Large Pictures I

Finds from Varna


Link to text	Source: All over the Net

Map of Turkey with the places of some early settlements


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Göbekli Tepe Pictures
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Source : Klaus Schmidt: "Göbekli Tepe – the Stone Age Sanctuaries. New results of ongoing excavations with a special focus on sculptures and high reliefs", Documenta Praehistorica XXXVII (2010), p.239. With kind permission.


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The "Turtle Dance" bowl from Nevali Çori.
If you have ever watched a romantic America (=prudish) movie, you know what dancing together signifies.


Link to text	Source: All over the Net

The layers (stratigraphy) at Yumuktepe
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Source: Photoraphed Sept. 2013

Here is a pot and some shards "in-situ". You get these artifacts out by removing
the soil flake by flake with something like a tooth pick. This takes a lot of time.


Source: Photographed Sept. 2013

Pictures from Istanbul Museums.
Here details from some sarcophagus (probably "Alexander"). Note that the marble was painted.


Source: Archeology Museum; Photographed 2012

Large mural of Attila the Hun, doing a bit of conquering.
What's the archetype of a villain to some, is a hero to others.


Source: Askeri Museum; Photographed 2012

The "fertile crescent" or the region often called the "cradle of civilization".
It was here where many of the earliest human civilizations developed. However, as we know
now, the fertile crescent was not the only source of civilization and plants and animals were
not domesticated there but in the surrounding nuclear area (included here), where the
original plant species still grow wild.


Source: Wikipedia; author Bjoertvedt (based upon PD map by NormanEinstein).

This picture is simply amazing, especially for people like me who "are into crystals".
The selenite (=gypsum) crystals in the "Cueva de los Cristales"
in Mexico are like nothing else found so far on this planet. They are exceptionally pure single
crystals of CaSO₄ · 2H₂O and thus
translucent; the biggest one weighs in around 55 tons!


Link to text	Source: NAICA project Web site. The cave is connected to the Naica Mines in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico.

The famous Lycurgus cup from the late Roman era,
fourth century AD. This is a masterpiece and not everyday Roman glassware;
it was probably made in Rome.
Left: as seen by looking at it under ordinary outside illumination.
Right: illuminated from the inside.


Link to text	Source: British Museum; free image service

Here is another Roman glassware masterpiece. It is shown in the "Römisch-Germanisches Museum" in Cologne, Germany.


Link to text	Source: Photographed in the "Römisch-Germanisches Museum" in Cologne, Germany, 2016

A pre-Colombian "birdman" made from surface enriched tumbaga.


Source: Smithsonian

The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel,
thought to date between 200 BC and 300 AD, placing it within the late La Tène period or
early Roman Iron Age.
The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work
(diameter: 69 cm, height: 42 cm). It was found in 1891 in a peat bog near the hamle
of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark.
It is now housed at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.


Source: Photographed in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen 2012.

The silver bull in the Metropolitan Museum,
New Yok City. Proto-Elamite; Susa, Iran. Around 3100 BC - 2850 BC.
Note that the bull, symbolizing power and fertility, started to become a fashionable
God with the advent of metals, replacing to some extent the older female Goddesses.


Source: Photographed in the Metropoitan 2013

Parts of the Nahal Mishmar hoard (3500 BC). Note the different
colors of the copper objects, pointing to wildly different concentrations of arsenic (As) and
antimony (Sb). The object with the holes was made from hippopotamus ivory; nobody has
the faintest idea what is is good for. The intended us of many copper objects is also unclear.


Source: Courtesy of the Israel Museum

More large puictures via this link

This sizeable bronze cauldron stand is displayed in the "Neues Museum",
Berlin; Germany (that's where you find Nefertiti, too). It is probably from Kition / Cyprus.
Note that it was broken and mended rather clumsily.


Source: Photographed in the "Neues Museum", Berlin; Germany. 2012

This is a "ritual axe" displayed in the Antakyia Museum / Turkey.
It is likely copper or bronze from long ago; I won't wager a date.
The inset shows all the information given by the museum.


Source: Photographed 2013 in the Antakyia Museum / Turkey

However, meanwhiel I found a rather similar axe in the "Neues Museum", Berlin,
that is traced to the (in)famous Luristan artifacts, i.e. to at least 1000 BC:


Source: Photographed 2015 in the "Neues Museum", Berlin

Ancient South American Ceramics
Moche culture, Peru, from 100 AD to 800 AD) from the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, Germany.


Source: Photographed in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, Germany, 2011.

Ancient South American Pottery (Moche culture, Peru,
from 100 AD to 800 AD) or Recuay style (below) from the National History Museum,
New York City.
It is a bit amazing (and encouraging) that this kind of pottery (plus a clear description
of what is going in) can be seen in a Museum in prudish and hypocritical America.
Probably this is only possible in NYC.


Source: Photographed in the National History Museum, New York City. 2013.

Here are the descriptions of the "scarface" sculptures of the Metropolitan Museum
in New York City and the Louvre in Paris.
Further below are pictures of all 5 scarfaces known to me in a direct comparison


Source: Internet

Here is a direct comparison of the 5 scarfaces known to me. The similarities of the first foure are obvious; the fifith one is differetn.


Links to texts: 1, 2

This is a (restringed) necklace made from (corroded) beads of native copper and bone pieces.
The parts where found in the Danube region and belong to the "native copper pocket" that
existed there around 5000 BC, assigned to the "Danube Culure"