Secret HistoryS


Cross

Oldest Christian papyrus dated to 230AD reveals valuable insights into early Christianity

University of Basel
Phys.org
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:01 UTC
P.Bas. 2.43
© University of BaselThe papyrus P.Bas. 2.43 has been in the possession of the University of Basel for over 100 years.
A letter in the Basel papyrus collection describes day-to-day family matters, and yet is unique in its own way: It provides valuable insights into the world of the first Christians in the Roman Empire, which is not recorded in any other historical source. The letter has been dated to the 230s AD, and is thus older than all previously known Christian documentary evidence from Roman Egypt.

The earliest Christians in the Roman Empire are usually portrayed as eccentrics who withdrew from the world and were threatened with persecution. This is countered by the contents of the Basel papyrus letter P.Bas. 2.43. The letter contains indications that in the early third century, Christians were living outside the cities in the Egyptian hinterland, where they held political leadership positions and blended with their pagan environment in their everyday lives.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Bacon

Stonehenge and the buckets of lard

Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito
Newcastle University
Mon, 15 Jul 2019 12:00 UTC
stonehenge
Pig fat could have been used to grease the sledges used to transport the massive stones of Stonehenge into position, new analysis by archaeologists at Newcastle University has suggested.

Absorbed fat residues

Fat residues on shards of pottery found at Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge, have long been assumed to be connected with feeding the many hundreds of people that came from across Britain to help construct the ancient monument.

But, new analysis by archaeologists at Newcastle University, UK, suggests that because the fragments came from dishes that would have been the size and shape of buckets, not cooking or serving dishes, they could have been used for the collection and storage of tallow - a form of animal fat.

Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Archaeology, Newcastle University, said: "I was interested in the exceptional level of preservation and high quantities of lipids - or fatty residues - we recovered from the pottery. I wanted to know more about why we see these high quantities of pig fat in pottery, when the animal bones that have been excavated at the site show that many of the pigs were 'spit roasted' rather than chopped up as you would expect if they were being cooked in the pots."

Comment: As noted, there are still a great many questions surrounding the construction, the complete layout, and the true purpose of Stonehenge.

See also:

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Dig

Vast, developed 9,000-year-old settlement found near Jerusalem

Amanda Borschel-Dan
Times of Israel
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 13:07 UTC
Motza
© Eyal Marco, Antiquities AuthorityThe huge settlement from the Neolithic Period that was discovered in the archaeological excavations at the Motza intersection near Jerusalem by the Antiquities Authority.
An unprecedentedly vast Neolithic settlement — the largest ever discovered in Israel and the Levant, say archaeologists — is currently being excavated ahead of highway construction five kilometers from Jerusalem, it was announced on Tuesday.

The 9,000-year-old site, located near the town of Motza, is the "Big Bang" for prehistory settlement research due to its size and the preservation of its material culture, said Jacob Vardi, co-director of the excavations at Motza on behalf of the Antiquities Authority,

"It's a game changer, a site that will drastically shift what we know about the Neolithic era," said Vardi. Already some international scholars are beginning to realize the existence of the site may necessitate revisions to their work, he said.

Comment: See also:

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Blue Planet

Secret stash of Puerto Rican figurines could be a remnant of unknown civilisation


Sputnik
Tue, 16 Jul 2019 13:32 UTC
puerto rico figurines
© HAIFA UNIVERSITY
The statuettes are nothing like any stone art objects previously found in the Caribbean region, and the inscriptions on them do not bear resemblance to known writing systems.

Archaeologists have come one step closer towards resolving the mystery of a trove of Puerto Rican figurines that could put scientists on the trail of a previously-unknown civilisation.

The artefacts were discovered by a Puerto Rican priest named José María Nazario in the late 1870s. He claimed to have learned about them from a dying local woman, who said her family had been guarding the stash in a mountain tunnel for centuries.

Comment: See also:

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Dig

Ancient Rome revealed in stunning detail by 'most accurate model ever' that took historian 35 years to build

Charlotte Edwards
The Sun
Mon, 15 Jul 2019 10:32 UTC
rome model
© http://www.museociviltaromana.itThe model took over three decades to make
ROME was not built in a day and the 'most accurate' model of Ancient Rome is testament to this as it took archaeologist Italo Gismondi 35 years to build.

The Plastico di Roma imperiale (model of imperial Rome) was actually commissioned by Mussolini in 1933 and is so realistic that a few shots of it were used in the film Gladiator.

The model can be viewed today in the Museum of Roman Civilisation in Rome, Italy.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Sherlock

Wikileaks revelations: Prosecution's summary file from the Dutroux case - Child murder mafia and human-trafficking at the heart of Europe

Elizabeth Vos
Consortium News
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
dutroux white march
A million Belgians take to the streets of Brussels in 1996 in a silent 'white march'...
Elizabeth Vos reviews the infamous legal case of Marc Dutroux and why it engendered public distrust in the institutions of government.

This is the fourth article in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring WikiLeaks' work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is WikiLeaks' uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange and which ultimately led to his arrest on April 11.

In this article by Consortium News contributor Elizabeth Vos, originally published by her in 2017 on Disobedient Media, Vos looked at how WikiLeaks helped uncover evidence that showed Belgian case was part of a politically-protected child sex trafficking network. The Belgian case takes on added relevance in the wake of the arrest of financier Jeffery Epstein for alleged sex trafficking of children with allegations of Epstein's connections to powerful intelligence agencies.
The case of notorious homicidal paedophile Marc Dutroux, now serving a life sentence in Belgium, is infamous for the deep depravity of the crimes that were committed and witnessed. Evidence emerged twice in the case, first in legal proceedings, secondly by the publication of many of the prosecution's records by WikiLeaks in 2009.

The case was marked by the extreme suppression of evidence in what many have called a cover-up perpetrated by the Belgian establishment. The episode is a definitive example of the exposure of deep judicial and political corruption leading to widespread public distrust in the legitimacy of their institutions of government. This sentiment has been echoed most recently in the U.S., where the primary rigging in 2016 by the Democratic National Committee left many feeling that the rule of law has come to mean little in the face of an utterly corrupt establishment that has become unaccountable to the public.

Comment: Michel Nihoul got just 5 years in prison. He was released after 1 year and is currently happily retired in a Belgian seaside town.

Michelle Martin is also out of prison, living free.

No other perpetrator was ever prosecuted.

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Archaeology

Island's drill cores unravel mysteries of ancient Maltese civilisation

Aslin Irwin
Horizon
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 15:40 UTC
temple malta
© Bs0u10e01, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0The Ġgantija temples of Malta are among the earliest free-standing buildings known
The mysteries of an ancient civilisation that survived for more than a millennium on the island of Malta — and then collapsed within two generations — have been unravelled by archaeologists who analysed pollen buried deep within the earth and ancient DNA from skulls and bones.

It's part of a field of work that is expanding the use of archaeological techniques into environments where they were previously thought to be unusable.

The Temple Culture of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean began nearly 6,000 years ago and at its height probably numbered several thousand people — far denser than the people of mainland Europe could manage at the time. The island people constructed elaborate sacred sites, such as the famous Ġgantija temple complex, and their buildings are among the earliest free-standing buildings known. But, after 1,500 years, they were gone.

Comment: For more on what was possibly going on at that time, check out:

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Control Panel

Best of the Web: The Secret Origins of Silicon Valley: What The Big Tech Companies Do Not Want You to Know

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
The Secrets of Silicon Valley
Once a sleepy farming region, Silicon Valley is now the hub of a global industry that is transforming the economy, shaping our political discourse, and changing the very nature of our society. So what happened? How did this remarkable change take place? Why is this area the epicenter of this transformation? Discover the dark secrets behind the real history of Silicon Valley and the Big Tech giants in this important edition of The Corbett Report.

For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.

For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).

Watch this video on BitChute / DTube / YouTube or Download the mp4

Comment: As an addendum to this piece, Corbett adds this very interesting tidbit about William Shockley, one of the two creators of Silicon Valley:



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Star of David

Israeli miscalculations and hubris led to the rise of Hamas

Andrew Higgins
The Wall Street Journal
Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:20 UTC
hamas parade
© Reuters / Mohammed SalemAmilitary parade marking the 27th anniversary of Hamas' founding, in Gaza City December 14, 2014.
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.
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Fish

Prehistory Decoded - An ancient fish tale

Dr. Martin Sweatman
Prehistory Decoded
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 23:59 UTC
Ancient Fish Symbol
© Prehistory Decoded
Of course, we are familiar with the fish symbol representing Pisces. But at Gobekli Tepe, and later throughout the Near East, Pisces is represented by the tall bending bird - which probably eventually became the Egyptian god Thoth. So when and where did the switch for Pisces from tall bending bird to fish happen?

The earliest potential Pisces-fish symbol might be the carved salmon in the L'Abri du Poisson cave, France (BTW, Don's maps is a simply brilliant resource for Palaeolithic art - how he found the time to visit all these sites, I'll never know). Unfortunately, this fish carving can't be radiocarbon dated, so we can't know whether it corresponds to Pisces or not. But given that we have proven that animal symbols in Palaeolithic art do generally represent constellations, and given the undoubted effort and expertise that has gone into this particular one, it appears to be a good candidate.

We also saw fish carved onto some Mesopotamian seal stamps from around 3200 BC, and wondered if they too represented Pisces (see an earlier post on the origin of writing). If they do, they must be older than thought, because Pisces is the winter solstice only until 3600 BC. From around 3600 to 3400 the winter solstice transitions from Pisces to Aquarius, typically represented by the stag or ibex (see an earlier post 'stag vs ibex').

I recently briefly visited the British Museum in London - Wow! The place is full of stuff we have plundered from around the world. A treasure trove of past misdemeanors, with so many animal symbols. It's tricky to work out which cultures actually knew about our ancient zodiac, and which ones didn't. Not all animal representations are zodiacal - some simply represent animals, as you might expect. Nevertheless, the further back in time we go, the more consistently we observe agreement with our ancient zodiac. It seems the advent of writing, which allowed a more accurate representation of dates, spelled the beginning of the end for our zodiacal system.
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