Secret HistoryS


Boat

Shipwreck offers 500yo maritime astrolabe, oldest ever found


RT
Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:25 UTC
Astrolabe
© David L.Mearns / AFPThe world's oldest maritime astrolabe, which guided Portuguese explorers on a perilous voyage to India at the beginning of the 16th century.
A shipwreck explorer has revealed the discovery of the oldest ever maritime astrolabe. The navigational tool dates back more than 500 years to Europe's 'Age of Discovery'.

The astrolabe, which mariners used to measure the altitude of the sun, was discovered on a Portuguese explorer called the Esmerelda. The ship sank off the coast of Oman during a storm in May 1503.

The 'Esmerelda' is the earliest shipwreck from Europe's 'Age of Discovery' to be found and scientifically investigated by a team of archaeologists. It pre-dates the nearest Iberian shipwreck in age by 30 to 50 years. It was part of a fleet led by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who discovered the sea route from Europe to India via the 'Horn of Africa.'

The astrolabe was discovered by David Mearns, from Blue Water Recoveries, in 2014. Marine scientist Mearns, who wrote a book called The Shipwreck Hunter, initially described the artifact as "an important copper-alloy disc." On Monday he revealed that the disc is actually an astrolabe. The disc is marked with the Portuguese royal coat of arms and the personal emblem of King Dom Manuel I.
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Archaeology

Archaeologists in Iraq excavate cache of cuneiform tablets dating back to Assyrian Empire


Sci News
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 11:58 UTC
cuneiform tablets
© Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen3,250-year-old cuneiform tablets were found inside a clay vessel at the archaeological site of Bassetki in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
Excavations led by a University of Tübingen archaeologist at the site of a recently-discovered Bronze Age settlement in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have uncovered almost 100 clay tablets dating back to the period of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1250 BC).

The cache of clay tablets was found at the archaeological site of the ancient city of Bassetki, which was discovered in 2013 by University of Tübingen Professor Peter Pfälzner and colleagues.

"Our finds provide evidence that this early urban center in northern Mesopotamia was settled almost continuously from approximately 3000 to 600 BC," Professor Pfälzner said.

"That indicates that Bassetki was of key significance on important trade routes."
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Display

Watch 'Spooks and Cowboys', 1975 documentary on US 'Phoenix Program' in Vietnam

Douglas Valentine
Global Research
Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:59 UTC
phoenix program vietnam war
Michael Maclear's 1975 documentary, Spooks and Cowboys, Gooks and Grunts (Part 1) is more relevant now than ever. Forty-two years after its release, it exposes the suppressed, shameful truths that have corrupted America since the Vietnam War. The documentary makes it perfectly clear that "we" have always known what was going on - and that "we" have perfected the means of denying and obfuscating it.

Maclear's documentary stands in stark contrast to the current Ken Burns documentary, The Vietnam War, which is nothing more than historical revisionism, sprinkled with massive doses of cognitive dissonance, served up as healing.

While Burns assiduously avoids connecting the conflicts of the Vietnam War to America's on-going experiment in technofascism, Maclear's documentary is straightforward in stating several shameful truths. Foremost, that the CIA has corrupted not only the military, but America's political and judicial systems; and that, through its secret control of the media, the CIA's power to create the official version of history has left veterans of the Vietnam War, as well as every subsequent generation of Americans as well, in a state of neurotic delusion.
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Heart

How an Ottoman Sultan defied the British Empire to send humanitarian aid to starving Ireland

Billy O'Callaghan
Irish Examiner
Mon, 14 Jul 2014 20:05 UTC
I
Khaleefah Abdul-Majid I Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Khaleefah Abdul-Majid I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, which would later be broken up by the British and French empires.
t has none of the show and glamour of a Paris, Rome or Barcelona, and it lacks the shadowy mood of a Prague or Vienna, but it pleased me with its sense of easy calm, and the casual way in which it balances the ancient and the modern, its clean, vibrant centre set against a crumbling periphery still wealthy with remnants of its Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian and even Roman past. Touched by King Midas and conquered by Alexander the Great, this is ground that has known life virtually since life began. The winds of change have shaped the faces of its rock, but the rock itself endures.

As someone deeply fascinated by antiquity, my heart beats loudest when I can stand and listen to ancient places. Yet as rich in story as Ankara might be, it remains, in essence, a stacking of dirt, stone and sky. What truly gives this place life is its people; it is they who make for a history worth recalling.

Ireland and Turkey lie a continent apart, but while we might look and sound different, and while our minds might be shaped by different troubles, we breathe the same air. What I found in the Turkish people I met were the traits that I'd always assumed defined Irishness: the open-hearted embrace for a stranger, an interest in his journey and a desire to understand his background. Most of all, the hospitality of a warm and friendly welcome.
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Info

Mass grave discovered at WWII Nazi concentration camp in Poland


DD News, India
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 04:41 UTC
Nazi concentration camp
© DD News, IndiaDecades after WWII, archaeologists still discover bodies at Nazi concentration camp.
Archaeologists in Poland have uncovered a mass grave of prisoners at the Nazi death camp Gross-Rosen, on what is now the site of a memorial museum.

In September 2017, human remains were found in what used to be an anti-aircraft trench and conservation works were suspended. Archaeologists estimated the number of people buried there to exceed 300. "The discovery of human remains matches the account of one of the former prisoners of the camp, a Belgian man who was the camp doctor and was on the site during the last months before the liberation evacuation," said Doctor Katarzyna Pawlak-Weiss, a historian studying Nazi concentration camps located by occupying German forces in Poland. "In his report he mentioned 300 people buried here."

So far archaeologists have uncovered bones belonging to approximately 30 people, whom the team hopes to be able to identify. According to reports by survivors, the bodies of prisoners who died of illnesses and starvation were thrown into the trench in the last days of the camp's operation, but the first unearthed bones had what archaeologists think are markings from bullet wounds.
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Eye 1

The mysterious tribe of blue-eyed Native Americans who appeared Caucasian in nature

Brent Swancer
Mysterious Universe
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
Blue eyed Native American
A drawing of a Mandan tribeswoman by George Catlin
History holds many oddities that we may never fully understand, either through incomplete documentation, disinterest at the time, or simply a big question mark that hangs over all. Among these are mysterious tribes of people that have been encountered and confronted in all corners of the globe, often vanishing before we really understand them and leaving us perplexed at just who they were or where their origins lie.

One such tribe was a mysterious group of Native Americans who appeared to explorers as something quite European in nature, although their ways and beginnings have always been cloaked in shadows. Known mostly from historical accounts, their origins remain murky, their lineage uncertain, and they are a historical curiosity we may never fully understand.

During the era of early European contact, the native peoples of North America held many curiosities for explorers and settlers coming to this new, wild land. These tribes were numerous, and displayed rich variety between different cultures, as well as myriad languages, customs, and traditions that inspired awe, wonder, curiosity, bafflement, and even fear in the European adventurers who bravely delved into this uncharted new world and tried to tame it. Yet as fascinating as these new peoples were, perhaps the most interesting was an alleged tribe of natives who were said to look decidedly Caucasian in nature.
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Dig

Archaeologists discover signs of ritual violence in Peruvian highlands

Josh Lowe
Newsweek
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 21:17 UTC
peruvian remains
© Nagaoka et al, PLOS ONE, 2017Buried individuals with signs of trauma.
A team of archaeologists has uncovered early evidence of ritual violence in Peru's northern highlands, providing new clues to what lay behind the development of bloody ceremonial mutilation in ancient Andean civilisation.

According to an article published in the journal Plos One, archaeologists examined the remains of 104 individuals from a site called Pacopampa, a place home to "impressively large, ceremonial architecture," that may have played host to "a complex society founded on ritual activity."

Seven of the people showed signs of trauma; and while those buried at Pacopampa were from both elite and commoner classes, all those with evidence of trauma were probably from lower castes.

Analysis of their injuries showed a large proportion of the trauma was sustained by blows to the head and face, rather than the hands and feet. So while the mountainous environment would have been a potentially dangerous place to live, the researchers argue, it is likely that many of the injuries were intentional.
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Cow

Stonehenge builders and celebrants brought animals from as far away as Scotland for their Neolithic feasts


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 11:48 UTC
Stonehenge
© Kieran Doherty / Reuters
The ancient architects who created Stonehenge feasted on animals brought from as far away as Scotland and took part in lavish midwinter rituals, an analysis of teeth and bones excavated at the site has revealed.

The findings were unveiled by English Heritage to mark the opening of an exhibition at the Stonehenge museum in Wiltshire called 'Feast! Food at Stonehenge.'

Discarded animal teeth and bones excavated at the site suggest that cows and pigs were herded hundreds of miles along ancient byways to Stonehenge, and may even have been brought to southern England by boat.

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Info

Ancient stone structures discovered in Saudi Arabia

Owen Jarus
Live Science
Tue, 17 Oct 2017 07:02 UTC
Stone Structures Saudi Aabia
© Google EarthMysterious stone structures that archaeologists call "gates," due to their loose resemblance to old-fashioned field gates, have been discovered in Saudi Arabia.
Almost 400 mysterious stone structures dating back thousands of years have been discovered in Saudi Arabia, with a few of these wall-like formations draping across old lava domes, archaeologists report.

Many of the stone walls, which archaeologists call "gates" because they resemble field gates from above, were found in clusters in a region in west-central Saudi Arabia called Harrat Khaybar.

The archaeologists involved in the research aren't sure of the purpose, or even the exact age, of these gates. [See Images of the Mysterious Stone Structures in Saudi Arabia]
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Archaeology

The powerful Assyrians: An empire of conquest


Ancient Origins
Mon, 09 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
Assyrian Lachish Relief in British Museum
© CC BY-SA 4.0Part of the Lachish Relief, British Museum. Battle scene, showing Assyrian cavalry in action. Above, prisoners are led away.
Much of Assyria's history is closely tied to its southern neighbor, Babylonia. The two Mesopotamian empires spoke similar languages and worshipped most of the same gods. They were often rivals on the battlefield for influence in the ancient Middle East.

The history of Assyria spans mainly from about 2000 BC, when the cities of Nineveh and Calah were founded, to the destruction of Nineveh in 606 BC.

Whereas Babylonia is best remembered for its contributions in literature, architecture, and the law, Assyria is chiefly remembered for its military prowess, advances in weaponry, and meticulously recorded conquests.

Geographically, Assyria occupied the middle and northern part of Mesopotamia. It was situated between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and its major cities were Calah, Zab, Ashur, and the capital, Nineveh.
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