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Silk Road history buried under sand

Silk Road
© CNTV
Taklimakan is the largest desert in the country. Measuring 330,000 square kilometers, it's a scene of endless sand. But buried under this vast desert are relics of the Silk Road, one of the greatest commercial routes in history that linked the east and west.

117 years ago, in 1896, Swedish explorer Sven Hedin made a surprising discovery at the oasis town of Dandan Oilik, in the heart of the Taklimakan Desert.

Zhang Yuzhong, former deputy director of Xinjiang Archeology Research Institute, said, "In the past, experts in China and abroad had believed there was no trace of humans in the desert. But Sven Hedin found many remains of houses. Then Aurel Stein, another explorer known as a pioneer of the Silk Road, stayed there for two weeks, and found the remains of another 18 residential houses and identified some temples. He also found documents from the Tang and Han dynasties.

In 1900, Hedin once again visited the Taklimakan. In this expedition, he found the ruins of the ancient city Loulan, buried under the sand.

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Greco-Roman tombs dating back 2,300 years found in Egypt

Ancient Tombs
© Latin American Herald Tribune
Cairo - Egyptian archaeologists have discovered several Greek and Roman tombs dating from as early as 332 B.C. in the Al-Qabari district of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the Ministry of State for Antiquities said Thursday.

The ministry said in a statement that it suspected antiquities might be found at a planned construction site for a public service building and dispatched a team of experts who found the burial chambers there.

The tombs have two stories and some parts are submerged in subterranean water.

Al-Qabari is considered a major archaeological zone because it is home to the necropolis of Alexandria and numerous other ancient tombs have been found there.

The newly discovered tombs do not contain mummies or skeletons and were used to bury citizens who were not high-ranking officials. EFE

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Stone Age Women Endured Regular Violence

anthropology skulls
© David Hunt, North Carolina State UniversitySkulls from a forensic anthropology lab.
Stone Age farmers lived through routine violence, and women weren't spared from its toll, a new study finds.

The analysis discovered that up to 1 in 6 skulls exhumed in Scandinavia from the late Stone Age -- between about 6,000 and 3,700 years ago -- had nasty head injuries. And contrary to findings from mass grave sites of the period, women were equally likely to be victims of deadly blows, according to the study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Ancient pastoralists

Linda Fibiger, an archaeologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and her colleagues focused on the late Stone Age, when European hunter-gatherers had transitioned into farming or herding animals.

Question

They might be giants! 18ft. tall giant human skeleton found by oil prospector J. Mckinney in Texas!

I am doing research on historic finds across America. Any articles and shared research would be much appreciated as I put together evidence of giant races. Contact me here. Also, If anyone has any personal writings or information on Doctor. P. R Hoy, from Racine, Wisconsin I would be interested in talking to you as well.

My last article to bring awareness of the giant phenomenon has received much attention and my inbox seemed to be full of stories like this one. One contact that reached out to me was Jim Vieira researcher and writer for Ancient American Magazine. We had a discussion about Stone builders, Mound builders and the Giants of Ancient America. Discoveries like this one found in the local Texas newspaper archives. The thought that a race of 18 ft. tall giants would bring some answers to unexplained architecture and legends. Giants appear all throughout history and multiple cultures. I wonder how much a group of these giants could lift? How fast could they row? What else is real?

First let's look at some popular giant characteristics that do not show up on human individuals. These usually are their size, six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. This is even mentioned in the Bible 1st Chronicles 20:6. In Amos 2:9, Amos describes them "as tall as cedars", which in most cases is taken as figurative and not literal.

Pharoah

King Tut's parents were cousins, not siblings: Researcher

King Tut
© Egyptian MuseumThe discovery of jars of wine in King Tuts tomb prompted a team of Spanish scientists to try and determine if the boy king preferred red or white wine. An analysis of residues in 2005 revealed that the jars contained syringic acid, which implied that the wine was made with red grapes.
For all the popularity Tutankhamun enjoys today, key details about the ancient Egyptian pharaoh's life, such as his parentage, have remained somewhat mysterious. While Akhenaten was known to be Tut's dad, the identity of the boy king's mother has remained elusive. But at least one archaeologist believes she was Nefertiti.

Recent DNA analyses from the mummies of Tut and his kin revealed that the boy king's parents were siblings. Those results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in February 2010, pointed to the "heretic" king Akhenaten and one of his sisters as the mom and dad of Tut.

But researcher Marc Gabolde said in a talk at Harvard University last week that he believes King Tut's mom was Akhenaten's cousin Nefertiti, who was Akhenaten's chief wife and the mother of six of his daughters.

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Resigning pope brings doomsday prophecy

Ancient Document
© Wikimedia CommonsA detail of the Prophetia S. Malachiae Archiepiscopi, de Summis Pontificibus by Arnold Wyon.
Is the world only a Pope away from the End? Yes, if you believe a chilling 12th-century prophecy.

Attributed to St. Malachy, an Irish archbishop canonized in 1190, the Prophecy of the Popes would date to 1139. The document predicted that there would be only 112 more popes before the Last Judgment - and Benedict XVI is 111.

The list of popes originated from a vision Malachy said he received from God when he was in Rome, reporting on his diocese to Pope Innocent II.

The story goes that St. Malachy gave the apocalyptic list to Innocent II and that the document remained unknown in the Vatican Archives some 440 years after Malachy's death in 1148. It was rediscovered and published by Benedictine Arnold de Wyon in 1590.

The prophecy consists of brief, cryptic phrases in Latin about each Pope. It ends with the 112th pope, named "Petrus Romanus" or "Peter the Roman."

According to the premonition, Peter the Roman would "feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the City of the Seven Hills shall be utterly destroyed, and the awful Judge will judge the people."

Often highly enigmatic, several prophetical announcements in the document appear to have come true.

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Peru archaeologists find ancient temple in El Paraiso

Ancient Peruvian Temple
© Peruvian Ministry of CultureThe temple was discovered in one of the wings of the main pyramid at the ancient site of El Paraiso.
Archaeologists in Peru say they have discovered a temple at the ancient site of El Paraiso, near the capital, Lima.

Entry to the rectangular structure, estimated to be up to 5,000 years old, was via a narrow passageway, they say.

At its centre, the archaeologists from Peru's Ministry of Culture found a hearth which they believe was used to burn ceremonial offerings.

With 10 ruins, El Paraiso is one of the biggest archaeological sites in central Peru.

The archaeologists found the structure, measuring 6.82m by 8.04m (22ft by 26ft), in the right wing of the main pyramid.

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Battered skulls reveal violence among Stone Age women

Stone Age Skulls
© David Hunt, North Carolina State UniversitySkulls from a forensic anthropology lab.

Stone Age farmers lived through routine violence, and women weren't spared from its toll, a new study finds.

The analysis discovered that up to 1 in 6 skulls exhumed in Scandinavia from the late Stone Age - between about 6,000 and 3,700 years ago - had nasty head injuries. And contrary to findings from mass gravesites of the period, women were equally likely to be victims of deadly blows, according to the study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Ancient pastoralists

Linda Fibiger, an archaeologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and her colleagues focused on the late Stone Age, when European hunter-gatherers had transitioned into farming or herding animals.

Mass graves unearthed from that time in Talheim and Eulau, Germany, contained mostly males who had died in violent conflicts. As such, researchers had thought women were spared from conflicts due to their potential childbearing value, Fibiger told LiveScience.

But looking only at the aftermath of big, bloody conflicts can obscure the day-to-day realities of Neolithic farmers.

"It would be like only looking at a war zone to assess violence," Fibiger said. "That's not going to tell you what's going on in your neighborhood."

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Ancient foragers and farmers hit it off

Hunter Gatherers
© (Illustration, Left) Mauro Cutrona; (Top Right) National Museum in Belgrade; (Bottom Right) Dušan BorićCultural exchanges? Hunter-gatherers along the Danube River, such as those depicted in this artist's reconstruction, maintained their own traditions but also adopted those of incoming farmers. Thus, this hunter-gatherer burial included both beads typical of foragers and those associated with farmers (such as those used to make the necklace, upper right.)
Perhaps there was peace in the valley, after all. Thousands of years ago, foragers and early farmers in the Balkans lived in peaceful coexistence, according to a new study of skeletal remains. But this cozy picture, which includes cultural exchange and also apparently intermating, may not apply to the spread of farming everywhere, other researchers caution.

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming was one of the most momentous upheavals in human prehistory. That transition marks the beginning of the Neolithic period, which started nearly 11,000 years ago, when people of the Near East domesticated plants and animals and settled down in sedentary communities with permanent houses. In Europe, meanwhile, roving foragers of so-called Mesolithic cultures continued to hunt, fish, and gather wild plants. The Neolithic apparently first spread from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) to Greece and the Balkan region sometime after 8500 years ago. Researchers have long debated what happened when foragers and farmers came face to face. Did they make war, make peace, or simply ignore each other?

Hiliter

'Largest' Scottish ancient artworks revealed

Scottish rock art
© HermediaOne of the 28 cup marked stones found on Swordale Hill, Evanton, some of which measure 10ft across.

A retired silversmith has ­uncovered the largest collection of ancient rock art ever found in the Highlands on a remote hill overlooking the Cromarty Firth.

The carved rocks - some ­almost 10ft across - have been discovered scattered across a hillside near Evanton, in ­Ross-shire.

Douglas Scott, the amateur archaeologist who has recorded the remarkable find, believes the "cup-marked" rocks - dating from up to 5,000 years ago to the Neolithic or Bronze Age - form part of a "ritual centre of some significance" where ancient people worshipped the sun and performed rites connected to the ­underworld.

Mr Scott, 64, from Tain, has found and recorded a total of 28 carved rocks on Swordale Hill - Druim Mor in Gaelic - and lodged his remarkable discovery with the Highland Historic Environment Record and the Royal Commission on Ancient ­Monuments.