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Miraculous “Dark Earth” Intentionally Created by Ancient Amazonians

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The Amazon river basin is known for its immense and lush tropical forests, so one might assume that the Amazon’s land is equally rich. In fact, the soils underlying the forested vegetation, particularly in the hilly uplands, are surprisingly infertile. Much of the Amazon’s soil is acidic and low in nutrients, making it notoriously difficult to farm.

But over the years, archaeologists have dug up mysteriously black and fertile patches of ancient soils in hundreds of sites across the Amazon. This “dark earth” has been found in and around human settlements dating back hundreds to thousands of years. And it has been a matter of some debate as to whether the super-rich soil was purposefully created or a coincidental byproduct of these ancient cultures.

Now, a study led by researchers at MIT, the University of Florida, and in Brazil aims to settle the debate over dark earth’s origins. The team has pieced together results from soil analyses, ethnographic observations, and interviews with modern Indigenous communities, to show that dark earth was intentionally produced by ancient Amazonians as a way to improve the soil and sustain large and complex societies.

“If you want to have large settlements, you need a nutritional base. But the soil in the Amazon is extensively leached of nutrients, and naturally poor for growing most crops,” says Taylor Perron, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. “We argue here that people played a role in creating dark earth, and intentionally modified the ancient environment to make it a better place for human populations.”

And as it turns out, dark earth contains huge amounts of stored carbon. As generations worked the soil, for instance by enriching it with scraps of food, charcoal, and waste, the earth accumulated the carbon-rich detritus and kept it locked up for hundreds to thousands of years. By purposely producing dark earth, then, early Amazonians may have also unintentionally created a powerful, carbon-sequestering soil.

“The ancient Amazonians put a lot of carbon in the soil, and a lot of that is still there today,” says co-author Samuel Goldberg, who performed the data analysis as a graduate student at MIT and is now an assistant professor at the University of Miami. “That’s exactly what we want for climate change mitigation efforts. Maybe we could adapt some of their indigenous strategies on a larger scale, to lock up carbon in soil, in ways that we now know would stay there for a long time.”

The study was just published in Science Advances. Other authors include former MIT postdoc and lead author Morgan Schmidt, anthropologist Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida, and collaborators from multiple institutions across Brazil. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh8499).

In their current study, the team synthesized observations and data that Schmidt, Heckenberger, and others had previously gathered, while working with Indigenous communities in the Amazon since the early 2000s,  with new data collected in 2018-19. The scientists focused their fieldwork in the Kuikuro Indigenous Territory in the Upper Xingu River basin in the southeastern Amazon. This region is home to modern Kuikuro villages as well as archaeological sites where the ancestors of the Kuikuro are thought to have lived. Over multiple visits to the region, Schmidt, then a graduate student at the University of Florida, was struck by the darker soil around some archaeological sites.
“When I saw this dark earth and how fertile it was, and started digging into what was known about it, I found it was a mysterious thing — no one really knew where it came from,” he says.

Schmidt and his colleagues began making observations of the modern Kuikuro’s practices of managing the soil. These practices include generating “middens” — piles of waste and food scraps, similar to compost heaps, that are maintained in certain locations around the center of a village. After some time, these waste piles decompose and mix with the soil to form a dark and fertile earth, that residents then use to plant crops. The researchers also observed that Kuikuro farmers spread organic waste and ash on farther fields, which also generates dark earth, where they can then grow more crops.

“We saw activities they did to modify the soil and increase the elements, like spreading ash on the ground, or spreading charcoal around the base of the tree, which were obviously intentional actions,” Schmidt says.
In addition to these observations, they also conducted interviews with villagers to document the Kuikuro’s beliefs and practices relating to dark earth. In some of these interviews, villagers referred to dark earth as “eegepe,” and described their daily practices in creating and cultivating the rich soil to improve its agricultural potential.

Based on these observations and interviews with the Kuikuro, it was clear that Indigenous communities today intentionally produce dark earth, through their practices to improve the soil.

AR #82

Ancient Cities in the Forest”

by William B. Stoecker

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AI Now Searching for Ancient Life on Mars and Other Planets

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Scientists have discovered a simple and reliable test for signs of past or present life on other planets — “the holy grail of astrobiology.”

In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers now report that, with 90% accuracy, their new artificial intelligence-based method distinguished modern and ancient biological samples from those of abiotic origin (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2307149120).

Most immediately, the new test could reveal the history of mysterious, ancient rocks on Earth, and possibly that of samples already collected by the Mars Curiosity rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. The latter tests could be conducted using an onboard analytical instrument nicknamed “SAM” (for Sample Analysis at Mars.
“We’ll need to tweak our method to match SAM’s protocols, but it’s possible that we already have data in hand to determine if there are molecules on Mars from an organic Martian biosphere.”

“The search for extraterrestrial life remains one of the most tantalizing endeavors in modern science,” says lead author Jim Cleaves of the Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC.

“The implications of this new research are many, but there are three big takeaways: First, at some deep level, biochemistry differs from abiotic organic chemistry; second, we can look at Mars and ancient Earth samples to tell if they were once alive; and third, it is likely this new method could distinguish alternative biospheres from those of Earth, with significant implications for future astrobiology missions.”

The innovative analytical method does not rely simply on identifying a specific molecule or group of compounds in a sample. Instead, the researchers demonstrated that AI can differentiate biotic from abiotic samples by detecting subtle differences within a sample’s molecular patterns as revealed by pyrolysis gas chromatography analysis (which separates and identifies a sample’s component parts), followed by mass spectrometry (which determines the molecular weights of those components).

Vast multidimensional data from the molecular analyses of 134 known abiotic or biotic carbon-rich samples were used to train AI to predict a new sample’s origin. With approximately 90% accuracy, AI successfully identified samples that had originated from:
• Living things, such as modern shells, teeth, bones, insects, leaves, rice, human hair, and cells preserved in fine-grained rock
• Remnants of ancient life altered by geological processing (e.g. coal, oil, amber, and carbon-rich fossils), or
• Samples with abiotic origins, such as pure laboratory chemicals (e.g., amino acids) and carbon-rich meteorites.
The authors add that until now the origins of many ancient carbon-bearing samples have been difficult to determine because collections of organic molecules, whether biotic or abiotic, tend to degrade over time.
Surprisingly, in spite of significant decay and alteration, the new analytical method detected signs of biology preserved in some instances over hundreds of millions of years.

AR #80

The Case for Life on Mars Gets Stronger

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Ancient Temple of Poseidon Discovered

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Archaeologists may have uncovered the sanctuary of Samian Poseidon during excavations in the foothills at the ancient acropolis of Samicum in Greece.

Samicum, also called Samikon, was an ancient city during the middle and late Helladic periods, located in the Peloponnese at Kleidi Hill near Kato Samiko, half-way between the mouths of the Alpheius and the Neda.

According to ancient texts, near the city was a celebrated temple of the Samian Poseidon, in which Strabo describes in his Geographica: “Then comes the mountain of Triphylia that sees Macistia from Pisatis; then another river called Chalcis, and a spring called Cruni, and a settlement called Chalcis, and, after these, Samicum, where is the most highly revered temple of the Samian Poseidon. About the temple is a sacred precinct full of wild olive-trees. The people of Macistum used to have charge over it; and it was they, too, who used to proclaim the armistice-day called “Samian.” But all the Triphylians contribute to the maintenance of the temple”.

A possible site of the temple was suggested following ongoing investigations conducting geophysical surveys in 2017, 2018 and 2021. Now, as part of a five-year research program expected to last until 2026, excavations have located a temple-shaped building in the foothills near the city.

The foundations of a large building measuring 9.4 meters in width, which combined with earlier geophysical data suggests that the entire structure is up to 28 meters in length.

At one end the team has identified a “pronaos” (a vestibule at the front enclosed by a portico and projecting side walls) – an architectural feature typical of Greek temples, in addition to two inner rooms (one being a “cella”) in which the researchers found a dense layer of tiles.

Also uncovered was a marble basin often associated with a cultic use, and fragments of a laconic roof which dates to the Archaic period.

AR #76

The Other Sun of God

by Steven Sora

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Just Found Greek Stone Tools Go Back 700,000 Years

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Deep in an open coal mine in southern Greece, researchers have discovered the antiquities-rich country’s oldest archaeological site, which dates to 700,000 years ago and is associated with modern humans’ hominin ancestors.

The find announced in June would drag the dawn of Greek archaeology back by as much as a quarter of a million years, although older hominin sites have been discovered elsewhere in Europe. The oldest, in Spain, dates to more than a million years ago.

The Greek site was one of five investigated in the Megalopolis area during a five-year project involving an international team of experts, a Culture Ministry statement said.

It was found to contain rough stone tools from the Lower Palaeolithic period – about 3.3 million to 300,000 years ago – and the remains of an extinct species of giant deer, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and a macaque monkey.

The project was directed by Panagiotis Karkanas of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Eleni Panagopoulou from the Greek Culture Ministry and Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tübingen in Germany.

The artifacts are “simple tools, like sharp stone flakes, belonging to the Lower Paleolithic stone tool industry,” the co-directors said.

They said it’s possible the items were produced by Homo antecessor, the hominin species dating from that period in other parts of Europe. Homo antecessor is believed to have been the last common ancestor of modern humans and their extinct Neanderthal cousins, who diverged about 800,000 years ago.

“However, we will not be able to be sure until hominin fossil remains are recovered,” the project directorss said. “[The site] is the oldest currently known hominin presence in Greece, and it pushes back the known archaeological record in the country by up to 250,000 years.”

The tools, which were likely used for butchering animals and processing wood or other plant matter, were made about 700,000 years ago, though the researchers said they were awaiting further analyses to refine the dating.

Another of the sites investigated in the Megalopolis area of the southern Peloponnese peninsula – home of the enormously later sites of Mycenae, Olympia and Pylos – contained the oldest Middle Palaeolithic remains found in Greece, dating to roughly 280,000 years ago.

“[It’s] one of the oldest sites in Europe that have tools characteristic of the so called Middle Palaeolithic tool industry, suggesting that Greece may have played a significant role in (stone) industry developments in Europe,” the researchers said.

The Megalopolis plain has for decades been mined for coal to supply a local power plant. It has long been known as a source of fossils, and in ancient times huge prehistoric bones dug up there were linked with the Greek myths of a long-vanished race of giants that fought the gods of Olympus. Some ancient writers cited Megalopolis as the site of a major battle in that supernatural war.

They said it’s possible the items were produced by Homo antecessor, the hominin species dating from that period in other parts of Europe. Homo antecessor is believed to have been the last common ancestor of modern humans and their extinct Neanderthal cousins, who diverged about 800,000 years ago.

“However, we will not be able to be sure until hominin fossil remains are recovered,” the project directorss said. “[The site] is the oldest currently known hominin presence in Greece, and it pushes back the known archaeological record in the country by up to 250,000 years.”

The tools, which were likely used for butchering animals and processing wood or other plant matter, were made about 700,000 years ago, though the researchers said they were awaiting further analyses to refine the dating.

“We are very excited to be able to report this finding, which demonstrates the great importance of our region for understanding hominin migrations to Europe and for human evolution in general,” the three co-directors said.
Another of the sites investigated in the Megalopolis area of the southern Peloponnese peninsula – home of the enormously later sites of Mycenae, Olympia and Pylos – contained the oldest Middle Palaeolithic remains found in Greece, dating to roughly 280,000 years ago.

“[It’s] one of the oldest sites in Europe that have tools characteristic of the so called Middle Palaeolithic tool industry, suggesting that Greece may have played a significant role in (stone) industry developments in Europe,” the researchers said.

The Megalopolis plain has for decades been mined for coal to supply a local power plant. It has long been known as a source of fossils, and in ancient times huge prehistoric bones dug up there were linked with the Greek myths of a long-vanished race of giants that fought the gods of Olympus. Some ancient writers cited Megalopolis as the site of a major battle in that supernatural war.

AR #63

Searching for the Little People

by Susan Martinez

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Plants Can Tell When They Are Touched, and Not

By Sara Zaske

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Even without nerves, plants can sense when something touches them and when it lets go, says a new study. 

In a set of experiments, researchers at Washington State University, individual plant cells responded to the touch of a very fine glass rod by sending slow waves of calcium signals to other plant cells, and when that pressure was released, they sent much more rapid waves. While scientists have known that plants can respond to touch, this study shows that plant cells send different signals when touch is initiated and ended.

“It is quite surprising how finely sensitive plants cells are — that they can discriminate when something is touching them. They sense the pressure, and when it is released, they sense the drop in pressure,” said Michael Knoblauch, WSU biological sciences professor and senior author of the study in the journal Nature Plants. “It’s surprising that plants can do this in a very different way than animals, without nerve cells and at a really fine level.”

Knoblauch and his colleagues conducted a set of 84 experiments on 12 plants using thale cress and tobacco plants that had been specially bred to include calcium sensors, a relatively new technology. After placing pieces of these plants under a microscope, they applied a slight touch to individual plant cells with a micro-cantilever, essentially a tiny glass rod about the size of a human hair. They saw many complex responses depending on the force and duration of the touch, but the difference between the touch and its removal was clear.

Within 30 seconds of the applied touch to a cell, the researchers saw slow waves of calcium ions, called cytosolic calcium, traveling from that cell through the adjacent plant cells, lasting about three to five minutes. Removal of the touch showed an almost instant set of more rapid waves that dissipated within a minute.

The authors believe these waves are likely due to the change in pressure inside the cell. Unlike animal cells with permeable membranes, plant cells also have strong cellular walls that cannot be easily breached, so just a light touch will temporarily increase pressure in a plant cell.

The researchers tested the pressure theory mechanically by inserting a tiny glass capillary pressure probe into a plant cell. Increasing and decreasing pressure inside the cell resulted in similar calcium waves elicited by the start and stop of a touch.

“Humans and animals sense touch through sensory cells. The mechanism in plants appears to be via this increase or decrease of the internal cell pressure,” said Knoblauch. “And it doesn’t matter which cell it is. We humans may need nerve cells, but in plants, any cell on the surface can do this.”

Previous research has shown that when a pest like a caterpillar bites a plant leaf, it can initiate the plant’s defensive responses such as the release of chemicals that make leaves less tasty or even toxic to the pest. An earlier study also revealed that brushing a plant triggers calcium waves that activate different genes.

The current study was able to differentiate the calcium waves between touch and letting go, but how exactly the plant’s genes respond to those signals remains to be seen. With new technologies like the calcium sensors used in this study, scientists can start to untangle that mystery, Knoblauch said.

AR #128

Illuminated Plants to Light Night

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New Observatory to Study Marian Apparitions

By Hannah Brockhaus

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An institution has been formed in Rome to study alleged Marian apparitions and other supernatural phenomena in the Catholic Church.

The International Observatory on Marian Apparitions and Mystical Phenomenon (OISA) was established in April and is part of the Pontifical International Marian Academy.

The objective of the observatory is to research alleged Marian apparitions and other phenomena, such as the apparent crying or bleeding of Marian statues and images, whose authenticity have not yet been declared by the competent authority.

The task of the observatory is not “to judge or intervene in alleged apparitions or phenomena, but to study how these events take place and to give information and support to the bishops of the various dioceses who need to conduct investigations in this field,” she said in a press conference earlier this month, as reported by Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana.

A diocesan bishop is responsible for giving official recognition to an apparition that took place or is taking place in his diocese according to a specific process and criteria outlined by the Vatican. A diocesan commission will also be involved.

One of the most important criteria for approving an apparition, Del Gaudio said, according to Famiglia Cristiana, is “the consistency of the message transmitted by the visionary or visionaries with that of the public divine revelation contained in Sacred Scripture.”

She explained Marian apparitions do not introduce new revelation; they bring “a spiritually fruitful actualization of the Gospel in human history.”

The new observatory will take a multidisciplinary approach to the study of Marian apparitions with scholars from the areas of sociology, culture, psychology, medicine, and theology, Del Gaudio said.
The observatory began its activities on April 15 and is headquartered in the offices of the Pontifical International Marian Academy in Rome.

AR #75

Mary Worship Banned on Hill

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Archaeologists Find Bird Sacrifices by Ancient Romans to Goddess Isis

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An archaeologist and a biologist have found evidence of birds being sacrificed to the goddess Isis in the excavated ruins of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. In their study, reported in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Chiara Assunta Corbino and Beatrice Demarchi studied frescos found at the ancient site revealing the role birds played in ritual banquets. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oa.3224)

The goddess Isis was first worshiped by people in ancient Egypt. Myths from the time suggest she resurrected her husband and slain brother and thus came to be known as a goddess who helped the dead enter the afterlife. Worship of Isis spread to ancient Greece, where the name meant “great mother,” and eventually to Italy and the rest of the Roman Empire.

During this latter time, belief in Isis became a cult-like obsession in which she was worshiped as part of ritual celebrations. Corbino and Demarchi suggest that such rituals were likely performed by priests. They believe they have found evidence of such rituals in frescos on the walls of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.

Prior research has found that the Temple of Isis was mostly destroyed during an earthquake sometime around A.D. 62. Imagery in the frescos suggest they were added after the earthquake as part of renovations. The researchers found depictions of rituals involving birds. Thus far, they have found evidence of geese, turtle doves, chickens and ibises, along with pigs and various sea creatures. This new finding, the researchers suggest, adds more evidence to theories that birds were used in Isis worship rituals in other places.

The researchers note that the find is significant because such rituals were conducted in private; thus, little evidence of them have been found. The Isis frescos are the first to have been found in Italy. The researchers also note that the birds were charred, suggesting that the people conducting the rituals had eaten them—likely as part of a banquet similar to some of those shown in the frescos.

Many centuries before the Roman empire, Akhenaten—1373-1337 BCE—made history as Egypt’s “heretic Pharaoh.” Along with his wife, co-ruler, Nefertiti, Akhenaten completely changed most aspects of Egyptian religion, abandoning traditional polytheism and introducing the world’s first monotheism. Under his direction, workmen created a new city, ‘Amarna,’ from scratch. Akhenaten also introduced a new art style upsetting the traditional artistic conventions that he had inherited.

In much of Amarna art, the king and his family, as well as their staff, were depicted in a strange exaggerated physical form bordering on androgyny and even femininity. Features included: elongated head, almond-shaped eyes, protruding jaw, fleshy lips, serpentine neck, narrow shoulders, enlarged breasts, protruding belly and buttocks, wide hips, spindly arms and legs with bulging upper thighs, flat feet, spider-like fingers and toes, knee-joints that bend the opposite way, and even the rare absence of genitalia.

A virtually infinite array of explanations have been proposed for these bizarre features, but which, remain unsatisfactorily explained. Interpretations run the gamut from purely physical to purely symbolic. But writer Jonathon Perrin believes Akhenaten’s strange appearance, may have had nothing to do with his actual physical appearance, and more to do with birds.

In an article for Atlantis Rising Magazine, Perrin explains that Akhenaten had a great fondness for birds, having them painted all over his city in scenes of bucolic marshland bliss, and even keeping them in special areas of his city, primarily in the lush garden palaces. Besides being a common motif in quixotic Amarna art, where they, along with oxen, wine and flowers, were a daily sacrifice to the sungod Aten.

Birds, says Perrin, formed a key part of Akhenaten’s new religious ideology. During the first few years of his rule, Akhenaten worshipped all the gods of Egypt, but favored Ra-Horakhty, the syncretistic solar deity of Ra and Horus.
An ancient symbol, going back to the Old Kingdom, the akh bird was also very important to the king. The northern bald ibis was used in hieroglyphs to depict the akh, which was the highest form of soul a person could attain in the afterlife, a shining immortal spirit.

The case can be made that when he changed his name to Akhenaten, the king had taken on the very spirit of the Akh bird, and that he wished to imbue himself with the essence of the northern bald ibis bird (who symbolized “effectiveness”, “righteousness”, and “radiance”). If the akh was depicted as a bird, it makes sense that the king may have been adopting the physical attributes of the bird itself, to greater glorify his father and signify his own immortality.

Another bird important to Akhenaten was the immortal Bennu Bird of Heliopolis. Researcher Andrew Collins has noted that the akh shining spirit was bound up with the Heliopolitan creation myth of the bennu bird, or grey heron. When Ra first appeared over the formless void of Nun, he cast his light upon the primeval mound that emerged from the waters. This mound was called the benben stone, and on it landed the bennu bird, which was the “soul”, or Ba, of Ra. The bennu bird was immortal, and formed the template for the later Greek Phoenix bird of resurrection.

AR #128

The Bird King

by Jonathon Perrin

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Ancient-Mysteries Magazine Bucks the Artificial-Intelligence Trend with “AI-FREE” Content

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Forget ChatGPT. At a time when the Internet is ablaze with the wonders of artificial intelligence, at least one content-rich on-line site is challenging conventional wisdom. In its regular blog posts, AtlantisRising.com (formerly Atlantis Rising Magazine, “magazine of record for ancient mysteries, future science, and the unexplained”) is taking the novel and counter-intuitive step of certifying that it publishes only authentic, ‘humanly-written’, content, and is labeling its stories accordingly.

Just as “healthy” food is marketed as, ‘free from artificial ingredients’, Atlantis Rising claims that, no matter how much popular AI-produced content, may resemble the real thing, it remains only a facsimile. Educated readers won’t be fooled. The reasons are complicated but, according to Doug Kenyon, AR’s long-time editor, “notwithstanding advanced machine learning, hyper language modeling, etc., the kind of personal insights that come from someone who still has skin in the game, can’t be duplicated by any mere computer or network.” What passes as the equivalent of genuine human intelligence is as unsatisfactory to the consumer as cheap white wine.

Long before Ancient Apocalypse, and other currently trending media with similar subject matter, there was Atlantis Rising Magazine, distributed for many years on newsstands internationally by Curtis circulation. The Atlantis Rising Research Group web site remains a visible brand on the internet with registered U.S. trademark and a small but loyal band of followers.

 The site’s web-site archives still contain most of the content from 135 published issues, including hundreds of original, well-researched, well-written, authoritative, and profusely illustrated articles, along with many books which the magazine has also produced. PDFs and other related products and videos can be purchased for download on line at AtlantisRising.com.

Ghosts of Atlantis, the recent 436-page book by Atlantis Rising editor J. Douglas Kenyon, is published by Inner Traditions/Simon & Schuster. 


Technologies of the Gods, one of the magazine’s original live action one-hour documentaries has drawn over a million viewings on platforms around the world. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXZr16VJg1s).

Additional documentaries include: Clash of the Geniuses and English Sacred Sites

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1,750-Year-Old Artifact of New Testament Text Discovered

With the help of ultraviolet photography, one of the oldest fragments of Gospel manuscript ever found has been revealed. Written in Syriac in the 3rd century, it was copied in the 6th century, and now has been brought to light by a researcher from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/new-double-palimpsest-witness-to-the-old-syriac-gospels-vat-iber-4-ff-1-5/0DBE3923810C204EB39118267EB41614).

About 1,300 years ago a scribe in Palestine took a book of the Gospels inscribed with a Syriac text and erased it. Parchment was scarce in the desert in the Middle Ages, so manuscripts were often erased and reused, creating what are called palimpsests, on which the original text can still be made out. One of the earliest translations of the gospels ever was found by Grigory Kessel, a medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

“The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments,” says medievalist Grigory Kessel. “Until recently, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the Gospels.” While one of these is now kept in the British Library in London, another was discovered as a palimpsest in St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. The fragments from the third manuscript were recently identified in the course of the “Sinai Palimpsests Project.”

The small manuscript fragment, which can now be considered as the fourth textual witness, was identified by Kessel using ultraviolet photography as the third layer of text, i.e., double palimpsest, in the Vatican Library manuscript. The fragment is so far the only known remnant of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version – and offers a unique gateway to the very early phase in the history of the textual transmission of the Gospels. For example, while the original Greek of Matthew chapter 12, verse 1 says: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat,” the Syriac translation says: “[…] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”

ow shown in numbers. 

AR #60

Document Reveals Archimedes’Genius

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Breaking the Spirituality Taboo

Do you ever think about what happens when we die, whether we have a soul, or what the meaning of life is? New research is shedding light on the difficulties that may be facing you. Researchers a the University of Southern Denmark have conducted the world’s largest study on spiritual and existential needs, revealing a significant need among Danes. The results have just been published in the journal Lancet Regional Health, Europe (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00020-0/fulltext).

In 2021, more than 100,000 Danes were invited to participate in the largest questionnaire survey ever conducted on spiritual and existential needs.  They were asked 20 questions, all related to these topics. Over 80 percent of those who responded reported experiencing at least one strong or very strong spiritual need in the past month. 106,000 Danes received the survey in their e-box. 26,678 participated (25.6%). Of the included participants, 19,507 (81.9%) reported at least one strong or very strong spiritual need in the past month. 

Danes do not talk much about their beliefs and personal values and have a low degree of religious practice. But as the study shows, Danes have the same needs for inner peace, meaning, faith, and hope as seen in more religious countries
According to Tobias Anker Stripp, a medical doctor and PhD student who is the lead author of the study, one of the study’s authors, “We live in a society where religion and spirituality are taboo and something we rarely talk about with each other. What we believe in, why we are here, what happens when we die. And we might be led to believe that it’s not important, or something we shouldn’t concern ourselves with in the healthcare system. But our study convincingly shows that these topics are important to Danes. 

Participants were asked about their need for finding inner peace and doing something for others, with these two topics being the most highly valued.

Experiencing inner peace and giving something of oneself to others are classic existential or spiritual needs, says Dr. Strip. And even though we don’t always verbalize it that way, most of us intuitively feel that this is important. About one-fifth of Danes have also reported a religious need—that is, a need directly related to belief in something greater. All of this we have now shown in numbers. 

AR #119

Wedding Taboos

by Dr. Rita Louise