MessageToEagle.com -
Archaeologists excavating in Iraq have unearth more ancient Sumerian items that could offer clues to our past.
"Priceless information about mankind's past lies concealed beneath Iraq's landscape, especially in the 'tells' - earth mounds -
that are the remains of ancient towns, villages and farmsteads," says Dr. Robert Killick who is part of a British archaeological expediting that is excavating in Iraq.
The National reports that
"Dr Robert Killick, was part of the British archaeological expedition excavating a 2300BC Bronze Age grave believed to belong to a chieftain."
"We found the skeletons of two donkeys or onagers, but no sign of a human skeleton," recalled Dr Killick.
"At first, we joked that
this royal chamber was made for the donkeys, but that couldn't be possible, could it?"
Acting like modern detectives, Dr. Killick and his team examined the area closer.
They searched for clues to the missing body, and found a distortion in one of the walls of the grave. It opened up into a separate pit on
the side of the grave, with the human skeleton laid out in a tiny bedroom-like chamber.
"But that was nothing. Less than 1 per cent of Iraq has been excavated and studied," said Dr Killick, who worked in Iraq for more than a
decade and then in the rest of the region for another two decades.
"Iraq is where it all started, the cradle of civilization. Imagine the wealth of history, the stories in the ruins that have not yet been
read that will give us clues into our past."
"Contrary to what people believe about the current state of
Iraq, most of the ancient sites have not in fact been destroyed. The majority are, thankfully, intact," he said.
One of the most interesting sites to excavate is "Tell Khaiber", which is about 20 kilometres from the ancient city of Ur, near Nasiriyah,
in Thi Qar province. It is here, in southern Iraq, that civilization began more than 5,000 years ago.
Some say this was the birthplace of Prophet Abraham.
"We picked Tell Khaiber as the archaeological remains seem intact and have not been disturbed by looters," said Dr Killick.
The monumental ziggurat at the ancient city of Ur located in the Thi Qar province, south of Iraq. Image credit: Dr. Robert Killick
"Satellite images show the presence of large rectangular public buildings on the two main mounds of the settlement, perhaps royal palaces or
the administrative buildings of the town," said Dr Killick. "Their presence confirms the importance of Tell Khaiber in antiquity."
Archaeologists hope that the contents of the rooms inside the structures will explain how the building functioned, and so will help
reconstruct economic and political conditions in the settlement and its area of influence.
"The Tell Khaiber excavation near Ur in southern Iraq is a breath of air to archaeological research in Iraq," said Dr Lamia Al Gailani,
an eminent Iraqi archaeologist, who worked in the Iraq Museum in the 1960s, and again in 2003 after the looting.
Satellite image of Ishan Khaiber Image credit: Ur Region Archaeology Project
"Iraq used to have the best of archaeologists in the 1960s and 1970s, when archaeological excavations and research of major
significance was taking place, with many international universities excavating in Iraq. Some had permanent institutes in Baghdad,
such as the British School of Archaeology, the German Institute and the Italian Cultural Centre," she said.
"All these activities came to an end after the first Gulf War in 1991, international excavations stopped, and no new books
were purchased by the Iraq Museum Library because of the sanctions," she explained. After 2003, with the fall of Saddam Hussein
regime, Iraq remained unstable, and unsafe for excavations or any kind of field research. "As a result of all this, the continuing
development of Iraqi archaeologists and the study of the history of ancient Iraq have come to a halt, with disastrous results.
Iraqi archaeologists became completely isolated from progress in the new developments in archaeological research," said Dr Al Gailani.
"But this is changing now, and the presence of international archaeologists in Iraq is essential to familiarise and train
young Iraqi archaeologists and to enhance the study of Iraq's history and heritage, particularly in its role as the cradle of civilization," she said.
One of the beauties of archaeology is that you never now what you will find
"Archaeology is unpredictable. You never know exactly what you might find - that is what is so exciting. We trust that this
project will be just the beginning for a new era in the exploration of Iraq's magnificent heritage and its new generation of Iraqi
archaeologists," Dr Killick said.
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Archaeologists excavating in Iraq have unearth more ancient Sumerian items that could offer clues to our past.
Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a
1,300-year-old-year Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called “end date” of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012.
Many of out-of-place relics have been hidden from public view for many years because they do not fit the traditional model of human prehistory.
According to this model based on evolutionary time scale, they are out-of-place because they predate human evolution.
Often forgotten and ignored, they still prove evolution theory false showing human existence much further back into Earth's history...
In the 30s of the twentieth century, a genuine, 900-year-old bone skull was discovered in an abandoned mine tunnel near Mexico's Copper Canyon.
It was very different and until now is a subject of scientific interest and debate regarding both the unusual shape and properties of the bone.
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Is the Starchild Skull an "alien" artifact, which means foreign to normal human genetics - as we know it, or definitely not from planet Earth?
Erich von Däniken, widely regarded as the father of ancient alien theory is one of the most successful and influential alternative history
authors who have sold millions of books world-wide.
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