Ancient People and Cultures

[scidotnews]

Ancient Stone Tools from Kenya Push Back Origins of Human Innovation

http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/stone-tools-origins-human-innovation-05824.html

[archae-heart-deactivated2021012]

Painted reliefs in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al-Bahri // Thebes, Egypt

1. Ankh and djed pillar in the Chapel of Hathor

2. Thutmose III making offerings to the Sun God Ra-Harakhty in the Chapel of Anubis

3. Osiris in the Chapel of Anubis

4. Anubis in the Chapel of Anubis

[poisonwasthecure]

“Skeleton in the remains of a basketwork coffin, Tarkhan, Egypt, First Dynasty, ca. 3000 B.C.”

[hominidz]

Homo Antecessor!

Homo Antecessor was a species of human that lived between ~1.2 million years ago and 800,000 years ago. Homo Antecessor’s name, Antecessor, is Latin for “Explorer” or “Pioneer”. It has this name because it was related to Out Of Africa I, the earliest wave of human migration out of the African continent. Fossils have been found in locations ranging from Atapuerca, Spain to Norfolk, England. Based on the fossils in England, it’s very likely that Homo Antecessor was one of if not the first human species to live in Northern Europe! There have also been Antecessor bones found (at the location mentioned earlier, in Spain) with tool marks on them. This indicates that Homo Antecessor may have practiced cannibalism. As a final, more upbeat note, the range of hearing (frequency range of audition) of Homo Antecessor is similar to Homo Sapiens, indicating that they may have used a symbolic language and have been able to reason.

[hominidz]

Neanderthals!

Homo Neanderthalensis, more often known as Neanderthals, were a species of human that lived between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago. They’re our closest extinct human relative! They looked very similar to us, but they weren’t quite the same. Some differences between us and Neanderthals include their much larger noses (for warming and humidifying cold, dry air), and our taller and thinner builds. Neanderthals, as a species that evolved entirely outside of Africa, had shorter and stockier bodies as a response to the colder climates they lived in. Neanderthals ranged from Europe to Asia, and were very similar to Homo Sapiens behaviourally as well as physically.

[becausetheinternet]

[boneandpapyrus]

xcgirl08:

shoujofeels:

becausetheinternet:

A 2500 year old mummy that had some amazing tattoos.

WHAT.

NO FUCKING WAY.

YO HOLD ON. 

IT GETS BETTER.

This mummy, found in the  Altai mountains of Siberia, is actually that of a young woman who died at about the age of twenty-five; she is thought to have been a member of the Pazyryk tribe.

She was buried with six horses and two similarly-tattooed men (the horned griffon that decorates her shoulder also appears on the man buried closest to her, covering most of his right side), possibly escorts. She was also wearing a horse-hair wig, silk, and elaborate boots, which is all a level of ceremony that would have likely only been accorded to a woman of high rank. You didn’t get inked like this unless you were very important, and had worked your way up to that importance. 

…Hence, of course, the references to her by researchers as ‘The Ukok Princess,’ although due to the lack of weapons in her grave they have concluded that the woman was in fact a healer or a storyteller.  

And now I’m all consumed with curiosity: Who was she? What amazing things did she accomplish? Why these symbols, and what did they mean? Who were the two men alongside her?

The most informative article about it can be found here, although I would completely eat up any other information you guys could find. 

[ancientpeoples]

A letter for the dead, written for a women named Ankhiry

This letter was attached to a wooded statue of a women to whom this letter was adressed and placed inside her tomb. The content of the letter is meant to ease the husbands suffering. Three years after his wife’s death he is writing to her to stop paining him in her afterlife. In the letter it becomes clear why; he speaks of brothel visits and adultery but insists that he is NOT guilty of these things. In the end he becomes desperate and threatens to  carry his point before the gods. 

The man was obviously suffering from a bad conscience and in his desperation threatened the dead. 

There are 17 lines written on papyrus in hieratic from right to left. 

New Kingdom, 19th dynasty, 1250 BC. 

Found in Saqqara, Egypt. 

Source: Leiden Museum of Antiquities

[tiny-librarian]

The remains of Tutankamun’s Parents, Akhenaten and the mummy only identified as “The Younger Lady”, and his grandparents, Queen Tiye and Amenhotep III.

It was recently proved this “Younger Lady” mummy is in fact Tutankamun’s mother, and a full sister to Akhenaten. Thus King Tut only had one set of grandparents.

[historicaltimes]

The mummy of Queen Tyie , King Akhenaten’s mother,Tomb KV35 Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. 1898

via reddit

[ancientart]

Diorite Inca sculpture from Amarucancha in Peru, known as the “Head of Viracocha”.

Courtesy & currently located at the Museum of the Americas, Madrid. Photo taken by Manuel de Corselas

[ancient-mesopotamia]

Votive Figures, from the Square Temple, modern day Tell Asmar, Iraq. 3000 BC.

[ancient-mesopotamia]

A Winged Hero Contesting with a Lion for a Bull. Cylinder seal and impression. Mesopotamia, Neo-Babylonian period (ca.1000–539B.C.) Carnelian  38.5 x 18 mm

[ishtargates]

Gudea the Sumerian ruler of Lagash regarded Ningishzida as a personal god who protected him. He recorded an appearance by the god from a dream. Ningishzida is represented by the horned vipers rising from the shoulders. Gudea built a Ningirsu for the god and he even appears on Gudea’s cylinder seal.

(ibid)

[ishtargates]

The underworld god Ningishzida represented as two snakes on a staff. The types of snakes appear to be horned vipers. His name means “Lord of the Good Tree” according to Jacobsen. The staff predates the staff of Hermes and Moses, as well as symbols of the snake goddess of Egypt Wadjet. He is seen in the underworld with Gilgamesh, the hero, and Dumuzi the husband of the goddess Ishtar. He is also may have been seen by the hero sage Adapa when he traveled to heaven and met Gishda (abbreviated from Ningishda) and Dumuzi guarded the gate of the heaven god An at the highest heaven. “NIN” is a title that is feminine and usually is given to goddesses such as Ninlil. It is because of this some scholars believe Ningishzida may be female.

[ishtargates]

Babylonian god Marduk riding the dragon musshumu, cylinder seal from the 9th century. In Enuma Elish Marduk slayed the primordial goddess Tiamat after she was planning to kill the other gods. Fearing for the lives they begged Marduk to slay her. He did so on the premise that he could gain the Tablet of Destiny, used to control fate. Marduk appears in a later period of Babylon, and is not from the original source of the Sumerian gods. (The Babylonians conquered the Sumerians and then adopted their religion. Much like Rome did to Greece. ) He became chief god of Babylon and usurped fifty titles from other gods. His worship was so tied to Babylon that it bordered on monotheism. (It may be the origin of the concept starting from henotheism and evolving to monotheism.)

Source: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary  by Jeremy Black , Anthony Green

[ancient-mesopotamia]

Lamassu’s Guarding Palace Entrance - Iraq, Nimrud, Assyria.

[ancient-mesopotamia]

Nergal, a Mesopotamian God of the Underworld, holding his lion-headed staffs, terra-cotta relief from Kish, c. 2100–c. 1500 bce. Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Eng.