Recent Archaeological Finds

[Soldier4Christ]

Decoded: 'The clay tablet that tells how an asteroid destroyed Sodom 5,000 years ago'

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for more than a century has been identified as a witness's account of an asteroid that destroyed the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 5,000 years ago.

Researchers believe that the tablet's symbols give a detailed account of how a mile-long asteroid hit the region, causing thousands of deaths and devastating more than one million sq km (386,000 sq miles).

The impact, equivalent to more than 1,000tons of TNT exploding, would have created one of the world's biggest-ever landslides.

The Old Testament story describes how God destroyed the 'wicked sinners' of Sodom with fire and brimstone but allowed Lot, the city's one good man, to flee with his family.

The theory is the work of two rocket scientists - Alan Bond and Mark Hempsell - who have spent the past eight years piecing together the archaeological puzzle.

At its heart is a clay tablet called the Planisphere, discovered by the Victorian archaeologist Henry Layard in the remains of the library of the Royal Palace at Nineveh.

Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, they have pinpointed the sighting described on the tablet - a 700BC copy of notes of the night sky as seen by a Sumerian astrologer in one of the world's earliest-known civilisations - to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123BC.

Half the tablet records planet positions and clouds, while the other half describes the movement of an object looking like a 'stone bowl' travelling quickly across the sky.

The description matches a type of asteroid known as an Aten type, which orbits the Sun close to the Earth. Its trajectory would have put it on a collision course with the Otz Valley.

'It came in at a very low angle - around six degrees - and then clipped a mountain called Gaskogel around 11km from Köfels,' said Mr Hempsell.

'This caused it to explode - and as it travelled down the valley it became a fireball.

'When it hit Köfels it created enormous pressures which pulverised the rock and caused the landslide. But because it wasn't solid, there was no crater.'

The explosion would have created a mushroom cloud, while a plume of smoke would have been seen for hundreds of miles.

Mr Hempsell said another part of the tablet, which is 18cm across and shaped like a bowl, describes a plume of smoke around dawn the following morning.

'You need to know the context before you can translate it,' said Mr Hempsell, of Bristol University.

Geologists have dated the landslide to around 9,000 years ago, far earlier than the Sumerian record. However, Mr Hempsell, who has published a book on the theory, believes contaminated samples from the asteroid may have confused previous dating attempts.

Academics were also quick to disagree with the findings, which were published in A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels's Impact Event.

John Taylor, a retired expert in Near Eastern archaeology at the British Museum, said there was no evidence that the ancient Sumerians were able to make such accurate astronomical records, while our knowledge of Sumerian language was incomplete.

'I remain unconvinced by these results,' he added.

[daniel1212av]

Source with picture: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343674,00.html

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters,

There is a growing mountain of fascinating discoveries that are providing HARD EVIDENCE for the ABSOLUTE TRUTH of the HOLY BIBLE. I find it interesting that a lot of the Science folks won't cover these discoveries on television. Huge resources were used in covering the pyramids of Egypt, but many of these discoveries dwarf the significance of the pyramids. The mainstream scientific community has their reasons for ignoring these amazing discoveries. They hurt the mainstream agenda by providing HARD PROOF for GOD and the BIBLE!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable GIFT, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour Forever!

   

[Soldier4Christ]

Were Assyrian rulers the forefathers of today's CEOs?

Dr. Oded Lipschits, from Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology, directs Ramat Rachel, an archaeological dig two miles from the Old City of Jerusalem. Until now archaeologists believed the site was a palace of an ancient Judean king, probably King Hezekiah, who built it around 700 BCE.

But evidence points to foreign rule, says Dr. Lipschits, who believes the site was likely an ancient local administrative center — a branch office — of Assyrian rulers. "They were wise rulers," he says, "using a good strategy for keeping control, stability and order in the region.”

As today's corporations know well, the strategy was all about location. Explains Lipschits, “Between 700 BCE to about 70 CE, Jerusalem was home to various Judean cults and at times a center for religious fanaticism. The Assyrians understood that they could gain better control of their vassal kingdom — and continue collecting taxes — by maintaining a safe distance.”

Where did they set up their branch offices? In the "suburbs." The Assyrians built their economic hub for the region two miles south of Jerusalem at Ramat Rachel. They created elaborate gardens, stocked their cellars with the wine and olive oil they collected in taxes, and quietly but carefully monitored Jerusalem.

“You can see Jerusalem from Ramat Rachel, but when you’re inside Jerusalem’s City of David, you can’t see Ramat Rachel at all,” says Lipschits. “The Assyrians kept a watchful eye, but didn’t let the locals feel a dominant foreign presence.

“It was smart for the Assyrian managers to take a few steps back, and not appear to be interfering with the city’s religious center and local culture. Businesses today could be advised to adopt similar strategies with their branch offices in foreign locations,” he surmises.

Lipschits is currently writing a book about this precursor to today's corporate strategies with Boston College’s Prof. David S. Vanderhooft. He is also the author of the popular book The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (Eisenbrauns 2005).

[nChrist]

THANKS PASTOR ROGER!

This was fascinating. The story is rich and goes back for thousands of years. It's almost amazing that many of the ancient locations and cities bear the same name they did in Bible Times. A really good Bible Atlas makes it even more fascinating to read stories like this. One can compare the maps of then to the maps of now and know that much from the Bible can be quickly identified.

Love In Christ,
Tom

   

[Soldier4Christ]

Oldest arched gate in the world restored

The oldest arched gate in the world, located in Ashkelon, has been restored, nearly four thousand years after it was first built.

The Canaanite gate, which was constructed around 1,850 BCE as part of the port city's fortifications, is believed to be the most ancient arched gate in the world. The mostly brick and limestone gate is 15 meters long, more than 2 meters wide and almost 4 meters high.

Its base was uncovered in 1992 during a Harvard University archeological dig led by Prof. Lawrence Steiger, said Ra'anan Kislev, director of conservation at the Antiquities Authority.

The authority has now finished reconstructing the gate, after eight years. Three wooden arches were rebuilt to restore the complete figure of an arch and to provide support for the structure, Kislev said.

"We wanted to give visitors a feeling of walking through a gate that brings you inside a city," he said.

The $700,000 project, which was carried out with a donation from the Council for a Beautiful Israel and in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, is part of a long-term plan to convert the history-rich area to a more extensive archeological park, said Zeev Margalit, head of the authority's conservation and development department.

"The idea is part of a conceptual change from a park that is used for picnics and holiday barbecues and bathing to a park that is also a park of values and content," Margalit said.

Ashkelon, whose history is filled with alternating periods of construction and destruction by invaders, was a major trading center due to its location on the Coastal Road, the main thoroughfare between Egypt and Syria.

A small city shrine was also discovered outside the gate, on a slope descending toward the sea.

Inside the shrine, a bronze figurine of a calf overlayed with silver was uncovered.

The calf was a symbol of the Canaanite deity Ba'al and the shrine may have served for worship

Scholars believe the shrine was located on the way to Ashkelon's port so that those embarking on a sea voyage or returning from one could pray or give thanks to the deity for the success of their journey.

The park, which includes the city's Roman Basilica, its ancient city walls, statues of Roman and Greek goddesses, an ancient waterwheel and well, and the remains of Byzantine period church - all of them located amid lush vegetation - is open to the public throughout the week.

[Soldier4Christ]

 A landmark archaeological discovery found in the British museum gives proof of Old Testament truth

An expert on ancient Babylon, Dr. Michael Jersey of Vienna, has discovered a small clay tablet located in the British museum that is a landmark archaeological discovery and provides proof of the Old Testament's veracity.

Though the tablet was unearthed near Baghdad in 1920, only recently has it been deciphered by Dr. Jersey which led to the discovery of the records of a donation of gold by the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzar. Dr. Jersey quickly consulted Jeremiah 39 where he found the man's name listed a s one of Nebuchadnezzar's top ministers who actually took part in the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem some 2,500 years ago.

An ancient Babylonian tablet found in the British museum is evidence that the nation of Iraq will be destroyed forever according to Bible prophecy.

A recent discovery in the British museum by an expert on ancient Babylon gives a direct link to the Bible and the Babylonian history under King Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonian tablet gives the name of one of Nebuchadnezzar's top ministers which is the same name of Nebuchadnezzar's men found in Jeremiah 39. This old Testament passage used by the archaeologist is the account of King Nebuchadnezzar's siege of the city of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 586 BC.

It was that destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem 2,500 years ago that God said would be the reason He would destroy the Babylonians, the modern-day Iraqis, forever, Jeremiah 50:28, 51:11. However, before the Babylonians and the literal city of Babylon are destroyed, this nation and the city of Babylon will become the headquarters for the one-world, economic, political, governmental system led by Antichrist, Revelation 18.

Of course, that war-torn nation must be rebuilt and become the power center of the world before the destruction as recorded in Revelation 16:17-21.

[Shammu]

Secret of Joseph's biblical pest control
By Ran Shapira, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Joseph, Archaeology
21/04/2008

The remains of a burnt beetle found in a grain of wheat about 3,500 years old provided a group of researchers from Bar-Ilan University with a key to a question the Bible left without a definite answer: How did Joseph the Dreamer, who became the viceroy to the king of Egypt, succeed in preserving the grain during the seven lean years and prevent Egypt's population from starving?

According to the description in the book of Genesis, during the seven years of plenty in Egypt, Joseph had all the wheat collected in silos. "And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; the food of
the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until they left off numbering; for it was without number" (Genesis 41, 48-49).

The stores of wheat and barley served the inhabitants of Egypt during the period of drought and hunger that followed. But how did Joseph and the people of Egypt succeed in preventing pests from destroying the inventory they had accumulated, without any means of pest control and without being able to completely seal the storehouses? In order to answer that question, Prof. Mordechai Kislev, Dr. Orit Simhoni and Dr. Yoel Melamed from the laboratory for archaeological botany in the Life Sciences department of BIU used the burnt corpse of the beetle from the grain of wheat.

The beetle belongs to the Rhyzopertha dominica species, also known as the Lesser Grain Borer, one of three insects that are among the most important storehouse pests. These insects eat grain, but rather than doing so in the field, they prefer to wait until humans harvest the
wheat or barley and store it in a silo.

The lesser grain borer can cause a tremendous amount of damage. Each female lays between 300 and 500 eggs a month. In other words, one female can give birth to thousands of offspring in one year. The larvae of the grain borer eat wheat or barley. The pest can finish off a granary
within a very short time.

Fortunately, during the period when Joseph came to power in Egypt, the lesser grain borer was only beginning its migration westward. This insect originated in East Asia, in what is now India. It belongs to a family of insects whose larvae bore into trees. The larvae of the grain borer changed their taste several thousand years ago, when they began migrating westward, and since then they have preferred wheat and barley.

The beetle studied by Dr. Simhoni and her partners was found in one grain of wheat among several tens of thousands that were discovered in a dig at Tel Beit She'an, conducted by Prof. Amihai Mazar of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. That granary was dated to the Middle Bronze Age II B, about the time when Joseph was in Egypt. Various tests indicated that the
beetle from Tel Beit She'an is among the most ancient ever found in the Land of Israel. So far, excavations have revealed only one other beetle from an earlier period. In other words, during that period the lesser grain borer was just beginning to spread in the Middle East.

Although their field of expertise is botany, the three researchers were familiar with granary pests from their previous study of grains found in Tel Hadar, on the shore of Lake Kinneret, north of Ein Gev. In the grain gathered at Tel Hadar they found a large number of such pests.

When they examined the vestiges of the plants in the granary at Tel Beit She'an, the three researchers came to the conclusion that the wheat had been harvested in the Gilead region. The conclusion reminded Prof. Kislev of the caravan of Ishmaelites that came from the Gilead, whose members bought Joseph from his brothers and took him with them to Egypt (Genesis 36, 25-28).

Joseph, thanks to his talent as an interpreter of dreams and his cleverness, quickly attained the rank of viceroy to the king and was appointed to run the kingdom's food storehouses. His success at the job was based not only on his talent for planning and his ability to see ahead, but also from the manner in which the pests spread. The lesser grain borer was just starting its career in Egypt when Joseph arrived there. Because of its phenomenal reproductive capacity, storing one batch of grain containing a small population of the grain borer was enough to bring about the destruction of the entire granary and to threaten an entire city with starvation.

Kislev, Simhoni and Melamed believe that Joseph was aware of this and therefore - according to the biblical description - he isolated the grain of each city in its own jurisdiction and prevented the transfer of batches of grain from one community to another. In their opinion,
that is the meaning of the verse: "and [he] laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city."

In spite of the lack of chemical means of pest control, they add, it is also possible that those living in ancient Egypt were familiar with a simpler means of pest control. They learned this from an explanation of the story by Rashi, an 11th century biblical commentator. "And people put amongst the grain some of the earth of the place, and this prevents it from decaying," wrote Rashi.

According to the interpretation of the three researchers, Rashi was referring to a method by which fine sand is added to the grain. The grains of sand scratch the hard covering that surrounds the body of the beetle, and make it dry up and die. This method is still used today by various African tribes, and we can assume that it was sufficiently effective to exterminate a pest that had just arrived in the region, like the lesser grain borer.

Secret of Joseph's biblical pest control

[Brother Jerry]

This is not recent, and PR may have already posted about it.....

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-cambodia.htm

Article about the Stegosaurus carving found in Cambodian temple.  Quite interesting. 

Short of it is that there is at temple in Cambodia.  Throughout the temple are carvings of different animals.  Most of which are recognizable images of creatures we see today, monkeys, swans, etc.  But one of them on first glance looks an aweful lot like a stegosaurus.  Of course the skeptics are out in droves trying to say it is a rhino, or a boar....but the images speak for themselves.

[Soldier4Christ]

I don't think that I have posted on this particular find but there are a number of posts in the Biblical Creation vs. Evolution thread in the Bible Study area that gives a number of different situations where drawings, sculptings and pottery have been found that depict a number of different types of dinosaurs. All of these were done in the last 4 to 6 thousand years but well before recorded finds of fossils had been given over to drawings of them.

[nChrist]

THANKS BROTHER JERRY!

This is a new one for me, but I have read about other locations and various kinds of art that the Evolutionists wanted hidden quickly because the art destroyed their theory. They've been pretty successful in hiding many such stories and trying to discredit others - including several cases that were carbon dated. By the way, the dates also destroyed their theory of evolution.

The last one I remember reading here was posted by Pastor Roger and involved a fascinating art collection in Old Mexico. The scientific carbon dating analysis was withdrawn as an error when they found out what they had dated. Much of the art indicated man walked the earth at the same time that the dinosaurs did, and it certainly WAS NOT hundreds of thousands of years ago or millions of years ago - RATHER WITHIN THE RECORDED HISTORY OF THE HOLY BIBLE - LESS THAN 6000 YEARS OLD.

I seem to remember one more posted here about an EMBARRASSING human footprint was recorded in the same level and near a so-called ancient fossil. If I remember correctly, a scientific type person was fired for having the audacity to suggest that a human being could possibly be living at the same time as the ANCIENT fossil that really wasn't very ANCIENT at all.

There are actually a great host of stories like this, BUT I DON'T THINK THEY ARE JUST STORIES.  So-called scientists built the house of evolution with pick-up sticks and NO foundation. It appears that the house of evolution is SHAKY AND COULD FALL APART AT ANY MOMENT.

Thanks again Brother Jerry for a fascinating article!

[Soldier4Christ]

Ancient World Foundation is an archaeological foundation that researches primarily Biblical archaeology. The summer of 2008 this organization is planning a trip with Eagle Scouts from around the world to investigate Mt Cudi. The reason for the trip is to search for information that verifies accounts in the Book of Jasher. The Book of Jasher, while it is not a Biblical text, is mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 10:12-13 and 2 Samuel 1:17-18 ). There has been great debates as to whether the Book of Jasher that we have today is the same as the one mentioned in the Bible vs it being a more recently written fake. This institute aims to see if it is a valid document by hoping to find artifacts mentioned in this book. It is not claiming to prove scriptural validation but rather validation of historical significance that may perhaps enhance the reliability of the Bible.

One of these artifacts is stone tablets that were written prior to the world flood of Noah. A vault Of Noah containing archives of cuneiform tablets Of The pre-flood world is mentioned in the Book of Jasper.

Reasons Why Ancient World Foundation Thinks There Is A Vault Of Noah Containing Archives Of Cuneiform Tablets Of The Pre-Flood World On Mt. Cudi:

1. The Book of Jasher (the Book of the Righteous Ones), a parallel history of the Bible is mentioned twice in Holy Scripture in Joshua 10:12-13 and 2 Samuel 1:17-18. Reading about the pre-Flood world in Jasher 2:13 we find "And in those days Cainan wrote upon tablets of stone, which was to take place in time to come, and he put them in his treasures."

2. The great Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (668-629 BC) who had a big library wrote on one of his own tablets of "his great pleasure reading tablets written before the Flood."

3. The ancient Book of Jubilees written about the 2nd Century B.C. specifies in Jub. 10:12-17, "And Noah wrote down all things in a book (tablets)...and he gave all he had written to SHEM, his eldest son..."

4. I Enoch 106:26-29 reads as follows: "For I am acquainted with holy mysteries, which the Lord himself has discovered and explained to me; and which I have read in the tablets of heaven. In them I saw it written, that generation after generation shall transgress, until a righteous race shall arise; Until transgression and crime perish from off the earth; until all goodness come upon it." (From both Ethiopic and Aramaic sources."

5. The noted historian of the First Century, Josephus, wrote in Book I, Chapter 2, paragraph 3 that Adam had a son called Seth , who was a virtuous man who had inventive children with good dispositions. They knowing from Adam that the world would be destroyed by water." they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both..."

6. The noted historian Moses Khorenatsi about the Sixth Century A.D. mentions that Noah was also called Xisutra in ancient records. He refers to a Greek wise man named Olympiodorus who informed him, "there is a Book about Xisutra and his sons that can now nowhere be found, in which they say is the following account...."

7. After the death of Adam, his wife Eve had children write the names of the first two human beings on the slabs of clay and stone, for she had learned from Michael that God had decided to bring a Flood over the Earth and that these slabs would escape destruction. From multiple Jewish tradition Apocalypsis Moses and Life of Adam and Eve.

[Shammu]

Archaeologists find Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia
Posted : Wed, 07 May 2008 18:39:05 GMT

Hamburg - Archaeologists believe they have found the Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia and an altar which held the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant, the University of Hamburg said Wednesday. Scientists from the German city made the startling find during their spring excavation of the site over the past three months.

The Ethiopian queen was the bride of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era. The royal match is among the memorable events in the Bible.

Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which allegedly contained Moses' stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, was smuggled to Ethiopia by their son Menelek and is still in that country.

The University said scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-BC palace at Axum-Dungur under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius.

The team hypothesized that Menelek had changed religion and become a worshipper of Sirius while keeping the Ark, described in the Bible as an acacia-wood chest covered with gold. Remains of sacrifices of bullocks were evident around the altar.

The research at Axum, which began in 1999, is aimed at documenting the origins of the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

"The results we have suggest that a Cult of Sothis developed in Ethiopia with the arrival of Judaism and the Ark of the Covenant and continued until 600 AD," the announcement said. Sothis is the ancient Greek name for a star thought to be Sirius.

The team said evidence for this included Sirius symbols at the site, the debris of sacrifices and the alignment of sacred buildings to the rising-point of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Archaeologists find Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia

[Shammu]

I saw a documentary on that, some guy named Jones made it. So it is probably in an unmarked crate in a gi-normous warehouse somewhere.....

The Ark was the focal point of the Temple. The Wilderness Tabernacle and later on, Solomon's Temple were built specifically to house the Ark. The Shekinah Glory appeared over the Mercy Seat. The Ark would never have been removed from the Temple willingly. Without the Ark, the Temple would be meaningless. It was the symbol of God's Presence among the Israelites.

[nChrist]

Hello DreamWeaver,

Brother, this and many others are fascinating discoveries! Thanks for sharing the article with us! By the way, I watched a couple of those documentaries by that guy "JONES".   

The frequency of these monumental discoveries is quickening. Just the last year is amazing, AND ALL OF THEM ARE EVIDENCE THAT THE BIBLE IS TRUE!