Ancient bricks reveal enigmas in Earth's magnetic field [View all]
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/
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