Friday, 9 May 2014

Crossroads Of Civilisation

If anything proves that the cockpit of civilisation was the Middle East, its the latest archaeological finds from the region ....

Pre-Pottery Neolithic Stone Masks
Pre-Pottery Neolithic Stone Masks

..... apart from the amazing discovery of massive pre-civilisation carved stone megaliths, about 11,000 years old, at a location called 'Gobekli Tepe' just outside the ancient city of Urfa in south-eastern modern Turkey, there are the new finds from Jerusalem.

The latest of these are the spectacular 9,000-year-old stone masks that are thought to have been made to resemble the spirits of dead ancestors, and come from a critical turning point in humanity's growth that saw the birth of agriculture and the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
 
They hadn't even learnt how to make pottery when these masks were carved. The masks are all from within about a 20-mile (32km) radius from Jerusalem, where the Judean hills meet the Judean desert .... truly a crossroads of civilisation.

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4 comments:

  1. Vroomfondel10 May 2014 at 16:57

    That's amazing! Masks must be some of the most difficult things to make so it must have taken dedication for our ancestors to want to carve some out of stone, and again to wear them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No PC11 May 2014 at 18:42

      Just shows how soon humans came up with some kind of spiritual ideas .... masks imply a religion of sorts.

      Delete
    2. Vroomfondel11 May 2014 at 19:29

      I'd like to think not, but probably yes, it does suggest a religious element. Once abstract thought came into play it must have created a knowledge vacuum which was quickly filled with all sorts of rubbish.

      Delete
    3. No PC12 May 2014 at 19:06

      One look at Boko Haram and what's happening in Syria shows where those masks and what they represent eventually led to.

      Delete

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