The Gaziantep Castle, built in the second and third centuries, was among the more than 3,000 buildings destroyed.

Taylor Dafoe, February 6, 2023

A Roman-era castle in southeastern Turkey is among the thousands of structures damaged by the deadly earthquakes that struck the country and the neighboring state of Syria today. An estimated 2,300 people died in the disaster, and thousands more have been injured.

Now, as the totality of the destruction is still being measured, officials fear other significant cultural heritage sites may have been impacted too.  

An initial 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit in the early hours of February 6, centered near the Turkish city of Gaziantep. Since then, more than 40 aftershocks have been felt as far as Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon, while Turkey itself experienced a related 7.5-magnitude tremor.

The catastrophic incident comes at a particularly vulnerable time for Turkey and Syria, both of which are already facing economic turmoil and refugee crises.

Some 3,000 buildings across at least 10 Turkish cities have also been destroyed. Among them was the Gaziantep Castle, a historic structure first built as a watchtower in the second and third centuries, during the Roman period, and later expanded upon in the fifth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian 1, according to the Turkish agency that oversees museums and archaeological sites in the country.

The 1,700-year-old site has since served numerous functions. Just last year, part of the castle was converted into the Gaziantep Defence and Heroism Panoramic Museum, a venue honoring the city’s fight against French and English occupation during the Turkish War of Independence a century ago.

“Some of the bastions in the east, south, and southeast parts of the historical Gaziantep Castle in the central Şahinbey district were destroyed by the earthquake,” the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported. 

“The debris was scattered on the road. The iron railings around the castle were scattered on the surrounding sidewalks. The retaining wall next to the castle also collapsed. In some bastions, large cracks were observed,” the report said.

A 17th-century Şirvani Mosque located next to the capital also collapsed, according local reports.

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Innovate. Demonstrate. Elevate. Advance. Sustain. ( I.D.E.A.S.)

Bringing Everyone Forward for Sustainable and Equitable Development

This year, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (IDWGIS) will focus on the role of Women and Girls and Science as relates to the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) in review at the forthcoming High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), namely SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG17 (means of implementation), while following up on discussions on water held during from the “Water Unites Us” 7th IDWGIS, the 2nd High-Level International Conference on the International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development 2018-2028, held in Dushanbe, and the 2nd UN Ocean Conference and its High-Level Symposium on Water held in Lisbon, as a contribution for the 2023 UN Water Conference, and other UN Fora.

In doing so the IDWGIS aims to connect the International Community to Women and Girls in Science, strengthening the ties between science, policy, and society for strategies oriented towards the future. The IDWGIS will thus showcase best practices, strategies, applied solutions in addressing SDGs challenges and opportunities. It will also include for the first time a science workshop for Blind Girls and a session from the BLIND fellow SCIENTISTS on “Science in Braille: Making Science Accessible”.
women and girls in science
Get Involved

The 8th International Day of Women and Girls in Science Assembly will take place on 10 February 2023 at the United Nations Headquarters, New York City. Join women experts, youth, and professionals in dialogues and discussion to put Science, Technology, and Innovation at the heart of sustainable development programs.
Background

A significant gender gap has persisted throughout the years at all levels of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines all over the world. Even though women have made tremendous progress towards increasing their participation in higher education, they are still under-represented in these fields.

Gender equality has always been a core issue for the United Nations. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls will make a crucial contribution not only to economic development of the world, but to progress across all the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well.

On 14 March 2011, the Commission on the Status of Women adopted a report at its fifty-fifth session, with agreed conclusions on access and participation of women and girls in education, training and science and technology, and for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work. On 20 December 2013, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on science, technology and innovation for development, in which it recognized that full and equal access to and participation in science, technology and innovation for women and girls of all ages is imperative for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—ANSA Med reports that the shells of eight ostrich eggs have been found at an ancient campsite in southern Israel’s Negev Desert. The eggs are estimated to be 4,500 years old, but could be up to 7,500 years old, according to Lauren Davis of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “The proximity of the eggs to the fire pit indicates that it was not a casual discovery but an intentional collection of eggs,” she said. “One of them was directly in the fire pit, which strengthens the conviction that they were used as food.” The shells had been crushed, but were otherwise well-preserved on the surface of the campsite by the shifting desert sands, Davis added. Burned stones, flint, stone tools, and pottery fragments were also recovered

ROME, ITALY—CNN reports that an international team of researchers analyzed samples of Roman concrete taken from a city wall at the site of Privernum, which is located in central Italy. Based upon recipes for concrete found in Roman texts, it had been previously thought that Roman engineers used slaked lime (lime mixed with water) as a binding agent, said Admir Masic of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Masic and his colleagues have concluded that quicklime (calcium oxide) was used instead of, or in addition to, slaked lime. The high temperatures produced by the use of quicklime formed white chunks in the concrete known as lime clasts. Tests of the quicklime concrete recipe suggest that when later exposed to water, the lime clasts dissolved into any cracks in the concrete and sealed them before they could spread, resulting in the long-lasting nature of Roman concrete. Masic and his colleagues also noted that the high temperatures produced by using quicklime to mix concrete reduced its curing and setting times. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances

MAINZ, GERMANY—According to a statement released by the University of Mainz, researchers from the Austrian Archaeological Institute, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Kiel University, and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Elis have uncovered traces of a 2,500-year-old structure that may have been part of a sanctuary of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. The structure is located at the Kleidi site, on the western coast of the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. “The location of this uncovered sacred site matches the details provided by [the ancient Greek historian] Strabo in his writings,” said Birgitta Eder of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. Fragments of roof tiles and a piece of a marble ritual water basin, or perirrhanterion, were also recovered. Eder and the research team will continue to investigate the structure’s relationship to the seaside landscape, which earthquakes and tsunamis have transformed over time. The location may even have been chosen for Poseidon’s temple for this reason, the researchers concluded

As the new year begins, one of the most significant topics of the world’s focus is the struggle of Iranian people. The freedom movement of the Iranian people, which has ignited like a fire of wisdom and love against the bitter 43 years of oppressive rule under the Iranian Islamic dictatorship government, has dazzled the world with its light.

This year, many people of the world, especially those in Western countries, understand the oppressive and cruel conditions under which the Iranian people have been living, thanks to the news that has come from inside Iran. It is as though they see the trends of this tyrannical regime in the pages of their own histories, when freedoms were taken for granted or were forbidden.

Today, at the beginning of a new year, we feel closer to the people of the world who stand in solidarity with us against the oppressive and despotic Islamic government, who have marched with us and have risen the flag of freedom on the streets of cities all over the world, from Berlin to Stockholm, London to Washington, D.C., from Buenos Aires to Tokyo, from Wellington, New Zealand to Seoul, Korea. Thanks to the bravery of the men and women of our land, Iran, we now stand beside the freedom-loving people of the world, singing songs of freedom and crying for the loss of lives of our youth, the young people who have selflessly become the symbol of this freedom movement. Our freedom-loving beauties and brave heroes and heroines have stood on the streets of Iran in the face of the bullets of this occupier regime. At the start of this new year, the people of the world now stand with us and shout, “Women, life, freedom,” and demand a future free from oppression, tyranny, and the Islamic government.

As an Iranian writer in exile, with a heart that is wounded by the killing of hundreds of children and young people in my country, and worried about the thousands of young people in the medieval prisons of the Islamic regime, I cry with hope for a free new year. Today, I thank people of the world and hope, as Iranians do, to join you in a healthy and happy new year. I know that our dark times will soon be over and in a not-so-distant future, we will raise our heads and celebrate our freedom with the free people of the world.

With blessings and happiness for 2023,

Shokooh Mirzadegi

LUXOR, EGYPT—According to an EFE report, two tombs containing the mummified remains of dozens of senior officials and clergy have been found by a team of Egyptian and Spanish archaeologists from the Vizier Amenhotep-Huy Project. Amenhotep-Huy served as vizier in the 18th dynasty under the pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned from about 1390 to 1352 B.C., but he opposed religious practices promoted by Akhenaten, the pharaoh’s son. “He is a very important person,” commented team leader Francisco J. Martín. Two chambers connect the newly discovered tombs to the vizier’s tomb, a chapel with 30 columns located on the west bank of the Nile River. “They began to build other tombs from different dynasties within the vizier’s tomb, since the place was sacred,” Martín explained

CORVALLIS, OREGON—According to a statement released by Oregon State University, researchers led by Loren Davis have discovered projectile points thought to have been made by the earliest peoples in the Americas at the Cooper’s Ferry site, which is located near Idaho’s Salmon River on traditional Nez Perce land. The deadly, razor-sharp points, which range in size from approximately one-half to two inches long, have been radiocarbon dated to around 15,700 years ago. Davis said that the points are sharpened on one end, and have a stem on the other end that was likely attached to a dart. They are similar to projectile points of a similar age found in Hokkaido, Japan, he added, and could support the idea of cultural and genetic connections between the Ice Age peoples of northeastern Asia and North America. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances.