They reveal the age of the figure of the naked giant of Cerne Abbas (it is older than previously believed)

The age of an ancient naked figure carved into a chalk hillside is being investigated by archaeologists. The Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset was sampled for soil samples. The results of the tests are likely to show a “date range”  for when the landmark was created.

It is hoped results, on soil samples from the giant’s elbows and feet will be available in July. The technique used will be the same as that used to date the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire in the 1990s.

Prof Phillip Toms, of the University of Gloucestershire, will attempt to date the samples using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).

Martin Papworth, the senior archaeologist at the National Trust, said the OSL technique was used to “determine when mineral grains in soil were last exposed to sunlight”.

He said the Uffington White Horse was found to be nearly 3,000 years old which was “even more ancient than we had expected”.

“It is likely that the tests will give us a date range, rather than a specific age, but we hope they will help us better understand, and care for, this famous landmark,” he continued. The earliest recorded mention of the Cerne Abbas Giant was in 1694.

To preserve the landmark, last year a team of volunteers hammered 17 tonnes of new chalk by hand.

Local folklore has long held the 180ft (55m) chalk man to be a fertility aid. It was gifted to the National Trust in 1920 by the Pitt-Rivers family.

Early antiquarians linked the giant with the Anglo-Saxon deity Helis, while others believe he is the classical hero Hercules.

Others have said he was carved during the English Civil War as a parody of Oliver Cromwell, although he is commonly believed to have some association with a pagan fertility cult.

A further layer of mystery was revealed in the 1980s when a survey revealed anomalies that suggested he originally wore a cloak and stood over a disembodied head.

There has also been a suggestion his significant anatomy is in fact the result of merging a smaller penis with a representation of his navel during a re-cut by the Victorians.

Gordon Bishop, chairman of the Cerne Historical Society, said although some villagers would “prefer the giant’s age and origins to remain a mystery” the “majority would like to know at least whether he is ancient or no more than a few hundred years old”.

In a separate analysis, environmental archaeologist Mike Allen will analyse soil samples containing the microscopic shells of land snails to learn more about the site’s past.

The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries

One August day in 1987, Brian Campbell was refilling the hole left by a tree stump in his yard in Romford, East London, when his shovel struck something metal.

He leaned down and pulled the object from the soil, wondering at its strange shape. The object was small—smaller than a tennis ball—and caked with heavy clay. “My first impressions,” Campbell tells Mental Floss, “were it was beautifully and skillfully made … probably by a blacksmith as a measuring tool of sorts.”

Roman dodecahedra date from the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD and typically range from 4cm to 11cm (1.57-4.33 inches) in size. To date, more than one hundred of these artefacts have been found across Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, and Hungary.

What were Roman Dodecahedra Used for?

The great mystery is: how do they work and what do they do? Unfortunately, there is no documentation or notes about them from the time of their creation, so the function of the dodecahedra has not been determined.

Nevertheless, many theories and speculations have been put forward over the centuries: candlestick holders (wax was found inside one example), dice, survey instruments, devices for determining the optimal sowing date for the winter grain, gauges to calibrate water pipes or standard army bases, staff or scepter decorations, a toy to throw and catch on a stick, or simply a geometric sculpture. Among these speculations, some deserve attention.

A popular hypothesis these days for the purpose of the dodecahedra is that they were used as knitting tools to make gloves. Whether it solves the mystery or not, the YouTube video by Martin Hallett, who tested his idea with a 3D printed replica of a Roman dodecahedron and some experimental archaeology, has inspired others to try out this knitting method to make their own hand warmers.

This idea could explain the different sizes of the dodecahedra – making gloves of different sizes – and the purpose of the holes – to form the glove’s fingers.

However, one of the most accepted theories is that the Roman dodecahedron was used as a measuring device, more precisely as a range measuring an object on the battlefield. The hypothesis is that the dodecahedron was used for calculating the trajectories of projectiles. This could explain the different sized holes in the pentagrams.

A similar theory involves dodecahedra as a surveying and levelling device. However, neither of these theories has been supported by any proof and exactly how the dodecahedron could be used for these purposes has not been fully explained.

Or Maybe they were Astronomical Tools, Religious Relics or Toys?

One of the more interesting theories is the proposal that dodecahedra were astronomic measuring instruments for determining the optimal sowing date for winter grain.

According to G.M.C. Wagemans, “the dodecahedron was an astronomic measuring instrument with which the angle of the sunlight can be measured and thereby one specific date in springtime, and one date in the autumn can be determined with accuracy. The dates that can be measured were probably of importance for the agriculture”.

Nevertheless, opponents of this theory have pointed out that use as a measuring instrument of any kind seems to be prohibited by the fact that the dodecahedra were not standardized and come in many sizes and arrangements.

Another unproven theory claims that the dodecahedra are religious relics, once used as sacred tools for the druids of Britannia and Caledonia. However, there is no written account or archaeological evidence to support this view. Could it be that this strange item was simply a toy or a recreational game for legionnaires, during the war campaigns?

Some sources suggest they were the central objects in a bowl game similar to that of our days, with these artefacts used as markers and the players throwing stones to land them in the holes within the dodecahedra.

A Roman Icosahedron Adds to the Mystery

Another discovery deepens the mystery about the function of these objects. Some time ago, Benno Artmann discovered a Roman icosahedron (a polyhedron with 20 faces), misclassified as a dodecahedron on just a superficial glance, and put away in a museum’s basement storage. The discovery raises the question about whether there are many other geometric artefacts of different types – such as, icosahedra, hexagons, octagons – yet to be found in what was once the significant Roman Empire.

Despite the many unanswered questions, one thing is certain, the Roman dodecahedra were highly valued by their owners. This is evidenced by the fact that a number of them were found among treasure hoards, with coins and other valuable items.  We may never know the true purpose of the Roman dodecahedra, but we can only hope that advances in archaeology will unearth more clues that will help solve this ancient enigma.

A medieval mural on the wall of a Yorkshire church pays homage to St. George

Pickering’s St Peter’s and St Paul’s Church has medieval wall paintings, one of which depicts St George killing a dragon, remain among the most complete surviving sets in all of Britain. Now, as today marks the feast of St George, this Roman soldier is honoured once again as a champion of the nation’s sword and a symbol of its lasting might.

Today flags are to be flown across Yorkshire, with trumpeters on standby and bunting strung, incautious and socially distanced celebration of St George’s Day. At the small church in Pickering, where Scouts might normally have paraded under the red and white flag, campaigns call-in donations instead to preserve these cherished jewels.

“This is our country’s patron saint,” said churchwarden Pam Robb, as she reflected on the meaning of the feast day in a year of so much change.

“It’s the sense of a nation coming together to celebrate that. It reminds us of our heritage, and what people have gone through in the past.

“This is a little window, isn’t it, to a past life and how people lived and grew up,” she added, of the murals themselves.

“To think of the generations of people who grew up with these stories, and who would have looked up at these walls, is incredible. It shows perseverance.”

Hidden wall paintings

The Norman church in Pickering, which was rebuilt in the 12th century, stands on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church, of which only part of the font and the stone cross remain.

The paintings, believed to have been commissioned in around 1450, depict scenes of saints and bible stories, bringing them to life for a congregation that was unable to read.

Under Reformation, many such symbols were hastily destroyed, though the congregation here kept them carefully hidden under a layer of whitewash paint.

With the passing of time, their existence was completely forgotten, until they were rediscovered by the Rev John Ponsonby in 1852, to his utmost dismay.

Decrying the paintings as a ‘ridiculous’ distraction, he had defied the wishes of the then Archbishop of York to have them covered once again, but not before drawings were made.

Some remnants of these drawings remain, with fragments from the original paintings forming the basis for a palimpsest of imagery rare in its antiquity.

A sense of wonder

Today, the church is keen to draw donations following a year where it has seen fewer visitors, with a link here to its website under Rev Gareth Atha. These images, said Mrs Robb, do inspire a sense of wonder.

“People walk in and see these figures, and just stand there in awe,” she said. “There is a little jewel in the crown here, and people don’t realise.

“These paintings were people’s stories until they could begin to be written down.”

City halls and clocktowers in cities such as Bradford and Wakefield are to be lit up in red and white today to mark St George’s Day, while flags are to be flown and bunting hung.

At the outdoor Pontefract Market, professional trumpet player John Barker has been commissioned to play.

“It’s a national day that should be celebrated,” he said. “People appreciate live music, in particular, I think we’ve all come to realise what matters in life.”

17th-Century Mourning Ring Unearthed on the Isle of Man

Manx Radio reports that a metal detectorist on the Isle of Man uncovered a piece of jewellery identified as a Stuart-period mourning ring made of crystal and gold inlaid with black enamel at the time of the English Civil Wars (1642–51) and will soon go on view at a local museum.

The accessory, which is inscribed with the initials “JD”—or possibly “ID”—is a mourning ring of the type given out at funerals during the Stuart period (1603–1714). Its sloping sides are adorned with engravings of leaves inlaid with black enamel.

“The ring is small and quite delicate in form, but of a high quality and intact,” says Allison Fox, an archaeologist at Manx National Heritage, in a statement. “The quality suggests that it was made for, or on behalf of, an individual of high status.”

Though Fox points out that researchers may never be able to definitively determine the ring’s origins, she says that it could have been connected with the Stanley family, which ruled as the Lords of Man for more than 300 years.

“The initials JD may refer to James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby and Lord of Man, a supporter of the Royalist cause in the Civil War,” adds Fox in the statement. “Letters and documents from the time show that he signed his name as J Derby, so the initials JD would be appropriate for him.”

As the Isle of Man’s legislature, Tynwald, notes on its website, Henry IV granted the island to Sir John Stanley I in 1405.

In exchange for their continued possession of the island, the crown demanded that the Stanleys remain loyal and send two falcons to all future kings of England upon their coronations. John’s grandson Thomas—stepfather to Henry VII, the kingdom’s first Tudor monarch—received the title of Earl of Derby in 1485, and the family continued to rule under that title for centuries.

James Stanley, who was also known as Baron Strange for part of his life, became a Royalist commander in service of Charles I, and later Charles II, during the English Civil Wars, which pitted supporters of the monarchy against Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian forces.

In 1651, Cromwell’s men captured and executed James. His eldest son, Charles, succeeded him. After James’ death, reports BBC News, his wife, Charlotte, worked to ensure that he was not forgotten.

Metal detectorist Lee Morgan discovered the ring while exploring the south side of the island, which is a British dependency located off the northwest coast of England, last December.

The exact location is being kept secret to protect the site. (That same month, noted BBC News in February, a retired police officer on the Isle of Man unearthed a cache of 1,000-year-old Viking jewellery.)

Morgan, for his part, has previously unearthed two other treasure troves: In 2013, he found a horde of silver coins from the 1300s, and in 2019, he discovered a silver ingot dated to between 950 and 1075, during the island’s Viking period.

The Isle of Man’s coroner of inquests, Jayne Hughes, has declared the Stuart ring treasure under the United Kingdom’s Treasure Act. (Current guidelines define treasure very narrowly, but as Caroline Davies wrote for the Guardian in December 2020, the U.K. government is working to expand these parameters to better protect the country’s national heritage items.)

Per the statement, authorities will display the jewellery at the Manx Museum before sending it to the Treasure Valuation Committee, which meets at the British Museum, for review.

Archaeologists discover a medieval skeleton with his boots still on in London

Archaeologists excavating a site along with the Thames Tideway Tunnel—a massive pipeline nicknamed London’s “super sewer”—have revealed the skeleton of a medieval man who literally died with his boots on.

“It’s extremely rare to discover any boots from the late 15th century, let alone a skeleton still wearing them,” says Beth Richardson of the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).

“And these are very unusual boots for the period—thigh boots, with the tops, turned down. They would have been expensive, and how this man came to own them is a mystery. Were they secondhand? Did he steal them? We don’t know.”

Unearthing skeletons amid major construction projects is not unusual in London, where throughout the centuries land has been reused countless times and many burial grounds have been built over and forgotten.

However, archaeologists noticed right away that this skeleton was different. The position of the body—face down, right arm over the head, left arm bent back on itself—suggests that the man was not deliberately buried.

It is also unlikely that he would have been laid to rest in leather boots, which were expensive and highly prized.  In light of those clues, archaeologists believe the man died accidentally and his body was never recuperated, although the cause of death is unclear.

Perhaps he fell into the river and could not swim. Or possibly he became trapped in the tidal mud and drowned.

Sailor, fisherman, or “mudlarker”?

500 years ago this stretch of the Thames—2 miles or so downstream from the Tower of London—was a bustling maritime neighbourhood of wharves and warehouses, workshops and taverns.

The river was flanked by the Bermondsey Wall, a medieval earthwork about fifteen feet high built to protect riverbank property from tidal surges.

Given the neighbourhood, the booted man may have been a sailor or a fisherman, a possibility reinforced by physical clues.

Pronounced grooves in his teeth may have been caused by repeatedly clenching a rope. Or perhaps he was a “mudlarker,” a slang term for those who scavenge along the Thames muddy shore at low tide.

The man’s wader-like thigh boots would have been ideal for such work.

“We know he was very powerfully built,” says Niamh Carty, an osteologist, or skeletal specialist, at MOLA.

“The muscle attachments on his chest and shoulder are very noticeable. The muscles were built by doing lots of heavy, repetitive work over a long period of time.”

It was work that took a physical toll. Albeit only in his early thirties, the booted man suffered from osteoarthritis, and vertebrae in his back had already begun to fuse as the result of years of bending and lifting.

Wounds to his left hip suggest he walked with a limp, and his nose had been broken at least once. There is evidence of blunt force trauma on his forehead that had healed before he died.

“He did not have an easy life,” says Carty. “Early thirties was middle age back then, but even so, his biological age was older.”

The examination is continuing. Isotope investigation will shed light on where the man grew up, whether he was an immigrant or a native Londoner, and what kind of diet he had.

“His family never had any answers or a grave,” says Carty. “What we are doing is an act of remembrance. We’re allowing his story to finally be told.”

1,000-year-old shoe in the River Thames that was ‘last worn in the run-up to the Battle of Hastings’

A 1,000-year-old shoe has been found intact in the muddy river bed of the River Thames. Steve Tomlinson, 47, was exploring the estuary when he stumbled across the unassuming object protruding from the mudflats. The amateur archaeologist was unaware of its historical significance and was urged by his peers to send it off for expert analysis. 

A Scottish institute carefully carbon-dated the shoe and found it be from between 1017 and 1059AD, during the era Anglo-Saxons and Vikings inhabited the British Isles before William the conqueror toppled King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The finding may be one of the last surviving relics from the Viking occupation of Britain before the successful invasion of the French.  Results of the laboratory tests found there was a 95.4 per cent probability that the shoe is from between 1017-1059AD. 

Mr Tomlinson, from Birchington, Kent, made the discovery of the leather moccasin in October last year while searching in the estuary and the results have just been returned.  

He said: ‘I was out and about just up that area and it was sticking out of a bit of clay mud so I pulled it out.

‘I first thought it was a bit of that but the history of the Thames goes through all the ages so I put the call out to archaeologist and groups and they said ‘oh my God preserve it straight away.’

Mr Tomlinson says he ‘can’t quite believe’ the outcome.

He added: ‘It is a rare find and amazingly it is still in superb preserved condition, probably due to the fact it was very well preserved in clay along with the sea, keeping it constantly waterlogged.

‘It is so well preserved that the original toe and heel marks can be seen.

‘It just goes to show you never know what lies beneath.

‘I am over the moon with the result.’

The shoes may soon be on display in a museum from a ‘well-known museum’.

When Did Vikings Invade Ireland? 

In the 10,000 years since Stone Age cavemen first arrived, the Irish have established distinct cultural regions.  Researchers have recently found 23 distinct genetic clusters, separated by geography by comparing mutations from almost 1,000 Irish genomes with over 6,000 from Britain and mainland Europe.

These are most distinct in western Ireland, but less pronounced in the east, where historical migrations have erased the genetic variations.   They also detected genes from Europe and calculated the timing of the historical migrations of the Norse-Vikings and the Anglo-Normans to Ireland, yielding dates consistent with historical records. 

The study paints a new and more complex picture of the genetic landscape of Ireland and demonstrates the signatures that historical migrations have left on the modern Irish genome. The Vikings left their genetic footprint in Ireland when they invaded the island, launching their first attack in 795 AD by raiding an island monastery.

The Vikings continued to stage small-scale attacks on unprotected coastal monasteries before sailing to River Shannon in the 830s to steal from inland religious settlements. By the 840s, the Vikings began to establish permanent ship bases along the coastline from which they could plunder all year. 

The Vikings also enslaved some of the Irish people and were able to raid the land by taking advantage of the fact that Ireland was particularly politically fractured.

The Vikings, however, did not conquer the island – by the middle of the 10th century, they failed to control the territory in Ireland.  The fractured political system in Ireland worked in the island’s favour – if one ruler was killed, it did not destabilize the entire island. 

Norse influence in Ireland began to decline by the time of the rise of king Brian Boru.  He sacked the Viking town in Limerick in 968 AD and became the overlord of Cork, Wexford and Waterford.  In 1014, the king’s army routed the Vikings and their allies at the Battle of Clontarf outside Dublin, but a small group of Norseman killed the elderly kind as he was praying in his tent after the battle. 

The Viking remained in Ireland after agreeing to pay a tribute, but the Viking Age in Ireland didn’t come to a definitive end until the Norman invasion in the 1170s and the last Norse king of Dublin escaped to the Orkney Islands. 

This is the largest fossilized human turd ever found

Sometimes, scientists really are talking sh*t! The proof is in this fossilized excrement, which dates back to the 9th century. It was discovered about 40 years ago, and is famous for being the most expensive poo in the world!

The fossil is known as the Lloyds Bank Coloprite, the word “Coprolite” simply meaning fossilized dung. The rest of its name refers to the fact that it was found in 1972 by construction workers during the building of a Lloyds TSB branch in York, in the northwest of England.

Put simply, this is a fossilized human turd. Not only that but the largest and – bizarrely – most valuable on record.

It dates back to approximately the 9th century and the person responsible is believed to be a Viking. It currently rests at the Jórvík Viking Centre in the city of York, England.

Jórvík was the Viking name for York, with the Center part of an area that has yielded numerous treasures. Whether the Coprolite can be described as treasure is a question for the ages. That said, the details are fascinating.

The reason it’s named after Lloyds Bank isn’t some weird corporate branding exercise. The hefty deposit, measuring 8″ x 2″ (20 cm by 5 cm), was found beneath the site of the famous bank in 1972. And here’s a fun fact for the day – “Coprolite” means fossilized human faeces! Paleofeces is also a term used to describe ancient human droppings found as part of archaeological expeditions.

This is one mighty archaeological achievement. The Australian Academy of Science observed in 2017, “Human coprolites are very rare and tend to only be preserved in either very dry or frozen environments, however, samples have been found that date back to the Late Paleolithic—around 22,000 years ago.”

For a complete specimen to last this long is awe-inspiring, if not exactly need-to-know information. How do they know it came from a Viking? The ingredients that went into the epic production provide some clues.

“He was not a great vegetable eater,” wrote the Guardian in 2003, “instead of living on large amounts of meat and grains such as bran, despite fruit stones, nutshells and other stools containing matter from vegetables such as leeks being found on the same site.”

That all sounds normal enough, however the Viking’s bowels were also packed with creepy crawlies.

In 2016, the website Spangenhelm referred to “the presence of several hundred parasitic eggs (whipworm)”, which “suggests he or she was riddled with intestinal parasite worms (maw-worm).”

These unwanted invaders can cause serious health problems. The BBC describes conditions such as “stomach aches, diarrhoea, and inflammation of the bowel.” Get enough worms and things get worse, as “symptoms may simulate those of gastric and duodenal ulcers.”

Parasites aren’t known for standing still either. Adults “can migrate from the intestine and enter other organs where they can cause serious damage, even moving into such places as the ear and the nose of unfortunate suffers.”

On a more agreeable note, the malodorous museum piece has been valued at an extraordinary $39,000. No less a publication than the Wall Street Journal reported on the coprolite in 1991, with one source claiming it was “as valuable as the Crown Jewels”.

British TV company Channel 4 delved deeper into the desiccated dropping in 2003, giving viewers an insight into what an ancient turd can reveal about the past. According to them, “if we ever succeed in extracting and analyzing DNA from the excrement, it could be possible to determine the kind of flora that this Viking had in his intestines.”

Those thinking that the excrement-based exhibit might lead to a boring existence are wrong. In fact, it’s faced potential disaster. 2003 is a significant year for the Lloyd’s Bank Coprolite, as it had a brush with destruction courtesy of an unsuspecting educator.

A Guardian report from the time writes that “all was well until two weeks ago when its display stand collapsed in the hands of an unfortunate teacher and, crashing to the floor, the rock-like lump broke into three pieces.”

Talk about a potentially sticky situation. What happens when fossilized faeces is damaged? It’s carefully glued back together of course! This saw the turd reconstructed as if it were a Roman vase or Aztec plate.

With careful maintenance, it’s hoped the Lloyds Bank Coprolite will go on for many years to come. For the individual whose historic diet resulted in the artefact, it was simply a bodily function. Centuries on, experts are flushed with their success in discovering it.

A couple find £5,000,000 in one of biggest ever treasure hoards

In an area in Somerset, in the West of England, a pair of metal detectorists found their existence when they uncovered a hoard of ancient coins worth about 6 million dollars. The historical discovery, which has been deemed to be one of the greatest hidden treasures in the UK, is to be revealed in the British Museum.

The 2,571 Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins were unearthed by Adam Staples ‘ and Lisa Grace Treasure hunters when they searched farmland with their trusty metal detectors.

The couples have described the hoard as “stunning” and “absolutely mind-blowing” in an interview with Treasure Hunting Magazine.

They reported their find to the authorities as required by UK law, and the coins were soon sent to the British Museum for evaluation.

The British Museum has been assessing the find for the past seven months and is due to reveal more information about the coins to the public on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the institution confirmed to the Daily Mail that the “large hoard” was handed over as possible treasure and that it appears to be “an important discovery.”

Under the UK’s 1996 Treasure Act, if a find is officially declared treasure, it must first be offered for sale to a museum at a price set by the British Museum’s Treasure Valuation Committee. If no museum can raise the money to acquire the coins, they can then be offered for sale at auction.

The owner of the land where the coins were found is entitled to half of the proceeds. The metal detectorists are keeping the exact location of their discovery under wraps, although the trove is called the Chew Valley Hoard after an area in North Somerset.

A coin expert at the London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb has valued the coins at around £5 million ($6 million).

They include mint-condition silver King Harold II pennies, coins from the reign of William the Conqueror, which could be worth as much as £5,000 ($6,000) each, as well as pieces minted by previously unknown moneyers.

The King Harold II coins are particularly rare due to his short reign. The last Anglo-Saxon king was on the throne for just nine months before he died during the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The expert said that the hoard may prove too pricey for museums, which might have to launch an appeal for sponsors to raise funds to acquire them.

The coins would have belonged to a wealthy person who probably buried them for safekeeping at some point after the Norman Invasion of 1066 and probably before 1072.

The biggest collection of buried treasure ever discovered in the UK was the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork, but this latest find could worth $1 million more, and have as great or even more historic value.