Caution: risque content ahead
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Statue Found: #1
Daily Mail
October 28, 2023
Link:
A report yezterday announced tthat a dig in the Middle East has uncovered a statue of a winged deity, which was almost entirely intact despite its size. The 2700-year-old alabaster statue depicting the winged Assyrian deity Lamassu was found in northern Iraq on October 24, in almost one piece.
Only the head was missing from the massive sculpture, but that was already in the possession of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad after being confiscated from smugglers by customs officers in the 1990s.
French archaeologist Pascal Butterlin, who led the dig, said he had “never unearthed anything this big in my life before”. The sculpture weighs 18 tonnes and measures 3.8 by 3.9 metres. Normally, it’s only in Egypt or Cambodia that you find pieces this big,” he said.
The statue was erected at the entrance to the ancient city of Khorsabad, some 15 kilometres north of the modern city of Mosul. It shows the Lamassu: an Assyrian deity with a human head, the body of a bull, and the wings of a bird. Mr Butterlin, who is a professor of Middle East archaeology at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, said “the attention to detail is unbelievable”. He said the piece was commissioned during the reign of King Sargon II who ruled from 722 to 705BC and erected at the city’s gates to provide protection to the Assyrian capital.
The head of the lamassu was stolen in 1995, before later being recovered and placed in the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad
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Statue Found: #2
Daily Mail
October 2, 2023
Link:
One of the earliest and most lifelike examples of a human sculpture – depicting a man holding his phallus with both hands – has been uncovered by archaeologists in Turkey.
The unusual 7.5ft (2.3m)-tall statue was discovered at a prehistoric site known as Karahan Tepe, which is around 22 miles (35km) from a Mesolithic temple built 6,000 years before Stonehenge.
It is similar in style to the 10,300-year-old Urfa Man sculpture that was also found in southeast Turkey during construction work in 1993. That had been considered the 'oldest naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human'. But because Karahan Tepe dates back to around 9,400 BC, it is believed the new discovery eclipses Urfa Man as the oldest human statue of its kind ever found on Earth.
Nearby excavations also uncovered a bird statue with a beak, eyes, and wings, which archaeologists in Turkey suggest depicts a vulture.
Urfa Man sculpture
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Statue Found: #3
Daily Mail
September 14, 2023
Link:
A 'spectacular' Roman sculpture has been found buried little more than a foot deep next to an A-road in Kent.
The unique stone statue depicts Triton – a merman with the torso of a man and the tail of a fish – riding on a sea monster. In Roman mythology, Triton was the son of Neptune, the god of the sea. As a demi-god, he could calm the waves by blowing on his conch shell, which he appears to be holding in the uncovered sculpture. That part has been broken off, but the artefact is otherwise in incredible condition. It was carved between the late first century and second century AD.
The statue was found by archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) when they were excavating a site near the A2 in Teynham, Kent, ahead of a new housing development. The A2 follows part of the route of the original Roman Watling Street, which linked the ports of Richborough and Dover with London and continued north-west via St Albans.
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Statue found: #4
Daily Mail
October 6, 2022
Link:
Archaeologists unearthed a well-preserved statue of the Roman god Hercules during excavations at a site in Greece's ancient city of Philippi.
A team from Aristotle University found the statue, which was in a few pieces but still in good condition, in an area that was once part of the Roman and Byzantine empires.
Hercules is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmene - who was herself the granddaughter of the hero Perseus.
In classical mythology, Hercules was famous for having super-human strength and was seen as the champion of the weak and a great protector. Hercules is often depicted with a lion skin cloak over his arm and holding a club. The group of professors and students found each of these elements, which helped them identify the ancient artifact as Hercules.
Researchers believe that the statue once adorned a building that dates to the late Byzantine period in the 8th or 9th century AD.
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Noah’s Ark found?
A report also in yesterday’s Daily Mail referred to the possible dicovery of Noah’s Ark. Whether you believe in the story of Noah’s Ark or not is up to you,
According to wikipedia:
The story in Genesis is based on earlier flood myths originating in Mesopotamia, and is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the Ark appears as Safinat Nūḥ.Early Christian and Jewish writers such as Flavius Josephus believed that Noah's Ark existed, even though unsuccessful searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275–339 CE). Believers in the Ark continue to search for it in modern times, but no scientific evidence that the Ark existed has ever been found, nor is there scientific evidence for a global flood. The ship and natural disaster as described in the Bible would have been contingent upon physical impossibilities and extraordinary anachronisms. Some researchers believe that a real (though localized) flood event in the Middle East could potentially have inspired the oral and later written narratives; a Persian Gulf flood, or a Black Sea Deluge 7,500 years ago has been proposed as such a historical candidate.
The article:
Daily Mail
Pctober 28, 2023
Link:
Archaeologists believe they are one step closer to confirming the resting place of Noah's Ark.
A team excavating a geological formation in Turkey has aged rock and soil samples they believe contain ruins of the vessel, which puts the site at the same time the Bible puts the Great Flood 5,000 years ago.
The project began in 2021 and is ongoing, but the initial analysis determined samples to contain clayey and marine materials and seafood.
According to the researchers, these results mean human activity was present on the boat-shaped mound between 5500 and 3000 BC.
The Bible claims the ark settled on the 'mountains of Ararat' in Turkey following a 150-day flood that drowned the Earth and every living thing on it that was not housed inside the wooden ship. The geological formation located in Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı has been a potential site since it was discovered in 1956. The mountain is the highest peak in Turkey, standing 16,500 feet tall and carved out like an ark would be.
The vessel was said to measure '300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits', which translates to up to 515 feet long, 86 feet wide and 52 feet high.
A team of experts led by Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Andrew University, and Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University (AİÇÜ) have been working at the site for nearly one year, collecting samples they believe hold the key to confirming the Biblical story.
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By the way . . .
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