German archaeologist Wolfram Kleiss, who directed plenty of accomplished archaeological explorations in Iran during the 1970s and 1980s, has recently died aged 90.
Kleiss was an Urartu specialist who also researched and studied various types of buildings and architectural works of different prehistoric and historical periods of Iran.
Kleiss studied and documented everything from Iron Age Urartian fortresses to Qajar bridges and mosques. From 1967 to 79, Kleiss conducted archaeological surveys in northwestern Iran and published the results in a series of articles, according to the National Museum of Iran.
Jebrael Nokandeh, director of the museum, on Tuesday, expressed his condolences on the death of this prolific German researcher and added that his name and memory are undoubtedly alive in the cultural heritage and archaeology community.
Nokandeh also voiced hope that the Tehran branch of the German Archaeological Institute would be able to make Kleiss unpublished documents and notes available to researchers.

According to a statement released by the University of the Basque Country , a team of archaeologists and chemists analyzed wall paintings at Pompeii’s House of Marcus Lucretius, the House of Ariadne, and the House of the Golden Cupids. The murals in these structures were covered with pyroclastic materials when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and buried the Roman city. Although the layer of ash has preserved the artwork for the past 2,000 years, the researchers found that ions in the pyroclastic materials combine with underground water and promote the crystallization of damaging salts on the artworks when they are uncovered and exposed to air and humidity. Team leader Maite Maguregui concluded that it is important to understand the salt load of the volcanic material in a particular area of Pompeii in order to reduce or even prevent salt damage to the ancient murals.

According to a New Indian Express report, archaeologists have found a Chola-period inscription dated to A.D. 1260 in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu. The inscription, written by King Vanenja Perumalana Vanakovarayan, refers to a canal and connecting lakes. “During his rule, a canal was built at the south side of Arni lake, and the canal was linked to a lake in Moorkanur,” explained D. Ramesh of the Villupuram Government
Arts College. “Another canal, dug up at the south side of the lake in Moorkanur, was
linked with a lake in Kaduvanur,” he added.

Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that researchers have found a thirteenth-century grave in the wall of a monastery church in the Frankish quarter of Tarnovgrad, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. A block engraved with Christian scripture verses written in Old Bulgarian and a two-barred cross was found under the head of the grave’s occupant.
“Such ‘underhead’ [or pillow] bricks were placed beneath the heads of members of the
senior clergy in their graves,” said archaeologist Hitko Vachev. “At this point, there is no
way to say with absolute certainty who the buried man was but it can be assumed that he was at least Father Superior of the monastery. There is a hypothesis that he was one of the Bulgarian Patriarchs. It is possible that he was a senior clergyman named Yoan [Ivan, John] who had requested that a quote from the Holy Gospel of John be placed beneath his head in his grave.” The verses on the block were translated by Kazimir Popkonstantinov of Veliko Tarnovo University, who cautioned that a study of the man’s clothing and crozier, or staff, would be necessary to determine his status in the church hierarchy.

By David Shultz
With recurring zigzags, spirals, and other simple geometric patterns, ancient rock art is sometimes surprisingly similar across the globe. One hypothesis is that the artists were all using psychoactive compounds, which nudged the brain toward certain patterns. Now, a new find from a roughly 500-year-old cave used by Native Americans suggests such compounds may indeed have been an important component of their rock art. But the art itself may not have depicted the experience of tripping.
“They have broken away from the ludicrous school of thought … which saw all rock art
as trance imagery produced by shamans,” says Paul Bahn, an archaeologist at
Archaeological Institute of America who was not involved in the research.
The site of the discovery is Pinwheel Cave in Southern California, about 80 kilometers
northeast of Santa Barbara. The cave gets its name for a large, red, pinwheel-shaped
drawing on its ceiling; some archaeologists have hypothesized it represents a genus of the psychoactive flower Datura. The flower contains the alkaloids scopolamine and atropine, which are considered an entheogen—a psychoactive compound used in a spiritual context. The Chumash people of Southern California called the experiences triggered by ingesting Datura “sacred dreams,” according to Jim Adams, a pharmacologist at the University of Southern California who spent 14 years studying sacred Chumash Datura ceremonies.

When David Robinson, an archaeologist at the University of Central Lancashire, and his
colleagues began to excavate the site in 2007, they found chewed remnants of plant
materials—also known as quids—pushed into cracks in the ceiling of the cave. Initial
attempts to extract DNA from the quids came up short. But now, a combination of new
chemical analyses and electron microscopy has positively identified the plant as Datura,
the team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “I was
like, ‘Wow, we found the smoking gun of hallucinogens at a rock art site,’” Robinson
says.
Sandra Hernandez, a Tejon tribal member who helped coordinate research for the new
paper, agrees with the interpretation that the art represents the Datura flower. “I kind of
marveled at the shapes that they captured in the rock art compared to the actual flower
unfurling,” she says.
The excavation also uncovered a plethora or arrowheads, tools, and food scraps at the
site, contradicting a once-classic model of a lone shaman hallucinating in isolation and using rock art to record his experience, as had been suggested for ancient rock art around the world.
The study argues the art may not be a depiction of the user’s experience of the Datura,
but rather a message to the community regarding the plant’s importance. “The painting
… is them representing the plant that causes the hallucinogenic experience—not the
vision that is caused by the plant,” Robinson explains. “They’re venerating the plant,
saying, ‘That plant’s cool!’”
The idea that anyone could create rock art while under the influence of Datura is
questionable, says Adams, who was not involved with the work. “I’ve never tried
painting under the influence, but personally I think I would find it difficult.”
https://www.livescience.com/rock-art-hallucinogen-california.html

ANKARA, TURKEY— Yeni Şafak reports that more goddess statues have been
discovered in central Anatolia, at the site of Kültepe, the capital of the ancient kingdom
of Kanesh. Fikri Kulakoğlu of Ankara University said that the largest of the 4,200-year-
old statues unearthed this excavation season stands about 17 inches tall. “No idols of men have been found so far,” he added. “The women statues are naked and have a decorated throne, and there are braids on their back.” The statues are likely to be connected to religious beliefs in the region, Kulakoğlu explained.”