Secret HistoryS


Info

Hanging garden marvel may not be Babylon's

Jasper Copping
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 24 Nov 2013 07:50 UTC
A British academic believes she has identified the precise spot of the elusive Hanging Gardens of Babylon - in one of the most dangerous places on earth

Hanging Gardens of Babylon
© AlamyAncient texts may have revealed what could be the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World for which the location has for centuries remained elusive.

Now, though, an academic from Oxford University believes she has solved one of the world's last great archaeological mysteries by identifying the precise spot on which the Hanging Gardens of Babylon once stood.

Dr Stephanie Dalley focused her search hundreds of miles north of the site of the ancient city of Babylon, now near Hillah, in central Iraq, to support her theory that the lush, elevated marvel was in fact built near the city of Ninevah, in the north of the country.

From piecing together clues from ancient texts, the academic has uncovered evidence that the gardens were in fact produced not by the Babylonians and their king Nebuchadnezzar, as has traditionally been assumed, but rather by their neighbours and foes, the Assyrians under their monarch, Sennacherib, around 2,700 years ago.
Read More...
Magnify

Group of cannibal Neanderthals 'butchered 12 of their neighbours including children and ate them for dinner', say scientists after discovering grim remains in Spain

Lucy Crossley
The Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 24 Nov 2013 10:45 UTC
  • Scientists used modern forensic techniques to analyse ancient remains
  • Bones were discovered in a deep cave, and had been stripped of meat
  • Neanderthal family, including a child of two, were killed and eaten
  • Killers believed to be from a neighbouring tribe
A group of Neanderthals killed and ate their fellow ancient humans, including young children, scientists have found.

Using modern forensics techniques, including DNA analysis, the researchers found that 12 Neanderthals, all from the same family, had been eaten by their peers.

In research presented to the Royal Society in London, biologist Carles Lalueza-Fox, said that the bones of the victims had been cracked open to extract the marrow, while the skulls were opened so brains and tongues could be eaten.

Image
Butchered: Scientists have found that a family of Neanderthals were killed and eaten by their fellow ancient humans (file picture)
Remains, discovered at the El Sidrón cave system, near Asturias, in north western Spain, included the bones of three female and three male adults, three teenage boys and three children aged between two and nine-years-old.
Read More...
Sherlock

Acid rain, ozone depletion contributed to ancient extinction

Linda Elkins-Tanton
Carnegie Institution
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 16:16 UTC
Image
© Benjamin BlackThis photo taken along Kotuy River in Arctic Siberia shows the base of the Siberian Traps volcanic sequence
Around 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, there was a mass extinction so severe that it remains the most traumatic known species die-off in Earth's history. Some researchers have suggested that this extinction was triggered by contemporaneous volcanic eruptions in Siberia. New results from a team including Director of Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism Linda Elkins-Tanton show that the atmospheric effects of these eruptions could have been devastating. Their work is published in Geology.

The mass extinction included the sudden loss of more than 90 percent of marine species and more than 70 percent of terrestrial species and set the stage for the rise of the dinosaurs. The fossil record suggests that ecological diversity did not fully recover until several million years after the main pulse of the extinction. One leading candidate for the cause of this event is gas released from a large swath of volcanic rock in Russia called the Siberian Traps. Using advanced 3-D modeling techniques, the team, led by Benjamin Black of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was able to predict the impacts of gas released from the Siberian Traps on the end-Permian atmosphere.
Read More...
Hearts

Lee Harvey Oswald's girlfriend: Oswald was innocent & saved Kennedy's life 3 weeks prior

Kristan T. Harris
CudahyNow
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:55 UTC
Baker and Oswald
© CudahyNow
With the 50 year anniversary of the JFK Assassination today We Are Change caught up with Judyth Baker, Lee Harvey Oswald's ex-girlfriend. Judyth goes in-depth about their relationship and is speaking out about her belief that Oswald was framed. Lets not forget, our government at the time already had many other devious plots they planned to partake in, such as Operation Northwoods.

Operation Northwoods, Which eerily sounds similar to the events that took place on September 11, 2001, had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.

People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war This is an elementary military maneuver called a "False Flag". JFK rebuked this plan and single-handedly prevented this tragedy. It may have played a key role in his assassination.

We Are Change caught up with Lee Harvey Oswald's former girlfriend Judyth Baker. Judy in the video below goes in-depth on why she thinks Oswald is innocent. She also explains that Oswald saved Kennedy's life 3 weeks prior and it doesn't make sense that he would kill Kennedy. One can only wonder if he wanted him dead, why would he save his life 3 weeks prior?
Read More...
Sherlock

Archaeologists find sunken Nazi sub in Indonesia with 17 skeletons


Channel NewsAsia
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:12 UTC
Image
© AFP/National Archaeology Centre
Indonesian researchers said on Thursday they have discovered what is believed to be the wreck of a German submarine that was torpedoed off the main island of Java during World War II.

Indonesian researchers said Thursday they have discovered what is believed to be the wreck of a German submarine that was torpedoed off the main island of Java during World War II.

A team found the wreck - which contained at least 17 human skeletons - north of Java earlier this month after a tip-off from local divers.

Researchers believe it is submarine "U-168", which succeeded in sinking several allied vessels before itself being torpedoed by a Dutch submarine in 1944.

"This is the first time we have found a foreign submarine from the war in our waters," said Bambang Budi Utomo, head of the research team at the National Archaeology Centre that found the vessel.
Read More...
Info

Ancient neanderthal viruses discovered in modern human DNA

Samantha Goodwin
HNGN
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:08 UTC
Image
Ancient Neanderthal Viruses Discovered in Modern Human DNA
Traces of ancient Neanderthal viruses were discovered in modern human DNA by Oxford University and Plymouth University researchers.

Studies conducted on ancient Neanderthals have caught the fancy of many researchers worldwide. Not only are such studies interesting, they also reveal many unknown facts about the evolution of mankind. In one such study, researchers from Oxford University and Plymouth University discovered traces of ancient Neanderthal viruses in modern human DNA, reveals a press release.

For the study, researchers examined genetic data from fossils of Neanderthals and another group of ancient human ancestors called Denisovans and compared their findings to DNA data of modern-day cancer patients. The comparison led to the discovery that ancient Neanderthal viruses originated in our common ancestors more than half a million years ago.

Approximately 8 percent of a person's DNA is made up of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) which are DNA sequences constructed from viruses that are passed from generation to generation. These DNA sequences are also part of the 90 percent human DNAs whose functions are not yet known, commonly referred to as "junk" DNA.

Comment: For more information on this topic, see our forum discussion The Neanderthal Legacy by Paul Mellars and
On viral 'junk' DNA, a DNA-enhancing Ketogenic diet, and cometary kicks

Read More...
Info

Israeli wine cellar predates the Bible

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 07:00 UTC
Ancient Wine Cellar
© Eric H. Cline, George Washington University
One of the world's oldest and largest wine cellars has just been unearthed in Israel, according to a presentation today at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Baltimore.

The cellar dates to approximately 1700 B.C., and was found at a site called Tel Kabri within the ruins of a northern Canaanite city. Its age predates both the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls by hundreds of years.

The researchers christened a three-foot-long jar in the cellar "Bessie."

"We dug and dug, and all of a sudden, Bessie's friends started appearing - five, 10, 15, ultimately 40 jars packed in a 15-by-25-foot storage room," Eric Cline, chair of George Washington University's Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, said in a press release.
Read More...
Question

Origin of Stonehenge's blue stones revealed - but experts still don't know how they travelled 160 miles from South Wales

Victoria Woollaston
The Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 20 Nov 2013 09:38 UTC
  • Stonehenge's outer ring is made up of 11 large dolerites called blue stones
  • A 1923 paper claimed the stones were from Carn Menyn in Pembrokeshire
  • For 90 years archaeologists have searched this location for human activity
  • Yet X-rays confirm the stones came from Carn Goedog - just a mile away
  • It's still not known how the stones travelled the 160 miles to Amesbury
Archaeologists trying to uncover the mystery of Stonehenge have been digging around the wrong hill for almost a century.

Teams of archaeologists have spent the past 90 years scouring the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire to find the source of the prehistoric monument's iconic 'blue stones'.

Scientists believed the 11 stones used to construct the ancient site came from a hill called Carn Menyn, but geologists have since discovered they actually came from another hill - just over a mile away - called Carn Goedog.

Image
Scientists believed the 11 'bluestones' used to build the outer ring of Stonehenge, pictured, came from Carn Menyn in the Presili Hills of Pembrokeshire, South Wales. However, new X-rays confirm they actually came from Carn Goedog, a hill situated just a mile away
Now archaeologists are planning to move to the new site.

They can then start trying to discover if prehistoric man cut the 11 stone monoliths from the hill and transported them to the prehistoric site, or if they were carried there by glaciers during the last Ice Age.

Dr Richard Bevins from the National Museum of Wales is a leading authority on volcanic rocks and has been studying the Preseli Hills since he was a PhD student in the late 1970s.
Read More...
Cult

Vatican unveils new frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla; possible evidence for women priests in early Christianity

Nicole Winfield
The Associated Press
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 23:15 UTC
The Vatican on Tuesday unveiled newly restored frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla, known for housing the earliest known image of the Madonna with Child - and frescoes said by some to show women priests in the early Christian church.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, presided over the opening of the "Cubicle of Lazzaro," a tiny burial chamber featuring 4th century images of biblical scenes, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and one of the early Romans buried there in bunk-bed-like stacks as was common in antiquity.

The labyrinthine cemetery complex stretching for kilometers (miles) underneath northern Rome is known as the "Queen of the catacombs" because it features burial chambers of popes and a tiny, delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230-240 A.D., the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.

More controversially, the catacomb tour features two scenes said by proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests: One in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist. Another fresco in a richly decorated burial chamber features a woman, dressed in a dalmatic - a cassock-like robe - with her hands up in the position used by priests for public worship.
Catacombs of Priscilla
A fresco from the Catacombs of Priscilla
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which includes women who have been excommunicated by the Vatican for participating in purported ordination ceremonies, holds the images up as evidence that there were women priests in the early Christian church - and that therefore there should be women priests today.
Read More...
Info

Ancient Siberian skeletons confirm Native American origins

Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Wed, 20 Nov 2013 12:00 UTC
Humerus Bone
© Thomas W Stafford, JrA cross-section of a humerus bone from the 24,000-year-old skeleton found in Siberia. Researchers managed to extract DNA from the bones and trace the ancient individual's genetic lineage.
The DNA gleaned from two ancient Siberian skeletons is related to that of modern-day Native Americans and western Eurasians, new research suggests.

The genetic material from the ancient Siberians provides additional evidence that the ancestors of Native Americans made the arduous trek from Siberia across the Bering Strait into the Americas.

But it also reveals there were multiple waves of migrations in Asia around this time, said Mark Hubbe, a biological anthropologist at The Ohio State University who was not involved in the study.

"This brings a new level of complexity to what we think happened in Asia," Hubbe told LiveScience.
Read More...