New Dates Obtained for Ethiopia’s Early Christian Churches
Excavation of one of the early churches found in Adulis, which likely served as the city’s cathedral.
Archaeologists have made an important discovery in the Kingdom of Aksum, a major ancient power in Northeastern Africa, identifying two churches from shortly after the Aksumite’s conversion to Christianity. These are some of the first churches in the Kingdom reliably dated to this key period.
The Aksumite Kingdom ruled much of the northern Horn of Africa in the first millennium AD, stretching from Ethiopia to Arabia, and was an important contemporary of the Roman Empire. Like their Mediterranean neighbor, the Aksumite leader—King Ezana—converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD but securely dated churches from this period are rare.
However, two churches from the important Aksumite port of Adulis, in modern Eritrea, are helping fill this gap.
One is an elaborate cathedral, complete with the remains of a baptistry, that is located near the center of the city and was first excavated in 1868. The other, first excavated in 1907, is in the east and features a ring of columns that show it once had a dome.
Over a hundred years since these churches were first excavated, archaeologists are re-examining these buildings with modern techniques.
Dr. Gabriele Castiglia, from the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, is part of a team digging them back up and carrying out radiocarbon dating on the site. This new data has allowed them to accurately reconstruct their history, with their findings published in the journal Antiquity.
Excavations at the domed church, revealing a room near the entrance.
“This study provides one of the first examples of Aksumite churches excavated with modern methods and chronological data coming from modern dating methods,” said Dr. Castiglia.
The research revealed construction began on the cathedral between AD 400–535, whilst the domed church was built AD 480–625.
This makes them some of the earliest securely dated churches in the Aksumite Kingdom, and the oldest known outside the capital’s heartlands. This shows a relatively rapid spread of Christianity through the Kingdom of Aksum.
“Having a precise chronology for these churches is key to understanding how the process of conversion to Christianity shaped the geographical and cultural area,” said Dr. Castiglia.
Crucially, the buildings show that the spread of Christianity was not the result of a single factor, like a mandate by King Ezana.
The churches have elements from many traditions, reflecting the diverse influences on the kingdom’s conversion. The domed church, for example, is unique in the Aksumite Kingdom and appears to be inspired by Byzantine churches. Meanwhile, the cathedral is built on a large platform in the Aksumite tradition.
The churches can also shed light on the later arrival of Islam. Adulis underwent a period of gradual decline and the churches eventually fell into disuse.
Dr. Castiglia found that this was not the end of their lives –the cathedral was re-appropriated as a Muslim burial ground. The continued use of existing sacred spaces could indicate the region’s conversion to Islam was also a multicultural phenomenon, with local customs mixed in with the new religion.
“This is one of the first times we have the material evidence of re-appropriation of a Christian sacred space by the Islamic community,” said Dr. Castiglia.
Together, these buildings show the religious history of the Horn of Africa was cosmopolitan, with diverse groups influencing the spread of beliefs.
A carving of a male figure holding his penis. Two leopards stand to either side of the figure.
In Sayburç, Turkey, not far from the famous settlement of Göbekli Tepe, an archaeologist discovered an 11,000-year-old scene carved into a wall. It’s one of the oldest narrative depictions in the archaeological record.
The narrative scene depicts five figures: two humans, a bull, and two leopards. One of the humans is holding a snake, or rattle, in its right hand.
The other human figure is holding its penis. A full description of the narrative scene, along with interpretations of its meaning for the Neolithic community that created it, is published in Antiquity’s Project Gallery.
“We have very little information about the community where this relief was carved,” said Eylem Özdoğan, an archaeologist at Istanbul University and the study’s sole author, in an email to Gizmodo. According to Özdoğan, researchers are still waiting on radiocarbon dates from the site, but they believe it dates to around the end of Göbekli Tepe—the ninth millennium BCE.
“The communities living in this region share a common cultural environment,” he added. “They certainly communicate with each other and share innovations, social ideology and a common culture.”
The ancient site of Sayburç was mostly covered by the modern town (whose name now applies to the site) in 1949. Excavations began last year and turned up a communal building from the Neolithic period—one wall of which includes the carved artwork. So far, only half the building has been excavated, and some modern structures are slated for demolition so that archaeologists can interrogate more of the Neolithic past.
A bird’s-eye-view of the excavation site.
The scene is not the oldest-known artwork. That honor, like art, is subjective; it depends on what you define as (or what can clearly be identified as) art. A 43,900-year-old painting of a warty pig in Indonesia discovered in 2021 may be the oldest known figurative art piece. In Tibet, a set of children’s’ hand and foot prints discovered in 2018 were dated to between 169,000 and 226,000 years old.
The prints are perhaps more tenuously ‘art’ than the painted pig, but both predate the Sayburç relief by tens of thousands of years. However, neither of those artworks were narrative scenes, or artworks meant to tell a story.
In 2011, archaeologists discovered a 12,250-year-old rock with stenciled depictions of birds and humans. Research published on the limestone etchings in 2019 described it as narrative art, but that conclusion is up for interpretation.
Based on the orientation of the figures, Özdoğan believes there are two scenes depicted in the relief. One features a human and the bull, and the other features a human figure and flanked by two leopards. Both of the humans in the scene are male, based on the apparent phalluses the artists took the time to carve. One of the leopards has a penis, too, but the other does not.
The building in which the narrative scenes were found was communal; benches lined the walls, and the carvings were found on the backrests of the benches. In the paper, Özdoğan notes that the artwork can be considered a reflection of the community’s collective memory, something to uphold its values. What those values were, exactly, might require some more investigation.
Archaeologists won’t know more about the community that lived at Sayburç—beyond its apparent connections to other Neolithic settlements in Anatolia and its style of artwork—until more excavations can be done. But it’s an exciting new twist for our understanding of some of the earliest settlements from the Stone Age.
Huge funerary building and Fayoum portraits discovered in Egypt Fayoum
The Egyptian archaeological mission working in the Gerza archaeological site in Fayoum revealed a huge funerary building from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, as well as a number of Fayoum portraits.
These are the first mummy portraits discovered at Fayoum during an archaeological dig since Flinders Petrie discovered 146 of them in a Roman-era cemetery in 1910–1911.
Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that what was discovered at the site illustrates the diversity and difference in the accuracy and quality of the embalming process during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, which indicates the economic stature of the deceased, starting from high-quality embalming to simple burials.
Also, a rare terracotta statue of the goddess Isis-Aphrodite was also found in one of the burials inside a wooden coffin.
Fayum-type funerary portrait.
Regarding the architectural remains, Dr. Adel Okasha, head of the Central Department of Egyptian Antiquities in Central Egypt, indicated that what has been found is a huge building of funerary house type, with a floor made of colored lime mortar and decorated with interchangeable tiles. On its southern side, there is a colonnade of which four columns survive. Through the building, there is also access to a narrow street.
He added that among the many and diverse artifacts found and recorded, the portraits of mummies, or what is known as Fayoum portraits, are of great importance.
Mummy portraits, also known as Fayum portraits, are the most amazing body of painting to have come to us from the ancient world; they are remarkable for their social significance as well as their artistic quality.
Αchitectural remains at Gerza-Philadelphia.
” Fayoum Portraits ” is the name that has been given to describe them because more have been found in the Fayoum Oasis than anywhere else in Egypt.
For his part, Dr. Basem Jihad, the supervisor of the central training unit and head of the mission, said that the mission also succeeded in uncovering a number of coffins of different styles, some of them in the human form and others in the Greek form with a gabled roof.
Find from Gerza-Philadelphia.
Under the rule of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the village of Gerza was established as Philadelphia (309–246 BC). Since 2016, there have been ongoing excavations, and many artifacts have been found that date from the city’s founding to Roman rule in the third century A.D.
3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt
The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb.
The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.
There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.
Newly discovered pyramid
The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.
“Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything,” said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.
The pyramid itself “probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath,” Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven’t survived or have not yet been found.
Military ties
It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.
Cahail believes that Horemheb’s family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. The writing on the figurines say that they are for the “Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses).” This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.
He noted it’s interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.
“They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time,” Cahail said.
Multiple wives?
The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it’s uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.
Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.
Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.
“You’re left with the question, who are all these people?” Cahail said.
A Jasper treasure
One of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.
“It’s a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets,” Cahail said. “It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that.”
The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma’at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.
“Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you’ve done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth,” Cahail said.
‘Highway of ancient world’: Part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road found in Galilee
Antiquities Authority says it was paved during the reign of emperor Hadrian; excavation works also unearth pottery shards, metal vessels and coins.
View of a new section of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, published December 1, 2022.
Archeologists have uncovered part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, built in the time of emperor Hadrian, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.
In a statement, the IAA said the road section, measuring some 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 25 meters (82 feet) long, was found near the village of Rumat al-Heib, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. It was discovered during development work on a walking trail.
The IAA branded the road as “the Highway 6 of the ancient world,” referencing Israel’s major north-to-south highway.
It said the road, which runs between Acre, Sepphoris and Tiberias, was paved in the 2nd century AD during Hadrian’s rule. The road was completed by his successors and later renovated in the Byzantine period.
The Roman empire established several major roads in the area as part of a need to quickly move military forces, mail and goods, the IAA said in its statement Thursday.
During excavation work in the area of the new road section, pottery fragments from the Roman and Byzantine periods were found, as well as metal items and coins dating back to the Roman period, the IAA said.
View of a new section of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, published December 1, 2022.
The excavation works are part of the development works of the Sanhedrin Trail, a 70-kilometer (43-mile) walking path that passes between sites associated with the assembly of 71 sages of the ancient supreme court of Israel.
An ancient hominid dubbed Homo naledi may have lit controlled fires in the pitch-dark chambers of an underground cave system, new discoveries hint.
An ancient southern African hominid called Homo naledi, represented here by a child’s partial fossil skull, possibly used fire sometime between 335,000 and 236,000 years ago, new cave finds suggest.
Researchers have found remnants of small fireplaces and sooty wall and ceiling smudges in passages and chambers throughout South Africa’s Rising Star cave complex, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger announced in a December 1 lecture hosted by the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington, D.C.
“Signs of fire use are everywhere in this cave system,” said Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
H. naledi presumably lit the blazes in the caves since remains of no other hominids have turned up there, the team says. But the researchers have yet to date the age of the fire remains. And researchers outside Berger’s group have yet to evaluate the new finds.
Such behavior has not been attributed to H. naledi before, largely because of its small brain. But it’s now clear that a brain roughly one-third the size of human brains today still enabled H. naledi to achieve control of fire, Berger contends.
Last August, Berger climbed down a narrow shaft and examined two underground chambers where H. naledi fossils had been found. He noticed stalactites and thin rock sheets that had partly grown over older ceiling surfaces. Those surfaces displayed blackened, burned areas and were also dotted by what appeared to be soot particles, Berger said.
Meanwhile, expedition codirector and Wits paleoanthropologist Keneiloe Molopyane led excavations of a nearby cave chamber. There, the researchers uncovered two small fireplaces containing charred bits of wood, and burned bones of antelopes and other animals.
Remains of a fireplace and nearby burned animal bones were then discovered in a more remote cave chamber where H. naledi fossils have been found, Berger said.
Still, the main challenge for investigators will be to date the burned wood and bones and other fire remains from the Rising Star chambers and demonstrate that the material comes from the same sediment layers as H. naledi fossils, says paleoanthropologist W. Andrew Barr of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who wasn’t involved in the work.
“That’s an absolutely critical first step before it will be possible to speculate about who may have made fires for what reason,” Barr says.
Bone, wood and charcoal from the South African site should also be examined with various techniques to determine whether darkened areas resulted from burning or mineral staining, says Harvard University archaeologist Sarah Hlubik, who wasn’t involved in the research. And a careful analysis of the layout of remains in the Rising Star chambers, she adds, will indicate whether Berger’s group discovered small fireplaces built by cave visitors, or only bones and other material that washed into the cave system.
Findings from 3,300-year-old Uluburun shipwreck reveal complex trade network
Tin from the Mušiston mine in Central Asia’s Uzbekistan traveled more than 2,000 miles to Haifa, where the ill-fated ship loaded its cargo before crashing off the eastern shores of Uluburun in present-day Turkey.
More than 3,000 years before the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic Ocean, another famous ship wrecked in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern shores of Uluburun—in present-day Turkey— carrying tons of rare metal. Since its discovery in 1982, scientists have been studying the contents of the Uluburun shipwreck to gain a better understanding of the people and political organizations that dominated the time period known as the Late Bronze Age.
Now, a team of scientists, including Michael Frachetti, professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, have uncovered a surprising finding: small communities of highland pastoralists living in present-day Uzbekistan in Central Asia produced and supplied roughly one-third of the tin found aboard the ship—tin that was en route to markets around the Mediterranean to be made into coveted bronze metal.
The research, published on November 30 in Science Advances, was made possible by advances in geochemical analyses that enabled researchers to determine with high-level certainty that some of the tin originated from a prehistoric mine in Uzbekistan, more than 2,000 miles from Haifa, where the ill-fated ship loaded its cargo.
But how could that be? During this period, the mining regions of Central Asia were occupied by small communities of highlander pastoralists—far from a major industrial center or empire. And the terrain between the two locations—which passes through Iran and Mesopotamia—was rugged, which would have made it extremely difficult to pass tons of heavy metal.
Frachetti and other archaeologists and historians were enlisted to help put the puzzle pieces together. Their findings unveiled a shockingly complex supply chain that involved multiple steps to get the tin from the small mining community to the Mediterranean marketplace.
“It appears these local miners had access to vast international networks and—through overland trade and other forms of connectivity—were able to pass this all-important commodity all the way to the Mediterranean,” Frachetti said.
“It’s quite amazing to learn that a culturally diverse, multiregional and multivector system of trade underpinned Eurasian tin exchange during the Late Bronze Age.”
Adding to the mystique is the fact that the mining industry appears to have been run by small-scale local communities or free laborers who negotiated this marketplace outside of the control of kings, emperors or other political organizations, Frachetti said.
“To put it into perspective, this would be the trade equivalent of the entire United States sourcing its energy needs from small backyard oil rigs in central Kansas,” he said.
About the research
The idea of using tin isotopes to determine where metal in archaeological artifacts originates dates to the mid-1990s, according to Wayne Powell, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Brooklyn College and a lead author on the study. However, the technologies and methods for analysis were not precise enough to provide clear answers. Only in the last few years have scientists begun using tin isotopes to directly correlate mining sites to assemblages of metal artifacts, he said.
“Over the past couple of decades, scientists have collected information about the isotopic composition of tin ore deposits around the world, their ranges and overlaps, and the natural mechanisms by which isotopic compositions were imparted to cassiterite when it formed,” Powell said. “We remain in the early stages of such study. I expect that in future years, this ore deposit database will become quite robust, like that of Pb isotopes today, and the method will be used routinely.”
Aslihan K. Yener, a research affiliate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and a professor emerita of archaeology at the University of Chicago, was one of the early researchers who conducted lead isotope analyses. In the 1990s, Yener was part of a research team that conducted the first lead isotope analysis of the Uluburun tin. That analysis suggested that the Uluburun tin may have come from two sources—the Kestel Mine in Turkey’s Taurus Mountains and some unspecified location in central Asia.
“But this was shrugged off since the analysis was measuring trace lead and not targeting the origin of the tin,” said Yener, who is a co-author of the present study.
Yener also was the first to discover tin in Turkey in the 1980s. At the time, she said the entire scholarly community was surprised that it existed there, right under their noses, where the earliest tin bronzes occurred.
Some 30 years later, researchers finally have a more definitive answer thanks to the advanced tin isotope analysis techniques: One-third of the tin aboard the Uluburun shipwreck was sourced from the Mušiston mine in Uzbekistan. The remaining two-thirds of the tin derived from the Kestel mine in ancient Anatolia, which is in present-day Turkey.
Findings offer glimpse into life 3,000-plus years ago
By 1500 B.C., bronze was the “high technology” of Eurasia, used for everything from weaponry to luxury items, tools and utensils. Bronze is primarily made from copper and tin. While copper is fairly common and can be found throughout Eurasia, tin is much rarer and only found in specific kinds of geological deposits, Frachetti said.
“Finding tin was a big problem for prehistoric states. And thus, the big question was how these major Bronze Age empires were fueling their vast demand for bronze given the lengths and pains to acquire tin as such a rare commodity. Researchers have tried to explain this for decades,” Frachetti said.
The Uluburun ship yielded the world’s largest Bronze Age collection of raw metals ever found—enough copper and tin to produce 11 metric tons of bronze of the highest quality. Had it not been lost to sea, that metal would have been enough to outfit a force of almost 5,000 Bronze Age soldiers with swords, “not to mention a lot of wine jugs,” Frachetti said.
“The current findings illustrate a sophisticated international trade operation that included regional operatives and socially diverse participants who produced and traded essential hard-earth commodities throughout the late Bronze Age political economy from Central Asia to the Mediterranean,” Frachetti said.
Unlike the mines in Uzbekistan, which were set within a network of small-scale villages and mobile pastoralists, the mines in ancient Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age were under the control of the Hittites, an imperial global power of a great threat to Ramses the Great of Egypt, Yener explained.
Uluburun excavation i. Credit: Cemal Pulak/Texas A&M University
The findings also show that life 3,000-plus years ago was not that different from what it is today.
“With the disruptions due to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, we have become aware of how we are reliant on complex supply chains to maintain our economy, military and standard of living,” Powell said. “This is true in prehistory as well. Kingdoms rose and fell, climatic conditions shifted and new peoples migrated across Eurasia, potentially disrupting or redistributing access to tin, which was essential for both weapons and agricultural tools.
“Using tin isotopes, we can look across each of these archaeologically evident disruptions in society and see connections were severed, maintained or redefined. We already have DNA analysis to show relational connections. Pottery, funerary practices, etc., illustrate the transmission and connectivity of ideas. Now with tin isotopes, we can document the connectivity of long-distance trade networks and their sustainability.”
More clues to explore
The current research findings settle decades-old debates about the origins of the metal on the Uluburun shipwreck and Eurasian tin exchange during the Late Bronze Age. But there are still more clues to explore. After they were mined, the metals were processed for shipping and ultimately melted into standardized shapes—known as ingots—for transporting. The distinct shapes of the ingots served as calling cards for traders to know from where they originated, Frachetti said.
Many of the ingots aboard the Uluburun ship were in the “oxhide” shape, which was previously believed to have originated in Cyprus. However, the current findings suggest the oxhide shape could have originated farther east. Frachetti said he and other researchers plan to continue studying the unique shapes of the ingots and how they were used in trade.
In addition to Frachetti, Powell and Yener, the following researchers contributed to the present study: Cemal Pulakat at Texas A&M University, H. Arthur Bankoff at Brooklyn College, Gojko Barjamovic at Harvard University, Michael Johnson at Stell Environmental Enterprises, Ryan Mathur at Juniata College, Vincent C. Pigott at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Michael Price at the Santa Fe Institute.
The 1,300-year-old necklace was found in an early medieval burial site in Northamptonshire
Archaeologists have found a “once-in-a-lifetime” gold necklace dating back to 630-670 AD and described as the richest of its type ever uncovered in Britain.
The jewellery, found near Northampton, has at least 30 pendants and beads made of Roman coins, gold, garnets, glass and semi-precious stones.
The 1,300-year-old object was spotted in a grave thought to be of a woman of high status, such as royalty. Experts hailed the discovery during the summer as internationally significant.
Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (Mola) found the necklace during excavations ahead of a housing development in Harpole, west of Northampton.
“When the first glints of gold started to emerge from the soil we knew this was something significant,” said Levente-Bence Balazs, who led a team of five from Mola.’
However, we didn’t quite realize how special this was going to be.
“We are lucky to be able to use modern methods of analysis on the finds and surrounding burial to gain a much deeper insight into the life of this person and their final rites.”
The first glimpses of the necklace are carefully revealed by archaeologists
The necklace is made up of 30 pendants and beads made from Roman coins, gold and semi-precious stones
The rectangular pendant with a cross motif forms the centerpiece of the necklace and is the largest and most intricate element.
Made of red garnets set in gold, Mola specialists believe it was originally half of a hinged clasp before it was re-used.
The burial also contained two decorated pots and a shallow copper dish.
However, X-rays taken on blocks of soil lifted from the grave also revealed an elaborately decorated cross, featuring highly unusual depictions of human faces cast in silver. Mola conservators said the large and ornate piece suggests the woman may have been an early Christian leader.
Other findings include decorated pots, a copper dish and a decorated cross with depictions of human faces cast in silver (pictured)
Conservator Liz Barham has been one of a number of people working on the burial finds
Experts said the skeleton had fully decomposed apart from tiny fragments of tooth enamel. However, the combination of grave finds suggested it was of a very devout high-status woman such as an abbess, royalty, or perhaps both.
An artist impression shows what the grave of the high-status woman may have looked like
A handful of similar necklaces from this time have previously been discovered in other regions of England, but none are as ornate as the “Harpole treasure”, experts added.
The closest parallel is the Desborough necklace, found in Northamptonshire in 1876 and is now in the British Museum’s collections.
Simon Mortimer, RPS Archaeology Consultant, said: “This find is truly a once-in-a-lifetime discovery – the sort of thing you read about in textbooks and not something you expect to see coming out of the ground in front of you.
“It shows the fundamental value of developer-funded archaeology. Had they not funded this work this remarkable burial may never have been found.”
Early Medieval period timeline:
• 410 AD: Roman rule of Britain ends
• 5th-6th Centuries: People from modern-day Germany, southern Scandinavia, and The Netherlands settle in southern and eastern Britain
• Late 6th-7th Centuries: Christianity gradually spreads across southern and eastern Britain and starts to appear in elite burials
• 640-680 AD: The Harpole Treasure, a high-status burial, is buried in Northamptonshire
• 793 AD: A Viking raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of modern-day Northumberland, marks the start of Viking raids on Britain
• 899 AD: King Alfred the Great dies
• 1066 AD: William the Conqueror defeats Harold and becomes King of England, ending the Early Medieval period
Liz Mordue, the archaeological advisor for West Northamptonshire Council, said: “This is an exciting find which will shed considerable light on the significance of Northamptonshire in the Saxon period.”
The discoveries will be featured on BBC Two’s Digging for Britain in January, with Prof Alice Roberts getting an exclusive look at the objects and delving deeper into the ongoing conservation and analysis.
