Interesting Archaeology Atlantis is one of those places which has been searched for since the time of the ancient Greeks. Plato created a dialog in about 360 B.C. which talked about Atlantis. While many believe in Atlantis being an actual place and it sunk under the sea due to a catastrophe, there are those who think it was located on land and somehow landed under layers of earth like many other ruins. It is not unheard of finding settlements built upon older ones and even some built over more than one. One of the clues to Atlantis is its description of being a city of concentric circles with water in between. This has limited the search somewhat. What if the description was wrong, but the city did exist? Also, what if things changed and the water disappeared and the entire city was subject to some kind of eruption or other event which made it hidden from us? It could be located anywhere. Recently there has been a thought it could be in a desert somewhere and the thought is it might be in Africa. It is true the deserts of the earth can be hiding a lot of things especially those in Egypt. Now for a wild theory, could a very ancient country which would have been located in an Egyptian desert have been Atlantis? Perhaps they were the ones who left a record which the Egyptians used to discover how to build incredible structures. There has been a controversy raging in the scientific community for a while. It has to do with ancient foot prints which were found at a site at Laetoli in Tanzania. Some scientists say they were human foot prints but many others say they were bear prints. The problem is the foot prints are old, very old, being about 3.7 million years old. In fact, if human they would be the oldest foot prints ever found from humans. Humans were said to not exist this far back. It has been found the foot prints come from what is being called a bipedal hominin. It is now being said an early human left those prints. It makes one wonder how far back early humans go and could we possibly be wrong about their intelligence because it might turn out they were smarter than we think? If they had built huts and such back then nothing would have survived today. Archaeologists got a surprise from a tomb in Peru. In it was an 800 to 1200 year old mummy. Not just any mummy but one which had been wrapped up and tied up. It doesn’t fit the burial practices of the time. The mummy’s legs were tightly tied and its hands were tied in a position which put its hands over its face. Scientists are speculating this proves the region was multi-ethnic and the mummy could have been from the mountain region of the area not the coastal region where it was found. Archaeologists have decided to dig along the A66 road in England. The road is in an area which Romans had occupied and the scientists believe they will be able to discover many objects which will improve their knowledge of the Roman occupation. They are digging over 1,250 test holes. The roads in the area are also going to be improved. It turns out the A66 happens to follow an old Roman road. Some things have already been found including an ancient Neolithic axe. Parts of the old Roman road have been found along with pottery. I find it amazing how many beautiful mosaics have been found. British archaeologists just hit the jackpot. They found a Roman mosaic in the East Midlands. The mosaic is of Hector and Achilles fighting it out during the Trojan War. It is being called the most exciting mosaic found in the United Kingdom in the last century. What was this mosaic doing there? It turns out it was in a farmer’s field and discovered by accident. It was part of a luxury Roman villa. The mosaic measures an incredible 36 by 22 feet. Sometimes a great archaeological find is made by a person who has nothing to do with archaeology and at times that person could even be a child. Take the case of an 11 year old girl who found a very rare silver coin which was over 2,000 years old. The girl had taken part in an archaeology operation run by the Israel Antiquities Authority. She was sifting dirt when she found the coin. The coin was found in discarded debris from the famous Temple Mount. In Egypt archaeologists had discovered a temple they didn’t know existed and while continuing to dig in the suburbs, they had come across a huge rock. They took the time to examine it and clean it and it turned out to be a giant statue. As they worked to uncover it, they thought it must be of Ramses but it turned out it was not. Washing the statue which they thought was a stone in the beginning turned out to be the key. When they washed it, they found hieroglyphs which told of the statue’s identity. The statue was of a pharaoh who most never heard of, Psamtik 1. Archaeologists had thought he was just relatively do nothing pharaoh but they may have to rethink this because of the size of the statue. An Egyptian public relations official for the Giza pyramids district has made a claim he has found a second Sphinx as big as the first and it is in the pyramid area. This claim is being laughed at by many archaeologists. He claims the statue is 73 meters high. He went on to say scientific research was published at Zagazig University and it confirmed the existence of the second Sphinx. Caves have been discovered in Derbyshire England and they appear to be manmade. But there are more to these caves. It is believed they were once the home to an exiled Saxon King named Eardwulf who was also known as Saint Hardulph. He had been the king of Northumbria in 806 A.D. The caves are known as the Anchor Church Caves. The caves are made of soft sandstone, making them easier to carve out. People got around even to some extent in the Middle Ages. A cemetery was found in London from Medieval times and the occupants of one area were clearly from Africa. It turns out London in the 1300s was much more racially diverse than anyone had previously thought.
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