21 FEVRIER 2018: Sac Actun - Gaomiao - Kalavara - Longvek - Kommanalu -Rujm Umm Al Unaydiq -
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MEXIQUE – 
Sac Actun underwater cave - Archaeologists who have been exploring the world’s largest underwater cave — recently discovered in Mexico — presented their findings Monday, including fossils of giant sloths and an elaborate shrine to the Mayan god of commerce. “It is very unlikely that there is another site in the world with these characteristics. There is an impressive amount of archaeological artefacts inside, and the level of preservation is also impressive,” said Guillermo de Anda, an underwater archaeologist. The relics include a shrine to the Mayan god of war and commerce, with a staircase accessed through a sink-hole in the middle of the jungle. Many other of the hundreds of sink-holes that connect to the cave have elaborate signs of ritual activity around them, archaeologists said. The ancient Mayans viewed caves, “and especially ones that led to water, as extremely sacred places,” the INAH said.
https://citizen.co.za/news/news-world/1826871/mexico-arqueologia/
CHINE – 
Gaomiao - archeologists have discovered 7,400-year-old rice grains at the Gaomiao relic site, which is located in Yanli village near Hongjiang in central China’s Hunan Province, according to Xinhua News. The finding suggests that ancient people in central China were eating rice more than 7,000 years ago. Archeologists found carbonized rice grains in a stratum that is about 7,400 years old, according to the archeological team. A starch granule was also found on a millstone at this site. He Gang, a researcher with the Hunan Institute of Archaeology, revealed that this millstone also dates from the same period.“Rice had become a major food source for local residents. We believe it is the earliest rice cultural remains known in western Hunan,” he said. The Gaomiao Relics site is located in Yanli village, 5 km northeast of Hongjiang, Hunan Province. Chinese archeological team first discovered this site in 1986. The excavation site is spread in an area of about 30,000 square meters. It is basically a shell mound on the northern bank of the Yuan River. The first official excavation here started in 1991, and then two more excavations were carried out in 2004 and 2005. Artifacts unearthed include freshwater snails’ shells, bones of animals (pigs, deer, cattle, bears, elephants, and rhinoceros), white pottery (adorned with the patterns of phoenix), and eight-pointed star images. Joint tombs of tribe leaders and their wives were also discovered at this place. According to Chinaculture, the finding of Gaomiao relics has filled in the archeological blank on the middle and late Neolithic period in western Hunan. This site reveals its connection with the late Paleolithic culture, and also suggests the “mutual influence with the contemporaneous Neolithic culture in Dongting Lake area and Zhujiang Valley.”
INDE – 
Kalavara - An inscription dating back to the 15th century has been discovered at the Mahalingeshara- Kalinga Temple, famous for worship of the King Cobra, in Kalavara village, Kundapura taluk, Udupi district. Prof Murugeshi, head of history and archaeology at the MSRS College, Shirva, says the inscription talks of Devaraya II of the Sangama Dynasty that ruled the Vijayanagar empire. “The inscription is on a rectangular stone slab and dates back to saka year 1360. The 38 line epigraph is written in Kannada, but also has some Telugu words in the last few lines, which is not commonly seen in the region. It's possible that the officer, Tirumale Bhandari Nayaka, mentioned in the inscription, was from Andhra Pradesh," he told Deccan Chronicle. “The inscription says that when Devaraya II was in power, his pradhani, Chandarasa Odeya was the governor of Barakuru . It reveals that one Duggana Nayaka took the help of Tirumale Bhandari Nayaka to see the emperor, who gave him Kalaura as a land grant,” he explained.
CAMBODGE – 
Longvek - Even among Khmer people, the six decades in the 16th century during which Longvek was Cambodia’s capital, are remembered as a dark age, culminating in defeat and a “great humiliation” at the hands of Ayutthayan invaders in 1593. But the finds of an archaeological dig now in its third year suggest that Longvek may deserve a more storied place in Cambodian history. For the past three dry seasons, a team of Australian, Japanese and Cambodian archaeologists have been unearthing material evidence that points to a flourishing capital city and a crossroads for global trade. Located about 50 kilometres north of Phnom Penh, Longvek’s three sets of walls enclose an area of nearly nine square kilometres. The city was established as the capital in the 1530s after a period of civil war, in which King Ang Chan emerged victorious over the “usurper” Sdech Khan, but it soon found itself fending off the expanding Siamese Kingdom to the west and Vietnam and Champa to the east. After the fall of Longvek, Oudong became the seat of the king in the early 1600s before the court eventually moved to Phnom Penh in the mid-19th century. One exceptionally rare find in particular surprised the archaeologists – a set of ceramic fragments of a 16th-century ornamental jar from China’s Fujian province found last month in a trench near a present-day brick factory.“This is the second discovery [of this ceramic] in the world at an archaeological site,” said Yuni Sato, an archaeology expert from Japan’s Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties. The first such find was made at the Sakai temple on the southern coast of Honshu, Japan. Standing outside a home the archaeological team has rented out in Longvek, Sato picked up a plastic tray with a set of blue and white shards. These she dates to the second quarter of the 16th century and would have made up a ceramic bowl. The presence of such ceramics suggests Longvek was a more significant trading port than previously assumed. “It’s from the very early stage of Longvek. That the king could import good quality blue and white bowls [means that] this is a piece of evidence of the power of the king of Longvek,” she said.
INDE – 
Kommanalu - A 12th century inscription detailing the grant of land to a Jain ‘basadi’ has been discovered in the Kommanalu village in Shivamogga. The discovery was made by R Shrijeshwara, assistant director of the Department of Archaeology Museums and Heritage, Shivamogga. The inscription was found in a farm belonging to one Channappa. The first three of the seven-line inscription is too deteriorated to be dechipered. So the name of the ruler to whose period it belongs to could not be determined. But based on the script font, it is determined to be from the 12-13th Century. There is indirect evidence of the period though. Bachaladevi is the queen of Hoysala king Narasimha III, who ruled between 1263 CE and 1293 CE. If it is the same Bachaladevi in this inscription, the land grant inscription could be roughly from the late 13th Century. The top of the inscription has a Jina in a meditative pose. The inscription says that Bachaladevi and Heggade Bahubali together donated “one mattaru” irrigated land and “one mattaru” dry land to the Jain temple. One ‘mattaru’ roughly corresponds to four acres of irrigated land or six acres of dry land. Shrijeshwara said that the inscription is a “merugallu”, which is used to mark the boundary of the land donated. Dr Jagadish and Ravikumar Navalgund assisted him in the find. Though the inscription talks about the gift to the basadi, there are no Jain temples in the village. However close to where the inscription was found, is a Shiva temple.
JORDANIE – 
Rujm Umm Al Unaydiq - Since 2010, a research team from the Northeastern Petra Project (NEPP) has been conducting an intensive survey on the high hill overlooking the eastern end of the Colonnaded Street, and westward of the Palace Tomb in Petra, said Zbigniew Fiema, one of the NEPP co-directors.The site, which covers approximately 450 x 400 metres, is generally known as Rujm Umm Al Unaydiq, he explained, noting that "although a number of monumental buildings once existed in this area, they were never properly documented". The NEPP survey revealed the existence of 19 large buildings of exceptional design and architectural decoration, the quality of which favourably compares with the most significant buildings in Petra as well as with palatial structures in the eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic-Roman period, Fiema continued. The NEPP area was separated from the rest of the city centre by the Wadi Mataha and the Wadi Musa drainages, the scholar elaborated, stressing that the isolated area was self-sufficient in water supply and easily defensible. According to the scholar, who received his PhD in archaeology from The University of Utah, the NEPP area was uniformly occupied in regard to the architectural design and decoration, as well as to surface ceramic material. "All these elements are dated to the late 1st century BC–1st century AD," Fiema said. The majority of the NEPP buildings are characterised by the monumental architectural design which reflects a high degree of ostentatious display, representation and wealthy lifestyle, rather than purely utilitarian habitation, the scholar underlined, noting that the buildings in the NEPP area were components of a single architectural complex of a palatial type. "The characteristics of the buildings mentioned above indicate that the complex was most probably built and inhabited by the elites of the Nabataean Petra," the archaeologist elaborated, highlighting the monumentality of the NEPP buildings which is demonstrated by the enormous deposits of building blocks marking the wall lines. He also cited a large number of decorative elements including column drums, doorjambs, column and pilaster capitals and bases, decorative freezes, voussoirs, among others. "The two largest structures, located on the top of the hill, which dominate the complex and are characterised by the wealthiest architectural decoration, might have served as main reception halls or banqueting space," Fiema speculated. The clearance of a room in one of these buildings revealed a luxuriously decorated space, including flagstone pavement on the ground level, mosaic floor in the upper storey as well as painted wall plaster, and architectural decoration blocks of highest quality, he continued.For Fiema, the interpretation of the NEPP complex is not easy without excavations, but some preliminary interpretations can be proposed. "With regards to the main urbanistic features, the NEPP complex resembles a "basileia" [the royal quarters] in the Hellenistic cities such as Antiochia and Seleukia in Syria, Babylon in Mesopotamia, and Alexandria in Egypt," the scholar elaborated. Generally, elements of constructions and architectural decoration of the NEPP buildings reflect the styles and fashion characteristic for the palatial architecture in the East during the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, Fiema underlined. "These features find parallels in some Hasmonean and Herodian country palaces (e.g., Jericho, Herodium, Masada) and in some Late Republican-Early Imperial palatial complexes in Italy," he continued, noting that "the NEPP architectural complex appears as a unique hybrid of ideas, designs and engineering solutions". In spite of the use of fashionable Hellenistic-Roman design and decoration, the complex possesses a strong Nabataean character which is clearly demonstrated in the skillful landscaping of the rocky and uneven terrain and the use of water as a decorative element, Fiema said.
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/survey-reveals-architectural-wealth-petra-region