2,400-Year-Old Goddess Statues Found Dumped in Ancient City on Lebanon’s Coast
Polish archaeologists studying the ancient city of Porphyreon in Lebanon have pieced together the broken parts of ceramic heads to remake what they think are statues of goddesses. One of the 2,400-year-old statues is about 24 cm (9 inches) tall and 15 cm (6 inches) wide.
While the broken pieces of the statues date from a time of Persian control, the women depicted are wearing a stephane or a type of ancient Greek headdress, says Mariusz Gwiazda of the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology in a story about the news .
He said he believes all four of the statues depict deities, but he can’t prove this because they don’t bear inscriptions, he . Two of the statues are nearly whole but the two others are quite incomplete. In all, the team found a dozen pieces of the statues.
Dumped Deities
The archaeologists found the ceramic shards in 2013 in what they believe was an ancient waste dump that had other pottery pieces, burnt animal bones and remnants of chickpeas, grapes and olives. Porphyreon is on the Mediterranean Sea in modern Jiyeh, 25 km (15.5 miles) south of Beirut.
This second-best ceramic statue has the image of a wadjet amulet or Egyptian eye on its chest. The wadjet, which was absorbed into other religions and cultures, was thought to ward off evil.
The two ceramic heads that survived most-intact have red paint on their faces. Both had similar dimensions of 9 inches by 6 inches. Mere traces of two more ceramic heads survived the centuries.
It’s interesting to note that there are fingerprints on top of the head of the best statue, probably pressed there by the artist who made it when the clay was still wet.
That statue has three small holes on top from which it probably hung from a wall, Professor Gwiazda said.
A wadjet amulet of ancient Egypt
Traits of the ceramic heads include a mix of Greek, Egyptian and Phoenician. The Egyptian influence includes a wadjet or a stylized eye on the chest of one of the female figurines.
Egyptians wore wadjets to ward off evil or illness, though other cultures absorbed them into their own cultures and religions.
The pottery specialist for the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology, Urszula Wicenciak, determined the clay used to fashion the ceramic figurines originated around Tyre, another ancient city of Lebanon. That said, they can’t be sure where the four heads were made.
Pottery Production Area
Ms. Wicenciak was studying to complete her PhD several years ago when the team identified a major pottery production center from the late Greek and Early Roman period.
A type of Terracotta oil lamp found at Porphyreon typical of the region
The team found fine ware in a cistern, including local ceramics of glass lamp fragments and terracotta oil lamps.
A report on the 2009 season here says the terracotta lamps are particularly interesting because 197 fragments represent one type of lamp of a type found between Beirut and the ancient city of Caesarea Maritima. The report states:
‘Laboratory studies of the lamps recovered from the cistern should provide interesting data on clay sources, potentially leading to a discerning of groups or, better still, workshops producing this extremely popular form of lamp. Comparisons with the coarse ware characteristic of the regions should demonstrate how local indeed this type was.’
Ancient Egyptian High Priest of THOTH Found Drenched in Bizarre Figurines
THOTH! Archaeologists in Egypt are busy with a new cycle of excavation missions in the Egyptian deserts. Each month comes with a bunch of new announcements and new finds.
A sarcophagus that was discovered is displayed at the site of an ancient Egyptian cemetery, in Minya province, 245 km south of Cairo, Egypt, 24 February 2018.
The latest in the series of discoveries features a newly found ancient necropolis from where at least 40 sarcophagi containing mummies have been located.
The most striking of all are the remains and funerary decorations believed to have belonged to a high priest of the Egyptian deity Thoth, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced on February 24th.
The network of tombs was discovered some 150 miles south of the country’s capital, Cairo, close to the Nile and the city of Minya, roughly four miles north of the site known as Tuna Al-Gabal.
Archaeologists have dated the tombs to being about 2,300 years old, associating them with the late Pharaonic days and the early Ptolemaic era, according to a statement shared by the Ministry of Antiquities.
The finds from the underground tombs include at least 40 sarcophagi and other valuable relics–more than 1,000 ushabti funerary figurines, jewelry, and pottery among others
The ushabti figurines have frequently been retrieved from other burial sites in Egypt in the past, and they are thought to have been laid next to the dead to offer assistance in the afterlife.
Thoth’s book. Image by Thothsbook
What has excited everyone the most was the mummy adorned with a bronze collar, showing the deity Nut, protector of the dead in the Ancient Egyptian belief system.
Other artifacts collected from the resting place of this mummy reportedly include colorful beads with semiprecious stones, four amulets, and alabaster jars created to preserve the insides of the departed.
The mummy is considered to be that of a high priest of Thoth, a god that was worshiped in Ancient Egypt for its wisdom and was also associated with the Moon.
Ramses III. in front of god Thoth in the tomb of Khaemwaset
More remains seem to be associated with Thoth, and while the identities are not all confirmed, some remains could have belonged to family members of the high priest buried with the bronze collar.
Everyone must have been dazzled when deciphering the hieroglyphics inscribed on one of the four amulets collected from the high priest’s tomb. One of them intriguingly translated to “Happy New Year.”
THOTH!
Among ancient Egyptians, Thoth was connected to the invention of writing, a patron of books and libraries. Perhaps that is why he was still worshiped even in the Ptolemaic era, the last dynastic period of Egyptian history (305 BC until 30 BC), marked by its prominent scholarship center, the Library of Alexandria.
The common portrayal of this deity included an ibis-shaped head, and its worship commenced in Lower Egypt probably in the pre-Dynastic period, in between the 6th and 3rd millennia BC. Since the worship of Thoth lasted for such an extended period of time, some sources suggest that Thoth has been among the longest-worshiped deity figures in Egypt (and potential record-breaker at world level).
For many decades now, archaeologists and scholars have been able to study different sites discovered in the region of Tuna Al-Gabal. Apparently, the realm is rich with ruins and relics, since new findings continue to emerge even now in 2018. Archaeologists and restorers are to take five more years to study and recover all artifacts retrieved from the newly found tombs.
The latest round of excavations in Egypt began in 2017 and are led by Mostafa Waziri, who is the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Another necropolis, again in the Tuna Al-Gabal region, has been identified only last year, and it concealed 17 mummies.
Earlier in February of this year, Egyptian authorities also announced the discovery of a tomb that was built for an ancient priestess who served Hathor, one more important Egyptian deity associated with motherhood and fertility.
The find, very close to Cairo, was significant as it offered an authentic look back into the life of an ancient Egyptian woman of higher rank, some 4,000 years ago. Her mummy has not been found so far, only the tomb.
900-Year-Old Crypt At Old Dongola: Magical Inscriptions And Mysterious Signs Found
Many fascinating archaeological findings have been reported by Polish archaeologists excavating at Old Dongola, the capital of a lost medieval kingdom that flourished in the Nile Valley.
Among them is an enigmatic 900-year-old crypt covered with “magical” inscriptions protecting the tomb in a monastery at Old Dongola, Sudan.
Old Dongola was an important city in medieval Nubia – today, a deserted town in Sudan located on the east bank of the Nile opposite the Wadi Al-Malik.
In al-Ghazali in Northern Sudan, Polish archaeologists discovered a unique church in Byzantine monastic architecture, a large number of fragments of funerary stelae, and inscribed vessels.
Al-Ghazali – an oasis in Bayoudah desert, a few kilometers away from Merowe town in Northern Sudan, is a fascinating place with relics of the Christian era. It’s one of two known religious complexes in medieval Nubia, located outside the Nile Valley.
Later vestibule in the northwestern corner of room 6, on right, a small doorway – the latest doorway exiting the chapel in room 6
The monastery is located in Wadi Abu Dom – valley temporarily filling with water that crosses the desert Bayuda, once the busiest trade route in north-east Africa. It is now ruined and abandoned. It has not yet been determined when the monastery began to function, but it is known that it functioned until the thirteenth century.
Inside the tomb were seven male mummies, all dressed simply in linen clothing. One of the mummies resting inside the tomb is believed to be Archbishop Georgios, an extremely powerful religious leader in the ancient Makuria kingdom.
Historians think he died in AD 1113 at the age of 82. The other six mummies are believed to be males not older than 40 years.
It was not an easy task to locate the crypt. “The entrance to the chamber was closed with red bricks bonded in mud mortar,” explains Wlodzimierz Godlewski, the current director of the Polish Mission to Dongola.
The crypt appears to have been sealed after the last of the burials took place.
Inside the crypt, archaeologists discovered inscriptions on the walls and ceiling. These were written with black ink on a layer of whitewash and have been identified as Greek and Sahidic Coptic.
Drawings in the North part of the monastery Old Dongola
Some were excerpts from the gospels of Luke, John, Mark and Matthew, as well as magical names and signs. A prayer given by the Virgin Mary, at the end of which death appears to her ‘in the form of a rooster’ was also uncovered.
The inscriptions written by “Ioannes,” who left a signature on three and possibly four of the walls had a specific purpose. According to archaeologists, the inscriptions served as protection for the deceased against evil powers.
They were ‘intended to safeguard not only the tomb, but primarily those who were buried inside of it during the dangerous liminal period between the moment of dying and their appearance before the throne of God,’ wrote Adam Lajtar of the University of Warsaw, in the journal Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean.
The crypt was first found in 1993 by the Polish Mission to Dongola. Research to understand the inscriptions is ongoing and a complete record of the texts is to be revealed in the near future.
“It is hard work. The inscriptions are preserved much more poorly than the drawings.
The crypt’s entrance – Old-Dongola
Sometimes I spend many hours on a few letters without any result. And sometimes a beam of light illuminating the inscription for a few seconds in the right way allows me to read all the text that previously was unreadable”, Dr. Grzegorz Ochala from the Department of Papyrology, University of Warsaw, said.
One of the most interesting inscriptions is most probably the prayer “Lamb of God” written in Greek, which proves that this language was used in medieval Nubia for much longer than in the Byzantine territories conquered by the Arabs.
Also in 2004, excavations were carried out at the site of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Old Dongola.
“Room 6 of the monastery was evidently used as a chapel. There was a square structure found, built against the east wall, which could have served as an altar… Over it, on the east wall, there was once a huge mural representing the Archangel Michael..”
“Recovered better-preserved fragments revealed an archangel’s wing with the characteristic ‘peacock feathers’, as well as many fragments of inscribed plaster originating from the vicinity of the northeastern corner. Among these was a considerable part of Psalm 29, written in black ink in Old Nubian and Greek.
Arcade above the entrance from the west with a frieze of palms
The text is presented in a curious way, alternately in one of the two languages, verse after verse. Remnants of another four texts in Greek were also recorded but not yet identified; two of them, however, seem to be Greco-Nubian graffiti.
According to researchers, “the painted decoration of the chapel, the extant representations on the vaults seem peculiar at the very least. Beside a figure of the Archangel Gabriel(?) on the north wall, there is a still unidentified scene of two men sitting in an interior, seen through an unveiled curtain, apparently concluding a financial agreement.”
“There are some other separate compositions possibly connected with the story, including a mysterious praying monk, fastened by his hair to a rock. The large composition observed on the tumbled remains of the vault could be identified as a scene of the Massacre of Innocents.
Late burial in the floor of room 2 of the Annex
Another very surprising scene is for example, depicted in the monastery’s room 5 on the north vault. “It represents a festival dedicated to the Virgin Mary with several dancers, some wearing traditional masks. The figures hold sticks, incense burners and drums. The accompanying texts in Old Nubian were perhaps meant to indicate what they were singing.
The Virgin with distaff was painted as an icon beside this scene. The north part of the same vault and the east wall was filled with a scene of the Nativity demonstrating the fullest iconographical breadth.”
Egyptian Mummy Believed to be Male Priest Turns Out to be a Pregnant Woman
According to the AFP, X-rays of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy kept at Poland’s National Museum since 1917 showed the remains of a woman with long, curly hair who died between 26 and 30 weeks pregnant.
Marzena Ozarek-Szilke, an anthropologist at the Warsaw Mummy Project, was examining a CT scan of a mummy at the National Museum in the Polish capital when she spotted something peculiar.
“When I looked at the lesser pelvis of our mummy I was interested in what was inside… I thought I saw a tiny foot,” Ozarek-Szilke said.
She asked her husband, an archaeologist who also worked on the project, to take a look.
“My husband looked at the picture and as a father of three, he said: ‘Well, that’s a foot’. At that moment … the whole picture started to come together,” Ozarek-Szilke told Reuters.
The mummy came to Poland in the 19th century when the nascent University of Warsaw was creating an antiquities collection. For decades, it was thought the mummy belonged to an ancient Egyptian priest named Hor-Dehuti.
X-ray images showed a little foot in the belly of the world’s first pregnant Egyptian mummy
However, in a discovery revealed in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Thursday, scientists at the Warsaw Mummy Project said the mummy was in fact a woman in her twenties who was between 26 and 28 weeks pregnant.
The cause of death is not clear, but Ozarek-Szilke said the pregnancy may have had something to do with it.
“It is possible that the pregnancy itself contributed to the death of this woman. Now we have modern medicine, women who are between 20 and 30 weeks pregnant and something happens to the pregnancy, have a chance to be rescued. It used to be impossible,” she said.
The discovery sheds some light on the little-known role of children in ancient Egypt and the religious beliefs of the time, but also raises many questions, according to Wojciech Ejsmond, co-director of the Warsaw Mummy Project.
“What was the status of this child in the Egyptian religion? Did it have a soul, could it go to the afterlife on its own, could it be reborn in the afterlife… if it was not yet born?”
Ejsmond said scientists would study the mummy further to determine the cause of death and establish why the foetus was left in the body.
More than 4,500 Skeletons Discovered in Islamic Necropolis in Spain
CNN reports that more than 4,500 graves have been identified at a cemetery in northeastern Spain, in an area thought to have been largely untouched by the Arab invasion of the Iberian peninsula in the early 8th century A.D.
In an 8th-century burial ground in the town of Tauste, near Zaragoza in Aragon, the tombs were uncovered, Eva Gimenez, an archaeologist currently excavating the region with the archaeology firm Paleoymás, told CNN.
Muslim occupation of Tauste had been considered “incidental and even non-existent” by traditional and written sources, researchers from the University of the Basque Country have said — but the region’s cultural association had long suspected the area had been home to a large Islamic settlement because of architectural clues and human remains found in the town, Miriam Pina Pardos, director of the Anthropological Observatory of the Islamic Necropolis of Tauste with the El Patiaz cultural association, told CNN.
An ancient Islamic necropolis containing over 4,500 bodies has been uncovered in northeastern Spain, with archaeologists excavating more than 400 tombs in the five-acre site
From 711 to 1492, the boundaries between the Christian north and the Islamic south shifted constantly with the changing sovereign authority, according to researchers from the University of the Basque Country.
DNA studies and carbon dating place remains in the necropolis between the 8th and 11th centuries, according to El Patiaz.
Archaeologists unearth ‘huge number’ of sealed Egyptian sarcophagi Some 44 skeletons were uncovered during smaller excavations in the years following the initial dig, Pina Pardos said, and this year, more than 400 bodies have been found after local authorities ordered an extensive excavation of the area.
Earlier excavations revealed several skeletons at the site.
“It’s rare to do an excavation and to find 400 tombs. It’s amazing,” she said.
All of the skeletons had been buried according to Islamic customs, positioned to the right and facing southeast toward Mecca, Pina Pardos added.
“We can see that the Muslim culture and Islamic presence in this area is more important than we thought,” Gimenez said.
“We can see there was a big Muslim population here in Tauste from the beginning of the presence of Muslims in Spain,” she added.
“It is very important — the 400 Muslim tombs show the people lived here for centuries,” she said.
The remains will be cataloged, stored for research and studied, Pina Pardos said.
Viking Raids and Long-distance Oceanic Explorations Were All Enabled by Tar
What exactly inspired the 8th century Vikings of Scandinavia to sharpen their farming tools, to build ships and conquer Europe, has long been debated.
However, a new study all but closes the case book on this enduring mystery proving the industrial scale production of tar enabled the waterproofing of longships for long-distance raiding missions around Europe, across the Atlantic in North America and eastwards “Down the Russian rivers towards Islamic lands.”
Andreas Hennius of Uppsala University recently published his new findings in a paper titled Viking Age tar production and outland exploitation which can be read on Cambridge.org. He discovered “output from tar pits in Scandinavia increased dramatically just as Vikings began raiding other parts of Europe.”
The Viking Voyagers
Vikings were ruthless seafaring traders and fierce warriors who launched seaborne attacks on Europe from Scandinavia. By the mid-11th century the Viking’s Nordic empire expanded across vast territories in Britain, Iceland, Greenland and America, and as detailed in an article on History.com they also “raided Italian and Spanish ports and even attacked the walls of Constantinople.”
The Oseberg Ship, well-preserved historic ship exhibited in The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway.
Hennius told reporters at The Guardian that his new research, which was funded by the Berit Wallenberg Foundation, reveals the tar pits “could produce 300 liters in one production cycle,” which would enable production of more than enough tar to waterproof a large fleet of ships.
“Tar production … developed from a small-scale activity … into large-scale production that relocated to forested outlands during the Viking period,” added Hennius.
Traditionally, archaeologists have proposed that changes in climate boosted agriculture, causing a sharp spike in population, which inspired the Vikings to look for new lands .
Others maintain local chieftains funded treasure hunting raids to further establish their wealth, dominance and power, but now, Hennius had proved that “tar has been used for millennia to waterproof boats. It was made in pits filled with pine wood, covered with turf and set on fire.
Small domestic tar kilns were found in Sweden in the early 2000s. These dated to between AD100 and 400. But much larger pits were found during road construction and dated to between 680 and 900, when the rise of the Vikings began.”
Funnel-shaped feature used for tar production in the Roman Iron Age (photograph courtesy of Upplandsmuseet) and a schematic reconstruction drawing (amended from Kurzweil & Todtenhaupt 1998).
Tar Trade
The pits were, up to now, thought to have been used for producing charcoal, but Hennius argues that, “These kilns are not associated with any inhabited settlements and were situated closer to forests of pine, which was their key ingredient.”
Vikings then sailed their tar enhanced longships on long distance raids. The research paper also noted that, “This development coincides with Scandinavian society’s intensified marine focus and the introduction of the sail.
This most probably drove the increase in tar production, which was used for protecting wood, impregnating and sealing sails, and as a trade product.”
Viking raiding and trading was not confined to precious objects , metals, stones… and tar. A New York Times article dissing the 2014 Vikings: Life and Legend , exhibition at the British Museum, said “A slave collar from Dublin and an ankle shackle from Mecklenburg in Germany remind us that Vikings were very active slave traders, capturing adults and children in raids, both to sell them or to keep as domestic servants and laborers.”
Reconstructed Viking longboat “Hugin”.
Driven to Explore and Exploit
What is more, the same article reports eyewitness accounts from Arab travelers that speak of “Vikings transporting slaves down the Russian rivers towards Islamic lands.
And DNA evidence from Iceland suggests that while the males are almost all of Scandinavian origin, there is a significant element of Irish and Scots DNA among the females, most of whom probably arrived as slaves.”
And earlier this year, The Independant published an article about the findings of scholar Birgitta Wallace , an award-winning specialist in Norse archaeology and Viking evidence in the West, who uncovered evidence of the “long lost Viking settlement that featured in sagas passed down over hundreds of year,” on the east coast of Canada.
If Wallace is proved correct, it would be the second Viking settlement to be discovered in North America.
What is special about Andreas Hennius’ ‘tar pit’ discovery is that it is the scaffolding which underpins all of these recent discoveries of Vikings in exotic lands; for the fact is clear, without tar the Vikings wouldn’t have left the coasts of Scandinavia.
King Tutankhamun’s 3300-Year-Old Gold Coffin to Be Restored After Nearly a Decade
From the time that King Tutankhamun’s body was placed, the outermost sarcophagus had never left the 3300-year-old tomb.
Even in 1922, following the discovery of the tomb by the British archeologist Howard Carter, the outer coffin made from wood and gold stayed in the Valley of Kings — until now.
An almost 10-year redevelopment of Tut’s tomb was completed earlier this year by the Getty Conservation Institute and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. Now, The Los Angeles Times wrote, they are going to restore his golden coffin, removing it from its resting place and allowing experts to finally get a good look.
The intricate project is largely motivated by the impending opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in late 2020, which will overlook the Pyramids of Giza. In addition to the three coffins (one inside the other) that house Tut’s body, the exhibit will showcase the numerous relics discovered in his tomb.
The innermost coffin is made of solid gold, while the middle coffin is built from gilded wood and multicolored glass.
Restoration of the outer coffin will take at least eight months, Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany said
Carter’s discovery of Tut’s resting place in the Valley of the Kings was the first time that a royal tomb from the time of ancient Egypt had been discovered so remarkably intact. It contained a plethora of stunning royal treasures as well, such as a dagger made from a meteorite.
After the discovery, two of the three coffins were subsequently transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo while the outer coffin was left in the king’s tomb. Only in July, 97 years later, was the casket removed under intense security in order for it to be fumigated for an entire week.
With careful yet thorough restoration now underway, experts have had the rare opportunity to inspect the outer coffin up close and reveal photos for all to see.
Given the damage to the coffin that experts have now seen, however, Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany said it would take a minimum of eight months to restore it. The general director of First Aid Conservation and Transportation of Artifacts Eissa Zeidan said the coffin is about “30 percent damaged” due to the heat and humidity inside the tomb.
A woman looks at the golden sarcophagus belonging to Tut, who died at the age of 19
“The coffin is in a very bad condition, very deteriorated,” said Zeidan. “We found many cracks, we found many missing parts, missing layers.”
El-Enany confirmed as much when he said the coffin was in a “very fragile state,” with repair work on its cracks being the foremost priority. The 7-foot, 3-inch-long coffin has been safely kept in one of the 17 laboratories within the new museum.
Restorers have been working on numerous items found in King Tut’s tomb, of which there are more than 5,000 — all of which will be showcased at the Grand Egyptian Museum. With more than 75,000 square feet of real estate, it’ll be the biggest museum on Earth exclusively dedicated to one civilization.
Restoration of King Tut’s tomb came after years of tourists trudging through the majestic World Heritage site. Both the Getty Conservation Institute and Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities committed to the extensive revamp nearly a decade ago and finally finished in February.
Their efforts included installing an air filtration system to regulate the humidity, carbon dioxide, and dust levels inside. Lighting, as well as a new platform from which tourists can see the sarcophagus, were added too.
Of greatest concern were the strange brown spots on the tomb’s paintings, which suggested microbial growth in the room. These were found to have been mere discolorations due to fungus that had been there since the tomb’s discovery.
The linen-wrapped mummy of King Tutankhamun is displayed in his climate-controlled glass case in the underground tomb KV62.
Thankfully, neither fungus nor anything else has taken down Tut’s tomb. Now, after a long period of restoration, it will live on for many more visitors to see. And after the most recent restoration of the outermost coffin, visitors will have the most complete picture yet of how the boy king was buried.
When work on the pharaoh’s gilded coffin concludes and the Grand Egyptian officially opens, it will be the first time in history that King Tut’s three coffins will be on display together.
Archaeologists Find Hidden Ruins of ‘Complete’ Roman Era City in Egypt
Egyptian archaeologists said Tuesday they had discovered a 1,800-year-old “complete residential city from the Roman Era” in the heart of the southern city of Luxor.
The city, dating to the second and third centuries, is the “oldest and most important city found on the eastern bank of Luxor,” according to Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Archaeologists discovered “a number of residential buildings” as well as “two pigeon towers” – a structure used to house pigeons or doves – and a “number of metal workshops,” Waziri said in a statement.
Excavation of a 1,800-year-old complete residential Roman Era city, Luxor
Inside the workshops, researchers found a collection of pots, tools and “bronze and copper Roman coins”.
It is a rare archaeological find in Egypt, where excavations – including on Luxor’s west bank, where the famous Valley of the Queens and Valley of the Kings lie – are most commonly of temples and tombs.
In April 2021, authorities announced the discovery of a 3,000-year-old “lost golden city” on Luxor’s west bank, with the archaeological team calling it “the largest” ancient city ever uncovered in Egypt.
Egypt has unveiled several major archaeological discoveries in recent years.
Critics say the flurry of excavations has prioritized finds shown to grab media attention over hard academic research.
Artifacts discovered at the Excavation
But the discoveries have been a key component of Egypt’s attempts to revive its vital tourism industry after years of political unrest, as well as after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government’s plans – the crowning jewel of which is the long-delayed inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum at the foot of the pyramids in Giza – aim to draw in 30 million tourists a year by 2028, up from 13 million before the pandemic.
The country of 104 million inhabitants is suffering from a severe economic crisis, and Egypt’s tourism industry accounts for 10 percent of GDP and some 2 million jobs.
The Discovery of the Ancient ‘City of Giants’ in Ethiopia Could Rewrite Human History
In 2017, a group of archaeologists and researchers discovered a long-forgotten city in eastern Ethiopia’s Harlaa region. It’s known as the ancient ‘City of Giants,’ which was built around the 10th century BC.
The discovery was made by an international team of archaeologists, including researchers from the University of Exeter and the Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Research and Conservation Authority.
Gigantic cities built and inhabited by giants are the subject of several stories and folklore. The traditions of several societies that were separated by great oceans all indicated that there were giants who lived on Earth, and numerous megalithic structures from different periods of history also suggest their existence.
According to Mesoamerican mythology, the Quinametzin were a race of giants tasked with erecting the mythological metropolis of Teotihuacán, which was built by the gods of the sun.
A variation on this theme can be found all over the world: huge cities, monuments, and massive structures that were impossible for normal people to construct at the time they were built, thanks to advances in science.
In this part of Ethiopia, that is exactly what happens. According to current residents, enormous buildings constructed of massive blocks encircled the site of Harlaa, giving rise to the popular belief that it was once home to a legendary “City of Giants.”
Locals have uncovered coins from various countries, as well as ancient ceramics, over the course of the years, they say. Also discovered were enormous building stones that could not be moved by people without the aid of modern machines.
The settlement, located near Ethiopia’s second largest city of Dire Dawa, in the east of the country, consisted of buildings constructed with large stone blocks, which gave rise to a legend that once giants lived there
The fact that these structures were constructed by regular humans was thought to be impossible for a long time as a result of these factors. Several notable finds were made as a result of the excavation of the archaic town.
The Lost City in Harlaa
The specialists were taken aback when they discovered antiquities from faraway regions in a surprising find. Objects from Egypt, India, and China were discovered by specialists, proving the region’s commercial capability.
A mosque from the 12th century, similar to those discovered in Tanzania, as well as an independent territory of Somaliland, a region that is still not officially recognized as a country, were also discovered by the researchers.
The discovery, according to archaeologists, demonstrates that there were historical linkages between different Islamic communities in Africa throughout that time period, and
Archeologist Timothy Insoll, a professor at the University of Exeter, who led the research said: “This discovery revolutionizes our understanding of trade in an archaeologically neglected part of Ethiopia.
What we have found shows this area was the center of trade in that region. The city was a rich, cosmopolitan center for jewelry making and pieces were then taken to be sold around the region and beyond.
Residents of Harlaa were a mixed community of foreigners and local people who traded with others in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and possibly as far away as the Arabian Gulf.”
A City of Giants?
Residents of the Harlaa region believe that it could only have been erected by giants, according to their beliefs. Their reasoning is that the size of the stone blocks used to construct these structures could only be carried by enormous giants. It was also obvious that these were not ordinary people because of the enormous size of the buildings, as well.
Following an analysis of more than three hundred corpses discovered in the local cemetery, archaeologists discovered that the inhabitants were of middling stature, and hence were not considered giants.
Young adults and teenagers were buried in the tombs discovered, according to Insoll, who is also in charge of supervising the archaeologists working on the dig. For the time period, they were all of the ordinary height.
While acknowledging the data provided by the specialists, the indigenous people maintain that they are not convinced by their findings and maintain that only giants were capable of constructing these monumental structures. It is not the first time that modern science has dismissed a legend that has existed for hundreds of years as a mere piece of folklore.
What is it about the inhabitants that makes them so certain that the giants were responsible for the construction of the Harlaa structures? During these years, did they make any observations? It’s not like they’d have any motive to fabricate or lie about anything like that.
Despite the fact that the tombs do not provide evidence of the existence of giants, this does not rule out the possibility that the giants were involved in the building of the site.
Many believe that these beings were not buried in the same location because they are considered to be large and powerful entities. Others disagree.
More than 230,000 Years Ago, The Earliest Human Remains Were Discovered in Eastern Africa
Ancient human fossils discovered in Ethiopia are much older than previously thought, experts claim, saying they could be as much as 230,000 years old.
The remains – known as Omo I – were discovered in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, and are one of the oldest known examples of Homo sapiens fossils, with earlier attempts to date them placing them at just under 200,000 years old.
However, a new study by the University of Cambridge found that the remains have to pre-date a colossal volcanic eruption in the area, which happened 230,000 years ago.
To make the discovery the team dated the chemical fingerprints of volcanic ash layers, found above and below the sediment where the fossils were discovered.
The Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley. The oldest human remains in east Africa date back at least 30,000 years earlier than previously thought to around a quarter of a million years ago
The remains – known as Omo I – were discovered in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, and are one of the oldest known examples of Homo sapiens fossils, with earlier attempts to date them placing them at less than 200,000 years old
The team said that while this pushes the minimum age for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa back by 30,000 years, future studies may extend the age even further.
In 2017, archaeologists announced the discovery of the world’s oldest Homo sapiens fossils — a 300,000-year-old skull at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco.
To date, the volcanic remains, the team collected pumice rock samples from the volcanic deposits and ground them down to sub-millimeter size. Scientists have been trying to precisely date the oldest fossils in eastern Africa, widely recognized as representing our species, Homo sapiens, ever since they were discovered in the 1960s.
Earlier attempts to date them suggested they were less than 200,000 years old. The Omo I remains were found in the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, which sits within the East African Rift valley. The region is an area of high volcanic activity and a rich source of early human remains and artifacts.
The team said that while this pushes the minimum age for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa back by 30,000 years, future studies may extend the age even further
By dating layers of volcanic ash above and below where fossil materials are found, scientists identified Omo I as one of the earliest examples of our species ever found.
‘Using these methods, the generally accepted age of the Omo fossils is under 200,000 years, but there’s been a lot of uncertainty around this date,’ said Dr. Céline Vidal from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the paper’s lead author.
‘The fossils were found in a sequence, below a thick layer of volcanic ash that nobody had managed to date because the ash is too fine-grained.’
To date the volcanic remains, the team collected pumice rock samples from the volcanic deposits and ground them down to sub-millimeter size
The four-year project, led by British volcanologist Professor Clive Oppenheimer. is attempting to date all major volcanic eruptions in the Ethiopian Rift. Each eruption has its own fingerprint – its own evolutionary story below the surface, which is determined by the pathway the magma followed,’ said Dr. Vidal.
‘Once you’ve crushed the rock, you free the minerals within, and then you can date them, and identify the chemical signature of the volcanic glass that holds the minerals together.’
The researchers carried out a geochemical analysis on the crushed rock to link the fingerprint of the volcanic ash, from the Kamoya Hominin Site, with an eruption of the Shala volcano.
The team then dated pumice samples from the volcano, 250 miles from the site the human remains were discovered, to 230,000 years ago. Since the Omo I fossils were found deeper than this particular ash layer, they must be more than 230,000 years old, the team explained.
‘First I found there was a geochemical match, but we didn’t have the age of the Shala eruption,’ said Vidal.
‘I immediately sent the samples of Shala volcano to our colleagues in Glasgow so they could measure the age of the rocks.
Scientists have been trying to precisely date the oldest fossils in eastern Africa widely recognised as representing our species, Homo sapiens, ever since they were discovered in the 1960s
When I received the results and found out that the oldest Homo sapiens from the region were older than previously assumed, I was really excited. Professor Asfawossen Asrat, a co-author of the study from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, said: ‘The Omo Kibish Formation is an extensive sedimentary deposit which has been barely accessed and investigated in the past.
Our closer look into the stratigraphy of the Omo Kibish Formation, particularly the ash layers, allowed us to push the age of the oldest Homo sapiens in the region to at least 230,000 years.
Unlike other Middle Pleistocene fossils which are thought to belong to the early stages of the Homo sapiens lineage, Omo I possesses unequivocal modern human characteristics, according to co-author Dr. Aurélien Mounier, from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.
He gave the example of a ‘tall and globular cranial vault and a chin’, before claiming that the new date estimate made the remains ‘the oldest unchallenged Homo sapiens in Africa.
Until the Jebel Irhous discovery four years ago, most researchers believed that all humans living today descended from a population that lived in East Africa around 200,000 years ago.
‘We can only date humanity based on the fossils that we have, so it’s impossible to say that this is the definitive age of our species,’ said Vidal. The study of human evolution is always in motion: boundaries and timelines change as our understanding improves.
But these fossils show just how resilient humans are: that we survived, thrived and migrated in an area that was so prone to natural disasters. It’s probably no coincidence that our earliest ancestors lived in such a geologically active rift valley – it collected rainfall in lakes, providing fresh water and attracting animals, and served as a natural migration corridor stretching thousands of kilometres,’ said Oppenheimer.
The Omo I remains were found in the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, which sits within the East African Rift valley
The volcanoes provided fantastic materials to make stone tools and from time to time we had to develop our cognitive skills when large eruptions transformed the landscape.
Our forensic approach provides a new minimum age for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa, but the challenge still remains to provide a cap, a maximum age, for their emergence, which is widely believed to have taken place in this region,’ said co-author Professor Christine Lane, head of the Cambridge Tephra Laboratory.
It’s possible that new finds and new studies may extend the age of our species even further back in time. There are many other ash layers we are trying to correlate with eruptions of the Ethiopian Rift and ash deposits from other sedimentary formations,’ said Vidal. ‘In time, we hope to better constrain the age of other fossils in the region.’
