A Kyrgyz-Russian expedition has embarked for an ancient city covered by Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, local media reported Wednesday.
Issyk-Kul, 2,250 square miles in area, is a mountain lake in the north of the country. Historians and legends tell about a disappeared island in the lake with fortifications near the north coast where Tamerlane, the Tartar conqueror in southern and western Asia and ruler of Samarkand, held noble prisoners in the 14th century, the Vecherniy Bishkek newspaper said.
Can't dig a hole without hitting something Inrap Uncovers France's Past Lives
When industrialists propose development in France, the National Institute of Preventative Archaeological Research, better known as Inrap, investigates areas that are primed for construction. This past year, Inrap has made three important discoveries: ancient ships in Lyon, mosaics in Doubs, and an Iron Age cemetery in Puisserguier.
The Lyon excavation in central eastern France, carried out in advance of a planned parking lot at Saint George Park, revealed remains of three ships from the first-second century A.D. These ships share a unique structure; they have a flat wood bottom held together by nails. The size of the ships, with the largest being 50.53 feet in length and 9.84 feet in width, indicates that they were most likely used to transport cargo. When compared to more modern ships that have been uncovered, they show that basic ship architecture has not fundamentally changed.
News on early Egypt Death on the Nile
In the alphabet of Egyptology, Abydos comes first. It is the last resting place of the first kings of the first dynasty, 5,000 years ago. It is the birthplace of the cult of the divine king. It is also the launchpad for the Egyptian cult of death. Abydos is several kilometres from the Nile, and roughly halfway between Cairo and Aswan: a long way from both ancient Memphis, and the stunning temples of Thebes and Luxor. But Egyptology begins in Abydos, in the first systematic evidence of the Egyptian pact with mortality.
It is where the pharaoh's undertakers buried his ships of the desert - a flotilla of 20m-long planked craft to ferry the dead king to his afterlife - and ritually killed and buried donkeys to carry his goods. They killed and buried his servants, too, to tend him beyond the grave.
Nice summary article. Read the whole thing. The apparent sacrificing of masses of servants on the death of the king didn't last too long.
Is the enema of my enemy. . .my enema? Napoleon: Died from Too Many Enemas?
The enduring mystery surrounding the demise of Napoleon Bonaparte has just been given another twist.
The official verdict, supported by an autopsy, was that l'Empereur died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while in exile on Britain's South Atlantic island colony of St. Helena.
But French conspiracy theorists suspect that Napoleon was slowly poisoned, either by the British, or by his confidant, Count Charles de Montholon, who was supposedly in the pay of French royalists opposed to the emperor's return to France.
Ancient stone horses take on a new look
Parts belonging to Qing Zhui and Shi Fachi, two of the six famous bas-relief horses of the Zhaoling Mausoleum, were found by accident during an archaeological excavation in May. Zhao Liguang, deputy director of Xi'an Beilin Museum, said that part of Qing Zhui's back leg was located as was a section of Shi Fachi's front hoof.
When archaeologists discovered the three pieces of sculptured stone they immediately suspected they belonged to the four bas-relief steeds kept in Xi'an Beilin Museum. The pieces belonging to Qing Zhui and Shi Fachi were successfully matched .
But the third piece does not fit any of the steeds in the museum, and archaeologists are considering that it may be part of one of two steeds presently kept in the United States, the museum deputy director said.
Weekly news from the EEF:
Press report about the recent discovery in Qeft of the dyn. 8 tomb of a military commander called Shumay:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/699/hr2.htm
It includes a false door, a relief, and a short biography, plus
a unique stela showing a complete military unit.
A survey of the area of Toshka is being planned (the press report is a bit garbled):
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html11/o150724w.htm
Prehistoric houses were found in the Farafra Oasis tA-iHw):
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html11/o150724v.htm
And a variety of inscriptions in the southern Sinai:
http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html11/o150724x.htm
Press report: "Sacred Ethiopian obelisk caught in Italian limbo"
"... last November, after the Italian government yielded to decades of
pressure from Addis Ababa, the 200-tonne sacred column was meticulously
divided into sections for its return to Ethiopia, where a national holiday
was promised for the day of its arrival. Nine months later that day has yet
to come."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1262349,00.html
Online dissertations!
James Roger Black, The Instruction of Amenemope: A Critical Edition and Commentary Prolegomenon and Prologue (2002) (3.5 MB).
http://www.jvlnet.com/~jrblack/diss.html
Bruce Williams, Archaeology and Historical Problems of the Second Intermediate Period, PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1975.
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/BBW/BBWIntro.html
Web site of the Qurna History Project
The Qurna History Project aims to raise awareness of the richness of the cultural heritage of Qurna and the Qurnawi and thus encourage recording and publication/presentation. The data is under threat and the recording must happen now. It is a community that is disbursing, its buildings are falling into decay and being purposely - and in some cases systematically - demolished, and the rapid changes over the last generation have accelerated family and community memory loss. The raw data is vanishing fast and it is important that it is collected or recorded without delay. The very work of collecting and recording may encourage its preservation. Copies of the collected data and documentation will be deposited in a collection in Egypt, UK or wherever most appropriate for conservation and use.
Dakhleh Oasis Project
"The Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP) is a long-term regional study of the
interaction between environmental changes and human activity in the closed
area of the Dakhleh Oasis, Western Desert of Egypt, but including the larger
area of the Palaeoasis. The study includes all the time since the first
incursion of man in the Middle Pleistocene, perhaps 400,000 years ago, down
to the 21st century oasis farmers, and all the human activity and all the
changing environmental conditions for which there is evidence within the
time period." - Pharaonic, Ptolemaic-Roman-Christian and Islamic
archaeologists are also participating. This site includes links to the
following pdf-files:
-- "Report of the 2000 season" - 22 pp., pdf-file: 300 KB
-- "Report on the 2000-2001 season" - 35 pp., pdf-file: 200 KB
-- "Report on the 2001-2002 season" - 60 pp., pdf-file: 490 KB
-- "Report on the 2002-2003 season" - 32 pp., pdf-file: 620 KB
-- "Dakleh Oasis Project Bibliography" - 31 pp., pdf-file: 160 KB
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/archaeology/dakhleh/index.html
This is truly an exceptional project. Rgional archaeology at its finest. It examines all aspects of a restricted area over time, from climate to geomorphology to human habitation.