Mayan Pigment is Basis for New Dye

Warrior with Azul Maya background, the basis for new long-lasting dyes.

To create a new dye intended to last a thousand years, physicists are basing their formula on a pigment that already has lasted that long ~ the brilliant blue the ancient Mayans used on their temple walls.

“This pigment has been stable for centuries in the hostile conditions of the jungle,” Eric Dooryhee of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., told Fox News. “We're trying to mimic it to make new materials.”

Unlike most organic pigments, which tend to break down over time, the pigment Maya Blue is remarkably resistant -- not only to natural weathering, heat, and light, but also to strong acids and solvents in the laboratory. 

Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans, who lived in Central America before the first Spaniards arrived, developed the pigment about 1700 years ago. Archaeologists rediscovered it in 1931 at the site of the ancient Mayan capitol Chichen Itza. 

Mayans made the pigment by mixing indigo plants and a type of clay called palygorskite. A bowl retrieved from the Sacred Cenote revealed traces of all of these materials, each of which was considered to be a healing substance by the Mayans.

After examining clay-like materials with similar structures, Dooryhee and his colleagues successfully combined indigo with zeolite ~ used in products as diverse as cement, laundry soaps, nutritional supplements, and cat litter ~ to make a new kind of long-lasting blue pigment.

Click here for the complete article.
Click here for earlier article on Mayan blue.

Small Human Population Survived Ice Age

Mouth of African cave that may have sheltered Ice Age humans.

A devastating ice age nearly 200,000 years ago may have reduced the world’s human population to a few hundred people who survived in caves in southernmost Africa before eventually migrating to other parts of the globe as the climate became more hospitable.

A growing number of scientists believe this scenario accounts for humans’ limited genetic diversity compared to other species. According to the Mail Online:

“Shortly after Homo sapiens first evolved, the harsh climate conditions nearly extinguished our species,” says Professor Curtis Marean of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. “Recent finds suggest the small population that gave rise to all humans alive today survived by exploiting a unique combination of resources along the southern coast of Africa.”

Marean has discovered ancient human artifacts in isolated caves ~ containing archaeological remains going back at least 164,000 years ~ in an area known as Pinnacle Point in South Africa. Humans would have been able to survive there because of rich vegetation available in the area, plus the sea would have been a good source of food as currents carrying nutrients would have passed by the shore, bringing with them a plentiful supply of fish.

Many researchers believe that modern humans evolved about 195,000 years ago in East Africa, and within 50,000 years had spread to other parts of the continent. It is thought that 70,000 years ago a dry period caused Red Sea levels to fall and the gap across its mouth to shrink from 18 miles to eight miles, enabling migration to Arabia.

Click here for the complete article.

Westerners, Not Natives, Caused Island's Demise

Mounting evidence is absolving the people of Rapa Nui ~ also known as Easter Island ~ of violent ways, pointing instead to widespread destruction on the island by westerners who discovered it in the early 18^th Century.

Dr. Karina Croucher of the University of Manchester says her research casts new light on the aboriginal people of Rapa Nui.

“Easter Islanders’ ancestors have been unfairly accused by Westerners of being primitive and warlike, for toppling statues ~ or moai ~ and for over-exploiting the island’s natural resources,” she contends. “They were a people who saw themselves as connected to the landscape, which they carved and marked as they did their own bodies and the moai statues.”

 “Rather than a story of self-inflicted deprivation, I agree with the view that substantial blame has to rest with Western contact, ever since Easter Island’s first sighting by Jacob Roggeveen in 1722,” she continued.
“Visitors brought disease, pests and slavery, resulting in the tragic demise of the local population and culture.
There is little archaeological evidence to support the history of internal warfare and collapse before contact with the outside world.”


Click here for the article.

Tunnel May Lead to Missing Teotihuacan Tombs

A long-sealed tunnel ~ believed to date back 1,800 years ~ has been found under the ruins of Teotihuacan and containing chambers that may hold tombs of the ancient city's early rulers. According to ABC News:

Experts say a tomb discovery would be significant because the social structure of Teotihuacan remains a mystery after nearly 100 years of archaeological exploration at the site, which is best known for the towering Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun. No depiction of a ruler, or the tomb of a monarch, has ever been found, setting the metropolis apart from other pre-Hispanic cultures that deified their rulers.

 Archaeologists had suspected the hidden tunnel’s existence following a heavy rainstorm in 2003 caused the ground to sink at the foot of the Temple of Quetzacoatl, in the central ceremonial area of the ruins just north of Mexico City.

Click here for the article.

Research Questions Authorship of Dead Sea Scrolls

Section of the scrolls recently on display in Jerusalem.

New research indicates the Dead Sea Scrolls ~ discovered some 60 years ago in caves near the ancient settlement of Qumran ~ may have originated elsewhere. And instead of the scrolls being the work of a Jewish sect called the Essenes, the actual authors may have come from several Jewish groups, including those fleeing Jerusalem during the Roman siege circa 70 A.D.

"Jews wrote the Scrolls, but it may not have been just one specific group,” archaeologist Robert Cargill tells National Geographic News. An article on the magazine’s website states:

Recent findings by Yuval Peleg, an archaeologist who has excavated Qumran for 16 years, are challenging long-held notions of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Artifacts discovered by Peleg's team during their excavations suggest Qumran once served as an ancient pottery factory. The supposed baths may have actually been pools to capture and separate clay. 

And on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, archaeologists recently discovered and deciphered a two-thousand-year-old cup with the phrase "Lord, I have returned" inscribed on its sides in a cryptic code similar to one used in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

To some experts, the code suggests that religious leaders from Jerusalem authored at least some of the scrolls.

The Essenes may have actually been Jerusalem Temple priests who went into self-imposed exile in the second century B.C., after kings unlawfully assumed the role of high priest. They may have escaped to Qumran to worship God in their own way. While there, they may have written some of the texts that would come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Click here for the article.

Graffiti in Pompeii Was Respected and Plentiful

Graffiti was plentiful on the walls of Pompeii.

The people of Pompeii used graffiti ~ a respected for of writing in the ancient Roman world ~ to express goodwill.

“They were much nicer in their graffiti than we are,” says Rebecca Benefiel, a classicist from Washington & Lee University who has spent six summers studying the doomed city’s graffiti. “There are lots of pairings with the word ‘felicter,’ which means ‘happily.’ When you pair it with someone’s name, it means you’re hoping things go well for that person. There are lots of graffiti that say ‘Felicter Pompeii,’ wishing the whole town well.”

According to Smithsonian.com:

From the very beginning, archaeologists noticed copious amounts of graffiti on the outsides of (Pompeii’s) buildings. In the late 1800s, scholars began making careful copies of Latin inscriptions throughout the ancient Roman world, including Pompeii, and cataloging them. This effort is a boon to scholars like Benefiel, since more than 90 percent of Pompeii’s recorded graffiti have since been erased by exposure to the elements.

Based on the graffiti found on both exterior walls and in kitchens and servant rooms, Benefiel surmises that the emperor Nero was much more popular than we tend to think. She’s also found that declarations of love were common, and that the people of Pompeii displayed their cleverness via graffiti, from poetry contests to playful combinations of the letters that form Roman numerals.

Click here for the Smithsonian.com article.

Rare Mayan Tomb Found in Guatemala

Archaeologists have penetrated a Mayan pyramid in a Guatemalan jungle and uncovered the sealed tomb of a ruler who lived 1,600 years ago. The significance is epic, says Stephen Houston, the Brown University archaeologist in charge of the operation: “It’s a great, great rarity.”

 “Once we opened an area of about 30 to 40 inches, it became clear that the surface was covered with human bone, pieces of jade, textiles,” Houston said of the Mayan site.

There was more than that. There were also the bones of six children and possibly those of an adult male who rested on a raised bier that had collapsed during the passing centuries.

“There seemed to be a vessel with an alcoholic substance that exploded and left a strange, chalky material around,” he said. The 1,600-year-old textiles still retain color. “You can see the weaving.” 

The El Diablo pyramid is one of the largest in Central America, Houston said, and was part of a religious complex in the Mayan city of El Zotz. He estimated that the site had been inhabited over a period of 2,000 years, if not longer.

Click here for the complete article.

Photo shows bust recovered from tomb.

Earliest Illustrated Christian Book is Saved

A page from the Garima Gospels.

A British charity has saved the world's earliest illustrated Christian book, which was found at a remote Ethiopian monestary.

The Garima Gospels are named after a monk named Abba Garima who arrived in Ethiopia from Constantinople in 494 AD. Legend has it that he was able to copy the gospels in a day because God delayed the sun from setting. The relic has been kept ever since in the Garima Monastery near Adwa in the north of the country.

According to the London Mail:

Experts believe it is also the earliest example of book binding still attached to the original pages. The survival of the Gospels is incredible considering the country has been under Muslim invasion, Italian invasion and a fire in the 1930s destroyed the monastery's church. 

They were written on goat skin in the early Ethiopian language of Ge'ez. There are two volumes which date from the same time, but the second is written in a different hand from the first. Both contain illustrations and the four Gospels.

Though occasional travelers have mentioned the texts since the 1950s, it was thought they dated from the 11th century at the earliest. Carbon dating, however, gives a date between 330 and 650, overlapping the date Abba Garima arrived in the country.

Click here for the complete article.

Arthur's "Round Table" Actually a Huge Structure

Artist's conception of Round Table from 13th Century.

Researchers exploring the legend of Britain’s King Arthur now believe his stronghold of Camelot was built on the site of a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre in Chester. The familiar legend describes his knights gathering at a round table where they would receive instructions from their King.

But rather than it being a piece of furniture, historians believe the meeting site would have been a vast wood and stone structure allowing more than 1,000 of his followers to gather.

According to the London Telegraph, the latest thinking is that regional noblemen would have sat in the front row of a circular meeting place, with lower ranked subjects on stone benches grouped around the outside. Rather than Camelot being a castle, it would have been housed within a structure already built and left over by the Romans.

Historian Chris Gidlow said: “The first accounts of the Round Table show that it was nothing like a dining table but was a venue for upwards of 1,000 people at a time. We know that one of Arthur’s two main battles was fought at a town referred to as the City of Legions. There were only two places with this title. One was St Albans but the location of the other has remained a mystery.”

Click here for the complete article.

Linguists Find Ancient Language Links

Section of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve where migration occurred.

Linguists are finding ancient-language connections between remote Asian tribes and native peoples in North America, providing more evidence of an ancient migration across the Bering Land Bridge.

The work of Western Washington University linguistics professor Edward Vajda with the isolated Ket people of Central Siberia is revealing more and more examples of an ancient language connection with the language family of Na-Dene, which includes Tlingit, Gwich'in, Dena'ina, Koyukon, Navajo, Carrier, Hupa, Apache and about 45 other languages.

Of the 1,200 Ket people, only about 100, all older than 55, still speak the language. The importance of studying a disappearing language goes far beyond a personal linguistic interest, Vajda explained.

According to SeattlePI.com:

"It's a new way to understand human prehistory before there were historians to write it down,” he told SeattlePI.com “Isolated languages like Ket have developed features that are very unusual and interesting, and they help us to understand the human mind and human language ability."

"We linguists should not be the focus of attention here," Vajda added. "What is important are the languages and especially the Native communities themselves."

Vajda takes no credit for coming up with the Asian language connection.

"People developed the beginnings of these ideas even 300 years ago, and in 1923 someone made the specific claim I am arguing for," he said. "My work builds on vocabulary comparisons made by other linguists in the late 1990s as well."

Click here for the complete SeattlePI.com article.

Photo shows re-created Na-Dene woman.

Thanks to Christopher Hileman for forwarding the article.

Was Cleopatra's Suicide by Lethal Drug?

Death of Cleopatra by Jean Andre Rixens, 1874

A new study contends Cleopatra died of swallowing a lethal drug cocktail and not from the bite of an Egyptian cobra snake called an asp. According to Christoph Schäfer, historian and professor at the University of Trier in Germany: “There was no cobra in Cleopatra's death.”

Author of a best-selling book in Germany, Cleopatra, Schäfer searched historic writings for evidence to disprove the 2,000-year-old asp legend. 

"The Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing about 200 years after Cleopatra's demise, stated that she died a quiet and pain-free death, which is not compatible with a cobra bite,” he told Discovery News. “Indeed, the snake's venom would have caused a painful and disfiguring death.”

According to German toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, a poison specialist taking part in the study, symptoms occurring after an asp bite are very unpleasant, and include vomiting, diarrhea and respiratory failure. "Death may occur within 45 minutes, but it may also be longer with painful edema at the bite site," he said. "At the end, the dead body does not look very nice with vomit, diarrhea, a swollen bite site."

Ancient texts also record that Cleopatra's two handmaidens died with her -- something very unlikely if she had died of a snake bite, said Schäfer.

The Queen of the Nile committed suicide in August 30 B.C. at the age of 39, following the example of her lover, the Roman leader Marc Antony, who killed himself after losing the Battle of Actium.

Click here for the complete Discovery News article.

Cave Etchings May Help Date Rise of Egypt

A section of dancing figures etched into the stone.

Archaeologists say prehistoric rock drawings discovered in a remote Egyptian cave ~ depicting dancing figures and strange headless beasts ~ may provide clues about the rise of Egyptian civilization. According to Reuters:

Rudolph Kuper, a German archaeologist, said the detail depicted in the "Cave of the Beasts" indicate the site is at least 8,000 years old, likely the work of hunter-gatherers whose descendants may have been among the early settlers of the then-swampy and inhospitable Nile Valley.

Some 5,000 images are painted or engraved into the cave’s stone.

“It is the most amazing cave in North Africa and Egypt,” Karin Kindermann, a member of a team that recently made a trip to the site 560 miles southwest of Cairo, told Reuters. “You take a piece of the puzzle and see where it could fit. This is an important piece.”

Click here for the Reuters article.