Ancient discoveries Sometimes ancient people were not so different from us. We advertise by sometimes putting up billboards and guess what, an ancient billboard composed of four signs has been found. It seems the Egyptians also used billboards. The letters on the ancient billboard in the Egyptian city of Elkab were over 27 inches in height. The sign is believed to date back to 3250 B.C.E. The archaeologists also found rock art which was about 5500 years old and depicted a herd of elephants with a little elephant inside a bigger one. A huge gate was found by archaeologists and was said to be the entrance to a 9th century B.C. city run by the Philistines. The city was one of the biggest in the region and named Gath. The walls which were being uncovered surprised the diggers because they were so huge and because of this it is estimated it will take several years to uncover them. One archaeologist surmised the city was so powerfully fortified it prevented the Kingdom of Judah from expanding westward. By the way scientists have recently discovered the Philistines were originally a sailing people from Europe. Paper was a very valuable commodity in ancient times and was often reused. Scientists using X-Rays found an ancient text known as the Galen Palimpsest which had been written over older text. What was under the text was a 6th century medical text. The text above it had been written in the 11th century after scraping off the original text which only an X-Ray could detect. Twelve years ago, this X-Ray procedure had been perfected and this leads us to wonder if all hand written ancient books and documents should be X-Rayed. There could be incredible knowledge hidden from us. Speaking about ancient documents artificial intelligence is being used to uncover billions of ancient Japanese texts. These texts were written in an obsolete script which no one could decipher. The texts are called Kuzushiji texts. An artificial intelligence is being developed which will be able to translate the ancient Kuzushiji text into Kanji characters. Sometimes an incredible find is made and archaeologists think they have done that now. There is a tiny island which is shaped like a pyramid which is only 150 meters in length. This is about 90 feet long. It is thought this tiny island could have been the start of ancient Greek religion and culture. The island is being researched by the Greek government and others and it is thought it could change the understanding about ancient Greek culture. Scientists think the inhabitants of the island made it into a pyramid shape. Then by transporting 7,000 to 10,000 tons of marble there and by making about 3500 sea voyages, they got the material for the incredible buildings there, which mostly have disappeared. A 5000 year old city in China is now ready for tourism. Liangzhu in Hangzhou East China in Zhejiang Province will be opened to the public. Many relics were found. The ruins are large and cover 3.66 square miles and it is required to buy a ticket to get in. Tickets will be almost $12.00 U.S. which is 80 yuan. This site is now listed as a World Heritage site. If you are thinking of going there, tickets are limited to 3000 per day so get your tickets early. China has 55 World Heritage sites. England may not be as old as China, but it has its ancient fascinations. Take the city of Nottingham for example. In pre-Roman times Nottingham was known as Tigguo Cobaue. Translated this meant place of caves. There are more caves under this city than anywhere else in Britain. The reason for this is the rock is very soft sandstone and easy to cut into. Many ancient people carved out places for themselves in the sandstone such as work areas, storerooms and even public houses. Many homeowners have come forward saying they found cave entrances under their homes. The best known cave system is Broadmarsh Caves. It can be entered by going under a shopping mall known as the Broadmarsh Centre. If it ever turns out Robin Hood was real, then you have to wonder if he used these caves to hide from the sheriff or for getting in and out of Nottingham secretly. An extremely ancient city which is said to be over 9000 years old and located in Turkey shows us what happens when people are located too close together. The ruins seem to indicate living quarters were surrounded by other ones and they all touched each other. The city is Çatalhöyük. To get in and out of your home you had to climb out using a ladder or rope and walk across rooftops. This led to many people killing each other. It turned out this stressed the residents and created urban violence. Many skeletons were found that had died from head trauma. The Washington Post ran a story about some strange humanoid bones which were found on Luzon in the Philippines. The bones were said to be of an upright ape and are said to be from a new species. The bones are said to represent a type of human being called Homo luzonensis. It seems there could be a lot more undiscovered species of humans we don’t know about yet. When archaeologists dug up the Terracotta Army from China, they were baffled for many reasons. I would like to tell you about one. It seems the metal part of the weapons being stored there had never rusted. It turned out a lacquer which covered the metal parts had a considerable amount of chromium in it. The metal was bronze and some say it looked the same as when it was put into the ground. It is believed the army had sat in the pit since at least 210 B.C. It is always exciting for archaeologists when they find a lost city and maybe even more so when they find it below a more modern one. Such was the case when one was found under Kurdistan. The ancient city was at least 4000 years old. Tablets which were found showed the trade which was going on. Trade items from far away areas proved the city had a thriving trade. The name of the city is still unknown and it had some powerful neighbors near it such as Mesopotamia. There are a lot more ancient discoveries just waiting for us to find them. Archaeologists have estimated we have only discovered about 10 percent of all the structures to be found in Egypt and the rest wait for us under the sand.
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