By Sarah Cascone
Egyptologists have discovered the oldest copy of what is being called the world’s first illustrated book, a 4,000-year-old edition of the “Book of Two Ways,” an ancient Egyptian guide to the afterlife considered to be a forerunner to the “Book of the Dead.” The text predates previously known versions by some 40 years. The find was first published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology in September by Harco Willems, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Unlike modern books, these historic writings weren’t inscribed on bound pages, but on the walls of sarcophagi. They were meant to aid the deceased through the perilous journey to the underworld, during which they might be beset by demons or raging fires. If one were to cast the correct spells, he or she might achieve immortality. Though the plank’s inscriptions reference a governor named Djehutynakht, Willems’s research has revealed that the coffin originally held the remains of a woman named Ankh, referred to throughout the text as “he.” That is in keeping with Egyptian mythology, where rebirth was the purview of male deities, and dead women adopted male pronouns to be more like Osiris, god of death.
Coffin fragments bearing the earliest known version of the “Book of Two Ways,” an
ancient Egyptian text considered the world’s first illustrated book. Photo courtesy of
Harco Willems. “To me, what’s funny is the idea that how you survive in the netherworld is expressed in male terms,” Willems told the New York Times .
The Egyptologist has overseen digs at the Coptic necropolis of Dayr al-Barshā, used as a cemetery during the Middle Kingdom period, from about 2055 to 1650 B.C, since 2001. He excavated the ancient coffin fragments about 20 feet down a burial shaft at the complex of an ancient Egyptian provincial governor, or nomarch, named Ahanakhtin, in 2012. The fragile state of the artifacts, repeatedly ransacked by looters long ago, prevented them from being studied until now.
The planks of wood bear carved ink inscriptions and painted illustrations meant to ensure successful passage through the netherworld to Rostau, the realm of Osiris. (The text is called the “Book of Two Ways” because it offers instructions on how to travel either by land or by water.)
The pigments, however, have faded with time, and the faint markings are visible largely
thanks to high resolution imagery processed with DStretch software. Based on inscriptions on other tomb artifacts referencing Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, who reigned until 2010 B.C., Willems believes this newly identified “Book of Two Ways” is at least four decades older than any of the two dozen previously known versions of the text.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-egyptian-oldest-book-1744110

Targeting our cultural heritage is complicit with the ruling regime in Iran.

Dear President Trump,
You are the only U.S. president who has explicitly opposed the Iranian regime for the past 40 years. You have repeatedly stated your support for the people of Iran and the unique culture of Iran. You and your important government figures have repeatedly stated that the United States of America stands with the Iranian people in these difficult and critical times in which the Iranian regime has imposed upon the Iranian people.
Even the Iranian-Americans living in the U.S, who did not vote for you three years ago, appreciate the U.S. support for the Iranian people who have suffered so much under this oppressive Iranian regime.
Unfortunately, however, your recent remarks about “targeting 52 sites in Iran which also include Iranian cultural heritage sites” is shocking to all Iranians who care deeply about that country yet oppose the regime.
Mr. President, Iranians have been witnessing the destruction of their unique and great cultural and historical heritage for 40 years by the Islamic Republic’s oppressive culture and regime. For over 40 years, we—the lovers of Iran’s cultural and historical heritage—have reported and asked for the assistance of all the cultural centers of different countries, including the United States, the United Nations, and UNESCO, for assistance in stopping the destruction of beautiful historical and cultural sites and monuments by the ruling Iranian regime. These heritage sites not only belong to the people of Iran but also belong to humanity and the global community. Now, would you want to destroy these invaluable, priceless historical and cultural heritage sites to retaliate for the actions of the ruling regime in Iran?
President Trump, while your recent remarks have been of great concern for all the lovers of world cultural heritage, they have unfortunately made the heads of the Iranian regime very happy. They have tried their best to destroy Iran’s cultural, environmental, and historical heritage over the last 40 years and any destruction of these sites by anyone, for any reason, will be of complete complicity with the ruling regime in Iran.
Sincerely yours
Shokooh Mirzadegi
Executive Officer of Pasargad Heritage Foundation
January 5, 2020

It has been reported by the Chinese news outlets, three tourists were sentenced to prison and have been fined 6 million yuan (about 859,900 U.S. dollars) in total for causing damage to a world heritage site in east. China’s Jiangxi Province.
The three tourists from neighboring Zhejiang Province drilled 26 holes in a 128-meter-tall rock on Sanqing Mountain, a world natural heritage site, and used ropes to climb to the top of the rock on April 15, 2017, according to the site’s administration committee and the local authorities.
The rock, known as the “Giant Python of the Mountain,” is of scientific and aesthetic significance which archeologists believe has evolved over the last 300 million years. The rock however has been reported to have poor stability and is only seven meters in diameter at the thinnest part.
Geological experts said the rock had sustained damage from the tourists’ drilling.
One tourist surnamed Zhang was sentenced to one year and a tourist surnamed Mao was sentenced to six months. The total fine will be used to protect and restore ecological environment.
The Sanqingshan UNESCO Global Geopark in Jiangxi Province was added to the World Heritage List in April 2019, and is famous for the juxtaposition of granite stones and vegetation.

As far back as a decade ago, the Iranian and international newspapers were reporting on the drought and desertification in Iran. In 2015, the New York Times reported on the problem in an article titled: “The Empty River of Life”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/middleeast/iran-our-man-in-tehran.html. Now almost at the beginning of the second decade of the 21 st century the desertification across Iran has worsened so much that the consequences could have dire and irreparable consequences for the country. In a new report by Iran International, titled, “Desert Invasion across Iran”, that reality has been witnessed.
It has been reported that Khosrow Shahbazi, the head of Iranian Forest, Rangeland and
Watershed, at a meeting with the Governor of Gilan (a province in the north of Iran by the Caspian Sea) on December 1 st , 2019, stated that about one hundred million hectares of the country’s lands are subject to desertification.
Desertification is a process whereby the biological productivity or ability of the environment to support life such as vegetation is greatly diminished. The scientists have stated that this gradual and drastic decrease in productivity may be due to several factors such as climate change, deforestation, unhealthy grazing, poverty, political instability, unstable irrigation, and inadequate management of water resources (surface and groundwater) or a combination of these factors.
This has happened in many areas of the world including in some countries in Africa. What is for certain based on many reports as well as evidence the environmental policies of Iranian agencies have had major impact on these catastrophic environmental changes.
Iran is a country with varied natural landscapes composed of arid and dry desert ecosystems, as well as plains, grasslands, and forests. However, even the northern forests have been drastically changing. According to Mohammad Darwish, a member of the faculty of forests and rangelands, the forests have been changing due to forest tree disease, man-made deforestation under the pretext of development, increased soil erosion, flooding and land subsidence. Other factors include wood harvesting, the establishment of industrial and mining units, animal husbandry.
De-forestation is more severe in Golestan province, and northern forests follow the path that Zagros began decades ago, despite warnings given by the scientists and environmentalists.
Acoording to Isa Callanti, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, between 2 to 5 hectares of Zagros forests are drying out annually, but the situation is much worse in rangelands, prairies and drier areas.
The environmentalists believe that dams (built in recent years) are the main culprit in many parts of Iran. For example, the dam built on Zohreh River has been the cause of drying of Hendijan plain. In Sistan and Baluchistan, the sandstorms and the influx of sand have greatly increased due to desertification and the dam on the Helmand River in Afghanistan has been drying up the lakes Sistan and Baluchistan. In another part of the country, excessive grazing and drought has caused the gradual death of semi-green rangelands in Isfahan province. According to statistics available, over 6,000 villages in Iran have been affected by this phenomenon since the past 5 years, reflecting the severity of desertification in Iran.
The rapidly advancing desertification phenomenon has received little attention or consideration from the Iranian governmental agencies while they still continue with poor environmental management decisions which are now negatively and drastically impacting the country with dire environmental consequences.

Archaeologists accidentally broke three Roman eggs that had been going off for 1,700 years.
The excavators unearthed a basket of four chickens’ eggs in a waterlogged pit during a dig in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Three of the eggs cracked, releasing an overpowering “potent stench”, however the team managed to preserve the fourth one – making it the only complete Roman chicken’s egg found in Britain. Experts from Oxford Archaeology think the waterlogged pit may have been used as a sort of Roman wishing well. Stuart Foreman, dig project manager, said: “There’s a very good reason it’s the first and only find in the UK.”
He added: “In a pit that has been waterlogged for thousands of years you get things that would never survive in a dry environment.
“But it’s incredible we even got one out. They were so fragile.” Alongside the eggs were dozens of coins, shoes, wooden tools and a “very rare” basket.
© Provided by The Independent Edward Biddulph, who spent three years analysing the
find, added: “Passers-by would have perhaps stopped to throw in offerings to make a
wish for the gods of the underworld to fulfil.
“The Romans associated eggs with rebirth and fertility, for obvious reasons.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/archaeologists-
accidentally-break-eggs-that-had-been-going-off-for-1700-years/ar-BBXTaJM

By Michael Marshall
A Bronze Age painting on a Greek island shows a monkey from thousands of kilometres away in Asia. The finding suggests that ancient cultures separated by great distances were trading and exchanging ideas.
The artwork is one of several wall paintings in a building at Akrotiri on the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea. Akrotiri was a settlement of the Minoan civilisation in Bronze Age Greece that was buried by ash from a volcanic eruption in around 1600 BC.
Many of the paintings show monkeys, yet there were no monkeys in Greece at the time.
Most of the monkeys have been identified as Egyptian species like olive baboons. This
makes sense because Egypt was in contact with the Minoan civilisation, which was
spread across several Aegean islands. However, others were harder to identify.
Marie Nicole Pareja at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia teamed up with
primatologists to re-examine the mystery monkey paintings. One stood out. “When they
looked at this wall painting, they all straight away unambiguously said ‘that’s a langur’,”
says Pareja.
The real utopia: This ancient civilisation thrived without war
The team has identified the monkey as a grey langur ( Semnopithecus ). As well as its
distinctive fur, the monkey was depicted holding its tail in a characteristic S shape.
Grey langurs live in southern Asia in what is now Nepal, Bhutan and India – and
particularly in the Indus Valley. During the Bronze Age, the region was home to the
Indus Valley Civilisation, one of the most important societies of that time. Although it
was past its peak, the Indus Valley Civilisation was still advanced for its time, with large
cities and elaborate water supply systems.
Somehow, the artist who painted the monkey picture must have seen a grey langur. But
how? Did Minoan Greeks visit the Indus? “I wouldn’t be surprised if someday in the future we found evidence for that kind of direct contact,” says Pareja, but right now there is none. It is also possible the visit was the other way round, but again there is no evidence. Instead, it may be that Greece and Indus were connected via Mesopotamia, another Bronze Age civilisation centred on what is now Iraq. Langurs may have been imported to Mesopotamia for menageries, where visiting Greeks saw them.
“It’s evidence of this far-reaching trade, these relationships with these far-flung areas,”
says Pareja. Even in the Bronze Age, it seems there was a lot of exchange between
seemingly separate civilisations.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2227146-ancient-monkey-painting-suggests-
bronze-age-greeks-travelled-widely/#ixzz69cVmypv8

The ancient Romans relied on long-distance timber trading to construct their empire, according to a study published December 4, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mauro Bernabei from the National Research Council, Italy, and colleagues.
The timber requirements of ancient Rome were immense and complex, with different types of trees from various locations around the Roman Empire and beyond used for many purposes, including construction, shipbuilding and firewood. Unfortunately, the timber trade in ancient Rome is poorly understood, as little wood has been found in a state adequate for analysis. In this study, Bernabei et al successfully date and determine the origin and chronology of unusually well-preserved ancient Roman timber samples.
The twenty-four oak timber planks (Quercus species) analyzed in this study were
excavated during Metro construction in Rome during 2014-2016. They formed part of a
Roman portico in the gardens of via Sannio (belonging to what was once a lavishly
decorated and rich property). The authors measured the tree-ring widths for each plank
and ran statistical tests to determine average chronology, successfully dating thirteen of
the planks.
By comparing their dated planks to Mediterranean and central European oak reference
chronologies, the authors found that the oaks used for the Roman portico planks were
taken from the Jura mountains in eastern France, over 1700km away. Based on the
sapwood present in 8 of the thirteen samples, the authors were able to narrow the date
these oaks were felled to between 40 and 60 CE and determined that the planks all came from neighboring trees. Given the timber's dimensions and the vast distance it travelled, the authors suggest that ancient Romans (or their traders) likely floated the timber down the Saône and Rhône rivers in present-day France before transporting it over the Mediterranean Sea and then up the river Tiber to Rome, though this cannot be confirmed.
The authors note that the difficulty of obtaining these planks—which were not specially
sourced for an aesthetic function but used in the portico's foundations—suggests that the logistical organization of ancient Rome was considerable, and that their trade network was highly advanced.
Bernabei notes: “This study shows that in Roman times, wood from the near-natural
woodlands of north-eastern France was used for construction purposes in the centre of
Rome. Considering the distance, calculated to be over 1700km, the timber sizes, [and] the means of transportation with all the possible obstacles along the way, our research
emphasises the importance of wood for the Romans and the powerful logistic organisation of the Roman society.”
Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com

ELA, SICILY—According to a report in The Local, excavation work on Sicily’s southern coast has revealed a small section of a Greek necropolis dating to the seventh century B.C. Among the burials, archaeologist Gianluca Calà has discovered the remains of a newborn and bones from a large animal in a hydria, or ceramic water jug, and a sarcophagus containing an intact skeleton.
Pottery recovered from the graves links them to the earliest Greeks from Rhodes and Crete to settle in Sicily. To read about excavations at the nearby Greek colony of Akragas, go to “Sicily’s Lost Theater.”