Cemeteries, public baths and archaeological discoveries were discovered in Daraa city (Southern Syria), all of which were documented in order to trace the actual era and the successive civilizations of this area.

Head of Bosra’s Antiquities Department, Wafa al-Audi said that an ancient tomb was unearthed in a house for a citizen in Daraa dating back to Byzantine Era where three copper bracelets, an iron one in addition to some shards.

Other four tombs with basaltic ground and a stone gate were also found at the same site.

Surveys made by a French archaeological mission uncovered the northern part of the Nabataean Cathedral in Bosra while other surveys unearthed some parts of Trajan Palace’s private bath. Read the rest of this entry »

Archaeologists have confirmed fossils of the world’s oldest primate, which roamed the earth about 35 million years ago, have been found in a deserted coal mine in the southern province of Krabi.

The fossils, discovered by Mineral Resources Department archaeologists 14 years ago, were named Siamopithecus eocaenus.

Confirmation of the age of the fossils was published in the scientific journal Anatomical Record in November.

Yaowalak Chaimanee, the department’s senior fossil expert and a member of the archaeological team, said the discovery was the best evidence yet that primates originated in Asia and not Africa.

The oldest primate fossil found in Africa is 32 million years old, she said. Read the rest of this entry »

A rare 15th-century relic — a combination of veeragallu and mastigallu — was discovered at Kalkeri village in Hangal taluk of Haveri district recently. In an official release, deputy director of archaeology and museums, S K Potnis, said that the stone was rare as it was a memorial to a brave soldier and his wife who laid down her life after a `Sati’ (bride burning) ritual. The stone was erected during the reign of king Veera Harihara Rama of the Vijayanagara kingdom.

Labourers digging a pit for cremating a monkey found the stone and informed the ZP officials, who in turn contacted the archeology officials. They studied the stone and deciphered its significance.

The 1.85-metre-long and 55-cm-wide stone has sculptures in four levels. At the lowest level, a soldier is injured in a war. He and his wife, who had committed `Sati’, are carried in a palanquin in the second level. This is the depiction of death, according to experts. At the third level, the couple is seen looking at each intimately, while sitting in the palanquin. This time, the carriers are women guards `approaching the gates of heaven’. At the final level, the brave couple is sitting before a Shiva Linga. They are joined by a priest, Nandi, the Sun and the Moon. This is seen as the depiction of heaven. Read the rest of this entry »

Archaeologists attempting to piece together the history of an Iron Age site on Beccles marshes believe they are moving a step closer to drawing conclusions.

A team of students from University of Birmingham descended on the marshes for three weeks in the summer to try to unravel the mystery surrounding the site.

In 2006, three rows of wooden posts inserted into the ground were unearthed while flood defence work was being carried out.

The posts have been traced for about 500m from the contemporary dryland edge just outside Beccles, north to the edge of the River Waveney. Read the rest of this entry »

A total of 331 broken pieces belonging to 81 ancient bronze mirrors have been unearthed from a stone chamber of the Sakurai Chausuyama burial mound in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, according to an archaeological institute.

The pieces, which belonged to 13 different kinds of mirrors, were the largest number to be excavated as burial items from an ancient tomb in the nation. The tomb dates to between the late third century and early fourth century.

Some of the pieces had been made in the same mold as Sankakubuchi Shinjukyo mirrors, which are engraved with Seishi Gannen (in the Japanese reading), a period name of Wei-dynasty China, meaning the first year of the Seishi era, or 240.

Himiko, a female ruler of the Yamatai-koku kingdom, is said to have received 100 mirrors from the Wei dynasty in that year. Read the rest of this entry »

Human ancestors that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species — perhaps Homo erectus — had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some of the larger islands in between, says archaeologist Thomas Strasser of Providence College in Rhode Island.

Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser reported January 7 at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology. Many of these finds closely resemble hand axes fashioned in Africa about 800,000 years ago by H. erectus, he says. H. erectus had spread from Africa to parts of Asia and Europe by at least that time.

Until now, the oldest known human settlements on Crete dated to around 9,000 years ago. Traditional theories hold that early farming groups in southern Europe and the Middle East first navigated vessels to Crete and other Mediterranean islands at that time. Read the rest of this entry »

No statue of a pharaoh has ever been found further south of Egypt than this one. At the height of his reign, King Taharqa controlled an empire stretching from Sudan to the Levant.

A massive, one ton, statue of Taharqa that was found deep in Sudan. Taharqa was a pharaoh of the 25th dynasty of Egypt and came to power ca. 690 BC, controlling an empire stretching from Sudan to the Levant. The pharaohs of this dynasty were from Nubia – a territory located in modern day Sudan and southern Egypt.

The Nubian pharaohs tried to incorporate Egyptian culture into their own. They built pyramids in Sudan – even though pyramid building in Egypt hadn’t been practised in nearly 800 years. Taharqa’s rule was a high water mark for the 25th dynasty. By the end of his reign a conflict with the Assyrians had forced him to retreat south, back into Nubia – where he died in 664 BC. Egypt became an Assyrian vassal – eventually gaining independence during the 26th dynasty. Taharqa’s successors were never able to retake Egypt. Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh excavations to unearth further secrets of an ancient fort city at Wari Bateswar, one of Bangladesh’s major archaeological sites, were launched on Saturday.

This is the ninth dig over the past decade at the site, which has already divulged the sub-continent’s oldest silver punch-marked coins.

Local government minister Syed Asharaful Islam, inaugurating the new excavations, said: “The archaeological findings of this area are signs of a 2,500 year old civilisation. We have to hold on to that heritage.”

The archaeology department of Jahangirnagar University began work at the site in 2000. The entire project has been led by Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, the current chairman of the department and also executive director of private archaeological research centre Oitihya Onneswan. Read the rest of this entry »

The discovery of the temple of the god Hadad in Aleppo Citadel is considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the late 20th century, according to an article published by Prof. Paolo Matthiae of Italy.

The god Hadad was mentioned in texts from Mari, Ebla and most other ancient Eastern sites, as old kingdoms uses to make offering to the god of storms in his main temple at the centre of the Amorite kingdom centered in Aleppo.

Head of the excavations department at the Aleppo Department of Archaeology and Museums Yousef Kanjo said the temple was discovered in 1929-1930, and later a Syrian-German expedition began work in the site in 1996, uncovering most of the temple over 12 seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hamas-run ministry of tourism and antiquities in Gaza on Monday announced the discovery of ancient artifacts near the Egyptian border town of Rafah.

“The most important of the findings are 1,300 antique silver coins, both large and small,” said Mohammed al-Agha, tourism and antiquities minister in the Islamist-run government.

He said archaeologists had also uncovered a black basalt grinder, a coin with a cross etched on it, and the remains of walls and arches believed to have been built in 320 BC.

They also discovered a “mysterious” underground compartment with a blocked entrance that appeared to be a tomb, Agha said. Read the rest of this entry »