Archaeological discoveries, breakthroughs and theories

[JimW]

Haven't read this in full yet, but this sounds pretty fucking cool.

'Beautiful' Arabic-Romance manuscript hints at Maimonides' childhood memories - History First

A piece of paper overlooked in the library of Cambridge University for over a century provides new insights into the childhood and personality of one of the greatest medieval thinkers.

historyfirst.com

Love that he was a shit poet!

 

[Cloo]

Love that he was a shit poet!

That is a very cute detail

 

[JimW]

That is a very cute detail

A polymath supreme but still let himself get dragged into a fad that didn't suit, it is quite charming.

 

[JimW]

Breakthrough in interpreting a Kushan script that had previously been unreadable to modern scholarship: Research group deciphers enigmatic ancient 'unknown Kushan script' Seems it's allowed them to place the language in the Middle Iranian family.

 

[JimW]

Early Chinese egalitarians built a successful complex drainage system with no central authority: China's ancient water pipe networks show they were a communal effort with no evidence of a centralized state authority

 

[danny la rouge]

Early Chinese egalitarians built a successful complex drainage system with no central authority: China's ancient water pipe networks show they were a communal effort with no evidence of a centralized state authority

That’s very interesting and very cool.

 

[JimW]

That’s very interesting and very cool.

I thought of Skara Brae which as I recall had great drains.

 

[Pickman's model]

interesting article Earliest ceramic drainage system and the formation of hydro-sociality in monsoonal East Asia - Nature Water about complex ancient drainage in an apparently non-hierarchical society Rob Ray Fozzie Bear

 

[ska invita]

interesting article Earliest ceramic drainage system and the formation of hydro-sociality in monsoonal East Asia - Nature Water about complex ancient drainage in an apparently non-hierarchical society Rob Ray Fozzie Bear

three posts above
tsssk

 

[Pickman's model]

three posts above
tsssk

I hope you feel you've done your urban duty

 

[JimW]

Why the 'archaeological discoveries' thread is going down the drain(s).

 

[redcogs]

Non hierarchical? They all pissed in the same pot then?

 

[danny la rouge]

Why the 'archaeological discoveries' thread is going down the drain(s).

Non hierarchical drains!

 

[ska invita]

Non hierarchical drains!

You're fooling yourself. We're living in a drain dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working classes...

 

[petee]

It’s been called ‘the greatest museum of prehistoric art’—but few tourists know it exists

In the Algerian desert, dazzling alfresco galleries provide an eloquent record of ancient civilizations. Here’s how you can visit.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Few people will have heard of the remote Tassili N’Ajjer National Park, even though it is the largest national park in Africa. Located in the southeast corner of Algeria, it comprises the remnants of a vast Precambrian sandstone plateau, extending across 2,780 square miles of the central Sahara, bordering Libya and Niger.

The region is a geological wonderland of uncanny rock formations lapped by orange dunes. Eons of erosion have sharpened the sandstone into pinnacles, worn apertures through high escarpments, and sculpted outcrops into surreal and zoomorphic forms. The park is thought to contain over 300 natural arches alone.

But these rock forests are only half the story. Tassili’s majesty lies not just in the visual splendor of the rocks, but also what past generations have left on them.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Anyone know anything about pewter cups? Found this on the beach near withernsea.

 

[JimW]

Might even be a bit of ordnance?

 

[Kaka Tim]

Might even be a bit of ordnance?

hmm - now you mention it.

thought it might be more coroded if so - here the bottom.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Email your FLO

Scheme contacts

 

[bcuster]

 

[redcogs]

wow how beautiful is that!

 

[Crispy]

Tenochtitlan at its peak, probably the biggest city in the world, recreated in 3D:

a portrait of Tenochtitlan

a 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire

tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl

Amazing images. Especially the ones that let you wipe over the same view in Mexico City today.

 

[JimW]

Four Roman swords in excellent nick, thought perhaps to have been concealed during the Second Jewish Revolt: Four 1,900-year-old Roman swords found in Judean Desert, likely from Bar Kochba revolt

 

[petee]

 

[JimW]

Worked wood suggesting structures 500,000 (!) years old excavated at site in Zambia Archaeologists discover world's oldest wooden structure

 

[petee]

perhaps of interest to you englischers

People may have been cooking curries in South-East Asia for at least 2000 years - Arkeonews

Archaeologists have found remnants of eight spices on a sandstone slab from an archaeological site in Vietnam, showing the early adoption of ingredients and techniques from South Asia.

arkeonews.net

 

[JimW]

Some splendid Mesolithic basketry at a well-known site in Spain, 9,500 years old: Evidence of the oldest hunter-gatherer basketry in southern Europe discovered

 

[petee]

Yearly archaeological campaigns led by current site director Professor Andreas Schachner of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute continue to add to the cuneiform finds. Most of the texts are written in Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language and the dominant language at the site. Yet the excavations of this year yielded a surprise. Hidden in a cultic ritual text written in Hittite is a recitation in a hitherto unknown language.

New Indo-European Language Discovered

An excavation in Turkey has brought to light an unknown Indo-European language. Professor Daniel Schwemer, an expert for the ancient near east from Würzburg, is involved in investigating the discovery.

www.uni-wuerzburg.de

one of my funnest linguistic factoids is that the hittite word for water is watar. so 3400+ years ago in the highlands of interior anatolia, people were making the same sound for the same thing as we do now.

 

[JimW]

More evidence for commie antiquity: A non-exploitative economy favored the splendor of the Iberian Peninsula's Copper Age communities, says study

The richness and productive diversity of the Chalcolithic communities of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula, dating back 5,100 to 4,200 years ago, were produced without signs of economic exploitation or marked social hierarchies and with a high degree of cooperation. This economic organization, based on a great variety of resources and tasks, was present in almost all settlements, independently of their type or dimensions, and would have been crucial for the great social, architectural and demographic dynamics and development reached by the societies of the peninsular Copper Age.

 

[Artaxerxes]

More amazing finds on Orkney

‘A Neolithic feat of engineering’: Orkney dig reveals ruins of huge tomb

Clues unearthed more than 100 years ago inspired archeologists to locate the 5,000-year-old site

www.theguardian.com