Ancient World Review

New Human Ancestor Confirmed: Australopithecus Sediba

Video from 2017.

"A new ‘missing link’ between our ape-like ancestors and early humans has been identified, showing that we were still swinging from the trees less than two million years ago." Source: The Telegraph (registration required for full story).

"The first fossils of Australopithecus sediba were discovered in Malapa, South Africa [1], ten years ago, but experts were unsure if they were unique or just examples of already known species."

"Now after a decade of a research experts have confirmed they do belong to a unique species which slots into the human family tree between little upright apes like ‘Lucy’ - the 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in 1974 - and Homo habilis, the first tool-maker, which live around 2.1 to 1.5 million years ago."

[1] The Malapa Fossil Site is the so-called "Cradle of Mankind."

Video from 2013. Closed captions helpful.

These Au. Sediba specimens are intermediate forms or "missing-links" who could live in the trees but were well on their way to living on the ground. According to The Smithsonian, "[t]he combination of primitive and derived traits in Australopithecus sediba shows part of the transition from a form adapted to partial arboreality to one primarily adapted to bipedal walking. but the legs and feet point to a previously unknown way of walking upright."

The story here is that Au. Sediba has been confirmed to be a distinct species and human ancestor:

"The researchers find that Au. sediba is in fact a unique species, refuting earlier critics who questioned its validity as a species. Au. sediba is distinct from both Australopithecus africanus, with which it shares a close geographic proximity, and from early members of the genus Homo (e.g., Homo habilis) in both East and South Africa; yet, it also shares features with both groups, suggesting a close evolutionary relationship." Source: Archaeology News Network.

Video from 2015.

I've lost count of how many human ancestors have been discovered so far. There are at least a dozen, I think, ranging from creatures like Australopithecus to near-humans like the Neanderthals. Au. Sediba was part of "a major transition in hominin evolution, that of the largely ape-like species included broadly in the genus Australopithecus to the earliest members of our own genus, Homo." (Archaeology News Network)

Note: I could be wrong about this, but I think Au. Sediba's relationship with humans is only tangential.

"A remarkably complete skeleton introduced in 2010 as 'the best candidate' for the immediate ancestor of our genus Homo may just be a pretender. Instead of belonging to the human lineage, the new species of Australopithecus sediba is more closely related to other hominins from South Africa that are on a side branch of the human family tree, according to a new analysis of the fossil presented here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists." Source: Science (2017).

This might have changed with these new finds. I'm not really sure. If not, then Au. sediba is more like our cousin, five or six times removed, than one of our great-great-etc-grandparents.

2300-Yr-Old Egyptian Fortress Guarded A Port That Sent Elephants To War

Berenike Project dig. Video from 2013.

"Berenice (Berenike) or Berenice Troglodytica .., also known as Baranis, is an ancient seaport of Egypt on the west coast of the Red Sea ... It was founded in 275 BC by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC), who named it after his mother, Berenice I of Egypt.Troglodytica refers to the aboriginal people of the region, the 'Troglodytai' or 'cave dwellers'." Source: Wikipedia.

"...Berenice was quite famous and prosperous in antiquity ... From the 1st century BC until the 2nd century AD, Berenice was one of the trans-shipping points of trade between India, Arabia, and Upper Egypt."

According to Live Science (2019), "[h]istorical records indicate that Berenike was part of a chain of ports constructed along the Red Sea to help supply war elephants to the army of the Ptolemies ... In 2014, genetic research revealed that the Ptolemies likely imported their elephants from Eritrea, in East Africa."

Note: Back in 2014, the now defunct Past Horizons reported that "[a]rchaeologists working at the ancient port of Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt have started to uncover an ancient Roman era ship’s hull and an extensive burial ground for animals. They have also started to pinpoint some of the major buildings of the port through geophysical work." The video above shows the excavation of a trench during one of the Berenike Project's digs (exact date unknown). At that time the connection between the port and the war-elephant trade was apparently still unknown.

Hannibal's Elephants

"The Romans first encountered elephants when Pyrrhus used [Indian elephants] in his invasion of Italy [...] Both at Heraclea in 280 BC and at A(u)sculum Satrianum in 279, they had considerable success, in the first routing the Roman cavalry -- untrained horses will not face elephants -- in the second actually breaching the Roman infantry line after it had been driven back by Pyrrhus' phalanx.

"By this time the Carthaginians were also using African elephants, drawn from the forests of the Atlas region. They fought against the Romans in the First Punic War, in Sicily and in the defeat of M. Atilius Regulus in Africa. Their appearance is clearly shown on Carthaginian coins minted in Spain. Hannibal, famously, took elephants across the Alps in 218 BC." Source: "Elephants," Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. revised.

Where Did Hannibal Get His Elephants?

"Archeologists have tried. Students of ancient climate and ecology have tried, too. But no one has yet come up with a satisfactory answer: Where did Hannibal get the elephants for his heroic march across the Alps to attack the homeland of the Romans?" Source: New York Times (Sept. 1984)

"Once there were elephants nearly everywhere, but by the time of Hannibal's march in 218 B.C. they had already dwindled to the two species extant today, the Indian, or Asian, elephants and the African ones."

Note: It would have been a difficult task to transport elephants from Sub-Saharan Africa and even more difficult to bring them all the way from India, a distance of around 3700 miles, give or take. Breeding pairs could have been brought to Carthage, but apparently there's no record of elephants being bred and raised by the Carthaginians.

From what I've read, many historians now believe that Hannibal's elephants came from the Atlas mountains of modern day Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, a region located to the west/southwest of Carthage. Drawings of elephants predating Hannibal have been found in Algeria; these animals were apparently a smaller sub-species of the African elephant. It's also possible that Hannibal had some Indian elephants descended from those brought to Egypt by Alexander the Great.

As far as I know, however, this issue has never been definitively resolved.

The Battle Of Zama

Part Two can be found here.

"The Battle of Zama not only ended the Second Punic War, it also established the Roman army as the greatest fighting force since the armies of Alexander the Great. At the Battle of Cannae, Rome had relied on traditional tactics using superior numbers to crush an enemy and, from that defeat, Scipio understood that new arts of war were necessary. After Scipio’s brilliant reforms to Roman military strategy and tactics, the Romans would go on to conquer the known world. Zama, then, was the end of the Second Punic War and the beginning of Roman conquest." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Related: Battle of Zama - Did It Actually Happen? (2016 - content starts around 3:30 in the video)

Articles about Hannibal and the Punic Wars from the History Herald

No Void Inside The Great Pyramid?

"In 2019, we can expect to get more information on a large void, discovered above the so-called grand gallery inside the Great Pyramid of Giza — a hallway that leads to the sarcophagus of pharaoh Khufu, for whom the pyramid was constructed. The void is more than 98 feet (30 meters) long. Archaeologists spotted the empty space in 2017, publishing details on their study in November 2017 in the journal Nature. But it's unclear whether that space is a closed-off ancient construction corridor, a hidden burial chamber or a series of small chambers." Source: Live Science.

Related: What's Hiding Inside Egypt's Great Pyramid? Tiny Robots May Find Out.

How The "Heretic Pharoah" Almost Destroyed Egypt

King Tut's father, Amenhotep IV, was a mystic and religious revolutionary who turned his back on the traditional Egyptian gods -- not to mention the powerful priesthood associated with them -- and decreed that Aten, the sun god, was the only god who could be worshipped in the country. Known as the "heretic pharoah," Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and built a new capitol city at Amarna north of Thebes, forcibly relocating the population of Thebes to populate his new city.

Akhenaten dedicated Armana to the worship of the deified disk of the sun and set himself up as the leader of the new monotheistic cult, living in splendid isolation and basically ignoring the defense and administration of Egypt. His neglect (and later persecution) of the other gods created a lot of enemies. Cities like Thebes--and the priests who controlled them--owed their wealth and political power to their temples, which attracted both private and official benefactions. Akhenaten's revolution wasn't just religious, but also political and economic. My impression is that he was oblivious to the disastrous effects his revolution--and his isolation--had on the rest of his country.

Akhenaten's neglect of the ordinary affairs of Egypt led to its decline and threatened its security. Near the end of his reign, other empires like the Hittites were encroaching on Egyptian territory. When Akhenaten died around 1330 BC, his city at Amarna was destroyed and depopulated and the new rulers began a comprehensive program to restore the traditional gods and their sacred cities.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is that religious fanatics, idealists and true believers, no matter how inspired, make bad leaders. Akhenaten is a classic example.

Were The Pharoahs Actually Religious?

"Egyptian society was structured like a pyramid. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis [Emphasis added]. Egyptians believed that the gods controlled the universe. Therefore, it was important to keep them happy. They could make the Nile overflow, cause famine, or even bring death." Source: Ancient Civilizations. Image from Ancient Egypt Online.

Comment: According to this article, the gods were at the very top of the Egyptian social pyramid, but if you look at the diagram, the gods are missing altogether. Ra, Osiris, Isis -- they're nowhere to be found. Instead, the diagram, like all of the diagrams of Egyptian social structure I've found, shows the pharaoh -- a single man -- sitting at the apex of the pyramid and wielding absolute power.

Whoever created this graphic probably didn't bother to include the gods, but the interesting thing is that the diagram shows Egyptian society as it actually existed. The gods are missing because the gods weren't real. Only the pharaoh was real. To the Egyptians, he was semi-divine, the representative and instrument of the gods. That was supposed to be the source of his authority, but in the real world, his power, like the power of all kings and leaders throughout history, was actually based on physical force. The Egyptian kingdom, like all states, was the monopoly on violence over a given territory. The "gods" never entered into the picture at all and most of the pharaohs were probably well aware of that.

Seen this way, the intricate cosmology of Egyptian religion was just a machine for controlling the masses, the vast herds of peasants at the bottom of the pyramid. That's a modern view, however, and I'm not sure it really applies to ancient civilizations. The Egyptians believed in their religious system. Their entire social order was arranged around their beliefs in the afterlife and the supernatural forces that controlled things like the annual flooding of the Nile.

Was the pharaoh himself actually religious? That depends on who you're talking about, I suppose. The pharaoh had religious duties to perform and his ritual conduct was considered essential to the welfare of the state, but you don't have to be a believer to take part in religious ceremonies. One way or another, the pharaoh had to at least act like he believed in the gods. He had to go through the motions, but he probably couldn't afford to take any of it too seriously, at least in private. Too much piety could be a disaster. Some pharaohs -- Akhenaten, for instance -- were fanatically religious, but in Akhenaten's case, his mysticism and idealism seriously weakened his kingdom.

That's not very surprising, though. Despite all the lip service given to religion, the truth is that states don't need "good" or "pious" leaders. They don't need true believers. They need intelligent, capable, pragmatic rulers who aren't foolish enough to believe their own propaganda or the mumbo-jumbo of their priests. Holy men make bad pharaohs. They're out of touch. They tend to destabilize society with their religious reforms, their idealism, their inability or refusal to see the difference between the real world and their sacred fantasies.

If the pharaohs weren't religious, though, how do you explain the Great Pyramids and the other royal tombs found all over Egypt? The pharaohs were buried with elaborate mummification ceremonies, their tombs full of treasure and artwork and objects they would need in their next incarnation. All of this suggests that they believed in the afterlife, but it's possible that the pyramids were actually built as huge monuments to their own glory: massive tombstones, so to speak, designed to preserve their names forever. The fact that a king builds a church and has himself buried in the cellar doesn't necessarily mean that he's religious.

Some of the pharaohs must have been religious, though. Some of them, perhaps most of them, weren't. That's my guess, anyway. It would be interesting to know how many pharaohs took their ritual duties seriously and how many of them were political cynics who saw their divine status as a way to keep the masses in awe, distribute wealth to their supporters, and carve a name out for themselves in history. There's no way to know for sure, but I'm betting that most of the pharaohs were Machiavellian realists. Egypt couldn't have lasted as long as it did if it was ruled by religious fanatics.

The Pyramids Of Abusir

Note: "The Unfinished Pyramid of Abusir is an ancient Egyptian royal tomb which was probably abandoned shortly after the start of construction in the 5th Dynasty, which is located in the necropolis of Abusir. Shepseskare, a Pharaoh about whom almost nothing is known, who is known only from a single roughly contemporary seal impression from the mortuary temple of Neferefre, has been suggested as the pyramid's builder." (Wikipedia)

Muting the hideous background music is highly recommended.

"Abusir is the Arab name given to the Greek town of Busiris and the Old Kingdom necropolis in its vicinity. The Greek name Busiris is derived from the ancient Egyptian phrase 'pr wsir' (the house of Osiris) which relates to the temple of Osiris.'" Source: Ancient Egypt Online.

"...The necropolis of Abusir was the primary burial site for the pharaohs of the fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt. It lies across the Nile from the ancient city of Memphis ... to the south of Giza and north of Saqqara. The site was probably chosen because the necropolises of Giza and Saqqara were already littered with pyramids and tombs and Abusir Lake linked the site to the river and made it easier to deliver supplies to the site by boat."

The next video ( published in 2015) shows the unveiling at Abusir of "the mummified body of a Pharaonic palace chief thought to be more than 2,400 years old." Closed captions in English are available. The tomb itself was discovered in 1996, but the mummy wasn't recovered until later.

"The sands of Abu Sir revealed important secrets of the tomb of Iufaa that really is one of the tombs in the cemetery of the 26th dynasty with the rebirth of Egyptian civilization, because this period they imitated art of the old kingdom, the middle kingdom and the new kingdom; and this person was an important person, was the one in charge of the palace of the king and this is why we always believe that we never know what the sands of Egypt might hide of secrets; this is the most new secret that has been discovered in Egypt." - Dr.Zahi Hawass, Giza Antiquities Director (quoted from the video).

Time has reduced the Abusir necropolis to a kind of mortuary junk heap."Only four [of the tombs] are still in recognizable condition," according to Ancient Egypt Online.

According to Wikipedia, "[t]here are a total of 14 pyramids at this site, which served as the main royal necropolis during the Fifth dynasty. The quality of construction of the Abusir pyramids is inferior to those of the Fourth Dynasty; perhaps signalling a decrease in royal power or a less vibrant economy. They are smaller than their predecessors, and are built of low quality local stone. All of the major pyramids at Abusir were built as step pyramids, although the largest of them — the Pyramid of Neferirkare [next video]— is believed to have originally been built as a step pyramid some seventy metres in height and then later transformed into a 'true' pyramid by having its steps filled in with loose masonry."

Video from 2017.

Extensive Trade In Fish Between Egypt And Canaan 3,500 Years Ago

"Some 3,500 years ago, a brisk trade in fish on the shores of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea had already begun. This conclusion follows from the analysis of 100 fish teeth that were found at various archeological sites in what is now Israel." Source: Science Daily