Archaeologists Find Massive 3,000-Year-Old Statue in Cairo Slum

Archaeologists Find Massive 3,000-Year-Old Statue in Cairo Slum

A woman walks past the head of a statue at the site of the new discovery in Cairo’s Mattarya district on Thursday.

Archaeologists have found a 26-foot statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum that the Antiquities Ministry has hailed as one of the most important discoveries ever.

Experts say it probably depicts the revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

The was unearthed near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, which is located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.

“Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite,” Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani said Thursday.

The quartzite colossus possibly of Ramses II and the limestone bust of Seti II were unveiled on Thursday.

The most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt, the pharaoh also known as Ramses the Great was the third of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt.

He led several military expeditions and expanded the Egyptian Empire to stretch from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south. His successors called him the “Great Ancestor.”

On Thursday, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a massive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water

The joint Egyptian-German expedition also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II’s grandson, that is 31 inches long.

The torso of the statue of Pharaoh Ramses II was unveiled on Thursday.

The sun temple in Heliopolis was founded by Ramses II, lending weight to the likelihood the statue is of him, archaeologists say.

It was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor’s Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times.

Many of its obelisks were moved to Alexandria or to Europe and stones from the site were looted and used for building as Cairo developed.

“It is one of the most important excavations in Egypt,” Dr. Salima Ikram, an archaeologist and professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo who was part of the dig this week told NBC News. She described the new find as “spectacular, the things are astonishing.”

She said the ongoing work at the site is “crucially important because it is basically rescue archaeology of one of the most important religious places in ancient Egyptian history. It is the birthplace of the Sun God and indeed of Egypt and its civilization in terms of Egyptian mythology.”

Experts will now attempt to extract the remaining pieces of both statues before restoring them. If they are successful and the colossus is proven to depict Ramses II, it will be moved to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum, set to open in 2018.

The discovery was made in the working-class area of Matariya, among unfinished buildings and mud roads.

Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anani poses for a picture with workers next to the head of a statue on Thursday.

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge
The Newgrange tomb in County Meath, Ireland, just north of Dublin.

Newgrange is a 5,200-year-old ancient tomb located in the Boyne Valley in Ireland’s Ancient East. Archaeologists have classified Newgrange as a passage tomb, but Newgrange is now considered to be much more than a passage tomb.

Newgrange was built about 5,200 years ago (3,200 BC). While the name is not as unheard of as they are, that makes it older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza.

The mound is 85m (279ft) in diameter and 13m (43ft) high, an area of about 1 acre. A passage measuring 19m (62ft) leads into a chamber with 3 alcoves. The passage and chamber are aligned with the rising sun on the mornings around the Winter Solstice.

Newgrange is surrounded by 97 large stones called kerbstones some of which are engraved with megalithic art; the most striking is the entrance stone.

Newgrange was founded by a farming community that thrived in the Boyne Valley’s fertile soils. Knowth and Dowth are two comparable mounds that, along with Newgrange, have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The engraved stone at the entrance to Newgrange.
William Frederick Wakeman’s map of the burial chambers inside the tomb

An ancient temple is a more appropriate description, a location of astrological, spiritual, religious, and ceremonial importance, similar to how modern cathedrals are sites of prestige and reverence where dignitaries might be put to rest.

Newgrange is a massive kidney-shaped mound that spans over an acre and is held together at the base by 97 kerbstones, some of which are highly adorned with megalithic art.

The inner corridor is 19m long and leads to a cruciform room with a corbelled ceiling. The amount of time and labor put into Newgrange’s development shows a well-organized society with specialized organizations in charge of various parts of the building.

Newgrange is part of the Brú na Bóinne group of monuments erected around a bend of the Boyne River. Knowth (the biggest) and Dowth are the other two major monuments, though there are up to 35 lesser mounds scattered around the region.

Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun.
A young girl stands in front of the entrance to Newgrange in about 1905

Winter Solstice

Newgrange is well renowned for the winter solstice sun’s lighting of its corridor and chamber.

A roof-box is an aperture above the entrance to the route at Newgrange. This baffling orifice held a great surprise for those who unearthed it. Its aim is to allow sunlight into the chamber on the shortest days of the year, which occur around December 21st, the winter solstice.

As the sun rises higher in the sky, the beam within the chamber expands, illuminating the entire space significantly. This event lasts 17 minutes and starts at about 9 a.m. When one considers that Newgrange was created 500 years before the Great Pyramids and almost 1,000 years before Stonehenge, its precision as a time-telling device is amazing.

The intent of the Stone Age farmers who build Newgrange was undoubtedly to mark the beginning of the new year. In addition, it may have served as a powerful symbol of the victory of life over death.

Every year, the winter solstice celebration in Newgrange draws a lot of attention.

Many people assemble at the old tomb to await daybreak, just as they did 5,000 years ago.  So great is the demand to be one of the few inside the chamber during the solstice that there is a free annual lottery (application forms are available at the Visitor Centre)

Viking sword from warrior’s grave unearthed in family’s yard in Norway

Viking sword from warrior’s grave unearthed in family’s yard in Norway

Viking sword from warrior's grave unearthed in family's yard in Norway
The sword was found in a yard belonging to Anne and Oddbjørn Holum Heiland, where they were clearing land to build an extension to their house.

A man digging in his yard to build an extension of his house in southern Norway has unearthed the 1,100-year-old grave of a Viking warrior who was buried with weapons.

The finds include a rusty iron sword in two pieces; its hilt style enabled archaeologists to date the burial to the late 800s or early 900s, during the Viking Age, Joakim Wintervoll — an archaeologist who works for the local government of Agder County, where the relics were found — told Live Science.

“We have a good record of how the ‘fashion’ in the shapes of sword handles developed in Norway, from early ages up to more modern eras,” he said. “Comparing it to other known sword handles, we believe this sword is from the late ninth century to the 10th century.” 

The sword and other artifacts are from a Viking Age grave. A similar Viking grave was found in the 1930s at a farm nearby.

Other artifacts found in the grave included a long spear designed to be used on horseback, called a lance; glass beads and a belt buckle gilded with gold; and a bronze brooch. Neither human nor animal remains have yet been discovered there.

The artifacts seem to have belonged to a Viking warrior. “The lance suggests that this was someone that was proficient in combat from horseback,” Wintervoll said. And the warrior was “definitely someone of means, based on the gold-gilded jewelry.”

The grave can be dated from the style of the sword’s hilt, which indicates it was made at the turn of the ninth and 10th centuries.
The blade of a lance — a long spear designed to be used from horseback — was also found in the grave, but no human or animal remains were found.

Viking burial

The grave and its artifacts were discovered in late June in the yard of a house in the mainly rural district of Setesdal, beside a lake about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Oslo. Homeowner Oddbjørn Holum Heiland had started using a mechanical digger to clear the spot in his yard where he and his wife Anne planned to extend their house, according to Science Norway.

“I wasn’t going to dig a lot, just a little bit in the slope behind the house, to get some more space between the house and the land,” he told the news outlet.

Although rare, the Viking sword is not unique. Viking graves often contained a warrior’s weapons, and more than 3,000 have been found in Norway.
Other artifacts from the Viking grave include a bronze brooch, part of a metal belt buckle and glass beads gilded with gold.

He first found an oblong slab just below the surface; it’s now been recognized as a gravestone. Further digging revealed the hilt of the sword; Holum Heiland then realized his yard must hold other Viking artifacts, so he stopped digging and called the county archaeologists.

Wintervoll and Jo-Simon Frøshaug Stokke, an archaeologist from Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, visited the site a few days later. No Viking artifacts had been found before at the property, Wintervoll said, but a Viking grave containing a sword, spear, glass beads and a horse bridle were discovered on a nearby farm in the 1930s.

Although it’s “a bit too early to say” whether these two graves have a connection, “it is interesting that they are relatively close and have almost identical finds in them,” he said.

Ancient claim 

It is possible that a Viking warrior was buried at the site as a way for their descendants to claim ownership of the land around it, Wintervoll said. Or, perhaps it had only family significance.

“No grave mound was known to have been on this homestead,” Wintervoll said. In Norway, this type of grave is known as a “flatmarksgrav,” which translates to “flat field grave,” he added.

The person interred there might have been buried whole, or cremated ashes may have been laid down in the grave. “At this point in time, the practice varied a bit from place to place, but we have yet to find any burnt bones,” he said. 

The grave seems to have been dug on an almost east-west axis, which would align with sunrise and sunset, and the only grave marker seems to have been the oblong stone above it.

“Right now, we don’t think this is a grave that was meant to be visible at a great distance,” Wintervoll said. “These types of graves might have a more family or private function.” 

Tiny, 540-Million-Year-Old Human Ancestor Didn’t Have an Anus

Tiny, 540-Million-Year-Old Human Ancestor Didn’t Have an Anus

The Oldest Signs of Modern Humans From 86,000 Years Ago Found in Laotian Cave
A scanning election microscope (SEM) took this detailed image of the deuterostome with the extra-large mouth. 

A speck-size creature without an anus is the oldest known prehistoric ancestor of humans, a new study finds. Researchers found the remains of the 540-million-year-old critter — a bag-like sea organism — in central China.

The creature is so novel, it has its own family (Saccorhytidae), as well as its own genus and species (Saccorhytus coronaries), named for its wrinkled, sac-like body. (“Saccus” means “sac” in Latin, and “rhytis” means “wrinkle” in Greek.)

S. coronaries, with its oval body and large mouth, is likely a deuterostome, a group that includes all vertebrates, including humans, and some invertebrates, such as starfish.

“We think that as an early deuterostome, this may represent the primitive beginnings of a very diverse range of species, including ourselves,” Simon Conway Morris, a professor of evolutionary palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. “To the naked eye, the fossils we studied look like tiny black grains, but under the microscope the level of detail is jaw-dropping.”

At first glance, however, S. coronaries do not appear to have much in common with modern humans. It was about a millimeter (0.04 inches) long, and likely lived between grains of sand on the seafloor during the early Cambrian period.

While the mouth onS. coronaries were large for its teensy body, the creature doesn’t appear to have an anus.

“If that was the case, then any waste material would simply have been taken out back through the mouth, which from our perspective sounds rather unappealing,” Conway Morris said.

Tiny ancestor

Other deuterostome groups are known from about 510 million to 520 million years ago, a time when they had already started to evolve into vertebrates, as well as sea squirts, echinoderms (starfish and sea urchins), and hemichordates (a group that includes acorn worms).

However, these incredibly diverse animals made it hard for scientists to figure out what the common deuterostome ancestor would have looked like, the researchers said.

The newfound microfossils answered that question, they said. The researchers used an electron microscope and a computed tomography (CT) scan to construct an image of S. coronaries.

“We had to process enormous volumes of limestone — about 3 tonnes [3 tons] — to get to the fossils, but a steady stream of new finds allowed us to tackle some key questions: Was this a very early echinoderm or something even more primitive?” study co-researcher Jian Han, a paleontologist at Northwest University in China, said in the statement. “The latter now seems to be the correct answer.”

The analysis indicated that S. coronaries had a bilaterally symmetrical body, a characteristic it passed down to its descendants, including humans. It was also covered with thin, flexible skin, suggesting it had muscles of some kind that could perhaps help it wriggle around in the water and engulf food with its large mouth, the researchers said.

Small, conical structures encircling its mouth may have allowed the water it swallowed to escape from its body. Perhaps these structures were the precursor of gill slits, the researchers said.

An artist’s interpretation of Saccorhytus coronaries, which measured about a millimeter in size.

Molecular clock

Now that researchers know that deuterostomes existed 540 million years ago, they can try to match the timing to estimates from biomolecular data, known as the “molecular clock.”

Theoretically, researchers can determine when two species diverged by quantifying the genetic differences between them. If two groups are distantly related, for instance, they should have extremely different genomes, the researchers said.

However, there are few fossils from S. coronaries’ time, making it difficult to match the molecular clocks of other animals to this one, the researchers said. This may be because animals before deuterostomes were simply too minuscule to leave fossils behind, they said.

The findings were published online in the journal Nature.

In another paper, researchers reported on the discovery of another type of tiny animal fossil from the late Cambrian. These creatures, called loriciferans, measured about 0.01 inches (0.3 mm) and, like S. coronaries, lived between grains of sand, the researchers said in a study published online today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The newly identified species, Eolorica deadwoodensis, discovered in western Canada, shows when multicellular animals began living in areas once inhabited by single-celled organisms, the researchers said.

Fossil Hunters Uncover 71-Million-Year-Old Trove in Antarctica

Fossil Hunters Uncover 71-Million-Year-Old Trove in Antarctica

One of the researchers closely studies a particular rock.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

A team of scientists from around the world have uncovered more than a tonne of fossils and dinosaur remains while on an extremely gruelling and frosty expedition to Antarctica. Fossils from the end of the age of dinosaurs, some of which were estimated to be 71 million years old, were discovered including many marine reptile remains.

“[We found] things like plesiosaurs and mosasaurs — a type of marine lizard made famous by the recent film Jurassic World,” said Dr Steve Salisbury from the University of Queensland, who took part in the mission.

“We found a lot of really great fossils,” he said.

An illustration of a plesiosaurs on land by Henrich Harder.(Wikicommons)

“They were all shallow marine rocks, so the majority of things we found lived in the ocean.”

Dr Salisbury and the team also found fossils of birds including early ducks that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period.

The team of 12 scientists from the US, Australia and South Africa travelled to the James Ross Island area to find out more about Antarctica’s dinosaurs.

The researchers scope out a camping spot on Vega Island from their inflatable boat.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

The researchers ventured to the Antarctica Peninsula, as that is one of the few parts of Antarctica where rocks are exposed during summer. Those rocks are known to come from the age of dinosaurs.

They set up quadrats of 50 by 100 metres and slowly made their way through sections of earth looking at every rock.

Dr Salisbury said if their expedition inspired other people to also get into the hunt for fossils, they would be “very excited”.

One of the researchers closely studies a particular rock.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

Helicopters and inflatable boats are all part of a day’s work

The team not only endured extreme temperatures during their work, but were met with many challenges just getting to the region.

They had to fly to South America, then battle seasickness while sailing to the Antarctic Peninsula, before using helicopters and inflatable boats to get through the mass amounts of sea ice to reach shore.

Researcher during the excavation of a plesiosaur.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

It takes between four and five days to cross the Drake Passage to get to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

“Crossing the Drake Passage can be kind of rough — some of the biggest seas in the world occur in that area — so most of us just bunkered down for the time we were crossing it,” Dr Salisbury said.

Dr Salisbury had made several attempts to get to Antarctica to conduct the research, but sea ice had previously made reaching land impossible.

“It was so great to finally get there and have a full-blown expedition,” he said.

“It’s a very hard place to work, but it’s an even harder place to get to.”

One of the tents used by the researchers during their Antarctic stay.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

The team camped for almost five weeks between February and March on the heavily glaciated Vega Island and had to hike 10 kilometres each day through mountainous terrain to reach their main field site, Sandwich Bluff.

“Working in Antarctica is tough,” Dr Salisbury said.

“There were a few days where we did get snowed in, and we’d just be stuck in the communal tent for a while.”

The fossils found are now in Chile and will be shipped to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where further study will be undertaken.

“A lot of the bigger bones will need quite a bit of preparation before we can do much research on them,” Dr Salisbury said.

“It may be a year or two before we get the results out.”

The researchers had to walk for four hours per day from their campsite to the main field site at Sandwich Bluff.(Flickr: University of Queensland)

A 3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

A 3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

The most ancient olive tree in the world, is in Crete.

The oldest olive tree in the world is located in the village of Ano Vouves of Kissamos in Chania, Crete. The ancient tree is 3000 years old, as determined by the international scientific community.

The ancient olive tree in Vouves has a trunk with a circumference of 12.5 meters (41 feet), and a diameter of 4.6 meters (15 feet). It belongs to the local tree variety of tsounati and was grafted at a height of three meters onto a wild olive tree.

Because of the grafting, its trunk has been so beautifully shaped by nature that it resembles a sculpture. In 1990, after a unanimous decision in the prefecture of Chania, the Vouves Olive Tree was declared a Natural Monument of great importance due to its status as the world’s oldest tree of its kind.

The oldest olive tree still produces high-quality olives

The fruits of the ancient olive tree produce the best olive oil in the world, making the area the cradle of olive cultivation on the island of Crete. The trunk of the tree is now hollow as there is no heartwood, so the olive is renewed outward and the heartwood gradually rots away.

Since the olive tree is constantly renewing its wood, it has served as a a symbol of immortality since ancient times.

Thousands of tourists visit the stunning tree every summer to marvel at it and learn its history. They are mainly impressed by its enormous shape and the imposing volume of the trunk but also by the fact that it has remained alive and fruitful for 3000 years.

The site of the olive tree, including the entire hill on which several villages are situated, has thousands of olive trees and the villages are widely believed to produce the best olive oil in the world.

Why is the Olive Tree Important in Greece?

The olive tree has been associated with Greece for millennia.

It symbolizes peace and prosperity, as well as the hope of resurrection and prosperous life. The purely Mediterranean Greek landscape is dotted with these trees, and Greeks throughout the centuries have been inextricably linked with this plant.

For Ancient Greeks, the olive tree was one of two of the most respected mythical trees, along with the oak.

This deeply rooted love and respect shown by the Greeks has survived throughout the centuries.

Greek olive oil

Greek olive oil, or “Liquid Gold,” as Homer called it, has been part of Greece’s history since antiquity. It is an irreplaceable nutritional component of the Greek diet.

Ancient Greeks also used olive oil as part of their efforts to enjoy a healthy life and to promote longevity and used it as a cosmetic for the skin and hair. Today, Greek olive oil is considered by most as the best in the world.

The history of humanity’s use of the olive dates back to ancient history. In his work “Origin des plantes cultivees,” botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candole writes that our cultivation of the tree started some time around 4000 BC—and that its origin is from the coasts of Asia Minor.

Today, throughout the world, there are approximately 800 million olive trees—of which approximately 95 percent are cultivated in the Mediterranean basin, which has the best soil and climatic conditions for olive cultivation.

The olive is widely grown all over in Greece. Its cultivation, which is greater than any other type of fructiferous tree, occupies approximately 15 percent of cultivated agricultural land and 75 percent of arboraceous cultivations in the country.

New Mummies Discovered in Egypt May Hold Clues to Finally Finding Cleopatra’s Tomb

New Mummies Discovered in Egypt May Hold Clues to Finally Finding Cleopatra’s Tomb

The mystery behind Egyptian queen Cleopatra’s tomb is immense because nobody appears to know where she was buried. However, archaeologists in Egypt are in all probability, close to cracking the code with respect to Cleopatra’s burial after two mummies of high-status individuals, who lived in her era, have been discovered at Taposiris Magna – a temple on the Nile delta.

A discovery that is being described as “sensational” because it shows the importance of a necropolis that is being linked to her by the latest finds.

Although the burial chamber had been undisturbed for 2,000 years, the mummies are in a poor state of preservation because water had seeped through.

New Mummies Discovered in Egypt May Hold Clues to Finally Finding Cleopatra's Tomb
The two mummies found inside a sealed tomb at Taposiris Magna, that would originally have been completely covered with gold leaf.

But crucial evidence reveals they were originally completely covered with gold leaf, a luxury afforded only to those from the top tiers of society. Perhaps these two individuals had interacted with Cleopatra herself, archaeologists suggest.

The opening of the first-ever intact tomb found at Taposiris Magna was witnessed by cameras for a new Channel 5 documentary, The Hunt for Cleopatra’s Tomb, to be screened.

The temple is located near Alexandria, the capital of ancient Egypt and where Cleopatra killed herself in 30 BC

It is presented by Dr. Glenn Godenho, a senior lecturer in Egyptology at Liverpool University, who described the discovery as phenomenal.

“Although now covered in dust from 2,000 years underground, at the time these mummies would have been spectacular. To be covered in gold leaf shows they … would have been … important members of society,” he said.

The mummies have been X-rayed, establishing that they are male and female. One suggestion is they were priests who played a key role in maintaining the pharaohs’ power. One bears an image of a scarab, symbolizing rebirth, painted in gold leaf.

Cleopatra was the last of a ruthless dynasty that ruled the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt for almost three centuries. Yet not a single Ptolemaic pharaoh’s tomb has been found.

Excavations at Taposiris Magna are headed by Dr Kathleen Martínez, who, after working there for over 14 years, is more convinced than ever that Cleopatra’s tomb will be found there. Only a tiny percentage of the vast site has been explored.

Dr Glenn Godenho and Dr Kathleen Martinez inside Taposiris Magna temple near Alexandria in Egypt

In the show, cameras film her as the burial chamber with two mummies is opened up for the first time. After an initial limestone slab is removed with a chisel and hammer, she peers through a small hole, exclaiming: “Oh my god, there are two mummies … See this wonder.”

Osteoarchaeologist, Dr Linda Chapon, working to conserve the two mummies found inside a sealed tomb at Taposiris Magna

Her previous discoveries include a headless statue of a pharaoh, believed to be King Ptolemy IV, Cleopatra’s ancestor, and a foundation plate with an inscription showing that the temple was dedicated to the goddess Isis. Cleopatra saw herself as the “human incarnation of Isis”, Martínez said.

At the site of the temple altar, where priests would have made offerings to the gods, 200 coins bearing Cleopatra’s name and her face have been discovered.

This “incredible find” not only links Cleopatra directly to Taposiris Magna but also reveals a striking image of the queen, Godenho says in the documentary.

While its prominent nose and double chin may not suggest the classical beauty immortalized by Hollywood and Elizabeth Taylor, it is how she would have wanted to be seen as the coins would have been pressed using her direct instructions.

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey
3,000-year-old remains of a castle at the bottom of Lake Van in Turkey.

Marine archaeologists made a superb find at the bottom of Turkey’s largest lake – a very well-preserved castle dating back 3,000 years. It was likely built by the mysterious Urartian civilization which inhabited the surroundings of Lake Van during the Iron Age.

Although locals have long reported legends of ancient ruins under the water, divers had investigated the lake for almost a decade before finding the fortifications.

Hurriyet Daily News reports that the research team discovered numerous other features of interest during this time period, including stalagmites that were at least 10 meters (33 feet) long, known as ‘underwater fairy chimneys’, pearl mullets, and a sunken Russian ship, but the ancient ruins had proved elusive until now.

‘Fairy chimneys’, a common feature in some regions of Turkey, were found underwater in Lake Van

Underwater Castle

The recent finding of the underwater fortifications was made by a team of researchers, including Tahsin Ceylan, an underwater photographer and videographer, diver Cumali Birol, and Mustafa Akkuş, an academic from Van Yüzüncü Yıl University. 

The castle, which had been built during the Iron Age, when water levels were much lower, remains in good condition thanks to the alkaline waters of Lake Van.

“Today, we are here to announce the discovery of a castle that has remained underwater in Lake Van,” videographer Tahsin Ceylan told Hurriyet Daily News. 

“I believe that in addition to this castle, microbialites will make contributions to the region’s economy and tourism. It is a miracle to find this castle underwater. Archaeologists will come here to examine the castle’s history and provide information on it.”

Ceylan explained that the walls of the fortification cover an area of about one square kilometer (0.4 square miles).

About 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) of the wall are visible above the lake bed, but it is not clear how deep the walls go, so detailed excavations need to be carried out on the newly-discovered castle to learn more.

Mysterious Civilization

Archaeologists believe the castle was built by the Urartians, a mysterious civilization that existed in what is now Eastern Turkey, Iran, and the modern Armenian Republic, from around the 13th century BC.

Very little is known about the kingdom of Urartu and the origins of its people, but they spoke a language related to Hurrian, are well-known for their advanced metallurgy, and used an adapted form of the Assyrian cuneiform script.

An Urartian Temple in the Erebuni Fortress, Turkey.

Ceylan told Hurriyet Daily News that they named Lake Van the ‘upper sea’ and believed it had many mysterious secrets.

The fortification shows evidence of stones cut in a style used by the Urartians.

After a period of expansion, the Kingdom of Urartu came under attack starting around the 8th century BC. It was finally destroyed towards the end of the 6th century BC.

Many Armenians today claim that they are descendants of the Urartians.

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