“A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.”
Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn’t just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.
Would like to go there… but it’s in Croatia!
Forensic science and computer simulations are just a couple of the high tech tools used to explain one branch of the evolutionary tree at a new museum in Croatia. The Neanderthal Museum opened last week and was built on the site where scientists have found the greatest concentration in Europe of Neanderthal remains, the bones, skulls, tools and other effects of an extinct offshoot of mankind who inhabited parts of Asia and Europe until 30,000 years ago. The museum’s concept — which sums up evolution in a 24-hour period displayed on a winding track along the museum’s two floors — highlights the late starting time of 23:52 for the first appearance of any of mankind’s relations.
“Columns of the Universe” - from The Dresden Codex, the oldest book of the Americas.
Egypt will soon reveal the results of DNA tests made on the world’s most famous ancient king, the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun, to answer lingering mysteries over his lineage, the antiquities department said this past Sunday. Speaking at a conference, archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said he would announce the results of the DNA tests and the CAT scans on Feb. 17. The results will be compared to those made of King Amenhotep III, who may have been Tutankamun’s grandfather.
Egypt’s famous Tomb of Tutankhamun will undergo a five-year project to clean and restore the lavish wall paintings in the underground chambers of the boy king whose golden mask and artifacts have long awed the world. The project to restore the country’s most famous tomb is the latest collaboration between Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute, which in the past restored nearby tombs and designed airtight cases to display Egypt’s mummies.
