photo credit: Dr. Ya‘akov Vardi/Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority.

Archeologists have found rare prehistoric sites including a 10,000-year old house, and a 6,000-year old temple. The findings were unearthed in Eshtaol, located about 17 miles west of Jerusalem, ahead of widening a highway.  The building, almost all of which was found as reported by CNN, seems to have undergone renovations and repairs and represents a time when humans first began living in permanent settlements rather than migrating regularly in search of food. The team also found a cluster of abandoned flint and limestone axes nearby. The archeologists also discovered the remains of a temple built in the second half of the fifth millennium B.C., including a 4-foot-high stone column weighing several hundred kilograms.

The archeologists believe that these new findings show a very informative and broad picture of formation of early human civilization centers where thousands of years ago people first started domesticating animals and plants.  The findings also provide evidence of how rural societies made the transition to urban societies in the early Bronze Age, about 5,000 years ago.

NBC reports that throughout Israel, construction projects often lead to new archaeological discoveries. For example, during recent expansions of Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, excavators discovered 9,500-year-old animal figurines, a carving of a phallus from the Stone Age and a ritual building from the First Temple era.

Eshtaolis in central Israel, and located about 27 kilometers from Jerusalem.

In a paper published by the Antiquity Journal (on November 25^th, 2013) archaeologists reported uncovering the “earliest ever Buddhist shrine” while digging at Buddha’s birthplace. The archeologists led by a team from Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre and Durham University unearthed a 6th Century BC timber structure buried within the Maya Devi Temple at Lumbini in Nepal. The shrine appears to have housed a tree. Buddhist tradition records that Queen Maya Devi gave birth to the Buddha while grasping the branch of a tree within the Lumbini Garden.

Every year thousands of Buddhists make a holy pilgrimage to Lumbini – long identified as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. Yet despite many books and texts chronicling his life and teachings, it is still uncertain when Buddha lived. Several estimates for his birth dates his life back to 623 BC, but many scholars believed before 390 BC to be a more realistic time frame. Until now, the earliest evidence of Buddhist structures at Lumbini dated no earlier than the 3rd Century BC, in the era of the emperor Asoka.

Archeologists uncovered a wooden structure with a central void which had no roof. Brick temples built later above the timber were also arranged around this central space. To date the buildings, fragments of charcoal and grains of sand were tested using a combination of carbon-dating and optically stimulated luminescence techniques.

“Recent UNESCO-sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence of the nature of an early Buddhist shrine and a secure chronology. The excavations revealed a sequence of early structures preceding the major rebuilding by Asoka during the third century BC. The sequence of durable brick architecture supplanting non-durable timber was foreseen by British prehistorian Stuart Piggott when he was stationed in India over 70 years ago. Lumbini provides a rare and valuable insight into the structure and character of the earliest Buddhist shrines.” – The team stated in their report.

The discovery which was supported by the National Geographic Society could aid conservation efforts at the site which has been neglected despite its UNESCO World Heritage status and the recent efforts that have brought more attention to Lumbini.

Late last month, (October 2013) during the most recent excavations in an archaeological site in the center of Lima, Peru’s busy and lively capital city, archeologists found the newest pre-Incan Discovery. They found an undisturbed Wari tomb containing two corpses wrapped in ceremonial fabric, which is estimated to be more than 1,000 years old. The Pucllana archaeological site in Lima contained the bodies of an adult and an infant, along with nearly 10 intact artifacts.
The archeologists believe that the adult was likely a master weaver, and the infant, was probably killed and buried in the tomb as an offering in the adult’s honor.
The Wari civilization was active in an area that now contains Lima from approximately 600 to 1000 AD, some 500 years before the Inca Empire emerged. Seventy Wari tombs have been unearthed at the Pucllana site, which is nestled in a residential neighborhood in central Lima

What do the clay balls from Mesopotamia reveal?  The researchers believe that they might have found an answer. They have discovered clues to a lost code that was used for record-keeping about 200 years before writing was invented.  In fact, the researchers believe that the clay balls may represent the world’s very first data storage system according to Professor Christopher Woods of the University of Chicago.  At a lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum and an interview with LiveScience, Woods further explained the new findings about the clay balls

The researchers used high-resolution CT scans and 3D modeling to look inside more than 20 clay balls or “envelopes” – as researchers call them – that were excavated at the site of Choga Mish, in western Iran, in the late 1960s. They were created about 5,500 years ago at a time when early cities were flourishing in Mesopotamia. 

The balls were sealed and contain tokens in a variety of geometric shapes and varying sizes from golf ball-size to baseball-size. Researchers believe that the tokens which come in 14 different shapes, including spheres, pyramids, ovoids, lenses and cones, could have represented whole words, and that these shapes would have conveyed numbers connected to a variety of metrological systems used in counting different types of commodities. One ovoid, for instance, might mean a certain unit, say 10, which was used while counting a certain type of commodity.

It is important to point out that researchers have long believed that these clay balls were used to record economic transactions and that the tokens represent numbers and metrical units. This interpretation is also based on an analysis of a 3,300-year-old clay ball found at a site in Mesopotamia named Nuzi that had 49 pebbles and a cuneiform text containing a contract commanding a shepherd to care for 49 sheep and goats.

Professor Woods also commented that through the different token shapes, people in prehistoric times could have actually communicated numbers and units in a way similar to how the first scribes did 200 years later when writing was invented.

As the world has been watching the devastation in terms of human loss and destruction of cities, coast lines and nature in the Philippines over the last few days, once again we at WCHV are reminded of the importance of addressing climate change. Climate Change results in more extreme and unpredictable weather across the world.  The World Wildlife Fund (http://www.wwf.org.za/what_we_do/climate_change/) states that “Climate change is the biggest threat to nature and humanity in the 21st century. It’s nearly impossible to overstate the threat of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions are rising more rapidly than predicted and the world is warming more quickly in response. Global warming will have catastrophic effects such as accelerating sea level rise, droughts, floods, storms and heat waves. These will impact everyone, including some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, disrupting food production, and threatening vitally important species, habitats and ecosystems.”   We could not have said it better.  We at WCHV have continued to report on the impact of wars and conflicts on the destruction and loss of the World National and Natural Heritage around the world as well as the impact of natural disasters, climate change and drastic environmental changes on such loss.  We will continue to do this every week, report on the meetings and will bring you the announcements on the related conferences.
 
 
2013 climate change conference in Warsaw
This month the international community focusing on climate change meets in Warsaw, Poland and it is believed that these UN climate talks could lay foundation for a more unified global pact even though, no major decisions are expected at the conference. The meeting and the progress is a key marker for what the world can reach in form of a deal in 2015.  Especially since the 2009 summit in Copenhagen< ended in discord and major disagreements.For more information visit:  http://unfccc.int/meetings/warsaw_nov_2013/meeting/7649.php

It has been reported to WCHV that several items believed to be over hundreds of years old and considered to be valuable Persian national heritage artifacts were seen at a wedding party in Yazd Province, in Iran and was being used as a chair.  WCHV has been told that these items and more similar artifacts were discovered about four years ago in the Yazd  Province, and were cataloged, listed on the national heritage list of the country and were then supposed to be transferred a museum later.  However, last year, the associate director of the Iranian National Heritage Sites organization reported that those items had been destroyed by unknown individuals, until recently when others have reported seeing some of the same items at a wedding party and another at a conference.

The items found four years ago reported to have included over fifty two artifacts, some made of rocks, with native paintings depicting scenes of hunting of mountain goats and tigers.

A rare exhibition is currently on display now through January 5, 2014 at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World showcases hundreds of artifacts illustrating the achievements of these ancient empires. Highlights include a rare surviving Assyrian sculpture depicting King Ashurnasirpal II, and a terracotta relief of a striding lion that once adorned the palace of Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar II, who famously conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon.

Mesopotamia, included the great ancient empires of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon. Encompassing present-day Iraq, northeast Syria, western Iran and southeast Turkey. The objects in the exhibition come from the British Museum’s rich collection as well as from the Royal Ontario Museum, the University of Chicago Oriental Institute Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Also included are presentations of archaeological excavations conducted in the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The visitor will also experience audio-visual installments and a 3D fly-through of Babylon, highlighting the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

It has widely been reported in the media that following the American invasion in Iraq, looters and smugglers stole major pieces and artifacts from the Iraq National Museum, creating a major loss to the county’s wealth of national heritage. Many architectural remains have also been greatly damaged from war and devastation and artifacts of tremendous national value have been destroyed.

For more information visit Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
www.rom.on.ca

At about the same time as many celebrated the Day of Cyrus the Great, Iranian and Italian archaeologists announced a major discovery in the Fars Province of Iran near the site of Persepolis.

According to the archaeologists, they have found what seems to be remains of a Babylonian temple with widespread use of decorated glazed clay bricks, colored motifs and frescos, and symbols of gods.  Many symbols pertaining to the God Marduk of the city of Babylon are adorned with 16 full lotus flowers.  Archeologists also believe that the temple most probably was built during the Cyrus reign.

It should be noted that Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BC and declared his decree of human rights and religion. He also freed the  enslaved Jews. So therefore, it is quite possible that after this time Babylonians built more temples and Jewish migration to Iran started at that time.

“Digital Heritage International Congress 2013” will be held from October 28^th to November 1^st, 2013 in Marseille, France.  The Digital Heritage International Congress will bring together a multidisciplinary audience to debate, discuss and present digital technology applicable to the protection, documentation and understanding of humanity’s shared heritage, according to an EU website.  This conference is believed to be the largest international scientific event on digital heritage in history, bringing together hundreds of researchers, educators, scientists, industry professionals and policy makers. For the first time ever, under the patronage of UNESCO, the leading scientific and industry teams from across the digital and heritage communities will join together at a conference to explore the state-of-the-art and discuss future emerging technologies that will change research and preservation of world cultural heritage.  Participants will be guided through a series of interactive workshops and exhibitions dedicated to showcasing state-of-the-art technologies used in heritage preservation.

This event has been organized by CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) on behalf of the MAP Laboratory, in collaboration with local research institutions Provence (Aix-Marseille University, Arts et Métiers Paris Tech, CICRP, School of Architecture and INRIA).

For further information, please visit: 
http://www.digitalheritage2013.org/