All posts by Archaeology World Team

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists have discovered a rock-carved face at Toscal De La Cala, a Roman fort in Benidorm, on the east coast of Spain.

Archaeologists from the University of Alicante discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved “inscultura” face with three artistic representations of a human face, a cornucopia, and a phallus during excavations.

The carving was described by University of Alicante professor Jesús Moratalla, head of the excavation, as “a relief of outstanding historical importance”.

The carving measures 57 x 42 centimeters, however, Moratalla and his team believe that this scene is “possibly incomplete” since “the upper right quadrant” being missing.

Historical and Cultural Heritage Councilor Ana Pellicer said that there are no parallel references to engraving and reliefs of similar composition at sites in Rome.

Tossal de la Cala in Benidorm. Photo: University of Alicante (AU)

Unknown is the carving’s purpose; it might have been graffiti or served a ritualistic function. Given that the Romans considered the phallus to be the embodiment of masculine generative power and one of the symbols of the safety of the state (sacra Romana), the inclusion of a phallus raises the possibility that it served to offer protection.

Given that many Roman deities connected to the harvest, prosperity, or spiritual abundance are frequently depicted carrying a cornucopia in Roman reliefs and coins, the depiction of a cornucopia or “horn of plenty” raises the possibility that the face could be that of a god or goddess.

In a myth, the cornucopia was created when Heracles (Roman Hercules) wrestled with the river god Achelous and ripped off one of his horns; river gods were sometimes depicted as horned.

Located on a 100-meter-high hill, the Tossal de La Cala site was excavated in the 1940s by Father Belda and in 1965 by Professor M. Tarradell, dating the archaeological remains found between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.

Archaeological excavations carried out by the University of Alicante (AU) since 2013 reveal that it was a Roman settlement occupied by the armies of Quinto Sertorio during the Sertorian Wars.

The Sertorian Wars was a civil war fought between a group of Roman rebels (Sertorian) and the Roman government. (80 to 72 BC)

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis
An ancient fresco from Herculaneum, a town near Pompeii, shows prayers to Isis in a temple of the cult, while a priest dressed as the Egyptian god Bes performs a ritual dance. What seem to be two ibises — sacred Egyptian birds — can be seen near the foot of a burner in the temple.

Archaeologists excavating the Temple of Isis in Pompeii have discovered the remains of a ritual banquet where dozens of birds were eaten, possibly to placate the goddess after her temple was downsized.

The find shows the importance of birds to worshippers of Isis, an Egyptian cult that had become established in Roman society by the first century A.D., according to a study published on April 27 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 

“The ritual … was likely performed by three priests of Isis in a single day,” possibly to atone for renovations that had made the temple slightly smaller, study first author Chiara Corbino, an archaeologist at Italy’s Institute of Heritage Science, told Live Science in an email. 

Pompeii was a wealthy Roman resort city that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. It was buried beneath a layer of volcanic ash up to 20 feet (6 meters) thick and has been progressively excavated to provide a snapshot of life in the early Roman Empire. 

Corbino said the renovations seem to have been made after an earthquake damaged the temple in A.D. 62, which meant the banquet took place between that time and the eruption in 79.

A wall painting or fresco in the town of Herculaneum, about 10 miles from Pompeii and destroyed in A.D. 79 by the same eruption of Vesuvius, portrays a ceremony in a temple of the cult of Isis, which otherwise would be kept secret from those not initiated into its mysteries. What seems to be two ibises can be seen near the altar.

The excavations revealed the charred remains of at least eight chickens, a goose, a turtle dove, a pig and two clams; part of the meat would be cooked and eaten by the priests, while the rest would have been set out on the floor as an offering to Isis, she said.

Isis — the Greek name for the “great mother” of the ancient Egyptians, known as Aset or Eset — was often portrayed with bird wings, and some archaeologists think she may have once been a bird deity, like the falcon-headed Egyptian god Horus.

The new finding adds more evidence that birds were central to the Isis cult. “This work confirms that bird sacrifice was an important part of the Isis rituals,” the authors wrote in the study.

Cult of Isis

The Isis cult spread from Egypt to Greece and became part of the Roman world by the first century B.C. 

Sabine Deschler-Erb, a historian and archaeologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who was not involved in the study, said the mobility of soldiers, administrators, and traders in the Roman Empire promoted the spread of Eastern religions such as the Isis cult. 

The cult rituals were secret and not allowed to be written down, so archaeology is the only way of finding out about them, she said. Until now, in the case of the Isis cult, sacrificial remains had been found only in Greece, Spain, and Germany. 

“The study of Pompeii is the first archaeozoological investigation of an Isis sanctuary in Italy,” she said.

The Temple of Isis in Pompeii was discovered in the 18th century. The cult of Isis was originally Egyptian, but it became popular throughout the Roman world. Here we see the ruins of the Temple of Isis mostly destroyed during the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.

Animal sacrifices

Isabel Köster, a historian at the University of Colorado Boulder who didn’t take part in the study, noted that the finds at Pompeii are similar to the remains of bird sacrifices found at Isis temples in Roman territories, such as the Sanctuary of Isis and Magna Mater in Mainz, Germany. 

However, Jan Bremmer, a historian and professor emeritus at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who wasn’t involved in the study, said the chickens and geese offered at Pompeii suggest Isis was not an important god in Roman worship at the time. “Those usually received more important animals,” like cattle, he said.

Regardless of their species, sacrificial animals would usually be ceremonially killed while appropriate prayers were recited or sung. The meat was often then charred, and part of it was offered to the god; the rest would typically be cooked and eaten by the priests and whoever had paid for the sacrifice.

Erica Rowan, an archaeologist at Royal Holloway, University of London who wasn’t involved with the study, noted both similarities and differences between the bird offerings at Pompeii and those made to Isis elsewhere. For example, the animal sacrifices to Isis at Mainz and at Delos in Greece were almost completely consumed by fire, rather than leaving significant remains; while the remains of cattle and fish were found with those of birds at the Baelo Claudia site in Spain.

“They are similar enough to show that there was clearly communication between the various congregations or cult members,” she said. 

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru

1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru

Peruvian archeologists have unearthed eight children and 12 adults apparently sacrificed around 800-1,200 years ago, they said on Tuesday, in a major dig at the pre-Incan Cajamarquilla complex east of Lima.

A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of one of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
Peruvian archeologists show ceramic pieces found it with 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru
A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
A view shows a tomb at an excavation site where archeologists work to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.

The remains were outside an underground tomb where the team from Peru’s San Marcos University found November an ancient mummy thought to be a VIP bound with ropes, in a fetal position.

Archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen said the bodies, some mummified and others skeletons, were wrapped in various layers of textiles as part of ancient pre-Hispanic ritual, and had likely been sacrificed to accompany the main mummy.

“For them, death was not the end, but rather a transition to a parallel world where the dead lived,” Van Dalen told a news conference. “They thought that the souls of the dead became protectors of the living.”

Van Dalen said the burial pattern was familiar, citing the tomb of the Lord of Sipán, a ruler from 1,700 years ago found along with children and adults sacrificed to be buried with him.

A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru
A pre-Incan mummy unearthed at the Cajamarquilla archaeological site and believed to be between 800 and 1,200 years old is exhibited at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Peru.
A member of the media takes a picture of a pre-Incan mummy unearthed at the Cajamarquilla archaeological site and believed to be between 800 and 1,200 years old, at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Peru.

“This is precisely what we think and propose in the case of the mummy at Cajamarquilla, which would have been buried with these people,” he said. “As part of the ritual, evidence of violence has been found in some of the individuals.”

Yomira Huamán, part of the team, said that along with funeral items, there were musical artifacts such as the “zampoña,” a wind instrument of Andean origin with several wooden tubes in the form of flutes.

“Our investigations suggest the mummy of Cajamarquilla would be a man of approximately 35 years. This character did not have any organs, meaning he was eviscerated after death,” she said.

Peru is home to hundreds of archaeological sites of cultures that developed before and after the Inca Empire, which 500 years ago dominated the southern part of the continent, ranging from southern Ecuador and Colombia to central Chile.

“The complex has only been excavated 1%,” Huamán said. “I think Cajamarquilla has much more to say, much more to tell us.”

ASIA, JORDAN, WORLD

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years
Massive ancient hunting traps called desert kites (one in Jordan is shown above) include long walls that converge on enclosed spaces where animals were driven into pits.

Two large, engraved stones found in the Middle East display the oldest known building plans drawn to scale, researchers say.

One carved depiction covers part of a rectangular stone found at a Jordanian campsite dating to about 9,000 years ago. Two other engravings were made roughly 8,000 years ago on a boulder discovered at the base of a cliff in Saudi Arabia.

Carvings on these stones depict nearby desert kites, massive structures once used to capture animal herds, scientists report May 17 in PLOS ONE.

Desert kites consist of stone walls up to five kilometers long that narrow into large enclosures surrounded by pits where hunters trapped animals, such as gazelles and deer (SN: 4/18/11). Kite depictions at the two sites closely resemble the shape, layout, and proportions of desert kites found close by, archaeologist Rémy Crassard and colleagues say.

Scale drawings etched in rock may have served as maps that helped hunters plan strategies for driving animal herds into specific desert kites, the scientists report.

These engravings might also have been blueprints for building desert kites, or public displays of their makers’ ability to transfer large, 3-D structures onto small, flat surfaces.

A rectangular stone found at a Jordanian site (left) contains a roughly 9,000-year-old engraving (shown illustrated in outline at right) that accurately portrays the shape and proportions of a nearby desert kite.

As farming and animal domestication took root in parts of the Middle East, regional hunting groups that built desert kites to trap wild animal herds maintained special regard for massive hunting structures, says Crassard, of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Lyon.

Other ancient maps and structural plans, intended as scaled-down drawings, date to about 4,300 years ago in Mesopotamia. Those depictions, Crassard says, were not as accurate as the newly discovered desert kite engravings.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Researchers Use AI to Read Ancient Mesopotamian Texts

Researchers Use AI to Read Ancient Mesopotamian Texts

Researchers Use AI to Read Ancient Mesopotamian Texts

Scholars at Tel Aviv University and Ariel University, in Israel, have used artificial intelligence to translate fragments of ancient cuneiform texts on stone tablets into English with what they say is a high degree of accuracy.

They call the project “another major step toward the preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage of ancient Mesopotamia.”

The scholars presented the first neural machine translation from Akkadian into English in the May issue of PNAS Nexus. Their results are “on par with those produced by an average machine translation from one modern language to another,” noted Arkeonews.

In the last 200 years, archaeologists have found hundreds of thousands of texts that tell the history of ancient Mesopotamia, most of them written in Sumerian or Akkadian, explained the authors. But most remain untranslated because of their vast quantity and the small number of experts who can read them, as well as the fact that most of the texts are fragmentary.

Furthermore, cuneiform signs are polyvalent, there are many different kinds of texts, and even the names of people and places can be written as complex sentences.

“First, let me state that we believe that A.I. will not replace philological work,” said Luis Sáenz, of the Digital Pasts Lab in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Ariel University, one of the authors, in an email to Artnet News.

“We want to speed up the process. Our hope is that A.I. will eventually be able to help both Assyriologists and non-Assyriologists read cuneiform texts in the future.”

This is just the latest example of scientists using the newest tools to work with the oldest materials.

The University of Kentucky researchers developed an A.I. system to read scrolls that were incinerated when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79, and archaeologists in Italy are working on a robot that uses A.I. to reconstruct ancient relics from their scattered shards.

“There are, of course, limitations to the model,” says Sáenz. “The lack of context makes ancient languages difficult to translate since we only have fragments of texts. Fragments with only one or two lines are extremely difficult to work with for A.I.

The future will require more tools to digitize data published in papers in order to keep training the model and to improve the results. Also, a user-friendly web-based platform for the public is important.”

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Signs of Anemia Detected in Ancient Egyptian Mummies

Signs of Anemia Detected in Ancient Egyptian Mummies

Researchers Use AI to Read Ancient Mesopotamian Texts
The mummy of a Romano-Egyptian child from the Egyptian Ptolemaic period (304 B.C. to 30 B.C.) that is now housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

A large percentage of mummified children from ancient Egypt show signs of blood disorders known as anemias, suggesting that these youngsters may have had a slew of related medical problems, including malnutrition and growth defects, a new study finds.

Using full body CT (computed tomography) scans, a non-destructive way to study objects, an international team of researchers examined the remains of 21 child mummies who had died between the ages of 1 and 14.

The team assessed the mummies for anemia by looking for telltale signs of the disorder, such as abnormal growth in the mummies’ skulls and arm and leg bones. 

Seven of the mummies, or 33% of those studied, showed signs of anemia in the form of thickened skull bones, the researchers found. Today, anemia is thought to affect 40% of children under the age of 5 years old globally, according to the World Health Organization.

This research on anemia in ancient Egypt “may shed light on ancient societies’ health issues, dietary inadequacies, and social standards,” Sahar Saleem, head and professor of radiology at Cairo University and a member of the Egyptian Mummy Project, told Live Science in an email. Saleem was not involved in the study.

This study, published April 13 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, is possibly the first of its kind to analyze the presence of anemia in mummified children. It includes child mummies from various parts of Egypt dating as early as the Old Kingdom (third millennium B.C.) to the Roman Period (fourth century A.D.).

Indigo Reeve, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who was not involved in the study, defined anemia as “a lack of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin.” This condition can stem from a variety of causes, including dietary deficiencies, inherited disorders and infections, which can all lead to intestinal blood loss and poor absorption of nutrients, Reeve told Live Science in an email.

Anemia typically causes fatigue and weakness, but it can also cause irregular heartbeat and can be life-threatening depending on the type and severity, she added. 

Childhood cases of anemia can cause the expansion of some bone marrow, which is found at the center of most bones, which can lead to odd and abnormal bone growth, such as the thickening of the cranial vault, the part of the skull that holds the brain, Reeve explained. Porous lesions can also appear on bones, especially on the skull, which can cause further medical problems.

The study uncovered some of these anemia-related issues in mummified children. 

In one of the seven cases with thickened cranial vaults, a 1-year-old boy showed cranial signs of thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that can cause mild to severe anemia due to reduced hemoglobin production; other symptoms of thalassemia can include inadequate and unusual bone growth and an increased risk of infections, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The boy also had an enlarged tongue and a condition known as “rodent facies,” which is an abnormal growth of the cheekbones and an elongated skull. This boy’s severe anemia, compounded with other difficulties, likely caused his death, the researchers theorized.

It’s unclear how these ancient children came to have anemias, but the disorder can be caused by malnutrition, iron deficiency in pregnant mothers, chronic gastrointestinal issues, and bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections, all of which are thought to have been prevalent in ancient Egypt, the researchers said. 

However, the study’s small sample of 21 child mummies is not representative of an entire population or time period, the researchers noted. Further, the CT scans “produced blurry images due to low resolution that prevented interpretation” of additional signs of anemia, Saleem said.

“However,” Saleem said, “we think that this work may pave the way for additional research on anemia and other ancient health issues in the future.”

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

DNA study shows migration patterns of ancient Mexican civilizations much more complex than expected

DNA study shows migration patterns of ancient Mexican civilizations much more complex than expected

Population continuity and ghost genetic ancestries in pre-Hispanic Mexico. Ancient individuals who inhabited the northern frontier of Mesoamerica (NFM) before and after a 200-year period of severe droughts (shown in timeline) belong to a continuous population. This is in contrast to a previous hypothesis suggesting that hunter-gatherers from Aridoamerica replaced the populations at the NFM following the southward shift of its limits with Mesoamerica (solid and dashed lines). Individuals from Sierra Tarahumara and Cañada de la Virgen show genetic ancestry from two distinct ghost populations (UpopA and UpopA2).

An international team of biologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and biochemists has found, through genetic analysis, that the migration patterns of ancient Mexican civilizations were much more complex than previously thought.

In their study, reported in the journal Science, the group generated genomic and mitochondrial DNA data to test theories surrounding the migration of ancient peoples in Mexico.

Bastien Llamas and Xavier Roca-Rada with the University of Adelaide have published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the ethical approach used by the research team to learn more about ancient Mexico.

Prior research, based mostly on archaeological evidence, has suggested that drought-driven migration of ancient people from Mexico’s north to the south occurred many times in the years before Europeans arrived. The northern region, called Aridoamerica, was dry and mostly desert.

The people living there at the time survived as hunter-gatherers. Farther south was Mesoamerica, where early people survived by farming.

Prior research has shown that there were several long-term droughts in Aridoamerica, leading people to move south. But now it appears that these conclusions were in error.

Instead of relying on archaeological evidence, the team in this new effort looked at the DNA of people living there to see if they were migrating.

To learn more about the history of the people living in what is now Mexico, the researchers analyzed DNA samples going back approximately 2,300 years. In all, they were able to study 27 samples obtained from eight archaeological sites from people who lived in regions of what is now Mexico.

The researchers could see that the expected migrations had not occurred.

They point out, for example, that despite droughts, sometimes decades-long, people living in Sierra Gorda did not leave.

The team found none of their DNA in people living farther south.

The research team was not able to explain why the northerners had not migrated south when conditions grew dry, but suggest it might have been related to cinnabar commerce.

The mineral was easily found in the north, and was sacred to people in the south—thus it seems trade was likely.

Regardless of the reasons, the research team suggests migration patterns in early Mexico were far more complex than previously thought.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

A 3,500-year-old bronze dagger found in a Polish forest

A 3,500-year-old bronze dagger found in a Polish forest

A rare Bronze Age dagger has been discovered in a forest near Krasnystaw in southeastern Poland. It is in good condition, with no evidence of wear on the edges. It was cast in a lenticular shape with a rib down the center.

A 3,500-year-old bronze dagger found in a Polish forest

The semi-circular base has three rivets on each side to which a handle would have been fastened. The handle, likely made out of wood, is now lost.

The dagger is believed to date to around 1500 B.C. and is the first of its kind found in the area. In fact, it is one of only a dozen or so known to have been found in all of Poland.

It was not of local manufacture but rather arrived in the region with people who inhabited the Danube area in what are now Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Slovakia.

It was found by a metal detectorist working with the Wolica historical association under the aegis of the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments.

They were looking for objects from the World Wars when they came across the dagger in shallow soil just a few centimeters under the surface. They took pictures and recorded the precise location to report the find, but encountered no other archaeological material at the site.

A comparable riveted dagger was discovered near Olsztyn in northern Poland in 2014. It was found in a grave just below the arable surface which, while damaged, was found to contain other valuable goods including a gold hair jewel, bronze wire beads, and glass beads.

The gold and glass were expensive imported items, and the weapon indicates this was the burial of a high-status male.

The grave was classified as one of the Smoszew type, a cemetery characterized by barrows of the Bronze Age Tumulus Culture, ca. 1600-1300 B.C.

Unfortunately, the recently-discovered dagger was not found in its original context, so we don’t know if it was part of the furnishings of a grave.

The dagger is now being analyzed and studied by the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments.

Archaeologists are exploring the find site for further information about the piece, its age, and how it got there.