Ancient cemeteries in Sudan turned out to be a mini-copy of galaxies
Ancient Sudanese cemeteries turned out to be like a galaxy. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the location of the burials is similar to a map of the starry sky, according to PLOS .
The Kassala region of eastern Sudan is home to many funerary monuments, from the Islamic tombs of the modern inhabitants of Beji to ancient burial mounds that are thousands of years old. Archaeologists believed that they were not randomly located, but until recently they could not see the system.
As part of the new study, scientists from the University of Naples have collected information on more than 10,000 monuments in an area of over 4,000 square kilometers. They then analyzed their location using the Neumann-Scott model, originally developed to study stars and galaxies.
It turned out that the burials at Kassala are grouped around certain points (probably the most ancient and revered mounds), exactly as the stars are grouped around the centers of high gravity.
Scientists have suggested that this location of the tombs may be related to the peculiarities of the environment. In areas with favorable landscapes and available building materials, a higher density of burials is observed. Social attitudes are also important: new graves are usually dug next to older mounds or family graves.
Earlier it was reported that a Viking cemetery was excavated in Sweden. It is about a thousand years old.
