All posts by Archaeology World Team

ASIA, VIETNAM, WORLD

A 2,000-Year-Old Antler In Vietnam May Be Oldest Music Instrument Of Its Kind

A 2,000-Year-Old Antler In Vietnam May Be Oldest Music Instrument Of Its Kind

Reconstruction of the artifact (A) compared with examples of Vietnamese musical instruments: (B) the Bro JoRai; (C) Co Ke; and (D) K’ny.

An unusual deer antler found in Vietnam may be one of the oldest string instruments ever unearthed in Southeast Asia.

Discovered at a site along the Mekong River, the 2,000-year-old instrument is like a single-stringed harp and may have been a great-grandparent to the complex musical instruments people still pluck today in Vietnam. 

The artifact consists of a 35-centimeter-long piece of deer antler with a hole at one end for a peg, which was likely used to tune the string like the keys at the top of a guitar. While the string eroded away long ago, the object also features a bridge that was perhaps used to support the string.

Archaeologists from the Australian National University and Long An Museum in Vietnam recently described the fascinating objects in a new paper, reaching the conclusion that it was almost certainly a stringed instrument that was plucked to create music. 

“No other explanation for its use makes sense,” Fredeliza Campos, lead researcher and PhD student from ANU, said in a statement seen by IFLScience. 

The antler most likely came from a Sambar deer or an Indian hog deer, two species that are native to mainland Southeast Asia.

The team dated the object to 2,000 years old from Vietnam’s pre-Óc Eo culture along the Mekong River, which is exceptionally early for this kind of instrument.

“This stringed instrument, or chordophone, is one of the earliest examples of this type of instrument in Southeast Asia. It fills the gap between the region’s earliest known musical instruments – lithophones or stone percussion plates – and more modern instruments,” she added.

How the artifact could have been played.

There’s evidence to suggest that many ancient cultures had a rich and lovely music culture, but it often escapes the archaeological record. Songs don’t stick around in rocky sediments, after all. 

For instance, ancient Greece is one of the most studied portions of ancient history and we know enjoying music played a key part in their culture, as shown by the number of artworks showing instruments being tooted and plucked. However, the quest to discover what the music sounded like has been described as a “maddening enigma.”

To better understand the music cultures of ancient Vietnam, the researchers sifted through a catalog of over 600 bone artifacts found in the area. Their analysis indicates that this fashioned antler fits the bill and shows the emergence of contemporary Vietnamese musical instruments, such as the K’ný.

“The K’ný is a single-string bowed instrument that is uniquely controlled by the player’s mouth, which also acts as a resonator. It can play a wide variety of sounds and tones, much more than a chromatic scale you often hear on a piano,” added Campos. 

The new study was published in the journal Antiquity this week.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

This Wooden Phallus Might Be a Rare 2,000-Year-Old Dildo

This Wooden Phallus Might Be a Rare 2,000-Year-Old Dildo

The lifesize wooden phallus.

Archaeologists have uncovered what could be a rare example of an ancient sex toy carved from wood, found in a Roman fort known for a plethora of phallic motifs. The ruins of Vindolanda fort sit near Hadrian’s Wall in England on the borderlands of what was once the great Roman Empire.

On this politically tense frontier, where Roman soldiers faced off with ‘barbarians’ to the north, symbols representing penises were a ubiquitous sign of protection. Imagery of male genitalia can be found on just about anything, it seems; stone walls, the lids of boxes, even horse riding gear.

Yet the wooden phallus mentioned above is unlike any other penis unearthed at the site. Or at any other Roman dig for that matter. The object was initially discovered in 1992 and rather innocently assumed to be a darning tool. But researchers are now pretty sure that it is actually a disembodied penis.

Apart from a carved line at the tip that looks suspiciously like the appendage’s glans, the wooden object is quite smooth, which suggests it made routine, rubbing contact with another surface.

The wooden penis found at Vindolanda, with A and B arrows pointing to tool marks. (R Sands)

Archaeologists have put forward three possible explanations for what that surface might have been. The 160-millimeter (6.3 inch) long implement could have been used as a grinding pestle, specially designed to ‘infuse’ food, cosmetics, or medicine with spiritual properties.

While the tool does look like it could crush soft materials, an absence of staining or discoloration on the object’s blunt end means there’s no easy way to confirm this particular hypothesis.

It’s also possible the wooden object was in fact a penis, one adorning a statue, or put on display outside of a building; a common feature in ancient Greece and Rome. People walking by might then have rubbed the penis for good luck. With no signs of outdoor weathering or of being removed or reinserted into an abrasive notch, this is also an unlikely purpose.

The third and final explanation put forward by researchers is the most interesting to consider: the ancient penis could be a uniquely preserved dildo from the second century CE.

“We know that the ancient Romans and Greeks used sexual implements – this object from Vindolanda could be an example of one,” says archaeologist Rob Collins from Newcastle University in England.

The wooden phallus from Vindolanda. (R Sands)

Today, we might be tempted to call it a sex toy, but archaeologists working on the artifact think that that term may not have applied in Roman times.

“Use may not have been exclusively sexual or for the pleasure of the user,” they explain.

“Such implements may have been used in acts that perpetuated power imbalances, such as between an enslaved person and his or her owner, as attested in the recurrence of sexual violence in Roman literature.”

The ancient dildo may not have even been used for penetration. In fact, the signs of wear on the object’s exterior might support clitoral stimulation better.

Researchers say the artifact shows “perceptibly greater wear at either end compared to its middle”.

This seems to align with signs of wear on a 2,000-year-old bronze dildo found in China, although experts say it’s hard to compare the patterns between such old artifacts.

Although the wooden phallus from ancient Rome is “simple in form”, researchers suspect it was created by the hand of a confident artist, a practiced practitioner of penises, if you will.

In a Roman fort like Vindolanda, that would have been quite the skill.

“The Vindolanda phallus is an extremely rare survival,” says archaeologist Rob Sands from University College Dublin.

“It survived for nearly 2000 years to be recovered by the Vindolanda Trust… “

Interpreting the wooden phallus as a pestle or a good luck charm might be less problematic and uncomfortable explanations, but archaeologists argue we need to “accept the presence of dildos and the manifestation of sexual practices in the material culture of the past.”

The oldest suspected dildo ever found in archaeology dates back 28,000 years.

In all likelihood, these sexual instruments are a part of human history, whether we acknowledge them or not.

WORLD

Lost sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci show that he understood gravity long before Newton

Lost sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci show that he understood gravity long before Newton

Leonardo da Vinci’s centuries-old sketches show that he may have understood key aspects of gravity long before Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.

Engineers from Caltech have discovered that Leonardo da Vinci’s understanding of gravity—though not wholly accurate—was centuries ahead of his time.

Recent research from the California Institute of Technology looked at long-forgotten diagrams in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. According to a statement from the university these notebooks, which have now been digitized, show experiments from the early 1500s of particles falling from a pitcher, demonstrating gravity is a form of acceleration.

Da Vinci, who lived from 1452 to 1519, was well ahead of the curve in exploring these concepts. It wasn’t until 1604 that Galileo Galilei would theorize that the distance covered by a falling object was proportional to the square of time elapsed and not until the late 17th century that Sir Isaac Newton would expand on that to develop a law of universal gravitation, describing how objects are attracted to one another. Da Vinci’s primary hurdle was being limited by the tools at his disposal. For example, he lacked a means of precisely measuring time as objects fell.

One of da Vinci’s sketches details an experiment involving pouring water from a pitcher to help understand the effects of gravity.

Da Vinci’s experiments were first spotted by Mory Gharib, the Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Medical Engineering, in the Codex Arundel, a collection of papers written by da Vinci that cover science, art, and personal topics.

In early 2017, Gharib was exploring da Vinci’s techniques of flow visualization to discuss with students he was teaching in a graduate course when he noticed a series of sketches showing triangles generated by sand-like particles pouring out from a jar in the newly released Codex Arundel, which can be viewed online courtesy of the British Library.

“What caught my eye was when he wrote ‘Equatione di Moti‘ on the hypotenuse of one of his sketched triangles—the one that was an isosceles right triangle,” says Gharib, lead author of the Leonardo paper. “I became interested to see what Leonardo meant by that phrase.”

The researchers had to translate da Vinci’s notes into Italian, which were written in his renowned left-handed mirror writing that reads from right to left, in order to analyze the sketches. The researchers then carried out da Vinci’s experiments using computer simulations.

According to Da Vinci’s notes, the velocity of the falling material accelerates downwards, and as the particles fall, they are no longer influenced by the pitcher but are instead accelerated by gravity pulling them downward. However, at the time, he was unable to translate his observations into an equation.

A photograph of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of experiments to understand gravity.

“What we saw is that Leonardo wrestled with this, but he modeled it as the falling object’s distance was proportional to 2 to the t power [with t representing time] instead proportional to t squared,” Chris Roh, co-author of the study and assistant professor at Cornell University, said in the statement. “It’s wrong, but we later found out that he used this sort of wrong equation in the correct way.”

When modeling the water vase experiments, the team yielded the same error da Vinci did centuries ago.

“We don’t know if da Vinci did further experiments or probed this question more deeply,” Gharib said in the statement. “But the fact that he was grappling with this problem in this way — in the early 1500s — demonstrates just how far ahead his thinking was.”

Their findings were published in the journal Leonardo. The paper is titled “Leonardo da Vinci’s Visualization of Gravity as a Form of Acceleration.”

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

300-Year-Old Mummified Mermaid From Japan Mystery Solved; Creature Is Artificial

300-Year-Old Mummified Mermaid From Japan Mystery Solved; Creature Is Artificial

300-Year-Old Mummified Mermaid From Japan Mystery Solved; Creature Is Artificial

A mummified mermaid has been worshiped in Japan for centuries because locals believe it has healing powers. However, upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the item was not as mysterious as it appeared because it was only artificial.

In Japan, there is a legend that the 300-year-old mummified mermaid will grant immortality to anyone who eats its flesh.

The mysterious object has been on display for four decades at the Enjuin Temple in Asakuchi.

The 12-inch creature was allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese island of Shikoku, between 1736 and 1741.

The creature has two hands reaching up towards its grimacing face. Hair is still visible on its head and it has the remains of sharp, pointy teeth in its mouth. But its body gives way to a distinctly fish-like tail.

The fish-like lower half of the ‘mermaid’s’ body gives way to a strange-looking tail.

Scientists have been perplexed by the finding for years.

Chief priest Kozen Kuida told the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun they even worshipped it in the hope it would help to “alleviate the coronavirus pandemic”.

Last year, researchers from the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts took the mummy for tests and CT scans in a bid to unravel its secrets.

They subjected the ‘mermaid’ to tests to determine if its an organic creature or not. Sadly, they have now discovered that the creature is completely artificial – made in the late 1800s. It has no skeleton as its body is made of paper, cloth, and cotton.

Radiocarbon dating also showed that the mummy dates back to the late 1800s, which fit the team’s initial estimations for when it was made.

The lower portion of the body was indeed from a fish’s tail, according to the scientists, but they thought that it had only been added later. Its head was from a mammal, and its jaw and teeth were also taken from fish.

Hiroshi Kinoshita, a board member of the Okayama Folklore Society, became aware of its existence after seeing a photo of the bizarre creature in a mythical encyclopedia.

It still remains a mystery how the mermaid mummy ended up inside the Okaya temple.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Cemetery Found in Mexico City Reflects Changing Burial Customs

Cemetery Found in Mexico City Reflects Changing Burial Customs

INAH experts recovered the skeletal remains of 21 individuals during the construction of the so-called “Pavellón Escénico“, in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City.

A cemetery from the early viceregal period (1521-1620 AD) was found in the area where the Chapultepec Forest Garden and “Pabellón Escénico” (Scenic Pavilion) are being built, reports the Ministry of Culture.

Experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), through the Directorate of Archaeological Rescue (DSA), made the discovery in the area known as ecological parking.

In the text, the coordinator of the DSA, María de Lourdes López Camacho, explains that during the monitoring of the works as part of the Chapultepec Project, the INAH dug a two-by-two-meter test pit, and “human skeletal remains were detected from 1.37 meters deep.

Apparently, the remains would be from two different populations.

With the field assistance of archaeologists Blanca Copto Gutiérrez and Alixbeth Daniela Aburto Pérez, “it was decided to double the excavation.

In the last three weeks, the team recovered the bones – in various states of conservation – of 21 individuals, mostly female and male adults, including a couple of infants”, adds the archaeologist.

It details that the burials were carried out directly in the ground and at three different moments during the first century after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. 

“Despite the fact that most of the burials presented the same west-east orientation, which alludes to the belief in the resurrection in the Christian faith, their arrangement suggests two types of population: one of indigenous origin, probably Mexica, and another European”.

According to the studies, it is a collective burial.

The archaeologist explains that for the most part, “individuals were placed outstretched with their arms crossed over their chests or in the pelvic region, as indicated by the Catholic funeral rite; However, two were buried in a flexed and lateral way, in the Mesoamerican style, not to mention that another couple of individuals were buried carrying a seal and a green obsidian blade, both pre-Hispanic”.

According to their studies, it is a collective burial that corresponds to an early viceroyalty cemetery, “because it shows the transition from pre-Hispanic funeral customs to those implemented with the arrival of the Spaniards and their religious system.”

The report adds that “according to the coordinator of the DSA Bioarchaeology Section, Jorge Arturo Talavera González, who made a first osteological report -which will be complemented with other analyses, including DNA-, the epigenetic traits of certain individuals indicate the presence of two different populations in that context, the Amerindian individuals being identifiable by their spade-shaped teeth .”

Regarding health conditions, the document concludes, “preliminary observations indicate that the people buried suffered, among other conditions, hypoplasia, attrition and dental calculus (wear of enamel and dental structure, as well as tartar), inflammation of the periosteum ( fibrous sheath that covers the bones) and other infectious processes, as well as diseases related to the nutritional deficit”.

The individuals were placed in an extended position with their arms crossed over their chests.
BRAZIL, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Reconstruction of 9,600-Year-Old Skull Completed in Brazil

Reconstruction of 9,600-Year-Old Skull Completed in Brazil

In 1997, archaeologists unearthed a skeleton buried in the fetal position at Toca dos Coqueiros, an archaeological site in Brazil’s Serra da Capivara National Park.

Reconstruction of 9,600-Year-Old Skull Completed in Brazil
Researchers created two facial approximations of Zuzu using photogrammetry of the skull.

Based on the size and shape of the skull, they identified the remains as female and named the skeleton Zuzu. But that classification has remained steeped in controversy, with many researchers claiming the deceased was actually male. 

Now, a new facial approximation of the 9,600-year-old skull may help put this debate to rest. 

Last year, researchers took dozens of photos from different angles of the skull, which is on display at the Museum of Nature in Piauí, Brazil. Using photogrammetry, they digitally stitched the 57 photographs together to create a virtual 3D model of the skull “in order to reveal the face of that figure so mysterious and so important to Brazilian history,” the researchers wrote in their study, published Jan. 25.

“Trying to recover the appearance that an individual had in life thousands of years ago is a way to bring them to the present day, bringing them closer to the public,” first author Moacir Elias Santos, an archaeologist with the Ciro Flamarion Cardoso Archaeology Museum in Brazil, told Live Science in an email. “The main interest was to be able to glimpse the face of Zuzu, whose skeleton is one of the most important finds in the Serra da Capivara National Park region.”

To inform their work, they used computerized tomography (CT scans) from living virtual donors and applied that information to “adjust the structure of the skull” by including tissue thickness markers, study co-author Cícero Moraes, a Brazilian graphics expert, told Live Science in an email.

“[We] adjust the structure of the skull to transform the donor’s skull into a volume almost equal to Zuzu’s skull,” Moraes said. “When we do this, the soft tissue follows this deformation/adaptation and results in a face that is expected, [and] compatible with Zuzu in life.”

The researchers created two results, both depicting a young man with a broad nose and lips. One of the approximations included hair and eyebrows based on information provided by the virtual donors, and the other featured Zuzu with closed eyes and without hair.

Because the digital face was “slightly emaciated,” the researchers retracted the lower jaw to match a gap that came from some missing teeth, according to the study.

“Although the skull has affinity with an Asian population, among individuals of such ancestry there are a large number of structural differences, which are circumvented by closing the eyelids,” the researchers wrote in the study.

“The image was also rendered in grayscale (black and white) as there is no accurate information about the skin color. Therefore, such an image would be the closest to what the real face could be.” 

“The most interesting thing when looking at Zuzu’s skull is having an idea of what he would have looked like in life,” Santos said. “It is a reunion with one of the oldest ancestors of our country.”

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

2,400-Year-Old Toilet Found in China

2,400-Year-Old Toilet Found in China

2,400-Year-Old Toilet Found in China
Broken parts of the toilet, including a bent pipe, were unearthed from the Yueyang archaeological site in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, last summer and pieced together for months before researchers released details on Wednesday.

A manual flush toilet, dating back 2,400 years, has piqued the interest of archaeologists who are trying to find out what people ate during that time by analyzing soil samples collected from it.

Broken parts of the toilet, including a bent pipe, were unearthed from the Yueyang archaeological site in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, last summer and pieced together for months before researchers released details on Wednesday.

Discovered amid the ruins of a palace in the ancient Yueyang city, the toilet is believed to have been used by Qin Xiaogong (381-338 BC) or his father Qin Xian’gong (424-362 BC) of the Qin Kingdom during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), or by Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). The palace was possibly used for administrative affairs.

A “luxury object” such as a flush toilet would only be used by very high-ranking members of the society during that time, according to Liu Rui, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who was part of the excavation team at Yueyang.

“It is the first and only flush toilet to be ever unearthed in China. Everybody at the site was surprised, and then we all burst into laughter,” he said.

The toilet bowl was placed indoors, with the pipe leading to an outdoor pit, he said, adding that servants probably poured water into the toilet every time it was used.

Liu said the upper half of the flush toilet was not found during the excavation and hence, experts cannot confirm whether its users sat on it or squatted over it.

However, based on previous records about toilets, such as stone carvings on the tombs of royal members during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), they likely squatted over it.

“The flush toilet is concrete proof of the importance the ancient Chinese attached to sanitation,” Liu said, adding that there were few records of indoor toilets in ancient times.

Before this toilet was unearthed, the first manual flush toilet was believed to have been invented by John Harington for Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century.

Yueyang was the capital of the Qin Kingdom for about 35 years and also the first capital city of the Han Dynasty, during which palaces were demolished to make way for farmlands.

Since 2012, archaeologists have been conducting large-scale excavations in Yueyang, which is today part of Xi’an’s Yanliang district.

The toilet was found at the No 3 site.

“Besides all written records, we can learn more about social reforms and systems of the kingdom by digging deeper into ancient palaces,” Liu said.

The partially restored toilet is now a key to further archaeological research on Yueyang.

Experts are analyzing the soil inside, hoping to find traces of human feces and learn about the eating habits of ancient people. So far, the soil samples have only yielded traces of fertilizers used by farmers during Han Dynasty.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch

The oldest shoe in Norway — a 3,000-year-old bootie from the Bronze Age — is just one of thousands of ancient artifacts that were recovered from the country’s melting mountain ice patches in the past two decades, according to a new report from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch
3,000 years ago, someone lost a shoe in the mountains of Norway.

Unlike objects trapped in acidic soil or beneath gargantuan glaciers, the artifacts recovered from Norwegian ice patches are often found in impeccable condition, showing minimal decomposition and deformation, even after thousands of years of frozen slumber. That’s because ice patches are relatively stable, unmoving and free from corrosive compounds.

Perfectly intact weapons, clothing, textiles, and plant and animal remains have all emerged from the ice, helping to bring thousands of years of Norwegian history to light.

But now, the report authors said, climate change could bring that all to an end.

Within just a few decades, vast swaths of Norway’s ice patches have begun to melt, exposing undiscovered artifacts to the elements and almost certain deterioration, the authors wrote.

“A survey based on satellite images taken in 2020 shows that more than 40 percent of 10 selected ice patches with known finds have melted away,” report co-author Birgitte Skar, an archaeologist and associate professor at the NTNU University Museum, said in a statement. “These figures suggest a significant threat for preserving discoveries from the ice, not to mention the ice as a climate archive.”

Exceptionally well-preserved arrows from the Bronze Age have melted out of the Løpesfonna ice patch in Oppdal municipality in central Norway. They have intact lashing and projectiles made from shells.

The melting past

Ice patches form at high elevations, where snow and ice deposits accumulate and don’t completely melt in the summer. Unlike glaciers, ice patches don’t move, so objects deposited in ice patches can remain stable for hundreds or thousands of years.

When the ice begins to melt, those objects return to the light of day, preserved just as they were when the ice swallowed them up. However, if scientists aren’t able to recover these objects soon after the melting begins, then they run the risk of losing the artifacts to the elements.

Ice patch archaeology has been a tremendous boon to researchers studying the ancient cultures, plants and animals in frosty, elevated regions around the world. In Norway, researchers have uncovered thousands of artifacts belonging to the Bronze Age hunting tribes who hunted reindeer across Northern Europe and southern Scandinavia.

According to the new report, reindeer are drawn to the region’s mountainous ice patches in summer months to seek relief from biting insects and the heat. Where the reindeer went, hunters followed, leaving troves of artifacts behind.

The 3,000-year-old shoe, which was discovered in 2007 in the mountainous region of Jotunheimen in southern Norway, remains a standout find. The small leather shoe would be a size 4 or 5 in today’s U.S. sizes, suggesting it belonged either to a woman or a youth.

The shoe was discovered alongside several arrows and a wooden spade, suggesting the site was an important hunting ground. Dated to approximately 1100 B.C., the shoe is not only the oldest shoe in Norway, but possibly the oldest article of clothing discovered in Scandinavia, according to the researchers who discovered it.

Further surveys of the Jotunheimen site revealed even older artifacts, including a 6,100-year-old arrow shaft — the single oldest object discovered in a Norwegian ice patch, according to the researchers. Its presence near the shoe, suggests that the site was continuously used by humans over many millennia.

Despite these remarkable finds, the report authors worry that countless other cultural artifacts could disappear before they are recovered, thanks to the effects of climate change. A 2022 report from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate estimates that 140 square miles (364 square kilometers) of ice patches — an area roughly half the size of New York City — have melted since 2006. If artifacts are not recovered from these patches soon after they are exposed, they risk being lost, damaged or destroyed forever.

Few ice patches in Norway have been systematically surveyed, especially in northern Norway, which remains mostly unstudied. To mitigate this, the researchers suggest launching a national ice patch monitoring program, using remote sensors to systematically survey ice patches and secure any objects that emerge from the melt.

“We used to think of the ice as desolate and lifeless and therefore not very important. That’s changing now, but it’s urgent,” report co-author Jørgen Rosvold, a biologist and assistant research director at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, said in the statement. “Large amounts of unique material are melting out and disappearing forever.”