PrairiePundit

 The Telegraph : A Sumerian “sacred code” has been deciphered, revealing divinely inspired building instructions echoed in the Bible. Experts have been puzzled since unearthing the 4,000-year-old statue of a leader called Gudea , which features an architectural plan, an inscription claiming he built a temple commanded to him in a dream, and a “ruler” of undeciphered measurements. British Museum archaeologists have now cracked the “sacred code” of these mysterious measurements after finding a lost temple in Iraq , which they have established to be the divinely mandated holy site mapped out by Gudea’s plan. The discovery of the temple in the ancient city of Girsu in Iraq allowed experts to test their theories about the “ruler” measurements, and establish that it marked out an extremely precise and to-scale representation of the Sumerian holy site. Dr Sebastien Rey, director of the British Museum’s project in Iraq , said: “It is like the precise measurement we see in the Bible in a ...

 Insider: Stretching 280 feet below the Earth's surface in Cappadocia, Turkey, is a web of tunnels and cave-like dwellings that once housed 20,000 people. The ancient city, Derinkuyu, lay abandoned for decades until, in the 1960s, a local man noticed his chickens were disappearing through a gap in his basement that had opened up during renovations, the BBC reported . After knocking down a wall , he found a tunnel — and accidentally rediscovered the sprawling, subterranean city. Now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, Derinkuyu is open to visitors, although they can only explore eight of its 18 levels. Here's a closer look at the remarkable city and its history. Derinkuyu is an 18-level underground city in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. At its deepest point, it reaches 280 feet below the Earth's surface. Cappadocia is particularly suited to underground dwellings — its landscape is made of a volcanic-ash rock called tuff, which is pliable and dry, making it easy to carv...

 Andrea Widburg: An archeological find aligns with one of the seminal Old Testament stories This is not the only historical record in the Bible that has been confirmed, but it is one of the more recent confirmations of the accuracy of the text. 

  Daily Wire: A massive thousand-year-old mosaic depicting the Trojan War and mythological figures was unearthed by archeologists in the ruins of an ancient Syrian city this week. Archeologists said that the mosaic, which spans roughly 1,300 square feet, is an incredibly “rare” find and they were surprised to find it so well preserved because of the Syrian Civil War. “What is in front of us is a discovery that is rare on a global scale,” Dr. Humam Saad, the associate director of excavation and archaeological research at Syria’s General Directorate of Antiquities and Museum, told the Associated Press. The mosaic, which was found in Rastan, shows scenes from the Trojan War, Amazon warriors, and the Roman sea god Neptune alongside 40 of his mistresses. The ancient artwork could be part of a bathhouse, but archaeologists are still uncertain. “We can’t identify the type of the building, whether it’s a public bathhouse or something else, because we have not finished excavating yet,”...

 Smithsonian: The ongoing drought and heat waves plaguing Europe this summer are drying up many of the continent’s rivers—and, in the process, revealing historic artifacts and infrastructure. In Serbia, the receding waters of the Danube River near the town of Prahovo last week uncovered an array of World War II-era German warships, full of ammunition and explosive devices. The Nazis sank the ships while trying to dodge Soviet troops in 1944, per Reuters ’ Fedja Grulovic. Some 20 vessels are now exposed as the Danube shrinks to record lows. The ships, as well as an estimated 10,000 explosive devices in the water, make it more dangerous for shipping vessels and other boats to pass through this stretch of the river. Though most of the German warships are buried under sand banks, some of their turrets, masts, hulls and command bridges are exposed. They’ve narrowed parts of the waterway from 590 feet to just 330 feet. “The German flotilla has left behind a big ecological disaster th...

Washington Post: Four principles to guide us on whose statues should topple and whose should remain There is little doubt that Julius Ceasar was a controversial figure in the Roman Empire, but the statue of him remains.  Statues are a part of saving history be they of the good, great, or the bad.  It is OK to move them to other locations but destroying them is like destroying history.  It is the act of an uncivilized society.  I have no lingering affection for the Confederacy.  Their rebellion brought about their own destruction and ended slavery sooner than it probably could have been done without the war.  Keep the statues as a reminder of their folly.

Daily Mail: Humans first arrived the in the United States 16,500 years ago - a millennium EARLIER than previously thought Experts from Oregon State University found stone tools and other artefacts at an archaeological dig at the Cooper's Ferry site in Idaho suggesting that people lived in the area as much as 16,500 years ago. This is a story of early migrants to America and not indigenous people.  I think people use the term indigenous because they do not like the name that Columbus gave the early migrants.  Columbas made that mistake because he was trying to get to India.

IFL Science: A newly discovered spearhead once used to hunt down mammoths and mastodons some 15,000 years ago is bringing into question a lot of what we believe about the migration and technology of early people in America. Archaeologists from Texas A&M University discovered the stone spearhead while rooting around a muddy field 64 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Austin, Texas. The blade, no longer than 10 centimeters (4 inches), was unearthed at the Debra L. Friedkin site , an area already rich with archaeological treasures from the Clovis culture , once believed to the first peoples in America, and well-known for their “Clovis point" spears. However, this spearhead pre-dates the Clovis culture. As documented in the journal Science Advances , the findings suggest the spreadhead dates to between 13,500 and 15,000 years ago, which would make it the oldest known weapon in North America. "The discovery is significant because almost all pre-Clovis sites have stone tools,...

NY Times: The most immediate threat to preserving the ruins of Babylon, the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is water soaking the ground and undermining what is left in present-day Iraq of a great city from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar II . It is also one of the oldest threats. The king himself faced water problems 2,600 years ago. Neglect, reckless reconstruction and wartime looting have also taken their toll in recent times, but archaeologists and experts in the preservation of cultural relics say nothing substantial should be done to correct that until the water problem is brought under control. A current study, known as the Future of Babylon project, documents the damage from water mainly associated with the Euphrates River and irrigation systems nearby. The ground is saturated just below the surface at sites of the Ishtar Gate and the long-gone Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders. Bricks are crumbling, temples collapsing. The Tower ...