Ancient Times It is hard to believe the ancients could be so capable, but they were found to have built earthquake resistant buildings in the ancient city of Hierapolis. We are talking about people who lived 22 centuries ago. A fountain was created which was supposedly earthquake proof. It was built during the Roman Empire and erected in the city center and was three stories high. I was always amazed about how fountains which were constructed to be very high were sending water out the fountain without pumps. Buildings just keep getting found in Egypt and the latest find was a 2,200 year old temple from Pharaoh Ptolemy IV. This was from the Greek period in Egypt. The Egyptians were putting in a sewer and low and behold they found the temple. It must be very hard to dig in Egypt without falling over some ancient structure. The temple had pictures of animals adorning the walls and a plaque stating the name of the pharaoh. He ruled between 222 B.C. and 205 B.C. Along with this more facts are being found out about an ancient fortress which was built by Pharaoh Ramses II. Not all discoveries are buildings, recently a cemetery was found near the Giza pyramids. A new method for reading scrolls which couldn’t be read before because they couldn’t be unrolled without destroying them. A synchrotron in Oxfordshire was used to read a rolled up scroll from Herculaneum which was owned by the French. The scrolls had been affected by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which charred them. It is said they are so fragile there is no way to unfurl them. The process can even read ink which has almost disappeared and would not be readable otherwise. I have to wonder what other uses this system might have? Perhaps it will allow us to find inscriptions under stone or make it easier to read through layers of paint. There was a mysterious kingdom which was named Edom but which was never discovered, until recently. Archaeologists have been trying to find it and a team from the University of California joined with the Central Timna Valley Project at Tel Aviv University. It was found there was a technological leap in how copper was produced in the Arava Valley in southern Israel so this is where the scientists looked and they were rewarded for this insight. They found a site known as Slaves Hill which began the Edomite Kingdom. The kingdom was formed by a tribal confederation. The kingdom was a pre 10th century B.C. kingdom. It is always exciting when a mythical civilization is found to be a real one. The Romans had some huge markets, so huge they were comparable to a supermarket today, of course they didn’t have some of the foods available we have today. There was no frozen food or chilled dairy, but there was produce from all around the area. The Romans had drained a swamp and built a paved street and the area became a large market in the Roman Forum. The market lasted there for quite a time until the Republic ended and it was moved to provide an area for government buildings, monuments and temples. Other markets also existed in Rome and there was even one for the poorer Romans in the Subura quarter. The Subura sold mostly vegetables and chicken. This was a place which was frequented by many slaves. There were a lot of shops in certain areas. There were even luxury shops. Ancient structures have been found in Russia which were built with stones weighing more than 16000 tons and have been built into walls. This just increases our curiosity of how anyone could have moved these stones. If you ask a scientist, they will tell you these are natural formations, but they certainly don’t look that way since they contain rectangular stones stacked like bricks only far bigger. These stones were used to build an underground city. We have to realize science has no explanation so it is easier just to say they are natural. This doesn’t explain how there is an entrance which has smooth walls and built with stones over 50 feet high. These mysteries persist, as we find more ancient structures, we are finding some very ancient ones. It was suggested the underground city in Russia could be millions of years old. How could anyone have built something like this when we couldn’t do it today? When I look at these ancient structures it seems to me the further back we go in time the heavier the stones which were used, at least that is the way it seems to me. Evidence has been found which shows ancient Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians. Researchers were digging in an excavation on Mount Zion in Jerusalem when they announced they had made a significant discovery in 2019. They found evidence Jerusalem was conquered by Babylon between 587 to 586 B.C. They found arrowheads in a layer of ash from that period. They also found potsherds, lamps and period jewelry and found there was a structure there but as of yet have not dug it out. The arrowheads are typical of the period of the conquest. Scientists have found a new species of dinosaur. When most of us hear the name dinosaur we think of a monster lizard, but that is not always the case. This time what they found was a herbivore. That is a dinosaur that ate plants. It was also said it was small and if we saw it, we might think it was adorable. It was named Galleonosaurus dorisae and lived in Australia about 125 million years ago. Scientists compared its size to that of a wallaby. Archaeologists state they found tablets from Egypt which date back 3,300 years and carry a theme we didn’t suspect and that was Egypt in that time period was weaker than thought. The tablets were found in the remains of a city built by pharaoh Akhenaten. The city was known as Amana. Well it has happened again. I am talking about someone claiming they have found Atlantis. The so called expert on the subject of the city which was never proven to exist states Malta was the location of Atlantis. He believes earthquakes broke up Malta thousands of years ago that is why it is hard to match the description. Just a few days before another explorer stated he found Atlantis and it was on the British coast. He said it was Doggerland which was said to be at one time a large stretch of land which extended from Scotland to Denmark, but got submerged somewhere between 18,000 B.C. to 5,500 B.C.
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