3,200-year-old Egyptian built fortress found in Israel
A HUGE fortress dating back to the 12th-century BC has been unearthed in Israel and experts are linking it to a structure described in the Bible.
The Canaanite citadel is said to be similar to a building in the Book of Judges, a section of the Bible that describes intense warfare between groups of Canaanites, Israelites, and Philistines.
The design of the fortress and pottery found there indicate that it belonged to Canaanites who would have lived under Egyptian rule at the time.
The fortress was uncovered in Israel
Canaanites are often referred to as the ‘lost people’ of the Bible because a lot of what we know about them just comes from ancient texts describing interactions with civilization.
The 3,200-year-old fortress was found in southern Israel. It measures 60 feet by 60 feet and would have been two stories high. There is evidence to suggest it had watchtowers on each corner and a courtyard featuring stone slabs and columns.
About 3,200 years ago, the fortress was erected to defend against the Philistines.
The Israeli archaeologists working on the dig think the Canaanites built the structure with help from their Egyptian overlords.
Fortresses like this would have been necessary to try and stay protected from the invading Philistines.
The site contained hundreds of pottery vessels inside the rooms of the courtyard. This included one piece of pottery suspected to be used for religious reasons.
Earthenware discovered in a 3,200-year-old citadel unearthed near Guvrin Stream and Kibbutz Gal-On
IAA archaeologists Saar Ganor and Itamar Weissbein said: “The fortress we found provides a glimpse into the geopolitical reality described in the Book of Judges, in which the Canaanites, Israelites, and Philistines are fighting each other.
“In this period, the land of Canaan was ruled by the Egyptians and its inhabitants were under their custody.”
Pottery found at the site was similar to the Egyptian style at the time and even the fortress was similar to an Egyptian ‘governor’s houses’. The Egyptians are thought to have left the Canaan area in the middle of the 12th-century BC.
This means the fortress inhabitants would have been left to defend themselves as the area descended into territorial battles. The archaeological site will soon be opened to the public for free tours.
Archaeologists Find 13,000-Year-Old Engraved Mammoth Tusk in Siberia
The oldest known depictions of the animal ever identified in Asia are Etchings of fighting camels discovered on 13,000-year-old mammoth tusks in Siberia.
The tusk found in lower Tom in western Siberia was analyzed by a team from the Khakassian Research Unit for Language, Literature, and History in Russia. The 5ft long tusk also included an etching of an anthropomorphic image that could show a human wearing a camel disguise, according to study author Yury Esin.
This may have been a way to show how hunters dressed as a camel in order to get closer to the beasts and kill or capture them, the team explained. Among the etchings were depictions of camels locked in a fight that may represent the start of a mating season and a vital stage in the cycle of the human community.
Etchings of fighting camels found on 13,000-year-old mammoth tusks in Siberia are the earliest known drawings of the animal ever found in Asia, researchers claim
The camels shown on the tusk are consistent with images of camels painted in caves from around the same time – the oldest known painting was from the Kapova cave in the Ural mountains dating to about 19,000 years. The difference to those is that this shows camels ‘fighting’ neck to neck and one pair have arrows and wounds suggesting they were hunted by humans.
‘The comparative analysis of the stylistic features of the camel figures shows that they correspond to the age of the tusk itself, making them, at present, the oldest camel images in Asia,’ the authors wrote.
‘The discovery of the engravings in this region is consistent with the theory of mobile population groups moving to western Siberia in the Late Upper Paleolithic.’
Etchings could be designed to show just how important camel fights and hunting were to the culture of the community that created the artworks. This hunting may have been seasonal and the fights likely happened at the start of the mating season, according to Esin.
Among the etchings were depictions of camels locked in fights that may represent the start of a mating season and a vital stage in the cycle of the human community
He speculated that the fights may have marked a vital point in the annual cycle for the human community living around the camels. Not many camel bones have been found in the Tom river – the ones that have been uncovered date to between 30,000 and 55,000 years ago, Esin said.
There are some that date to the time of the tusk, about 13,000 years ago, but they were found much further down – hundreds of miles away from the river. According to Esin, this means the community was likely nomadic. The ‘human disguised as a camel’ was likely an example of a way for hunters to ‘sneak up’ on the beasts and make it easier to kill them.
This tusk was first discovered in 1988 during a construction project but had remained unstudied until Esin and colleagues started their investigation. He said very little is known about the ancient humans living in this area of Siberia but there is evidence they hunted mammoths – and now that they hunted camels.
It wasn’t an easy task for Esin and colleagues as by the time they started studying the tusk it had already started to break and crack due to ‘inappropriate storage’.
The actual engravings themselves are also different from others discovered. The engravings on the tusk from the Tom River have special features, which make them difficult to document,’ said Esin.
‘They have very thin and shallow lines, making them barely visible and tedious to trace and the engravings are on the surface of a round, long, curved and heavy object,’ he explained.
Engravings on the 13,000-year-old mammoth tusk from the Tom River, western Siberia; numbers from (1) to (5) and letters from (a) to (i) mark main images and their details.
This means that the tusk has to be rotated to recognize what has been drawn – but its poor condition made this difficult as it was already crumbling in parts.
They took a series of images, including close-up macro photographs of the engravings to identify ways they may have been created. The engravings were created with a very sharp cutting tool, which, depending on the amount of pressure applied, could produce a line about 0.1–0.15 mm thin, or even less,’ said Esin.
On the surface of the tusk, they found four images of two-humped camels depicted in the same style and using similar techniques and tools. All camels are depicted with only two legs. The lower ends of the foot contours, in most cases, are not connected,’ they said.
‘The engravings were created with a very sharp cutting tool, which, depending on the amount of pressure applied, could produce a line about 0.1–0.15 mm thin, or even less,’ said Esin
‘The camels have patches of thick fur sticking out from the upper parts of their forelegs, bellies, under their necks, at the base of the humps (between the front hump and the neck, the back hump and the croup) and on their foreheads.’
‘All in all, the figures of the animals are quite realistic and demonstrate a good knowledge of the subject. They said they could also detect signs of arrows and wounds on the camel bodies including parallel lines close to the front of each other that could show bleeding.
‘Similar images of camels facing each other are quite common in the art of different cultures of the Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and Medieval period in southern Siberia and Central Asia,’ said Esin.
‘The camels have patches of thick fur sticking out from the upper parts of their forelegs, bellies, under their necks, at the base of the humps (between the front hump and the neck, the back hump, and the croup) and on their foreheads’
This suggests that this composition conveys a memorable and important natural characteristic of camel behaviour – including two male rivers fighting. The resemblance of some stylistic features and content seen in the images on the Tom River tusk and in Upper Paleolithic European art is highly significant,’ he said.
‘This suggests that the reason for the similarities is not only epochal features of human culture but also that some traditions were inherited through space and time.’
He said the Tom River tusk itself demonstrates that engraving different materials was an important part of cultural tradition in the Upper Paleolithic. In this case, stylistic techniques could be consolidated and passed down through generations, as a particular part of labour skills,’ Esin explained.
A Lost Roman City Has Been Discovered in Southern France
Hidden for centuries, mosaic floors from the lost Roman city of Ucetia have been discovered in France. A large excavation is underway in the town of Uzes in southern France to unearth more of the remain’s of this ancient Roman settlement, the existence of which archaeologists had only hints of until the dig.
One of the most impressive finds was a mosaic floor, dating back the second half of the 1st century B.C., discovered in the ruins of what’s thought to be a Roman public building.
The nearby city of Nimes is more famous for its Roman history, largely thanks to the A.D. 70 amphitheater, where events, including bullfights, still take place. Less is known about Uzes, once called Ucetia.
But before the construction of dormitories for a high school there, archaeologists were brought in to investigate a 43,000 square-foot (4,000 square meters) area for pieces of the city’s history.
The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) announced that the dig has so far been very fruitful.
Some of the wall’s and structures that were uncovered date to just before the Roman conquest of present day France (called Gaul at the time).
But the most visually stunning find’s are the well preserved Roman era mosaic floors with richly colored patterns and figures.
The archaeologist’s discovered one large structure, 2,700 square feet (250 square meters) in area, with a colonnade that suggest’s it was a public building, and four rooms in a row.
One of those large rooms contains a complex mosaic pavement with geometric patterns like meanders and swastikas, as well as symbols like crowns and chevrons, and animals like an owl, duck, eagle, and fawn.
The archaeologist think this building dates to the first century B.C. and was maintained until the first century A.D.
In another area at the site, the archaeologist unearthed a”domus,” or a large house belonging to a wealthy Roman family.
This building sprawls over 5380 square feet (500 square meters) and dates to the early Roman Empire (1stcentury B.C.).
A room in this family home has a mosaic floors with a geometric pattern, accompanied by stylized dolphins in the four corners.
The home also had a type of central heating system; archaeologist’s found a “hypocaust,” or a crawl space supported by brick columns where hot air would have circulated.
And several “dolia,” or huge ceramic wine vessels, were found there, suggesting the inhabitants might have drunk homemade wines.
The 1.5 million euro ($1.6 million) dig is ongoing, and, according to INRAP, the archaeologists have recently begun excavating another large area of ancient and medieval ruins, including two roads and an intersection.
Seventy thousand years ago, people lived all over South America. Six thousand years ago, people began to construct cities around pyramids, in places like Mesopotamia and China.
The first of these structures in the Americas, between the Andes and the Pacific Oceans, was established 5,000 years ago. Known as Caral, it was a large settlement in the Supe Valley, in what is now Peru. The point is that this gave rise to the first city in the Americas, as well as the most extraordinary archaeological site in the entire world.
Ancient cities all had a common feature, namely their access to freshwater. On the wall, Across-the-board, this is what allowed for the irrigation that was required to form modern cities. In typical fashion, the river in the valley of Caral flowed down from the mountains to the sea.
From this, hoes were then used to dig trenches from the river to the fields. However, since the river only flows between December and April, to have water all year round, they had to build a canal that was fed by two different sources.
Along with the river water, the people of Caral made use of mountain spring water, to hydrate themselves and the plants they depended on. As a result of this, there were soon numerous fruits and vegetables, in a vast oasis, along with acres upon acres of cotton. It must have been an ancient wonder of the world.
Now, although they were expert farmers, the old native Peruvians didn’t know how to fire clay. Instead, they carried things in hand-woven reed baskets. The thing that makes them the most unique, though, is the fact that the Caral-Supe civilization was a peaceful society. That is to say, citizens didn’t own weapons, unlike in almost every other civilization, both ancient and modern alike.
Their overall way of life developed out of a far greater need for welfare than that of warfare. So, the culture didn’t include aggression. Although, it is important to note that, the priests of Caral did engage in human sacrifice.
In this way, they started the tradition of burying people alive in monumental architecture, as would be seen millennia later, in cities like Teotihuacan and Cahokia, in North America. Thus, trapped souls began to serve as protectors of pyramids.
Regardless, Caral was under construction at the same time as the pyramids of Giza, in Ancient Egypt. Like all the other great cities of old, the site was simply enormous.
The remains of the Sacred City of Caral, Peru.
The temple is included was a 100 foot tall, multiple structures, fire altar platform. This was also accompanied by five smaller ritual pyramids, around a central plaza, complete with an amphitheater. There was also housing for 3,000 permanent residents.
As part of this, major repairs needed to be done every two or three generations. Even though they used rather sophisticated anti-seismic methods of construction, it was still necessary to shore up monuments every few decades. They also had to deal with deadly mudslides, in the process.
Nonetheless, in spite of all the hardships they faced, their peaceful society not only survived, it actually thrived. It was all based on a complex trade network, which went to Ecuador, and even hundreds of miles away, deep in the rain forests. So, the farmers in Caral grew chili peppers and guava, among many other crops.
The most important thing they produced, though, was cotton. Manufacturers used it to make a number of textiles, like clothing and fishing nets. Farmers wore the former, and traded the latter to fishermen, miles away in coastal towns. In this way, people in the aristocratic city-state subsisted mainly on shellfish and dried fish, although they had a fairly diverse diet, overall.
The people of Caral brilliantly capitalized on what could have been a disaster. 5,000 years ago, climate change altered the local seascape in the Pacific Ocean.
Remains of the Great Pyramid of Caral.
After the temperature changed, tuna and other big fish moved on to cooler waters. Meanwhile, anchovies and sardines moved in. These new marine products were caught with nets rather than hooks and lines, as people had been doing with the larger fish. Simply put, it became easier to catch smaller fish, in far greater numbers.
In this way, the greater number of fish that were being caught, with the use of more and more nets, allowed for greater and greater surplus, which drove the economy. This made Caral the central trading hub, in the first major marketplace in the Americas.
As the mother civilization of the New World, the Caral-Supe society set the stage for Native American civilizations, far and wide. Without even knowing how to make pottery yet, they were already expert herbalists. They chewed coca leaves with lime, to enhance the cocaine. They also painted each other with an aphrodisiac, made from the achiote plant. Then, they engaged in orgiastic religious festivals.
The natives were flute-playing lovers, not blade-wielding fighters. Everything they did was based on cooperation, not competition. This is how they lived in peace, for a millennium, from 2600 BCE to 1600 BCE. However, all good things seem to come to an end.
Unfortunately for the people of Caral, every few decades, earthquakes would routinely break up the mountains. As a consequence of this, rubble would get swept away by torrential rains. This would then wash into the river, and out into the ocean. So, after a couple of centuries, the silt built up and sealed off the flow of water.
This completely filled the life-giving bays with sand, which prevailing winds then blew inland. Thus, with each passing year, the dunes grew bigger and more menacing on the horizon. In the end, the once fertile fields were all reclaimed, by the inhospitable desert, once more.
Lost City in South Africa Discovered Hiding Beneath Thick Vegetation
What was once thought to be a scattering of ancient stone huts on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, has turned out to be the remnants of a thriving city, lost to history for 200 years?
Beneath the dense vegetation, there isn’t much to see with the naked eye. And after three decades of careful research, archaeologists in South Africa have barely scratched the surface of this long-lost settlement.
Now, however, thanks to the cutting-edge laser technology of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), this site has been revealed for what it truly was: a veritable metropolis made up of hundreds of households and trade networks.
The vast area where the lost city, known as Kweneng, once stood.
The research has brought this city, called Kweneng, back to life. Home to a Tswana-speaking ethnic group, Kweneng’s 800 homesteads are now thought to have housed no less than 10,000 people.
“What this means is filling in a huge historical gap, especially for southern Africa, because we know the pre-colonial history of southern Africa has no written record,” explains Fern Imbali Sixwanha, an archaeologist at the University of Witwatersrand involved in the research.
“So now we’re starting to fill in the gaps using this LIDAR technology.”
It’s the same technology that scientists used to locate that ancient Mayan megalopolis early last year. Today, it’s helping to fill a massive historical blindspot in southern Africa.
Bouncing billions of laser light pulses off the lower western slopes of the Suikerbosrand hills near Johannesburg, the researchers were able to virtually ‘see’ through all the vegetation and preconceived notions that have obscured this once-bustling city.
Researchers created 3D images of the city which had been lost to the world for 200 year
Studies now reveal that Kweneng, which spanned about 20 square kilometers (8 square miles), was at its prime between the 15th and 19th centuries. And in its heyday, the researchers think it was probably a rich and thriving city.
The researchers documented the structural remains of the lost city.
Several pairs of parallel rock walls suggest there were numerous passageways into the city, many of which look like cattle drives, built to herd cows and other livestock through parts of the city.
What’s more, in the middle of Kweneng are remnants of two massive enclosures, which together take up a space estimated at 10,000 square meters (108,000 square feet). Archaeologists on the case think these may have been kraals that housed nearly a thousand head of cattle.
But just like many other Tswana cities, this one is also thought to have fallen into decline after civil unrest.
Gone are the citizens, the stone towers, the homesteads, the livestock, the wealth. Thanks to LIDAR, however, history will live on.
“One of the most enlightening things is, as I’ve been able to understand what we were doing in our past you know, it gives us a broader idea of the people of southern Africa who they were and the types of activities that they did because you can now rediscover that activity line and just general interaction within the society,” Sixwanha told Africa News.
South African ‘lost city’ found using laser technology
Vermont Public Radio reports that the possible remains of soldiers who died during the War of 1812 were found buried in rows at a construction site in northwestern Vermont.
They’re human remains, bones that researchers say that have been around for a while. In fact, they say they’re the remains of a soldier from the War of 1812 and there could be others buried nearby. The project is ongoing and is being overseen by the University of Vermont’s Consulting Anthropology Program, with support from the State Division for Historic Preservation.
University of Vermont Anthropology Asst. Professor John Crock spoke with VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb about the find and what it means. crock is the director of UVM’s Consulting Anthropology Program. Their interview is below. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mitch Wertlieb: So what exactly has been found here and when was this discovery made?
John Crock: The discovery was made last week. Initially, an excavator – and I’d like to give him credit: Mike Weston, at Don Western Excavating – noticed human bone in one of the first or second backhoe pulls from a proposed house addition in Burlington and did the right thing: he called the police.
The police came and looked at it and recognized it as likely human remains. They called the medical examiner, who then came in to basically clarify that it wasn’t a recent human. Then, they called the state archeologist who then called us at UVM to further investigate.
How do you know what era the remains are from?
The War of 1812 had a battery in Burlington, basically a big army base that we now know mainly from Battery Park, which kind of memorializes that. There was a large hospital barracks. Although Burlington was only fired upon once in 1813, it was a major base, with as many as 4,000 people that were serving other battles, including one in Plattsburgh.
Archaeologists from UVM’s Consulting Archaeology program work at a site in Burlington, where remains that likely date back to the War of 1812 were recently discovered.
But the main function was actually that there was a military hospital here and a lot of people were treated there for injuries that were incurred during warfare. There were references to people being buried in a cemetery on private property not too far from that hospital. But the exact boundaries of that [are unknown] – there were no records. Essentially, the military did not keep records of cemeteries or burials until the Civil War. So this is essentially an unmarked burial ground.
I don’t know what the scientific method is for checking this – maybe it’s carbon dating – but had the bones been checked for that to say, “OK, they are this many hundreds of years old”?
Carbon dating is a little bit… It’s harder… with this archeologically recent timeframe of only a couple hundred years.
Previously we found some remains related to the same period of time on a project on North Street and these had preserved with them, military buttons. In one case, an individual was buried with musket balls and a pocketknife that further led us to conclude that these were indeed military burials.
In this case, we’ve identified a number of them in a cluster, in cemetery rows, within just a small area of the landowner’s addition, which leads us to believe that this indeed is part of the larger cemetery that was referenced in historical documents.
According to the state archeologist, there could be around 700 soldiers buried around the city at this time. Why so many?
That’s possible. [There were] a lot of diseases. You know, there was an epidemic in the winter of 1812-1813 of pneumonia or influenza. Soldiers were also battling typhus.
The majority of those who died were really deaths that resulted from this kind of close-quarters living with epidemic disease raging through these camps. [These are] things that we’re more familiar with now in the era of COVID, [where we’re] reflecting on how these things get transmitted so quickly in crowds.
How confident are you that these are definitely the remains of an American soldier? And is there any way of determining, if so, who that soldier might have been?
We’re very confident, I’d say, at this point, that these are remains of soldiers and there are ways.
We have the enlistment records that our program historian has really [curated]. She combed through microfilm back in the microfilm era to get the list of enlistment records. So we know the stature of individuals, their surname and we know their occupation prior to becoming soldiers. That gives some indication of what their human remains might look like.
And then there are other things that we can do with bone chemistry to try to figure out what area person was from. If, for example, these weren’t Vermonters, we could easily identify those that enlisted, for example, from North Carolina or farther south because their bone signature through isotope studies has a different pattern than those who would have grown up here in New England.
What do you ultimately hope to learn, to find?
You know: the whole package. Where did these people come from? What communities did they represent? Many of them were farmers. How did that affect the farming communities of New England, to send all of their able-bodied men, including what we would consider adolescents now? Some as young as 12 were enlisting. We hope to learn more about that.
Also: the burial practices. Was there ceremony involved? We found an individual in the previous case on North Street that was buried, for example, with a gun sling under their head as a pillow. So it was clear that people were presiding over the funeral or burial. That’s telling us things that just aren’t in the written records and things that only archeology can tell us as we learn more.
The coffins, for example, weren’t mass-produced. They were built to-size; they were built for individuals. And interestingly – we’re just coming up with this information this week – in some of the grave shafts that we’re investigating, that we’ve exposed, we’re finding that the individual had already been exhumed. This is likely from UVM medical students in the 1820s and 1830s who were using this burial ground to access anatomical specimens. So some of these soldiers effectively donated themselves to science without knowing it.
And how long do you think this overall project will take, now that these bones have been discovered?
We’re hoping to get done with it within the week. That’s the best we can do, as fast as we can go, being careful and also honoring what is really the country’s first veterans.
Headless Vikings The “Most exciting & Disturbing” Archaeological Discoveries in Britain In Recent Years
Archeologists made a surprising finding in Dorset, England in June 2009, in the coastal town of Weymouth. During excavations in preparation for the planned Weymouth Relief Route, archaeologists discovered a mass grave containing 54 dismembered skeletons and 51 skulls in a pile within a disused Roman quarry.
This odd discovery prompted us to ask who these people were and why they were so tragically murdered. Through scientific testing and analysis, archaeologists concluded that the remains belonged to Scandinavian Vikings.
It is particularly shocking the sheer scale of this discovery, “as any mass grave is relatively uncommon, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual,” said David Score of Oxford Archaeology
A pile of heads was found separate to the rest of the bodies in a mass grave.
Although exact dating has not been confirmed, it is believed that the remains are those of individuals who lived sometime during the early Middle Ages, between the 5 th and 10 th centuries.
The deaths likely occurred during, and as a result of, the conflict between the Anglo-Saxons and Viking invaders. All of the remains are from males mostly aged from their late teens to 25 years old, with a few being somewhat older.
None of the remains show any sign of battle wounds, beyond wounds inflicted during the execution, so it is likely that these men were captives rather than members of the military. No clothing or other remnants were found within the pit, leading to speculation that the men were naked when they were executed.
The bodies are believed to belong to Viking warriors, executed by Anglo Saxons
The men appear to have been killed all at the same time, and the executions appear to have been carried out hastily and rather chaotically. Some of the individuals showed multiple blows and deep cuts to the vertebrae, jawbones, and skulls.
Damage to the hand and wrist bones indicates that some of them may have braced against the execution with their hands. When the remains were discovered, the skulls, leg bones, and rib bones were arranged into separate piles. It appeared that the pit had not been dug specifically for this purpose and that it just happened to be a convenient spot to dump the bodies.
One interesting detail is that there were three fewer skulls than the number of skeletons within the pit. It is believed that three of the heads may have been kept as souvenirs or placed on stakes. They may have been high-ranking individuals.
The mass grave of headless Vikings found in Dorset.
There have been multiple theories as to who these men were and why they were executed. As a group, they appear to have been healthy and robust individuals. They were all of the fighting age, and they were far from home when executed.
Scientific isotope testing conducted on the men’s teeth indicates that they were of very diverse origins, and likely from Scandinavia. Kim Siddorn, author of Viking Weapons and Warfare, has speculated “[t]hey had left their ship, walked inland, ran into an unusually well-organized body of Saxons, and were probably forced to surrender.”
This is corroborated by the fact that the location of their deaths was a central location in conflicts between native Saxons and invading Vikings.
It is also speculated that the executions may have taken place in front of an audience, as some sort of display of power, authority, and triumph. In a documentary by National Geographic, called Viking Apocalypse, Dr. Britt Baillie suggested a link between these executions and the St. Brice’s Day massacre, or that those executed were actually defectors or traitors killed by their own men.
A gruesome find such as this brings forth many questions. It is hoped that further archaeological discoveries in the area may help provide answers to what occurred on that fateful day.
Archaeologist Discovered Grauballe man, a preserved bog body from the 3rd century B.C
Two years after the discovery of the Tollund man, another bog body was found on the 26 of April 1952, by local peat cutters in the nearby bog, Nebelgard Fen, situated near the town of Grauballe, Denmark.
Longest-lasting missing person The Grauballe Man
Around the time of Grauballe man’s discovery, it was argued that the body belonged to that of Red Christian, a local peat cutter that mysteriously vanished in the area around 1887.
It was trusted that Red fell into the bog after drinking to much alcohol, as it was said that two drunk Englishmen from Cheshire suffered the same fate by falling into Lindow moss in 1853. It was not long before the body was sent to the Prehistory museum at Aarhus for examination and preservation.
Visual examination:
Once the body of Grauballe man was fully revealed, many wondered at how well the body was preserved. A brisk examination of the Body at the site revealed that Grauballe man was naked and had no items or belongings with him.
When Grauballe man was analyzed with more detail at the museum, it was revealed that he was around 30 years of old at the time of his death. It was also revealed that the body of Grauballe man was 1.75 m Height, and still had hair of about 5 cm long as well as a stubble on his chin. Grauballe man’s hands and fingers, when closely inspected, showed no signs of manual labor.
Scientific investigation:
So, we know, based on a VISUAL examination, that Grauballe man was 30 years of age, was 1.75 m Height, still had hair and his hands showed no sign of no physical work.
But how could we know his age? How did we know that his hands showed no sign of labor? The basic answer is that ‘we’ use Science.
When Grauballe man was scientifically inspected, through a wide array of techniques, numerous features where revealed, such as what Grauballe man ate and what wounds he sustained. The scientific examination of Grauballe man has been listed below.
Radiocarbon dating. Used to date the age of the body, which was around 310 B.C – 55 B.C. Placing the Grauballe man in the late Iron age. Scanning Electron microscope. Utilized for a closer examination of the body. Scientists, and Archaeologists worked out that Grauballe man was not a very hard worker by using the microscope to Determine his fingerprints, which were relatively smooth.
It was also used to show what Grauballe man had eaten. Results from an examination inside the stomach uncovered that Grauballe mans last meal consisted of porridge made from corn, seeds from more then 60 different herbs, and grasses which was uncovered to contain traces of a poisonous fungi, known as fungi ergot.
Grauballe man is believed to have died in winter or early spring as there is a lack of FRESH herbs and berries in his stomach.
Forensic analysis. Used to determine the wounds that the body sustained, which consisted of a cut to the throat that extended from ear to ear, cracks to the skull and right tibia, which was believed to be caused by a weapon, however when the body was re-examined again it was in fact caused by the pressure in the bog.
It has also been noted that there were 4 missing lumbar vertebrae. Forensics have also been able to reconstruct the face of Grauballe man, as well as numerous other faces from various bodies.
Templates from the x-rays of the skull were utilized and the skull was sculpted from clay over these templates. CT scanning and Computer Generated imagery was also used to help modify the facial reconstruction.
Cause of death:
There are many speculations associated with Grauballe’s man’s death. The cut on the throat is said to be the cause of Grauballe’s man’s death.
It is believed that Grauballe man was a criminal who paid the cost of death. But how would we know this? Based on the written sources of Tacitus, the Roman historian, the clans of northern Europe had a very strict society. So if one broke the law or committed an offence, they would be put to death.
A criminal or a prisoner of war would fit this description. But, what about his hands? As said before, Grauballe man’s hands showed no sign of manual labor, recommending that he was used for sacrificial purposes. Tacitus mentions that the clans of northern Europe have a connection to mother earth.
He says that during spring she visits these clans and upon departing, a selection of people are sacrificed . Based on the wounds, and the hands of Grauballe man, as well as sources to back it up, this seems to be Grauballe man’s likely cause of death.
But what about the poisonous fungi found in his stomach? New data suggests that if this fungi was to make Grauballe man sick, then it would of more then likely make him incapable to work.
It would have also caused agonizing symptoms which are historically known as St. Anthony’s Fire. Symptoms of this disease include convulsions, hallucinations and burning of the mouth, feet and hands. It is more than likely that Grauballe mans ingested the fungus by natural means.
If there was any bad luck in the village then the Grauballe man would be at the forefront of the allegations, which would regard him as being the cause of these woes and mishaps.
He would be seen as someone corrupted by an evil spirit, and therefore put to death and deposited in a bog far from town. The exact cause of death is however a mystery and therefore there is no single explanations of how Grauballe man died.
