Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Analysis of Everyday Tools Challenges Long-held Ideas About What Drove Major Changes in Ancient Greek Society
August 22, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert)A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the ‘Minoan civilization.’

About 3,500 years ago, Crete underwent significant cultural transformations, including the adoption of a new language and economic system, burial customs, dress and drinking habits – all of which could be traced to the neighboring Mycenaean Greek mainland.

At roughly the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion.

A new study, published online in the journal PLOS One questions that theory.
Further extract:
“Rather than wholescale cultural change, our study has found evidence of significant continuity after the alleged invasion. While new practices can be initiated through external forces such as invasion, migration, colonialism, or cross-cultural intermarriage, we also know of examples where locals choose to adopt foreign habits to distinguish themselves within their own society,” says (Tristan) Carter (professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University).
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962626
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Mysterious Script From 4,000 Years Ago May Finally Be Deciphered
by Owen Jarus
August 31, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) A mysterious ancient writing system called Linear Elamite, used between about 2300 BCE and 1800 BCE in what is now southern Iran, might have finally been deciphered, although some experts are skeptical about the findings.

What's more, it's unclear whether all the artifacts used to decipher the writings were legally acquired.

Only about 40 known examples of Linear Elamite survive today, making the script challenging to decode, but researchers say they've largely accomplished just that, they wrote in a paper published in July in the journal Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie (German for the Journal of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology).

Key to their decipherment was the analysis of eight inscriptions on silver beakers.

Other research teams had previously decoded different Linear Elamite inscriptions, and the new study's authors built on this previous work by comparing the writing system in the eight Linear Elamite inscriptions with cuneiform (an already-deciphered script used in what is now the Middle East) texts that date to around the same time period and likely contain the names of the same rulers and their titles and use some of the same phrases to describe the rulers.


Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/mysteriou ... eciphered
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Debates About Migration Have Never Been Simple – Just Look at the Hebrew Bible
by Ki-Eun Jang
September , 2022

Introduction:
(The Conversation) Today, the Bible is often invoked during public debates about immigration. From former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to a group of 2,000 rabbis, people have referred to the Bible to explain their differing positions on immigration and refugees. Several specialists in biblical studies have spoken and written about what the text says on the topic.

One thing is clear: Migration matters in the Bible. Stories about it are common – from the Book of Genesis, where the patriarch Abraham obeys God’s command to leave his homeland in Mesopotamia, to the Moabite woman Ruth, who migrates to Bethlehem out of love for her Judean mother-in-law, Naomi, to the Jews’ forced migration to Babylonia.

But these many voices do not necessarily boil down to a single theology or ethical framework. As a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, I study how themes of migration mattered in the making of scripture, as well as in how the text has been circulated, debated and interpreted by readers across the globe.

Discussions about migration are always complicated, because migrants’ real-life experiences do not easily translate into simple bureaucratic categories.

Modern societies defined by the ideas of citizenship and borders tend to classify modern migrants into legal binaries, each with its own rights and restrictions: resident vs. nonresident, documented vs. undocumented, immigrant vs. nonimmigrant. Ancient Israel, too, relied on legal categories to try to make sense of migration.
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/debates-ab ... le-180652
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Shrine with Never-Before-Seen Ritual Discovered in Egyptian Temple
by Dr. Alfredo Carpineti
October 7, 2022

Introduction:
(IFL Science) Archaeologists have discovered a shrine in a temple in Egypt that describes a ritual never seen before. It comes from the religious complex of the ancient seaport of Berenike, a city that dates back to the third century BCE. The complex itself is a lot more modern having been built over 700 years later, during the decline and final century of the Western Roman Empire.

The newly found place of worship has been named the "Falcon Shrine" by researchers due to the material found that suggests a ritual function associated with a falcon cult, and dates from the fourth to sixth centuries CE. During this time, the city was partially occupied by the Blemmyes, a nomadic group of people from the Nubian region who had spread to many other areas of Egypt’s Eastern desert.

This finding gives new insight into the religious practices of the Blemmyes and how they merged them with the Egyptian belief system. The most incredible find, giving the shrine its name, was the discovery of 15 falcons – most of them headless – buried within the temple. The burial of mummified falcons has been found in other temples but usually only one on its own. Finding multiple birds together with eggs is a unique discovery.
“The material findings are particularly remarkable and include offerings such as harpoons, cube-shaped statues, and a stele with indications related to religious activities,” Professor Joan Oller Guzmán, the Sikait Project research team director said in a statement.

Among the material findings, the stele is particularly intriguing. The stele is believed to depict a procession of gods and bears an inscription that reads: “It is improper to boil a head in here.” A prohibition such as this in a religious temple has not been seen before in Berenike and implies that performing that ritual in the temple was a profane activity. It was likely performed elsewhere.
Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/shrine-with ... ple-65654

The lengthier presentation of the work as published in the American Journal of Archaeology can be found here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/ ... 0806#_i35
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Clay Tablet in Turkey Points to ‘Enemy’ Influence on Hittite Empire
by Yasuji Nagai
October 20, 2022

Introduction:
(The Asahi Shimbun) An ancient clay tablet found in central Turkey suggests that a little known rival ethnic group was closely involved in the establishment of the Hittite Empire more than 3,000 years ago, Japanese archaeologists said.

Text engraved on the tablet was in the language of the Hurrians, who are believed to have been once powerful enough to vie for hegemony in the ancient Orient with the Hittites and the Egyptians.

“The clay tablet has major implications for the ties between the Hittite royal family and the Hurrians,” said Kimiyoshi Matsumura, a researcher who heads an expedition of the Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology (JIAA).

“We hope to shed light on details of the role that the Hurrians, who must have been a nemesis for the Hittites, played in the formation process of the Hittite Empire, which went on to prosper with its ironmaking technologies, the foundation of our contemporary society.”

The tablet, measuring about 3 centimeters, was unearthed in June near palace remains in Buklukale, the ruins of a Hittite urban settlement in central Anatolia, Turkey, which expedition members believe had ties with the royal family.
Read more here: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14740837
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Lost Star Catalog of Ancient Times May Have Come to Light
by Govert Schilling
October 21, 2022

Introduction:
(Sky & Telescope) Around 130 BC, the great Greek astronomer Hipparchus drew up the very first star catalog ever, containing descriptions and coordinates of some 850 naked-eye stars in the northern sky.

At least, that’s what later sources say – copies of Hipparchus’s list have never been found. Until now, that is. Writing in the Journal of the History of Astronomy, three European scientists claim to have uncovered a small part of the long-lost catalog. “I felt nothing short of awe when I first heard about it,” says astronomy historian and writer William Sheehan.

In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy compiled a catalog of 1,025 stars in 48 constellations to include in his magnum opus, Almagest. Ptolemy also hinted at the existence of an earlier listing, some scholars have suggested that Ptolemy’s work was based not on his own observations but on Hipparchus’s catalog.

Hipparchus was born around 190 BC in Nicaea, in what is now northwestern Turkey, but he carried out most of his astronomical work on the island of Rhodes. He made the first estimates of the distances and sizes of the Moon and the Sun, and was the first to discover precession: the slow wobble in the orientation of the Earth’s spin axis. According to astronomy historian Bradley Schaefer (Louisiana State University), Hipparchus was “arguably the best and greatest astronomer in the world before Copernicus.”

“Only one of his many books, The Commentaries, has survived,” says Schaefer, “with the most important loss being his influential star catalog.” That’s why scientists are elated about the new find. “It […] illuminates a crucial moment in the birth of science, when astronomers shifted from simply describing the patterns they saw in the sky to measuring and predicting them,” astronomy historian James Evans (University of Puget Sound, Washington) told Nature.
Read more here: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy- ... to-light/
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Modern archaeology reveals the secrets of an Iron Age power center
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-modern-ar ... -iron.html
by Sanna Trygg, Lund University

New excavations in Uppåkra are at the forefront of cutting edge archaeological techniques. By combining big data, data modeling and DNA sequencing, researchers are currently solving significant parts of a historical puzzle. Perhaps we will learn whether the Justinianic Plague, the forerunner of the Black Death, reached Uppåkra. Until now, this has been uncertain.

Torbjörn Ahlström, professor of Historical Osteology at Lund University stands on a hill outside Lund. His gaze falls on the fertile soil that has served people in the area for centuries.

Torbjörn Ahlström is about to start a new project in Uppåkra. Today, it is a quiet village in the countryside of southern Sweden, but earlier in history, it was the most powerful center among the Nordic countries for over 1,000 years (between 100 BCE and the 10th century).

Uppåkra is classified as the largest Iron Age settlement in the Nordic countries, and amongst northern Europe's richest sites for archaeological finds. So far, excavation has been periodic and has covered only a fraction of the area.
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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UK’s Oldest Human DNA Obtained, Revealing Two Distinct Palaeolithic Populations
October 24, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The first genetic data from Palaeolithic human individuals in the UK - the oldest human DNA obtained from the British Isles so far - indicates the presence of two distinct groups that migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age, according to new research.

Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the new study by UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute researchers reveals for the first time that the recolonisation of Britain consisted of at least two groups with distinct origins and cultures.

The study team explored DNA evidence from an individual from Gough’s Cave, Somerset, and an individual from Kendrick’s Cave, North Wales, who both lived more than 13,500 years ago. Very few skeletons of this age exist in Britain, with around a dozen found across six sites in total. The study, which involved radiocarbon dating and analysis as well as DNA extraction and sequencing, shows that it is possible to obtain useful genetic information from some of the oldest human skeletal material in the country.

The authors say that these genome sequences now represent the earliest chapter of the genetic history of Britain, but ancient DNA and proteins promise to take us back even further into human history.

The researchers found that the DNA from the individual from Gough’s Cave, who died about 15,000 years ago, indicates that her ancestors were part of an initial migration into northwest Europe around 16,000 years ago. However, the individual from Kendrick’s Cave is from a later period, around 13,500 years ago, with his ancestry from a western hunter-gatherer group. This group’s ancestral origins are thought to be from the near East, migrating to Britain around 14,000 years ago.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968795
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Five Things You May Not Know About King Tutankhamun 100 Years After His Discovery
by Dr Alfredo Carpineti, PhD.
November 4, 2022

Introduction:
(IFL Science) One hundred years ago on this day, November 4, the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun was discovered. Egyptian workers (and possibly a single boy working away from the main area) found the steps to this extremely well-concealed tomb. This archaeological dig was led by British Egyptologist Howard Carter with the patronage of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon.

Despite the tomb having been robbed in ancient times, most of its original artifacts were untouched. The discovery provided incredible insights into the material culture of ancient Egypt, plus a deeper understanding of the rites and lifestyles of the upper class of this ancient civilization.

Tutankhamun has now become the symbol of ancient Egypt. His brief life and reign saw the return of Egypt to a polytheistic religion (with many deities worshipped) after the brief proto-monotheism focusing on the sun god Aten being imposed by Tutankhamun’s father Akhenaten.

He became pharaoh when he was either eight or nine, under the viziership of his eventual successor, Ay. He died just a decade later, likely as a result of general poor health, a leg fracture, and a severe malarial infection.

The remainder of the article includes discussion of an iron dagger found in the tomb which was apparently made from a meteorite.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/five-things ... ery-66069
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'Exceptional' Find of Ancient Bronze Statues Uncovered in Tuscany
by Thomson Reuters
November 8, 2022

Introduction:
(CBC) Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered more than two dozen beautifully preserved bronze statues dating back to ancient Roman times in thermal baths in Tuscany, in what experts are hailing as a sensational find.

The statues were discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the Siena province, about 160 kilometres north of Rome, where archaeologists have been exploring the muddy ruins of an ancient bathhouse since 2019.

"It is a very significant, exceptional finding," dig co-ordinator Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor from the University for Foreigners in Siena, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Massimo Osanna, a top Culture Ministry official, called it one of the most remarkable discoveries "in the history of the ancient Mediterranean," and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were pulled from the sea off the toe of Italy in 1972.

Tabolli said the statues, depicting Hygieia, Apollo and other Greco-Roman divinities, used to adorn a sanctuary before they were immersed in thermal waters, in a sort of ritual, "probably around the first century AD."
Read more here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/italy-tu ... 1.6644090
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