Archive for September, 2007
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
As they excavated a burial chamber in Luxor, the group of archaeologists who worked there hoped with all their might that they would discover a new mummy inside this tomb. When they finally made it inside the chamber, they found seven coffins, which they hoped would contain the carefully wrapped mummies of Egypt’s royal queens, or perhaps even the mother of Tutankhamun himself!
In a public display that seems to characterize today’s Egyptian finds, both researchers and local/international media were invited to watch the opening of the last coffin as it sat in its chamber, only a few steps away from Tutankhamun’s own ancient tomb. With bated breath, the archaeologists opened the final coffin, and found… flowers?
Indeed, instead of simply finding a body wrapped in its burial shroud, the coffin contained a perfectly preserved garland of flowers, estimated to be at least 3,000 years old. According to some of the team who had worked on excavating the tomb, the find was better than a mummy – after all, there is absolutely nothing like it in any museum in the world.
While there are plenty of drawings of flowers on Egyptian artifacts and documents, nothing like the garland has ever been found, not to mention that no one had ever even considered something so fragile would survive for three thousand years. Looking back at Egyptian art, it isn’t too difficult to see that there are many images of members of the Egyptian royal family wearing garlands of flowers, many of which were entwined with strips of gold, around their shoulders – and that they wore these golden garlands both in life and death.
At only five meters away from the tomb of Tutankhamun, there are still plenty of theories as to whom it was that this new tomb belonged. However for now, this ancient flowery necklace is enough to keep researchers busy, as they continue to draw links between what was depicted in Egyptian art and the Egyptians’ real-life ancient practices.
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Tomorrow: Ancient beehives
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
Judging by two Neanderthal molars recently found in the Madrid region, these human ancestors which today’s population often refers to as “cavemen” – meaning this in a derogatory way that suggests they were unclean, unhygienic, and unintelligent – apparently had far better oral hygiene than a good deal of the earth’s modern population…
That’s right – not only do dentists and health professionals implore you to brush twice a day, but it turns out that even Neanderthals knew the value of a clean mouth! These two teeth were perfectly preserved – even though they date to around 63,400 BC – and they show the same amount of wear that might be found on a typical 30-year-old human of today!
The clues that suggest these people took their oral health seriously are several grooves along the top of the teeth, which would have been formed by the passage of a pointed object across the teeth on a regular basis. This confirms that a small stick was used regularly to clean the mouth and teeth.
As predecessors of modern humans, some people may find it unusual to think that a population typically considered ‘less intelligent’ than today’s humans had the forethought to take their oral health into consideration – whereas there are plenty of countries in the world today where using a toothbrush simply isn’t a part of routine health care.
Determining the kind of implement that was used in Palaeolithic times to clean one’s teeth is another matter entirely, since the first “modern” toothbrush wasn’t thought to have been invented until sometime around 1600 AD in China. However, some Muslim populations actually still use something called a ‘miswak’ to clean their teeth, which is essentially a natural toothbrush that is made from the twigs of the Salvadora persica tree!
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Tomorrow: Ancient Egyptian flowers!
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
No matter which what you call it, Incan khipu/quipu were recording devices created and used throughout the Incan Empire, made out of colored strings – generally spun and plied from alpaca or llama hair – with information encoded on them by a complex system of knots. It was originally believed that these khipu only contained numeric values, however there are theories that some strands of knots contained a form of binary code that was capable of recording words, or “logographic” information. If that is the case, that may mean that the Incan khipu contain stories of the people’s history and past.
Unlike other Bronze Age civilizations, the Incan Empire did not seem to develop their own written language. They created monumental structures, accomplished incredible architectural feats, invented excellent pieces of technology and were highly skilled at urban planning, and definitely knew how to mobilize people and resources to maximize their effectiveness when needed – needless to say, the Incans were very intelligent people. However… it seems that they just simply didn’t feel the need to write anything down. As a result, they created their own recording system through knotted strings and cords, which was likely developed simply due to the practical need for resource tracking.
The problem is, no one has yet been able to completely decipher the vast amounts of khipu left behind by these people. There’s no doubt that some of the knotted strands were used for things like tax accounting, census records, and general numerical information concerning livestock and farming resources, and these records would have been under the care of basic community administrators. Historians know that the Incans used a decimal or base 10 system of counting, and so the khipus that contain this numerical information have been “read”…but the tide of thought about whether this was the only use is beginning to change.
Since the Incan people were using a decimal system of counting, there is a distinct possibility that they learned how to utilize a binary system to convey other information – much like the way that computers work with information, using distinct combinations of the numbers 1 & 0. After all, of the 700 or so known khipu that still exist, only about 2/3 of them are thought to be arranged in a numerical pattern – leaving open the distinct possibility that the other third may be narrative material that holds the key to stories and information about Incan history.
In 2005, researchers at Harvard University in Boston found that several khipu contained a repeated 3-knot pattern in some of the strings, and after a great deal of investigation, they concluded that this kind of knot pattern may in fact be indicative of a place-name, or ‘toponym’. Even if this place-name identification is only found in some of the accounting documents, it still marks the first time that an actual word has been identified rather than simply a number – and if the Incans were able to convey specific place names… why wouldn’t they have been able to record additional information with words in other khipu?
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Tomorrow: Colgate Cavemen!
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
Although the majority of fossil finds that come down to modern day tend to suggest that everything from insects to trees to animals were larger in ancient times, a recent discovery from a cave in China has reversed the trend, finding that – two or three million years ago – panda bears were much, much smaller than their descendants now living in Chinese forests.
It was inside a limestone cave in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region that a team of scientists discovered a small bear skull, embedded right into the wall. Further examination of the skull revealed that it did, in fact, belong to an ancient panda bear that lived in the forests of southern China. Judging by the skull’s features, these ancestral pandas were almost exactly the same in appearance as the Giant pandas who live today – except that they were about half the size!
Essentially, these miniature giant pandas were pygmy versions of the bears living today, even to the point of having already adapted a diet of bamboo – this can be identified by looking at the jaws and teeth of the skull, which actually needed to be stronger and more durable than a typical bear’s jaw, in order to grind down such tough plant material.
In addition, modern Giant pandas have what is known as a “false thumb”, which actually helps them to strip the leaves off stalks of bamboo, and scientists are hopeful that more fossils of the pygmy pandas will turn up in the near future, in order to determine whether these ancient creatures also had this mutation.
Oddly enough, about a million years ago, Giant pandas actually became bigger than the enormous sizes of today’s pandas, which seems to suggest that panda evolution has shifted back and forth in response to the bears’ environment and food supply. However, it is still strange that such a tiny panda lived several million years ago, since he would have shared the forest with other such creatures as the 4-meter-tall Stegodon, an ancestor of mammoths and later on, elephants. Also living at the same time was an ape called the Gigantopithecus, who was actually two or three times bigger than today’s gorillas.
It certainly would have been an interesting sight to see these diminutive panda bears walking amidst the giants…!
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Tomorrow: Those Knotty Incans
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