Archaeology

It's spring cleaning time, and while most of us are thinking of packing a way our winter linens and airing out our summer clothes, a historian at the Vatican has decided to drag out another mouldering old bit of cloth to dangle before us.  In a well-timed news story that could easily be confused with the plot of a Dan Brown novel, the Vatican newspaper has reported that a historian working in the Secret Archives has uncovered proof that the Shroud of Turin was guarded and venerated by the Knights Templar. The earliest confirmed mention of the shroud, which is believed by some to be the…

The Archaeological Institute of America's fundraising gala this year is celebrating the 130th anniversary of the Institute, and the 60th anniversary of their publication, Archaeology magazine. And boy are they celebrating.  Here's how they describe it:  The cocktail reception takes place in an atmosphere reminiscent of ancient Greece, with Corinthian columns and marble floors. Flowers native to Greece, and often represented in Greek art, will adorn the room. A living statue will evoke the goddess Athena, holding in her hand the Owl of Wisdom, symbolic of the knowledge that we…

The legend is that the great rulers of Canaan, the ancient land of Israel, were all men. But a recent dig by Tel Aviv University archaeologists at Tel Beth-Shemesh uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler. Tel Aviv University archaeologists Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations have uncovered an unusual ceramic plaque of a goddess in female dress, suggesting that a mighty female "king" may have ruled the city. If true, they say, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region.…

On the eve of the Passover holiday, researchers from the University of Haifa reveal an exceptional and exciting archaeological discovery that dates back to the time of the People of Israel's settlement in the country: For the first time, enclosed sites identified with the biblical sites termed in Hebrew "gilgal", which were used for assemblies, preparation for battle, and rituals, have been revealed in the Jordan valley. "The 'foot' structures that we found in the Jordan valley are the first sites that the People of Israel built upon entering Canaan and they testify to the biblical concept of…

I'm kicking myself for not linking to Judith Weingarten's blog post, Time Gazing at the Pantheon in Rome yesterday. It's good explanation of how the Emperor could have used the Pantheon and it's readably short. The only quibble I have is the use of the word sundial. Sundials come in all sorts of shapes, but some shapes are much better suited to being a sundial than others. In the case of the Pantheon in Rome, it's staggeringly well suited to being a sundial. If you wanted to easily create an accurate timekeeper then the Pantheon is the sort of thing you'd want. That's why I don't think it was…

A while back there was a news story that the Pantheon may have been constructed to create a special effect in the sunlight at the equinoxes. I'm slow in reacting because I've read the book where the claim appears, and I've been taking time to try and track down one or two other ideas regarding the Pantheon. The story is based on a chapter from a new book Time in Antiquity by Robert Hannah, and it's a great example of how thinking about ancient astronomy has gently expanded over the past decade. If you want to be cruel about some early histories of astronomy you could say that the whole…

May I pass on to you all the following link to an article Do these mysterious stones mark the site of Garden of Eden? which refers to archeological disoveries at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.  Condensed, it says that the religious significance of the place, ca 10,000 BC, caused people to gather there and develop agriculture. Memory of the rigours of agriculture, and the resulting ecological crash, is preserved in the early chapters of Genesis.  There is nothing in this article which so much as smacks of "Creation Science" (ضرطة كبيرة عليه), but neither does it give ground to the "…

In the days of Columbus, dead men could tell no tales.  Today, dead men can tell us a lot and science has just taken that forensic interrogation to new heights. A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is extracting the details of the lives of crew members who remained on the island of Hispaniola after the second voyage of Christopher Columbus to America in 1493-94. T. Douglas Price, a UW-Madison professor of anthropology and the leader of the team, and colleague James Burton, in collaboration with researchers from the Autonomous University of the Yucatan in Mexico…

New exciting proof that Cleopatra was of African descent and killed her sister! Really? Yes, if you believe the BBC. The story, reported by AFP, the Times, and the Daily Telegraph, goes like this: In the 1920s a tomb at Ephesus in Turkey was opened which contained a single skeleton. The skull was removed, measured, and subsequently lost. More recently, a team of Austrian archaeologists have reexamined what's left of the skeleton, determining it to be the body of an apparently healthy youngfemale. The basis for linking this skeleton to Cleopatra's sister seems to be the octagonal shape of…

I am continually amazed and amused by the wonderful metaphors and similes generated by users of the English language. The phrase "Are you talking to me or chewing a brick?" is a 'hard-man' phrase, contrastive with 'wet-lettuce' phraseology. But after reading this week's New Scientist, I shall never view 'chewing a brick' in quite the same light again. Edit:For people who may be asking what does 'chewing a brick' actually mean ?  - This phrase comes originally from East London.  It is hard man, tough guy talk.  'Hard' is opposed to 'soft'.  Firstly, a London Brick is a…