Treasure in Great Pyramid Awaits Discovery, Egypt's 'Indiana Jones' Says | Zahi Hawass & Archaeology TORONTO — Zahi Hawass is back. The famous, and at times controversial, Egyptologist is free of legal charges, free to travel and is launching a worldwide lecture tour with the aim of getting tourists back to Egypt, he told LiveScience in an interview. Hawass also said that he believes there are some fantastic discoveries waiting to be made, including more tombs in the Valley of the Kings and a secret burial chamber, containing treasure, which he believes to be inside the Great Pyramid built by the pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops). [Image Gallery: Egypt's Valley of the Kings] It's a turnaround for the archaeologist, who, just a few months ago, was under investigation and banned from traveling outside Egypt. Hawass was head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities for nearly 10 years and became Egypt's first-ever antiquities minister near the end of Mubarak's regime. The massive gallery where the lecture was held was filled to capacity, with a waiting list just as robust.
Hidden Monuments Reveal 'Stonehenge Is Not Alone' The megaliths of Stonehenge, which were raised above England's Salisbury Plain some 5,000 years ago, may be among the most extensively studied archaeological features in the world. Still, the monument is keeping secrets. Scientists have just unveiled the results of a four-year survey of the landscape around Stonehenge. Using non-invasive techniques like ground-penetrating radar, the researchers detected signs of at least 17 previously unknown Neolithic shrines. "Stonehenge is undoubtedly a major ritual monument, which people may have traveled considerable distances to come to, but it isn't just standing there by itself," project leader Vincent Gaffney, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., told Live Science. Scholars still aren't sure why Stonehenge was built, as the monument's Neolithic creators left behind no written records. The red circles mark the spots where archaeologists found satellite shrines around Stonehenge.Credit: © LBI ArchPro, Wolfgang Neubauer
'Cultic' Temple, 10,000-Year-Old House Found in Israel Archaeologists say they've uncovered some stunning finds while digging at a construction site in Israel, including stone axes, a "cultic" temple and traces of a 10,000-year-old house. The discoveries provide a "broad picture" of human development over thousands of years, from the time when people first started settling in homes to the early days of urban planning, officials with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said. The excavation took place at Eshtaol, located about 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Jerusalem, in preparation of the widening of an Israeli road. The oldest discovery at the site was a building from the eighth millennium B.C., during the Neolithic period. [See Photos of the Excavations at Eshtaol] "This is the first time that such an ancient structure has been discovered in the Judean Shephelah," archaeologists with the IAA said, referring to the plains west of Jerusalem. Throughout Israel, construction projects often lead to new archaeological discoveries.
Massive Trove of Gold Coins Unearthed off Israel's Coast A massive trove of thousand-year-old gold coins has been unearthed in an ancient harbor off the coast of Israel. The hoard, which was first discovered by members of an amateur scuba diving club, is the largest haul of gold coins ever unearthed in Israel. The find raises the possibility that an ancient shipwreck that was once laden with treasure may lurk beneath the waves. [See Images of the Gold Treasure Trove Off Israel] Valuable find The coins were found off the coast of Caesarea, a harbor city that was built by King Herod the Great about 2,000 years ago. The diving club that initially found the coins first thought they were toys; when they took a closer look, they found several gold coins shimmering in the light. "Despite the fact they were at the bottom of the sea for about a thousand years, they did not require any cleaning or conservation intervention from the metallurgical laboratory," Robert Cole, a numismaticist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement.
People in Ancient Ireland Preferred Britain's 'Magical' Gold To Their Own The people of ancient Ireland snubbed their local gold in favor of more exotic, mystical gold found across the sea, new research shows. Scientists had long assumed that the gold that people in Ireland used during the early Bronze Age, about 4,000 years ago, came from nearby mineral-rich mountains. But now, extremely sensitive chemical analyses have revealed that the gold had been extracted from an area farther away, across the Irish Sea, in what's now southwestern Britain. This is the oldest gold known to archaeology, said Christopher Standish, lead author of the new study and a research fellow at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. Standish and his colleagues analyzed the lead isotopes in the gold artifacts, and compared the values to lead isotopes measured in potential sources of the gold, to determine their origin. Lead isotopes are produced by the radioactive decay of the uranium that is found mixed in with the gold in the artifacts.
Why Did Gold Become the Best Element for Money? Why did gold become the standard for money? Why not copper or platinum or argon? A chemical engineer explains. An element must meet four qualities to stand alone as a premium currency, Sanat Kumar, the chair of the chemical engineering department at Columbia University told NPR. Second, it can't be corrosive or reactive — pure lithium, for example, ignites when exposed to water or air. Third, it can't be radioactive. Any of the 30 or so remaining elements would make nice, stable forms of currency if they met the fourth qualification: They must be rare enough to be valuable, but not so rare that it's impossible to find . That brings us to five elements, according to Kumar: rhodium, palladium, platinum, silver and gold. Although silver has been used for currency, it tarnishes easily, so it's out. That leaves gold, which is solid but malleable, doesn't react, and won't kill you.
Clue to Egypt's Gold Source Discovered An ancient gold-processing and panning camp has been discovered along the Nile River and is thought to be the first physical evidence of where Egypt obtained its vast gold stashes. Aside from one gold collection site the team said was “mentioned only in passing” during the 1960s, the riverside camp about 800 miles south of Cairo is the first-known of its kind in Nubia, the region now known as northern Sudan. The archaeologists think non-Egyptians called Kushites, who ruled the region, gathered gold at the site from about 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C. and used it to trade with Egypt. “Based on what we’ve found, the kingdom of Kush was significantly larger and more powerful than anyone thought,” said Geoff Emberling, an archaeologist at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and co-leader of the expedition. Bruce Williams, also an archaeologist at the Oriental Institute and expedition co-leader, agreed. “There’s a dam being built just upstream, and it’s almost done.
Stonehenge: Facts & Theories About Mysterious Monument Stonehenge is a massive stone monument located on a chalky plain north of the modern-day city of Salisbury, England. Research shows that the site has continuously evolved over a period of about 10,000 years. The structure that we call “Stonehenge” was built between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago and that forms just one part of a larger, and highly complex, sacred landscape. The biggest of Stonehenge’s stones, known as sarsens, are up to 30 feet (9 meters) tall and weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average. It is widely believed that they were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the north. Smaller stones, referred to as “bluestones” (they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken), weigh up to 4 tons and come from several different sites in western Wales, having been transported as far as 140 miles (225 km). Building Stonehenge Hunting played an important role in the area. Stonehenge at sunrise.Credit: Simon Wyatt 0 of 10 questions complete
5 Strange Theories About Stonehenge Thousands of years ago, an ancient civilization raised a circle of huge, roughly rectangular stones in a field in what is now Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge, as it would come to be called, has been a mystery ever since. Building began on the site around 3100 B.C. and continued in phases up until about 1600 B.C. The people who constructed the site left no written records and few clues as to why they bothered to schlep the stones to this spot. Wild theories about Stonehenge have persisted since the Middle Ages, with 12th-century myths crediting the wizard Merlin with constructing the site. But Stonehenge has inspired a fair number of scientifically reasonable theories as well. 1. Stonehenge may have originally been a cemetery for the elite, according to a new study. 2. Another theory suggests that Stone Age people saw Stonehenge as a place with healing properties. 3. Or perhaps Stonehenge's circular construction was created to mimic a sound illusion. 4. 5.
Stonehenge: 7 Reasons the Mysterious Monument Was Built Researchers recently had the rare chance to thwack the giant megaliths at Stonehenge and noted that they each resonated with sounds like those of metallic or wooden bells. They proposed that the strange monument was once either an ancient long-distance communication system, or a Stone Age church bell system. But despite centuries of speculation, scientists aren't much closer to revealing why the enigmatic monument was raised on the Salisbury plain in England thousands of years ago. Legends ascribe the site to Merlin's wizardry, and conspiracy theorists have credited aliens and UFOs for the megaliths. Meanwhile, scientists propose more grounded theories about the site. From giant musical instrument to elite burial ground, here are seven of the most popular theories about why Stonehenge was built. 1. The area around Stonehenge was a hunting ground along an ancient auroch migration route thousands of years before the first stones were raised, according to archaeological evidence. 2. 3. 4.
8 Most Famous Assassinations in History Friday (Nov. 22) marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. That death stunned the world and caused an outpouring of public grief unprecedented in modern United States history. Some even say that the killing of the 35th president altered the course of history, and that the United States would not have become embroiled in the Vietnam War had he lived. But JFK isn't the only leader to have died by another's hands. He joins a long list of leaders who were murdered for political reasons. 1. Et tu, Brute? 2. Abraham Lincoln, hailed by many historians as America's greatest president, was at a high point in 1865 when he was murdered. 3. Mohandas K. or "Mahatma" Gandhi led India's successful bid for independence from Great Britain from the 1920s to the 1940s. 4. 5. The Kennedy family has been dogged by tragedy for many generations. Five years later, on June 5, 1968, JFK's younger brother Robert F. 6. 7. 8.
10 Epic Battles that Changed History By Tia Ghose, Staff Writer | January 21, 2014 07:54am ET Credit: Deb G | Shutterstock Sometimes a battle is just one blip in the war, and other times it can shift the course of history. From the rout at Marathon to the Siege of Stalingrad, here are some of the most epic and significant battles in history. Author Bio Tia Ghose Tia has interned at Science News, Wired.com, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and has written for the Center for Investigative Reporting, Scientific American, and ScienceNow. Tia Ghose on