Archaeologists have discovered the remains of ancient cosmetics and makeup, which were used by Roman women more than 2,000 years ago.
Scientists found these discoveries among the remains of a 2,000-year-old market east of the well-preserved Temple of Zeus in Anatolia, a site that has been subject to intense excavation since its rediscovery in 1998.
Elections in 79 AD. Evidence of political corruption was discovered in Pompeii before the devastating volcanic eruption
Archaeologists found 10 different colors of ancient Roman makeup pigments, mostly shades of red and pink, as well as jewelry, perfume bottles and other cosmetic relics.
They also found various beads belonging to products such as hairpins and necklaces used by women.
Gokhan Coskun, an archaeologist at Dumlupinar University and head of the excavation team, confirmed to local media that the remains were indeed makeup materials used by Roman women.
"One of our most surprising findings was makeup pigments similar to blush and eye shadow used today," he added.
The researchers found a range of samples, most of them pieces 1 or 2 millimeters (0.04 inches) in size.
He added: "We also found a large number of oyster shells in the store we excavated."
In the Roman Empire, cosmetics such as blush and eye shadow were often placed inside oyster shells for use.
The dominant colors discovered were red and pink, with makeup pigments of various shades present.
The ancient site is located 35 miles from the center of Kutahya. It witnessed its golden age in the second and third centuries AD and became “the episcopal center in the Byzantine era,” according to the website of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Recent excavations around the Temple of Zeus indicate that there were several levels of settlement in the city dating back to 3000 BC. In 133 BC, it was captured by the Roman Empire. In 1824, European travelers rediscovered the ancient site.
Between 1970 and 2011, the German Archaeological Institute discovered a theater and a stadium, in addition to two public baths, a gymnasium, five bridges, a commercial building, tombs, and a sacred cave for worship.
Since 2011, Turkish archaeologists have been working on the ancient site.
Discovering the route of the exodus of Cro-Magnon people from Africa to the Jordan Valley
An international team of anthropologists has discovered 84,000-year-old Cro-Magne working tools in the Jordan Valley.
It was succeeded by one of the first groups of Cro-Magnon to leave Africa during the spread of humanity around the Earth. This came in a statement published by the press service of the British University of Southampton in Science Advances magazine.
Paul Carling, a professor at the University of Southampton, said: “For years it was believed that humans left Africa and entered the Arabian Peninsula through the Red Sea at a time when the level of the global ocean was much lower than it is today. We have found evidence that humanity actually left Africa.” Via a 'northern route', i.e. via terrestrial, water-rich ecosystems.
As Carling and colleagues note, the question of how ancient settlers left Africa in the early stages of colonizing the land is particularly controversial. Some scholars believe that they moved along the so-called southern route, through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and along the southern shores of the Arabian Peninsula, while other anthropologists believe that the Cro-Magnes left Africa via the Isthmus of Suez located to the north.
According to the current hypotheses of anthropologists, the first groups of Cro-Magnon left Africa about 100-130 thousand years ago, after which they began to spread throughout Asia and Europe. The question of when and by what route these migrations took place now causes a lot of controversy, which is linked to the fact that a large part of Europe and northern Eurasia was covered by glaciers that retreated and advanced periodically.
Carling and his colleagues discovered new evidence in favor of the existence of a northern migration route for the Cro-Magnes during excavations in the Jordan River Basin, in Wadi Ghaza, Wadi Qarandal, and in the Gregra region. Here, scientists discovered layers of sedimentary rocks that were formed about 125-70 thousand years ago, that is, at the time when the first Homo sapiens were supposed to have begun to settle in the Levant and southwest Asia.
In these deposits, scientists discovered fragments of working tools belonging to the so-called Levallois civilization, to which the first Cro-Magnes and the last Neanderthals on Earth were supposed to belong. The age of these artifacts, as evidenced by radioisotope analysis of the rock layers surrounding them, is about 84 thousand years, which dates them back to the time of the exodus of the Cro-Magnes from Africa.
Analysis of sedimentary rocks from the three regions studied showed that the Levant was at this time covered in grassy savannahs and other ecosystems that could only exist with sufficiently high levels of precipitation. Such an environment was more suitable for the migration of Homo sapiens from the southern regions of the Arabian Peninsula.
“We assume that the Levant was a water-rich ‘green corridor’ that helped humans leave Africa and spread across the Earth during the Ice Age,” said Mahmoud Abbas, a researcher at Shantou University in China. “At that time, the Jordan Valley was not a desert, but rather "A grassy savannah provided plenty of resources for humans to survive the journey to southwest Asia."