At https://phys.org/news/2023-01-unearthing-archaeological-lagash-site-southern.html … archaeologists returned to Lagash in 2022 to reopen their excavations. They came across an ancient ‘tavern’ complete with benches, a clay cooling system, an oven, and the remains of storage vessels, many of which contained food, or food residues. A public eating place rather than what we might call a tavern in the modern world, but dating to around 2700BC. In other words, Early Dynastic 1 period [equivalent to EB1 elsewhere in the Near East].
In the 4th millennium BC, roughly 6000 to 5000 years ago, the mouth of the Persian Gulf lay 150 miles to the NW of where it does in the modern world. Close to the shore line lay Girsu, Lagash, and Nigin – which together made up a larger city state also known as Lagash. Lagash continued into the 3rd millennium (2900 to 2300BC).
They began with simple hand augers to collect sediment samples and then enlisted a local drilling technician who produced a core going down 80 feet. This goes back into the Late Pleistocene period so it will be interesting for geologists as much as archaeologists, as well as all of the Holocene. In the Late Pleistocene southern Iraq was quite different, with fast flowing and deeply incised rivers. A lot of information will be extracted from the drilling core – environmental change at specific points of time in the past.
For more information visit https://web.sas.upenn.edu/lagash …
At https://phys.org/news/2023-01-egypt-unveils-ancient-secret-keeper.html … the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo has yielded four tombs from the 5th and 6th dynasties – 2500-2200BC. Strangely, these appear to be older dates, more in line with C14/tree ring calibration. They do not seem to agree with IntCal dating methodology. Do Egyptologists still ignore scientific dating?