Penguin mummies dating back thousands of years have been discovered in Antarctica.
An ornithologist from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, Steven Emslie, has studied penguins in Antarctica for over 15 years. Over the years, he’s discovered penguin remains from abandoned penguin colonies, tracing clues about climate changes.
In recent years, Emslie says a warming trend has reached deeper into the continent than before. As the ice has melted, it has exposed a penguin colony dating back thousands of years.
In September 2020, he reported the news that he found ancient naturally mummified penguins. Although they looked as though they might be recently deceased, the penguins date back from 800 to 5,000 years ago.
Despite so many years, the penguin’s feathers remained intact. Flesh remained as if the birds had died recently. Also, stains from the bird’s waste were still apparent on rocks as if no time had passed.
“This particular site is in the Ross Sea in east Antarctica, and it was a very cold dry place compared to other parts of Antarctica so the preservation is even better and there was mummification,” Emslie said.
“What I found at the site were a lot of bones and mummies on the surface. Some of the penguin remains looked pretty fresh, so it seems like there was a mixture of old and fresh remains, and that seems strange to me at this location, which hasn’t had breeding penguins reported there in the history of people going to Antarctica.
So, I started to investigate more, and I realized this was a site that had been exposed just recently by snowmelt that’s occurring there and that these fresh remains were actually ancient but just being re-exposed after being frozen for centuries.”
The Adélie penguins used the nesting grounds for thousands of years. Strewn about the site, countless pebbles are a tell-tale sign. As Adélie penguins nest, they gather pebbles to protect their eggs.
As recently as 100 years ago, nothing was found at the same location by early explorers. Today, after 800 years, the ancient colony is once again visible.
Known as “fast ice” because it “fastens” to the coastline, this sea ice makes it very difficult for penguins to gain access to beaches and prevents them from colonizing places where it occurs.”
Today, sea levels are rising along with temperatures. Fortunately, Adélie penguins alive today are proving adaptable, seeking out new nesting grounds. Now, the scientist believes they will return to their ancestor’s old nesting ground. Finding the wealth of pebbles already in place, they may find the location highly desirable.
“They need pebbles for their nests, so they are going to find all the pebbles that are already on the land at this site very attractive,” he said. “I would not be surprised to see them make this place their home again in the near future,” said Emslie.
In 2018, scientists revealed the discovery of a huge ‘supercolony’ of Adélie penguins in Antarctica. Studying NASA satellite images, they spotted penguin feces in the remote Danger Islands.
Before the discovery, researchers believed the penguin populations were on the decline. Afterward, they counted over 750K pairs of penguins.
See more about the supercolony from TIME below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h7t_i4FBM
Intruders in Earth’s last ‘untouched’ wilderness
As Antarctica warms, there is a surge in tourism in one of the wildest remaining places on Earth. Mostly by cruise ships, there could be more than 78,500 visitors this year, up from 56,000 tourists in the two prior years.
As humans begin to arrive more frequently, scientists fear they will disrupt the fragile, relatively untouched environment. Along with the people, insects and plant seeds could arrive. Thus, isolated penguin colonies and other wildlife will have to rapidly adapt to more than climate change alone.
Antarctica has seen incredible changes over millions of years. Some 250 million years ago, the continent may have been covered with forests and rivers. Instead of penguins, early relatives of the dinosaurs called Antarctica home.
A possible alternative to active debris removal (ADR) by laser is ablative propulsion by a remotely transmitted electron beam (e-beam). The e-beam ablation has been widely used in industries, and it might provide higher overall energy efficiency of an ADR system and a higher momentum-coupling coefficient than laser ablation. However, transmitting an e-beam efficiently through the ionosphere plasma over a long distance (10 m–100 km) and focusing it to enhance its intensity above the ablation threshold of debris materials are new technical challenges that require novel methods of external actions to support the beam transmission.
As quantum computers continue to advance, many of today’s encryption systems face the risk of becoming obsolete. A powerful alternative—quantum cryptography—offers security based on the laws of physics instead of computational difficulty. But to turn quantum communication into a practical technology, researchers need compact and reliable devices that can decode fragile quantum states carried by light.
Using the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have performed the largest direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulence in three dimensions, attaining a record resolution of 35 trillion grid points. Tackling such a complex problem required the exascale (1 billion billion or more calculations per second) capabilities of Frontier, the world’s most powerful supercomputer for open science.
A research team led by Prof. Zhang Tianshu from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a low-stress electro-optic switch based on large-aperture β-barium borate (BBO) slab crystals and integrated it into an Nd:YAG hybrid-cavity Innoslab laser system. Their study, published in Optics Express on January 13, addresses long-standing challenges in high-energy laser systems, particularly those related to switching modulation consistency and operational stability.
Quantum materials and superconductors are difficult enough to understand on their own. Unconventional superconductors, which cannot be explained within the framework of standard theory, take the enigma to an entirely new level. A typical example of unconventional superconductivity is strontium ruthenate, SRO214, the superconductive properties of which were discovered by a research team that included Yoshiteru Maeno, who is currently at the Toyota Riken—Kyoto University Research Center.
A strange alien-looking creature spreading across the world’s oceans is practically immortal. It’s Turritopsis dohrnii, the “immortal jellyfish” that can avoid death when stressed. In a manner that’s similar to a butterfly reverting to a caterpillar, the jellyfish reverts to its coral-like polyp stage. Then, it goes on to become a jellyfish again, bypassing death altogether.
It wasn’t until the 90s that scientists became aware of how amazing this little creature truly is. However, the tiny creature, also called the Benjamin Button jellyfish, is becoming more widely known. Could the immortal jelly reveal clues about fighting cancer or even unlock the secrets of immortality for humans?
Well, such an idea isn’t new at all. The concept dates back thousands of years to one of the earliest recorded works of literature, as we’ll see.
A Coral-Like Key to Immortality Adrift in the Oceans?
Today, many scientists are doubtful the key to immortality can be found in the jellyfish. However, one of the world’s preeminent experts believes otherwise. Shin Kubota, from Japan’s Kyoto University, has high hopes.
“Turritopsis application for human beings is the most wonderful dream of mankind,” Kubota told a New York Times journalist.“Once we determine how the jellyfish rejuvenates itself, we should achieve very great things. My opinion is that we will evolve and become immortal ourselves.”
Kubota is one of the world’s only people to have maintained the jellyfish’s captive population for over 15 years. Although they can avoid death under certain stressful conditions, they are generally hard to maintain artificially, requiring daily feedings.
Another expert, Dr. Maria Pia Miglietta from Texas A&M University, studies the jellyfish. She refers to what she’s learned about Turritopsis’ processes as “the Holy Grail of regenerative medicine.” See her discuss this below in the video from Quartz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpJuqZYFzmw
Unlocking the Powers of Transdifferentiation
The immortal jellyfish can transform its cells through transdifferentiation. Thus, the jelly’s muscle cells can turn into nerve cells, sperm, or egg cells. However, transdifferentiation is not unique to the jellyfish and has been induced experimentally in mice.
What’s more, humans have similar abilities throughout the body in stem cells. In time, as more scientists study Turritopsis dohrnii and stem cells,is it possible humans can discover how to bypass the stem cell stage and unlock their transformational abilities?
Will people one day be able to transform into a more youthful state? It’s possible.
The Secret of Immortality Found in an Ancient Text
Whether humans can attain immortality seems like something from science fiction. However, the idea is ancient, dating back thousands of years before science fiction existed in ancient Babylonian mythology.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, dating back to at least 5,000 years ago, the King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, learns about a secret to immortality. Interestingly, it sounds just like the immortal jellyfish, slowly spreading across the world today in the ballasts of ships.
Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim, and the Quest for Eternal Life
In the Gilgamesh epic, Gilgamesh goes on a quest for eternal life. In that quest, he consults with the great sage Utnapishtim, the only man to survive a great world flood.
Along with his wife, they preserved animal and human life in a great boat, which they built. Yes, it sounds identical to the biblical story of Noah but predates the Bible story.
Time magazine noted the similarities between Gilgamesh and the Bible’s Noah’s Ark in a review of the Noah movie from 2014:
“The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dates back nearly 5,000 years and is thought to be perhaps the oldest written tale on the planet. In it, there is an account of the great sage Utnapishtim, who is warned of an imminent flood to be unleashed by wrathful gods. He builds a vast circular-shaped boat, reinforced with tar and pitch, that carries his relatives, grains, and animals. After enduring days of storms, Utnapishtim, like Noah in Genesis, releases a bird in search of dry land.”
From Time Magazine
Related Read: The Epic Of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, The Flood And A Comparison To the Bible’s Flood
Like Noah, Utnapishtim survives, but then the god Enlil rewards him and his wife with immortality. Thus, they become the ancestors of a new human race.
The Secret at the Bottom of the Sea
Did Utnapishtim, who was granted immortality by the gods, have the secret for immortality? After finally finding the immortal sage, Gilgamesh learns that the secret is at the sea’s bottom.
At first, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that only the gods can grant immortality. Then, he concedes that there may be a way to rejuvenate to a more youthful state. At that point, he tells Gilgamesh about a “plant” found at the bottom of the ocean. This plant could reveal secrets about longer life, if not immortality.
So, Gilgamesh sets out to find the “plant that looks like a box-thorn” sometimes translated to a coral. Then, he manages to lose it – to a snake.
“Gilgamesh obtains the plant by binding stones to his feet to allow him to walk on the bottom of the sea. He plans to use the flower to rejuvenate the old men of the city of Uruk and then to use it himself. Unfortunately, he places the plant on the shore of a lake while he bathes, and it is stolen by a serpent, which loses its old skin and is thus reborn.”
Thus, Gilgamesh must learn to live with his mortality and dies unable to unlock the undersea coral’s secrets.
An Ancient Story Turned Real?
Could one of the world’s oldest stories be talking about the immortal jellyfish? Well, when the jellyfish is injured, it can fall to the bottom of the sea. Then, it turns into a blob and grows into a plant-like polyp.
Indeed, there is a striking similarity between the story of Gilgamesh and the factual reality of the immortal jellyfish.
Perhaps one day, unlike Gilgamesh, scientists might discover the secrets for rejuvenation or a cure for cancer and brain disease, if not immortality? Already, scientists have learned how to reprogram cells in adult mice to make them young stem cells.
Also, scientists have learned that jellyfish could be one of our most distant ancient ancestors in recent years: the root of the Tree of Life.
See more about the Epic of Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim from CrashCourse:
A supervisor and three instructors were charged with involuntary manslaughter tied to physical tactics instruction preceding the death of Trooper Enrique Delgado-Garcia
Knoxville officers responded to the home after receiving a tip that the missing teen was inside; when they entered, the suspect pointed a gun at them and the juvenile attacked them with a knife
On Dec. 13, gunman Claudio Neves Valente entered a Brown academic building and opened fire, killing Ella Cook, 19, and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, 18, and wounding nine others
Video shows the man walking on a sidewalk; as a group of Jersey City Police officers got out of a vehicle and identified themselves, the man immediately fired shots at them
Chile has an incredible rate of UFO sightings, among the highest in the world. Today, some call the country’s coastline “Alien Alley.”
A recent UFO video from Chile is the subject of Ancient Aliens, Season 15, Episode 3, “Destination Chile.” We’ll review the episode and the compelling evidence that connects an ancient petroglyph with a bizarre and remarkable modern UFO sighting.
First, the show delves into the amazing history and geoglyphs in Chile, including the Atacama Desert.
The Atacama Desert, a Landscape with Lifeforms Like Mars?
The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the dryest place on the planet, even though it runs along the west coast of South America. Conditions in the desert have long been compared to the Red Planet, Mars. Thus, NASA has carried out testing in the Atacama, drawing comparisons to probable conditions on Mars.
In 2013, a NASA rover found many microbes living beneath the parched sand in the Chilean desert, traveling by wind. The study results from 2019 determined “that microbial life can efficiently move across the driest, and most UV irradiated desert on Earth.” The authors speculated that similar microbes might spread across the Martian landscape, 140 million miles away.
Could life be similar in Chile and on Mars? Ancient Astronaut theorist David Childress believes there’s much more in common than microbes. Citing geoglyphs similar to those found at Nazca, Peru, Childress notes they are meant to be seen from the air. Although the Nazca lines are famous, there are five times as many geoglyphs in the Atacama Desert.
The Atacama Giant and El Enladrillado
For example, the “Atacama Giant” is a massive alien-looking creature with points extending from its head. Amazingly, the figure stands 30 feet longer than a football field at 390 feet tall. On the ground, it’s nearly invisible but easily spotted from the air. Ancient Astronaut theorists believe they were meant to signal extraterrestrial visitors similar to marks or on a runway.
Today, UFO sightings are more frequent in the area of the Atacama. So much so, that Rodrigo Fuenzalida, Director of Aion Chile, says “…Chile is honestly like a kind of arrival point.”
“There’s a huge wave, a large quantity of UFO sightings. Quite simply, there is not one family in Chile whose member has not had a UFO experience,” Fuenzalida explains.
In San Clemente, Chile, in 2008, a national UFO trail was created that leads to an impressive formation known as El Enladrillado. There, 233 massive megaliths weighing ten tons apiece were erected like a giant platform in ancient times. Author Erich von Däniken believes the remote location could have once served as a spaceport. Today, tourists can visit and see for themselves.
The Selk’nam Tribe and Bizarre Rituals to Sky Gods
In 1919 in Tierra Del Fuego at the southern tip of Chile, a German anthropologist, Martin Gusinde, visited the native tribe called the Selk’nam, also known as the Ona people. Unfortunately, the tribe was wiped out by English explorers.
As radio host Victor Hidalgo points out, some tribe members were taken back to be shown in “human zoos,” and the tribe was subject to genocide.
Before being wiped out, Gusinde published a book about the Selk’nam called, “The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego.” There, you can see the tribal rituals of painting their bodies in bright red with white lines. Their heads are elongated and immediately seem alien.
“These creator gods of the Selk’nam actually descended from the sky and gave knowledge to the local population,” said Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.
In once case, a costume had strange antennae protruding from both sides of the head. Immediately, one thinks of the Atacama Giant, with the peculiar points emanating from the head.
Modern UFO Sightings in Chile
The Selk’nam tribe had a deep belief in otherwordly visitors, and today, it appears visitations may still be taking place. Fuenzalida confirms the area where the tribe once lived is a hotspot for UFO activity today.
On August 17, 1985, in Santiago, Chile, the longest-running variety show on television broadcast reported a UFO moving for 40 minutes along half of Chile’s coastline. The path moved along the Atacama down to Tierra Del Fuego. Today, nobody knows what the object was.
In 1977 in Pampa Lluscuma, Chile, just below the Atacama, a military unit witnessed two shining violet UFOs land. Corporel Armando Valdés recounted disappearing into the light, appearing again to find that five days had passed. His beard had grown, and his watch showed the date from five days in the future. However, his men only witnessed the lapse of a few minutes.
Encounters like this one are one of the hundreds reported over centuries and possibly going back thousands of years. However, unlike in the United States, the Chilean government is openly looking for answers.
Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena
In 1990, Augusto Pinochet stepped down, ushering in reforms that led to more transparent attitudes, including toward UFOs. By 1997, the government created CEFAA, the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena. Pilots were regularly reporting UFOs, some of which came dangerously close to government aircraft.
Hugo Camus, the CEFAA director, explains that the agency takes reports from residents all over Chile. Rather than hide the evidence from the public, the government is committed to transparency. Camus encourages other governments like our own to follow suit.
El Bosque Air Force Base UFO Footage
Thanks to CEFAA, there is more video evidence of UFO phenomena. For example, a video from the El Bosque Air Force Base in Santiago in 2010 showed UFOs zipping by squadrons of fighter jets flying in an acrobatic air-show. The jets were part of a celebration to commemorate a change in Air Force command.
Following analysis of the video, the UFO was estimated to be flying at an astonishing 4,000 mph. CEFAA found the object on seven separate videotape pieces, indicating it was not an aberration in the film.
Infrared Video of Strange UFO Discharging a Plume
On November 11, 2014, near Santiago, Chilean Navy officers testing an infrared FLIR camera aboard a helicopter captured an object flying beside them at 4,500 feet altitude. After tracking it for a few minutes, the craft discharged a plume behind it. Although not visible with the naked eye or radar, the infrared camera caught it all on tape for nine minutes. Then the government released the footage in 2017.
In 2019, Image analyst Michael Bradbury and astrophysicist Travis Taylor sat down to review this UFO footage. After reviewing the footage from 2014, they noticed the object appeared to be two diamond-shaped objects. Bradbury concludes the objects must be large since the footage was filmed from 35 miles away.
Using filters, Bradbury isolates the image to show a heat signature. Taylor notices a circle of cold air around the craft, which baffles him since there is a thin hot layer immediately around the craft.
“This thing – it is hot, and then instantly, it’s cold, and in nature, that’s not how things work,” notes Taylor. “There is a different temperature bubble around the vehicle than there is around normal vehicles, which suggests some type of field,” he concludes. “From a physics standpoint, we can’t really explain what’s causing that,” says Taylor.
Examining the video showing the plume that comes out, the experts note that the plume is hot but not made up of particulates as in normal aircraft.
“I’ve never seen any earthly vehicle that is explained this way. What on Earth could this thing be?” asks Taylor.
Remarkable Similarity to an Ancient Geoglyph in the Same Area
After concluding the footage does seem to show a vehicle with otherworldly features, Bradbury shows Taylor something compelling. It’s a photo of a Chilean geoglyph that bears a striking resemblance to the UFO footage.
The geoglyph shows two diamond-shaped objects with a plume-like object dissected by a line. However, the geoglyph is of undetermined age and could be hundreds or even thousands of years old.
“That’s really exciting,” says Taylor. “That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“It is truly amazing,” Bradbury concurs.
“These are the cases where I think there really is something to the Ancient Astronaut theory,” says Taylor.
“I agree too,” says Bradbury.
Thus, we have a modern UFO which closely resembles what ancient people depicted long ago. However, it remains a total mystery how they could have seen such a craft as we only see it through infrared technology. How is this possible? Did humans create the geoglyph, or was it made or instructed by extraterrestrials? Decide for yourself.
The world of UFOs or UAPs (whatever you care to call them) continues to gain more credibility in the mainstream. And, two recent articles from the New York Times are once again pushing the boundaries.
Now, we’re going from acknowledging unidentified aerial phenomena are real to suggesting the government knows about specific “off-world” vehicle crash debris.
One Timesreport is entitled, “No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s UFO. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public.” The report created a big stir by confirming the over a decade-long study of UAPs in a program within the Office of Naval Intelligence.
UFO Findings to Be Made Public?
A Senate committee report revealed spending for the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force. Excitingly, some of the findings are to be made public 180 days after passage of the intelligence authorization act.
Before this report, the Pentagon had claimed they disbanded efforts to study unidentified flying objects. Today, the Pentagon refuses to discuss the program since it deals with classified material. However, we are now certain the government continues to study the phenomena, with a focus on discovering if other nations have leapfrogged our aviation technologies.
Senator Marco Rubio revealed that he wanted to know about potential security risks posed by objects flying over military bases. Rubio confirmed he’d seen reports on unidentified aerial phenomena for “the better part of a decade.” Interestingly, he claims to want to make any information learned public “as much as possible.”
“I would say that frankly if it’s something outside this planet, that might actually be better than the fact that we’ve seen some technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians or some other adversary,” said Senator Rubio.
The Times article also mentions former Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, who recently spoke to famous investigative journalist George Knapp for 8News Las Vegas.
In the July interview, Reid says nobody knows the origin of UFOs. However, Reid was quoted in the Times as saying he’s seen “substantive” reports of “actual materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession.”
The Times also quotes astrophysicist Eric W. Davis, a consultant for the once-secret program that Reid initiated in Las Vegas. The Times first disclosed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’s (AATIP) existence in 2017, which started in 2007.
Davis claims he briefed the Pentagon and Congress as recently as March about “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”
After the Times article was published, Reid tweeted that he never suggested the government has “flying objects or debris from other worlds.” Then, the Times added a correction on July 24 that states:
“Mr. Reid said he believed that crashes of objects of unknown origin may have occurred and that retrieved materials should be studied; he did not say that crashes had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades,” states the Times.
Although Reid does not believe that UFOs necessarily point to extraterrestrials, he attempted to learn more by starting another program in 2009. That effort intended to interact with other secret programs to find out if rumors of UFO materials held by corporations were true. However, he explains the program wasn’t approved.
“Now, I wanted to make sure that that was valid or not valid. The Defense Department wouldn’t approve it,” Reid told Knapp.
“What do you think of that,” responded Knapp. “Do you think somebody’s got pieces or a craft?”
“But I don’t know, George,” said Reid. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to put this to sleep unless there’s something to it that I don’t understand,” he continued.
See Reid speak to Knapp below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x81QwIOXpAI
‘Need to Know’ Crash Information?
A more recent Times report from the same team of journalists that disclosed AATIP in 2017 delved further into the possibility the government might possess UFO crash material. Although any public evidence remains unknown, the report states the words “off-world” and “and materials retrieved from crashes” are used to describe phenomena in unclassified slides used in briefings.
“Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high-security clearances and decades of involvement with official UFO investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.”
The game of chess has been around for a very long time, both fascinating and frustrating players of every age for 1,500 years. Now, one of the oldest chess pieces in history may have been found by archaeologists in the Middle East.
Chess can trace its origins to India in the 6th century around 500 AD when it was commonly known as chaturaṅga during the Gupta Empire, considered by historians to have been the Golden Age of India.
From there, the game was taken westward by traders along the Silk Road, reaching the Middle East and then Europe where the rules would evolve over time and the name would change until the word “chess” was derived from the Persian word “shah” or king.
Up until now, the oldest chess pieces in the world were ivory pieces that had been excavated in Uzbekistan dating back to around 760 AD.
But University of Victoria-British Columbia archaeologist John Oleson believes a find made in 1991 at a site in Jordan should have the title of the oldest chess piece in the world.
The single sandstone piece looks exactly like an ancient rook in the same style in which they would have been carved based on rooks dating back to later centuries.
“A small sandstone object found in an Early Islamic context at Humayma (southern Jordan) in 1991 appears to be the earliest known archaeologically documented chess piece,” Oleson wrote in an abstract presentation of the piece to the American Schools of Oriental Research. “Although the shape, rectangular in section with splayed, horn-like projections at the top, resembles a Nabataean altar or betyl, parallels with Early Islamic chess pieces are far more convincing.”
The rook piece found in 1991 at Humayma in Jordan, which dates back to the 7th century and could be the world’s oldest chess piece. Image via YouTube.
Indeed, surviving Early Islamic chess pieces share the same two horns at the top and served as rooks, which is also derived from a Persian word. Early Rooks represented chariots instead of castles like they do today, which makes a little more sense if you think of a chessboard as a battlefield.
“The object appears to be a “rook” (or “castle”) and has the typical abstract form for this playing piece favored in the Islamic world,” Oleson continued. “There are references to chess-playing in Islamic texts as early as A.H. 23/A.D. 643, and the game was popular throughout the Islamic world by the end of the Umayyad caliphate.”
12th-century chess set from the Middle East featuring horned rooks. Image via the Met Museum.
One of the largest empires in history, the Umayyad caliphate was the second of four caliphates established after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Based in Damascus, Syria, the caliphate would usher in the Golden Age of Islam and became a center of science and philosophy, making it obvious as to why chess could so easily flourish in the region at the time.
Humayma is the modern name of the ancient trading post known as Hawara that had been founded in the 1st century by the Nabataean king Aretas III. A popular and strategic trading post, the city boasts Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic influences that can still be seen today, including Roman baths, several Byzantine churches and an Islamic palace from the Umayyad period.
We know that chess was widely played by those of different cultural, religious and economic statuses. And in a trading post like Humayma, that means Christians and Muslims likely played chess together, as did the rich and poor and people who came from different regions. It’s like how sports bring people together today despite our differences.
The ruins of the ancient trading post of Humayma in Jordan, where the chess piece was found in 1991. Image via Wikimedia.
“Several later abstract “rooks” from Jordan and elsewhere in the Near East, carved in stone, wood, or ivory, are nearly identical to the Humayma object in design and scale,” Oleson wrote. “Since the Humayma object was found in a seventh-century context, if the identification as a chess piece is correct, it would be the earliest known physical example for the simplified, abstract design, and possibly the earliest known example of a chess piece altogether.”
A 12th-century chess set from the Middle East, for example, include rooks carved in the same shape. While rooks of that time represented chariots, there was also a king represented by a throne, a vizier in the queen position represented by a smaller throne, a bishop represented by an elephant, a knight represented by a horse and pawns represented by multi-faceted hemispheres with knobs. Of course, the makeup of chess sets varied, so pieces came in many shapes, sizes, and representations.
For instance, a 12th-century Norwegian chess set featured several intricately detailed pieces known as the Lewis Chessman, a complete medieval chess set carved out of walrus ivory and found in Scotland in 1831.
Lewis Chessman dating back to the 12th century displayed at the British Museum. Image via Wikimedia.
Queen’s Chess
By the 10th century, the queen would replace the vizier piece and would become the most powerful piece on the board by the 15th century, giving rise to the term “Queen’s Chess” to describe the game.
Oleson speculates that chess had made its way to the trading post by way of merchants and diplomats.
“Since the game probably was carried westward from India by the movement of merchants and diplomats, it is no surprise that early evidence for it should be found at a site on the busy Via Nova Traiana,” he noted. “While resident at Humayma, the Abbasid family had kept itself abreast of events in Syria and Iraq along this same route.”
The Via Nova Traiana was an ancient road built by the Romans, starting during the reign of Emperor Trajan and being completed under Emperor Hadrian, who also commissioned the building of Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom.
The Abbasid family Oleson speaks of is the Abbasid Caliphate, the third of the Islamic caliphates that ruled the region after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate. They would rule the empire politically until around the mid-1200s and would be able to claim religious authority until the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517.
By then, chess was well established.
If further analysis proves that this piece is a rook dating back to the 7th century, it would be the oldest chess piece in the world. And seeing as how Oleson currently stores the piece in his basement, he should strongly consider moving it to a more secure place because a Lewis Chessmen piece recently sold for over $700,000. An older piece could draw a similar amount or higher. Nevertheless, this is an extraordinary piece that helps tell the story of chess and, frankly, it belongs in a museum where all chess enthusiasts can enjoy it.
“The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office commends the coordinated efforts of all responding agencies whose quick actions and teamwork resulted in a successful rescue,” the agency stated
