Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

A hidden temple was recently discovered in an ancient Roman city that’s mostly still underground

A hidden temple was recently discovered in an ancient Roman city that’s mostly still underground

The temple was once part of the city of Falerii Novi, which was abandoned more than 1,000 years ago and buried by time.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) map of the newly discovered temple in the Roman city of Falerii Novi, Italy.

Archaeologists recently mapped the entire town in remarkable detail with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealing previously unknown structures, including the temple and a bathing complex.

Located about 31 miles (50 kilometers) north of Rome, Falerii Novi was founded in 241 B.C. and was occupied until around the seventh century A.D. It was surrounded by a wall and at just 0.1 square miles (0.3 square kilometers) in area, it was quite small.

Today, Falerii Novi’s ruins lie in a rural area, and there are no modern buildings atop it. But the city has thus far only been partly excavated.

The new map demonstrates that high-resolution radar scans can reveal the secrets of buried cities, providing valuable data about their construction and evolution, scientists reported in a new study. 

“This technique really liberates us for looking at whole towns; we don’t have to rely on places like Pompeii that are already mostly excavated,” said study co-author Martin Millett, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Cambridge in England. “This is a technique where, with a little bit of planning, you can gather fantastic quality data over a whole city,” Millett told BBC News.

Archaeologists began excavating the ruins in the 19th century; the site was later identified as Falerii Novi based on extensive historic records that described the Roman city, according to the study.

In the late 1990s, other researchers conducted magnetic surveys of the site, measuring patterns in soil magnetism to visualize buried structures.

This technique produced a map showing the street grid and most of the city buildings, but with one reading taken about every 20 inches (50 centimeters), the map’s resolution was poor, painting “a fuzzy picture” of what the city looked like, Millett said.

A slice of ground-penetrating radar data from Falerii Novi, revealing the outlines of the town’s buildings.

Buried temple

For the new study, the researchers deployed a grid of ground-penetrating radar antennae, fixed to a cart and towed over the site by an all-terrain vehicle.

They bombarded the site with radio wave pulses, taking measurements every 2 inches (6 cm) and reflecting off objects underground to a depth of 6.5 feet (2 meters), according to the study. This showed Falerii Novi’s buried structures in high resolution and in three dimensions.

Each scan provided a “slice” that the researchers then stitched together to create the map. Thanks to the new data, a much sharper picture of the long-hidden city emerged.

The exceptional resolution enabled the study authors to perform detailed architectural analysis that would otherwise have been possible only through excavation.

One structure, to the west of the city’s southern gate, was clearly a temple; “you can see steps leading up to it, the columnated courtyard around it and the altar,” Millett said. 

A market building and a bath complex were also visible for the first time, as well as a large enclosure that may have been a public monument, according to the study.

Computer-aided object detection in the GPR data from the case-study area: a) the wall objects detected in each individual GPR slice and profile were combined and projected onto a 2D map (red). Detected floors are shown in green; b) 3D representation showing the same result, with the floors semi-transparent.

Criss-crossing pipes

Another intriguing find was the unusual layout of Falerii Novi’s water supply system, as the radar scans revealed networks of pipes running underneath the city’s buildings. In other ancient Roman towns that have been fully excavated — or nearly so — water pipes typically ran parallel to the city streets.

Those water systems are therefore thought to have been installed during a later stage of the city’s construction after most of the buildings were already in place. 

But in Falerii Novi, pipes were installed under the buildings, running diagonally across the town. That would have been impossible to do unless the pipes were put in place first, before construction of any of the buildings. This offers an unexpected glimpse of how the Romans designed and built some of their cities, according to the study.

“In a sense, that changes the game for looking at Roman urbanism,” Millett said. “If we can do this across a whole series of cities, we begin to get new insights into how their urban planning worked.”

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

10-Year-Old Boy Finds Centuries-Old Sword in Northern Ireland

10-Year-Old Boy Finds Centuries-Old Sword in Northern Ireland

Fionntan Hughes, Ten years old received a metal detector for his birthday in July. Hughes discovered a centuries-old sword hidden about a foot underground the first time he took it out for a walk, reports Eimear Flanagan for BBC News.

On the banks of the Blackwater River near his home in Northern Ireland, Fionntan, father, and cousin used a metal detector when they found the sword in their third strike.

They dug up the large, mud-covered object, brought it home and washed it off with a garden hose, Fionntan tells Aftenposten Junior. That revealed it was half of a rusted, old sword with an ornate pommel.

“I felt excited,” Fionntan tells BBC Newsline’s Cormac Campbell. “because it was a sword and it was just here, and I didn’t really expect anything too big.”

The sword’s ornate handle is its most identifiable feature, but antique experts Mark and David Hawkins tell BBC News that the sword is difficult to identify from photographs because the rust may be exaggerating its size. But it looks like an English basket-hilted broadsword that was introduced between 1610 to 1640.

It seems to have a plum pudding pommel, which is “typical of the early types,” the Hawkins tells BBC News, but because some designs were used by English officers for more than a century, they suspect this sword is from the late 1600s or early 1700s.

A young boy with a metal detector has made an amazing discovery in Northern Ireland. With the detector, given to him on his birthday, he found an Irish historic sword that could be up to 300 years old.
A young boy with a metal detector has made an amazing discovery in Northern Ireland. With the detector, given to him on his birthday, he found an Irish historic sword that could be up to 300 years old.

Most metal detectorists are not so lucky, but between 1997 and 2016, amateur history fans found about 1 million archaeological discoveries in the United Kingdom alone.

In 1992, a man looking for his lost hammer happened upon a 60-pound hoard of Roman gold and silver artifacts. In 2016, another metal detectorist found a hoard of Viking artifacts.

A 2019 discovery showed evidence of 11th-century tax evasion, and this June, a Welsh man found a lead ingot inscribed with Latin.

The U.K.’s Treasure Act of 1996 requires those who discover caches of buried treasure to report their finds to the local coroner’s office, who will then notify local authorities.

Last year, four men received sentences of between five and ten years in prison because they didn’t report the Viking artifacts they found in 2015, Lateshia Beachum reported for the Washington Post at the time.

After Fionntan and his family realized he had found a sword, his father Paul Hughes notified the National Museums Northern Ireland archaeology curator Greer Ramsey. Ramsey is now in the process of identifying the sword in more detail, as per BBC News.

“The last thing I want is for it to be left rusting away in my garage,” Hughes tells BBC News, adding that he worries the sword is “deteriorating by the day.”

The family hopes to give it to a museum for preservation and eventual display. But the Covid-19 pandemic has made it challenging to hand the sword off to a museum expert, according to Aftenposten Junior.

The riverbank where Fionntan found the sword was dredged in the 1980s, which would have displaced sediment and objects at the bottom of the river, reports BBC Newsline.

Because of that, the family believes there may be more interesting artifacts buried nearby. And Fionntan tells BBC News that he’s looking forward to going metal detecting again.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

1,000000-year-old artificial underground complex has been discovered

1,000000-year-old artificial underground complex has been discovered

Dr Alexander Koltypin recently came out to state that the process through which we identify just how old a relic or a ruin really it shouldn’t be considered the definitive end of the debate as it is heavily flawed, to say the least.

In most cases, there is no clear proof of how old a ruin really is which is why we look at the surroundings and more specifically at how old the surrounding structures are. But, this is unfair as there is always the possibility that they weren’t built around the same time period.

In recent years, many researchers have started looking at the history of civilization on Earth with an open mind. One of those researchers is without a doubt, Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist, and director of the Natural Science Research Center at Moscow’s International Independent University of Ecology and Politology.

This is where Dr Alexander Koltypin actually came across the 1,000,000-year-old artificial underground complex that historians simply put do not wish to accept the existence of.

During his long career, Dr Koltypin has studied numerous ancient underground structures mainly in the Mediterranean and has identified numerous similarities which have led him to believe that many sites were interconnected. But most incredibly, the weathering of the structures, together with their material composition and extreme geological features has led him to believe, these megastructures were built by advanced civilizations that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.

Dr. Koltypin argues that mainstream archeologists who work in the region, are used to date sites by looking at the settlements located on them or in their vicinity, however, some of these settlements were created upon much older prehistoric structures.

Writing on his website, Dr. Koltypin states: “When we examined the constructions… none of us never for a moment had a doubt that they are much older than the ruins of the Canaanite, Philistine, Hebraic, Roman, Byzantine, and other cities and settlements that are placed on it and around.” (source)

During his travel to the Mediterranean, Dr Koltypin was able to accurately record the features present in different ancient sites, something that allowed him to compare afterwards, their incredible similarities and details which tell an incredible alternative history, one that has been firmly rejected by mainstream scholars.

An ancient stone structure in Antalya, Turkey.

While traveling near the Hurvat Burgin ruins in Adullam Grove Nature Reserve, central Israel, Dr. Koltypin recalled a similar felling when he climbed on the top of the rock city Cavusin in Turkey, almost as a Deja vu feeling, Dr. Koltypin said: “I was personally convinced once again (in the first time the same feeling came to me after I climbed to the top of the rock city Cavusin in Turkey) that all these rectangular indentations, man-made underground structures and scattered debris of megaliths were one underground-terrestrial megalithic complex which was opened by erosion to a depth of several hundred meters” (source)

In his work (source), Dr. Koltypin argues that nor all parts of the giant complex are located underground, there are some parts that have come above ground due to geological shifts that have occurred throughout the history of our planet, where Dr. Koltypin includes the incredibly rocky towns of Cappadocia in modern-day Turkey.

“On the basis of this, we can conclude that the underground cities of Cappadocia (including Tatlarin rock city) intended for the accommodation of the ordinary population and the rock city of Cavusin (or its part) was the residence of the kings of underground.

Though almost nothing is known about subterranean, nevertheless we can assume that the people who built the underground cities (if they even were men) were sun-worshipers professed religion of sun gods (harmony and life by the Divine principles – nature laws). After many thousand or million years, this religion had become a basis of the Christian religion.” — Dr Alexander Koltypin.

Dr. Koltypin continues explaining that certain sites in central and Northern Israel, and central Turkey were exposed after cutting into the ground some one hundred meters. “According to my estimates, such depth of erosion … hardly could be formed in less time than 500,000 to 1 million years,” he wrote on his website.

Cavusin village in the Cappadocia region of Turkey.

Dr Koltypin suggests that certain parts of the complex surfaced as a result of mountain formation processes. According to his estimates, there is evidence to support that the composition of building material found on a site in Antalya Turkey, referred to by Dr. Koltypin as “Jernokleev site,” are up to One Million years old, even though mainstream scholars refuse to accept that age, proposing that the site dates back to the Middle Ages.

Dr. Koltypin further adds that as a result of Earth’s crust moving throughout the centuries, parts of the underground complex were plunged into the sea.

“Practically in all the studied underground constructions of Israel and in the majority of underground constructions of Turkey, sediments of lithified (hard) and calcareous clay deposits are widely developed on their floor,” Dr. Koltypin writes on his website.

Returning to the subject, Dr. Koltypin suggests that the similarity seen in numerous megalithic ruins is evidence of a profound connection present in ancient sites, which were connected in one giant prehistoric complex.

According to Dr. Koltypin, numerous megalithic blocks weight tens of tons could have been directly attached to underground complexes in the distant past.

“This circumstance gave me a reason to call the underground structures and geographically related ruins of cyclopean walls and buildings as a single underground-terrestrial megalithic complex,” writes Dr. Koltypin in his website.

He further adds that the megalithic construction which is seen in all corners around the world seem to surpass by far the technological capabilities of ancient civilizations which according to mainstream scholars built them.

Making reference to the technological capabilities of the ancients, Dr. Koltypin states the stones fit together perfectly in some parts without cement, and the ceilings, columns, arches, gates, and other elements seem beyond the work of men with chisels.

Adding to the mystery of these incredible sites, Dr. Koltypin notes that structures built on top of, or near sites by the Romans or other civilizations are completely primitive.

Mystery track left behind advanced technology millions of year ago

Dr. Alexander Koltypin believes that the mysterious markings that extend along the Phrygian Valley, in central Turkey, were made by an intelligent race between 12 and 14 million years ago.

“We can assume that ancient vehicles with “wheels” were driven into the soft ground, perhaps a wet surface,” said the geologist. “Because of the great weight of these vehicles, they left behind very deep grooves which eventually petrified and turned into evidence.”

Geologists are familiar with such phenomena as they have found petrified footprints of dinosaurs that were preserved in the same way. Together with three colleagues, Dr Koltypin, director of the Natural Science Scientific Research Centre at Moscow’s International Independent Ecological-Political University, travelled to the site in Anatolia, Turkey where these markings can be found. Upon returning from his trip, he described the observed as ‘petrified tracking ruts in rocky tuffaceous [made from compacted volcanic ash] deposits’.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

Ancient mammoth ivory carving technology reconstructed by archaeologists

Ancient mammoth ivory carving technology reconstructed by archaeologists

A team of archaeologists from Siberian Federal University and Novosibirsk State University provided a detailed reconstruction of a technology that was used to carve ornaments and sculptures from mammoth ivory.

The team studied a string of beads and an ancient animal figurine found at the Paleolithic site of Ust-Kova in Krasnoyarsk Territory. Over 20 thousand years ago its residents used drills, cutters, and even levelling blades.

The unusual features of some of the items showcased the mastery of the craftsmen. The new data obtained by the scientists will help study the relations between the residents of different Siberian sites.

The article about the study was published in the highly respected journal Archaeological Research in Asia.

The Ust-Kova site is located in Kezhemsky District of Krasnoyarsk Territory at the mouth of the Kova river.

Archaeologists from Krasnoyarsk have been working there since the middle of the 20th century, but the major part of the excavation work took place between 1980 and 2000.

Based on the results of radiocarbon dating, the site is considered to be over 20 thousand years old. Of all findings from Ust-Kova, scientists consider animal figurines the most interesting. They also found various ornaments and tools made from mammoth ivory. However, until recently the technology of their manufacture has been unknown.

“We studied several mammoth ivory items found at Ust-Kova: a mammoth figurine, a seal sculpture, and bracelets and beads of different sizes that were created around 24 thousand years ago.

Our group was supervised by Prof. L.V. Lbova, a PhD in History, from the Department of Archeology and Ethnography of Novosibirsk State University.

We conducted a detailed microscopic analysis of each object to identify the tools used in their manufacture by the markings they left,” said Prof. Nikolay Drozdov, a PhD in History, representing Siberian Federal University.

After processing the microscopic images of the mammoth figurine with DStretch, the team was able to reconstruct the ancient technology in every detail. The image showed markings that were left by different tools.

According to the scientists, at first, a craftsman had to break a mammoth tusk down into segments. After that smaller plates were turned into beads: the master cut them into rectangles and made a hole in the centre of each piece using a stone drill. Bigger parts were used to create animal sculptures.

To depict a mammoth, the craftsman outlined a head and legs with a levelling blade and then removed the excess of the bone with a cutter. After the figurine was finished, it was decorated with a pattern to imitate eyes and hair.

The team also analyzed the chemical composition of the findings. The scientists were especially interested in the traces of dark-red pigment on the surface of the sculpture. It turned out that ancient craftsmen used to paint many of their items with manganese and magnesium (presumably, they were extracted from salt rocks situated not far from the site).

The mammoth figurine was painted with red pigment on one side and with a black one on the other. In the mythology of the Ust-Kuva people, red was a symbol of life and black meant death.

The researchers also found several layers of pigment on the beads. They assumed that the ornaments had been in use for many years and had to be regularly repaired.

The study can help better understand the relationships between different tribes and territories. Now scientists will be able to compare tools from different sites by various parameters. This will show whether distant tribes were in contact with each other and also help identify individual styles of ancient master carvers.

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

Monkeys from India Identified in Roman Pet Cemetery in Africa

Monkeys from India Identified in Roman Pet Cemetery in Africa

Polish archaeologists have discovered that ancient Romans and Egyptians imported monkeys from India as household pets.

Archaeologists from the Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology were in the process of excavating a vast animal cemetery when they came across the monkey skeletons.

Researchers found when examining monkeys buried in the animal cemetery in the Berenice Red Sea Port researchers found that the primates were rhesus macaques endemic to India, rather than some local species.

Archaeologists from the Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology were in the process of excavating a vast animal cemetery when they came across the monkey skeletons.

Researches have been working at this site for over a decade and during this time have uncovered monumental fortresses, defense walls and a massive underground complex

For years they assumed they belonged to guenon species, quite common in this area.

It was only by using 3D scanners and comparing the bones with others that they made the incredible discovery.

Professor Marta Osypińska, a zooarchaeologist from the Polish Academy of Sciences, said: “We believe that the influential Romans who lived in Berenice, a faraway outpost, in the first and second, wanted to make their time pleasant with the company of various animals. Among them were also monkeys.”

The archaeologists discovered trays of individual cat, dog and monkey burials.

The pets were carefully buried in an animal necropolis and arranged like sleeping children.

Additionally, one of them was covered with a woolen fabric. The other had two large shells by their heads, including one coming from the Indian Ocean or south-eastern shores of Africa.

On both sides of the animal, there were amphora fragments. In one of them there was a piece of cloth, and in the second one – a skeleton of a very young piglet, and next to it three kittens.

Researchers found that rather than the monkeys being local, they were instead rhesus macaques from India.

Osypińska said: “This is a unique finding. Until now, no one has found Indian monkeys in the archaeological sites in Africa. Interestingly, even ancient written sources don’t mention this practice.”

The settlement in Berenice existed since the pharaonic times. In the third century BC, it was used as a harbour for transporting African elephants used in battle and a military outpost.

However, it was only after the Romans took over Egypt, that the port flourished. It became a centre of transoceanic trade between Egypt, the Middle East, and India.

Previous findings in the port confirmed the frequent trade contacts with the Indian subcontinent. Spice, textiles, and other luxury goods were among goods transported across the Indian Ocean.

The Polish archaeological mission revealed perfectly-preserved organic (skins, textiles from China and India, sails) and botanical materials: rice, sesame, lotus, irises, frankincense, myrrh, coconuts, teak wood, as well as an offering of eight kilograms of black pepper in Indian jars found near the Great Temple.

The transport of monkeys from thousands of kilometres away was not small, especially since it was done only for entertainment purposes.

Professor Osypińska said: “It involved providing the animals with adequate food and water during a few weeks’ cruise across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

“Unfortunately, after reaching Berenice the monkeys couldn’t adapt and died young. It was probably caused by s lack of fresh fruit and other necessary nourishment.”

Archaeologists from the Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, together with Americans from the University of Delaware have been working in Berenice since 2008, with cooperation from the Polish Academy of Sciences’ researchers.

During their work, the archaeologists uncovered the remains of monumental fortifications, defence walls, towers, and an enormous underground complex, as well as temples and the animal cemetery.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

A 14,000-year-old puppy, whose perfectly preserved body was found in Russia, munched on a woolly rhino for its last meal

A 14,000-year-old puppy, whose perfectly preserved body was found in Russia, munched on a woolly rhino for its last meal

Russian scientists in 2011 found a perfectly preserved Frozen Aged puppy in Siberia. Recently, while examining the 14,000-year-old wolf-dog’s stomach contents, researchers were stunned to find evidence of what could be one of the last woolly rhinos on Earth still in its prehistoric bowels.

The gritted teeth of a 14,000-year-old dog discovered in Tumut, Siberia in 2011.

“It’s completely unheard of,” professor of evolutionary genetics Love Dalen said. “I’m not aware of any frozen Ice Age carnivore where they have found pieces of tissue inside.”

Scientists originally found the furry canine at a dig site in Tumat, Siberia, and shortly afterward found a piece of yellow-haired tissue inside its stomach.

Experts initially believed that the tissue belonged to a cave lion, but after sharing the evidence with a resourceful team in Sweden, learned otherwise.

“We have a reference database and mitochondrial DNA from all mammals, so we checked the sequence data against that and the results that came back — it was an almost perfect match for woolly rhinoceros,” Dalen explained.

The 14,000-year-old wolf-dog is just one of a few perfectly preserved canine specimens found in the Siberian permafrost over the last decade.

Dalen works at the Centre for Paleogenetics, which is a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, so his team had access to both highly-detailed DNA databases and radiocarbon dating.

After Dalen and his colleagues were able to assess with the overwhelming likelihood that this half-digested tissue belonged to a woolly rhinoceros, they then radiocarbon dated it at around 14,400 years old.

“This puppy, we know already, has been dated to roughly 14,000 years ago,” said Dalen. “We also know that the woolly rhinoceros goes extinct 14,000 years ago. So, potentially, this puppy has eaten one of the last remaining woolly rhinos.”

The tissue of the woolly rhino.

Modern research has shown that the woolly mammoth’s extinction was partly due to severe climate change. As for how this lucky puppy got its paws on such a specimen, which is the same size as a modern-day white rhino that weighs nearly 8,000 pounds and stands six feet tall, remains largely unclear.

Indeed, Edana Lord, a Ph.D. student who co-authored a research paper studying the woolly rhino’s road to extinction, asserted that due to the rhino’s size it is impossible that the puppy killed the animal itself.

Additionally, experts were surprised to see that the rhino was left mostly undigested in the puppy’s stomach, leading Dalen to conclude that “this puppy must have died very shortly after eating the rhino.”

“We don’t know if it was a wolf, but if it was a wolf cub, maybe it came across a baby rhino that was dead,” Dalen hypothesized. “Or the (adult) wolf ate the baby rhino. Maybe as they were eating it, the mother rhino had her revenge.”

A reconstruction of a woolly rhino using the remains of one found in the Siberian permafrost.

This wolf-pup is just one of a few amazing prehistoric canines specimens to be found in the last decade. In 2016, a miner in the Yukon region of Canada found a mummified 50,000-year-old wolf pup alongside a prehistoric caribou.

Then, in 2019, researchers found an 18,000-year-old wolf-dog hybrid perfectly preserved in the Siberian permafrost. They have since named that specimen “Dogor.”

Ultimately, researchers hope that this latest find can shed some more light on the last days of the woolly rhino — which are still being debated millennia later.

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Extraordinary 1,000-Year-Old Viking Sword Discovered In Cork, Ireland

Extraordinary 1,000-Year-Old Viking Sword Discovered In Cork, Ireland

Among several significant findings that contradict the belief that the Scandinavian invaders were most strongly influential in the cities of Dublin and Waterford, a perfectly preserved wooden Viking sword was uncovered in Cork.

Archaeologists discovered the sword, about a foot long, at the historic site of the former Beamish and Crawford brewery in ‘ the Rebel City ‘

Believed to have been used by female weavers, the 1,000-year-old sword made of wood is heavily designed and has astounded those who found it with its pristine condition. 

Crafted entirely from yew, the hilt of the Viking sword is carved with faces associated with the Ringerike style of Viking art,  a style that dates to the 11th century. 

The sword was unearthed during recent excavations at the South Main Street site and consultant archaeologist Dr. Maurice Hurley said it was one of the several Viking artifacts of “exceptional significance” to be discovered at an excavation that ended last June. 

Other finds included intact ground plans of 19 Viking houses, remnants of central hearths, and bedding material. These finds have convinced archeologists that the influence the Vikings had in Cork city has been underappreciated, that it may be comparable to that in Dublin and Waterford. 

“For a long time there was a belief that the strongest Viking influence was in Dublin and Waterford, but the full spectrum of evidence shows that Cork was in the same cultural sphere and that its development was very similar,” Hurley told RTÉ.

The hilt of the 30cm (12 inches) long Viking weaving tool (BAM Ireland)

“A couple of objects similar to the weaver’s sword have been found in Wood Quay [in Dublin], but nothing of the quality of craftsmanship and preservation of this one. 

“The sword was used probably by women, to hammer threads into place on a loom; the pointed end is for picking up the threads for pattern-making. It’s highly decorated – the Vikings decorated every utilitarian object,” he continued.

The Viking sword was discovered at the building site of a new, 6,000-seat event center in Cork, a project that was put on hold as archaeologists were called in to further explore the discoveries.

Although the archaeological team left the site last June, the developers, BAM Ireland, have not yet given any indication as to when construction will resume. 

A spokesperson for the developers stated they were happy to fund the excavation and to add to the heritage and history of the city. 

Although originally discovered last May, the finds only recently become mainstream knowledge due to a visit to the Cork Public Museum by the Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Else Berit Eikeland. 

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

81 ‘rare’ Anglo-Saxon coffins found in England may shed light on early Christians

81 ‘rare’ Anglo-Saxon coffins found in England may shed light on early Christians

A remarkable discovery of 81 Anglo – Saxon coffins made from the hollow-out trunks of oak trees may give new insights into how people lived in Britain in the early days of Christianity, archaeologists say

The graves didn’t decay due to a combination of acidic sand and alkaline water

The bones, dated from the 7th and 9th centuries, is discovered by a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery on a site called Great Ryburgh in Norfolk, eastern England, where six rare plank-lined graves were also found.

Evidence suggesting the cemetery served a community of early Christians includes a timber structure thought to be a church or chapel, wooden grave markers, and a lack of grave goods that would have been expected at pagan burial sites.

“This find is a dramatic example of how new evidence is helping to refine our knowledge of this fascinating period when Christianity and the church were still developing on the ground,” said Tim Pestell, curator at Norwich Castle Museum in Norfolk, where the finds from the dig will be kept.

Few Anglo-Saxon coffins survive because wood normally decays over time, and evidence usually consists of staining in the round from rotten wood.

An archaeologist excavates human remains at the Great Ryburgh site

The site at Great Ryburgh had a combination of acidic sand and alkaline water that allowed the skeletons and wooden graves to survive.

Coffins made from hollowed-out tree trunks were first seen in Europe in the early Bronze Age and reappeared in the early Middle Ages. This is the first time examples of this type of coffin have been properly excavated and recorded by modern archaeologists in Britain.

The plank-lined graves are believed to be the earliest known examples in Britain.

Examination of the bones and wood is taking place at the Northampton offices of the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).

“This find is absolutely unique in this country,” MOLA project manager Mark Holmes said.

“Finding wooden coffins of this period hasn’t happened before — it’s going to fill in an enormous amount of our knowledge of this period.”

Lead researcher on the dig Jim Fairclough said he hoped further analysis of the bones would reveal more of the individuals themselves, such as what their lifestyle was like and whether they had any family groups in the same cemetery.

“There are earlier Saxon cemeteries where there’s evidence wood was used in burials but all that remains is basically soil marks and staining where the wood has decayed,” he said.

“So this is the first time, especially in an early Christian context, where the wood coffins have been preserved.”

The excavation on private land at Great Ryburgh was launched to check for archaeological remains ahead of building work to create a lake and flood-defense system to boost biodiversity, alleviate flooding and create a new spot for anglers to fish.

Matt Champion believes they have stumbled upon an Anglo-Saxon “monastery” – a forerunner of a monastic settlement, which doubled as a civic community