Turkey
A new travelogue from me – Stephen Maybury!
Xanthos, the previous travelogue I posted, has a religious sanctuary located less than three miles away. It was the centre of the Lycian state – Letoon – the sanctuary of Leto.
Mexico
One of the most sinister practises in history was that of the skull rack, implemented by the Mexica culture in western Mexico.
The Mexica – more commonly called the Aztec and who gave the modern country its name – filled their enemies with fear and dominated them through the rapid rise of a military state. Rather like the spread of a virus, the Mexica quickly invaded and incorporated other, smaller, tribes into the Mexica Empire, somewhat like the Romans but with seemingly more barbarity.
One of the traditions of the Mexica was the skull rack. Dozens of skulls were loaded onto a rack after holes were made through the sides of the heads, and this was done prior to any form of excarnation (defleshing). The skulls were then put onto display horizontally for all to see, most probably to instil fear into the local populace but also to terrify any enemies. The smell and sight must have been horrendous as the skulls were then left to decompose, and no doubt flesh-eating birds and rats were aplenty. The streets must have been filled with blood and bits of flesh.
I wonder if the local supermarkets were across the road?
Only a few skull racks have ever been found, and this particular rack, found in Templo Mayor in modern-day Mexico City, is unique in that the skulls all face inwards instead of outwards. It is also thought the be the main skull rack of the city state, since it is located in the Templo Mayor (Main Temple). Archaeologists have no idea what the skulls were facing, but I presume it was most likely some form of death god. Or perhaps they hung live people in the middle and left them to die as a form of punishment.
Either way, if anyone ever invents a time machine I shall definitely avoid Mexico in the sixteenth century.
http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-finds-main-skull-rack-aztec-temple-complex-202602696.html
The World
I have never been comfortable with the “humans killed the mammoths” idea. It’s another one of those theories that just does not hold water under scrutiny. For a start, human beings still today haven’t explored large parts of the lands where these animals roamed, like in Siberia, northern Russia, so to suggest human beings were responsible for their demise is bad science.
There is no doubt that these creatures were hunted and their numbers reduced by human activity, but it is almost certain that these creatures were killed off by climate changes and many different factors that combined to make a sure disaster on a large scale. One of those factors was a comet that struck the northern hemisphere, probably in North America, around 12,800 years ago. That idea, although not originally my own, has been put forward in my book, The Evolution, and it is clear these animals were on the verge of extinction when human beings, who were themselves looking for food after the abrupt climate changes, hunted them as a valuable food source during hard times. It is likely that before the comet impact human beings never bothered hunting these animals unless it was absolutely necessary. A massive elephant, twice the size of the ones living today, is not a wise animal to attack if other food is available. Common sense is sometimes lacking in the minds of the intellectuals.
Turkey
Not content with the two oldest sites in the world – the 12,000-year-old (10,000 BC) Göbekli Tepe and the 9,500-year-old (7500 BC) Çatalhöyük – Turkey has now added a third.
Gracefully moving into second place is Aşıklı Höyük, not far from its sister Çatalhöyük, but 500 years older. Dating to 10,000 years ago (8000 BC), Aşıklı Höyük is much smaller than Çatalhöyük but is no less significant.
Although first found in 1964 full excavations didn’t start until 1989. Now the site can be seen in its full glory and the layout is astonishingly complex and compact.
Another common feature is burials within houses, and this was a practise that was passed all the way along into Mesopotamia and beyond. In Aşıklı Höyük 70 burials have been found under the floors of 400 rooms, and could account for at least one per ‘house’. Obviously a common act, the practise may have been carried out so that the living could ‘protect’ the soul of the dead relative, or maybe they simply didn’t want animals digging the bodies up if buried outside. In those days six-feet graves were not thought of, but any theory of the idea behind these burial practices can only be guess work. It is thought, however, that graves could be ‘maintained’ if buried within the home, and if not properly looked after the soul of the dead person could come back to haunt the living. Also it was thought the souls of the dead went into the underworld which in those days, unlike heaven, was below the ground and not above it. But will we ever really know? Don’t you just love a weird mystery?
Middle East, Egypt & Arabian Peninsula
For those more scientifically inclined, this article is a cautiously detailed account of how climate change affected the Middle East and Arabian areas around 10,000 years ago, which means the area had a wetter climate than today.
I post this report because it could back up the theory, first mentioned by R. A. Schwaller De Lubicz in the 1940s and then re-established by John Anthony West with the backing of geologist Robert Schoch, that the Sphinx is much older than is stated and was once in a much wetter climate with heavy rainfall.
Turkey
A new travelogue from yours truly – this time the tragedies that befell the city of Xanthos, in ancient Lycia.
Get your box of tissues ready before you start reading this one!
Ireland
It seems our friends across the water – no, not them, the other ones! – were the first people in history to record a solar eclipse, some 5,355 years ago.
That date (3340 BC) may seem rather precise without absolute dating techniques being employed but it is based on solar eclipse data. It is clear the Neolithic people who carved the stones at the site outside Kells, County Meath, knew what they were recording and the conclusion is pretty sound.
The article does state “Neolithic astronomer priests” but there is no way of knowing if the latter two words can be applied, since there is no evidence that astronomer priests even existed. They may just have been Neolithic farmers who were recording celestial events with a view to observing the annual path of the sun, as this was most relevant to our Neolithic ancestors. It was certainly they who were the first people to record astronomical events since they were farming! Without them, the world would not be as it is today, and the cairns scattered all across Ireland are a testament to the ingenuity these people created so that we, 5,000 years later, know exactly when to plant our crops. In so many ways we owe everything to these people, but I often wonder how many generations it took before they mastered the art of solar measurement. Or was there a very clever genius amongst them who came up with the idea of allowing sunlight to penetrate a chamber once or twice a year but only on a specific date? There are some things we will never know…
Egypt
It seems ancient Egyptian women were not just powerful leaders, but powerful negotiators as well.
An 8ft-long prenuptial agreement, written on papyrus, has been found dating to approximately 465 BC.
The agreement states that should the couple divorce, the wife would receive 1.2 pieces of silver and 36 bags of grain each year for the rest of her life!
Wow, I couldn’t even afford that today! 🙂
There was a small catch though – the would-be wife had to pay 30 pieces of silver up front to her partner to make the agreement in the first place!
This may surprise some people but in fact it was very common in the ancient world for women to have many rights and equality.
We still have a long way to go to match the level of Egyptian inventiveness.
http://www.rt.com/news/312436-egyptian-women-massive-prenups/
Turkey
A new travelogue from Stephen Maybury, this time another hair-raising journey, from Aphrodisias to Kaş
https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/9-aphrodisias-to-kas/
China
Rather than solve the mystery of the red-haired mummies of the Takla Makan, the DNA results seem to confuse matters even more.
The conclusion is that the mummies come from “Europe and Asia”. Well, that’s about as diverse as you can get! On closer inspection it suggests ancestry of Siberia and western Europe. While the Siberia results wouldn’t surprise anybody, the western European results are a little more surprising, suggesting a long route east which goes against the ‘humans migrating west from the Middle East’ idea.
The red-haired, fair-skinned people who lived on the route of the silk road four thousand years ago have received much interest since their discovery in 1934, but they were already known about because ancient texts talked of the unusual people. To some it may seem surprising to find red-haired people in a far away land, but red hair is not limited to the northern European countries. In fact, red hair has even been found in northern India, among many other places, and some studies suggest this may be the genetic echoes of the Neanderthal. Others, like the late and great Stan Gooch, suggest modern humans are the offspring of Neanderthal and Cro Magnon, and that it was Cro Magnon who passed on the red hair. Either way, it should not be too surprising to find red hair in just about any European or Eurasian area.
What is also not surprising is the fair skin of the mummies but that, for me, is the more interesting element. The white skin suggests a more far-reaching origin, and this aspect alone – not the hair – suggests these people came from far away. BUT, it isn’t too shocking to find white skin in these areas either! Perhaps they took the Silk Road themselves long ago, and decided the Tarim Basin was an excellent place for trade.
The article talks about how these people moved from here to there, picking up genes along the way as they interbred with various local groups, eventually ending up in the Tarim Basin along the Silk Road. Whatever their origins, I don’t think it’s too surprising to find fair-skinned people so close to modern-day Russia. Even Russia has some red-haired people. The article basically suggests the ancient DNA is from western Europe, but that does not mean they came from western Europe.
Being a rebel I have always favoured Stan Gooch’s theory, which turns things on their head – it was the Neanderthal that gave us blonde hair and artistic abilities, and it was Cro Magnon that passed on red hair and a logical, aggressive brain. So, it was the Neanderthal that was the passive, creative and inventive creature, and Cro Magnon was the destructive, murdering creature that helped us spread around the world and this became the dominant gene in modern human beings.
It’s a very interesting and thought-provoking theory.
Accompanying this article is the video I have uploaded on the Takla Makan mummies on my YT channel. Although it’s old (1998), it’s well worth a watch!
Brazil
This article is as important as any because it is yet another piece of evidence that removes the pre-conceived ideas we have about our past.
In this case, the idea that the Amazon Jungle was an untouched and wild environment until the arrival of the land-grabbing Europeans is being unequivocally removed by hard evidence.
It is now thought that large swathes of the Amazon had previously been deforested and inhabited by the native Americans, and a population of up to 50 million may have been reached before the Spanish brought with them diseases like smallpox which decimated the local populations of Central and South America.
Some of the remains discovered by LiDar suggest many of these populated areas may be up to 3,000 years old.
What this report basically presents to us is yet another piece of evidence that suggests human activity is much older than we perceive it to be in our current understanding… and that evidence is increasing by the day.
Turkey
A new travelogue from Stephen Maybury, this time Aphrodisias.
Aphrodite, the goddess of fertility and love, gives her name to the stunning city in the Caria region of Western Anatolia.
Turkey
The oldest site in the world – Göbekli Tepe’s 12,000-year-old temple – has produced what archaeologists think is the world’s oldest pictograph.
Scientists are still struggling to come to grips with this find, and even my most recent archaeology course and accompanied textbook did not even give the site a mention, which seems a little bit odd to me. And when I say scientists are struggling to come to grips with the find, I mean the site itself, not the pictograph.
Göbekli Tepe, which means Potbelly Hill, has been excavated for many years now and still only a small percentage of the site has been uncovered. It is without doubt one of the most remarkable discoveries in human history and deserves a lot more respect and attention than it currently receives. It throws the accepted ideas of archaeology out the window and tells us that we human beings were building complex structures at least 6,000 years earlier than has so far been accepted. That is twice as far back from today than we are taught in our schools and, as I’ve just found out, our universities too.
It’s about time this kind of knowledge filtering came to an end, and I implore anyone with an interest in ancient history to study the site and have the name of Göbekli Tepe on the end of their tongue so they are ready to tell their friends about it!
Pyramids? What pyramids? 🙂
Israel
I am of the opinion, and many do not agree with me, that human beings are different species that evolved in different areas of the world. I do not support the “from Africa” hypothesis because the human migration theory – that humans left Africa and spread around the world – does not hold water under intense scrutiny.
Although in today’s ridiculously politically correct world it’s considered racist to suggest human groups are not from the same family, I do strongly believe that Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid human beings all originate from different species – different ancestors with a separate line of the tree. How does that work, you might ask? Well, big cats are cats but they are different – lions, tigers and leopards, for example, may just look like cats to some, but are obviously different. Lions evolved in Africa. Tigers are more related to the Indian Subcontinent. And also it is possible to cross breed, like many species do – dogs, domestic cats, horses, and human beings, to name a small sample.
In this article, human remains that are 400,000 years old, and that were found in Israel in 2010, continue to provide evidence of human behaviour.
This finding blows the African theory right out of the water.
And about time too, if you ask me.
The original article is also provided below.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/400000-year-old-teeth-reveal-paleolithic-pollution/
http://phys.org/news/2010-12-world-oldest-human-israel.html
Turkey
A new travelogue from Stephen Maybury!
This time, the perilous journey from Pamukkale to Aphrodisias.
Please note – I have been informed that these pages don’t look too good on an iPad either, so you really do need a laptop or PC to view them correctly.
https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/7-pamakkule-to-aphrodisias/
Guatemala
We’re staying with the Maya once again – this time in Guatemala – as archaeologists unearth incredibly beautiful, amazingly preserved, and historically and intellectually valuable stela and panels from a site called El Achiotal, near the Mexican border.
One stela talks about a Maya king and the site dates to the 5th Century AD. These artefacts are extremely valuable because very little is known about Maya history during this time period.
Belize
Several Maya sites, including Tamarindo, have been saved from agricultural destruction by a Maya Research Program deal that keeps the sites for ecological and archaeological purposes. The Maya Research Program (MRP) is a U.S.-based private corporation, affiliated with the University of Texas in cooperation with the Belize Institute of Archaeology, that uses its financial might to save archaeological sites for future excavation.
The destruction of ancient sites in the jungles of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras – the centre of the Maya world – is a sad and daily occurrence as modern farmers and locals try to eke out a living from the land. I think it would be even more productive if local farmers were paid to find and report sites, uncover them, assist in archaeological work and carry out any ways necessary to save them. Cooperation is surely the key to saving these sites. Purchase of land by private corporations is in itself a concern, but that’s another story.
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/summer-2015/article/endangered-ancient-maya-sites-saved
Turkey
It’s another travelogue from Stephen Maybury, this time Pamukkale.
They will come thick and fast now!
Don’t forget to view these properly you need a tablet, laptop, or PC – a phone will not be able to open the pages correctly.
Also, to view the images, click on the picture so it expands on your screen. You can then view the description on the bottom left corner and from there navigate through the photos.
Italy
An astounding discovery has occurred off the coast of Sicily – a monolith at least 9,500 years old that cannot be a natural structure, according to the scientists who discovered it.
Already the ignorant press are calling it the “underwater Stonehenge”, which is very irritating and incorrect, but that’s what happens with the sensationalising mainstream media.
Again, however, we have evidence that is proving our history is completely and utterly wrong, and along with places like Gobekli Tepe in Turkey the idea that we came out of the fields and built pyramids must surely now be finally put to rest. Have I said that before? 🙂
Our ancient history needs to be completely remodelled, and thankfully more evidence is coming to light that suggests human beings were building large, complex structures at least as far back as the end of the last ice age.
http://archaeology.org/news/3548-150807-underwater-mesolithic-monolith
After a very difficult last three months undertaking an intensive archaeology course with Oxford University, finally my last assignment was handed in a couple of days ago. The relief was enormous and I had no idea how stressed I actually was until it was all over!
A part of that course was a dig near Oxford City – an ancient Roman town in the modern-day village of Dorchester-on-Thames.
I spent most of the week in a Roman ditch that was obviously used at some point as a rubbish bin, since my finds were in the hundreds, but mostly pottery, animal bone, and several nails.
There will be more about this in an appropriate area on my website. I am not sure whether to include this as a travelogue or whether to make a new page entirely. Either way, news will come of that soon!
In the meantime I am now able to continue where I left off three months ago – back to my travelogues!
Here is the latest instalment – Ephesus in Turkey – and I hope to add many more in the coming weeks… that is until I go again with Oxford University in September, this time with another ten-week intensive course – The Fall of Rome.
I hope the new format of releasing archaeological posts as news on my website has been met with enjoyment by all. I realise that continuous emails are a nuisance, but now things should settle down as I have ‘caught up to date’, for lack of a better phrase, with all the news articles that had been put back due to my four-month trip to India last year. It’s taken a year to catch up with all of that, and now the emails / news posts should arrive less frequently. I haven’t had any negative feedback so either everyone is enjoying them or they are going straight into most people’s bin on arrival!
I am now able to concentrate on other work, including my second book that is still in the first draft stages. Unfortunately, unlike the first book, I cannot work on it full time, and probably on average around half a page is being written per week. It’s a rather laborious process, but there are so many projects I am working on I try to give them all a little attention. That is, of course, on top of my day job which takes most of my time.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed that this year has been a real headache for many people. Energies seem to be shifting in many directions at once, to the point that most people don’t know if they are coming are going. I like to think that this period, predicted by the Maya calendar, will be pointing us all in the right direction soon, despite the pain that many are going through. I am sure that those who have bothered to read this far will know what I am talking about. I am seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel recently, and as I watch my life and many of my friend’s lives slowly come together in a rearranged manner, I hope we all move forwards to a brighter future.
