It’s a sombre tale; one of death, disease and live burial. But the body of a man found in Rajasthan, India reveals much more than an ancient horror story. The disovery in the town of Balathal, 40km north-east of Udaipur, is tying together some of the mysteries surrounding the tribes of the Indus Valley, who lived in the shadows of the mighty Harappans. The unfortunate man is thought to have been aged between 25 and 45, and predates the earliest-known human leprosy case by around 2,000 years. The previous oldest was an Egyptian dating to 400-250 BC, though the Ebers…
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An exciting new discovery is changing the way archaeologists view ancient Egypt’s first ties with the Levant. A four centimetre-long stone plaque fragment from Tel Bet Yerah features Egyptian symbols, and is believed to date back to around 3,000 BC – or the start of the country’s dynastic era. Rare enough in Egypt, Bet Yerah stands where the Jordan River meets Lake Kinneret (or the Sea of Galilee). And though links between the two areas are already known, this discovery shows ties may have been a lot stronger than previously thought. The find comes as a joint project between Tel…
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Every now and then a news story comes to light about the so-called Celtic mummies of China. The story has been making rounds for most of this century, from scientific conferences to ABCNews. Without detracting from the wonder that is the Cherchen mummies, lets set the record straight concerning the Celticness of these men and women” writes Emma Wohlfart on her blog PastPresenters. What arguments does she offer and err.. were we mistaken too? Emma – who introduces herself as a twenty-something writer with an archaeology degree, a laptop and a maxed out library card – agrees that there were…
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China’s media will be scratching its collective head this week, as a cache of 100 new Terracotta Warriors it claimed to have been unearthed may be ten at best. The embarrassing shortfall comes two months into excavations of ‘pit three’ of the First Qin Emperor‘s Mausoleum in Xi’an. And while officials at the (officially named) Xi’an Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum are keeping tight-lipped about their discoveries, they admit the haul is nowhere near state-controlled Xinhua’s predictions. “It is impossible, the pit is only 200sq m,” says Chao Wei. “If you were here and saw the site you would see…
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The lost Inca civilization of the Andes developed a seven-bit binary code using knotted string called Khipu, a leading American anthropologist argues. If true, the relics would have invented binary language around 500 years before the invention of the computer. The coloured textiles could have provided thousands of language permutations; around the same as the Sumerian cuneiform of 1,500 to 1,000 BC, according to Harvard University professor Gary Urton. The pre-Columbian expert’s findings could shatter the long-held belief that the enigmatic Incas, who were destroyed when the Spanish conquistadors garrotted last ruler Atahualpa in 1533, are the only Bronze Age…
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An excavation of one of the thousands of roundhouses dotted across the landscape of Dartmoor has offered a these-days-rare new insight into prehistoric life on the windswept, rainy plain in the southwest of England. Today its an inhospitable, if undoubtedly striking place. But back in the Bronze Age, when the climate was much milder, it was a hive of activity, cleared by fire of forestry and turned into pasture and farm lands. Its inhabitants left behind the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains found anywhere in Britain. As many as 5,000 stone houses, and many more wooden examples which have…
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Mad Honey, more scientifically known as grayanotoxin, is a toxic substance humans have been dealing with for thousands of years. The way how it is created is quite simple. A bee takes nectar from a toxic rhododendron plant (available in Turkey, the United States, British Columbia and the UK). The toxic substance is then deposited at a beehive. The odds of getting any ill-effects from this substance, from the honey at your local grocery store, are pretty much nill. By the time commercial honey is diluted the amount of material from a rhododendron is extremely low or non-existent. However, if…
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Travel writer and photographer Ethel Davies knows the Roman coast of North Africa better than most (see her top 10 sites here). We asked her to give us an insight into how her favourite image came about. “As a professional travel photographer, I accrued a great number of images over the course of the two years of intensive work and study for North Africa: The Roman Coast (not to mention the various trips I took before my research began),” says Ethel. “Its virtually impossible to choose a favourite, as each image represents a place, an experience and even a feeling.…
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Lost for moves? Tired of busting out the same old body popping/moonwalk/drunk-uncle-at-a-wedding? You could take your dancing lines from Jacko, Wade Robson or even Michael Flatley (if you don’t mind being alone for the rest of your life). But how about Tutankhamun? The boy-king may be making waves in stateside museums right now, but he’s been influencing the best underground dancers on both sides of the Atlantic for over twenty years with the ‘Tut’ – and I don’t mean Steve Martin’s Saturday Night Live performance. Amateurs be warned: it may take a bit more practice than karaoke night down the…
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From the shimmering death mask of King Tut to the swinging penile replacements of 50 Cent, Gold and silver have been as staple pursuits of humanity as food, drugs and celebrity gossip. But while the dripping opulence of the ancient world may not seem a million miles away from the crass overindulgence of our own ‘enlightened’ age, you might be surprised to find that the two metals have almost exactly the same value now as they did then. According to economist Jeff Clark, that is. When faced with the notion gold was a dead investment, Clark looked at historical valuations…