Inscripția de la Behistun

Textul este o declarație a lui Darius al Persiei, scris de trei ori, în trei sisteme de scriere și limbi diferite: două limbi alăturate, vechea persană și elamita, iar akkadiana, dedesubt. Darius a domnit în Persia între anii 521 î.Hr. și 486 î.Hr.

Prin 515 î.Hr., Darius I își relatează într-o lungă povestire ascensiunea la tron în fața uzurpatorului Smerdis al Persiei, cât și războaiele victorioase care au urmat, precum și represiunile revoltelor. Textele au fost gravate pe o faleză în apropiere de orașul modern Bisutun, în munții Zagros din Iran, la intrarea în câmpia Kermanshah.

Misterul lumilor dispărute: Între fabulaţie şi adevăr

 

Lumile dispărute, ca El Dorado, Atlantida sau Shambala, au incitat deopotriva minţile arheologilor, cât şi a oamenilor de rând, fascinaţi de legendele unor tărâmuri cu desăvârşire îngropate în mister. Dar există şi un sâmbure de adevăr în poveştile acestor lumi "dispărute" de pe faţa pământului?

Buyan

Chiar și în timpurile moderne, regiunea slavă din Europa de Est a fost instabilă. Înainte de sovietici, regiunea a fost condusă de otomani, bizantinii și sute de alte căpetenii care luptau în mod constant între ele pentru a cuceri teritoriu. Este logic, prin urmare, ca un mit popular slav s-ar axa pe Buyan, o insulă care apare și dispare la voia întâmplării... Cam ca insula din serialul "Lost".

Cosmology: Out of the darkness

The 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting opened with a talk by Brian Schmidt, who shared the 2011 physics prize for the shocking revelation that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Fifteen years after Schmidt's initial discovery, the 'dark energy' invoked to explain this cosmic acceleration is still a mystery.

It is the most sobering fact in physics. Everything that has ever been observed, from elementary particles to clusters of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years across, makes up just 4% of the Universe. The remaining 96% is currently missing: dubbed dark matter (23% of the Universe) and dark energy (73%), their existence is inferred by the effect they have on ordinary matter, but their natures are unknown.

Астрономы перемерили расширение Вселенной

Группа астрономов с помощью космического телескопа НАСА Spitzer сделала наиболее точное измерение постоянной Хаббла, фундаментальной величины, которая показывает текущее ускорение расширения Вселенной.

Постоянная Хаббла названа в честь астронома Эдвина Хаббла, который удивил мир, обнаружив, что наша Вселенная расширяется и растет непрерывно с момента возникновения. Астрономы теперь знают, что Вселенная появилась на свет в результате Большого взрыва около 13,7 миллиардов лет назад. Определение постоянной Хаббла, прямое измерение скорости это расширения имеет решающее значение для измерения возраста и размеров нашей Вселенной.

Эксперимент: как самоорганизуется хаос

Ученые из Ливерморской национальной лаборатории (LLNL) продемонстрировали, как хаос превращается в порядок. Удивительное открытие самоорганизации электромагнитных полей в плазме дает ученым новый способ изучить то, как возник порядок из первоначального космического хаоса.

Одной из неразгаданных тайн современной науки является вопрос, как высокоорганизованные структуры могли появиться из хаотического движения частиц. Это имеет значение для многих вещей, включая рождение астрофизических объектов на расстоянии в миллионы световых лет от Земли.

Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found

In 1900, Greek sponge divers stumbled across "a pile of dead, naked women" on the seabed near the tiny island of Antikythera. It turned out the figures were not corpses but bronze and marble statues, part of a cargo of stolen Greek treasure that was lost when the Roman ship carrying them sank two thousand years ago on the island's treacherous rocks.

It was the first marine wreck to be studied by archaeologists, and yielded the greatest haul of ancient treasure that had ever been found. Yet the salvage project – carried out in treacherous conditions with desperately crude equipment – was never completed. So this month, armed with the latest diving technology, scientists are going back.

The Unsolved Mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae

There is nothing remotely Elysian about the Phlegræan Fields, which lie on the north shore of the Bay of Naples; nothing sylvan, nothing green. The Fields are part of the caldera of a volcano that is the twin of Mount Vesuvius, a few miles to the east, the destroyer of Pompeii. The volcano is still active–it last erupted in 1538, and once possessed a crater that measured eight miles across–but most of it is underwater now.  The portion that is still accessible on land consists of a barren, rubble-strewn plateau. Fire bursts from the rocks in places, and clouds of sulfurous gas snake out of vents leading up from deep underground.

The Fields, in short, are hellish, and it is no surprise that in Greek and Roman myth they were associated with all manner of strange tales. Most interesting, perhaps, is the legend of the Cumæan sibyl, who took her name from the nearby town of Cumæ, a Greek colony dating to about 500 B.C.– a time when the Etruscans still held sway much of central Italy and Rome was nothing but a city-state ruled over by a line of tyrannical kings.

La Bastida unearths 4,200-year-old fortification, unique in continental Europe

Similar characteristics have not been observed in other constructions of the Bronze Age, with three-metre thick walls, square towers originally measuring up to seven metres, a monumental entrance and an ogival arched postern gate; a fully conserved architectural element unique in Europe in that period.

The wall protected a city measuring 4 hectares located on top of a hill. With architectural elements reminiscent of people with Eastern styled military skills, its model is typical of ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean, such as the second city of Troy.

Archaeologists Explore Two Mysterious Caves Near the Dead Sea

Hidden within desert desolation near the Dead Sea region of Ein Gedi, Israel, are two caves that at least one archaeologist suggests may possibly contain what remains of the lost archive of the Jewish Second Temple. The famous temple became one of King Herod's greatest architectural achievements and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. at the time of the First Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire.

Led by Dr. Haim Cohen, a team plans to continue excavating a cave known as "Cave 27", a cave where Cohen had previously conducted excavations in 2003 under the auspices of Haifa University and again in 2006, as well as exploratory investigations of a sealed cave discovered by Cohen during a 2007 survey. 

First Ever Etruscan Pyramids Found in Italy

The first ever Etruscan pyramids have been located underneath a wine cellar in the city of Orvieto in central Italy, according to a team of U.S. and Italian archaeologists.

Carved into the rock of the tufa plateau --a sedimentary area that is a result of volcanic activity -- on which the city stands, the subterranean structures were largely filled. Only the top-most modern layer was visible.

"Within this upper section, which had been modified in modern times and was used as a wine cellar, we noticed a series of ancient stairs carved into the wall. They were clearly of Etruscan construction," David B. George of the Department of Classics at Saint Anselm, told Discovery News.