Exciting archaeological discoveries....

[Maj.Nick Danger]

The Book of Enoch.

Lost for centuries until a copy was reported to be in Ethiopia. An explorer in the 17th century went looking for it and found THREE copies. Said to predate Genesis.

Brought them back and had it translated into English.

They even found fragments of The Book of Enoch as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Awesome read.

It is. There is an entire book of apocryphal books which were suppressed by the early church for whatever reasons they might have had.
"The Lost Books of the Bible, and The Forgotten Books of Eden".
ISBN # 0-529-02061-0
Fascinating reading.

 

[dr greg]

wiki wak

l also saw an interesting doco on Gobekli Tepe that said the carvings can only really be appreciated by firelight, leading to the idea that the place was a sort of entertainment centre, so that tribes would come from far and wide to see and hear tales told at the foot of the stone pillars and so forth....the Disneyland of its day...worth thinking about.
As to our old mate Enoch, Wiki says that:
The traditional view of the Ethiopic Orthodox Church, which reckons 1 Enoch as an inspired document, is that the Ethiopic text is the original one, written by Enoch himself. In their view the following opening sentence of Enoch is the first and oldest sentence written in any human language, since Enoch was the first to write letters:
I reckon the writers of the Vedas would have had some disagreement with that..maybe 1000 years worth at least?

 

[Story]

Not so ancient, still neat

Message in a bottle discovered, from 1913
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_040409WAB-AP-message-bottle-spokane-KS.a14331eb.html

 

[LordBest]

Tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony - possibly

"27 graves, gold mask of Mark Anthony detected"
http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/EgyptOnline/Culture/000002/0203000000000000001129.htm

Most promising, if accurate.

 

[shortbow]

!!! Hawwas seems to be a very sober and dedicated archaeo, so I'm inclined to take his word as good. Sure will be cool to see where this goes.

 

[Story]

For all the Texans on FL

Exclusive: Archaeologists pinpoint San Jacinto surrender

Archaeologists believe they've found the exact spot near the San Jacinto battleground where hundreds of Mexican soldiers surrendered to the Texas army. Scores of unfired musket balls, bayonets and cavalry ornaments were found all in rows as if they'd been dropped. The discovery was on a plot about 20 yards wide and 200 yards long, near an NRG Energy natural gas-fired power plant.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...st/stories/041609dnbussanjacinto.3ddefc4.html

 

[Laura Chase]

Pyramids in Bosnia?

This is old news, but I don't think it's known to the public since the status of the whole excavation is very uncertain. There's LOADS of criticism of this project, and it could just as well be a hoax (it most likely is), but take a look:

http://www.piramidasunca.ba/en/

I will be taking a real look there myself in May when I go down there.

 

[LordBest]

Aztec Emperors Tomb

The possible tomb of an Aztec emperor is being excavated:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6474037.ece

 

[HungaryTom]

Meet asperatus

Exciting meteorological discovery...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/new-cloud-pictures/index.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/new-cloud-pictures/photo2.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/new-cloud-pictures/photo3.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/new-cloud-pictures/photo4.html

 

[dhermann1]

Lost Persian army discovered in the Sahara

This is cool. Personally, having traversed it in a nice safe bus years ago, I would NEVER try to walk ANYWHERE in the Sahara Desert.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33791672/ns/technology_and_science-science/

 

[Dr Doran]

From <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=God%20gene&st=cse>:
==================================================================================

November 15, 2009
The Evolution of the God Gene
By NICHOLAS WADE

IN the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and
Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of
religion.

During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental
temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior.
The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the
communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C.
It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the
beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in
A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an
early archaic state.

This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion,
one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in
societies at every stage of development and in every region of the
world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that
it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal
because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral
human population dispersed from its African homeland.

For atheists, it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion
evolved because it conferred essential benefits on early human
societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is hard
to portray it as useless.

For believers, it may seem threatening to think that the mind has been
shaped to believe in gods, since the actual existence of the divine
may then seem less likely.

But the evolutionary perspective on religion does not necessarily
threaten the central position of either side. That religious behavior
was favored by natural selection neither proves nor disproves the
existence of gods. For believers, if one accepts that evolution has
shaped the human body, why not the mind too? What evolution has done
is to endow people with a genetic predisposition to learn the religion
of their community, just as they are predisposed to learn its
language. With both religion and language, it is culture, not
genetics, that then supplies the content of what is learned.

It is easier to see from hunter-gatherer societies how religion may
have conferred compelling advantages in the struggle for survival.
Their rituals emphasize not theology but intense communal dancing that
may last through the night. The sustained rhythmic movement induces
strong feelings of exaltation and emotional commitment to the group.
Rituals also resolve quarrels and patch up the social fabric.

The ancestral human population of 50,000 years ago, to judge from
living hunter-gatherers, would have lived in small, egalitarian groups
without chiefs or headmen. Religion served them as an invisible
government. It bound people together, committing them to put their
community's needs ahead of their own self-interest. For fear of divine
punishment, people followed rules of self-restraint toward members of
the community. Religion also emboldened them to give their lives in
battle against outsiders. Groups fortified by religious belief would
have prevailed over those that lacked it, and genes that prompted the
mind toward ritual would eventually have become universal.

In natural selection, it is genes that enable their owners to leave
more surviving progeny that become more common. The idea that natural
selection can favor groups, instead of acting directly on individuals,
is highly controversial. Though Darwin proposed the idea, the
traditional view among biologists is that selection on individuals
would stamp out altruistic behavior (the altruists who spent time
helping others would leave fewer children of their own) far faster
than group-level selection could favor it.

But group selection has recently gained two powerful champions, the
biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, who argued that
two special circumstances in recent human evolution would have given
group selection much more of an edge than usual. One is the highly
egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies, which makes everyone
behave alike and gives individual altruists a better chance of passing
on their genes. The other is intense warfare between groups, which
enhances group-level selection in favor of community-benefiting
behaviors such as altruism and religion.

A propensity to learn the religion of one's community became so firmly
implanted in the human neural circuitry, according to this new view,
that religion was retained when hunter-gatherers, starting from 15,000
years ago, began to settle in fixed communities. In the larger,
hierarchical societies made possible by settled living, rulers
co-opted religion as their source of authority. Roman emperors made
themselves chief priest or even a living god, though most had the
taste to wait till after death for deification. "Drat, I think I'm
becoming a god!" Vespasian joked on his deathbed.

Religion was also harnessed to vital practical tasks such as
agriculture, which in the first societies to practice it required
quite unaccustomed forms of labor and organization. Many religions
bear traces of the spring and autumn festivals that helped get crops
planted and harvested at the right time. Passover once marked the
beginning of the barley festival; Easter, linked to the date of
Passover, is a spring festival.

Could the evolutionary perspective on religion become the basis for
some kind of detente between religion and science? Biologists and many
atheists have a lot of respect for evolution and its workings, and if
they regarded religious behavior as an evolved instinct they might see
religion more favorably, or at least recognize its constructive roles.
Religion is often blamed for its spectacular excesses, whether in
promoting persecution or warfare, but gets less credit for its staple
function of patching up the moral fabric of society. But perhaps it
doesn't deserve either blame or credit. If religion is seen as a means
of generating social cohesion, it is a society and its leaders that
put that cohesion to good or bad ends.

Nicholas Wade, a science reporter for The New York Times, is the
author of "The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It
Endures."

 

[dhermann1]

The Trojan War . . . . Maybe

This article is just another reminder of how people go a little nuts over archaeological discoveries. These things stimulate our romantic imaginations so powerfully, it's hard to to be critical and level headed. Many people have deep emotional vested interests in various interpretations of history.
This is a review of a book about the supposed site of the Trojan War. The reviewer reminds us that unless there is solid archaeological evidence, it ain't necessarily so.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/hig...er-homers-ghosts/story-e6frgcjx-1225805918641

 

[Dr Doran]

Always good to remain skeptical. But here are the flaws in that article, and it was one-sided.

Troia/Ilion/Ilios is the name of a settlement that was inhabited in the historic period (i.e. after the mythic period). Why would there not be a continuity with the previous settlement? This should have been brought up in the article.

There are lots, and lots, and lots of walls all over the place that is called Troy. I have been there (with my father in 1999). I don't know why this was not mentioned, unless the article's author had never been there and seen it.

True, the Troy that Homer describes is usually thought to be Troy VI or Troy VII. But an earthquake is not mutually exclusive with a military attackPoseidon was god of both horses and earthquakes (as well as, obviously, the sea) so some scholars think the story of Troy being brought down by a horse = Poseidon = an earthquake. This should have been discussed thoroughly in the article.

The author's idea that it is a problem that the occupiers of the citadel after level VI had Balkan-esque pottery is quite mysterious. Does the author mean non-Greek Balkan pottery if he was trying to say that the occupiers were not Greek? Second, Homer never says that the Greeks occupied Troy after it was sacked. Anyone could have come in from the Balkans and settled in what was a nicely-situated city, with a good hinterland of farmable plains and proximity to the coast for fishing.

"It is only one of many cities across the Near East that went down in the late Bronze Age." True, and also Levantine coastal towns like Dor were disrupted, and various other cities all over the Aegean. There is archaeological evidence for this galore. However, throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer asserts that the Mycenean Greeks such as Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Akhilles raided coastlines constantly, and visited Egypt (perhaps to raid). So naturally, many scholars believe that the mysterious "Sea Peoples" who are described in Egyptian texts of the period as raiding Egypt were actually part of the same folk-wandering as whatever Greek tough guys inspired Homer's Agamemnon and company. This should have at least been touched on by the article. Were the Mycenean Greeks the "Sea Peoples"?

"Mycenae is just as mute on the Homeric question. Nothing found there identifies Troy-Ilios as an adversary in a 10-year siege." What on earth did he expect? A diary?

"A professor of ancient history, Kolb is one of the fiercest critics of the claims issuing from Hissarlik of a substantial Bronze Age town housing 6000 people: 'Everything [outside the citadel] points to a thinly built-up area with dispersed houses or farms.'"

Every archaeological report I have seen discusses a palace at Troy. Yes, the hinterland was farmed, as is the case in all cities without any exceptions at any time anywhere in the entire world. Homer even says that the army of Greeks were farming some of the land, so you can be sure the Trojans were as well. Normally the inhabitants of a town possess farms outside it and hole up inside the town's walls when there is a siege. Was Troy-city as magnificent as Homer described? No one seriously believes that Homer did not inflate the magnificence of Troy with his description of the 50 bedrooms and all that.

"There certainly is a Linear B tablet entry from Pylos that has been deciphered as "To-ro-ja". But the translation as "women of Troy" is conjectural. Victor Parker, a Harvard and Heidelberg-trained classicist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, who has published in this field, translates To-ro-ja as a single woman, possibly a name. Thomas Palaima, professor of classics at the University of Austin, Texas, argues for "women of [Lycian] Tlos"."

A slave woman named Toroja is probably a Trojan: naming a slave by its ethnic group is extremely common in the ancient world and there are countless attestations of this practice among the Greeks and Romans. Yes, she could be Tlos as the Myceneans, like many folk, did not distinguish between R and L. But it is just as likely to be Troia. So that is not much of an argument.

The author has failed to discuss the Hittite texts talking about a western prince named Aleksandu, which sounds like Alexandros, the other name for the Trojan warrior Paris. This is kind of a big deal, and should have been discussed if the article were responsibly written.

"Equally contentious are speculations that equate the mysterious Hittite territory of Wilusa, whose whereabouts is unknown, with Ilios-Troy. The linguistic fit is seductive but unproven. Linguistic experts of the period openly discuss the difficulties in attempting to align two different ancient tongues, Hittite and proto-Greek."

I have no idea what the author is talking about. Place names are often aligned.

"Yet Alexander simply asserts that Wilusa is a synonym for Ilios, cognate of Ilion. The case, she says, is "now confirmed". It is not."

The Hittite texts mentioning Wilusa are pretty darn good evidence that there was a western kingdom called Ilios, which is a word Homer uses, along with Ilion, for Troy. The forms are almost identical. Keep in mind that an initial I is often given a digamma or "w" sound in front of it in the earliest Greek texts. Ilios could have been pronounced Wilios. Adding an "a" on the end, or some other little termination, is very typical for transliterated place-names in many languages.

If we assert that Wilusa mentioned in the Hittite texts was NOT Ilios/Ilion/Troy, then we will need to postulate an entire kingdom and culture called Wilusa that is NOT Ilios and that is somewhere in the Hittite reach that has left no archaeological remains, is otherwise unattested in any texts, and has no geographical location. Ilios is a damn close fit.

Ahhiyawa: Also mysteriously unmentioned by the author. This Hittite word is probably cognate with the Achaioi which is a word Homer uses for the Greeks, often translated Achaeans. It is in Hittite texts of precisely the period in which the was at Troy was supposedly fought. The Hittite word is terribly similar to the Achaioi -- again, only the ending is truly different and that's no big deal, again. If we, again, assert that the Ahhiyawa in the Hittite texts are someone other than the Achaioi or Achaeans, then we need to figure out who this society is which has mysteriously gone unattested and with no archaeological remains.

In conclusion, I would say that while skepticism is healthy and while no exact, secure identification can be made, this is how ancient history works: the evidence never, alas, includes filmed footage of Presidential talks as modern history does. We have to make the most plausible case we can from the evidence we have. And to me, it does look very much like Troy is the city that Schliemann dug, that Wilusa is Ilios/Ilion/Troy, and that some sort of war happened there which was, naturally, romanticized and glorified and exaggerated by court poets, exactly as the Chanson of Roland was.

 

[dhermann1]

Looks like the argument he was making can be turned against him. Archaeology can be SUCH a soap opera! I wonder why this reviewer seems to have such personal animosity towards the author of the book?
Most of what you mention I recall seeing in various places, and I had always accepted the idea that this was indeed Troy. Nice to have this reinforced by somebody who really lives with this stuff. I was never in Turkey, but I did visit Mycenae when I was young, an experience that deeply imprinted itself in my mind.

 

[Dr Doran]

Some people take a position just to be able to write something.

Journalists do this a lot. They have a deadline and they need to write something. So they toss something together just to have "copy" for their editor.

And aside from journalists, when you think about the perversity of the positions that many academics have taken, and ask yourself whether anyone could actually believe that stuff (postmodernism is my best example) you realize that they are writing just to write something so they can publish it and show the fact that they published it at their tenure review.

 

[HungaryTom]

From <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=God%20gene&st=cse>:
==================================================================================

November 15, 2009
The Evolution of the God Gene
By NICHOLAS WADE

IN the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and
Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of
religion.
"The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It
Endures."

Well the making of purple, THE religious colour survived in the coasts of Oaxaca. Purple has been in use since the Bronze Age, Akkadians, Phoenicians, Judaism, Persians, Myceneans, Greeks (porphyr carpet scene in Agammemnon - "red carpet" is rolled out to honour), Cleopatra, Roman Caesars and Senators, Byzantine emperors, Christian Liturgy: http://saintbedestudio.blogspot.com/2007/11/liturgical-colour-violaceus-in-roman_17.html West Europe's early French and English manuscripts. Japan is no exception either http://www.color-guide.com/e_purple.htm. Traditional purple-dyeing of Oaxaca is unique since it does only milk the animal Purpura pansa unlike anywhere else in the world, where molluscs were killed in large numbers to get the colour (e.g.the 100 meters long and 50 m tall Murex hill of Sidon/Lebanon). This slaughter ceased in the Mediterranean after Byzantine fell in 1453 and Islam put the purple bearing molluscs off the hook: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:"I do not ride on purple" http://muttaqun.com/perfume.html.

Oaxacan purple dyers:
http://www.traditionsmexico.com/Featured__Tales-purpura.html

Carthaginian Purple (Carthago being founded by Phoenicians):
http://srs.dl.ac.uk/arch/ssrl/binous/housam-binous-ssrl-talk.htm

Tyrian Purple:
http://www.chriscooksey.demon.co.uk/tyrian
http://www.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/purple.html
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/millennia.of.murex.htm
http://www.masonic-lodge-of-education.com/masonic-blue.html
http://www.wiley-vch.de/vch/journals/2008/pdf/30_a.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple
http://www.tangdynastytimes.com/2009/10/tyrian-purple.html

Blogs:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/07/16/searching-for-purple/
http://lushlight.blogspot.com/2009_09_06_archive.html
http://thewrendesign.com/2009/09/17/murex/

Youtube:
Pourpre 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpDKRx33Ia0
Pourpre 2/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXKh9VAFGcU

Chemistry
http://www.gsu.edu/~mstnrhx/edsc84/dye.htm
http://www.modernmicroscopy.com/main.asp?article=28&page=1
http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/6/9/736/pdf
This paper (pp. 16 Table 3) shows why there were so many shades of the color 'purple': natural pigments secreted by Murex and Purpura snails consist of half dozen compounds (indigoids) being of different hues of deep blue, purple, red or light green, related to the synthesis of 6,6’-Dibromoindigo, THE purple color. Consequently the dyes obtained from different mollusc species vary even according to sexes http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18075711 and geographic provenances representing different blends of those colorant molecules resulting in color diversity. It is also interesting to see that the mollusc Purpura pansa of the Oaxacan coast carries 6,6’-Dibromoindigo with high purity in its dye (90%). God loves to play with colors.

Tyrian Purple (the most sought after shade) being of blackish in colour of "clotted blood" must have been a result of repeated dyeing with dyes of different snail species e.g. Murex brandaris and Hexaplex trunculus (one being deep magenta and the other deep blue).

Now after synthetic colors are abundant the Murex dye yielded from molluscs became marginalised - they are used by the Oaxacans, some religious Jews to get the tekhelet colour http://www.tekhelet.com/mystery.htm and for restoration purposes of originally purple dyed items (codice parchments, clothes.) Hopefully these animals are saved once for all:


„Clytemnestra: The Sea and who shall dry it up ? is there
eternally to nourish the precious juice of purple stain,
abundant, ever-renewable, for dyeing robes withal.”

The Oresteia of Aeschylus

***

UPDATE: the "precious juice" might have other purposes:


http://xenopus.rockefeller.edu/publications/pdfs/82.pdf
GSK-3-Selective Inhibitors Derived from Tyrian Purple Indirubins
"Gastropod mollusks have been used for over 2500 years to produce the “Tyrian purple” dye made famous by the Phoenicians. This dye is constituted of mixed bromine-substituted indigo and indirubin isomers. Among these, the new natural product 6-bromoindirubin and its synthetic, cell-permeable derivative, 6-bromoindirubin-3′-oxime (BIO), display remarkable selective inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3). "
***
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19491143
Bioactivity of the Murex Homeopathic Remedy and of Extracts from an Australian Muricid Mollusc Against Human Cancer Cells.
Benkendorff K, McIver CM, Abbott CA.

School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, 5001, Australia. kirsten.benkendorff@flinders.edu.au.

Marine molluscs from the family Muricidae are the source of a homeopathic remedy Murex, which is used to treat a range of conditions, including cancer. The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro bioactivity of egg mass extracts of the Australian muricid Dicathais orbita, in comparison to the Murex remedy, against human carcinoma and lymphoma cells. Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to characterize the chemical composition of the extracts and homeopathic remedy, focusing on biologically active brominated indoles. The MTS (tetrazolium salt) colorimetric assay was used to determine effects on cell viability, while necrosis and apoptosis induction were investigated using flow cytometry (propidium iodide and Annexin-V staining respectively). Cells were treated with varying concentrations (1-0.01 mg/ml) of crude and semi-purified extracts or preparations (dilute 1 M and concentrated 4 mg/ml) from the Murex remedy (4 h). The Murex remedy showed little biological activity against the majority of cell lines tested. In contrast, the D. orbita egg extracts significantly decreased cell viability in the majority of carcinoma cell lines. Flow cytometry revealed these extracts induce necrosis in HT29 colorectal cancer cells, whereas apoptosis was induced in Jurkat cells. These findings highlight the biomedical potential of Muricidae extracts in the development of a natural therapy for the treatment of neoplastic tumors and lymphomas.
***
http://www.cell.com/chemistry-biology/abstract/S1074-5521(00)00025-9

Selective small molecule inhibitors of glycogen synthase kinase-3 modulate glycogen metabolism and gene transcription

"Furthermore, development of similar compounds may be of use therapeutically in disease states associated with elevated GSK-3 activity such as non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and neurodegenerative disease."


So Tyrian purple with its indirubin (that bears the name of Indy !!!) isomers is not only there to serve human vanity and hybris but to fight Alzheimer, diabetes, cancer .....a new elixir is found in the colors of those predatory snails???
Imperial purple RULES!!!

 

[Foofoogal]

I think of Lydia who sold purple in the Bible.

I also definitely think there is something to this of the God gene. It is as necessary to me for survival as drinking water.

 

[dhermann1]

Paleo-bunk

Here's an amusing, interesting and edifying piece about a story that was printed in Discovery Magazine, that the author says is total bunk.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/return-amazing-boskops-lynch-granger-2009.html

 

[Dr Doran]

List of ALL open access journals relating to the Ancient World

This is an amazing, wonderful list of ALL journals related to the ancient world that are open access -- in other words, that anyone can click on, link to, and read.

Here is the link:

http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html

How great is that?!

 

[Dr Doran]

Man with East Asian Ancestry found in Roman Cemetery, C2 AD.

From <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/ambassador-or-slave-east-asian-skeleton-discovered-in-vagnari-roman-cemetery-1879551.html>:
==================================================================================================

Ambassador or slave? East Asian skeleton discovered in Vagnari Roman
Cemetery - News, Archaeology

A team of researchers announced a surprising discovery during a
scholarly presentation in Toronto last Friday. The research team,
based at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, has been helping to
excavate an ancient Roman cemetery at the site of Vagnari in southern
Italy. Led by Professor Tracy Prowse, they’ve been analyzing the
skeletons found there by performing DNA and oxygen isotope tests.

The surprise is that the DNA tests show that one of the skeletons, a
man, has an East Asian ancestry * on his mother’s side. This appears
to be the first time that a skeleton with an East Asian ancestry has
been discovered in the Roman Empire.

However, it seems like this contact between east and west did not go well.

Vagnari was an imperial estate during this time. The emperor
controlled it and at least some of the workers were slaves. One of the
tiles found at Vagnari is marked “Gratus” which means “slave” of the
emperor. The workers produced iron implements and textiles. The
landscape around them was nearly treeless, making the Italian summer
weather all the worse.

The man with East Asian ancestry may well have been a slave himself.
He lived sometime in the first to second century AD, in the early days
of the Roman Empire. Much of his skeleton (pictured here) has not
survived. The man’s surviving grave goods consist of a single pot
(which archaeologists used to date the burial). To top things off
someone was buried on top of him - with a superior collection of grave
goods.

Much of the cemetery has yet to be excavated, but indications so far
suggest that his contemporaries were mostly local individuals.
Archaeologists have dug up 70 skeletons from the Vagnari cemetery and
oxygen isotope tests have shown that more than 80 per cent of the
people were born at or near this estate.

“How this particular individual ended up down in Vagnari is an
intriguing story and that’s what makes this find very exciting,” said
team member Dr. Jodi Barta, who analyzed the DNA.

DNA Testing

The researchers determined his ancestry by analyzing his mitochondrial
DNA * material that is passed down from mother to offspring.

As DNA is passed down from generation to generation there are
mutations. People who are related to each other will have similar
changes * allowing researchers to put them into broad “haplogroups,”
that tend to relate to geographical areas.

This technique has been used to map the spread of humans throughout the world.

The man found in the cemetery has DNA that belongs to what scientists
called haplogroup D. “The haplogroup itself has this East Asian
origin, it’s not something that’s found in past European populations -
the origin of this haplogroup is East Asia,” said Dr. Barta.

This technique does have limitations. Because it only tests DNA from
his mother's side, his paternal ancestry is not known. The team also
cannot say where specifically in East Asia his mum’s ancestors are
from. There “is absolutely no way that you can put that fine a point
on it” with the evidence at hand said Barta. “Unless we can extract
nuclear DNA and add that to the line of evidence that we’ve got,” said
Professor Prowse.

Also the scientists cannot say how recently he, or his ancestors, left
East Asia. He could have made the journey by himself, or it could be
that a more distant ancestor, such as his great-grandmother, left the
region long before he was born.

“We have no way to put a clock on that,” said Barta.

Trade Between China and Rome

At first glance it’s tempting to link this fellow to the silk trade
that flourished between China and Rome. The trade picked up during the
1st century BC, with traders following an arduous 8,000 kilometre
route across Central Asia.

However, while the silk was made in China, it’s generally believed
that the people who plodded this route were intermediaries. In fact
there is not much evidence that anyone from China, or the areas
nearby, ever got to Italy in ancient times.

Dr. Raoul McLaughlin, of Queens University Belfast, has studied
ancient Sino-Roman relations and wrote in the publication History
Today that-

“The surviving Classical sources suggest that the Romans knew very
little about the ancient Chinese. Most of what they knew came in the
form of rumours gathered on distant trade ventures.”

Adding, “as far as we are aware, they never realized that on the edge
of Asia there was a vast state equivalent in scale and sophistication
to their own.”

There are references, however, to a people called the “Seres” whom
some scholars believe could be Han Chinese or people from nearby
areas. Plinius's association between the Seres and silk production
adds weight to that theory. He wrote: 'Send out as far as to the Seres
for silk stuff to apparel us'.

Strabo also wrote about the Seres, describing their incredible
longevity: "The Seres who, they say, are long-lived, and prolong their
lives even beyond two hundred years". According to Florus, embassadors
came from this land to meet Augustus.

It seems unlikely that the man found at Vagnari was any kind of
embassador * if he was why would he be working on an imperial estate?
Did he make a really bad impression on Augustus?

I asked both Prowse and Barta if they knew of any other skeletons with
East Asian ancestry near Rome. They both said that they don’t.

“Most of the research that has been done... is really related to early
population development, such as humans out of Africa, the migrations
of humans from Asia to North and South America,” said Professor
Prowse.

“To my knowledge I don’t know of any specific example of this kind of
haplogroup.”

Prowse is hopeful that more DNA research will come out as people
realize its value.

“It may actually prompt other people to start looking through, and not
just rely on the archaeological remains but also trying to look at the
skeletal remains to try and answer some of these questions.”