Tag: turkey

Curator at American Museum of Natural History Arrested in Turkey for Allegedly Smuggling Spiders and Scorpions

Science or resource plunder? The frontier is sometimes not entirely clear.

Police in Turkey reportedly arrested a man suspected of trying to smuggle valuable poisonous spiders and scorpions out of the country.

Turkish state media identifying the suspect on Monday as a curator at New York’s American Museum of Natural History.

Reuters reported:

“Police arrested the suspect at Istanbul Airport on Sunday and seized dozens of bags from his luggage containing some 1,500 scorpions and spiders, including tarantulas, as well as dozens of plastic bottles containing unspecified liquids, police said.

The state-owned Anadolu news agency reported the suspect was Lorenzo Prendini, a curator at the historic U.S. museum, without specifying a source.”

The American Museum of Natural History did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

“Police said the specimens seized were endemic to Turkey and that their DNA could be copied and their poisons milked for use in making medicines. The suspect faces charges under anti-smuggling law, it added without giving a name.

‘It is understood that these medicines have very high financial values and therefore taking these animal species abroad is strictly forbidden’, [Turkish Police] said.”

Research quoted by Police showed that the market value of one litre of ‘medicine’ obtained from scorpion venom was supposedly worth $10 million.

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Gobekli Tepe: Gradual evolution? Or transfer of technology? Or both?

In Episode 5 of my documentary series Ancient Apocalypse, released on Netflix in November 2022, I speak of GobekIi Tepe in southeastern Turkey, which is reliably dated to around 11,600 years ago. I introduce it as the oldest megalithic archaeological site that has yet been discovered anywhere in the world:

“It’s an enormous site, you can’t just wake up one morning with no prior skills, no prior knowledge, no background in working with stone and create something like Gobekli Tepe. There has to be a long history behind it and that history is completely missing…

To me it very strongly speaks of a lost civilisation, transferring their technology, their skills, their knowledge to hunter gatherers…”

I’ve spent more than 30 years on a controversial quest for a lost civilization of the Ice Age. You could say it’s my obsession. Perhaps it was because I was so caught up in the search on my first visits to Gobekli Tepe in 2013 and 2014, and so impressed by the genius of its design and its monolithic T-shaped pillars with their intricate carvings, that I didn’t fully appreciate how complicated its inheritance of technology transfer had been. Nor did I grasp how much of the history of that transfer, even though it went unrecognized as such, had bit by bit begun to be revealed by archeologists. In consequence, I overlooked excellent, high-quality data, which, if I had deployed it at the time, would have strengthened my own thesis greatly.

The transfer didn’t begin with Gobekli Tepe – which is itself 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. It didn’t even begin in the Neolithic. It began millennia earlier with Late Epipalaeolithic cultures, one of which has, since the 1920s, been referred to as Natufian. Of course, we don’t know what it was called by its own people, or even if it consisted of a single culture or multiple different cultures sharing similar lifeways. Moreover, new finds are constantly challenging our understanding of it. Thus, the Natufian was initially thought to be an exclusively nomadic or semi-nomadic hunter-forager2 culture typical of the period, but excavations at Ein Mallaha (also known as Eynan) in northern Israel, some 600 miles south of Gobekli Tepe, uncovered substantial architectural features:

Semi-subterranean curvilinear structures… made of undressed limestone characterized the site throughout its history. Their construction usually consisted of cutting into the slope and building retaining walls in order to support the surrounding sloping ground. The superstructure (roof) of these shelters [a combination of associated structures and floors] was presumed to have been made of organic material.3

As a result of these discoveries at Ain Mallaha, report archaeologists Gill Haklay and Avi Gopher of the University of Tel Aviv, “the innovation of stone construction” began to be recognised as:

“part and parcel of the Natufian repertoire. Prior to the Natufian, stone architecture, which is generally associated with sedentism, was rare and it later became a hallmark of the Neolithic period.”4

In 2015, deploying architectural formal analysis to study the relationships between different construction elements, Haklay and Gopher undertook a close investigation of one of Ein Mallaha’s largest buildings, “Shelter 51”. Dated to the Early Natufian around 14,300 years ago,5 this structure has a number of peculiar and eye-catching characteristics, in addition to its rarity as an early example of stone architecture, that seem – to my eyes at any rate – to be out of place in time. Amongst these characteristics, the most notable, distinguishing Shelter 51 from earlier structures that have been claimed as predecessors dating as far back as the early Epipalaeolithic (around 20,000 years ago),6 is clear evidence of the use of geometry and a pre-prepared ground plan, revealing what Haklay and Gopher describe as:

“a whole new level of architectural design… Architectural with a capital A…7

“Here, the designer addressed and integrated the different aspects of architectural planning, including spatial organization, structural system and spatial form, under a common geometric concept. This resulted in a standardization of the structural and spatial elements. Unlike the early Epipaleolithic brushwood huts, Shelter 51 was envisioned by its designer in its totality and in a different level of detail. Thanks to the use of geometric concepts, a shape of a floor plan could have been defined and specified prior to its marking on the ground, and an architectural design could have been shared with others and carried out with accuracy. As worded by Marx relating to human productivity: ‘A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality”.8

Future discoveries may force further revision of the picture, but it is beginning to look very much as though the earliest surviving evidence for the deliberate use of geometry and an architectural plan, so typical of Gobekli Tepe 11,600 years ago, comes down to us from the Natufian culture somewhere around 14,300 years ago. As Haklay and Gopher conclude:

“The Natufian level of architectural planning, an innovation made possible by the introduction of a geometric tradition, represents a turning point in human/environment relations, as the role of geometry in architectural design and its manifestation in the spatial form of the built environment were destined to become predominant…”9

Nor is Structure 51 the only example:

“The Natufians were also familiar with the notion of a ‘perfect’ and precise circle. It is evident, for example, from the 62cm high mortar and stone discs retrieved from the site of Eynan. These artifacts possess a strikingly high degree of symmetry, and reflect the intention and ability of producing objects of such properties.”10

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Clay Tablet From 3,300-Years Ago Tells Story of the Siege and Plunder of Four Hittite Cities

A 3,300-year-old clay tablet unearthed in central Turkey has painted a tale of a devastating foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire during a period of internal strife and civil war. As the civil war played out, the invasion allegedly supported one of the warring factions, as deciphered from the tablet’s cuneiform script. Discovered in summer 2023, the palm-sized tablet was found amidst the ruins of Büklükale, situated approximately 37 miles (60km) southeast of Ankara, Turkey’s capital.

A Clay Tablet Indicating Royalty and Sacred Rites

Previously, only broken clay tablets and the like were unearthed at Büklükale, but this is the first complete tablet in near perfect condition. It had been discovered by archaeologist Kimiyoshi Matsumura of the Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology in May 2023. The Hittite utilization of the Hurrian language in religious contexts suggests that the tablet serves as a historical record documenting a sacred rite performed by the Hittite monarch, reports Live Science.

Büklükale was thought to be a major Hittite city by archaeologists, but with this new discovery, potentially a royal residence on par with the Hittite capital, Hattusa, located some 70 miles (112km) to the northeast.

As per the translation by Mark Weeden, an associate professor specializing in ancient Middle Eastern languages at University College London, the initial six lines of cuneiform text on the tablet, inscribed in the Hittite language, lament the dire state of “four cities, including the capital, Hattusa,” indicating a calamitous event. The subsequent 64 lines are composed in the Hurrian language, constituting a prayer seeking divine assistance for victory.

“The find of the Hurrian tablet means that the religious ritual at Büklükale was performed by the Hittite king,” Weeden told  Live Science. “It indicates that, at the least, the Hittite king came to Büklükale … and performed the ritual.”

The Hurrian language, originally associated with the Mitanni kingdom in the region, eventually became utilized by the Hittite Empire in some sort of a subordinate capacity. Despite ongoing scholarly efforts, Hurrian remains a language of which we have limited understanding. Matsumura explained that experts have dedicated several months to deciphering the inscription’s meaning.

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2,800-Year-Old Thracian “Pharmaceutical” Center Unearthed at Heraion Teikhos, Turkey

In 2021, a team of researchers unearthed a 2,800-year-old temple at the ancient Thracian city of Heraion Teikhos, in Turkey. Now, a water system has been identified leading to a space within the temple which researchers are calling an “ancient pharmaceutical production area.”

Digging the Thracian City of Heraion Teikhos

The ancient Thracian city, Heraion Teikhos, is located on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara, in the region of East Thrace, in the northwestern Turkish province of Tekirdağ.

Back in 2021, in the city’s acropolis, archaeologists excavated an ancient Thracian civilization temple loaded with rare artworks, which is thought to have been lost in a fire that occurred in 2 BC.

Professor Dr. Neşe Atik told Hurriyet Daily News that a team from Istanbul Rumeli University have been excavating at Heraion Teikhos since 2000. While the temple itself is mostly ruinous, the researchers have removed statues of gods including “Kybele, Eros and Aphrodite as well as bronze coins, amphora and similar pieces from the temple,” said Atik.

Now, the archaeologists have announced their identification of a pharmacological production unit, with its own dedicated water supply system.

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NYC mayor being investigated for potentially illegal campaign cash

Federal authorities are investigating whether New York City Mayor Eric Adams received illegal campaign contributions from Turkey, reportedThe New York Times on Thursday.

This report comes after a raid was executed at the home of Brianna Suggs, a campaign consultant and prominent fundraiser for the mayor.

“Investigators also sought to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey, as well as a small university in Washington, D.C., that also has ties to the country and to Mr. Adams,” reported William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays. “According to the search warrant, investigators were also focused on whether the mayor’s campaign kicked back benefits to the construction company’s officials and employees, and to Turkish officials.”

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Previously Unknown Language Found on Ancient Hittite Tablets in Turkey

In the midst of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge language models, a significant archaeological discovery has unfolded in Boğazköy-Hattusha ( Hattusa), the old Hittite capital in Turkey. Archaeologists have unearthed a previously unknown ancient language in a cultic ritual text, adding a fresh dimension to our understanding of Late Bronze Age Anatolia.

The Hattusa archaeological site in north-central Turkey is an ancient Hittite rock sanctuary and open-air shrine. Boasting impressive rock reliefs depicting deities and mythological scenes, the earliest settlement dates back to the Late Bronze Age (1650 to 1200 BC), when the Hittite Empire dominated the region.

Hattusa was an ancient capital of the Hittite Empire , and until now, among the most impressive discoveries at this UNESCO World Heritage Site, was a representation of the Storm God “Tarhunt,” who symbolized the Hittite pantheon’s strength and power. However, a recent excavation has unearthed a hitherto unknown Indo-European language.

Excavations at Hattusa have been undertaken for over a century, mostly under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute . Under the watch of the current site director, Professor Andreas Schachner of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute, numerous cuneiform tablets have been unearthed.

In total, around 30,000 clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing have been recovered from this site. While these tablets offer archaeologists insights into Hittite cultural traditions, Professor Daniel Schwemer, head of the Chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Germany, said the recent discovery of “a previously unknown Indo-European language,” reaches new archaeological heights.

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Boncuklu Tarla: A megalithic site predating Göbekli Tepe

The uncovering of the stunning megalithic architecture of Göbekli Tepe in modern day Türkiye less than three decades ago turned our view of pre-history upside down, with the massive t-shaped pillars of the site pre-dating the pyramids and Stonehenge by some six or seven thousand years. But while it took the spotlight, archaeologists in the area continued finding other, similar sites with impressive architecture and dating back the same mind-boggling stretch in time, some 10,000 years before present.

One of the sites that has become well-known recently is Karahan Tepe (perhaps most notably after it was covered in Graham Hancock’s Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse). But another, lesser known site that lies further to the east may end up being even more important: Boncuklu Tarla. Discovered during construction work on the Ilısu Dam in 2008, it has undergone excavation over the last 11 years and has already turned up many things of note.

Like the other ancient sites of that time in Turkey, Boncuklu Tarla features a walled ‘temple’ with rock pillars – but they appear to predate Göbekli Tepe by a thousand years or so (though the pillars don’t appear to be as impressive), with the earliest layer of the site dating back a staggering 13,000 years. What’s more, the excavation over the past eleven years has worked through multiple layers of the site, with dating of those layers suggesting that it was occupied for around 4,000 years – from around 11,000 BCE to 7,000BCE!

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The Armenian Genocide and Turkish denial of it.

The annual commemoration day for the genocide is April 24th, 1915, the date held by many scholars to mark the start Armenian Genocide which began with the arrests of Armenian political and communal leaders in Istanbul and throughout the Ottoman Empire. Between 1- 1.5 million Armenian Christians died in 1915-16 under the auspices of the Ottoman state, directed by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). To this day, the Turkish state and government has denied that any genocide ever took place, and instead claim that the Armenian deaths were caused as a result of a war between them and the Ottoman armies during WW1.

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Some Claiming Turkey Earthquakes Were Man-made

As the death toll from the recent earthquakes that decimated parts of Turkey and Syria on February 6 continues to rise — now exceeding 50,000 — skeptics of the mainstream narrative, such as Romanian Senator Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă, have claimed that globalist powers such as the United States triggered the recent series of quakes and tremors to penalize Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for not aligning with globalist interests.

In a statement to Romania’s upper house, Șoșoacă, also one of Romania’s key skeptics of the official Covid-19 narrative, posited:

For three years we have been experiencing a real campaign of mass killing worldwide, either through alleged pandemics and the imminent need to inject untested vaccines that kill people, or through wars that reduce the world’s population, but rearranges international politics, realigns power poles and alters borders. We have lived to witness the production of earthquakes on command, which is actually an attack on Turkey by the greatest of the world who totally disliked being set up by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey.

Moreover, his position of neutrality and mediator in the Ukrainian-Russian war deeply disturbed them, especially since Turkey is the second great power from a military point of view within NATO. His position to block Sweden’s accession to NATO, his speech in Davos, as well as the gesture of leaving in the middle of the press conference, defying [World Economic Forum head Klaus] Schwab, did not remain without an echo in the cold world of leaders the world. But, no one thought that people would have to die, so many people, and in such a terrible way. And it’s just a warning, because it wasn’t the most populated area of Turkey.

150 aftershocks of a devastating earthquake, the second larger than the first, without the existence of an epicenter, the area being artificially stimulated, geological weapons having existed for a very long time, being used so far without causing too many casualties, probably for experiments. Now, it has been put into practice.

If we look carefully at the map of Turkey, we will see that it is furrowed by gas and oil pipelines, this being actually one of the goals: their destruction. But, 10 seconds before the occurrence of the so-called earthquake, the Turks closed these pipelines. In addition, 24 hours before the earthquake, 10 countries withdrew their ambassadors from Turkey. 5 days before its occurrence, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a travel warning for Romanian citizens in Turkey, although there was no danger, as did other countries. By killing people, they served their interests. The maps shown on all the television channels show that there was no epicenter, but a line with thousands of earthquakes. The Turkish secret services are investigating a possible “criminal intervention,” (read an involvement of another state in triggering the first earthquake), what followed later being a chain reaction after the destabilization of the tectonic plates in the region.

Not surprisingly, mainstream media outlets did not report Șoșoacă’s speech, reiterating that earthquakes are natural events, particularly in countries with major fault lines, such as Turkey. Several mainstream “fact-checkers” at places such as USA Today and India Herald have also dismissed claims that globalists used technology to cause the deadly quakes.

“Nobody has the ability to intentionally create a large earthquake with any degree of certainty,” said Rachel Abercrombie, a seismologist at Boston University cited by USA Today. “Various human activities — such as building large water reservoirs and fracking and waste-water injection related to hydrocarbon extraction and geothermal energy projects — can induce earthquakes, but never as large as this.”

Similarly, USA Today quoted Jonathan Stewart, an environmental engineering professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, who claimed that induced earthquakes do not reach magnitudes above the mid-5 range, whereas the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria were much stronger.

Nonetheless, technologies that can trigger earthquakes do exist, with their origins traceable to the late 19th century, when experiments staged by Nikola Tesla at his New York laboratory undermined a building’s stability and threatened to bring it down. Based on this fact, some (such as Șoșoacă) have claimed that if the recent earthquakes were man-made, the party likely responsible for them would be the HAARP facility in Alaska.

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Man Stumbles On Vast Underground City Behind Wall During Home Reno—And Tunnels Go On Forever

Amid the strange fairy chimney stacks of eroded rock that litter the landscape of Cappadocia in central Turkey, little more than an inkling suggests that a sprawling subterranean city lies under the arid ground beneath one’s feet.

For centuries, the inhabitants of the Anatolian plateau have been carving dwellings, monasteries, and troglodyte villages out of the local soft volcanic rock, conjuring what look like scenes from a Tolkien novel today. There’s plenty enough to stir imaginations aboveground, luring tourists to hike and hot-air balloon in Cappadocia; meanwhile, an underground world with hundreds of miles of chambers and passages rests unseen below.

Called Elengubu in ancient times, after its recent rediscovery this cavernous city borrowed the namesake of its overlying district, Derinkuyu, in Nevşehir province. Abandoned centuries ago, the intricate tunnel network of Derinkuyu once offered safety and concealment for those seeking refuge amid persecution.

Yet the city was—and still is—intertwined with stone structures and dwellings overland. After it was abandoned, and after fading from public knowledge in the early 20th century, Derinkuyu’s accidental rediscovery in 1963 was credited to a home renovation. According to locals, a Turkish man who was expanding his domicile tore down a wall only to discover an abysmal passageway that seemed to go on forever, which led to the underground city’s prompt excavation. This was the first of some 600 entry points found connecting Derinkuyu with structures above.

Gargantuan in size, Derinkuyu spans some 275 square miles (445 square kilometers), descending 279 feet (85 meters) underground with some 18 levels. Once a bustling sub-terrestrial city, Derinkuyu is beset with living quarters for some 20,000 inhabitants, stables for livestock, wine and oil presses, cellars, chapels, schools, wells, and other amenities. This made the underground metropolis a fully self-sustaining community whose inhabitants could sever themselves from an outside world that was often fraught with danger in times of invasion or occupation.

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