Ancient Mysteries Archaeology Hub

04/22/2025

2. 2700 year old skeletal remains of a yogi in padmasana Posture.

Balathal. Mewar, India 🇮🇳

04/22/2025

14. In 2015, the world's only intact Basilosaurus fossil, a large prehistoric whale dating back 40 million years, was discovered in Wadi El Hitan, Egypt 🇪🇬.

04/22/2025

4. In 2011, a worker at a Canadian mine discovered an almost perfectly preserved 110-million-year-old nodosaur.

Scientists consider this the best-preserved dinosaur ever found, with its skin, armor, and internal organs remarkably intact.

04/22/2025

5. Roman Mosaic found in a vineyard near Negrar di Valpolicella, Italy 🇮🇹

04/22/2025

Basically, she buried nobles alive, burned the royal family, massacred everyone at her husband's funeral, and set the remaining town ablaze.

Olga of Kiev, a 10th-century ruler of Kievan Rus', is one of history’s most formidable figures, known for her ruthless vengeance and strategic brilliance. After her husband, Prince Igor, was murdered in 945 by the Drevlians, a Slavic tribe, for imposing excessive tributes, Olga assumed regency for her young son, Sviatoslav. The Drevlians, seeking to consolidate power, proposed that Olga marry their prince, Mal. Feigning agreement, Olga invited their emissaries to Kiev, where she had them buried alive in a boat. She then requested more Drevlian nobles to es**rt her, only to lock them in a bathhouse and burn them alive. These acts of deception were merely the prelude to her campaign of retribution, showcasing her cunning in exploiting diplomatic gestures to eliminate her enemies.

Olga’s vengeance culminated in a campaign of devastating destruction. She attended her husband’s funeral feast hosted by the Drevlians, where she ensured their leaders were intoxicated before ordering her forces to massacre them, reportedly killing thousands. Still unsatisfied, she laid siege to the Drevlian capital, Iskorosten. When the city refused to surrender, Olga requested a seemingly modest tribute of pigeons and sparrows. The Drevlians complied, unaware of her plan. Olga’s forces attached burning sulfur to the birds, which returned to their nests, setting the city ablaze and destroying it. Those who survived were enslaved or killed. Beyond her vengeance, Olga later converted to Christianity around 957, becoming a saint for her efforts to spread the faith, leaving a complex legacy as both a ruthless avenger and a pivotal figure in Kievan Rus' history.

Source: © The Historian’s Den

04/21/2025

# Human Ancestors Nearly Went Extinct 900,000 Years Ago

A new technique for analyzing modern genetic data suggests that prehumans survived in a group of only 1,280 individuals

Human ancestors in Africa were pushed to the brink of extinction around 900,000 years ago, a study shows. The work, published in *Science*, suggests a drastic reduction in the population of our ancestors well before our species, *Homo sapiens*, emerged. The population of breeding individuals was reduced to just 1,280 and didn’t expand again for another 117,000 years.

“About 98.7% of human ancestors were lost,” says Haipeng Li, a population geneticist at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who co-led the study. He says that the fossil record in Africa and Eurasia between 950,000 and 650,000 years ago is patchy and that “the discovery of this bottleneck may explain the chronological gap”.

Nick Ashton, an archaeologist at the British Museum in London, who wrote a related perspective, says he was intrigued by the tiny size of the population. “This would imply that it occupied a very localized area with good social cohesion for it to survive,” he says. “Of greater surprise is the estimated length of time that this small group survived. If this is correct, then one imagines that it would require a stable environment with sufficient resources and few stresses to the system.”

# # Clues from modern DNA

To make their discovery, the researchers needed to invent new tools. Advances in genome sequencing have improved scientists’ understanding of population sizes for the period after modern humans emerged, but the researchers developed a methodology that enabled them to fill in details about earlier human ancestors. Serena Tucci, an anthropologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, says that such work was sorely needed. “We still know very little about the population dynamics of early human ancestors for several reasons, including methodological limitations and difficulties in obtaining ancient DNA data from old *Homo* specimens,” she says.

The researchers’ method allowed them to reconstruct ancient population dynamics on the basis of genetic data from present-day humans. By constructing a complex family tree of genes, the team was able to examine the finer branches of the tree with greater precision, identifying significant evolutionary events.

The technique “put the spotlight on the period 800,000 to one million years ago — for which there is much unknown — in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Stanley Ambrose, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This period was part of the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition — a time of drastic climate change, when glacial cycles became longer and more intense. In Africa, this led to long periods of drought. Li says that the changing climate might have wiped out human ancestors and forced new human species to emerge. Eventually, these might have evolved into the last common ancestor of modern humans and our extinct relatives, the Denisovans and Neanderthals.

Around 813,000 years ago, the population of pre-humans began to swell again. How our ancestors managed to survive, and what allowed them to flourish once more, remains unclear, says Ziqian Hao, a population geneticist at the Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences in Jinan, and a co-author of the paper. However, he says that the bottleneck is likely to have had a crucial impact on human genetic diversity, driving many important features of modern humans, such as brain size. He estimates that up to two-thirds of genetic diversity was lost. “It represents a key period of time during the evolution of humans. So there are many important questions to be answered,” he says.

Ashton would like to see the researchers’ findings backed by more archaeological and fossil evidence. The authors “suggest that the bottleneck was a global crash in population”, he says, “but the number of archaeological sites outside Africa suggests that this is not the case. A regional bottleneck might be more likely.”

*This article is reproduced with permission and was [first published]( on August 31, 2023.*

04/21/2025

A child in a handmade leather carrier of the HIMBA tribe, Namibia 🇳🇦, Africa.
(Photo credit: Beckwith and Angela Fisher)

04/21/2025

Prometheus

In mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, god of fire.

Prometheus contributed significantly to the formation of the human race. He defied the gods by stealing fire and giving it to mankind to create civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for his beneficial deeds for mankind and is generally regarded as the originator of human arts and sciences He taught humans to manipulate fire, create tools, and taught them the Sciences (which he stole from the goddess Athena) and the Letters. To save humanity from the wrath of the gods, he taught them to worship them and offer them sacrifices. Of course, this angered Zeus.

Prometheus' punishment for stealing fire and giving it to humans is a popular theme in ancient and modern culture. Zeus condemned Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression. Prometheus was tied to a rock of Caucasus and a vulture - the emblem of Zeus - ate his liver once a day (in ancient , the liver was often considered the seat of human emotions), but his liver grew again at night (because he was immortal). Prometheus was freed by Heracles, who kills the eagle and breaks the chains of Hephaestus.!!

04/21/2025

First mother-daughter burial from Roman period in Austria discovered

In 2004, during construction work in Wels, Austria, an unusual grave was unearthed, containing the remains of two individuals embracing each other and at least one horse. Initially thought to be an early medieval double burial, the grave’s true significance has only recently come to light through comprehensive research led by anthropologist Sylvia Kirchengast and archaeologist Dominik Hagmann from the University of Vienna.

The grave, designated as Grave 12 by researchers, was located in what was once the eastern burial ground of the ancient Roman city of Ovilava. At the time of discovery, it was believed to be a medieval burial of a couple accompanied by a horse, a common practice of the era. However, subsequent analysis using bioarchaeological and archaeogenetic methods revealed surprising discoveries...

04/20/2025

04/20/2025

Maasai Warrior

04/20/2025

La estructura en la imagen es la llamada "Tumba de Héctor", ubicada en la antigua ciudad de Kadyanda, cerca de Fethiye, Turquía. Aunque se le asocia con Héctor, el héroe troyano de la Ilíada de Homero, su conexión es más simbólica que histórica.

04/20/2025

Kvetera Church is a Georgian Orthodox church in a historic fortified town of Kvetera in Kakheti. Kvetera Church was built in the early part of the 10th century. It is a relatively small church and resembles the Georgian cross-dome style of architecture.

04/20/2025

The Temple of Hathor and Nefertari, carved in the 13th century BC, features six towering statues, each about 10 meters (33 feet) tall, depicting Ramesses II and Queen Nefertari. Dedicated to Hathor, this Abu Simbel masterpiece showcases intricate hieroglyphs and precise craftsmanship, epitomizing the grandeur of ancient Egyptian art and architecture.

04/20/2025

The mummy of King Tutankhamun was discovered in his tomb, designated KV62, located in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt. This tomb was famously unearthed by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 and remains one of the most significant archaeological finds in history. Inside the tomb, Tutankhamun’s mummified body was found surrounded by a wealth of treasures, many of which now reside in museums. Today, his mummy remains in the tomb itself, displayed in a climate-controlled glass case. However, the mummy of his mother was not found alongside him. Through DNA analysis conducted by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, it was determined that a mummy known as the “Younger Lady,” discovered in tomb KV35, is likely Tutankhamun’s mother. Though her exact identity is still debated, she is believed by many scholars to be Queen Kiya, one of Akhenaten’s wives. Therefore, while King Tutankhamun rests in KV62, his mother’s remains lie in a separate tomb, KV35, also located within the Valley of the Kings.

04/20/2025

A Roman toddler's footprint in a red clay tile, imprinted as it was drying ~2000 years ago. Vaison-la-Romaine (ancient Vasio Vocontiorum)

04/20/2025

Discovered in 1936 in the tomb of Prince Sabu at Saqgara, Egypt, the Sabu Disk is a 5,000-year-old artifact carved from fragile schist stone. Its design resembles a modern flywheel, complete with three curved blades and a central hub. Unlike other objects from the same period, this disk stands out for its precision and unusual structure.

The craftsmanship of the Sabu Disk is particularly interesting.

Schist is a brittle material, making it extremely difficult to carve without shattering. Despite this, the disk is symmetrical, with smooth, curved edges that appear to have been meticulously shaped. Its central hub suggests it may have been designed to rotate, hinting at a functional use rather than purely ceremonial or decorative purposes.

Some researchers theorize that the disk could have been part of a mechanical system, possibly for use in grinding, water management, or even aerodynamics. Others suggest it had symbolic or ritualistic significance, tied to beliefs about motion, energy, or celestial mechanics. However, no similar artifacts have been found, leaving its purpose and function an enduring mystery.

The Sabu Disk challenges conventional views of ancient Egyptian technology. While many artifacts from this era reflect artistic and symbolic traditions, the disk's design suggests a deeper understanding of mechanics and precision.

04/19/2025

The archeology of southern Brazil has been paying attention, since the 1960s, to a very special type of ancient human occupation found in many points of the plateau in the states of São Paulo, Paraná and, mainly, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, in addition to some similar finds near the coast, in the south of Santa Catarina.
The Kaingang, one of the 305 current ethnic groups in Brazil, already inhabited the southern plateau three thousand years before the arrival of Europeans. These towns were known as Proto-Kaingang, towns of the Taquara Tradition or People of the Underground Houses.
To protect themselves from the harsh winter that punishes the high regions of southern Brazil, called Cima da Serra fields, they built their houses underground, thus keeping them protected from the strong and icy winds that cut the plateau. Sometimes the walls were compacted with finer clay, resulting in a coating layer.
The Kaingang (also spelled caingangue in Portuguese or kanhgág in the Kaingang language) people are an Indigenous Brazilian ethnic group spread out over the three southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and the southeastern state of São Paulo.