I always wonder how people become history buffs. For me it started at a very early age. I began, in a manner which is probably backwards to many people. I was a Dinosaur enthusiast in preschool…this led me in elementary school to feverishly read the accounts of Roy Chapman Andrews (of the Museum of Natural History in NY). His accounts from the mid 1920’s of the trek to Mongolia, where he found Dinosaur eggs were the source of many of my 3rd grade dreams…
From there I became more and more interested in archaeology, and spent time reading the accounts of the digs at the site of Troy, King Tut’s tomb, Knossos, and other European and Middle Eastern sites.
With this in mind, I have been doing some catching up over the last month…you might see this in my post about Gobekli Tepe, Werner Herzog’s ‘cave of dreams’, and some other new sites which might change how we see the past, and even ourselves.
This first article presents a fascinating way to consider the past. It isn’t a homogenous place and time (i.e. antiquity), but made up of overlapping pieces of various civilizations which grew, prospered, and died over millennia. In this case, a Neo-Babylonian site (a little before 500 BCE) which contained a museum of what they thought were important artifacts from the past (various objects from periods which were centuries in their past to really antique stuff from 2,500 BCE). The idea that these people were comparably interested in the past, not just their past (as with many of the civilization, whose artifacts they had as exhibits) but of all of these other peoples… This feels strangely modern to me…
The story behind the world’s oldest museum, built by a Babylonian princess 2,500 years ago
http://io9.com/5805358/the-story-behind-the-worlds-oldest-museum-built-by-a-babylonian-princess-2500-years-ago
In 1925, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a curious collection of artifacts while excavating a Babylonian palace. They were from many different times and places, and yet they were neatly organized and even labeled. Woolley had discovered the world’s first museum.
It’s easy to forget that ancient peoples also studied history – Babylonians who lived 2,500 years ago were able to look back on millennia of previous human experience. That’s part of what makes the museum of Princess Ennigaldi so remarkable. Her collection contained wonders and artifacts as ancient to her as the fall of the Roman Empire is to us. But it’s also a grim symbol of a dying civilization consumed by its own vast history.
In his book Ur of the Chaldees, Woolley recounts his excavations of a palace complex in Ur. This particular palace dated to the very end of the city-state’s long history, right before the absorption of its territories into the Persian Empire and the eventual abandonment of the city around 500 BCE. This was the time of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and while Babylon was (unsurprisingly) the capital of this empire, the now ancient city of Ur was still important both for its strategic location near the Persian Gulf and for its legacy as a once great power.
Suddenly the workmen brought to light a large oval-topped black stone whose top was covered with carvings in relief and its sides with inscriptions; it was a boundary-stone recording the position and the outlines of a landed property, with a statement as to how it came legally into the owner’s hands and a terrific curse on whosoever should remove his neighbor’s landmark or deface or destroy the record.
Now, this stone belonged to the Kassite period of about 1400 BC Almost touching it was a fragment of a statue, a bit of the arm of a human figure on which was an inscription, and the fragment had been carefully trimmed so as to make it look neat and to preserve the writing; and the name on the statue was that of Dungi, who was king of Ur in 2058 BC. Then came a clay foundation cone of a Larsa king of about 1700 BC, then a few clay tablets of about the same date, and a large votive stone mace-head which was uninscribed but may well have been more ancient by five hundred years.
What were we to think? Here were half a dozen diverse objects found lying on an unbroken brick pavement of the sixth century BC, yet the newest of them was seven hundred years older than the pavement and the earliest perhaps sixteen hundred.
In this single room, Woolley had discovered at least 1,500 years of history all jumbled together, a bit like if you randomly found a Roman statue and a piece of medieval masonry while cleaning out your closet. Left to their own devices, these objects would never be found together like this. Somebody had messed around with these artifacts – they just couldn’t have guessed how long ago and to what purpose that tampering took place.
It always seems that any superficial examination of archaeology has to have some reference to a pyramid to two… In this case, I found some information about using robot vehicles (i.e. tiny vehicles with cameras and video…) to explore some 20 cm. shafts from the interior of the great pyramid to…? The main result is the photo below…some red hieroglyphs…
Image of the Day: Robot Snaps Pics of Symbols in Secret Chamber of the Great Pyramid
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/05/image-of-the-day-robot-reveals-ancient-symbols-in-secret-chamber-of-great-pyramid.html?%2BBeyond%29=
Archaeologists are not sure if they are ancient graffiti tags left by a worker or symbols of religious significance. A robot has sent back the first images of markings on the wall of a tiny chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt that have not been seen for 4500 years.
The pyramid is thought to have been built as a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu — the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing — contains three main chambers: the Queen’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery and the King’s Chamber, which has two air shafts connecting it with the outside world.
There are also two tunnels, about 20 centimetres by 20 centimetres, that extend from the north and south walls of the Queen’s Chamber and stop at stone doors before they reach the outside of the pyramid.
The function of these tunnels and doors is unknown, but some believe that one or both could lead to a secret chamber. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs describes the doors as the last great mystery of the pyramid.
This year, a robot designed by engineer Rob Richardson from the University of Leeds and colleagues, and named Djedi after the magician that Khufu consulted when he planned his tomb, has crawled up the tunnel carrying a bendy "micro snake" camera that can see around corners.
Images sent back by the camera have revealed hieroglyphs written in red paint and lines in the stone that could be marks left by stone masons when the chamber was being carved.
"If these hieroglyphs could be deciphered they could help Egyptologists work out why these mysterious shafts were built," says Richardson.
