Did you know? Ancient gods went to war on a stone the size of your thumb
Cylinder seal and modern impression: battle of the gods. Akkadian, ca. 2350–2150 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1943. Public domain (CC0).
Long before signatures, people in ancient Mesopotamia signed with a cylinder seal: a small carved stone or shell they rolled across wet clay. As it rolled, it printed a whole scene, again and again, like a tiny movie strip.
This one is about one inch tall and was carved in the Akkadian era, roughly 4,200 years ago. Roll it out and you get gods in battle: figures with bows and weapons, locked in a fight that has no end, because the seal keeps printing it.
The same people told the stories of Enki and Enlil. Come back next Sunday for another seal.
Archived AM edition · Sunday, October 25, 2026 · posted 8:22 AM ET
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DIYARBAKIR PROVINCE, TURKEY—According to a Türkiye Today report, green malachite and copper has been uncovered in a 9,000-year-old workshop in a Neolithic settlement in southeastern Turkey. Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said that the pieces of raw and worked malachite, copper beads, and other copper objects were found in the workshop, which has a stone-paved work area.
Archaeology Magazine (AIA) · Jessica Esther Saraceni · Oct 23
Artemis I: Crystals of experimental detectors record radiation doses near the moon
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OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
OpenAI is now training its most advanced AI models without internet access following a string of rogue hacking incidents. OpenAI paused training its frontier AI models in September, after disclosing several incidents in which its AI agents broke out of their testing environments to hack third-party companies and government agencies, or swarm obscure websites. On October 1st, OpenAI resumed reinforcement learning training and internal inference with tighter security measures, the blog post says.
Roman Sarcophagus at Westminster Abbey Likely Held Remains of Medieval Monk
LONDON, ENGLAND—According to a statement released by Taylor & Francis, human remains found in a Roman sarcophagus at Westminster Abbey in 1820 may have been identified by Warwick Rodwell, consultant archaeologist at Westminster Abbey. The sarcophagus is inscribed with the name of Valerius Amandinus, a wealthy Briton who lived between about A.D. A Latin cross dated to the tenth or eleventh century is also inscribed on the lid of the sarcophagus, however, suggesting that it may have been reused during the medieval period.
Archaeology Magazine (AIA) · Jessica Esther Saraceni · Oct 23
Two sources, one subject: what does each one report?
A · NASA News
NASA’s Artemis III Mission to Test Future Moon Lander Operations
Before astronauts return to the lunar surface, NASA will first conduct one of the most ambitious and complex test missions in the agency’s history. During the planned 14-day mission, crews and flight controllers will practice the rendezvous, docking, habitation, and operational procedures that will be essential when Artemis astronauts begin landing near the Moon’s South Pole in 2028.
NASA News reports: Before astronauts return to the lunar surface, NASA will first conduct one of the most ambitious and complex test missions in the agency’s history. Phys.org Space reports: NASA is moving fast on its plans to build a moon base and return astronauts to the lunar surface in as little as two years. The two reports share a subject but not a single event, so read them as two angles rather than one story. This review only restates what each source published. It does not add facts or opinions. Read both and decide for yourself.
