CLIMA (mutazioni del) E CIVILTA' (livello di)

Abrupt climate change 

may have 

rocked the cradle of civilization 

Ancient Environment, ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Climate Change, Earth Science, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Palaeontology 

New research reveals that some of the earliest civilizations in the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent may have been affected by abrupt climate change. These findings show that while socio-economic factors were traditionally considered to shape ancient human societies in this region, the influence of abrupt climate change should not be underestimated. 

The monumental ziggurat at the ancient city of Ur located in the  Thi Qar province, southern Iraq 

[Credit: The National] 

A team of international scientists led by researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that during the first half of the last interglacial period known as the Holocene epoch, which began about 12,000 years ago and continues today, the Middle East most likely experienced wetter conditions in comparison with the last 6,000 years, when the conditions were drier and dustier. "Evidence for wet early Holocene was previously found in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea region, North and East African lakes and cave deposits from Southwest Asia, and attributed to higher solar insolation during this period," said Ali Pourmand, assistant professor of marine geosciences at the UM Rosenstiel School, who supervised the project. "Our study, however, is the first of its kind from the interior of West Asia and unique in its resolution and multi-proxy approach." 

The Fertile Crescent 

[Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica] 

The Fertile Crescent, a region in west Asia that extends from Iran and the Arabian Peninsula to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and northern Egypt is one of the most climatically dynamic regions in the world and is widely considered the birthplace of early human civilizations. "The high-resolution nature of this record afforded us the rare opportunity to examine the influence of abrupt climate change on early human societies. We see that transitions in several major civilizations across this region, as evidenced by the available historical and archaeological records, coincided with episodes of high atmospheric dust; higher fluxes of dust are attributed to drier conditions across the region over the last 5,000 years," said Arash Sharifi, Ph.D. candidate at the department of marine geosciences and the lead author of the study. Climate variability during the past 5000 years as told by the concentration of titanium (Ti) in sediment core from Neor Lake, NW Iran. The vertical orange bands denote periods of dry and dusty condition, which correlate with historical records of drought and famine in Iranian Plateau, Mesopotamia and Eastern Mediterranean (brown and black horizontal bars respectively). 

Transition between ruling dynasties (gray arrows) in Iran and North Mesopotamia coincides with the episodes of dry and dusty condition in the region (peaks in Ti intensities) 

[Credit: Arash Sharifi]

The researchers investigated climate variability and changes in paleoenvironmental conditions during the last 13,000 years based on a high-resolution (sub-decadal to centennial) peat record from Neor Lake in Northwest Iran. Abrupt climate changes occur in the span of years to decades. 
The findings appear in the Quaternary Science Reviews.


Source: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science [July 27, 2015]

Dopo i Buddha Afgani, Ninive

ISIS destroys large parts of Nineveh historical wall

  A Kurdish official revealed on Tuesday evening that the ISIS organization had bombed large parts and tracts of the ancient Nineveh wall, indicating that such an act violates the right of human culture and heritage. 

The media official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Mosul, Saed Mimousine said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “ISIS militants blew up today large parts and expanses of the archaeological wall of Nineveh in al-Tahrir neighborhood,” explaining that, “The terrorist group used explosives in the process of destroying the archaeological fence.” 

Mimousine added, “The Wall of Nineveh is one of the most distinctive archaeological monuments in Iraq and the Middle East” adding that, “The fence dates back to the Assyrian civilization.” Mimousine stressed that, “Bombing the archaeological monuments by ISIS is a flagrant violation of the right of human culture, civilization and heritage,” calling the international community to “take a stand to curb the destruction of historic monuments.” 

Source: Iraqi News 

[January 28, 2015]

LA DOMANDA: TI SALVERA' ESSERE ATEO?

7 August 2014 

Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh

Militants of the group Islamic State now control vast swathes of territory in Iraq and northern Syria

Continue reading the main story

Struggle for Iraq

• 'Jihadistan'
• Shia take on Isis
• Key Sunni players
• Shrines destroyed

Thousands of Christians are reported to be fleeing after Islamic militants seized the minority's biggest town in Iraq.

The Islamic State (IS) group captured Qaraqosh in Nineveh province overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.
An international Christian organisation said at least a quarter of Iraq's Christians were leaving Qaraqosh and other surrounding towns.
IS has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria to create an Islamic caliphate.
Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have been fighting the Sunni militants' advance in the north for weeks.
In a separate development, the United Nations says it has rescued some of the thousands of people trapped by IS militants in mountains near the town of Sinjar.
Up to 50,000 members of the Yazidi religious minority fled there after IS overran Sinjar at the weekend.
Christian 'catastrophe' The French organisation Fraternite en Irak said on its Facebook page (in French) that a majority of inhabitants of Nineveh escaped when the militants took over Qaraqosh and surrounding towns.

As many as 100,000 people are believed to be fleeing toward the autonomous Kurdistan Region.
According to Fraternite en Irak, the commander of the Peshmerga in Qaraqosh told the town's archbishop late on Wednesday that the forces were abandoning their posts.
Several senior clergymen in Nineveh have now confirmed that the towns have fallen.
"It's a catastrophe, a tragic situation: tens of thousands of terrified people are being displaced as we speak," said Joseph Thomas, the Chaldean archbishop of the northern city of Kirkuk.
Eyewitnesses in Qaraqosh said IS militants were taking down crosses in churches and burning religious manuscripts.
The town - referred to as Iraq's Christian capital - is located 30km (19 miles) southeast of the city of Mosul, which was captured by IS in June.
Last month, hundreds of Christian families fled Mosul after the Islamist rebels gave them an ultimatum to convert to Islam or face death.
Iraq is home to one of the world's most ancient Christian communities, but numbers have dwindled amid growing sectarian violence since the US-led invasion in 2003.

La Malattia in Mesopotamia

Stele del Codice di Hammurapi

La Malattia nell'Antica Mesopotamia.

Malgrado il mezzo secolo d'indagini condotte in Mesopotamia,  si conosce ancora poco delle malattie che affliggevano i più famosi regni del mondo antico. Una ricerca retrograda condotta da un archeologo dell'Università di Varsavia ha prodotto solamente 44 pubblicazioni sulle patologie ossee della zona: questo significa che la Paleopatologia di Assiri, Accadi, Sumeri e Babilonesi (ben conosciuti altrimenti) è pochissimo sviluppata  al paragone con quella della zona Egizia o Europea.

I resti ossei non si conservano bene per motivi climatici (inverni umidi ed estati calde), ma - quando si conservino - permettono di risalire solamente a quelle patologie che lasciano segni ossei di sé.

Dai dati prospettici si può concludere che le popolazioni mesopotamiche godevano generalmente di buona salute nel primo e medio Bronzo.

I resti umani più antichi sono probabilmete (a parte quelli del Neanderthal) quelli risalenti al Neolitico, cioé ai primi agricoltori di circa 9.000 anni fa. Costoro soffrivano spesso di osteoartrite, probabilmente a causa degli enormi carichi di lavoro con cui avevano a che fare giornalmente. Questa patologia si dirada nel Bronzo, con l'inizio dello sfruttamento degli  animali addomesticati. Per converso, nel Neolitico erano rare le patologie dentarie, che compaiono più numerose nel bronzo probabilmente in rapporto a motivi dietetici (masticazione di cereali) e che peggiorerà fino al Medio Evo (probabilmente in rapporto con la coltivazione delle palme da dattero).

Insomma, si sa poco o niente: e le prospettive di studio future, dato lo scenario diffuso di guerra nella zona, non sono affatto rosee.

Investigating diseases in ancient Mesopotamia 

After a half century of intensive research in Mesopotamia, scientists still know little about the diseases which plagued the people of the most famous kingdoms of the ancient world. 

L'illustrazione mostra un corpo che presenta un'amputazione di terzo superiore di coscia.

The skeleton of a man with an amputated leg in upper third of the thigh,  found in Tell Barri site [Credit: A. Sołtysiak] 

So far, the research focused on excavations in towns and settlements, and analysis of cuneiform texts. 
Arkadiusz Sołtysiak of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw decided to fill this gap and collected all previously published reports of anthropologists who examined human remains in the area of Mesopotamia. "I was able to find only 44 publications mentioning traces of disease on human bones. This clearly indicates that palaeopathology of the area of Mesopotamia is very poorly developed in comparison with Europe and Egypt" - explained Sołtysiak. 
Such state knowledge is quite surprising, considering that thanks to the work of archaeologists and experts in ancient languages, a lot is already known of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian people (these are just a few of the civilizations in the area of Mesopotamia). 
Unfortunately, the human remains in the Middle East are poorly preserved due to unfavourable climate - moist winters and hot summers. Bones are fragile and often not suitable for detailed analysis. In addition, the unstable political situation in the region discouraged physical anthropologists from travels to this area. Transporting bones abroad was too expensive and too complex for formal reasons. Besides, they could be damaged during transportation. The skeleton provides information on the life of the deceased and what happened to him after death. Taphonomy deals with the second aspect, physical anthropology with the first. A branch of it is also palaeopathology, focusing on diseases in ancient populations. Of course soft tissue is usually not preserved, so scientists can track down only those diseases that leave clear marks on the bones. 
Reports analyzed by Warsaw researcher concern skeletal remains from all eras, allowing to approximate the general health status of residents of Mesopotamia at different times. "Despite the few published data, it can be concluded that the communities of Mesopotamia were quite healthy. We can also identify some trends - for example, least diseases visible on the bones were recorded in the early and mid- Bronze Age.

Interestingly, this correlates well with written sources of that time - it was a heyday of farming communities" - explained Sołtysiak. 
The oldest preserved and studied Mesopotamian remains, apart from Neanderthals discovered in Shanidar cave in Kurdistan, come from the Neolithic period, i.e. from about 9000 years ago. 
The then early farmers often suffered from osteoarthritis, probably associated with lifting heavy weights. Probably, with the introduction of draft animals, the problem became smaller - in fact in the Bronze Age that followed the Neolithic period, scientists reported fewer such cases on the bones. 
In the Neolithic period, in turn, there were fewer cases of dental disease, including tooth decay. Sołtysiak explained that after the relatively favourable for human societies Bronze Age, at the beginning of the Iron Age there was an economic and agricultural collapse, possibly caused by climate change and numerous conflicts. "This is the most difficult time in the history of the region, as evidenced by both written sources and archaeological finds. An interesting fact is gradual increase of the number of case of teeth disease until the Middle Ages, probably associated with the spread of date palms growing and changing eating habits" - believes the scientist. 
Unfortunately, progress in the study of diseases of the people of ancient Mesopotamia in the near future will be difficult. Excavations have not been conducted in southern Iraq since 2003and in Syria since 2011, due to unstable political situation. An article on the subject has been published in the latest issue of the journal "Światowit" (vol. X) LI 2012, published by the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.

 Source: PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland [February 21, 2014]

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Istruzioni di costruzione dell'Arca: 3700 anni fa.

Babylonian tablet describes how to 

build 'Noah's ark' 


Noah's ark was never built, still less crash landed on Mount 

Ararat, a British Museum expert has declared – despite 

holding in his hand 3,700-year-old instructions on exactly 

how to construct one. 

Irving Finkel with the cuneiform clay tablet at the British Museum [Credit: Sang Tan/AP] 

"I am 107% convinced the ark never existed," Irving Finkel

 said. His discoveries, since a member of the public brought a

 battered clay tablet with 60 lines of neat cuneiform text to 

Finkel – one of the few people in the world who could read

 them – are outlined in a new book, The Ark Before Noah.

 While every child's toy and biblical illustration – and the 

latest film version, due for release later this month and

 starring Russell Crowe as Noah – shows a big pointy-ended

 wooden boat, the Babylonian tablet gives what Finkel is 

 convinced is the original version of the story. The ark is a 

 huge circular coracle, 3,600 square metres in dimension

  or two-thirds the size of a football pitch, made like a giant 

 rope basket strengthened with wooden ribs, and 

waterproofed with bitumen inside and out. This was a giant 

version of a craft which the Babylonians knew very well,

 Finkel pointed out, in daily use up to the late 20th century to

 transport people and animals across rivers. Its people-and-

animal-carrying abilities will soon be put to the test: the 

production company Blink is making a Channel 4 

documentary based on his research, including building a 

circular ark. The tablet gives a version of the ark story

 far older than the biblical accounts, and Finkel 

believes the explanation of how "holy writ appears on this 

piece of Weetabix", is that the writers of the Bible drew on 

ancient accounts encountered by Hebrew scholars during the

 Babylonian exile. 

The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood  by Irving Finkel, Hodder & Stoughton  

Texts about a great flood and the order by God to the one

 just man to build a boat and save himself, his family, and all

 the animals, clearly older than the Bible story, were first

 found in the Middle East in the 19th century. They caused

 both consternation and wild excitement, including an


expedition to find the broken part of one tablet in a 

mountain of shattered clay fragments. However, the tablet

 studied by Finkel is unique, the only one with precise 

instructions on how to build the ark – and the crucial detail

 that it should be circular. He believes the data on its exact 

dimensions, the two kinds of bitumen, and the precise

 amount of rope needed, are evidence not that the vessel

 once existed, but of a storyteller adding convincing details

 for an audience that knew all about boat-building. The tablet

 was brought to him on a museum open day by Douglas 

Simmons, whose father, Leonard, brought it back to England

 in a tea-chest full of curios, after wartime service in the 

Middle East with the RAF. When the Guardian originally

 broke the story of its discovery, Simmons said his father had

 once showed his treasures to some academics, and was 

bitterly disappointed when they were dismissed as rubbish.

 He suspects the tablet was either bought for pennies in a 

bazaar or literally picked up. Finkel describes the clay tab

let as "one of the most important human documents ever discovered", and his conclusions will send ripples into the world of creationism and among ark hunters, where many believe in the literal truth of the Bible account, and innumerable expeditions have been mounted to try to find the remains of the ark. The clay tablet is going on display at the British Museum, loaned by Simmons, beside a tablet from the museum's collection with the earliest map of the world, as seen from ancient Babylon. The flood tablet helped explain details of the map, which shows islands beyond the river marking the edge of the known world, with the text on the back explaining that on one are the remains of the ark. Finkel said that not only did the ark never exist, but ark hunters were looking in the wrong place – the map shows the ark in the direction of, but far beyond the mountain range later known as Ararat.

Author: Maev Kennedy | Source: The Guardian [January 24, 2014]

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