Tag Archives | Archaeology

Is Yonaguni Monument The Japanese Atlantis?

By on June 9, 2013 in News 0

yonaguni monumentIs the breathtaking stone structure the work of a 10,000-year-old civilization, or is it somehow an illusion? Atlas Obscura explains:

The Yonaguni-jima Kaitei Chikei, literally translated as “Yonaguni Island Submarine Topography,” is an underwater mystery off the coast of the Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The massive underwater rock formation is speculated to have existed for more than 10,000 years, but whether the formation is completely man-made, entirely natural, or merely altered by human hands is still debated.

The monument was first discovered in 1986 by a diver. Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyu, explored the monument for nearly two decades. Kimura remains convinced that the site was carved thousands of years ago, when the land mass was above water.

According to Kimura, the Yonaguni’s right angles, strategically placed holes and aesthetic triangles are signs of human alteration. He also claims that carvings exists on the monuments, resembling Kaida script.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Shamanic Weather Control Tower Discovered In South Africa

By on June 1, 2013 in News 0

Weather Control Tower

A portal between the heavens and Earth. Live Science reports:

A towering “rain control” site, where shamans would have asked the gods to open up the skies centuries ago, has been discovered in South Africa.

Located in a semiarid area near Botswana, the site of Ratho Kroonkop (RKK) sits atop a 1,000-foot-tall hill and contains two naturally formed “rock tanks.” When the scientists excavated one of them, they found over 30,000 animal specimens, including the remains of rhinoceros, zebra and giraffe.

“What makes RKK special is that every piece of faunal material found at RKK can in some way be linked to rain control,” said researcher Simone Brunton at the University of Cape Town.

Shamans would have ascended RKK through natural tunnels in the rock. When they reached the top, they would have lit a fire to burn the animal remains as part of their rainmaking rituals.

The people who conducted these rituals were from the San, an indigenous group in southern Africa.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

2,300-Year-Old Mayan Pyramid In Belize Bulldozed For Roadway Project

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0

mayan pyramidThe Sydney Morning Herald reports that a private company has demolished key Mayan ruins in order to use the debris to fill potholes:

A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project. Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.

“It’s a feeling of incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity…they were using this for road fill,” Mr Awe said. “It’s just so horrendous…To think that today you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroy it.”

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Remains Uncovered Of 14-Year-Old Girl Cannibalized At Jamestown Colony

By on May 5, 2013 in News 0

jamestown cannibalismIs cannibalism the seed from which the United States sprang? Historical accounts have long hinted that the settlers at Jamestown, the first English colony in America, survived the harsh winter by feasting on the dead. Via CNN, researchers now have physical evidence in the form of bodily remains:

The winter of 1609 to 1610 was treacherous for early American settlers. Some 240 of the 300 colonists at Jamestown, in Virginia, died during this period, called the “Starving Time.” Desperate times led to desperate measures. New evidence suggests that includes eating the flesh of fellow colonists.

Archaeologists revealed Wednesday their analysis of 17th century skeletal remains suggesting that settlers practiced cannibalism to survive. Researchers unearthed an incomplete human skull and tibia in 2012 that contain several features suggesting that this particular person had been cannibalized. The remains come from a 14-year-old girl of English origin, whom historians are calling “Jane.”

There are about half a dozen accounts that mention cannibalistic behaviors at that time.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Robot Discovers Unknown Passageways Below The Aztec Temple of Quetzalcoatl

By on April 28, 2013 in News 0

quetzalcoatl

The hidden chambers could contain the corpses of the ancient civilization’s rulers, about whom very little is known. Via the Daily Mail:

A tiny robot has made a momentous archaeological discovery deep under the famous Temple of Quetzalcoatl, it was announced on Monday. The robot has spent months exploring the tunnels under the celebrated temple, which lies about 37 miles north of Mexico City. The temple is best known for the towering Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.

Experts expected to find just one ancient chamber at the end of a stretch of 2,000-year-old unexplored tunnel at the Teotihuacan site. Instead, the remote-controlled vehicle has beamed back images of three mysterious caverns.

The complex of pyramids, plazas, temples and avenues was once the center of a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants and may have been the largest and most influential city in pre-Hispanic North America at the time. But nearly 2,500 years after the city was founded, very little is known about the identity of its rulers.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

60,000-Ton Underwater Pyramid Detected Beneath Sea Of Galilee

By on April 14, 2013 in News 0

galilee

Deep sea diving teams will be dispatched to attempt to decode the meaning of the monolith, Live Science reports:

A giant “monumental” stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built. Rising nearly 32 feet high, the mysterious structure is cone shaped and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

It appears to be a giant cairn, boulders piled on top of each other. Structures like this are known elsewhere in the world and are sometimes used to mark burials.

The structure was first detected in 2003 during a sonar survey of the southwest portion of the sea. Divers have since been down to investigate, they write in the latest issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The researchers say the structure is definitely human-made and probably was built on land, only later to be covered by the Sea of Galilee.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Ancient ‘Gateway To Hell’ Unearthed In Turkey

By on April 1, 2013 in News 0

Ancient oracles approached the ancient portal and received hallucinations and visions from the noxious fumes belching forth, reports Discovery News:

A “gate to hell” has emerged from ruins in southwestern Turkey, Italian archaeologists have announced. Known as Pluto’s Gate — Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin — the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition.

Historic sources located the site in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale, and described the opening as filled with lethal mephitic vapors. “This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death,” the Greek geographer Strabo (born 64/63 BC) wrote.

The site revealed a vast array of broken ruins once it was excavated. The archaeologists found Ionic semi columns and, on top of them, an inscription with a dedication to the deities of the underworld — Pluto and Kore.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

Was Stonehenge A Site Of Ancient Mass-Hedonism Festivals?

By on March 11, 2013 in News 27

Is Stonehenge far less lofty than previously believed? Phys.org reports:

British researchers on Saturday unveiled a new theory saying Stonehenge was originally a graveyard and venue for mass celebrations. The findings would overturn the long-held belief that the ancient stone circle was created as an astronomical calendar or observatory.

A team of archaeologists led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of University College London carried out a decade of research which included excavations, laboratory work and the analysis of 63 sets of ancient human remains. They said the original Stonehenge Appeared to have been a graveyard built around 3000 BC. Analysis of cattle teeth from 80,000 animal bones excavated from the site also suggest that around 2500 BC, Stonehenge was the site of vast communal feasts.

“People came with their animals to feast at Stonehenge from all corners of Britain—as far afield as Scotland,” Parker Pearson said—the “only time in prehistory that the people of Britain were unified.”

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 27

Mythic Viking Navigation Crystal May Have Been Found In Shipwreck

By on March 10, 2013 in News 17

The first ever found remnant of a sunstone, a crystal which legend says was behind the Vikings’ incredible feats of oceanic navigation? Via CBS News:

A rough, whitish block recovered from an Elizabethan shipwreck may be a sunstone, the fabled crystal believed to have helped Vikings and other medieval seafarers navigate the high seas, researchers say.

In a paper published earlier this week, a Franco-British group argued that the Alderney Crystal – a chunk of Icelandic calcite found amid a 16th century wreck at the bottom of the English Channel – worked as a kind of solar compass, allowing sailors to determine the position of the sun even when it was hidden by heavy cloud or fog, or below the horizon.

Icelandic legend appears to refers to such a crystal [but] few other medieval references to sunstones have been found, and no such crystals have ever been recovered from Viking tombs or ships.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 17

Pile Of Hundreds Of Ancient Sacrificed Skulls Discovered In Mexico

By on January 30, 2013 in News 3

Imagine going swimming in the (now drained) lake, not knowing what lay below. Via Live Science:

Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, are “potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America.”

[The site is] in a now drained lake called Lake Xaltocan. To date, more than 150 skulls have been discovered there, as well as a shrine with incense burners, water-deity figurines and pottery suggesting a ritual purpose.

The findings shake up existing notions of the culture of the day, because the site is not associated with Teotihuacan or other regional powers. The shrines and the fact that sacrifice victims were mostly male suggest they were carefully chosen, not simply the result of indiscriminate slaughter of a whole village.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 3