All posts filed under: Uncategorized

New Discovery: Clay Tablet & Cylinder Seal from Tell Kunara, Iraq

Published by Osama S. M. Amin

On Thursday, October 1, I decided to pay Mr. Kamal Rashid, director of the General Directorate of Antiquities in Sulaymaniyah (GDAS), a short visit. He was thrilled and very happy to see me, “Osama have a seat…one of our French teams has just unearthed a clay tablet.” Rashid said. We were at the site of Tell (mound) Kunara (Arabic: تل كنارة; Kurdish: گردي كوناره). Tell Kunara (35°31’9.06″N; 45°21’35.07″E) was first documented in the 1940s. A survey was conducted by the General Directorate of Antiquities in Baghdad. According to the Archives Department of GDAS, Mr. Sabri Shukri visited, surveyed the location and wrote an official memorandum describing the site on November 10, 1943.

Ancient History Short Courses

Published by Jade Koekoe

Hello Ancient History enthusiasts! Over the last two years I have been doing some investigating and today I will share with you my efforts. This post contains a collection of free ancient history courses you can find on the web. I believe it is important to learn and always expand our knowledge. Not only is it exciting to learn a new area of study but being so informed helps us to make better choices for our future, as they say in Battlestar Galactica, “all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” Therefore, it is my hope that you find something of interest in this post. 

Volunteering for History: Australia

Published by Jade Koekoe

Unlike Europe, Australia does not have many great structures that need protecting or preserving. It’s ancient history lies in the natural and social worlds. The Australian Indigenous people’s culture stretches back over 20,000 years. Making them one of the oldest living culture on earth. There are museums and heritage institutions across Australia that help to preserve that culture.

Magnum incendium Romae (the Great Fire of Rome, 64 AD) — Nero the Arsonist on screen

Published by Carole Raddato

This week marks the anniversary of the Great Fire of Rome, one of the worst disasters ever to hit the city of Rome. This tragic event took place during the reign of Nero in 64 A.D. The fire began in the merchant area of the city near the Circus Maximus  and rapidly spread through the dry, wooden structures of the Imperial City. According to Tacitus, the fire  burned for six days and seven nights. Only four of the fourteen districts of Rome escaped the fire; three districts were completely destroyed and the other seven suffered serious damage.

5 Amazing Libraries in Ancient History

Published by Jade Koekoe

From ancient times to the present many cultures around the world have considered libraries as storehouses of ideas, creativity and knowledge. Today we will look at five of the most notable libraries in history and explore why they may be considered significant. The Great Library of Alexandria The Great Library of Alexandria is the most famous library in classical antiquity. Over the years it has gained a mythical status as a ‘universal’ library where all scholars of the ancient world could come and share ideas. The library was located within the grounds of the Royal Palace in Alexandria a port city in northern Egypt and was built around 295 BCE by Ptolemy I. The library was a complex with shrines dedicated to each of the nine muses, lectures areas, observatories, a zoo and living quarters. It was thought to house the works of great scholars and writers including Homer, Plato and Socrates. The library’s destruction is most commonly thought to have happened in 48 BCE when Julius Caesar occupied Alexandria. When Caesar tried to leave …

Assessment of the ISIS Destruction at the Mosul Museum

Published by Christopher Jones

This is a cross-posting from the blog Gates of Nineveh. Part 1 and Part 2 of the original posts can be found there. Last week ISIS released yet another propaganda video, showing what has been feared since the fall of Mosul last summer: the destruction of ancient artifacts of the Mosul Museum. By now most of the world has seen this video, which has been featured in all the world’s major news agencies. This post will attempt to identify what has been lost and assess the damage. As in several of the group’s past videos, a spokesman for the group appears in the video to explain the rationale for the destruction. International Business Times has provided a translation: These ruins that are behind me, they are idols and statues that people in the past used to worship instead of Allah. The so-called Assyrians and Akkadians and others looked to gods for war, agriculture and rain to whom they offered sacrifices…The Prophet Mohammed took down idols with his bare hands when he went into Mecca. We …

Senebkay, first Pharaoh to die in Battle

Published by Jan van der Crabben

In collaboration with the Ministry of Antiquities, a University of Pennsylvania team discovered new evidence on the life and death of pharaoh Senebkay, founder of the 16th Dynasty of the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. The pharaoh’s skeleton’s forensic analysis performed by researchers directed by Dr. Josef Wegner indicated that the reason behind the death of this king was due to a number of wounds received during a fierce battle from multiple assailants or an ambush. The skeleton was found by the Pennsylvania mission in 2014 inside the King’s tomb in Abydos, Suhag Governorate, declared Dr. Eldamaty, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities.

Taposiris Magna Stele: Another Rosetta Stone

Published by Jan van der Crabben

The SCA Archaeological Mission in collaboration with the Catholic University of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) working at the Taposiris Magna site succeeded in discovering a limestone stele inscribed with Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions. The Minister of Antiquities, Dr. Eldamaty stated that the discovered stele contains 20 Hieroglyphic lines with royal cartouches of king “Ptolomy V” whom the stele was inscribed during the seventh year of his reign. Cartouches of Ptolomy’s wife and sister, Queen “Cleopatra I”, his father, King “Ptolomy IV” and his wife “Arsinoe III” also appear. The Demotic inscriptions that lie at the bottom of the stele consist of five lines of a text that seem to be a translation and a copy of the previous Hieroglyphic lines. Eldamaty added that the stele is a 105 cm. length, 65 cm. width and 18 cm. thick. A Significant Discovery The Antiquities Minister stressed that the importance of this discovery lies in the different scripts forming it, resembling the Rosetta Stone which was inscribed in the ninth year of king “Ptolomy V” ‘s reign which means two years …

The Divine Gift of Writing

Published by Cristian Violatti

The gods were responsible for teaching humans how to write. Without their divine involvement, it would have been impossible for us, imperfect mortals, to develop such a valuable and powerful skill. This, and other similar explanations, was the way that most ancient societies accounted for the existence of writing. Itzamná, the Mayan god and ruler of heaven, was the inventor of writing in Mesoamerica, just like Odin in Norse mythology was the god who invented the runes. Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and scribe of the gods, was responsible for the invention of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Greek god Hermes (the Roman Mercury), related to the Egyptian Thoth by some Greeks, was the creator of the Greek alphabet. Even those Greeks who had a more rational explanation for the origin of the alphabet relied on a legendary figure who although was no god, was still mythical: Cadmus, the founder and first king of Thebes according to Greek folklore (Herodotus, 5.58). 

Fifth EAGLE International Event 2015 in Cyprus

Published by James Wiener

Use and Re-Use of Digital Cultural Heritage Assets – Interoperability, Repositories and Shared infrastructures 11-12 March 2015 Athalassa Campus 20 Konstantinou Kavafi Street 2121, Aglantzia Nicosia, Cyprus Use and Re-Use of Digital Cultural Heritage Assets – Interoperability, Repositories and Shared infrastructures is the fifth in a series of international events planned by EAGLE BPN. The event will feature presentations and hands-on workshops regarding themes of the EAGLE project, led by the project’s Working Groups. The event will be held in Nicosia, Cyprus on 11-12 March 2015. It is organised by EAGLE partner Cyprus Institute, in collaboration with Heidelberg University (Germany) and Sapienza, University of Rome (Italy). Programme overview This event is aimed at anyone interested in epigraphy (digital or non-digital) as well as to the establishment and diffusion of general best current practices for digital cultural heritage. It seeks to cover many aspects of digital technology applied to inscriptions, from content to management and networking. __________________________________________________________________________ Agenda The programme of the event is available here. Further information The language of this workshop will be English. …