The Archaeology Thread

[Fake Messiah]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Egyptian Lost City Unearthed

Archaeologists found the "city's streets flanked by houses," with intact walls up to 10 feet high and "rooms filled with tools of daily life ... left by the ancient residents as if it were yesterday," such as rings, colored pottery vessels, casting molds to make amulets, pots used to carry meat, and tools for spinning, weaving and metal and glass-making.

Boru

[Gwaithmir]

I wish archaeologists would discover the overgrown burial mound and tomb of Arwen Evenstar somewhere on Cerin Amroth.

[Anomalocaris]

UCL team solves Antikythera Mechanism mystery

The 2005 data revealed thousands of text characters hidden inside the fragments, unread for nearly 2000 years. Inscriptions on the back cover include a description of the cosmos display, with the planets moving on rings and indicated by marker beads. The team worked to reconstruct this display.

Two critical numbers in the X-rays of the front cover, of 462 years and 442 years, accurately represent cycles of Venus and Saturn respectively. When observed from Earth, the plants’ cycles sometimes reverse their motions against the stars. Experts must track these cycles over long time-periods to predict their positions.

PhD candidate and team member Aris Dacanalis explained that the classic astronomy of the first millennium BC originated in Babylon, but that nothing in the astronomy suggested how the ancient Greeks found the highly accurate cycles for Saturn and Venus.

Using an ancient Greek mathematical method described by the philosopher Parmenides, the team has reportedly discovered how the cycles were derived, as well as recovering the cycles of all other planets where evidence was missing.

“After considerable struggle, we managed to match the evidence in Fragments A and D to a mechanism for Venus, which exactly models its 462-year planetary period relation, with the 63-tooth gear playing a crucial role,” said PhD candidate and team member David Higgon.

Professor Freeth explained that the team then created mechanisms for all of the planets that would calculate the new advanced astronomical cycles and minimise the number of gears in the whole system, so that they would fit into the tight spaces available.

I am on a 2 year project to scratch building a working model of the antikythera device out of brass and styrene plastic.   The bearings are sliding brass tubes, most, hopefully all, gears will be cut from sheet styrene.  

For those who don’t want to take the trouble to research and make a working model of antikythera model from scratch, but like to hold one anyway, kotsanas museum sells a Working replica made from wood and brass, just like the original.  At 220 Euros it is a bargain.    When I started it was 600 euros.

---

Lost large civilization in the Amazon .  Until recently it was largely unknown outside Brazilian archeological community, and still largely unknown to the general public.     In some ways, the lost civilization in the Amazon may be the closest humans have come to creating an alien civilization unlike any other earthly civilizations, because it is the only major settled civilization that probably wasn’t based on agriculture of one of the 10 major staple crops of the world.

[Abaddon_ire]

UCL team solves Antikythera Mechanism mystery

I am on a 2 year project to scratch building a working model of the antikythera device out of brass and styrene plastic.   The bearings are sliding brass tubes, most, hopefully all, gears will be cut from sheet styrene.  

For those who don’t want to take the trouble to research and make a working model of antikythera model from scratch, but like to hold one anyway, kotsanas museum sells a Working replica made from wood and brass, just like the original.  At 220 Euros it is a bargain.    When I started it was 600 euros.

I find really ancient technology fascinating. Things like the Mungo people of Australia. They turned up in Australia 40,000+ years ago, perhaps more. The only way they got there is by sea. How did they achieve that? Well, as far as anyone can tell, they island hopped. None of this wimpy migrating along the coast, they appear to have simply struck out across the ocean. No way of knowing if there was anything at the end of the line. The must have had vessels of some sort and some means of navigation. Nobody knows how they did it, or why. Oddly, having made landfall at the Australian coast, they migrated inland 800 km to settle at the eponymous Lake Mungo. How did they know it was there? If they didn't know, why set out in the first place? Since they were sailing the Pacific with aplomb, they were clearly an accomplished maritime group, why abandon the coast for the interior?

Alas, we are unlikely to get answers to such questions. Further research is not possible at this time. The human remains have been re-interred, and the sites declared to be sacred to indigenous peoples and no longer available for much in the way of serious research.

There is Petra and it's hydraulic engineering, Catalhoyuk and it's attempt to build a town/city with no streets whatsoever, Skara Brae, the many astronomically aligned celtic monuments across a swathe of western Europe...the list is endless.

People sometimes assume that our ancient ancestors were stupid. Far from it. Take a look at Otzi the Iceman. He was surprisingly well equipped for Alpine travel some 5,000+ years ago.

[Anomalocaris]

I am on a 2 year project to scratch building a working model of the antikythera device out of brass and styrene plastic.   The bearings are sliding brass tubes, most, hopefully all, gears will be cut from sheet styrene.  

For those who don’t want to take the trouble to research and make a working model of antikythera model from scratch, but like to hold one anyway, kotsanas museum sells a Working replica made from wood and brass, just like the original.  At 220 Euros it is a bargain.    When I started it was 600 euros.

I find really ancient technology fascinating. Things like the Mungo people of Australia. They turned up in Australia 40,000+ years ago, perhaps more. The only way they got there is by sea. How did they achieve that? Well, as far as anyone can tell, they island hopped. None of this wimpy migrating along the coast, they appear to have simply struck out across the ocean. No way of knowing if there was anything at the end of the line. The must have had vessels of some sort and some means of navigation. Nobody knows how they did it, or why. Oddly, having made landfall at the Australian coast, they migrated inland 800 km to settle at the eponymous Lake Mungo. How did they know it was there? If they didn't know, why set out in the first place? Since they were sailing the Pacific with aplomb, they were clearly an accomplished maritime group, why abandon the coast for the interior?

Alas, we are unlikely to get answers to such questions. Further research is not possible at this time. The human remains have been re-interred, and the sites declared to be sacred to indigenous peoples and no longer available for much in the way of serious research.

There is Petra and it's hydraulic engineering, Catalhoyuk and it's attempt to build a town/city with no streets whatsoever, Skara Brae, the many astronomically aligned celtic monuments across a swathe of western Europe...the list is endless.

People sometimes assume that our ancient ancestors were stupid. Far from it. Take a look at Otzi the Iceman. He was surprisingly well equipped for Alpine travel some 5,000+ years ago.

They were not stupid, and they were likely much more practiced then we are now at solving practical problems through ingenious application of techniques and material at hand.   The only thing is they didn’t have nearly as many techniques and materials as we do.

We have a small percentage of Einsteins, Von Brauns, and Edisons, and large percentage complacent morons.  They were probably MacGyvers down to the last man and woman.

---

Reported on just earlier this month. They're calling it 'the Lamborghini of Chariots':





Boru

Holy shit.

I've seen plenty of two-wheeled chariots being found, but this is the first four-wheeled chariot I know about.

Thanks for this.

I thought a 4 wheeled chariot is called a wagon.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I find really ancient technology fascinating. Things like the Mungo people of Australia. They turned up in Australia 40,000+ years ago, perhaps more. The only way they got there is by sea. How did they achieve that? Well, as far as anyone can tell, they island hopped. None of this wimpy migrating along the coast, they appear to have simply struck out across the ocean. No way of knowing if there was anything at the end of the line. The must have had vessels of some sort and some means of navigation. Nobody knows how they did it, or why. Oddly, having made landfall at the Australian coast, they migrated inland 800 km to settle at the eponymous Lake Mungo. How did they know it was there? If they didn't know, why set out in the first place? Since they were sailing the Pacific with aplomb, they were clearly an accomplished maritime group, why abandon the coast for the interior?

Alas, we are unlikely to get answers to such questions. Further research is not possible at this time. The human remains have been re-interred, and the sites declared to be sacred to indigenous peoples and no longer available for much in the way of serious research.

There is Petra and it's hydraulic engineering, Catalhoyuk and it's attempt to build a town/city with no streets whatsoever, Skara Brae, the many astronomically aligned celtic monuments across a swathe of western Europe...the list is endless.

People sometimes assume that our ancient ancestors were stupid. Far from it. Take a look at Otzi the Iceman. He was surprisingly well equipped for Alpine travel some 5,000+ years ago.

They were not stupid, and they were likely much more practiced then we are now at solving practical problems through ingenious application of techniques and material at hand.   The only thing is they didn’t have nearly as many techniques and materials as we do.

We have a small percentage of Einsteins, Von Brauns, and Edisons, and large percentage complacent morons.  They were probably MacGyvers down to the last man and woman.

---

Holy shit.

I've seen plenty of two-wheeled chariots being found, but this is the first four-wheeled chariot I know about.

Thanks for this.

I thought a 4 wheeled chariot is called a wagon.

Thought wrong, then, dincha?

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Cattle Cult Remains In The Sahara

Scattered across 77,000 square miles of desert in northwest Arabia, the mustatils (the name comes from the Arabic word for “rectangle”) were built between 8,500 and 4,800 years ago, during the period known as the Middle Holocene, according to a report published last week in the journal .

Boru

[AkiraTheViking]

~snip~

There is literally art in this world that is 12000 years old and still there are christians who think the earth is only 5000 years old. XD

I'm having a Viking funeral.

After I've raided Lindisfarne.

And you know I won't be in my own mass grave, right?

Looking forward to seeing you in Valhalla as well. \m/

[Fake Messiah]

1,500 year-old-old Ceramic Maya Figurine with Removable Helmet, from El Perú-Waka', Petén, Guatemala