Category: Archaeology & Paleontology

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The Creepy Mystery of the Blinking Mummy

the-mummy-postersI know we all think of Egypt when someone brings up Mummies, or perhaps of the classic 1932 horror film with Boris Karloff wrapped up in the bandages. But mummies are found all over the world even in the modern age. Case in point: The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily. The walls are lined by more than 8000 mummies. Originally intended only for dead friars, it eventually became a status symbol to become interred there and the families of rich locals would pay with regular donations to have their loved ones added to the collection.

All kinds of mummies fill the catacombs that are divided up into categories: Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professionals. Some were posed in unusual positions and the bodies were made accessible so the families could hold their hands and pray with them on special occasions. Artists, doctors, princes and military commanders are interred there, but no one has become more famous than Rosalia Lombardo.

Rosalia was just a little girl who died of Pneumonia in 1920 and is remarkable for how incredibly well-preserved and life-like she still seems after all the decades. But what has drawn attention to her is something that was discovered recently by researchers who were using time-lapse cameras to study the embalming techniques used on her body.

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The time lapse photography showed something that made everyone’s jaws drop. Over the length of a day, the little girl’s eyes would open and close several times. The scientists involved concluded that the blinking was due to the natural humidity in the crypt, but that sounds like not-completely-understood-rationalizing to me. I don’t know about you guys, but this creeps me the heck out. You can check out the time-lapse video yourself below. Sleep tight.

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Ancient Necropolis Discovered to have Mind-Altering Acoustics

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A 5,000 year old mortuary temple on the Mediterranean island of Malta has a room called the “Oracle Chamber” known for its odd and consciousness-altering sound qualities. Researchers have discovered a strong double resonance frequency at 70Hz and 114Hz in the room, and when a deep male voice is tuned to those frequencies, it produces unforgettable effects.

Archaeologist Fernando Coimbra reported it felt like the sound was crossing his body at high speed, making an unexpected relaxation effect and that it felt like the sound was reflected from his body to the old paintings on the walls. In a publication from the conference on Archaeoacoustics (that’s a thing?) it was reported that, “…each volunteer has their own individual frequency of activation, …always between 90 and 120 hz. Those volunteers with a frontal lobe prevalence during the testing received ideas and thoughts similar to what happens during meditation, whilst those with occipital lobe prevalence visualized images.” Also, under the right circumstances, “Ancient populations were able to obtain different states of consciousness without the use of drugs or other chemical substances.”

It was concluded that the effect was intentionally enhanced by the ancient architects of the room in the cave, using techniques to boost the “super acoustics”. Undoubtedly these effects were used to imply divinity and after being in it, it’s easy to see that it probably worked like gangbusters.

The neolithic cultures were characterized by invention and innovation which is surprising since these ancient builders were creating wonders like this 1,000 years before the Egyptians started their pyramids. It all just goes to show that there often is a scientific explanation for mysterious phenomena; even ancient man knew and exploited it. But knowing that doesn’t by any means take away from the wonder of experiencing it.

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MAMMOTH FOUND WITH FLOWING BLOOD

More “news of the weird” today comes from the paleontology world. A fully preserved female mammoth was discovered by Russian scientists in Siberia recently. The specimen was complete with good quality muscle tissue and actual blood that still flowed freely from the mummified corpse. This discovery furthers the concept of one day cloning a mammoth or other prehistoric species. Of course, I beg the question again: haven’t people seen Jurassic Park?

The female mammoth, now named Lyuba, was found beneath the ice on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia. The blood was found pooled in the ice cavities located just below the belly of the beast. The unusual fact about this blood is that even at a temperature of 10C below zero the fluid flowed freely when the cavities were punctured with a poll pick.

“It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

A bacteriological analysis is currently being conducted on the blood sample. It has also been reported that the muscle tissue was so well-preserved that it had the consistency and appearance of fresh red meat. This is due to the fact that the lower half of the animal was trapped beneath pure ice. Scientists estimate the age of the mammoth, which lived approximately 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, to have been between 50 and 60 at the time of its death.

Results from the bacteriological analysis are expected back in late July.

Замерзший труп мамонта обнаружили около года назад на Ямале

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DINOSAUR EGG MISSING LINK

flickr-4155003915-original-1Recently scientists discovered a clutch of 150-million-year-old fossil eggs that may be an important “missing link” in evolutionary history. The eggs are dated to be from the Late Jurassic period and contain actual fossilized embryos. This find allows paleontologists a rare insight into the early lives of a group of dinosaurs known as theropods, which include the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds. The discovery also addresses questions of about which shells came from which particular species.

“Most of the time, you find eggs without the embryos, or the embryos without the eggs,” said said Ricardo Araújo to National Geographic. Araújo is a vertebrate paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and lead author of the new study.

The majority of fossilized eggs found up until now have been from the Cretaceous period—about 80 million years ago. The gap between the Cretaceous period and the Early Jurassic period (190 million years ago) has confounded scientists, leaving them without the necessary information to make concrete conclusions about the “bird like” qualities seen in the later dinosaur species. These qualities are believed to have occurred during the gap between the Late Jurassic period and Cretaceous period. The newly discovered clutch of theropod eggs and embryos are exactly what paleontologists needed to solve the evolutionary mystery.

The theropod eggs belong to a group called Trovosaurus, which are extremely porous, leading scientists to believe the eggs were at one time buried. The pores allowed gas exchange between the inside and outside of the egg while underground. The embryos found inside the theropod eggs were formed enough to have significant skeletal structure. This means that the eggs are from a very late stage of incubation, possibly the last week of development before they would have hatched—another impressive aspect of this particular scientific discovery.

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MAYAN PYRAMID BULLDOZED FOR GRAVEL

67589214_templeThis is one of those stories that makes me cringe at the idea of such a piece of history being destroyed so carelessly. A pre-Columbian Mayan temple in Belize was bulldozed by a road construction crew on a quest for gravel for road-filler.

The Noh Mul temple was one of the country’s largest pyramids, estimated to be nearly 2,300 years old. After the destruction, only the very core of the temple remains, an epic loss for archaeological world.

“It is incredible that someone would actually have the gall to destroy this building out here,” said Dr. John Morris of the Belizean Institute of Archaeology. “There is absolutely no way that they would not know that these are Maya mounds.”

While the ruins lay on private land, under Belizean law, any pre-Hispanic ruins come under government protection. Police are investigating and possible criminal charges are to be leveled against the construction company.

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A CHUNK OF GRANITE OR, ATLANTIS?

AtlantisTheMythThe search for the legendary lost city of Atlantis has been humanity’s quest since Plato first mentioned it in the philosophical musings of his work, “Antiquity.” The elegant, utopian society romanticized by poets and playwrights has propelled the underwater archaeological efforts of scientists and explorers for centuries. Generation after generation has clung to the hopes of discovering proof of its existence and, once again, another team of researchers has come forth with what they claim to be evidence of Atlantis.

Recently, a large mass of granite was discovered at the bottom of the sea near Rio de Janeiro by a manned Shinkai 6500 Japanese submersible. Granite only forms on the surface of the Earth. Thus, the formation would have been above water at some point in history, giving rise to the theory that there was once a continent in the area, which eventually broke apart and sank into the ocean. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Brazilian government have since confirmed that the granite mass has actually been submersed for nearly ten million years. There has been no evidence of manmade structures located on or near the formation.

Regardless, the discovery is an interesting archaeological find and gives a further insight into the Earth’s history. A large volume of quartz sand and basalt rock, both of which could not have been formed below sea-level, have been detected in the formation linking it to the Rio Grande Rise, which would have been the only plausible location from which the segment could have been attached.

Shinichi Kawakami, a professor at Gifu University, theorizes, “South America and Africa used to be a huge, unified continent. The area in question may have been left in water as the continent was separated in line with the movements of plates.”

The search for the lost city of Atlantis continues.

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STONEHENGE A SETTLEMENT 3,000 YEARS BEFORE ITS CONSTRUCTION

stonehengeIn Amesbury, in Wiltshire, archaeologists have unearthed new evidence that points to a human settlement that existed on the site nearly 3,000 years before the construction of Stonehenge. One mile from the location of the stone ring, archaeological remains of a human occupation dating back to 7,500BC were recently excavated. The dig was supported by Dr Josh Pollard from Southampton University and led by Open University archaeologist David Jacques, along with his team of volunteers, utilizing a small budget of redundancy money.

The project has been a quest of David Jacques since his time as a student at Cambridge University. During that time he spied an, until then, unnoticed “blind spot” in aerial-view photographs of Stonehenge taken in 1906 that showed a site referred to as Vespasian’s Camp a mile away. The area, at the time, was thought to have been landscaped during the 18th century. Thus, a full archaeological investigation of the area had never been conducted.

“The whole landscape is full of prehistoric monuments and it is extraordinary in a way that this has been such a blind spot for so long archaeologically,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “But in 1999 a group of student friends and myself started to survey this area of Amesbury.”

Due to the location of the site near a natural spring, it was only logical to Jacques that this would have been the ideal location for a human settlement at the time. He began his investigation by first exploring areas where he thought animals would visit in search of food and fresh water, which his reasoning predicted would also be the same locations for human settlements to form. His assumptions proved correct. Since first beginning to pursue the dig artifacts from one of the earliest semi-permanent settlements in the Stonehenge area (7,500 to 4,700BC) have been unearthed. Carbon dating of these relics revealed people resided in the area every other millennium during the Mesolithic era.

Sometimes it is the smaller projects that uncover the greatest mysteries. David Jacque’s excavation project is certainly a great example of this. Leading archaeologists around the world are abuzz with the news and its historical implications.

In the same article on the BBC website, Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy, from Durham University, said: “The site has the potential to become one of the most important Mesolithic sites in north-western Europe.”

The investigation of the site continues as additional funding is sought for a more in-depth pursuit. According to Dr Pollard of the Stonehenge Riverside Project this should hopefully prove easier going forth since “being able to demonstrate that there were repeated visits to this area from the 9th to the 5th millennia BC” is a crucial aspect of humanity’s history that has yet to be explored and further unravels the enigma that is Stonehenge. A deeper look at the people who resided in the area before its construction will give the world insight into its construction and its true purpose throughout the ages.

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NEW DINOSAUR SPECIES DISCOVERED IN MADAGASCAR

_67099219_farke_dahalokely_bigOn the tiny secluded island of Madagascar, the remains of an undocumented dinosaur species have been discovered. The Dahalokely tokana, whose name means “lonely small bandit”, was a meat-eating dinosaur, paleontologists have determined, that thrived approximately 90-million years ago when India and Madagascar were still one landmass, isolated from the rest of the world. This discovery marks the first new prehistoric species unearthed in Madagascar in nearly a decade and assists with the connection between evolutionary points of animals in both countries.

“The most intriguing thing for me is that it fills a major gap in what we know about the history of dinosaurs in Madagascar,” said paleontologist Andrew Farke. “It shortens it by about 20 million years. It would have been a meat-eater, walking on two legs about the size of a large cow, with a tail.”

Joe Sertich, the curator of the dinosaur exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was the one to make the exciting discovery. According to Sertich, the Dahalokely tokana was a close relative of a group of dinosaurs known as the Abelisauridae, which resided in the southern continents of the age.

“This just reinforces the importance of exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are still waiting.” Sertich told BBC News.

**Photo credit: BBC News