Secret HistoryS


Crusader

A Knights Templar diet: The regime that kept the Order fighting fit

Natasha Frost
Atlas Obscura
Tue, 08 May 2018 20:04 UTC
Bayeaux Tapestry feast scene
© Bayeaux TapestryMeals were eaten communally and may have looked rather like this feast scene from the Bayeux tapestry—albeit rather less raucous.
Graybeards were thin on the ground in the 13th century. For even wealthy landholding males, average life expectancy was about 31 years, rising to 48 years for those who made it to their twenties. The Knights Templar, then, must have seemed to have some magical potion: Many members of this Catholic military order lived long past 60. And even then, they often died at the hands of their enemies, rather than from illness.

In 1314, Jacques de Molay, the order's final Grand Master, was burned alive at the age of 70. Geoffrei de Charney, who was executed in the same year, is usually said to have been around 63. This longevity seems to have been almost commonplace. Fellow Grand Masters Thibaud Gaudin, Hugues de Payens, and Armand de Périgord, to name just a few, all lived into their sixties. For the times, this would have been positively geriatric.
Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Catastrophic flood that killed 300,000 people entombed many in the walls of ancient Chinese city

Aristos Georgiou
Newsweek
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:35 UTC
Yellow River
Yellow River
Researchers have investigated a catastrophic Yellow River flood that decimated the Chinese city of Kaifeng—a former imperial capital—in A.D. 1642, providing new insights into a disaster thought to have killed an estimated 300,000 people.

In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists examined geological and archaeological evidence, which revealed the flood "destroyed Kaifeng's inner city, entombing the city and its inhabitants within meters of silt and clay"—backing up evidence found in historical documents.

According to the team—led by Michael Storozum from Fudan University, China—the flood was so catastrophic because the walls of the city had partially collapsed during a siege, meaning that most of the floodwaters became trapped inside.
Read More...
Cow Skull

As farming developed, so did cooperation — and violence

Elaina Hancock, University of Connecticut
Phys.org
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:10 UTC
corn
© CC0 Public Domain
The growth of agriculture led to unprecedented cooperation in human societies, a team of researchers, has found, but it also led to a spike in violence, an insight that offers lessons for the present.

A new study out today in Environmental Archaeology by collaborators from UConn, the University of Utah, Troy University, and California State University, Sacramento examines the growth of agriculture in Eastern North America 7,500 to 5,000 years ago, and finds that while the domestication of plants fostered new cooperation among people, it also saw the rise of organized, intergroup violence.

"We were interested in understanding why people would make the shift from hunting and gathering to farming," says Elic Weitzel, a UConn Ph.D. student in anthropology. "Then I started to get interested in what happened in society after they made that shift and started farming on a larger scale."

Comment: This article initially raises the question but doesn't really answer why humans would adopt agriculture suddenly after tens of thousands of years as hunter gatherers. For further clues on what changes may have motivated peoples all over the planet around the same time, see: Also check out SOTT radio's:

Read More...
Info

Proof of a mysterious lost ancient GLOBAL Civilization?

Jimmy
Bright Insight
Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:51 UTC
Global Civilization
© YoTube Screen Capture
This will likely blow your mind. 250+ photos and comparisons of ancient sites around the world, show that there is a LOT more to the story of our ancient past. Proof of a lost ancient global civilization that has been hiding in plain sight, for thousands of years.
Read More...
Cardboard Box

Rare 15th-century bust discovered in England


Medievalists
Tue, 03 Mar 2020 21:09 UTC
St Agnes
© National Trust / Rah PetherbridgeThe reliquary bust of St Agnes, c. 1465, made in the workshop of Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden, now on display in the Dining Room at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
A carved 15th-century sculpture displayed on top of a cupboard at Anglesey Abbey in central England has been discovered to be a unique reliquary bust, previously thought to have been lost to the art world.

The bust of the martyr St Agnes has been identified as being by Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden or his workshop, arguably the most important 15th-century sculptor in northern Europe. But only 20 of his works are believed to have survived and the newly-discovered sculpture is the only work by Gerhaert in a UK public collection.

The discovery was made as part of a National Trust four-year sculpture cataloguing project to fully record and research all 6,000 sculptures and statues in its collection. It is the first time the Trust has had the resource to study all of its sculptures in this way.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Colosseum

Megiddo: The archaeology of Armageddon - No sign of King Solomon

Andrew Robinson
Nature
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
Megiddo
© Oriental Institute of the University of ChicagoIn the 1920s and 1930s, a hydrogen balloon photographed the Megiddo site from the air.
BOOK REVIEW: Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon Eric H. Cline Princeton Univ. Press (2020)
"Welcome to Armageddon," say Israeli tour guides, as groups from many countries climb the steep incline of the archaeological mound Tel Megiddo, southeast of Haifa and close to Nazareth. Within it are the remains of at least 20 cities, piled up, dating from about 5000 bc to the fourth century bc. Passing through the current gate, the tourists often burst into hymns or prayer.

"Our small group of archaeologists smile tolerantly," recalls Eric Cline in Digging Up Armageddon. They have been digging since before dawn to avoid the heat. A chain-link fence around the excavations jokingly requests: "Please do not feed the archaeologists."

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Dig

Amazing Ancient Cave Dwellings of Armenia


People of AR
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
Armenian Caves
© UnknownAncient cave-dwellings of Khndzoresk
Armenian Highland is distinguished with countless ancient cave dwellings, dating far back into history of human settlement. Discoveries in the Areni cave complex in Armenia yielded phenomenal finds such as the discovery of the world's oldest leather shoe (5,500-year-old), oldest wine making facility (6,100-year-old), a straw skirt dating to 3900 BC, singes of animal domestication and even a well preserved human brain. There is almost every kind of cave in Armenia, there are man made caves and even caves of hydrothermal origin, which are very rare in the world. These hollows originate when lava from the inner core of the earth mixes with hot springs, creating caves. We also know that people themselves created caves. Elaborate and often architecturally magnificent, monastery complexes with entire villages, carved out of rock, are found in abundance on the Armenian plateau. Armenians used caves as fortresses, places of worship, as housing, as storage facilities and as shed for the animals. Because of minimal airflow, these caves are warm in winter and cool in summer. Armenian cave-dwellings were well known to the ancient classical writers. Xenophon during his journey in Armenia describes an Armenian village as follows:
"Their houses were under ground, the entrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious below; there were passages dug into them for the cattle, but the people descended by ladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their young; all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls. There was also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables, and barley-wine, in large bowls."[1]

Comment: Check out the video below of the caves with the unique doors:
Several unique caves located on the bank of Amberd river in Armenia. Stone doors protect entrances into these caves. Each door have an axis around which it rotates. Also door have a mark of lock.

And: 10 world's oldest artifacts from Armenia

Read More...
Archaeology

Thousands of Denisovan tools reveal skilled Stone Age technologies

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 20:39 UTC
denisovan cave altai
© Zoonar GmbH/AlamyDenisova cave in the Altai mountains in Siberia has layers of Stone Age tools
Excavations at the Denisova cave in Siberia have uncovered almost 80,000 stone artefacts that extinct humans left over a 150,000-year period. Collectively, they seem to show how technology developed by Denisovans evolved through the Stone Age, culminating with the production of spectacular bracelets, beads and tiaras about 50,000 years ago.

Denisova cave lies in a river valley within the Altai Mountains, a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. Ancient human remains in the cave are extremely rare, but artefacts are not.

"There are lots of stone artefacts at Denisova cave, as well as many implements made of bone and antler in the upper levels," says Richard Roberts at the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Comment:

Read More...
Blue Planet

Laser tech reveals secrets of 100km Maya road

Anthony Wood
New Atlas
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
maya road
© Traci Ardren/University of MiamiThe road, part of which is seen from above in this image, may have been created as two great ancient powers prepared to square off against one another
Archaeologists have used laser technology to map a 100-km (62-mile) Maya stone road that could have been built 1,300 years ago to help with the invasion of an isolated city in modern-day Mexico. The ancient highway is thought to have been constructed at the command of the warrior queen Lady K'awiil Ajaw, and would have been coated in white plaster.

The 26 ft (8 m)-wide road, also known as Sacbe 1 or White Road 1, stretches from the ancient city of Cobá - one of the greatest cities of the Maya world - to the distant, smaller settlement of Yaxuná, located in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Newly-published research has shed new light on the nature of Lady K'awiil Ajaw's great road by making use of light detection and ranging, otherwise known as LiDAR technology. To take their measurements, the authors made use of an airborne LiDAR instrument, which beamed lasers at the surface as it passed over the ancient road.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: MindMatters: America Before: Comets, Catastrophes, Mounds and Mythology

Read More...
Cow

Farming gave us salmonella, ancient DNA suggests

Ann Gibbons
Science Mag
Mon, 24 Feb 2020 11:00 UTC
farming
© Annette GünzelWhen humans began to farm and live with their livestock, they evolved a more virulent form of salmonella.
Pity the pig. We have blamed it for giving us swine flu, a porcine coronavirus in 2012, and — in some ancient hovel — salmonella, which causes gut distress as well as typhoid fever. Now, though, it seems humans got salmonella first, thousands of years ago, and might have passed it to pigs.

A new study suggests early farmers in Eurasia brought a more deadly form of salmonella on themselves when they switched from a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to farming. By settling down in close quarters with domestic animals and their waste, they gave Salmonella enterica, which was lurking in an unknown animal host, easy access to the human gut where it adapted to humans. Pigs picked up the pathogen later, perhaps from people or another animal.

Comment: See also:

Read More...