Secret HistoryS


Archaeology

Bronze Age remains may tell of world's oldest-known political assassination

Meilan Solly
Smithsonian.com
Wed, 26 Dec 2018 17:49 UTC
skeleon murdered prince
© dpaForensic physician Frank Ramsthaler demonstrates the stab which inflicted mortal injuries to remains now proven to be the Prince of Helmsdorf.
The prince of Helmsdorf's skeleton revealed three brutal injuries, including one that suggests he knew his killer and attempted to fend off the attack

Nearly 4 millennia ago, an experienced warrior thrust a dagger through the stomach of the so-called "prince of Helmsdorf." The weapon, measuring some 6 inches long, traveled through to the victim's spine with such ferocity that it severed multiple arteries. A second blow dealt to the prince's collarbone split his left shoulder blade and likely punctured his lung, ensuring he suffered a bloody, brutal demise.

As Deutsche Welle reports, a group of archaeologists and forensic researchers based in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt presented their detailed portrait of the prince's last moments earlier this month. The team's findings suggest the attack may be the world's oldest-known political murder.
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Info

A stalagmite may have solved the mystery of the Akkadian Empire's fall


IFL Science
Sat, 29 Dec 2018 04:36 UTC
Stalagmites
© Fredy Thuerig/ShutterstockStalagmites are upward-growing mounds of mineral deposits that have built up due to water dripping onto the floor of a cave, and they reveal quite the history of a land.
Around 4,200 years ago Mesopotamia's first empire, the Akkadian fell, coinciding with major transformations in Egypt and the Indus Valley, the two other great civilizations of the time. A study of stalagmites in Iran suggests a widespread climatic event may have been responsible for all three.

Civilizations rise and fall for many reasons, and the causes of the Akkadian Empire's demise remain controversial. The coincidence of timing with far away events has led some historians to propose a climatic cause. The nature, and even existence, of this event has been unclear, however, coming as it did in the middle of the Holocene era of largely stable temperatures, with no known upsurge in volcanic activity or change in solar output.

However, when a team led by The University of Oxford's Dr Stacy Carolin studied a stalagmite from Gol-e-Zard Cave in Iran's Alborz Mountains formed between 5,200 and 3,700 years ago they saw something certainly happened around the relevant time. The team report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences there were sharp spikes in the amount of magnesium relative to calcium 4,510 and 4,260 years ago, coinciding with slower growth and changes in the stone's oxygen isotopes. These changes lasted 110 and 290 years, respectively before the stalagmite composition returned to previous levels.
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Crusader

Dig at Danish Viking capital yields 'sensational find' - Christian amulets pre-dating Harold Bluetooth's conversion


Sputnik
Thu, 20 Sep 2018 18:17 UTC
lead christian amulet denmarke
© Northern Emporium ProjectThree leaden pendants featuring Christian crosses dating from the early 800s have been unearthed from an excavation site in Ribe, a former Viking capital,
Amulets with Christian symbolism have been found in the oldest extant town in Denmark; they may shed new light on the Christian roots of Scandinavian society.

Three leaden pendants featuring Christian crosses dating from the early 800s have been unearthed from an excavation site in Ribe, a former Viking capital, suggesting that the first Christians had established themselves in Danish society several generations earlier than previously assumed, Danish Radio reported.

"This is new knowledge of early Christianity in Denmark. We are used to crediting Harald Bluetooth with christening the Danes in around the year 960. But this shows that people in Ribe wore Christian amulets more than 150 years before this actually happened, Søren Sindbæk, a professor at Aarhus University, said, calling it "sensational."
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Magnify

Stone carvings hidden for 600 years discovered on tomb in Scottish cathedral

Josh Gabbatiss
The Independent
Thu, 27 Dec 2018 12:00 UTC
Bishop Cardeny
© PARoutine analysis of Bishop Cardeny's tomb revealed images of saint-like figures
Stone carvings that have remained hidden for 600 years have been discovered on the tomb of a medieval bishop in Scotland.

Depictions of saint-like figures were revealed on the side facing a wall while conservationists carried out a routine inspection.

The tomb, located in Dunkeld Cathedral in Perthshire belongs to the 15th century Scottish cleric Bishop Cardeny.

The unearthing of the stone carvings has shed new light on the history of the site, revealing the tomb has at some point been moved and built into the wall from its original free-standing location.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

And yet another murder that wasn't: The Perepilichny case, the anti-Russia campaign and Bill Browder

Clara Weiss
World Socialist Web Site
Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Alexsander Perepilichny
© BBC.comAlexander Perepilichny
The past few days have seen the unravelling of one of the many alleged "murders" that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of by the media and the intelligence agencies: after an investigation into the November 2012 death of the multi-millionaire Alexander Perepilichny, the coroner found that he "more likely than not" died of natural causes.

This conclusion comes after years in which the media have treated his death as a "killing" and "murder," ascribed to the Kremlin and even Putin himself, without any kind of factual substantiation.

As recently as August 8, 2018, the New York Times cited his death as one of several for whom Putin was probably responsible, falsely writing that "the police were left scratching their heads over the body... It was not until 2015 that a botanist was able to identify the presumptive cause of Perepilichny's death: His stomach held traces of gelsemium, a rare, poisonous plant grown in the Himalayas and known to have been used in Chinese assassinations."
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Snakes in Suits

Barack Obama, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 25 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Obama
© APFormer US President Barack Obama
There is a great uproar over the recent decision by US President Trump to pull US troops out of Syria, announcing his reason for doing so is that ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, has largely been defeated. What lies behind the decision and more important, what was behind the surprise emergence of ISIS across Syria in 2014 brings the spotlight to yet-classified documents of the Obama term. If the reorganized Justice Department is compelled to make these documents public in lawsuits or Freedom of Information requests, it could rock organizations such as the CIA and many in the Obama camp.

In 2010 the US Administration under President Barack Obama developed a top secret blueprint for the most ambitious and far-ranging series of US-backed regime change across the Islamic Middle East since World War I and the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot agreement. It was to set off a wave of wars and chaos, of failed states and floods of war refugees unimaginable to the most cynical veteran diplomat, and beyond the belief of most lay persons in the world.

In August, 2010, six months before Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution was launched by the Washington NGOs including the NED, the Soros Foundations, Freedom House and others, President Obama signed Presidential Study Directive-11 (PDS-11), ordering Washington government agencies to prepare for "change." The change was to be a radical policy calling for Washington's backing for the secret fundamentalist Islamic Muslim Brotherhood sect across the Middle East Muslim world, and with it, the unleashing of a reign of terror that would change the entire world.
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Colosseum

Pompeii was a full-fledged city before it was taken over by the Romans

ANSA
Archaeology News Network
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 20:00 UTC
amphitheatre pompeii
© ANSA
Pompeii may have had a theatre already at the time of the arrival of the Samnites in the fourth century BC, Superintendent Massimo Osanna said Thursday after the discovery of a concave area next to the second-century BC theatre that was preserved by the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. The new digs at the famed archaeological site have "raised this hypothesis", he said.

There are archaeological remains in Pompeii for Greeks, Etruscans, Samnites, and an unnamed indigenous Italic population in addition to the Romans. The foundation of the city, and the exact phases of each cultural group, are a bit murky but are believed to date back to the sixth century BC.


Comment: Enigmas of 3000 to 300 BC


It is however clear from the archaeological record in Pompeii and in other towns of southern Italy that sometime in the fourth century BC the people of Samnium moved down from the mountains and into some of the more urban areas. Just in Campania, there is evidence of Samnite populations in Capua and Nola in addition to Pompeii.

Comment: Interestingly, poisonous vapours, as those associated with the Semnite goddess and the possible founders of Pompeii, were often linked to comets and the accompanying disasters. As Laura Knight-Jadczyk writes in New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection:
Along with the science, Baillie cites contemporary evidence - some of this evidence has been relegated to "myth" - from around the globe that indicate that the earth was, indeed, subjected to bombardment from space during the 14th century and that this may very well have been not only the cause of the 25 January 1348 earthquake, but also the cause of the Black Death. Baillie quotes a great selection of material from contemporary accounts including the work of Ziegler cited above:

[...]

From Samuel Cohn's book:
... a dragon at Jerusalem like that of Saint George that devoured all that crossed its path .... A city of 40,000 ... totally demolished by the fall from heaven of a great quantity of worms, big as a fist with eight legs, which killed all by their stench and poisonous vapours. (Cohn)
See also:

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2 + 2 = 4

Mysterious Folkton drums of Stonehenge may have been Stone Age measuring devices

Victoria Bell
Daily Mail
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 16:56 UTC
Folkton drums
Archaeologists are now suggesting that the 4,000-year-old cylinders, found in a child's grave in 1889 were actually a tape measure used during the Stone age.
Ancient cylinders which have baffled experts for more than a hundred years since they were discovered were used for measuring, archaeologists have claimed.

The unique 4,000-year-old Folkton drums date from the Neolithic period and were found in a child's grave in 1889.

Since their discovery, the pots - which are covered in intricate carvings - have been studied by generations of experts who struggled to find what they were used for.

Now researchers claim that were used as a 'standard measurement' to plan out the stone circles built by our Stone Age ancestors around 5,000 years ago.

Comment: 5000-year-old stone balls continue to baffle archaeologists

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USA

The razing of Panama, commemorating another 'heroic' American victory

Atilio Boron
Greanville Post
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
panamaattack
© UnknownThe George H.W. Bush invasion of Panama
On a day like today, but in 1989, the recently deceased war criminal George H. W. Bush ordered his troops to attack Panama City and arrest President Manuel Noriega and take him prisoner to the US.

The seismograph of the university of Panama recorded 417 bomb impacts in the first 14 hours of the invasion. Of that total, 66 bombs fell in the first 4 minutes. The South command recognized 314 Panamanian military fallen in combat, compared to 23 Americans. He didn't recognize civilian dead. But the Panamanian committee on human rights recognized in 1990 to have a list of 556 dead, including 93 missing. Former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark, assured the dead numbered several thousand".

It was 42 days of unequal combat, between the most powerful army in the world and an infinitely weaker military force and an unarmed people, or armed only with machetes. In tribute to that heroic defense of the Panamanians I share the note of who at that time was a girl and now tells us her experiences and what happened during the invasion. I lived in the invasion of the United States to Panama. First I want to clarify that all Panamanians who were born before December 20, 1989 we are survivors of a war.
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Dig

Study details immense timber henge at Newgrange, Ireland, discovered during summer drought

Ronan McGreevy
Irish Times
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 10:23 UTC
henge ireland newgrange
The Geometric Henge: Discovered by Anthony Murphy and Ken Williams in July
The full scale of archaeological discoveries at Newgrange revealed by the summer drought has been described as "staggering".

A series of "immense" timber palisade (wooden fences) walls measuring nearly a kilometre in length enclosed a vast ceremonial area which was used for mortuary rituals.

Large ceremonial henges and enclosures of timber uprights indicate that the the Newgrange site was used for ceremonial purposes several centuries after the construction of the world-famous passage tomb and mounds.

Archaeologists now believe that the Newgrange site was "sanctified" by the original passage tomb which made the site a place of pilgrimage for the generations that came afterwards.

Comment: If the following recent study is correct, then these areas may have been much more than sites for 'ritual': Prehistoric cave art study reveals ancient people had complex knowledge of astronomy and were tracking catastrophic meteor showers

And, curiously, the discoveries in Ireland weren't the only to take place during the heatwave in Europe this summer: See also:

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