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Cradle of Maya Civilization Gets Rescue Plan
(Popular Archaeology) In time for the celebration of the Year of the Maya in 2012, the Global Heritage Fund (GHF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation and development of archaeological sites in developing countries, has officially unveiled the long-awaited Archaeological Development Plan for the Mirador Cultural and Natural System, an area in Guatemala that contains some of the world's largest pyramids, including La Danta, the world's largest pyramid by volume, and the large Pre-Classic Maya complex that is touted today by many archaeologists as the birthplace, or cradle, of Maya civilization in Mesoamerica.
Unveiled on December 8th at Guatemala’s National Palace of Culture before an audience of current and past government officials, diplomats, international agencies and foundations, partners, friends and others, the plan provides a framework for continuing archaeological research and preservation of the critical area over the next 15 years. It is designed to conserve the cultural remains and their surrounding natural environment, including provisions to guide tourism development that will be sustainable, protective, and generate direct economic benefits to the indigenous communities. Development of the plan took two years of collaboration with PACUNAM (Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya), FARES (Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies) and the Guatemalan government.
The Mirador Cultural and Natural System encompasses 810,000 acres located in the critical Maya Biosphere of northern Guatemala, an area that has been threatened on a massive scale by deforestation through slash-and-burn agriculture and logging, as well as looting and drug trafficking. It contains some of the largest and oldest ancient Maya cities, including El Mirador, which features the world's largest pyramid by volume (see graphical comparison to ancient Tikal, above), Nakbe, Tintal, Wakna and Xulnal, all linked by an impressive causeway system. The area is recognized by scholars and scientists as a well-spring of archaeological treasures that will help them and the world understand the first great state centers of Maya civilization, most of which still remain enshrouded in the jungles of the endangered Maya Biosphere. Reports the GHF, "the discoveries that still wait to be unearthed and the knowledge to be uncovered is invaluable". But, GHF adds, "equally invaluable is the forest environment in which these Pre-Classic Maya cities are situated. These resources..........are located in one of the largest remaining areas of primary forest in Central America. Extensive habitat provides a rich diversity of flora and fauna including the highest concentration of jaguars in the world as well as over 180 bird species. As a result, archaeological research in the area is accompanied by a wide range of scientific research from botany to entomology and ornithology."
Thus far, conservation efforts have focused on some of Mirador's most important ancient structures, including the La Danta and El Tigre pyramids and the Central Acropolis, a massive complex that functioned as the cultural center. El Mirador, the largest of the cities, is now open to the public with newly installed tourism signage. Surrounding communities have already benefitted with the creation of jobs for the local population, including 60 certified guides and 90 park rangers, as well as hundreds of additional jobs related to development of the tourism infrastructure through the Mirador Guide Association, local restaurants, tour operators and lodging.
The new Archaeological Development Plan will provide an ongoing framework for the work to continue on a sustainable basis, but there is much more to do and the challenges ahead are enormous. Officials and experts familiar with the situation have voiced a warning. Said Dr. Richard Hansen, who is Senior Scientist with the Institute for Mesoamerican Research in the Department of Anthropology at Idaho State University, and Director of the Mirador Basin Project:
"We're looking at a system here, we're looking at migration routes of animals and species, and trees and pollen sequences, and all of these things make the system articulate as an integrated, natural system. And we have these ancient cities that will let us be the economic justification for that conservation......The destruction by fire of this area is unprecedented. It is an environmental catastrophe........We're up against a window of time. In five, ten years there will be no chance to save this."
Ancient texts tell tales of war, towers ... and bar tabs
(LiveScience) A trove of newly translated texts from the ancient Middle East are revealing accounts of war, the building of pyramidlike structures called ziggurats and even the people's use of beer tabs at local taverns.
The 107 cuneiform texts, most of them previously unpublished, are from the collection of Martin Schoyen, a businessman from Norway who has a collection of antiquities.
The texts date from the dawn of written history, about 5,000 years ago, to a time about 2,400 years ago when the Achaemenid Empire (based in Persia) ruled much of the Middle East.
The team's work appears in the newly published book "Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schoyen Collection" (CDL Press, 2011).
Among the finds is a haunting, albeit partly lost, inscription in the words of King Nebuchadnezzar II, a ruler of Babylon who built a great ziggurat — massive pyramidlike towers built in ancient Mesopotamia — dedicated to the god Marduk about 2,500 years ago.
The inscription was carved onto a stele, a stone slab used for engraving. It includes a drawing of the ziggurat and King Nebuchadnezzar II himself.
Some scholars have argued that the structure inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. In the inscription, Nebuchadnezzar talks about how he got people from all over the world to build the Marduk tower and a second ziggurat at Borsippa.
"I mobilized (all) countries everywhere, (each and) every ruler (who) had been raised to prominence over all the people of the world (as one) loved by Marduk..." he wrote on the stele.
"I built their structures with bitumen and (baked brick throughout). I completed them, making (them gleam) bright as the (sun)..." (Translations by Professor Andrew George)
It wasn't the only time Nebuchadnezzar made this boast. In addition to this stele, similar writings were previously discovered on a cylinder-shaped tablet noted Andrew George, a professor at the University of London and editor of the book.
George points out that the image of Nebuchadnezzar II found on the newly translated stele is one of only four known representations of the biblical king.
"The relief thus yields only the fourth certain representation of Nebuchadnezzar to be discovered; the others are carved on cliff-faces in Lebanon at Wadi Brisa (which has two reliefs) and at Shir es-Sanam," George writes in the book. "All these outdoor monuments are in very poor condition and their depictions of the king are much less impressive than that on the stele."
On the stele, a bearded Nebuchadnezzar wears a cone-shaped royal crown with a bracelet or bangle on his right wrist. In his left hand, he carries a staff as tall as he is and in his right he holds an as-yet-unidentified object. He also wears a robe and what appear to be sandals, common footwear in the ancient world.
George goes on to say that the stele was likely originally placed in a cavity of the Babylon ziggurat before being removed sometime in antiquity. (He declined an interview request due to time constraints.)
Another intriguing inscription, which discusses violence, looting and revenge, dates back about 3,000 years. It was written in the name of Tiglath-pileser I, a king of Assyria. In it, he brags about how he conquered portions of Mesopotamia and rebuilt a palace at a city named Pakute.
One section deals with his conquest of the city of Babylon, defeating a king named Marduk-nadin-ahhe.
"I demolished the palaces of the city of Babylon that belonged to Marduk-nadin-ahhe, the king of the land of Kardunias (and) carried off a great deal of property from his palaces," Tiglath-pileser writes.
"Marduk-nadin-ahhe, king of the land of Kardunias, relied on the strength of his troops and his chariots, and he marched after me. He fought with me at the city of Situla, which is upstream of the city of Akkad on the River Tigris, and I dispersed his numerous chariots. I brought about the defeat of his warriors (and) his fighters in that battle. He retreated and went back to his land."
Grant Frame, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who translated the boastful inscription, writes in the book that the Babylonians may have provoked the Assyrians under the rule of Tiglath-pileser I into attacking them. Another newly translated document is the oldest known copy of the law code of Ur-Nammu, a Mesopotamian king who ruled at Ur about 4,000 years ago. He developed a set of laws centuries before Hammurabi's more famous code from 1780 B.C., which includes the "an eye for an eye" rule.
In some ways, Ur Nammu's code is more advanced. For instance, it prescribes a fine for someone who takes out another person's vision, rather than an eye for an eye. Scholars are already aware of much of the code from later versions.
However, the fact that this is the earliest known edition allows researchers to compare it with later copies and see how it evolved. For instance, the copy sheds light on one of the oddest rules governing what you should pay a "female tavern-keeper" who gives you a jar of beer.
Apparently, if you have the female keeper put the beer on your tab during the summer, she will have the right to extract a tax from you, of unknown amount, in winter.
"If a female tavern-keeper gives (in) summer one beer-jar to someone on credit its nigdiri-tax will be (...) in win(ter)..." (Translation by Miguel Civil)
The lesson? If you live in ancient Mesopotamia, don't put the beer on your tab.
Will this be the first time the world sees the Ark of Covenant? Leaking roof in Ethiopian chapel 'will lead to relic being revealed'
A very British problem of a leaky church roof could be about to give the world the chance to glimpse the legendary Ark of the Covenant. That's because the claimed home of the iconic relic - a small chapel in Ethiopia - has sprung a leak and so the Ark could now be on the move.
The Ark - which The Bible says holds God's Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai - is said to have been kept in Aksum, in the Chapel of the Tablet, adjacent to St Mary of Zion Church, since the 1960s. According to the Old Testament, it was first kept in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem for centuries until a Babylonian invasion in the 6th century BC. Since then it's been the goal of many adventurers and archaeologists to find it. Most-famously, but also fictitiously, Indiana Jones was shown in the 1981 Steven Spielberg film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
There has also been a long-running claim from the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia that they have had the Ark for centuries, and since the 1960s it has apparently been kept in the chapel. This small and curiously-styled building is surrounded by spiked iron railings, and situated between two churches, the old and new, of St Mary of Zion in central Aksum. No one has been allowed to see the holy object, described in scripture as being made from acacia wood, plated with gold and topped with two golden angels, except one solitary elderly monk, who must watch over the Ark for the remainder of his life, and is never allowed to leave the chapel grounds.
But now the chapel - which was designed by the Ethiopian leader Emperor Hailie Selassie - has had to be covered in a tarpaulin to stop rain getting in. The water damage could mean the Ark will be moved for the first time in decades giving religious worshippers and adventurers alike a chance to see it. British photographer Tim Makins, 54, who is a travel photographer for publications like Lonely Planet, discovered the church had sprung a leak whilst travelling through Ethiopia last September. He believes the moving of the Ark could be one of the best ways to discover if there's any truth in the claims of the East African state.
Tim said: 'During my most recent visit to the church, I was surprised to see some ground adjacent to the ''Chapel of the Tablet'' being cleared and levelled by workmen, and some quantities of building stone being assembled nearby. 'Asking around, I managed to discover that a new temporary chapel is due to be built, and the Ark is to be moved into it while the original chapel is repaired. It seems that the builders of the 1960s were not as careful as the builders of centuries past, and the roof of the chapel has developed some serious leaks that now need comprehensive repair work. 'To protect the Ark, a tarpaulin now covers the roof of the chapel but this is just a temporary measure. To renovate the building thoroughly, the roof must be stripped back to the bare bones and so a replacement chapel is to be built next door providing a temporary home for it.'
Tim said the construction of the new temporary chapel would take about three months according to workers and religious figures at the site, though he suspects that it will probably take much longer. He added: 'When the work is finished, the Ark of the Covenant will be carried to its new resting place. That this can be done by the one person allowed to see it is unlikely, as The Bible describes the size of the Ark as 2.5 cubits in length, 1.5 in breadth, and 1.5 in height. Cubits in today's measurements translate to about 1.31 metres x 0.79m x 0.79m and it is normally carried on two long wooden poles. If it really is this size, and still contains the two stone tablets that list God's Ten Commandments, then the elderly monk will no doubt need some help to transport it.'
9500 year old obsidian bracelet shows exceptional craft skills
(CNRS) Researchers have analysed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Aıklı Höyük, Turkey.
A high level of technical expertise
Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet’s surface and micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BCE. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today’s polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies. Dated to 7500 BCE, the obsidian bracelet studied by the researchers is unique. It is the earliest evidence of this kind of obsidian working, which only reached its peak in the seventh and sixth millennia BC with the production of all kinds of ornamental objects, including mirrors and vessels. It has a complex shape and a remarkable central annular ridge, and measures 10 cm in diameter and 3.3 cm wide.
Discovered in 1995 at the exceptional site of Asıklı Höyük in Turkey and displayed ever since at the Aksaray Archaeological Museum, the bracelet was studied in 2009, after Mihriban Özbasaran, Professor at the University of Istanbul’s Department of Prehistory, resumed excavations at the site.Laurence Astruc, a CNRS researcher at the IFEA and her colleagues analysed the bracelet using extremely powerful computer technologies originally developed for industry in order to characterise the ‘orange peel effect’ on painted car bodywork. These methods, known as multi-scale tribological analysis, have been adapted for the study of micro-topographic features on archaeological artefacts. They seek to identify every single operation performed on the surface of these objects.This process has revealed that the bracelet was made using highly specialised manufacturing techniques. The analyses carried out showed that the bracelet was almost perfectly regular. The symmetry of the central annular ridge is extremely precise, to the nearest degree and nearest hundred micrometres. This suggests that the artisans of the time used models to control its shape when it was being made. The surface finish of the bracelet required the use of complex polishing techniques capable of obtaining a nanometre-scale surface quality worthy of today’s telescope lenses. Led by Laurence Astruc, the work was carried out in collaboration with the University of Istanbul and was funded by France’s National Research Agency as part of the ‘Obsidian: Practical Techniques and Uses in Anatolia’ program (ANR 08-Blanc-0318). In the program, the Asıklı Höyük bracelet is the first object to have been studied among some sixty other polished obsidian artefacts. In collaboration with the University of Manchester and the British Museum, Laurence Astruc’s team is now analysing ornamental objects found at the Halaf sites of Domuztepe in Eastern Central Anatolia and Arpachiyyah in Iraq.
Cambodia's "second Angkor" stirs to life
(Associated Press) It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists. "It takes awhile to unfold this temple — and everywhere there are enticements," says John Sanday, the team leader, as he navigates through tangled undergrowth, past dramatic towers and bas-reliefs and into dark chambers of the haunting monastic complex of Banteay Chhmar.
What drove Jayavarman VII, regarded as the greatest king of the Angkorian Empire, to erect this vast Buddhist temple about 105 miles (170 kilometers) from his capital in Angkor and in one of the most desolate and driest places in Cambodia remains one of its many unsolved riddles.
At its height in the 12th century, the empire extended over much of Southeast Asia, its rulers engaging in a building frenzy which produced some of the world's greatest religious monuments. Called the "second Angkor Wat," Banteay Chhmar approaches it in size, is more frozen in time than the manicured and made-over superstar, and has so far been spared the blights of mass tourism of recent years at Angkor.
In 2011, an average of 7,000 tourists a day visited Angkor, one of Asia's top tourist draws located near the booming northwestern city of Siem Reap. Banteay Chhmar saw an average of two a day, with no tour buses and bullhorn-wielding guides to disturb the temple's tranquility or traditional life in the surrounding village.
Abandoned for centuries, then cut off from the world by the murderous Khmer Rouge and a civil war, Banteay Chhmar didn't welcome visitors until 2007, when the last mines were cleared and the looting that plagued the defenseless temple in the 1990s was largely halted. A year later, the California-based Global Heritage Fund began work at the site under the overall control of the country's Ministry of Culture and now spends about $200,000 a year on the project.
Sanday, a veteran British conservation architect, assembled a team of 60 experts and workers, some of whom were with him on an earlier restoration of the Preah Khan temple at Angkor. Others were recruited from the surrounding community and although barely literate, Sanday says they're among the best he's worked with in Asia.
Challenging them are hundreds of thousands of stone blocks from collapsed shrines and galleries scattered helter-skelter within the 4.6-square-mile (12-square-kilometer) archaeological site. Towers teeter, massive tree roots burrow into walls, vegetation chokes a wide moat girding the temple.
Three-quarters of the bas reliefs — rarely found at other Angkorian temples — have fallen or been looted, the most notable being eight panels depicting Avalokiteshvara, an enlightened being embodying Buddhist compassion. Thieves sheared off four panels with jackhammers, smuggling them into nearby Thailand where two are widely believed to be decorating the garden of a Thai politician. A pair has been recovered and the others are still at the temple, although only two still stand.
"We've been struggling away with this gallery for nearly two years now," says Sanday at another bas-relief, one depicting a figure believed to be Jayavarman VII leading his troops into battle. In vivid detail, the ancient sandstone wall springs to life with charging war elephants, soldiers plunging spears into their enemies and crocodiles gobbling up the dead.
Nature and time have proved the culprits: the vaulting protecting the 98-foot (30-meter-long) relief collapsed, exposing the wall to monsoon torrents, which seeped downwards to wash away the masonry and loosen the foundations. Pressure from the weight above toppled sections of the wall or forced it to lean.
"He's going to have to come down," says the 68-year-old architect of the king's image. A section of the wall is angled dangerously outward, he explains, so it must be dismantled, the foundations reinforced and the sandstone blocks meticulously numbered, charted, then set back into place.
Nearby, two young Cambodian computer whizzes are pioneering a shortcut to the reassembly process through three-dimensional imaging. The work-in-progress is one of the temple's 34 towers recently damaged in a severe storm.
Some 700 stone blocks from the tower have been removed or collected from where they fell and each one will be videographed from every angle. Since like a human fingerprint, no stone is exactly alike, still-to-be-finalized software should be able to fit all the blocks into their original alignment after they are repaired.
"We hope that with one push of the button all the stones will jump into place to solve what we are calling 'John's puzzle,'" says Sanday.
When an original block has gone missing or is beyond repair, either an original stone from elsewhere on the site is used or, as a last resort, a new stone will be inserted.
"My philosophy is to preserve and present the monuments as I found them for future generations without falsifying their history. So often people tend to guess what was there," he says.
The Global Heritage Fund, he says, is also intent on involving the community. "We can't protect Banteay Chhmar. They have to be the protectors. So they must gain some revenue from the temple," Sanday says.
The Community Based Tourism group, which the fund supports, is training locals to become guides and devising ways to derive more income from tourism, part of which is funneled into betterment of the entire village.
Sanday and local organizers, however, hope Banteay Chhmar's remote location will spare it from a mass tourist influx. Thus he is not keen to have it listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, something the Cambodian government is pushing for.
"I often come here in the late afternoons, when the birds come alive and a breeze stirs," Sanday says as fading sun rays, filtered through the green canopy, dapple the gray, weathered stones. "It's peaceful and quiet here, like it used to be at Angkor. This is a real site."
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