Discover Greek Temple In Albania Dating Back To 6th Century B.C.
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati’s Classics faculty are
preparing to make their first public presentation of details surrounding their
find of one of the earliest Greek temples in the Adriatic region north of
Greece.
The UC researchers, along with colleagues from the International Centre for
Albanian Archaeology and the Institute of Archaeology, Tirana, will be
presenting on their new work on Friday, Jan. 6, 2006, in Montreal at the annual
meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.
"This is a case where a hunch about the potential of a site is paying off in the
discovery of a temple that has extraordinary and singular importance to Albanian
archaeology and to the history of Greek colonization in the Adriatic Sea
region," says Jack L. Davis, the Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology
at the University of Cincinnati and co-director of the international research
team working at the site. "We are gaining the tools for an understanding of
religious life in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., a part of the early history of
Apollonia of which little is known."
I'm refraining from making an Apollonia joke here.
Unique burial style identified at Iran's Burnt City
The team of archaeologists currently working at the Burnt City
unearthed two graves in which big bowls were used to cover the bodies of two
stillborn fetuses, the Persian service of CHN reported.
The recent discovery has been a great surprise for the archaeologists since it
is so different from the other graves at the site.
The Burnt City covers an area of 150 hectares and was one of the world?s largest
cities at the dawn of the urban era. It was built circa 3200 BC and destroyed
some time around 2100 BC. The city had four stages of civilization and was burnt
down three times. Since it was not rebuilt after the last blaze, it has been
named the Burnt City.
Ancient
tomb discovered in Shanxi
A tomb dating back about 700 years has been discovered recently in
Yuncheng City, north China's Shanxi Province, local archaeologist said on
Saturday.
The tomb, dating back to the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), was unearthed by
workers constructing a road at Wulingzhuang Village in Xinjiang County of
Yuncheng City.
Two chambers and a corridor, which links the tomb's front compartment with
the back one, formed the underground brick work structure.
The walls of both chambers were decorated with patterns of figures and
paintings of flowers and fruits.
Chinese poems, signatures and dates were inscribed at different sites of
the corridor, local archaeologist said.
More Maya writing New Find Pushes Back Date of Mayan Writing
Poking through some of the innermost rubble of an ancient pyramid
known as Las Pinturas in San Bartolo, Guatemala, graduate student Boris Beltrán
uncovered a boulder-size chunk of plaster. Mayan builders had created the
boulder when constructing the third version of Las Pinturas, following their
practice of supporting subsequent structures with the ruined remnants of the
preceding pyramid. This particular fragment happened to be part of an ancient
mural and thick black hieroglyphics ran down its side, following a faint
pinkish-orange guideline. "When he showed it to me, I asked him: 'Do you know
what you have there?'" recalls team leader William Saturno of the University of
New Hampshire. "'That is likely the earliest text in the Maya era. It is likely
among the earliest texts in the New World as a whole.'"
There was something like this about a month ago, but don't know if it's the same
thing.
Update: Yeah, it was from a week or so ago: NY Times story.
Dam it
They built more pyramids than the Egyptians, invented the world's first "rock" music, and were as bloodthirsty as the Aztecs when it came to human sacrifices.
Yet ever since their demise at the hands of a vengeful pharaoh, the
pre-Christian civilisations of ancient Sudan have been overshadowed by their
Egyptian northern neighbours. Now, the race is on to excavate black Africa's
first great kingdoms - before some of their heartlands are submerged for ever.
In a highly controversial move, the Sudanese government is planning to flood a
vast stretch of the southern Nile valley as part of plans for a big
hydro-electric dam at Merowe, near what was once the ancient city of
Napata.
C.T.
Revere: Rio Nuevo dig opens a window on our history
This historic ground was just another paved lot for parking cars
only a month ago.
Today, the dusty parcel southwest of Church Avenue and Washington Street is a
window to thousands of years of local human history and a glimpse into downtown
Tucson's future.
While state lawmakers wrangle over future funding for Rio Nuevo and city
officials tool and retool the notion of what they mean by "downtown
redevelopment," Homer Thiel and his team are getting to the point.
"People don't realize that among the buildings and streets in downtown Tucson,
there are thousands of years of history," said Thiel, the bearded and
bespectacled archaeologist whose job is to protect that history before the city
builds a park to honor it.
Lost
Phoenician ports found
Thanks to political tensions easing in Lebanon, archaeologists have
finally managed to locate the sites of ancient Phoenician harbours in the
seaports that dominated Mediterranean trade thousands of years ago.
By drilling out cores of sediment from the modern urban centres of these cities,
geologists have mapped out the former coastlines that the sediments have long
since buried. From this they have pinpointed the likely sites of the old
harbours, and have marked out locations that, they say, are in dire need of
exploration and conservation.
The modern cities of Tyre and Sidon on the Lebanese coast were once the major
launching points of the seafaring Phoenicians. They were to the ancient world
what Venice, Shanghai, Liverpool and New York have been in later times: some of
the greatest of the world's ports, and crucial conduits for trade and cultural
exchange. From the harbours of the Phoenician cities, ships carried precious
dyes and textiles, soda and glass throughout the Mediterranean and
beyond.
Interesting use of coring data. Read the whole thing.
More from PhysOrg.
Like Laetoli, but more recent Stone Age Footwork:
Ancient human prints turn up down under
Researchers working near the shore of a dried-up lake basin in
southeastern Australia have taken a giant leap backward in time. They've
uncovered the largest known collection of Stone Age human footprints.
The 124-or-more human-foot impressions, as well as a few prints left by
kangaroos and other animals, originated between 23,000 and 19,000 years ago in a
then-muddy layer of silt and clay, say archaeologist Steve Webb of Australia's
Bond University in Robina and his colleagues. Their report appears in the
January Journal of Human Evolution.
The discoveries, which lie in an area consisting of 19 ancient lake basins known
as the Willandra Lakes system, provide a unique look at the behavior and
physical capabilities of late Stone Age people, notes geologist and study
coauthor Matthew L. Cupper of the University of Melbourne.
Bog body update Iron Age 'bog
bodies' unveiled
Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were
found in the Republic of Ireland.
The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years
old, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice.
In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before
their deaths.
Details of the finds are outlined in a BBC Timewatch documentary to be screened
on 20 January.
On this
beach, 700,000 years ago ...
One wintry day, two keen fossil collectors found a flint beneath
these cliffs. It didn't look like much, but it turned out to be evidence for the
earliest humans in Britain. Mike Pitts on the amateur archaeologists who rewrote
history
Given the choice, the bottom of a cliff with the tide coming in fast is not a
place you'd work. For Paul Durbidge and Bob Mutch, however, the foreshore at
Pakefield, south of Lowestoft, Suffolk, is precisely where they want to be.
Especially in winter, and even more so when the storms are up. Because it's then
that the fossils are exposed.
Durbidge and Mutch have been collecting on this beach for years; they have
assembled a huge and academically valuable collection of animal bones. In 2000,
though, they heard that along the coast in Norfolk, someone had found a flint
handaxe that was 500,000 years old. It would have been made by a distant
ancestor of Neanderthals, and as far as Britain was concerned, was as old as
early humans got. This gave Durbidge and Mutch an idea. They knew their animal
fossils from Pakefield were older than that. What if we have flints here too,
they thought? "We had a gut feeling about Pakefield," says
Durbidge.