4,000-year-old skeletons of mother Clutching a child to her chest at China
The loving embrace of a mother and her child lasts for 4,000 years, Chinese archaeologists reported after finding their interlocked skeletons.
Skeletal remains show the mother kneeling down on the ground with her arms around her son in central China
Archaeologists unearthed proof of a mother’s love in Qinghai province, China, when they discovered the 4,000-year-old skeletons of a mother and child still locked in a dying embrace.
The two skeletons are frozen in time, preserved in the stance they took in their final moments before an earthquake wiped out China’s “Pompeii of the East” around 2,000 BC.
The mother’s arms are draped around her son in what archaeologists believe to be both an embrace and an attempt to protect her son as catastrophe hit.
The mother was trying to shield her child from a massive earthquake that struck China in 2000 BC and triggered massive floods; the event is sometimes referred to as ‘China’s Pompeii’. The site is riddled with tragic scenes.
Lajia Ruins Museum, located in northwest China’s Qinghai province, is a 4000-year-old earthquake relic, with very well preserved artefacts and skeletons.
The entire disaster scene is so shocking it has been likened to the Pompeii tragedy. Pompeii was a Roman city wiped off the face of the Earth after a volcanic eruption and buried under ash and pumice.
Archaeologically, the entire site is stunning: it paints an incredibly well-preserved picture of an important ancient event.
It is also very important because it holds early clues to an early Bronze Age civilization that lived in the upper Yellow River region and of which we know very little about. But from a human point of view, it’s just heartbreaking.
These people had a rough fate, they were killed by a disaster they could do nothing to protect themselves against; they couldn’t even protect their children, try as they might. It’s a testimony to nature’s strength, and how weak we sometimes are against it.
I just hope they don’t separate the two skeletons. I’m not sure why – it’s not for a religious reason – but it just seems wrong to separate the two.
3,800-year-old Underwater Potato Garden Uncovered in Canada
Hundreds of blackened potatoes were pulled out of the ground at a prehistoric garden in British Columbia, Canada. Dating back to 3,800 years before the present, the garden was once under water, in an ecologically rich wetland.
Submerged rock pavement (shown here) would have allowed the indigenous people to control how far their tubers grew, making for easier harvesting.
And it shows sign of sophisticated engineering techniques used to control the flow of water to more efficiently grow wild wapato tubers, also known as Indian potatoes.
Archaeologists led by Tanja Hoffmann of the Katzie Development Limited Partnership and Simon Fraser University in British Columbia excavated the garden during roadwork on Katzie First Nation territory just east of Vancouver, near the Fraser River.
The site had been waterlogged for centuries, resulting in good preservation of plant and other organic materials like wooden tools that would have normally disintegrated over time.
In all, the researcher counted 3,767 whole and fragmented wapato plants (Sagittaria latifolia). Today, these plant are found in wetlands across southern Canada and the United State.
The ancient garden was found during roadwork on Katzie First Nation territory just east of Vancouver, near the Fraser River.
Though they were not domesticated, the chestnut-sized roots had long been important to indigenous peoples, and they are mentioned in some of the 1st ethnographic accounts of the Pacific Northwest.
Explorer Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, for example, were offered wapato roots at a native village near present day Portland, Oregon.
Clark wrote in his diary that the plant resembled a “small Irish potato,” and after being roasted, had “an agreeable taste and answers very well in place of bread.”
The ancient tubers that were discovered in British Columbia had turned dark brown to black in color, and some still had their starchy insides preserved.
Ancient wapato tubers from the underwater garden site.
The garden had been covered in tightly packed, uniformly sized rock, leading the researchers to conclude that this was a man made deposit.
Wapato plants can grow far underground, but an artificial rock “pavement” would have controlled how deep the roots could penetrate.
This would have allowed the harvesters to more easily find the tubers and pull them out of the muck, Hoffmann and her colleagues wrote in their study.
Besides this waterlogged garden, the archaeological sites also had a dry area where people would have lived. The researcher also found about 150 wooden tools that would have been used to dig out the plants.
Radiocarbon dates from the burnt wood found at the site suggest it dates back to 3,800 years ago and was abandoned 3,200 years ago.
The site could represent the 1st direct evidence of wetland plant cultivation in the prehistoric Pacific Northwest, according to the report on this discovery.
Passport of 3,000-year-old Mummy of Pharaoh Ramesses II Issued for Travelling to France for the necessary repair
Pharoah Ramesses was one of the strongest leaders in ancient Egypt and even when he had died, he was an absolute king. Ramesses, sometimes also known as Ramses, was the greatest and the most famous ruler of the New Kingdom, and ruling the dynasty of Egypt over 66 years.
Born in 1303 BC, Ramesses was named after Ra, the ruler of the sun and ‘Ramesses’ translates to ‘Ra is the one who bore him.’ He fought multiple battles and led several military expeditions. He got hold of the throne when he was only in his teens.
His father, Ramesses I, came from a non-Royal family and was given the crown after the demise of Akhenaten, a pharaoh who tried to convert Egyptians to a newly-introduced monotheistic religion. He made his son a military general when he was merely 10 years old. Egyptians referred to Ramesses II as ‘Ramesses the great.’ He was deeply loved by his masses.
Archaeologists have found numerous Paintings, murals, engravings, and tombs in honor of Ramesses II, praising him. While the exact age is not known, it is believed that Ramesses died when he was about 90 years old.
He had several dental problems and was suffering from arthritis. He outlived many of his wives and even children and took his empire to a new height.
Ramesses II as a child at Cairo Museum
He was buried in the Valley of Kings, originally, but due to the constant threat of being looted, the priests took him out, re-wrapped him, and then placed him in the tomb of queen Ahmose Inhapy only to remove him again and move to Pinedjem’s tomb, a high priest. The linen which covers his body has hieroglyphics depicting the same.
His mummy was first discovered in 1881 and the people who discovered it were shocked to see what they found. Even after hundreds of years, Ramesses’ body was still intact, hair still on his head and his skin was in pristine condition.
The mummy was 5’7 in height, had a strong jaw and an aquiline nose structure. Gaston Maspero, who first unwrapped the mummy, revealed fascinating details about it.
In Egypt, a statue of Ramses II
“On the temples, there are a few sparse hairs, but at the poll the hair is quite thick, forming smooth, straight locks about five centimeters in length. White at the time of death, and possibly auburn during life, they have been dyed a light red by the spices (henna) used in embalming… the mustache and beard are thin…
The hairs are white, like those of the head and eyebrows…the skin is of earthy brown, splotched with black… the face of the mummy gives a fair idea of the face of the living king,” he noted.
But, when a group of Egyptologists visited his tomb in 1974, they found that the body of the legendary king was deteriorating rapidly and was in a grave need of repairs.
It was found that bacteria due to humidity had infested the body of the pharaoh, causing it to fall apart. To repair and preserve such an ancient body, experts were needed and at that time, such experts were only found in France.
So, in order to take the mummy to Paris, the authorities issued Ramesses II a valid Egyptian passport, 3,000 years after his death. A picture of his mummy was his passport picture (and you thought you look ugly in your passport id) and his profession was listed as ‘King (Deceased).’
The mummy flew to Paris after formalities and was received with military honors, like a king. After he was repaired, he flew back to Cairo and now resides there in the Egyptian Museum.
The legendary king was issued a valid Egyptian passport so he could fly to Paris for necessary repairs.
Egypt: Hidden City found beneath Alexandria – Archaeology World
Alexander the Great founded the legendary city of Alexandria as he swept through Egypt to conquer the world. Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer’s Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world.
In Egypt on the Mediterranean shore, Alexandria was founded in 332 B.C, to immortalize Alexander the Great. The city was renowned for its library, once the largest in the world, as well as its lighthouse at the island of Pharos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Alexandria was known to have developed from a settlement known as Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, vaguely alluded to as a modest fishing village of little significance by some historians.
Detail from the Alexander mosaic. From the House of the Faun, Pompeii, c. 80 B.C.
Seven rod-shaped samples of dirt gathered from the seafloor of Alexandria’s harbor now suggest there may have been a flourishing urban center there as far back at 1000 B.C.
Coastal geoarchaeologist Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and his colleagues used vibrating hollow tubes to gently extract three-inch-wide rods of sediment 6 to 18 feet long (2 to 5.5 meters) from up to 20 feet (6.5 meters) underwater.
Collecting these samples underwater proved challenging. “Alexandria now is home to as many as 4 million people, and we were in the unfortunate position of having to deal with their discharge—human waste, municipal waste, industrial waste—which got released into the harbor,” Stanley said. “It’s not funny, but you have to sort of laugh.”
Ceramic shards, high levels of lead that were likely used in construction, building stones imported from elsewhere in Egypt, and organic material likely coming from sewage were detected in the sediment.
These all suggest the presence of a significant settlement well before Alexander the Great came. The results are detailed in the August issue of the journal GSA Today.
“Alexandria was built on top of an existing, and perhaps quite important, settlement, maybe one that was minimized in importance because we can’t see it now,” Stanley told LiveScience. “Nothing really concrete about Rhakotis has been discovered until now.”
Alexander the Great likely chose this area for Alexandria since it had a bay to protect a harbor against fierce winter storms in the Mediterranean.
“There are very few places in the Egyptian Mediterranean coast where the coastline is not smooth,” Stanley said. “This would have been the best place to establish a harbor.”
Stanley added this bay was even noted in Homer’s epic Odyssey: “Now in the surging sea an island lies, Pharos they call it. By it, there lies a bay with a good anchorage, from which they send the trim ships off to sea.”
This area might have been a haven throughout ancient times for the Greeks, Minoans, Phoenicians, and others. Future research could shed light on the life of mariners at this settlement before Alexander came. “Virtually nothing is known of the people who would have lived there,” Stanley said.
Full set of gilt-bronze accessories from the 6th-century tomb
The Korea Times reports that additional finds were recovered from a small 1,500-year-old tomb in eastern South Korea where a pair of gilt-bronze shoes were recently excavated from a Silla-era royal tomb complex in Gyeongju, some 371 kilometers southeast of Seoul. These included a small gilt-bronze coronet, gold earrings, bracelets, a silver ring, and silver belt, and a beaded chest lace, or a piece of regalia worn across the chest and shoulders.
Accessories ranging from a gilt-bronze coronet to shoes have been discovered from a tomb believed to have been created 1,500 years ago.
In addition to the gilt-bronze shoes and gilt-bronze accessories, it added, found in May at the same tomb. For the first time since the early 1970s, the CHA has excavated a complete body of ornaments of a buried person from a tomb in the Silla era.
The deceased buried in the Hwangnamdong Tumulus No. 120-2, presumed to be either an aristocrat or person of royal blood, wore a gilt-bronze coronet, a pair of earrings, and a pair of gilt-bronze shoes, according to the CHA. A chest lace, belts, bracelets, and rings were also found at the same time.
According to researchers, the gilt-bronze cap-like coronet features three tree-like branches and two antler-like prongs, with the outer band decorated with heart-shaped holes and jade and gold marbles.
Along with a pair of gold earrings and a beaded chest lace, the person also carries a silver belt and a handful of silver bracelets and rings. One bracelet on the right wrist is embellished with more than 500 yellow beads about 1 millimeter small.
Both pairs of shoes had T-shaped carve-out patterns on the surface, decorated each with gilt-bronze “dalgae,” a bracelet-like ornament made with beads. Usually, shoes buried in ancient tombs of Silla were created for funeral ceremonies.
The CHA said the height of the owner of the tomb is estimated at 170 centimeter, as it is 176 cm from the middle of the gilt-bronze cap to the shoes. But the sex of the deceased was difficult to discern at the moment, it added.
“This is a small-sized tomb, but the owner has the full set of accessories. It is expected to be possessed by a noble or royal-blooded person,” a researcher from the CHA said. “We’ve found many new things from this project. We will keep studying the case.”
The excavation was part of a project between the CHA and the Gyeongju city aimed at restoring major historic ruins linked to the capital of the Silla dynasty.
Gyeongju is home to three UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites: Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto, Yangdong Village, and the Gyeongju Historic Areas. Daereungwon is part of the Gyeongju Historic Areas. (Yonhap)
At least 200 mammoth skeletons discovered under the Mexico City airport site
At an airport construction facility north of Mexico City, the number of mammouth skeletons recovered increased to at least 200 and still many are to be excavated, said experts on Thursday.
Paleontologists work Thursday to preserve the skeleton of a mammoth discovered at the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport.
Archeologists hope the site that has become “mammoth central” — the shores of an ancient lake bed that both attracted and trapped mammoths in its marshy soil — may help solve the riddle of their extinction.
Experts said that finds are still being made at the site, including signs that humans may have made tools from the bones of the lumbering animals that died somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
There are so many mammoths at the site of the new Santa Lucia airport that observers have to accompany each bulldozer that digs into the soil to make sure work is halted when mammoth bones are uncovered.
“We have about 200 mammoths, about 25 camels, five horses,” said archeologist Rubén Manzanilla López of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, referring to animals that went extinct in the Americas.
The site is only about 12 miles from artificial pits, essentially shallow mammoth traps, that were dug by early inhabitants to trap and kill dozens of mammoths.
Manzanilla López said evidence is beginning to emerge suggesting that even if the mammoths at the airport died natural deaths after becoming stuck in the mud of the ancient lake bed, their remains may have been carved up by humans. Something similar happened at the mammoth-trap site in the hamlet of San Antonio Xahuento, in the nearby township of Tultepec.
While tests are still being carried out on the mammoth bones to try to find possible butchering marks, archeologists have found dozens of mammoth-bone tools — usually shafts used to hold other tools or cutting implements — like ones in Tultepec.
“Here we have found evidence that we have the same kind of tools, but until we can do the laboratory studies to see marks of these tools or possible tools, we can’t say we have evidence that is well-founded,” Manzanilla López said.
Paleontologist Joaquin Arroyo Cabrales said the airport site “will be a very important site to test hypotheses” about the mass extinction of mammoths.
“What caused these animals’ extinction, everywhere there is a debate, whether it was climate change or the presence of humans,” Arroyo Cabrales said. “I think in the end the decision will be that there was a synergy effect between climate change and human presence.”
Ashley Leger, a paleontologist at the California-based Cogstone Resource Management company, who was not involved in the dig, noted that such natural death groupings “are rare.
A very specific set of conditions that allow for a collection of remains in an area but also be preserved as fossils must be met. There needs to be a means for them to be buried rapidly and experience low oxygen levels.”
The site near Mexico City now appears to have outstripped the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs, S.D. — which has about 61 sets of remains — as the world’s largest find of mammoth bones. Large concentrations have also been found in Siberia and at Los Angeles’ La Brea tar pits.
For now, the mammoths seem to be everywhere at the site and the finds may slow down, but not stop, work on the new airport.
Mexican Army Capt. Jesus Cantoral, who oversees efforts to preserve remains at the army-led construction site, said “a large number of excavation sites” are still pending detailed study, and that observers have to accompany backhoes and bulldozers every time they break ground at a new spot.
The airport project is so huge, he noted, that the machines can just go work somewhere else while archeologists study a specific area. The airport project is scheduled for completion in 2022, at which point the dig will end.
9,000-year-old Neolithic ‘city’ near Jerusalem changes how we think about human evolution
The 9,000-year-old metropolis — pre-dating both Britain’s Stonehenge and ancient Egypt’s pyramids — was uncovered during a survey before the construction of a new highway, which is one of the biggest ever found, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
The team estimated a population between 2,000 and 3,000 people, which would have constituted a large city for the time.
It covered dozens of hectares near what is today the town of Motza, some five kilometers west of Jerusalem.
The excavation exposed large buildings, alleyways and burial places.
Jacob Vardi, co-director of the excavations at Motza on behalf of the authority, told The Times of Israel that the find gives archaeologists their “big bang” moment.
“It’s a game-changer, a site that will drastically shift what we know about the Neolithic era,” Mr. Vardi said.
He explained that the Neolithic period was a time where “more and more” human populations curbed migration and transitioned to permanent settlements.
Site touted as the Middle East’s largest Neolithic find
A small figurine depicting a human face was found by the team.
Before the discovery, it was widely believed the entire area had been uninhabited in that period, during which people were shifting away from hunting for survival to a more sedentary lifestyle that included farming.
“This is most probably the largest excavation of this time period in the Middle East, which will allow the research to advance leaps and bounds ahead of where we are today, just by the amount of material that we are able to save and preserve from this site,” said Lauren Davis, an archaeologist with Israel’s antiquities authority.
Ancient burial sites in the city showed advanced levels of planning.
The excavation exposed large buildings, alleyways and burial places, evidence of a relatively advanced level of planning, the antiquities authority said in a statement.
The team also found storage sheds that contained large quantities of legumes, particularly lentils, whose seeds were remarkably preserved throughout the millennia.
“This finding is evidence of an intensive practice of agriculture,” the statement read.
“Animal bones found on the site show that the settlement’s residents became increasingly specialized in sheep-keeping, while the use of hunting for survival gradually decreased”.
Also found were flint tools, including thousands of arrowheads, axes for chopping down trees, sickle blades, and knives.
If date estimates are correct, this civilization’s form of agriculture would also pre-date that of Victoria’s Gunditjmara people, who created an elaborate series of channels and pools to harvest eels 6,600 years ago.
Older than Giza: 4,600-year-old pyramid uncovered in Egypt
Researchers working near the 4,600-year-old pyramid uncovered at Tell Edfu in Egypt. Archaeologists working near Edfu, a city in southern Egypt, fought back the rolling tide of modern development to preserve a rare archaeological site. And the effort has paid off: Beneath this heap of sand, at a site called Tell Edfu, researchers have uncovered a 4,600-year-old step pyramid — one of the earliest pyramids yet found.
Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu in southern Egypt have uncovered a step pyramid that dates back about 4,600 years.
The step pyramid, which once stood as high as 43 feet (13 meters), is one of seven so-called “provincial” pyramids built by either the pharaoh Huni (reign ca. 2635-2610 B.C.) or Snefru (reign ca. 2610-2590 B.C.). Over time, the step pyramid’s stone blocks were pillaged, and the monument was exposed to weathering, so today, it’s only about 16 feet (5 m) tall.
Scattered throughout central and southern Egypt, the provincial pyramids are located near major settlements, have no internal chambers and were not intended for burial. Six of the seven pyramids have almost identical dimensions, including the newly uncovered one at Edfu, which is about 60 x 61 feet (18.4 x 18.6 m).
The purpose of these seven pyramids is a mystery. They may have been used as symbolic monuments dedicated to the royal cult that affirmed the power of the king in the southern provinces.
“The similarities from one pyramid to the other are really amazing, and there is definitely a common plan,” said Gregory Marouard, a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute who led the work at the Edfu pyramid. On the east side of the newly uncovered pyramid, his team found the remains of an installation where food offerings appear to have been made — a discovery that is important for understanding this kind of pyramid since it provides clues as to what they were used for.
The team also found hieroglyphic graffiti incised on the outer faces of the pyramid. The inscriptions are located beside the remains of babies and children who were buried at the foot of the pyramid. The researchers think the inscriptions and burials date to long after the pyramid was built and that the structure was not originally intended as a burial place. Initial results of the excavation were presented at a symposium held in Toronto recently by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.
Uncovering the pyramid
Though scholars knew of the existence of the pyramid at Edfu, the structure had never been excavated before Marouard’s team started work in 2010, he said in the study. His team found that the pyramid was covered by a thick layer of sand, modern waste, and remains from the pillaging of its blocks.
It didn’t look like a pyramid he said, and people in a nearby village even thought the structure was the tomb of a sheikh, a local Muslim saint. As the team went to work cleaning the monument, the ancient pyramid was revealed.
Built of sandstone blocks and clay mortar, it had been constructed in the form of a three-step pyramid. A core of blocks rises up vertically, with two layers of blocks beside it, on top of each other. This made the pyramid look like it had three steps. The style is similar to that of a step pyramid built by Djoser (reign ca. 2670-2640 B.C.), the pharaoh who constructed Egypt’s first pyramid at the beginning of the third ancient Egyptian dynasty. The technique is close to that used at the Meidum pyramid, which was built by either Snefru or Huni and started out as a step pyramid before being turned into a true pyramid.
“The construction itself reflects a certain care and a real expertise in the mastery of stone construction, especially for the adjustment of the most important blocks,” said Marouard in his paper. Marouard also noted that the pyramid was built directly on the bedrock and was constructed entirely with local raw materials. The quarry where the sandstone was extracted was discovered in 2011, and is located only about a half mile (800 m) north of the pyramid.
The growth of a modern-day cemetery and village poses a danger to the newly uncovered pyramid. In order to help prevent further looting, a fence was built around the structure, thanks to financial assistance from the American Research Center in Egypt and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Graffiti and child burials
As the team uncovered the pyramid, they found that inscriptions had been incised on its outer faces. They include hieroglyphic depictions of a book roll, a seated man, a four-legged animal, a reed leaf and a bird.
“These are mostly private and rough inscriptions, and certainly dedicated to the child/babies’ burials located right under these inscriptions at the foot of the pyramid,” Marouard told Live Science in an email. One of the inscriptions appears to mean “head of the house” and may be a reference to the mother of a buried child. Marouard said his team would be publishing these burials and images in more detail in the future.
A pyramid abandoned
The archaeologists found that by the time of the reign of Khufu (the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid), ca. 2590-2563 B.C., the pyramid at Edfu had been abandoned, and offerings were no longer being made. This occurred less than 50 years after its construction, Marouard said.
This suggests the seven small pyramids stopped being used when work on the Great Pyramid began. It seems Khufu no longer thought there was a need to maintain a small pyramid at Edfu, or elsewhere in southern Egypt, Marouard said. Rather, Khufu focused all the resources on building the Great Pyramid at Giza, which is close to the Egyptian capital at Memphis, he added.
Khufu may have felt politically secure in southern Egypt and saw no need to maintain or build pyramids there, Marouard said in the email. The “center of gravity of Egypt was then at Memphis for many centuries — this region draining resources and manpower from the provinces, all regions being put to use for the large construction sites of funerary complexes.”
At Wadi Al-Jarf, a port found on the shore of the Red Sea that dates to Khufu’s time, papyri (written documents) dating to the end of Khufu’s reign were recently discovered that supports the idea that the pharaoh tried to converge all the resources he could toward Giza and the ancient wonder being constructed there.
