Hacker News with Generative AI: Ancient Civilizations

The Truth about Atlantis (2019) (talesoftimesforgotten.com)
If you are like most Americans, chances are, you probably believe that Atlantis or another civilization like it once existed.

History, Ancient Civilizations, Atlantis

87 points by gostsamo 4 days ago | 137 comments

The Indian explorer who uncovered an ancient civilisation (bbc.com)
An Indian archaeologist, whose career was marked by brilliance and controversy, made one of the world's greatest historical discoveries. Yet he remains largely forgotten today.

History, Archaeology, India, Ancient Civilizations

8 points by ViktorRay 6 days ago | 0 comments

A Remarkable Newly Deciphered Hittite Tablet Sheds New Light on the Trojan War (anatolianarchaeology.net)
The Hittites, creators of invaluable written records from the Anatolian Bronze Age, have gifted us thousands of cuneiform tablets unearthed at sites like their capital, Hattusa (modern Boğazköy, Çorum).

Archaeology, History, Ancient Civilizations, Trojan War

34 points by bookofjoe 14 days ago | 10 comments

Digital cuneiforms: Updated tool expands access to ancient Hittite texts (phys.org)
From cuneiform to code: section of a Hittite cuneiform text found in Boğazköy-Hattuša in 2024 (photo and XML text). Credit: Daniel Schwemer, University of Wuerzburg

History, Linguistics, Technology, Ancient Civilizations

36 points by ardanarac 30 days ago | 18 comments

The Mystery of the Oldest Writing System Remained Unsolved Until 1856 (smithsonianmag.com)
On a late-summer day in 1856, a letter carrier stepped from a mail coach in front of a three-story townhouse in Mayfair, in central London. Crossing the threshold, the courier handed a wax-sealed envelope to a clerk. The missive was addressed to Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, one of Europe’s leading research institutions.

History, Archaeology, Writing Systems, Ancient Civilizations

80 points by wyclif 34 days ago | 6 comments

The Race to Decipher Cuneiform in the 19th Century (smithsonianmag.com)
On a late-summer day in 1856, a letter carrier stepped from a mail coach in front of a three-story townhouse in Mayfair, in central London. Crossing the threshold, the courier handed a wax-sealed envelope to a clerk. The missive was addressed to Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, one of Europe’s leading research institutions.

History, Archaeology, Language, Ancient Civilizations

38 points by Petiver 37 days ago | 2 comments

Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Clay Puppets with Open Mouths, Detachable Heads (smithsonianmag.com)
Researchers have discovered a trove of ancient clay puppets at an archaeological site in El Salvador.

Archaeology, History, Ancient Civilizations, El Salvador

4 points by pseudolus 49 days ago | 0 comments

Pied Beauty: Wari Tie-Dye Textiles (Ca. 425–1100) (publicdomainreview.org)
When the lords of the Inca were forced to send tribute to the Spanish, they made their payments, in part, in panes de grana — “cakes” or “loaves” of the cactus-eating cochineal beetle (magno or macnu in Quechua), which when pulverized and mixed with mordant produces a blood-red pigment whose intensity was unrivaled by anything previously known to Europeans.

History, Art, Textiles, Ancient Civilizations, South America

12 points by prismatic 74 days ago | 0 comments

Pyramid structure discovered near Caral Peru (omniletters.com)
A team of archaeologists has made a significant discovery at the Chupacigarro settlement, located just one kilometer from the sacred city of Caral in the Supe Valley, Lima region.

Archaeology, Peru, History, Ancient Civilizations

69 points by namanyayg 84 days ago | 27 comments

Engineered waterways helped Ancient Amazonians became master maize farmers (sciencenews.org)
Water engineers in ancient South America turned seasonally flooded Amazonian savannas into hotbeds of year-round maize farming.

Agriculture, History, Archaeology, South America, Ancient Civilizations

60 points by andsoitis 86 days ago | 9 comments

$1M prize offered to decipher 5,300-year-old Indus Valley script (archaeologymag.com)
The government of Tamil Nadu has offered a $1-million reward for anyone who can decode the cryptic script of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), one of the world’s oldest urban cultures.

Archaeology, History, India, Ancient Civilizations, Prizes

30 points by bookofjoe 86 days ago | 1 comments

Archaeologists just mapped a Bronze Age megafortress in Georgia (arstechnica.com)
A sprawling 3,500-year-old fortress offers tantalizing clues about a culture that once dotted the southern Caucasus mountains with similar walled communities.

Archaeology, History, Georgia, Ancient Civilizations, Bronze Age

4 points by thunderbong 107 days ago | 0 comments

Did OpenAI's O1 Decipher the Indus Valley Script? (yashgoenka.com)
A few weeks ago, I had a fascinating conversation with OpenAI's O1 model about decoding the Indus Valley script - one of the world's oldest and still undeciphered writing systems.

Artificial Intelligence, History, Linguistics, Ancient Civilizations

7 points by yashvg 109 days ago | 3 comments

A Visual Guide to the Aztec Pantheon (2022) (pudding.cool)
South American and Mesoamerican civilizations have fascinated me since childhood, when I would watch The Mysterious Cities of Gold.

Art, History, Ancient Civilizations, Mesoamerica

20 points by cromulent 143 days ago | 2 comments

'Maya blue': The mystery dye recreated two centuries after it was lost (aljazeera.com)
A ceramicist in Mexico retraces his Maya roots to recreate a long-lost pre-Hispanic pigment for the first time in more than two centuries.

Art, History, Mexico, Color, Ancient Civilizations

5 points by mooreds 145 days ago | 1 comments

Hundreds More Nazca Lines Emerge in Peru's Desert (nytimes.com)
With drones and A.I., researchers managed to double the number of mysterious geoglyphs in a matter of months.

Archaeology, Peru, History, Ancient Civilizations, Technology

33 points by morninj 153 days ago | 22 comments

Psychoacoustic and archeoacoustic nature of ancient Aztec skull whistles (nature.com)
Archaeologists have discovered numerous ceramic or clay whistles at Aztec sites, dubbed "death whistles" because of their distinctive skull shapes.

Archaeology, History, Mexico, Sound, Ancient Civilizations

62 points by tosh 155 days ago | 33 comments

Over 300 New 'Nazca Lines' Geoglyphs Have Been Revealed by AI (thedebrief.org)

AI, Archaeology, Peru, History, Ancient Civilizations

91 points by thunderbong 212 days ago | 32 comments

Temple and theater 3,500 years older than Machu Picchu discovered in Peru (cnn.com)

Archaeology, History, Peru, Ancient Civilizations

64 points by begueradj 287 days ago | 2 comments

The lifespans of ancient civilisations (2019) (bbc.com)

History, Archaeology, Ancient Civilizations, Sociology

17 points by doener 303 days ago | 2 comments

Yupana: The Fibonacci number grid-based calculator of the Incas (2019) (mathematicsmagazine.com)

Mathematics, History, Ancient Civilizations, Fibonacci Sequence

41 points by zdw 308 days ago | 25 comments