Supernovae astrophysics from Middle Age documents

The supernova explosion of 1054 AD, which originated the Crab Nebula and Pulsar, is probably the astronomical event which has been most deeply studied by means of historical sources. However, many mysteries and inconsistencies, both among the different sources and between what is deduced by the historical records and the present day astronomical data, are demanding extraordinary efforts by theoretical astrophysicists in order to put all the data in a meaningful framework. An accurate analysis of the historical sources, like the one we are presenting here, may contribute to solve some of these problems.Comment: in: Proc. of the IAU Symposium no.230, "Populations of High Energy Sources in Galaxies", held in Dublin (Ireland), August 15-19, 2005. Evert J.A. Meurs & G. Fabbiano, eds. (in press

The sky from the high terrace. study on the orientation of the Ziqqurat in Ancient Mesopotamia

The ziqqurat is the symbol of the Mesopotamian sacred architecture in the western thought. This monument, standardized at the end of the III millennium BC by the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, has changed during the history of Mesopotamia its shape and architecture, but remained till the end of the Neo-Babylonian Period in the I millennium BC the highest structure of the city. The ziqqurat is the only monument visible over the settlements wall with a strong visual impact around the urban and the countryside landscape. Despite its simple structural function, a high mud brick platform to sustain an upper temple, the ziqqurat appears in the Mesopotamian art and literature as a structure of primary importance, a connection between the earth, domain of the god Enlil, with the sky, domain of the god Anu. The ideological function to connect the earth and the sky was related also with the rituals performed in the high temples built above these monuments, usually linked with important seasonal royal rituals. The paper will analyze this particular aspect of ziqqurat, looking also to their orientations and to the changing in the relationship between these monuments and the urban landscape through the centuries

Raman identification of cuneiform tablet pigments. Emphasis and colour technology in ancient Mesopotamian mid-third millennium

In the modern age, there is a large number of ways to manage a written text, from bolding or underlining some words with the preferred PC editing software down to animated gifs or emoticons for short edited text of mobile messaging and social posting. The task is to catch the eye and rapidly convey the important message. Besides the almost endless opportunities of high-tech displays, to put emphasis on a text written on a hard support mainly relies on changing the editing style, by applying bold, italic or underline style to selected words or phrases and exploiting the characteristic of human eye to be sensible to the change of brightness into a written text

Jebel al-Mutawwaq: la evolución del estudio de un yacimiento de la Edad de Bronce Antiguo I en la estepa jordana

Jebel Mutawwaq is an exceptional place for the study of Early Bronze I in Middle East. It is a settlement constructed and suddenly left in this particular period (3500 - 3000 BC), without any later reoccupation. The recovered remains are a part of this proto-urban period that in this case it did not manage to consolidate. Its geographical situation, inside the Valley of Zarqa River, places it in a singular environment to other Jordan villages of this period as Jawa or Umm Hammad. The settlement is in addition a dolmens field with more than 1100 monuments located around the same mountain.El yacimiento de Jebel Mutawwaq es un lugar excepcional para el estudio de la Edad del Bronce Antiguo I en el Oriente Próximo. Es un poblado construido y abandonado repentinamente en ese periodo concreto (3500 – 3000 a.c.), sin que se haya reocupado posteriormente. Los restos recuperados forman parte de este periodo protourbano, que en este caso no se llegó a consolidar. Su situación geográfica dentro del valle del río Zarqa, le sitúa en un ambiente singular respecto a otros yacimientos transjordanos de este periodo como Jawa o Umm Hammad. El poblado cuenta además con un campo dolménico de más de 1100 monumentos alrededor de la misma montaña

Preliminary report of the first archaeological campaign at Tell Zurghul / Nigin in the Dhi Qar Region, Iraq

In 2015, the joint Italian expedition of the Università degli Studi di Perugia and Sapienza Università di Roma started the exploration of the site of Tell Zurghul in the province of Dhi Qar, in southern Iraq. Tell Zurghul, a site of nearly 70 hectares, is located about 7 km south-east from Lagash and corresponds to the ancient Sumerian city of Nigin (formerly written as Nina)

Italian archaeological expedition to Nigin, Southern Iraq. New results from recent excavations

Tell Zurghul, the ancient Sumerian Nigin in the ancient State of Lagash, is currently excavated by a joint Italian archaeological expedition of Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Perugia since 2014. The paper presents the results of the most recent excavation campaigns carried out in 2017, covering two areas (A and B). Recent agreements with the Departments of Geology of both Perugia and Rome aimed at the study of the hydrogeological morphology of the site with a special focus on the investigation of the areas once covered by water, i.e. the presence of marshes and canals, as Gudea of Lagash mentions them in his inscriptions. Furthermore, the study also encompasses the analysis of the ancient shape of the city across time, from the Ubaid to the late third/beginning of the second millennium BC

Ancient Lagash. Current Research and Future Trajectories. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016

The State of Lagash was one of the major political powers in the Sumerian world of the 3rd millennium BC, with archaeological attestations at least since the 5th millennium BC. Located in present-day southern Iraq, this State incorporated three main cities: Girsu (Tello), Lagash (Tell al-Hiba), and Nigin (Tell Zurghul). The volume presents the results of studies and excavations carried on in these sites until 2015, providing new data for their historical interpretation. The volume collects contributions to the research at al-Hiba, under the supervision of H. Pittman, a section dedicated to the first archaeological campaign undertaken at the site of Nigin under the direction of D. Nadali and A. Polcaro, and the research on the site of Girsu under the joint direction of S. Rey and F. Husain

Archaeological discoveries in the ancient state of Lagash. Results from the Italian excavations at Tell Zurghul / Nigin in Southern Iraq

The Italian archaeological project at Tell Zurghul is a joint archaeological expedition of Sapienza Università di Roma and the Università degli Studi di Perugia and started working at the site in 2015; three seasons of excavation have been conducted with three operations (Area A, Area B, and Area D) and a survey on the western edge of the site (Area C) (Figure 1). More recently, fieldwork also encompassed the execution of geological soundings in different spots of the site to verify the nature and composition of the sediments, in relation to the presence of water that extensively characterised and affected the ancient and contemporary landscape of the region

Nigin. La città delle acque

Una nuova missione archeologica italiana ha iniziato un programma di ricerche in Bassa Mesopotamia a Tell Surghul nel sito di una delle prime città della storia, sede del santuario della potente Nanshe dea del mondo delle acque.Results of the new Italian Archaeological Expedition to Iraq, Tell Sorghum/Nigi