Nepal
Well, I have to admit this one has slipped me by.
The bizarre story of the Nepalese child goddesses – half Buddhist, half Hindu goddess – has left me quite stunned.
Each goddess, and there can only be one at a time, is checked for 32 characteristics including, “thighs like a deer, chest like a lion, and eyelashes like a cow”.
Wow, sounds like femininity is out the window in Nepal! If you advertise for a wife with that list, I doubt a Nepalese goddess would turn up at your door!
These extremely weird practices may seem alien in the western world but they can be relatively common. In Hinduism especially female worship is extremely powerful and often more prevalent than worshipping their male deities.
Anthropologically, let’s hope these traditions remain.
Egypt
Seventeen lost pyramids have been found buried in Egypt, along with 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements, by using new mapping techniques from satellites in space.
It looks like the job centre will soon be advertising for Egyptologists!
India
Hampi, my most favourite place on earth, is still revealing its secrets.
The vast area – the centre and capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from the 13th to the 17th Century – contains hundreds of temples scattered far and wide.
It is also the place where parts of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, took place, in a much earlier time period, probably at least five thousand years ago, and I have visited many of the sites where some of the events supposedly happened.
One must stress the word “supposedly” since we are actually talking about flying monkeys, shape-shifting demon kings, and magical powers that put Chinese sorcery to shame. On the contrary, Hampi is such a magical area it’s not hard to envisage these amazing events taking place. Certainly the energy of Hampi leaves one thinking the people, at least during Vijayanagara times, lived in relative harmony. That was until the Deccan Sultanates arrived and the Vijayanagar were defeated at the battle of Talikota in 1565, causing a destabilisation of the empire which saw its final demise a hundred years later… but that’s another story.
In this particular discovery, an image of Rama himself has been discovered, hidden behind foliage outside a cave, somewhere in Hampi. But where in Hampi? Hampi is huge, almost the Indian version of the Nazca Pampa
Something is wrong with this article!
A great discovery of buildings that must have preceded the heyday of Moche culture is one finding, but it says the objects / buildings found coincide with the typology of the Moche. So that would put the finds at an earlier stage of Moche culture, which dates from around 100 AD to 700 AD.
This report, however, puts the dates at 1700-1800!
I can assure you the Moche were long gone by the time the Spanish were well established in the Americas!
Also, if the dates have been mistaken by adding a thousand years then they are still wrong because the earlier phase of the Moche was not 700-800 AD.
Journalists are not always the best people to report on archaeological findings…
England
A new stone circle has been discovered on Dartmoor, south-west England, and is the first such circle discovered for more than a century!
This is quite an astonishing find considering the use of modern technology. Even more so since antiquarian and OS maps would have clearly shown the circle didn’t exist, so why it has taken this long to notice one will never know.
As the circle is the second largest on Dartmoor, 110ft (34 metres) across and between four and five thousand years old, no doubt people have been walking past the fallen stones since time immemorial. It’s one of those situations where people think that everyone else already knows about it, so it’s a lesson to all amateur sleuths – always check if you are uncertain!
China
The tomb of Lady Mei, who went from a “concubine to becoming a political and military strategist”, has been found during construction in Nanjing.
The Ming Dynasty tomb, dating to 1474, contains a wealth of gold objects, including a stunning hairpin, which can be seen on page two of this article
http://news.discovery.com/history/gold-filled-tomb-found-at-construction-site-in-china-150514.htm
Armenia
What is possibly the world’s first military industrial complex has been found several thousand feet up, close to the highest peak in Armenia, and millions of obsidian tools scatter the landscape.
Dating back to the Lower Stone Age, the first people to mine the site were our brothers, the Neanderthals.
One can only imagine the kind of trade network that developed from such a factory, and it may in fact be one of the first large-scale networks of goods exchange in the world. That, however, is speculation, as the only evidence is the massive production of weapons, but there is clear evidence these items were sent far and wide, with pieces from the site ending up in Ukraine and also Anatolia, 1600 miles away in modern-day Turkey.
Italy / Austria
Everyone’s favourite mummified remains – Ötzi the Iceman – have astonishingly revealed the oldest known human blood cells ever to be found.
Ötzi was killed around 5,300 years ago on mountains between Austria and Italy and died from wounds likely to have been inflicted in an ambush. Other fibrin cells found suggest he died very quickly from his injuries, as these cells are manufactured by the body as a clotting agent.
Egypt.
Again. Honestly, it’s just a coincidence this is happening in twos at the moment.
The Cult of Amun was the most powerful and most secretive of all the ancient Egyptian cults, providing a massive amount of power to the priests who, on many occasions, casted a daunting shadow over the pharaohs themselves.
This four-page account takes a look at the relationship with their Nubian neighbours to the South, in what is now modern-day Sudan.
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/174-1505/features/3146-sudan-nubia-dangeil-cult-of-amun-ra
Egypt
Personally I don’t drink alcohol, but many of you will be happy to know all you need is a few leaves to cure a hangover!
These Hellenistic cures, found in an Egyptian town called Oxyrhynchus a century ago, also include a recipe for eye drops and surgical instructions on how to cut into an upturned eyelid. Ouch!
Over half a million such papyri have been found and it’s going to take a while to decipher them all.
Let’s hope sooner or later they will discover one that reads, “How to build a pyramid”…
http://www.livescience.com/50544-ancient-hangover-cure-discovered.html
Canada
Strange that stories from countries seem to come in twos, but there you go.
This time the oldest archaeological finds in Canada have been revealed.
Under the sea, 120 metres down in Haida Gwaii, evidence of human occupation stretching back 13,800 years has been found at the bottom of the ocean. The area was above sea level during the last ice age but as sea levels rose the area was flooded. Now archaeologists have found evidence that the occupants used rocks to direct fish along the river in a favourable direction, known as a fishing weir.
I wonder if they got the idea by watching bears catching salmon?
Canada
An astonishing site in Alberta, unsurprisingly named “Canada’s Stonehenge”, contains a 5,000-year-old calendar according to researcher Gordon Freeman.
His argument seems convincing enough and I’d like to look at the statistics in more detail, but as usual the mainstream refuse to accept his ideas –
“Mainstream archaeology hasn’t been exactly welcoming. Despite being highly regarded in his own field, Freeman says journals have rejected his papers and conferences have denied him a platform.” –
There we go again with the refusal from mainstream academia. I bet not a single one of them has been to the site to take a look, but professor Freeman has spent 28 years going to the site and taking measurements, and he’s more than convinced.
Who will you believe?
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2009/01/29/alberta_sun_temple_has_5000yearold_calendar.html
Peru
In Tenahaha, in the Cotahuasa valley in southern Peru, which appears to be related to the Wari culture, a ceremonial area has yielded several tombs containing up to 40 skeletons each.
Totalling 171 so far, the area probably holds thousands of bodies within a hilltop above the town, dating to around 800 AD.
http://www.livescience.com/50415-dozens-of-mummies-discovered-in-peru.html
Easter Island
Yes, I did. And bloody big ones, too!
Did you?
Finally it has arrived!
The new Stephen Maybury Travelogue has gone live!
After a lot of hard work and technical issues, I can now promote the next phase of my work… and the reasons for this will be revealed later. Please note that only a part of the “Turkey” section has been completed, so when you scroll through this page click on “Turkey” at the bottom and you will be able to navigate some of the finished pages. This is an ongoing project and, with sites being visited on a regular basis, it’s a project that will never really be completed!
Peru
Near Trujillo the Triple Spiral geoglyph has been completely destroyed by individuals wishing to use the land for agriculture. This is a very sad incident and an ongoing problem for the cash-strapped archaeological organisations in Peru. The country is also so vast, it’s population relatively small, and there simply isn’t the logistical reasoning for twenty-four-hour security on many sites.
http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-600-year-old-geoglyph-destroyed-in-trujillo-105873
United States
Evidence from an Alaskan house is proving once again that nearly all theories regarding the migration to the Americas and pre-Columbian trade or visitations from non-Europeans are extremely dubious.
This particular piece suggests that ongoing trade between the Americas and what is now Russia and China was occurring regularly, and that we have probably got history completely wrong.
http://www.livescience.com/50506-artifacts-reveal-pre-columbus-trade.html
Greece
The amazing Minoan civilisation in Crete, wiped out by a volcanic explosion on the island of Thera, is detailed here in this seven-page article.
http://archaeology.org/issues/174-1505/features/3145-crete-minoans-gournia-excavations
The World
“Ten of the best ancient ruins you’ve never heard of”
Scotland
It seems the tale of ‘tough’ Vikings could be a bit of a myth, and they were actually terrified of the Celts in ‘Skotland’.
– “Icelanders who want to practise robbery are advised to go there,” says one saga. “But it may cost them their life.” –
I’m always telling people to avoid Scotland! Even the Romans built a wall to keep them out!
But, seriously, the Celts were a tough bunch. I often wonder how different our country would be if the Romans had not invaded…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6212823/Vikings-were-warned-to-avoid-Scotland.html