Ancient site unearthed in Iraq

[ramonmercado]

Ancient site unearthed in Iraq
2013-04-05 14:13
http://www.news24.com/Technology/News/A ... q-20130404

Archaeology. (Valentina Petrova, AP)

Baghdad - British archaeologists said they have unearthed a sprawling complex near the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, home of the biblical Abraham.

The structure, thought to be about 4 000 years old, probably served as an administrative centre for Ur, around the time Abraham would have lived there before leaving for Canaan, according to the Bible.

The compound is near the site of the partially reconstructed Ziggurat, or Sumerian temple, said Stuart Campbell of Manchester University's Archaeology Department, who led the dig.

"This is a breathtaking find," Campbell said, because of its unusually large size - roughly the size of a football pitch, or about 80m on each side. The archaeologist said complexes of this size and age were rare.

"It appears that it is some sort of public building. It might be an administrative building, it might have religious connections or controlling goods to the city of Ur," he said.

War

The complex of rooms around a large courtyard was found 20km from Ur, the last capital of the Sumerian royal dynasties whose civilisation flourished 5 000 years ago.

Campbell said one of the artefacts they unearthed was a 9cm clay plaque showing a worshipper wearing a long, fringed robe, approaching a sacred site.

Beyond artefacts, the site could reveal the environmental and economic conditions of the region through analysis of plant and animal remains, the archaeological team said in a statement.

The dig began in March when the six-member British team worked with four Iraqi archaeologists to dig in the Tell Khaiber in the southern province of Thi Qar, some 320km south of Baghdad.

Decades of war and violence have kept international archaeologists away from Iraq, where significant archaeological sites as yet unexplored are located. Still, the dig showed that such collaborative missions could be possible in parts of Iraq that are relatively stable, like its Shi'ite-dominated south.

Campbell's team was the first British-led archaeological dig in southern Iraq since the 80s. It was also directed by Manchester University's Dr Jane Moon and independent archaeologist Robert Killick.

"This has been an opportunity to get back to an area very close to our heart for a long time," Campbell said.

Iraq faces a broader problem of protecting its archaeological heritage. Its 12 000 registered archaeological sites are poorly guarded.

- AP

 

[rynner2]

Cold War satellites find lost cities in Middle East
CORONA Atlas reveals 10,000 previously undiscovered sites in Iraq, Turkey and Syria
By Maria McEvoy
2:54PM BST 28 Apr 2014

Images collected by Cold War spy satellites have revealed 10,000 unknown archaeological sites in the Middle East, showing thousands of ancient cities, roads, canals, and other undiscovered ruins.

The new CORONA Atlas shows previously undiscovered sites in Turkey, Iraq and Syria believed to date back to the Bronze Age. University of Arkansas archaeologist Jess Casana said “We can see all kinds of things- ancient roads and canals. The images provide a very comprehensive picture.”

The satellite that collected these images was used by the US during the Cold War to find Soviet Missile Bases and military camps from 1960-1972, reports National Geographic. The archive of 860,000 images was declassified in 1995 by President Bill Clinton.

The images of the Middle East has proved very useful to the CORONA Atlas archaeologists as they pre-date the rapid urban expansion of towns, the building of reservoirs and agricultural developments as well as the growth of cities such as Mosul in Iraq and Amman in Jordan.
Although current imaging satellites can collect higher resolution images, the changes in the landscape over the past two decades hide the sites from modern satellites.

At the time the images were taken there was no way to transmit the information remotely, so the rolls of black and white film were dropped from space in parachute-equipped canisters to be intercepted in mid air by planes.
The satellites collected images spanning from Egypt to Iran, discovering sites as large as 123 acres in Syria and Turkey.

Cascana said “it’s not just new places to excavate. We have a real way with all these sites to look across the whole Middle East and see how it was connected”.

“We don’t want to stop here” says Cascana. Many of the CORONA images cover areas such as Africa and China which were not included in the Atlas [but] carry a lot of interest for archealogogists.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -East.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Food offerings left in a royal tomb in the ancient city of Ur at least 4,500 years ago have been found on top of a university cupboard.

Researchers at the University of Bristol found the large wooden box during a clear-out in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The box was filled with pottery, seeds and animal bones and contained words such as ‘pre-dynastic’, ‘sargonid’, and ‘royal tombs’ written on index cards.

Further investigation revealed that these were the remains of food offerings from a royal tomb at least 4,500 years old. It is believed the remains were collected during famous excavations by Leonard Woolley in the site of Ur in southern Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/quir ... 72928.html

 

[PeteByrdie]

Does anyone else think we'd know far more about the past of scholarly types were not all habitually untidy? The Ark of the Covenant is probably under a pile of lever arch files somewhere.