To say that archaeologist Sarah Milledge Nelson has had a productive career would be a gross understatement. The University of Denver archaeologist has held the John Evans professorship. A position that every faculty member, at her university, competes for, but only one person gets each year. She wrote the book on Korean archaeology – literally – and has written or co-written somewhere in the neighbourhood of a dozen books, as well as numerous articles. She’s done fieldwork throughout Korea and extensive work at Niuheliang, a Neolithic site in China. She even pens works of historical fiction. Right now she’s working on…
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Archaeology is one of the world’s favourite past-times. Cavalier aristocrats, hard-nosed scientific geniuses – and no small amount of controversy, deceit and downright quackery. Here are a few fascinating facts to get your archaeological expertise under way. 1. One of the most famous archaeologists of all time is the 18th-19th century Venetian explorer Giovanni Batista Belzoni. By discovering the incredible ‘Young Memnon’ statue of Ramesses the Great and opening Seti I’s magnificent tomb, Batista has nailed down his place as one of Egyptology‘s biggest pioneers. Yet Belzoni spent his early years parading round circuses as a strongman. At 6ft 7in…
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Virtual Qumran designer Dr. Robert Cargill is at the forefront of a rapidly evolving discipline. He uses virtual reality as a tool to conduct archaeological research on Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves. An archaeologist by training, Cargill has taken it upon himself to learn how to create a virtual reality model of a site, a skill most archaeologists haven’t picked up – yet. He generously took some time off from his busy schedule to talk to me about Virtual Qumran and how virtual reality is changing archaeology. Model Behaviour Archaeologists, Dr. Cargill points out, have…
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Attribution: Ras Marley Baghdad Iraq Key Dates Neo-Assyrian period, circa 8th century BC. A female head in ivory, dubbed the ‘Mona Lisa’ of Nimrud, one of many important ivory pieces discovered during excavations of the ancient city. The flat back indicates that it was once attached to another surface. The Nimrud Ivories were found in the private houses of high officials, in the royal palaces and in the arsenal at Fort Shalmaneser; a testament to their special importance to the ancient Assyrians. The excavations at Calah (the ancient Biblical name for Nimrud) revealed several iconic pieces of ancient ivory that…
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It’s a tantalizing story that’s been taught as fact for nearly 50 years. It goes like this: Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves, was a monastic settlement, dating from the end of the 2nd century BC to the time of the revolt against the Romans (68 AD). The area was inhabited by a group called the Essenes. They were male, celebate, and lived their lives according to a strict interpretation of Jewish law and religion. They wrote most, if not all, of the Dead Sea Scrolls and carefully stored them away in caves for…
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This Saturday throngs of visitors from across North America will head to the Royal Ontario Museum, the crown jewel of Canada’s cultural scene, to see one of the most important, and mysterious, texts in antiquity, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World features fragments from Genesis, Daniel, The Book of War, Psalms, Daniel and the Messianic Apocalypse. It also features artefacts from the site they were found (Qumran), as well as Jewish artefacts from Jerusalem and Sepphoris. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a group of Bedouins, said to be searching for a…
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Charging In In the 1830’s British colonel Howard Vyse explored the Pyramids of Khufu and Menkaure using a rather destructive method – dynamite. The colonel, along with John Perring, an engineer, blasted his way into four stress-relieving chambers in Khufu’s pyramids. As the name suggests the chambers were built for engineering reasons and the colonel didn’t find any objects. He did, however, find some ancient graffiti saying, according to John Romer’s book, The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited, “Khufu is pure! Khufu is bright!” And “May the White Crown of Khufu strengthen the sailing!” They had more luck in Menkaure’s…
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Iraq has had – shall we say – a colourful recent history. Wars with Iran, Kuwait, the US and the US again; insurrections, intifadas, genocide and rebellion have left a land which, while rich in natural resources, is one of the most shattered civilizations on the planet. Most would blame Saddam Hussein and his egotistical bigotry for Iraq’s current plight; others point the finger at the remnants of the Cold War, which left Iraq fighting an impossible proxy conflict with their Iranian neighbours – arming Saddam’s bloodthirsty Ba’athists in the process. Yet whatever your stance on the country’s twisted fate…
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Where and when? The term Neolithic refers to the period in ancient European history when characteristic Neolithic technology became prevalent – certain types of farming implements, tools, pottery and weapons. Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Neolithic period as a whole as the “final stage of technological development or cultural evolution among prehistoric humans.” The Neolithic era originated in South East Asian villages such as the famous Banpo in China, circa 9000 BC, artefacts from which are displayed in Xi’an‘s Banpo Museum. It then gradually spread west. It lasted from approximately 7000 BC (around the time of the first farming societies in…
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Maya writing at a glance has a lot in common with Egyptian hieroglyphics. It’s a similarly baffling system of detailed glyphs, often found carved on stone stelae, altars, wooden lintels and roof beams, painted on ceramic vessels or written in a type of book made of bark paper called a codex. Early European explorers of Maya lands in the 18th and 19th centuries agreed, and often referred to Maya writing as “hieroglyphics” or “hieroglyphs”, despite the fact that it has no relation at all to its Egyptian equivalent. In reality, Maya writing is a complex and highly individual mix between…