When I visited Stonehenge I was tempted and bought this book from the shop.

Synopsis:

More than 30 years ago on the remote plains of southern Alberta, Canada, scientist Gordon Freeman discovered a Sun Temple. His study of the site led him to find incredible similarities to Stonehenge. Canada’s Stonehenge not only predates England’s Stonehenge by about 800 years, but also predates Egypt’s pyramids. Freeman discovers that 5000 years ago Britons and Plains Indians made precise astronomical observations at these two sites halfway around the world from each other at nearly the same latitude.

In his 30-year quest to understand these two sites, Gordon Freeman has measured, photographed and made many recordings of Sun rises and sets through the Stonehenge structure. He discovered a complete solar calendar, the same calendar as the 5200-year-old one in Canada. The observer does not stand within Stonehenge Circle, watching the Sun rise and set through the relatively large gaps between the Stones. He stands outside the Circle, observing the dates on which the first and last flashes of the rising and setting Sun cross lines marked by narrow slits that cross the entire stone structure. Freeman finds the artistry of the calendrical construction astonishing.

Review:

I found the book fascinating. The author reveals unexpected astronomical alignments between the stones and the manmade features in the wider landscape, including alignments with the mysterious cursus which allowed me to view that feature in a new light. As mentioned in the title the author’s journey started at a North American site, familiar to him. His journey took him to Stonehenge and other sites including Newgrange and the Preseli Mountains where the bluestones of Stonehenge originated. His findings at the various sites make interesting reading.

The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs and maps illustrating his findings.

Vindolanda lies just to the south of the curtain wall of Hadrian’s Wall and has a very different ‘feel’ to other sites along the Wall. It lies upon the first Roman frontier in the north – The Stanegate Road and in a stunning landscape which lets your imagination really connect with its past. You will probably visit Vindolanda by driving or walking along this road to reach the fort and museum. Although first built by the Roman army before Hadrian’s Wall Vindolanda became an important construction and garrison base for the Wall, a Hadrian’s Wall fort in its own right. During this time Vindolanda was demolished and completely re-built no fewer than nine times. Each re-build, each community, leaving their own distinctive mark on the landscape and archaeology of the site.

After Hadrian’s Wall and the Roman occupation was abandoned by its imperial armies Vindolanda remained in use for over 400 years before finally becoming abandoned in the 9th century.

The excavations at Vindolanda, set in its stunning landscape, aim to unravel the mysteries of its nine Roman forts/towns and countless communities. It is a huge and complicated task which is undertaken by a dedicated team of professionals leading a veritable army of volunteers. Come and see what the archaeologists discover, the excavations rarely disappoint, and continue to provide some of the most stunning examples of Roman and early British material culture to come from nine forts and nine centuries.

The physical remains include some of the following:

• A large Pre-Hadrianic bath house and a beautifully preserved 3rd century bath house.
• Several commanding officer’s residences and barrack buildings
• A headquarters building
• 3rd and 4th century evidence of village houses and workshops, latrines, and a Roman Celtic temple to an unknown Romano Celtic God.
• The only temple to be found on display to a Roman god inside an auxiliary fort anywhere in the Roman Empire (Jupiter Dolichenus).
• A Post-Roman mausoleum and late Roman Christian church Replicas of a Roman temple and shop, a Romano-British house and replica sections of Hadrian’s Wall in turf timber and stone

Added to all of this is the stunning Museum on the site, housing the cream of the Vindolanda Trusts collection from its on-going excavations. The collection includes the famous writing tablets (Roman post cards covered in ink handwriting), the finest collection of Roman footwear from the Roman Empire, textiles, pottery, militaria and personal items from the communities that lived there.

Synopsis (From the English Heritage website):

The latest Stonehenge guidebook published in 2013 was published to co-incide with the opening of the the new visitor centre and facilities. The guidebook has been brought up to date with the latest knowledge and theories. In addition to the Stonehenge monument all the other nearby features of the Stonehenge environment are included along with its history and archaeology. The book is illustrated with supportive photographs and maps.

I found the guidebook very interesting and informative.

A tiny robot has made a momentous archaeological discovery deep under the famous Temple of Quetzalcoatl, near the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, it was announced on Monday.

Experts expected to find just one ancient chamber at the end of a stretch of 2,000-year-old unexplored tunnel at the Teotihuacan site. Instead, the remote-controlled vehicle has beamed back images of three mysterious caverns.

The three-foot-long investigator, named Tlaloc II-TC after the Aztec god of rain, was first lowered into the depths of the pyramid to check it was safe for human entry.

The temple is best known for the towering Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.

The complex of pyramids, plazas, temples and avenues was once the center of a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants and may have been the largest and most influential city in pre-Hispanic North America at the time.

But nearly 2,500 years after the city was founded – and about 2,100 years after the Teotihuacan culture began to flourish there – very little is known about the identity of its rulers.

No depiction of a ruler, or the tomb of a monarch, has ever been found, setting the metropolis apart from other pre-Hispanic cultures that deified their rulers.

More information, photos and video can be found here.

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology reports of a submerged monumental structure underneath the sea of Galilee, Israel.

From News.Com.au:

The mysterious rock pile is 10 metres high and 70 metres in diameter – about twice the diameter of Stonehenge. The basalt boulders weigh a total of about 60,000 tons.

Researchers believe the structure is a giant cairn, or rock pile that is often used to mark burials.

But its age and purpose are are not yet certain.

“The shape and composition of the submerged structure does not resemble any natural feature. We therefore conclude that it is a man-made and might be termed a cairn,” researchers wrote.

BBC News (York & North Yorkshire) have reported that a section of Roman road has been discovered during excavations underneath York Minster:

Archaeologists have unearthed a section of Roman road beneath York Minster.

The road was found during construction work for new visitor displays in the medieval minster’s undercroft.

The York Archaeological Trust said the road was probably a backstreet that ran behind the Roman basilica, the site the minster sits on.

The work in the undercroft is part of the £10.5m York Minster Revealed project due to be completed in May 2015.

It is the first time for 40 years that archaeologists have been permitted to work at the cathedral.

Patched and repaired

Ian Milsted, lead archaeologist at the trust, said: “It’s a huge privilege to be revealing pieces of the past in such an iconic building, all of it contributing to our picture of life in ancient York.”

He added the street, probably part of the Via Quintana, would have been used for several centuries and appears to have been frequently patched and repaired.

Roman York (Eboracum) was founded in AD71 and remained a major military and economic hub in Roman Britain until the early 5th Century.

The Dean of York, the Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, said: “While it was not as grandly paved as the main streets of Roman York, you can imagine that this backstreet, situated as it was between the Basilica and the Praetorium, was exactly the kind of place where the real business of the empire was done.

“It probably even witnessed the very first Christians on their way to worship.”

Archaeological analysis of all that York Archaeological Trust has uncovered during its work, including human remains found in March, will be published in February 2013.

H/T A Blog About History

Image from Wiki

ABC Brisbane reports that missing fragments of the Egyptian Book of the Dead have been discovered stored in a Queensland museum:

World-renowned Egyptologist Dr John Taylor was viewing the museum’s Egyptian collection when a name on a papyrus fragment caught his eye.

Dr Taylor is the curator of the British Museum’s mummy collection. The British Museum currently has a mummy exhibition on display at the Queensland Museum.

He was taken to the museum’s storeroom to see more and says what came next is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

“After a very short time it became apparent that we did indeed have many fragments of the Book of the Dead,” he said.

Dr Taylor says the rare specimens belonged to a high priest of the Temple of Amun, around 3,400 years ago.

“This is not the papyrus of just anybody, this is one of the top officials from Egypt at the peak of ancient Egypt’s prosperity,” he said.

“So it is a significant find, and if we can reconstruct the whole document that’s going to tell us a lot.

A new satellite survey of Egypt has discovered 17 lost pyramids.  The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.  The BBC report that more than 1000 tombs and 3000 ancient settlements were also revealed by the infra-red images.  The satellites orbited 700km above the earth and were equipped with cameras that are able to pin-point objects less than 1m diameter on the earth’s surface.  Following the observations, test excavations took place:

Ancient Egyptians built their houses and structures out of mud brick, which is much denser than the soil that surrounds it, so the shapes of houses, temples and tombs can be seen.

“It just shows us how easy it is to underestimate both the size and scale of past human settlements,” says Dr Parcak.

And she believes there are more antiquities to be discovered:

“These are just the sites [close to] the surface. There are many thousands of additional sites that the Nile has covered over with silt. This is just the beginning of this kind of work.”

• The full article and details of  the ‘Egypt’s Lost Cities’ broadcast can be found on the BBC website.

Archaeologists unearthed one of the largest statues found to date of a powerful ancient Egyptian pharaoh at his mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor, the country’s antiquities authority announced Tuesday.

The 13 meter (42 foot) tall statue of Amenhotep III was one of a pair that flanked the northern entrance to the grand funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile that is currently the focus of a major excavation.

The statue consists of seven large quartzite blocks and still lacks a head and was actually first discovered in the 1928 and then rehidden, according to the press release from the country’s antiquities authority. Archaeologists expect to find its twin in the next digging season.

Full story can be viewed here.

The Daily Mail are carried a very interesting article on an important archaeological discovery in Eastern Turkey. The discovery was made in 1994 by an old Kurdish shepherd, whilst tending his flock in the hillside:

The man looked left and right: there were similar stone rectangles, peeping from the sands. Calling his dog to heel, the shepherd resolved to inform someone of his finds when he got back to the village. Maybe the stones were important.

They certainly were important. The solitary Kurdish man, on that summer’s day in 1994, had made the greatest archaeological discovery in 50 years. Others would say he’d made the greatest archaeological discovery ever: a site that has revolutionised the way we look at human history, the origin of religion – and perhaps even the truth behind the Garden of Eden.

In late 1994 following the discovery, archaeologist Klaus Schmidt went to the site of Gobekli Tepe to begin excavations. The article goes on to explain what he found at the site:

The site of Gobekli Tepe is simple enough to describe. The oblong stones, unearthed by the shepherd, turned out to be the flat tops of awesome, T-shaped megaliths. Imagine carved and slender versions of the stones of Avebury or Stonehenge.

Most of these standing stones are inscribed with bizarre and delicate images – mainly of boars and ducks, of hunting and game. Sinuous serpents are another common motif. Some of the megaliths show crayfish or lions.

The stones seem to represent human forms – some have stylised ‘arms’, which angle down the sides. Functionally, the site appears to be a temple, or ritual site, like the stone circles of Western Europe.

To date, 45 of these stones have been dug out – they are arranged in circles from five to ten yards across – but there are indications that much more is to come. Geomagnetic surveys imply that there are hundreds more standing stones, just waiting to be excavated.

So far, so remarkable. If Gobekli Tepe was simply this, it would already be a dazzling site – a Turkish Stonehenge. But several unique factors lift Gobekli Tepe into the archaeological stratosphere – and the realms of the fantastical.

The first is its staggering age. Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old.

That means it was built around 10,000BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC.

Gobekli is thus the oldest such site in the world, by a mind-numbing margin. It is so old that it predates settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything. Gobekli hails from a part of human history that is unimaginably distant, right back in our hunter-gatherer past.

Schmidt speculates that bands of hunters gathered at the site over the years of it’s construction. The theory is supported by the flint arrowheads that have been found at the site.

It was when the author of the article first arrived at the site that the theory that it might be the biblical Garden of Eden was first mentioned: