Saturday, July 21, 2007

Siloam inscription return requested

Jerusalem's mayor has asked the Turkish government to return a famous 2700-year-old tablet uncovered in an ancient subterranean passage in the city, Jerusalem officials said Friday.

Known as the Siloam inscription, the tablet was found in a tunnel hewed to channel water from a spring outside Jerusalem's walls into the city around 700 B.C. — a project mentioned in the Old Testament's Book of Chronicles. It was discovered in 1880 and taken by the Holy Land's Ottoman rulers to Istanbul, where it is now in the collection of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski made the request in a Thursday meeting with Turkey's ambassador to Israel, Namik Tan, Lupolianski spokesman Gidi Schmerling said Friday. Lupolianski suggested the tablet's return could be a "gesture of goodwill" from Turkey, Schmerling said.

Turkey and Israel, both Western-aligned Mideastern states, are close regional allies.

An official at Turkey's embassy in Israel said the request would be passed on to the Turkish government. A transfer of ownership was unlikely, the official said, but Turkey would look into lending the tablet to Israel or creating a replica. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as required by embassy regulations.

In the Bible's account, the Siloam water tunnel was constructed by King Hezekiah to solve one of ancient Jerusalem's most pressing problems — its most important water source, the Siloam spring, was outside the city walls and vulnerable to the kingdom's Assyrian enemies.

The tunnel, around 500 yards (meters) long, was hollowed out of the bedrock by two teams of diggers starting from each end, according to the tablet, which was installed to celebrate the moment the two teams met underground, "pickax to pickax."

"When there were only three cubits more to cut through, the men were heard calling from one side to the other," the Hebrew inscription recounts.

The tunnel and spring are located in what is today the east Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Silwan, controlled by Israel since 1967.

10 Lost Tribes Went Nowhere

Where the archaeology is clear, Cline finds convincing evidence that the biblical conquests around the 12th century B.C. weren't the work of Joshua and his horn but an invading army that overthrew the Hittites and severely checked the ancient Egyptians, leaving the Israelites behind to take over ancient Israel. Similarly, the best evidence suggests the Ark of the Covenant was not buried under Temple Mount, but captured and melted down by Nebuchadnezzar's invading army in 586 B.C.

Near Eastern archaeologists working in the conflict-ridden Middle East (Cline is an associate director for the excavation outside Jerusalem of Megiddo, source of the word "Armageddon") know well the evidence of ancient warfare they uncover resonates in today's world. In the last, and best-researched, chapter of the book, Cline tackles the fate of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, a question some have answered with theories of migrations ranging from India to Africa to America. Fortunately, records remain from the Neo-Assyrian invaders, the folks responsible for dispersing the tribes, and Babylonian contemporaries.

The best evidence suggests the invaders deported thousands of Israelites, but the vast majority simply remained there, either living among the invaders or fleeing to the south, both phenomena detailed in ancient buildings.

Babylonian official in the Old Testament confirmed

Austrian Assyriologist Dr. Michael Jursa made the breakthrough discovery confirming the existence of a Babylonian official mentioned in the Old Testament and connected to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.

“The clay document is dated to the 10th year of Nebuchadnezzar II (595 BC) and names the official, Nebo-Sarsekim. According to chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he was present at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC with Nebuchadnezzar himself.

“In 601 BC King Nebuchadnezzar marched to the Egyptian frontier where the Babylonian and Egyptian armies clashed with both sides suffering heavy losses. Over the next few years the struggle between the Babylonians and Egyptians continued and in the course of these campaigns Jerusalem was captured (597 BC).

“To find a cuneiform reference to someone connected with these remarkable times is rare but evidence from non-Biblical sources for the existence of any individual named in the Bible - other than kings - is incredibly rare.”

The story continued, “Nebo-Sarsekim is described in the book of Jeremiah as ‘chief eunuch’ (as the title is now translated, rather than ‘chief officer’). Dr Jursa’s translation of the Babylonian tablet proves that his name was really pronounced as Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, and gives the same title, ‘chief eunuch’, in cuneiform script, thereby confirming the accuracy of the Biblical account.”

Dr Jursa, who is Associate Professor at the University of Vienna, said, “Reading Babylonian tablets is often laborious, but also very satisfying: there is so much new information yet to be discovered.

“But finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date is quite extraordinary.”


Dr. Jursa has been studying cuneiform at the British Museum since 1991. It is the oldest form of writing known to us and was commonly used in the Middle East between 3200 BC and the second century AD.

The story then said, “Today there are only a small number of scholars worldwide who can read cuneiform script, which was created by pressing a wedged-shaped instrument (usually a cut reed) into moist clay.

“Dr. Jursa’s work confirms the importance of the continued study of cuneiform. Each tablet is a unique window into the past, allowing a direct link to the people who lived during that period.”

Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, added, “Cuneiform tablets might all look the same, but sometimes they contain treasure. Here a mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. This is a tablet that deserves to be famous.”

Examples of cuneiform tablets are on permanent display in the British Museum and the whole collection can be accessed by appointment through the Middle East Study Room. More information on cuneiform can be found at www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/themes/writing.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming

Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes.

The discovery was published in the June 29 issue of Science.

The research team made their discovery in the Ñanchoc Valley, which is approximately 500 meters above sea level on the lower western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru.

“We believe the development of agriculture by the Ñanchoc people served as a catalyst for cultural and social changes that eventually led to intensified agriculture, institutionalized political power and new towns in the Andean highlands and along the coast 4,000 to 5,500 years ago,” Tom D. Dillehay, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University and lead author on the publication, said. “Our new findings indicate that agriculture played a broader role in these sweeping developments than was previously understood.”

Dillehay and his colleagues found wild-type peanuts, squash and cotton as well as a quinoa-like grain, manioc and other tubers and fruits in the floors and hearths of buried preceramic sites, garden plots, irrigation canals, storage structures and on hoes. The researchers used a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the radiocarbon dates of the materials. Data gleaned from botanists, other archaeological findings and a review of the current plant community in the area suggest the specific strains of the discovered plant remains did not naturally grow in the immediate area.

“The plants we found in northern Peru did not typically grow in the wild in that area,” Dillehay said. “We believe they must have therefore been domesticated elsewhere first and then brought to this valley by traders or mobile horticulturists.

“The use of these domesticated plants goes along with broader cultural changes we believe existed at that time in this area, such as people staying in one place, developing irrigation and other water management techniques, creating public ceremonials, building mounds and obtaining and saving exotic artifacts.”

The researchers dated the squash from approximately 9,200 years ago, the peanut from 7,600 years ago and the cotton from 5,500 years ago.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Mexican cuisine 1,500 years old

One of the world’s tastiest and most popular cuisines, Mexican food also may be one of the oldest.

Plant remains from two caves in southern Mexico analyzed by a Smithsonian ethnobotanist/archaeologist and a colleague indicate that as early as 1,500 years ago, Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region enjoyed a spicy fare similar to Mexican cuisine today. The two caves yielded 10 different cultivars (cultivated varieties) of chili peppers.

The study will be published the week of July 9 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This analysis demonstrates that chilies in Mexican food have been numerous and complex for a long period of time,” said lead author Linda Perry, of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “It reveals a great antiquity for the Mexican cuisine that we’re familiar with today

Perry and Kent V. Flannery, of the University of Michigan, studied desiccated plant remains from excavations in Guilá Naquitz and Silvia’s Cave, two dry rock shelters near Mitla in the Valley of Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Guilá Naquitz is famous for its well-preserved plant remains, dating back to the beginnings of squash cultivation in Mexico some 10,000 years ago. Arid conditions through the centuries prevented decay of the crop remains, which include corn, squash, beans, avocados and chili peppers.

This new study focuses on the two upper layers of ash and debris known as Zone “A” and “Super-A,” spanning the period circa A.D. 500–1500. Perry was able to distinguish different cultivars among the abundantly preserved chili peppers, a type of analysis that had not been completed on ancient Mexican chilies.

Perry found that peppers from Guilá Naquitz included at least seven different cultivars. Peppers from the smaller sample in Silvia’s cave represented three cultivars.

It is unknown whether the cultivars found in the cave correspond to modern varieties, or if they were types that died out after the arrival of Europeans in Mexico. Perry said one looks like a Tabasco pepper and another like a cayenne pepper, but it is difficult to know how closely related they are to modern varieties without a genetic analysis.

“What was interesting to me was that we were able to determine that they were using the peppers both dried and fresh,” Perry said. (Chilies broken while fresh had a recognizable breakage pattern.) “It shows us that ancient Mexican food was very much like today. They would have used fresh peppers in salsas or in immediate preparation, and they would have used the dried peppers to toss into stews or to grind up into sauces like moles.”

During the period circa A.D. 500–1500, the caves served as temporary camps and storage areas for farmers from Mitla—a major town on the river of the same name—whose cultivated fields evidently extended to the slopes of the piedmont below Guilá Naquitz and Silvia’s Cave. The Zapotec-speaking people planted crops in several environmental zones—river bottoms, piedmont and mountains— probably as a way of buffering risk; it also added variety to the diet.

“In the cave deposits, we can see excellent documentation for the sophistication of the agriculture and the cuisine at this point in time,” Perry said. “You don’t grow seven different kinds of chilies unless you’re cooking some pretty interesting food.”