Ancient World Review

The Library Of St. Catherine's Monastery In Egypt

"Saint Catherine's Monastery ... officially 'Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai'  lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, near the town of Saint Catherine, Egypt. The monastery is named after Catherine of Alexandria" (Wikipedia) "

Note: Catherine of Alexandria probably never existed:

"Donald Attwater (English Catholic author, 1892-1977) dismisses what he calls the 'legend' of Saint Catherine, arguing for a lack of any 'positive evidence that she ever existed outside the mind of some Greek writer who first composed what he intended to be simply an edifying romance.' Harold Davis writes that 'assiduous research has failed to identify Catherine with any historical personage' and has theorized that Catherine was an invention inspired to provide a counterpart to the story of the slightly later pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–370 – 415 CE)." (Wikipedia)

According to the UNESCO World Heritage List, "The [Greek Orthodox] monastery of St Catherine stands at the foot of Mount Horeb where, the Old Testament records, Moses received the Tablets of the Law. The mountain is known and revered by Muslims as Jebel Musa. The entire area is sacred to three world religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism." The monastery is controlled by "the autonomous Church of Sinai."

Even though St. Catherine's was named after a (probably) fictitious saint, this is still a remarkable and very old institution:

^"Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the world's oldest continually operating library [next video], possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus."

The incredible library filmed on a potato.

Note: The manuscript shown in the video above is the Ashtiname of Muhammed, "also known as the Covenant or Testament (Testamentum) of Muhammad (the Islamic Prophet) ... a document which is a charter or writ ratified by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad granting protection and other privileges to the followers of Jesus the Nazarene, given to the Christian monks of Saint Catherine's Monastery. It is sealed with an imprint representing Muhammad's hand."

The manuscript may be inauthentic. According to Wikipedia, "Since the 19th century, several aspects of the Ashtiname, notably the list of witnesses, have been questioned by scholars. There are similarities to other documents granted to other religious communities in the Near East. One example is Muhammad's alleged letter to the Christians of Najran, which first came to light in 878 in a monastery in Iraq and whose text is preserved in the Chronicle of Seert." It doesn't really matter, though, because even if the Ashtiname is a forgery -- something I don't think anyone is claiming -- it's still a priceless artifact from the period.

Recently renovated, the library at St. Catherine's was re-opened in 2017.

The manuscripts and books in the monastery's library go way back:

"When Egeria visited the Sinai in 383-384, she wrote approvingly of the way the monks read to her the scriptural accounts concerning the various events that had taken place there. Thus we can speak of manuscripts at Sinai in the fourth century. It is written of Saint John Climacus that, while living as a hermit, he spent much time in prayer and in the copying of books. This is evidence of manuscript production at Sinai in the sixth century. The library at the Holy Monastery of Sinai is thus the inheritor of texts and of traditions that date to the earliest years of a monastic presence in the Sinai. In earlier times, manuscripts were kept in three different places: in the north wall of the monastery, in the vicinity of the church, and in a central location where the texts were accessible." Source: The Sinai Monastery website.

Research has also revealed that some of the manuscripts in the library contain "hidden manuscripts" which were erased in order to reuse the parchment they were written on.

"The Sinai manuscripts comprise the oldest and most important Christian monastic library collection. Of its 3,300 manuscripts, two-thirds are in Greek. The rest are principally in Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavonic, through there are other manuscripts in Polish, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Armenian, Latin, and Persian. The New Finds correspond to these languages, and are stored adjacent to the library. The library also contains an important archive, containing letters, account books, charters, and other documents." Source: The Sinai Monastery website.

"...The most famous manuscript is the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus, of which the monastery retains twelve pages and some twenty-four fragments."

Comment: I'm not a Christian, but St. Catherine's and its library are priceless historical treasures which must be protected at all costs. The monastery has already been the target of at least one attempted terrorist attack back in 2015 and as far as I can tell the Islamic State vermin are still waging a sporadic insurgency in the Sinai. I hate to say it, but if the situation deteriorates the Church of Sinai (which controls the monastery) should consider moving the library to a safer location, preferably somewhere out of the country.

Related: St. Catherine's Monastery, its Library and its Palimpsests.

The Stonehenge Stone-Transport "Conspiracy"

Comment: Never mind all the sensationalism about "conspiracies." This is a good overview of the glacial-transport theory describing where the stones used in the construction of Stonehenge may have come from.

Sled Dogs Closely Related To 9500-Year-Old "Ancient Dog"

"Sledge dogs are much older and have adapted to Arctic conditions much earlier than previously thought. In a new study from the QIMMEQ project, researchers from the University of Copenhagen show that ancestors of modern sledge dogs have worked and lived with humans for over 9,500 years." Source: Science Daily.

"...In addition to advancing the common understanding of the origin of sledge dogs, the new study also teaches the researchers more about the differences between sledge dogs and other dogs. Sledge dogs do not have the same genetic adaptations to a sugar and starch rich diet that other dogs have. On the other hand, they have adaptations to high-fat diets, with mechanisms that are similar to those described for polar bears and Arctic people."

Did Laziness Help Lead To The Extinction Of Homo Erectus?

Video from 2018.

"New archaeological research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that Homo erectus, an extinct species of primitive humans, went extinct in part because they were ‘lazy’." Source: Eurasian Review (2018).

"An archaeological excavation of ancient human populations in the Arabian Peninsula during the Early Stone Age, found that Homo erectus used ‘least-effort strategies’ for tool making and collecting resources."

Comment: These archaeologists claim to have found evidence that Homo erectus used whatever rocks were lying around to make their tools while ignoring higher quality rocks available (with a little more effort) at a nearby outcrop:

"They knew [the better rock outcrop] was there, but because they had enough adequate resources they seem to have thought, 'why bother?'

"This is in contrast to the stone tool makers of later periods, including early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, who were climbing mountains to find good quality stone and transporting it over long distances."

These Homo erectus layabouts also seem to have stubbornly kept to their old ways of doing things even though their environment was going through changes that threatened their survival if they didn't alter their habits:

"Not only were they lazy, but they were also very conservative," according to one of the researchers, and this lack of adaptability in the face of climate change may have contributed to their extinction.

If you take all of this at face value Homo erectus doesn't sound too bright, but there are other ways to interpret the finds at this site. For instance, the archaeologists are assuming that "least-effort strategies" are a sign of laziness, but they could be a sign of basic practicality. After all, why work harder than you have to if it isn't necessary to achieve your goals? It's also possible that Homo erectus simply lacked the mental capacity for innovation found in modern humans. Considering the fact that they weren't modern humans, that wouldn't be very surprising.

They were smart enough to use fire and make handaxes, though. According to The Smithsonian, "the appearance of Homo erectus in the fossil record is often associated with the earliest handaxes, the first major innovation in stone tool technology," and "evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning some 600,000 years ago, has wide scholarly support." (Wikipedia) They were social animals as well. According to Wikipedia, "Homo erectus was probably the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, and anthropologists such as Richard Leakey believe that erectus was socially more like modern humans than the more Australopithecus-like species before it."

If any of this is accurate, I guess you could say that Homo erectus was innovative up to a certain point, but too limited mentally to develop any further. They weren't necessarily "lazy" -- I don't see how you could call any of these early hominins lazy considering the effort it must have taken just to stay alive back then -- but when they found a system that worked they never bothered to improve it. They were creatures of habit who stuck to the routines that had worked for them in the past and this led to their eventual extinction when they couldn't adapt to changing environmental conditions.

In a way, they sound a lot like modern humans. Based on my own experience, I'd say that we have a tendency to settle into ruts and stay there until some outside force compels us to change our ways. In the case of Homo erectus, maybe the thing that finally forced them out of their behavioral rut was their own extinction event.

The same thing could be happening to us.

Looted Skulls & Human Remains Are Being Sold On Facebook

"In 2013, an American collector visiting Tunisia entered the Sousse catacombs — an ancient necropolis that holds some of the oldest Christian burials in the world — and stole a skull with a 'very dark ancient patina' (as he described it) during renovations of the catacombs. The collector put the skull up for sale in a private Facebook group for $550, telling his tale of looting in the sales listing." Source: Live Science.

"Other members of the group were excited by the looted skull, with some posting comments about how 'beautiful' it was. What the collector may not have realized was that the group wasn't as private as it seemed. A Live Science reporter posing as a person interested in skulls had infiltrated the private Facebook group, and several other groups like it, and for 10 months kept track of human remains that were being sold."

The Yonaguni Monument: Japan's "Lost Atlantis" Or Natural Formation?

Video from 2017. Note the mention of artwork discovered on the formations.

"The Yonaguni-jima Kaitei Chikei, literally translated as 'Yonaguni Island Submarine Topography,' is an underwater mystery off the coast of the Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The massive underwater rock formation is speculated to have existed for more than 10,000 years, but whether the formation is completely man-made, entirely natural, or has been altered by human hands is still up for debate." Source: Atlas Obscura.

Many sources matter-of-factly describe the formations of the Yonaguni Monument as the ruins of an advanced prehistoric city which sank beneath the waves thousands of years ago. For instance, see the book Underworld by Graham Hancock, author of the classic work of alternate history "Fingerprints Of The Gods." This theory was first put forward by the Japanese professor and marine geologist Masaaki Kimura who began studying the monument in 1992 (the formation was first discovered by local divers in the 1980s).

Video from 2015.

After exploring the monument for around twenty years, Kimura "remains convinced that the site was carved thousands of years ago, when the land mass was above water. According to Kimura the Yonaguni’s numerous right angles, strategically placed holes and aesthetic triangles are signs of human alteration. He also claims that carvings exist on the monuments, resembling Kaida script. He believes that a pyramid, castles, roads, monuments and a stadium can be identified within the structure – which for him is evidence that the monument is what remains of the Lost Continent of Mu, the Japanese equivalent to Atlantis." (Atlas Obscura)

Note: Mu was also the home of the dreaded Ghatanothoa, an elder god so hideous that anyone who saw him (or an image of him, no matter how small) was instantly petrified, their skin turned to leather and bone while their brains remained alive and conscious forever. For more information on Ghatanothoa, see Out of the Aeons by H.P. Lovecraft.

The Yonaguni Monument could be part of a prehistoric city, I guess. It doesn't look natural to me -- there are two many straight lines and right angles and structures that definitely resemble loose blocks, stairs and what could be terraces or plazas -- but Kimura loses me when he claims that the monument originally stood on the Lost Continent of Mu. I'd like to believe in Mu and I suppose it's possible that lost continents once existed, but it would be nice to have some evidence other than ambiguous formations on the bottom of the sea.

Even if the monument is artificial, there are no signs (as far as I know) that it was ever inhabited. The top video mentions that artwork was discovered in the submerged "ruins," and Kimura claims in the next video that "tools and engraved stones" were discovered there, but I haven't been able to verify that these tools and engravings actually exist. The engravings may just be scratches in the rocks. To the best of my knowledge, no artifacts of any kind have ever been discovered in the Yonaguni Monument. In contrast, divers exploring the very real sunken town of Baiae off the coast of Italy have found all sorts of Roman statuary, mosaics, etc., lying around on the bottom of the Gulf of Naples.  There doesn't seem to be anything like that in this enigmatic site off the coast of Japan.

Mainstream archaeologists and other experts call Kimura's "sunken city" pseudoarchaeology, and they're probably right. If you believe the geologists, anyway,  this bizarre formation may not be all that bizarre after all:

"Some of those who have studied the formation, such as geologist Robert Schoch of Boston University, state that it is most likely natural. Schoch observed the sandstones that make up the Yonaguni formation to 'contain numerous well-defined, parallel bedding planes along which the layers easily separate. The rocks of this group are also criss-crossed by numerous sets of parallel, vertically oriented joints in the rock. These joints are natural, parallel fractures by which the rectangular formations seen in the area likely formed. Yonaguni lies in an earthquake-prone region; such earthquakes tend to fracture the rocks in a regular manner.' He also observes that there are similar formations on the northeast coast of Yonaguni. John Anthony West also reaches the same conclusion. Schoch also believes that the 'drawings' identified by Kimura are natural scratches on the rocks, and suggests that the 'walls' are simply natural horizontal platforms which fell into a vertical position when rock below them eroded, and the alleged roads are simply channels in the rock." (Wikipedia)

Geology Disproves Stonehenge Conspiracy Theory

Stonehenge was extensively reconstructed back in the Fifties. There's no doubt about that. According to English Heritage, "This major engineering project and associated excavations began in 1958 and continued into 1959. [Archaeologists Richard Atkinson, Stuart Piggott and J F S Stone] together oversaw the archaeological work. The trilithon was re-erected from the position where it had lain for 161 years. An upright and a lintel forming part of the outer circle were also put back into position. One of the large sarsens of the inner horseshoe was set in concrete and a large hollow at its base infilled. The sarsen bases were set in concrete to prevent future movement. Finally, six fallen bluestones were lifted and straightened."

The Stonehenge restoration was a major construction project. A large gallery of photographs of the work in progress can be found here.

These photos are used to support a conspiracy theory that Stonehenge is a fake built in the 20th Century. I have no idea how widespread this conspiracy theory is, but I can see how someone who didn't know anything about the megalith could come to that conclusion after seeing pictures of the stones being raised with cranes and so on. I wasn't aware of the reconstruction myself until a little while ago and when I first saw the photos it was kind of startling. Luckily we have old photographs and artwork that prove that Stonehenge actually existed before the megalith was partially rebuilt. And people have been studying the site since the 17th century, at least.

The 1950s reconstruction wasn't even the first to take place. According to Wikipedia, "William Gowland oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in 1901 which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which was in danger of falling. In straightening the stone he moved it about half a metre from its original position."

It's obvious that Stonehenge wasn't built in the 1950s. It's also obvious that the site has been extensively restored and doesn't correspond exactly to its original design. The megalith has been patched up with concrete in places and some of the stones aren't aligned precisely. These errors in alignment might be small, but they introduce a margin of error into theories about the purpose of the site that rely on precise measurements. For instance, archaeoastronomers have argued that Stonehenge was a kind of ancient observatory and some of them have used computers to measure the alignments between the different features of the monolith. The accuracy of these studies has to be questioned if the stones aren't in their original positions.

Purists say that Stonehenge should have been left in its true remaining state, but I can't see the logic in this. The pre-1954 site was in bad shape, to say the least. Half of the megalith was basically just a pile of rubble. The reconstruction may not have been appropriate by modern standards, but it sounds like the site was rebuilt by experts as accurately as possible so I'm not sure what harm the work caused. What's the point in "preserving" the damage caused by weather and the passage of time? The modern Stonehenge probably looks a lot more like the original now and the repair work helped to preserve the site.

Note: The idea that an ancient megalith could be a modern hoax isn't as outlandish as it might seem. Back in 2019, for instance, the discovery of a previously unknown stone circle in Scotland was announced. Described as a "rare Stonehenge like monument...unknown to archaeologists but well known to local people," the circle turned out to be a replica created by a farmer in the 1990s.

Submerged 7000-Yr-Old Aboriginal Site Discovered Off Coast Of Australia

"Australia has a deep human history stretching back 65,000 years, but many of its oldest archaeological sites are now underwater. In an encouraging sign that Aboriginal artifacts and landscapes may actually be preserved offshore, archaeologists have discovered a 7,000-year-old site submerged along Australia's continental shelf, the first of its kind. Their discovery is outlined today in the journal PLoS One." Source: Smithsonian Magazine.

Note: "At the end of the Ice Age, sea level was much lower than today, and the Australian coastline was 160 kilometers farther offshore. When the ice receded and sea level rose to its current level, approximately two million square kilometers of Australian land became submerged where Aboriginal peoples had previously lived. Thus, it is likely that many ancient Aboriginal sites are currently underwater." (Science Daily)

Closed-captions helpful.

New Discoveries At The Underwater Baia Archaeological Park

Video from 2017.

"During the research activities that the Archaeological Park of the Phlegrean Fields [see Note] is carrying out in view of the opening of new routes, a marble table support (trapezoforo) decorated with a feline head was recovered from the seabed this morning." Source: Archaeology News Network (6/23/20).

"The operation was carried out by technicians from the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park supported by the Harbour Master's Office - Locamare di Baia and Naumacos Underwater Archaeology."

Note: "Baiae [Italian: Baia] was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the comune of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when it was reckoned as superior to Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum by the super-rich, who built luxurious villas here from 100 BC to AD 500. It was notorious for its hedonistic offerings and the attendant rumours of corruption and scandal." (Wikipedia)

"The lower part of the town later became submerged in the sea due to local volcanic, bradyseismic activity which raised or lowered the land, and recent underwater archaeology has revealed many of the fine buildings now protected in the submerged archaeological park.

"Many impressive buildings from the upper town can be seen in the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia [aka the Archaeological Park of the Phlegrean Fields]." The Phlegrean Fields is a large volcano near Naples.

Ancient Nubia, Egypt's Rival In Africa

Dating back to at least 2,000 BC, the history of Nubia is confusing because several ancient kingdoms rose and fell in this part of Africa and the term "Nubia" is sometimes used to refer to one or more of these early kingdoms while at other times it just refers to the region as a whole. Complicating matters even more, the ancient Egyptians referred to their Nubian neighbors as Kushites, a kingdom in Nubia, and some sources use the term "Kush" to refer to the entire area.

The Nubian people were apparently descendants of the "the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century [BC] following the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë," a city located on the east bank of the Nile, (Wikipedia).

The most well-known civilization of the Nubians was the previously mentioned Kingdom of Kush, which came into existence after the Bronze Age collapse (~1200 - 1150 BC) and fall of the Egyptian New Kingdom (~11th century BC). This is another source of confusion -- for me -- because at least one source I've found says that the Nubians didn't take over the region until after the fall of the Kingdom of Kush. Most of the sources, however, say that it was a Nubian kingdom, so I'll leave it at that.

Egypt had a complex and volatile relationship with Nubia. During the Early Dynastic Period (c3100 - 2686? BC), Egypt traded with Nubia, but "none of these trading expeditions, it seems, was aggressive in character, though the Egyptians occasionally had cause to protect themselves against the local populations," according to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations. During the Old Kingdom (c2613 - 2160 BC), Egyptian expeditions "were regularly sent through Nubia to obtain exotic products such as incense, ivory and panther skins. These expeditions were not without incident." (Ibid)

This trade between Egypt and Nubia continued for millennia. Wars sometimes broke out and traders were sometimes killed, apparently by local tribes, during these trade expeditions, but "relations between the two peoples also show peaceful cultural interchange and cooperation, including mixed marriages," (Wikipedia). Egypt's southern borders shifted back and forth as Egyptian power waxed and waned, and over time it appears that the two populations became thoroughly mixed.

The history of the relationship between Egypt and Nubia is long and complex, with Egypt conquering Nubia several times and Nubia conquering Egypt around 760 BC. After they defeated their northern neighbor, the Nubians established the short-lived 25th Dynasty - sometimes referred to as the Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire. The Black Pharoahs didn't last very long, however. They were conquered by the Assyrians around 656 BC.

Documentary from 2015.