Ethiopian Jewish Ascetic Religious Communities

The Betä Isra'el (Ethiopian Jews) have a unique history and religious tradition, one of the most fascinating aspects of which are the mäloksocc, commonly referred to as monks in scholarly and popular literature. The mäloksocc served as the supreme religious leaders of the Betä Isra'el and were charged with educating and initiating Betä Isra'el priests. They lived in separate compounds and observed severe purity laws prohibiting physical contact with the laity. Thus, they are the only known example in medieval and modern Jewry of ascetic communities withdrawing from the secular world and devoting themselves fully to religious life. This book presents the results of the first comprehensive research ever conducted on the way of life and material culture of the ascetic religious communities of the Betä Isra'el. A major part of this research is an archaeological survey, during which these religious centres were located and documented in detail for the first time.

Ancients Ruins of Mahabharata Prominence Hastinapur Giving Vindication of Bioarchaeology

Hastinapur, capital of the Kuru Kingdom in the era of Mahabharata. Some ancient structures imply the name of Mahabharata personages such as Karna Ghat Mandir, Draupadi Ghat Mandir, Pandeshwar Mahadev Mandir, Pandv Tila, or Ulta Khera Mound, etc. In the year 1950-52 some portion of Ulta Khera and Mound of Raghunathji was excavated by B.B. Lal. He found 5 culture strata starting from Pre 1200 B.C. to the early 15th Century A.D and the first time he brings in limelight a new ceramic industry Painted Grey Ware. The recovery of somehow Kushan Period bones(?,for exact time period, the Archaeological Survey of India should remove all these evidences from the site and go through carbon dating.) from near site HST 2 connects this mound with Bio-archaeology. Keywords: Hastinapur, Ulta Khera Mound, Mahabharata, Bioarchaeology

THE BENEFITS OF DIGITALISATION ON THE GROWTH OF INDIAN SOCIAL SECTORS AND THE ECONOMY (IN THE PRESENT PANDEMIC CONTEXT)

Digitalisation is the use of modern digital tools in the nation, In Indian history there was no significant growth of digital tools during independence moment, but later on there is more scope for the usage of digital tools for the study, like study of archaeological sources, Historical tourism pictures, by the help of the ASI (Archaeological survey in India). India has good flora and fauna in the world, India can generate revenue by expanding its digital implementation in all the tourism centres in India, some of the most visited tourist places by Indians and the foreigners, were The Taj-Mahal, Agra, the gate way of India, The Red fort, Mecca Masjid, some temples like Tirupathi, shabirimala etc, these cities are well aware digitalisation, e-payments, advertisement, online booking availability and the availability of internet has made these Indian cities to invest more in digitalisation to make benefit of the customers and to make profit in their business. More over some the Indian recent schemes like “Digital India, Make in India” can try to implement in Tourism and development of tourism GDP / income. So Indian government can try to announce the benefits for the tourist guides, and create lakhs of employment in India, due to pandemic the tourist visitors has decreased and lakhs of tourists lost their lively income, it became unemployed for many months. So India has to face lot of challenges in the pandemic time and try to increase the tourism income of the nation, sources involves online transactions, social or business and economic transactions in electronic or online mode in the state or country, as it provides benefits for the consumers, producers or citizens by saving time, availability in lower cost and reduces the cost of transportation to purchase any products in the sovereign country like India, like education, hotel services, banking insurance, social services like DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) and commerce sectors. KEY WORDS: Social sectors, use of Digital technology in tourism, Covid-19, E-governance and the Indian Economy.

BALLCOURT REPRESENTATIONS IN QUIECHAPA, OAXACA, MEXICO: RITUAL OFFERING, FERTILITY, AND LIFE

During an archaeological survey in the municipality of San Pedro Mártir Quiechapa, Oaxaca, Mexico, archaeologists from the Proyecto Arqueológico de Quiechapa (PAQuie) encountered and documented a number of carved stone elements. Of particular interest are the 30 representations of ballcourts carved into natural rock outcrops at two sites in the region. This is the highest density in which this type of ballcourt representation occurs throughout Mesoamerica. After their initial discovery, members of PAQuie documented the carved stone ballcourts using structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry, a quick and affordable technique to collect 3D spatial, quantitative, and visual data of stone carvings. In this article, I report on the carved stone ballcourt representations documented in the Quiechapa region and offer some preliminary interpretations. I first provide some description of the broader archaeological context in which the carvings were found. Then I describe the methods used to record the stone carvings, followed by a presentation of the data. Finally, in dialogue with extant literature, I explore some possibilities as to why these carved stone ballcourt representations were created, how they may have been used, and what they may symbolize.

Archaeological settlement research for the late Middle Ages in Poland

Archaeological settlement research in Poland has to date not been conducted on a large scale. The remains of medieval villages have usually been excavated when rescue works were required by construction projects – usually along the routes of planned highways. Traces of farming have been discovered only by chance, and research on the distribution of land uses has mainly been carried out by geographers. In a few cases, survey excavations of rural settlements have been carried out in the vicinity of defensive structures being investigated. In cities, even long-term studies have basically been limited to researching only the densely built-up zone, the market square, and defensive walls. Neither agricultural land owned by townsfolk nor the zones outside the city proper that they used economically have been examined. The surface research resulting from the campaign Archeologiczne Zdjęcie Polski – AZP (Polish Archaeological Record) is of little use for the late Middle Ages, firstly because artefacts from that period were not collected at the beginning of the research, and also because of a specific aspect of cultivation (fertilisation), which saw a considerable carrying of movable cultural artefacts out from built-up areas. These weaknesses resulted from various factors. First of all, there was a lack of interest in such research among not only historical preservation services but also archaeologists themselves. However, the main factor was the significant financial outlays that such research requires. Currently, archaeology has many techniques at its disposal that allow large areas to be studied and that thus allow archaeological sites to be identified and preliminarily investigated. Aerial laser scanning and ground-based geophysical methods provide much valuable data and, above all, allow places requiring excavation to be accurately identified. Unfortunately, deeming such methods to sufficiently record sites can sometimes mean that they constitute the first and only archaeological survey of a site. Then there are problems of dating such sites and, of course, we do not acquire many of the movable cultural objects that research on medieval society demands.

An Introduction to Geophysical and Geochemical Methods in Digital Geoarchaeology

Archaeological geophysics is a range of techniques for the minimally invasive, remote investigation of the physical parameters of the nearsurface environment. This suite of methods is complementary to archaeological survey or excavation as it can provide information about the stratigraphy of the survey area, locate anthropogenic traces of the past, document their spatial dimensions and—under ideal conditions—explore the physical properties of subsurface materials. Both material culture items such as a building foundations and indirect indications of anthropogenic activity such as subsurface disturbance or evidence of burning are excellent direct targets for geophysical investigations since they can be differentiated on the basis of their material properties from the wider soil context. In addition to directly locating archaeological material, geophysical techniques can make an important contribution to geoarchaeological investigations by elucidating the site stratigraphy and mapping its lateral geometry. In some cases, such as when locating prehistoric material buried offshore or within open Palaeolithic sites, the reconstruction of past landscapes may make a more important contribution to archaeological investigations than the direct geophysical detection of archaeological materials.Different material culture items have characteristic physical properties (such as electrical resistance or conductivity, magnetic susceptibility) and so require different instrumentation for effective detection. The main techniques for archaeological prospection include magnetometer, resistance meter, magnetic susceptibility meter, ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic induction meter. Apart from that, seismic methods (reflection and refraction seismics), gamma spectroscopy and gravity techniques are also used in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, there is no standard approach for the application of one specific geophysical method for all archaeological materials in all geological environments. The success of geophysical prospection techniques depends on a combination of soil and sediment characteristics as well as depth below surface and preservation of archaeological findings. In order to achieve the most reliable results and enhance the chance of detecting archaeological material, an integrated, multi-method approach is suggested.In addition to field surveying, the effective processing of measured geophysical data is a crucial part of the interpretation process. Data processing aims to enhance signals of interest in order to better delineate archaeological and geological features. It helps to produce more interpretable results and therefore facilitates and fosters collaboration between geophysicists and archaeologists.

Detection of Archaeological Surface Ceramics Using Deep Learning Image-Based Methods and Very High-Resolution UAV Imageries

Mapping surface ceramics through systematic pedestrian archaeological survey is considered a consistent method to recover the cultural biography of sites within a micro-region. Archaeologists nowadays conduct surface survey equipped with navigation devices counting, documenting, and collecting surface archaeological potsherds within a set of plotted grids. Recent advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and image processing analysis can be utilised to support such surface archaeological investigations. In this study, we have implemented two different artificial intelligence image processing methods over two areas of interest near the present-day village of Kophinou in Cyprus, in the Xeros River valley. We have applied a random forest classifier through the Google Earth Engine big data cloud platform and a Single Shot Detector neural network in the ArcGIS Pro environment. For the first case study, the detection was based on red–green–blue (RGB) high-resolution orthophotos. In contrast, a multispectral camera covering both the visible and the near-infrared parts of the spectrum was used in the second area of investigation. The overall results indicate that such an approach can be used in the future as part of ongoing archaeological pedestrian surveys to detect scattered potsherds in areas of archaeological interest, even if pottery shares a very high spectral similarity with the surface.

DISCOVERING NEW ROCK ARTS AT MESHGIN SHAHR’S GHAFELEGHATAR, NORTHWEST OF IRAN

Исторический памятник Гафелегхатар открыт в 2018 г. во время археологических изысканий в провинции Ардабиль, расположенной на северо-западе Ирана. В общей сложности в указанном регионе зафиксировано 50 наскальных рисунков с изображением фигур козла, оленя и человека. Единичные и многофигурные изображения процарапаны или выбиты на блоках магнетита. На большинстве изученных камней изображены фигуры козла, сопоставимые с наскальными рисунками из Ирана и Азербайджана. Петроглифы отражают кочевой образ жизни охотников и собирателей, оставивших на камнях свои рисунки. Возраст этих изображений не установлен, поэтому для них не может быть пока предложена надежная датировка и четкая хронология. The historical site of the Ghafeleghatar was discovered in 2018 during archaeological survey in the Ardabil province in the northwest of Iran. Totally 50 images including goat, deer, and human figures have been identified and documented in this area. These motifs are represented individually and in compositions placed on black magnetite stones by scratching and striking technique. Most of the images show goat, which is comparable to many specimen from Iran and Azerbaijan. The images illustrate the nomadic and hunting-gathering nature of the designers of these works. The periods of formation of the images are unclear, so that no reliable dating and clear chronology can be suggested based on comparative studies.

The Photogrammetric Survey of the Phoenician and Punic Necropolis of Nora and Three-Dimensional Rendering Tools for Sharing Data

The hypogea of the Punic necropolis of Nora represented a testing ground for the use of photogrammetry as an archaeological survey tool in a highly critical context, both from the point of view of the survey itself and from the point of view of the understanding and dissemination of the underground evidence. The study describes the acquisition techniques and the tools used to share the 3D models, both among the research team and with external users, with a specific focus on web-based tools (Potree).