All posts by Archaeology World Team

ASIA, IRAQ, WORLD

Iraq says the US returning 17,000 looted ancient treasures

Iraq says the US returning 17,000 looted ancient treasures

Iraq says the US returning 17,000 looted ancient treasures
Gilgamesh was a major hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Next month, museum-goers in Iraq are in for a surprise. Eighteen years after it was looted from the city, a clay tablet bearing the Epic of Gilgamesh, regarded as one of the world’s oldest surviving pieces of literature, is set to return to the place of its birth.

Iraq Tuesday reclaimed more than 17,000 ancient artefacts looted and smuggled out of the country after the US invasion in 2003, reported The New York Times.

About 12,000 of the returned artifacts had been housed in the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC and 5,381 had been held by Cornell University. Both institutions have been pulled up by US authorities in the past for holding artifacts that were not acquired through appropriate means.

Artifacts seized by the U.S. government and returned to Iraq are displayed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq August 3, 2021.

Iraqi culture and foreign ministries disclosed to the NYT that US authorities had reached an agreement with Iraq to return items seized from dealers and museums in the US. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi brought back the artifacts on his plane, after making an official visit to the US last week.

After 1991, when the Iraqi government lost control of parts of southern Iraq following the first Gulf War, widespread looting occurred at historical sites. The looting continued after the US-led invasion in 2003 — the year that also witnessed the end of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Many artefacts were also smuggled or destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants during the period between 2014 and 2017 when it controlled some parts of Iraq.

The Gilgamesh tablet

The Gilgamesh tablet is a prized and much-anticipated retrieval.

The 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing the Epic of Gilgamesh is considered one of the world’s first pieces of notable literature. The epic is believed to predate Homer’s Iliad by 1,500 years and is one of the beloved tales of Mesopotamia — present-day Iraq.

Iraq says the US returning 17,000 looted ancient treasures
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a 3,500-year-old Sumerian tale considered one of the world’s first pieces of literature

The epic is based on the many adventures of the handsome athletic king of Uruk, Gilgamesh (2900–2350 BC).

Many of the other clay tablets and seals that have been returned by the US also are linked to Mesopotamia — one of the world’s earliest civilisations — and even to Irisagrig, a lost ancient city.

The tablet will return to Iraq in September after legal procedures are wrapped up, Iraq’s Culture Minister Hassan Nadhem told Reuters. Speaking on the cultural value of the artifacts, he told The New York Times: “This is not just about thousands of tablets coming back to Iraq again — it is about the Iraqi people.”

Back to places of origin

In 2013, the US Justice Department urged Cornell University to give back thousands of ancient tablets believed to have been looted from Iraq in the 1990s, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In 2019, US authorities seized the Gilgamesh tablet displayed at the Washington museum after it was revealed to have been smuggled, auctioned and sold to an art dealer in Oklahoma.

An American antiquities dealer had bought the tablet from a London-based dealer in 2003, the US Department of Justice said in a statement last week.

Australia, too, in a statement last week, announced it would return 14 works of art, worth a combined $3 million, to the Indian government.

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Machu Picchu in Peru is 20 Years Older Than Previously Thought, Finds Study

Machu Picchu in Peru is 20 Years Older Than Previously Thought, Finds Study

The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru was occupied from around 1420-1530 AD, several decades earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.

A team of researchers, led by Richard Burger, a professor of anthropology at Yale University, used radiocarbon dating to reveal that the emperor Pachacuti, who built Machu Picchu, rose to power earlier than expected, according to a news release published Tuesday.

This means Pachacuti’s early conquests took place earlier, helping to explain how the Inca Empire became the largest and most powerful in pre-Columbian America.

Based on historical documents, it was thought that Machu Picchu was built after 1440, or maybe even 1450. However, Burger and his team used accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of human remains to get a more accurate picture.

AMS works on even small amounts of organic material, which enlarges the pool of skeletons that can be studied. The team looked at 26 individuals from cemeteries at Machu Picchu that were recovered from the site during excavations in 1912.

Machu Picchu is pictured in 1911.

The bodies were buried under boulders, overhanging cliffs or shallow caves, sealed with masonry walls, according to the study. There were also grave goods such as ceramics and bronze and silver shawl pins.

“This is the first study based on scientific evidence to provide an estimate for the founding of Machu Picchu and the length of its occupation,” Burger said in the news release.

The historical records were written by Spanish conquistadors following their takeover of the area, and the results of the study question the merit of drawing conclusions based on these kinds of documents, according to researchers.

Although the study acknowledges the “limitations” of radiocarbon dating, the researchers said the documentary evidence is unreliable.

“Perhaps the time has come for the radiocarbon evidence to assume priority in reconstructions of the chronology of the Inca emperors and the dating of Inca monumental sites such as Machu Picchu,” reads the study.

The study was published in the journal Antiquity.

Revered as one of the world’s great archaeological sites, Machu Picchu perches between two mountains.

The site is made up of roughly 200 stone structures, whose granite walls remain in good shape although the thatched roofs are long gone.

These include a ceremonial bathhouse, temples, granaries and aqueducts. One, known as the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock, is thought to have been used for embalming dead aristocrats.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Roman Weapons Unearthed at Punic Site in Spain

Roman Weapons Unearthed at Punic Site in Spain

Archaeologists digging near the ancient Talayotic settlement of Son Catlar in Menorca, Spain have unearthed a treasure trove of artefacts from Roman soldiers, dating back to around 100 B.C. 

The discovery, which happened in late July, includes an assortment of items found at the site, according to a statement from the University of Alicante. 

Included in the find were ‘weapons, knives, three arrowheads, spearheads, projectiles, surgical tools, a bronze spatula probe, and so on,’ the statement explained.

Son Catlar is the largest Talayotic settlement in the area, surrounded by a stone wall that measures 2,850 feet (870m) in length, according to Heritage Daily. 

Occupation in the area started between 2,000 and 1,200 B.C. and lasted until the late Roman period, which ended around 476 A.D. 

Archaeologists digging near the Talayotic settlement in Menorca, Spain have unearthed a treasure trove of artefacts from Roman soldiers
Other items include three arrowheads, spearheads, projectiles, surgical tools, a bronze spatula probe and more

It’s likely that the stone barrier was built several hundred years prior, between the 5th and 4th centuries, B.C., according to Spanish news outlet La Vanguardia.

It’s possible that the Roman soldiers, who conquered the area in the second century B.C., associated the stone barrier with Janus – the Roman god of doors, gates and transitions – given how superstitious they were, Heritage Daily added.   

‘This type of gate was characteristic of Punic culture, and it was used as a defence system to protect against possible sieges by the Romans,’ the statement from the university explained. 

‘Roman soldiers were very superstitious and used to perform these rites. At that time, the world of gates was charged with magic.

The Romans gave a sacred value to the gates of the cities, and sealing one definitively would entail certain actions of a magical nature.’    

The dig leader, Fernando Prados, suggested it was the Roman superstitions that may have led to the discoveries being in such good condition, as the soldiers believed they had a ‘magical protective character … against evil spirits when sealing doors.’ 

‘The conservation of the entire perimeter of the wall at Son Catlar makes the site a source of great value, as it provides a great deal of scope for studying the archaeology of conflict and war,’ Prados added in the statement.  

The wall also has sentry boxes and square towers known as Talayots, which gives the region its name, according to the World Heritage Convention. 

It was built using cyclonic masonry, which according to the WHC, meant it was constructed ‘without mortar,’ only using the blocks themselves.

The wall was later strengthened, possibly due to the Roman conquest of the territory or the Punic Wars, the university added. 

The Punic Wars took place from 264 to 146 B.C., and artefacts stemming from these times have been recovered in recent years. 

In 2013, archaeologists found a treasure trove of items, including helmets, weapons and ancient bronze battle rams found off the Sicilian coast from 2013, from the First Punic War. 

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Anglo-Saxon Sword Pyramid Found in England

Anglo-Saxon Sword Pyramid Found in England

A gold and garnet sword pyramid lost by a Sutton Hoo-era lord “careening around the countryside” on his horse has been discovered by a metal detectorist. The Anglo-Saxon object was found in the Breckland area of Norfolk in April.

Anglo-Saxon Sword Pyramid Found in England
A metal detectorist discovered the mount on 11 April

Finds liaison officer Helen Geake said the garnets are Indian or Sri Lankan, revealing the far-flung nature of trade links in the 6th and 7th Centuries.

Sword pyramids come in pairs so its loss “was like losing one earring – very annoying”, she said.

The tiny 12mm by 11.9mm (0.4in by 0.4in) mount dates to about AD560 to 630, at a time when Norfolk was part of the Kingdom of East Anglia.

Dr Geake said: “It would have been owned by somebody in the entourage of a great lord or Anglo-Saxon king, and he would have been a lord or thegn [a medieval nobleman] who might have found his way into the history books.

“They or their lord had access to gold and garnets and to high craftsmanship.”

The extremely fine foil on its back is believed to have been created by techniques like a modern pantograph, used to reduce the size of the design.

The mounts were part of the system that bound a sword to its scabbard.

“It’s believed they made it a bit more of an effort to get the sword out of the scabbard, possibly acting as a check on an angry reaction,” Dr Geake said.

Norfolk finds liaison officer Helen Geake said it revealed the remarkable craft skills of the Anglo-Saxons

A more ornate pair were discovered at the early 7th Century ship burial at Sutton Hoo, which recently featured in the Netflix movie The Dig.

They are less commonly found in graves, but are “increasingly common” as stray finds, probably as accidental losses. Dr Geake said: “Lords would have been careening about the countryside on their horses and they’d lose them.”

The find has been reported to the Norfolk Coroner, as required by the Treasure Act.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

German Museum Returns Native American Leader’s Shirt

German Museum Returns Native American Leader’s Shirt

With German institutions placing a renewed emphasis on the repatriation of various objects in their holdings, the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt said this week that it had given the leather shirt of Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear (Mato He Oklogeca), of the Teton Lakota, to his great-grandson Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear. In a press release, the museum cited “moral and ethical reasons” for the return.

The leather shirt was handed over to Duane Hollow Horn Bear on June 12 in Rosebud, South Dakota. Duane Hollow Horn Bear had visited the Weltkulturen Museum in 2019 and submitted a request for the shirt’s return that included a historic portrait photograph, dated to 1900, by John Alvin Anderson.

The picture showed Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear, who died in 1913, wearing the shirt. Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear was a well-respected leader and politician who advocated for the rights of his people and was often a chief negotiator with the U.S. government.

Daniel Hollow Horn Bear, photographed in 1900, wearing the shirt formerly in the collection of the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt

In 2019, when he requested the shirt’s return, Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear said in a video documenting the repatriation process, “It’s been a hard journey just to come here today. I’m humbled not just to see [his shirt] in a picture, but to hold it in my hand like I’m holding his hand. . . . Grandpa come home. We need you.”

In a statement, the Weltkulturen Museum said, “The Chief’s shirt is a culturally specific, identity-forming object of religious significance to the Teton Lakota Indigenous community.

German Museum Returns Native American Leader's Shirt
Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear (Mato He Oklogeca)’s a leather shirt.

It bears special patterns of brightly coloured glass beads and human hair, which are undoubtedly attributable to the Hollow Horn Bear family and prove personal possession prior to 1906.

For Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear and his family, the return of the shirt is like the return of the great-grandfather himself.”

The Weltkulturen Museum came into possession of the shirt in 1908 through an exchange with the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

For the past 30 years, the shirt had been on permanent loan and display to the German Leather Museum in the nearby town of Offenbach.

The AMNH had received the shirt only two years earlier as part of a larger donation by James Graham Phelps Stokes, a New York millionaire and philanthropist whose family’s wealth came from the Phelps-Dodge Company.

In its release announcing the shirt’s repatriation, the Weltkulturen Museum said, “The circumstances under which the shirt previously came into the possession of J.G. Phelps could not be reconstructed.”

In a statement, Ina Hartwig, deputy mayor in charge of Culture and Science for the City of Frankfurt am Main, said “Provenance research is one of the great challenges facing museums in the 21st century.

The Frankfurt museum landscape has been taking this challenge very seriously for years and is subjecting its collections to a systematic revision.

Even if it represents a loss for the collection and the object was legally acquired by the Weltkulturen Museum: I see the return of the leather shirt to Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear as an obligation that outweighs the formal legal situation.”

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

study confirms ancient Spanish cave art was made by Neanderthals

Study confirms ancient Spanish cave art was made by Neanderthals

A study of the pigments used in wall paintings in the Cueva Ardales caves in southern Spain originated from Neanderthals. The cave was discovered in 1821 when an earthquake exposed the cave entrance.

Pedro Cantalejo, director of the Andalusian cave of Ardales, looks at Neanderthal cave paintings inside the cavern on March 1, 2018.

In 1918, the famous prehistorian Henri Breuil visited the cave and discovered the first Palaeolithic paintings and engravings.

The research, “The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthals” published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) was conducted by Àfrica Pitarch Martí and her colleagues from Collaborative Research Center 806 “Our Way to Europe”, where they performed a geoscientific analysis on red pigments from a massive stalagmitic pillar in the cave system.

Study confirms ancient Spanish cave art was made by Neanderthals
This combination of pictures obtained on July 29, 2021, shows a general view and close-up of a partly coloured stalagmite tower in the Spanish cave of Ardales, southern Spain Joao Zilhao UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA/AFP

The edges of the pillar show an entire series of narrow sinter plumes. In these sinter curtains alone, red paint spots, dots, and lines were applied in 45 places.

The objective was to characterise the composition and possible origin of the pigments.

The results showed that the composition and arrangement of the pigments cannot be attributed to natural processes, but that they were applied by spraying and in some places by blowing.

The researchers found that the nature of the pigments does not match natural samples taken from the floor and walls of the cave, suggesting that the pigments were brought into the cave from outside.

Dating of the pigment suggests that they were applied on two separate occasions, the first being more than 65,000 years ago, whilst the other has been dated to 45,300 and 48,700 years ago during the period of Neanderthal occupation.

The cave paintings found in three caves in Spain, one of them in Ardales, were created between 43,000 and 65,000 years ago.

According to the authors, these are not art in the strict sense, but rather markings of selected areas of the cave whose symbolic meaning is unknown.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Has the ‘Lost City of the Gospels Finally Been Found?

Has the ‘Lost City of the Gospels Finally Been Found?

Excavations this summer on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee have uncovered what may be evidence of the ancient city, Bethsaida-Julias, home to three of Jesus’ apostles: Peter, Andrew, and Philip (John 1:44; 12:21). It was also a location for Jesus’ ministry (Mark 8:22) and is near the land where Luke’s gospel reports the miracle of Jesus feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish (Luke 9:10-17).

The excavations were conducted under the auspices of the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology at Kinneret College (Israel) and directed by Dr. Mordechai Aviam together with Dr. R. Steven Notley from Nyack College (New York), who is the excavation’s academic director. Students and faculty from Nyack College joined volunteers from the U.S. and Hong Kong to excavate for two weeks in July.

Because of its importance in the Christian tradition, scholars have tried to identify the site. Historical sources suggest that it was located near the Jordan River, in the large valley between Galilee and the Golan Heights.

For the last 30 years, popular opinion identified Bethsaida with the site of et-Tel where archaeologists found a settlement in the late Hellenistic (2nd cent. BCE) and Roman periods (1st-2nd cent. CE), including two private houses. However, traces of the Greco-Roman developments reported by historical reports are lacking.

Now evidence has been discovered indicating that Bethsaida-Julias was located at another site, El Araj in the nature reserve of the Beteiha Valley on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Aerial of el-Araj showing the southern, western and northern walls of the Byzantine Church of the Apostles and inundated squares of previous seasons with Roman period remains.

Flavius Josephus, the first-century historian tells us that in 31 CE, Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great, transformed the Jewish fishing village of Bethsaida on the Kinneret Lake (Sea of Galilee) into a Greco-Roman polis (Ant. 18:28). As governor of the region, he renamed the city Julias, after Julia Augusta (née Livia Drusilla), mother of Roman Emperor Tiberius. Decades later, Josephus himself was responsible for fortifying the city’s defenses in preparation for the Jewish Revolt against Rome (66-70 CE). In 68 CE he was wounded in battle on the swampy marshlands near Julias (Life 399-403).

The Byzantine (4th-7th centuries CE) and Roman (1st-3rd centuries CE) period remains both point to el-Araj as the site of the city of Bethsaida-Julias. Under the Byzantine floor of a structure discovered during the first season were 30 coins that date to the 5th century CE.

It is possible that these walls are the remains of a monastery which was built around a church. Combined with the many gilded glass tesserae (stone or glass cubes that are used for mosaics) that were found in the first and second season, they indicate the existence of a wealthy and important church.

A Byzantine eyewitness, Willibald, the bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, visited the Holy Land in 725 CE, and describes a visit to a church at Bethsaida that was built over the house of Peter and Andrew. It may be that the current excavations have unearthed remains from that church.

Roman pottery that dates between the 1st – 3rd centuries was uncovered under the Byzantine level. A bronze coin of the late 2nd century CE and a beautiful silver denarius of the emperor Nero from the year 65-66 CE that reads “Nero, Caesar Augustus” were also found.

This alone could disprove speculation that there was no human presence at el-Araj in the Roman period. Furthermore, a Roman wall was discovered at a depth nearly 693 feet (211.16m) below sea level.

Adjacent to this wall was a large portion of mosaic flooring with a white and black meander pattern still attached to its original plaster and similar to other mosaics known from first-century sites around the lake.

Along with the discovery of clay bricks and ceramic vents (tubuli), which are typical to Roman bathhouses, these finds are evidence of urbanization.

Another important contribution from this season is the elevation of the remains. Most scholars agree today, following the excavators of Magdala that the level of the lake was 209 meters below sea level, and so they assume that the site of el-Araj was underwater until the Byzantine period.

The current excavations have demonstrated that the level of the lake was much lower than previously thought, and el-Araj most certainly was not underwater in the first century CE. Two geologists, Professor Noam Greenbaum from Haifa University and Dr. Nati Bergman from the Yigal Alon Kinneret Limnological Laboratory studied the layers of the site and pointed out that there are layers of soil which indicate that the site was covered with mud and clay that were carried by the Jordan River in the late Roman period, and which corresponds to a gap in material remains from about 250 CE to 350 CE, but in the Byzantine period, the site was resettled.

The El-Araj Excavations Project was made possible through the generous support of the Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins, Nyack College, the Assemblies of God, and HaDavar Yeshiva (Hong Kong).

The excavations will continue next year, June 17-July 12, 2018 with the expectation to uncover more evidence for the Roman period settlement and the lost city of Jesus’ apostles!

WORLD

Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets | Neanderthals

Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets | Neanderthals

The idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th century, with evidence of human inhabitation of the forgotten world following in 1931 when the trawler Colinda dredged up a lump of peat containing a spear point.

But it is only now, after a decade of pioneering research and the extraordinary finds of an army of amateur archaeologists scouring the Dutch coastline for artefacts and fossils, that a major exhibition is able to offer a window into Doggerland, a vast expanse of territory submerged following a tsunami 8,000 years ago, cutting the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.

The exhibition, Doggerland: Lost World in the North Sea, at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, southern Holland, includes more than 200 objects, ranging from a deer bone in which an arrowhead is embedded, and fossils such as petrified hyena droppings and mammoth molars, to a fragment of a skull of a young male Neanderthal.

Studies of the forehead bone, dredged up in 2001 off the coast of Zeeland, suggests he was a big meat eater. A small cavity behind the brow bone is believed to be a scar from a harmless subcutaneous tumour that would have been visible as a lump above his eye.

But while the last decade has seen a growing number of expensive scientific studies, including a recent survey of the drowned landscape by the universities of Bradford and Ghent offering further clues to the cause of its destruction, it is the work of “citizen scientists” that has produced some of the most exciting artefacts, allowing a full story now to be told, according to Dr Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof, assistant curator of the museum’s prehistory department.

Manmade beaches constructed from material dredged from the sea as part of efforts to protect the modern coastline from the impact of the climate crisis have provided a trove of once-inaccessible treasures from a world inhabited for a million years by modern humans, Neanderthals and even older hominids known as Homo antecessor.

“We have a wonderful community of amateur archaeologists who almost daily walk these beaches and look for the fossils and artefacts, and we work with them to analyse and study them,” said Van der Vaart-Verschoof. “It is open to everyone, and anyone could find a hand axe, for example. Pretty much the entire toolkit that would have been used has been found by amateur archaeologists.”

One such find is a 50,000-year-old flint tool that has a handle made from birch tar pitch. Discovered in 2016 by Willy van Wingerden, a nurse, it has helped update the understanding of Neanderthals – once thought to be brutish and simplistic – as capable of precise and complex multi-staged tasks.

A drawing in the exhibition imagines this sharp tool was used as a razor by one to shave another’s head.

Other finds include human skull fragments with cut marks possibly caused by defleshing, believed to have been part of the burial ritual, and remains such as a hyena’s jaw that simply washed up in front of Van Wingerden during a stroll on a beach near Rotterdam six years ago.

The wide-open grassy plains of Doggerland were the ideal grazing ground for large herds of animals such as reindeer who were prey for the cave lions, sabre-toothed cats, cave hyenas and wolves, among others.

Doggerland – named by University of Exeter archaeologist Bryony Coles in the 1990s after the Dogger Bank, a stretch of seabed in the North Sea in turn named after the 17th century “Dogger” fishing boats that sailed there – is believed to have been subsumed about 8,200 years ago following a massive tsunami.

An amateur archaeologist on De Zandmotor beach in the Netherlands

Sea levels during the last ice age were much lower than today but a catastrophic wave was generated by a sub-sea landslide off the coast of Norway.

“There was a period when Doggerland was dry and incredibly rich, a wonderful place for hunter-gatherers,” said Van der Vaart-Verschoof. “It was not some edge of the earth or land bridge to the UK. It was really the heart of Europe.

There are lessons to be learned. The story of Doggerland shows how destructive climate change can be. The climate change we see today is manmade but the effects could be just as devastating as the changes seen all those years ago.”