Secret HistoryS


Archaeology

Beauty biz: 4,000 year-old tube of red lipstick unearthed in Iran

Sonja Anderson
Smithsonian Magazine
Mon, 26 Feb 2024 16:12 UTC
lipstick ancient iran
© Massimo Vidale via Scientific ReportsThe ancient red pigment was held in an intricately decorated chlorite vial.
Researchers say that a small vial of deep red paste found in Iran's Jiroft region is likely an ancient tube of lipstick. The mineral mixture, housed in a decorated stone tube, could be nearly 4,000 years old, making it among the earliest ever discovered.

The lipstick dates to between 1936 and 1687 B.C.E., according to a study published this month in the journal Scientific Reports. The team thinks the vial could have come from the Marḫaši, which, according to Mesopotamian texts, was a powerful civilization that occupied what's now eastern Iran. Scientists write that the pigment's advanced age "is far from surprising, considering the long-standing, well-known technical and aesthetic tradition in cosmetology in ancient Iran."

The delicate container surfaced in 2001, when the Halil river flooded several ancient graveyards in southeastern Iran and dislodged items from the burials, according to Artnet's Adam Schrader. It was later housed in the Archaeological Museum of Jiroft.

Comment:

Oldest known cosmetics found in ceramic bottles on Balkan Peninsula

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Info

Etruscan tomb discovered in the necropolis of San Giuliano, north of Rome

Oguz Buyukyildirim
Arkeonews Net
Sun, 25 Feb 2024 04:48 UTC
Etruscan tomb
© Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti Paesaggio Etruria Meridionale
After years of work, archaeologists discovered an impressive Etruscan tomb partially hidden underground in the rock-cut necropolis of San Giuliano in Barbarano, north of Rome.

The Etruscan Necropolis of San Giuliano is carved into the reddish rocks of the Marturanum Park, a protected natural area in the municipality of Barbarano Romano, on the road between Rome and Viterbo, in the heart of Southern Etruria.

According to archaeologists, no known Etruscan necropolis presents such a variety and richness of burial types as San Giuliano. Dating back to the 7th century BC, it stands on the sides of a tufaceous cliff occupied by a stable settlement already during the Bronze Age.

The discovery was made while researchers were cleaning and consolidating some of the site's most representative rock-cut funerary chambers, which date from the seventh to third centuries BCE.
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Better Earth

Word inscribed on 2,100 year old bronze hand of Irulegi resembles modern Basque word

Bob Yirka
Phys.org
Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:35 UTC
Irulegi
© Antiquity (2024). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.199Photograph of the Irulegi hand and drawing based on the photograph and a scanned image of the hand (figure by authors).
A team of archaeologists with the Aranzadi Science Society has found a word inscribed on an ancient Basque bronze hand that resembles a modern Basque word. Their paper is published in the journal Antiquity.

In 2021, a related team of archaeologists working at an Iron Age site called Irulegi, in northern Spain, unearthed a flat piece of bronze shaped like a human hand. After cleaning, they discovered that a series of words had been inscribed onto its surface representing text from a Vasconic language — one that includes Basque and several others that are now extinct.

In this more recent study, the research team worked to decipher the text. Thus far, they have found that the first word, if spelled using a Latin alphabet, would be "sorioneke" or "sorioneku" — either of which strongly resembles "zorioneko" — the Basque word for "good fortune."

Comment: Interestingly, it resembles, and holds a similar meaning, to the hamsa, or 'hand of Fatima':
'a palm-shaped amulet popular throughout North Africa and in the Middle East and commonly used in jewellery and wall hangings.[5][6] Depicting the open hand, an image recognized and used as a sign of protection in many times throughout history, the hamsa has been traditionally believed to provide defense against the evil eye.
hand of fatima hamsa
© CarlesVAA hanging hamsa in Tunisia
[...]

Early use of the hamsa could be traced to ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in the amulets of the goddess Inanna or Ishtar.

[...] An 8th-century BCE Israelite tomb containing a hamsa-like hand inscription was discovered at Khirbet el-Qom.[6]
Regarding Ishtar, in The Seven Destructive Earth Passes of Comet Venus, Pierre Lescaudron highlights the parallels between the goddess and cometary Venus:
Going back to the Middle East, the Mesopotamians paid very special attention to Innana/Ishtar (Venus). It was one of the most venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, the most important and widely venerated deity in the Assyrian pantheon.

[...]

Not only was Venus described as a comet by numerous ancient mythologies, but it was considered a destructive one, as depicted in the prayer of lamentation to Ishtar: [...]
And the shape of the hamsa and hand of Irulegi do appear to resemble some old depictions of comets:
chinese comet symbols
© via University of MaineAbove: Comets (‘Huìxīng’) have been observed and recorded in China since the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC). The set of comet illustrations from a silk book (‘Bóshū’) written during the western Han period
Association between comets and plagues
Association between comets and plagues
See also: And check out SOTT radio's: MindMatters: Meaning All the Way Down: The Wonders and Mysteries of Language with Juliana Barembuem



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Russian Flag

How British intelligence framed Julian Assange as a Russian agent

Kit Klarenberg
kitklarenberg.com
Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
Julian
© Peter Nicholls/Reuters/MI6/KJNJulian Assange
February 20/21st could mark WikiLeaks founder-and-chief Julian Assange's final opportunity to avoid extradition to the US. London's High Court has scheduled two days of arguments over whether he can ask an appeals court to block his transfer Stateside. If unsuccessful, he could be sent across the Atlantic, where he faces prosecution under Washington's draconian Espionage Act, and penalties ranging from 175 years in a "supermax" prison, to death, for exposing the lies and crimes of US global empire.

It is the most important press freedom case of all time. Yet, at no point during Julian's seven years of arbitrary detention in London's Ecuadorian embassy, or five years at His Majesty's Pleasure in Belmarsh Prison, Britain's "Gitmo", have the mainstream media or international human rights groups taken a serious interest in his plight. Many Western citizens - including those who had hitherto full-throatedly supported WikiLeaks, and Julian's crusade against official secrecy - were also indifferent over, if not outright supportive of, his violent explusion from the Ecuadorian embassy.

Much of this conspiracy of silence and apathy can be attributed to a concerted campaign of calumny, incubated in London and Washington DC, designed to extinguish public sympathy for Julian. As Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, wrote in a June 2019 op-ed Western media refused to publish, he was "systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed," and once he'd been "dehumanized through isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide."

A prominent libel against Julian was that he operated upon the orders, and in the interests, of the Kremlin. Built up as an omnipotent villain on the world stage following the February 2014 Western-sponsored Maidan coup in Ukraine, and all manner of domestic political upheaval in Europe and North America small and large framed as somehow Moscow-orchestrated ever after, anyone and anything branded as even vaguely sympathetic to Russia automatically became an FSB and/or GRU chaos agent.

Comment: Article exposes the collusion of Spain in the framing of Julian Assange and Russia.

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Design

The decimal point is 150 years older than historians thought

Jo Marchant
Nature
Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:07 UTC
decimal point Astronomer Giovanni Bianchini
© Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/AlamyAstronomer Giovanni Bianchini presenting Emperor Frederick III with his book Tabulae Astrologiae.
Origin of the powerful calculation tool traced back to a mathematician from the Italian Renaissance.

The decimal point was invented around 150 years earlier than previously thought, according to an analysis of astronomical tables compiled by the Italian merchant and mathematician Giovanni Bianchini in the 1440s. Historians say that this discovery rewrites the origins of one of the most fundamental mathematical conventions, and suggests that Bianchini — whose economic training contrasted starkly with those of his astronomer peers — might have played a more notable part in the history of maths than previously realized. The results are published in Historia Mathematica1.

"It's a very nice discovery," says José Chabás, a historian of astronomy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. The decimal point was "a step forward for humanity", he says, enabling the ease and efficiency of calculations that underpin modern science and technology. Previously, its earliest-known appearance was generally said to be in an astronomical table written by the German mathematician Christopher Clavius in 1593. But now it's clear that "the inspiration was taken from Bianchini", Chabás says.
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Bizarro Earth

How the CIA destabilizes the world

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams
Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
Janitor
© Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty ImagesA janitor mops the floor at CIA headquarters on March 3, 2005 in Langley, Virginia.
If only the CIA's rogue operations had been consigned to history as a result of the crimes exposed by the Church Committee, or at the least had brought the CIA under the rule of law and public accountability. But that was not to be.

There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given time, irrespective of international law or U.S. law. Its methods are secretive and duplicitous. Its unaccountability means that the CIA and president run foreign policy without any public scrutiny. Congress is a doormat, a sideshow.

As a recent CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, said of his time at the CIA:
"I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."
The CIA was established in 1947 as the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS had performed two distinct roles in World War II, intelligence and subversion. The CIA took over both roles. On the one hand, the CIA was to provide intelligence to the US Government. On the other, the CIA was to subvert the "enemy," that is, whomever the president or CIA defined as the enemy, using a wide range of measures: assassinations, coups, staged unrest, arming of insurgents, and other means.

It is the latter role that has proved devastating to global stability and the U.S. rule of law. It is a role that the CIA continues to pursue today. In effect, the CIA is a secret army of the U.S., capable of creating mayhem across the world with no accountability whatsoever.
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Info

Previously unknown Bronze Age settlement discovered in Switzerland

oguz kayra
Arkeonews Net
Sun, 18 Feb 2024 18:28 UTC
Ancient Ceramics
© Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern, Frédérique TissierBronze Age ceramics recovered as a block from the rescue excavation in Heimberg.
In advance of a construction project in Heimberg, the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern carried out a rescue excavation in autumn 2023. Although the investigation yielded hardly any new findings about an expected Roman site, it did reveal the remains of a previously unknown settlement from the Bronze Age.

During the investigation at the Schulgässli in Heimberg, which lasted a good three months, various settlement remains were documented on almost 1000 m²: in addition to a usage horizon with a very high proportion of heat stones and (relatively) a lot of Bronze Age ceramics, also various post positions and pits.

Two of these pits were filled to the brim with heat stones, i.e. stones that had been shattered by great heat. These could have been used as heat storage in cooking or heating pits and represent a typical finding for the Bronze Age.

Other pits may have been used to extract clay. At that time, clay was an important raw material and was used, for example, to plaster the wicker walls of houses or to produce pottery. This is matched by an up to 35 m thick layer package of hillside clay in the excavation area.
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Blackbox

Rongorongo: The lost language of Easter Island

Shafik Meghji
Atlas Obscura
Wed, 24 Mar 2021 21:28 UTC
rongorongo script
© INSCRIBE and RESOLUTION ERC TeamsOnly 27 tablets inscribed with the intricate but indecipherable rongorongo script, totaling approximately 15,000 characters and more than 400 different glyphs, have survived.
A wooden fish could help linguists learn more about the writing system known as rongorongo.

On the outskirts of Hanga Roa, Easter Island's only town, the Museo Rapa Nui has a small but striking collection. It includes a rare female version of the monolithic statues known as moai, and sets of piercing moai eyes made from white coral and red volcanic rock. Finely worked obsidian tools sit alongside displays on the Birdman contest, which involved swimming through shark-infested waters and searching an offshore islet for a seabird egg in order to claim the spiritual leadership of Easter Island. With so much to see, it's easy to overlook the carved wooden fish in a glass cabinet. Raised on a stand, as if held aloft by a proud angler, it is the color of dark chocolate and roughly the size and shape of an oar blade. The design may be relatively simple, but this object represents a great — and unsolved — linguistic puzzle.

The fish is covered with rows of stylized glyphs. Some resemble human forms and animals and plants, while others are more abstract — circles, crosses, chevrons, lozenges. This is rongorongo, the only indigenous writing system to develop in Oceania before the 20th century and, according to James Grant-Peterkin, author of A Companion to Easter Island, one of "the last remaining mysteries on Easter Island."

Comment: Nature has just published a new paper on dating the emergence of Rongorongo:
The invention of writing on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). New radiocarbon dates on the Rongorongo script

Placing the origin of an undeciphered script in time is crucial to understanding the invention of writing in human history. Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, developed a script, now engraved on fewer than 30 wooden objects, which is still undeciphered. Its origins are also obscure. Central to this issue is whether the script was invented before European travelers reached the island in the eighteenth century AD. Hence direct radiocarbon dating of the wood plays a fundamental role. Until now, only two tablets were directly dated, placing them in the nineteenth c. AD, which does not solve the question of independent invention. Here we radiocarbon-dated four Rongorongo tablets preserved in Rome, Italy. One specimen yielded a unique and secure mid-fifteenth c. date, while the others fall within the nineteenth c. AD. Our results suggest that the use of the script could be placed to a horizon that predates the arrival of external influence.
The Other Mystery of Easter Island

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Tank

A war that shouldn't have happened: How the USSR made its worst-ever mistake

Roman Shumov
RT
Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:21 UTC
guy flowers
© RT/RT
35 years ago, on February 15, 1989, Moscow withdrew its troops from the conflict-ridden Central Asian country...

On February 15, 1989, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov crossed the bridge over the Amu Darya River between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, which was then part of the USSR. While crossing the river, Gromov uttered the historic phrase: "There is not a single Soviet soldier left behind me."

That marked the end of the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War. This conflict is often considered part of the Cold War between the USSR and the US. However, the Soviet intervention cannot be properly assessed without understanding the political situation in the Central Asian country, at the time.

Prerequisites for the invasion

For a long time, Afghanistan had been an afterthought. In the 1970s, however, the political situation became troublesome. In 1973, the monarchy collapsed as a result of a coup, and was replaced by a short-lived republic. The Soviet Union initially had friendly relations with local elites, but then, Moscow got involved in their politics. Two political sides fought for power in Afghanistan: the leftist parties - supported by the Soviet Union - and the Islamic fundamentalists.
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Better Earth

History of homo sapiens in Europe pushed back thousands of years after discovery in German cave

Stuart Butler
Geographical
Fri, 09 Feb 2024 23:27 UTC
Archaeologist
© Openfinal/ShutterstockArchaeologists have uncovered a surprising find in a German cave which has re-written the history of humans in central Europe
The Ilsenhöhle cave, which is situated some 240km southwest of the German capital Berlin, is a narrow cavern punched by natural forces into a cliff face on top of which proudly sits the castle and village of Ranis.

At first glance, there's nothing particularly special about the cave, but archaeologists have just made a remarkable discovery here. A discovery that has totally reshaped our view on the history of humans and when Homo sapiens first arrived in central Europe.

In the 1930s archaeologists excavated the cave and found artefacts and bones from Neanderthal man dating back to around 43,000 years ago. Now, new excavations in the cave by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and whose findings have just been published in the journal Nature, has turned up something wholly unexpected. Fossils and artefacts dating back even further to 47,500 years ago that came not from Neanderthals but from Homo sapiens.

Comment: Discoveries in China point to human habitation 45,000 years ago, and there's evidence of human activity in New Mexico dating back 37,000 years ago, and so it seems it's only a matter of time before further finds push the dates back much, much further; which will also likely show how not all humans originate 'Out of Africa':

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