1600-Year-Old Roman Shipwreck Found in “Perfect” Condition in Spain
In 117 AD, at the time of Caesar Trajan’s death, the Roman Empire had reached its territorial peak, stretching across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa and Western Asia. And the Romans used ships for much of the things that were sold to or bought from their distant colonies.
As a result, shipwrecks in Mediterranean Sea waters from the Roman era are common. Now another Roman cargo shipwreck, known as the Ses Fontanelles, has been found just off one of the busiest beaches in Mallorca, Spain reports The Guardian.
Dated to the 4th century AD, this incredibly well-preserved Roman cargo ship was carrying hundreds of amphorae of wine, olives, oil, and garum (fermented fish sauce). During a stopover at Mallorca, en route from southwest Spain to Italy, the ship anchored in the Bay of Palma when ferocious waves came and swallowed the vessel, burying it under the shallow seabed.
Project Arqueomallornauta and the Roman Cargo Ship
The Roman cargo shipwreck was first spotted in the summer of 2019. The ship was measured to be roughly 12 meters (39 feet) long.
Particularly surprising was the fact that this ancient shipwreck lay 50 meters (164 feet) from a very busy beach, with its contents only 2 meters (6.5 feet) below sea level. This very touristy beach just off the Balearics welcomes millions of visitors every year, but shockingly, none of the shipwreck artefacts were ever touched after the ship sank.
In the Guardian article Jaume Cardell, the head of archaeology at the Consell of Mallorca said, “The aim is to preserve everything there and all the information it contains, and that couldn’t be done in single emergency intervention. That’s where the project Arqueomallornauta comes in: it’s about recovering and preserving both the wreck and its historical cargo.
This isn’t just about Mallorca; in the whole western Mediterranean, there are very few wrecks with such a singular cargo.”
Researchers from the universities of Barcelona, Cadiz, and the Balearic Islands signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Consell of Mallorca for an inter-university 3-year project called Arqueomallornauta, which will be active till 2023.
The thrust of the project is “analyzing maritime traffic in Majorca in Late Antiquity through underwater findings” as per a press release by the University of Cadiz.
Late Antiquity, or the period between 284 and 700 AD, coincides roughly with the resolution of the Roman Empire’s crisis of the 3rd century, its collapse at the hands of the barbaric tribes, and the early Muslim conquests.
The first part of this MoU was put into action between November 2021, and February 2022, with the excavation of the contents of the ship’s cargo.
The finds were described as “…frankly exceptional, since they have made it possible to fully discover the cargo of the ship, which sank in the middle of the 4th century AD, in an excellent state of conservation,” said the research team.
This exceptional Roman cargo ship finds will shed new light on the condition of the Mediterranean in the 4th century and provide insights into the lives of crew members of such ships.
Just consider these artefacts found on the Mallorca Roman cargo shipwreck: a leather shoe, a rope shoe, a cooking pot, an oil lamp, and a carpenter’s drill (the fourth ever found in this entire region).
There were no human remains of the boat’s crew, however, which suggests that they might have made it to the coast or were swept away by the waves.
An Unparalleled State of Preservation
The best part? The sand created a natural barrier against oxygen, allowing for incomparable preservation of the boat’s organic materials. “Things have been so perfectly preserved that we have found bits of textile, a leather shoe and an espadrille.
The most surprising thing about the boat is just how well preserved it is – even the wood of the hull … It’s wood that you can knock – like it’s from yesterday,” said Dr Miguel Ángel Cau, an archaeologist at the University of Barcelona.
“It’s important in terms of naval architecture because there are very few ancient boats that are as well preserved as this one,” added Dr Darío Bernal-Casasola, an archaeologist at the University of Cádiz. “There are no complete Roman boats in Spain.”
He also notes that the amphorae are still so well preserved that the remains of the contents, the structure of the jar, and the inscriptions on them all remain perfectly intact, calling it an “improbable subaquatic archaeological hat-trick.”
Human Lives Illuminated: The Trading Elite and the Crew
Historian Enrique García Riaza from the University of the Balearic Islands made it clear that this wreck is proof of how important the Balearic archipelago was to the Roman Empire, particularly as a staging post between the Italian and Spanish parts of the Mediterranean.
The elites of the Balearic would have had extensive social and economic relationships with the elites of places like Cartagena and Tarragona.
The crew of the ship were likely Roman pagans, evidenced by the pagan symbol of the moon goddess Diana on an oil lamp found on the wreck. However, some of the ship’s amphorae were imprinted with Christian seals. This would mean that the crew itself was pagan but that the ship carried Christian cargo.
Once the hull of Mallorca’s latest Roman cargo ship is recovered, the plan is to put the ship and its cargo on display, for everyone to see. For the same purpose, conservationists and specialists are being invited to prepare a special report.
The archaeologists are particularly grateful because they acknowledge how easily this find fell into their laps, and the state of preservation only suggests that this is a once in a lifetime find.
World’s Oldest Pet Cemetery Unearthed in Ancient Egypt
A dig near the famous ancient Egyptian port city of Berenice has turned up a mysterious animal cemetery dating to the 1st century AD.
It emerged in the dunes to the northwest of the important ancient Red Sea port of Berenice, which saw traffic from far and wide, with ships coming from East Africa, Europe, and India.
Ninety percent of the nearly 600 burial sites explored unearthed cats, though there were also dogs and macaque monkeys, a few of them definitely imported from outside Africa.
The find was published by a team led by Marta Osypinska, an archaeozoologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, in the journal World Archaeology.
Several characteristics make this discovery uniquely mysterious. For one thing, none of the animals was mummified, as they are at other archaeological sites, such as temples. Here, too, there was a greater variety of species and funeral practices. Also, unlike at other burial sites, there were no humans among the beasts.
While the animals obviously had a special place in their society, the paper says, to think of them the way we think of pets today might not be quite right. These “companion animals,” as the researchers call them, probably played more of a utilitarian role than the pampered pets of today.
Still, the animals were definitely treated well in death.
They’re accompanied by craft objects like pottery that are thought to have protected them, and the creatures also have adornments like beaded necklaces made of stone, glass, and faience and shell. They were uniformly found in a sleep-like position.
Other experts second the conviction that the site is truly something new.
“It’s something completely different than what we see elsewhere,” Bea De Cupere, an archaeologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, who was not involved with the project, tells Atlas Obscura.
“I’ve seen thousands and thousands of bones in my career, and maybe 10 cats,” she says.
According to her research, the ships that came and went in these ports usually had cats aboard for pest control, suggesting that these may have been partly working animals.
Ancient Egyptian Head Cones Were Real, Grave Excavations Suggest
Researchers have revealed details of mysterious cone-shaped headgear discovered in the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna.
“Ancient Egyptian art frequently depicted people wearing cone-shaped headgear, but none had ever been found,” the researchers explained in a statement emailed to Fox News.
Archaeologists from the Amarna project have been working with Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities to analyze the mysterious head cones. A head cone was discovered at a grave in Amarna in 2010 and another head cone was uncovered at the site five years later.
“This confirms the objects actually existed, which some researchers were sceptical of,” the researchers added in the statement. “Instead, they thought they were just artistic additions, like Christian halos.”
Two figures wearing head cones in a wall painting from Akhetaten, Egypt
“It is unknown why these cones were included in the burials,” the experts continued. “They may have been thought to purify the wearer so they could engage with the rituals and deities of the afterlife. Alternatively, they could be connected with ideas of fertility and resurrection.”
A paper on the research is published in the journal Antiquity.
Egypt continues to reveal new details of its right history. Archaeologists, for example, recently discovered a long-lost 2,200-year-old ancient temple linked to Pharaoh Ptolemy IV.
In a separate project, an ancient fortress built by Pharaoh Ramses II is revealing its secrets. Archaeologists recently uncovered an ancient cemetery near the famous Giza pyramids just outside Cairo.
In another project, experts uncovered the 2,500-year-old remains of a powerful high priest in dramatic fashion.
The opening of the priest’s stone sarcophagus was broadcast by the Discovery Channel during “Expedition Unknown: Egypt Live,” a two-hour live event. Archaeologists discovered what they describe as an “exquisitely preserved” mummy inside the sealed sarcophagus, covered in gold banding.
A grave at Amarna with the remains of a head cone.
The incredible find was made at Al-Ghorifa, a remote site about 165 miles south of Cairo. Located within the inner chambers of the burial site, experts accessed the sarcophagus via a network of ancient tunnels.
Elsewhere, archaeologists found a large ram-headed sphinx that is linked to King Tutankhamun’s grandfather. In other projects, a teenage girl’s skeleton was discovered in a mysterious grave near the Meidum pyramid, south of Cairo.
In April, experts announced the discovery of dozens of mummies in ancient desert burial chambers. Archaeologists also recently explained the strange brown spots on some of the paintings in King Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Depictions of head cones in Ancient Egyptian art from the ancient city of Amarna.
In January, archaeologists announced the discovery of ancient tombs in the Nile Delta north of Cairo. In a separate project, two ancient tombs dating back to the Roman period were uncovered in Egypt’s Western Desert.
Archaeologists discovered a stunning sphinx statue at an ancient temple in southern Egypt in a separate project.
Last summer, experts unlocked the secrets of a mysterious ancient ‘cursed’ black granite sarcophagus. The massive coffin, which was excavated in the city of Alexandria, was found to contain three skeletons and gold sheets with the remains.
Archaeologists also found the oldest solid cheese in the tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of the ancient city of Memphis.
A mummy buried in southern Egypt more than 5,000 years ago has also revealed its grisly secrets, shedding new light on prehistoric embalming practices.
Ancient Humans Cooked And Ate Giant Land Snails Around 170,000 Years Ago
Slow-motion large land snails made for easy catching and good eating as early as 170,000 years ago. Until now, the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens eating land snails dated to roughly 49,000 years ago in Africa and 36,000 years ago in Europe.
But tens of thousands of years earlier, people at a southern African rock shelter roasted these slimy, chewy – and nutritious – creepers that can grow as big as an adult’s hand, researchers report in the April 15 Quaternary Science Reviews.
Analyses of shell fragments excavated at South Africa’s Border Cave indicate that hunter-gatherers who periodically occupied the site heated large African land snails on embers and then presumably ate them, say chemist Marine Wojcieszak and colleagues. Wojcieszak, of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels, studies the chemical properties of archaeological sites and artifacts.
The supersized delicacy became especially popular between about 160,000 and 70,000 years ago, the researchers say. The number of unearthed snail shell pieces was substantially larger in sediment layers dating to that time period.
New discoveries at Border Cave challenge an influential idea that human groups did not make land snails and other small game a big part of their diet until the last Ice Age waned around 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, Wojcieszak says.
Long before that, hunter-gatherer groups in southern Africa roamed the countryside collecting large land snails to bring back to Border Cave for themselves and to share with others, the team contends. Some of the group members who stayed behind on snail-gathering forays may have had limited mobility due to age or injury, the researchers suspect.
“The easy-to-eat, fatty protein of snails would have been an important food for the elderly and small children, who are less able to chew hard foods,” Wojcieszak says. “Food sharing shows that cooperative social behavior was in place from the dawn of our species.”
Small groups of people roasted and ate large land snails, much like this modern land snail, at a rock shelter in southern Africa starting around 170,000 years ago, a new study finds.
Border Cave’s ancient snail scarfers also push back the human consumption of mollusks by several thousand years, says archaeologist Antonieta Jerardino of the University of South Africa in Pretoria. Previous excavations at a cave on South Africa’s southern tip found evidence of humans eating mussels, limpets and other marine mollusks as early as around 164,000 years ago.
Given the nutritional value of large land snails, an earlier argument that it was eating fish and shellfish that energized human brain evolution may have been overstated, says Jerardino, who did not participate in the new study.
It’s not surprising that ancient H. sapiens recognized the nutritional value of land snails and occasionally cooked and ate them 170,000 years ago, says Teresa Steele, an archaeologist at the University of California, Davis who was not part of the work.
But intensive consumption of these snails starting around 160,000 years ago is unexpected and raises questions about whether climate and habitat changes may have reduced the availability of other foods, Steele says.
Researchers have already found evidence that ancient people at Border Cave cooked starchy plant stems, ate an array of fruits and hunted small and large animals. The oldest known grass bedding, from around 200,000 years ago, has also been unearthed at Border Cave.
Several excavations have been conducted at the site since 1934. Three archaeologists on the new study — Lucinda Backwell and Lyn Wadley of Wits University in Johannesburg and Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France — directed the latest Border Cave dig, which ran from 2015 through 2019.
Discoveries by that team inspired the new investigation. Excavations uncovered shell fragments of large land snails, many discolored from possible burning, in all but the oldest sediment layers containing remnants of campfires and other H. sapiens activity. The oldest layers date to at least 227,000 years ago.
The chemical and microscopic characteristics of 27 snail shell fragments from various sediment layers were compared with shell fragments of modern large African snails that were heated in a metal furnace. Experimental temperatures ranged from 200° to 550° Celsius. Heating times lasted from five minutes to 36 hours.
All but a few ancient shell pieces displayed signs of extended heat exposure consistent with having once been attached to snails that were cooked on hot embers. Heating clues on shell surfaces included microscopic cracks and a dull finish.
Only lower parts of large land snail shells would have rested against embers during cooking, possibly explaining the mix of burned and unburned shell fragments unearthed at Border Cave, the researchers say.
1,700-Year-Old Sock Spins Yarn About Ancient Egyptian Fashion
There are old socks, and then there are old socks. This stripy sock, discarded around the 3rd or 4th century, falls into the latter category. Fished out of a landfill during the 1913-1914 excavation of the Egyptian city of Antinooupolis led by English papyrologist John de Monins Johnson on behalf the Egypt Exploration Fund, the sock ended up in the collections of the British Museum in London.
Child’s left-foot sock
While previous research had pinpointed its age, not much else was known about the sock—or its partner, which presumably was lost to time (and did not succumb to whatever the late antiquity period equivalent is to being swallowed by the dryer).
Now, new research is unraveling the sock’s secrets. As Caroline Davies reports for the Guardian, a group of museum scientists hoping to better understand ancient Egyptian clothing manufacture and trade practices decided to analyze the dyes in the sock, along with several other textiles dating between about 250 and 800 A.D.
Avoiding older techniques that required an invasive approach, they utilized multispectral imaging, which only needs to scan the surface of artifacts to test for pigments.
Even if certain colors have degraded to the point that they’re not visible to the naked eye, multispectral imaging can detect minute color traces under different wavelengths of light. Think of it as a camera for invisible ink.
Sure enough, the analysis revealed that the sock contained seven hues of wool yarn woven together in a meticulous, stripy pattern. Just three natural, plant-based dyes—madder roots for red, woad leaves for blue and weld flowers for yellow—were used to create the different color combinations featured on the sock, according to Joanne Dyer, lead author of the study, which appears in the journal PLOS ONE.
In the paper, she and her co-authors explain that the imaging technique also revealed how the colors were mixed to create hues of green, purple and orange: In some cases, fibers of different colors were spun together; in others, individual yarns went through multiple dye baths.
Such intricacy is pretty impressive, considering that ancient sock is both “tiny” and “fragile,” as Dyer tells Davies. Given its size and orientation, the researchers believe it may have been worn on a child’s left foot.
The sock offers insight beyond what was all the rage among youth fashion approximately 1,700 years ago. Analyzing its construction yields a lot of insight into the time period in which it warmed tiny feet.
The period that comprised Egypt’s late antiquity is rich with history: During this time, Egypt experienced an enormous upheaval that ended with the Muslim conquest of the region in 641 A.D.
“These events affect the economy, trade, access to materials,” Dyer tells Davies, “Which is all reflected in the technical makeup of what people were wearing and how they were making these objects.”
As it happens, socks are believed to have been a mainstay for humans since the Stone Age—though the earliest versions, which were just animal pelts or skins meant to be wrapped around feet, may not bear much resemblance to that Fruit of the Loom six-pack you have in your sock drawer.
The ancient Egyptians employed a single-needle looping technique, often referred to as nålbindning, to create their socks. Notably, the approach could be used to separate the big toe and four other toes in the sock—which just may have given life to the ever-controversial socks-nd-sandals trend.
Untouched and Unlooted 4,400-yr-old Tomb of Egyptian High Priest Discovered
Archaeologists in Egypt have made a new tomb discovery — the final resting place of a high priest, untouched for 4,400 years, decorated with hieroglyphics.
The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, described the find as “one of a kind in the last decades.”
The tomb was found buried in a ridge at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara. It was untouched and unlooted.
Officials say they expect more discoveries when archaeologists further excavate the site in the months to come.
The well-preserved tomb is decorated with scenes showing the royal priest alongside his mother, wife and other members of his family, the ministry said in a statement.
The high priest was devoted to his mother, evidence shows. “He mentions the name of his mother almost everywhere here,” said Waziri in an interview, pointing to the dozens of hieroglyphics, statues, and drawings.
“The color is almost intact even though the tomb is almost 4,400 years old,” he added.
The high priest “Wahtye” served during the Fifth Dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt. In addition to the name of the deceased, hieroglyphs carved into the stone above the tomb’s door reveal his multiple titles.
Saqqara pyramid of Djoser in Egypt.
The grave’s rectangular gallery is said to be covered in painted reliefs, sculptures, and inscriptions, all in excellent shape considering how much time has passed.
The reliefs depict Wahtye himself, his wife Weret Ptah, and his mother Merit Meen, as well as everyday activities that include hunting and sailing and manufacturing goods such as pottery, according to National Geographic.
The team of Egyptian archaeologists found five shafts in the tombs. They had removed a last layer of debris from the tomb on December 13, 2018, and found five shafts inside, Waziri said.
Pyramid of Djoser (Stepped pyramid), an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt. UNESCO World Heritage
One of the shafts was unsealed with nothing inside, but the other four were sealed. They are expecting to make discoveries when they excavate those shafts. He was hopeful about one shaft in particular.
“I can imagine that all of the objects can be found in this area,” he said in an interview, pointing at one of the sealed shafts. “This shaft should lead to a coffin or a sarcophagus of the owner of the tomb.”
The tomb is 33 feet long, 9 feet wide, and just under 10 feet high, Waziri said.
This picture taken on December 15, 2018 shows a general view of a newly-discovered tomb belonging to the high priest ‘Wahtye’ who served during the 5th dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis, 30 kilometres south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Various drawings depict “the manufacturing of pottery and wine, making religious offering, musical performances, boats sailing, the manufacturing of the funerary furniture, and hunting,” according to the site Egypt Today.
Also NPR is reporting that the Saqqara site is part of a larger complex where archaeologists have discovered art and architecture that yield insight into daily life in ancient Egypt.
Giza pyramids.
Ancient Egyptians mummified humans to preserve their bodies for the afterlife, and animal mummies were used as religious offerings.
The rate of discoveries seems to be increasing. In November 2018, archaeologists unearthed eight new limestone sarcophagi containing mummies at a site that is 25 miles south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry said the mummies were dated to the Late Period (664-332 BC) and have an outer layer of cartonnage — papyrus or linen which is covered in plaster — decorated with a painted human form. Three of the mummies are well-preserved.
Melting Stone With Plants: Was the Mythical ‘Green Chisel’ A Real Ancient Tool?
Archaeology is not an exact science. It is full of doubts, uncertainties, surprises, and unanswered questions. One of its unsolved mysteries concerns the methods of ancient stone work, which is lost in the mists of time. All existing stones, listed in the Mohs Scale according to their hardness – from the 1st degree (softest, talc), to the 10th (hardest, diamond) – are workable with tools made of something harder than them. This means they are worked and altered with a mineral tool with a higher degree of hardness, or more often with a metal tool.
From the 1st to the 6th degree (mostly calcareous stones), copper or bronze tools are enough. But for stones from the 7th upwards (much harder and mostly siliceous) we need iron or steel tools. In this article, we are interested in the examples of how ancient stoneworkers worked the oldest, hardest stones.
Why the Hardest Stones?
Many of these finds date back to periods or geographical contexts where iron did not exist: i.e. in the Old World before 1200 BC and in the New World before the Conquest. Nevertheless, surprisingly, just the hardest stones were used by ancient peoples in those situations – and with great skill and extremely sophisticated workmanship. Indeed, it seems that they were even preferred, despite the difficulties in working them (during which, moreover, they can chip badly). It was as if shaping them was commonplace for the ancient stonemasons.
We have emeralds, quartzes, obsidian jewels, and amulets with very fine incisions and carvings; slender vases in syenite with very thin sides with a smooth, impeccable finish; the cup of King Narmer , in porphyry; diorite tablets with bas-reliefs on a perfectly smooth background, and long texts in minute hieroglyphic or cuneiform characters, traced with perfect graphics, without smudges, as if they had been stamped rather than carved.
And then there’s the disquieting geometries in diorite of Puma Punku, of maniacal rigor and the incredible puzzles of the Peruvian walls (and Egyptian and Japanese walls too), with millimeter-precision junctions between the immense andesite blocks with 20, 30, or even 40 corners. There’s also basaltic boulders three meters high as the grandiose Olmec heads. The 70-ton granite blocks with very clear cuts, that were emptied to create the sarcophagi of the Serapeum of Saqqara, whose even the internal surfaces are as smooth as the outer ones, are another marvel. The shiny cylinders of ‘carrots’ also appear to be dug into granite by drills that seemed to have been as fast as their modern counterparts.
All this work was done by ancient stonemasons on hard siliceous rocks – up to the 8th or 9th degree of the Hardness Scale.
They made vases with smooth finishes and bas-reliefs without smudges, as if they had been stamped rather than carved.
None of this, in theory, was feasible by just muscular strength and with the ancient tools in the archaeological record. The stone workers apparently manipulated hard stone with a high degree of skill – but they were without strong saws, bits, special steel drills, and motor-powered tools. It simply seems impossible. But how did they do it? With what?
Inferences and Theories
Obviously, that inexplicable technical perfection has generated a lot of inferences and theories of every kind, many of which arbitrarily transpose means, methods, and knowledge of today into the most distant past. We see a hypothesis suggesting stone was ground, mixed with water, and cast into molds (with a disproportionate expenditure of energy). In another one, the stone is said to be softened by a mix of sour plant juices and shaped, then it would harden.
Other suggestions say the ancient people used lasers, radioactivity and so on, or that they had very advanced machines provided by a mysterious lost civilization. And, of course, there’s the hypothesis that the work was done with the assistance of aliens. But no evidence has ever been found for such devices.
To this technological enigma, excluding fanciful speculations, I intend to offer an explanation in line with ‘ Occam’s razor ’: with all factors being equal, the solution to a problem is the simplest one.
Using Acid to Work the Hardest Stones
The thesis is that the only practical system available to act on the mentioned minerals, refractory to (or unmanageable by) physical action, was chemistry – specifically exploiting the natural capacity of certain elements to break down other materials due to their incompatibility; incompatible chemical principles put in contact with each other will react by destroying each other. That is, to cause a guided reaction, and to stop it at the right time: the stone would be disintegrated by treating it with a corrosive substance (one incompatible with it) that chemically attacked it, instead of, or before tools were used on it.
In short, an acidic chemical would do most (or part) of the work necessary to produce the desired effect – all while saving time, effort, and material. This, as we shall see, was entirely within the reach of the ancient craftsmen , even if it is not clear how they came to understand that natural phenomenon and its possible advantageous uses.
The fact is that this intuition was, apparently, operatively implemented, and in a very simple and not at all mysterious way. Because – unlike other proposed solutions – the acid does not change the structure of the stone, but literally liquefies it and, if carefully managed, it can eliminate from a block all the superfluous parts (or materials) not included in the project design.
Acid-Washed Stone – a common treatment to show the beauty of a stone without cutting and polishing.
The difference compared to manual tools is that it does it without friction – it’s done at the atomic level . That’s all.
We have both direct (material) and indirect (immaterial) clues of the reliability of this hypothesis. Direct clues are the concrete evidence of the use of that method in artifacts and buildings. The results of the process described above are stunning when they are observed with the naked eye.
But I have no doubt that when they are enlarged under a microscope they would show the uniformity of a ‘controlled dissolution’ made by an acid even in the hardest parts of the stone to reach. This is in contrast to scratches which would have been made by metal tools. As a ‘chemical chisel,’ acid can creep everywhere.
As I said above, there is no archaeological evidence for modern technologies and tools used in the ancient past. But acid has always existed in nature. If we wanted to, we could still use it today.
With it, we could – drop by drop – engrave and pierce precious stones, create the empty cavity of a vase and smooth its sides, model statues, and even make coffins out of huge granite blocks. Layer by layer the acid would consume the inside of the stone and smooth it; or, if we wanted to mark it instead, we could cover it with a film of wax (which doesn’t react to it), scratch away the wax in areas we wanted to mark the stone, and then pour acid on those areas.
This could explain how Moses engraved the Tables of the Law, as the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 48b, describes how Shamìr is used to cut stone. To write on stone at that time, it would make sense that Moses used the same method of first marking the letters with ink, then passing Shamìr over them, and then they were engraved.
Did Moses engrave the Tables of the Law with acid?
By penetrating natural fissures with acid, we could remove boulders from their rocky bed and cut them as we wish. And maybe we could use it in the building industry in the form of a corrosive paste or mortar which disappeared after having eaten away the roughness and smoothed away the differences in height between boulders. It would eliminate the space needed for joints and give the structure the appearance of a dry-stone wall.
I believe this was the only way that it was possible for the ancient stonemasons to work very hard silicon-based stones. It would also be used for softer stones like limestone, marble, and alabaster, since the same acid also attacks all other types of stone. Indeed it attacks every material except gold, lead, and wax.
For us, it is important because it is the only natural solvent for silicon – and that aspect allows us to identify it with certainty because there is nothing else capable of so much. It is hydrofluoric acid (chemical symbol HF), one of the most aggressive, extremely reactive, caustic, and poisonous chemicals. The ancient stonemasons used that. That was their secret tool.
Sourcing the Secret Stonework Tool
But how did they get it? What did they extract it from?
Indirect clues will indicate its origin. Ancient legends speak of a magical ‘something’ that could weaken or destroy every type of stone: a ‘something’ that, from time immemorial, was reserved for the mighty ones and unknown to everyone else. But at a certain moment, it was replaced by iron, abandoned, and eventually forgotten. That’s how things happened in the Old World at least; in the New one , history handed it over to oblivion.
There isn’t much to tell though.
There is a transient reference to the ‘farr’ of Persian king Zal, which was a symbol of his celestial investiture, which acted as HF. Another, no less scanty reference mentions an obscure ‘plant mixture’ conceived by Egyptian scholars to soften stone. This was perhaps the same ‘unknown cement’ that was thick as a sheet of paper and that the Arab scholar Abd el-Latif (12th century) said connected the stones of the Great Pyramid, in which some ‘plant residues’ have recently been found. This is all from Egypt, although there traces of the technique abound.
Instead, we find a lot of data (certainly from Egyptian sources) in myths and texts, including the Bible, of ancient Israel, however there this discovery – a gift of God, which later disappeared – was only used twice. The Jews called it Shamir.
Was an unknown cement used in the construction of the Great Pyramid?
Shamír
The first time Shamir was used was to engrave the Tables of the Law and the names of the 12 tribes on the gems of priestly vestments. The second time was to cut the stones of the Temple of Solomon as God commanded: these were calcareous stones, but the gems were almost all siliceous, which confirms that Moses used hydrofluoric acid – Shamìr.
The description of its appearance is rather vague and ambiguous, but its behavior isn’t. It worked the hardest stones and left perfect, smooth, residue-free surfaces; it had to be kept in a lead basket (an airtight vase would have exploded), and insulated with wool and bran; it had heavy collateral effects (it scalded Moses and poisoned and killed the Temple workers); in the long run it became inactive.
This is the unequivocal picture of the action of that powerful acid, but it does not help us to understand its origin and nature.
Excluding that it was, as hypothesized, mineral (diamond) or animal (worm), maybe it was plant-based? Some writings related to Shamìr warn not to identify it with Euforbia, a stinging shrub; but why would they do that, if not because it was also a plant? And unfortunately, the information stops there.
Connecting Shamír and the Pito of Peru
But the astonishing answer comes, unexpectedly, from distant Peru, where oral tradition says ever since the ‘ancients’ started to assemble the stones of their huge walls, they used the mysterious Pito, a plant that was described as a low creeping grass with red leaves.
The tradition affirms that Pito or, rather, its extract, is capable of melting every stone (the explorer Percy Fawcett talks about an amphora stolen from an Inca tomb, incidentally broken, and of how the liquid leaked out and dissolved the stone below) and iron too. It also declares that – as God had given Israel Shamir to work on the Temple – the local gods had once given men, in order to alleviate their labors, two plants: coca and Pito; not to be confused, however, with the caustic Efedra. Does it remind us of something?
Archaeologists still argue as to how the precise stonework found in places such as Cusco in Peru was achieved.
Jewish myths mention a wild rooster that used Shamìr to make many small holes in rocks in which to plant trees. In Peru they also associate Pito with a bird which, according to several witnesses, is accustomed to rubbing the leaves of the plant onto rocks with its beak: this softens the stone, in which then it digs itself a nest.
But there’s more. The wild rooster also used Shamìr to erode the glass slab placed upon its nest covering its little ones and the Peruvian bird did exactly the same with the Pito herb, but that slab was made of iron.
These similar narratives cannot be pure coincidence. In different contexts, these birds are apparently using two distinct corrosive chemical agents which act in exactly the same way in the stories. So, on both sides of the ocean, we have two elements with common characteristics and the same range of action: the unique capacity to attack silicon.
And now everything can be reduced to a simple syllogism: if two factors have the same effect on a third, it means that they are equal. Even the legends tell the same story. In short, the active component of Pito and Shamìr was the same.
Moreover, from the descriptions we have established that Shamir was HF and that Pito was a plant; therefore HF was derived from a plant. Ultimately both those substances – Pito and Shamìr – were actually only one with the same formula: hydrofluoric acid, HF, which was extracted from plants. However, they were probably not of the same species because the same plants do not grow in the two geographical areas.
But it is also true that over 40 plants of various species have high contents of the poisonous HF, which they absorb from soil and synthesize, to protect themselves from herbivores, in the form of a compound called fluoroacetic acid.
And to extract hydrofluoric acid from fluoroacetic acid is no more difficult than to make tea: you just have to boil the plant in water, distill the solution, and then concentrate it. HF dissolved in water is manageable, very carefully, at room temperature.
Shamìr/Pito: Continents Apart, Techniques in Common
At this point it is relevant to identify Shamìr and Pito with the richest HF spontaneous plants.
The most probable suspects are Dichapetalum in Africa and Palicourea in South America (coincidentally, the areas of our interest). Both of them are not very attractive and of little economic value, having no known uses (only as a rat poison for Dichapetalum). Today they are not the object of any particular attention.
But, in the mists of time, the discovery of their special virtue, exploited in various ways according to their availability and needs, enabled the first civilizations to create and advance in epigraphy, sculpture, and architecture.
In Peru and Bolivia, where Palicourea abounds, it was used directly and in abundance in the pre-Inca building industry. In Egypt and outside Africa, I believe that only the acid derived from Dichapetalum was used to carry out smaller, expensive works.
Dichapetalum plant.
Who by, where, and when that precious resource was identified is not known and the “how” is perhaps trivial. Maybe the ancient peoples really noticed what the birds were doing or they saw the action of the plants themselves. Regardless, ancient craftsmen learned from experience, and, as they had learned to use fire, water, and wind energy, they also discovered plant or animal juices that melted stones, healed, or killed. They observed that strength, realized its potential, and put it to good use.
Yet the real mystery is not how that knowledge was acquired, nor who transmitted it to whom, but how it traveled between such distant continents. Because, if it is impossible to believe in a coincidence like that shown by myths, it is equally impossible to understand its path unless we rethink the past on very different terms. But this is another story to be investigated elsewhere.
I wish I could demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis by giving it proof and concrete and irrefutable evidence. Modern science can do it. I would like those who have asked the same questions about these mysteries to join me in this research and finally give credit to the skills and knowledge of those who preceded us.
Dozens of Mummified Cats Found in 6,000-yr-old Egyptian Tombs
An Egyptian archaeological mission recently found dozens of cat mummies in seven Pharaonic Age tombs, some dating back over 6,000 years, at a site on the edge of the pyramid complex in Saqqara, south of Cairo.
It is the latest discovery in excavation work that began in April, according to antiquities minister Khaled el-Enany. The team also discovered a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles.
Three of the tombs were particularly used for cats. The felines held a special place in ancient Egypt and were mummified as religious offerings.
An Egyptian archaeologist cleans mummified cats during the demonstration of a new discovery made by an Egyptian archaeological mission through excavation work at an area located on the stony edge of King Userkaf pyramid complex in Saqqara Necropolis, south of the capital Cairo, on November 10, 2018.
Cats were valued for killing poisonous snakes and were believed to have protected the pharaohs since at least the First Dynasty of Egypt.
Skeletal remains of cats have been found among funerary goods dating back to the 12th Dynasty.
An Egyptian archaeologist cleans mummified cats during the demonstration of a new discovery made by an Egyptian archaeological mission through excavation work at an area located on the stony edge of King Userkaf pyramid complex in Saqqara Necropolis, south of the capital Cairo, on November 10, 2018.
One of the sarcophagi belonged to Khufu-Imhat, who was the overseer of the buildings in the royal palace.
Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said they had also uncovered the first mummies of scarabs to be found in this area.
Mummified cat
“The [mummified] scarab is something really unique. It is something really a bit rare,” Waziri said, according to The Guardian.
“A couple of days ago, when we discovered those coffins, they were sealed coffins with drawings of scarabs. I never heard about them before.”
The Gayer-Anderson cat, believed to be a representation of Bastet.
The relationship between Egyptians and cats is complex.
In a NPR interview, curator Antonietta Catanzariti said ancient Egyptians didn’t worship cats. “What they did is to observe their behavior,” she says.
People noticed that cats — especially big ones — were expert hunters. Also, cats were nurturing. “They’re protective against their cubs for lions, or kittens for cats, as well as they are aggressive when it’s necessary, kill if necessary,” said Catanzariti.
Mummified cat, Egypt, 2000-100 BCE.
The ancient Egyptians saw those characteristics as signs of divinity. They created gods and goddesses in their image. The Sackler show (which originated at the Brooklyn Museum) has 80 examples. Now, Egyptians had lots of animal gods and goddesses. “Crocodiles or snakes, dogs, bulls, mention it, you will have it,” laughs Catanzariti.
Egyptian mummies of animals in the British Museum.
But cats were the most important. The powerful cat goddess Sakhmet has the face of a lion and the body of a woman. She protected pharaohs in war. Once, according to the myth, her father the sun god sent her down to punish mortals for rebelling against him.
But her punishment was too harsh, so her father gave her a special drink. “She drinks and she transforms into a cat, which is more docile and peaceful, and humankind is saved,” Catanzariti says.
The Obsequies of an Egyptian Cat, by John Reinhard Weguelin, 1886.
As for the cat goddess Bastet, she protected the home from evil spirits and disease, especially diseases associated with women and children.
Along with other Egyptian deities, Bastet played a role in the afterlife as a guide and helper to the dead although this was not one of her main duties.
3,500-Year-Old Mummified Bear Found in Siberian Permafrost
As the permafrost in Siberia melts, it has revealed a mummified brown bear that lived more than three millennia ago. Scientists are now planning to conduct an autopsy on the bear, with the hope of making a breakthrough in the study of ancient animals.
The bear’s remains were found by deer herders on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island, about 5 miles from the Bolshoi Eterikan River. Maksim Cherpasov, a senior researcher at the Mammoth Laboratory Museum of Russia’s North-Eastern University, explained that the carcass was already fossilized because it was in the permafrost.
The body parts were extracted from the soil, prepared for transportation, and taken to a nearby settlement.
Studying the Carcass: Dissection and Analysis
“This find is absolutely unique: the complete carcass of an ancient brown bear,” said Maxim Cheprasov, laboratory chief at the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia.
The scientists now have the opportunity to study its internal organs and examine the brain. The bear is 3,460 years old, which means it lived more than 1,400 years ago, before the fall of the Egyptian and Roman empires.
The researchers determined that the bear was female, measuring more than 5 feet tall and weighing more than 170 pounds, reports Reuters.
The researchers are keen to learn more about the bear’s exact age, how it died, and how it compares to modern animals. They also want to examine the bear’s histology and cells. So far, it appears that the bear died between the ages of 2 and 3 from a spinal injury.
South Korean cell researcher Hwang Woo-Suk is optimistic about the research prospects that the autopsy provides. “We have a very extraordinarily important chance to have an autopsy and to get a sample from the ancient brown bear,” he said.
“I am sure we can start culturing from that samples and hopefully, when we get the live cell, it will be one of historic achievements, breakthrough for ancient animal study.”
A Siberian brown bear.
The Changing Climate and Siberia’s Melting Permafrost
As the permafrost in Siberia melts, it has revealed well-preserved remains of animals that lived during the last ice age, such as woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions, and cave bears.
These animals lived in the region tens of thousands of years ago when the climate was much colder than it is today, reports Radio Free Europe .
The melting permafrost has also revealed other animals that lived in more recent times, including ancient horses, bison, and wolves. In 2015, a well-preserved body of a cave lion cub was discovered in the Siberian permafrost.
The cub was estimated to have been frozen for around 28,000 years, making it one of the best-preserved Ice Age animals ever found.
An Ice Age bear cub found on the Yakutia mainland (North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk)
In 2018, a well-preserved head of a steppe wolf, which is believed to be around 30,000 years old, was found in the Siberian permafrost. The head was remarkably preserved, with fur, teeth, and even the brain intact.
In 2019, a large, intact mammoth foot was discovered in the Siberian permafrost. The foot is believed to be around 50,000 years old and is one of the best-preserved mammoth fossils ever found.
In addition to these large animals, the permafrost has also preserved the remains of smaller creatures such as rodents, birds, and insects.
The discovery of these animals provides important insights into the ecosystems of the past and how they have changed over time. They also offer opportunities for scientists to study the genetic material and other biological information that has been preserved in the permafrost, which could help in understanding the evolution of these species and their interactions with their environment.
Ancient Mummified Lion Cubs Discovered in Egyptian Tomb
Egyptian authorities have announced the rare discovery of mummified lion cubs, big cats, cobras and crocodiles near Saqqara necropolis which date back around 2,600 years.
The cache of ancient mummified animals includes dozens of mummified cats and birds, an enormous mummified beetle reported to be “three to four times” the normal size and 75 wooden and bronze cat statues.
The mummified large cats were found close to the remains of an adult mummified lion discovered beneath the Saqqara necropolis in 2004 and while two have been identified as lion cubs three more require further analysis to determine their species.
A Guardian report quotes an excited Mostafa Waziry, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, saying that if these three animals are identified as cheetahs, leopards, lioness’ or panthers, it will be “one of its kind” in ancient Egypt.
Mummified cat found in Egyptian tomb
Animal Blood Sacrifices
Dr Salima Ikram is an Egyptologist and mummy expert at the American University in Cairo and she said the animal mummies date to the Ptolemaic period that ended in 30 BC.
At that time in ancient Egypt worshippers either held mummified animals as actual deities, or they mummified creatures in order to offer them to their gods. This, according to Dr Ikram would have more potency as it was a “blood sacrifice” compared to the perceived magical energies associated with stone or wooden images.
In April this year I wrote an Ancient Origins news article about a similar discovery when archaeologists uncovered dozens of mummified cats and mice among a stash of around 50 animals laid to rest in an ancient tomb about 390km (242 miles) south of Cairo near the Egyptian town of Sohag.
This tomb was built for a man named ‘Tutu’ and his wife who lived in the early Ptolemaic period, which ended with the Roman conquest in 30 BC and like the new discoveries greatly added to Egyptologists understanding of animal worship and mummification rites.
Part of the stash of mummified cats, birds and mice found in the tomb in Sohag.
Evolution of The Cat Goddess
The tomb in Sohag contained a range of mummified animals and birds including more than 50 mummified mice and cats and even a mummified falcon which informed all creatures great and small were scarified and worshiped.
Following the ritual path and evolution of the cat goddess, according to G. D. Hornblower’s 1943 book The Divine Cat and the Snake in Egypt “ Mafdet’ was the first cat-headed deity worshiped during the First Dynasty (2920–2770 BC).
Regarded as protector of the Pharaoh’s chambers against snakes, scorpions and all things evil, Mafdet was often also depicted with a head of a leopard.
The later cat deity Bastet was worshiped from at least the Second Dynasty (2890 BC) onwards and was depicted with a lion’s ( Panthera leo’s ) head and a wall painting in the Fifth Dynasty’s burial ground at Saqqara shows a small cat with a collar suggesting to archaeologists that African wildcats were tamed kept in the pharaonic quarters by the 26th century BC.
And reflecting real world occurrences, as time unfolded in ancient Egypt, the once wild cat goddess herself became tamer and was worshiped as ‘Bast’.
Goddess of Egypt, Bastet.
The Mummified Cats Might Lure Tourists
Egyptian officials hope that their recent announcement will help to boost the country’s image abroad and ultimately that these ancient mummified lion cubs and cats will encourage tourists to continue visiting Egypt as the country aims to bring back its 14 million visitors a year who came to the country in 2010, before the 2011 revolution which overthrew former autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
An almost final nail in the coffin of Egypt’s flagging tourist industry occurred after Metrojet flight 7K9268 was brought down close to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh in 2015, but things are turning around, fast.
According to a report in Alborsaanews, last year Egypt saw a surge in arrivals with 11.3 million people visiting Egypt and this was in part inspired and caused by the UK lifting its ban on flights to Sharm el Sheikh that had been in place since 2015.
“It’s wonderful promotion for Egypt,” says Khaled El-Enany, Egypt’s antiquities minister, who told The Guardian that be believes these new mummies will spark curiosity among potential visitors to the country in the run-up to the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum close to the Saqqara necropolis.
