Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Jun 23 - 06:49 PM

Virgil quote found on fragment of Roman jar unearthed in Spain Excerpt from the Georgics was carved into vessel used for olive oil 1,800 years ago

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 10:09 AM

*Disagree*: istr reading about Neanderthals making toys for their children, and possibly being earlier than hom sap in producing certain sorts of artwork*, both of which suggest empathy. This "other => inferior" mindset is well attested, from ancient (and modern) racism up to MAGA, and is often a dominant driver for warfare and genocide.

Required reading: Asimov's essay "Nice Guys Finish First!" (exclamation mark in original), where he argues that he's being not-nasty out of pure self-interest, because co-operation and circumspection are vital for the long-term continuance of hom sap as a species. It's the last essay in The Sun Shines Bright.

* I originally had "musical instruments", but that might be a false memory.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 08:44 AM

opinion:
As different as the Naldi homo species was from the Neanderthal, the Neanderthal was probably different from us. We may have viewed them as wildmen. 80% of Homo Sapiens possess the cooperative trait of empathy.
My hypothesis within the theory of Survival of the most cooperative is that Neanderthals were without empathy which made them by our definition psychopaths. Empathy is a nascent trait as is narcissistic psychopathy.
Prison populations contain over 30% psychopaths. Evolution may diminish that trait over time. Brain size is not the issue but the nature of the brain is most crucial. 20% of the current population are psychopaths may sound high but psychopaths in suits are a real problem. It is not an accident that Trump's base is also 20$.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 07:44 AM

German archaeologists unearth Bronze Age sword so well preserved it 'almost still shines'

For something sitting in mud & bones, it certainly shines, it's not an over-the-top description!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jun 23 - 06:04 PM

That mausoleum looks compact enough that they should be able to lift the entire thing and put it somewhere safe.

There are plans for the future public display of the mausoleum, which underwent significant modifications. A second mosaic directly beneath the first indicates it was raised during its lifetime. The two mosaics are similar, with a central flower surrounded by concentric circles.

Although the tomb was almost completely dismantled, probably during the medieval period, the signs are it was a substantial building, perhaps two storeys high, and would have been used by wealthier Romans, possibly as a family tomb.

Like peeling back layers of an onion.

There's another link on that same page about what appears to be the remains of a Roman alter that would have stood where the Leicester cathedral now stands. Folktale becomes reality as Roman altar unearthed at Leicester Cathedral. This was published in March, so apologies if I missed it the first time if it was shared here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jun 23 - 07:09 PM

‘Astonishing’ Roman tomb unearthed near London Bridge station Some of the largest Roman mosaics found in 50 years were unearthed on same site last year.

The remains of a Roman mausoleum “with an astonishing level of preservation” – believed to be the most intact structure of its kind discovered in Britain – have been unearthed in London.

The “incredibly rare” find has been excavated at the The Liberty of Southwark development site, a stone’s throw from Borough Market and London Bridge station, the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) has revealed.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 11:34 PM

World's oldest-known burial site found in South Africa challenges understand of human evolution Paper is not yet peer reviewed - so might be challenged

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 02:28 PM

This thread was getting humorous. Who knows 5,000 years from now we might be known as Google man, the last species before homo-sapiens became AI hybrids.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 01:58 PM

Google map of the general area. I've been poking around on Google Earth to see if it might be one of the existing thermal pools or something else with Roman columns nearby, but I think they've wisely removed the location to try to protect the site. Google Earth has a "time slider" that can take the map back about 20 years - trying to push it back to 1985 didn't result in a visible map. The land has seen more development, but the same three thermal pools and one river area are the same all the way back.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 01:28 PM

The chromosome/evolution of dogs stuff isn't really an archaeology subject.

That Tuscan discovery of ancient statues (offerings) was pretty interesting. Thanks, Sandra!

Then, former bin man and amateur local historian Stefano Petrini had "a flash" of intuition, remembering that years earlier he had seen bits of ancient Roman columns on a wall on the other side of the public baths.

The columns could only be seen from an abandoned garden that had once belonged to his friend, San Casciano's late greengrocer, who grew fruit and vegetables there to sell in the village shop.

When Mr Petrini took archaeologists there, they knew they had found the right spot.

"It all started from there, from the columns," Mr Petrini said.

Later in the article "The statues found there were offerings from Romans and Etruscans who looked to the gods for good health, as were the coins and sculptures of body parts like ears and feet also recovered from the site."

Were I alive back then I guess I'd have had someone carve statue parts of each of my knees and toss them in as an offering, hoping they'd get better. Today, we go see the orthopedic surgeon.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 10:10 AM

> a mutation in wolves may be the beginning of dog breeding

It is (dog breeding is better called "unnatural selection"), but needs to be backed up by training. A domestic dog is something like three meals away from reverting to wolf, or less in the case of carnivorous penis extensions carefully mishandled macho dogs. It's a complicity, where humans selected domestic wolves, amongst other things, for susceptibility to training, while domestic wolves initially selected humans for the ability to train by granting them better hunting success.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 07:01 AM

Thats true but a mutation in wolves may be the beginning of dog breeding.
Friendliness and cooperation are at the heart of building projects be they neolithic or more complex architecture. We know homo sapiens by their buildings. I speculate some other human species are still in our chromosomes deep down like the Neanderthals. Not that short people are related to Hobbits but certain disease models may be related to archaic species.
The great mysteries still remain of how certain great stones were moved and manipulated.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 06:06 AM

Friendliness is a side-effect: it's empathy that's the driver.

Oh, and dogs are friendly because we've bred them for that, and they've selected us for being able to do so.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 04:54 AM

We've noticed.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 04:17 AM

We don't all have that trait.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jun 23 - 10:50 PM

100,000 years ago there were about 5 species of humans. That homo sapiens survived is recently theorized that we were the most friendly.
Survival of the most friendly and cooperative is a new way of looking at evolution. Comparing dogs to wolves there is a mutation of chromosome 7 in dogs that make them more friendly. We have a similar shared trait of friendliness with dogs. Woof !

https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Friendliest-Understanding-Rediscovering-Humanity/dp/0399590668

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jun 23 - 06:46 PM

I've never heard of that theory

Ex-garbageman's flash of intuition leads to discovery of ancient statues in Tuscany further to this story - Etruscan and Roman statues pulled from the mud in Tuscany thanks in part to the intuition of a retired garbageman.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 23 - 07:29 AM

Sandra, with genetic archaeology it has been deduced that in the last 12,000 years, the population of various human species was reduced to an extremely tiny gene pool caused by multiple disasters. It may why humans are now a single species. What is your take on this?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 May 23 - 04:30 AM

oops, there's a little typo above!
Oldest evidence of plague in Britain found in 4,000-year-old human remains


Silver in ancient Egyptian bracelets provides earliest evidence for long-distance trade between Egypt and Greece

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 May 23 - 06:21 PM

Oldest evidence of plague in Britain found in 4,000-year-old human remains Traces of Yersinia pestis bacteria were found in teeth of people buried at bronze age sites in Cumbria and Somerset

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 May 23 - 07:49 PM

Archaeologists say Moluccan boats depicted in Arnhem Land rock art, solving mystery At Awunbarna, also known as Mount Borradaile, the rock shelters are decorated with paintings of European ships, guns, fish, prawns and macropods.
But since the 1970s, two specific paintings of boats have stood out as different to western archaeologists.
Researchers from Flinders University have this month published findings that suggest the art depicts ships from the Maluku Islands — previously known as the Moluccas — in Indonesia, which could have reached Australian shores prior to colonisation.
The authors say the work deepens Australia's understanding of how its first people interacted with foreign visitors ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 May 23 - 05:13 AM

something a little different!

‘Ancient’ vase repatriated from UK to Greece faces fresh forgery claim Exclusive: Archaeologist says 5th-century BC wine vase with modern decoration widely regarded as fake.
Days after Greece announced the recovery of hundreds of antiquities from a disgraced British dealer, its ministry of culture faces the accusation that one of those artefacts, a vase of the early 5th-century BC, bears a decoration that is in fact a “modern forgery” created in the 1990s.

Christos Tsirogiannis, an archaeologist based in Cambridge, expressed astonishment that the ministry had included the olpe – a vase for wine – among treasured ancient objects that will be coming home.

He told the Guardian that if they had conducted adequate studies they would have known that it had been dismissed in 1998 by the foremost expert, among many examples of forged decorations on ancient vases – in this case, with an added modern design of a satyr and a goat ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 May 23 - 11:05 AM

‘She has stories to tell’: digital scan of Titanic wreck could reveal its secrets 'Digital twin’ of ship created by deep-sea mapping firm may help shed new light on 1912 sinking
The Titanic has been depicted in unprecedented detail in the first full-sized digital scan of the wreck.
The unique 3D view of the entire vessel, seen as if the water has been drained away, could reveal fresh clues about how she came to sink on her maiden voyage in 1912. The scans also preserve a “digital twin” of the ship, which is rapidly being destroyed by iron-eating bacteria, salt corrosion and deep ocean currents ... related articles below this article

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 May 23 - 11:48 PM

Two Victims Found To Be Killed By Earthquake In Pompeii Disaster Zone - lots of pics & video

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 May 23 - 11:43 PM

Bones of two more victims of the Mount Vesuvius volcano eruption found in Roman ruins of Pompeii Two more skeletons have been found in the ruins of Pompeii — the ancient Roman city wiped out by a Mount Vesuvius eruption nearly 2,000 years ago — the Italian Culture Ministry has said.
The remains are believed to be of two men in their mid-50s, who died in an earthquake that accompanied the volcano eruption in 79AD, a ministry statement said ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 May 23 - 07:42 AM

they have a lot of great articles + some that are a bit fringe (& some that are very fringe) but I don't read those.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 23 - 07:50 PM

It's easy to dive down the rabbit hole with some of the links off of those pages. And a brief tour of the Rio Chancay in Peru on Google Earth. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 May 23 - 07:17 PM

Archaeologists discover 4,000-year-old temple in western Peru

so I went looking got more info - not yet mentioned here, but there are lots of other interesting articles to check out

It's so new that I can't find anything more. Peru has a number of very old sites up to 4000 years old but I can't find anything about this one - yet

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 23 - 10:54 AM

Quite a tour of the Old World this morning, visiting these links.

In particular, interesting about the winery near Rome:

Lying on the ancient Appian Way as it runs south-east from Rome, the villa had its own theatre, an arena for chariot races and a baths complex with walls and floors lined in sumptuous marble.

But the story of the villa, whose origins lie in the second century AD, has just become even more remarkable, with the discovery of an elaborate winery unparalleled in the Roman world for lavishness.

The facility included a series of luxurious dining rooms with a view on to fountains gushing with young wine.

Sounds like what tourists see today (without the slavery that kept the older establishments going).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 22 Apr 23 - 02:11 AM

Rare hoard of
1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Apr 23 - 05:28 PM

surely visitors would have more sense than to do stuff that puts them at risk of falling???? (irony alert)

Divers find wreckage of experimental submarine built in 1907 in Connecticut

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: DaveRo
Date: 18 Apr 23 - 02:32 PM

The gateway looks like a copy of the one at The Lunt

The wooden ballustrade, with its X pattern, looks just like the ones English Heritage, who maintain these sites, build to stop visitors falling off their castles.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Apr 23 - 08:54 AM

Roman gateway rebuilt in ‘exact spot’ at site of invasion of Britain Reconstructed rampart structure that stood almost 2,000 years ago will open to visitors in Richborough, Kent. An 8-metre-high rampart and gateway built almost 2,000 years ago at the spot where Roman forces invaded Britain has been reconstructed for 21st-century visitors.

The original structure was built to allow soldiers a clear view of any threat to the military base they created at Richborough in Kent, the main entry point to Britain from mainland Europe and often referred to as the “gateway to Britannia”.

Built by English Heritage, the charity that looks after more than 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites, the reconstructed gateway opens on Wednesday alongside a display of items found at the site ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:57 AM

It's been 20 years in this modest home. I've rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic many times.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:02 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/ancient-roman-winery-found-ruins-villa-of-quintilii-rome

An Amazing 2nd -3rd century Winery is being excavated just outside Rome.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Apr 23 - 06:54 PM

Well, Rita & I lived in the same house for 42 years. We 'made it our own' with art, friends, music and love. (Nice neighborhood, too.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 23 - 05:00 PM

Not archaeology, just the occasional pleasure of looking around fancy neighborhoods. I read this article about Ann-Margret putting out a rock album at age 81 (more power to her!) and they mention that she has lived in the same home since 1968 in Benedict Canyon in LA. Start looking around - it's in a nice area on several acres but in fact a 5,400sf house in Beverly Hills terms is modest. Four bedrooms, four baths. There's a pool, but not a lot of parking. That may refer to garaged parking. Also, the surrounding buildings probably aren't included in that number. It was built in 1938 and has History - Bacall and Bogart lived in that house when then were first married, and then Hedy Lamarr lived there, apparently who Ms. Olsson bought it from. A blurb on a Hollywood website says

This lovely home, lavishly expanded to enlarge the living room, atop a lower floor entertainment, has been owned by Ann-Margret and her late husband Roger Smith, since their marriage in 1967. Previously, it was the home of Hedy Lamarr, who purchased the home from Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.
The Smiths added a private gym, a two-bedroom home for their live-in cook and chauffeur, a 20-seat screening room, and two guest houses.

Anyway, sometimes I read a story about someone who has stayed in the same place for a long time and I wonder how they've made it their own and what about the area makes it right for them - not keeping up with the Joneses and buying new bigger places over time.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 07:02 AM

My parents bought a 15 volume Reference Library Art Encyclopedia that had photos of art from great museums around the world. Only photos remain for almost all the Bagdad objects that it featured.
   
I've had fun giving photos to friends whose portraiture greatly resembles them. Sometimes the resemblance is amazing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 12:24 AM

I found it! Darned Google was insisting on spelling her name wrong.

One Man's Sad Goal? Make Opera Positive

From 2006. That's how big an impression it made on me.

On Cape Cod, an impresario seeks rewrites of the world's great tragic operas. He wants to give them a happy ending for performances by his children's opera company. Some might call it a fool's errand.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 08:48 PM

mine is from the 70s when a UK scientific organisation put out a press release for a new instrument (really a 12" ruler) with such a wonderful description that an overseas scientific organisation wrote to them some years later wanting it.

Wouldn't happen in The Days of the Internet (or would it?)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 07:10 PM

My favorite NPR April Fools post had to do with bowdlerizing opera. Alice Furlaud I think did the piece on All Things Considered. I can't find it right now, but it's probably still in the archives.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:42 AM

The show aired April 1st.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:16 AM

It's 42 BC and what appears on a scroll recovered in Rome are a compendium of dad jokes like "there's a rumor going around about butter. What is it? I'm not going to spread it."
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/01/1167432458/archaeology-students-found-dad-jokes-from-ancient-rome

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:02 AM

That is heartbreaking - and I hope they identify the source of that carving and can protect the rest of it. Throw the book at the smugglers.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 05:56 AM

From yesterday's Guardian:

Smuggled Iranian carving worth £30m seized at airport by UK border patrol

The ancient treasure has been restored and will go on show at the British Museum before going back home.

It was carved almost 2,000 years ago and is such an important sculpture that if it appeared on the art market today it could fetch more than £30m.

But this is a previously unrecorded antiquity that can never be sold. For the large fragment of a Sasanian rock relief – which depicts an imposing male figure carved in the 3rd century AD – has been freshly gouged from a cliff in Iran with an angle grinder.

It was heading for the black market in Britain when it was seized at Stansted airport. Border Force officers became suspicious when they saw its haphazard packaging, perhaps intended to suggest that it was a worthless item. The antiquity, which is over one metre in height, was hacked out of living rock or rock that has been carved in situ.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 23 - 12:45 PM

It is probably 20 years or more since a science and writers conference introduced me to the amazing abilities of Lidar.

I don't think this was shared yet: The big archaeological digs happening up in the sky Here's part of it:

Laser technology called lidar is helping archaeologists complete years of fieldwork sometimes in the span of a single afternoon

Archaeology is facing a time crunch. Thousands of years of human history risk imminent erasure, from tiny hamlets to entire cities - temples, walls and roads under grave threat of destruction. Urban sprawl and industrial agriculture are but two culprits, smothering ancient settlements beneath car parks and cattle pastures. International conflict and climate change are also damaging vulnerable sites, with warfare and water shortages destroying pockets of history across the world.

The endless excavations of yesteryear are no longer the best solution. Big digs aren’t the big idea they once were: mapping the human archaeological record is now moving upward, into the sky.

Lidar – short for light detection and ranging – has emerged as one of the most widely used technologies for rapid archaeological documentation. Lidar works by sending pulses of light out from a transmitter often mounted to the skid of a helicopter, then recording how long it takes for those pulses to return to a sensor. A virtual 3D map can be generated from a single large-scale survey in less than a day. Archaeological sites that would require years and years of fieldwork to excavate can now be mapped in a single afternoon, their every surface feature captured down to millimeter-scale resolution.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 09:26 AM

On the show CBS Sunday Morning March 23 the subject was stolen antiquities in New York museums There were over 4,000 items from the looted Iraq museum, a gold sarcophagus from Cairo and an entire museum of returned art in Italy. A link may someday follow.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 05:43 AM

In a Roman Tomb, ‘Dead Nails’ Reveal an Occult Practice Forty-one bent or twisted iron nails, unearthed from a second-century imperial burial site, were meant to keep the deceased in their place.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 12:58 PM

Yep. Some museums trouble me almost as much as zoos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 11:26 AM

Souvenirs and graffiti. Both part of the experience of European travelers. Taking stuff and leaving a mark of our passing.