From dmeadows@idirect.com Sun Dec 30 03:58:11 2001 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.6+UW01.08/8.11.6+UW01.10) with SMTP id fBUBvmn161170 for ; Sun, 30 Dec 2001 03:57:48 -0800 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Sun Dec 30 03:57:45 2001 -0800 Received: from ares.idirect.com (ares.idirect.com [207.136.80.180]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW01.12) with ESMTP id fBUBviVK022908 for ; Sun, 30 Dec 2001 03:57:44 -0800 Received: from raoul.idirect.com (on-ham-a53-01-51.look.ca [216.154.51.51]) by ares.idirect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA03930 for ; Sun, 30 Dec 2001 06:57:42 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20011230064015.02143160@idirect.com> X-Sender: dmeadows@idirect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 06:40:38 -0500 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Meadows Subject: Re: Archaeologists rewrite timeline of Bronze and Iron Ages, including early appearance of alphabet ... In-Reply-To: <01e701c18f09$2aa94ae0$337b389c@slreview> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks ... but that one was in last week's Explorator! regards and happy new year! dm At 01:33 PM 27/12/2001 -0500, you wrote: >http://www.n= ews.cornell.edu/releases/Dec01/Carbon-14.bpf.html > >Archaeologists rewrite timeline of Bronze and Iron Ages, >including early appearance of alphabet > >FOR RELEASE: Dec. 19, 2001 > >Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr. >Office: 607-255-3290 >E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu > >ITHACA, N.Y. -- Using information gleaned from the >sun's solar cycles and tree rings, archaeologists are >rewriting the timeline of the Bronze and Iron Ages. >The research dates certain artifacts of the ancient >eastern Mediterranean decades earlier than previously >thought. And it places an early appearance of the >alphabet outside Phoenicia at around 740 B.C. > >Writing in two articles in the forthcoming issue of the >journal Science (Dec. 21), archaeologists from Cornell >University and the University of Reading (England) and >a physicist from Ruprecht-Karls-Universit=E4t Heidelberg >(Germany) have given a new kind of precision to the >timeline of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Aegean >and the Near East. > >"Establishing this chronology means that the objects -- >metalwork, furniture, woven textiles, and an alphabetic >inscription found in a tomb in central Turkey -- were >older than previously thought by some 22 years," said >Peter I. Kuniholm, Cornell professor of art history and >archaeology. > >Among the artifacts found in the Midas Mound Tumulus >at Gordion, the capital of ancient Phrygia, a site west >of Ankara, Turkey, is a shallow, bronze bowl with a patch >of beeswax on the rim carrying an alphabetical inscription. >The inscription is a precursor to -- or contemporary with >-- the earliest attested occurrences of the Greek alphabet. >In addition to letter forms known from ancient Greek, there >is a vertical arrow, known also from Etruscan inscriptions. > >With the new chronology, the bowl now is independently >dated circa 740 B.C., making its inscription as old as the >oldest known artifacts on which the Greek alphabet appears: >an oinochoe (a wine pitcher) from the Dipylon cemetery in >Athens and a cup from Pithekoussai (now Ischia) in the Bay >of Naples. The estimated dates of these pots previously had >provided archaeologists with only an approximate date for >these early alphabetic inscriptions. "The alphabet, which >originated in Phoenicia at a time that is still disputed, was >moving west at a rapid pace, traditionally thought to be by >sea but now clearly by land as well. That's what this chronology >shows: The alphabet was really catching on," says Kuniholm. >Scholars believe that the birthplace of all Western alphabets, >including the Greek and Roman, was Phoenicia (present-day >Lebanon, Israel and Palestine). The oldest known Phoenician >inscription was found in the Ahiram epitaph at Byblos, Lebanon, >dating from about the 11th century B.C. Scholars think the >alphabet was spread throughout the Mediterranean by traders >who found the new shorthand an improvement over the syllabic >scripts such as Linear B and cuneiform Hittite. > >Kuniholm and his colleagues are using the science of both >carbon dating and dendrochronology, dating through tree >rings, to calibrate history. Their latest research involved >carbon-14 analysis on 10-year slices -- that is rings covering >10 years of growth -- on wood from pine trees from the >Catacik Forest in Turkey and from oak trees in Germany. By >currently accepted models, the carbon-14 concentrations should >have been identical in both the pine and the oak. And while the >scientists discovered that this was true in general, they were >surprised to find that for certain key periods, the Turkish pine >appeared to be older than the German oak by as much as 17 >years. "Those pieces of wood are the same tree-ring age, and >they should have the same radiocarbon age, but they don't," >says Kuniholm. > >What happened, Kuniholm believes, is that the Turkish pine, >growing in a warmer climate and at a lower latitude, absorbed >less carbon-14 during documented periods of so-called solar >minima -- prolonged cooling periods in the Northern Hemisphere, >such as those in the eighth and ninth centuries B.C. and in the >15th and 16th centuries A.D. The German oak, which starts its >growing season later in the spring than does the Turkish pine, >absorbed measurably more amounts of carbon-14 during such >cooling periods. "The trees are like a tape recorder of the >radioactivity of the cosmos," Kuniholm said, "but they record >only when they are growing." > >Carbon-14, an isotope of the element carbon, is produced >in the Earth's lower stratosphere by the collision of neutrons, >produced by cosmic rays, with nitrogen. (An isotope is made >up of atoms of the same element but with different numbers >of neutrons.) During periods of high solar activity, the solar >wind prevents charged particles from entering the atmosphere >-- thus producing little carbon-14. However, carbon-14 >production peaks during the solar minima, and it enters the >Earth's troposphere as carbon dioxide-14 during the late >spring in the Northern Hemisphere. By the following spring, >the higher concentration of carbon in the troposphere is >diluted. Thus, German oak, which grows late in the spring >and summer, absorbs less carbon dioxide-14 than Turkish >pine or juniper, which grows from the early spring to summer. >"This is the first time scientists have been able to note a >regional difference in tree rings of the same dendrochronological >age," says Kuniholm. "Sadly, now, with all the carbon in our >atmosphere, with the pollution we have from our cars and >factories and energy facilities, the trees have all but given >up providing many of these valuable signals." > >Kuniholm's co-authors on the Science papers were Sturt >Manning of the University of Reading, Bernd Kromer of >Ruprecht-Karls-Universit=E4t Heidelberg, and Maryanne >Newton, Cornell doctoral candidate. Research collaborators >also include Marco Spurk, Universit=E4t Hohenheim, Stuttgart, >Germany, and Ingeborg Levin, Universit=E4t Heidelberg, Germany. >The concurrent Science articles are titled, "Regional Radioactive >Carbon Dioxide Offsets in the Troposphere: Magnitude, >Mechanisms and Consequences" and "Anatolian Tree Rings >and a New Chronology for the East Mediterranean Bronze-Iron >Ages." > >The research was funded by the Institute for Aegean >Prehistory, the National Science Foundation, the Malcolm >H. Wiener Foundation, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences >and Germany's Federal Ministry of Educational Research. > >Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites provide >additional information on this news release. Some might not >be part of the Cornell University community, and Cornell has >no control over their content or availability. > >o Aegean Dendrochronology Project: >http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro > >o A companion opinion piece in Science >by Paula Reimer, Livermore Laboratories: > >http://www.calib.org/paula >___ . > >mata kimasitayo >kimasita@bloomington.in.us > >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ > non ridere, non lugere, > neque detestari, sed intelligere. > -- b. spinoza > (tractatus politicus, cap. I, par. 4) >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ > > > > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D David Meadows Libertas inaestimabilis res est. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D .