize still found in Mexico 5300 years ago, says archaeologist Logan Kistler of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

Together, the evidence suggests the migrants brought improved maize plants from the south by 5600 years ago, perhaps with methods for growing corn in small gardens, says Kennett, a co-author. By 4000 years ago it had become the keystone crop. That scenario could explain why one early Maya language incorporates a Chibchan word for maize, says linguist and co-author David Mora-Marín of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

In tracing the origin of one of Mesoamerica’s great peoples, the genetic and isotopic work also illuminates the evolutionary roots of one of the world’s most successful crops, says archaeobotanist Dolores Piperno of NMNH and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “It really transforms our knowledge of how maize dispersed.”

Egypt uncovers the 4,000-year-old painted tomb of a royal palace official

Egypt uncovers the 4,000-year-old painted tomb of a royal palace official

Five painted tombs were recently unearthed in Saqqara, an ancient Egyptian necropolis just outside of Cairo, according to a report by Reuters.

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said that a recent excavation of burial shafts resulted in the finding of the tombs, along with more than 20 sarcophagi, toys, wooden boats, masks, and more.

The tombs are at least 4,000 years old, dating back to the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate period, a so called dark period in ancient Egyptian history as the regime of the Old Kingdom collapsed and political instability led to the destruction of monuments, artworks, and more. As such, not much remains from this time.

Mostafa Waziri, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

These tombs, however, are well-preserved and particularly well-decorated, with the additional inclusion of small statues and pots. Some of the paintings seem to represent food offerings.

The tombs, which reside near the pyramid of King Merenre I, are believed to have belonged to senior officials and court advisors.

The identity of two of those buried in the tombs has been ascertained. One was a top official named Iry, whose tomb included a limestone sarcophagus.

The other was occupied by a woman named Petty, who was both a priest of Hathor and a kind of beautician for Menere I.

Menere I is believed to be the father of Pepi II, the most notable pharaoh of this age whose reign is said to have lasted for more than 90 years.

The Egyptian government has been actively excavating Saqqara over the past several months.

In November, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that it had found the tomb of a treasurer to the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses II, which included several intact murals, in Saqqara.

These recent discoveries come amid the government’s “Follow the Sun” campaign that is aimed at attracting tourists to come see the archaeological wonders of ancient Egypt, both those well-known and recently discovered.

The country’s economy largely depends on this tourism, which has been impacted for over a decade beginning with the Arab Spring protests there.

More recently, the pandemic’s slowing down on international travel and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a large portion of tourists to Egypt are Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian—have also affected the tourism industry there.

The Royal Burials of 65 Celtic Kings Identified in England and Wales

The Royal Burials of 65 Celtic Kings Identified in England and Wales

Roughly 60 newly-discovered royal graves in the north and west were of British or Irish Celtic origin, according to a new study. A number of English kings in the post-Roman era were of Irish origin, with several Celtic tombs uncovered in the west and north of Britain.

Artist’s depiction of the Celts.

Professor Ken Dark of the University of Reading and Spain’s University of Navarra, a leading expert on the period immediately after the collapse of Roman rule in Britain, has published a new report revealing the locations of between 55 and 65 Celtic-British royal graves from the dark ages. 

The newly-discovered graves are located in Wales, Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset and share several similarities with Irish royal tombs, according to Dark’s research. 

England consisted of a series of tiny states following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, with Anglo-Saxons of Germanic origin dominating in the south and celts of British and Irish origin ruling in the north and west. 

The names of the kings buried in the newly-discovered graves are currently unknown, but Dark says that they are likely to have been kings, sub-kings, or other royals in the British kingdoms of Gwynedd (northwest Wales), Dyfed (southwest Wales), Powys (central east Wales), Brycheiniog (modern Breckonshire) and Dumnonia (now southwest England). 

The study of early Celtic graves in Britain remains in its infancy. Archaeologists only ever identified one definite indigenous British royal burial site, while the graves discovered by Dark represent just 0.1% of British-Celtic dark age burials.

The graves have square or rectangular ditched enclosures around them, while many appear to have entry gates or access causeways.

The enclosures, which measure up to 10 meters squared, often feature timber posts or a stone-lined pit. 

The graves had been gradually discovered over the years, but Dark is the first scholar to realize their probably royal status. 

Dark has also identified a further 43 sites as likely royal burial sites in Ireland. 

One of the First Known Chemical Attacks Took Place 1,700 Years Ago in Syria

One of the First Known Chemical Attacks Took Place 1,700 Years Ago in Syria

A researcher from the University of Leicester has identified what looks to be the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare — from Roman times.

At the meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, University of Leicester archaeologist Simon James presented CSI-style arguments that about twenty Roman soldiers, found in a siege-mine at the city of Dura-Europos, Syria, met their deaths not as a result of sword or spear, but through asphyxiation.

Dura-Europos on the Euphrates was conquered by the Romans who installed a large garrison. Around AD 256, the city was subjected to a ferocious siege by an army from the powerful new Sasanian Persian empire.

The dramatic story is told entirely from archaeological remains; no ancient text describes it. Excavations during the 1920s-30s, renewed in recent years, have resulted in spectacular and gruesome discoveries.

The Sasanians used the full range of ancient siege techniques to break into the city, including mining operations to breach the walls. Roman defenders responded with ‘counter-mines’ to thwart the attackers. In one of these narrow, low galleries, a pile of bodies, representing about twenty Roman soldiers still with their arms, was found in the 1930s.

The ancient Roman fort Dura Europos, in Syria Heretiq

While also conducting new fieldwork at the site, James has recently reappraised this coldest of cold-case ‘crime scenes’, in an attempt to understand exactly how these Romans died, and came to be lying where they were found.

Dr James, Reader in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, said: “It is evident that, when mine and countermine met, the Romans lost the ensuing struggle.

Careful analysis of the disposition of the corpses shows they had been stacked at the mouth of the countermine by the Persians, using their victims to create a wall of bodies and shields, keeping Roman counterattack at bay while they set fire to the countermine, collapsing it, allowing the Persians to resume sapping the walls.

This explains why the bodies were where they were found. But how did they die? For the Persians to kill twenty men in a space less than 2m high or wide, and about 11m long, required superhuman combat powers—or something more insidious.”

Finds from the Roman tunnel revealed that the Persians used bitumen and sulphur crystals to get it burning. These provided a vital clue. When ignited, such materials give off dense clouds of choking gases. “The Persians will have heard the Romans tunnelling,” says James, “and prepared a nasty surprise for them.

I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery, and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds into the Roman tunnel.

One of the First Known Chemical Attacks Took Place 1,700 Years Ago in Syria
One of the skeletons is believed to have died during an ancient poison gas attack

The Roman assault party were unconscious in seconds, dead in minutes. Use of such smoke generators in siege mines is actually mentioned in classical texts, and it is clear from the archaeological evidence at Dura that the Sasanian Persians were as knowledgeable in siege warfare as the Romans; they surely knew of this grim tactic.”

Ironically, this Persian mine failed to bring the walls down, but it is clear that the Sasanians somehow broke into the city.

James recently excavated a ‘machine-gun belt’, a row of catapult bolts, ready to use by the wall of the Roman camp inside the city, representing the last stand of the garrison during the final street fighting.

The defenders and inhabitants were slaughtered or deported to Persia, the city abandoned forever, leaving its gruesome secrets undisturbed until modern archaeological research began to reveal them.

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