Archeology

An unknown tribe has left valuable clues in the form of "body jars" found around the Cardamom Mountains.Little is known about this mysterious Cambodian tribe apart from the fact that part of their burial rituals involved placing the bodies or bones of the deceased in to jars or other containers. These sites have been found in various parts of the mountains including 160ft up a cliff presumably to preventpoachers from disturbing the remains.Radiocarbon-dating has placed the "bone jars" to between 1395 and 1650 AD during the decline of the Khmer Empire.

The search goes on for more clues that could help reveal who these mysterious tribesmen were and what was behind their unusual burial practices. Perched in some cases on precarious cliff ledges, centuries-old log coffins—such as this one, pictured alongside researcher Nancy Beavan—and "body jars" are theonly known traces of an unknown Cambodian tribe.  

View: Full article |  Source: National Geographic  

Names inscribed on an ancient tablet in cuneiform characters appear to be from an unknown language.Dating back to 700 BC, the tablet was retrieved from the site of the Ziyaret Tepe palace in the ancient Assyrian city of Tušhan. Examinations of the tablet revealed that several of the names inscribed are written in a language that has never been seen before. "One or two areactually Assyrian and a few more may belong to other known languages of the period, such as Luwian or Hurrian," said John MacGinnis, "but the great majority belong to a previously unidentified language." Your homeland has been taken over by a foreign power.

You are forced to move to a frontier town far from your home and work in the palace of the governor. Your name, perhaps the only link to your mother tongue, isrecorded in the household accounts in the local script.  

View: Full article |  Source: New Scientist  

An ancient gold Mesopotamian beer drinking vessel is to go on show at Melbourne Museum.The 4,500-year-old artefact provides a glimpse of the ancient beer drinking practices of the Mesopotamians who would have sipped the beverage from the cup using a straw-like spout to filter out the particles. It was recovered from a "death pit" in the ancient city ofUr in what is now Iraq by an expedition in the 1920s and 1930s.

Several human sacrifices thought to be royal attendants were also found there. The exhibition, which is due to open next week, will showcase more than 170 artefacts on loan from the British Museum, charting the history of one of the world"s oldest civilisations, dating back as far as 2600 BC.  

View:Full article |  Source: The Australian  

Experts have been forced to rebury archaeological finds due to the financial crisis in Greece.Without the funds to properly analyse and house the discoveries, archaeologists have been left with little choice but to simply put them back in the ground. "Mother Earth is the best protector of our antiquities," said professor Michalis Tiverios. "Let usleave our antiquities in the soil, to be found by archaeologists in 10,000 AD, when Greeks and their politicians will perhaps show more respect to their history." Lack of funding in crisis-hit Greece has stymied archaeological research and leads experts to rebury valuable discoveries to better protect them, a Greek daily reported on Friday.

 

View: Full article |  Source: Vancouver Sun