Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, HUNGARY, WORLD

Burial of Roman Physician Excavated in Hungary

Burial of Roman Physician Excavated in Hungary

The archaeologists of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Jász Museum, and the Eötvös Loránd Research Network have unearthed a find unique on a European scale: the tomb of a Roman physician from the 1st century AD, along with his complete equipment, in the Jász region of Hungary, MTI reports.

In the first phase of the excavation near Jászberény in 2022, the objects discovered were from the Copper Age and the Avar period, and then the site was surveyed using a magnetometer, Tivadar Vida, director of the Institute of Archaeology at ELTE said at a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday.

Levente Samu, the assistant research fellow at the institute, said that an earlier structure had also been found among the rows of tombs in the Avar cemetery, with several metal objects having been recovered from this relatively shallow grave.

The examination of the tools quickly revealed that this was a Roman burial complex, and the grave was that of a physician, whose equipment had been placed in two wooden boxes next to his feet. The tomb contained the remains of a man aged between 50 and 60 years, with no signs of trauma or disease. The grave was almost completely undisturbed, except for an animal disturbance which had moved one of the scalpels from the foot to the head. The tomb yielded pincers, needles, tweezers and high-end scalpels suitable for surgical operations, as well as remains of medicinal products.

Burial of Roman Physician Excavated in Hungary

The copper alloy scalpels were decorated with silver plating and fitted with interchangeable steel blades. A muller was placed at the knee of the deceased, which, judging by the abrasion marks, could have been used to mix herbs and other medicines.

According to Levente Samu, these instruments represent the highest quality of the age and were suitable for use in complex medical procedures.

László Borhy, archaeologist and rector of ELTE, pointed out that such a complete medical kit is unrivalled both inside and outside the borders of what was the Roman Empire.

According to radiocarbon dating, the tomb dates back to the 1st century AD, the period of the formation of the province of Pannonia. Ongoing genetic testing will hopefully shed light on the Roman doctor’s origins.

Benedek Varga, Director of Semmelweis Museum of Medical History

called the discovery of such an assemblage from the Barbaricum of the 1st century BC a world sensation. Only one similar medical kit from the period has ever been discovered: in Pompeii, which was one of the richest settlements in the empire.

Levente Samu said that in addition to genetic research, they also plan to carry out an isotopic analysis of the skeleton, which will help determine whether the doctor was of local origin.

András Gulyás, archaeologist and museologist at Jász Museum, pointed out that this period in Jászság may have been a transitional period between the Celtic and Roman Sarmatian populations.

It is not clear from the current data whether the physician buried in the tomb was there to heal a local leader of high prestige or whether he was accompanying a military movement of the Roman legions.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

2,300 years old amazing preserved looks almost new Celtic scissors discovered in Germany

2,300 years old amazing preserved looks almost new Celtic scissors discovered in Germany

2,300 years old amazing preserved looks almost new Celtic scissors discovered in Germany

During a construction project in Munich’s Sendling district, Celtic cremation tombs were discovered. The quality of preservation of the grave goods is impressive: 2,300 years old, and yet it looks almost new: archaeologists have discovered a pair of scissors in a Celtic grave that even has a slight sheen.

Archaeologists from the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments  (BLfD) also found a folded sword, the remains of a shield and a lance tip, a razor, and a fibula.

Other high-quality grave goods, according to the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BLfD), demonstrate that the deceased had a high social status.

The current find history began with the search for possible Second World War explosive devices in the Munich district of Sendling. The explosive ordnance disposal team discovered underground structures that could be of archaeological interest and informed the BLfD.

From the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century B.C. the Celts burned their dead and buried the remains in pits together with the grave goods. Other burials in Sendling show that this is a previously unknown burial ground.

The still shiny find from the Celtic grave.

In the middle of a square building that was once highlighted by four individual posts, stood the tomb. As it turned out, a number of items had been positioned near the deceased man’s remains.

The archaeologists were particularly amazed by one discovery: a pair of scissors that had almost no corrosion and appeared brand new.

“A pair of scissors that are more than 2,300 years old and in a condition as if they could still be used today – that’s a very special find,” says Prof. Mathias Pfeil from the BLfD. “The fortunate fact that this tool was so excellently preserved is just as impressive as the craftsmanship of this object,” says Pfeil.

The scissors could have been used to cut hair or textiles, so it was likely a multipurpose tool even then, according to the experts. It’s possible that the Celts also used them to shear sheep.

The archaeologists also found the remains of a shield, a lance tip, a razor, a fibula, and another highlight: a folded sword.

According to the findings, the sword was deliberately heated, folded, and thus rendered unusable. It’s possible that someone wanted to destroy the priceless weapon in order to prevent the looting of the tomb.

The sword could have been made available to the deceased in the afterlife by ritually destroying it in this world, but mythical notions also raise questions as a background.

On the other hand, it might also have been a precaution to calm the dead person’s potentially restless spirit.

The BLfD concludes by listing the most recent discoveries: It is a significant and little-known testament to the region’s Celtic past.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

2,600-year-old stone busts of ‘lost’ ancient Tartessos people were discovered in a sealed pit in Spain

2,600-year-old stone busts of ‘lost’ ancient Tartessos people were discovered in a sealed pit in Spain

2,600-year-old stone busts of 'lost' ancient Tartessos people were discovered in a sealed pit in Spain
Two of the carved figures likely depict goddesses wearing gold earrings.

Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed five life-size busts of human figures that could be the first-known human depictions of the Tartessos, a people who formed an ancient civilization that disappeared more than 2,500 years ago. 

The carved stone faces, which archaeologists date to the fifth century B.C., were found hidden inside a sealed pit in an adobe temple at Casas del Turuñuelo, an ancient Tartessian site in southern Spain.

The pieces were scattered amongst animal bones, mostly from horses, that likely came from a mass sacrifice, according to a translated statement published on April 18.

“The unusual thing about the new finding is that the representations correspond to human faces,” Erika López, a spokesperson for the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), said in the statement. 

Archaeologists from the CSIC called this discovery “a profound paradigm shift in the interpretation of [Tartessos],” since this ancient civilization, which existed from about the eighth to the fourth centuries B.C., was long considered an aniconic culture in which divinity was represented through animal or plant motifs, rather than idolized humans, according to the statement.

Of the figurative reliefs, two are nearly complete and likely portray female divinities wearing earrings, which could be a nod to the Bronze Aged peoples’ adept goldsmithing skills.

Archaeologists found only fragments of the other three reliefs, but identified one as a warrior wearing a helmet, according to the statement.

Although the Tartessos didn’t leave much of an archeological record, archaeologists do know that they were skilled at goldsmithing; for instance, gold pieces similar to the reliefs’ earrings have been unearthed at two nearby Tartessian sites, Cancho Roano, and La Mata.

These locations were torched to the ground in a similar manner to the newly discovered pit site, but why and how these conflagrations occurred remains a mystery, according to an April 21 Vice article.

Some historians, including the Greek philosopher Aristotle, once linked the Tartessos people to the mythical lost city of Atlantis. However this idea “has been widely dismissed in the scientific community,” according to a 2022 BBC article. 

“The finding only further influences both the importance of the site and the importance of the Tartessian culture in the Guadiana valley during its last moments,” López said in the translated statement.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Archaeologists discover medieval a tableman gaming piece in Bedfordshire, England

Archaeologists discover medieval a tableman gaming piece in Bedfordshire, England

Archaeologists discover medieval a tableman gaming piece in Bedfordshire, England

Archaeologists in Bedfordshire, England, have made an intriguing discovery: a tableman gaming piece was discovered at a medieval site.

Cotswold Archaeology excavated in preparation for a Taylor Wimpey housing development at Bidwell West, near Houghton Regis and Dunstable.

In addition to the tableman, the archaeological team discovered a medieval timber-framed building and a series of medieval enclosure ditches.

The gaming piece, which has a diameter of nearly 6cm, is made from a cattle mandible – a large, sturdy bone, which serves as the lower jawbone of a cow, according to a press release. Its face has been decorated with concentric circles and a ring-and-dot design, which is attractive although not unusual.

Tablemen were used to play a variety of board games in which two players rolled dice and moved their pieces across rows of markings.

The term ‘tables’ is derived from the Latin tabula, which originally meant “board” or “plank” and was introduced to Britain during the Roman period.

One of the more popular table games among the Romans was Ludus duodecim scriptorium. It was a dice game with three cubic dice, and each player had 15 pieces to move.

The game of tabula was most likely refined from Ludus duodecim scriptorium, and it grew in popularity during the medieval period. Tabula, like Backgammon, has two rows of twenty-four points.

The tableman found at Bidwell West has a diameter of nearly 6cm (2.36 in) and similar examples in both size and decoration style have been recovered at other sites, including an example from Winchester, Hampshire which was made in the medieval period (11th-13th centuries).

As Cotswolds Archeology also wrote in its description:: “It is not always possible to identify which game the gaming pieces recovered from archaeological excavations would have belonged to, because there is often no surviving board.

However, due to the association with the medieval site, the style of decoration, and the size, it is likely that the gaming piece was used to play tabula during the medieval period.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

Smoke archeology finds evidence Humans visited Nerja Cave for 40,000 years

A new study by a team from the University of Córdoba reveals that Nerja is the European cave with the most confirmed and recurrent visits during Prehistory.

Humans have been visiting the Cave of Nerja for 41,000 years; for a few of them, it has been exploited as a tourist attraction, and for nearly the same amount of time, it has been the subject of scientific study.

Throughout its history, and even today, it continues to stun visitors and researchers from around the world.

The latest surprise from the cave, located in the province of Malaga, was just published in Scientific Reports by an international team including researchers from the University of Córdoba; Marian Medina, currently at the University of Bourdeux; Eva Rodríguez; and José Luis Sachidrián, a Professor of Prehistory and the scientific director of the Cave of Nerja.

They have managed to demonstrate that Humanity has been present in Nerja for some 41,000 years, 10,000 years earlier than previously believed, and that it is Europe’s cave featuring Paleolithic Art in Europe with the highest number of confirmed and recurrent visits to its interior during Prehistory.

This new research has managed to document 35,000 years of visits in 73 different phases, which means that human groups entered the cave every 35 years, according to their calculations.

Image composition of the materials. (A) Black mark (dating number 33). (B) Micro-charcoal inside fixed lamp (dating number 43). (C) Scattered charcoals (dating number 54). (D) GN16-08 stalagmite section. The red arrows point to one of the samples, analyzed both by TEM–EDX and Raman micro-spectroscopy.

This level of precision has been made possible thanks to the use of the latest techniques dating the coals and remains of fossilized soot on the stalagmites of the Nerja Cave.

This is what has been called “smoke archaeology,” a new technique developed by the main author of the work, Marián Medina, from Córdoba’s Santa Rosa district, an honorary researcher at that city’s university, who has been reconstructing European prehistory for more than a decade by analyzing the remnants of torches, fires, and smoke in Spanish and French caves.

With the enthusiasm of one who loves what she does, Medina explains that the information that Transmission Electron Microscopy and Carbon-14 dating techniques can provide on man’s rituals and ways of life is impressive.

In this last work, 68 datings are presented, 48 totally new, of the deepest areas of the cave, featuring Paleolithic Art, and evidence of chronocultures never previously recorded has been found.

Furthermore, these “fire archaeologists” understand how to interpret the way the torches were moved based on the information detected under the microscope, inferring from it the symbolic and scenographic use that humans made of fire 40,000 years ago.

“The prehistoric paintings were viewed in the flickering light of the flames, which could give the figures a certain sense of movement and warmth,” explains Medina, who also underscores the funerary use of the Nerja Cave in the latter part of Prehistory, for thousands of years. “There is still much it can reveal about what we were like,” she says.

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples

Underwater Temple Ruins Discovered in the Bay of Naples
The Ministry of Culture, academic and scientific organizations, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples were instrumental in discovering the artefacts.

An ancient Nabataean temple with marble altars has been found in the Gulf of Pozzuoli outside Naples in the Italian region of Campania.

A statement from the Italian Ministry of Culture says: “The two marble altars of the Roman period, datable to the first half of the first century AD, are inserted inside the great Temple of the Nabataeans, now submerged.”

It is unclear when or if the ancient ruins will be removed from the seabed.

The Nabataean population was based in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Around 2,000 years ago they established a settlement at Pozzuoli, building up the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean area, the ministry adds.

The Nabataean city there declined at the end of the fifth century.

“This is an extraordinary result and the fruit of the collaboration between peripheral bodies of the Ministry of Culture, the academic and scientific [organizations] in the region, and the underwater arm of the Carabinieri of Naples. 

Ancient Puteoli [ancient Pozzuoli] reveals another of its treasures, whose exact location was unknown up to now, which testifies to the richness and vastness of commercial, cultural, and religious exchanges in the Mediterranean basin in the ancient world,” says the Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in a statement.

The discovery throws light on the layout of the Pozzuoli port, adds the ministry, revealing how the “sacred buildings” of the Nabataean community stood in very close contact with the long rows of warehouses intended to store the many goods in transit in the port headed towards Campania or redirected to Rome.

“These finds bring the total number of Nabataean altar slabs and altar bases found in this area of the sunken city to five since the first was discovered in the 18th century.

The first three—two bases and one slab—are now in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei at the Castle of Baiae,” according to a commentary on the History Blog.

DENMARK, EUROPE, WORLD

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark
The silver coins were found about 5 miles from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro.

Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.

The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.

“A hoard like this is very rare,” Lars Christian Norbach, the director of the North Jutland Museum, where the artefacts will go on display, told Agence France-Presse.

The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as jewellery from Scotland or Ireland.

The silver coins were found about 5 miles (8km) from the Fyrkat Viking ringfort, near the town of Hobro. From their inscriptions, they are believed to date back to the 980s.

The trove includes Danish, Arab and Germanic coins as well as pieces of jewellery originating from Scotland or Ireland, according to archaeologists.

Norbach said the finds were from the same period as the fort, built by King Harald Bluetooth, and would offer a greater insight into the history of the Vikings.

There could be a link between the treasure – which the Vikings would bury during wars – and the fort, which burned down during the same period, he said.

Archaeologists have said they will continue digging next autumn after the harvest. They hope to find the burial sites and homes of the troves’ one-time owners.

People working at the site.

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The Vikings believed that burying their treasure allowed them to find it again after death.

The artefacts will go on public display in July at the Aalborg Historical Museum. The girl who made the discovery will receive financial compensation, the amount of which has not been made public.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

2,000-year-old graves found in ancient necropolis beneath Paris Train Station

2,000-year-old graves found in ancient necropolis beneath Paris Train Station

2,000-year-old graves found in ancient necropolis beneath Paris Train Station

Archaeologists have discovered 50 tombs in an ancient necropolis just meters from a busy train station in central Paris, and these tombs belong to a lost necropolis of the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia, the predecessor of present-day Paris.

These graves provide a rare look at life in Lutetia, the city that predated Paris by nearly 2,000 years.

Despite numerous road works over the years, as well as the construction of the Port-Royal station on the historic Left Bank in the 1970s, the buried necropolis was never discovered.

Only after plans for a new station exit were announced did France’s National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) open a series of test trenches covering 200 square meters (2152.78 sq ft) of land around the station.

The excavation revealed burials believed to be part of the Saint Jacques necropolis dating back to the 2nd century, the research institute said in a news release.

Camille Colonna, an anthropologist at INRAP, told a press conference that there were already “strong suspicions” the site was close to Lutetia’s southern necropolis.

One of the skeletons unearthed in an ancient necropolis was found meters from a busy Paris train station.

The Saint Jacques necropolis, the most important burial site in the Gallo-Roman town of Lutetia, was previously excavated in the 1800s. However, only objects considered precious were taken from the graves, with the many skeletons, burial offerings, and other artifacts abandoned. The necropolis was then covered over and again lost to time.

The INRAP team discovered one section that had never before been excavated.

“No one has seen it since antiquity,” said INRAP president Dominique Garcia.

Colonna also stated that the team was “very happy” to have discovered a skeleton with a coin in its mouth, which allowed them to date the burial to the 2nd century A.D.

The excavation has uncovered 50 graves, all of which were used for burial — not cremation, which was also common at the time.

Glass container on deposit in a burial in the excavation of Boulevard Port-Royal in Paris. The burials of a large necropolis, located south of Lutèce in the 2nd century AD, have been unearthed.

The remains of the men, women, and children are believed to be Parisii, a Gallic people who lived in Lutetia, from when the town on the banks of the Seine river was under the control of the Roman Empire.

The Parisii were skilled in agriculture, metallurgy, and long-distance trading and lived in the area around the south banks of the Seine River in Paris during the 2nd century AD. The Parisii founded Lutetia (now Paris), and despite fierce resistance to the Roman conquest, they were subjugated in the first century BC.

Ceramic jewelry, hairpins and belts, jug goblets, dishes, glassware, and other grave goods have been recovered to help date the burials. According to INRAP, the positions of hundreds of small iron nails, that attached soles to leather shoes, informed the archaeologists that while some were placed on the feet of the interred, others had been buried with shoes on either side of the bodies as a type of offering.

Cross-checking of two burials from the excavation of the Boulevard de Port-Royal in Paris.

The entire skeleton of a pig was found inside one coffin, and the remains of another small animal were found inside what is thought to have been a sacrifice pit for the gods. Furthermore, a coin was found lodged inside the mouth of a buried person.

The coin, known as “Charon’s obol,” reflected the story of Charon in Greek mythology, in which a coin was given to the ferryman of Hades to transport the souls of the deceased across the river Styx.

INRAP president Dominique Garcia said that the ancient history of Paris was “generally not well known,” adding that the unearthed graves open “a window into the world of Paris during antiquity.”

Unlike the excavation in the 1800s, this time the team plans to remove everything from the necropolis for analysis.