Category Archives: ASIA

2,000-Year-Old Terracotta Figurines of Deities, Mortals, Animals Found in Turkey

December 17, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

2,000-Year-Old Terracotta Figurines of Deities, Mortals, Animals Found in Turkey

Some of the petite sculptures still bear traces of the pigments used to decorate them.

**A number of terracotta heads were found separated from the rest of their bodies.**

Turkish archaeologists studying the ruins of the ancient town of Myra have found more than 50 terracotta figurines depicting humans, gods and animals.

The team, working on behalf of Akdeniz University and Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, excavated the town’s 12,000 seat Roman-era theater and an older, smaller theater located below it this past summer.

They found the figurines in the older structure, which dates to the Hellenistic period (spanning Alexander the Great’s death in 323 B.C to the rise of the Roman Empire around 31 B.C.).

Dig leader Nevzat Çevik, an archaeologist at Akdeniz, tells Yasemin Saplakoglu that the art’s discovery was “an unexpected big surprise.”

He adds, “It is as if the people of ancient Myra were resurrected and ran through the time tunnel all together and came to our day.”

The statuettes, each standing just a few inches tall, include rams, horsemen, women with children and a boy carrying fruit, as well as mythic figures like Leto, Artemis, Apollo and Heracles.

Çevik tells the Demirören News Agency that some of the figures still bear traces of the red, blue and pink pigments used to paint them.

“The fact that the dyes on them are partially preserved shows us the color of clothes they wore in their time,” he says.

In addition to the terracotta figures, the team found ceramic, bronze, lead and silver artifacts scattered around the Hellenistic theater.

**The figurines depict gods, humans and animals.**

Myra, located near the mouth of the Andriacus River on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey, was an important Mediterranean port city for thousands of years, falling under the control of different regional forces over the centuries.

Per Encyclopedia Britannica, it was one of the most important towns in ancient Lycia, a confederation of maritime cities dating back in some form to the 14th century B.C. In the sixth century B.C., Persian forces conquered Lycia, which later came under Roman control before becoming its own Roman province around the fourth century A.D.

Among Myra’s best-known features are rock-cut tombs, many of which look like wooden houses and shrines, carved into its hills between the fifth and third centuries B.C. The city’s huge Roman theater, built in the third century A.D., is known as one of the most impressive in Anatolia.

The Hurriyet Daily News notes that excavations at the site have been ongoing for more than a decade. Over the summer, project coordinators brought dozens of researchers and workers to the site in Antalya’s Demre district.

“I can say that the excavations we carried out in the Myra Ancient City Theater this summer gave one of the most important gifts of the year to Anatolian archaeology,” Çevik tells Hurriyet.

In addition to many complete figurines, Live Science reports that the team found more than 50 heads without bodies—discoveries that suggest more artifacts are still waiting to be discovered.

For now, the team is continuing to piece together remnants of additional figurines. It plans to share them with the Museum of Lycian Civilizations in Demre.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Archaeologists in Israel Unearth 3,800-Year-Old Skeleton of Baby Buried in a Jar

December 16, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Archaeologists in Israel Unearth 3,800-Year-Old Skeleton of Baby Buried in a Jar

Researchers are unsure of the unusual funerary practice’s purpose, but one theory posits that the vessel serves as a symbolic womb

**Researchers found the jar while conducting excavations in the ancient city of Jaffa.**

Archaeologists excavating a site in Jaffa, Israel, recently made a macabre discovery: a 3,800-year-old jar containing the skeleton of a baby.

As Ariel David reports for Haaretz, researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) uncovered the poorly preserved remains, which were buried in a shallow pit about ten feet below street level, while surveying the ruins of the 4,000-year-old city ahead of construction.

The practice of burying babies in jars dates back to the Bronze Age and continued until as recently as the 20th century, IAA archaeologist Yoav Arbel tells Live Science’s Laura Geggel. But while evidence of such funerary rituals regularly appears in the archaeological record, scholars remain unsure of the practice’s purpose.

“You might go to the practical thing and say that the bodies were so fragile, [maybe] they felt the need to protect it from the environment, even though it is dead,” says Arbel. “But there’s always the interpretation that the jar is almost like a womb, so basically the idea is to return [the] baby back into Mother Earth, or into the symbolic protection of his mother.”

Speaking with Ashley Cowie of Ancient Origins, archaeologist Alfredo Mederos Martin, who was not involved in the IAA research, notes that people across the ancient world entombed children in jars as early as 4,500 B.C. Methods varied from place to place, with civilizations adapting the process to reflect their unique conceptions of death.

In a 2019 article published in the Biblical Archaeology Review, scholar Beth Alpert Nakhai suggested that the jars’ burial beneath the home signified “a desire on the part of [the] dead infant’s mother to care for her child in death, as she would have cared for that child in life.”

These kinds of burials could also reflect a change in ancient societies’ attitude toward the young; previously, prehistoric humans had only buried adults in jars, “indicating that children were [thought] to be of little importance,” as Ruth Schuster pointed out for Haaretz in 2022.

**A map of the streets in Jaffa where the digs took place**

Over the past decade, officials have conducted digs at five locations across Jaffa. They detailed their impressive array of discoveries in the IAA’s journal, ‘Atiqot, last month.

Highlights of the finds include 30 Hellenistic coins; the remains of at least two horses and pottery dated to the late Ottoman Empire; 95 glass vessel fragments from the Roman and Crusader periods; 14 fifth-century B.C. rock-carved burials featuring lamps, juglets and other funerary offerings; and the strangely interred infant.

Jaffa has a storied history that spans some four millennia. One of the world’s earliest port cities, the ancient settlement is now part of Tel Aviv, Israel’s second-most populated metropolis.

According to Haaretz, Jaffa experienced at least three periods of major expansion. The first took place in Hellenistic times, while the second stretched across the Byzantine, Islamic and Crusader eras.

Finally, Arbel tells Haaretz, “[f]rom the mid-19th century to the end of the Ottoman era there was huge population growth. Jaffa grew exponentially and became a cosmopolitan city.”

The researcher adds that experts hadn’t realized the full extent of the city’s archaeological wealth until recently.

“There were those who told us there was no point to excavate around the mound,” or central stretch of high ground on which Jaffa is situated, he says.

But subsequent archaeological work revealed that Jaffa, like many other ancient cities, expanded into the surrounding lowlands during periods of prosperity and tightened up its boundaries in times of strife.

Though researchers covered up many of the archaeological sites after recording their overlooked histories, several—from Crusader-era walls preserved in a hospital-turned-hotel to the ruins of an Ottoman-era soap factory—remain accessible to the public.

ASIA, EGYPT, WORLD

2,400-Year-Old Baskets Still Filled With Fruit Found in Submerged Egyptian City

December 16, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

2,400-Year-Old Baskets Still Filled With Fruit Found in Submerged Egyptian City

Wicker vessels recovered from the ruins of Thônis-Heracleion contain doum nuts and grape seeds

**Researchers excavating the sunken ruins of Thônis-Heracleion have discovered an array of archaeological treasures.**

Researchers investigating the submerged metropolis of Thônis-Heracleion, in the Egyptian bay of Abū Qīr, have discovered wicker fruit baskets dated to the fourth century B.C.E.

Incredibly, the vessels still contain doum nuts—the fruit of an African palm tree considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians—and grape seeds.

“Nothing was disturbed,” marine archaeologist Franck Goddio tells Dalya Alberge of the Guardian. “It was very striking to see baskets of fruits.”

Goddio and his colleagues at the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) uncovered the containers in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Researchers have been surveying the ancient Mediterranean port city of Thônis-Heracleion since its rediscovery in 2001, according to Egypt Independent.

The baskets were stored in an underground room and may have been funerary offerings, reports the Greek City Times. Nearby, the researchers found a 197- by 26-foot tumulus, or burial mound, and an extravagant array of Greek funerary goods likely left by merchants and mercenaries living in the area.

“Everywhere we found evidence of burned material,” says Goddio in a statement, as quoted by CNN’s Radina Gigova. “Spectacular ceremonies must have taken place there. The place must have been sealed for hundreds of years as we have found no objects from later than the early fourth century B.C.E., even though the city lived on for several hundred years after that.”

Other objects found on or surrounding the tumulus included ancient pottery, bronze artifacts and figurines depicting the Egyptian god Osiris.

“We found hundreds of deposits made of ceramic,” Goddio tells the Guardian. “One above the other. These are imported ceramic, red on black figures.”

Thônis-Heracleion was founded around the eighth century B.C.E. According to Goddio’s website, the city served as the “obligatory port of entry to Egypt for all ships coming from the Greek world” prior to the establishment of Alexandria around 331 B.C.E.

**An Egyptian-French mission found the 80-foot-long ship beneath roughly 16 feet of hard clay.**

The bustling trade hub reached its peak sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C.E. Buildings radiated around a central temple, with a system of canals connecting different parts of the city. Homes and other religious structures stood on islands near the heart of Thônis-Heracleion.

Once an epicenter for maritime commerce, the city sank into the Mediterranean in the eighth century C.E. Some historians attribute the metropolis’ downfall to rising sea levels and collapsing, unstable sediment, as Reg Little wrote for Oxford Mail in 2022. Others posit that earthquakes and tidal waves caused a 42-square-mile segment of the Nile Delta to collapse into the sea, per CNN.

As the Art Newspaper’s Emily Sharpe reported in 2022, experts once thought that Heracleion—referenced by Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.E.—was a separate city from Thônis, which is actually the site’s Egyptian name. A tablet found by Goddio’s team in 2001 helped researchers conclude that the two locations were one and the same.

Recovering objects from the ruins of Thônis-Heracleion is a grueling task due to the layers of protective sediment covering them.

“The goal is to learn as much as possible from our excavation without being intrusive,” Goddio told the Art Newspaper in 2022.

Previous discoveries at Thônis-Heracleion include more than 700 ancient anchors, gold coins and weights, and dozens of tiny limestone sarcophagi containing the remains of mummified animals, according to Oxford Mail. Last month, archaeologists found a well-preserved, second-century B.C.E. military vessel in a different part of the city.

Experts expect to unearth more artifacts at the site in the future. Speaking with the Guardian, Goddio estimates that just 3 percent of the sunken city has been studied in the 20 years since its rediscovery.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover 2,550-Year-Old Carving of the Last King of Babylon

December 16, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Archaeologists Discover 2,550-Year-Old Carving of the Last King of Babylon

Found in northern Saudi Arabia, the inscription depicts sixth-century B.C.E. ruler Nabonidus holding a scepter

**The four symbols seen in front of the king—a crescent moon, the sun, a snake and a flower—may hold religious significance.**

As Arab News reports, archaeologists from the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage spotted the 2,550-year-old inscription engraved on a basalt stone in the Al-Hadeed Governorate, in the country’s northern Hail region.

Per a statement, the carving contains 26 lines of cuneiform writing, making it the longest cuneiform inscription discovered in Saudi Arabia to date. The find could shed light on the history of the Arabian Peninsula and its ancient residents’ ties to neighboring Mesopotamia.

The etching shows the Babylonian king standing with a scepter in his hand. Four symbols—a crescent moon, the sun, a snake and a flower—hover in front of him.

Scholars suspect that these images hold religious significance but are still comparing the carving with similar ones to determine its meaning, notes Arab News.

According to the History Blog, the markings may be linked to deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon, representing the star of Ishtar, the winged disc of the sun god Shamash and the crescent of the moon deity Sin.

Experts found the inscription in the town of Al Hait. Known as Fadak in ancient times, Al Hait is home to the ruins of fortresses, rock art and water installations, writes Owen Jarus .

The site holds “great … significance,” boasting an early history that spans the first millennium B.C.E. through the beginning of the Islamic era, notes the commission on Twitter.

Researchers in the area have previously discovered inscriptions and obelisks mentioning Nabonidus, who ruled Babylonia from 556 to 539 B.C.E., when the kingdom fell to Cyrus of Persia, reports Arab News.

At its height, the Babylonian Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. When Nabonidus began his reign, he conquered portions of what is now Saudi Arabia.

Four years after assuming power, the king named his son Belshazzar coregent and went into exile in Tayma, a city some 160 miles north of Al Hait. He remained there until around 543 B.C.E.

Historians are unsure why Nabonidus left Babylon, but as Arkeonews points out, his “self-imposed exile from political and religious authority” may have been the result of a coup.

Disputes between the clergy and Babylon’s elite could also have led to the king’s departure. According to the History Blog, Nabonidus attempted to change his people’s religious hierarchy by declaring the moon god superior to all other deities—a move that may have aggravated the nobility.

Much about the last Babylonian king—including his fate following the fall of Babylon—remains unknown. Enyclopedia Britannica suggests that he was captured by one of Cyrus’ generals and exiled.

ASIA, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover 200,000-Year-Old Hand & Footprints That Could Be the World’s Earliest Cave Art

December 14, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Archaeologists Discover 200,000-Year-Old Hand & Footprints That Could Be the World’s Earliest Cave Art

**Researchers discovered the impressions on the Tibetan Plateau in 2018.**

A group of fossilized handprints and footprints found in Tibet, dating back roughly 200,000 years, could be the earliest examples of human art. And they were made by children.

Every parent knows that children love to get their hands and feet into mud. Such seems to be the case long ago at what used to be a hot spring at Quesang, high on the Tibetan Plateau at an altitude of 4,269 metres (14,000 feet) above sea level.

A report in the journal Science Bulletin suggests these impressions were intentionally placed, not just the result of wandering in the area. The foot and hand prints fit exactly within a space, arranged close together like a mosaic. Their size indicates they were made by two children, one the size of a 7-year-old, and the other the size of a 12-year-old.

**Researchers discovered what is possibly the world’s oldest artwork, rendered here in a 3D scan, on a rocky promontory at Quesang on the Tibetan Plateau in 2018.**

During that time, travertine, which is a type of limestone formed by hot mineral springs, formed a pasty mud which was perfect for making handprints. Later, when the hot spring dried up, the mud hardened into stone, preserving the prints over time.

The rocks have been dated to between 169,000 and 226,000 years ago. It is not known exactly who the people were that lived on the Tibetan Plateau at that time, but one possibility is the Denisovans, a branch of our early ancestors who lived in Asia and resembled modern humans. Tibetans living today still carry Denisovan genes.

**Two ethnic Tibetan children play chess at a Tibetan village at the feet of Kalong Mountain in Tongren County.**

Whether the imprints can be considered art or just kids playing in the mud is up for interpretation, although the authors of the paper it may be art in the same way that parents hang scribbles from children on their refrigerators and call it art.

The authors describe the medium the prints are in as intentionally altered, which they suggest could have been a kind of performance to show like, “Hey, look at me, I’ve made my handprints over these footprints.”

Or perhaps these impressions represent the human desire to leave marks behind on the landscape that say, “I was here.”

It’s a tradition that continues today with graffiti on walls in back alleys and famous actors and actresses who leave impressions of their hands and feet in cement along Hollywood Boulevard.

**A makeshift memorial appeared for late comedian, actor and legendary entertainer Jerry Lewis around his hand and feet prints on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles when he died in 2017.**

Little did these prehistoric kids know their handiwork would be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years.

If the carefully made prints are considered art, it pushes the history of rock art back more than 100,000 years. The oldest stencil-type handprints, where a hand is placed on a wall and coloured powder is blown around it to make an outline, have been found along with other cave paintings in Sulawesi, Indonesia and El Castillo, Spain dating back between 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.

This is known as parietal art because it is not meant to be moved, unlike paintings or statues that can be displayed anywhere and traded. And the oldest statues also only go back to about the same time period.

The children of ancient Tibet could be considered among the world’s first artists, or maybe they were just playing in the mud like all kids do. But the question of whether the impressions are art or not is almost moot because handprints and footprints from the deep past provide valuable scientific information.

**An international team of researchers describe ancient hand and footprints made deliberately which they argue represent art.**

Archeology usually deals with fragments from past cultures, such as pieces of pottery, building foundations, monuments and bones. It is up to the scientists to infer, to fill in the gaps and try to determine what the people were actually like. But handprints are the direct signature of a person.

Tourists on Hollywood Boulevard squat down to place their hands in the prints of their favourite actors to get a sense of what it might be like to shake their hand, sort of a virtual handshake. Imagine a handshake that reaches across millennia into an actual moment in time, to a couple of kids who were just messing in the mud.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

4,500 year-old avenues lined with ancient tombs discovered in Saudi Arabia

December 14, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

4,500 year-old avenues lined with ancient tombs discovered in Saudi Arabia

Archaeologists have discovered a 4,500-year-old highway network in Saudi Arabia lined with well-preserved ancient tombs.

Researchers from the University of Western Australia have carried out a wide-ranging investigation over the past year, involving aerial surveys conducted by helicopter, ground survey and excavation and examination of satellite imagery.

In findings published in the Holocene journal in December, they said the “funerary avenues” spanning large distances in the northwestern Arabian counties of Al-‘Ula and Khaybar had received little examination until quite recently.

**A dense “funerary avenue” flanked by Bronze Age tombs, leading out of Khaybar Oasis in northwest Saudi Arabia.**

“The people who live in these areas have known about them for thousands of years,” researcher Matthew Dalton told CNN. “But I think it wasn’t really known until until we got satellite imagery that just how widespread they are.”

Dalton said the funerary avenues, which he had seen from a helicopter, stretched for hundreds, “maybe even thousands of kilometers” and that the same routes were often followed by those traveling along the main roads of 2022.

“Often you’ll find main roads tend to follow the same routes as the avenues because they tend to be the shortest route between between the two places they’re going to,” Dalton said. “And actually, in some cases, the the tombs themselves are so dense that you can’t help but walk on the ancient route itself, because you’re sort of hemmed in by the tombs.”

**A 3rd millennium BC pendant burial on the southern edge of the Khaybar Oasis in northwest Saudi Arabia.**

The tombs themselves are mostly either pendant-shaped or ring burials. Ring tombs involve a cairn surrounded by a wall of up to two meters in height, while pendant tombs have “beautiful tails.”

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers determined that a concentrated group of samples dated back to between 2600 and 2000 BC, although the tombs continued to be reused until around 1,000 years ago.

“These tombs are 4,500 years old, and they’re still standing to their original height, which is really unheard of,” researcher Melissa Kennedy told CNN. “So I think that’s what particularly marks Saudi Arabia out from the rest of the region — just the level of preservation is unbelievable.”

Kennedy believes either single individuals or small groups were buried in the tombs, and the team have observed around 18,000 tombs along the funerary avenues while 80 of those have been sampled or excavated for research.

**An infilled ringed cairn from the Khaybar Oasis in northwest Saudi Arabia.**

The researchers think the use of the routes long preceded the tombs, and are still not sure exactly why the tombs were built along the route — although Kennedy pointed to similar customs linked to land ownership in Greece and Rome in later history.

“A way of showing ownership perhaps, could be one reason the tombs were built,” Dalton said. “And there may be an element of, you bury your nearest and dearest alongside the route, because you’ll be passing them frequently, and you have a place to remember them.”

**A dense “funerary avenue” flanked by Bronze Age tombs, leading out of al Wadi Oasis near Khaybar in northwest Saudi Arabia.**

The next step for the team will be to do more radiocarbon dating and go back out on the field, before analyzing their data. And more discoveries are likely to follow, with Dalton saying the avenues may even stretch across into Yemen, especially as similar tombs are found in both that country and northern Syria.

“The third millennium is such an important period of time,” Kennedy said. “It’s when the Pyramids are built. And it’s where lots of different cultures are interacting with each other for the first time on a wide scale. So to see the appearance of this monumental funerary landscape in this period is really exciting. And huge new avenues of research to basically follow.”

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

REMAINS OF HORSES FROM 2,700 YEARS AGO FOUND IN CHINESE FAMILY TOMB

December 14, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Remains of horses from 2,700 years ago found in Chinese family tomb

In central China, a tomb complex containing the remains of horses thought to belong to an ancient royal household was discovered.

Excavation of the surrounding land yielded 21 large tombs, six horse pits, and 500 copper, ceramic, and jade relics.

**A 2,700-year-old tomb complex containing the remains of horses believed to belong to a member of an ancient royal household has been unearthed in central China**

The tomb, which could date back 2,700 years, is thought to belong to a royal family from the Spring and Autumn Period.

Chinese archaeologist made the discovery in the city of Sanmenxia, in central China’s Henan Province on Saturday, according to Xinhua News.

Skeletons of 28 horses were found in the six pits. The horses were lying on their sides and were accompanied by dogs.

Out of the 21 large tombs, 20 of them contained coffins, according to archaeologists.

**According to preliminary analysis, the Shangshihe village tomb complex is thought to be the burial site of nobles from the middle Spring and Autumn Period**

According to preliminary analysis, the Shangshihe village tomb complex is thought to be the burial site of nobles from the early to the middle Spring and Autumn Period (771-476 BC).

The tomb was arranged in an orderly manner and all the relics were very well preserved, the experts said. This shows that the household had a clear layout planned and a strict burial system in place.

Other bronzeware, ceramics and anicent food vessels were also unearthed from the complex, indicating the owner’s noble status, according to Yang Haiqing, a researcher at the Sanmenxia Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

**Experts say the discovery will provide valuable material for the study of funeral rituals of the period in central China**

Four dings (鼎), which were prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons that stand upon legs with a lid and two facing handles were discovered along with four guis (簋), a type of bowl-shaped ritual bronze vessel used to hold offerings of food, usually grain, for ancestral tombs.

Experts said these reveal details about the technology and production methods used by noble households at the time, as well as the social status of the family and funeral customs of the period.

The site was discovered in July last year, when a local chemical enterprise was expanding construction.

**Experts said the relics reveal details about the technology and production methods used by noble families at the time**

This is not the first time that such burials have been uncovered in China.

Last November, archaeologists discovered a 2,400-year-old tomb in Xinzheng city in the same province, thought to hold the remains of noble families of the Zheng State, who ruled the region intermittently between 770 and 221 BC.

Excavation of the surrounding land had uncovered 18 large pits containing horses and chariots and more than 3,000 tombs.

**Around 500 pieces of burial objects such as bronzeware, pottery and jade were excavated from the tomb complex**

In 2022, archaeologists uncovered the almost 3,000-year-old remains of horses and wooden chariots in a Zhou Dynasty tomb in Luoyang city, also in Henan province.

The pits also contained well-preserved evidence of bronzeware and ceramics from the Early Western Zhou dynasty.

ASIA, EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Astonished Archaeologists Find Roman Colosseum Replica in Anatolia, Turkey

December 8, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Astonished Archaeologists Find Roman Colosseum Replica in Anatolia, Turkey

While exploring the site of the ancient city of Mastaura in western Turkey last summer, archaeologists discovered something remarkable. Partially buried in the earth and further obscured beneath trees and bushes, they were able to identify the unmistakable outline of a large, circular amphitheater , built in the same distinctive shape as the famed Colosseum in Rome.

Initial excavations quickly confirmed the truth. Hidden in an area currently occupied by olive and fig groves, the archaeological team from Adnan Menderes University in Aydin, Turkey had indeed found the remains of a Colosseum replica, which had been constructed to host entertainment spectacles during a time when Anatolia (modern Turkey) was a part of the Roman Empire.

Like its renowned counterpart in the empire’s capital city, the newly found Colosseum replica would also have hosted bloody battles that pitted man-against-man, man-against-beast, and animal-against-animal.

Amazingly, the Colosseum replica was found to be largely intact, protected from decay and destruction by its earthen and vegetative cover.

The ruins of Roman amphitheaters have been found in Turkish territory before. But only traces of these ancient structures remain, due to natural erosive forces and the ravages of looters.

Turkey’s Colosseum Replica

“There is no previous example of such an amphitheater in Anatolia and its immediate surroundings,” declared archaeologist Sedat Akkurnaz , the Mastaura excavation team leader. “It is the only example that has survived in this very solid way.”

“Most of the amphitheatre is under the ground,” he continued. “The sections under the ground are very well preserved. It is solid as if it was just built.”

Searching through the stadium’s subterranean sections, the archaeologists found many structurally sound and well-preserved rooms, which would have been occupied by gladiators, important guests, venue administrators, and event planners.

Arched entryways and vaulted ceilings revealed an indisputable link to the signature construction style of Roman architects , who set standards that loyal provincial authorities did their best to emulate.

The circular design of the Mastaura amphitheater is relatively unique. Most Roman amphitheaters were built in a half-moon or semi-circular shape, but it seems the architects of this particular structure were anxious to demonstrate their fealty to the classic design principles established by the builders of the Colosseum in Rome in the first century AD.

The dimensions of this long-lost building are quite impressive. It measures approximately 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter and features walls that are 50 feet (15 meters) tall at their highest points. While precise calculations of seating capacity are difficult to obtain, Akkurnaz estimates that the amphitheater could have held between 15,000 and 20,000 people when it was fully packed.

This is dwarfed by the 50,000 to 70,000 seat capacity of the Colosseum in Rome, but would have been perfectly suitable for the less densely populated regions of Anatolia.

The Decline Of The Roman Empire And The Colosseum Replica

The cascade of troubles that hit the Romans and the Anatolians in the third century AD included barbarian invasions, civil warfare and unrest, peasant rebellions, and the Antonine Plague of measles or smallpox that swept across Roman lands and left millions of dead bodies in its wake.

This confluence of factors, plus political mismanagement in general, plunged the Empire into a prolonged economic depression that caused a major decline in the fortunes of the cities Anatolia and the province of Asia in particular. This region of the Empire never again came close to matching its peak prosperity, and in the fourth century it was divided up into multiple smaller provinces.

The amphitheater at Mastaura was obviously constructed with the expectation that the good times would continue. Given the economic troubles that beset the region sometime shortly after its completion, this grand edifice may have sat empty and unused for much of the time, since the spectacles it was designed to host would have been too costly for financially-strapped promoters to sponsor. In the economically challenged post-Severan era, this newly built structure may have been dismissed as wasteful expenditure and a sign of Roman decadence.

Preservation Work to Continue in the Coming Months

During the remainder of 2022, the archaeologists who unearthed the Mastaura amphitheater will begin conservation and preservation work on its most vulnerable sections.

After that process is complete, Akkurnaz and his team will launch a series of geophysical surveys at the site, to gain more information about what the structure looks like underground.

In addition to the support they’re receiving from the local government of the nearby town of Nazilli, the archaeologists are also cooperating closely with Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism on this important excavation project.

ASIA, MONGOLIA, WORLD

Archeologists find ancient mummy approximately 1,500 years old in Mongolia

December 8, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Archeologists find ancient mummy approximately 1,500 years old in Mongolia

Remains of suspected female of Turkik origin found in at an altitude of 2,803 metres in the Altai Mountains.

**‘The finds show us that these people were very skilled craftsmen.’**

The ancient human remains are wrapped in felt but the excavation is being hailed as the first complete Turkik burial found in Central Asia. B.Sukhbaatar, researcher at Khovd Museum, said: ‘This person was not from elite, and we believe it was likely a woman, because there is no bow in the tomb.

‘Now we are carefully unwrapping the body and once this is complete the specialists will be able to say more precisely about the gender.’

In the mummy’s grave archeologists found – alongside the human remains – a saddle, bridle, clay vase, wooden bowl, trough, iron kettle, the remains of entire horse, and four different ‘Dool’ (Mongolian clothes).

**‘Now we are carefully unwrapping the body and the specialists could say more precisely about the gender.’**

There were also pillows, a sheep’s head and felt travel bag in which were placed the whole back of a sheep, goat bones and small leather bag for the cup.

He said: ‘It is the first complete Turkik burial at least in Mongolia – and probably in all Central Asia. This is a very rare phenomenon. These finds show us the beliefs and rituals of Turkiks.

‘We can see clearly that the horse was deliberately sacrificed. It was a mare, between four and eight years old. Four coats we found were made of cotton.

**Elaboated embroidery on the bag and a saddle – all very good preserved.**

‘An interesting thing we found is that not only sheep wool was used, but also camel wool. We can date the burial by the things we have found there, also the type of hat. It gives us a preliminary date of around the 6th century AD.’

Archeologists from the city museum in Khovd were alerted to the burial site by local herdsmen. The finds will help form a deeper understanding of the native Turks in ancient Mongolia.

In the mummy’s grave archeologists found – alongside the human remains – a saddle, bridle, clay vase, wooden bowl, trough, iron kettle, the remains of entire horse, and four different ‘Dool’ (Mongolian clothes).

‘The grave was located 2803 meters above sea level,’ said B.Sukhbaatar. ‘This fact and the cool temperatures helped to preserve the grave. The grave was three metres deep.

‘The finds show us that these people were very skilled craftsmen. Given that this was the grave of a simple person, we understand that craft skills were rather well developed.’

The Altai Mountains unite Siberia, in Russia, and Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.

ASIA, JORDAN, WORLD

Desert Kites: Mysterious geoglyphs built thousands of years ago

December 7, 2022 Archeology worldwide team Leave a comment

Desert Kites: Mysterious geoglyphs built thousands of years ago

During the 1920s, pilots of the Royal Air Force who flew over the deserts of Israel, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, saw some strange line shapes scattered all over the area.

They named them “Desert Kites”. Seen from above the lines resembled flying kites. This was a new discovery for the western world, but the local Bedouin population already knew about them for thousands of years. The natives called them “Works of the Old Men”.

**Desert Kites: Mysterious geoglyphs built thousands of years ago**

Most of the kites are composed of two stone walls with variable thickness and height, that are wider at the beginning and get narrow at the end, forming a V shape.

The length of the walls is usually a few hundred meters, but can stretch up to a few kilometers The narrow opening at the end of the funnel leads to an enclosure or a pit.

The enclosures have many shapes and sizes: they can be circular, triangular or star-shaped and range from a few hundred square meters to more than ten hectares.

There are small stone cells with higher walls joined to the external part of the enclosure. They are circular or square in shape. Some kites have one cell, but their number can go up to several dozen.

**Circle enclosures with cells on the outside**

It is commonly accepted that the stone kites were used for hunting, to gather the animals together, making them an easier prey. Few years ago, a team of archeologists found a big deposit of Persian gazelle bones dating from 4th millennium BC, from a site in northeastern Syria.

This provides a direct evidence that the kites were used for hunting gazelles in post-Neolithic times. The Kites, organized in chains that facing the same direction, lie along migration routes that ran from Syria to Saudi Arabia. This suggests that the people who created them had good knowledge of animal behavior.

The majority of kites were built between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, although some of the oldest structures are dated as far back as 8000 BC.

However, recent access to high-resolution satellite images has revealed even more kites exist than previously believed. They are spread over a huge area that extends from the Arabian Peninsula to the Aral Sea.

This new discovery deepens the mystery of the “kites phenomenon”. Solving this puzzle (according to mainstream archeology) means finding the answer to some fundamental questions as animal economy, the disappearance of species, sustainable development and even the development of urbanism.