Egypt
Stunning news!
Cleopatra did not die of a snake bite!
Well actually this is not stunning news and neither is it news at all. Many writers at the time of Cleopatra’s death, and just after it, recorded death by snake bite which was taken from the original account of Strabo, who was not only alive at the time of her death but was also likely to have been in Alexandria. But Strabo also said that Cleopatra may have been poisoned – either by murder or self-inflicted, i.e. suicide.
The German historian Christophe Shaefer, in 2010, quite adequately provided evidence that Queen Cleopatra died of poison, the most likely culprit being a concoction of wolfsbane, opium and hemlock.
The only question is whether Cleopatra committed suicide or whether the poison was administered by the Romans, either through direct ingestion by force, or put into a food in which she then consumed.
Either way, the “academics at The University of Manchester” need to get with the programme and do something worthwhile instead of wasting public funds on already decided historical facts.
I think it’s most likely that Cleopatra committed suicide by ingesting poison since her lover, Mark Antony, had already stabbed himself with his own sword (ironically because he had been told a rumour that Cleopatra had already committed suicide) and was carried to her hiding place where he died in her arms.
There you go – I just gave you that deduction without wasting any public funds.

http://phys.org/news/2015-10-snake-cleopatra.html

India
I have reported on the Indus Valley script quite a few times on here, but not for a while now. Why?
Because the script is still undeciphered!
The Indus Valley civilisation, according to the mainstream view, started around 2600 BC and was supposedly where the Hindu religion first formed.
I have always maintained that the Indus Valley civilisation is much older than 5,000 years, and could be at least 10,000 years old. Recently, another article (which I posted here) was released in which a very large stone carving of Lord Hanuman and Lord Rama, from the Hindu epic the Ramayana, was found in Iraq and dated to 6,000 years ago. This carved stone shows quite adequately a fully-formed religion already in place, thus taking the origins of Hinduism back 1,400 years earlier than the accepted date of the beginning of the Indus Valley civilisation.
Although that carved stone was located in Iraq, its origins, or at least the origins of the religion, most definitely began in pre-1947 India.
Sooner or later we should start to see excavations confirming not only a much older Hindu religion – the oldest on the planet – but also a much older Indus Valley civilisation. I think it’s possible that “civilisation” itself started in India, long before Greece, and if we take into consideration the site at Gobekli Tepe (9600 BC) then we could be dealing with a civilisation in excess of 15,000 years old. The offshore site at Dwarka (not to be confused with the second offshore site north of the modern city) is a likely candidate, and some people think it could be as much as 30,000 years old, although conservative estimates put a date of 12,000 years on the site as that was when it was last above water.
Basically, there’s a reason the Indus Valley script hasn’t been deciphered – it’s very old indeed.

http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-civilization-cracking-the-indus-script-1.18587

Previous post here:

https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/6000-year-old-carving-of-lord-rama-and-lord-hanuman-found-in-iraq/

**Breaking News**
England
William Shakespeare’s kitchen has been found during excavations on his former home, which he purchased in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1597.
Fragments of plates and other kitchenware have also been found. No doubt he was throwing them at the wall when his poems weren’t going as planned! 🙂

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-34936744

Turkey
My latest travelogue – the massive city of Perga, in ancient Pamphylia, near the modern city of Antalya.
I am trying to finish the Turkey section as quickly as possible as I have much more work to do, but these travelogues are so time consuming and often take weeks to complete. That might seem a little over-the-top, or perhaps I am just lazy, but trust me when I say I can spend hours on one minor detail, just to ensure one sentence is correct on the tag on one of the photos that no one is actually likely to read anyway!
That happens because the sources I use are notoriously unreliable and cross-referencing is required many times over. Most of these sites in Turkey have only been excavated to a small percentage, so the historical accounts and scientific data are often missing.
I am very particular about getting the facts correct. I guess it’s the perfectionist in me. It’s only a shame I am so far from perfection in reality! But, I shall prevail…
I hope you enjoy this latest effort. 🙂

https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/16-perga/

United States.
Staying with the United States, the Newark Mounds have always fascinated me, but this new finding is absolutely astonishing.
The mounds – known as the Newark Earthworks since the site doesn’t solely consist of mounds – are the largest earthworks on the face of the planet, covering an area four-and-a-half square miles.
The engineering required to build such a site is astronomical, which is ironic because it’s just been discovered that the mounds were built to record the phases of the moon.
And there again disappears everyone’s stereotypical image of North American Indians. You don’t just build a mound and then another and say, “Hey, this is the moon moving through the sky.” It requires complex mathematical equations, engineering on a massive scale, and when you start to think about it you wonder how on earth they did. Excuse the pun.
All over the world we see advanced technology that was put in place thousands of years into the past. The Newark Earthworks have been dated to between 1 – 400 AD but, as is often the case in archaeology with stone structures, dates are determined by organic material that is found on the site, rather than the site itself, although in this instance the dates are probably accurate as the mounds themselves are made of organic material.
If you think an undertaking like this is simple, then go to out into the countryside, find an area the same size, and then figure out how to make massive mounds with basic tools, and accurately measure them so that they form a perfect replication of the phases of the moon. No, I thought not…
And, of course, modern man has only just discovered what these mounds were made for, even with a couple of hundred years of advanced technology to boot.
I strongly suggest you get online and check out the Newark Earthworks, look at some photos, and then sit there scratching your head for a while…
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2015/10/11/1-the-moon-and-the-mounds.html
United States
The interestingly named site of Pig Point, along the Patuxent River, Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland, is turning out to be one of the most important Native American sites in the whole of the United States.
Previously it was thought that Pig Point was just a ceremonial centre, but artefacts being uncovered are showing that human activity was continuous, perhaps for thousands and thousands of years, and may have contained villages that stretch for three-and-a-half miles along the banks of the river. These findings, and the site of Pig Point, suggest that Native American tribes were not as nomadic as was first thought. It certainly is about time the stereotypical notions of Native American Indians are finally quashed, and the idea of peace-loving nomads who lived at one with the earth is something I find a little too convenient for the plight of modern Native Americans who, without doubt, are suffering immense poverty in many places. Outside of academia that is certainly the way people think of the Native Americans – that they were peaceful and kind to the earth – but they were no different to any other tribe, warring with each other, fighting for resources, etc. The idea of the peace-loving Native American has been adopted, manipulated and distorted by the spiritual movement, who often talk of Native American spirit guides, and this idea stems from the stereotypical image which is in fact false. Anyway, that’s all veering away somewhat…
The oldest artefact yet found at Pig Point dates to 8000 BC, and therefore the site may have been inhabited for nearly ten thousand years – right up until the arrival of the colonising Europeans.
http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ph-ac-cn-pig-point-plus-1011-20151011-story.html

Cyprus
A stunning gold wreath that was found in a 2,400-year-old tomb in Soloi, northern Cyprus, during 2005-2006 appears to have belonged to an aristocratic family.
The two intact tombs contain artefacts that have been imported from ancient Macedon (Greece) and Ionia (Turkey), clearly showing the influence surrounding the Macedonian era, just prior to the rise of Alexander the Great. One tomb contains a man, a woman and a child, and the other a woman and a child. DNA tests are now underway to determine their likely origin.

http://www.livescience.com/52452-ancient-cyprus-tomb-discovered.html

A long overdue travelogue, this time the ancient city of Side (See-deh) near Antalya, southern Turkey.
Side marked the easternmost point of my trip last March, and then the long road back west would begin, so more travelogues to come soon!

https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/15-side/

Denmark
A Viking fortress discovered in September just outside of Copenhagen, 430 feet across and surrounded by a 22 foot-high ‘fence’, is now going to be excavated.
That’s going to be one hell of a job if you ask me!

http://cphpost.dk/news/archaeologists-to-uncover-secrets-of-viking-fortress.html

Iraq
Recently I had an argument with someone – and when I say argument I don’t mean we were actually arguing – where I stated that Hinduism is without doubt the oldest religion in the world and is at least 5,000 years old, despite objections from the other person.
The two Hindu epics, both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, talk of events in time spans most of us cannot think of and, despite them being written relatively recently, they speak of an oral tradition that is probably tens of thousands of years old.
In Iraq a stone carving of Lord Hanuman and Lord Rama has been found dating to 6,000 years ago. This is an astonishing find, not only for its antiquity but also its location. It provides more evidence of the link between ancient India, Mesopotamia and Sumer, and it’s my opinion that, despite what a lot of western scholars say, India is the seat of civilisation. The Indus Valley civilisation, for example, is at least 5,000 years old and, despite what people think, created running water channels thousands of years before the Greeks or Romans. But I think it’s clear that Indian civilisation occurred much earlier than the Indus Valley, and with this find in Iraq we clearly have advanced religious entities who still survive in Hinduism today. What I mean by that is this carving is not likely to be the first depiction of Hanuman or Rama, or be the first time they appeared. The carving’s workmanship clearly shows evolved thought processes, and thus an evolved religion. More importantly, it looks no different from carvings of Hanuman and Rama today, and I have seen many in India.
At this point in time it seems that Lord Hanuman and Lord Rama are the oldest religious entities in the world. Maybe that proves we, the human race, are just a bunch of intelligent monkeys after all!

http://www.vina.cc/2015/09/28/6000-year-old-lord-rama-and-hanuman-carvings-in-silemania-iraq/

Spain
More than 2,200 years ago Cartagena was an important city on the south-eastern coast of Spain, populated by Carthaginians who descended from the Phoenicians. The dig is focusing mostly on the period before the Romans took control of the city in 209 BC, evidence of which backs up the historical accounts that the city was turned into a weapons factory once their take-over occurred. Prior to that, however, the city was populated by Carthaginians during the Punic wars, and the dig is focusing mostly on the period before the Romans arrived (227-209 BC).
Already many items have been found, including pottery and later Roman buildings.

http://murciatoday.com/archaeologists-unearth-more-of-the-history-of-cartagena_27437-a.html