Archaeological Update April 7, 2015

It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but it isn’t. The tomb of the Vulture Lord has been discovered. People have been wondering where this tomb was for over 2,500 years. Some probably wondered if it really existed. The Vulture Lord was Maya royalty. The tomb was discovered in southern Guatemala. It was said not to look like much when it was first opened but as the discoverers descended they found a hole which they spend the next two years digging out. The first thing they found were hundreds of green and blue jade beads. Next they found six female figurines. They were unusual in that they had a young face on one side and an old wrinkled one on the other. One was tattooed. Ceramic bowls were found, but the most telling artifact was a pendant with a vulture’s head. This was an early Maya status symbol. The body which was found would have been wearing it, but the bones had rotted away. There were also clusters of precious stones, two bracelets, and two anklets along with a jade encrusted loincloth. The archaeologists who opened the tomb said the artifacts prove it was a royal tomb.

We are finding out there are pyramids all over the world, but some of them are being kept secret. One has to wonder about the reasons for this. Take for example the great pyramid in China. Most Chinese don’t even know about its existence. It is located about 40 miles southwest of Xian and is one of 16 pyramids in the area. The area is known as Shensi and is a forbidden zone. Shensi is officially known as a “no-go area.” Some Chinese archaeologists believe the pyramid was built somewhere around 2205 to 1768 B.C. They are probably basing this age on the Great Pyramid of Egypt but other pyramids have been found all over the world which are actually much older. Records found in an ancient Chinese monastery refer to the pyramid as being 1,000 feet high. This means it is more than twice the height of the Egyptian Great Pyramid. Here is the kicker, some of the other pyramids near this one are almost as high. People who have seen this pyramid claim it had been painted with four different colors a different one on each side. So why are the pyramids being kept more or less secret? Some say they contain advanced technology which is yet to be figured out, while others say the bodies of some of the original Chinese are inside and they are Caucasians.

Sometimes you never know what to expect when you renovate your home. A man living in Turkey decided after many years it was time to do just that. He had a wall torn down and to his amazement there was a short tunnel and a room behind the wall. He decided to do a little exploring and found another tunnel behind the hidden room. It turned out there were many rooms and many tunnels and not only that there were 18 stories of underground rooms and tunnels. That is eighteen stories down not up. He had discovered a complete underground city capable of holding over 30,000 people and their livestock. There were areas where fresh water was available and ventilation. No one knows who built this incredible underground city or why although there are some guesses. The city is Derinkuyu and people do not understand how an ancient race could have had the technology to construct this city, so some say it must have been extraterrestrials. There we go again, instead of admitting the ancients were more advanced than we thought we use the extraterrestrial excuse for something we don’t understand.

A new pyramid has been found in Bolivia at the Tiahuanaco site. After the discovery the government announced it will begin excavations at the site. It does make one wonder what else will be found. Some of these ancient South American sites are barely uncovered with as much as 95% still waiting to be exposed. Ground penetrating radar has been used at the site and a number of underground anomalies have been found. It is believed these may be monoliths, but the experts cannot be sure yet. Tiahuanaco is a very important site since it was the capital of a pre-Columbian empire known as Tiwanaku. They are the ones who built the Gate of the Sun and many sculptures of their prominent figures. It is believed Tiahuanaco first became a village in 1580 B.C. and then an imperial state by 724 A.D. By the 12th Century it was in decline. It had become very large and covered 231,000 square miles at its peak.

We know that over millions of years some really strange life has evolved on this planet, but probably none stranger than a new discovery which was made. Scientists are saying they found a complete remains of an animal from over 520 million years ago and it was an animal which operated like a balloon. A doctoral student said, "We usually only get the broken-up remains of ancient animal skeletons." "With this specimen we can see how all the different parts of the skeleton stuck together." It is said that the animal was probably a chancellonid. This is important since there are no known ancestors to this animal living today. The fossils of these animals are usually crushed when they are found making them look like a fossilized bird’s nest, but this one somehow escaped that fate. Could this animal inflate itself, perhaps for protection by making itself look bigger than it was? It seems it could but the reasons for it are lost in time.

One thing you don’t hear much about it the quality of work in ancient Egypt slipping. We know of the wonderful work which was done in Egypt in ancient times and this included woodworking and such. But in the period from about 525 B.C. the work had become amateurish in many places and this was precisely when the Persians were in charge of the area. Ancient coffins reflect this and some contained amateurish decorations and the quality of workmanship was severely lacking. It was at this time that Persia began to deport artists and it is believed the best artists were taken out of Egypt. Texts have been found depicting the deportation of Egyptian artists to Persia. Persian texts contain paragraphs where King Darius brags about the Egyptian artists he acquired.