Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 09:05:21 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Scientists Confirm Historic Massive Flood in Climate Change
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20060228/
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

HISTORY

Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: HISTORY  (Read 7336 times)
0 Members and 52 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #30 on: November 05, 2008, 10:24:50 pm »









The University of Chicago expedition is part of an international recovery project underway intended to find artifacts related to Kush and other civilizations that flourished in the area before archaeological sites are covered by a steadily rising Nile. The area is being flooded by Hamdab or Merowe Dam, located at the downstream end of the Fourth Cataract. The lake to be formed by this dam will flood about 100 miles of the Nile Valley in an area that had previously seen no archaeological work.

"Surveys suggest that there are as many as 2,500 archaeological sites to be investigated in the area. Fortunately, this is an international effort-teams from Sudan, England, Poland, Hungary, Germany and the United States have been working since 1996, with a large increase in the number of archaeologists working in the area since 2003," Emberling said.

The area will probably be flooded next year, but the team hopes to return for another season of exploration. The sites studied by Emberling and Williams provide important new information on the ancient Kingdom of Kush, which flourished from about 2000 to 1500 B.C.

"The Kingdom of Kush was unusual in that it was able to use the tools of power-military and governance-without having a system of writing, an extensive bureaucracy or numerous urban centers," Emberling said. "Studying Kush helps scholars have a better idea of what statehood meant in an ancient context outside such established power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia."

Among the artifacts they found in burials nearby at the site al-Widay were pottery vessels that appear to have been made in the center of the kingdom, a city called Kerma, some 225 miles downstream.

The graves for the cemetery, which were for elite members of the community, included 90 closely-packed, roughly constructed stone circles covered shafts that were circular and lined with stones, a feature noted in the so-called Pan Graves of Lower Nubia and Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, about 1700 B.C., said Emberling. "These, and the broad-bottomed black-topped cups they contained, are generally assigned to the Medjay, people of the Eastern Desert, who at times served as soldiers and police in Egypt."

"A few of the tombs had the rectangular shafts of the later Classic Kerma burials, graceful tulip-shaped beakers and jars of Kerma type and even imported vessels from Egypt, as well as scarabs and faience and carnelian beads, and there were even several beds or biers," he said.

"Finds of Kerma material at the Fourth Cataract was one of the major surprises of the salvage effort and suggests the leaders of Kush were able to expand their influence much further than was previously known, possibly including as much as 750 miles along the banks of the Nile," said Williams.

The Oriental Institute team worked on a site that was the concession of the mission from the Gdansk Archaeological Museum.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago.
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:
 APA

 MLA University of Chicago (2007, June 22).

Archaeologists Discover Gold Processing Center On The Nile. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved November 5, 2008, from



http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/06/070619083529.htm
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy