Ancient bricks reveal enigmas in Earth's magnetic field

[Judi Lynn]

December 19, 2023

Ellen Phiddian

A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that bricks bearing the names of Mesopotamian kings have been marked by changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

The discovery could help to date the era more accurately, and provide a better insight into a geomagnetic anomaly that occurred between about 3,000 and 2,500 years ago.

“We often depend on dating methods such as radiocarbon dates to get a sense of chronology in ancient Mesopotamia,” says study co-author Professor Mark Altaweel, from the University College London Institute of Archaeology.

“However, some of the most common cultural remains, such as bricks and ceramics, cannot be easily dated because they don’t contain organic material.

“This work now helps create an important dating baseline that allows others to benefit from absolute dating using archaeomagnetism.”

The UK, US and Israeli researchers looked at grains of iron oxide in 32 baked bricks. Each of these bricks hailed from ancient Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, and each bore the name of the reigning king at the time of making. All in all, the bricks had the names of 12 Mesopotamian kings inscribed on them.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/bricks-magnetic-field-mesopotamia/

[marble falls]

1. This is almost more detective story than a science story. Thanks once again for making me more ...

... informed today than I was yesterday.

[UpInArms]

2. Thank you for posting

You always have the best articles … so full of knowledge and wonderment

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's an adventure every time I look for these articles. Have never not been deeply surprised each time, UpInArms.

No time to get bored looking for new things springing into view daily from the "vast system of tubes, the InternetS" as Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska termed them!

Thank you, UpInArms. Have a great Christmas. 🎄

[Judi Lynn]

4. How 3,000-year-old Babylonian tablets help scientists unravel one of the weirdest mysteries in space

Archaeomagnetism helps us understand spacecraft hiccups — and why the humanities are crucial to STEM

By RAE HODGE
Staff Reporter
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 25, 2023 1:30PM (EST)

Among the most enigmatic mysteries of modern science are the strange anomalies which appear from time to time in the earth’s geomagnetic field. It can seem like the laws of physics behave differently in some places, with unnerving and bizarre results — spacecraft become glitchy, the Hubble Space Telescope can’t capture observations and satellite communications go on the fritz. Some astronauts orbiting past the anomalies report blinding flashes of light and sudden silence. They call one of these massive, growing anomalies the Bermuda Triangle of space — and even NASA is now tracking it.

With all the precisely tuned prowess of modern tech turning its eye toward these geomagnetic oddities, you might not expect that some key scientific insights about them could be locked inside a batch of 3,000-year-old Babylonian cuneiform tablets. But that’s exactly what a recently published study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.

“The geomagnetic field is one of the most enigmatic phenomena in earth sciences,” said study co-author Lisa Tauxe in a release. “The well-dated archaeological remains of the rich Mesopotamian cultures, especially bricks inscribed with names of specific kings, provide an unprecedented opportunity to study changes in the field strength in high time resolution, tracking changes that occurred over several decades or even less.”

This newly discovered connection between ancient Mesopotamian writing and modern physics is more than an amusing academic fluke. It highlights just how much is at stake for 21st-century scientific progress when budget-slashing lawmakers, university administrators and private industry investors shovel funding into STEM field development while neglecting — and in some case, actively destroying — the humanities.

More:
https://www.salon.com/2023/12/25/3000-year-old-babylonian-tablet-science-weirdest-mystery-space/