Feb 3, 2022 08:19 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 3, 2022 08:35 PM by C C.)
Archaeologists Discover Foundations of Oxford University’s ‘Lost’ College
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180979508/
Founded for Catholic priests, the institution was destroyed 500 years ago when Henry VIII established the Church of England.
This may be one of the oldest Buddhist temples ever discovered
https://www.livescience.com/early-buddis...e-pakistan
INTRO: An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearthed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan — part of the ancient Gandhara region that was conquered by Alexander the Great and gave rise to a mixing of Buddhist belief and Greek art.
Archaeologists think that the temple dates from about the middle of the second century B.C., at a time when Gandhara was ruled by the Indo-Greek kingdom of northern India, and that it was built above an earlier Buddhist temple that may have dated from as early as the third century B.C.
That means people would have built the older temple within a few hundred years of the death of the founder of Buddhism, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived in what is now northern India and Nepal between about 563 B.C. and 483 B.C.
The excavated remains of the temple found so far, near the center of the modern town of Barikot, are over 10 feet (3 meters) tall and consist of a ceremonial platform topped by a cylindrical structure that housed a conical or dome-shaped Buddhist monument called a stupa.
The temple complex, which was built and reconstructed several times, also included a smaller stupa, a cell or room for monks, a staircase, the podium of a monumental pillar or column, vestibule rooms and a public courtyard that looked out onto an ancient road.
Radiocarbon dating will establish precise dates of the structures, but the temple at Barikot is clearly one of the earliest Buddhist monuments ever found in the ancient Gandhara region... (MORE - details)
Human spines threaded onto posts found at 500-year-old burial site in Peru
https://gizmodo.com/human-spines-posts-c...1848460580
EXCERPTS: Archaeologists working along the southern coast of Peru have unearthed nearly 200 reed posts adorned with human vertebrae. Sound macabre, but these spines on spikes may have been a response to the Colonial-period looting of graves.
The human vertebrae-on-posts were discovered in the Chincha Valley of Peru and radiocarbon dated to between 1450 and 1650 CE. A total of 192 examples, in which the vertebrae of adults and juveniles were used exclusively, were found across the entire valley, revealing the surprising extent of this practice. This was a tumultuous time for the ancient Chinchorro culture, as it marked the end of Inca rule and the onset of European colonization. Details of this discovery have been published today in Antiquity.
“This discovery is broadening our understanding of how Indigenous peoples use ritual to deal with conquest,” Jacob Bongers, the first author of the paper and an archaeologist at the University of East Anglia, explained in an email. “Our findings suggest that vertebrae-on-posts represent a direct, Indigenous response to European colonialism.” To which he added: “These findings showcase how tombs can become contested during turbulent periods of conquest.”
[...] This represents a unique treatment of the dead, but as Bongers pointed out, similar practices have been documented elsewhere, such as the ancient Chinchorro culture of South America who threaded wooden sticks into vertebrae to keep mummies rigid, and ancient Egyptians who inserted palm-leaf ribs into the spinal columns of mummies. In the case of the Chincha culture, the practice was a ritualized response to colonialism and the disruption of buried bodies.
“Local groups during the Inca Period valued the integrity or wholeness of dead bodies. We suggest that Chincha peoples shared this belief,” Bongers said. “European looting would have damaged dead bodies and may have ‘corrupted’ the dead. The vertebrae-on-posts may have represented efforts to put the dead back together.” (MORE - details)
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Inner Cynic: They don't really know this, but it's the explanatory option to select that offers the most job security attention and rewards in this era of conforming to humanities propaganda, the anti-Western sentiments of the establishment, and the political policies of science administrations. Motivated reasoning doesn't exclude the possibility of an _X_ theory being correct, but skepticism is warranted due to the pre-existing cognitive filters or the interpretative preference in the social sciences for conforming to current, popular ideological narratives.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180979508/
Founded for Catholic priests, the institution was destroyed 500 years ago when Henry VIII established the Church of England.
This may be one of the oldest Buddhist temples ever discovered
https://www.livescience.com/early-buddis...e-pakistan
INTRO: An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearthed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan — part of the ancient Gandhara region that was conquered by Alexander the Great and gave rise to a mixing of Buddhist belief and Greek art.
Archaeologists think that the temple dates from about the middle of the second century B.C., at a time when Gandhara was ruled by the Indo-Greek kingdom of northern India, and that it was built above an earlier Buddhist temple that may have dated from as early as the third century B.C.
That means people would have built the older temple within a few hundred years of the death of the founder of Buddhism, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived in what is now northern India and Nepal between about 563 B.C. and 483 B.C.
The excavated remains of the temple found so far, near the center of the modern town of Barikot, are over 10 feet (3 meters) tall and consist of a ceremonial platform topped by a cylindrical structure that housed a conical or dome-shaped Buddhist monument called a stupa.
The temple complex, which was built and reconstructed several times, also included a smaller stupa, a cell or room for monks, a staircase, the podium of a monumental pillar or column, vestibule rooms and a public courtyard that looked out onto an ancient road.
Radiocarbon dating will establish precise dates of the structures, but the temple at Barikot is clearly one of the earliest Buddhist monuments ever found in the ancient Gandhara region... (MORE - details)
Human spines threaded onto posts found at 500-year-old burial site in Peru
https://gizmodo.com/human-spines-posts-c...1848460580
EXCERPTS: Archaeologists working along the southern coast of Peru have unearthed nearly 200 reed posts adorned with human vertebrae. Sound macabre, but these spines on spikes may have been a response to the Colonial-period looting of graves.
The human vertebrae-on-posts were discovered in the Chincha Valley of Peru and radiocarbon dated to between 1450 and 1650 CE. A total of 192 examples, in which the vertebrae of adults and juveniles were used exclusively, were found across the entire valley, revealing the surprising extent of this practice. This was a tumultuous time for the ancient Chinchorro culture, as it marked the end of Inca rule and the onset of European colonization. Details of this discovery have been published today in Antiquity.
“This discovery is broadening our understanding of how Indigenous peoples use ritual to deal with conquest,” Jacob Bongers, the first author of the paper and an archaeologist at the University of East Anglia, explained in an email. “Our findings suggest that vertebrae-on-posts represent a direct, Indigenous response to European colonialism.” To which he added: “These findings showcase how tombs can become contested during turbulent periods of conquest.”
[...] This represents a unique treatment of the dead, but as Bongers pointed out, similar practices have been documented elsewhere, such as the ancient Chinchorro culture of South America who threaded wooden sticks into vertebrae to keep mummies rigid, and ancient Egyptians who inserted palm-leaf ribs into the spinal columns of mummies. In the case of the Chincha culture, the practice was a ritualized response to colonialism and the disruption of buried bodies.
“Local groups during the Inca Period valued the integrity or wholeness of dead bodies. We suggest that Chincha peoples shared this belief,” Bongers said. “European looting would have damaged dead bodies and may have ‘corrupted’ the dead. The vertebrae-on-posts may have represented efforts to put the dead back together.” (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Inner Cynic: They don't really know this, but it's the explanatory option to select that offers the most job security attention and rewards in this era of conforming to humanities propaganda, the anti-Western sentiments of the establishment, and the political policies of science administrations. Motivated reasoning doesn't exclude the possibility of an _X_ theory being correct, but skepticism is warranted due to the pre-existing cognitive filters or the interpretative preference in the social sciences for conforming to current, popular ideological narratives.