Remains at building site may be of ancient Indians
Archaeologists have found what they believe are the 5,000-year-old remains of two American Indians at a southern Jefferson County site planned for development.
Bone fragments were unearthed last week during an archaeological survey of a 55-acre site near Interstate 65 and Outer Loop slated for a Wal-Mart, restaurants and condominiums. Spear tips and burned rock were found several years earlier at the site, officials said.
The remains, accompanied by trash pits, charcoal, carbonized seeds and tools, suggest a camp used by nomadic hunters who might have gathered medicinal herbs and food in the wetland area around 3000 B.C., said David Pollack, a Kentucky Heritage Council archaeologist and site-protection manager.
More on the Olmecs Mystery of the Olmecs endures
On a coastal flood plain etched by rivers flowing through swamps and alongside fields of maize and beans, the people archaeologists call the Olmecs lived in a society of emergent complexity. It was more than 3,000 years ago, along the Gulf of Mexico around Veracruz.
The Olmecs, mobilized by ambitious rulers and fortified by a pantheon of gods, moved a veritable mountain of earth to create a plateau above the plain, and there planted a city, the ruins of which are known today as San Lorenzo. They left behind palace remnants, distinctive pottery, and art with anthropomorphic jaguar motifs. Most impressive are Olmec sculptures: colossal stone heads with thick lips and staring eyes that are thought to be monuments to revered rulers.
Good article, though there's not much new here. But it summarizes the pros and cons very well.
CSI: Suffolk
Clue to earliest American may lie in Suffolk grave
A SAMPLE from the bones of a Suffolk woman buried 400 years ago is to be exhumed by scientists seeking to discover more about an English explorer who is the unsung founding father of America.
Archaeologists are to crosscheck DNA from remains they believe belong to the explorer Bartholomew Gosnold with samples from his sister, who was thought to have been buried in a Suffolk churchyard in the 1600s.
Church officials have given their backing to the project, which is thought to be the first of its kind in Britain. It will involve remains being taken from a narrow shaft in the grave of his sister Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney, who records show lies in the chapel of Shelley All Saints Church in Suffolk.
Just can't wait for those Gosnold Day parades that are sure to ensue.
Budding archaeologists Kids Find Prehistoric Bones in Backyard
A human skeleton found by three kids in Salt Lake City's Harvard/Yale neighborhood appears to be American Indian.
Clayton Middle School students, Scott Paulsen, Alex Baker and Hayden Schofield were digging a fort when their shovels struck a bone.
Paulsen said they thought it was just an animal and kept digging.
Predynastic cemetery update Ancient necropolis found in Egypt
Archaeologists say they have found the largest funerary complex yet dating from the earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago.
The necropolis was discovered by a joint US and Egyptian team in the Kom al-Ahmar region, around 600 km (370 miles) south of the capital, Cairo.
Inside the tombs, the archaeologists found a cow's head carved from flint and the remains of seven people.
They believe four of them were buried alive as human sacrifices.
A day without news from Mehr is like a day without sunshine Fragments of Achaemenid paint containers discovered at Persepolis
Workers at Persepolis recently discovered four fragments of earthenware which were probably used as paint containers during the Achaemenid era.
Archaeologist Ali Asadi said on Friday that the newly discovered shards are the bottom parts of containers which were filled with paint and it is surmised that they were paint buckets over 2500 years ago.
“Two of the shards are red and two are blue. They were found near the wall of the Apadana Palace near the relief sculptures which depict the ceremonial procession in which representatives from the conquered nations brought gifts to the king. We believe that Achaemenid era painters used the red and blue colors to decorate the walls of the Apadana Palace,” he added.
The analysis of the paint will provide new information on the art and the chemical industry of the Achaemenid era, he noted.
A group of experts from the Parseh and Pasargadae Foundation will soon begin studies to analyze the paint.
That's the whole thing.
Keep Oliver Stone AWAY Conversations: Return of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh is the story of an arrogant Mesopotamian king's exploits with his friend Enkidu, the civilized savage. Discovered in Nineveh in 1853 on 11 cuneiform-inscribed clay tablets, the tale was finally translated in 1872 by the British Museum's George Smith. Now Stephen Mitchell, the acclaimed translator and adapter of The Book of Job, A Book of Psalms, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Genesis, and other ancient texts, has created a new literary version based on English, French, and German literal translations. He spoke with ARCHAEOLOGY about the tale's moral sophistication, 16-foot-tall winged bulls, and how it compares to Beowulf.
Egyptian sea vessel artifacts discovered at pharaonic port of Mersa Gawasis along Red Sea coast
When Kathryn Bard reached through the small hole that opened in a hillside along Egypt's Red Sea coast, her hand touched nearly 4,000 years of history.
The opening that Bard, an associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, and her team's co-leader Rodolfo Fattovich, a professor of archaeology at Italy's University of Naples "L'Orientale," discovered was the entrance to a large, man-made cave. Two days later at a site about 30 meters beyond this cave, the team removed sand covering the entrance to a second cave, one that held the well-preserved cedar timbers of an ancient Egyptian sea-faring vessel.
Creswell rock art dated
A team of scientists from Bristol, The Open and Sheffield Universities have proved the engravings at Creswell Crags to be greater than 12,800 years old, making them Britain's oldest rock art.
Creswell Crags which straddles the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border is riddled with caves which have preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings on the walls and ceiling were found by archaeologists.
These engravings depict animals such as the European Bison, now extinct from Britain, and other more enigmatic figures. The nature and style of these engravings led archaeologists to wonder if this art was perhaps older than any existing art in Britain.
Hunt on for vanished Saxon bowl
Archaeologists hunting an Anglo-Saxon bowl missing for nearly 140 years are calling on the public to check their attics for the silver treasure.
The Witham Bowl - worth hundreds of thousands of pounds - vanished after an exhibition in Leeds in 1868.
First found in 1816 in the River Witham, Lincolnshire, it is thought to be the most remarkable piece of pre-Conquest silver found in England.
The Society of Antiquaries hopes new pictures online will jog memories.
More later.
[Update] Weekly EEF news:
"Dig days: One day in Alexandria"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/738/he2.htm
Zahi Hawass about three mosaics that were restored and are now on display at Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum.
Press report: "Ain Shams sites to be renovated"
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/4/
(See middle of page)
Press report: "Britain may have to give up oldest known Bible"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1565403,00.html
Namely the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus, from St Catherine monastery on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.Weekly EEF news
Press report: "CT scan unmasks mummy"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10120768
At Auckland Museum, a mummy has been examined and preserved. It's a young woman called Ta-Sedjemet.
Press report: "Culture Minister re-opens tombs of Thutmose III and Merenptah"
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html12/o160425f.htm
Next two tombs in line for renovation are those of Ramses III and Ramses VI.
Press report: "Uncovering secret buried deep in past"
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=399002005
Interview with Dr Bill Manley, about his book "How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs" and about his attempt to identify a female mummy with child, found in Qurna, now on exhibit at the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh - he claims it is royalty, possibly queen ubemhat [name of course NOT directly linked with Nubia] or queen Haankhes. [Earlier
report in EEFNEWS (347). At least it is now clear why the Nubian connection is proposed - pottery.]
New eBooks (mostly 19th c. works) in 2005 from Project Gutenberg:
-- E. A. Wallis Budge, "Legends of the Gods. The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations".
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9411
-- Champollion le Jeune, "Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829"
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10764
-- M.A. Murray, 'Oude Egyptische Legenden'
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15236
-- Lewis Spence, "Mythen en Legenden van Egypte"
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14826
-- George Rawlinson, "Ancient Egypt"
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15663
[Submitted by Franco (fcrevatin@univ.trieste.it)]
A new file (pdf) has been added to my website:
"Porphyrius and the Egyptian Gods "
http://www.sslmit.units.it/crevatin/Egyptology.htm
Text, translation and commentary of Porphiryus' discussion on the images of the Egyptian Gods. (0.455 MB)
On the site you will also find these online papers:
-- "The Sarcophagus of Na-Menkhet-Amon at San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Venice)" - edition of the texts on this dyn 22 sarcophagus (1.12 MB).
-- "The Book of the Dead of Pashedu (Sforzesco Castle, Milan)" - edition of the text on this papyrus (hieroglyphic text and commentary) (3.14 MB)
-- "A new Stela from Akhmim" (3.14 MB) - edition of a Ptolemaic stela (photo, hieroglyphic text, commentary).
[Submitted by Chris Bennett (cjbennett@sbcglobal.net)]
H. Thurston, "On the Orientation of Early Egyptian Pyramids", in: DIO. The International Journal of Scientific History, Vol. 13 No. 1 (December 2003), pp. 4-11
http://www.dioi.org/vols/wd1.pdf
A mathematician's reaction to studies of changes in the orientation of the pyramids.
[Submitted by Thierry Benderitter (thierry.benderitter@osirisnet.net)]
John Brock, "Who Were the First Surveyors? Four Surveyors of the Gods: In the XVIII Dynasty of Egypt - New Kingdom c. 1400 B.C."
Paper prepared for the Workshop on History of Surveying to be held during the FIG (Federation Internationale des Geometres) Working Week / GSDI-8 Conference in Cairo, Egypt, April 16, 2005. Available in HTML and PDF: http://snipurl.com/e5l9
Online version of: James McLane, Raphael Wüst, Flood Hazards and Protection Measures in the Valley of the Kings, in: CRM [Cultural Resource Management], vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 35-38 (2000) - pdf-file: 1.2 MB
"The authors are members of a research team that is preparing a master plan in an attempt to mitigate the impact of flooding on the tombs in the VOK [Valley of the Kings]."
http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/23-06/23-06-11.pdf
Online version of: The Ptolemaic Economy, in: Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel, Richard Saller(eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge, forthcoming - 50 pp., pdf-file: 665 KB [Version of 30 June 2004]
"I treat here the internal economic history of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the longest lived of the Hellenistic successor states, leaving aside the Ptolemaic empire (relevant to the first half of the period, or roughly from 330-168 BC), the role of military conquest (its expenditure and revenue), and international trade."
http://www.delta.ens.fr/chamley/00.seminar/1.egypt/Manning04.pdf