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MISCONCEPTION: Upon leaving Egypt, the Jews crossed the Yam Suf, which is translated as the Red Sea. This translation, however, is an error. Red Sea is a corruption of the correct Old English (OE) translation, Reed (Rede) Sea. (Rede is a legitimate spelling of reed in OE.)FACT: The notion that the Yam Suf is the modern-day Red Sea predates any English translation of the Bible by well over a thousand years. In fact, it seems that until the late eighteenth century no one questioned the translation and identification of Yam Suf with the Red Sea...The Septuagint (second to third century...

New Delhi, April 18: Mariners from India's east coast exploited monsoon winds to sail to southeast Asia more than 2,000 years ago, an archaeologist has proposed, challenging a long-standing view that a Greek navigator had discovered monsoon winds much later. Sila Tripati at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, has combined archaeological, meteorological, and literary data to suggest that Indian mariners were sailing to southeast Asia riding monsoon winds as far back as the 2nd century BC. A 1st century AD Greek text, Periplus of the Erythreaean Sea, and a contemporary Roman geographer named Pliny have claimed that the...

On the ancient Syrian island of Arwad, which was settled by the Phoenicians in about 2000 BCE, men are hard at work hammering wooden pegs into the hull of a ship. But this vessel will not be taking fishermen on their daily trip up and down the coast. It is destined for a greater adventure – one that could solve a mystery which has baffled archaeologists for centuries. The adventure begins not in Arwad but in Dorset, where an Englishman has taken it upon himself to try to prove that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa thousands of years before any Europeans...

So how far did the Phoenicians really go in the region?In one of the early adventures of Asterix and Obelix, a Phoenician trade ship takes the world’s funniest Celtic warriors from the Gaul’s last village free from Roman rule to Queen Cleopatra in the land of the Nile. Now, of course this is but an image in a comic book, but still, is it possible that the Phoenicians, generally known as the greatest seafarers of antiquity, actually reached Brittany, or even further? There’s no doubt that Phoenicians were well established all over the Mediterranean. Archeological remains prove they lived in...

Whatever study has been made so far of the Tamil texts side by side with comparable data available in Strabo, Pliny, the Periplus Maris Erythraei and Ptolomey, and with the archaeological and numismatic finds in Southern India, has shown that the Tamil texts contain illuminating corroborative evidence. Discussions of Roman Tamil trade made by Jean Filliozat, Mortimer Wheeler, Pierre Meile, E.H. Warmington and M.P. Charlesworth have taken into consideration the tests interpreted by V. Kangasabai Pillai in his book the "Tamils one thousand eight hundred years Ago". 1904.

It is not known whether the wood fragments were wreck material, or if they were associated with the remains of a Stalin's Organ lying nearby. No other artifacts, including anchors, were found despite the digging of several small test pits approximately 15 cm. deep to determine the extent of the wreck. It is probable more artifacts lie under the sand, as well as concreted into the coral. My original opinion of the date of the pottery was 7th century...I believed, however, a date a few centuries earlier or later was also possible. Research has revealed that my initial dating...

Scientists discover ancient sea wharf 30/12/2004 7:32 Archeologists say that they have found the country's oldest wharf and it is believed to be the starting point of an ancient sea route to Central and West Asia. The discovery has reaffirmed the widespread belief that the ancient trade route started in Hepu County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, archeologists said at yesterday's symposium on the nation's marine silk road. After three years of excavation, archeologists have unearthed a wharf that is at least 2,000 years old in Guchengtou Village, according to Xiong Zhaoming, head of the archeological team. At the same site,...

When in Vietnam, Build Boats as the Romans Do Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA In December 2004, researchers drained a canal in northern Vietnam in search of ancient textiles from graves. They found that and a whole lot more. Protruding from the canal bank at Dong Xa was a 2000-year-old log boat that had been used as a coffin. After a closer look at the woodwork, archaeologists Peter Bellwood and Judith Cameron of Australia National University in Canberra and their colleagues were astounded to find that the method for fitting planks to hull matched that...

The Periplus Maris Erythraei (or "Voyage around the Erythraean Sea") is an anonymous work from around the middle of the first century CE written by a Greek speaking Egyptian merchant.  The first part of the work (sections 1-18) describes the maritime trade-routes following the north-south axis from Egypt down the coast of East Africa as far as modern day Tanzania.  The remainder describes the routes of the East-West axis running from Egypt, around the Arabian Peninsula and past the Persian Gulf on to the west coast of India.  From the vivid descriptions of the places mentioned it is generally...

A fragment of a glass bowl unearthed on Okinoshima island, a UNESCO World Heritage site here, came from ancient Persia during the Sassanian dynasty (226-651), researchers announced March 1. Munakata Taisha shrine teamed up with experts and used X-ray imaging to analyze the artifact as well as small pebble-shaped "kirikodama" ornaments made of glass. They date to the late fifth century to seventh century. Okinoshima island, located off Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, is considered by the shrine to be so sacred that only males can visit and only if they engage in purification rituals before coming ashore. The island has yielded...

The oldest known shipwreck in the Indian Ocean has been sitting on the seafloor off the southern coast of Sri Lanka for some 2,000 years...The wreck lies 110 feet (33 meters) below the ocean's surface, just off the fishing village of Godavaya, where German archaeologists in the 1990s found a harbor that was an important port along the maritime Silk Road during the second century A.D..."Everything's pretty broken," said Deborah Carlson, president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, who is leading the expedition to the Godavaya wreck with colleagues from the United States, Sri Lanka and...

For those who think financial fraud or circulating fake currencies is a modern day phenomenon, an ancient Roman coin mould on display at the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage in the city is a startling revelation. The Roman coin mould, which is being displayed for the first time since its excavation in 1993, indicates that fake coins were in circulation around 19 to 20 centuries ago. The terracotta mould is among the most important objects displayed at the exhibition, apart from terracotta figurines, iron objects, bronze dies, stone beads. M S Krishnamurthy, a retired professor of Archaeology who led...

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other. This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt...

Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris and sung in praise by the Tamil Sangam poets as Muciri. Every year since 2005, excavations have yielded artefacts, structures and even a canoe in one instance to confirm this conclusion. This year has also been productive for archaeologists. A figure of a pouncing lion carved in great detail on a semi precious stone and a bright micro metal object with intricate designs...

Archaeologists unearth Roman era artefacts in Kerala From our ANI Correspondent Pattanam (Kerala), Mar 23: What began as exploratory studies in Kerala, has thrown up enough artefacts and structures of two millennia old Indo-Roman trade era to delight archaeologists, who are looking for the lost port of Muziris. Archaeological teams in Pattanam village, near the port city of Kochi have been working on a site, which has yielded pottery, amphora, beads and other artefacts that are reminiscent of the ancient Romans. "The initial studies carried out in this region have amply indicated that there was a Roman presence. The Roman...

PATTANAM, India -- Pottery shards, beads, Roman copper coins, and ancient wine bottles litter the strata beneath this small seaside village in India's southern Kerala state. The 250 families, mostly agricultural laborers, who live in Pattanam, 260 kilometers (161 miles) north of Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, find the objects pretty, but would rather dig up the ground and build larger homes. But according to archaeologists K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar, they may be destroying the remnants of Muziris, a well-documented trading port where Rome and India met almost 3,000 years ago. They say that, based on remote sensing data, a river...

Search for India's ancient city Roman amphora pieces abound in Pattanam Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala. For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals. Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared. Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP...

The first inscription was discovered in 2003 at ancient Hegra in Hedjaz, an oasis city on the Incense Road. Today it is known as Al-Hijr (Mada'in Salih)...Hegra was the major center in the south of the Nabataean kingdom that in the 1st century CE also controlled other oasis towns, such as nearby Taima or Dumatha. The kingdom was one of Rome's client states along its eastern border. When the last Nabataean king died in 106 CE, Trajan had already prepared the orders for imperial troops in neighboring provinces to swiftly move in and occupy his territory before any resistance could...

  WHO REALLY DISCOVERED AMERICA? William F. Dankenbring    Posted Apr 05.04 WHO REALLY DISCOVERED AMERICA? A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western Hemisphere. It contains engraved on its flank the entire Ten Commandments written in ancient Hebrew script! Hebrew scholars, such as Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University near Boston, have vouched for its authenticity. I visited the site of the huge boulder, near Las Lunas, New Mexico, in 1973 and photographed the Hebrew inscriptions. A local newspaper reporter guided...

Who Really Discovered America? Did ancient Hebrews reach the shores of the North and South American continents thousands of years before Christopher Columbus? What evidence is there for Hebrew and Israelite occupation of the Western Hemisphere even a thousand years before Christ? Was trans-Atlantic commerce and travel fairly routine in the days of king Solomon of Israel? Read here the intriguing, fascinating saga of the TRUE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA! William F. Dankenbring A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western...