New Thoughts on Societal Changes in Bronze Age Crete
A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the ‘Minoan civilization.’
Lead researcher Tristan Carter in front of a quarry obsidian exposure on Melos
About 3,500 years ago, Crete underwent significant cultural transformations, including the adoption of a new language and economic system, burial customs, dress and drinking habits – all of which could be traced to the neighbouring Mycenaean Greek mainland.
At roughly the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion.
A new study, published online in the journal PLOS One questions that theory.
“Our findings suggest a more complex picture than previously believed,” explains Tristan Carter, a lead author of the study and professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University who has conducted research in north-central Crete for nearly three decades.
“Rather than wholescale cultural change, our study has found evidence of significant continuity after the alleged invasion. While new practices can be initiated through external forces such as invasion, migration, colonialism, or cross-cultural intermarriage, we also know of examples where locals choose to adopt foreign habits to distinguish themselves within their own society,” says Carter.
Rather than looking at things like burial, art, or dress, practices that tend to shift with fashion, archaeologists have begun to look more closely at more mundane, everyday practices as a better insight into a culture’s true character, he explains.
For the study, the researchers analyzed a sample of tools the Bronze Age Cretans fashioned from obsidian, a black volcanic glass which is sharper than surgical steel when freshly flaked.
Vassilis Kilikoglou, director of the Demokritos national research centre in Athens, used a nuclear reactor to determine the origin of the raw materials and found them to be from the Cycladic island of Melos.
When these results were considered together with the way the obsidian blades had been made and used for work such as harvesting crops, it was clear the community had lived the same way their predecessors had for the past thousand years, which continued to be distinct from life on the Greek mainland.
“Our analysis suggests the population had largely remained local, of Minoan descent,” says Carter and Kilikoglou.
“This is not to say an invasion of Crete didn’t occur, but that the political situation across the rest of the island at this time was more complex than previously believed with significant demographic continuity in many areas.”
The researchers believe that while local elites were strategically aligned with Mycenaean powers, as evidenced by their conspicuous adoption of mainland styles of dress, drinking, and burial, most people continued to live their lives in much the same way as before.
Cupra Marittima, in Italy’s Marche region, is today a sleepy seaside town — but it was once a thriving and powerful outpost of the Roman Empire. Close to the pristine beaches of the Adriatic coast lie the ruins of the ancient Cupra temple, where a new discovery has come to light.
Last week, archaeologists recovered parts of the 2,000-year-old temple’s frescoed walls and ceiling, painted in blue, yellow, red, black and green hues and decorated with flowery garlands, images of candelabra and tiny palms.
Finding ancient Roman temples with interiors “still covered in paintings” is “extremely rare,” said archaeologist Marco Giglio, the site’s research project coordinator and a professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale.
“It’s the first time that the ruins of a shrine painted with such a wide palette of colours in an incredibly well-preserved state — and with such rich, elaborate decorations — has been unearthed,” he claimed in a phone interview, adding: “Once we have cleaned and analyzed all the 100 fragments found and pieced them together, we hope it will give us a complete picture of what the temple once looked like.”
Colourful wall fragments recovered from the site.
A red fragment is carefully recovered.
Giglio hopes that the discovery sheds new light on the engineering techniques used by the Romans. Studying the walls’ recurring decorative motifs may also help researchers further understand the city’s local economy.
“The chronology of the different styles and decorative elements could tell (us) a lot about the artisan shops active at the time,” he said. “And the patterns and motifs could highlight whether it was the work of just one atelier or more.”
Images of candelabra decorated the walls of the temple.
Unusual painting style
The Cupra temple, built at the start of the first century AD, was the spiritual hub of a strategically and commercially important city that helped the Romans control the Adriatic coast and its maritime trading routes. Excavation began in July and is being led by the University of Naples L’Orientale and Cupra Marittima’s town council, which oversees the archaeological park where the old city’s ruins are situated.
A fragment was found with sky-blue paint.
Unusually, the newly discovered wall paintings appear to have been created in the so-called Third Pompeian (or “ornamental”) style typically used to decorate rich households in Pompeii and Rome, rather than religious structures, according to Giglio.
The ancient sanctuary is thought to have had a sky-blue ceiling, while the lower part of the temple’s walls was painted yellow. Red, black and yellow squares were separated by images of candelabra and garlands, with green bands of colour running horizontally along the walls. “Recovering intact ancient wall paintings like these are very rare. Paint is hard to preserve across time due to humidity, and it’s also very hard to dig out correctly during an excavation,” said Ilaria Benetti, an archaeologist from Pisa and Livorno provinces’ Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape in a phone interview.
“The incredible state of preservation and integrity of the frescoed parts, and the extremely rich colour palette used — particularly the bright sky-blue and pinkish-red — stand out as quite exceptional when compared to the traditional red paint normally used in ancient times, thus suggesting it was a lavish shrine,” added Benetti, who is a frescoes expert but was not directly involved in the excavation.
A flowery motif breaks up a block of red.
Giglio added: “The sky-blue colour is very rare for ceilings, which leads us to believe it was meant to indicate the celestial vault and that the shrine was built to honour a goddess.”
Although the temple shares a name with Cupra, an Etruscan goddess later incorporated into Roman religion, archaeologists have yet to determine which cult was associated with the shrine. A large statue of a goddess was likely kept in the main cell for worshippers, said Giglio. Over time, most of the temple was destroyed, though the podium and a staircase leading to the entrance have survived. The rest of the shrine has been reduced to a heap of fragments lying one meter (more than three feet) below the ground, where archaeologists began digging earlier in the summer.
Research into the temple began in 2015, following a partnership between the Cupra archaeological park and the University of Naples L’Orientale. The temple will eventually be incorporated into the wider site, which gives visitors access to the Roman city’s ruins.
The temple underwent several radical changes after its foundation, making it harder for Gilgio’s team to envision what it originally looked like. In 127 AD, the Roman emperor Hadrian funded a complete overhaul of the shrine as he feared it might collapse due to structural damage caused by ageing or natural disasters.
To reinforce the structure, Hadrian is thought to have had the painted walls chiselled off and covered in marble. This process pulverized the original coloured sections but they were later used as a base for the new floors. “That’s why the fragments recovered have been so well preserved, because their life was indeed short, roughly only a hundred years,” said Giglio, noting that this detail supports the idea that Roman builders recycled materials.
Hadrian then added nine-meter high columns with ornate capitals, semi-columns and lion-headed roof dripstones, some parts of which have now been found. He also built two brick arches that still flank the temple site.
One of the roof dripstones was found on site.
According to Giglio, Hadrian’s pagan masterpiece was later crushed to pieces starting from the 7th century. The marbles and columns were knocked down to be used as building materials, while at the end of the 19th century the temple walls were demolished to make room for a since-abandoned rural house that still looms over the shrine’s ruins.
Fragments of the shrine lie one meter (more than three feet) below ground.
“The house was actually built by incorporating part of the sanctuary’s walls, so we’re still trying to figure out whether it is best to restore it or take it down to recover the shrine in its entirety,” said Giglio. With just one-fifth of the temple site excavated thus far, the archaeologist said his team has had “just a taste” of what’s to come. “Who knows what other decorations, patterns and elements could come to light?” he said. “It would be great that what we will unearth will lead to understanding exactly how a construction site worked back in ancient Roman times.”
Golden Sword Found in Young Scythian Warrior’s Grave in Ukraine
An early grave of a Scythian warrior buried with a golden sword has been unearthed in the Mount Mamai cemetery near the village Velyka Znamyanka in Zaporizhia Oblast, central Ukraine.
Archaeologists exploring a small tumulus found a trench with animal bones and fragments of clay amphorae.
There are characteristic Scythian funerary offerings. They then unearthed two graves within the mound: a large central one and a smaller one on the periphery.
Excavation of the warrior’s grave where the sword was found.
The central burial had been thoroughly looted in antiquity and archaeologists were only able to recover one arrowhead and some bone fragments. The remains suggest the occupant of this grave was an elderly male.
The accompanying grave had also interfered with it, but it still contained the skeletal remains of a young man about 18-20 years old.
He was interred with a rare large grey clay amphorae, fittings from a horse’s bridle, an iron battle axe, bronze and bone arrows and the star of the funerary show: an akinakes (a Scythian dagger or short sword) with a gold plated scabbard, a grip with a leaf motif and a cross-guard with granulation details.
Ornaments and amphora were found at the site where the sword was found.
Not only had the young warrior been buried together with his weapons, but also with some ornaments; the archaeological team found beads made of glass paste, a red deer tooth necklace, a gold earring and a gold pendant with chalk inlay.
The Mount Mamai burial grounds, the largest barrow cemetery in the region and one of the largest in Europe, have been excavated for 32 years, a long-term salvage operation to recover as much archaeological material as possible before the site is destroyed by erosion from the construction of the Khakhovka Reservoir.
Already a quarter mile of the shore has fallen into the lake in just three decades, so archaeologists are fighting a battle against time.
Artefacts and remains dating as far back as the Neolithic era through the Middle Ages have been unearthed there. Of the 700 burials thus far excavated, around 400 are Scythian.
The leaf-ribbed grip, cross-guard of the Scythian short sword.
The discoveries made this season are so exceptional the 32nd dig has been dubbed the most successful yet. The very fine grave goods would be more than significant on their own, but the burial is even more notable because it dates to the 6th century B.C., making it the earliest Scythian burial found at Mount Mamai and extending the window of the cemetery’s usage during the Scythian period.
The other Scythian tombs that have been excavated there are at least two centuries older.
The objects have been cleaned and will be conserved at the Museum of Local History in Kamianets-Dniprovsky.
Jackpot: 900-Year-Old Gold Coins, Dating Back to The Crusades, Found in Israel
Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered a trove of rare gold coins and a 900-year-old gold earring at the site of a Crusader massacre. Officials announced the discovery earlier this week, explaining that the artefacts were found at the ancient city of Caesarea on Israel’s coast.
A small bronze pot, which contained 24 gold coins and the earring, was found hidden between two stones in the side of a well located in the remains of a 900-year-old house.
“The coins in the cache dating to the end of the eleventh century, make it possible to link the treasure to the Crusader conquest of the city in the year 1101, one of the most dramatic events in the medieval history of the city,” explained excavation directors Dr. Peter Gendelman and Mohammed Hatar of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in a statement.
Citing contemporary sources, the experts noted that most of Caesarea’s inhabitants were massacred by a Crusader army led by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.
“It is reasonable to assume that the treasure’s owner and his family perished in the massacre or were sold into slavery, and therefore were not able to retrieve their gold,” they said in the statement.
The bronze pot with gold earrings inside.
The stunning artefacts were found in the area of a sacred compound built by King Herod the Great more than two millennia ago. Other treasures have also been found nearby. In the 1960s, for example, a pot containing gold and silver jewellery was discovered at Caesarea, while a collection of bronze vessels was found in the 1990s.
The house where the latest treasures were found was built about 1,000 years after Herod’s reign.
The turbulent Crusader era in the Holy Land began in the 11th century and lasted until the 13th century.
The excavation project at Caesarea is sponsored by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation and involves the Caesarea Development Corporation, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, as well as the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The discovery also came just before the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, when it is traditional to give children “Hanukkah gelt,” which are chocolate coins.
“It is symbolic that the gold coins were discovered on the eve of Hanukkah,” said Caesarea Development Corporation CEO Michael Karsenti, in a statement. “For us, this is certainly ‘Hanukah gelt,’ and a testament to how much more is still hidden within Caesarea.”
Israel’s Crusader sites continue to be a source of fascination. In a separate project, for example, archaeologists recently discovered a Gothic hall at a medieval Crusader fortress in northern Israel.
Last year, amazing medieval jewellery was found during the excavation of a Crusader castle on Tittora Hill in the town of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut.
In 2016, a centuries-old hand grenade that may date back to the time of the Crusaders was among a host of treasures retrieved from the sea in Israel. The hand grenade was a common weapon in Israel during the Crusader era.
Over decades, archaeologists have also uncovered the ruins of the once-thriving Crusader city in the modern Israeli city of Acre.
Two-ton, 1,000-year-old ‘jars of the dead’ baffle archaeologists
The discovery of more than one hundred new stone “jars of the dead” dating more than a thousand years ago has deepened Laos’ enduring archaeological enigma. The cup-like carved stones vary in size, ranging from 10ft (3m) in height and two tons in weight. Exactly how the jars were used remains an enigma, however, it has been suggested that they served as burial urns for storing human bodies.
However local legend claims the urns were goblets once used by a drunk horde of giants.
Australian National University (ANU) researchers discovered the new jar sites in a remote forest during a survey beginning in 2015.
The jars were buried with decorated stone discs, strange small clay jars and more conventional stone age artefacts like beads and jewellery.
The latest landmark discoveries suggest the mysterious practices involving the jars were more widely performed than previously thought, and is hoped could help finally interpret their meaning.
Jars of the dead: Australian National University researchers have discovered new jar sites.
Jars of the dead: Exactly how the jars were used remains an enigma.
Laos’ jars of the dead remain one of archaeology’s most intriguing enigmas.
Archaeologists currently believe the giant stone urns were involved with disposing of the dead.
However, almost nothing is known for certain about the jars’ original function and where those who originally deposited them are now found.
Archaeologists led by Nicholas Skopal and Dr Dougald O’Reilly from ANU have now catalogued 137 new jars, found across 15 freshly-identified sites, in a remote and mountainous forest.
The discoveries show that the ancient burial practices associated with the jars “were more widespread than previously thought,” said Dr O’Reilly.
Mr Skopal added: “These new sites have really only been visited by the occasional tiger hunter.”
“Now we’ve rediscovered them, we’re hoping to build a clear picture about this culture and how it disposed of its dead.
There is no evidence that the region where the jars were found was occupied.
Jars of the dead: Were the giant jars used for burial urns?
Jars of the dead: The urns remain one of archaeology’s most intriguing enigmas
Dr O’Reilly said: “Why these sites were chosen as the final resting place for the jars is still a mystery.
“It’s apparent the jars, some weighing several tonnes, were carved in quarries, and somehow transported, often several kilometres, to their present locations.”
Another hypothesis suggests that the jars were made to capture monsoonal rainwater for later boiling and use by caravans passing through the region.
Scientists discover remains of Hobbit humans that stood only 3ft high and lived 700,000 years ago in Indonesia
SCIENTISTS have discovered the fossils of a “hobbit” that lived 700,000 years ago on an Indonesian island.
A scientist’s estimation of what the “hobbits” might have looked like
The homo floresienis were ancient humans that lived between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Adults stood just three-and-a-half feet tall and their brains were roughly one-third the size of our own, about the size of a chimpanzee’s.
Because of their miniature size, researchers nicknamed the unusual findings Hobbits.
The discovery consists of just six tiny teeth and a fragment of a small lower jawbone, but researchers say it is enough to suggest the fossils belonged to a direct ancestor of the Hobbits.
One theory states the Hobbits may have arrived on the island from Java after being washed out to sea by a tsunami.
The fossils included some tiny teeth.
As well as a piece of the lower jawbone
Over time, they could have shrunk on their new island home – a strange yet common phenomenon known as island dwarfism.
This relies on a variety of factors, from limited food sources to a lack of predators to defend themselves against.
Other researchers believe the fossils belonged to anatomically modern humans who suffered from some type of disorder that led to extreme disorder.
Microcephaly and Down syndrome have both been proposed.
However, the new discovery suggests otherwise – hobbits who wound up on the island seemed to defy traditional evolution and growth.
Luxurious 1,200-year-old mansion found in southern Israel
Between two mosques in Rahat, archaeologists uncover an opulent home with a finished basement that likely belonged to a wealthy landowner in the early Islamic Period
Luxury can be found in unexpected places. Archaeologists announced Tuesday the discovery of a 1,200-year-old estate in Israel’s southern Negev desert, boasting unique underground structures that allowed its owners to overcome the searing summer heat.
In a statement on the discovery, the Israel Antiquities Authority said the sprawling property may have been the residence of a wealthy landowner overseeing farmsteads in the area.
It was discovered during excavations conducted ahead of the expansion of the Bedouin city of Rahat, just north of Beersheba.
Archaeologists said the mansion, dated to the early Islamic Period in the 8th or 9th century CE, had four wings and was erected around the main courtyard. Finely coloured frescoes adorned the walls and floor in one of the wings, they said, while other rooms featured very large ovens, likely used for cooking.
The most surprising discovery, however, was made under the courtyard – a three-meter-deep cistern dug into the rock that provided the residents with cool water throughout the year, and adjoining vaulted structures.
Workers are seen on a 1,200-year-old rural estate, discovered during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority during the expansion of the town of Rahat.
Aerial view of the rural estate uncovered in Rahat, with the vaulted complex in the centre.
The archaeologists directing the IAA excavation, Oren Shmueli, Elena Kogan-Zehavi and Noé D. Michael, said that the subterranean vaulted structures were used to store foodstuffs, and enabled the residents to move around freely underground without having to emerge into the punishing sun.
“The luxurious estate and the unique impressive underground vaults are evidence of the owners’ means,” the archaeologists said in the statement.
The water cistern.
“Their high status and wealth allowed them to build a luxurious mansion that served as a residence and for entertaining; we can study the construction methods and architectural styles, as well as learn about daily life in the Negev at the beginning of Islamic rule,” they said.
Eli Eskosido, the director of the IAA, touted the archaeologists’ cooperation with the local community in Rahat, among whom he said the discovery was generating “interest and excitement.”
The estate, he added, “was uncovered in an area located between two ancient mosques, perhaps among the earliest ever discovered.
The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Bedouin are planning together to conserve and exhibit the finds to the general public.”
The IAA said that on Thursday the site would be open to the public for free public tours, including family digging and sieving activities.
Dinosaur tracks revealed in Texas as severe drought dries up the river
Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas has unearthed an exciting discovery after extreme drought conditions dried up a river – giant dinosaur footprints that date back to 113 million years ago.
The tracks were uncovered in the Paluxy River as its water level receded due to the major drought that has parched parts of northern Texas this summer, the park announced last week. The park is located near Glen Rose, southwest of Dallas.
“Due to the excessive drought conditions this past summer, the river dried up completely in most locations, allowing for more tracks to be uncovered here in the park,” the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
“Under normal river conditions, these newer tracks are underwater and are commonly filled in with sediment, making them buried and not as visible.”
Most dinosaur tracks at the park belong to two different species: a theropod called Acrocanthosaurus and a sauropod called Sauroposeidon, according to the park.
The park said that the tracks will likely get buried under sediment and water once it begins to rain.
The newly unearthed footprints in the river belong to the Acrocanthosaurus, what officials described as a dinosaur that stood about 15 feet tall and weighed close to seven tons as an adult.
Meanwhile, they said an adult Sauroposeidon stood about 60 feet tall and weighed about 44 tons.
The park shared photos online showing volunteers helping to clean out and shore up the dino tracks.
The park said the tracks belong to the Acrocanthosaurus and date back to 113 million years ago.
However, with rain in the coming forecasts, the parks said it is likely the prehistoric tracks will soon be buried again beneath the river water.
On Monday, residents of north Texas woke up to flash flooding brought on by as much as 10 inches of rain in some areas.
The park said that the layers of sediment that will once again cover the footprints will help to protect the tracks from natural weathering and erosion.
“While these newer dinosaur tracks were visible for a brief amount of time, it brought the wonder and excitement about finding new dinosaur tracks at the park,” the state parks department said.
