EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Drought Reveals “Spanish Stonehenge” Older Than the Pyramids

Drought Reveals “Spanish Stonehenge” Older Than the Pyramids

After 50 years of immersion on the bottom of a basin, in Spain, a 5,000-year-old monument emerged.

There are 144 granite blocks on the megalithic site, which are over 6 feet high, known as ‘ Spanish Stonehenge. ‘ Its similarity to the UNESCO World Heritage site in Wiltshire is striking, but the Iberian version is made of smaller rocks.

The Spanish General ordered the construction of a hydroelectric dam at Peraleda de la Mata, near Cáceres in Extremadura, which was supposed to be condemned to the history books of the 1960s.

The Dolmen de Guadalperal, also known as the “Spanish Stonehenge,” has been completely exposed for the first time in 50 years following the drought.
Some of the megaliths reach two meters in height.

However, a severe and prolonged drought has seen the structure emerge as the last drops of water vanished from the barren basin. Western Spain is being ravaged by a year-long drought and the Bronze Age structure, thought to be an ancient temple, can now be seen.  

Hugo Obermaier, a German priest and amateur archaeologist, first found the site in 1925.

Due to the unfortunate decision-making of General Franco who opted to consign the site to obscurity when he commissioned a valley bordering the Tagus river to be flooded.

But before its rediscovery and subsequent demise, it is thought the stones would have centered around a central chamber for sun worship.

It is believed the Celts living in Iberia 4,000 years ago may have built the structure.    

‘The stones have been brought from about five kilometers away to form this temple, which we think was used to worship the sun,’ Ángel Castaño, president of the Peraleda Cultural Association, told the Times. 

‘In that way, it has similarities to Stonehenge but is obviously smaller.

‘People here had heard about them but had never seen them. We want the authorities to move these stones to the banks of the reservoir and to use them as a tourist attraction, as few people come to this area.’

Stonehenge’s enormous rocks are up to 30 feet in length, dwarfing the six-foot-tall single monoliths uncovered in Spain. There are more stones at the Spanish site, 1144 compared to 93 in Wiltshire. 

However, Stonehenge’s monument covers 10,800 square feet (10,000 square meters), a far bigger area than the Spanish site. 

Radiocarbon dating of the ‘Spanish Stonehenge’ found the stones range in age from around 4,000 to 5,000 years old and this ties them curiously to the history of Stonehenge. The first monolith structure in Europe was found in Brittany dating back as far as 4,794 BC and other early monuments (red) were found in northwest France, the Channel Islands, Catalonia, southwestern France, Corsica, and Sardinia from a similar time period.
The site was thought to be condemned to the history books in the 1960s when a Spanish general ordered the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Peraleda de la Mata, near Cáceres in Extremadura

Long-term plans for the preservation of the site are yet to be laid out, but Mr. Castaño met officials from the regional government yesterday to discuss the matter. If action is not taken now, he said, it could be many years before they are seen again.


A prolonged submersion could also be catastrophic for the stones, which are made of granite, a porous material prone to erosion, The monoliths are already showing significant signs of wear, he said, and if they are not saved now, it may be too late.  

Radiocarbon dating of the rocks found they range in age from around 4,000 to 5,000 years old and this ties them curiously to the history of Stonehenge.  Neolithic people, often prone to building monolithic structures, emerged throughout time across Europe. 

It is widely accepted Stonehenge’s bluestones were quarried from Priesli Hills in Wales and moved to the current location, but how the idea for Stonehenge arrived on British shores remains a mystery.  

Various pieces of recent research have looked at what likely led to this, and a scientific paper published in February put forward the idea that the knowledge and expertise to create such monuments was spread around Europe by sailors.

The authors from the University of Gothenburg said the practice of erecting enormous stone structures began in France 6,500 years ago and then made its way around Europe as people migrated.  

Further research into the Spanish Stonehenge could allow for a more detailed picture to emerge of the practice’s popularity in different areas at different times. Currently, inhabitants of Anatolia, what is now Turkey, are thought to have moved to Iberia and settled before eventually heading north and entering the British Isles.  

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Lost tomb with 72 ancient skeletons from extinct Canary Islands civilization found by drone after 1,000 years

Lost tomb with 72 ancient skeletons from extinct Canary Islands civilization found by drone after 1,000 years

Amateur archeologists on the holiday island of Gran Canaria discovered a grave containing ancient remains of men of a lost pre-Hispanic civilization.

The mummified remains of 72 skeletons belonging to natives of the ‘Guanche’ society were discovered by drone. The amazing find included 62 adult skeletons and 10 newborns.

They were found in the Guayadeque ravine on the island of Gran Canaria, which is part of the Spanish Canary Islands.

Experts have confirmed the discovery and have linked it to the Guanche civilization as the cave dates back to between 800-1000AD.

Guanche people are thought to be the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands and may have traveled there from North Africa.

Historians think that the Guanches people were ethnically and culturally absorbed by Spanish settlers when they colonized the islands.

Archaeologist Veronica Alberto told local media: “There are many burial caves in Gran Canaria, but not many like this one.

“The discovery of the newborn remains is important as they were not included in previous findings until very recently.

“We know now they can be found in these types of cave burials.”

The cave with the archaeological remains.

Archaeologists went down to the burial site and found traditional burial shrouds made from vegetable fibers and animal skin.

Alberto added: “We can confirm that all the pre-Hispanic people in the Canary Islands were prepared the same way for the burial ceremony.”

Experts had to travel down 75 feet to reach the tomb. Members of the amateur archaeology group ‘El Legado’, formed by Ayose Himar Gonzalez, Jonay Garcia, and Jesus Diaz, found the cave via drone.

Gonzalez said: “We were flying a drone and we took some pictures of the cave. It is in a very difficult place to access and you need to climb a cliff to reach the site. People thought the photos were fake because of all the bones there!”

They found the cave back in June last year but only reported it recently because they were concerned it would be vandalized.

Gonzalez explained: “The cave should be closed off and preserved with the bones left there to respect the site. We decided to report it because we want the local authorities to preserve and respect it.”

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

Cannabis preserved India’s ancient Ellora caves from decay for 1,500 years

Cannabis preserved India’s ancient Ellora caves from decay for 1,500 years

From the sixth century AD to the 11th, in the north-west city of Aurangabad, in Maharashtra, the Rashtrakut dynasty and the Yadavs built a group of 34 Caves.

Each of these caves, made of stone, was dedicated to a religion of three, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.

Ellora has over the years been considered a legacy that reflects Indian rock cut architecture. However recent studies by Indian archaeologists have revealed a particularly interesting tradition of the Buddhist monks who prayed in these caves.

They used cannabis mixed in with the plaster that covers the shrines painted walls and ceilings, along with some clay and lime, to preserve the structure to the best of their capabilities. And it turns out that the cannabis present in the earthen mix seems to have played a key role in preventing the UNESCO World Heritage site from decaying over the 1,500 years of its existence. You can’t help but wonder whether these marijuana plants were used for medicinal purposes too all those years ago. We are lucky to have it supplied online today! In fact, it is amazing to see how far cannabis has come over the years, and how far back it goes. It shows what type of early ‘businesses’ did, whereas now they use companies like CannaSeeds for their supply so they can either grow it personally or for legal distribution.

According to Manager Rajdeo Singh, an archaeological chemist of the Archaeological Survey of India’s science branch (western region), and Milind M. Sardesai, who teaches botany at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, the mixture prevented the plaster from degrading for over 1,500 years.

The caves of Ajanta and Ellora.
Ellora Caves

“The caves are breathtaking examples of rock-cut architecture that stands testimony to the imagination and artistry of its creators,” Singh and Sardesai wrote in the journal Current Science.

For the purpose of the study, they analyzed the clay plaster of the Buddhist cave 12 using techniques such as Fourier transform, infrared spectroscopy and stereo-microscopic studies.

They were able to isolate specimens of cannabis from the clay plaster and they were able to further conclude that it was the cannabis Sativa that had helped in preventing insects at Ellora. “

The cannabis fiber appears to have better quality and durability than other fibers. Moreover, the cannabis’ gum and sticky properties might have helped clay and lime to form a firm binder,” Sardesai said.

According to the researchers, the concrete-like substance that is called hempcrete would have provided the Buddhist monks with a healthy, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing living environment.

“As the hemp plaster has the ability to store heat, is fire-resistant and absorbs about 90 percent of airborne sound, a peaceful living environment for the monks has been created at Ellora Caves,” they added.

Several studies have estimated that hempcrete can last 600–800 years, which explains why the life span of these caves doubled despite damaging environmental factors, such as a growing humidity inside the caves during rainy seasons.”Ellora has proved that only 10 percent of cannabis mixed with clay or lime in the plaster could last for over 1,500 years,” said Singh.

As Mr. Sardesai has observed, “In India cannabis has gained a bad name because of its narcotic properties.” However, the artists of the sixth century were able to gauge their properties. Even to this day, scientists are still discovering new uses for cannabis. Due to its legalization in certain US states and investments in cannabis production facility design, this plant is beginning to once again realize its full potential.

The the artists of the sixth century realized that it had the ability to regulate humidity and that it would have key roles in pest resistance, fire-retardant, non-toxicity, high vapour permeability, along with hygroscopic properties- all of which have kept Ellora intact over the years. In the neighbouring Ajanta, the artists did not use hemp, which explains why rampant insect activity has damaged at least 25 percent of the paintings here.

Considering that in India, the cultivation, transport, possession, and consumption of marijuana is banned under Indian law (though things seem to be changing further up North in Uttarakhand) suffice to say that in modern-day India, it might be a long while before we decide to use cannabis for construction purposes.

AFRICA, WORLD

Early humans feasted on fish in the Sahara Desert 10,000 years ago

Early humans feasted on fish in the Sahara Desert 10,000 years ago

A large number of animal remains – including fish – have been discovered in a location in the Sahara Desert by archaeologists, shedding new light on the ancient peoples who once lived there.

According to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, almost 18,000 individual species have been found on recent investigations into the Takarkori rock shelter in the southwestern Libyan Acacus Mountains, of which almost 80% were fish — such as catfish and tilapia.

The fossils are evidence from 10,200 to 4,650 years ago that span much of the early middle and Holocene phase–the current geological epoch. The fossils were mammals (approximately 19%), while the researchers also found a small number of insects, rodents, molluscs, and amphibians.

Archaeologists excavated bones of fish, toads, frogs, crocodiles, and birds from the Tadrart Acacus mountains in the Saharan Desert.

The researchers say that the animal remains were human food waste given that they displayed cut marks and signs of burning. This has implications for our understanding of the people who used to live in the area, indicating that fish was an important food.

“The key findings are no doubt the fish remains. Although not uncommon in early Holocene contexts across North Africa, the quantity of fish we have found and studied are unprecedented in the central Sahara,” Savino di Lernia, from the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, told LiveScience.

“The study adds fresh information about climate change as well as cultural adaptations. It is particularly intriguing that fish was common also in the diet of early herders.”

“I believe that the quantity of fish remains in the earliest layers of occupation is really stunning. I particularly liked the fact that early herders were quite good fishers, and fish was an important staple food,” he said.

Today, the environment of the Acacus Mountains is windy, hot and extremely dry. But the fossil record here indicates that for large parts of the early and middle Holocene, the region—like other areas of the Central Sahara—was humid and rich in water, as well as plants and animals. During this period, the area was also home to prehistoric humans who left behind several notable rock art sites.

But over thousands of years, the area became increasingly dry and, thus, less capable of sustaining standing bodies of water that are home to fish. This change in the climate is reflected in the study results.

Around 90 percent of all the animal remains dated to between 10,200 to 8,000 years ago were fish. However, this figure decreases to 40 percent for those dated to between 5,900 and 4,650 years ago.

This changing environment forced the hunter-gatherers who once relied on the fish to adapt and alter their diet, with the researchers documenting a shift towards eating more mammals over time.

According to the authors, the results provide, “crucial information on the dramatic climate changes that led to the formation of the largest hot desert in the world.”

“Takarkori rock shelter has once again proved to be a real treasure for African archaeology and beyond: a fundamental place to reconstruct the complex dynamics between ancient human groups and their environment in a changing climate,” they said in a statement.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Giant ’13th Century catapult stone’ found at Hay Castle

Centuries-old Norman head and trebuchet ball found where they fell at Hay Castle

Another significant discovery was made by archeologists involved in the restoration of Hay Castle to include an intriguing collection of treasures

There have been remarkable and interesting finds made by Archaeologists who work on conserving one of the great medieval defense structures still standing on the border of Wales and England, Hay Castle.

Whilst investigating an area on the town side of the great gate of the Norman castle built in the late 12th century by the powerful Norman Lord William de Braose, archaeologists Peter Dorling and Dai Williams found an interesting stone embedded in the ground. When Peter extracted it and turned it over he was astonished to see a face staring back at him.

On closer inspection, the very early carving looks like a Norman soldier and has obviously suffered much damage over the years.

The lines of the carving have been worn away either by weather or by the stone having been buried and initial research and consultation indicate that this could indeed be an 11th or 12th-century carving. It may once have formed a decorative section of a window arch in the original medieval castle.

Describing the find as ‘intriguing and interesting’ Richard Suggett of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales says, “you occasionally get carved heads set over doorways in houses and this may have been one. Perhaps there was a whole series of mounted heads at the ringwork. The imagination runs riot.”

The carved head found during the restoration of Hay Castle.

The head’s decapitation could have occurred at several points in the castle’s long and turbulent history. Sacked by Llywelyn II, the last prince of Wales, in 1233, the castle was rebuilt under the custody of Henry III but centuries of turmoil followed until the 15th century when the castle passed into the hands of the Beaufort Estates.

The stone head joins an intriguing discovery made by archaeologists excavating in the derelict section of the mansion over the summer months. Hidden below centuries of previous floor levels they found a large, roughly cut spherical stone. The item is approximately 30cm in diameter and weighs about 29kg. Initial thoughts are that it could be a trebuchet ball.

The recently discovered trebuchet ball.

Trebuchets are huge and complex catapulting siege weapons, among several different medieval siege weapons that were first used in Britain in around 1217.

The discovery raises tantalizing questions: was it fired at Hay Castle and found at its resting spot? Who might have fired it and when? There is little documentary evidence about attacks on Hay Castle but it could be possible that the trebuchet ball originates from the Barons’ War of 1263 to 1266.

The Patent Rolls of 1263, the administrative records recording the reign of Henry III, reveal that Prince Edward retaliated against the uprising Barons during the Second Barons’ War and when the town and castle of Radnor were destroyed Edward captured Hay.

“During this era of fighting across the Marches, Hay Castle passed from Bohun to Mortimer, to Simon de Montfort and back to the Mortimer family,” says Mari Fforde, who coordinates a lot of the historical activity on the site. “Maybe it was during these skirmishes that the trebuchet was used?

“Similar trebuchet balls were found at Dryslwyn Castle in Carmarthenshire. It is known from financial accounts that the siege of Dryslwyn in 1287 involved considerable cost in the construction of a counterweight trebuchet which threw balls weighing some 50kg.

This particular trebuchet was then transported to Cardigan, hauled by 40 oxen and 4 carts and escorted by about 500 soldiers. It is exciting to imagine the same scene happening in Hay at some point in the 13th century.”

The exterior of Hay Castle.
ARMENIA, ASIA, WORLD

The world’s oldest sword? 5,000-year-old Anatolian weapon discovered in Armenian Monastery of Venice

The world’s oldest sword? 5,000-year-old Anatolian weapon discovered in Armenian Monastery of Venice

In a monastery on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, in Lagoon Town, a 5000-year old Anatolian sword was found.

Vittoria Dall’Armellina, a Ph.D. student at the Ca ‘ Foscari University in Venice, accidentally found a small sword among a number of medieval items in a display cabinet.

The sword she saw was not like a medieval weapon, according to Dall’Armellina, but instead a much older sword, similar to those she had already met in her studies.

An Anatolian sword resurfaces after millennia.

The sword did, in fact, look very similar to those found in the Royal Palace of Arslantepe (Eastern Anatolia), dating back to five thousand years ago and considered to be the oldest swords in the world. The name of Arslantepe is derived from the lion (“Arslan” in Turkish) statues excavated at the location.

Arslantepe – an important Hittite settlement during all ages of the Hittite period and later became a major site as a Neo-Hittite city-state – was even inhabited much earlier since the Chalcolithic Age. The area was also a residential area for the Romans until the 5th to 6th centuries A.D. and used as a necropolis by the Byzantines until the 11th century.

As to the latest discovery of the Anatolian sword, the same type of sword – coming from the Sivas region – was also found inside the Tokat Museum (Turkey). Indeed, this weapon shows quite a few similarities with the San Lazzaro one.

After confirming that the sword had never been recorded in the catalog of Near East antique objects belonging to the Saint Lazarus Island museum and having received the approval of her Ph.D. supervisor Elena Rova, professor of Archeology at the Department of Humanities, Dall’Armellina carried forward with the investigation to assess whether her intuition was correct and in doing so, she managed to shed light on many puzzling aspects of the discovery.

Father Serafino and Ph.D. student Vittoria Dall’Armellina, in a monastery on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Lagoon City.

The scientific analysis confirmed her suspects: the sword doesn’t just resemble the most ancient weapons in the world, but it was also forged around the same time, around the year 3000 b.C.

An Anatolian weapon casually reappears in Venice, resurfacing from the darkness that engulfed it for millennia.

How did it come to the monastery and what could have been its ties with the Armenian monks?

Who did it belong to and which far away lands had he explored?

Who wielded the weapon? Or was somebody buried with it?

Ansa.it reports that “the research was carried out by consulting Father Serafino Jamourlian, of the Mekhitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro, who was able to partly solve the question by consulting the archives of the museum.

The sword arrived from Trabzon to Venice, donated by an art merchant and collector, Yervant Khorasandjian, in the mid-1800s, according to an envelope. It was found with other objects in an area called Kavak. Ghevond Alishan, a famous poet, and writer who was friends with John Ruskin, a monk with the congregation and a researcher, died in Venice in 1901. It is thought, therefore, that this episode dates back to the last decades of the 19th century.”

The sword is made of a type of copper and tin frequently used before the Bronze age, according to the analysis on the metal’s composition has been carried out in collaboration with Professor Ivana Angelini and (Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca Studio e Conservazione dei Beni Archeologici, Architettonici e Storico-Artistici) Ciba at the University of Padua.

The Saint Lazarus Island sword shows the strong resemblance to the twin swords of Arslantepe, retrieved in a well-documented context, and has allowed the experts to determine that the sword dates back to around the end of 4th and the beginning of the 3rd-century BC.

Saint Lazarus Island and the Mekhitarist Monastery where the sword was discovered.

This type of sword was common in a relatively small region in Eastern Anatolia, between the high course of the Euphrat and the South shore of the Black Sea. The sword, contrary to some of the Arslantepe specimens, is not decorated: there are no visible inscriptions, embellishments or distinctive features. Due to the less than optimal conservation conditions, it was not possible to detect any traces of usage.

Consequently, the sword could have been a real offensive weapon that was actually used in combat, a ceremonial sword or part of some grave goods. A likely hypothesis is that it was part of a burial -casually retrieved by some local townsfolk – whose grave goods were then scattered, as it often happened until a few years ago.

Indeed, the sword was forged during a period of time in which Anatolian and Caucasian burials began to be adorned with a rich array of grave goods, with weapons and jewels, a sign of the emergence of a new warrior elite. The sword’s real story is still unknown; the researchers hope to shed some light on the artifact’s distant past.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Modern technology reveals old secrets about the great, white Maya road

Modern technology reveals old secrets about the great, white Maya road

Would one of the greatest cities of the ancient Mayan world, the mighty Queen of Cobá, create the longest Mayan road to invade a smaller, isolated neighbor and gain a foothold against the emerging Chichén Itzá empire?

Traci Ardren, a sociology professor at the University of Miami, has been fascinated by the problem for some time now. Now, she and fellow scholars may be a step closer to an answer, after conducting the first lidar study of the 100-kilometer stone highway that connected the ancient cities of Cobá and Yaxuná on the Yucatan Peninsula 13

Once used mainly by meteorologists to study clouds, lidar—short for “light detection and ranging”—technology is revolutionizing archaeology by enabling archaeologists to detect, measure, and map structures are hidden beneath dense vegetation that, in some cases, have grown for centuries, engulfing entire cities.

This lidar map of downtown Yaxuna reveals many ancient houses, platforms, palaces, and pyramids that are hidden by vegetation.

Often deployed from low-flying aircraft, lidar instruments fire rapid pulses of laser light at a surface and then measure the amount of time it takes for each pulse to bounce back. The differences in the times and wavelengths of the bounce are then used to create digital 3-D maps of hidden surface structures.

The lidar study, which Ardren and fellow researchers with the Proyecto de Interaccion del Centro de Yucatan (PIPCY) conducted in 2014 and 2017 of Sacbe 1—or White Road 1, as the white plaster-coated thoroughfare was called—may shed light on the intentions of Lady K’awiil Ajaw, the warrior queen who Ardren believes commissioned its construction at the turn of the 7th century.

In an analysis of the lidar study, recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the researchers identified more than 8,000 tree-shrouded structures of varying sizes along the sacbe—with enough total volume to fill approximately 2,900 Olympic swimming pools.

The study also confirmed that the road, which measures about 26 feet across, is not a straight line, as has been assumed since Carnegie Institute of Washington archaeologists mapped its entire length in the 1930s, with little more than a measuring tape and a compass.

Rather, the elevated road veered to incorporate preexisting towns and cities between Cobá, which known for its carved monuments depicting bellicose rulers standing over bound captives, controlled the eastern Yucatan, and Yaxuná—a smaller, older, city in the middle of the peninsula. Yet, the isolated Yaxuná (pronounced Ya-shoo-na) still managed to build a pyramid nearly three times bigger and centuries before Chichén Itzá’s more famous Castillo, about 15 miles away.

A drawing of a carving found on a stone monument in Cobá depicts the warrior queen who may have built the great, white road to expand her domain.

“The lidar really allowed us to understand the road in much greater detail. It helped us identify many new towns and cities along the road—new to us, but preexisting the road,” Ardren said. “We also now know the road is not straight, which suggests that it was built to incorporate these preexisting settlements, and that has interesting geopolitical implications. This road was not just connecting Cobá and Yaxuná; it connected thousands of people who lived in the intermediary region.”

It was partly Yaxuná’s proximity to Chichén Itzá, Mexico’s most famous Maya ruin which flourished after Yaxuná and Cobá waned, that led Ardren and other PIPCY researchers to theorize that K’awiil Ajaw built the road to invade Yaxuná and gain a foothold in the middle of the peninsula. Coba’s ruler for several decades beginning in 640 A.D., she is depicted in stone carvings trampling over her bound captives.

“I personally think the rise of Chichén Itzá and its allies motivated the road,” Ardren said. “It was built just before 700, at the end of the Classic Period, when Cobá is making a big push to expand. It’s trying to hold on to its power, so with the rise of Chichén Itzá, it needed a stronghold in the center of the peninsula.

The road is one of the last-gasp efforts of Cobá to maintain its power. And we believe it may have been one of the accomplishments of K’awiil Ajaw, who is documented as having conducted wars of territorial expansion.”

To test their theory, Ardren, an expert on gender in ancient Maya society who edited the 2002 book “Ancient Maya Women,” and fellow PIPCY scholars received funding from the National Science Foundation to excavate ancient household clusters along the great white road.

Their goal is to determine the degree of similarities between the household goods in Cobá and Yaxuná before and after the road was built. The thinking, Ardren said, is that after the road linking the two cities, the goods found in Yaxuná would show increasing similarities to Cobá’s.

So far, the researchers have excavated household clusters on the edge of both Cobá and Yaxuná, and they plan to begin the third dig this summer, at a spot informed by the lidar study. It sits between the two ancient Maya cities, on the great, white road that Ardren says would have glowed brightly even in the dark of night.

As she noted, the road was as much an engineering marvel as the monumental pyramids the Maya erected across southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize, and western Honduras.

Although built over undulating terrain, the road was flat, with the uneven ground filled in with huge limestone boulders, and the surface coated with bright, white plaster. Essentially the same formula the Romans used for concrete in the third century B.C., the plaster was made by burning limestone and adding lime and water to the mixture.

“It would have been a beacon through the dense green of cornfields and fruit trees,” Ardren said. “All the jungle we see today wasn’t there in the past because the Maya cleared these areas. They needed wood to build their homes. And now that we know the area was densely occupied, we know they needed a lot of wood. Because they also needed it to burn limestone”—and build the longest road in the Maya world 13 centuries ago.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Set of 5000-year-old board game pieces discovered in Turkey

Set of 5000-year-old board game pieces discovered in Turkey

Within the scope of Ilısu Dam rescue excavations, the missing pieces of a historical play set, which was found in 2012 in the southeastern province of Siirt’s Başur Mound, have been unearthed.

Rescue excavations have been completed in Başur Mound, which is shown as one of the most important archaeological works of the last 10 years by Artnews, a visual arts magazine published in the U.S.

Missing pieces of the ancient game set found

Speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency, the head of excavations and Ege University Faculty of Letters Department of Archeology lecturer, Haluk Sağlamtimur, said that the excavations started in 2007 within the scope of Ilısu Dam and the hydroelectric plant (HES) project reached important data on Mesopotamian history.

Stating that during the excavations in 2012, they found play set pieces that were thought to have been played in a cemetery 5,000 years ago and they identified it as the world’s oldest figurative game set, Sağlamtimur said that they were delighted to find the missing stones of the game in recent excavations.

“A few parts of the game were missing, we unearthed them in the recent excavations, and we completed the set.

This game set is very important, it is the earliest game set that can be dated in a wide region covering Mesopotamia and Anatolia.

These are dated between 3,100 and 2,900 B.C. This is probably a grave gift. This game set does not seem to be played too much; there is no wear on it. It is important in this respect. We found the missing figures in the last excavations and we are really happy,” he said.

Stating that the game set was defined as “the ancestor of chess” and similar games were also found in Egypt, Sağlamtimur explained, “Unfortunately, we could not find the board of this game set.

It was probably inside the grave, but it decayed. If we found its board, we could understand how to play it. Games like this continue, they have similar ones in even in Egypt.

The game set consists of colored stones, something must be related to the color in the game.

The two main animal figures that gave the game its name are pigs and dogs. So, we named this game as ‘pigs and dogs’ because the games that were found later were named as such.

When we consider the shapes and numbers of the stones, we estimate that the game is based on number four. For now, these are the earliest game stones in the world in figurative terms and are exhibited at the Batman Museum. Anyone can see this game set.”

Ege University rector Necdet Budak also stated that these finds are very important for the history of archeology and congratulated Sağlamtimur and his team for their successful work.

All In One Magazine