Sunken 13th-Century Medieval Village Submerged in Italian Lake Will Reemerge in 2021
Although Atlantis ‘s search for the famed underwater town still has to bring fruit, the lake has been the birthplace of a truly medieval Italian village known as Fabbriche di Careggine has emerged from a lake after being submerged many decades ago.
You haven’t heard about Fabbriche di Careggine, but the Italian village is one of the most popular and exclusive tourist destinations in the world. No, not because of its price-tag or luxury adornments, simply because it’s one of the hardest to get into, literally.
At present, the medieval village resides on the bottom side of Lake Vagli, buried under 34 million cubic meters of water. However, the good news is that it will soon be open to visitors.
As you’ve probably guessed, Fabbriche di Careggine wasn’t always a sunken city. In fact, the 13th-century town was once a thriving hotbed for iron production, characterized by its high proportion of skilled blacksmiths.
However, in 1947, a hydroelectric dam was built close to the village, forcing the residents to move to the nearby town of Vagli di Sotto. Fabbriche di Careggine was then flooded to create the artificial lake.
Incredibly, being sunken underwater has allowed the village’s stone buildings, cemetery, bridge, and church to remain remarkably intact. Where the story gets interesting, however, is in the lake’s management.
Since it was constructed, the man-made lake has been drained four times for maintenance work, each time revealing the lost city of Fabbriche di Careggine.
As the fluid dissipates, the outline of the historic ‘Ghost Town’ is unveiled, like the lost city of Atlantis rising from the watery depths.
The last time the phenomenon occurred was back in 1994, but it appears a fresh draining is in order, according to Lorenza Giorgi, daughter of Domenico Giorgi, the ex-mayor of the Municipality of Vagli di Sott.
“I inform you that from certain sources I know that next year, in 2021, Lake Vagli will be emptied,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“The last time it was emptied in 1994 when my father was mayor and thanks to his commitment and to the many initiatives that, with effort, had managed to put up in one summer the country of Vagli welcomed more than a million of people.”
Since Giorgi’s post, energy company ENEL, which owns the dam has confirmed it is considering draining the lake as a possible boost to the local tourism sector.
With Italy still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic that devastated the country, tourism officials have been trying anything they can to get visitors back to the area. If you ask us, resurrecting a lost city from its watery grave might be just the way to do it.
Village Where Jesus’ Disciples May Have Lived Flooded by Rising Sea of Galilee
Rain, the life-giver, falling from the sky; so precious that God combines His Word with His bounty. Israelis prefer to be happy when it rains. “I’m not made of sugar, I’m not going to melt,” the local macho men explaining why they scorn umbrellas. Neither, happily, will the ruins at el-Araj, the putative hometown of Jesus’ disciples on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, which waxed fat on the heavy rains this winter, swelled and, it turns out, flooded the site.
El-Araj’s site, also known as Beit Habek, is located near the sea of Galilee, which is often referenced in the New Testament. It is believed that this was a Jewish village called Bethsaida.
In the First Temple era, it was known as Zer and it was a strategic city in the time of King David. It was originally a non-Hebrew city-state that later became part of Israel when it was renamed Bethsaida.
The identification of Bethsaida is important because it was the birthplace of three of Jesus’ Apostles – Peter, Andrew, and Phillip. In the New Testament, it is here that Jesus performed the miracle of the five loaves and fishes . It is interesting to note that Jesus also cursed the town of Bethsaida because its inhabitants refused to repent.
Prof. Moti Aviam and his colleagues from the local Kinneret College have been working at the site for several years and are very familiar with the area. For the last 10 years ‘el-Araj has been located a few hundred meters from the northernmost point of the lake, where the Jordan River spills into it,’ according to Haaretz. While it is sometimes flooded, it is mostly dry by April and May.
However, this year is the first time in many years that the Sea of Galilee has risen, much to the relief of the Israelis who are very concerned about water scarcity because of climate change.
Prof. Aviam decided to visit el-Araj before he and some American collaborators returned to work on the site. He found that it is now badly flooded and lies under a shallow lagoon, so the planned excavations cannot go ahead. He is quoted in The Christian Post as saying that “I don’t remember a thing like this in the last 30 years.”
The site is currently under water.
The professor conducted a quick survey of the site and saw that some of the higher points at el-Araj are still standing above the waters with their ruins. However, the ruins of a Byzantine church are now under the water. According to Haaretz because of the flooding ‘Instead of archaeologists happily seeking new finds, it’s populated by catfish’.
The church at el-Araj dates to some 500 years after the birth of Jesus and was built during the Byzantine period when it became an important pilgrimage center.
The archaeologist is quoted by Haaretz as saying that “At the moment, the water is 80 centimeters [2 feet, 7 inches] above the mosaic of the Byzantine church.” This church still has many of its original features and even mosaic tiles. Thankfully, Aviam told The Christian Post that “We conserved the mosaic floor of the church and the water standing on it won’t harm it.”
The Byzantine church is currently under more than two feet of water.
Prof. Aviam and his American colleague Steven Notley believe that the ruin is the Church of the Apostles. Local tradition has it that it was built over the family home of the Apostles Peter and Andrew. The archaeologists believe this because of the church’s design and also its location on the Sea of Galilee. They believe that the existing ruins fit the description written about the church in the 8th century AD by a German bishop.
However, a team led by Prof. Rami Avar believes that the true site of Bethsaida is et-Tell, located further north and near the Golan Heights. They have uncovered a city gate that they claim indicates it was the location of the Old Testament city of Zer.
Dr. Avar and his colleagues unearthed coins of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony and fishing equipment such as weights from the Roman Empire. These they believe lend credence to their claim that the et-Tell site is Bethsaida, the birthplace of three Apostles and where Jesus performed a miracle.
Aerial view of the Church of the Apostles, which is said to have been built over the house of Jesus’ disciples Peter and Andrew.
In comparison, Prof. Aviam believes that one good thing came out of the flooding. He is quoted by Haaretz as stating that “In my opinion, the flooding now strengthens our theory that el-Araj was the site of Bethsaida.” The inundation of the historic site shows that it was near the lake, especially during the Roman period, when the disciples were born.
Bethsaida was a fishing village and one would expect to find it flooded occasionally. This is not the case with the location at et-Tell, which is on a rocky height and away from the waters of the Sea of Galilee .
However, Prof. Arav, who maintains that et-Tell was Bethsaida, argues that the evidence from the period shows that in the Roman era the Biblical village was far away from the lake. This was in line with what geologists have uncovered and show it could not have been flooded. Arav argues that the fact that el-Araj is now under a lagoon shows that it is not the city where Jesus performed one of his most famous miracles.
While the controversy will no doubt continue, Prof. Aviam hopes to resume work as soon as possible. However, he expects the excavation to be deferred until 2021.
Visiting el-Araj for the first time following the rains, after being shut up at home for weeks because of the coronavirus, archaeologist Prof. Moti Aviam had quite the shock.
110-million-old rare species of ‘toothless dinosaur’ discovered in Australia
Anyone a fan of ‘How To Train Your Dragon’? We know, totally random, but the main dragon was named Toothless. Just like him, we a unique species of ‘toothless’ dinosaurs that are 110 million years old in Australia have been found.
A fossil of a rare and unique toothless dinosaur, named Elaphrosaur, has been discovered by paleontologists in Australia.
As per a statement released by the Swinburne University of Technology, the dinosaur must have roamed in Australia around 110 million years ago.
It stood about the height of a small emu, measuring 2 meters from its head to the end of a long tail, and had short arms, each ending in four fingers.
The toothless dinosaur was identified by a team led by Swinburne University of Technology paleontologist Dr. Stephen Poropat. It’s known for having long necks, stumpy arms and small hands, and it probably didn’t survive on meat.
What’s In It?
According to the statement released by the Swinburne University of Technology, the dinosaur must have roamed in Australia around 110 million years ago.
This rare fossil was discovered in 2015 by Jessica Parker, a volunteer digger, near Cape Otway in Victoria, Australia; it was identified by a team led by Swinburne University of Technology paleontologist Dr. Stephen Poropat.
The reports say that the 5 cm long vertebrae fossil or the long neck bone belonged to a dinosaur known as Elaphrosaur, which means ‘light-footed lizard’. Reportedly, the fossil is related to Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor.
The said the fossil was believed to be an animal that was around 2 m long, i.e., 6.5 ft long. However, similar fossils, related to Elaphrosaur, which were previously discovered in China, Tanzania, and Argentina, revealed that these can grow up to 6 m in length.
What’s More?
Paleontologist Dr. Stephen Propat informed that the Australian elaphrosaurus had stumpy arms, long necks, small hands, and more likely, it was lightly-built that probably did not survive on meat. He also added that the findings regarding the dinosaurs are rather bizarre.
The few known skulls of Elaphrosaur reveal that the youngsters had teeth, however, when they grow into adults, they start losing their teeth, which are then replaced with a horny beak, he mentioned.
They are not yet sure if this fact holds true for the Victorian Elaphrosaur yet; however, they might be able to find out more if they ever discover a skull.
Mexico: 3,000-year-old Mayan ceremonial complex discovered in Tabasco
In the latest breakthrough discovery of lost civilization, researchers have found the largest and the oldest Mayan site through a unique laser technology called lidar.
Using the aerial remote-sensing method, researchers at the University of Arizona found a colossal rectangular elevated platform that was built between 1000 and 800BC in Tabasco state, Mexico.
The new structure is located at the site called Aguada Fenix that liest near the border of Guatemala, which in its total volume exceeds the 1,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
The site, called Aguada Fénix, is located in the state of Tabasco, at the base of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s so vast for its age, the find is making archaeologists recalibrate their timelines on the architectural capabilities of the mysterious Maya.
Aguada Fénix, which measures over 1,400 meters (almost 4,600 ft) in length at its greatest extent, dates to a similar timeframe, with researchers estimating it was built between 1000 and 800 BCE – but its immense size and scope make it unlike anything found before from the period.
Airborne remote sensing allowed scientists to create a 3-D rendering of newly discovered Aguada Fénix, including the 3,000-year-old Maya site’s massive ceremonial plateau with a platform and mound in its center.
“To our knowledge, this is the oldest monumental construction ever found in the Maya area and the largest in the entire pre-Hispanic history of the region,” the researchers, led by archaeologist Takeshi Inomata from the University of Arizona, explain in a new paper about the discovery.
What’s even more staggering is that this huge, unknown structure has actually been hiding in plain sight for centuries, seemingly unrecognised by the modern Mexicans living their lives on top of the vast complex.
“This area is developed,” Inomata says. “It’s not the jungle; people live there. But this site was not known because it is so flat and huge. It just looks like a natural landscape.”
Despite Aguada Fénix’s inconspicuousness, it can’t hide from non-human eyes.
Aerial surveys using LIDAR detected the anomaly, revealing an elevated platform measuring 1,413 metres north to south, and 399 metres east to west, and extending up to 15 metres above the surrounding area.
“Artificial plateaus may be characterised as horizontal monumentality, which contrasts with the vertical dimensions of pyramids,” the authors write, noting the layout of Aguada Fénix marks it as an example of the Middle Formative Usumacinta (MFU) pattern, characterised by a rectangular shape defined by rows of low mounds.
Nine wide causeways extend from the platform, which is also surrounded by a number of smaller structures, including smaller MFU complexes and artificial reservoirs.
It’s difficult to see the remains of Aguada Fénix from this aerial view of the landscape today. But laser technology gave researchers a look at the site’s causeways and reservoirs, in front, and ceremonial area, in back.
The site bears certain similarities to the Olmec sites San Lorenzo and La Venta in the nearby state of Veracruz, but Aguada Fénix’s lack of human-shaped statues could provide a clue about the ancient Maya that inhabited this complex, distinguishing them from the Olmec.
“Unlike those Olmec centres, Aguada Fénix does not exhibit clear indicators of marked social inequality, such as sculptures representing high-status individuals,” the authors write.
“The only stone sculpture found so far at Aguada Fénix depicts an animal.”
Excavations of the oldest and largest Maya ceremonial structure unearthed an animal sculpture, possibly representing a white-lipped peccary or a coatimundi, that the researchers nicknamed Choco.
If the researchers are right about that, the site could be hugely important in helping us understand more about how these enigmatic human societies functioned and organized themselves – especially if they embraced a communal form of societal structure that rejected hierarchical forms.
“This kind of understanding gives us important implications about human capability, and the potential of human groups,” Inomata says.
“You may not necessarily need a well-organized government to carry out these kinds of huge projects. People can work together to achieve amazing results.”
Farmer finds pots filled with gold silver ornaments while tiling his land in India, telangana.
On Wednesday, farmers in the Sultanpur village of Vikarabad in Telangana district find two pots with gold and silver ornaments. A total of 25 gold and silver ornaments were found in the pots, according to the reports.
A Mohammad Siddiqui had bought the land two years ago. With the monsoon approaching, he had started tilling the land for farming.
While ploughing the field he had suddenly stumbled on the pots. He had reportedly informed the government authorities.
As per the report, most of the ornaments in the pot included large-size anklets.
The officials from the revenue department reached the spot and had taken control of the findings. A goldsmith was called to check the ornaments for their gold or silver content.
Mandal Revenue Officer, Vidyasagar Reddy was quoted by the New Indian Express as saying, “The place doesn’t have any history of finding such treasure. We will inform the archaeology department about it.”
Soon, news spread in the village about the artefacts and locals started descending on his home to take a look at them.
The pots contained almost 25 ornaments, including chains, rings, anklets and traditional utensils. Speaking to Express, Mandal Revenue Officer Vidyasagar Reddy said, “The village does not have any historical significance. We will inform the Archeology Department about the findings.”
Over 25 ornaments found
A total of 25 gold and silver ornaments were found in the pots.
The pots contained almost 25 ornaments, including chains, rings, anklets and traditional utensils.
Police and revenue officials reached the spot to inspect the treasure. A goldsmith was asked to verify if they were actually made of gold and silver
New Evidence Of Ancient Child Sacrifice Found From Bronze Age Mesopotamia
Eight human sacrifices were found at the entrance to this tomb, which held the remains of two 12-year-olds from ancient Mesopotamia.
About 5,000 years ago, the Mesopotamians buried two 12-year-olds — a boy and a girl — and surrounded their slender bodies with hundreds of bronze spearheads and what appears to be eight human sacrifices, a new study finds.
The eight human sacrifices were positioned just outside the tomb, located at the site of Basur Höyük in southeastern Turkey, the researchers said. The team determined the age of six of the human sacrifices and found that the victims ranged in age from 11 to 20 years old.
These two 12-year-olds, along with the eight human sacrifices, “had been deposited in a single event, and furnished with an unprecedented number of high-status grave goods for the period and the region,” the researchers wrote in the journal Antiquity.
The mysterious tomb was discovered in 2014, said the study’s two researchers, Brenna Hassett, a post-doctoral researcher of archaeology at the Natural History Museum in London; and Haluk Sağlamtimur, an archaeology professor at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey.
The remains of an adult were also found beside the two children, but that body could have come from an earlier burial that got mixed in with the two 12-year-olds, Hassett told Newsweek.
And while the evidence isn’t 100 percent clear, scientists are fairly certain that the eight people were sacrificed.
“While we only have evidence for violent trauma on two of the skeletons, it’s important to remember that violent death doesn’t always leave a mark on the skeleton,” Hassett said. “As a grim example, stab wounds are normally aimed at the soft parts of the body, which do not preserve.”
Hundreds of bronze spearheads were found buried in the ancient Mesopotamian tomb holding the remains of two 12-year-olds (a male and female).
She added that “from the careful dressing and positioning of the bodies outside the door to the main chamber, it seems all eight would have been retainer sacrifices.” The term ‘retainer sacrifice’ refers to people who were sacrificed so that they can accompany or serve others to the afterlife.
The human sacrifices were buried with textiles, beads and ceramics.
Mysterious sacrifices
The discovery leaves archaeologists with a series of mysteries. Who were the two 12-year-olds who seem to be the focus of the burial? Were they also sacrificed? What’s more, why was human sacrifice carried out at all at this site?
“Unfortunately, preservation wasn’t great inside the chamber, so we don’t have any evidence that the [two 12-year-old] children were sacrificed,” Hassett said. But because the two 12-year-olds received such an elaborate burial, it appears that they must have “held an important biosocial status,” Hassett and Sağlamtimur wrote in the study.
The skull of one human sacrifice shows evidence that a pointed instrument was driven down into the skull, killing the individual. This individual was between 16 and 20 years old at the time of death.
Archaeologists know that human sacrifices also occurred at other sites in Mesopotamia, including a nearby site called Arslantepe that also dates back to roughly 5,000 years ago.
“One thought is that what we are witnessing at Basur Höyük is part of a phenomenon we see in other societies across the globe, where power is being consolidated into a more structured, formal hierarchy; what archaeologists would call ‘early states,'” Hassett said.
The excavation site in Turkey at Basur Höyük
“Perhaps [what] we are seeing is a display of power by an increasingly hierarchical society; the power to dispose of great wealth — and even people — might be the same kind of power you need to show to build a state-like society,” Hassett said. “It’s a truly fascinating puzzle that will hopefully tell us more about how human societies form and change.”
In the future, the team plans to do stable isotope analyses (a kind of study that provides information on the birthplace and diet of the deceased individuals) and DNA studies on the skeletons.
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain genetic clues to their origins
Fragment of Scroll 4Q72a found in Qumran Cave 4 in the West Bank.
The Dead Sea Scrolls’ genetic analysis of leather helped to place various fragments in new historical contexts. The Dead Sea scrolls consist of a collection of approximately 1,000 ancient manuscripts, including the earliest edition of the Hebrew Bible in the cave of the Judean Desert.
However, because the manuscripts were uncovered in fragments, it was impossible to piece them together to interpret the texts properly. The question is exacerbated by the fact that many scrolls were not obtained directly from scholars from the Qumran caves, but from antiquities dealers.
“Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University, one of the study’s corresponding authors, said: ‘ The discovery of the 2000 years old Dead Sea scrolls was one of the primary archeological findings ever made. ‘
However, he added, “most of them were not found intact but rather disintegrated into thousands of fragments, which had to be sorted and pieced together. … Depending on the classification of each fragment, the interpretation of any given text could change dramatically.”
To sort out how different fragments of text are related to one another as well as to place them into the larger historical context, Rechavi and his colleagues analyzed ancient animal DNA isolated from the scrolls. As they reported in Cell on Tuesday, this allowed them to refine the relationships between different scroll fragments.
They obtained DNA samples from 26 Dead Sea Scroll fragments in consultation with conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority and DNA samples from a dozen other objects like waterskins that were found alongside the scrolls.
They extracted the ancient DNA for deep sequencing and conducted Blast, phylogenetic, and other analyses to uncover the source of the materials used for the scrolls.
Through their analysis of this ancient DNA, the researchers found that all the Dead Sea Scrolls, save two, were made from sheep skin. The remaining two scrolls, both containing fragments of text from the biblical Book of Jeremiah, were made from cow skin.
The relationship between the various fragments of text from Jeremiah has been unclear. For instance, three fragments, dubbed 4Q71, 4Q72a, and 4Q72b, were originally thought to be from the same scroll, but an analysis of the text suggested otherwise and they have been published as distinct manuscripts.
Through their ancient DNA and additional mitochondrial DNA analysis, the researchers found that 4Q72b was made of cow skin, while 4Q71 and 4Q72a were made of sheep skin, providing further evidence that 4Q72b is not related to 4Q71 or 4Q72a.
The sheep used to make 4Q71 and 4Q72a, meanwhile, exhibited only low relatedness.
Additionally, as cows couldn’t be raised in the Judean desert and as there was no evidence of cow skin processing in Qumran, the researchers surmised that text written on those scrolls had to originate elsewhere. This indicates that different versions of the same book circulated at the same time, they noted.
“This teaches us about the way this prophetic text was read at the time and also holds clues to the process of the text’s evolution,” Rechavi added.
The Dead Sea Scrolls also include non-biblical texts, such as multiple copies of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, a literary, liturgical work.
DNA gleaned from Dead Sea Scroll pieces, many of which were found in caves such as this one near a site called Qumran has yielded clues to the geographic spread of ideas and beliefs in those ancient manuscripts.
Different copies of the text found in various Qumran caves were made using skin from related sheep, the researchers found, while a version found in Masada came from a genetically distinct sheep, suggesting the text may also have been in wide circulation.
The researchers noted that their analysis was only of a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And while the genetic data they amassed can inform how scholars interpret the texts, they wrote, it can only “reveal part of the picture and not solve all of the mysteries.”
Evidence of 5,000-year-old Neolithic fabric found in Orkney
In Orkney, Scotland, archeologists found new evidence of ancient fabrics from the Neolithic era more than 5000 years ago.
Cord impression with textile to the right
The only discovery in Scotland, the second of its kind, came from a fragment of pottery with an impression of a cloth stamped into its surface, found at Ness of Brodgar.
The site is part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site on the small island archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland.
Ness of Brodgar is a large Neolithic site in Orkney
Because it’s rare for organic material from prehistory to survive outside of very specific oxygen-free conditions, researchers studying Neolithic textiles have generally had to rely on secondary evidence like pottery fragments.
This latest discovery came from the Archaeology Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), which in 2019 began working to find pottery fragments with these types of impressions on them, known as ‘sherds.’
The team used a technique called reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) to examine the sherds, which involves taking multiple photographs of them with a slightly different angled source of light in each frame.
These images were analyzed by a computer program that created a highly-detailed digital image of the sherds, that could be more closely examined than the real physical fragment.
RTI analysis of the outer face of the sherds suggested multiple fragments had been ‘co-joined’ with a cord cloth, possibly in the shape of a basket-like object.
The inner face of the fragments had a different patterned impression that researchers believe came from the clothing worn by the potter who made the original piece.
‘There is no evidence of textile tools available in Neolithic Orkney, suggesting textiles were made by hand, or using tools made with organic materials that have not survived in the archaeological record,’ Ness of Brodgar’s site director Nick Card said.
‘This lack of material culture around textile production can help us to infer what techniques they may have been using.’ The patterns match similar findings at other sites in the region, that suggest using textiles with clay vessels was common.
‘A growing number of base sherds from the Ness have impressions of coiled mats used in the construction of clay vessels,’ Card said.
An impression on clay of the Orkney woven fabric
‘These match examples found at Barnhouse and Rinyo in Orkney and also at Forest Road in Aberdeenshire.
‘All specimens suggest fibre mats of spiral construction that may have eased the turning of the pot as it was formed and even facilitated its transportation whilst it was dried and then fired.’
The announcement of the Orkney discovery comes just a month after researchers in France discovered strands of woven yarn believed to be between 41,000 and 52,000 years old.
The yarn fragments were believed to have been used to bind simple tools and could have been used in more complex forms of weaving.
