VIJAYANAGAR (India): capital of one of the largest Hindu empires

Vijayanagar, the capital of one of the largest Hindu empires ever, was founded by Sangama dynasty princes Harihara and Bukka in 1336. Its power peaked under Krishnadevaraya (1509-29), when it controlled nearly the whole of the peninsula south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers. Comparable to Delhi in the 14th century, the city, with an estimated population of half a million, covered 33 sq km and was surrounded by several concentric lines of fortification. Its wealth derived from the control of spice trade and the cotton industry. Its busy bazaars, described by travelers such as Portuguese Nunez and Paes, were centers of international commerce.

The empire collapsed after the battle of Talikota in 1565 when the city was ransacked by the confederacy of Deccan sultans (Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar and Berar), thus opening up southern India for Muslim conquest
The ruins are set in a strange and beautiful boulder strewn landscape with an almost magical quality. The undisputed highlight, the 16th century Vittala Temple, is a World Heritage Monument. Started by Krishnadevaraya, it was never finished or consecrated; its incredible sculptural work is the pinnacle of Vijayanagar art. The outer pillars are known as musical pillars as they reverberate when tapped. An ornate stone chariot in the temple courtyard containing an image of Garuda.

Chronology of Ancient Nubia

Abbreviations: BP Before the Present, very rough dates.

BCE Before the Common Era, former Before Christ (BC)

CE Common Era former Anno Domini (AD)

3-1.5 Million BP Australopithecus africanus and Homo habilis fossils found in neighboring Ethiopia, Kenya, and Chad. Thus it is most likely they ranged in the Sudanese savanna in Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene periods.

750,000 BP Homo erectus established in Africa and Asia in later Pleistocene.

250,000-100,000 BP Lower Paleolithic (Chellean tradition), especially at Khor Abu Anga (near Omdurman); bifacial handaxes, few flake tools

100-50,000 BP Homo sapiens neandertalensis (Late Pleistocene Acheulian tradition) established in Africa.

50,000 BP Homo sapiens sapiens (“Bushman”) in Nile valley

50-30,000 BP Middle Paleolithic, Mousterian industries, denticulate tools, flaking techniques

30-10,000 BP Sahara still has extensive grasslands.

20,000 BP Some semi-sedentary populations established on Nile and nomadic groups in adjoining savanna.

30-9,000 BP Upper Paleolithic Era in the Sudan; Levallois tradition gradually transforms toMesolithic. Advanced hunting and collecting of Stillbay culture represented by the Singa skull from the Blue Nile. This is the oldest hominid fossil presently known for Sudan.

8,000 BP Very late Upper Paleolithic; Sebilian III tool types. Domestic cattle in Nile valley.

7000-4500 BCE Mesolithic to Early Neolithic Period, gradual expansion of microliths, arrow heads, harpoon heads, and pebble tools for these hunting and fishing peoples. Perhaps there is some increase of settled population sites in the “Khartoum Mesolithic”. Contemporary Abkan, Qadan, Kulb, and Dakki sites are known in Lower Nubia with rock drawings of wild animals, also at the Shaqadud site in Butana. All have traditions of decorated, but unpolished wavy-line pottery. This is one of the oldest pottery types in Africa and can be linked to Saharan populations as far as the Fayum and Tibesti plateau. Wetter climate and much higher Nile floods.

4500-3500 BCE Early to Middle Neolithic, as in Kadero, Kadada, and Esh-Shaheinab sites, pastoralism; domestic of the pygmy goat, some riverine agriculture, shell beads, groovers, flakes, borers, oared boats; elaboration of the "wavy-line" pottery with impressed dots and zig-zags. Bone for hooks and harpoons. Black and red polished bowls. Improved hunting of megafauna. Ancestors of Beja peoples established in Red Sea Hills.

3250 BCE Late Neolithic. "Classic" A-horizon, Batn al Hajr, Buhen and Afyeh sites, contemporary with Badarian and Nagadan peoples in Pre-dynastic Egypt. Characteristic black and red polished “egg-shell” and ovoid pottery sometimes with a ripple finish, sometimes painted. Cultural and economic contact with predynastic Egypt, especially in Lower Nubia.



DYNASTIC TIMES IN NUBIA AND EGYPT

3100 BCE Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Pharaoh Menes and the dynastic order of the Old Kingdom. The conquest inscription of Pharaoh Djer at Sheikh Suliman in Nubia. Egyptian occupation and raiding against the Ta-Seti in Sudanese Nubia; border fort at Buhen. Hieroglyphics and huge pyramids introduced.

3070 BCE "Terminal" A-Horizon in lower Nubia. Copper reaches Nubia

2700 BCE Senefru (Dyn. IV) seizes 200,000 cattle and 7,000 slaves in raids on Nubia, thus beginning a period of hostile Egypto-Nubian relations.
2700-2100 BCE Period of supposed B-Group in Nubia, which is likely a decadent A-Group. Old Kingdom and First Intermediate trade expeditions to Wawat, Irtet, Setjiu and Yam in Nubia.
2500 BCE Atbai pottery tradition in Gash/Kassala area.
2500-2100 BCE Rise of C-Horizon and relative decline of Egyptian influence in the Sudan during Egypt's First Intermediate Period. Characteristic shiny black pottery with geometric designs. Fame for cattle rearing. Early small states in Nubia such as Zetjau, Medjay, Irtet, and Yam. C-Horizon sites at Amada, Aniba, and Debeiri.


RISE OF KERMA

2250-2050 BCE Rise of Kerma before First Intermediate Period in Egypt (Dynasties VII-X).

2050-1795 BCE Reunification of Egypt by Pharaoh Mentuhotep II; start of the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI-XII); major forts and temples at Faras, Aksha, Semna, and Buhen. Resumption of Egyptian attacks against Nubia

1900-1575 BCE Further expansion of Kerma Culture during Egypt's Middle Kingdom; beaker pottery with red polish; huge tumulus burials for Kerma kings with sacrificial burials; massive brick 'defuffa' buildings.

1887-1850 BCE Pharaoh Sesostris III has extensive raiding, trading and fort network in Nubia.

1786-1567 BCE Second Intermediate Period in Egypt (Dynasties XIII-XVII; Hyksos (Asian Semites) invade Egypt; horses and bronze swords introduced; Return of Nubian autonomy; Hyksos seek Nubian allies against Egyptian Kamose's effort to reunify the Nile. Lower Egyptian royalty flee to Nubia. End of the "First Empire" state of Kush.Introduction of the horse and war chariots to the Nile valley.



COLONIZATION OF NUBIA BY NEW KINGDOM EGYPTIANS

1570-1090 BCE Kerma is destroyed by Egyptian New Kingdom Pharaohs who rule the northern Sudan reaching the 4th cataract; Numerous forts, temples and towns built. Shaduf (keeyay) water-bucket irrigation technology introduced. The "Viceroy of Kush" becomes an established position that governs Lower Nubia (Wawat) and Upper Nubia (Kush)

1570-1546 BCE Reign of Ahmose I in Egypt; Nubian campaigns and the appointment of an Egyptian as the "Viceroy of Kush".

1546-1526 BCE Reign of Amenhotep I; Thuwre appointed Viceroy of Wawat and Kush

1530 BCE War against Kush by Pharaoh Thutmosis I; goal to seize gold, livestock, and slave soldiers

1515-1484 BCE Reign of Queen Hatshepsut who builds temples in Nubia and conducts one raid.

1490-1436 BCE Pharaoh Thutmosis III has repeated military expeditions against Nubia past the 3rd cataract; Major temple erected at Semna. Principle goals: slaves, gold, cattle, and ivory

1410 BCE Joshua at the battle of Jericho

1403-1365 BCE Reign of Amenhotep III; builder of temple at Solb

1375 BCE Nubian revolt against Amenhotep III

1361-1352 BCE Reign of Tutankhamun; Huy appointed Viceroy of Kush; Huy responsible gold production and tribute from Wawat and Kush.

1298-1232 BCE Reign of Ramses II; manorial occupation of northern Sudan up to the 4th cataract. Temples at Abu Simbel, Amara West, and Aksha. Setau appointed Viceroy of Kush.

1287 BCE Nubian revolt against Egypt.

1069-715 BC Third Intermediate Period in Egypt. (Dynasties XXI-XXIV), rival dynasties in EgyptTanite (XXI dynasty, 1069-945 BC) established in Delta; later replaced by another dynasty at Bubastis. Herihor serves as Viceroy of Kush under Ramses XI. As Dynasty XX closes Herihor (ca. 1060 BC) becomes High Priest of Amun and his son Piankhi becomes the Viceroy of Nubia.

1000-960 BCE Reign of King David of Israel

1000-750 BCE Period of Phoenician trading prosperity

970 BCE Salvage of royal Egyptian mummies to secret cache at Deir al Bahri.

960-931 BCE Reign of King Solomon of Israel



KINGDOM OF KUSH EMERGES AT NAPATA

ca. 950 BCE Kushites under Aserkhamen (?) start attacks on Egypt in attempt to expand northward.

945-715 BCE Reign of Dynasty XXII; Delta rivalries

ca. 850 BCE Napatan kings and queens begin burials at Kurru.

825-730 BCE Age of Euboean Expansion and Regional Colonization

818-715 BCE Reign of Dynasty XXIII; Delta rivalries

ca. 800 BCE Kush expands northward with a weak and divided Egypt, Piankhy claims Thebes as province of Kush. Projected as a man of honor, a horse-fancier, and a "deliverer" from disunity, he responds to the pleas from Delta princes to reunify the Nile and defeat Osorkon IV of Dyn. XXII.

790-760 BCE Reign of Kushite Pharaoh Alara, probable founder of Dynasty XXV, starting the "Late Period in Egypt and the reunification of the Nile valley.

765 BCE Piankhy completes conquest of Egypt.



KUSHITE RULE OF ALL OF EGYPT AS DYNASTY XXV

760-656 BCE Reunification of Egypt under the Kushitic "Ethiopian" Dynasty XXV.

760-747 BCE Reign of Kushite Pharaoh Kashta. Kashta drove Osorkon IV (Dyn. XXII) back into the Egyptian Delta. Kashta was buried at Kurru not Thebes

750-700 BCE Phoenician alphabet arrives in Greece.

747-716 BCE Reign of Pharaoh Piankhy , son of Kashta. Piankhy controls all of Egypt and uses siege tactics against the Assyrians.

ca. 730 BCE Piankhy fights Tefnakht (Dyn. XXIV) in the Delta and halts Tefnakht’s drive to the south.

ca. 730 BCE Piankhy erects stela.

744-612 BCE Height of Assyrian power.

716 BCE Death of Piankhy; he is buried at Kurru.

716-701 BCE Reign of Pharaoh Shabaka, (younger brother of Piankhy); Shabaka is noted in the Old Testament, Genesis 10(7); It was also noted that Isaiah, King of Israel gave gifts to Shabaka, who had supported these Palestinians at Al-Taku in their fight against the Assyrians under Sennacherib. In order to divert the Assyrians, Shabaka stimulated revolts in the Levant. Later, in 701, when expecting battle with Sennacherib in the Delta, he is saved when the Assyrians withdraw because of a plague epidemic among their troops. Shabaka ruled mainly from Thebes and is buried at Kurru.

701-690 BCE Reign of Pharaoh Shabataka (Shebitqu). Shabataka is also noted in the Torah (Old Testament), Genesis 10(7); He is buried at Kurru.

690-664 BCE Pharaoh Taharka, (younger brother of Shabataka). As Crown Prince Taharka joined forces of Hezekiah of Judea (Israel) in their joint struggle against the Assyrians then led by Sennacherib (704-681 BC). Ruling from Memphis and Thebes he continually fought to protect the Nile valley from the Assyrians led by Esarhaddon (680-669), the son and successor of Sennacherib. Taharka also sought the restoration of Pharaonic authority, religion and architecture; grandson of Kashta.

ca. 690 BCE Coronation of Taharka at Memphis; Taharka adds to the temple at Jebel Barkal.

680-669 BCE Camels introduced to Egypt by Assyrian King Esarhaddon. Later camels became critical in trans-Saharan trade. In order to distract Esarhaddon away from the Nile, Taharka stimulated revolts at Sidon and Tyre in Phoenicia. These revolts were crushed and provoked Esarhaddon to strike at Taharka at Tanis and Memphis.

671 BCE Esarhaddon speeds across Sinai with his camel cavalry and meets the Nubian and Egyptian forces of Taharka in the eastern Delta; Taharka is defeated and withdraws from Tanis and retreats to Memphis citadel.

670 BCE Taharka retakes the Delta from the Assyrians

669 BCE Assyrians under Esarhaddon siege and sack Memphis; son of Taharka captured and taken to Assyria; Taharka resumes tactical support of Phoenicians

668 BCE Esarhaddon plans return conquest, but dies on route back to Egypt. Ashurbanipal, (668-627) son of Esarhaddon resumes revenge campaign and badly defeats Taharka in the Delta, and sacks Memphis.

667 BCE Taharka withdraws from Egypt to Napata; Delta princes call for Taharka to return to fight the Assyrians, but he does not respond.

664 BCE Taharka dies and is buried at Kurru pyramid field. Rise of Dyn XXVI in Egypt (664-525 BCE).

664-653 BCE Reign of Pharaoh Tanutamun (Tanwetamani), nephew of Taharka.

664 BCE Tanutamun briefly regains control of Memphis and the entire Nile valley, but with weak support from the Delta princes under Assyrian pressure and with rival claims to rule Lower Egypt by Psammetichos I (664-610 BC), he withdraws to Thebes.

661 BCE Tanutamun defeated in Memphis and driven from Thebes that is sacked by Ashurbanipal.

656-590 BCE Kushite withdrawal back to the Sudan, with the continued survival of the worship of Amun at Jebel Barkal/Napata.

653 BCE Death of Tanutamun; the last to be buried at Kurru

653-643 BCE Reign of Atlanersa

643-623 BCE Reign of Senkamanisken (father of Aspelta and Anlamani); Buried at Nuri

625 BCE Naucratis established in Delta for Greek traders.

623-593 BCE Reign of Anlamani. Campaigns against the Blemmyes in the Eastern desert. Anlamani was crowned at Kawa, and was buried at Nuri

593-568 BCE Reign of Aspelta who plans attack against Necho II in Egypt; Aspelta is buried at Nuri.

591 BCE Aspelta defeated in attempt to reclaim Egypt from the Saite XXVIth Dynasty. The border of Kush established at 2nd cataract.

590 BCE Psammetichos II (595-589, Dyn XXVI) invades Nubia to 3rd cataract, and fought at the northern plain of Dongola seizing 4,200 captives. He also hacked out inscriptions to pharaohs of the XXVth Dynasty, and his soldiers placed inscriptions at Abu Simbel. He may have sacked Napata and probably stimulated the gradual of Kush's capital from Napata to Meroë.



KINGDOM OF KUSH AT NAPATA

590 BC - 350 AD Rise and gradual decline of Kush at Meroë. Famed for notable iron-production technology; Kings of Kush still proclaimed as "Lords of Two Lands".
588 BCE Judean revolt against Babylon.

586 BCE Babylonian repression against Judea.

581 BCE Exile of Jews from Jerusalem.

570-526 BCE Amasis rules Egypt.

568-555 BCE Reign of King Aramatelqo



PERSIANS ENTER NILE VALLEY

539 BC Jews return to Jerusalem.

530 BC Death of Cyrus.

ca.529-521 BC Reign of Persian King Cambyses in Egypt

525-398 BC Persian Dynasty XXVII

524 BC Cambyses campaigns in Nubia, but is driven out

487-485 BC Revolt in Upper Egypt.

486 BC Death of Darius, Xerxes comes to power.

462-454 BC Revolt in Egypt against the Persians. Romans give support to Egyptians.

430 BC Herodotus reaches Aswan.

429 BC Death of Pericles

404-369 Reign of Kushite King Harsiyotef; fought against Blemmyes in eastern desert. Buried at Nuri

399 BC Trial and Execution of Socrates.

360-342 BC Reign of last Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo II of the XXX Dynasty (380-343 BC)

342-333 BC Second Persian conquest of Egypt; Nectanebo II (Dyn. XXXI) flees to Nubia

335-315 BC Reign of Kushite King Nastasen; fought against the Blemmyes and fearful of Persian and Greek attacks. The last Kushite to rule from Napata



GREEKS ENTER NILE VALLEY

332 BCE Siege and Defeat of Tyre and Gaza by Alexander the Great of Macedonia; rout of Persians; Conquest of Egypt and expeditions sent to Nubia; Greek language and culture introduced (an influence to create an alphabetic Meroitic demotic?)

331 BCE Foundation of Alexandria.

323 BCE Death of Alexander the Great

305-284 BCE Ptolemy I Soter, rules from Alexandria, famous library established.

284-247 BCE Reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.

283 BCE Construction of the famed lighthouse of Pharos in Alexandria.

280-274 BCE Ptolemy II raids Lower Nubia for captives, livestock, and has hunting or trading expeditions for elephants in Meroë. Greek descriptions of “Ethiopia” increase.

274 BCE Ptolemy II wages first war against the Seleucids under Antiochus I.



KUSH MOVES FROM NAPATA TO MEROE

270 BCE Napatan period of Kush comes to an end

264-241 BCE First Punic War between Rome and Carthage.

260 BCE First Kushite King Arakamani-qu (Ergamenes) to be buried at Meroë (Bejrawiya cemetery); Arakakamani had studied the Greek language. Expansion of cattle and elephant hunting at Musawwarat es-Sufra in Butana plain; expansion of iron production.

260-253 BCE Second Syrian war between Ptolemy II and Antiochus II.

253 BC Antiochus II married Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II.

250 BC Translation of Jewish Bible into Greek.

246-222 BC Reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes; has expedition in Nubia led by Eudoxus and he wages war against Seleucus II in Third Syrian War (246-241).

222-205 BC Reign of Ptolemy IV Epiphanes; had good relations with Meroë with whom he traded for elephants.

219-217 BC Fourth Syrian War. Between Ptolemy IV and Antiochus III. Egypt is saved by intervention of Egyptian troops at the battle of Raphia.

221-204 Ptolemy IV builds in the Dodekaschoenos.

218-201 Second Punic War.

204-185 Meroites regain control of Lower Nubia and foment revolts in Upper Egypt.

ca.204-180 BC Reign of Ptolemy V Philometor. Inscription of Rosetta Stone

203-200 BC Philip and Antiochus plot against Egypt.

200 BC Greek geographer Erastosthenes describes Nubia.

196 BC Foundation of library at Pergamun.

181-145 BC Reign of Ptolemy VI, reactivates Nubian gold mines and regains control of the Dodekaschoenos to resume temple construction or addition projects.

170-168 BC War between Ptolemy VI and Antiochus IV of Syria.

166-164 BC Jewish (Maccabean) revolt against Antiochus IV who desecrates the temple at Jerusalem and forces Hellenization. The Jewish celebration of Hanukah commemorates the miracle of this time that made a little oil in a lamp burn for eight days.

164-163 BC Flight of Ptolemy VI from Egypt.

150 BC Kandake Shanakdakheto has first clearly dated inscription in Meroitic cursive.

149-146 BCE Third and last Punic war. Rome sacks Carthage.

147 BCE Macedonia becomes a Roman province.

145 BCE Death of Ptolemy VI. Aristarchus and other intellectuals of the Alexandria library flee with the rise of Ptolemy VIII.

145-130 BC Reign of Ptolemy VIII, Physcom.

142 BC Independence of the Jews.

ca. 100 BC Saqia (eskalay) water wheel introduced. Long conquest inscription recorded on stela of Qore Tanyidamani.

80-51 BC Reign of Ptolemy XII, `the Piper'

73-71 BC Romans finally crush the slave revolt of Spartacus.

63 BC Caesar Augustus born.

55-54 BC Julius Caesar invades Britain.

ca. 50 BC Diodorus terms Nubia as the home of Egyptians, and of civilization itself. Reigns of Kandakes Amanirenas and Amanishakheto.

48 BC Pompey flees to Egypt where he is assassinated. Alexandrian War and Julius Caesar seeks rule of Egypt.



ROMANS ENTER NILE VALLEY

51-30 BC Reign of Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XV, initially as co-regents, then she rules alone.

44 BC Assassination of Julius Caesar, Ides (15th) of March.

44-21 BC Period of activity of the geographer Strabo.

42 BC Battle of Philippi. Mark Antony defeats Brutus and Cassius.

37-36 BC Antony in Egypt.

31 BC Octavian is victorious at the battle of Actium. Antony is defeated.

30-28 BC Roman conquest of Egypt under Octavian; suicides of Cleopatra and Antony.

28 BC Cornelius Gallus, Roman prefect, meets Meroitic envoys at Philae temple to have peace negotiations for Lower Nubia.

27 BC-14 AD Reign of Roman Caesar Augustus.

27 BC Roman geographer/historian Strabo visits Aswan.

24 BC Meroites raid Elephantine and Philae at Aswan. Probable time that the statue of Augustus was seized. A bronze head of Augustus found at Meroë as booty from this raid.

23 BC Augustus counterattacks with his forces led by Petronius who seized Qasr Ibrim and likely invaded Nubia to Napata.

ca. 22-21 BC Meroites counterattack at Qasr Ibrim, but are driven back.

21-20 BC Negotiations at Samos Island conclude in peace treaty between Romans and Meroites. Meroitic tribute is suspended and a permanent ambassadorial position is established between Meroë and Roman Egypt. Romans withdraw to Maharraka, which establishes Roman control only for the Dodekaschoenos (Lower Nubia).

0-20 AD Reigns of Meroitic Qore Natakamani and Kandake Amanitore.

ca. 0 BC Southeast Asian crops (rice, yams, sugar cane, eggplant, bananas, and mangos arrive in East Africa; initial dispersal of the “Bantu” population groups



CHRISTIANITY ENTERS NILE VALLEY

33 AD Death of Christ

37-41 Reign of Gaius (Caligula)

37 AD First? Christian enters Nubia (Acts of Apostles)

40 AD Apostle Marc comes to Alexandria
54-68 AD Reign of Nero; sends “explorers” to Nubia in 61 AD; Plans campaign in 64 AD, but not carried out.

64 AD Expansion of Christian persecution

66-73 AD First Jewish rebellion against Romans in Palestine.

67 AD Nero frees Greece from Roman rule. Josephus the historian deserts from the Judean revolt and joins the Romans.

70 AD Writer Pliny describes Nubia; Romans capture Jerusalem with Nubian mercenary cavalry.

73 AD Fall of Masada; Romans complete conquest of Palestine

79 AD Death of Pliny the Elder

100-111 AD Period of activity of Pliny the Younger

100-300 AD Post-Meroitic occupation of Qasr Ibrim

115-117 Jewish revolt

125 AD Emperor Hadrian

132-135 Bar Kochba revolt of the Jews. Dispersal of the Jews.

180 AD Church of Pantaenus founded in Alexandria

199-200 AD Septimius Severus allows a Senate in Alexandria.

247-264 AD Patriarch Dionysius seeks Egyptian converts

ca.260-300 Major conversion of Egyptians to Coptic Christianity. Some spread to Nubia.

268-297 Another period of Blemmyes (Beja) attacks on Nubia.

270-275 Roman emperor Aurelian loots Alexandria to strengthen Roman rule there.

284-304 Reign of Diocletian.

297 Withdrawal of Romans from Lower Nubia to Aswan. Persecution of Christians

300 AD Christian population of Egypt reaches one million. By this time, destruction of the Library at Alexandria and the loss of 650,000 papyrus scrolls of ancient science, math, literature, and religion.

312 AD Emperor Constantine accepts Christianity for the Roman church as a result of his victory at Milvian Bridge in the name of Christianity; Rise of Donatist church in Numidia (endorsed martrydom as a creed of this schismatic group)

313-322 AD First Christian basilica built in Rome

325 AD Council of Nicaea rules over "oneness" of God and Christ.

ca. 340 AD Axumite King Ezana establishes Christianity in Ethiopia; End of Kushitic state with the destruction of Meroë.

350-550 AD X-Group, Ballana (Lower Nubia), and Tanqasi (Upper Nubia) cultural horizons having a new syncretic blend of Pharaonic, Kushitic, and Christian characteristics; No textual records, but huge grave tumuli suggesting small states with clear social stratification. Era of Blemmyes strength; the development of the Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Mukurra, and Alwa, and their respective churches and settlements.

391 AD Christianity becomes state religion for Egypt. ‘Pagan’ temples defaced. Christian Egypt becomes part of the Eastern Byzantine Empire.

436 AD Blemmyes attack Egyptian Nile and even Kharga Oasis

451 AD Effort begins to spread Monophysite Christianity from Egypt, while Egypt is isolated as a result of the Council of Chalcedon (at Constantinople). Effort to resolve differences between Bishop Dioscoros of Alexandria and Pope in Rome. The Council determined that Jesus was a single person with two natures; the Bishop was exiled. Eastern Orthodox insisted that Jesus was of one nature: Monophysite. Schism lasts until today.

452 AD Romans under general Maximinus attack Blemmyes and Nobatia (northern Nubia) to release Roman hostages. Christian missionaries arrive in Nubia.

453 AD Treaty of Philae guarantees right to worship Isis.

476 AD End of Roman Empire in the West

ca. 500 AD Blemmyes still worship Isis at Philae.

515 AD Romans subsidize Blemmye and Nobatian chiefs in exchange for peace.

524 AD Byzantium and Axumite alliance. Blemmyes and Nobatian mercenaries in Axumite attacks on Yemen.

527-565 AD Justinian rules the Eastern Roman of Byzantium. He seeks to reconquer Italy and North Africa

ca.537 AD Nubian King Silko drives out Blemmyes from Nobatia and implies at Kalabsha temple that he is the first Christian king of Nubia. The Isis cult at Philae suppressed by Justinian who officially closes it to ‘pagan’ worship.

543-569 AD First Monophysite Christian kingdoms in Nubia; Missionary Julian given permission by Empress Theodora in Constantinople to evangelize among Nubians.

543 AD Faras established as capital of Christian Nobatia.

ca. 560 Missionary Longinus at Nobatia and Alwa.

ca.569 AD Dongola established as capital of Mukurra after its conversion to Christianity.

579-80 AD Longinus converts Alwa to Monophysite Christianity. Soba is the established capital.



ISLAM ENTERS EGYPT

632 AD Death of the Prophet Mohammad.

636 AD Arab conquest of Syria.

639-640 AD Arab Muslim conquest of Egypt led by Amr ibn al ‘As for Khalifa ‘Omar. This begins the first Muslim contacts with Lower Nubians who are forced to pay tribute in slaves and livestock and promise no aggression against Egypt.

641-2 AD Islamic armies of ‘Amr ibn al`As reach the plain north of Dongola but fail to capture it.

646 Egyptians attack Nubia.

652 AD A "baqt" treaty established between Nubia and Egypt under Abdallah ibn Sa'ad ibn Abi Sahr. Nubia would provide 360 slaves each year and promise no attacks; Egypt would provide 1300 "kanyr" of wine. Old Dongola is captured for a period; conflicts noted between Makuria and Nobatia

661-750 AD Umayyad Dynasty in Egypt. Some Nubians serve as mercenaries in the Islamic armies.

697-707 AD Merger of Nobatia and Mukurra under King Merkurius

720 AD A "baqt" is recorded between Egyptians and Beja

740's AD Cyriacus, King of Dongola lays siege to Umayyad capital at Fustat (Cairo).

750-870 AD Abbasid dynasty in Egypt.

758 AD Abbasids complain of no "baqt" payments and Blemmyes attacks on Upper Egypt.

819-822 AD Dongola king and Beja refuse to pay "baqt" tribute and they mount attacks on Egypt

835 AD George I (816-920), crowned King of Dongola

836 AD George I travels to Baghdad and Cairo

868-884 Amr Ahmed ibn Tulun rules Egypt; large numbers of Nubians in Tulunid army.

920 AD Reign of Dongola King Zakaria begins

950 AD Some Muslims reported at Soba

951,956,962 More Nubian raids into Upper Egypt

969-1171 AD Fatimid rule in Egypt; attack on Nubia by al-Umari

969 AD King George II reigns and attacks Egypt

ca. 1000 AD Nilotic cattle pastoralists expand into southern Sudan.

ca. 1050 Up to 50,000 Nubians serve in Fatimid army

1171-1250 AD Ayyubid Dynasty in Egypt

1127 AD Saladin (Ayyubids) forces Nubians to withdraw to Upper Egypt; George IV is Nubian King.

1140's AD Christian kingdom of Dotawo (Daw) noted in Nubia

1163 AD Crusaders attack Ayyubids and seek alliance with Nubian Christians.

1172 Nubian-Crusader alliance against Ayyubids; clashes in Cairo and Delta towns; Turanshah attacks Nubia

ca. 1200 Rise of the Daju dynasty in Darfur. Northward movement of Dinka, and Nuer populations into Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile

1204 Nubian and Crusader leaders meet in Constantinople

1235 Last priest sent to Nubia from Alexandria

1250-1382 Bahri Mamluk Dynasty in Egypt



ISLAM PENETRATES NUBIA

1260-1277 Forces of Mamluke Sultan Al-Zahir Baybars attack Nubia

1264 Nubians again pay "baqt" tribute, now to Mamlukes

1268 AD Dongola King Dawud pays "baqt" to Mamlukes

1275 AD King Dawud raids Aswan

1275-1365 Period of warfare between Mamlukes and Nubians

1276 AD Mamluke Egyptians sack Dongola; forced conversion to Islam; King Dawud captured

1289 AD Last Mamluke military campaign against Dongola.

1317 AD Defeat of the last Christian king in Nubia and the first Muslim king Abdullah Barshambu on the throne in Dongola; "baqt" re-established; first mosque is built at Dongola

1372 AD Bishop of Faras consecrated by Patriarch in Alexandria

1382-1517 AD Circassian (Burji) Mamluke Dynasty in Egypt

1400's Probable time of the replacement of the Daju by the Tunjur Dynasty in Darfur. Luo migrations from the southern Sudan led to creation of Shilluk groups.

1453 AD Fall of Roman Empire of the East.

See: Historical Dictionary of the Sudan (3rd Edition) for subsequent Islamic chronology to the present.

Ancient Egypt had powerful Sudan rival, British Museum dig shows

By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent


The Second Kushite Kingdom controlled the whole Nile valley from Khartoum to the Mediterranean from 720BC to 660BC.

Now archaeologists have discovered that a region of northern Sudan once considered a forgotten backwater once actually "a real power-base".

They discovered a ruined pyramid containing fine gold jewellery dating from about 700BC on a remote un-navigable 100-mile stretch of the Nile known as the Fourth Cataract, plus pottery from as far away as Turkey.

Other finds included numerous examples of ancient rock art and 'musical' rocks that were tapped to create a melodic sound.

They only made the discoveries after being invited by the Sudanese authorities to help excavate part of the Merowe region, which is soon to be flooded by a large hydro-electric dam. More than 10,000 sites were found.

Historians had written off the area as being of little archaeological interest.

Dr Derek Welsby, of the British Museum, said: "We had no idea how rich the area was."

Remarkably well-preserved bodies, naturally mummified in the desert air, and a cow buried complete with eye ointment were also unearthed.

Dr Welsby said the finds revolutionised the history and geography of the Kushite kingdoms.

The First Kushite Kingdom rivalled Egypt for power between 2500BC and 1500BC, when many of Egypt's largest pyramids were built, he said.

"All our preconceptions about this being a relatively poor, inhospitable area were completely wrong," he remarked. We thought the first kingdom gradually grew over 1,000 years; now we know it happened right at the beginning, very rapidly.

"During the second kingdom we thought it was an area everybody bypassed. But finding the pyramid meant it was a real power-base. This was not a backwater, it was partaking in the major trade routes in the world."

The team was able to excavate hundreds of heavy items, including large blocks adorned with rock art and 390 stones that comprised the pyramid, with the help of trucks and cranes lent by Iveco and New Holland.

The Sudanese authorities gave 20 such blocks and musical 'rock gongs', plus pottery and jewellery to the British Museum. A selection will be put on display early next year.

Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Egyptian Temple near Pomorie

Remains of a temple complex dedicated to the cult of Isis and Osiris were discovered in the Paleokastro region in Pomorie.
The temple dates back from the second century A.C., announced Burgasinfo

The building was built on the grounds of an ancient Thracian pagan temple, claim the archaeologists.

"There are many temples in Bulgaria, connected to Isis and Osiris, but this is the first temple complex, discovered through the means of archaeology", explains Sergey Torbanov, leader of the diggings.

During this season the main street in Anhialo was also discovered. The site of the diggings is put under security.

The artifacts, found during the working process, will be exhibited in Pomorie State Museum.

Biggest Dinosaurs Grew Huge by Not Chewing Their Food

Kate Ravilious
Dinosaurs known as sauropods—the largest land animals that ever lived—grew huge and were an evolutionary success in part because they didn't bother to chew their food, new research suggests.

Sauropods weighed up to 88 tons (80 metric tons)—ten times more than an African elephant—and measured as high as 23 feet (7 meters).

The group of dinosaurs, which included the brachiosaurus and diplodocus, loomed over the animal kingdom for more than 140 million years until the late Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago.

Scientists think the animals evolved to be so large to discourage big predators, like Tyrannosaurus rex, from eating them. But how they maintained such massive body sizes has remained mysterious.

The herbivores, or plant-eaters, had hardly any teeth and are thought to have swallowed their food whole—an entire bush in one gulp, for example. They browsed large areas, barely moving and consuming vast quantities in short periods of time.

So they needed long necks to reach food high in trees and a huge gut to process and break down their unchewed meals, said Martin Sander, a palaeontologist at the University of Bonn in Germany and co-author of the study, published tomorrow in the journal Science.

"You can only have this long neck if you don't chew your food, otherwise your head would be full of teeth and too heavy to support," he said.

Paul Upchurch, an expert on sauropods from University College London, said that "most palaeontologists agree that feeding is the key to understanding sauropod gigantism."

Survival Strategies
To outgrow their predators, sauropods didn't just need lots of food. They also needed to develop fast, so they could attain their full size before being eaten, experts said.

Sauropod bones show that they did indeed grow swiftly. A 22-pound (10-kilogram) hatchling could become a 220,000-pound (100,000-kilogram) grown-up in about 20 to 30 years—quick by dinosaur time.

"This tells us that they must have been warm-blooded and had a high metabolic rate compared to cold-blooded creatures," said the University of Bonn's Sander.

Like all dinosaurs, sauropods laid nestfuls of eggs. By producing so many young at a time, "a population could recover quickly, even after a big catastrophe," Sander said.

Large modern mammals, such as elephants, give birth to far fewer offspring, raising their chances of extinction should a disaster occur.

So why don't we see gigantic elephants and crocodiles roaming around today?

Experts think that reptiles, such as crocodiles, still maintain the egg-laying advantage, but their cold blood prevents them from growing fast enough to reach a great size.

Mammals have warm blood, but can't grow as big as sauropods due to their slow reproductive strategy and the need to chew their food.

"Daisy Chains" of Fossil Creatures Found in China

A fossil chain of shrimplike marine organisms that lived around 525 million years ago has been unearthed in China, researchers reported in October 2008.

The 22 partial or complete chains represent a bizarre and previously unknown type of animal grouping that might be associated with migration, scientists say.
The shrimplike marine organisms, a previously unknown species that lived around 525 million years ago, were found linked head-to-tail at the fossil-rich Chengjiang site in Yunnan Province.

Prehistoric Time Line

The fossils show 22 complete or partial chains containing up to 20 animals, a team led by Xianguang Hou of China's Yunnan University reports in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The fossil sample contained just one unattached individual, which was the longest specimen found at just under an inch (2.4 centimeters).

"It's a really fascinating finding—quite extraordinary, and a big puzzle," commented Nicholas Strausfeld, a regents' professor at the University of Arizona.

"The regularity of this row of animals is amazing," added Strausfeld, who wasn't part of the study team.

The extinct species, which is due to be named shortly, was a crustacean ancestor with a head shield—or carapace—and a segmented body, said team member Derek Siveter, professor of earth sciences at the University of Oxford in the U.K.

"If you found one on your plate at the local restaurant, you'd identify it as a shrimplike thing," Siveter said.

The interlinked fossil chains remained intact despite becoming stretched and twisted on the seabed.

"You can see quite clearly where individual animals have been bent at right angles, but the integrity of the chain is maintained," Siveter said.

Open Water

While it's possible the animals lived on the seabed, the study team thinks they swam or floated in the water column.

Feeding in this chained formation probably wasn't an option, since each animal's mouth opening would have been covered by the tail of the one in front, Siveter noted.

"The tail may have been grasped by the head appendages of the animal behind," he added.
Such groupings are otherwise unknown among living and extinct arthropods (the group that includes crustaceans, insects, and spiders), the study team said.

The only obvious living parallels for this kind of setup are salps, jellyfishlike ocean-drifters that are related to sea squirts, the researchers said.

Salps form lines of interlinked colonies as part of their reproductive cycle.

"But we don't find this type of reproductive mode in other arthropods," Siveter said. "So then we come back to a more simple explanation, that these animals congregated in this fashion for migration."

A loose analogy exists in today's spiny lobsters, which are found in tropical regions including the Caribbean, he said.

Though the lobsters don't link up in a chain during migration, "they march roughly in lines on the seabed at certain times of the year," Siveter said.

Migration does seem the most rational explanation for the fossils, agreed Strausfeld, of the University of Arizona.

"That's all you have to go on, quite frankly, based on the crustaceans tramping around on the planet today," he said.

Another possibility, Strausfeld said, is that the animals "may have been preserved before they hatched out of this long egg case."

The strength and precision of the chains, with their repeated head and tail insertions, suggests some kind of packaging was involved, he said.

"The egg case, if it's gelatinous, wouldn't be preserved," he added.

And the bigger, unattached specimen could represent an adult or a hatchling.

"Maybe the sac breaks down when the animal reaches a certain size," Strausfeld said.

Evolutionary Test?

The fossils date to the so-called Cambrian Explosion, a rapid evolutionary flowering when many of the major animal groups appeared.

"At that time in history there were some very strange things, and a lot of experimentation going on," Strausfeld said.

Although he knows no precedent for crustaceanlike animals producing egg cases that house numerous developing embryos, "it's possible [the fossils represent] strange ways of reproduction and development that are no longer with us," he added.

Siveter, of the University of Oxford, said the new discovery "gives us another window on this early proliferation of life, when all the major groups which sustain biodiversity to the present day were introduced to the fossil record."

Cavern of Crystal Giants

Crystal Palace
Cavers in Mexico confront extreme conditions and find extraordinary beauty.
By Neil Shea
Photograph by Carsten Peter, Speleoresearch & Films

In a nearly empty cantina in a dark desert town, the short, drunk man makes his pitch. Beside him on the billiards table sits a chunk of rock the size of home plate. Dozens of purple and white crystals push up from it like shards of glass. "Yours for $300," he says. "No? One hundred. A steal!" The three or four other patrons glance past their beers, thinking it over: Should they offer their crystals too? Rock dust on the green felt, cowboy ballads on the jukebox. Above the bar, a sign reads, "Happy Hour: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m."
This remote part of northern Mexico, an hour or so south of Chihuahua, is famous for crystals, and paychecks at the local lead and silver mine, where almost everyone works, are meager enough to inspire a black market. "Thirty dollars." He leans in. "Ten." It's hard to take him seriously. Earlier in the day, in a cave deep below the bar, I crawled among the world's largest crystals, a forest of them, broad and thick, some more than 30 feet long and half a million years old. So clear, so luminous, they seemed extraterrestrial. They make the chunk on the pool table seem dull as a paperweight.

Nothing compares with the giants found in Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals. The limestone cavern and its glittering beams were discovered in 2000 by a pair of brothers drilling nearly a thousand feet below ground in the Naica mine, one of Mexico's most productive, yielding tons of lead and silver each year. The brothers were astonished by their find, but it was not without precedent. The geologic processes that create lead and silver also provide raw materials for crystals, and at Naica, miners had hammered into chambers of impressive, though much smaller, crystals before. But as news spread of the massive crystals' discovery, the question confronting scientists became: How did they grow so big?
It takes 20 minutes to get to the cave entrance by van through a winding mine shaft. A screen drops from the van's ceiling and Michael Jackson videos play, a feature designed to entertain visitors as they descend into darkness and heat. In many caves and mines the temperature remains constant and cool, but the Naica mine gets hotter with depth because it lies above an intrusion of magma about a mile below the surface. Within the cave itself, the temperature leaps to 112 degrees Fahrenheit with 90 to 100 percent humidity—hot enough that each visit carries the risk of heatstroke. By the time we reach the entrance, everyone glistens with sweat.
Preparing to enter the cave is like gearing up for a space walk. I pull on a vest with more than a dozen palm-size ice packs sewn into pockets across the chest and back. Then another vest to insulate the ice against the heat. Then, over everything, a bright orange caving suit. A helmet, a headlamp, a respirator mask blowing ice-cooled air. Gloves, boots. Even for cavers cocooned in all this protective gear, the heat is exhausting and dangerous; most trips inside last no more than 20 minutes. Giovanni Badino, a physicist from the Italian exploration group La Venta, leads us in.

Fallen obelisks, pillars of light, the crystals are enormous, some several feet thick. On the floor and walls are clumps of smaller crystals, sharp as blades and flawlessly transparent. Badino proceeds slowly, careful not to damage the crystals, which are made of selenite, a form of the common mineral gypsum. Selenite is translucent and soft, easily scratched by boot heels, even fingernails. Despite the ice suits, the heat and humidity are oppressive. I remove the mask for a moment and suck in wet, hot air. My lungs want to refuse it. There is a damp, heavy scent of earth and an absolute stillness. Miserable conditions for humans, a perfect nursery for crystals.

In their architecture crystals embody law and order, stacks of molecules assembled according to rigid rules. But crystals also reflect their environment. Spanish crystallographer Juan Manuel Garc�a-Ruiz was one of the first to study the Naica crystals beginning in 2001. More familiar with microscopic crystals, Garc�a was dizzied by the proportions of the Naica giants. By examining bubbles of liquid trapped inside the crystals, Garc�a and his colleagues pieced together the story of the crystals' growth. For hundreds of thousands of years, groundwater saturated with calcium sulfate filtered through the many caves at Naica, warmed by heat from the magma below. As the magma cooled, water temperature inside the cave eventually stabilized at about 136�F. At this temperature minerals in the water began converting to selenite, molecules of which were laid down like tiny bricks to form crystals. In other caves under the mountain, the temperature fluctuated or the environment was somehow disturbed, resulting in different and smaller crystals. But inside the Cave of Crystals, conditions remained unchanged for millennia. Above ground, volcanoes exploded and ice sheets pulverized the continents. Human generations came and went. Below, enwombed in silence and near complete stasis, the crystals steadily grew. Only around 1985, when miners using massive pumps lowered the water table and unknowingly drained the cave, did the process of accretion stop.

In the presence of such beauty and strangeness, people cast around for familiar metaphors. Staring at the crystals, Garc�a decided the cavern reminded him of a cathedral; he called it the Sistine Chapel of crystals. In both cathedrals and crystals there's a sense of permanence and tranquillity that transcends the buzz of surface life. In both there is the suggestion of worlds beyond us.

Now, in the cave, a team of scientists and explorers is conducting research and working on a documentary. Stein-Erik Lauritzen, a professor of geology at the University of Bergen in Norway, is retrieving samples for uranium-thorium dating. His preliminary research suggests the largest of the crystals are about 600,000 years old. Penelope Boston, an associate professor of cave and karst science at New Mexico Tech, searches for microbes that might live among the crystals. In some of them, tiny bubbles of suspended fluid—the kind García studied—sparkle in our lights. They are little time capsules: Italian scientists led by Anna Maria Mercuri extracted pollen that may have been trapped within these inclusions. The grains appear to be 30,000 years old and suggest that this part of Mexico was once covered not by desert but by forest.

One long, slender beam bears a deep scar from where someone tried to cut through it. I imagine a miner dripping and alone in the smothering silence, his weak headlamp bouncing with each saw stroke. Collectors might pay tens of thousands of dollars for a crystal from this cave. Whoever he was, he quit before he could sever the crystal, and mine owners later installed a heavy steel door to deter looters. So far it has worked, but who knows if it will last. Miners, after all, have access to drills and explosives. And while mining and construction projects can be halted to save archaeological relics, minerals in Mexico have no such protection.

The crystals could also be threatened by the lack of water. When the cave was filled, water helped support and preserve the beams. Now, with the cave empty and open to air, they may over time bend or crack under their own weight and become dull, as gases such as carbon dioxide wash in. The director of the mine told me his company, Peñoles, is dedicated to preserving them, but the company's main interest isn't crystals, and the basic activities of mining—blasting, trucks stirring up dust—threaten the gallery. Badino and others hope to convince the company to do more (lobbying for UNESCO World Heritage status has been mentioned), but so far the crystals exist in limbo, probably more famous outside Mexico than within.

We stop for a moment to rest. Everything around us glitters; it is as though we are standing inside a star. Badino turns, and the lines crease at the corners of his eyes. He pulls his mask away. "You know," he says, smiling, "there would be worse places to die."

Cathedral, star, tomb. We look for something to anchor the otherworldly in the familiar. After half an hour we depart, soaked in sweat, our veins throbbing, and a visiting filmmaker asks what it was like. I have a little trouble. He nods, understanding.

"Es como un sueño de niño," he says. "It is like a child's dream."

Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures?

Rich with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, a reproduction of two granite blocks--found a third of a mile (500 meters) apart in the Bay of Alexandria--helped prove that the pieces originally formed a single tablet.

"Sort of the whole ancient city of Alexandria is lying under the water, just meters away from the shore," said Amin of the Egyptian antiquities council in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the museum-planning process.



Divers raise a 4-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall), granite, first-century A.D. statue of a priest of Isis from Alexandria, Egypt's bay in 1998.

A UN convention advises that submerged artifacts should remain on the seabed as a way to respect their historical context--a view endorsed by the planners of the proposed underwater museum in Alexandria, Egypt. The proposed museum got a boost in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the museum's planning.



Shown with a 2008 illustration of the proposed underwater museum (upper center), the Bay of Alexandria once contained Cleopatra's island palace and the Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse (picture), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Both of them were done in centuries ago by earthquakes.

"It will not simply be a museum as such. It is part of a whole vision to revitalize the whole city and its heritage," said Naguib Amin, the site-management expert from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.



The proposed museum's underwater facility (at bottom in architect Jacques Rougerie's conception) will be difficult and expensive to build and is the focus of the just launched two-year feasibility study. But planners believe that the benefits of plunging visitors into the historical context of the objects--on the sunken island that once held Cleopatra's palace--will be worth the trouble.

"When you go to an archaeological site, you have an irreplaceable emotion. It's not like going to see a movie," said architect Jacques Rougerie. "It's like the astronaut who cannot share with other people what it is like to be in space."



Twin sphinxes flank a statue of a priest of Isis amid fallen columns on Alexandria's sunken island of Antirhodos in a photo from the late 1990s. The statue was raised in 1998 and became part of a traveling exhibition.

Similar tableaux remain on the sunken island, which was found by underwater archaeologists in 1996, and should be visible from the proposed underwater museum.

"Having the museum around the vestiges of these objects will be an emotional and physical experience for the visitors, because they can see them [in place]," architect Rougerie said in September 2008. "You get a better perception and comprehension of what could have happened.



An eroded sphinx, shown in an undated photo, isn't much more than a silhouette in the Bay of Alexandria's dusky waters. The murk is driving the proposed museum's planners to propose covering the monuments, then cleaning the enclosed water.

"Try to picture a glass tube," said Amin of the Egyptian antiquities agency in September 2008. "You simply put it over the main monuments that we need to highlight."



The marble head of Roman princess Antonia Minor, mother of Emperor Claudius, rests on sand at the now sunken site of Cleopatra's Alexandria, Egypt, palace in an undated photo. Behind the head is a toppled statue of a Ptolemaic, or Greco-Egyptian, king in the guise of Hermes-Thoth, messenger of the gods.

Visitors to the proposed underwater museum should be able to view these artifacts in situ.



--A proposed underwater museum (illustrated above) in Alexandria, Egypt, came closer to reality in September 2008, when the UN established a committee to aid the design process with the Egyptian government. (Read full story.)

Fiberglass tunnels would connect aboveground galleries, near the New Library of Alexandria, to the underwater facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places at the site of Cleopatra's now sunken palace.

Evoking sails of Nile feluccas (photo) and the cardinal directions, the glassy, towering "four points [at center] will be like the [long-gone] Lighthouse of Alexandria that illuminated the [ancient] library and the world," said architect Jacques Rougerie, who is leading the feasibility study. "I want to do the same thing with this museum."

Heavy Metal-Eating "Superworms" Unearthed in U.K.

James Owen
Newly evolved "superworms" that feast on toxic waste could help cleanse polluted industrial land, a new study says.

These hardcore heavy metal fans, unearthed at disused mining sites in England and Wales, devour lead, zinc, arsenic, and copper.

The earthworms excrete a slightly different version of the metals, making them easier for plants to suck up. Harvesting the plants would leave cleaner soil behind.

"These worms seem to be able to tolerate incredibly high concentrations of heavy metals, and the metals seem to be driving their evolution," said lead researcher Mark Hodson of the University of Reading in England.

"If you took an earthworm from the back of your garden and put it in these soils, it would die," Hodson said.

DNA analysis of lead-tolerant worms living at Cwmystwyth, Wales, show they belong to a newly evolved species that has yet to be named, he said.

Two other superworms, including an arsenic-munching population from southwest England, are also likely new to science, Hodson said.

"It's a good bet they are also different species, but we haven't categorically proved that," he said.

The findings were announced in September at the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool.

Micro Processors

Hodson's team's investigation used x-rays to zap worms with intense light, allowing them to track metal particles a thousand times smaller than a grain of salt.

The findings suggest the arsenic-tolerant population produces a special protein that "wraps up the metal and keeps it inert and safe so it doesn't interact with the earthworms," Hodson said.

The toxicity of the metal particles once they have passed through the worms isn't yet known, since the protective protein wrappings will degrade over time, the study authors noted.

But experiments suggest the superworms make the metals easier for plants to extract from the soil, Hodson said.

"The earthworms don't necessarily render the metals less toxic, but they do seem to make them available for plant uptake," he said. This raises this possibility of using the earthworms as part of efforts to clean up land contaminated by mining and heavy industry.

Plant Mining

The long-term aim is to breed and then release the worms at polluted sites to speed up the process of soil development and help kick-start the ecosystem's rehabilitation, Hodson said.

Plants could be used to extract toxic metals once the superworms have got to work, he added.

This in turn could boost the development of methods for using plants to mine metals.

"The goal at the end of the rainbow is that the plants become so efficient at it that you can use them as a source of metal in industrial processes," Hodson said. "So you just crop off the plants and take them to a processing plant."

Peter Kille of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University in Wales has also been tracking the metal-eating worms.

He said previous studies show it takes earthworms many years to improve polluted soils. While the new superworms should prove a useful tool, even they can't compete with industrial cleanup processes that take one to two years.

The worms, however, are an excellent way to diagnose metal concentrations in contaminated land, Kille said.

"Basically you can see the earthworms as biological dipsticks of the soil toxicity and the metal levels," he said.

And the superworms are perfect subjects for studying evolution in action, Kille added.

"What's really interesting is that each patch of high metal creates a unique evolutionary event," he said. The worms either develop new ways of dealing with the metals or find solutions similar to other populations.

"Each time it happens it's a localized event, and it allows us to study the processes of evolution that create the adaptation," he said.

Ozark Big-Eared Bat

Photograph by Merlin D. Tuttle/Bat Conservation-International Inc
The Ozark big-eared bat is an endangered species found only in a small number of caves in the southern central United States. Also known as the western big-eared bat, the long-eared bat, and the lump-nosed bat, its appearance is defined by a pair of outsize ears and a lump-adorned nose.

These bats, whose bodies are normally less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, have ears that extend more than an inch (2.5 centimeters) in length. Their ears are generally held erect, except during hibernation, when some bats coil them like ram’s horns.

Beyond the mythical ears, these bats have two distinctive facial glands on either side of their nose resembling a pair of mittens. Their fur is light to dark brown, and their bellies are tan. They have a sizeable wingspan as well, measuring some 12 to 13 inches (30 to 34 centimeters).

The Ozark big-eared bat feeds primarily on moths but may also eat other bugs in and around its forested hunting grounds. It makes its home in caves, relying on their protection during hibernation and maternity.

Mating among these bats is initiated with ritualized calls and affectionate head nuzzling. The female stores the male’s sperm until spring, when ovulation, fertilization, and gestation occur. A single baby, or pup, is born in May or June, already weighing one-fourth of an adult's body weight. Baby bats mature quickly becoming fully independent and able to fly within two months.

The Ozark big-eared bat once lived in caves in Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. However, they have apparently abandoned their Missouri habitat due to human encroachment and cave disturbance, and estimates put the remaining wild population at around 1,800. Conservationists are currently working to protect these numbers by minimizing human intrusions.

Astronaut's Diary Goes on Display in Jerusalem

By Shawna Ohm

The diary is being displayed as part of a larger exhibit of famous documents from Israel's history. Also on display will be Israel's 1948 declaration of independence, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and a bloodstained sheet of paper with lyrics to a peace anthem that was carried by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of his assassination.
Pages from an Israeli astronaut's diary that survived the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia and a 37-mile fall to earth are going on display this weekend for the first time in Jerusalem.

The diary belonged to Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut and one of seven crew members killed when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003. Part of the restored diary will be displayed at the Israel Museum beginning Sunday.

A little over two months after the shuttle explosion, NASA searchers found 37 pages from Ramon's diary, wet and crumpled, in a field just outside the U.S. town of Palestine, Texas. The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme atmospheric cold, and then "was attacked by microorganisms and insects" in the field where it fell, said museum curator Yigal Zalmona.

"It's almost a miracle that it survived -- it's incredible," Zalmona said. There is "no rational explanation" for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.

NASA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. space agency returned the diary to Ramon's wife, Rona, who brought it to forensics experts at the Israel Museum and from the Israeli police. The diary took about a year to restore, Zalmona said, and it took police scientists about four more years to decipher the pages. About 80 percent of the text has been deciphered, and the rest remains unreadable, he said.

Two pages will be displayed. One contains notes written by Ramon, and the other is a copy of the Kiddush prayer, a blessing over wine that Jews recite on the Sabbath. Zalmona said Ramon copied the prayer into his diary so he could recite it on the space shuttle and have the blessing broadcast to Earth.

Most of the pages contain personal information which Ramon's wife did not wish to make public, he said.

"We agreed to do the restoration completely respecting the family's privacy and the sensitivity about how intimate the document is," museum director James Snyder said.

The diary provides no indication Ramon knew anything about potential problems on the shuttle. Columbia's wing was gashed by a chunk of fuel tank foam insulation at liftoff and broke up in flames just 16 minutes before it was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All seven astronauts on board were killed.

The diary is being displayed as part of a larger exhibit of famous documents from Israel's history, held to mark the country's 60th anniversary this year. Also on display will be Israel's 1948 declaration of independence, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and a bloodstained sheet of paper with lyrics to a peace anthem that was carried by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of his assassination in 1995

Solar icemaker: get the sun to keep things cool for a change

Just when you thought ice cube-creation technology had peaked, a team of engineering students from San Jose State University has come up an ice maker that has zero carbon footprint. It’s more than an eco-party trick — consider it an electricity-free alternative to refrigeration and air conditioning, which is critical if you happen to be somewhere off of the electrical grid, like in the developing world or in a disaster zone.

It works like this: the solar icemaker uses a refrigerant liquid that evaporates when exposed to the sun. The vapor travels through pipes that come into contact an absorbent material, which cools when the sun goes down. Once the slow-cooling absorbent hits 104°F, the refrigerant turns back into a liquid and its temperature drops like a rock to below freezing because of pressure differences. Put some water next to the evaporator’s exterior and, presto, ice.

A typical icemaker uses electricity to run a compressor to do this work, but the solar icemaker just uses solar energy, with no moving parts. And the systems are sealed, so barring a leak, they'll never need replenishing. The icemaker makes about 14 pounds of ice per day — more than enough for the margaritas at your end-of-summer barbecue. The students' prototype isn't available yet, but maybe next summer….

http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/jrhee/solar/projects.htm

Right Whales

By Douglas H. Chadwick
Photograph by Brian Skerry
They dive 600 feet, brushing their heads along the seafloor with raised, wartlike patches of skin, sometimes swimming upside down, big as sunken galleons, hot-blooded and holding their breath in cold and utter darkness while the greatest tides on Earth surge by. Then they open their cavernous maws to let the currents sweep food straight in. This is one way North Atlantic right whales feed in the Bay of Fundy between Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Or so the experts suspect, having watched the 40- to 80-ton animals surface with mud on their crowns. Mind you, they say, that could result from another activity—one nobody can imagine yet.

Science calls these animals Eubalaena glacialis, "good, or true, whale of the ice." Heavy irony is embedded in the common name, right whale, given by whalers who declared them the right whales to kill. Favoring shallow coastal waters, they passed close to ports, swam slowly, and often lingered on the surface. Such traits made them easy to harpoon, and they tended to conveniently float after they died, thanks to their exceptionally thick blubber layer, which whalers rendered into oil. The first of the great whales to be hunted commercially, E. glacialis lit the lamps of the Old World from the Dark Ages through the Renaissance. By the 16th century Europeans had exhausted the eastern North Atlantic population and turned to North America's coast. There whalers set up stations in Labrador and took 25,000 to 40,000 related bowhead whales along with an unknown number of rights (records seldom distinguished between these two similar looking titans).

By the time New Englanders got into the right-whale-killing business, they were chasing leftovers. The Yankees hunted down another 5,000 or so, partly because whales became even more prized for their baleen than for oil. Hundreds of strips of this tough yet flexible material, each six to nine feet long and finely fringed, drape from the upper jaw. They form a colossal sieve that allows the giants to strain tiny crustaceans from the water for food—a billion flea-size copepods a day to supply the minimum 400,000 calories an adult whale needs (the ratio of a whale's body mass to its prey's is 50 billion to one). Society, however, thought baleen was best used for corset stays, stiffeners in fashionable gowns, umbrella ribs, and (consider: "I'm going to whale on you!") horsewhips.

As the 20th century began, the number of whales left in this species was possibly in the low dozens. Commercial harpooning wasn't banned until 1935. Their recovery since then might be compared to that of a human victim of a vicious assault: painfully slow progress, offset by relapses, with the ultimate outcome very uncertain.

About 350 to 400 North Atlantic right whales exist today. The survivors migrate along North America's East Coast between feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine and wintering sites farther south—roughly 1,400 miles one way for pregnant females that journey to traditional calving areas off Georgia and Florida. They travel through an intensely urban stretch of ocean.

A research team from Boston's New England Aquarium spends the summer stationed in Lubec, Maine, studying the whales that gather to feed and socialize in the Bay of Fundy and nearby Roseway Basin, off Nova Scotia's southern tip. The scientists, who have built an archive of around 390,000 photographs, can recognize nearly every whale in the population by its unique callosity pattern (those wartlike patches on their heads), along with scars and other irregularities, and, increasingly, DNA samples.

One of their favorites is #2223, first seen in these waters in 1992. It was a baby, and so fond of cavorting around boats that they named it Calvin after the mischief-loving cartoon kid. That same year a fisherman reported a calf circling its dying mother, and when the team recovered the carcass of the female, they identified her as #1223—Delilah, Calvin's mom. Her corpse revealed tissues crushed by a powerful collision, probably with one of the cargo carriers plying the shipping channel that used to run straight through the bay's center, where the whales concentrate. The eight-month-old calf 's prospects looked grim, for it should have been nursing Delilah's rich, warm milk for several more months.

In July 1993 researchers poring over fresh photos from the bay found images that looked like a match for Calvin's baby pictures. Yes! The orphan had somehow made it alone. DNA from a skin sample taken in 1994 showed that curious, hardy Calvin was in fact a girl whale. The following year brought the first report of her entering a surface-active group, or SAG, in which both sexes mingle with splashing, shoving, rolling, stroking signs of courtship. Though she wouldn't mature sexually until about ten years of age, subadults her age appear drawn to the excitement of SAGs and get to practice behavior that may soon influence their breeding success. Fertile adult females are the most valuable segment of the population. They number fewer than a hundred. Calvin seemed on the verge of adding one more to their ranks.

For three years running, the researchers gauged the young female's blubber thickness with ultrasound. It's a tricky operation. "One whale's reaction jolted the skiff hard enough to send me flying overboard," Amy Knowlton of the research team recalled. Nevertheless, the researchers found Calvin growing pleasingly plump, a prime measure of health. On New Year's Eve of 1999, she was recorded for the first time in the Georgia Bight, an expanse of shallow coastal waters off Georgia and Florida, where right whales give birth.

In summer of 2000 Calvin was once again in the Bay of Fundy, but this time she was snarled in fishing gear. Unbreakable polyblend ropes wrapped round her body, cut into the skin, and trailed in her wake, slowing her down. Then researchers lost sight of the young female.

Two to six right whales are found dead in a typical year, at least half of them killed by ship strikes or entanglement. Additional animals simply disappear. Since more than three-quarters of North Atlantic right whales bear scars from encounters with fishing gear, scientists wonder: How many of those missing are weighed down by ropes, nets, or crab and lobster pots for months or even years, the fat reserves that help keep them buoyant dwindling as they starve, fighting harder to reach the surface for each breath, until they finally give in to pain and exhaustion and sink?

Months dragged by. Someone finally spotted Calvin in Cape Cod Bay during her hobbled journey back south. A disentanglement team from nearby Provincetown, Massachusetts, raced for the site and made two attempts to slice away her bindings. They couldn't get them all, but when Calvin was seen during 2001, she had worked free of the remnants.

Three years passed, and Calvin showed up occasionally—but not in her usual summer haunts. Had the trauma sent her into a downward spiral? At the end of December 2004, near the North Carolina coast, she presented herself—with a brand new calf. Seven months later, in 2005, they were in the Bay of Fundy, where Delilah had brought Calvin as an infant.

The corridor traveled by Calvin and the other North Atlantic right whales has grown ever more crowded with fishing activities and busy shipping lanes. Plumes of contaminants flow from river mouths, and the underwater din of ship traffic probably makes it increasingly difficult for the whales to communicate and keep track of one another. Though not as visible as wounds from boat prows and propeller blades or fishing gear webbed around struggling bodies, heavy chemical and noise pollution may take a gradual toll.

During the 1980s the number of babies born annually was around 12. The total twice fell sharply in the 1990s until just a single calf appeared in 2000. Since then, the average has risen to more than 20 calves a year. Yet this remains 30 percent below the whales' potential rate of reproduction. Why? If scientists are to guide the species' salvation, they need more data and more answers. Fast.

One August morning in 2006, when the sea was a sheet of dimpled satin shot through with silver threads, I joined Scott Kraus, the New England Aquarium's vice president of research, and Rosalind Rolland, a veterinarian and senior scientist with the aquarium, on an unlikely quest in the Bay of Fundy. When leviathans rose in the distance through the sea's shimmering skin, Kraus steered the boat downwind of where they had briefly surfaced, handed me a data sheet to log our movements, and zigzagged into the faint breeze. Rolland moved onto the bow. Beside her was Fargo, the world's premier whale-poop-sniffing dog.

Fargo began to pace from starboard to port, nostrils flaring. Rolland focused on the rottweiler's tail. If it began to move, it would mean he had picked up a scent—and he could do that a nautical mile away. Twitch … Twitch … Wag, wag. "Starboard," Rolland called to Kraus. "A little more. Nope, too far. Turn to port. OK, he's back on it." A quarter of an hour ran by like the bay's currents. All I saw were clumps of seaweed. Suddenly, the dog sat and turned to fix Rolland with a look. We stopped, and out of the vast ocean horizon came a single chunk of digested whale chow, bobbing along mostly submerged, ready to sink from view or dissolve altogether within minutes.

Kraus grabbed the dip net and scooped up the fragrant blob. You'd have thought he was landing a fabulous fish. "At first, people are incredulous. Then come the inevitable jokes. But this," said the man who has led North Atlantic right whale research for three decades, "is actually some of the best science we've done."

With today's technology, DNA from sloughed-off intestinal cells in a dung sample can identify the individual that produced it. Residues of hormones tell Rolland about the whale's general condition, its reproductive state—mature? pregnant? lactating?—levels of stress, and presence of parasites.

Despite its low numbers, the North Atlantic right whale may not be the rarest of all the great whales. There may be no more than a few hundred North Pacific right whales, Eubalaena japonica, which were harpooned illegally by Soviet whalers as late as the 1960s. But on the other side of the Equator, the southern right whale, Eubalaena australis, has rebounded from a few hundred in the 19th century to at least 10,000. If its cousins along North America's East Coast are the urban whales, these giants of the Southern Hemisphere are the wild whales, and they offer a vision of what a safer future might be like for the other two right whale species.

After feeding in plankton-laden waters around Antarctica, the various populations of E. australis migrate to wintering areas near Argentina, southern Africa, western and southern Australia, and sub-Antarctic New Zealand. The species has been increasing at a rate of up to 7 percent annually. That's close to the maximum possible for whales that require a full year for pregnancy, devote at least one more to nursing, and another to fatten up, and therefore can produce an offspring only every third year.

In July 2007 Rolland, Kraus, and I joined a team bound for the Auckland Islands, 300 miles south of New Zealand through some of the planet's stormiest latitudes, to carry out census and DNA work. As our 82-foot sailboat Evohe slipped into a protected bay amid the isles, there was nothing but sunshine washing the deck. Then, like explorers of a bygone era, we watched natives paddle across the water to surround our vessel. Except these natives paddled with flukes and blew spray from their heads.

Curious right whales investigated Evohe for hours while yellow-eyed penguins leaped along like skipping stones beside them. Great breaths overrode the sounds of waves and seabird cries and the mewling of young New Zealand sea lions from rookeries ashore. More whales milled and breached for as far as we could see. They were bigger than northern rights. More than one in ten were pinto-patterned, flashing yards of smooth white skin. A bygone era? This was beginning to feel more like the dawn of creation. Rolland and Krause, who had never viewed a southern right before, were beside themselves.

"Omigod. That one right there is the fattest young whale I have ever seen." (When judging the condition of northern rights, the scientists pay special attention to the area just behind the blowhole, where the chubbier animals develop a bulge of blubber. Its size has proved to be an accurate predictor of survival.) "We don't even have a category for a whale with a fat roll that big."
They're so clean! Not a mark on them."

Over the next three weeks, hundreds arrived in succession to give birth and nurse pale-colored infants or churn the water in SAGs and compete for mates before heading back to the open sea. Gales blew from all directions—this was midwinter in the Southern Hemisphere—coating the hillsides with snow. Researchers beat through the waves in a skiff to take identification photos and collect skin samples with small, hollow-tipped darts so they could define the genetic makeup of this recovering population more closely. Glenn Dunshea, from Australia's Center for Applied Marine Mammal Science, was interested in telomeres—DNA sequences at the tips of chromosomes that gradually shorten throughout an animal's life. By studying them in right whales, which may live at least the better part of a century (their close cousins, bowheads, may reach two), he hopes to discover more about telomeres' role in the aging process. Wouldn't it be humbling if a map to the legendary fountain of youth lay hidden within creatures we almost exterminated?

Kraus and Rolland roamed in a second skiff to view and photograph the whales in order to conduct detailed visual health evaluations, which they could compare with those of troubled whale populations back home. They wore their usual happy-to-be-in-the-kingdom-of-giants glow, yet it was mixed with a touch of sadness. As Rolland put it, "We just saw more right whale calves in two hours than people will see all year in the whole North Atlantic."

Safeguarding wildlife, even in the globe's most remote places, gets harder all the time.

The southern whales are doing fine for now, but keeping them that way will require better protection of critical wintering areas and migration routes. Fishing gear drowns so many diving seabirds in far southern waters that several kinds of albatrosses are in desperate trouble. As fisheries and whale populations both expand, conflicts with whales can't be far off.

As for the whales of the North Atlantic, commercial fishing and marine transport are huge, vital industries, and modifying their operations along the entire eastern seaboard to protect a few hundred giants won't be easy or cheap. Yet scientists' models say that saving just two sexually mature females each year from being killed would change the trend for this endangered species from either downward or level to upward.

Posed that way, the problem doesn't sound so hard to solve. A network of aerial and vessel surveys augmented by a force of volunteers who keep a sharp eye out for these warm-blooded submarines stands ready to help.

The volunteer force includes fast-striding beachcombers, folks who gather for morning coffee and then drive from one overlook to the next, and residents who watch from the windows of their condos. There are also the few, the proud … the vertical team. They take elevators to the tops of the tallest buildings around and scan the ocean from a seagull's perspective.

Still other whale trackers take to the air. Volunteer pilot George Terwilliger flew the scientists who saw mothers and calves in the Georgia Bight in 1984; before then no one knew where the last of the North Atlantic right whales went to give birth. Terwilliger still flies two to three times a week, piloting an Air Cam aircraft specially designed for low-speed reconnaissance and photography.

Whether a surfacing whale is spied from shore, roof, or sky, the information is quickly phoned in via hotline to the Early Warning System, which transmits it to military and commercial mariners. When operators of commercial vessels over 300 gross tons enter right whale habitats, they must notify a Mandatory Ship Reporting System, which automatically provides information about recent sightings.

It's far from a perfect strategy. Ship captains don't have to slow down if they don't feel like it. The federal government recently cut funding for right whale conservation research. But nothing seems to dampen the volunteers' enthusiasm.

Standing on the boardwalk of a gated community in Florida, binoculars at the ready, Donna McCutchan said, "Most people in this development were like me. They had no idea whales winter here. Now everybody knows about them, and they know to call in if they spot one." McCutchan herself hadn't seen a whale for weeks. She didn't mind waiting, she said. "I once got to watch a mother roll onto her back, and bottlenose dolphins started jumping over her. Whales are addictive. Once you see them, you don't want them to leave. Ever."