A rare and intact 2,000-year-old Roman sundial was discovered in central Italy, engraved with the name of the man who commissioned it.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge made the find during an excavation in the Roman town of Interamna Lirenas, near Monte Cassino. Inscribed on the sundial is the name Marcus Novius Tubula, an unknown plebeian tribune to Rome, in Latin.
It is claimed this sheds new light on Rome’s relationship with other regions. Interamna Lirenas, founded in 312 BC and abandoned in 6th Century AD, was about 130 km (81 miles) from Rome.
The sundial was discovered in a roofed theatre in the ancient town of Interamna Lirenas
The name and lettering style place the sundial’s inscription at about 1st Century BC when citizens were granted full Roman citizenship.
Dr. Alessandro Launaro, the lecturer at the Faculty of Classics at Cambridge, said the ancient town was “not a town of remarkable prestige or notable influence”.
Therefore, he said, the discovery showed “the level of involvement in Rome’s own affairs that individuals hailing from this and other relatively secondary communities could aspire to”.
The limestone sundial, found in a roofed theatre, is thought to have represented a celebration of Marcus Novius Tubula’s election to the political office of the plebeian tribune.
The concaved face is engraved with 11-hour lines intersecting three-day curves, which indicate the season with respect to the time of the winter solstice, equinox and summer solstice.
The needle which cast a shadow to show the time “is essentially lost” but part is preserved under a lead fixing.
It is believed the sundial was left behind at a time when the theatre and town were being scavenged for building materials during the Medieval to the post-Medieval period.
Lost Medieval Chapel Unearthed 370 Years After Destruction
The ruins of an old medieval chapel, comparable to some of the greatest in Europe, have been uncovered at Auckland Castle in County Durham, North East England.
Historical documents show that a two-storey chapel, described as ‘sumptuously constructed’ and ‘exceedingly good,’ was built at Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland in the early 1300s.
It was created for Bishop Antony Bek, (Prince Bishop of Durham 1284-1310), a great warrior and one of the most powerful and influential men in Europe at the time.
Despite it being larger than the king’s own chapel at Westminster, and with pieces of carved stone weighing the same as a small car, the exact location of the 14th-century chapel has remained a mystery since its destruction in the 1650s, following the English Civil War.
Now, following years of archaeological excavations, Bek’s Chapel has finally been discovered and the full extent of its spectacular scale will be revealed to the public in a special exhibition at Auckland Castle.
A new reconstruction image of the medieval building will be on display in the exhibition, alongside finds uncovered by archaeologists from Durham University and The Auckland Project, the charity that owns and manages Auckland Castle.
Archaeologists excavating the Bek’s Chapel site at Auckland Castle.
The foundations of Bek’s Chapel were found during digs over a five-month period, which revealed that the walls of the medieval chapel were 1.5m thick, 12m wide and 40m long internally.
Archaeologists also found huge bases for internal columns, the buttresses along the chapel’s sides and even part of the floor. And over 300 pieces of elaborately carved stone were excavated, from fragments the size of a fist up to those the weight of a small car.
Stained glass from the long-lost Bek’s Chapel. This fragment shows a pelican pecking her own breast – a traditional Christian symbol representing Christ’s self-sacrifice.
The uncovered evidence suggests that the original chapel was a vast structure, reaching towards the size of continental chapels such as Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and featuring a timber ceiling and huge pillars with decorated stonework.
Archaeologists believe the chapel’s size, scale and decoration would have been a statement of the status of Bishop Bek, who as Prince Bishop of Durham held remarkable powers to mint coinage, raise armies and even rule on behalf of the king.
In the months following the discovery of the chapel, archaeologists from The Auckland Project and Durham University have been working with a panel of archaeological experts, including Architectural Historians Tim Tatton-Brown, Tim Ayers and John Crook, to create a reconstruction of Bek’s Chapel, as it would have looked in the 14th century.
The team mapped details from elements of comparable buildings, including kings’ chapels, cathedrals, and minsters, to suggest the kind of glasswork, carved stone and roof construction that would have featured in Bishop Bek’s original chapel.
Stuart Harrison, Archaeologist at York Minster, recorded the geometry of the discovered foundations and stonework to reconstruct the framework of the original building.
And illustrator, Andy Gammon combined the information with his own research to bring the Chapel to life through a colored reconstruction, with a cut-away opening up the chapel’s interior as well as an aerial view from the South West.
Reconstruction of Bek’s Chapel in Auckland Castle
The team of archaeologists from The Auckland Project and Durham University will return to Auckland Castle this summer to continue their excavation of Bishop Bek’s Chapel where they are hoping to uncover more of the south side of the building.
And, some of the uncovered carved stonework will be on display for visitors to examine in an upcoming exhibition Inside Story: Conserving Auckland Castle at the Bishop Trevor Gallery at Auckland Castle.
A Cave in France Changes What We Thought We Knew About Neanderthals
Rings of stone found inside a French cave were probably built 176,500 years ago by Neanderthals. A study says the structures are the oldest known human constructions, possibly altering the way we think about our ancestors.
A team led by archeologist Jacques Jaubert of the University of Bordeaux, using advanced dating techniques, noted that the stalagmites used in the stone ring constructions must have been broken off the ground around 176,500 years ago.
The dating of the structures – if substantiated – would push back by tens of thousands of years the first known cave exploration by members of the human family. It would also change the widely held view that humans’ ancient cousins were incapable of complex behavior.
Earlier research had suggested the structures pre-dated the arrival of modern humans in Europe around 45,000 years ago and thus the idea that Neanderthals could have made them didn’t fit and was largely disregarded.
“Their presence at 336 meters (368 yards) from the entrance of the cave indicates that humans from this period had already mastered the underground environment, which can be considered a major step in human modernity.
A chance find
The structures – discovered by chance in 1990 after a rockslide closed the mouth of a cave at Bruniquel in southwest France – were made from hundreds of pillar-shaped mineral deposits, or stalagmites, which were up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) high.
The authors said the purpose of the oval structures – measuring 16 square meters (172 sq. feet) and 2.3 square meters – is still a matter of speculation, though they may have served some symbolic or ritual purpose.
“A plausible explanation is that this was a common meeting place for some type of ritual social behavior,” said Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who wasn’t involved in the study.
The Neanderthals who built them must have had a “project” to go so deep into a cave where there was no natural light, said Jaubert.
“The site provides strong evidence of the great antiquity of those elaborate structures and is an important contribution to a new understanding of the greater level of social complexities of Neanderthal societies,” Villa noted.
Who were the Neanderthals?
Neanderthals were a species or subspecies of humans that became extinct between 40,000 and 28,000 years ago. Closely related to modern humans, they left remains mainly in Eurasia, from western Europe to central, northern, and western Asia.
Neanderthals are generally classified by paleontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis, having separated from the Homo sapiens lineage 600,000 years ago.
Several cultural assemblages have been linked to the Neanderthals in Europe. The earliest, the Mousterian stone tool culture, dates to about 300,000 years ago. Late Mousterian artifacts were found in Gorham’s Cave on the south-facing coast of Gibraltar.
In December 2013, researchers reported evidence that Neanderthals practiced burial behavior and buried their dead.
In addition, scientists reported having sequenced the entire genome of a Neanderthal for the first time. The genome was extracted from the toe bone of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal found in a Siberian cave.
Oldest Preserved Spider Web dates back to Dinosaurs
The oldest known spider web in the world has been discovered on a beach in the English city of Sussex, caught inside an ancient amber chunk
Baltic amber.
In December scientists found the rare amber fossil and have now confirmed that it contains remains of spider silk woven by an ancestor of modern spider weaving spiders some 140 million years ago.
The researchers discovered that ancient silk threads share many common features in modern spider webs, including droplets of sticky glue that are used for holding the web together and catching the prey after cutting the amber into thin sections and examining every piece under the powered microscope.
According to paleobiologist Martin Brasier of Oxford University, the gooey droplets suggest that spiders were starting to spin webs that were better adapted for catching flying insects.
“Interestingly, huge radiation took place in flying insects and bark beetles about 140-130 million years ago,” Brasier wrote in an email to Wired.com. “So we may be seeing a co-evolution of spiders and insects here.”
The new discovery is the first example of an amber fossil from the early Cretaceous period when dinosaurs like spinosaurus and psittocosaurs roamed the Earth.
“Silk is a relatively delicate material and it is rarely preserved in the fossil record, except when entombed in amber,” Brasier and colleagues wrote about the discovery in the upcoming December issue of the Journal of the Geological Society.
The researchers think pieces of organic material, including the spider silk, became embalmed during a severe wildfire when amber resins seeped out from the charred bark of coniferous trees and were eventually swept away by flooding.
In addition to ancient spider silk, the amber chunk contains well-preserved soil microbes, including the oldest known examples of actinobacteria, a common type of bacteria that plays a major role in soil formation.
Bones of 13th-century saint found hidden inside the small silver coffin
The bones of a Polish saint that have been lost for centuries have been re-discovered by chance during restoration work in a Christian basilica in Silesia.
Conservators were working on the tomb of St. Jadwiga in Trzebnica, Lower Silesia, in southern Poland when they made the chance discovery. While the tomb of the saint is well-known, her remains had been lost long ago. They were working on her stone tomb, which dates to the 17th century after a small fissure appeared on the sarcophagus.
The art conservators were working to prevent the crack from getting worse when they noticed something unusual about one of the stone slabs. Dorota Wandrychowska, an art conservator, told The First News, “When we lifted the slab we saw that charcoal mixed with plaster had been poured into a cavity, which was very strange. So, we thought we had to check it out”.
The bones of St. Jadwiga were found by chance during conservation work at the church in Silesia.
What they found was amazing. They found a tiny silver casket.
According to The First News website, the casket has “a lead tablet with an inscription confirming that the relics are those of the 13 th century saint”. The find was a complete shock to the team of conservators and the local clergy. It was assumed that the saint’s bones were somewhere in the church.
Documentary sources indicate that the saint was buried in the basilica in the 13 th century. The First News, quotes Father Piotr Filas, from the nearby abbey of Trzebnica stating “We knew that the saint’s bones were somewhere in the vicinity as they were laid there in 1679 when her tomb was built”.
It is believed that the inscription panel, which is written in Latin, was laid on the casket in 1764. Report Web reports Father Filas as saying that “we believe that nobody has taken a look at the bones since that date”.
The inscription panel that was laid on top of the casket bore the date 1764, suggesting St. Jadwiga’s bones hadn’t been seen since that time.
It appears that for reasons unknown possibly because of the political instability in Poland at the time, that St. Jadwiga’s casket was forgotten. The discovery is very important in Poland which is overwhelmingly Catholic and where there are high levels of religious observance.
St. Jadwiga, sometimes referred to as St. Hedwig is a very significant figure in the history of Christianity in Poland. She was born in Bavaria, in southern Germany and entered into an arranged marriage with Henry I the Bearded, one of the first Piast rulers of Silesia.
St. Jadwiga while she was queen.
Jadwiga was the mother of Duke Henry the Pious. She was a great patron of the clergy and encouraged many German monks and nuns to settle in the dukedom.
Jadwiga was very pious and she was much loved for her charitable work, especially her care for the sick. Like many other Christian saints, she practiced mortifications of the flesh and she frequently wore no shoes.
When her husband told her confessor to tell her to wear shoes, she obeyed. However, she wore her shoes around her neck and continued to walk around barefoot.
When her husband died in 1238, she retired to a convent in Trzebnica but briefly left it to end conflict among her feuding children. One of her sons was killed fighting the Mongols.
Many miracles are attributed to the saint and according to Report Web “Jadwiga became a saint on March 26, 1267, when Pope Clement VI performed her canonization”. Today she is regarded as the patron saint of Silesia and one of the most popular saints in all of Poland.
The rediscovery of the saint’s remains is seen as highly significant to the faithful. Report Web quotes Father Filas as saying that “I think it is a sign for us that she can be a patron for our modern times”.
Many Catholics may view the discovery as a sign that the saint is protecting them in a very troubling time. There are some suggestions already being put forward regarding the eventual fate of the remains.
300 Million Year Old Enigmatic Ancient Wheel Found Deep In Mine?
The rare find was made in the Ukrainian town of Donetsk, down a coal mine. As it could not be safely or successfully cut out due to the nature of the sandstone in which it was embedded, the mysterious artifact looking much like an ancient wheel remains in situ down the mine.
While drilling the coal coking stratum J3 ‘ Sukhodolsky ‘ from the surface at a depth of 900 meters (2952,76 feet), workers were surprised to find what appears to be the imprint of a wheel above them in the sandstone roof of the tunnel that they had just excavated.
Fortunately, Deputy Chief V.V. Kruzhilin took photographs of the rare imprint and exchanged them with Mine Chief foreman S. Kasatkin, who brought news of the find to light.
Coal mine after D.F. Melnykov. Lysychansk, Luhansk oblast, Ukraine.
After further investigating this site and carefully examining the imprint at close hand, we are left with only the photographs as evidence of their existence (there was more than one imprint) and the word of a group of Ukrainian miners.
Discovering the Wheel
Without being able to definitively date the strata in which the fossilized wheel print was found, it has been noted that the Rostov region surrounding Donetsk is situated upon Carboniferous rock aged between 360-300 million years ago, and the widely distributed coking coals have derived from the middle to late Carboniferous; suggesting a possible age of the imprint at around 300 million years old.
This would mean that an actual wheel became stuck millions of years ago and dissolved over time due to a process called diagenesis, where sediments are lithified into sedimentary rocks, as is common with fossil remains.
A miner below a wheel imprint in the mine.
The following is an extract from a letter written by S. Kasatkin (translated from Ukrainian) in reference to his testimony of having been witness to the anomalous wheel imprint discovered by his team of miners.
‘This finding is not a PR action, we as a team of engineers and workers asked the mine director to invite scientists for a detailed examination of the object, but the director, following the instructions of the then owner of the mine, prohibited such talks and instead only ordered to accelerate work on passing through this section of lava and on fast ‘charging’ of the section with mining equipment.
Owing to that, this artifact and the smaller one found during further work came to be in a tunnel blockage and could not be taken out and studied. It is good that there were people, who in spite of the director’s prohibition, photographed this artifact.
I have connections with the people who first discovered these imprints and also with those who photographed them. We have more than a dozen witnesses. As you understand, the admission in the mine is strictly limited (it is dangerous on sudden emissions) and to obtain such permission is rather difficult.
The ‘wheel’ was printed on the sandstone of the roof. Guys (drifters) tried to ‘cut-away’ the find with pick hammers and to take it out to the surface, but sandstone was so strong (firm) that, having been afraid to damage a print, they have left it in place.
At present, the mine is closed and access to the ‘object’ is impossible – the equipment is dismantled and the given layers are already flooded.’
The wheel.
With only this written testimony and that of the other witnesses, the photographs remain the only proof of this anomalous imprint, but it must be deemed worthy of a mention despite any difficulties verifying the details beyond that which you have read. For, if the photographic evidence is indeed legitimate, then one must question how a man-made wheel became embedded in such ancient strata when according to scientific orthodoxy man had not even evolved yet.
19th-century beer bottles found under the staircase in England
WYAS Archeological Services made the finding back in February and subsequently sent out the bottles for analysis.
The team discovered a set of cellar stairs in the ruins of what was the Scarborough Castle Inn after investigating an area within the site of the former Tetley’s Brewery.
Neatly piled on the stairs was a collection of over 600 bottles, initially thought to contain ginger beer.
But it was discovered that the bottles were filled with alcohol and, even more, high concentrations of lead after the samples were sent for review by West Yorkshire Joint Services.
In a social media post, archaeological services WYAS said that the bottles contained 5.07 pH beer with 3% ABV alcohol. However, the liquid contained 0.13mg/l of lead, far above the WHO-recommended safe level in water of around 0.01mg/l.
Researchers analyzed hundreds of old beer bottles discovered in the United Kingdom.
The team said they suspect the high metal content would have come from lead pipes, and that the beer “would have been detrimental to health”.
The bottles themselves hail from a number of different breweries, with the most from ‘J. E. Richardson of Leeds’. The archaeologists hope to complete their work in the area in the next two weeks, after which they will compile a report of their findings.
Speaking to the drinks business, senior project manager at Archaeological Services WYAS, David Williams, said that the team thought the bottles dated to the later 19th century, “perhaps the 1880s”.
He added that the developer, Vastint, intends to keep the bottles and make a feature of them within the new development of the former Tetley’s Brewery.
“This excavation is giving us a great opportunity to uncover a part of Georgian and Victorian Leeds. The results so far are giving a real insight into the daily lives of the former residents of Leeds during this period,” he said.
Tests Underway to Solve Enigma of Naked Cerne Abbas Giant
For the first time, archaeologists attempt to establish the age of the mysterious Cerne Abbas Giant. The Cerne Abbas Giant is a 55 m nude chalk figure brandishing a giant club overlooking Cerne Abbas village in Dorset, England.
The origins and purpose of Britain’s largest chalk hill figure remain shrouded in mystery. The giant chalk figure was gifted to the National Trust in 1920 by the Pitt-Rivers family.
The charity and Gloucestershire University also conduct research to determine the age of the giant. Archeologists have excavated small trenches to enable samples of soil to be extracted from points on the giant’s elbows and feet.
An aerial view of the Cerne Abbas Giant, a hill figure near the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset
A closer aerial view showing the hillside on which the giant is carved into which was gifted to the National Trust in 1920 by the Pitt-Rivers family. The charity is now researching the giant
Professor Phillip Toms from Gloucestershire University will attempt in the coming weeks to date the samples using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
Martin Papworth, a senior archaeologist at the National Trust, said: ‘The OSL technique is commonly used to determine when mineral grains in the soil were last exposed to sunlight.
‘It was used to discover the age of the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire in the 1990s, which was found to be nearly 3,000-years-old – even more ancient than we had expected.
‘We’re expecting the results of the tests in July. 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.’
Volunteers from the National Trust cleaning and restoring the giant for the first time in 2019
Volunteers working to repair and refresh the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. Archaeologists are attempting to determine for the first time the age of the mysterious Cerne Abbas Giant
Gordon Bishop, chairman of the Cerne Historical Society, said villagers were eagerly awaiting the results.
‘Although there are some who would prefer the giant’s age and origins to remain a mystery, I think the majority would like to know at least whether he is ancient or no more than a few hundred-years-old,’ he said.
‘Whichever may be the case, he is unique.’
In a separate analysis, environmental archaeologist Mike Allen will analyze soil samples containing the microscopic shells of land snails to learn more about the site’s past.
‘There are 118 species of snails in Britain and many of them are habitat-specific, so their preserved shells can help us establish what a landscape was like at a certain time, and to track changes in land use over time,’ he said.
‘They should help us to discover whether the giant was created on a grazed chalk hillside, or whether people purposely cleared scrub to prepare the land for the figure.’
Last year, the giant was refreshed for the first time in 11 years, with a team of volunteers hammering in 17 tonnes of new chalk by hand to counteract weathering and keep the giant visible for miles around.
Theories as to the purpose of the giant are unclear. Everything from it being an ancient spirituality symbol or likeness of Greco-Roman hero Hercules to a caricature of Oliver Cromwell, with the club a reference to repressive rule and the phallus a mockery of his puritanism, have been put forward as suggestions.
Local folklore has long held it to be a fertility aid and the earliest recorded mention of the giant dates from 1694.
