Talisman of God Bes is Discovered

Ancient Egyptians may have used a newly discovered bug-eyed artifact to magically protect children and pregnant mothers from evil forces.

The pale green talisman is made of faience, a delicate material that contains silica. It dates to the first millennium B.C. and is believed to show the dwarf god Bes with his tongue sticking out, eyes popping and wearing a crown of feathers. 

Carolyn Graves-Brown, a curator at the Egypt Centre, discovered the artifact in the collection of Woking College. It wasn't until she learned of a similar artifact in the British Museum that she was able to determine that it is a faience Bes bell, one of a very few known to exist.

"If you try to rattle it much it would (have) broken easily," she said. "Faience is very often used for objects that have a magical or religious significance in ancient Egypt."

According to LiveScience.com:

Making the find more intriguing is the quirky character of Bes himself. A dwarf god and protector of pregnant mothers and young children, Bes may look goofy to us with his tongue sticking out, however, his appearance, tongue and all, had a purpose. 

Graves-Brown explained that he would sometimes bare sharp teeth and "it's assumed, but it's not known, that this [appearance] was supposed to scare off evil spirits and evil entities.”

Flinders Petrie, an archaeologist who encountered items similar to this, wrote in 1914 in his book Amulets that bells like these were probably "worn by children against the evil eye."

Click here for the article.

Top photo is newly discovered talisman, lower is bas-relief of Bes.

Were Neanderthals Earliest Artists?

Detail from the El Castillo Cave in Spain.

The unexpected old age of some European cave paintings raise the possibility that Neanderthals rather than Homo sapiens were the earliest painters ~ either that, or humans began painting earlier than previously thought.

“It would not be surprising if the Neanderthals were indeed Europe’s first cave artists,” says João Zilhão, an archaeologist at Spain’s University of Barcelona.

According to Wired.com:

Researchers led by Zilhão and Alistair Pike of the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol measured the ages of 50 paintings in 11 Spanish caves. The art, considered evidence of sophisticated symbolic thinking, has traditionally been attributed to modern humans, who reached Europe about 40,000 years ago. 

Traditional methods of dating cave paintings, however, are relatively clumsy. Even the previous best technique — carbon dating, or translating amounts of carbon molecule decay into measurements of passing time — couldn’t discern differences of a few thousand years. 

Instead of carbon, Pike and João Zilhão’s team calibrated their molecular clocks by studying mineral deposits that form naturally on cave surfaces, including paintings. The thicker the deposits, the older the painting. And as the reseachers describe in a June 14 Science paper, some of the paintings are very old indeed.

 “What’s really exciting about this possibility,” said Pike, “is that anyone, because it’s open to the public, could walk into El Castillo cave and see a Neanderthal hand on the wall.”

Click here for the article.

Another Vote Against 2012 Mayan Apocalypse

A German expert says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not the end of the world.

Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia made his announcement less than a week after Mexico's top archaeologists acknowledged a second reference to the 2012 date in Mayan inscriptions, touching of another round of talk about whether it predicts the end of the world. Gronemeyer has been studying the stone tablet found years ago at the archeological site of Tortuguero in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

According to the Associated Press:

He said the inscription describes the return of mysterious Mayan god Bolon Yokte at the end of a 13th period of 400 years, known as Baktuns, on the equivalent of Dec. 21, 2012. 

Mayans considered 13 a sacred number. There's nothing apocalyptic in the date, he said. The text was carved about 1,300 years ago. The stone has cracked, which has made the end of the passage almost illegible. 

Gronemeyer said the inscription refers to the end of a cycle of 5,125 years since the beginning of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3113 B.C.

"The date acquired a symbolic value because it is seen as a reflection of the day of creation," Gronemeyer said. "It is the passage of a god and not necessarily a great leap for humanity."

Click here for the article.

Earthquake Data Pinpoints Crucifixion Date

"Crucifixion of Christ" by Tintoretto, 1568.

Earthquake data ~ along with New Testament descriptions ~ points to Friday, April 3, in the year 33 AD as the day Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27, mentions that an earthquake coincided with the crucifixion:

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open.”

The latest investigation, reported in the journal International Geology Review, focused on earthquake activity at the Dead Sea, located 13 miles from Jerusalem. Geologist Jefferson Williams of Supersonic Geophysical and colleagues Markus Schwab and Achim Brauer of the German Research Center for Geosciences studied three cores from the beach of the Ein Gedi Spa, adjacent to the Dead Sea.

According to Discovery News:

Varves, which are annual layers of deposition in the sediments, reveal that at least two major earthquakes affected the core: a widespread earthquake in 31 B.C. and an early first century seismic event that happened sometime between 26 A.D. and 36 A.D. 

The latter period occurred during “the years when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea and when the earthquake of the Gospel of Matthew is historically constrained,” Williams said. 

"The day and date of the crucifixion (Good Friday) are known with a fair degree of precision," he said. But the year has been in question.

All four gospels and Tacitus in Annals (XV,44) agree that the crucifixion occurred when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea from 26-36 AD. All four gospels agree that the crucifixion occurred on a Friday.


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First Americans? Once Again a Mystery

A leading theory on when and how humans first arrived in North America has pretty much been discarded. The so-called “Clovis” theory was deemed credible until the last five years, when more indications have surfaced that humans were here earlier than Clovis postulated.

According to the New York Times:

For many decades, archaeologists have agreed on an explanation known as the Clovis model. The theory holds that about 13,500 years ago, bands of big-game hunters in Asia followed their prey across an exposed ribbon of land linking Siberia and Alaska and found themselves on a vast, unexplored continent. The route back was later blocked by rising sea levels that swamped the land bridge. Those pioneers were the first Americans. 

The theory is based largely on the discovery in 1929 of distinctive stone tools, including sophisticated spear points, near Clovis, N.M. The same kinds of spear points were later identified at sites across North America. After radiocarbon dating was developed in 1949, scholars found that the age of these “Clovis sites” coincided with the appearance at the end of the last ice age of an ice-free corridor of tundra leading down from what is now Alberta and British Columbia to the American Midwest.

 Disproving a long-standing theory does not automatically replace it with another, which is the current situation, as summed up in this article by Andrew Curry, a contributing editor for Archaeology magazine.

 Click here for the article.

Painting by Charles Valsechi

Indus Civilization Collapse Due to Heat

Ruins of Harappa in the Indus valley of today's Pakistan.

New research indicates that a cycle of global warming brought an end to the massive Indus civilization.

"Antiquity knew about Egypt and Mesopotamia, but the Indus civilization, which was bigger than these two, was completely forgotten until the 1920s," says researcher Liviu Giosan, a geologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

He and others are using indicators such as river sediment to track the effects of climate on the civilization.

According to LiveScience.com:

"Our research provides one of the clearest examples of climate change leading to the collapse of an entire civilization,” Giosan said. 

The researchers first analyzed satellite data of the landscape influenced by the Indus and neighboring rivers. From 2003 to 2008, the researchers then collected samples of sediment from the coast of the Arabian Sea into the fertile irrigated valleys of Punjab and the northern Thar Desert to determine the origins and ages of those sediments and develop a timeline of landscape changes. 

"It was challenging working in the desert — temperatures were over 110 degrees Fahrenheit all day long (43 degrees C)," Giosan recalled.

These findings are expected to influence where future archaeological explorations will be conducted regarding the development and fate of the Indus civilization.

Click here for the article.

Prehistoric Flutes Reveal Earlier Music

Recently discovered flute made of bird's bone.

Discovery of bone flutes dating back some 40,000 years is leading researchers to conclude that human creativity evolved earlier than originally thought.

Researchers were studying a modern human settlement called Geißenklösterle in southern Germany when they came across the flutes, one made from ivory of a mammoth, the other from the bones of a bird.

According to LiveScience.com:

"These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago," study researcher Nick Conard, of Tübingen University, said in a statement. 

The researchers radiocarbon-dated bones found in the same layer of the archaeological dig as the flutes. This carbon dating uses the level of radioactive carbon, which is naturally occurring in the world and decays predictably into nonradioactive carbon, to estimate the age of organic materials. 

They found the objects were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old, belonging to the Aurignacian culture dating from the upper Paleolithic period. So far, these dates are the earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other regions.

Results indicate that humans entered the Upper Danube region before an extremely cold climatic phase around 39,000 to 40,000 years ago, researchers said.

 Click here for the article.

New Findings Extend Mayan Calendar

Mayan numbers on the wall stretch 7,000 years into the future.

The recent discovery of an underground Mayan workshop in the dense Guatemalan jungle is important for two reasons: one, the murals and other wall painting are all surprisingly well preserved; and two, calendar fragments show that the Mayan calendar does not end this year.

According to NPR:

Writing in the journal Science, the scientists say the murals confirm what Mayan archaeologists have been saying for years: The Mayan calendar does not predict the end of time in 2012, as some New Age prophets have argued. In fact, the murals register future time stretching far beyond 2012. 

Archaeologist William Saturno from Boston University compares Mayan calendars to a car's odometer. "If we're driving a car," Satruno says, "we don't anticipate that at 100,000 miles the car will vanish from beneath us. We know that it will reset to zero, and the next 10th of a mile we go we'll have another number to look at." 

What these Mayan timekeepers were doing was simply marking the passage of time from past to future, but in discrete intervals.

The buried room apparently was a workshop used by scribes or astronomers working for a Mayan king. The paintings depict the king and members of his court. The numbers mark important periods in the Mayan calendar.

 Click here for the article.

Rare Petroglyphs on Easter Island Statues

A partially excavated statue, revealing carving.

Researchers have long been aware that many of the nearly 900 statues on Easter Island are full-bodied, but now are seeing that some of the petroglyphs carved into excavated statues are considered unique.

According to the director of the Easter Island Statue Project, Jo Anne Van Tilburg:

"While many statues have individual petroglyphs, these and only one other statue—of over 1,000 we have documented—have multiple petroglyphs carved as a composition on their backs.  Underlying these carvings is a complex symbol found on less than 100 statues. It is referred to by previous researchers as the ‘ring and girdle’ design, and sometimes said to represent the ‘sun and rainbow.’ 

She also says the excavation sites offer new "strong evidence" of how the Rapa Nui ancestors managed to manipulate the heavy statues into place with limited technological resources.

In addition, Dr. Van Tilburg wrote that her team has found tuna vertebrae near the bottom of a recent excavation. The evidence backs up claims from Easter Island's Rapa Nui community that the original statue carvers were rewarded for their efforts in meals of tuna and lobster.

Click here for the complete article.

Chauvet Paintings Again Deemed Oldest

Section of paintings from the Chauvet cave.

French scientists say they have confirmed that the ancient paintings in the Chauvet cave ~ discovered in southern France in 1999 ~ are “the oldest and most elaborate ever discovered.”

Scientists originally used radiocarbon dating of the rock art, charcoal and animal bones in the Chauvet cave to place them between 30,000 to 32,000 years old.

Later, other scholars dated the paintings at 12,000 to 17,000 years old, based on their artistic sophistication. That would place them as relics of the Magdalenian culture, in which human ancestors used tools of stone and bone and created increasingly advanced art as time went on.

In the new research being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US journal, French scientists believe they have confirmation that the paintings are "the oldest and most elaborate ever discovered." Their findings are based on geomorphological and chlorine-36 dating of the rockslide surfaces around what is believed to be the cave's only entrance.

"Remarkably agreeing with the radiocarbon dates of the human and animal occupancy, this study confirms that the Chauvet cave paintings are the oldest and the most elaborate ever discovered, challenging our current knowledge of human cognitive evolution," said the study.

Click here for the complete article.

Hero Stone Found in India

An ancient hero stone with inscriptions has been unearthed at Karattampatti near Thuraiyur. It was discovered in a field by a research team led by Subash Chandira Bose, advisor for the archaeological wing of the Center for Cultural Studies in Coimbatore, following a tip given a local resident.

Bose said the bas-relief stone measuring 30 centimeters in width and 92 centimeters in height has been carved within a rectangular vertical frame. It depicts a warrior holding a sword in his left arm.

The inscription belongs to the 31 regnal year of Paranthaga Chola-I (AD 938), also known as Madurai Kondan, he said. The inscription says the people of Viriyur had donated a non-taxable land to the daughter of a hero known as Nagan who sacrificed his life to bring back a herd cows taken away by a group.

The inscription also refers to a few names of places such as Miamaa Nadu, Valluvappadi, Viriyur, Oottrathur Nadu, Paadaavur and Ainjurinimangal.