"Archaeologists and specialists from Lebanon, Spain, Poland and Portugal focused on the massive Roman-era temple structure which they say has two main phases: the first is from the time when the building was erected in the early Roman period, the second is related to its major reconstruction in the late Roman period."
"This Phoenician city, where a triad of deities was worshiped, was known as Heliopolis during the Hellenistic period. It retained its religious function during Roman times, when the sanctuary of the Heliopolitan Jupiter attracted thousands of pilgrims. Baalbek, with its colossal structures, is one of the finest examples of Imperial Roman architecture at its apogee." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.
The Roman ruins here are truly monumental. "...the Baalbek temple complex ... includes two of the largest and grandest Roman temple ruins: the Temple of Bacchus and the Temple of Jupiter." (Wikipedia)
An incredible testament to ancient engineering techniques can be found in the Roman ruins located in modern-day Baalbek, Lebanon, which was known as Heliopolis during Roman times (not to be mistaken with Heliopolis in Egypt).
"In the base of the ruins of the Jupiter Baal Temple [in Baalbek] lie three hewn stones known together as the 'trilithon.' Each is estimated to weigh over 750 tons. [Emphasis added] Construction on the massive Roman temple of Jupiter began roughly 27 years before the birth of Jesus, and while most scholars agree the blocks were cut by the Romans, there is some evidence that the trilithon may predate their presence in the Middle East. In fact, the stones may predate even Alexander the Great, who founded Heliopolis in 334 BCE." Source: Atlas Obscura.
Comment: The Romans were expert engineers, but considering how many huge temples and megaliths have been discovered around the globe, the techniques required to move and raise extremely heavy stones must have been fairly widespread in the ancient world long before the Romans arrived on the scene. At Baalbek, the quarry was located above the site of the temple complex so no lifting was required to move them to the site (apparently), but even sliding those massive stones downhill would have been an enormous challenge. Nobody has the slightest idea how these megaliths were built -- this is probably the greatest mystery in archaeology and if anything would make me believe in ancient aliens or a highly advanced lost civilization it would be these fantastic monuments.
"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered 400 rock-cut chamber tombs that date to 1,800 years ago and make up part of one of the largest rock-cut chamber tomb necropolises in the world." Source: Live Science.
"The team found the tombs in the ancient city of Blaundos (also spelled Blaundus), located about 110 miles (180 kilometers) east of the Aegean Sea in what is now Turkey. The city was founded during the time of Alexander the Great and existed through the Roman and Byzantine periods."
The Hadza or Hadzabe bushmen live in north-central Tanzania. "Only around 400 Hadza still survive exclusively based on the traditional means of foraging," according to Wikipedia, and they've been called one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes in Africa:
"As a hunter-gatherer society, the Hadza have no domesticated livestock, nor do they grow or store their own food. The Hadza survive by hunting their food with hand-made bows and arrows and foraging for edible plants. The Hadza diet is primarily plant-based but also consists of meat, fat, and honey. They create temporary shelters of dried grass and branches, and they own few possessions." Source: National Geographic.
The Hadza are a classic example of cultural stasis. According to Wikipedia, they've "probably lived in their current territory for tens of thousands of years," which is pretty remarkable when you think about what that means. There are only about 1200 - 1300 of them left altogether and the few hundred who still live in the bush are apparently confined to a reservation inside a wildlife preserve. In other words, the Hazda are like living fossils. They've also become something of a tourist attraction, especially for western adventurers into bushcraft, primitive living and "experiental travel."
Mike Corey (?) runs an interesting adventure travel channel called Fearless & Far.
The hunting and gathering lifestyle is a hard one. According to Wikipedia, "A 2001 anthropological study on modern foragers found the Hadza to have an average life expectancy of 33 at birth for both men and women. Life expectancy at age 20 was 39 and the infant mortality rate was 21%." This has changed recently, though. Some Hazda are now living into their sixties and seventies, which probably reflects their increasing contact with the modern world, such as it is in Africa. The statistics may also be skewed by the fact that a majority of the Hazda seem to have abandoned their ancestor's lifestyle.
Given a choice between living like the Hadza and living in modern Tanzania, I'm not sure which way I would go. According to US News & World Report, "Tanzania has low rates of inflation, a high growth rate and a promising tourism industry, yet most Tanzanians don’t seem to benefit from these trends. In terms of per capita income, Tanzania is one of the world's poorest economies." The country also has major problems with malaria, HIV, forced labor, sex trafficking and the drug trade. The choice, I guess, would depend on your circumstances. I'd rather live with the Hadza, for instance, than in one of Tanzania's slums.
One way or another, the difference between the Hadza's lifestyle and that of modern Tanzania is really mind-boggling. Traveling from Dar es Salaam, the capital city, to the prehistoric territory of the Hazda is literally like going back tens of thousands of years in a time machine.
"These beds, consisting of sheaves of grass of the broad-leafed Panicoideae subfamily were placed near the back of the cave on ash layers. The layers of ash was used to protect the people against crawling insects while sleeping. Today, the bedding layers are visually ephemeral traces of silicified grass, but they can be identified using high magnification and chemical characterisation."
Note: There are lots of videos out there describing how to make grass mats. The ones I've seen always involve the use of modern tools like saws, knives, etc. Back in the Stone Age, I imagine people would've either cut the grass with flint blades or simply pulled it out of the ground and piled it up to make their bedding.
The grass mats found in Border Cave were used for more than just bedding:
"'We know that people worked as well as slept on the grass surface because the debris from stone tool manufacture is mixed with the grass remains. Also, many tiny, rounded grains of red and orange ochre were found in the bedding where they may have rubbed off human skin or coloured objects,'" according to one of the researchers.
"About 78,000 years ago, deep inside a cave near the coast of what is now Kenya, the body of a small child was carefully laid to rest in a tiny grave. Now, an international group of researchers has used advanced scientific techniques to peer into the past, revealing for the first time details of the ancient interment — finding that it is the oldest deliberate burial of a Homo sapiens individual in Africa." Source: Live Science.
Note: "Older Homo sapiens burials have been found in Europe and the Middle East, some dating to about 120,000 years ago. But the remains of Mtoto, from about 78,000 years ago, are the oldest evidence of a deliberate burial found in Africa to date, said anthropologist Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena [Germany]."
The insulae were dangerous places to live. High-rise firetraps prone to sudden collapse due to shoddy construction, they teemed with people all crowded together in the slums of Rome. The ground floors of these apartment buildings were often lined with shops and taverns, and the top floors frequently overhung the labyrinthine streets, which were just as crowded and dangerous as the insulae themselves. There was a lot of street crime in the poor districts of Rome and pedestrians also ran the risk of being hit by various falling objects, including garbage and human waste thrown out of the windows.
"A large portion of [Ostia Antica] was excavated in the first half of this century, revealing numerous apartment blocks built of brick-faced concrete, sometimes with upper floors still standing. Where it faced a main street, the ground floor usually consisted of shops, mostly with a mezzanine floor for storage or accommodation." (Ibid, p. 140)
Apartment buildings in the harbor city of Ostia Antica. These may not have been as bad as the insulae in Rome.
It's unclear how many people lived in these death traps. According to one study cited in The Ancient City (p. 143), "... an average apartment block housed 40 people. In the mid-fourth century AD, Rome had 46,602 such multiple dwellings, which must have housed more than a million people." The upper floors of these buildings were the least desirable because they offered no easy escape from fires. As for the streets and neighborhoods, the noise and smells and congestion can easily be imagined.
Next video shows the ruins of an apartment block in Ostia Antica.
The Suburra, a lower-class area in Rome, "was notorious for its bustle, noise, and dirt, and for prostitution," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised). "It was a well-known center of trade and manufacture. Here lay a Jewish synagogue. Distinguished residents included Caesar prior to his election as pontifex maximus." Caesar was born into a patrician family, but lost his inheritance for opposing the dictator Sulla. After Sulla's death, Caesar returned to Rome and "acquired a modest house in Subura," according to Wikipedia.
"Often made of concrete-covered brick, insulae usually contained five or more stories. They were sometimes so flimsily built, thanks to poor craftsmanship, foundations, and building materials, that they collapsed and killed passersby. As a result, emperors restricted how high landlords could construct insulae." (Thought Company) The slumlords who owned these dumps probably ignored the building codes, however, and their tenants couldn't afford to take them to court.
Next video: the ruins of an apartment building just below the Capitoline Hill in Rome.
The works of Juvenal contain some vivid descriptions of the streets of Rome:
"And now think of the different and diverse perils of the night. See what a height it is to that towering roof from which a pot comes crack upon my head every time that some broken or leaky vessel is pitched out of the window! See with what a smash it strikes and dints [dents] the pavement! There’s death in every open window as you pass along at night; you may well be deemed a fool, improvident of sudden accident, if you go out to dinner without having made your will… Yet however reckless the fellow may be, however hot with wine and young blood, he gives a wide berth to one whose scarlet cloak and long retinue of attendants, with torches and brass lamps in their hands, bid him keep his distance. But to me, who am wont to be escorted home by the moon, or by the scant light of a candle he pays no respect.” Source: History Extra.
As dangerous as they were, the bad areas of Rome were nothing compared to our modern third-world slums.
The Neolithic site of Gobekli Tepe, founded in the 10th millennium BC, is thought to be the world's oldest temple. Located near the modern city of Urfa, aka Sanliurfa, in southeastern Turkey, Gobekli Tepe was part of a network of the first human settlements where the agricultural revolution took place, according to Wikipedia.
"The region of these settlements is named 'Taş Tepeler,' literally meaning Stone Hills," according to ArkeoNews. "Covering an area of 200 kilometers from one end to the other, Taş Tepeler is an Anatolian and Upper Mesopotamian territory that hosted the earliest settled communities.
"Taş Tepeler features 12 main sites including Göbeklitepe. Some seven of these big and small sites are now excavation sites that will shed light on a crucial yet little-known period of history."
One of the smaller sites is Sefer Tepe. (The word "tepe" means "mound" or "hill.")
I haven't been able to find much information on Sefertepe other than the fact that it's a small Neolithic site with 16 T-shaped cultic pillars. Remains of a settlement have been found on the site and Sefertepe may have been a cult center for nearby settlements.
The T-shaped pillars at Sefertepe are similar to the larger pillars found at Gobekli Tepe. As described in the video above, these pillars are a characteristic feature of these settlements. According to a 2016 article by the Gobekli Tepe Research Project, "Several more sites in the near vicinity of Göbekli – Sefer Tepe, Karahan, and Hamzan Tepe – are known to have similar pillars, but no excavation work has been carried out so far." Some of the older pillars at Gobekli Tepe itself weigh tons and archaeologists believe that the T-shape is an abstract depiction of the human body seen from the side:
"Evidence for this interpretation are the low relief depictions of arms, hands and items of clothing like belts and loinclothes on some of the pillars. Often the pillars bear further reliefs, mostly depictions of animals, but also of numerous abstract symbols."
Next video describes a T-shaped pillar discovered at a site known as Kurt Tepesi.
These pillars definitely had some kind of cultural/religious significance for the Stone Age people who lived in the region:
"The T-shaped limestone pillars found in Göbeklitepe are older than the invention of agriculture and are one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture. The monuments, decorated with depictions of wild animals, geometrical figures, and a few abstract depictions of humans, are believed to have been used in social events and rituals." ArkeoNews.
Karahan Tepe, a fairly large settlement, is often called the sister site of Gobekli Tepe, according to Wikipedia.
"Karahantepe houses more than 250 T-shaped megaliths featuring animal depictions. Stelae with human depictions and three-dimensional human sculptures were also found in the site, which distinguishes it from Göbeklitepe." (ArkeoNews)
This is an extremely ancient and mysterious region. According to ArkeoNews, "As far as we know, Taş Tepeler is the first example of sedentism [settled living] and social union on earth. In Taş Tepeler, human beings experimented with examples of organized labor and specialization for the first time." The stoneworking techniques used at these sites shows a degree of sophistication, imagination and artistic ability that you wouldn't expect to find in Stone Age hunter-gatherers making the transition to agriculture.
A small but important satellite settlement is the site of Harbetsuvan. This is one of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in the region:
"PPN villages consisted of clusters of stone or mud brick houses, and sometimes substantial monumental or 'communal' buildings. The T-shaped pillar tradition seen at Göbekli Tepe is unique to the Urfa region, but is found at the majority of PPN sites there. These include Nevalı Çori, Hamzan Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, Sefer Tepe, and Tash Tepe." (Wikipedia)
Nobody knows how these pillars and other structures, especially the huge stones at Gobekli Tepe, were moved and erected. And the meaning of the artwork on the pillars is a continuing enigma:
"The building of Göbeklitepe — a structure comprised of enormous columns and massive stones – is still a mystery, as instruments such as wheelbarrows, etc., did not exist. Human and pack animal labor are thought to have been employed to move and position the temple’s stones." (ArkeoNews)
"The reliefs of animal images on the columns are definitely beyond time. Göbeklitepe is an old building that demonstrates that people held systematic gatherings even when they lived as hunters, although the structure’s final purpose is unknown."
"The 16th-century courtier John Dee, a scientific adviser to England's Queen Elizabeth I, was also deeply involved in magic and the occult, and he tried to commune with ghosts, using a so-called spirit mirror made of polished obsidian." Source: Live Science.
"Now, a new analysis of Dee's infamous mirror has finally traced its origins — not to the spirit world, but to the Aztec Empire.
"Obsidian mirrors such as Dee's were known from Aztec culture, but there were no records on his mirror's origins. However, geochemical analysis enabled researchers to link the mirror's obsidian — a type of volcanic glass — to Pachuca, Mexico, a popular source of obsidian for Aztec people. This finding indicated that the artifact was Aztec and not a copy made from European obsidian, and Dee likely acquired the mirror after it was brought to Europe from Mexico, according to a new study."
Blurred view of the mirror starts at around 0.13s.
This mirror and other scrying equipment thought to have been owned by Dee is on display in the British Museum:
"The mirror was used as a ‘shew-stone’ – one of many polished and lustrous things used by Dee to carry out his occult research into the world of spirits. Dee worked with the medium and convicted criminal, Edward Kelley, to summon visions of angels into the mirror’s reflective surface. The two men held séances in England and on the Continent between 1583 and 1589." (British Museum)