Unusual Archaeological Discovery of the Tomb of a Warrior

Archaeologists who were originally under the belief that they were trying to dig the site of an ancient house in Greece recently discovered something much more uncommon: a loaded Bronze Age warrior's tomb, filled with precious metals and colorful gemstones.

The tomb, which dates back about 3,500 years to 1500 B.C., was uncovered by an international group of archaeologists headed by archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati. Among all items unearthed in this warrior’s tomb, there is a bronze sword with an ivory hilt covered in gold.

Gold cups and jewelry, as well as hundreds of beads made from precious stones like amethyst and jasper, also surrounded the remains of the deceased Mycenaean warrior, who once lived near what is now the city of Pylos, on the southwest coast of Greece.  

The online venue that provides this story is “Live-Science”, which is a online website that is particularly devoted to most up-to-date and significant archaeological findings and stories. Live Science was originally launched in 2004, but was subsequently shut down and re-launched in 2007. Live Science covers scientific breakthroughs, research ventures and odd facts from around the world in an online newsmagazine format.

Even though Live Science is deemed by some researchers as not credible because of its lack of affiliation with sources (affiliation plays a large role in terms of determining credibility of a website), there is a lot of people or researchers who hold positive attitudes and trust Live Science as a source because the authors provide proper documentation of their articles and write unbiased reasoning about their topic (information obtained from Statistical Charts on Quora).

For example, in the article of the warrior’s tomb, the author employed numerous proofs of such discovery. These proofs include on-site pictures, images of artifacts, and many in-text links that direct readers to more concrete explanations of cities, names, and figures that appeared in the article. In addition, the author also pinpointed the group who discovered this tomb. The author clearly identified that this warrior tomb was found by “an international group of researchers led by archaeologists from University of Cincinnati. Moreover, the author also provided the name of a member of this group along with his title and employer. The author also quoted a Greece study professor from University of Cincinnati’s department of Classics. ( I verified this provided information myself on University of Cincinnati’s website. Davis is a professor of department of classics and he is currently working on a warrior’s tomb in Greece.)

With all of the abovementioned information provided, I am strongly convinced that Live Science is a credible source at least for the story of this discovery of warrior's tomb. The entire reasoning process adopted by the author as well as Live Science in general is very disinterested.

This argument can be verified through the following points:

1. There is little to none personal voice of the author. Every statement is either a paraphrase of a source or a direct quotation of people who are closely involved in the study. From this point of view, the author is got a lot of objectivity.
2. The author acknowledges many pre-existed facts. For example, the author recognizes that the newly discovered warrior’s tomb predates the rule of King Nestor and concludes that this warrior’s tomb is not the tomb of legendary King Nestor.
3. The language used by the author when it comes to an uncertain claim or inference is almost always hedging. The author used many “might”, “may”, “could”, and “can” in the article. This article largely avoids absolute statements. Also, in this part, the assumptions made by the author are valid for the reason that they accord with established facts and they are built upon expert opinions. For example, the author speculates that this tomb can help figure out how the area of this tomb gained wealth before King Nestor. This warrior’s tomb is not King Nestor’s, which is an established fact among researchers. Figuring out the way to prosperity is actually professor Davis’ hope.
4. The author also objectively reports results of this tomb and has no intention to twist it into a sensation. For instance, the author notes that “researchers are still trying to find who this ancient warrior might have been.” This shows that there is currently no decisive conclusion and the author is not trying to overstate the progress of this finding. This is only one of many such instances that can be found throughout the article.
5. At the end of this article, this author projects some possible and potential significances that this discovery might contribute to existing knowledge. By doing this, the author successfully linked this discovery to many established ongoing studies such as trades in ancient Greece and thus, he or she not only further improves the credibility of this article but also remains highly logically complete in the entire course of reasoning.
6. The article adopts a very smooth flow of logic. It introduces the finding with its significance at the beginning, quotes experts as support in the body, and anticipates its progress and contribution at the end. Apart from credible venue and unbiased reasoning, the archaeology story in regard of warrior’s tomb is also reliable for its use of many scholarly sources.

The statement quoted from Professor Davis of University of Cincinnati is indeed from an article published on the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The statement quoted in the article is a direct word-to-word quotation. It clearly identified the artifacts that were unearthed from the tomb by the group and also lent straightforward support to the fact that most of these artifacts are intact.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members, and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science, which had a weekly circulation of 138,549 in 2008. It is a highly qualified scholarly source.

As argued in the second slide, Live Science itself is a very qualified and credible source. There is numerous citations and in-text hyperlinks that direct readers to another Live Science article which thoroughly describes the quoted information such as Mycenaean warrior,  Palace of Nestor, and the Minoan civilization. These three sources are presented in a quite supportable way for that these articles along with warrior’s tomb bring a clear and comprehensive picture of the area around this warrior tomb and how intertwined this tomb might be to other Greek mysteries listed in the article. They highly overlap in terms of general information and are also very complementary to each other.

Archaeologists in Israel state that they have discovered a clay seal mark that may contain the signature of the Biblical Prophet Isaiah.

The 2,700-year-old stamped clay artifact originated during an digging at the foot of the southern wall of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. In ancient times a seal stamp was used to substantiate documents or items. This archaeology story could have been shocking and refreshing if it had not been published on Fox News. This story, published in the section of “Digging history” is classified as a major biblical discovery according to James Rogers, the author of this story.

Fox News is a United States television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios in New York City. Fox News is provided in 86 countries or overseas territories worldwide.

Fox News has been described as practicing biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party and conservative causes. Critics have cited the channel as detrimental to the integrity of news overall.

In addition to biased political opinions, it is also suspicious that Fox News is in favor of Christian groups, one of the major conservative forces in the United States. Fox News has very strong opinion toward pro-life and anti-abortion, which is an important principle in Christianity.

Therefore, due to Fox News’ reputation of being politically biased and its favor of conservative forces along with its low quality of writing, I am quite dubious that such a “significant” signature is true. On top of a questionable venue, this story also suffers credibility crisis for its untenable source.

Biblical Archaeology Society

The Biblical Archaeology Society is a non-denominational organization that endorses biblical archaeology. Biblical Archaeology Society was accused of forgery in 2002. At a 2002 press conference, the Biblical Archaeology Society proclaimed the discovery of the James Ossuary. Some critics have accused that the ossuary, which may have held the remains of James, brother of Jesus, is a forgery. On March 14, 2012, the defendants were acquitted of all charges of forgery because the ossuary's authenticity could not be verified.

The main source of this story is based on an article published on Biblical Archaeology Society by Dr. Robert Cargill called “An Unprecedented Find: Prophet Isaiah’s Seal Mark Possibly Discovered in Jerusalem”. I have looked at Dr. Robert Cargill’s CV, he is an excellent professor, working at University of Iowa, in the field of religious study and classics but his main research area, unfortunately, is not archaeology. In other words, he is an expert of Classics and Religious study but he is not an archaeologist. Therefore, whether or not the article he published about archaeology is credible remains uncertain.

Moreover, this organization is biased from my perspective. It is called Biblical Archaeology Society because its main goal is to find physical evidence that can prove that the Bible is true and is something real. This kind of prewired and purposed orientation is deviant from the subject of archaeology which seeks to find artifacts and then derive information out of them. The society, on the other hand, already holds a belief and then searches for artifacts that prove their opinions. This way of conducting research limits objectivity.

Lastly, the source is not presented in a clear and supportable way. What the author did is essentially cutting out pieces from the article published on Biblical Archaeology Society. The information provided by the author is incomplete. It misses many important details from the Bible that are germane to the “signature”. It also ignores many of Dr. Cargill’s assumptions and erroneously takes them as statements. As mentioned in the previous two slides, Fox News is known for its bias toward conservative forces in which Christian groups prevail. Therefore, it is quite obvious that, in the article published on Fox News, the author is helping Christian groups to establish physical evidence of their Faith.

The Bible has long been used as a tool for many Christians to defend their Faith. However, there is also a lot of people questioning whether stories scripted on the Bible are realistic. This uncertainty hinders Christianity and also decreases its speed of spread. In order to overcome these challenges, considerable number of efforts are launched to support the Bible. Biblical Archaeology Society is one of such efforts that seek to prove the Bible realistic so that the Bible can be even more powerful in the process of spreading Christianity. This agenda has gone beyond the subject of archaeology because it only employs archaeology as a tool to support the validity of the Bible.

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