BERLIN — It is only a breathless Hollywood script: treasure-hunter Indiana Jones races with German archaeologists to track down the fabled Ark of the Covenant the chest that held the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were etched. Now German researchers claim to have found the remains of the palace of the Queen of Sheba — and an altar that may have held the Ark. The discovery, announced by the University of Hamburg last week, has stirred skeptical rumblings from the archaeological community. The location of the Ark, indeed its existence, has been a source of controversy for centuries.Regarded as the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, it is at the heart of a debate about whether archaeology should chronicle the rise and fall of civilizations or explore the boundaries between myth and ancient history. Professor Helmut Ziegert, of the archaeological institute at the University of Hamburg, has been supervising a dig in Aksum, northern Ethiopia, since 1999. "From the dating, its position and the details that we have found, I am sure that this is the palace," he said. The palace, that is, of the Queen of Sheba, who is believed to have livedin the 10th century B.C.
. After she died, her son and successor, Menelek, replaced the palace with a temple dedicated to Sirius. The German researchers believe that the Ark was taken from Jerusalem by the queen — who had a liaison with King Solomon — and built into the altar to Sirius. "The results we have suggest that a Cult of Sothis developed in Ethiopia with the arrival of Judaism and the Ark of the Covenant, and continued until 600 A.D.," an announcement by the University of Hamburg on behalf of the research team said.Sothis is the ancient Greek name for the star Sirius. The Ark was made, according to the Bible, of gold-plated acacia wood and topped with two golden angels. It is said to be a source of great power. In about 586 B.C., when the Babylonians conquered the Israelites, the Ark vanished. For many centuries finding it has been one of the great quests — inspiration not only for the 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but also for countries seeking to.
position themselves in the mainstream of ancient civilization.
To view the rest of this article, please visit the source
A major archaeological investigation is getting under way at one of Western Europe"s most impressive prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney is the third largest stone circle in the British Isles, but little is known about it. A month-long programme of investigations will be undertaken by a 15-strong team. The last important archaeological studies took place there in the 1970s. Significant developments have taken place since then in analytical techniques including dating. Historic Scotl...
Archaeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilisation"s largest cities. The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico. But little is known about the civilisation that built the immense city, with its ceremonial ar...
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient tomb in northern Peru that could throw light on the pre-Columbian Moche Indian culture. The tomb in Ucupe, 670km (416 miles) from the capital Lima, contained well-preserved human remains along with jewellery and ceramics. The finds suggested the tomb related to nobility, experts said. The Moche Indians thrived from 100-800 AD and were famed for their ceramics, architecture and irrigation. The northern coast has been a treasure t...
Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand. But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle. If death had a sound, this was it. Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods. The 66-year-old mechanical engineer h...
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Julius caesar's invasion of Britain in 55BC could not have occurred on the dates stated in most history books, a team of astronomers have claimed. The traditional view is that Caesar landed in Britain on 26-27 August, but researchers from Texas State University say this cannot be right. Dr Donald Olson, an expert on tides, says that the English Channel was flowing the wrong way on this date. They instead favour an invasion of the south coast at Deal on August 22-23...
Don't tell Indiana Jones, but most archaeologists pack spades, not bullwhips, and big discoveries usually come after lots of digging, not looting. Maya discoveries in Mexico that are rewriting the history of this classic civilization, for example, are coming from years of careful digging, not looted idols.The classic Maya were part of a Central American civilization best known for stepped pyramids, beautiful carvings and murals and the widespread abandonment of cities around 900 A.D. i...
"The Lost Pyramid" is one of those rare documentaries with a revelation so stunning, it"s made headlines before anyone has seen it. The film, debuting next week on the History Channel, follows a team of archeologists as they unearth Egypt"s fourth Great Pyramid at Giza, which, as the title says, has been lost for years to the desert sands. Even more amazing, this new pyramid (built by the Fourth-dynasty Pharaoh Djedefre) is actually the highest one of all—27 feet higher than the Great Pyramid of...
Anthony North: They gather by the hundreds to see the Summer Solstice dawn at Stonehenge. Yet, some researchers feel they shouldn"t. They should actually be waiting for the Winter Solstice moon. That is what is important. Or is it purely an observatory? No, it"s about ancestor worship. No, it"s a calendar. No, it"s all about healing. No, it purely for burial. No, it"s purely about trade. No, it"s a UFO beacon. No, it"s a transmitter to the stars …. Will you all please shut up!: Thank you. That...
She suckled rome"s legendary twin founders and fed Benito Mussolini"s ambitious dreams of renewed imperial glories. For centuries, the she-wolf has been one of Rome"s most powerful symbols. But now some experts are contending that the bronze statue in a city museum atop Capitoline Hill might not be so old after all. New theories suggest that the statue dates from the Middle Ages, and not from Etruscan times, as has long been held. "It"s decisively medieval," said Anna Maria Carruba, a researcher...
About this for the next instalment of the Indy franchise: "Indiana Jones and the Dodgy Antiques Dealer"? Less than three months after the Quai Branly Museum in Paris discovered that a crystal skull once proclaimed as a mystical Aztec masterpiece was a fake, it is now the turn of the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution to find they were victims of skull-duggery. Scientists from those two prestigious institutions on Wednesday said their crystal skulls were cut, honed and polished by too...
Around 2300 B.C., an acrobat was killed during a bizarre sacrificial ceremony in what is now northeastern Syria, according to a new study published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. Gory evidence of the entertainer's death -- along with the remains of several rare horse-like animals which appear to have been sacrificed as well -- was found in the remains of a building at a site called Tell Brak, which was once the ancient city of Nagar. The findings suggest some ancient ...
An ancient Dane with Arabian genes is part of a DNA study that suggests Scandinavians of 2,000 years ago were more genetically diverse than today. Researchers say the Iron Age man may have been a soldier serving on the Roman Empire's northern frontier or a descendant of female slaves transported from the Middle East. The Roman Empire at the time stretched as far as the Middle East, while Roman legions were based as far north as the River Elbe in northern Germany. The study analyzed 1...
Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury, which was used to formulate just one of their ink colors: red. The study, which will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also describes a previously undocumented disease, called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions. Additionally, the researchers found that mercury-containing medi...
University of queensland research is uncovering the truth behind the largest marsupial ever to walk the earth - the 2.5 tonne wombat-like Diprotodon. Standing 1.8 metres tall and reaching up to 3.5 metres in length, this huge beast lived more than 100,000 years ago, and despite being one of the most celebrated examples of Australia"s Pleistocene "megafauna", there is very little known about them. That is about to change thanks to work by Dr Gilbert Price, from UQ"s Centre for Microscopy & Microa...
Submitted by Da Verminator: Scottish, English and British monarchs have been crowned on the ancient coronation stone since the ninth century.It spent 700 years under the chair in Westminster Abbey after it was seized in 1296 by King Edward I, and was finally returned to Scotland 12 years ago.It has since been viewed at Edinburgh Castle by tens of thousands of people, and is regarded as a symbol of Scottish independence. According to legend, Jacob used the ancient stone as a pillow when he dreamt...
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Egyptian archaeologists unveiled on Thursday a 4,000-year-old "missing pyramid" that is believed to have been discovered by an archaeologist almost 200 years ago and never seen again. Zahi Hawass, Egypt"s antiquities chief, said the pyramid appears to have been built by King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned it among his finds at Saqqara, referring to it as number 29 and calling it...
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which
has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This website
distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.
Reference
Paranormal News
Quick Encyclopedias
Discussions
Site Infos
BERLIN — It is only a breathless Hollywood script: treasure-hunter Indiana Jones races with German archaeologists to track down the fabled Ark of the Covenant the chest that held the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were etched. Now German researchers claim to have found the remains of the palace of the Queen of Sheba — and an altar that may have held the Ark. The discovery, announced by the University of Hamburg last week, has stirred skeptical rumblings from the archaeological community. The location of the Ark, indeed its existence, has been a source of controversy for centuries.Regarded as the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, it is at the heart of a debate about whether archaeology should chronicle the rise and fall of civilizations or explore the boundaries between myth and ancient history. Professor Helmut Ziegert, of the archaeological institute at the University of Hamburg, has been supervising a dig in Aksum, northern Ethiopia, since 1999. "From the dating, its position and the details that we have found, I am sure that this is the palace," he said. The palace, that is, of the Queen of Sheba, who is believed to have livedin the 10th century B.C. 
