Astounding Find Dug Up In Old Grave
There are 24 graves in the 8,000-year-old mass burial site at Jiahu in the Henan Province of western China. Archaeologists aren't nearly as interested in the human remains as they are in the relics found with them: tortoise shells with symbols carved in them more than 8,000 years ago. Why are they so special? They could be the oldest words yet discovered making this the earliest handwriting ever found, reports Nature News Service. For some, this is akin to turning history upside down. The birthplace of writing has long been recognized as ancient Mesopotamia, which is the region now covered by Iraq. We may have to change that to Neolithic China.
Nature News reports that 14 shells bearing 11 different signs have been found. The markings represent "some form of sign use or early writing," said archaeologist Garman Harbottle of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Not everyone agrees. The symbols may not have represented words; instead, they could have been inscriptions for sounds. William Boltz, an expert in classical Chinese at the University of Washington in Seattle, told Nature News that until "we know what language the people who produced the mark used, no one can say whether they are writing."
But if these Chinese symbols are proved to be writing, they are older than any other ancient writing by more than 2,000 years. Nature News writes: "Some carvings anticipate the Chinese characters for 'eye' and 'window', which were first seen 5,000 years later during the Shang dynasty. Others resemble the numerals 1, 2, 8, 10, and 20." One of the skeletons in the mass grave is headless with eight tortoise shells positioned where the skull should be. Using tortoise shells to try to contact their dead ancestors, the people of the Shang dynasty wrote questions on the hard casings and cast them into a fire.
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In November 2001, Egyptian archaeologists discovered a 2,500-year-old limestone tomb in a densely populated area of apartment blocks in Cairo.
Who was in the tomb?
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe...omb/index.html
CAIRO, Egypt -- Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a 2,500-year-old limestone tomb in a densely populated area of apartment blocks in Cairo.
"This is an amazing discovery because...between the houses of downtown Cairo in an area called Ain Shams...(we) have found this tomb," said Zahi Hawass, antiquities chief for the Giza Pyramids area, told Reuters on Sunday.
Inscriptions indicated the owner of the tomb might have worked with the royal palace, and Hawass said the tomb might have been for a family.
He added that authorities discovered the tomb, dated to the 26th Dynasty between 525 and 664 B.C., after the owner of the land applied for a building permit.
"The antiquities department inspectors came and they started digging and they found...this tomb," he said.
"It is about three metres underneath the ground. It is one tomb consisting of three burial chambers connected with a vault."
Hawass said sewage from the neighbourhood had damaged scenes in one of the burial chambers. The other two had not yet been opened.
"We are now in the process of excavating the sand from inside and taking it out, and after that we will try to find out what's inside the other two burial chambers," Hawass said.
Earlier this month, archaeologists discovered the oldest known tomb of a pharaonic surgeon, dating back more than 4,000 years, buried in desert sands near Cairo.
Archaeologists found a 5,000-year-old coffin made of cedar wood in the desert near the Sakkara pyramids.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...t&floc=ns-wnew
Astounding Find Dug Up In Old Grave
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