Italy
One of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries I have ever come across, one could be forgiven for thinking this is a crude prank, such is the remarkable preservation.
And after all my ramblings lately of archaeologists guessing their way through discoveries, here’s a refreshing example that requires no guessing at all!
China
Arguably the greatest archaeological find in history – the Terracotta Army and the massive complex of the first emperor’s tomb, covering an area ten times that of the pyramids of Giza – was stumbled on by farmers in the 1970s. But the man responsible for digging the site – Zhao Kangmin – was originally told by his superior to check out the find and that he’d likely be back in a week! Instead he spent the rest of his life digging up an entire army of warriors, each with a unique look and style. Zhao Kangmin passed away very recently, but his legacy will live on forever.
I’ll let the article do the talking…
Dear everyone,
Yes, it’s another email about GDPR, and we are all sick of them by now. Unfortunately everyone needs to comply by these laws and update their privacy policy by today, 25 May 2018.
Due to coming changes to the website, it is logical for me to unsubscribe everyone and shut the subscription part of the website down until it is rebuilt.
As you know my website was created in 2011 and now a new website will be designed as the current one is very old and in need of an overhaul.
I have never looked at the subscription part of the website in the sense of being concerned with how it functions, etc, because I already know everyone’s data is highly secure and I trust my web developer (for some strange reason!). However, the current law changes have naturally made me take a closer look at that function. To subscribe you type your email address into any page on my website, but to unsubscribe you have to do the same; this will then generate an email that you then click to confirm. This is rather clumsy but it is a part of a seven-year-old system. It was also a bit of a shock to realise that there is no unsubscribe function within the email alerts that are generated. This is a large part of the new laws – that data and ease-of-use, (e.g. opting out clauses) are easy to find and use. Clearly that is not the case with my email alerts.
Since a new website is now being created it seems much easier for my web developer to incorporate these updated functions into the new site rather than messing around making adjustments to the old ones that would then be shut down in due course anyway, so for that reason, and to comply with the new laws, I have to unsubscribe everyone immediately.
I will still continue to upload posts on my website but no one will receive an email alert about them.
So all of this means from this point on there will be no communication between us and I cannot legally contact you about this situation in the future due to privacy, even if you are my friend!
So, if you wish to be informed of the new website when it is up and running please send me a quick email on the contact form of my website and I will make sure you are the first to be informed of the new site.
On that note the new site is going to be awesome with many new functions, including an archaeology photo section, follower interaction / comments / discussion and much more, so watch this space!
Also, the new website will have a completely new name – “stephenmaybury” will no longer be in use although this website may still be active until September 2019. Or at least will be used as a direct link to the new site.
So, that’s it!
Thank you for all the fun over the last 7 years.
Adios!
Egypt
Have I missed a chapter? No, this article has, for failing to mention the one Egyptologist I have the most respect for – Dr. Joann Fletcher.
I watched with awe back in 2003 as the Discovery Channel, in the days when it produced quality documentaries (I don’t even watch TV any more), produced a programme in which Dr. Fletcher suggested one of the three bodies in the tomb KV35 was in fact none other than Queen Nefertiti. I still have a copy of that series, and there is a slightly poor copy available here:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3i7x91
It’s well worth a watch for those who aren’t aware of this saga. I have never believed the rhetoric that Akhenaton was such a heretic that their bodies were disposed of never to be found again. The stories made up around that period of Egyptian history don’t hold water, just like the Sahara desert, but that’s a whole other article for another day.
For me, the evidence was absolutely riveting and Dr. Fletcher put across her arguments with clarity and confidence. From that day onwards, I have never doubted her results that the body is indeed that of Queen Nefertiti.
Suffice to say that (sometimes bastard of a) man Dr. Zahi Hawass, then the director of the Ministry of Egyptian Antiquities, dismissed her findings and even banned her from Egypt based on some very loose accusations of not following protocol. Hawass had a history of carrying out such angry outbursts towards foreign researchers, but thankfully he is no longer in his post. For the record I don’t want to say too many bad things about him – he had done some amazing work – but his constant ridicule and outward aggression towards many researchers was nothing more than extremely unprofessional and often damaging to progressive scientific research.
The last rendition of Queen Nefertiti – a computer generated image based on the famous bust here:
https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/stunning-digital-rendition-of-queen-nefertiti/
shows the queen with a sandy coloured skin, thought to be the typical skin colour of the majority of ancient Egyptians and also that of the dynastic families, based on clear DNA evidence. Ancient Egyptians were most closely related to their modern counterparts, despite the many inane arguments online that the ancient Egyptians were sub-Saharan Africans and westerners are trying to whitewash history.
This new portrait of Nefertiti is based on the skull from the body in the tomb KV35, and clearly shows a likeness to the bust that is uncanny. She looks a bit miserable in the picture, but the skull structure is extremely similar to the bust. The controversy once again, however, is the skin colour. She looks like she’s just arrived on a boat from Italy, but I’ll forgo the racist arguments and concentrate on the likeness.
I once again bow down to Dr. Joann Fletcher and her amazing work, and hopefully she will be fully vindicated during her lifetime.
http://www.newsweek.com/ancient-egypt-queen-nefertiti-ancient-bust-fair-skin-800519
Israel / France / Spain / The World
Following on from my many previous posts about the ridiculous guesswork employed by some archaeologists to try and look as if they know everything, here we have another classic example whereby guesswork completely misleads everyone and actually gives us a false history.
Like the constant “ritual” excuse for findings like burials that don’t have an explanation, many objects have been misinterpreted as “ritual” or “religious” objects when in fact they are children’s toys. I have posted previously about this very issue and the site in Israel mentioned in the article. In fact it is a recurring theme that needs to be addressed immediately.
Misinterpreting a toy as a religious object has massive implications for our understanding of the past and our ancestors. In fact, when it comes to understanding our history, this is as important as it can get. Misinterpretation has led to generations of people believing in something that was completely untrue, and to be so far off the mark that today we wonder how these propositions ever made it to the academic table. Take the canals on Mars, for example – that turned out to be a misinterpretation of the language used.
When Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835 – 1910) noted that he observed “canali” on Mars through his telescope, one observer interpreted that as “canals”. What followed was a long-held belief that there was life on Mars, inhabited by three-eyed, green beings. In fact “canali” simply means “channels”. All it took was for one respected scholar to misinterpret a single word and an entire generation or three held on to a belief that turned out to be utterly false. It wasn’t until the Mariner programme in the 1960s that the idea that life still existed on Mars was finally put to bed. But that wasn’t before Hollywood had made many films of Martians invading earth and stealing human females, ensuring many a small child and possibly adults had nightmares and sleepless nights for years.
And so a child’s toy misinterpreted as a religious object can also have huge implications for archaeology.
My example may be extreme, but in many ways it is not – a simple misinterpretation of an object, or an entire site, can bring about a completely false paradigm and this is very dangerous indeed.
I reiterate my point that it is extremely important for archaeologists and others to not make any guesses about what they find. If they don’t know what something is then it’s about time they started to come clean and admit that they don’t know. History does no favours for those who are badly wrong, and it certainly is not good for the rest of us who trust these people to provide us with valid information.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-toys-kids-archaeological-record
Hi everyone,
As I am sure you are aware, because we have all been bombarded with emails of late regarding the new data protection laws, very soon these laws will come into force.
From my side my website is about to be shut down and rebuilt, with a completely new style and interactive menu.
My current website is now 7 years old and is looking rather tired. It was created around the book, so the functionality of the website is simple but effective for that purpose. Expanding ideas and changes to my overall work mean that a whole new website is now required, especially with the new talks due this summer.
I won’t expand on this too much now but the new data laws will naturally be incorporated into the new website and interaction will be much easier than it is now. I will inform all subscribers of these alterations in due course.
It will be sad to see the current website disappear. It has a kind of antique look to it that may be revived as a retro design in years to come!
Mexico.
Honestly, I’m going to explode.
From my book, “The Evolution”:
“My best guess is that this was a religious temple of some kind, but then the term ‘religious temple’ is used by archaeologists as a cop-out when we don’t know what a structure was used for.”
The same can be applied to the term “ritual” to explain anything that can’t be explained. It’s more than a cop-out – it’s lazy and it’s dishonest.
So here’s a story for you.
Somewhere in the Mayan heartland in 765 AD, four friends had the awful job of burying people, whether they died naturally, of disease, or perhaps on rare occasions they were sacrificed. I say rare because the Maya were nowhere near as barbaric as their neighbours, the Mexica (Aztec), even though in 765 AD the Mexica culture never even existed. On this particular night they had a bit too much of the local brew, on top of the small amount of hallucinogenic plants that grow in the jungle.
Totally rat-arsed they decided, just for a laugh, to mess around with the burials. Some bodies were given extra bones. Some bodies had their arms removed. And some of them were placed in such a way that their arms were linked together. The four friends laughed all the way through the night, but in reality it was just a way of masking the horrible job they had to carry out.
That explanation is just as valid, in fact even more valid, than this stupid and pathetic “ritual” excuse that archaeologists and scientists keep coming up with. It’s simple – if you can’t explain it it remains unexplained.
All these stupid reports of ritual are doing is placing in the minds of modern people that our ancestors were so primitive, everything they did was based around a ritual because they were so superstitious they ran indoors and hid under a table every time a thunderstorm approached. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is something that I am going to be bringing up in my talks at Avebury very soon.
It’s time to change the attitude of archaeologists once and for all.
http://www.newsweek.com/circle-ancient-human-skeletons-arms-linked-discovered-mexico-797038
**Breaking News**
Egypt
A secret chamber thought hidden inside king Tutankhamun’s tomb does not exist, according to new research.
Much speculation has been doing the rounds for many a decade regarding secret chambers all over the Valley of the Kings, of course fuelled by certain popular Hollywood films. The one in king Tut’s tomb, however, has been by far the most intriguing, mainly because of the controversy surrounding both his parents – Akenaton and Nefertiti – whose bodies have never been found.
This is quite an embarrassment for the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities for certain officials were “90 per cent sure” there was a chamber inside the tomb.
Now we have to question the recent findings of a huge chamber inside the Great Pyramid, and many other possible archaeological findings that have used the same methods and interpretation.
Perhaps it’s about time we followed China’s policy on their dead ancestors. China has hundreds of massive pyramids all over the country, many of which contain the bodies of emperors and no doubt priceless objects with them. The Chinese have a strict view of the dead – leave them to rest – their pyramids are fenced off and no one has ever been or is ever allowed inside. Would you dare to be the first to enter the tomb of a dead emperor? I certainly wouldn’t.