Massive Polish Fort Walls Over 100 Feet Wide Indicate Medieval Capital
The finding of three rings of fortified walls gave archeologists startling new information about Poland’s Middle Ages.
Polish fortress walls can be seen in this 1617 illustration of Poznań.
The finding of the enormous Polish fortress walls suggests that Poznan be the very first Polish capital and the people had taken full steps to protect this tactical center.
The Enormous Polish Fort Walls Can’t Stop Development
The walls determined 40 meters (13123 ft.) large and 12 meters (3937 ft.) high, which, according to The First News, indicates that these stronghold walls are “the biggest of their kind in Poland.”
They were constructed of a mix of sand, stone, and wood and would have been an enforcing view when they happily stood surrounding and safeguarding the city from its opponents over a thousand years earlier.
The archaeologists utilized photogrammetry and dendrochronology strategies to date the huge Polish prepared city walls and identified that they were constructed in between 968 and 1000.
Archaeologists found the Polish fortress’s ruins 7 meters (2297 ft.) underground while they were checking out the website which is set to be an apartment building.
The structure designer’s site states that the historical work is total and the building of the homes continues “on schedule.”
The Polish fort’s walls are made from wood, stone, and are “the biggest of their kind in Poland.”
The Indication of an Early-Medieval Capital City
Archaeology reports that the brand-new info indicates that Poznań takes over from neighboring Gniezno as the area of the nation’s very first capital city. As the chief archaeologist at the website, Antoni Smoliński, stated:
” Previously, our companied believe that Poznań was a settlement of secondary significance. Nevertheless, offered the discovery of the huge defences, this declaration is extremely doubtful.
The Early-Medieval city was, certainly, a tactical centre and the post-christening capital of Mieszko I’s Poland.”
A mural in Gniezno commemorating the baptism of Mieszko I of Poland.
Poznań and St. Peter’s Sword
A previous Ancient Origins post likewise names Poznań as the house of St. Peter’s sword, mentioning that:
“During the reign of Mieszko I (ca. 960 – 992 AD), Christianity was adopted as the religion of the state. To commemorate the conversion of Poland, Pope John XIII decided to give the Sword of St. Peter as a gift, either to Mieszko I, or to Bishop Jordan, the first Bishop of Poland.
Mieszko’s center of power was in Poznan, whilst the bishop is believed to have had his seat in the same city, hence the Sword of St. Peter ended up there, regardless of whether it was the duke or the bishop who received the papal gift.”
Peter using his sword to strike Malchus (circa 1520, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon).
Bible stories state St. Peter utilized the sword to trim the best ear of among the high priest’s servants on the night prior to Jesus’s crucifixion. It now sits with gold and silver spiritual antiques in the city’s Archdiocesan Museum.
The face of a 7500-year-old woman reveals Gibraltar’s earliest humans
The Minister of heritage Dr. John Cortes unveiled a historical reconstruction of the head of a Neolithic woman who lived in Gibraltar 7,500 years ago.
Archeologists who worked in the Gibraltar National Museum discovered and excavated their remains, called “Calpeia,” the classical name of the Rock from a burial site near Europa Point in 1996.
Recent advances permitted segments of her DNA to be extracted. A combination of the technology currently available and the skills of Gibraltar National Museum Conservator, Manuel Jaen, had made this in-house project a reality.
Assisting Dr Cortes at the unveiling was Director of the museum Professor Clive Finlayson, Dr Geraldine Finlayson, Stewart Finlayson and Mr Jaen.
Human hair was used in the reconstruction process that took Mr Jaen six months. Holding a 3D printed version of the skull found in 1996 during an excavation, Professor Finlayson explained the process of how Calpeia came to be.
“She was in a burial and we now know she was a she as she comes from the Neolithic period of around 5,400BC.”
“We were able to extract DNA from the skull so we know a number of things.”
“We know she was a female, we know she had features associated with dark hair, dark eyes and the interesting thing was when we look at her ancestry 10% of her genes were local Mesolithic hunter gathers but 90% of her genes were from Anatolia [modern day Turkey],” he said.
“I am not going to go into the ins and outs of Neanderthals being different species or not, but if the Neanderthal is a different linage and Nana is the first female Neanderthal, I think what you are going to see today is truly a modern human,” he added.
“Through Forensic data, & the key word is ‘forensic’, we have created Calpeia”
Calpeia’s skull had been deformed post-burial so the process of her reconstruction included the reshaping of a scanned copy of the skull, and completing the missing areas.
Dr Cortes described the work that Mr Jaen and the museum carried out as “extraordinary”.
He said: “When I saw what you are about to see a few days ago it was breath-taking, congratulations to Manuel for this incredible piece of work.”
“This young lady, I think she was late 30s early 40s, lived in Gibraltar seven and a half thousand years ago. She was buried in a cave at Europa Point.”
“I am told there was no agriculture in Gibraltar at that time, they were probably fishing living off the sea and living off the land.”
“But she was in Gibraltar, a Gibraltarian, though whether she was born here or travelled here we will never know. But, so many of us born here or who have travelled here consider ourselves Gibraltarian,” he added.
Dr Cortes said he, like Professor Finlayson, would not be drawn on whether Neanderthals are or not the same species as modern humans but stated that Calpeia was not a Neanderthal.
“So you are about to see the face of the first known Gibraltarian of seven and a half thousand years ago,” he said.
“So when you see her try and push your mind back all those years ago when the Rock was very, very different, still our Rock, still our Gibraltar, still lived, played and suffered and had their day to day life in a different way but they were humans just like us with the same emotions.”
Mysterious Shipwreck Artifacts Found Off England’s Coast To Be X-Rayed
Tons of items retrieved from the wreck of a sailing boat from the Dutch East India company will be scanned by new X-ray equipment to reveal hidden details.
In January 1740, after landing on Goodwin Sands, the Rooswijk [ a so-called ‘ retrochip ‘ built on long travels ] sank off Kent Coast. Archaeologists visited the wreck and recovered many artifacts — including silver coins and ingots, wooden chests, and a brass wine pot — between 2005 and 2018.
Due to a £150,000 grant from the Wolfson Foundation to upgrade Historic England X-ray equipment, many of these objects will now be examined in more detail.
Originally destined for Batavia — modern-day Jakarta — the merchant ship Rooswijk sank around 5 miles (8 kilometers) off of the British coast on its second voyage to the East, with none of its believed 237-strong crew surviving the accident.
Its wreck was first discovered at a depth of 79 feet (24 metres) by an amateur diver back in 2004 — with the bulk of recovery efforts taking place between 2005 and 2018, with the objects from the vessel legally belonging to the Dutch state. Among the artefacts recovered from the wreck were bars of silver, gold coins, knives, scabbards, human remains, pots, jars and thimbles.
The grant from the Wolfson Foundation charity will be used to upgrade the power and resolution of the equipment at at Historic England’s large, walk-in X-ray facility for scientific and archaeological analysis at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth.
The existing facility has been at that centre of the organisation’s archaeological assessment, analysis and conservation work.
When the upgrade is complete, Rooswijk artefacts will be among the first to be scanned by the revamped facility, in a collaboration between Historic England and Rijksdienst Voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, the Netherlands’ cultural heritage agency.
Many of the finds from the wreck are covered with hard concretions of matter that will require the extra power of the new equipment to be successfully scanned.
The Rooswijk — a so-called ‘retourschip’ built for long journeys — sank off of the coast of Kent in January 1740 after running aground on Goodwin Sands. Pictured, thimbles covered in hard concretions that were recovered from the wreck of the vessel
Archaeologists visited the wreck and recovered many artifacts — including silver coins and ingots, wooden chests, and a brass wine pot — between 2005 and 2018. Pictured, an X-ray image taken of one of the wooden chests from The Rooswijk, which contained thimbles
Many of the finds from the wreck are covered with hard concretions of matter that will require the extra power of the new equipment to be successfully scanned. Pictured, pewter jugs recovered from The Rooswijk
‘This generous investment will place Historic England at the forefront of heritage X-radiography for many years to come,’ said Historic England head Duncan Wilson.
‘With this new technology, we will be able to analyse, conserve and better understand many more objects recovered from historic shipwrecks or excavated from archaeological sites.’
‘We are very grateful to The Wolfson Foundation for their support to this vital grant.’
The new X-ray machinery will also ‘greatly improve’ the analysis of Roman-era artefacts, Historic England said — as the scanner will be able to penetrate dirt and debris build-ups around such objects without the risk of damaging them.
‘We are excited to support this important piece of equipment – bringing together Wolfson’s longstanding interests in science and heritage,’ said Wolfson Foundation chief executive Paul Ramsbottom.
‘The beauty of X-ray technology is the way in which it reveals hidden secrets of the past as well as helping with conservation.’
‘We are particularly delighted to be supporting the heritage sector at this challenging moment for us all.’
Its wreck was first discovered at a depth of 79 feet (24 meters) by an amateur diver back in 2004 — with the bulk of recovery efforts taking place between 2005 and 2018, with the objects from the vessel legally belonging to the Dutch state. Pictured, coins from the wreck
The new X-ray machinery will also ‘greatly improve’ the analysis of Roman-era artefacts, Historic England said — as the scanner will be able to penetrate dirt and debris build-ups around such objects without the risk of damaging them. Pictured, top, a piece of Roman armour covered in concretion and, bottom, the interior of such revealed by X-ray imaging.
New DNA analysis reveals ancient Scythian warrior was a 13-year-old girl
Throughout Greek mythology there existed a tribe called Amazone, comprising only of women, and a hunting tribe that tamed horses and fought.
While it is said that Amazon exaggerated the tribal tribes that lived on the Black Sea coast, the Scythians of the nomadic horse races that appeared in the record from around the 9th century BC were actually girls of age 13 years old. DNA tests revealed that there was a ‘female warrior’.
The myth of ‘ female warriors ‘ has been considered a purely imaginary product for many years but in the last years, archeological evidence has been found of the existence of female warriors.
Remains of the young ancient Scythian warrior.
By the end of 2019, it was revealed that the two Scythian warriors found in western Russia, buried about 2500 years ago, are women.
The two female warriors were buried together with the other women, and the burial items included an iron knife, over 30 arrowheads, and a harness for horse riding.
It is said that one of them was wearing a headdress with a flower-shaped decoration at the age of 40 to 50 years old, and the other was buried at the age of about 30 to 35 years old, straddling a horse.
‘We can say that these two were indeed horsemen,’ said Valerii Guliaev, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Guliaev’s research team seems to have discovered 11 women who were buried under the armed condition in the past 10 years, and female warriors were undergoing the same burial ceremony as male warriors.
The Scythian remains with the headdress
In the wake of Guliaev’s findings, another research team focused on the Scythian warriors found in the Tuva Republic in 1988.
Varvara Busova, an archaeologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, discovered that the warrior was a young man because he had found burial items such as axes and bows that would normally be housed with men and no burial items associated with women such as beads and mirrors. It was thought to have been.
The warrior was housed in a larch casket with various weapons and was partially mummified.
When the research team examined the DNA of the body, it was found that the body was female and that the age was not even 14 years old. Girl warrior is wearing, such as fur coats, coat dipodidae seems to have been made by Awa connect the skin.
Radiocarbon dating of burial items suggests that the girl was buried between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, but Busova’s research team wants to more accurately identify when the girl was buried. thinking about.
In addition, it may be possible to find out the cause of the girl’s death by performing restoration work of the burial goods and CT scan of the body.
Historian Adrian Mayer pointed out that the Scythians had female warriors because they were small as a social group. ‘Since they lived in a small tribe, it makes sense that everyone in the tribe is a stakeholder. They all had to contribute to defense, war, and hunting.’ Says Mayer.
Vikings blacksmith tools and weapons found in the grave, ca.800 A.D Norway
Last autumn, farmers Leif Arne Nordheim borrowed a backhoe from his neighbor to remove some pesky flagstones from his garden in Sogndalsdalen on the southwestern coast of Norway.
Lifting the last flagstone revealed tools — a hammer and tongs — which Nordheim first assumed were of relatively recent manufacture.
When he found a bent blade, he realized it was likely archaeological and called in the county Cultural Department.
Archaeologists from the University Museum of Bergen soon followed and an excavation of the find site ensued.
The find turned out to be far greater than originally realized, and the ancient blacksmith tools were impressive enough already.
Archaeologists unearthed a large collection of forging tools and weapons, including three hammers of different sizes, two anvils, blacksmith tongs, coal tongs, a rake to remove coals, a tray used to add coals, a chisel, a scythe, a sickle, a drill, pieces of a grindstone, nails, a single-edged sword, an axe, two arrows, and a knife.
Underneath the tools and products of the blacksmith trade archaeologists found more personal items: a razor, beard trimming scissors, tweezers, a frying pan, and a poker.
The deepest layer of excavation contained ashes, charcoal, and small bone fragments. The pieces of bone haven’t been identified yet, but archaeologists believe they are human remains, likely the blacksmith owner of the marvelous tools above.
Between the ashes and bones fragments, researchers found the objects that the deceased was probably wearing when his body was cremated: beads and a bone comb.
In total, the excavation yielded about 60 artifacts and 150 assorted fragments. Forging tools have been found in graves before, but this is an exceptionally rich collection for a blacksmith burial. Indeed, it’s the richest burial, blacksmith or not, found in the area in years.
“We think that the blacksmiths’ contemporaries wished to show how skillful he was in his work by including such an extensive amount of objects. He might have forged many of these tools himself.”
“The grave gives the impression that this was a local blacksmith and he enjoyed a high status in his society beyond being his trade,” says [co-leader the excavation Asle Bruen] Olsen.
The design of the axe and some of the other metal objects dated them to the 8th or 9th century A.D. Subsequent radiocarbon dating confirmed the date of the burial to be around 800 A.D.
The artifacts are currently being conserved by experts at the University Museum of Bergen. Once they’re stabilized they will go on display, possibly in a dedicated exhibition.
The origin of Greek Civilization on a Pyramid Island
A new discovery has possibly revealed the origin of Ancient Greek culture. In a remote and uninhabited pyramid-shaped islet, archaeologists have found evidence of a rich cultural and monumental landscape dating from earlier than the Minoan period.
The evidence so far is that it was a major religious center created with technical knowledge pre-dating that found at Minoan Knossos by at least 400 years, indicating that it played a significant role in the development of Greek civilization.
The Curious Pyramid Isle
The barren islet of Daskalio lies just of the coast of the island of Keros, which is one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea, and was once part of Keros before sea-levels rose. Daskalio has been the subject of intense archaeological investigations since 2015 when an undisturbed site was located.
The research is being carried out by a multinational team, supported by the Greek government and the British School in Athens. The large-scale project is being funded by several international institutes.
Special Deposit South on Keros, with Dhaskalio in the background.
Earliest Greek Urban Center
The project is led by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd and has found ‘the earliest truly monumental complex of buildings ever unearthed anywhere in the Greek world’ reports The Independent.
The islet had a settlement with metal-working shops, buildings, and even indoor plumbing, and all of this a millennium before the Minoans, who are often thought of as the first European civilization. According to the Keep Talking Greece website, the team of archaeologists has uncovered ‘a complex, stratified and technically expert society’.
Daskalio has a distinctive pyramid shape which is due to the extensive engineering activities of the ancient people of the Aegean islands. They deliberately exaggerated the pyramidal shape of the rocky outcrop by creating a number of huge terraces on Daskalio, that measured in total about 1,000 feet (300 m).
There were 6 terraces and upon them were built a number of buildings, mostly in marble. Some of the buildings were two floors and had staircases and were built using marble. The cultural landscape was built within a four-decade period and based on a single design.
The island was sculpted with terraces and white stone to make it dazzle for miles around .
Ancient Religious Center
The complex has been dated to about 4,600 years ago. It is believed that the pyramid-island was a religious site that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, who buried small statues here as sacrifices to unknown deities. The summit of the pyramid- islet was an open-area possibly used for sacrifices or votive offerings. The identity of the gods that were worshipped here is unknown.
There is no arable land on the rocky outcrop and little on Keros. Therefore, the inhabitants of ancient Daskalio may have been dependent on religious pilgrims and also engaged in trade.
Keep Talking Greece reports that archaeological finds indicate that the settlers’ “trade extended over a wide network reaching beyond the Cyclades.” There is evidence that the inhabitants specialized in metallurgy and they may have traded their metal products for food and other goods. Such a huge complex required a great deal of labor and organization, especially to bring the marble from the quarries on Naxos that was used in its construction.
According to the Independent, it is estimated that at “least 3,500 maritime voyages to transport between 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes of shining white marble.” This indicated that the builders of the complex were already great mariners and shipbuilders.
The huge scale of the work required would suggest a powerful and unified state or a league of smaller political entities. It is probable that the site was related to the first Hellenic state in history.
The engineering, complexity of the organization, shipbuilding and metal-working needed to achieve the building of such a place indicates that this civilization was already quite advanced by this time indicating the culture had existed and had been developing for hundreds of years or more. This political entity was at least contemporaneous with and may have influenced the development of the Minoans in Crete and later the Mycenaeans.
One-handled cup with grooved decoration from Dhaskalio.
Influence of Ancient Egyptians?
It appears that the Bronze Age complex was part of a wave of similar monumental buildings that occurred around the world at this time. This was a result of new technologies or the exchange of new ideas, spread via trade routes.
The pyramid shape of the islet would seem to indicate the influence of Ancient Egypt, who associated this shape with their creator-god. It is possible that the pyramid-shaped island represented to the early Greeks, the land rising from the primordial sea, a belief inspired by Ancient Egyptian myths.
The construction of the pyramid-shaped complex is arguably related to the importance that the Greeks attached to mountains in their religion. For example, Mount Olympus was regarded as the home of Zeus and the other deities in their mythology.
It is reasonable to assume that the idea that mountains were sacred may have originated in the Cyclades and indicates that the Aegean islands played a decisive role in the religious development of the Ancient Hellenic World.
The Independent quotes Michael Boyd, saying that the team’s research “suggests that these very early Greeks were organizationally, technically and politically much more advanced than previously thought.” This may indicate that the Cyclades Islands were possibly the cradle of Hellenic civilization. Their religious ideas, technology, and political organization may have influenced the Minoans and in turn the Greeks on the mainland.
It seems likely that the pyramid-island will continue to provide more insights into some of the earliest Hellenic societies.
Coins buried during the English Civil War found on the farm
A plowed farmer’s field in England is notable not because of crops, but because of coins.
A trove of over 1,000 coins dating to the English Civil War has been discovered in a field near the British village Ewerby, according to a report from Lincolnshire County Council.
The coins are relics from a time long past, with the most recent being from 1643. While a buried pot originally held them, they were reportedly found distributed throughout the soil.
This is the largest of the hoards that have been found from that time in the county, and it contains coins from the reigns of Edward VI, Elizabeth, Mary, James I, and Charles I
“This is a monumental find from the turbulent years of the English Civil War,” Adam Daubney, finds officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme at Lincolnshire County Council, said in a statement.
The English Civil War spanned from 1642 to 1651, with the Royalists fighting with the Parliamentarians. It concluded with a Parliamentarian victory, and the execution of King Charles I.
“The area between Grantham and Boston was a zone of intense conflict between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists in the early years of the war, so we can think of the Ewerby hoard as being from the ‘front-line,’” Daubney said.
“The hoard tells us about the uncertainty and fear that must have been felt at the time, but quite why it was buried – and by whom – is impossible to say,” he added. “It might have been buried by someone who went off to fight and never returned.”
The value of the coins at the time was a little over £34, which was a substantial amount— more than enough for a “gentleman” of the era to subsist off for a year, according to Daubney.
The buried treasure was discovered in a ploughed field near the village of Ewerby near Sleaford in Lincolnshire
Up to 500 guillotine victims found in walls of French monument
The bodies of nearly 500 people, including Maximilien Robespierre, an architect of the reign of terror, guillotined during the French Revolution have been believed to have buried in Paris ‘ catacombs.
Yet recent research indicates that these individuals may have been laid to rest elsewhere: namely, in the walls of Chapelle Expiatoire, a 19th-century chapel in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, reports Eric Le Mitouard for Le Parisien.
Many of the deceased were aristocrats publicly beheaded between 1793 and 1794 in the Place de la Révolution, a huge public square now known as the Place de la Concorde.
Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, and Olympe de Gouges, an influential early feminist writer and social reformer, are among those thought to be interred at the mass burial site.
In 2018, Chapelle Expiatoire’s administrator, Aymeric Peniguet de Stoutz, noticed that the walls in the lower chapel’s columns were strangely uneven, as though there were extra spaces between them.
When archaeologist Philippe Charlier investigated the discrepancy by inserting a tiny camera through the stones in the walls, he discovered four large chests containing bones, reports Kim Willsher for the Guardian.
More than 500 people guillotined during the French Revolution may have been buried in the walls of this 19th-century chapel.
Further research on the findings was delayed, in part due to the Yellow Vest protests that erupted in Paris that year. Now, however, Peniguet de Stoutz tells Le Parisien that he has asked the regional directorate of cultural affairs to conduct excavations at the site beginning in 2021.
“I cried when the forensic pathologist assured me he had seen human phalange [feet and hand] bones in the photographs,” the administrator says, per a translation by the Guardian.
Louis XVIII built the Chapelle Expiatoire on the site of the Madeleine Cemetery where his brother Louis XVI and sister-in-law Marie Antoinette were once buried.
In his report, Charlier noted that the lower chapel contained four wooden ossuaries, or containers used to hold human remains.
“There is earth mixed with fragments of bones,” he wrote, as quoted by the Guardian.
Chapelle Expiatoire is located around a ten-minute walk from the Place de la Révolution. It was constructed on top of the former Madeleine Cemetery, which served as one of four officially designated burial sites for guillotine victims through 1794.
When Louis XVIII became king in 1814, he ordered the remains of his brother Louis XVI and sister-in-law Marie Antoinette removed from the Madeleine Cemetery and interred in the Saint-Denis Basilica, according to David Chazan of the Telegraph.
The French monarch commissioned the Chapelle Expiatoire’s construction atop of the burial site in memory of the couple.
Previously, historians thought that the remains of other notable victims of the French Revolution were moved from the Madeleine Cemetery to another site and, finally, to the catacombs of Paris, where a plaque commemorates their burial. If confirmed, the newly detailed discovery would refute that narrative.
Peniguet de Stoutz cites evidence that Louis XVIII did not want the aristocrats’ bodies to be moved out of the building. In a letter, the king reportedly ordered that “no earth saturated with victims [of the revolution] be moved from the place for the building of the work.”
Speaking with Le Parisien, the chapel administrator says, “Until now, the chapel was thought to be solely a monument in memory of the royal family. But we’ve just discovered that it is also a necropolis of the revolution.”
