Ancient World Review

Finds Support Druid Cannibalism, Human Sacrifice

"Recent evidence that Druids possibly committed cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice—perhaps on a massive scale—add weight to ancient Roman accounts of Druidic savagery," according to National Geographic News.

Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome

German scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology have "isolated three billion base pairs, or genetic building blocks, from 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone fragments of three Croatian fossils," according to Voice of America. "The announcement of the sequencing of the Neanderthal DNA project coincides with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution of man, and was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago."

Ancient World's Longest Underground Aqueduct

"Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it." Source: Spiegel Online International.

Byzantine Greek Fire

ASTRA Project Recreates Ancient Greek Musical Instrument

"The ASTRA Project, standing for Ancient Instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application, has...reconstructed the 'epigonion,' a harp-like, stringed instrument used in ancient Greece," according to Science News. "With data from numerous sources, including pictures on urns, fragments from excavations and written descriptions, the team has been able to model what the instrument would have looked and sounded like. Their model has become sophisticated enough to be used by musicians of the Conservatories of Music of Salerno and Parma in concerts."

Tomb Complex Discovered At Saqqara

"A 3,000-year-old noblewoman's tomb complex has been uncovered in Egypt," according to National Geographic News. "The tomb has been identified as belonging to a woman named Isisnofret—possibly the granddaughter of Pharaoh Ramses II, who reigned during the 13th century B.C." Sites like this one were apparently common in the New Kingdom. "The tomb complex includes the base of a pyramid, a monumental gateway, a colonnaded courtyard, and an antechamber with three cult chapels, according to the team from Japan's Waseda University that has been excavating the site since 1991."

Sunken Cargo Linked To Temple Of Apollo

Fifty tons of marble found on a 2000-year-old shipwreck in the Aegean were apparently being transported to the Temple of Apollo at Claros in Turkey, according to National Geographic magazine. "Like the famous Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the Claros temple featured an oracle. When visitors came, the oracle, a priest, drank water from a sacred spring and made cryptic pronouncements on behalf of the god, who was associated with truth and prophecy."

Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World Virtual Satellite Tour

Fragments of "Turin Kinglist" Found In Museum Basement

It's amazing how many archaeological discoveries are stored and forgotten in museums, only to be re-discovered decades later. In this case, papyrus fragments of the three-thousand-year-old Turin Kinglist were found "stored between two sheets of glass in the basement of the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy," according to Discovery News. According to Egyptologists, the Turin Kinglist is "one of the most important documents to reconstruct the chronology of Egypt between the 1st and 17th Dynasty." The fragments were analyzed by the British archaeologist Alan Gardiner in 1959, but weren't included in the museum display and have apparently been lying around in the museum's basement for the last 49 years. Makes you wonder what else has been dug up and forgotten.

Clovis Artifacts Discovered In Boulder, Colorado

Landscapers digging a fish pond in Boulder, Colorado, recently discovered a "cache of more than 83 ancient tools buried by the Clovis people--ice age hunter-gathers who remain a puzzle to anthropologists," according to the Associated Press. The tools, ranging from "well-crafted knives to small blades and axes," appear to have been deliberately buried on the banks of an ancient stream, now part of somebody's back yard. Amazingly, blood residue found on some of the stone blades suggests that they may have been used to hunt Ice Age camels thirteen-thousand years ago. "The American camel, which went extinct at the end of the last ice age, roamed alongside many giant beasts—including woolly mammoths, dire wolves, sabertooths, and giant ground sloths." (Source: National Geographic News)