Category: ancient history

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Science Has Brought a 3,000-Year-Old Mummy’s Voice Back to Life

In the vast pile of cool things offered to us by science, a talking 3,000-year-old mummy has got to come out somewhere near the top.

Laypeople, historians, archaeologists, and scientists alike have all been fascinated with the legacy of Ancient Egypt since we first discovered the remains of their society. Since they were remarkably advanced in many areas, we’ve gotten to know them better than most bygone civilizations – and now, because of the careful way they had of preserving their dead, we can also hear one of their voices.

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#nesyamun

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A team of UK scientists was able to reconstruct the vocal tract of one mummy using CT scans, 3D printing, and an electronic larynx. The project has been going on since 2013, and to make it come to life, experts from the areas of clinical science, archaeology, Egyptology, museum curation, and electrical engineering had to come together for the good of all.

Ok. Here it is:

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(You’ll want your sound on.) A replica of a 3,000-year-old mummy’s vocal tract has revealed how that mummy might sound if he rose from the dead. Using CT scans of the mummified Egyptian priest Nesyamun (his inner coffin lid is shown), researchers mapped the exact shape of the mummy’s vocal tract — which governs the unique sound of a person’s voice. When connected to an artificial voice box, a 3-D printed mold of the mummy’s vocal tract produces a sound somewhere between the vowels in “bed” and “bad,” researchers report. But Nesyamun’s undead utterance doesn’t quite mimic his original voice, because the mummy’s tongue, which affects the shape of the vocal tract, is dried up and flattened out. Rather, “we’ve created the sound that he would make if he was to speak as he currently lies in his sarcophagus,” electronic engineer David Howard says. The plastic mold of the priest’s vocal tract cannot say full words, but using a computer simulation of the vocal tract with a jaw and tongue that move, “we could make him speak,” Howard says. Using inscriptions in the mummy’s tomb and other ancient religious texts, the researchers may someday render vocal recordings of Nesyamun’s own prayers and the daily liturgy that he would have performed in his duties as a priest. . . . (📸: © @leedsmuseumsandgalleries 🔊: D.M. Howard et al/Scientific Reports 2020) . . . #science #mummy #egypt #history #archaeology #ancientegypt #nesyamun #sarcophagus

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The six years of dedication resulted in returning the 3,000-years-gone Nesyamun’s voice to his throat. And yes, right now it’s just a single sound – but rest assured, they are working on more.

The amazing accomplishment was only possible because Nesyamun’s larynx and throat were remarkably well-preserved. This stroke of luck allowed scientists to totally reconstruct his vocal tract, which they then printed using a 3D printer, explained lead author and professor David Howard of the University of London to IFLScience.

“This process allows the sound of his tract as he is in his sarcophagus, which is a sound that his vocal tract can make – so it is his voice.”

That makes it sound a bit creepy, like something that happens at the outset of a horror movie, but it’s also cool.

“When it comes to any thoughts of producing running speech, things are different but there are possibilities. Combining knowledge of phonetics and linguistics with speech science means that we could use it to anticipate typical articulatory gestures that he would have used to change his vocal tract shape and therefore do this in software and create running speech. So that is an idea – there is a load of work to do to get anywhere near this but it is a distinct possibility for the future.”

In a twist of fate (or is it something more?) Nesyamun means “True of Voice” – he was a priest, incense-bearer, and scribe at an ancient temple at Karnak. He died around 1100 B.C.E. and due to his state of preservation, he’s one of the most-studied mummies in Britain’s “Voice of the Past” project.

As a history nerd, but an ancient history nerd first, this is just thrilling, one syllable or more.

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Check out These 5 Ancient Legends Based on Real Events

A lot of kids go through a phase when they’re fascinated by the legends and myths that have wound their way through the centuries. Whether Robin Hood, Arthur and Lancelot, the antics of the gods of old, or creatures like a unicorn or a vampire, it’s fun to imagine that the world might have once been more magical than it is today.

And these 5 legends, which are rooted in reality, suggest that just maybe…it was.

5. Atlantis

Greek philosopher Plato was the first to describe a beautiful, advanced civilization that once disappeared beneath the sea, never to be seen or heard from again – but he was far from the last to re-tell one of the most well-known myths in human history.

Now, many archaeologists think he was describing the collapse of the Minoan empire after a volcanic eruption rocked Thera (modern-day Santorini). The core of the island collapsed in the aftermath, creating a tsunami that flooded the island and left it completely under water, sending it to a grave from which it never arose.

4. The Ape-Men Army of Sri Lanka

Indian Sanskrit epic the Ramayana features a classic kidnapping plot, in which Sita, the wife of god Rama, is stolen away to the Demon Kingdom on Lanka. To rescue her, Rama banded with an army of ape-like men to build a floating bridge between India and Lanka that they used to defeat the demon king, Ravana.

The tale, of course, is just good storytelling, but the bridge still exists – aerial surveys show a 30-mile-long stretch of limestone shoals under the sea that reaches between India and Sri Lanka.

Experts believe it was above the water until a 15th-century cyclone brought a huge storm surge into the channel.

3. Thunderbird and the Whale

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The Thunderbird awaits you.

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Native American lore tells of a benevolent, supernatural being called a Thunderbird, which once swooped over the sea to snatch a killer whale that was stealing resources from the Quileute tribe.

The bird prevailed, dropping the whale on dry land to die with a thud that shook the ground, and many natives died during the battle and ensuing chaos.

Back in the 1980s, geologists discovered that a powerful earthquake occurred in the area in 1700, one that would have been powerful enough to cause a tsunami. It would have hit the coast where the tribe lived, generating the tales to explain the giant shaking of the earth.

As far as the Thunderbird, many scientists believe it’s based on the Aiornis, a prehistoric giant bird that co-existed thousands of years ago with early North America settlers. The bird had a wingspan of up to 16 feet and used to feast on whales washed up on the beaches.

2. The Guest Star

In 1006, people looking at the sky all over the world described seeing a “guest star.” Persian scholar Ibn Sina was particularly intrigued, however, explaining how the star hung in the sky for months, changing color and eventually emitting sparks before fading away.

We now know that Sina was describing a supernova that took place 7200 years ago and whose dying remnants can still be detected by powerful NASA technology.

They believe the color changes he described were due to the merger of two white dwarfs, which astronomers say would create a supernova bursting with color. What Sina did, essentially, was provide details for modern scientists that would otherwise have been lost to time.

1. The Great Flood

There are stories from around the world that join the biblical account of a great flood that covered most of the earth, wiping out almost all of mankind in the process – so most think it makes sense to assume this event took place in our human past in some way, shape, or form.

Geological records show that around 11,500 years ago, glacier meltwater melted into the North Sea, causing the Black Sea to dry up while the Mediterranean Basin refilled with seawater from the Atlantic Ocean. Between them was dry land, but eventually the Mediterranean overflowed into the Black Sea, forcing the barrier between them to all but disappear.

The result would have been a waterfall 200x the volume of Niagara Falls and covering an area double the size of Manhattan in a single day.

That said, the worst flood of the last 10 millennia took place along the Yellow River in China at a date that coincides with ancient texts.

This is the next best thing to actually being a kid again!

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Scientists Just Discovered a New Species of Human

The human family tree just grew another branch! Scientists are calling it Homo luzonensis, and it was discovered in a cave in the Philippines.

Image Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project

A 67,000-year-old thigh bone was discovered in the same system of caves back in 2007, which was unexpected because the island was cut off from the mainland during the last Ice Age. At the time, it was impossible to tell whether the bone came from a Homo sapien who had somehow made their way there, from another known species like Homo florensiensis, or something entirely new.

Now that 12 more fossils from at least three individuals . – two adults and a juvenile – have been found in the same cave, scientists are able to say for sure that they’re from a previously unknown species of early human. The remains share some similarities with Australopithecus aferensis, which died out over 2 million years ago, and others with Homo sapiens and even Homo erectus.

Image Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project

They also have features particular to them alone, such as small molars, that have never been documented before now.

Since stone tools and cut bones had also been found in the cave system, the discovery of human ancestors wasn’t a surprise, says Professor Philip Piper.

“We know hominids have been on Luzon for at least 700,000 years. We don’t know what sort of hominid.”

Because of the difficulty in extracting DNA from remains that have been in tropical environments and the low quantity of bones, we might never know for sure how they got there, whether they evolved from Homo erectus or a different common ancestor, or how they went extinct.

Researchers continue to hope that more digging might bring them more fossils, and that at least some of those questions could be answered.

Until then, welcome to the family, Homo luzonensis. We’re not perfect, but we’ve got great food.

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6 Incredible Ancient Finds Discovered by Workers Expanding the London Underground

The funny thing about people is that we’re kind of lazy. Instead of making entirely new cities out of scratch, we’re just like “Hey, why not just build right on top of this existing city? Way easier, amirite guys?”

As a result, digging around in cities can reveal all kinds of interesting things from the past. That’s what happened during the 2009-2018 expansion of the London Underground. Here are six totally neat things that came out of England’s latest modernization.

#1. A rare Roman medallion

Image Credit: Crossrail

Archaeologists who excavated Crossrail’s Liverpool Street uncovered more than 100 copper Roman coins and a bit of silver currency that ranged from 43 CE to 348 CE.

There was also a rare bronze medallion issued to mark the new year 245 CE. It was presented by Emperor Phillip I to a high-ranking government official and is the only one of its kind to date.

#2. A 55-million-year-old piece of amber

Image Credit: Crossrail

Engineers found the piece of amber from 50 feet below the dock bed beneath Canary Wharf before construction officially began – it’s the oldest amber ever to be found in London.

Don’t worry, no one has reported a mosquito containing dinosaur blood (yet). It did contain bubbles of trapped gasses that could yield new scientific insights about climate change.

#3. Victims of the Black Death

Image Credit: Crossrail Site

Archaeologists unearthed dozens of Black Death-related skeletons beneath London’s Charterhouse Square back in 2013 – the remains indicated that the people died during 14th and 15th century pandemics. Their teeth contained DNA traces of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that caused the bubonic plague, and carbon dating indicated the burial ground had been used from 1348-1350 and again during the 1430s.

Not all of the skeletons were plague victims, however, suggesting the burial ground was for dead in general.

#4. A humorous Victorian chamber pot

Image Credit: Crossrail

When you’re poo-ing in something that has to be dumped manually, a sense of humor seems to be a no-brainer – and this chamber pot found during Stepney Green Station in East London verifies my assumption. It was found in a 19th-century cesspit filled with tobacco pipes and fragments of pots like this chamber pot that contains a cartoon of a grimacing man and the phrase “Oh what I see/I will not tell. …when you in it want to p*ss/remember they who gave you this.”

Ha!

#5. A cluster of Roman skulls

Image Credit: Crossrail

In 2013, workers at the Liverpool Street station site dug up Roman pottery and around 20 Roman skulls. Similar skulls have been found in the area, and some archaeologists suspect they belonged to rebels led by the Iceni warrior-queen Boudicca, who revolted against the Empire during the 1st Century CE.

These skulls, however, appear to date after the uprising, and likely washed out of a Roman cemetery long ago.

#6. An 8,000-year-old tool

Image Credit: Crossrail Site

At North Woolrich, in southeast London, scientists discovered a Mesolithic-era site near the Thames where early humans crafted tools 8500-6000 years ago. There were traces of campfires, flint pieces, and an 8,000-year-old stone tool.

The find is only one of a handful that confirms humans lived in the Thames valley after an Ice Age hiatus.

I’m all for progress if it means finding more delightful things like these!

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300 million years ago…

300 million years ago insects could get really big. Millipedes and centipedes could get larger than humans, dragonflies as big as eagles, beatles the size of a large dog.The leading theory is that ancient bugs got big because they benefited from a surplus of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. And the leading theory on why there […]

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700,000 year old stone tools…

700,000 year old stone tools were found in the Philippines despite the fact that known humans didn’t arrive until 600,000 years later. Researches aren’t sure how humans got there or what early hominid could have even made them. 00

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9+ Facts About Mummies

You a history buff? How about ancient history?

Even if you’re not, you’ll definitely learn a lot from this fact set about mummies.

1. Dinosaur mummy

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2. Mummy Brown

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3. That’s a lot of babies

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4. Climate change

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5. Mummy weed!

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6. My Adidas

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7. Ötzi

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8. Fatty

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9. The process

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10. Pigments

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