mpany digging mine in Afghanistan unearths 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 10:47 GMT, 15 November 2010 A Chinese company digging an unexploited copper mine in Afghanistan has unearthed ancient statues of Buddha in a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery. Archaeologists are rushing to salvage what they can from a major 7th century B.C. religious site along the famed Silk Road connecting Asia and the Middle East. The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as 'stupas,' will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins. The ruins were discovered as labourers excavated the site on behalf of the Chinese government-backed China Metallurgical Group Corp, which wants to develop the world's second largest copper mine, lying beneath the ruins. Historic find: Mes Aynak's religious sites and copper deposits have been bound together for centuries - 'mes' means 'copper' in the local Dari language No one wants to be blamed for similarly razing history at Mes Aynak, in the eastern province of Logar.
Top 10 Civilizations That Mysteriously Disappeared Throughout our history, most civilizations have either met a slow demise or were wiped out by natural disasters or invasion. But there are a few societies whose disappearance has scholars truly stumped: 10. The Olmec One of the first Mesoamerican societies, the Olmec inhabited the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico. The first signs of the Olmec are around 1400 BC in the city of San Lorenzo, the main Olmec settlement which was supported by two other centers, Tenochtitlan and Potrero Nuevo. Where did they go? Around 400 BC the eastern half of the Olmec’s lands was depopulated- possibly due to environmental changes. 9. The Nabateans were a Semitic culture that inhabited parts of Jordan, Canaan and Arabia from around the sixth century BC. During the fourth century AD, the Nabateans abandoned Petra and no one really knows why. 8. The Aksumite Empire began in the first century AD in what is now Ethiopia and is believed to be the home of the Queen of Sheba. 7.The Mycenaeans 6. 4. 1.
Mysterious Pyramid Baffles Chinese Scientists No one seems to know the origin or the meaning behind a mysterious pyramid that sits atop Mount Baigong in western China that local legends claim is an alien UFO launch tower. Nine scientists form the team that will travel to the western province of Qinghai and the mouth of this 165-198 foot tall structure known as the “ET Relics.” “The pyramid has three caves with openings shaped like triangles on its façade and is filled with red-hued pipes leading into the mountain and a nearby salt water lake,” says China’s state-run Xinhua agency. To add to the mystery, iron debris and unusually shaped stones are scattered about the desolate area. “The theory that the pyramid was created by extra terrestrials is “understandable and worth looking into…but scientific means must be employed to prove whether or not it is true,” says Yang Ji, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. On the beach at nearby Toson Lake, many strangely-shaped iron pipes lay amid the sands and rocks. (Link)
Forbidden Archeology – Secret Discoveries of Early Man It’s Indiana Jones meets The X-Files in this intriguing program that tackles the age-old question “Where did we come from?” Fascinating viewing! Highly recommended! – Michael Rogers, “Library Journal” The creators of the Emmy Award Winning Mystery of the Sphinx present a revolutionary new film that examines one of our greatest mysteries: Man’s origins. Includes the facts about this amazing mystery and a fascinating series of spellbinding interviews with researchers, scientists, and the best known, most credible authorities in the world today. Source: UFOTVstudios (youtube)
Vimanas: Ancient Indian Flying Machines, UFOs, or Sanskrit Sci-fi? “Flying chariots,” “celestial cars,” “mechanical birds,” “winged vehicles,” and “aerial cities.” These may sound like the swarming aircrafts from James Cameron’s sky-battles in Avatar, but, in fact, they come from a much older source: ancient Sanskrit literature. Called vimanas (pronounced “vimans”) in Sanskrit, such flying vehicles appear throughout India’s ancient texts, especially in combat sequences, when gods and divine beings battle their enemies high above the earth. Chariots flown by gods are not unique to Indian mythology: the Greek god Apollo flies the Sun Chariot; Kay Kavus, the mythological Persian king steers a flying throne to China; and Thor, of the Norse tradition, commandeers the Chariot of Thunder. Ancient Astronaut Theory Authors like Childress and Daniken – and there are countless others – claim that vimanas are evidence of advanced ancient technology that was invented, perfected, and then lost over time by what vimana expert Dr. Is it a Bird, is it a Plane…?
Archaeologists discover earliest evidence of seafaring in Crete ATHENS, Jan. 5 (Xinhua)-- Greek and foreign archaeologists have traced the earliest evidence of seafaring in tools dating back to 130,000 years ago during excavations on Crete island, the Greek Culture Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. In over a century of systematic archaeological research on the southern Greek island, scientists had not found evidence that Crete was inhabited before the Neolithic period (7,000-3,000 B.C.). Recent findings of an excavation at Plakias- Preveli near the city of Rethymnon, which started in 2008 by a research team led by Thomas Strasser of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and Eleni Panagopoulou of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism, show that Crete was inhabited as early as the Palaeolithic period. Noting that even 130,000 years ago Crete was an island, archaeologists present the tools found as evidence that the ancestors of modern man sailed earlier than we thought so far.
Ancient Symbols, meanings of symbols from Ancient Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, etc. 'British Archaeology' home page Ancient underwater cities being found that are 10,000 years old Lost city 'could rewrite history' By BBC News Online's Tom Housden The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 meters (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old. The vast city - which is five miles long and two miles wide - is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years. Using sidescan sonar - which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120ft. Debris recovered from the site - including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old. Lost civilization "Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known.
World-wide Ancient Site Database, Photos and Prehistoric Archaeology News with geolocation Robot finds 3 rooms under Feathered Serpent temple A robot named Tláloc II-TC, equipped with an infrared camera and laser scanner, has discovered three new chambers underneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent pyramid in the Mesoamerican metropolis of Teotihuacan. He was sent down a tunnel 390 feet long that was discovered 50 feet below the surface of the temple in 2003. The tunnel had been filled with debris by the ancient Teotihuacans to block access, an effective technique since despite centuries of looting and archaeological excavations nobody had managed to breach it. They first discovered two side rooms dubbed the North Chamber and the South Chamber 236 and 242 feet respectively from the entrance. Despite the navigation difficulties, Tláloc’s sensors never failed. They’ll need to clean out the tunnel to make it accessible to puny humans before they can reach the chambers Tláloc has found. Meanwhile, archaeologists exploring North Chamber and South Chamber have discovered some unusual artifacts.
The Archaeology Channel - Welcome Lost World under the North Sea It also serves as a warning for the scale of impact that climate change can cause, Professor Gaffney says. Human communities would have lost their homelands as the rising water began to encroach upon the wide, low-lying plains. "At times this change would have been insidious and slow - but at times, it could have been terrifyingly fast. [Some of the advances by the sea would have been similar to the widespread flooding of the English East Coast in 1953. That happened overnight as a result of strong winds and a particularly high tide, but in the case of the North Sea plains the floodwaters would not have receded - at least not completely, and not permanently.] "It would be a mistake to think that these people were unsophisticated or without culture... they would have had names for the rivers and hills and spiritual associations - it would have been a catastrophic loss," says Professor Gaffney. "In 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherers were living on the land in the middle of the North Sea.