Category Archives: EUROPE

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Potential Royal Statue Fragment Unearthed in England

Potential Royal Statue Fragment Unearthed in England

The Guardian reports that a team of researchers led by archaeologist Julian Richards unearthed a carved stone head at the site of Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded as a religious house for women in southwestern England in the late ninth century by Alfred the Great and dissolved in the sixteenth century by Henry VIII during the English Reformation.

At first, Julian Richards, who led the dig in Dorset, thought the head, caked in soil, was topped by some sort of cap. “I thought: ‘This is strange,’” he said. “Who could this be, wearing that sort of headgear? Then someone pointed out it wasn’t a cap, but a crown. There are raised bits around the headband representing jewels.”

Painstaking detective work has led to the conclusion that the head dates back to the 1340s and might – we may never know – be that of Edward II.

Potential Royal Statue Fragment Unearthed in England
Dr Julian Richards with the head at Shaftesbury Abbe

Richards said it was an exciting find. “It is definitely a royal figure. It might be Edward II, but we’re not sure. It could be a stylized image of a Saxon king, possibly even Alfred. The quality of the carving is absolutely stunning. You can even see the eyelids.”

The reign of Edward II from 1307 to 1327 is sometimes characterized as a failure. Lowlights included a defeat by Scottish forces at Bannockburn and being forced to relinquish the crown in favour of his 14-year-old son. He was also probably murdered. His close, possibly sexual, relationship with Piers Gaveston was depicted in the 16th-century Christopher Marlowe play Edward II.

For Richards, the identity of the figure is not the point. It is what the statue tells us about the history of the abbey that he is most interested in.

Shaftesbury Abbey was founded by Alfred the Great, the King of the Anglo-Saxons, in 888. It was the first religious house solely for women and Alfred installed his daughter Æthelgifu as its abbess.

The abbey prospered for centuries, but it was closed down in 1539 by order of Henry VIII and, over the next few years, it crumbled.

Archeologists have concluded that the stone head would have formed part of a previously unknown royal gallery of statues of monarchs, and would have screened the nuns from other worshippers.

When the abbey was destroyed, local people carried off stonework to build houses and walls. The head would have been useless to them. “They just wanted stone blocks to build houses. They didn’t want things like this head. It wasn’t any use to them,” said Richards.

It may be that the statue was deliberately targeted by Henry VIII’s people. “Somebody has taken a sledgehammer and smashed this up because it’s broken across the neck,” said Richards. “Or maybe they just pushed it over, it fell and the nose got broken.”

The head was found during a dig in 2019. Since then, the focus has been on dating and trying to identify it. The Covid-19 crisis has prevented the head from going on display, but it is hoped that members of the public will be able to visit it at the abbey museum in the spring.

Other objects that have been found ranging from clay pipes and industrially produced pottery of the last three centuries down to rare shards of late Saxon pottery, worked flints from 7,000 years ago, and three medieval silver pennies.

Another find close to the stone head that thrilled Richards just as much as a single large black bead made of a jet from Kimmeridge on the Dorset coast.

Richards said it was believed to have once been part of a nun’s rosary, worn smooth from years of pious handling. He wonders if the bead was lost when she was thrown out of the abbey during the dissolution.

“Think about it; it would have been one of this nun’s very few possessions. Was the rosary broken when she was evicted? She was living a life of quiet prayer, and then suddenly her whole world was destroyed and she lost everything. For me, that is a very powerful object.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

Well Preserved 2,000 Year Old Settlement Found Hidden Under Dense Forest In Northern Poland

Well Preserved 2,000 Year Old Settlement Found Hidden Under Dense Forest In Northern Poland

Archeologists found in almost 2,000 years an entirely untouched old village, the only village of its kind in Europe. The magnificent discovery in northern Poland  revealed farming land complete with boundary strips, homesteads, buildings, and even roads.

Well Preserved 2,000 Year Old Settlement Found Hidden Under Dense Forest In Northern Poland
The archeologists from Toruń made the stunning discovery in northern Poland using Aerial Laser Scanning which revealed an entire estate hidden in the heavily forested region

Hidden in dense forests in the Bory Tucholskie region, the area is one of the least explored by archeologists.

Archeologist Mateusz Sosnowski from the NCU (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Institute of Archeology in Toruń told PAP: “When it comes to research, it was virgin territory.

The discovery revealed farming land complete with boundary strips, homesteads, buildings, and even roads.

“It was a great surprise to discover they’re not only individual elements of a former settlement, but also its surroundings: fields surrounding the hamlet, traces of single homesteads and even tracts connecting them probable with other settlements.”

The remains come from the first centuries of the modern era, Sosnowski and fellow researchers who made the discovery, Jerzy Czerniec, believe.

Archeologist Mateusz Sosnowski from the NCU (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Institute of Archeology in Toruń said:  “When it comes to research, it was virgin territory. We have an entire estate together with its surrounding farmland in the form of fields and pastures, where all the elements come from the same period. It’s unique!” Mateusz Sosnowski

Sosnowski explained that the discovery is unique because archeologists usually only discover individual elements of settlements or other constructions leftover from the activities of ancient people.

Such discoveries usually occur during the building of houses or roads and the digs are rescue efforts. As a result, research is limited to a small area.

In such cases, there is also not usually an opportunity to search more widely to see whether there are other remains or interesting artefacts in the vicinity.

Sosnowski explained: “Here we have an entirely different situation.

“We have tracked down unknown traces of an ancient Bory Tucholskie settlement. It’s not a matter of one house or a fragment of a settlement.

“We have an entire estate together with its surrounding farmland in the form of fields and pastures, where all the elements come from the same period. It’s unique!”

The remains come from the first century of the modern era, researchers believe.

The archeologists discovered the find using Aerial Laser Scanning (ALS), a tool ever more frequently used by researchers.

As part of a project aimed at creating anti-flood defences among other things, the whole of Poland was covered. ALS enables a very thorough inspection of territory, even if it is overgrown with forest and the differences in height are invisible to the naked eye, as was the case in Bory Tucholskie.

The settlement together with its surrounding fields covers an area of over 170 hectares and the fields are surprisingly regular.

Sosnowski said: “Their shape brings to mind the three-field system of farming, known in Poland only from the middle ages. Was it already in use several hundred years earlier? we hope our research will answer that question.”

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Archaeologist Discovered Viking Ship Found Under the Ground in Norway

Archaeologist Discovered Viking Ship Found Under the Ground in Norway

Archaeologists in Norway using ground-penetrating radar have detected one of the largest Viking ship graves ever found. Archaeologists have found the outlines of a Viking ship buried not far from the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

The 65-foot long ship was covered over more than 1,000 years ago to serve as the final resting place of a prominent Viking king or queen. That makes it one of the largest Viking ship graves ever discovered.

An image generated by ground-penetrating radar reveals the outlines of a Viking ship within a burial mound.  Experts say intact Viking ship graves of this size are vanishingly uncommon. “I think we could talk about a hundred-year find,” says archaeologist Jan Bill, curator of Viking ships at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. “It’s quite spectacular from an archaeology perspective.”

An image generated by ground-penetrating radar reveals the outlines of a Viking ship within a burial mound.

The site where the ship grave was discovered is well-known. A burial mound 30 feet tall looms over the site, serving as a local landmark visible from the expressway just north of the Swedish border.

But archaeologists thought any archaeological remains in the nearby fields must have been destroyed by farmers’ plows in the late nineteenth century.

Then, this spring, officials from the surrounding county of Ostfold asked experts from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research to survey the fields using a large ground-penetrating radar array.

The Viking ship was discovered by georadar at Jellestad next to the monumental Jell Mound in Ostfold.

They were able to scan the soil underneath almost 10 acres of farmland around the mound. Underneath, they found proof of 10 large graves and traces of a ship’s hull, hidden just 20 inches beneath the surface.

The ship burial forms a part of a larger mound cemetery and settlement site from the Iron Age next to the Jell Mound

Knut Paasche, head of the archaeology department at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research and executive of the recent work at the site, estimates the ship was at least 65 feet long.

It appears to be well preserved, with clear outlines of the keel and the first few strakes, or lines of planking, visible in the radar scans. The ship would have been dragged onshore from the nearby Oslo fjord. At some point during the Viking Age, it was the final resting place of someone powerful.

“Ships like this functioned as a coffin,” says Paasche. “There was one king or queen or local chieftain on board.”

Whoever was buried in the ship was not alone. There are traces of at least 8 other burial mounds in the field, some almost 90 feet across. Three large longhouses—one 150 feet long—are also visible underneath the site’s soil, together with a half dozen smaller structures.

Archaeologists hope future unearthings will help date the mounds and the longhouses, which may have been built at different times. “We can not be sure the houses have the same age as the ship,” Paasche says.

Paasche plans to return to the site next spring to lead more sophisticated scans, including surveying the site with a magnetometer and perhaps digging test trenches to see what condition the ship’s remains are in.

If there is wood from the ship’s hull preserved beneath the ground, it could be used to date the find more decisively.

The chances of finding a king’s fortune are slim. Because they were so prominent in the landscape, many Viking Age burials were robbed centuries ago, long before they were leveled by Nineteenth-century farmers.

But “it would be very exciting to see if the burial is still intact,” says Bill. “If it is, it could be holding some very interesting finds.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover Paintings of Ancient Egypt in a 2,000 Year Old Roman Villa in Pompeii

Archaeologists Discover Paintings of Ancient Egypt in a 2,000 Year Old Roman Villa in Pompeii

In Pompeji, a garden in a large ancient villa that housed incredible pictures of the River Nile, secrets could be found of the impact of ancient Egypt on the early Roman Empire.

Comprehensive sketches in the Casa dell’Efebo, one of the largest houses in the city before it was mostly destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, show a series of Nilotic murals with crocodiles, hippopotamuses, lotuses, and short-statured men fighting with wild beasts.

Caitlin Barrett from the Department of Classics at Cornell University said the drawings give the house a more cosmopolitan feel and outline how the Romans took a strong interest in ancient Egyptian culture such as religion.

Archaeologists Discover Paintings of Ancient Egypt in a 2,000 Year Old Villa in Pompeii
Representations of sexual activity, music and alcohol consumption are often central to these paintings
Egyptian fauna and flora, including crocodiles, hippopotamuses and lotuses are a common theme of the work

Barrett told the IBTUK: ‘The paintings from the Casa dell’ Efebo were created after Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire, but several generations after Augustus’ initial conquest of Egypt.

‘Some researchers have turned to explanations emphasizing religion: maybe paintings of Egyptian landscapes have to do with an interest in Egyptian gods. 

‘Others have interpreted these paintings as political statements: maybe this is about celebrating the conquest of Egypt. I suggest that instead of trying to apply a one-size-fits-all explanation, we should look at the context and individual choices.’

Barrett said: ‘Maybe paintings of Egyptian landscapes have to do with an interest in Egyptian gods’
Archaeologists also say the drawings could be about celebrating the conquest of Egypt
Barrett also argue the paintings could underline how the Romans interacted with the outside world, a form of globalization

While representations of sexual activity, music, and alcohol consumption are often central to these paintings. 

The research was compiled in the American Journal of Archaeology and also asserts that artifacts found around the garden of the house and the structure’s elaborate architecture such as water installations mimics the diverse nature of the Roman Empire. 

Barrett continued:  ‘In this particular assemblage, rather than solely trying to make some kind of statement about Isiac rituals or Roman politics, the owner of this house seems to be asserting a cosmopolitan identity as a citizen of the Empire. 

‘In Pompeian houses at this time, when people are representing faraway lands in domestic art, they are also trying to figure out what it means to them to be participants in the Roman Empire.’

The study says the paintings of the Nile in the Pompeian house provided the inhabitants with an opportunity to engage with shifting local and imperial Roman identities and to recreate a microcosm of the world they lived in.

‘People sometimes imagine phenomena like globalization to be creations of the modern world. In fact, if you look at the Roman Empire there are lots of parallels for some of the cross-cultural interactions that are also very much part of our own contemporary world’, the researcher concluded.  

Some of the pictures also show short-statured men fighting with wild beasts
Barrett said: ‘I suggest that instead of trying to apply a one-size-fits-all explanation, we should look at context and individual choices’
EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Viking-Era Child’s Remains Discovered in Dublin

Viking-Era Child’s Remains Discovered in Dublin

RTÉ reports that the remains of a child and an iron buckle or fastener were uncovered in Dubh Linn, a dark tidal pool where the River Poddle enters the River Liffey at the site of Dublin Castle, by a team of researchers led by Alan Hayden of University College Dublin.

The find was made during an excavation near Dublin Castle where in ancient times the River Poddle flowed into the Dubh Linn near the River Liffey.

The skeleton, which was largely intact, was found just at the point before the river entered the pool and is thought to date from the 9th or 10th century.

The skeleton is believed to be that of a 10 to 12-year-old boy

After it was excavated it was discovered to be that of a child aged between 10 and 12 years of age – most likely a boy – and is thought to have been wrapped in a shroud before being thrown into the river.

The body was found with shoulders hunched together and an iron buckle or fastener was found with the body.

Alan Hayden from the UCD School of Archaeology who was leading the dig said the fact that it was not given a proper burial and was dumped in this manner could suggest an act of violence.

Further tests will be carried out to determine the date of death, gender and the ethnic origin of the person.

The dig, which is being carried out on the site of office development on Ship Street beside Dublin Castle, has already discovered that the original Dubh Linn was much larger than originally thought, extending beyond the walls of Dublin Castle.

Now the dig has found that the size of the original Viking settlement or Longphort can be shown to be double the extent previously established.

The archaeologists uncovered banks that would have run along the Poddle and the Dubh Linn with gaps to bring in boats. Inland there would have been a high fortification.

The area of the Longphort in the 10th and 11th centuries would have extended from the present-day Molly Malone statue on Suffolk Street to St Patrick’s Cathedral.

The dig has also established that Vikings continued living at the Dubh Linn even after the more famous Wood Quay settlement was established a kilometre away.

The Poddle was culverted in the 12th century and covered over completed in the 18th century. A 19th century well was found on the site.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Neolithic Settlement Discovered Near Turkey’s Black Sea Coast

Neolithic Settlement Discovered Near Turkey’s Black Sea Coast

Hurriyet Daily News reports that a team of researchers led by Nurperi Ayengin of Düzce University are excavating a pre-pottery Neolithic settlement at Kahin Tepe, which is located on northern Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

“We think that this is a sacred area where people came at certain times of the year to hunt, share their knowledge, worship, and make statues of animals,” Ayengin said.

Having started in 2018, the excavations have been going on ever since by the Kastamonu Museum Directorate and consulted by the Düzce University head of the Protohistoric and Near Eastern Archaeology Department, Nurperi Ayengin.

Nineteen students and academics from various universities are working in the excavation field.

Speaking to the Anadolu Agency, Ayengin said that they started the excavations in the region two years ago for a dam rescue project near Başköy village.

Pointing out that Kahin Tepe is located in a strategic location, Ayengin said, “We discovered the settlement dating to the Aceramic Neolithic period, which lasted between 12,000 and 7,000 BC.”

“One of the most famous of this period is Göbeklitepe located in the southeast. When we look at the social structure of the period, we know that the main element was a rigid and complex religious belief,” Ayengin noted.

She stated that new discoveries that would change the history of Anatolia were expected at Kahin Tepe.

“These excavations will yield very serious results in terms of both Anatolia and world history. In the qualified sculptures unearthed in the excavations, we can say that we have determined, which animals the gods of the Aceramic Neolithic period consisted of,” Ayengin added.

“We think that this is a sacred area where people came at certain times of the year to hunt, share their knowledge, worship, and make statues of animals,” she said.

Noting that both the region and the artefacts unearthed in the excavations are very similar to the characteristics of Göbeklitepe, Ayengin said that the city was one of the settlements with the most similar details to Göbeklitepe, especially when looking at the hybrid works and the depictions of the clergy.

“Kahin Tepe is the oldest temple site of the Aceramic Neolithic period in the Black Sea. This is a religious place where people both worship and transfer their knowledge. It is the oldest place of worship found in the Black Sea,” she said.

“We have seen that Anatolian history is pregnant with many unexplored settlements. Much bigger discoveries await us,” she noted, adding that this game-changer excavation will continue to change history.

Last year, the excavations in the region have unearthed findings such as a grinding stone and ornaments belonging to the same period.

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

The 700,000-year-old Skull in Greek cave completely shatters the Out of Africa theory

The 700,000-year-old Skull in Greek cave completely shatters the Out of Africa theory

The “Petralona Man,” or “Petralona Archanthropus” is a for 700,000 years old human skull found in 1959. Since then, scientists have tried to locate the origin of this skull, which has created tremendous controversy.

The skull, indicating the oldest human “Europeoid” (presenting European traits), was embedded in a cave’s wall in Petralona, near Chalkidiki in Northern Greece.

A shepherd mistakenly found the cave, dense with stalactites and stalagmites. The cave and skull study was assigned to Dr. Aris Poulianos, an anthropologist specialist, member of UNESCO’s International Union of Anthropology and Ethnology, and president of the Anthropological Association of Greece.

Before that, Dr. Poulianos was already known for his thesis on “The origin of the Greeks”. His thesis was based on craniological and anthropometrical studies of Modern Greek populations, which proved that modern Greeks are related to ancient Greeks and that they are not the descendants of Slavic nations.

After the extensive study on the 700,000-year-old skull, he concluded that the “Petralona man” was not connected to the species that came out of Africa. His arguments were mainly based on the skull’s almost perfect orthography, the shape of its dental arch, and the occipital bone construction.

According to the “Out of Africa” theory, “anatomically modern humans” known as “Homo sapiens” originated in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago before spreading to the rest of the world. This theory was related to the fact that most prehistoric fossils were found in Africa.

In 1964, two German researchers, anthropologist E. Breitinger and paleontologist O. Sickenberg, who was invited to Greece, suggested that the skull was actually 50,000 years old, thus rejecting Dr. Poulianos’ theory.

Moreover, Breitinger claimed that the skull belonged to the “first African out of Africa”. A few years later, in 1971, US Archaeology magazine confirmed Poulianos’ statement.

According to the scientific magazine, the existence of a cave dating back more than 700,000 years and human presence in almost every geological layer were ascertained.

Additionally, the magazine affirmed that human presence became evident from the discovery of Paleolithic tools of the same age and the most ancient traces of fire that was ever lit by human hand.

The research continued from 1975 to 1983, when the excavation stopped and findings remained inaccessible to study until 1997.

Today, 50 years after the discovery of the “Petralona man”, modern methods of absolute chronology confirm Dr. Poulianos’ theory.

Most academics believe that the skull belongs to an archaic hominid with strong European traits and characteristics of Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and sapiens, but they distinguish it from all these species.

This incredible discovery raises new questions on human evolution and certainly challenges the “Out of Africa” theory.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

A Lost Roman City Has Been Discovered in Southern France

A Lost Roman City Has Been Discovered in Southern France

Hidden for centuries, mosaic floors from the lost Roman city of Ucetia have been discovered in France. A large excavation is underway in the town of Uzes in southern France to unearth more of the remain’s of this ancient Roman settlement, the existence of which archaeologists had only hints of until the dig.

A Lost Roman City Has Been Discovered in Southern France
One of the most impressive finds was a mosaic floor, dating back the second half of the 1st century B.C., discovered in the ruins of what’s thought to be a Roman public building.

The nearby city of Nimes is more famous for its Roman history, largely thanks to the A.D. 70 amphitheater, where events, including bullfights, still take place. Less is known about Uzes, once called Ucetia.

But before the construction of dormitories for a high school there, archaeologists were brought in to investigate a 43,000 square-foot (4,000 square meters) area for pieces of the city’s history.

The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) announced that the dig has so far been very fruitful.

Some of the wall’s and structures that were uncovered date to just before the Roman conquest of present day France (called Gaul at the time).

But the most visually stunning find’s are the well preserved Roman era mosaic floors with richly colored patterns and figures.

The archaeologist’s discovered one large structure, 2,700 square feet (250 square meters) in area, with a colonnade that suggest’s it was a public building, and four rooms in a row.

One of those large rooms contains a complex mosaic pavement with geometric patterns like meanders and swastikas, as well as symbols like crowns and chevrons, and animals like an owl, duck, eagle, and fawn.

The archaeologist think this building dates to the first century B.C. and was maintained until the first century A.D.

In another area at the site, the archaeologist unearthed a”domus,” or a large house belonging to a wealthy Roman family.

This building sprawls over 5380 square feet (500 square meters) and dates to the early Roman Empire (1stcentury B.C.).

A room in this family home has a mosaic floors with a geometric pattern, accompanied by stylized dolphins in the four corners.

The home also had a type of central heating system; archaeologist’s found a “hypocaust,” or a crawl space supported by brick columns where hot air would have circulated.

And several “dolia,” or huge ceramic wine vessels, were found there, suggesting the inhabitants might have drunk homemade wines.

The 1.5 million euro ($1.6 million) dig is ongoing, and, according to INRAP, the archaeologists have recently begun excavating another large area of ancient and medieval ruins, including two roads and an intersection.