Free Republic

Published: March 16, 2007 at 2:24 PM Ancient perfume found on Venus' island ROME, March 16 (UPI) -- Archaeologists exploring Cyprus, said to be home to Venus, the goddess of love, have stumbled upon the world's oldest known perfume factory. A display of the prehistoric scents and 60 objects from the Cyprus discovery can be seen at Rome's Capitoline Museums, ANSA reported. The distilling equipment is believed to be 4,000 years old. "We were astonished at how big the place was ... Perfumes must have been produced on an industrial scale. No wonder the island got its reputation for possessing...

A press release published Monday detailed the discovery of a "mysterious" 4000-year-old monolith in Cyprus.The Erimi Archaeological Team at the University of Siena described the large monolith as having a "circular motif of cups in the center," which "tells the story of a distant era of an artisan community in Cyprus." It stands roughly 7.55 feet tall and is part of a sprawling Bronze Age community complex, according to Ancient Origins.The site has also revealed dyeing vats, warehouses and workshops, suggesting it was the site of a significant textile industry. The monolith was uncovered inside a room in the western...

More than 40 years ago, a Turkish sponge diver named Mehmet Çakir caused a stir among Anatolian archaeologists when he showed them sketches of objects that he had seen lying 150 feet deep on the seafloor off the coast of Kas, in southwestern Turkey. He described them as "metal biscuits with ears," but experts immediately recognized them as a type of metal bar known as an oxhide ingot that was commonly traded during the Bronze Age, 3,500 years ago.Authorities immediately began to search for the site, and soon came across the artifacts that Çakir had spotted not far offshore of...

In a groundbreaking archaeological discovery, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday that a natural gas company's standard survey of the Eastern Mediterranean floor had uncovered the most ancient ship ever found in the deep seas.The discovery of the remains of the ship from the 14th-13th century BCE proves that Late Bronze Age mariners could navigate the seas without a line of sight to the shore, contrary to what was previously believed, the IAA said.The approximately 3,300-year-old ship with a cargo of hundreds of intact amphorae was found 90 kilometers off northern Israel's coast, at a depth of 1.8 km...The exciting...

The Ancient History of Cyprus | 21:21Forest Jungle Collective | 1.16K subscribers | 3,000 views | March 7, 2023

New Study Of The 3,000-year-old Uluburun Shipwreck Has Revealed A Complex Ancient Trading Network During The Late Bronze Age.The Uluburun shipwreck was discovered by a local sponge diver in 1982, close to the east shore of Uluburun (Grand Cape), Turkey.The distribution of the wreckage and scattered cargo, indicates that the ship was between 15 and 16 metres in length. It was constructed by the shell-first method, with mortise-and-tenon joints similar to those of the Graeco-Roman ships of later centuries.The study by researchers from the Washington University in St. Louis have compared tin from the wreck site with samples of tin...

April 13, 2005 1:20 PM Ancient Cypriot copper mine for sale By Michele Kambas NICOSIA (Reuters) - A copper mine in Cyprus where the metal has been mined since Biblical times faces closure unless the Church of Cyprus can find a buyer, officials said on Wednesday. The Skouriotissa mine, which produced copper ore at a site where there has been mining for some 4,000 years, suspended operations in January, leaving its workers unpaid and with debts labour unions estimate at 14 million pounds. Herod the Great, who in the Bible ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in an attempt to...

The researchers found a Philistine cemetery in Israel – home to 145 human remains dating back to between the 11th and the 8th centuries BC. The discovery, made in 2013 and finally revealed in 2016, may yield answers to an enduring mystery surrounding the origins of the Philistines. It came at the end of a 30-year excavation by the Leon Levy Expedition. The Philistines were an ancient people who lived from the 12th century BC until 604 BC. They are known for their biblical conflict with the Israelites.

JERUSALEM — Goliath the Greek? Human remains from an ancient cemetery in southern Israel have yielded precious bits of DNA that a new study says help prove the European origin of the Philistines — the enigmatic nemeses of the biblical Israelites. The Philistines mostly resided in five cities along the southern coast of what is today Israel and the Gaza Strip during the early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago. In the Bible, David fought the Philistine giant Goliath in a duel, and Samson slew a thousand of their warriors with the jawbone of an ass. Many archaeologists have proposed...

Archaeologists in Cyprus have discovered what they believe could be the oldest evidence yet that organized groups of ancient mariners were plying the east Mediterranean, possibly as far back as 14,000 years ago... about 30 miles away from the closest land mass, may have been gradually populated about that time, and up to 2,000 years earlier than previously thought... The discovery at a coastal site on the island's northwest has revealed chipped tools submerged in the sea and made with local stone which could be the earliest trace yet of human activity in Cyprus. U.S. and Cypriot archaeologists conducting the...

Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from? As it turns out, the Philistines were exactly who the Bible says they were, and they came from where the Bible says they did. Amos 9 speaks of God bringing up the Philistines from Caphtor, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 2...

A team of marine archaeologists has uncovered a 3,600-year-old shipwreck in the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Antalya, Turkey. The ship, believed to have been a merchant vessel sailing from Cyprus, may be the oldest ever discovered, according to Haaretz... Based on its position and the large cargo of copper ingots found inside and around the wreck, it is likely to have been a trading ship, ferrying goods from Cyprus to the Aegean region. Although the ship is in very poor condition, and the hull has been almost completely destroyed, the bulk of the ship, together with its precious...

"To the King of Egypt, my brother. Thus says the King of Alashiya, your brother: ... Send your messenger along with my messenger quickly and all the copper that you desire I will send you." ...these words are from the collection of tablets known as the Amarna Correspondence, a cache of diplomatic exchanges discovered in the late 19th century. Historians identify the king of Egypt as Akhenaten, but who was writing to him? And where was Alashiya? Many historians feel that the most likely candidate for copper-rich Alashiya is in Cyprus. But the story of identifying the lost city near...

Bronze tools found in Sweden dating from 3,600 years ago were made using copper from the Mediterranean, archaeologists have shown. They now also believe that rock carvings of ships found in Bohuslan, Sweden were visual documentation of trade between ancient Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Most of the copper circulating in Bronze Age Europe apparently originated from Sicily, Sardinia, the Iberian peninsula - and Cyprus, going by isotope analysis... The precious copper was exchanged for Nordic amber, which was as cherished as gold in Mycenaean Greece and in the prehistoric Middle East... The ancient Cypriot copper industry produced relatively pure stuff,...

Excavations at Idalion, Cyprus: Crossing Cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean 8 p.m. JCCGW Theatre 6125 Montrose Road Rockville, MD Ann-Marie Knoblauch | Virginia Tech University Co-Sponsored by the Hellenic Society Prometheas Cyprus was an important trade center and cultural ‘crossroad’ in antiquity, controlled and influenced in different periods by the Mycenaean civilization, the sea-faring Phoenicians and Philistines of the Bible, Archaic Greece, the Persians in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Roman Empire, and even Christian Byzantium. The ancient site of Idalion is fortuitously situated near the copper-rich mountains of Cyprus and the harbors of the coast.  This prime location led to the...

Remains of a long dead house mouse have been found in the wreck of a Bronze Age royal ship. That makes it the earliest rodent stowaway ever recorded, and proof of how house mice spread around the world. Archaeologist Thomas Cucchi of the University of Durham, UK, identified a fragment of a mouse jaw in sediment from a ship that sank 3500 years ago off the coast of Turkey. The cargo of ebony, ivory, silver and gold - including a gold scarab with the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti - indicates it was a royal vessel. Because the cargo...

The coasts of Anatolia are sprinkled with ancient cities whose harbours bustled with ships engaged in the thriving sea trade of the Aegean and Mediterranean. But not every ship made it safely to harbour. Many were wrecked in storms and sank with their cargoes to the seabed, and the remains of these have lain hidden on the seabed for long centuries. Wrecks of both merchant and warships each have their historical tale to relate, and are among the underwater sights that fascinate divers today. No other region of the world is so rich in sunken history as the seas around...

The last time anyone touched the artifacts Elizabeth Greene is after, Rome was a new empire and climate change had just pushed the Scandinavians into Europe... The unexplored wreck sank between 700 and 450 BC. For Greene, who has assisted in a handful of shipwreck dives, it will also be the first in which she takes the lead... A trade hub in ancient times for Greece and Turkey, the Mediterranean has thousands of ancient shipwrecks, "more than we'll ever be able to excavate," Greene said. They are so old that most of the actual ships are gone, eaten by underwater...

An ancient voyage in just two months Thursday, March 29, 2007ÖMER ERBİL A replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II, was built by the 360 Degree Historical Research Association in Urla, İzmir and displayed in Bodrum as part of activities marking the 80th anniversary of Sabotage Day in July. Journey from Foça to Marseille.. A group, who built the replica of ships used by old Foça people 2,600 year ago, will set to sail next year. The voyage will last two months. The 360 Degree Research Group, which had built the replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II,...

The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum and sponsored by the Bodrum Peninsula Promotion Foundation started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and was launched in 2005... The [original] Uluburun sank in the 14th century 8.5 kilometers southeast of Kafl in Uluburun Bay while carrying copper and tin from Alexandria to Crete. It was discovered in 1982 by a diver. The remains of the shipwreck were unearthed by an excavation team consisting of archaeologists and divers and the process has lasted over 20 years. Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds...