2,700 Year Old Tablets Found

(Photo by J. Jackson)

A University of Toronto led excavation in Tall Tayinate, the capital city of a Neo-Hittite kingdom in ancient Palastine, located in modern Turkey, has turned up a cache of 2,700 year old cuneiform tablets. The tablets were located in a recently discovered temple, inside the temple's cella, or a room called the holy of holies. The writings appear to be part of some kind of archive and are remarkably intact. The tablets date to the Iron Age and may provide insight into Assryian religious and political life. The team also unearthed libation vessels, ornamented ritual objects, and implements made of gold, bronze, and iron.

Timothy Harrison, professor of Near Eastern Archeology and director of the University of Toronto's Tall Tayinate Archaeological Project, was quoted by Science Daily as saying, "The tablets, and the information they contain, may possibly highlight the imperial ambitions of one of the great powers of the ancient world, and its lasting influence on the political culture of the middle east."

Tayinate was once destroyed by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III, and was thereafter converted into an Assyrian provincial capital. Dr. Harrison says that Tayinate was, "equipped with its own governor and imperial administration." It was a very important city in the ancient Near East. This discovery may even hint at Biblical proportions.

Dr. Harrison informed reporters, "Scholars have long speculated that the reference to Calneh in Isaiah's oracle against Assyria alludes to Tiglath-pileser's devastation of Kunulua--i.e. Tayinate. The destruction of the Luwian monuments and conversion of the sacred precinct into an Assyrian religious complex may represent the physical manifestation of this historical event."

In any case, the artifacts were well preserved and tablets should reveal interesting data soon.

Stone Age Burial Site Yields Social Clues

Researchers discovered a 4,600 year old burial site in Germany earlier this month, a find that is especially significant as it yields the earliest known evidence of people living together in family units.

Four nearly identical Stone Age burial sites were located in Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt. Through DNA analysis researchers were able to prove that the graves were actually family burials. The remains of a mother, father, and two children were found carefully buried together. Another grave contained two siblings and an unrelated female. Researchers believe this female was likely a paternal aunt. The individuals were buried facing each other and all remains dated to the same time period.

Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide commented, "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe--to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far."

While tools and artifacts dating to the Stone Age have been studied in depth, not much is currently known about the societal norms of Stone Age life. This find is particularly significant because it proves that early peoples recognized nuclear families, and perhaps even resided in nuclear family units.

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the individuals located were victims of a raid. Researchers believe that the survivors of this raid returned once their attackers had left in order to bury their dead. Burial is significant because it often suggests a belief in the afterlife, or in the very least a reverence for the dead. Burying family units together suggests that such units were recognized and important to early peoples. The uniformity of the burials suggests that the ritual of burying the dead had already been established, something previously unknown.

This find is incredible. If you would like to read more please click here.

Big Find Off Coast of Namibia

A 500 year old shipwreck was recently discovered off the coast of Southern Namibia. This find may possibly be the 2nd largest find in Africa, the pyramids in Egypt remaining the largest. The ship is believed to be Portuguese in origin and Francisco Alves, maritime archaeologist, stated that "the cultural uniqueness of this find is priceless".

The ship is remarkably well preserved and contains many historical treasures. The ships cargo included elephant tusks, a variety of weaponry, pewter tableware, several tonnes of copper and tin, and navigational instrument. The ship also contained more than $100 million dollars worth of gold and silver coins. The coins were minted in both Spain and Portugal as late as 1525. The coinage makes this find more significant, and is the reason archaeologists are speculating that this ship may be the "largest" (meaning wealthiest) find since Egypt.

The ship is located in a mining district and the costs of sea-walling to protect the excavation site cannot be maintained after October 10th. Archaeologists believe there is still more to be found, but they are running out of time.

The Namibian government intends to open a museum to display this rare find.

Mythical City Found!

A Russian archaeologist claims to have discovered the capital city of a mythical tribe, the Khazars. The Khazars were a nomadic tribe that roamed from Russia to the Aral Sea in Central Asia more than 1,000 years ago. According to Russian legend the Khazars adopted Judaism and became an imperial superpower. Under Soviet rule study of the Khazars was strictly discouraged and it is only recently that scholars have begun digging into this part of the Russian past.

Dmitri Vasilyev, who has been excavating along the Caspian Sea for nine years, discovered a triangular fortress of flamed brick and knew he had hit pay dirt. It was illegal to use flamed brick anywhere but the Khazarian capital city of Itil. So far his team has unearthed jewelery, decorative ceramics and pottery, armor, and lamps. They have yet to locate any Jewish artifacts.

Other archaeologists remain skeptical, awaiting further evidence that this city is indeed Itil.

For more information see the article below:

Scholar claims to find medieval Jewish capital

By MANSUR MIROVALEV, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 20, 2:13 PM ET

MOSCOW - A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture.

Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital.

By law Khazars could use flamed bricks only in the capital, Vasilyev said. The general location of the city on the Silk Road was confirmed in medieval chronicles by Arab, Jewish and European authors.

"The discovery of the capital of Eastern Europe's first feudal state is of great significance," he told The Associated Press. "We should view it as part of Russian history."

Kevin Brook, the American author of "The Jews of Khazaria," e-mailed Wednesday that he has followed the Itil dig over the years, and even though it has yielded no Jewish artifacts, "Now I'm as confident as the archaeological team is that they've truly found the long-lost city,

The Khazars were a Turkic tribe that roamed the steppes from Northern China to the Black Sea. Between the 7th and 10th centuries they conquered huge swaths of what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia as far as the Aral Sea.

Itil, about 800 miles south of Moscow, had a population of up to 60,000 and occupied 0.8 square miles of marshy plains southwest of the Russian Caspian Sea port of Astrakhan, Vasilyev said.

It lay at a major junction of the Silk Road, the trade route between Europe and China, which "helped Khazars amass giant profits," he said.

The Khazar empire was once a regional superpower, and Vasilyev said his team has found "luxurious collections" of well-preserved ceramics that help identify cultural ties of the Khazar state with Europe, the Byzantine Empire and even Northern Africa. They also found armor, wooden kitchenware, glass lamps and cups, jewelry and vessels for transporting precious balms dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries, he said.

But a scholar in Israel, while calling the excavations interesting, said the challenge was to find Khazar inscriptions.

"If they found a few buildings, or remains of buildings, that's interesting but does not make a big difference," said Dr. Simon Kraiz, an expert on Eastern European Jewry at Haifa University. "If they found Khazar writings, that would be very important."

Vasilyev says no Jewish artifacts have been found at the site, and in general, most of what is known about the Khazars comes from chroniclers from other, sometimes competing cultures and empires.

"We know a lot about them, and yet we know almost nothing: Jews wrote about them, and so did Russians, Georgians, and Armenians, to name a few," said Kraiz. "But from the Khazars themselves we have nearly nothing."

The Khazars' ruling dynasty and nobility converted to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th centuries. Vasilyev said the limited number of Jewish religious artifacts such as mezuzas and Stars of David found at other Khazar sites prove that ordinary Khazars preferred traditional beliefs such as shamanism, or newly introduced religions including Islam.

Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Middle Eastern Institute in Moscow, said he believes the Khazar elite chose Judaism out of political expediency — to remain independent of neighboring Muslim and Christian states. "They embraced Judaism because they wanted to remain neutral, like Switzerland these days," he said.

In particular, he said, the Khazars opposed the Arab advance into the Caucasus Mountains and were instrumental in containing a Muslim push toward eastern Europe. He compared their role in eastern Europe to that of the French knights who defeated Arab forces at the Battle of Tours in France in 732.

The Khazars succeeded in holding off the Arabs, but a young, expanding Russian state vanquished the Khazar empire in the late 10th century. Medieval Russian epic poems mention Russian warriors fighting the "Jewish Giant."

"In many ways, Russia is a successor of the Khazar state," Vasilyev said.

He said his dig revealed traces of a large fire that was probably caused by the Russian conquest. He said Itil was rebuilt following the fall of the Khazar empire, when ethnic Khazars were slowly assimilated by Turkic-speaking tribes, Tatars and Mongols, who inhabited the city until it was flooded by the rising Caspian Sea around the 14th century.

The study of the Khazar empire was discouraged in the Soviet Union. The dictator Josef Stalin, in particular, detested the idea that a Jewish empire had come before Russia's own. He ordered references to Khazar history removed from textbooks because they "disproved his theory of Russian statehood," Satanovsky said.

Only now are Russian scholars free to explore Khazar culture. The Itil excavations have been sponsored by the Russian-Jewish Congress, a nonprofit organization that supports cultural projects in Russia.

"Khazar studies are just beginning," Satanovsky said.