2 posts tagged “archaeology”

A metal detector hobbyist in the Netherlands discovered an amazing stash of Celtic coins purported to be of the Eburones tribe. On his way home for a nice cuppa, his detector suddenly hit on something—a small gold coin with a horse on it. He found 11 coins and called the city and archaeologists for help. They uncovered 39 gold and 70 silver coins dating back to about the middle of the first century BCE.

Coinage

The 118th pyramid to be discovered in Egypt was discovered in Saqqara.  Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's antiquities believes that the pyramid was that of Queen Sesheshet, who was the mother of King Teti, the founder of the 6th Dynasty.

Sesheshet_Pyramid

The other great archaeological news came from Afghanistan. It seems as if they have found the reclining Buddha after all! While the Taliban destroyed the world's largest standing Buddha statues (the 1500-year old Bamiyan Buddhas), there was hope that they left the reclining Buddha intact (because it was hidden, not out of any sudden lessening of their zealotry, zenophobia, or ignorance).

Tarzi, an Afghan-born French archaeologist had been searching for a 300-meter reclining Buddha that had been mentioned in a text by a seventh-century Chinese monk, Xuan Zang. This smaller reclining Buddha was perhaps 19 meters long.

One of the saddest lines in the article: Boulder-sized chunks of the Buddhas still lie where they fell, each individually labelled. Ghostly outlines of the two figures are still etched in the rockface and twisted metal shell casings litter the ground.

The pyramid and the Buddhas are world artifacts. They belong to us all. Whenever we lose any part of our ancient history forever it is devastating. When we come together to learn of our shared past, we build a foundation for a shared future.