Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 11:20 AM

Helen, I was about to post that!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 03:49 PM

Great minds, Mrzy!!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 11:13 PM

If your armchair was at the beach or on a boat: 11 amazing message-in-a-bottle stories.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 10:15 AM

Temple to ancient Roman cult resurrected beneath London

In central London, seven meters underground, lies an ancient Roman temple to a mysterious god called Mithras.

Nearly 2,000 years after the temple was frequented by the all-male members of an exclusive, enigmatic cult, it has now been faithfully restored and opened to the public.

Visitors descend into a dimly lit cave beneath the new London headquarters of business news outlet Bloomberg. The temple slowly comes to life as torch light flickers and a recording of a low chanting fills the room.

Channels of light and haze extend from the rocky ruins, recreating shadowy columns to give the impression of the temple's superstructure.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 02:26 PM

I was introduced to Mithra in History 101 in college about 1958. It was explained as descending from Persian Zoroastrianism and having been brought, in various forms, to Rome...probably by slaves... where gradually, Mithra became the focus until it was displaced by, as DR. J. Kelly Sowards called it "dockyards Christianity".

Here is a quote from the Zoroastrian Avesta scriptures: " We sacrifice to Mithra, The Lord of all countries, Whom Ahura Mazda created the most glorious, Of the Supernatural Yazads. So may there come to us for Aid, Both Mithra and Ahura, the Two Exalted Ones,...."
Rome has a myriad of barely explored underground tunnels and tombs. Some may never be excavated due to the city above them.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 04:08 PM

I recognize the name because it periodically comes up in historical novels. :-/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Nov 19 - 07:08 PM

Interesting related programme on BBC One just now - "Earth from Space".

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 19 - 10:15 PM

Canine Archaeologists Sniff Out 3,000-Year-Old Graves in Croatia

A new study shows how canines trained to find human remains could help archaeologists locate new sites

Dogs have helped law enforcement and search-and-rescue crews discover human remains for decades. But recently, a new group has enlisted the help of canines and their olfactory superpowers: archaeologists.

In a recent paper in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory, Vedrana Glavaš, an archaeologist at the University of Zadar in Croatia, and Andrea Pintar, a cadaver dog handler, describe how dogs trained to find human remains helped them track down gravesites dating to around 700 B.C. . . .To test the dogs, Glavaš had them sniff around an area where they she had excavated three grave sites the year before. The human remains had been removed, and due to weathering, it was no longer apparent where the excavations had taken place. Two dogs, working independently, easily located all three spots.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Nov 19 - 06:38 PM

that's interesting. And amazing. Thanks, SRS.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 01:22 PM

WWI German vessel Scharnhorst found off of Falkland Islands

Maritime archaeologists have located the wreck of the S.M.S. Scharnhorst, an armored battle cruiser that served as the flagship of German Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron during World War I, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust announced this week.

The Scharnhorst sank in the south Atlantic on December 8, 1914, with more than 800 crew members onboard. The cruiser was one of four German ships lost during the Battle of the Falkland Islands; according to official dispatches, two support vessels from the squadron were later evacuated and scuttled.

Per a press release, the heritage trust started looking for the sunken ships on the centenary of the battle in 2014. Initial search attempts were unsuccessful, but archaeologists recently returned to the site of the naval engagement with state-of-the-art subsea exploration equipment, including a specialized vessel called the Seabed Constructor and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

The rest is at the link.

There are other views of it here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 06:33 PM

thanks for posting, Stilly, I now have a new bookmark (here) - Live Science, lots of interesting stuff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 07:14 AM

Yes indeed, thanks for your Herculean efforts Professor Sage.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 07:35 AM

google lidar Earth

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 12:06 PM

Lidar! Another way to get sucked into the close details using Google Earth. It's also very good for hard science.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 01:20 PM

I was comparing photos of the polar regions of Saturn and Jupiter and noticed a profound similarity. Saturn has a north polar vortex that is in the perfect shape of a hexagon. Jupiter has a brand new polar storm of 6 hurricanes that trace a hexagon shape, all surrounding a central storm. There are obviously forces that resolve into a hexagon shape around planetary gas giant polar regions. THE questions are how and why.

Ancient images of the hexagon and star of David as well as Gurjiefian and Kabalistic cosmology may have no bearing but there is an intriguing cosmic question here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:11 PM

Back on Earth there are many early Olmec sites but the Mayans have on occaision built on top of other ancient structures so even lidar can not show everything.

The Olmec people interest me the most since they are the most global cosmpolitan ancient civilization I have ever seen. There are quite a few links with India Hindu statues of various gods like Garuda and Shiva as well as stone heads with African features. Europeans, not so much.

I am leaning toward India as the heart of ancient civilization. Now I will look at the genetic records, architecture and dates to see if my guess is reasonable.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:22 PM

Check the Grand Egyptian Museum's construction, not far from the pyramids.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:54 PM

WHY ? What do we look for?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:57 PM

Could follow its construction (will be the biggest museum in the world, I think), as priceless items are moved across Cairo from the old museum.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 04:00 PM

Ramses II does look buff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 12:05 PM

This one is out of this world: Indian Moon Lander Crash Site located by an amateur astronomer.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 01:04 PM

I am leaning toward India as the heart of ancient civilization. Now I will look at the genetic records, architecture and dates to see if my guess is reasonable.

Conventional archeology holds that the Romans built Baalbek. They may have built the temple to jupiter However this sits atop 3000ton dressed megaliths. Funny the Romans left no written record of how they moved those megaliths. Even stranger they had the technology to move them.
But this is a pattern repeated throughout the world, ancient ruins are built on top of carefully dressed megaliths. Frequently the basal craftmanship is of far greater quality than the overlying constructions.
This suggests to me that conventional archeology needs to get out and about more and rethink a few basics. Gobekli Tepi has given them a bit of a poke in the eye as far as shifting boundaries back is concerned. In the last 20000 years sea level has risen 400feet. How many ruins lie under the sea? I suspect a paradigm shift is in the offing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 02:22 PM

Archaeological materials underwater are old news, Iains, New World and Old, with divers finding Mayan relics in an underwater cave and Robert Ballard has pushed those limits even further with discoveries of the ancient ruins under the Black Sea. To say nothing of Alexandria, Egypt, many Greek ruins, all sorts of Mediterranean stuff, etc.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 03:26 PM

Not disputing some are old news. Others are more recent news. If the accepted dating of gobekli tepi is 12000BP then I would anticipate many more underwater discoveries. It is probably no exaggeration to say we know more of the surface features of Mars than the underwater features of our own planet.
The Yonaguni Island Submarine Ruins are subject to controversy as to whether they are manmade or natural.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 06:37 PM

wikipedia on Yonaguni Monument

thanks to all who post here, I've seen so many interesting pages & bookmarked several more pages.

I've been buying 2 magazines over the past year or so as my local libraries no longer get archaeology magazines (shock, horror, no regular archaeology!) & a growing pile of magazines when I'm trying to downsize. Fortunately I have a friend who volunteers on archaeological sites ...

Current World Archaeology - Archaeological Institute of America
Current World Archaeology

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 08:17 PM

When I was in college in the 1960s, I remember a lecture noting that Mohenjo-daro in India and Harappa in what is now Pakistan were some of the earliest known major cities known. Other excavations find evidence of settlements, but very few large ones.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 08:23 PM

Admiral O Voyus says it is clear that sea levels were significantly lower in the past. In addition to the underwater architecture already mentioned, there are structures remaining off of Japan, Cuba, India, China, Argentina and HERE

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 09:14 PM

I am a huge Globeki Tepi fan. Some distance away in Turkey there is an underground city with ventillation and room for livestock that is nearly 20 stories deep.

I've climbed cliffside dwellings and seen pictures of mountain top temples in Nepal, Peru, underground cities and now underwater cities. We are damn clever animals especially in trying to escape other predatory people or enviorments. We are now looking to interplanatary travel while our ancestors were more advanced in building with 'unliftable stone'.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 19 - 12:04 AM

I probably saw this in Smithsonian when it first came out and forgot all about it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 19 Dec 19 - 04:51 AM

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150325-underground-city-cappadocia-turkey-archaeology/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/05/20160511-Maya-Lost-City-Canadian-Teen-Discover-Constellations-Archaeology-Satell

I wonder how that Mayan City?is going to play out.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jan 20 - 11:58 AM

Archaeologists find a Roman London Bridge in a very short video added to British Pathé.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 20 - 08:21 PM

thanks, Stilly, that link led me to other good info

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jan 20 - 12:51 AM

Down the rabbit hole, eh?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 20 - 01:24 AM

yes!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 03:17 PM

This will keep a few of you busy. Crank up the Google Earth and start exploring. (You might want to save a copy of this map in case the link isn't durable.)

You're welcome. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 06:31 PM

Not shown on the map from SRS, Aborigines were probably trading with Malay people back then.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 06:48 PM

Many things aren't shown, this is the Big Picture wide-ranging stuff. There was lots of trading in the Americas, literally from North to South and between the coasts.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 07:54 PM

I had a problem with "Ragusa" on the map, a town which I know from Sicily. Having been forced to look it up, I discovered that it's also the ancient name for Dubrovnik. So I've learned something today!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 03:04 PM

From Reddit, "The Roman Empire at its height, superimposed on modern borders" https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/etzi6v/the_roman_empire_at_its_height_superimposed_on/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 06:24 PM

I think Scotland is just as happy that Hadrian built that wall.

"No, nothing of interest up here. Those sheep in the south will keep you busy."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 06:55 PM

Hadrian's Wall doesn't anything like follow the modern-day Scottish border. Its western end is pretty close but the eastern end is almost 70 miles south of the border. It's very unlikely that the wall was built to keep out (or in) the ravening hordes. In fact, passage across the wall was probably fairly free, and its function was more likely to be something akin to a customs border. I'm amazed and disgusted with myself that I've never seen it (even though I've crossed its path a good few times).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 07:04 PM

This is fascinating stuff. Once between flights in an airport I met a guy who had seen Youtube videos of white (Beluga) whales in Alaska and, according to him, noticed something that no one else had. He'd observed that while the whales had no dorsal fins, they were able to contract their bodies along their sleek sides and form them into a kind of triangular cross-section effectively giving their spine-side a more vertical shape. His observations had gotten him a free trip to Alaska to tell people about it.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 07:39 PM

citizen science.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 10:53 PM

I saw this mentioned somewhere but can't find it now. Archaeologists have found a bottle with nails in it - if they want to find a modern version of that, my work bench and just about every family workshop probably has something similar. Suspected ‘Witch Bottle’ Full of Nails Found in Virginia

In 2016, archaeologists excavating sections of a southern Virginia interstate unearthed dinnerware and a brick hearth at a Civil War encampment called Redoubt 9. Near the hearth, they found a blue glass bottle made in Pennsylvania between 1840 and 1860. Eerily, the vessel was filled with nails.

At first, the team didn’t know what to make of the bottle, theorizing it was perhaps just a place to collect spare nails. Now, however, experts suspect the container may be a “witch bottle”—one of less than a dozen such protective talismans found in the United States to date, according to a statement from the College of William & Mary.

Witch bottles originated in England during the 1600s, when a witch panic was overtaking Europe. Per JSTOR Daily’s Allison C. Meier, the charms were believed to use hair, fingernail clippings or urine to draw in evil spirits that were then trapped in the bottle by sharp objects like nails, pins or hooks. An alternative theory regarding the vessels suggests they were used not to fight bad luck, but to attract good luck, longevity and health.

Placed near a hearth, metal items enclosed in the bottles would heat up, making them more effective. A witch bottle filled with fishing hooks, glass shards and human teeth, for instance, was found in an English pub’s chimney last November. . .

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jan 20 - 08:00 AM

There's a thread on it above the line, Maggie. Maybe someone thought you could get a tune out of it... :-)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 20 - 05:53 PM

Speaking of glass jars ancient Egypt had glass jars and perhaps windows

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Feb 20 - 04:19 PM

The 2 mile high glaciers over N America and Europe were mostly melted by 10 K BC. The inundation covered an area of 10,000,000 sq. mi., the size of China and Europe combined. The archeological ruins of the prior seaside civilizations would therefore be under water today. What google earth technologies allows us a peek underwater?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 06:56 PM

Rats were the 'first curators' at Sydney museum Hyde Park Barracks Rat infestations may have been a nightmare for convicts at Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks in the 1800s, but today historians are grateful for the rodents.
Scuttering beneath the floorboards, the rats hoarded scraps of fabric, food and personal treasures.
Researchers joke that these rats inadvertently became the barracks' first curators.
The material looked like big piles of dusty, dirty rubbish when it was discovered in 1979, but archaeologists were thrilled upon closer inspection.
"It turns out the accumulated rat nests contained more than 80,000 archaeological artefacts that had been trapped under the floorboards and undisturbed for up to 160 years," said Beth Hise from Sydney Living Museums.

A short history of the Hyde Park Barracks with links to other articles on Sydney's Living Museums, including archaeology & history of music in these former homes & Government buildings.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 08:32 PM

Will LIDAR work to look under water?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 20 Feb 20 - 03:12 AM

https://gisgeography.com/lidar-light-detection-and-ranging/