A newly discovered Temple to render traces of Indonesia’s past
Archaeologists in Indonesia have revealed a 1,000-year-old temple that could provide more information on the country’s Hindu past.
The intricately engraved statues and reliefs are some of the best conserved in Indonesia, but the dig is being carried out under tight security to shield the site from well-organized artifact thieves.
The temple was found on the base of Yogyakarta’s Islamic University as workers explored the ground to lay foundations for a new library, and they realized the earth below their feet was not stable.
Digging soon revealed a strange find: three meters underground were still-standing temple walls. Heavy rains then uncovered the top of a statue of the god Ganesha in immaculate condition.
After a few weeks into the excavation, the archaeologists have stated that the temple and its exceptional and beautiful statues a significant discovery that could provide insight into Indonesia’s pre-Islamic culture.
“This temple is a quite significant and very valuable because we have never found a temple as whole and intact as this one,” said archaeologist Dr Budhy Sancoyo, who is one of the researchers painstakingly cleaning up the temple.
“For example, looking at where the statues are placed in this temple, they are in their original positions, unlike the other temples.
“This temple is important for understanding the culture of our ancestors.”
The Tomb Of legendary general Cao Cao discoved by archaeologists In central China
The tomb of a well-known warlord and politician in the third century, Cao Cao was discovered in Anyang City of central China’s Henan region, said the archaeologists on Sunday.
Cao Cao (155-220 A.D.), who built the strongest and most victorious state during the Three Kingdom period (208-280 A.D.), is remembered for his terrific military and political talents.
Cao Cao is also recognized for his poems that reflected his strong nature. Some of the poems are integrated in China’s middle school textbooks.
Three ancient carcasses, one man and two women, were found in the two-chamber tomb in Xigaoxue village of Anyang. Cao Cao died in his sixties, this coincides age the of the man that was found, Liu Qingzhu, chief of the academic committee of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told a press conference in Beijing.
More than 250 objects, made of gold, silver, pottery and etc, were revealed from the 740-square-meter tomb, a size apposite for a king. Archaeologists also revealed 59 engraved stone plates logging the name and amount of the articles obscured in the tomb. Seven of the plates logged weapons “often used by the king of Wei”, or Cao Cao, Liu said.
They had also discovered a large number of paintings drawn on stone plates, Liu added.
“Cao Cao wrote in his will that his burial place should be simple, which corresponds to the fact that the walls of the tome were not painted and few precious articles were found”, said Hao Benxing, head of Henan’s Institute of Archaeology.
“The position of the tomb is in line with historical recordings and ancient books from Cao Cao’s time”, Hao added.
Even though additional excavations are yet to be carried out, present proofs are enough to prove this is Cao Cao’s tomb, said Guan Qiang, director of the archaeology department of China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Part of a pylon of the Isis temple discovered by Underwater Achaeologists
Egyptian archaeologists have lifted an ancient granite temple pylon out of the waters of the Mediterranean, where it had been lying for about centuries as part of the palace complex of Cleopatra, submerged in Alexandria’s harbor.
The pylon, which previously stood at the entrance to a temple of Isis, is to be the showpiece of an ambitious underwater museum planned by Egypt to display the sunken city, which is supposed to have been collapsed into the sea by earthquakes in the 4th century.
Divers and underwater archaeologists used a huge crane and ropes to haul up the 9-ton, 7.4-foot-tall pylon, covered with dirt and seaweed, out of the muddy waters. It was placed on shore as Egypt’s top archaeologist Zahi Hawass and other officials observed.
The temple, devoted to Isis, a pharaonic goddess of fertility and magic, is at least 2,050 years old, but likely much older, and the pylon was cut from a single slab of red granite excavated in Aswan, some 700 miles to the south, officials said. It was part of a rambling palace from which the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt and where 1st Century B.C. Queen Cleopatra persuaded the Roman general Marc Antony before they both committed suicide following their defeat by Augustus Caesar.
Egyptian authorities hope that ultimately it will turn out to be a part of the underwater museum, an ambitious effort to draw tourists to the country’s northern coast, often outshined by the grand pharaonic temples of Luxor in the south, the Giza pyramids outside Cairo and the beaches of the Red Sea.
Still in its developing stages, the museum would permit visitors to saunter through underwater tunnels for close-up views of sunken artifacts, and it may even comprise a submarine on rails.
Archaeologists Find Evidences of prehistoric cannibalism in Germany
Evidences of mass cannibalism that took place 7,000 years age i.e. during the middle Neolithic Period were found by archaeologists on excavating a prehistoric site in Germany.
For few decades, it appears that hundreds of inhabitants were slaughtered and eaten at the site, before having their less-delicious parts discarded into pits. The remains of 500 victims have been found so far.
Bruno Boulestin, an anthropologist from the University of Bordeaux in France who is working on the site, said, “Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that’s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period.”
The large number of victims discovered in the pits suggests that the settlement (now called Herxheim) may have served as a kind of ritual depository where people from all over the area would gather to perform custom sacrifices on slaves or war prisoners or other deserving parties.
The excavation at Herxheim is one of only two excavations from this period showing signs of cannibalism, the other being 6,000-year-old bones uncovered in a French cave in 1986. Indeed, cannibalism seems incongruous with common perceptions of the Neolithic Age (roughly 9,500–4,500 BCE), when Hunter-gatherers settled down to form sedentary communities, tend crops and keep domesticated animals. One imagines peaceful farmers in a pastoral, agrarian ideal, not man-eaters.
Next, scientists will examine the chemical structure of the bones unearthed at Herxheim, revealing whether victims grew up eating local foods or foods from other regions. Determining the genesis of the victims at Herxeim will not only shed light on the ceremonial significance of the site, but also on the political climate at the time.
Reconstructing The Past - A Notable Step Forward In Korean Archaeology
Archaeologists with few other experts have reconstructed a girl who is 1,500-year-old. She was perhaps 16 years old and had a wide, flat Asian face, a long neck and a slim body. The girl expired 1,500 years ago. But now she’s reborn - well, partially, at least.
Officials from the Gaya National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage in Korea displayed the restored model of the girl from the Gaya confederacy era (42-562) yesterday at the National Palace Museum of Korea.
The restoration is the outcome of two years of interdisciplinary work that brought together specialists in archaeology, forensic medicine, anatomy, genetics, chemistry and other fields. It is a notable step forward in Korean archaeology.
In December 2007, archaeologists revealed the complete ruins of the girl and partial remains of three others in a tomb in Changnyeong County, South Gyeongsang. By the time of the unearthing, there had already been a grave robbery.
Archaeologists concluded that the four were attendants of the tomb’s owner because they were placed horizontally. The ruins of the owner,were missing.
“We rarely find bones in such a good condition from the era because soil in Korea is really rich,” said Lee Seong-jun, a researcher at the institute. “There have been restorations, but most of them were based on the imagination. This case, however, is strictly based on medical science, somatology and statistics.”
Lee added that the discovery was the first time forensic experts - in this case from the National Institute of Scientific Investigation - recovered the ruins of an ancient tomb.