Secret HistoryS

Fish

Factory for Romans' favorite funky fish sauce discovered near Ashkelon

Amanda Borschel-Dan
Times of Israel
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 17:39 UTC
Byzantine
© Asaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities AuthorityByzantine-era winepresses at the Ashkelon site.
A small 1st century factory that produced fermented fish sauce โ€” arguably the most desirable foodstuff of the Roman era โ€” was recently uncovered during excavations near the southern coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon. It is one of the only identified industrial sites for production of the ubiquitous odorous sauce that has been found in the Eastern Mediterranean.

"We have something really unusual here," Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini told The Times of Israel on Monday when the find was announced.

While the idea of fermented fish sauce or garum may not spark salivation in modern palates, the slimy stuff was considered one of the most delicious flavors of the Roman Empire. According to Erickson-Gini, the precious goop added both salty and savory flavors to food and was used in the vast majority of recipes known from the era.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Info

Mysterious Easter Island 'heads' really did help turn bad soil fertile, study says


RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 18:35 UTC
Easter Island
© Reuters Pictures Archive
A five-year-long excavation of two of the enigmatic Easter Island 'heads' has revealed striking new evidence finally linking the enormous stone figures to food production and showing their creation enriched the soil.

Carved by the Rapa Nui people between the 13th and 16th centuries, the iconic monoliths known as 'moai' were thought to have some connection to fertility rituals, which until now remained unproven. Several hundred were erected on the island, the largest of which is 10 meters (33 ft) high and weighing some 82 tonnes.

The new research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, focused on two of the statues still in the quarry which was the source of almost all of the stone for the moai.

Comment: See also: Stone tools provide new clues to Easter Island's statue builders

Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Two major floods wiped out several medieval Indian dynasties: Study

Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey
Times of India
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 14:52 UTC
floods
Two major floods caused by monsoon pattern anomalies, which inundated large parts of the subcontinent approximately 800 and 700 years ago, might have wiped out powerful dynasties across what is now known as India.

Startling evidence of this has been unearthed by a group of geology experts from IIT Kharagpur.

The group's findings, published in Elsevier, a reputable Dutch journal specialising in scientific, technical and medical content, has stunned historians and archaeologists.

The findings are based on years of study of oxygen isotopes on ancient stalagmites of Meghalaya's Wah Shikar caves. Oxygen isotopes are pointers to the traces that are left behind by precipitation or rainfall over a time-period, called time slide by scientists.
Read More...
Archaeology

Magnificent 14000-year-old bison sculptures found in Le d'Audoubert Cave


Archaeology World
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 14:47 UTC
bison sculpture paleolithic cave france
The cave of Tuc Audoubert was discovered by the three sons of Count Henri three Bรฉgouรซn on 20 July and 10 October 1912.
The bison stood next to each other, built from the cave walls, leaning against a small boulder in the darkness. While they are 18 feet twenty-four inches long, they are beautifully constructed and durability are remarkable.

The bison remained alone for thousands of years in the dark French cave until it was discovered in the early 20th century.

The artist's hand signs are still clearly visible and the techniques used to render the face and mane details Objects like these clearly demonstrate that man used clay for artistic expression long before the actual firing of clay was discovered.

Comment: According to Wikipedia then the age is considered to be around 13000BC. Much more info on wikipedia, especially the French one:

The following articles by Pierre Lescaudron tell a little of what else was happening at that time and might give a clue as to why the people were in the caves to start with:

Read More...
Light Saber

Alberta professor draws wrath of Ukrainian nationalists for challenging 'myth' that Holodomor famine was deliberate Soviet policy

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
US Holodomor Memorial
Holodomor Memorial in Washington, DC. Drop of Light
University of Alberta Assistant Professor Dougal MacDonald raised hell on November 20 by writing in a personal Facebook post that the 1932-33 genocide of Ukrainians referred to as Holodomor never happened but was rather a "myth fabricated by Hitlerites".

If such remarks were made in most nations today, it wouldn't be such a big deal (as only 16 nations have chosen to recognize this event as an act of genocide rather than the tragic act of nature which MacDonald and countless eminent scholars maintain.)

Comment:

Read More...
Info

Archaeologists unearth lost town from Aksumite Empire

Tom Metcalfe
Live Science
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 20:46 UTC
Aksum
© Francesco Bandarin/UNESCOAksum is now a UNESCO site.
An ancient church from the fourth century, containing both early Christian and what may be pagan artifacts, has been unearthed in a buried town in northern Ethiopia.

The finds shed a rare light on the ancient kingdom of Aksum โ€” a relatively little-known North African civilization that was among the first to convert to Christianity in the fourth century.

Archaeologists discovered the early Christian church, built in the lofty Roman style called a basilica, while excavating the buried town of Beta Samati. The town, whose name means "house of audience" in Ethiopia's Tigrinya language, formed part of the kingdom centered on the ancient city of Aksum.

Aksum was a regional power from about 80 B.C. until A.D. 825 and a trading partner of Imperial Rome, thanks to its location near the Red Sea on the ancient trade route to India. But its name is unknown to most people today.

"One of the things that we are doing is to try to change that," said archaeologist Michael Harrower of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

"People broadly recognize ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome ... but what they don't know is that Aksumite civilization was one of the ancient world's most powerful civilizations, and really one of the earliest," Harrower told Live Science.

New archaeological research by Harrower and his colleagues, detailing excavations at Beta Samati from 2011 to 2016, is described today (Dec. 10) in the journal Antiquity.

During a German expedition in 1906, scientists had investigated archaeological sites at the Aksumite kingdom, but the unsettled politics of Ethiopia โ€” including a 16-year civil war from the mid-1970s โ€” meant archaeological research has been sporadic since that time, he said.
Beta Samati
© Ioana DumitruArchaeologists excavating the ancient Aksumite town of Beta Samati in northern Ethiopia have unearthed the remains of fourth-century Christian church at the site.
Read More...
Footprints

The 1508 League of Cambrai and BRICS reveal how to not repeat history

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
lionPAX
© Strategic Culture Foundation
"The nature of the time, most serene prince, requires this, an observance of an old proverb, which enjoins kissing the hand we are unable to cut off."

~ Sebastien Guistinian, Venetian Ambassador to England's Henry VIII
The Russia-China alliance has become an unstoppable powerhouse of visionary infrastructure projects across the Arctic, Eurasia, Africa and Europe exemplified beautifully by the evolving Belt and Road Initiative and BRICS. This cooperative alliance has tapped into a strategic reality of mankind's genuine common interests which is so powerful that even countries formerly at war with each other and subjects of imperial manipulation have increasingly broken free in order to participate in this new paradigm.
Read More...
Black Magic

Ritual killing of high status Mayan prisoners of war revealed in isotope analysis

University of Bonn
Phys.org
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 12:00 UTC
maya
© Nicolaus SeefeldAfter the bodies had been dismembered, the body parts were placed at the bottom of an artificial water reservoir and covered with large stone blocks.
Several years ago, Maya archaeologists from the University of Bonn found the bones of about 20 people at the bottom of a water reservoir in the former Maya city of Uxul, in what is now Mexico. They had apparently been killed and dismembered about 1,400 years ago. Did these victims come from Uxul or other regions of the Maya Area? Dr. Nicolaus Seefeld, who heads the project that is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation at the University of Bonn, is now one step further: A strontium isotope analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) showed that some of the dead grew up at least 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Uxul.

Strontium is ingested with food and stored like calcium in bones and teeth. The isotope ratios of strontium vary in rocks and soils, which is why different regions on earth have their own characteristic signatures. "As the development of tooth enamel is completed in early childhood, the strontium isotope ratio indicates the region where a person grew up," says Dr. Nicolaus Seefeld, who heads a project at the University of Bonn on the mass grave of Uxul and the role of ritualized violence in Maya society.

Comment: It's notable that, even though climate stressors have been recorded around that time, the ancient Maya practiced 'total war' even before this wrought havoc on their civilization.

See also:

Read More...
Pharoah

Rare bust of Ramses II discovered near Giza

Hannah Osborne
Newsweek
Thu, 12 Dec 2019 17:27 UTC
Bust of Ramses II
© Ministry of Antiquities
A rare statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II has been discovered near Giza. The pink granite statue, which is almost 3.5 feet tall, was found to have the symbol 'Ka' โ€” thought to be an aspect of the soul or spirit by the civilization.

The discovery was announced by Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities. The statue was found on the land of a man who had been arrested earlier in the month for carrying out illegal excavations. The land was located near the Temple of Ptah, which is about 15 miles from Giza.

In a statement, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the rare statue was "intended to provide a resting place for the Ka (life-force or spirit) of the person after death." Previously, only a wooden statue of Ramses II with the Ka symbol had been discovered.

"This discovery is considered one of the rarest archaeological discoveries. It is the first ever Ka statue made of granite to be discovered. The only Ka statue that was previously found is made of wood and it belongs to one of the kings of the thirteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt," he told China's Xinhua news agency.
Read More...
Archaeology

Strange ancient Egyptian 'head cones' discovered in burials

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 12:00 UTC
egypt hats
© (Stevens et al., Antiquity, 2019)
Most of the garments depicted in ancient Egyptian art are relatively straightforward to decipher, but there's a particular wearable article that has baffled archaeologists. In statuary, murals, funerary stelae, coffins and relief sculptures dating between 3,570 and 2,000 years ago, people repeatedly appeared wearing cones on their heads, a bit like party hats.

Now, for the first time, archaeologists have actually identified two such cones, crafted out of wax and adorning the heads of skeletons dating back some 3,300 years. The finds were excavated from the cemeteries of the city of Akhetaten, also known as Amarna.

This discovery may finally help to resolve several hypotheses over the meaning of these head cones, and what their function may have been back in the day.

Comment: See also:

Read More...