Guerriero del Bronzo, Tomba Intatta.

Bronze Age warrior tomb

 unearthed in SW Greece 





ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Europe, Greece, Southern Europe 





On the floor of the grave lay the skeleton of an adult male, stretched out on his back. Weapons lay to his left, and jewelry to his right. 

This gold ring with a Cretan bull-jumping scene was one of four solid-gold rings  found in the tomb. This number is more than found with any other single burial  elsewhere in Greece 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations] 

Near the head and chest was a bronze sword, its ivory hilt covered in gold. 
A gold-hilted dagger lay beneath it. Still more weapons were found by the man's legs and feet. Gold cups rested on his chest and stomach, and near his neck was a perfectly preserved gold necklace with two pendants. 
By his right side and spread around his head were over one thousand beads of carnelian, amethyst, jasper, agate and gold. 
Nearby were four gold rings, and silver cups as well as bronze bowls, cups, jugs and basins.

Dagger with a gold hilt overlaid with gold in a rare technique imitating embroidery [Credit: University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations]

The above describes what a University of Cincinnati-led international research team found this summer when excavating what was initially thought to be a Bronze Age house. Instead, the team made a rich and rare discovery of an intact, Bronze Age warrior's tomb dating back to about 1500 B.C., and that discovery is featured in The New York Times, in an article titled: A Warrior's Grave at Pylos, Greece, Could Be a Gateway to Civilizations. 

One of six ivory combs found within the warrior's tomb 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

 The find is so extraordinary that UC's Shari Stocker, senior research associate in the Department of Classics, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, states: "This previously unopened shaft grave of a wealthy Mycenaean warrior, dating back 3,500 years, is one of the most magnificent displays of prehistoric wealth discovered in mainland Greece in the past 65 years." 
Stocker co-leads the team that unearthed the undisturbed shaft tomb, along with Jack Davis, UC's Carl W. Blegen Chair in Greek Archaeology. 
Other team members include UC faculty, staff specialists and students, some of whom have worked in the area around the present-day city of Pylos on the southwest coast of Greece for the last quarter century as part of the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. 
That UC-based effort is dedicated to uncovering the pre-history and history of the Bronze Age center known as the Palace of Nestor, an extensive complex and a site linked to Homeric legend. 
Though the palace was destroyed by fire sometime around 1200 B.C., it is nevertheless the best-preserved Bronze Age palace on the Greek mainland. 
It was UC archaeologist Carl Blegen, along with Konstantinos Kourouniotis, director of the National Archaeological Museum, who initially uncovered the remains of the famed Palace of Nestor in an olive grove in 1939. 
Located near the present-day city of Pylos, the palace was a destination in Homer's "Odyssey," where sacrifices were said to be offered on its beaches. 
The king who ruled at the Palace of Nestor controlled a vast territory that was divided into more than 20 districts with capital towns and numerous small settlements. 

This unique necklace measures more than 30-inches long and features two gold pendants  decorated with ivy leaves. It was found near the neck of the warrior's skeleton  

[Credit: University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations]

 Explains Stocker, "This latest find is not the grave of the legendary King Nestor, who headed a contingent of Greek forces at Troy in Homer's 'Iliad.' Nor is it the grave of his father, Neleus. 
This find may be even more important because the warrior pre-dates the time of Nestor and Neleus by, perhaps, 200 or 300 years. 
That means he was likely an important figure at a time when this part of Greece was being indelibly shaped by close contact with Crete, Europe's first advanced civilization." 
Thus, the tomb may have held a powerful warrior or king -- or even a trader or a raider -- who died at about 30 to 35 years of age but who helped to lay the foundations of the Mycenaean culture that later flourished in the region. Davis speculates, "Whoever he was, he seems to have been celebrated for his trading or fighting in nearby island of Crete and for his appreciation of the more-sophisticated and delicate are of the Minoan civilization (found on Crete), with which he was buried." 
Potential Wealth of Information The team found the tomb while working in the area of the Palace of Nestor, seeking clues as to how the palace and its rulers came to control an area encompassing all of modern Messenia in western Greece and supporting more than 50,000 inhabitants during the Bronze Age. 

The golden necklace of the grave at Ano Englianos 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

 Davis says that researchers were there to try and figure out how the Palace of Nestor became a center of power and when this rise in power began, questions they now think the tomb may help answer. 
Given the magnitude of this find, it may be necessary to rethink when Plyos and the wider area around it began to flourish. It may have been earlier than previously thought since, somehow, whether via trade or force (e.g., raiding), its inhabitants had acquired the valuable objects found within the tomb. 
Many of the tomb's objects were made in nearby Crete and show a strong Minoan style and technique unknown in mainland Greece in the 15th century BC. 

Finds from the grave at Ano Englianos 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

 The same would likely have been true of the warrior's dwelling during this lifetime. 
He would have lived on the hilltop citadel of nearby Englianos at a time when great mansions were first being built with walls of cut-stone blocks (vs. uncut rock and stones) in the style then associated with nearby Mediterranean Island of Crete and its Minoan culture, their walls decorated with paintings influenced by earlier Minoan wall paintings. The weapons of bronze found within the tomb included a meter-long slashing sword with an ivory handle covered with gold. 

Wealth of Jewels and Weaponry 

A remarkable store of riches was deposited in the tomb with the warrior at the time of his death. The mere fact that the vessels in the tomb are of metal (vs. ceramic pottery) is a strong indication of his great wealth. 

The team of Jack L. Davis and Sharon R. Stocker, from the University of Cincinatti  has brought to light this unlooted and extremely wealthy tomb  

[Credit: University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations]

 "It is truly amazing that no ceramic vessels were included among the grave gifts. 
All the cups, pitchers and basins we found were of metal: bronze, silver and gold. 
He clearly could afford to hold regular pots of ceramic in disdain," according to Stocker. 

This member of the elite was accompanied in the afterlife by about 50 seal-stones carved with intricate Minoan designs of goddesses as well as depictions of bulls and human bull jumpers soaring over their horns. 
Four gold rings in the tomb contain fine Minoan carvings. 
A plaque of carved ivory with a representation of a griffon with huge wings lay between the man's legs. 
Nearby was a bronze mirror with an ivory handle. 
Archaeological conservator Alexandros Zokos was essential partner in the removal, cleaning and preservation of the finds from the grave. 
The weapons of bronze within the tomb include a meter-long slashing sword with an ivory handle, several daggers, a spearhead, along with the already-mentioned sword and dagger with gold pommels. 

View of the excavation 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

 Other grave gifts originally rested above the dead warrior atop a coffin of wood which later collapsed, spilling a crushing load of objects down on the skeleton -- and making the job of excavation difficult and slow. 

Sharon Stocker standing in the excavated tomb

 [Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

The gifts atop the coffin included bronze jugs; a large, bronze basin; thin bands of bronze, probably from the warrior's suit of body armor; many wild boar's teeth from the warrior's helmet.
 In combination with this weaponry, the discovery of so much jewelry with a male burial challenges the commonly held belief that these apparently "feminine" adornments and offerings accompanied only wealthy women to the hereafter.

Previously Unexplored Field 

What would eventually become the successful excavation of the tomb began on the team's very first day of its field work in May 2015, conducted in a previously unexplored field near the Palace of Nestor. 
They immediately found one of the four walls of the warrior's grave.

This is one of more than four dozen seal stones with intricate Minoan designs  found in the tomb. Long-horned bulls and, sometimes, human bull jumpers  soaring over their horns are a common motif in Minoan designs   

[Credit: University of Cincinnati, Pylos Excavations]

 "We put a trench in this one spot because three stones were visible on the surface," says Davis, adding, "At first, we expected to find the remains of a house. 
We expected that this was the corner of a room of a house, but quickly realized that it was 
the tops of the walls of a stone-lined grave shaft."

In the end, the shaft measured about 5 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. 
It took the team about two weeks to clear the shaft before "we hit bronze," says Stocker. At that point, they realized they might have an exceptional prize: an undisturbed grave shaft, never stripped by looters. 
She explains, "The fact that we had not encountered any objects for almost a meter indicated that whatever was at the bottom had been sealed for a long time." Stocker and Alison Fields, a UC graduate student of classics, did most of the actual excavation because their smaller size allowed them to work more easily and carefully around the tomb and its many precious objects.

What Comes Next 

Both Stocker and Davis say it was good luck to discover this intact grave. Given the rarity of the find, it's unlikely to be repeated. "It's almost as if the occupant wants his story to be told," Davis says. 

A bronze mirror with an ivory handle 

[Credit: University of Cincinnati,  Pylos Excavations]

 And that story will continue to unfold. 

The UC team and others are studying the artifacts in detail, with all artifacts remaining in Greece and their final disposition determined by the Greek Archaeological Service. 

Former UC anthropologist Lynne Schepartz, now of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, will study the skeletal remains. 

The skeleton of an adult male stretched out on his back lay in the grave with  weapons arranged to his left and a hoard of fine jewellery on his right  

[Credit: Denitsa Nonova]

Catalogue of Objects Found Within the Warrior Tomb

- Gold 
Four complete solid-gold seal rings to be worn on a human finger. 
This number is more than found with any single burial elsewhere in Greece. 
Two squashed gold cups and a silver cup with a gold rim 
One unique necklace of square box-shaped golden wires, more than 30 inches long with two gold pendants decorated with ivy leaves. 
Numerous gold beads, all in perfect condition.

- Silver 
Six silver cups.

- Bronze 
One three-foot long sword, with an ivory hilt overlaid with gold in a rare technique imitating embroidery (found at warrior's left chest). 
Under this sword was a smaller dagger with a gold hilt employing the same technique. Other bronze weapons by his legs and feet. 
Bronze cups, bowls, amphora, jugs and a basin, some with gold, some with silver trim.

- Seal Stones 
More than 50 seal stones, with intricate carvings in Minoan style showing goddesses, altars, reeds, lions and bulls, some with bull-jumpers soaring over the bull's horns -- all in Minoan style and probably made in Crete.

- Ivory 
Several pieces of carved ivory, one with a griffon with large wings and another depicting a lion attacking a griffon. Six decorated ivory combs.

- Precious Stone Beads 
An astonishing hoard of over 1000 beads, most with drill holes for stringing together. 
The beads are of carnelian, amethyst, jasper and agate. Some beads appear to be decorations from a burial shroud of woven fabric, suggested by several square inches of cross woven threads which survived in the grave for 3,500 years. 



Source: University of Cincinnati [October 26, 2015]

Culinaria a Durrington Walls

The culinary habits 

of the 

Stonehenge builders 

ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Europe, UK, Western Europe 


A team of archaeologists at the University of York have revealed new insights into cuisine choices and eating habits at Durrington Walls -- a Late Neolithic monument and settlement site thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge during the 25th century BC. 

Stonehenge

 [Credit: WikiCommons] 

Together with researchers at the University of Sheffield, detailed analysis of pottery and animal bones has uncovered evidence of organised feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and an unexpected pattern in how foods were distributed and shared across the site.

 Chemically analysing food residues remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the York team found differences in the way pots were used. Pots deposited in residential areas were found to be used for cooking animal products including pork, beef and dairy, whereas pottery from the ceremonial spaces was used predominantly for dairy. Such spatial patterning could mean that milk, yoghurts and cheeses were perceived as fairly exclusive foods only consumed by a select few, or that milk products -- today often regarded as a symbol of purity -- were used in public ceremonies. 

Unusually, there was very little evidence of plant food preparation at any part of the site. The main evidence points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs. Further analysis of animal bones, conducted at the University of Sheffield, found that many pigs were killed before reaching their maximum weight. 
This is strong evidence of planned autumn and winter slaughtering and feasting-like consumption. The main methods of cooking meat are thought to be boiling and roasting in pots probably around indoor hearths, and larger barbeque-style roasting outdoors -- the latter evidenced by distinctive burn patterns on animal bones. 

A reconstruction drawing of how the prehistoric village of Durrington Walls  might have looked in 2500BC 

[Credit: English Heritage] 

Bones from all parts of the animal skeleton were found, indicating that livestock was walked to the site rather than introduced as joints of meat.
 Isotopic analysis indicates that cattle originated from many different locations, some far away from the site. This is significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers likely drawn from far and wide. 
The observed patterns of feasting do not fit with a slave-based society where labour was forced and coerced, as some have suggested. 
Dr Oliver Craig, Reader in Archaeological Science at the University of York and lead author on the paper, said: "Evidence of food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of culinary organisation than was expected for this period of British prehistory. The inhabitants and many visitors to this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared, consumed and disposed. This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests Durrington Walls was a well-organised working community." 
Professor Mike Parker Pearson, Professor at University College London and Director of the Feeding Stonehenge project who also led the excavations at Durrington Walls, said: "This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the organisation of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge. Animals were brought from all over Britain to be barbecued and cooked in open-air mass gatherings and also to be eaten in more privately organized meals within the many houses at Durrington Walls. The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone. The sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting unity among Britain's scattered farming communities in prehistory. " 
Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito, who analysed the pottery samples and recently joined Newcastle University, added: "The combination of pottery analysis with the study of animal bones is really effective, and shows how these different types of evidence can be brought together to provide a detailed picture of food and cuisine in the past." 

The study has been published in the Antiquity Journal. 


Source: University of York [October 12, 2015]

aDNA

Ancient genome 

from Africa 

sequenced 

for the first time 

Africa, Anthropology, ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Ethiopia, Genetics 


 The first ancient human genome from Africa to be sequenced has revealed that a wave of migration back into Africa from Western Eurasia around 3,000 years ago was up to twice as significant as previously thought, and affected the genetic make-up of populations across the entire African continent. The Mota cave is located in a mountainous region, and its entrance is about 6,000 feet  above sea level. 

Weather and the changing conditions of the only road that runs near  the cave -- a gravel surface -- made access complicated for the research team 

[Credit: Kathryn and John Arthur] 

The genome was taken from the skull of a man buried face-down 4,500 years ago in a cave called Mota in the highlands of Ethiopia -- a cave cool and dry enough to preserve his DNA for thousands of years. Previously, ancient genome analysis has been limited to samples from northern and arctic regions. The latest study is the first time an ancient human genome has been recovered and sequenced from Africa, the source of all human genetic diversity. The findings are published in the journal Science. The ancient genome predates a mysterious migratory event which occurred roughly 3,000 years ago, known as the 'Eurasian backflow', when people from regions of Western Eurasia such as the Near East and Anatolia suddenly flooded back into the Horn of Africa. 

Entrance to the Mota Cave in the Ethiopian highlands  

[Credit: Kathryn and John Arthur] 

The genome enabled researchers to run a millennia-spanning genetic comparison and determine that these Western Eurasians were closely related to the Early Neolithic farmers who had brought agriculture to Europe 4,000 years earlier. By comparing the ancient genome to DNA from modern Africans, the team have been able to show that not only do East African populations today have as much as 25% Eurasian ancestry from this event, but that African populations in all corners of the continent -- from the far West to the South -- have at least 5% of their genome traceable to the Eurasian migration. Researchers describe the findings as evidence that the 'backflow' event was of far greater size and influence than previously thought. The massive wave of migration was perhaps equivalent to over a quarter of the then population of the Horn of Africa, which hit the area and then dispersed genetically across the whole continent. 

The view looking out from the Mota cave in the Ethiopian highlands, where the remains containing the ancient genome were found  

[Credit: Kathryn and John Arthur] 

"Roughly speaking, the wave of West Eurasian migration back into the Horn of Africa could have been as much as 30% of the population that already lived there -- and that, to me, is mind-blowing. The question is: what got them moving all of a sudden?" said Dr Andrea Manica, senior author of the study from the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology. Previous work on ancient genetics in Africa had involved trying to work back through the genomes of current populations, attempting to eliminate modern influences. "With an ancient genome, we have a direct window into the distant past. One genome from one individual can provide a picture of an entire population," said Manica. The cause of the West Eurasian migration back into Africa is currently a mystery, with no obvious climatic reasons. Archaeological evidence does, however, show the migration coincided with the arrival of Near Eastern crops into East Africa such as wheat and barley, suggesting the migrants helped develop new forms of agriculture in the region. 

In Mota cave, located in the Gamo highlands of Ethiopia, a group of NSF-supported  researchers excavation a rock cairn. They discovered under it a burial site  containing the remains of a 4,500-year skeleton  

[Credit: Kathryn and John Arthur] 

The researchers say it's clear that the Eurasian migrants were direct descendants of, or a very close population to, the Neolithic farmers that had had brought agriculture from the Near East into West Eurasia around 7,000 years ago, and then migrated into the Horn of Africa some 4,000 years later. "It's quite remarkable that genetically-speaking this is the same population that left the Near East several millennia previously," said Eppie Jones, a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin who led the laboratory work to sequence the genome. While the genetic make-up of the Near East has changed completely over the last few thousand years, the closest modern equivalents to these Neolithic migrants are Sardinians, probably because Sardinia is an isolated island, says Jones. "The famers found their way to Sardinia and created a bit of a time capsule. Sardinian ancestry is closest to the ancient Near East." "Genomes from this migration seeped right across the continent, way beyond East Africa, from the Yoruba on the western coast to the Mbuti in the heart of the Congo -- who show as much as 7% and 6% of their genomes respectively to be West Eurasian," said Marcos Gallego Llorente, first author of the study, also from Cambridge's Zoology Department. 

John Arthur, an NSF-supported archaeologist at the University  of South Florida St. Petersburg, excavates the Mota cave site  

[Credit: Kathryn and John Arthur]

 "Africa is a total melting pot. We know that the last 3,000 years saw a complete scrambling of population genetics in Africa. So being able to get a snapshot from before these migration events occurred is a big step," Gallego Llorente said. The ancient Mota genome allows researchers to jump to before another major African migration: the Bantu expansion, when speakers of an early Bantu language flowed out of West Africa and into central and southern areas around 3,000 years ago. Manica says the Bantu expansion may well have helped carry the Eurasian genomes to the continent's furthest corners. The researchers also identified genetic adaptations for living at altitude, and a lack of genes for lactose tolerance -- all genetic traits shared by the current populations of the Ethiopian highlands. In fact, the researchers found that modern inhabitants of the area highlands are direct descendants of the Mota man. Finding high-quality ancient DNA involves a lot of luck, says Dr Ron Pinhasi, co-senior author from University College Dublin. "It's hard to get your hands on remains that have been suitably preserved. The denser the bone, the more likely you are to find DNA that's been protected from degradation, so teeth are often used, but we found an even better bone -- the petrous." The petrous bone is a thick part of the temporal bone at the base of the skull, just behind the ear. "The sequencing of ancient genomes is still so new, and it's changing the way we reconstruct human origins," added Manica. "These new techniques will keep evolving, enabling us to gain an ever-clearer understanding of who our earliest ancestors were." The study was conducted by an international team of researchers, with permission from the Ethiopia's Ministry of Culture and Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage. 

Source: University of Cambridge [October 08, 2015]

GATH, finalmente!

Si sapeva già che Gath era - nell XI/X secolo a.C. - una delle fortezze dei Filistei: era la città di Golia (il gigante apparentemente invincibile, poi sconfitto dal giovane Davide con un preciso lancio di fionda, che si è dimostrata sperimentalmente cosa possibile per i mezzi e costumi dei pastori di allora). 
Ma non s'immaginava che fosse una fortezza dell'entità appena scoperta dagli scavi dell'Università Bar-Ilan. Si trattava di una grande città fortificata con porte imponenti e mura impressionanti..
Si tratta di zone e di epoche rimaste un poco in ombra, nella ricostruzione storica. 

Di queste "ombre" hanno approfittato i cantastorie e contafrottole della Fantarcheologia, al solo ultimo scopo di lucro (perché a questo, in ultima analisi, mira l'autopromozione continua che essi cercano).

La verità scientifica continua lentamente a delinearsi sempre meglio, per fortuna: i Plst erano davvero potenti ed armati e saldamente stanziati definitivamente nella zona loro attribuita: poche tracce, ed insignificanti, di altri gruppi (e, comunque, non di solo mitici "popoli del mare"!). Probabilmente  i Filistei erano l'unica forza militare pericolosa che potesse impensierire da Est gli Egizi (oltre ai Libu, questi però provenienti da occidente).
 Esistono anche tracce di terremoto (citate anche in Samulele I  XXI), un fenomeno geologico citato non a caso dai geologi esperti (vedi i lavori di Amos Nur: "Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God") per motivare validamente vari spostamenti di popolazioni a piccoli gruppi proprio in questo torno di anni...
Lo studio è multicentrico: difficile pensare che persegua scopi deviati da motivi identitari: che interesse avrebbero i Koreani a promuovere l'identità palestinese?


Monumental fortifications 

of   Philistine city of Gath

unearthed 

ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Greater Middle East, Israel, Near East 


 The Ackerman Family Bar-Ilan University Expedition to Gath, headed by Prof. Aren Maeir, has discovered the fortifications and entrance gate of the biblical city of Gath of the Philistines, home of Goliath and the largest city in the land during the 10th-9th century BCE, about the time of the "United Kingdom" of Israel and King Ahab of Israel. 

The excavations are being conducted in the Tel Zafit National Park, located in the Judean Foothills, about halfway between Jerusalem and Ashkelon in central Israel. 

This is a view of the remains of the Iron Age city wall of Philistine Gath  

[Credit: Prof. Aren Maeir, Director, Ackerman Family,  Bar-Ilan University Expedition to Gath] 

Prof. Maeir, of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, said that the city gate is among the largest ever found in Israel and is evidence of the status and influence of the city of Gath during this period. 
In addition to the monumental gate, an impressive fortification wall was discovered, as well as various building in its vicinity, such as a temple and an iron production facility. These features, and the city itself were destroyed by Hazael King of Aram Damascus, who besieged and destroyed the site at around 830 BCE. 

The city gate of Philistine Gath is referred to in the Bible (in I Samuel 21) in the story of David's escape from King Saul to Achish, King of Gath. 

Aerial view of the  monumental city gate and fortification of the biblical city  of Philistine Gath (home of Goliath) on August 4, 2015  

[Credit: Griffin Aerial Imaging] 

Now in its 20th year, the Ackerman Family Bar-Ilan University Expedition to Gath, is a long-term investigation aimed at studying the archaeology and history of one of the most important sites in Israel. 
Tell es-Safi/Gath is one of the largest tells (ancient ruin mounds) in Israel and was settled almost continuously from the 5th millennium BCE until modern times. 
The archaeological dig is led by Prof. Maeir, along with groups from the University of Melbourne, University of Manitoba, Brigham Young University, Yeshiva University, University of Kansas, Grand Valley State University of Michigan, several Korean universities and additional institutions throughout the world. 
Among the most significant findings to date at the site: Philistine Temples dating to the 11th through 9th century BCE, evidence of an earthquake in the 8th century BCE possibly connected to the earthquake mentioned in the Book of Amos I:1, the earliest decipherable Philistine inscription ever to be discovered, which contains two names similar to the name Goliath; a large assortment of objects of various types linked to Philistine culture; remains relating to the earliest siege system in the world, constructed by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus around 830 BCE, along with extensive evidence of the subsequent capture and destruction of the city by Hazael, as mentioned in Second Kings 12:18; evidence of the first Philistine settlement in Canaan (around 1200 BCE); different levels of the earlier Canaanite city of Gath; and remains of the Crusader castle "Blanche Garde" at which Richard the Lion-Hearted is known to have been. 

Source: Bar-Ilan University [August 04, 2015]