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ABC News
09-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Syrian contractor discovers underground Byzantine tomb complex beneath rubble
The remains of an ancient underground Byzantine tomb complex, believed to be more than 1,500 years old, have been unearthed in northern Syria. A contractor was digging beneath the rubble of a destroyed house in the town of Maarat al-Numan in May when he made the startling find. Residents alerted the directorate of antiquities, which dispatched a specialised team to inspect and secure the site. They discovered a pit next to one of the town's cinder-block buildings, leading to the openings of two burial chambers. Each contained six stone tombs, with the sign of the cross etched into the top of one stone column. "Based on the presence of the cross and the pottery and glass pieces that were found, this tomb dates back to the Byzantine era," director of antiquities in the town's Idlib province, Hassan al-Ismail, said. He said the discovery adds to an already rich collection of archaeological sites in the area. "[Idlib] has a third of the monuments of Syria, containing 800 archaeological sites in addition to an ancient city," he said. The Byzantine Empire began in the 4th century AD and was a continuation of the Roman Empire, with Christianity as its official religion. Abandoned Byzantine-era settlements — called Dead Cities — stretch across rocky hills and plains in north-west Syria. Their weathered limestone ruins feature remnants of stone houses, basilicas, tombs and colonnaded streets. The town of Maarat al-Numan, where this latest archaeological site was unearthed, lies between the cities of Aleppo and Damascus. The community became a touchpoint in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war that ended with the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad in December. Mr Assad's forces seized the area back from opposition control in 2020. Houses were looted and demolished, with aerial images of the area showing many houses are still standing but with roofs torn off. Residents are now beginning to return and rebuild. Ghiath Sheikh Diab, a resident of Maarat al-Numan, said past owners of sites where archaeological ruins were found sometimes covered them up, fearful their property would be seized to preserve the ruins. He said he hoped the new government would fairly compensate property owners in such cases and provide assistance to the displaced people who have returned to the area to find their homes destroyed. The years of war led to significant damage to Syria's archaeological sites, not only from bombing but from looting and unauthorised digging. Some see in the ruins a sign of hope for economic renewal. Abed Jaafar, another resident, said in the "old days", many foreign tourists travelled to see the ruins. "We need to take care of the antiquities and restore them and return them to the way they were before," he said. "This will help to bring back the tourism and the economy." ABC/AP
Gizmodo
31-05-2025
- General
- Gizmodo
A Brief History of Our Obsession With Prime Numbers—and Where the Hunt Goes Next
A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented prime numbers. Similarly, a clay tablet from 1800 B.C.E. inscribed with Babylonian numbers describes a number system built on prime numbers. As the Ishango bone, the Plimpton 322 tablet and other artifacts throughout history display, prime numbers have fascinated and captivated people throughout history. Today, prime numbers and their properties are studied in number theory, a branch of mathematics and active area of research today. A history of prime numbers Informally, a positive counting number larger than one is prime if that number of dots can be arranged only into a rectangular array with one column or one row. For example, 11 is a prime number since 11 dots form only rectangular arrays of sizes 1 by 11 and 11 by 1. Conversely, 12 is not prime since you can use 12 dots to make an array of 3 by 4 dots, with multiple rows and multiple columns. Math textbooks define a prime number as a whole number greater than one whose only positive divisors are only 1 and itself. Math historian Peter S. Rudman suggests that Greek mathematicians were likely the first to understand the concept of prime numbers, around 500 B.C.E. Around 300 B.C.E., the Greek mathematician and logician Euler proved that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Euler began by assuming that there is a finite number of primes. Then he came up with a prime that was not on the original list to create a contradiction. Since a fundamental principle of mathematics is being logically consistent with no contradictions, Euler then concluded that his original assumption must be false. So, there are infinitely many primes. The argument established the existence of infinitely many primes, however it was not particularly constructive. Euler had no efficient method to list all the primes in an ascending list. In the middle ages, Arab mathematicians advanced the Greeks' theory of prime numbers, referred to as hasam numbers during this time. The Persian mathematician Kamal al-Din al-Farisi formulated the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, which states that any positive integer larger than one can be expressed uniquely as a product of primes. From this view, prime numbers are the basic building blocks for constructing any positive whole number using multiplication – akin to atoms combining to make molecules in chemistry. Prime numbers can be sorted into different types. In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci introduced in his book 'Liber Abaci: Book of Calculation' prime numbers of the form (2p – 1) where p is also prime. Today, primes in this form are called Mersenne primes after the French monk Marin Mersenne. Many of the largest known primes follow this format. Several early mathematicians believed that a number of the form (2p – 1) is prime whenever p is prime. But in 1536, mathematician Hudalricus Regius noticed that 11 is prime but not (211 – 1), which equals 2047. The number 2047 can be expressed as 11 times 89, disproving the conjecture. While not always true, number theorists realized that the (2p – 1) shortcut often produces primes and gives a systematic way to search for large primes. The search for large primes The number (2p – 1) is much larger relative to the value of p and provides opportunities to identify large primes. When the number (2p – 1) becomes sufficiently large, it is much harder to check whether (2p – 1) is prime – that is, if (2p – 1) dots can be arranged only into a rectangular array with one column or one row. Fortunately, Édouard Lucas developed a prime number test in 1878, later proved by Derrick Henry Lehmer in 1930. Their work resulted in an efficient algorithm for evaluating potential Mersenne primes. Using this algorithm with hand computations on paper, Lucas showed in 1876 that the 39-digit number (2127 – 1) equals 170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727, and that value is prime. Also known as M127, this number remains the largest prime verified by hand computations. It held the record for largest known prime for 75 years. Researchers began using computers in the 1950s, and the pace of discovering new large primes increased. In 1952, Raphael M. Robinson identified five new Mersenne primes using a Standard Western Automatic Computer to carry out the Lucas-Lehmer prime number tests. As computers improved, the list of Mersenne primes grew, especially with the Cray supercomputer's arrival in 1964. Although there are infinitely many primes, researchers are unsure how many fit the type (2p – 1) and are Mersenne primes. By the early 1980s, researchers had accumulated enough data to confidently believe that infinitely many Mersenne primes exist. They could even guess how often these prime numbers appear, on average. Mathematicians have not found proof so far, but new data continues to support these guesses. George Woltman, a computer scientist, founded the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, in 1996. Through this collaborative program, anyone can download freely available software from the GIMPS website to search for Mersenne prime numbers on their personal computers. The website contains specific instructions on how to participate. GIMPS has now identified 18 Mersenne primes, primarily on personal computers using Intel chips. The program averages a new discovery about every one to two years. The largest known prime Luke Durant, a retired programmer, discovered the current record for the largest known prime, (2136,279,841 – 1), in October 2024. Referred to as M136279841, this 41,024,320-digit number was the 52nd Mersenne prime identified and was found by running GIMPS on a publicly available cloud-based computing network. This network used Nvidia chips and ran across 17 countries and 24 data centers. These advanced chips provide faster computing by handling thousands of calculations simultaneously. The result is shorter run times for algorithms such as prime number testing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a civil liberty group that offers cash prizes for identifying large primes. It awarded prizes in 2000 and 2009 for the first verified 1 million-digit and 10 million-digit prime numbers. Large prime number enthusiasts' next two challenges are to identify the first 100 million-digit and 1 billion-digit primes. EFF prizes of US$150,000 and $250,000, respectively, await the first successful individual or group. Eight of the 10 largest known prime numbers are Mersenne primes, so GIMPS and cloud computing are poised to play a prominent role in the search for record-breaking large prime numbers. Large prime numbers have a vital role in many encryption methods in cybersecurity, so every internet user stands to benefit from the search for large prime numbers. These searches help keep digital communications and sensitive information safe. Jeremiah Bartz, Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of North Dakota. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Ancient Maya quiz: What do you know about the civilization that built pyramids across Mesoamerica?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The ancient Maya civilization stretched throughout Central America and lasted for nearly three millennia. Although never unified into one massive empire, the Maya controlled dozens of city-states, also known as "polities," which arose when people settled in permanent villages and began to cultivate maize. The ancient Maya are well known for their pyramids and for their series of calendars — one of which convinced many people that the world would end in an apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012. While the ancient political system collapsed between A.D. 800 and 1000, the society did not. Today, more than 7 million Maya live in their original homelands and beyond. Are you up to date on recent research on the ancient Maya? Take our quiz to find out. Remember to log in to put your name on the leaderboard; hints are available if you click the yellow button! Ancient Egypt quiz: Test your smarts about pyramids, hieroglyphs and King Tut Viking quiz: How much do you know about these seaborne raiders, traders and explorers? Pompeii quiz: How much do you know about the Roman town destroyed by Mount Vesuvius?
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: Ancient art to make the imagination soar
From the top of Knowth's great mound, my gaze leaps over its smaller satellite mounds and wanders across an expanse of summer-green fields. This is Brú na Bóinne, a vast neolithic complex looped by the River Boyne, where the landscape is dominated by three artificial 'hills' that were layered over passage tombs built about 5,000 years ago. The most famous of the three is to the south – Newgrange, which is aligned with the winter solstice sunrise. To the east is Dowth, which aligns with winter sunsets. And then there's this one beneath my feet, the great mound, containing two back-to-back chambers facing east and west. As ever with such ancient structures, the big question is: what was it for? The chambers could have been intended to catch the sunlight of the spring and autumn equinoxes (in March and September), when day and night are of equal duration. This is potentially affirmed by the equinoctial shadows cast by lone standing stones towards the east and west passage entrances. But Knowth was also a place of settlement and burial for thousands of years. All that human activity over the millennia damaged its passages, with the sunlight now only reaching a short distance along their lengths. Another intriguing possibility is that the great mound is the result of neolithic people's sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, which integrates an understanding of both the solar and lunar cycles. Knowth's megalithic art – the largest collection in Europe – hints at this purpose. Much of the artwork is on the massive kerbstones that ring the great mound like a giant's prayer beads. I head back down the slope and dawdle from stone to stone. The carved lines create abstract pictures that let the imagination soar. Concentric arcs could be the sun. Repeated waves might trace the moon's path across the sky. And dazzling spirals remind me of Van Gogh's Starry Night. A series of rapid chitterings makes me look up. I'm close to the east entrance, where the reconstructed woodhenge (a circle of timber pillars) stands above the sockets of the original neolithic one. I think of those first builders. They too must have watched chittering swallows. They too must have seen how a flock carves the sky. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
