Exciting archaeological discoveries....

[Dr Doran]

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN355007.html


Egypt finds coins dating to Roman Emperor Valens



Sun 13 Apr 2008, 14:17 GMT
[-] Text [+]

CAIRO (Reuters) - Archaeologists have discovered two gold coins in the Sinai peninsula dating to the era of Eastern Roman Emperor Valens that are the first of their kind to be found in Egypt, its antiquities council said on Sunday.

Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities said excavations at a site west of St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai unearthed two coins containing images of Valens, who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire from 364 to 378 AD.

Valens attacked the Visigoths in 378 AD near Adrianople in a battle often viewed as marking the start of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The Gothic cavalry routed the Romans, killing over 20,000 people, including Valens.

 

[dhermann1]

Goths

My favorite Goth is Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king (454 - 526). Pretty cool guy.

 

[Story]

rut ro...

Huge Viking Hoard Discovered in Sweden James Owen
for National Geographic News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080408-viking-hoard.html
April 8, 2008

Hundreds of ancient coins unearthed last week close to Sweden's main international airport suggests the Vikings were bringing home foreign currency earlier than previously thought, archaeologists say.

Buried some 1,150 years ago, the treasure trove is made up mainly of Arabic coins and represents the largest early Viking hoard ever discovered in Sweden.


*
The stone burial chamber where the hoard was found is being excavated before a new housing development is constructed on the site.

Measuring 52 feet (16 meters) in diameter, the Bronze Age tomb is thought to be around a thousand years older than the buried silver.


Looks like some foolish grave-robbing adventurers ran into something they didn't expect. lol

 

[Dr Doran]

*
Measuring 52 feet (16 meters) in diameter, the Bronze Age tomb is thought to be around a thousand years older than the buried silver.
l

We need more details. So a bronze age tomb was found under a medieval viking hoard? That is very interesting and odd. Do they think the site had continued use between bronze age (generally ending around 1200 BC) and the medieval viking period? If so, by whom? Or was it a coincidence that a Viking hoard was found on a bronze age tomb?

 

[dhermann1]

That would make it awfully late for Bronze Age, wouldn't it? Add 1,000 to 1,100 and you get late Hellenistic, right? Something doesn't sound quite right there.

 

[Dr Doran]

That would make it awfully late for Bronze Age, wouldn't it? Add 1,000 to 1,100 and you get late Hellenistic, right? Something doesn't sound quite right there.

The Bronze Age lasted later in the Scandinavian areas?

Different areas started using bronze at different times.
The Mediterranean chronology I know goes like this.

Neolithic or "New Stone Age" begins in Europe around 10,000 BC when stone tools begin to feature ground or filed down edges instead of chipped edges.

A bronze age begins in the late fourth millenium BC.

In Greece, time is normally divided like this (all dates are BC unless otherwise noted):

In the late Bronze Age Aegean, the Minoans are a leading light until about 1200-1100, when their civilization either gives way to, or is transformed into, the mainland Greece-based Mycenean civilization. This shift accompanies the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

A "dark age" begins shortly after the Mycenean takeover and lasts until about 800.

The Archaic Age starts around 800 and ends right after the Persian Wars, so in 479.

The Classical Age starts in 479 or 478 and ends at Alexander the Great's death in 323.

The Hellenistic Age then starts and lasts until the Battle of Actium in 31 BC when Octavian (soon to be called Augustus) defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra, finishing a process begun in the Hellenistic period of bringing the Aegean under Roman rule.

Roman history is somewhat parallel in its overlap. Traditionally, Rome is settled in 753 BC. The Monarchy now begins.

Around 500, the monarchy is overthrown as an Etruscan imposition and the Republic begins. Rome is now ruled by a Senate with two yearly consuls. It is no longer a monarchy but a republic. So now is the Republican period.

This lasts until 27 BC (4 years after the Battle of Actium) when the Senate confers extraordinary honors upon Octavian, calling him Augustus or "the revered." This starts the Principate. Some call this the beginning of the Empire. The idea of hereditary, regular emperors (the name comes from Imperator meaning military general in Latin) takes hold with Tiberius, Augustus' heir and stepson, and now we have basically the return of a monarchy.

Some say that with Domitian in the late 1st century AD, the "principate" (= rule of the 'princeps' or "first man") becomes the "dominate." Others think this sounds a bit too SM and just call the whole period the Empire.

But little of this applies to Germanic folks in northwest Europe, naturally.

 

[HungaryTom]

Hope this helps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age
So if we calculate 500 BC as the very end of the Scandianvian Bronze Age compared to the approx. 850 AD of that Viking hoards that makes a difference of some 1350 years. The weather was not merciful to them-hence their journeys to the Middle East, Russia and the New World already at the times of the silver coins.
I read that many Vikings reiterated that New World tour again because of the bad weather and the consequent famine some 1000 years after the silver was buried http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States talks also about crop failures as one of the main reasons for emigration.
The Mediterranean and Central Europe were luckier from that point of view: famines occured only if there were devastating wars before.

 

[Dr Doran]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age
So if we calculate 500 BC as the very end of the Scandianvian Bronze Age compared to the approx. 850 AD of that Viking hoards that makes a difference of some 1350 years. The weather was not merciful to them-hence their journeys to the Middle East, Russia and the New World already at the times of the silver coins.
I read that many Vikings reiterated that New World tour again because of the bad weather and the consequent famine some 1000 years after the silver was buried http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States talks also about crop failures as one of the main reasons.
The Mediterranean and Central Europe were luckier from that point of view: famines occured only if there were devastating wars before.

Thanks for clearing that up, Tom! Next time I am in your beautiful country I will look you up. I adore Budapest and especially walking across that river to the castle.

 

[mineral]

Doran, allow me to make a slight amendment to this:

In the late Bronze Age Aegean, the Minoans are a leading light until about 1200-1100, when their civilization either gives way to, or is transformed into, the mainland Greece-based Mycenean civilization. This shift accompanies the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

The Minoans were (long) supplanted by the end of the Bronze Age; it were the Mycenaeans were the ones who gave way (along with practically everyone else around the Mediterranean).

 

[Dr Doran]

Doran, allow me to make a slight amendment to this:



The Minoans were (long) supplanted by the end of the Bronze Age; it were the Mycenaeans were the ones who gave way (along with practically everyone else around the Mediterranean).

Right on. Whoops!

 

[Diamondback]

Wasn't the major crippler, if not the killshot, for the Minoans Santorini's last kB!? Charles Pellegrino wrote an interesting piece (Unearthing Atlantis, not sure how it's regarded in "scholarly eyes) on a theory that the Minoans may have inspired Plato's "Atlantis" writings, and the aftereffects may have inspired some of the Old Testament.

 

[HungaryTom]

ATLANTIS???

Diamond,

I read this theory in another book - Milleniums volcanoes and people. That http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini eruption must have have been a similar killer just like another case that was recorded quite in detail, namely the Krakatau volcano in the late 19th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa.

The Santorini eruption coincided with the Exodus, the withdrawing of water before the Tsunami, the coloration of the river into red 'blood', etc. So this event brought the devastation to Crete and Egypt.

BUT Plato places Atlantis beyond the pillars of Heracles, which is clearly west of Gibraltar. If we consider the size of Atlantis- a smaller continent, no volcanic eruption neither an earthquake could have deleted it; even the small Santorini and Krakatau remain today.

I read another book -in 1995, years BEFORE the movie Deep Impact and Armaggeddon came- of Alexander Tollman which speculates that it was another stuff - a comet which might have split into parts and collided into the mid-Atlantic and its other fragments into other seas of the Earth.

That book interprets the magnetic anomaly zone around the Azores http://www.springerlink.com/content/4x60v616812694gj/ as a consequence. Given the fact that the Atlantic ridge itself is instable - an island could have disappeared quickly if it was hit by a celestial impactor?? This is quite vague but the theory is a good think starter. At least I never say no.

I dont know what happened and when it happened; 12900 BC? 7500 BC? 3100 BC? one thing is sure: comets and meteors regularly impact the Earth and there was a pleistocene extinction event of large animals WORLDWIDE. Which caused the domestication and the spreading of agriculture - there were no more free meals hanging around in the form of Megafauna.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11909-did-a-comet-wipe-out-prehistoric-americans.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encke_comet...that beast
"Some consider the Bronze Age breakup of an originally larger comet of which Comet Encke is a member to be responsible for ancient destruction in the Fertile Crescent, perhaps evidenced by a large (unconfirmed) meteorite crater in Iraq identified as Umm al Biinni lake.[2] The origin of the swastika has also been connected with Comet Encke. It has also been suggested that the object likely to have been responsible for the Tunguska event in 1908 was a fragment of Comet Encke.[3]"
The priests of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sais also mention cataclysms.

There are also other guys who think similar stuff:
http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/tilmari2.htm
http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/news20.htm

Doran,

If you come next time to Acquincum let me know and than we can meet in person - it would be really great.

Tom

 

[Diamondback]

Tom, I think part of Pellegrino's premise was that Plato would've fictionalized Atlantis and moved it far out to sea to amplify the "total annihilation" effect at the end of what was written as a cautionary tale. OTOH, there has been the possibility of a "ten-fold numbering error" mentioned... (wish I could remember where I saw that, though)

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud."

 

[HungaryTom]

Diamond,

I am sure that we read the same source - the book I mentioned was written or assembled by Péter Hédervári, a Hungarian and was issued in the 1980s and mentioned exactly that "ten-fold numbering error" besides mentioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_elephant as members of the Crete fauna. However I dont remember whom he was quoting, either.

Nowadays with internet and wikipedia it takes only seconds to find again whatever you found, read, came across once- and still remember vaguely.

Tom

 

[Dr Doran]

Quite good article Herodotus, under the guise (as usual with the New Yorker) of a book review of a new edition of Herodotus. This should be interesting even if all you want is a handle on who Herodotus was, what he wrote, and why he is so damned important (and he is), as well as why he is so fun:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/04/28/080428crbo_books_mendelsohn

 

[CassD]

Stone Cirlce Older than Stonehenge

This is a fantastic article shared with me by a friend about some amazing discoveries going on in Turkey from stone circles with carved reliefs to a small, carved creature that can only be described as a sphynx which pre-dates Egypt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/23/archaeology.turkey

 

[HungaryTom]

This is a fantastic article shared with me by a friend about some amazing discoveries going on in Turkey from stone circles with carved reliefs to a small, carved creature that can only be described as a sphynx which pre-dates Egypt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/23/archaeology.turkey

Very interesting article on the early Neolithic age.

I think that Turkey and Egypt are not that far away so it is not that strange to see Sphinx as an idol. Lions were exterminated in in Syria/Turkey by firearms only in the 1800s. http://www.asiatic-lion.org/distrib.html
Last known lion in Turkey killed in 1870 near Birecik on the Eurphrates (Üstay 1990).
Sir Alfred Pease reported that lions still existed west of Aleppo, Syria, in 1891 (Kinnear 1920).
Lions occurred in the vicinity of Mosul, Iraq, in the 1850s. The Turkish governor's bag of two in 1914 is the last report of them from the area (Kinnear 1920).
Lions were reported to be numerous in the reedy swamps bordering the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in the early 1870s. The last known lion in Iraq was killed in 1918 on the lower Tigris (Hatt 1959).

It is also interesting to see evidence of astrology/astronomy combined with divinity.

The 6 milleniums that passed between the end of Ice Age and the uniting of lower and upper Egypt 3200 BC (the beginning of the recorded history, at least of records that are available as of today) are very interesting - this discovery probaly helps to clear up somewhat the image of that age at the Fertile Crescent.

 

[SGT Rocket]

Great Post!

In undergrad I was an anthropology/archeology major. There are few things I enjoy more than learning something new.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

This is a fantastic article shared with me by a friend about some amazing discoveries going on in Turkey from stone circles with carved reliefs to a small, carved creature that can only be described as a sphynx which pre-dates Egypt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/23/archaeology.turkey

If you've never read "The Message of the Sphinx" by Graham Hancock, do so. Fascinating reading! He presents a strong case for the Great Sphinx in Egypt to be roughly twice as old as is commonly accepted by Egyptologists. Due to the fact that the Sphinx and the surrounding rock show definite signs of water erosion, a phenomenon caused by significant rainfall in the area that occurred roughly 12,000 years ago. This would approximately double the age that is currently accepted for the Sphinx and surrounding environs.
I think there are an enormous amount of facts that we will never know about ancient times. Once the generation that actually lived and witnessed the times passes away, history gradually becomes skewed and records are lost or simply completely rewritten.

 

[drjones]

me too

Great Post!

In undergrad I was an anthropology/archeology major. There are few things I enjoy more than learning something new.

as was I SlyGI......I even got some graduate hours.

DRJONES