Freshen Up With Archaeology Friday (Post II)

A lot of things have been going on since last week and this all should be a good summary of it :

Did Malaria cause the Fall of Rome?

There has never been any real proof of Malaria having been present at all in the Roman Empire. While there are several mentions of a disease sounding very similar to malaria in historical documents from Roman times, there has never been any hard evidence of its presence.

But last year, for the first time, a British scientist proved conclusively that the most dangerous type of malaria was a killer in imperial Rome. The scientist relied on the latest DNA techniques that are revolutionizing the understanding of the role of disease in ancient times.

The malarial DNA from a Roman site, dating from around AD 450, is the oldest definite evidence of malaria in history. The finding of malaria was a remarkable and complicated piece of detective work, which spanned the last ten years.

At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland in the northern hemisphere to the deserts of Africa in the south. The empire lasted for over 500 years, although its eastern part, the Byzantine Empire, lasted for several more centuries. When the empire collapsed, hordes of barbarian armies, including the infamous Vandal pirates, invaded Italy throughout the fifth century AD. Rome was transformed from a bustling city of millions to a provincial town of a few thousand, surrounded by swamps.

The anarchy of the Dark Ages had begun.

Although there has been no shortage of theories, it has never been clear why Rome became so vulnerable to foreign invaders at this time. Political instability, the collapse of food supplies to Rome, and even the infamous lead in the water supplies have all been implicated. Historians have generally agreed that Rome's downfall was due to a combination of many factors.

More information can be found in this BBC-History article Malaria and the Fall of Rome

The Great Pyramid's Secret Doors to be opened in 2012:

The Great Pyramid of Egypt, secrets to be revealed

Might sound a bit prophetical with it being opened in 2012 but worry not, chances of doomsday are slim-to-none!

Back to the story here:

New revelations on the enduring mystery were already expected this year, following a robot exploration of the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum.

But unrest in Egypt froze the project at its most promising stage, after it produced the first ever images behind one of the Great Pyramid's mysterious doors.

Now the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), once led by the controversial yet charismatic Zahi Hawass, is slowly returning to granting permits for excavations and archaeological research.

"As with other missions, we have had to resubmit our application to be allowed to continue. We are currently waiting for the various committees to formalize the approval," project mission manager Shaun Whitehead, of the exploration company Scoutek UK, told Discovery News. 

"Once we're allowed to continue, I have no doubt that we can complete our work in 2012," he added.

Built for the pharaoh Cheops, also known as Khufu, the Great Pyramid is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world.

The monument is the largest of a family of three pyramids on the Giza plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, and has long been rumored to have hidden passageways leading to secret chambers. Archaeologists have long puzzled over the purpose of four narrow shafts deep inside the pyramid since they were first discovered in 1872.

Two shafts, extend from the upper, or "Kings Chamber" exit into open air. But the lower two, one on the south side and one on the north side in the so-called "Queen's Chamber" disappear within the structures, deepening the pyramid mystery. 

To those interested, the full story is here - Will The Great Pyramid's secrets be finally revealed?

5000 Year Old Burial Sites Discovered in Sohar, Oman:

The 600km sq burial site

 At least 5,000 year old burial sites have been discovered by archaeologists during the two-year-long Sohar Heritage Project, according to a press release from the Ministry of Heritage and Culture on Sunday (the 11th).

The ministry-run project, which has carried out major survey within Sohar town and surrounding areas, is mainly funded by the industrial sector in the this port town.

"An area of 600sqkm has been covered and many new sites have been found that will shed light on Oman and its glorious past," informs to Biubwa Ali Al Sabri, Director of Excavation and Archaeological Sites at the Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

She added that many of the sites found in Sohar are burial sites belonging to the Wadi Souq period (1900- 1100 BC). "Also older sites that are as old as 5000 years have been found and a distinctive pattern can be seen within the area that stretches from Liwa to Gyal as Shabol," pointed out the Omani archaeology expert.

"Many Islamic sites have also been found that have the potential to shed light of how Sohar has come to develop. Also other surveys have been conducted over the years in the area but not in this scale," Al Sabri added.

"This will also be something that can be used in other projects within and outside the Ministry of Heritage and Culture as a base for future development of Omani heritage," said Swedish Project manager Gunnar Ohrnell.

More information and background here - 5,000 year old burial sites found in Oman

Dead Sea Was Almost Dried Up 120,000 years ago:

The Dead Sea, clearly labelled

The Dead Sea nearly disappeared about 120,000 years ago, say researchers who drilled more than 1,500 feet below one of the deepest parts of the politically contentious body of water.

The discovery looms large at a time when the Dead Sea is shrinking rapidly, Middle Eastern nations are battling over water rights, and experts hotly debate whether the salt lake could ever dry up completely in the years to come.

New data from drilled deposits are also helping piece together geological history that slices through Biblical times. Further research may offer opportunities to verify whether earthquakes destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah or if Joseph stockpiled grains in Egypt to weather a real famine.

"We see a lot of these different stories in the Bible about fat years and lean years," said Steven Goldstein, a geochemist at Columbia University in New York. "And we can see in the record that there were these intervals where it looks like it was a land of milk and honey, and there were intervals where there was no water, no rain and I'm sure, famine. Climate validates that there were these rhythms."

The new research started, not as an attempt to investigate Biblical events, but to understand the history of the Dead Sea, which has been drying up at dramatic rates in recent decades.
As a result of both evaporation and intensive human demands for water from inflowing rivers, the surface of the lake dropped 23 meters (75 feet) from 1930 to 2000, said Emi Ito, a geochemist at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

And the lake's rate of shrinking seems to be accelerating. From 2000 to 2008, levels dropped 8 m (26 feet), with another 1.5 m (5 feet) lost in 2010 alone.

Even as the lake's salty shores recede, though, scientists have long debated whether it could ever totally dry up. Because the water is so salty and because salt and water molecules attract each other, many modeling studies have suggested that some amount of water will always remain there.

To see if history could help settle that debate and others, an international team of researchers drilled down about 460 m (more than 1,500 feet) into sediments of the Dead Sea in Israeli territory at a spot that was just slightly shallower than the lake's deepest point, which lay on the other side of the border in Jordan. The cores they pulled up stretched back 200,000 years.At a level corresponding with 120,000 years ago, during a warm period between ice ages, the researchers found a layer of small round pebbles sitting on top of 45 meters (nearly 150 feet) of thick salt deposits. Those pebbles, they announced this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, look just like the rocks that normally appear on the lake's beaches -- suggesting that one of the deepest parts of the lake was once dry.

More Information here - A Dry Dead Sea Before Biblical Times

Enigmatic standing stele of Al-Rajajil 

Perhaps the equivalent of Stonehenge, this unusual structure is believed to be the oldest human monument in the whole Arabian Peninsula

In the Jawf province of Saudi Arabia, outside of Sakkaka lies this three metre high fingers of stone.

Etched with ancient Thamudic graffiti, these monuments to a long extinct culture have maintained their lonely vigil for six millennia. Many have fallen over and others lean at bizarre random angles.

Al-Rajajil (“the men”), the sandstone stele weighing up to five tons each, is popularly called Saudi Arabia’s Stonehenge. They are possibly the oldest human monuments on the peninsula.

Some time in the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, people living in the area where Al-Jouf is today laboriously erected 54 groups of rudely trimmed stone pillars. Each group contains two to 19 pillars.

At ground level there is no immediately obvious placement of the groups. However, aerial images suggest a rough alignment to sunrise and sunset. There is no positive answer to the question why they are there. An archaeological dig over 30 years ago at the base of one set of pillars failed to turn up any bones or votive offerings, suggesting that religious motives were not the reason.

 Political or astronomical reasons are a possibility, though not proven. It is possible that is a landmark for a trade route.

Al-Jouf was a significant stopover point on the trade route from Yemen to Mesopotamia. One trade route, the oldest land route in recorded history, ran from Yemen and parallel to the Red Sea coast through Madinah, Al-‘Ula and Madaen Salih.  It turned northeast to Al-Jouf and then north toward Damascus and Turkey.

The Arabian Peninsula and Saudi Arabia in particular has hugely rich archaeological wealth. Much can be definitively written into history, but the standing stele of Al-Rajajil remains an enigma.

London was built with the Blood of British Slaves ?

Long has it been believed that the Romans founded London (then Londinium) in AD 50 as a centre of trade and business in its empire...or so we thought.

The skulls that were uncovered, belonged to the Iceni tribe

Recent evidence suggests the capital has a more chilling history, built as a military base by slaves who were then slaughtered. Hundreds of skulls discovered along the course of the "lost" river Walbrook suggest London may have been built by forced labour.

Dominic Perring, director of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at University College London, says the skulls could be those of Queen Boudica's rebel Iceni tribesmen who were brought to London to build a new military base.

In an essay published in this month's British Archaeology magazine, Mr Perring argues that some of the skulls had been de-fleshed, which suggests the slaves may have been executed after building work was finished.
 Mike Pitts, the editor of British Archaeology, said:

"At a time when we're all wondering and worrying about the future of the City of London it's interesting to reflect on its foundation, which seems to have been very bloody indeed.

"The team has been looking at the evidence accumulated from decades of new excavation, and they offer a more convincing, and chilling, alternative to what has long been believed."

Mr Perring added:

"The timbers were prepared using 'native' British woodworking techniques, unlike the Roman carpentry used everywhere else. Might this have been the work of forced labour? Several hundred late Iron Age or early Roman skulls, from a population that must have numbered in thousands, have been found in and around the Walbrook and were predominantly of young males. London's civic centre was ignored in the rebuilding, and no new temples or basilicas were erected. This suggests London lacked independent legal status and remained under direct military control.

"It was singled out for attention in the period after the revolt because of its military importance, as both the site of an earlier fort and the principal port that supplied the army. This was the commanding centre from which Roman power in Britain was exercised."

And that sums up this week's post. Come back next week!

Update: A worthy mention for any Romanophiles out there, The University of Arizona published a paper (its actually someone's thesis) on Private Armies and Personal Power in the Late Roman Empire (written by Ryan H. Wilkonson

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Who were the Hittites?

Just over a hundred years ago, the name 'Hittite' was almost unknown, apart from one or two references in the Bible. Then, in 1880, an Englishman named Sayce said that a number of rock carvings in modern Turkey ( in central Turkey, to be precise), resembled remains of a long forgotten empire - that of the Hittites

. He was proved to be correct when, in 1906, a large number of clay tablets were unearthed at a place called Boghazkoy (in central Turkey).

The entrance to Hattusa, the symbolic "Lion's gate"

The tablets were mostly in the wedge-shaped signs of Mesopotamia and some could be read without too much difficulty. Others, although looking like straightforward cuneiform, turned out to be in an unknown language.

There were also inscriptions in a kind of picture writing. It took many years before it became possible to decipher the picture writing.

The decipherers were helped when some stone pillars with messages carved on them were found at Kaaratepe. There were two languages; Hittite and Phoenician, the latter is already known.

The columns were to the Hittites what the Rosetta stone was to the Egyptians, it gave the decoders new symbols and their meanings. Some suspect that the Hittite language might have belonged to the same group of languages as the ancestors of most modern European ones (including English!). Now, scholars could make out "WADAR" and "EZZATENI" translate into "WATER" and "EAT".

They also found out that the place where the first tablets were found was in fact called Hattusas at about 1600 B.C. and was the capital of the ancient empire of the Hittites.

Hattusas had a fortified citadel and massive surrounding walls over two miles long. The Hitties claimed that it was one of the cities taken by their legendary kings, Pithanas , and his son, Anittas. A few other conquered towns can be identified - enough to show that at its greatest extent, the whole of Anatolia, Suria, Turkey, much of present day Palestine, Cyprus and northern Iraq were under Hittite control.

The Hittite empire at its greatest extent (Hattusa marked with yellow)

One Hittite king made a surprise attack down the Euphrates in 1595 B.C. and captured Babylon.

Another, Suppiluliumash, was such a great conqueror that the widow of Tutankhamen (the legendary King Tut) wrote him an official letter asking that one of his sons to marry her.

Ordinary Hittites were of medium height, thickset and with bony noses.
They wore felt boots and short belted kilts. Some were bearded and others clean shaven. They grew barley, wheat and also raised sheep & goats.

Like most ancient people at the time, they were Pagans and worshiped numerous Gods, the chief of which was called Teshup (the equivalent of Thor).

One of the secrets of Hittite military success was their use of iron for weapons. Before 1400 B.C., it was known that some red minerals would reduce to metal at temperature not much about those for producing molten copper from blue and green ores. But iron will only flow like copper or lead in much hotter fires, a process which was not to be invented for another 3,000 years.

The Hittite method was repeated beatings and hammerings to drive out the rock impurities. If you were very lucky, and had a little carbon in your iron ore, you'd make a great sword with it. The knowledge of how to do this wasn't available to the rest of the world until the collapse of the empire in about 1200 B.C.

The Hittite and Egyptian Empire, Kadesh (Qadesh) is marked

Just before this happened, Muwatallis, the Hittite king, claimed a great battle victory against the Egyptians in the battle of Kadesh (which was the first ever recorded battle in history, in terms of details of soldiers and formation).

Rameses II, the Egyptian Pharaoh, also claimed to have won the battle, as his numerous monuments bear witness to.

The battle was probably a draw. It was the last great engagement of the Hittite army with its light, spokewheeled and horse-drawn chariots.

Great movements of peoples in the Middle East only a lifetime later, led to the disappearance of the Hittite empire.

Some of the old provincial city states survived for a few more centuries, for example Carchemish, Malatya and Karatepe. It was probably one of these shadowy 'Neo-Hittite' kingdoms that were referred in the Bible.

The Battle of Kadesh was the earliest recorded battle in history where formations were recorded

500 years after the destruction of the capital, Hatussas, the last traces of the Hittites disappeared from the pages of history. Lost for more than a millennium.

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A Short History of Aleppo - From Pre-History till the Medieval Era

Aleppo has been in the headlines recently, for a lot of reasons. I shall not delve into that but merely would like to remind people about its rich history and culture. To simply forget about one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world would be an insult to its legacy. This post aims to summarize and give the reader a historical knowledge of Aleppo.

Geography and Pre-Islamic History:

A map showing Aleppo (I don't own the map!)

First of all, it is important that we grasp in our mind the exact location of Aleppo so that we may refer to it , later in this post. Aleppo is located in northern Syria, not too far from the Turkish border (about 45 kilomtetres). Aleppo is also an inland city. 

Now that the geography bit is covered, we shall delve into the actual history. As mentioned before, Aleppo is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. 

This is because archaeologists and historians believe that the site of the present city covers the ancient city of Aleppo which was inhabited since 5000 BC.
Aleppo had a bright early history by being the seat of power (the Capital) of an Akkadian kingdom somewhere around the third Millennium BC. Aleppo's name also first appears in old Babylonian records, where it was called Halab.

And as before, it was the capital of another dynasty (the Yamhad dynasty) during its reign of 1800 to 1600 BC, it was believed to have been one of the powerful states in the Near East at the time. The Yamhad dynasty was destroyed by the invading Hittites in the 16th Century BC. During the later centuries, the Egyptians and Hittites battled in the wars of the Levant and Aleppo found itself at the frontline.

By around the 9th Century BC, Aleppo fell to the Neo-Assyrians, and then to the Neo-Bablyonians and finally laid into the hands of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the 7th Century BC.


As part of his conquest, Alexander II of Macedon (popularly known as Alexander the Great) conquered Aleppo in 333 BC and a new city called Beroea (Βέροια) was built on its site. Aleppo later became a cultural stronghold of Greek Hellenism for centuries to come and was later part of the Seleucid Empire after Alexander's death where it remained so for almost 300 years until Pompeii the Great conquered the city in 66 BC.

The Romans built bridges, like this , in Aleppo

The Roman era saw an increase in the population of northern Syria that accelerated under the Byzantines well into the 5th century. In the Late Antiquity era,  Beroea was the second largest Syrian city after Antioch,  the capital of Syria and the third largest city in the Roman world.

Archaeological evidence indicates a high population density for settlements between Antioch and Beroea right up to the 6th century CE. This agrarian landscape holds now the remains of large estate houses and churches such as the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites.

Saint Maron of the Maronite Church was probably born in this region; his tomb is located at Brad to the west of Aleppo.

Islamic Conquest, The Crusades and the Medieval Era:

The Sassanian Persian Empire briefly took hold of Aleppo from the Byzantines in the early 7th Century AD. At this time however, the Arabs burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and by 637 AD, Aleppo was conquered by the Arabs under the leadership of Khalid Bin Waleed. The city had been relatively prosperous for the following centuries, even being the capital of an independent emirate in the 900s as well as producing fine poets like Al Farabi. 

However, a resurgent Byzantine Empire would later sack Aleppo in 962 AD and occupy it for more than 10 years ( 974-987 AD). During the Crusades, the city was besieged twice by the Crusaders in 1098 and in 1124, but was not conquered.

Perhaps a date infamously known in History was the 9th of August, 1138 : A massive earthquake struck through Aleppo and had completely ravaged the city and the countryside. Records at the time say 230,000 people had died in the earthquake, effectively making it the third deadliest earthquake of all times. Aleppo was never to recover fully from the earthquake.

During the Third Crusade, the city fell under the control of Saladin (Salah-ad Din, the famous Kurdish warrior) and his Ayyubid dynasty. In January of the year 1260 AD, the Mongols struck Aleppo with an alliance of Armenians and Frankish knights. The city fell in under 6 days and the Muslim and Jewish population were massacred. The Christian population was spared. The Mongols handed control of the territory to the Frankish knights.

The mighty Citadel of Aleppo

However, in September 1260 AD, the Egyptian Mamluks negotiated for a treaty with the Franks of Acre which allowed them to pass through Crusader territory freely, and engaged the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut on September 3, 1260.

The Mamluks won a decisive victory, killing the Mongols' Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa, and five days later they had re-taken Damascus. Aleppo was recovered by the Muslims within a month, and a Mamluk governor placed to govern the city. Hulagu sent troops to try to recover Aleppo in December. They were able to massacre a large number of Muslims in retaliation for the death of Kitbuqa, but after a fortnight could make no other progress and had to retreat.

The Mamluk governor of the city became insubordinate to the central Mamluk authority in Cairo, and in Autumn 1261 the Mamluk leader Baibars sent an army to reclaim the city.

In October 1271, the Mongols took the city again, attacking with 10,000 horsemen from Anatolia, and defeating the Turcoman troops who were defending Aleppo. The Mamluk garrisons fled to Hama, until Baibars came north again with his main army, and the Mongols retreated.

On 20 October 1280, the Mongols took the city again, pillaging the markets and burning the mosques. The Muslim inhabitants fled for Damascus, where the Mamluk leader Qalawun assembled his forces. When his army advanced, the Mongols again retreated, back across the Euphrates.

A portrait of Tamerlane, a cruel and brutal ruler

Aleppo returned to native control only in 1317. In 1400, the Mongol-Turkic leader Tamerlane captured the city again from the Mamluks.

He massacred many of the inhabitants, ordering the building of a tower of 20,000 skulls outside the city. After the withdrawal of the Mongols, all the Muslim population returned to Aleppo.

On the other hand, Christians who left the city during the Mongol invasion were unable to resettle back in their own quarter in the old town, a fact that led them to establish a new neighborhood in 1420, built outside the city walls, at the northern suburbs of Aleppo.

This new quarter was called al-Jdeydeh ("the new district" in Arabic).


 That concludes this post. I hope you enjoyed it :)

 Sources:

1. Battle of Aleppo - War with the Mamluks
2.English Historical Review

For Further Reading:

1.Constructions of Power and Piety in Medieval Aleppo

2.Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East)
3. The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, c.1024-c.1198, Part 2

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