Secret HistoryS


Bulb

Israeli geneticist: Ashkenazi jews come from Turkish villages, not Palestine

ashkenazi
© Getty ImagesA group of Ashkenazic Jews in Jerusalem, circa 1885
New research suggests that the majority of the world's modern Jewish population is descended mainly from people from ancient Turkey, rather than predominantly from elsewhere in the Middle East.

The new research suggests that most of the Jewish population of northern and eastern Europe - normally known as Ashkenazic Jews - are the descendants of Greeks, Iranians and others who colonized what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were then converted to Judaism, probably in the first few centuries AD by Jews from Persia. At that stage, the Persian Empire was home to the world's largest Jewish communities.

According to research carried out by the geneticist, Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield, over 90 per cent of Ashkenazic ancestors come from that converted partially Greek-originating ancient community in north-east Turkey.

Comment: Remember this the next time your hear Netanyahu, or any other radical Zionist, say that the Jewish people are justified in stealing and occupying Palestinian land because their 'people' ruled it for thousands of years. It's plainly and simply nonsense. And even if the logic were justified (it isn't), the vast majority of Jews should go to Turkey, not "Israel".


Black Magic

Depiction of ancient Egyptian demons found

demon Ikenty
© Wael SherbinyThe demon Ikenty represented as a large bird with a black feline head on a Middle Kingdom coffin. The same demon appears as a large bird on a much older leather roll.
A Belgium-based Egyptologist has discovered the oldest depictions of ancient Egyptian demons, showing that demonic entities populated the ancient Egyptians' imaginations as far back as 4,000 years ago.

Presented recently at the International Conference on Ancient Egyptian Demonology at Swansea University, U.K., these demons gripped their victims and cut off their heads.

Wael Sherbiny, an independent scholar who specializes in the ancient Egyptian religious texts, found two demons on two Middle Kingdom coffins about 4,000 years old.

The third was portrayed in a 4,000-year-old leather roll the researcher had previously discovered in the shelves of the Egyptian museum in Cairo, where it was stored and forgotten for more than 70 years. It was the oldest and longest Egyptian leather manuscript.

"These three demons are already familiar to scholars from ancient texts. However, the depiction of two of them was unknown until now," Sherbiny told Discovery News.

"The drawings show them in either a purely zoomorphic or anthropomorphic representation," he added.

Pyramid

Stone blocks depicting Egyptian queen discovered in Elephantine Island

Queen Hatshepsut Block
© German Archaeological InstituteA stone block found on Egypt's Elephantine Island shows Queen Hatshepsut as a female (highlighted by red lines). Later images of the pharaoh portrayed her as a male king.
Ancient stone blocks depicting Queen Hatshepsut have been discovered on Egypt's Elephantine Island, providing insights into the early years of her reign, Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities announced this week. The blocks may have been part of a building that served as a way station for an ancient Egyptian deity.

On several of the blocks, Queen Hatshepsut was represented as a woman, according to the Ministry, suggesting that the blocks and building it came from were erected during the early part of the first female pharaoh's reign, which lasted from 1473 B.C. to 1458 B.C. Later in her reign, the queen was depicted as a male.
Ancient pillar
© German Archaeological InstituteHere, an ancient pillar from the barque station in Egypt erected by Queen Hatshepsut for the god Khnum.
Mentions of Queen Hatshepsut were erased and monuments bearing her image were defaced after her death, and her female figure was replaced with images of a male king: her deceased husband Thutmose II. It is believed that her co-ruler and stepson/nephew Thutmose III ordered the change.

It was unusual for a woman to become pharaoh of Egypt. As Egyptologist Ian Shaw noted in his book "Exploring Ancient Egypt" (Oxford University Press, 2003), "In the history of Egypt during the dynastic period (3000 to 332 B.C.) there were only two or three women who managed to rule as pharaohs, rather than wielding power as the 'great wife' of a male king."

Camera

In color: What Russia looked like before 1917

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii sits beside the Karolitskhali River. (1912)
© Library of CongressSergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii sits beside the Karolitskhali River. (1912)
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was born near Moscow in 1863. Educated as a chemist, Prokudin-Gorskii applied his knowledge and skills towards the advancement of photography. He was especially interested in the reproduction of color, which at the time was a tedious and difficult process.

Though some of his images date back to 1905, the bulk of his work documenting the Russian empire of Tsar Nicholas II took place between 1909-1915. Prokudin-Gorskii's color photos were recorded as "separation negatives" on black and white glass plates. The camera he used made three sequential exposures through blue, green and red filters. He then printed these negatives as positives, which he inserted into a magic lantern to project and superimpose the frames back through the same combination of filters. The result was a full color reproduction of the original scene.

Comment: These are probably among the earliest color photos ever taken/made.

Click on this close-up of the photographer's 'self-portrait' to enlarge it:

prokudrin
© Library of Congress
Just awesome.


Question

Ancient Origins archeologists warned to stop further investigations into missing Father Crespi artifacts

crespi artifacts
A collection of artifacts given to Father Crespi
Earlier this month we reported on an investigation into the story of Father Crespi and his missing artifacts. The story of Father Crespi is a mysterious and controversial account of a priest in Ecuador involving claims of unknown civilizations, strange golden artifacts, a subterranean cave system containing a metallic library, depictions of figures connecting America to Sumeria, symbols depicting an unknown language, and a Vatican conspiracy involving thousands of missing artifacts. Ancient Origins undertook an investigation to find out how much of the story is true. While our initial enquiries produced valuable information, our latest explorations resulted in threats and a warning to stop pursuing further investigations into the missing artifacts.

If you have not yet read the first article, please read it here before proceeding with this update.

To summarize the results of our findings, our investigations determined that:
  • Father Crespi's collection is not missing but was purchased by the Central Bank of Ecuador and is currently stored in their museum vaults.
  • The majority of Crespi's collection consists of authentic and valuable artifacts gathered from around Ecuador.
  • The so-called Metallic Library mentioned by Eric von Däniken in his controversial book 'The Gold of the Gods' is nothing more than modern-day carvings on cheap metal.
  • A small subset of artifacts, which were photographed and filmed in the 1970s, consisting of gold carvings, hieroglyphs and Sumerian figures is genuinely missing and no one seems to have the answers as to where they are located and what their significance is.

Comment: Unknown civilizations? The mysterious artifact collection of Father Crespi


Question

Triceratops horn dated to 35K years ago suggests humans may have walked the earth with dinosaurs

triceratops horn montana
Triceratops horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, which yielded C-14 results of around 33,500 years.
A Triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, has been controversially dated to around 33,500 years, challenging the view that dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago. The finding radically suggests that early humans may have once walked the earth with the fearsome reptiles thousands of years ago.

The Triceratops brow horn was excavated in May 2012 and stored at the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum. The Museum, which has since 2005 been in cooperation with the Paleochronology Group, a team of consultants in geology, paleontology, chemistry, engineering, and education, sent a sample of the outer portion of the Triceratops brow horn to Head of the Paleochronology Group Hugh Miller, at his request, in order to carry out Carbon-14 dating. Mr Miller sent the sample to the University of Georgia, Center for Applied Isotope Studies, for this purpose. The sample was divided at the lab into two fractions with the "bulk" or collagen break down products yielding an age of 33,570 ± 120 years and the carbonate fraction of bone bioapatite yielding an age of 41,010 ± 220 years [UGAMS-11752 & 11752a]. Mr Miller told Ancient Origins that it is always desirable to carbon-14 date several fractions to minimize the possibility of errors which Miller requested and that essential concordance was achieved in the 1000's of years as with all bone fractions of ten other dinosaurs.

Comment: Why does ancient art contain depictions of flying aircraft, helicopters and dinosaurs?


Sherlock

The Obscure Mangiapane Cave in Sicily, Italy: Trapped in a time capsule

Mangiapane Cave
Mangiapane Cave (known also in Italian as Grotta Mangiapane) is a cave that has been occupied on and off since prehistoric times. In addition to being a prehistoric site, Mangiapane Cave is also well-known for being the location of a village that is reported to have been left untouched for the last 70 years. It is perhaps this aspect of the small village in Mangiapane Cave (i.e. being trapped in a time capsule) that draws people to visit this otherwise obscure site in Italy.

Magnify

Chinese archaeologists discover ancient burial site dating back 4,500 years

Ancient tombs dating back 4,500 years old have been found in China's Sichuan province
archeological dig
© Flickr/ Michael Abshear
An ancient cemetery with various tombs has been discovered in the district of Dai. According to the archaeological team head Chzhitsin Zhou, the tombs all differ from each other in style.

Chzhitsin Zhou said that it is the oldest and most well-preserved cemetery in in the plain of Chengdu.

Inside the tombs a number of remains were found, as well as numerous artefacts, including ceramic items.

Question

Dragon Stones: Armenia's mysterious vishap steles

serpent stones armenia
© CC by SA 3.0Standing stones at the ruins of the Metsamor site.
A vishap stele (known also as vishapakar and vishap stone) is a type of stone monument that can be found in Armenia. These steles may be identified by the carvings on them, usually of fishes or snakes. Hence, the vishap steles have also been referred to as 'serpent stones' and 'dragon stones'. The vishap steles are considered a part of the rock art tradition of Armenia, and are therefore treasured as part of the country's rich heritage.

Dating the Vishap Steles

The vishap is said to be the Armenian word for dragon. According to Armenian legends, the vishaps were powerful creatures who lived in high mountains, in big lakes, or in the clouds. Representations of these mythical creatures are not limited to the vishap steles, but are also thought to have been depicted on other rock carvings found in the country.

Whilst it is at present extremely difficult for such petroglyphs to be dated, these images of the vishaps may have been made as early as prehistoric times, perhaps during the Neolithic period. In one source, the vishaps of these petroglyphs are the archetypes of dragons, and were later adopted by other civilizations to the west of Armenia.

Satellite

The ancient Peruvian mystery solved from space

These puzzling holes in the arid valleys of southern Peru tell us there was once a flourishing, sophisticated society here.

Nasca canals
© Ab5602/Wikimedia/Public DomainThe funnel-like shape helped to draw the wind down into the underground canals.
In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Know as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle - one that could only be solved from space.

The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru - an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society.

Comment: