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rchaeology is not an exact science. It is full of doubts, uncertainties, surprises, and unanswered questions. One of its unsolved mysteries concerns the methods of ancient stone work, which is lost in the mists of time... To this technological enigma, excluding fanciful speculations, I intend to offer an explanation in line with ‘ Occam's razor ’: with all factors being equal, the solution to a problem is the simplest one. Using Acid to Work the Hardest Stones The thesis is that the only practical system available to act on the mentioned minerals, refractory to (or unmanageable by) physical action, was...

An ancient palace has emerged from an Iraqi reservoir after water levels dropped precipitously because of a drought. A lack of rain and the release of water through the Mosul Dam to relieve dry conditions has led to the Mittani Empire site being revealed. The site was flooded when the Mosul Dam was built in the mid-1980s before archaeologists were able to examine it.

Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a Roman-era ship off the east coast of Cyprus. In a statement, Cyprus’ Department of Antiquities explained that the wreck is the first undisturbed Roman shipwreck found in the Mediterranean island nation’s waters. The ship is loaded with amphorae, or large ancient jars, which are likely from Syria and ancient Cilicia on modern-day Turkey's southeastern coast. Analysis of the shipwreck will shed new light on seaborne trade between Cyprus and the rest of the Roman provinces of the eastern Mediterranean, officials explained in the statement. The wreck was found near the resort town of...

On Thursday, the Bible will go on display for the first time at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. The 16th president was given the Holy Book on June 16, 1864, during a rare wartime trip to Philadelphia raising money for wounded soldiers, where Lincoln donated 48 signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation that were sold for fundraising. He was gifted the 18-pound, gilted Bible decorated with the words "faith," "hope," and "charity" by the hospital that treated wounded and ill soldiers during the Civil War. The cover of the Bible reads: “Presented to Abraham Lincoln,...

Mysterious 3,000-year-old fingerprints have been found in bricks at an archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates. The fingerprints were found at the Hili 2 site in Abu Dhabi, which is part of the Al Ain UNESCO World Heritage Site. In a Facebook post, Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism said that the fingerprints could offer vital clues to archaeologists. The fingerprints, they explain "indicate the adoption of an advanced technique in construction." The National reports that ancient craftsmen used their hands to make indentations in the mud bricks. The indentations would be used to contain the mortar that...

Perspectives on ancient chronology and the Old Testament—part 2 by Murray R. Adamthwaite 6-5-2019 It is well known that dates for the first millennium BC are fairly firm, and that the Assyrian Eponym Canon has a full record of years as far back as 912/911 BC. However, prior to that the chronology is very much ‘up for grabs’. For Egypt, the resort has traditionally been to the so-called ‘Sothic cycle’ and fixing dates by the few astronomical references in Egyptian records. However, the neat scheme established by this method has in recent years started to come unstuck, and serious challenges...

Israeli researchers raised a glass Wednesday to celebrate a long-brewing project of making beer and mead using yeasts extracted from ancient clay vessels —some over 5,000 years old. Archaeologists and microbiologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and four Israeli universities teamed up to study yeast colonies found in microscopic pores in pottery fragments. The shards were found at Egyptian, Philistine and Judean archaeological sites in Israel spanning from 3,000 BC to the 4th century BC. The scientists are touting the brews made from "resurrected" yeasts as an important step in experimental archaeology, a field that seeks to reconstruct the past...

The last ship known to have smuggled slaves from Africa to the US is said to have been discovered after a year-long investigation. The remains of the Clotilda were found at the bottom of the Mobile river in Alabama. The ship was used to smuggle men, women and children into America from Africa. It operated in secret, decades after Congress banned the importation of slaves, and was intentionally sunk in 1860 to hide evidence of its use. "The discovery of the Clotilda is an extraordinary archaeological find," Lisa Demetropoulos Jones, executive director of the Alabama Historical Commission (AHC), told the...

Her many great films range from Broken Blossoms, The Scarlet Letter, and The Wind in the silent days to the 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter. Her extensive work in the theater and television maintained her unrivaled standards of deep emotion, humor, intelligence, grace, and integrity. Gish’s acting is a beacon to show us our humanity, and she was outspoken in the causes of universal brotherhood and the preservation of our arts, especially film. So it was with mingled disbelief and outrage that I read that Lillian Gish is the latest victim of our curse of “political correctness” run amok. The trustees of Bowling Green...

THE earliest-known work of art created by Michelangelo when the Italian artist was just 12 years old has been discovered. The sketch, which depicts a robed man in a chair, was identified by leading Italian Renaissance scholar Sir Timothy Clifford. Sir Clifford believes the legendary artist, who painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and carved the statue of David in marble, created the work when he was just a young child. Describing it as “the earliest drawing efforts of a youth who would one day emerge as one of the most remarkable artists that has ever lived,” Sir Clifford thinks it...

A University of Bristol academic has succeeded where countless cryptographers, linguistics scholars and computer programs have failed—by cracking the code of the 'world's most mysterious text', the Voynich manuscript. Although the purpose and meaning of the manuscript had eluded scholars for over a century, it took Research Associate Dr. Gerard Cheshire two weeks, using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity, to identify the language and writing system of the famously inscrutable document. In his peer-reviewed paper, The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, published in the journal Romance Studies, Cheshire describes how he successfully deciphered the manuscript's...

Most Europeans descend from a combination of European hunter-gatherers, Anatolian early farmers, and Steppe herders. But only European speakers of Uralic languages like Estonian and Finnish also have DNA from ancient Siberians. Now, with the help of ancient DNA samples, researchers reporting in Current Biology on May 9 suggest that these languages may have arrived from Siberia by the beginning of the Iron Age, about 2,500 years ago, rather than evolving in Northern Europe. The findings highlight the way in which a combination of genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data can converge to tell the same story about what happened in...

A 4,500-year-old cemetery has been discovered southeast of the famous Giza Pyramids, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced this morning (May 4). Several tombs and burials were discovered in the cemetery, with one of the oldest tombs holding the remains of two individuals — one named "Behnui-Ka" and another named "Nwi." Their sarcophagi were found intact and their remains are likely inside; however, no information on them has been released. Analysis of the tomb's artifacts and hieroglyphic inscriptions revealed that the two men lived almost 4,500 years ago, during what historians often call the Fifth Dynasty, a time after the...

Half a millennium after Leonardo da Vinci's death, his influence is alive and well in many of the modern machines we see and use every day. An inventor, engineer, scientist, and artist, da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance Man, and one of history's brightest minds. Not only did he have the vision to create early versions of game-changing modern gadgets, but he was also the extremely gifted painter who birthed the world's most famous work of art, the Mona Lisa, and the equally iconic Last Supper. "He was the first to insist that mechanical devices should be designed in keeping...

Photography of Mesha Stele. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository =============================================================== The biblical King Balak may have been a historical figure, according to a new reading of the Mesha Stele, an inscribed stone dating from the second half of the 9th century BCE. A name in Line 31 of the stele, previously thought to read 'House of David', could instead read 'Balak', a king of Moab mentioned in the biblical story of Balaam (Numbers 22-24), say archaeologist Prof. Israel Finkelstein and historians and biblical scholars Prof. Nadav Na'aman and Prof. Thomas Römer, in an article published in Tel Aviv:...

The jawbone of a little-known form of ancient human has been discovered in western China. Scientists say these people lived as long as 150,000 years ago, and they were part of a group called Denisovans. The Denisovans are a mystery. Up until now, their only remains — a few bone fragments and teeth — came from a cave called Denisova in Siberia. In 2010, scientists concluded from those fragments and their DNA that Denisovans were slightly different from us — Homo sapiens — and slightly different from Neanderthals, but that they lived contemporaneously. In short, they were a third kind...

ARCHAEOLOGISTS were stunned to find a 1,500-year-old fossilised human poo contained an entire snake. The snake, almost certainly a type of rattlesnake, was swallowed without any kind of cooking or preparation – sugggesting that it was seated as part of a religious ritual or possibly for a bet. Which is why we specified cave-MAN. Swallowing venomous animals for a laugh is very much a bloke’s thing. A team led by archaeologist Elanor Sonderman from Texas A&M University re-examined a collection of coprolites – partly-fossilized turds – that had been collected from Conejo Shelter site in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of...

<p>DAEJEON, South Korea (AP) — Just two hours after Lee Dong Kil’s daughter was born on New Year’s Eve, the clock struck midnight, 2019 was ushered in, and the infant became 2-years-old. She wasn’t alone, though it happened for her quicker than most: Every baby born in South Korea last year became 2 on Jan. 1.</p>

The 10th-century grave, known as Bj. 581, was first discovered on the Swedish island of Bjorko in the late 19th century. Stunning artifacts found in the grave indicated that it belonged to a high-status Viking warrior, who, for over a century, was assumed to be male. In 2017, however, experts published the results of a DNA analysis that revealed the skeleton was female. The amazing discovery garnered a great deal of attention and sparked plenty of debate. The warrior woman was buried in elaborate clothing and her grave contained a stunning array of weapons, including a sword, an ax, 25...

PART ONE: TRANSLATION, COMMENTARY, AND DATE INTRODUCTION The Nazareth Inscription is a Greek inscription on a marble tablet measuring approximately 24 inches by 15 inches. The exact time and place of its discovery is not known. In 1878 it became an addition to the private Froehner Collection of ancient inscriptions and manuscripts, but the details of its acquisition are unknown. Froehner’s inventory of this Inscription simply states: “This marble was sent from Nazareth in 1878.” This is all that is known about the time and place of its discovery (Cumont 241-242, Zelueta 1-2). While Froehner did make a Greek miniscule...