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Lost city discovered in South Africa

Kweneng
© Karim SadrThe vast area where the lost city, known as Kweneng, once stood.
Billions of laser scans have revealed a lost city that was once a bustling epicenter in what is now South Africa's Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, new research finds.

The newly discovered city, called Kweneng, was once a thriving capital that existed from the 1400s until it was destroyed and abandoned, likely because of civil wars, in the 1820s, said Karim Sadr, a professor of archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa.

However, it's not clear if this conflict immediately sounded the city's death knell. That's because some of the remaining structures date to between 1825 and 1875, "in what we call the terminal phase" of Kweneng, Sadr told Live Science.

Researchers have known about Kweneng since at least the 1960s, but they didn't realize its actual size until now, Sadr said. Revil Mason, the retired director of archaeological research at Witwatersrand University, discovered pre-colonial structures there during an aerial survey in 1968.

"He spotted a number of ruins, but far fewer than are actually present," Sadr said. The city is hidden under a thick layer of vegetation, Sadr said. But in 2012, Sadr analyzed satellite images from Google Earth, and found that Kweneng had twice as many structures as previously realized. And now, with the new aerial survey using lidar - or light detection and ranging - Sadr and his colleagues discovered that "there were actually three times as many structures as Mason had initially identified," Sadr said.

Dig

Archaeologists puzzle over mystery woman in early Christian cemetery

skeleton buried
© Photograph by Arne Hodalič and Katja BidovecMore than 300 burials have been discovered beneath Gosposvetska Street, providing scientists with the opportunity to better understand how the residents of Roman Emona lived and died.
Excavations beneath Gosposvetska Street in downtown Ljubljana revealed remains of the Roman settlement of Emona, which would eventually become the modern capital of Slovenia.

When a large construction project was launched on Gosposvetska Street in downtown Ljubljana in August 2017, Slovenian archaeologists in this ancient city naturally anticipated some interesting discoveries. But what they didn't expect to find was an unusual glimpse into an early Christian community, and the important-and as yet unknown-woman its members chose to spend their afterlives close to.

The capital of this small central European country was established as the Roman settlement of Emona some 2,000 years ago, populated by thousands of colonists driven out of northern Italy by land shortages, and joined by veterans of the wars that helped to establish the Empire. From previous excavations in the area, the archaeologists knew that part of a Roman cemetery likely lay under Gosposvetska Street, and that more ancient graves would be uncovered.

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Snakes in Suits

Denmark's government muddled the waters over Iraq invasion to fulfill US wishes

Anders Fogh Rasmussen
© AP/Virginia MayoAnders Fogh Rasmussen
Prior to Copenhagen's controversial decision to enter the Iraq War, important data was withheld from the Danish parliament, a comprehensive report, which took several years to compile, has found. Furthermore, information about Iraq's alleged WMDs, which were never found despite various intelligence reports, was distorted.

Denmark's liberal-conservative government led by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who later became NATO's secretary general, failed to pass on important information to the foreign policy committee ahead of Denmark's controversial US-led engagement in Iraq in 2003, a several hundred page-long report, compiled by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, has stated.

These willful omissions gave parliament an "incomplete picture" of the situation, the report found. Denmark's contribution to military operations abroad generally reflects the decision-makers' desire to accommodate the US wishes, the historic report also stated.

Firstly, the Fogh government failed to inform parliament of the very purpose of invading Iraq. The government knew in advance that the US' goal war was to railroad a regime change and overthrow Saddam Hussein. By contrast, then-Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller repeatedly stressed that the alleged goal was to disarm Baghdad's apparent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) infrastructure, the researchers stressed.

Archaeology

Tomb of Persian king Darius yields new trilingual inscription: Persian, Elamite and Babylonian

darius new inscription
© IRNAKing Darius of Persia
Two Iranian researchers, M. Doorodi from Shiraz and S. Delshad from Berlin, have announced that a hitherto undocumented trilingual inscription has been discovered on the hillside around the tomb of Darius in Naqshe-Rustam.

The discovery of the inscription, which had remained hidden under dirt deposits and lichen for over two millennia, is of great importance in the field of ancient Iranian studies and ancient linguistics, said French archaeologist Wouter F. M. Henkelman.

Comment: Iran: Civilization's Ancient Trailblazer ‎


Info

Mysterious stone structures discovered in Western Sahara

Stone Structures
© Nick Brooks and Joanne ClarkeThe structures come in various shapes and sizes, including one that curves off into the horizon (shown here).
Hundreds of stone structures dating back thousands of years have been discovered in the Western Sahara, a territory in Africa little explored by archaeologists.

The structures seem to come in all sizes and shapes, and archaeologists aren't sure what many of then were used for or when they were created, archaeologists report in the book The Archaeology of Western Sahara: A Synthesis of Fieldwork, 2002 to 2009 (Oxbow Books, 2018).

About 75 percent of the Western Saharan territory, including most of the coastline, is controlled by Morocco, while 25 percent is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Before 1991, the two governments were in a state of war. [See Photos of the Stone Structures in Western Sahara]

Between 2002 and 2009, archaeologists worked in the field surveying the landscape and doing a small amount of excavation in the part of Western Sahara that is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. They also investigated satellite images on Google Earth, they wrote in the book.

"Due to its history of conflict, detailed archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research in Western Sahara has been extremely limited," wrote Joanne Clarke, a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia, and Nick Brooks, an independent researcher.

"The archaeological map of Western Sahara remains literally and figuratively almost blank as far as the wider international archaeological research community is concerned, particularly away from the Atlantic coast," wrote Clarke and Brooks, noting that people living in the area know of the stone structures, and some work has been done by Spanish researchers on rock art in Western Sahara.

Binoculars

How Vladimir Putin's favorite remote resort joined Russia... twice!

Putin
© Aleksey Nikolskyi/SputnikVladimir Putin really enjoys his Tuvan vacation - otherwise, why would he go there for two years in a row?
You might have never heard about the Republic of Tuva, but the history of this remote region is really peculiar.

The words "Tuva Republic" don't ring a bell even for many Russians, especially those living in the European part of the country. This region, which is one of Russia's 85 federal subjects, is very remote: 4,600 km east of Moscow, in Southern Siberia, bordering Mongolia.

Even planes from Moscow don't fly directly there, and the region even doesn't have railroads. To get to Tuva's capital of Kyzyl, you have to fly to the Siberian city of Abakan and take a 7.5-hour bus trip. What for, one might wonder...

Tuva, however, is far more interesting than it seems. First, this is the land of shamans, where the once nomadic Tuvans now living in small villages still preserve the mystical art of communication with other worlds (or so they say). Second, Tuva's rugged nature is so spectacular that Vladimir Putin himself enjoys it: in August 2018, he was hiking in the wild for a weekend. A year before, he spent his whole vacation in Tuva, fishing and rafting with the Minister of Defense, Sergey Shoygu, who's an ethnic Tuvan.

Archaeology

Archaeologists discovers 40 mummies in ancient chambers in Minya, Egypt

Mummies
© AP Photo/Roger AnisAn archeologist looks at mummies discovered in the desert province of Minya, south of Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. On Saturday Egypt announced that it found a number of ancient burial chambers cut in rock, carrying about 40 mummies that are in good shape, along with pottery, papyri and exquisite mummy cases. Officials told reporters at the site that the chambers, which were cut out of rock, belonged to a middle-class family that probably lived during the Ptolemaic, early Roman or Byzantine period.
Egypt says it has discovered a number of ancient burial chambers containing some 40 mummies in the desert province of Minya, south of Cairo.

Officials told reporters on Saturday at the site that the chambers, which were cut out of rock, belonged to a middle-class family who probably lived during the Ptolemaic, early Roman or Byzantine period.

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Handwritten parchments about King Arthur, Merlin and the Holy Grail discovered in university library

Ancient Parchment
© University of BristolA close-up of one of the fragments that mentions Merlin.
The librarian hadn't fallen under a magical spell, but he still felt enchanted when he unexpectedly discovered seven handwritten parchments detailing the legendary adventures of Merlin and King Arthur. For years, the documents had lain hidden at the University of Bristol in England.

The parchments were discovered in a book dating to the 16th century, Michael Richardson, the Bristol special collections librarian, said in a statement. He happened across the parchments while seeking materials for students who needed historical documents from medieval times.

Specifically, the parchments were found bound inside a four-volume edition of the writings of French scholar and reformer Jean Gerson (1363-1429). When Richardson recognized several Arthurian names, he contacted his colleagues to help decipher the text.

The team hopes to learn how the fragments came to be bound in the Gerson volumes. They also plan to fully translate the text from Old French to modern English in a new publication, which will explain the writing's history.

Archaeology

Kweneng: 200-year-old lost city discovered under South African foliage

Lost city
© Reuters / Wits University
Archeologists have discovered a lost 200-year-old city on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, that was once home to more than 10,000 people.

The metropolis, called Kweneng, was previously thought to be a scattering of ancient stone huts, but three decades of intricate research have finally revealed it to have been a city of 800 homesteads.

Comment: See also: Laser technology shines light on South African lost city of Kweneng


Bad Guys

The complete guide to the NY Times' support for US-backed coups in Latin America

nyt new york times
On Friday, The New York Times continued its long, predictable tradition of backing U.S. coups in Latin America by publishing an editorial praising Donald Trump's attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This will be the 10th such coup the paper has backed since the creation of the CIA over 70 years ago.

A survey of The New York Times archives shows the Times editorial board has supported 10 out of 12 American-backed coups in Latin America, with two editorials-those involving the 1983 Grenada invasion and the 2009 Honduras coup-ranging from ambiguous to reluctant opposition. The survey can be viewed here.