Ancient Discoveries And Questions

Ancient races and cultures have always had their secrets. An example of this might be the Egyptians. How did they build the pyramids, why did they decide their gods had animal heads and so forth? Now we can add another mystery to the pot. An ancient cemetery has been found in Egypt, but it is not an ordinary cemetery because it contains over one million bodies. Seventeen hundred mummies have been dug up so far. One of the things scientists cannot understand about this cemetery is the fact there were not any known villages with enough of a population near it to account for all these bodies. There is a small pyramid near the cemetery which is about 4,500 years old, but the bodies were buried over 2,000 years after it was built. It is thought the cemetery was for non-royals. While the bodies were mummified, the mummification was caused by the dry desert conditions. There is also another mystery and that is the fact there were mummies who were not Egyptian, but had blonde hair and red hair.

We talk about when man first appeared on earth and when it is modern man we are talking about it just was not that long ago according to scientists. Scientists say the earliest evidence of anatomically modern humans dates back about 200,000 years. So here is something which is of great interest to science, it is a shell they discovered which has intelligent carvings on it. The shell carving is estimated to be 500,000 years old. It is said when an archaeologist first saw this he almost fell out of his chair. Scientists believe the carving must have been made by Homo erectus, a race which preceded modern humans. The strange fact is the shell had been discovered more than 100 years ago and sent to a museum. You would have thought someone would have noticed the carving on the shell, but it doesn’t look like anyone thought it was important. The carving is a series of hills and valleys. It resembles this, “VVVVV”. Shells from the same period were also found which had been turned into tools. The carving is the earliest known decoration in the world.

Sometimes the most unexpected things are found when digging. The recent find in Iran is no exception. Digging was going on for a second year at the Farash ancient historical site near the Seimareh Dam reservoir in western Iran. The area is due to be submerged by the dam so archaeologists are trying to rescue all the artifacts they can find. They never expected to find what they did however. They found a system of pipes which are over 5,000 years old. It seems there had been a water system there before. This find is reminiscent of the find in China. The Chinese pipes are made of cast iron and located in Baigong. Advanced drilling techniques would have been required to have set up the pipes the way ancients did. There are those who think the Baigong pipes might be a natural feature, but this certainly seem unlikely.

When we talk about North America’s past we have been learning human life came here far longer ago than we first thought and may have first come from an area in France. This certainly was not the case in the recent Alaskan find. Archeologists discovered the remains of a 3 year old child near the Upward Sun River. The child had been cremated and buried in a cooking pit over 11,500 years ago. The grave was near a hole for a tent pole and it is believed that is where a tent pole house had been located. A fetus was also buried in the same pit. Because of the way the burials took place it was obvious they were loved. Grave goods were placed with them and they were both wrapped in shrouds. The grave goods consisted of a knife, two dart tips and four antler rods. A salmon bone was also found.

Scientists say they are now sure ancient humans bred with a completely unknown species. When examining the DNA of ancient humans, the genome of an ancient ancestor the Denisovans, it was discovered there was an unknown species we bred with. Since Denisovans are practically unknown themselves not leaving much evidence of their existence except for two teeth and a finger bone, there is not much to go by. It is amazing how scientists were able to even find there was another species we interacted with just by examining these meager fossils.

We all know archaeological evidence has been suppressed if it didn’t fit into the parameters of what scientists believe is our history. Now there is something being claimed which has been found in ancient tombs and temples that we never knew about and it is a strange lamp with unknown liquid in it which is said to burn forever or for at least thousands of years. There have been rumors about these lamps being discovered many different times. One was said to have been found in a tomb which was 1,500 years old and it was burning when found. There is another story about a 500 year old tomb which also had a lamp still burning and these are not the only stories. There is more to the story however and that is people who found them thought they were the devil’s work and destroyed them. I have also heard of one case where one was found still burning, but decomposed when lifted up. They were said to have been found across ancient cultures.

We in America know we are a relatively new country and nothing hammers this home more than the fact the oldest house in Britain is 11,500 years old. The home is so old it was built when Britain was still connected to Europe and not an island at that time. The circular structure is near Scarborough, North Yorkshire and dates back to 9,500 B.C. A wooden platform of hewn timbers is being excavated. It is said the site was inhabited by hunter gatherers right after the last Ice Age. The inhabitants did not cultivate the land and hunted deer, wild boar, elk and aurochs (a type of large cattle). One archaeologist said, “This changes our ideas of the lives of the first settlers to move back into Britain after the end of the last Ice Age. We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence. Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape."