Secret HistoryS


Colosseum

Ancient Roman home with 'unparalleled' mosaic found near Colosseum

Shivali Best
The Daily Mail
Tue, 12 Dec 2023 22:55 UTC
mosaic roman home colosium dicovery
© Italian Ministery of Culture/AFPArchaeologists have uncovered a luxurious Roman home near Rome's Colosseum, boasting an 'unparalleled' mosaic
Archaeologists have uncovered a luxurious Roman home near Rome's Colosseum, boasting an 'unparalleled' mosaic.

The stunning mosaic features shells, marble and precious glass, the culture ministry said.

Three large ships ride waves in the mosaic towards a coastal city, its walls dotted with small towers and porticoes.

This scene suggests the owner of the more than 2,000-year-old home, or domus, had been victorious in battle.

The building, which dates to between the second half of the 2nd century BC and the end of the 1st century BC, is 'an authentic treasure', Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said in a statement.
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Red Flag

Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag

Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
huddle street
© vrtStreet barricade
A massacre of protesters during the 2014 Maidan coup set the stage for the ouster of Ukraine's elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Now, an explosive trial in Kiev has produced evidence the killings were a false flag designed to trigger regime change.

Two police officers charged with the mass shooting of opposition protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square in 2014 have been released after a Ukrainian court determined the fatal shots in the infamous massacre were fired from an opposition-controlled building.

On October 18, 2023, Ukraine's Sviatoshyn District Court determined that of the five officers on trial, one would be acquitted outright, while another was sentenced to time served for alleged "abuse of power."

The remaining three, who no longer live in Ukraine, were convicted in absentia on 31 counts of murder and 44 counts of attempted murder. This, under a Supreme Court opinion stipulating suspects can be held collectively responsible for the actions of a group deemed criminal.

The verdict means no one will face jail time, or be in any way punished for their alleged role in the infamous Maidan massacre, which saw over 100 protesters killed, triggered an avalanche of international condemnation and led directly to the downfall of President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled the country mere days later.
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Calendar

Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the 'worst year to be alive'

Miles Pattenden
The Conversation
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 02:41 UTC
'destruction'
© Wikimedia Commons
It's only February and already 2022 is shaping up badly. A huge volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga, the prospect of war with Russia, the ongoing pandemic (and its economic disruptions). And that's even before we touch on Chinese sabre-rattling over Taiwan or Sex and the City's disastrous reboot.

Welcome to the New Year: as ghastly as the old one.

A history of bad times

I write not to make light of our world's very real problems, but rather to put them into some perspective. 2020, 2021 and perhaps now 2022, have all been bad.

But they have not been worse years than, say, 1347, when the Black Death began its long march across Eurasia. Or 1816, the "year without a summer". Or 1914, when the assassination of an obscure Habsburg archduke precipitated not one but two global conflicts - one of which brought about millions of deaths in the world's most horrific genocide.

There have been plenty of other bad years, and decades, too. In the 1330s, famine set in and ravished Yuan China. In the 1590s a similar famine devastated Europe, and the 1490s saw smallpox and influenza begin to work their way through the indigenous populations of the Americas (reciprocally, syphilis did the same amongst inhabitants of the Old World).

Life has often been "nasty, brutish, and short", as the political philosopher and cynic Thomas Hobbes observed in his Leviathan in 1651. And yet historians, even now, sometimes point to one particular year as worse than the others.
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Star of David

Revealed: A British charity gave over £1m to 'Israel's largest militia'

Rivkah Brown
Novara Media
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
climbers
© HaShomer HaChadash/FacebookHaShomer HaChadash volunteers patrol a hillside carrying Israeli flags, October 2022.
HaShomer HaChadash offers 'weaponised volunteering'.

One of the most prominent Jewish charities in the UK donated more than £1m to a group since described by Israel's newspaper of record Haaretz as "Israel's largest militia".

Accounts for the Jewish National Fund (JNF) show that between 2015 and 2018 it donated over £1m to HaShomer HaChadash (HH). JNF's website says it has been supporting HH since 2011, though evidence of its donations to the organisation ends in 2018.

On its website, the Jewish National Fund (JNF UK) is open about providing "capital and operational" support to HaShomer HaChadash (HH), which it describes as "a grassroots organisation helping farmers and ranchers in the Negev and the Galilee safeguard their land". It is less open about what exactly the organisation does.

The new guards

JNF UK is an arm of the JNF, an international organisation established at the turn of the 20th century to buy up and cultivate land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. The charity describes itself as having "supported the Zionist pioneers since the days of the second aliyah"; the umbrella organisation still owns 13% of Israel's public land.
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Fireball

Influx of migrants to Bavaria in 500AD early medieval period, analysis of teeth reveals


Medievalists
Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:55 UTC
medeival teeth
© M. Harbeck, Staatssammlung für Anthropologie München (SNSB-SAM)Visible malformations in tooth enamel that occur during dental development and are considered identifiable physiological stress markers.
A team of researchers led by Michaela Harbeck and Maren Velte from the Bavarian State Collection for Anthropology in Munich were able to analyze human teeth from various medieval cemeteries in Bavaria, which is now part of eastern Germany. They mainly come from the period around the year 500 AD.


Comment: It's likely that this wave of migration is related to: 536 AD: Plague, famine, drought, cold, and a mysterious fog that lasted 18 months


Teeth are formed during childhood and are characterized by little or no remodeling during lifetime. This developmental quality makes them an ideal "archive of childhood." Strontium isotopes, for example, indicate a person's geographical origin, while analyses of carbon and nitrogen provide information on diet. Serial isotope analysis shows the course of nutrition from birth to around 20 years of age. This method reveals the transition process from breast milk feeding in infancy to the inclusion of solid food during early childhood.

Comment: Regarding the Britons of this period, Laura Knight-Jadczyk in Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls writes:
Until that point in time, the Britons had held control of post-Roman Britain, keeping the Anglo-Saxons isolated and suppressed. After the Romans were gone, the Britons maintained the status quo, living in towns, with elected officials, and carrying on trade with the empire. After AD 536, the year reported as the "death of Arthur", the Britons, the ancient Cymric empire that at one time had stretched from Cornwall in the south to Strathclyde in the north, all but disappeared, and were replaced by Anglo-Saxons. There is much debate among scholars as to whether the Anglo-Saxons killed all of the Britons, or assimilated them. Here we must consider that they were victims of possibly many overhead cometary explosions which wiped out most of the population of Europe, plunging it into the Dark Ages which were, apparently, really DARK, atmospherically speaking.
Also, as noted on SOTT radio's Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar! numerous disasters were documented across the planet:
540: Cometary bombardment (according to the Chinese historical record); Gildas reports cometary bombardment up in the northern regions of the U.K.; there was a collapse of the great dam of Mareb in Yemen, the country of Sheba...so that was an interesting year, 540...

541: The plague began in Egypt; there was a comet in Gaul; earthquake occurred in Kyzicus...there was a comet, there was drought, earthquake, earthquake, blah-blah-blah...so I'm getting this from all these different chroniclers...

542, the sun appeared at noon day...plague began in the east...

543: Plague in Mesopotamia...

544: Plague in Italy, southern France, Spain...

545: Plague in Persia; famine; plague (Mesopotamia 546)...

547: Tremendous thunder and lightning...

549: Flood in Cilicia; plague in the British territories (according to the Bishop of Llandaff)...

551: Another Beirut earthquake and tsunami; earthquake over the Middle East; "the sea retreats" (John Malalus)...

553: Earthquake, terrible thunder, and lightning (from Chronicle of Theophanes)...

554: Earthquake in Constantinople; the destruction of Baalbek (now that's interesting...wait till you read the next book and hear about Baalbek--that's very, very interesting)...

555: There's another earthquake in Constantinople and plague...

556: Famine [in] Constantinople, plague, ashes fell from the sky...
and that's just a snippet. Check out the show for all the gory details.

See also: Who were the Picts?

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Info

Oldest fortresses in the world discovered in Siberia


Freie Universität Berlin
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 04:15 UTC
Archaeologists from Freie Universität Berlin together with an international team confirm ancient prehistoric fortifications in Siberia. Research results published in the scientific journal Antiquity.

Fortified settlement
© Nikita GolovanovThe fortified settlement sits atop a section of land overlooking the bountiful Amnya River.
In a groundbreaking archaeological discovery, an international team led by archaeologists from Freie Universität Berlin has uncovered fortified prehistoric settlements in a remote region of Siberia. The results of their research reveal that hunter-gatherers in Siberia constructed complex defense structures around their settlements already 8000 years ago.

This finding reshapes our understanding of early human societies, challenging the idea that only with the advent of agriculture would people have started to build permanent settlements with monumental architecture and have developed complex social structures. The study, "The World's Oldest-Known Promontory Fort: Amnya and the Acceleration of Hunter-Gatherer Diversity in Siberia 8000 Years Ago," was published in the journal Antiquity at the beginning of December.

The article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.164.
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Info

5700-year-old monumental Dolmen of Menga reveals it as one of the greatest feats of Neolithic engineering

oguz kayra
Arkeonews Net
Thu, 07 Dec 2023 02:50 UTC
Dolmen of Menga
© Spain.infoDolmen of Menga
A new investigation tracing the source of the gigantic stones that make up the Menga dolmen in southern Spain reveals that it is one of the greatest achievements of Late Neolithic engineering.

In their study, published in Scientific Reports, the group used new technology to learn more about the stone that was used to create the ancient burial site and to explore how wood and rope would have been used in its construction.

Located near Antequera in Malaga (Andalucia, Spain), Menga is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site consisting of three dolmens constructed between 3800 - 3600 BC. It is one of the largest megalithic structures in Europe and was built on the top of a hill with giant rocks. It is renowned for its enormous orthostats or vertical stones, one of which weighs nearly 150 tons.

For many years, researchers have been haunted by the question of how the ancients, who possessed primitive tools, were able to process and move such large building blocks. A new study was designed to find the answer.
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Footprints

Sergey Poletaev: How incompetent leaders put Ukraine on the road to disaster

Sergey Poletaev
RT
Thu, 30 Nov 2023 18:28 UTC
scenes
Montage Ukraine
Out of all the possible options, officials in Kiev seem to always opt for the worst...

Last week, the West celebrated the tenth anniversary of what was known as "Euromaidan." On November 21, 2013, then-President Viktor Yanukovich announced that Ukraine was suspending preparations for signing an EU Association Agreement, and journalist and activist Mustafa Nayyem called on people to go to the Maidan Square in Kiev to protest the decision.

He promised them tea and a good time.

At the start, few took the events seriously - Ukrainians were used to seeing tents on Kiev's main square since the 2004 Orange Revolution, as the political circus often moved beyond the walls of the Verkhovna Rada (the national parliament) and ended in fights.

The opposition had gathered crowds of protesters when Yanukovich extended the Black Sea Fleet Agreement with Moscow, after the cancelation of former President Viktor Yushchenko's constitutional reform, following the arrest of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and a dozen other less important events. This time, it seemed like things would be the same - the protesters would make some noise, then it would get cold out on the street and they would go home. Moreover, compared to the mass protests of former years, there were not that many people around.
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Info

Possible 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery discovered near the Arctic Circle

Leman Altuntaş
Arkeonews Net
Sun, 03 Dec 2023 22:16 UTC
pit features at Tainiaro
© Photographs by Tuija Laurén (A–C, E–F) and Aki Arponen (D) (Finnish Heritage Agency)Examples of pit features at Tainiaro (1984–1990): Features 1 (A), 9 (B), 15 (C), 10 (D) (class 6), 34 (E) (class 3) with a modern intrusion covering lower left corner, and 43 (F) (class 3) with a possible posthole on the right.
Archaeologists have found a mysterious prehistoric site believed to be a 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery just 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle.

The prehistoric site is known as Tainiaro, located about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Finnish region of Lapland. Although the hypothesis that the Tainiaro site is a Stone Age cemetery remains unproven, if confirmed, it could drastically alter ideas about the history of Northern Europe. Furthermore, the proof would make Tainiaro the northernmost Stone Age graveyard in the world.

Back in 1959, local workers came across stone tools in Simo, which is situated near the Baltic Sea's northern edge, just 80 kilometers to the south of the Arctic Circle. The site, named Tainiaro, underwent partial excavations in the 80s. This led to the revelation of thousands of artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, and animal bones.

The archaeologists were also able to notice 127 possible pits of different sizes that could have been sediment-filled. Some had burning evidence, while others had red ochre traces. Red ochre is a natural iron pigment that is crucial to several burials of the Stone Age. However, without skeletal evidence, which quickly decayed in the acidic soil of this region, the Taniaro's identification as a cemetery was never confirmed.

The team of archaeologists working on the site has published its findings and theories in the Cambridge University Press archaeological journal Antiquity in the paper entitled "A large fifth-millennium BC cemetery in the subarctic north of the Baltic Sea."
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Better Earth

DNA analysis of 9,000-year-old shaman burial in Germany shows she had dark hair & blue eyes

Oliver Dietrich, Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte
Phys.org
Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:17 UTC
Bad Dürrenberg shaman
© Juraj Lipták, State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-AnhaltThe Bad Dürrenberg shaman in the State Museum of Prehistory Halle (Saale).
The double burial of an adult woman and an infant, dating to about 7000-6800 BCE, discovered in 1934 during construction works at the spa gardens of Bad Dürrenberg, is regarded as one of the outstanding burial finds of the Mesolithic in Central Europe. Because of the unusual equipment with the woman, who was buried in a seated position, and her bodily anomalies, the burial is interpreted as that of a shaman.

Genetic research now reveals the relation of the woman and the child: the boy is not her son, but is a fourth- or fifth-degree relation. The phenotypic variants analyzed in the woman's genome inform us that she had a relatively dark skin complexion, dark, straight hair, and blue eyes.

Comment: See also:

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