All posts by Archaeology World Team

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

A new study by a team from the University of Córdoba reveals that Nerja is the European cave with the most confirmed and recurrent visits during Prehistory.

Humans have been visiting the Cave of Nerja for 41,000 years; for a few of them, it has been exploited as a tourist attraction, and for nearly the same amount of time, it has been the subject of scientific study.

Throughout its history, and even today, it continues to stun visitors and researchers from around the world.

The latest surprise from the cave, located in the province of Malaga, was just published in Scientific Reports by an international team including researchers from the University of Córdoba; Marian Medina, currently at the University of Bourdeux; Eva Rodríguez; and José Luis Sachidrián, a Professor of Prehistory and the scientific director of the Cave of Nerja.

They have managed to demonstrate that Humanity has been present in Nerja for some 41,000 years, 10,000 years earlier than previously believed, and that it is Europe’s cave featuring Paleolithic Art in Europe with the highest number of confirmed and recurrent visits to its interior during Prehistory.

This new research has managed to document 35,000 years of visits in 73 different phases, which means that human groups entered the cave every 35 years, according to their calculations.

Image composition of the materials. (A) Black mark (dating number 33). (B) Micro-charcoal inside fixed lamp (dating number 43). (C) Scattered charcoals (dating number 54). (D) GN16-08 stalagmite section. The red arrows point to one of the samples, analyzed both by TEM–EDX and Raman micro-spectroscopy.

This level of precision has been made possible thanks to the use of the latest techniques dating the coals and remains of fossilized soot on the stalagmites of the Nerja Cave.

This is what has been called “smoke archaeology,” a new technique developed by the main author of the work, Marián Medina, from Córdoba’s Santa Rosa district, an honorary researcher at that city’s university, who has been reconstructing European prehistory for more than a decade by analyzing the remnants of torches, fires, and smoke in Spanish and French caves.

With the enthusiasm of one who loves what she does, Medina explains that the information that Transmission Electron Microscopy and Carbon-14 dating techniques can provide on man’s rituals and ways of life is impressive.

In this last work, 68 datings are presented, 48 totally new, of the deepest areas of the cave, featuring Paleolithic Art, and evidence of chronocultures never previously recorded has been found.

Furthermore, these “fire archaeologists” understand how to interpret the way the torches were moved based on the information detected under the microscope, inferring from it the symbolic and scenographic use that humans made of fire 40,000 years ago.

“The prehistoric paintings were viewed in the flickering light of the flames, which could give the figures a certain sense of movement and warmth,” explains Medina, who also underscores the funerary use of the Nerja Cave in the latter part of Prehistory, for thousands of years. “There is still much it can reveal about what we were like,” she says.

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

AFRICA, SUDAN, WORLD

Medieval Christian Paintings Unearthed in Sudan

Medieval Christian Paintings Unearthed in Sudan

Medieval Christian Paintings Unearthed in Sudan
A painted scene with King David.

Archaeologists have uncovered a hidden complex of rooms covered with Christian paintings in Old Dongola, a deserted town in Sudan that was once the capital of medieval Makuria.

A team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology had been exploring houses dating from the later Funj period, 16th to 19th century, when they stumbled upon an opening into a small chamber painted with depictions of the Mother of God, Christ, a Nubian ruler, and Archangel Michael.

Preliminary research suggests the paintings were created during a time of extreme duress for Dongola, which was an important trade city on the Nile that flourished for hundreds of years under the peaceful relations between the Muslims of Egypt and the Christians of Nubia.

Close-up of King David inside the discovered vaults in Old Dongola.

The paintings show a Nubian ruler, believed to be King David, being shielded by Archangel Michael and are accompanied by inscriptions calling for God to protect the city—figurative scenes that the archaeologists consider “unique for Christian art.”

David’s reign marked the beginning of the end for the kingdom and his actions led to the city being sacked by the Mamluk Sultanate in 1276.

Onsite archaeologists speculate that the paintings might have been made with the Mamluk army approaching or laying siege to the city. Inscriptions accompanying the paintings, according to a preliminary reading, include pleas for God’s protection.

A depiction of Mary, Mother of God in Dongola.
Close up of scene with King David.

The chambers in Old Dongola are covered with vaults and domes built from dried brick and are more than 20 feet above the medieval ground level, a fact that has confused archaeologists.

The complex is adjacent to the Great Church of Jesus, which was the most important church of the Makuria kingdom.

“I think these structures were built in exactly this place because of the presence of the Great Church of Jesus, which was the largest and most important church in Nubia according to written sources,” Artur Obłuski, the project’s director told Artnet News. “We have funding for three new projects and one is focused on the excavation of the Great Church of Jesus.”

inside the chamber discovered in Old Dongola.

Ahead of their return to Old Dongola in the autumn when temperatures in Sudan are cooler, the team has secured and protected the wall paintings.

Polish archaeologists have been excavating the town since the 1960s, with the latest work funded by the European Research Council.

“Despite all the new and fancy methods,” Obłuski said, “archaeology still delivers surprises like this one.”

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

Archaeologists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved wooden mask from the early third century at the Nishi-Iwata ruins in Osaka Prefecture, Japan.

The discovery was announced by the Osaka Cultural for Heritage Center on April 24.

The discovery is the third example of a wooden mask from this period. Experts believe the artifact was important in influential agricultural festivals organized by powerful people at the time.

The wooden mask, hewn from a cedar tree, measures around 30cm in height by 18cm wide and features two eye holes, a mouth, and a perforated hole surviving on one side that probably held string for holding the mask on the wearers face.

The mask was found in flood sediment 2.9 meters below the surface of the ground. It was discovered next to a piece of a wooden water bucket and a wooden object in the shape of a hoe that had been burned. Experts believe the three items may well have featured in agricultural festivals.

Photo: Osaka Centre for Cultural Heritage

According to the researchers, the mask may have been used in ceremonial rituals during significant agricultural festivals around 1800 years ago, during the Yayoi era.

During this time, Japan transitioned to a settled agricultural society, employing agricultural methods introduced from Korea in the Kyushu region.

The mask was probably displayed at festivals because it is too heavy to wear, according to Kaoru Terasawa, director of the Research Center for Makimukugaku, Sakurai City, in Nara Prefecture.

Kaoru Terasawa, said: “I believe the mask represented a ‘spirit of a head,’ which was believed to be a god in the shape of a human and represented the authority of Okimi.”

Okimi is the title given to the ruler of the Yamato Kingship, a political alliance of powerful families centered in modern-day Nara Prefecture that ruled from the third to the seventh centuries.

The mask will be on display at the Museum of Yayoi Culture in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, from April 29 to May 7.

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Archeologists in Peru found a 1,000-year-old adolescent mummy wrapped in a bundle

Archeologists in Peru found a 1,000-year-old adolescent mummy wrapped in a bundle

Archeologists in Peru found a 1,000-year-old adolescent mummy wrapped in a bundle

Archaeologists have unearthed a more than 1,000-year-old mummy on the outskirts of Peru’s capital, Lima.

The mummified adolescent was wrapped in a funerary bundle, with ceramic objects, rope, bits of skin, and hair nearby, and found in an underground tomb.

Archaeologists believe the mummy, found at an archaeological site in Cajamarquilla, is one of 20 buried in the area likely killed as a ritual sacrifice.

The mummified adolescent was found in a “good state of conservation,” said archaeologist Yomira Huaman, in charge of the Cajamarquilla research project affiliated with the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

The adolescent lived between 1,100 and 1,200 years ago, and might have belonged to the Lima or Ichma cultures.

The mummy was discovered about 220 yards from where the first mummy of Cajamarquilla was found, explained Huaman, referring to another mummy found nearby last year.

A worker wraps skeletal remains and parts of the funerary bundle of a mummy found by Peruvian archeologists in the ruins of Cajarmarquilla, in the outskirts of Lima, Peru.

‘From the ceramic analysis, we have identified that it was mostly occupied by the coastal presence, the late Lima culture, also a strong influence of the Ichma culture,’ said Huaman.

The way the teen was buried was unlike other mummies that have been discovered in the past.

Most bodies in Cajamarquilla have been found in simple tombs or funeral chambers, while the adolescent was found in what appeared to be a storage container.

Archaeologists, also they have uncovered the ruins of four pyramid-shaped temples and walls laid out almost like a maze.

Ceramic objects and rope were found near the burial bundle.

While best known for the mountaintop Inca royal retreat of Machu Picchu, Peru was home to a number of pre-Hispanic cultures that flourished in the centuries before the Inca empire rose to power, primarily along the country’s central coast and in the Andes.

The Lima civilization was known for its ceramic artwork, which included styles such as Maranga and interlocking patterns that reflected the nearby Moche culture.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples
The Ministry of Culture, academic and scientific organizations, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples were instrumental in discovering the artefacts.

An ancient Nabataean temple with marble altars has been found in the Gulf of Pozzuoli outside Naples in the Italian region of Campania.

A statement from the Italian Ministry of Culture says: “The two marble altars of the Roman period, datable to the first half of the first century AD, are inserted inside the great Temple of the Nabataeans, now submerged.”

It is unclear when or if the ancient ruins will be removed from the seabed.

The Nabataean population was based in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Around 2,000 years ago they established a settlement at Pozzuoli, building up the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean area, the ministry adds.

The Nabataean city there declined at the end of the fifth century.

“This is an extraordinary result and the fruit of the collaboration between peripheral bodies of the Ministry of Culture, the academic and scientific [organizations] in the region, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples. 

Ancient Puteoli [ancient Pozzuoli] reveals another of its treasures, whose exact location was unknown up to now, which testifies to the richness and vastness of commercial, cultural, and religious exchanges in the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world,” says the Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in a statement.

The discovery throws light on the layout of the Pozzuoli port, adds the ministry, revealing how the “sacred buildings” of the Nabataean community stood in very close contact with the long rows of warehouses intended to store the many goods in transit in the port headed towards Campania or redirected to Rome.

“These finds bring the total number of Nabataean altar slabs and altar bases found in this area of the sunken city to five since the first was discovered in the 18th century.

The first three—two bases and one slab—are now in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei at the Castle of Baiae,” according to a commentary on the History Blog.

SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Researchers solve the mystery of the Mayan 819-day calendar

Researchers solve the mystery of the Mayan 819-day calendar

Researchers at Tulane University in Louisiana have solved the mystery of the 819-day ancient Mesoamerican calendar used by ancient Mayans.

The researchers were able to match the planetary cycles of every planet that might have been visible to ancient astronomers using a 45-year period.

Multiple calendars that were likely used by scholars at the time have been discovered during research on the ancient Mayan civilization, but not all of them make sense in today’s world.

One such calendar was discovered in glyphic texts – the Mayans’ native writing system – and piqued the interest of researchers.

However, the astronomers did not leave behind any additional text or definitions explaining how it might work with their regular calendar system.

819-day calendar 

The 819-day count and the motions of the celestial bodies, particularly Venus and Mars, were tracked by the Mayans using a calendar system.

The synodic period, which is the amount of time it takes for these planets to return to their original positions with respect to the sun as seen from Earth, served as the foundation for this system.

The 819-day count was divided into 13 cycles, each lasting 63 days, and each cycle was based on a particular Venus or Mars phase. The cycles were given specific god names and were connected to various characteristics and traits. For instance, while the second cycle is named after the god of war and is associated with conflict and aggression, the second cycle is named after the maize god and is associated with growth and fertility.

Image representing ancient Mayan works

This calendar system, which the Mayans found and developed, could not be adapted to any calendar system we use today, which made the number 819 mysterious.

Anthropologists John Linden and Victoria Bricker from Tulane University have studied the mystery of the Mayan 819 daily count, a type of ancient Mesoamerican calendar system, and have come up with important findings.

The study was published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica.

When the researchers bumped into the idea of extending the time that the 819-day count can be used to represent the synodic period for all known planets, they found that the planets lined up perfectly.

For example, they found that multiplying 819 by 20 equals 16,380 (about 45 years). And the 378 cycles of Saturn’s 13-day synodic period add up to 914,819 days, which is the same as six times 4.

Likewise, the same process can be used to show when all known planets will appear in the sky over the next 45 years. They also note that the number of days (16,380) used in mathematics is a multiple of 260, meaning that 819 rounds of 20-day periods match the Tzolk’in (general Mayan calendar).

According to the researchers, rather than focusing on just one or two planets, the ancient Mayans developed a large calendar system that could be used to predict the synod periods of all visible planets.

DENMARK, EUROPE, WORLD

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark
The silver coins were found about 5 miles from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro.

Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.

The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.

“A hoard like this is very rare,” Lars Christian Norbach, the director of the North Jutland Museum, where the artefacts will go on display, told Agence France-Presse.

The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as jewellery from Scotland or Ireland.

The silver coins were found about 5 miles (8km) from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro. From their inscriptions, they are believed to date back to the 980s.

The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as pieces of jewellery originating from Scotland or Ireland, according to archaeologists.

Norbach said the finds were from the same period as the fort, built by King Harald Bluetooth, and would offer a greater insight into the history of the Vikings.

There could be a link between the treasure – which the Vikings would bury during wars – and the fort, which burned down during the same period, he said.

Archaeologists have said they will continue digging next autumn after the harvest. They hope to find the burial sites and homes of the troves’ one-time owners.

People working at the site.

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The Vikings believed that burying their treasure allowed them to find it again after death.

The artefacts will go on public display in July at the Aalborg Historical Museum. The girl who made the discovery will receive financial compensation, the amount of which has not been made public.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

An inscription containing 15 headless falcons and unknown ancient rituals found in an ancient Egyptian temple

An inscription containing 15 headless falcons and unknown ancient rituals found in an ancient Egyptian temple

An inscription containing 15 headless falcons and unknown ancient rituals found in an ancient Egyptian temple

Archaeologists have discovered a shrine containing previously unknown ancient rituals during excavations at Berenike, a Greco-Roman port in Egypt’s eastern desert.

The discovery was made by archaeologists from the Sikait Project led by Professor Joan Oller Guzman at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

The study, which was recently published in the American Journal of Archaeology, describes the Sikait Project’s excavation of a religious complex from the Late Roman Period.

The religious complex, dubbed the “Falcon Shrine” by the researchers, dates from the Late Roman Period, which lasted from the fourth to sixth centuries AD.

During this time, the city was partially occupied and controlled by the Blemmyes, as indicated by the discovery of inscriptions on a stele in a small traditional Egyptian temple, which was adopted by the Blemmyes to their own belief system after the 4th century AD.

The Blemmyes were nomadic Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources between the 7th and 8th centuries BC. The Greek term first appears in a poem by Theocritus and in Eratosthenes in the third century BC. The Blemmyes, according to Eratosthenes, lived with the Megabaroi in the land between the Nile and the Red Sea north of Mero.

They had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom by the late 4th century. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state.

A mummy of a Falcon was discovered in Egypt.

The most remarkable find in the shrine was around 15 falcons, most of them without their heads. Burial of falcons had already been found in the Nile Valley but this was the first time archaeologists discovered falcons buried within a temple and accompanied by eggs.

This discovery the team considers suggests a new previously unknown ancient ritual when compared to falcon burials in the Nile Valley.

Mummified headless falcons found in other areas were always just individuals, not a group, as in the shrine discovered at Berenike.

The shrine contained the following inscription: “It is improper to boil a head in here” which has been interpreted as a message barring people who enter the shrine from boiling the heads of the animals inside the temple.

“From its archaeological context, the stele almost certainly records an injunction associated with the falcon cult. The text forbade boiling the head of a bird within the area in which the stele was set up,” the researchers wrote in the study.

“All of these elements point to intense ritual activities combining Egyptian traditions with contributions from the Blemmyes, sustained by a theological base possibly related to the worshipping of the god Khonsu (the ancient Egyptian god of the Moon)”, said UAB researcher Professor Joan Oller Guzman.