Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge

The Newgrange of Ireland is older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge
The Newgrange tomb in County Meath, Ireland, just north of Dublin.

Newgrange is a 5,200-year-old ancient tomb located in the Boyne Valley in Ireland’s Ancient East. Archaeologists have classified Newgrange as a passage tomb, but Newgrange is now considered to be much more than a passage tomb.

Newgrange was built about 5,200 years ago (3,200 BC). While the name is not as unheard of as they are, that makes it older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza.

The mound is 85m (279ft) in diameter and 13m (43ft) high, an area of about 1 acre. A passage measuring 19m (62ft) leads into a chamber with 3 alcoves. The passage and chamber are aligned with the rising sun on the mornings around the Winter Solstice.

Newgrange is surrounded by 97 large stones called kerbstones some of which are engraved with megalithic art; the most striking is the entrance stone.

Newgrange was founded by a farming community that thrived in the Boyne Valley’s fertile soils. Knowth and Dowth are two comparable mounds that, along with Newgrange, have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The engraved stone at the entrance to Newgrange.
William Frederick Wakeman’s map of the burial chambers inside the tomb

An ancient temple is a more appropriate description, a location of astrological, spiritual, religious, and ceremonial importance, similar to how modern cathedrals are sites of prestige and reverence where dignitaries might be put to rest.

Newgrange is a massive kidney-shaped mound that spans over an acre and is held together at the base by 97 kerbstones, some of which are highly adorned with megalithic art.

The inner corridor is 19m long and leads to a cruciform room with a corbelled ceiling. The amount of time and labor put into Newgrange’s development shows a well-organized society with specialized organizations in charge of various parts of the building.

Newgrange is part of the Brú na Bóinne group of monuments erected around a bend of the Boyne River. Knowth (the biggest) and Dowth are the other two major monuments, though there are up to 35 lesser mounds scattered around the region.

Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun.
A young girl stands in front of the entrance to Newgrange in about 1905

Winter Solstice

Newgrange is well renowned for the winter solstice sun’s lighting of its corridor and chamber.

A roof-box is an aperture above the entrance to the route at Newgrange. This baffling orifice held a great surprise for those who unearthed it. Its aim is to allow sunlight into the chamber on the shortest days of the year, which occur around December 21st, the winter solstice.

As the sun rises higher in the sky, the beam within the chamber expands, illuminating the entire space significantly. This event lasts 17 minutes and starts at about 9 a.m. When one considers that Newgrange was created 500 years before the Great Pyramids and almost 1,000 years before Stonehenge, its precision as a time-telling device is amazing.

The intent of the Stone Age farmers who build Newgrange was undoubtedly to mark the beginning of the new year. In addition, it may have served as a powerful symbol of the victory of life over death.

Every year, the winter solstice celebration in Newgrange draws a lot of attention.

Many people assemble at the old tomb to await daybreak, just as they did 5,000 years ago.  So great is the demand to be one of the few inside the chamber during the solstice that there is a free annual lottery (application forms are available at the Visitor Centre)

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Viking sword from warrior’s grave unearthed in family’s yard in Norway

Viking sword from warrior’s grave unearthed in family’s yard in Norway

Viking sword from warrior's grave unearthed in family's yard in Norway
The sword was found in a yard belonging to Anne and Oddbjørn Holum Heiland, where they were clearing land to build an extension to their house.

A man digging in his yard to build an extension of his house in southern Norway has unearthed the 1,100-year-old grave of a Viking warrior who was buried with weapons.

The finds include a rusty iron sword in two pieces; its hilt style enabled archaeologists to date the burial to the late 800s or early 900s, during the Viking Age, Joakim Wintervoll — an archaeologist who works for the local government of Agder County, where the relics were found — told Live Science.

“We have a good record of how the ‘fashion’ in the shapes of sword handles developed in Norway, from early ages up to more modern eras,” he said. “Comparing it to other known sword handles, we believe this sword is from the late ninth century to the 10th century.” 

The sword and other artifacts are from a Viking Age grave. A similar Viking grave was found in the 1930s at a farm nearby.

Other artifacts found in the grave included a long spear designed to be used on horseback, called a lance; glass beads and a belt buckle gilded with gold; and a bronze brooch. Neither human nor animal remains have yet been discovered there.

The artifacts seem to have belonged to a Viking warrior. “The lance suggests that this was someone that was proficient in combat from horseback,” Wintervoll said. And the warrior was “definitely someone of means, based on the gold-gilded jewelry.”

The grave can be dated from the style of the sword’s hilt, which indicates it was made at the turn of the ninth and 10th centuries.
The blade of a lance — a long spear designed to be used from horseback — was also found in the grave, but no human or animal remains were found.

Viking burial

The grave and its artifacts were discovered in late June in the yard of a house in the mainly rural district of Setesdal, beside a lake about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Oslo. Homeowner Oddbjørn Holum Heiland had started using a mechanical digger to clear the spot in his yard where he and his wife Anne planned to extend their house, according to Science Norway.

“I wasn’t going to dig a lot, just a little bit in the slope behind the house, to get some more space between the house and the land,” he told the news outlet.

Although rare, the Viking sword is not unique. Viking graves often contained a warrior’s weapons, and more than 3,000 have been found in Norway.
Other artifacts from the Viking grave include a bronze brooch, part of a metal belt buckle and glass beads gilded with gold.

He first found an oblong slab just below the surface; it’s now been recognized as a gravestone. Further digging revealed the hilt of the sword; Holum Heiland then realized his yard must hold other Viking artifacts, so he stopped digging and called the county archaeologists.

Wintervoll and Jo-Simon Frøshaug Stokke, an archaeologist from Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, visited the site a few days later. No Viking artifacts had been found before at the property, Wintervoll said, but a Viking grave containing a sword, spear, glass beads and a horse bridle were discovered on a nearby farm in the 1930s.

Although it’s “a bit too early to say” whether these two graves have a connection, “it is interesting that they are relatively close and have almost identical finds in them,” he said.

Ancient claim 

It is possible that a Viking warrior was buried at the site as a way for their descendants to claim ownership of the land around it, Wintervoll said. Or, perhaps it had only family significance.

“No grave mound was known to have been on this homestead,” Wintervoll said. In Norway, this type of grave is known as a “flatmarksgrav,” which translates to “flat field grave,” he added.

The person interred there might have been buried whole, or cremated ashes may have been laid down in the grave. “At this point in time, the practice varied a bit from place to place, but we have yet to find any burnt bones,” he said. 

The grave seems to have been dug on an almost east-west axis, which would align with sunrise and sunset, and the only grave marker seems to have been the oblong stone above it.

“Right now, we don’t think this is a grave that was meant to be visible at a great distance,” Wintervoll said. “These types of graves might have a more family or private function.” 

CROATIA, EUROPE, WORLD

A 3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

A 3,000-Year-Old Olive Tree on the Greek Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

The most ancient olive tree in the world, is in Crete.

The oldest olive tree in the world is located in the village of Ano Vouves of Kissamos in Chania, Crete. The ancient tree is 3000 years old, as determined by the international scientific community.

The ancient olive tree in Vouves has a trunk with a circumference of 12.5 meters (41 feet), and a diameter of 4.6 meters (15 feet). It belongs to the local tree variety of tsounati and was grafted at a height of three meters onto a wild olive tree.

Because of the grafting, its trunk has been so beautifully shaped by nature that it resembles a sculpture. In 1990, after a unanimous decision in the prefecture of Chania, the Vouves Olive Tree was declared a Natural Monument of great importance due to its status as the world’s oldest tree of its kind.

The oldest olive tree still produces high-quality olives

The fruits of the ancient olive tree produce the best olive oil in the world, making the area the cradle of olive cultivation on the island of Crete. The trunk of the tree is now hollow as there is no heartwood, so the olive is renewed outward and the heartwood gradually rots away.

Since the olive tree is constantly renewing its wood, it has served as a a symbol of immortality since ancient times.

Thousands of tourists visit the stunning tree every summer to marvel at it and learn its history. They are mainly impressed by its enormous shape and the imposing volume of the trunk but also by the fact that it has remained alive and fruitful for 3000 years.

The site of the olive tree, including the entire hill on which several villages are situated, has thousands of olive trees and the villages are widely believed to produce the best olive oil in the world.

Why is the Olive Tree Important in Greece?

The olive tree has been associated with Greece for millennia.

It symbolizes peace and prosperity, as well as the hope of resurrection and prosperous life. The purely Mediterranean Greek landscape is dotted with these trees, and Greeks throughout the centuries have been inextricably linked with this plant.

For Ancient Greeks, the olive tree was one of two of the most respected mythical trees, along with the oak.

This deeply rooted love and respect shown by the Greeks has survived throughout the centuries.

Greek olive oil

Greek olive oil, or “Liquid Gold,” as Homer called it, has been part of Greece’s history since antiquity. It is an irreplaceable nutritional component of the Greek diet.

Ancient Greeks also used olive oil as part of their efforts to enjoy a healthy life and to promote longevity and used it as a cosmetic for the skin and hair. Today, Greek olive oil is considered by most as the best in the world.

The history of humanity’s use of the olive dates back to ancient history. In his work “Origin des plantes cultivees,” botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candole writes that our cultivation of the tree started some time around 4000 BC—and that its origin is from the coasts of Asia Minor.

Today, throughout the world, there are approximately 800 million olive trees—of which approximately 95 percent are cultivated in the Mediterranean basin, which has the best soil and climatic conditions for olive cultivation.

The olive is widely grown all over in Greece. Its cultivation, which is greater than any other type of fructiferous tree, occupies approximately 15 percent of cultivated agricultural land and 75 percent of arboraceous cultivations in the country.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey

Underwater Ruins of 3,000-Year-Old Castle Discovered in Turkey
3,000-year-old remains of a castle at the bottom of Lake Van in Turkey.

Marine archaeologists made a superb find at the bottom of Turkey’s largest lake – a very well-preserved castle dating back 3,000 years. It was likely built by the mysterious Urartian civilization which inhabited the surroundings of Lake Van during the Iron Age.

Although locals have long reported legends of ancient ruins under the water, divers had investigated the lake for almost a decade before finding the fortifications.

Hurriyet Daily News reports that the research team discovered numerous other features of interest during this time period, including stalagmites that were at least 10 meters (33 feet) long, known as ‘underwater fairy chimneys’, pearl mullets, and a sunken Russian ship, but the ancient ruins had proved elusive until now.

‘Fairy chimneys’, a common feature in some regions of Turkey, were found underwater in Lake Van

Underwater Castle

The recent finding of the underwater fortifications was made by a team of researchers, including Tahsin Ceylan, an underwater photographer and videographer, diver Cumali Birol, and Mustafa Akkuş, an academic from Van Yüzüncü Yıl University. 

The castle, which had been built during the Iron Age, when water levels were much lower, remains in good condition thanks to the alkaline waters of Lake Van.

“Today, we are here to announce the discovery of a castle that has remained underwater in Lake Van,” videographer Tahsin Ceylan told Hurriyet Daily News. 

“I believe that in addition to this castle, microbialites will make contributions to the region’s economy and tourism. It is a miracle to find this castle underwater. Archaeologists will come here to examine the castle’s history and provide information on it.”

Ceylan explained that the walls of the fortification cover an area of about one square kilometer (0.4 square miles).

About 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) of the wall are visible above the lake bed, but it is not clear how deep the walls go, so detailed excavations need to be carried out on the newly-discovered castle to learn more.

Mysterious Civilization

Archaeologists believe the castle was built by the Urartians, a mysterious civilization that existed in what is now Eastern Turkey, Iran, and the modern Armenian Republic, from around the 13th century BC.

Very little is known about the kingdom of Urartu and the origins of its people, but they spoke a language related to Hurrian, are well-known for their advanced metallurgy, and used an adapted form of the Assyrian cuneiform script.

An Urartian Temple in the Erebuni Fortress, Turkey.

Ceylan told Hurriyet Daily News that they named Lake Van the ‘upper sea’ and believed it had many mysterious secrets.

The fortification shows evidence of stones cut in a style used by the Urartians.

After a period of expansion, the Kingdom of Urartu came under attack starting around the 8th century BC. It was finally destroyed towards the end of the 6th century BC.

Many Armenians today claim that they are descendants of the Urartians.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Giant handaxe discovered at Ice Age site in Kent, UK

Giant handaxe discovered at Ice Age site in Kent, UK

Researchers in Kent in southeastern England have discovered a prehistoric handaxe so big it would have been almost impossible to wield as a cutting tool. The handaxe is the third largest ever found in Britain.

Excavations also uncovered artifacts preserved in deep Ice Age sediments on a hillside above the Medway Valley. A total of 800 artifacts were discovered, thought to be more than 300,000 years old and buried in material that filled a sinkhole and an ancient river channel.

The researchers, from UCL Archaeology South-East,  unearthed several handaxes, and two of them were giants of a form known as a ficron, characterized by a rounded thick base tapering to a long, finely-worked tip.

One is 22 cm (nine inches) long but missing its tip. The other is 29.5 cm (11.6 inches) long and intact. It is 11.3 cm (4.4 inches) wide at its widest point.

Letty Ingrey, of UCL Institute of Archaeology, said: “We describe these tools as giants when they are over 22cm long, and we have two in this size range.

Giant handaxe discovered at Ice Age site in Kent, UK
Some of the artifacts were discovered by archaeologists in Kent.

“The biggest, a colossal 29.5cm in length, is one of the longest ever found in Britain.

These hand axes are so big it’s difficult to imagine how they could have been easily held and used. While right now, we aren’t sure why such large tools were being made, or which species of early humans were making them, this site offers a chance to answer these exciting questions.”

The site is thought to date to a period in the early prehistory of Britain when Neanderthal people and their cultures were beginning to emerge and may even have shared the landscape with other early human species.

While archaeological finds of this age, including another spectacular ‘giant’ handaxe, have previously been discovered in the Medway Valley, this is the first time they have been discovered as part of a large-scale excavation, providing new insights into the lives of their makers.

Amongst the unearthed artifacts were two extremely large flint knives described as “giant handaxes”. Handaxes are stone artifacts that have been chipped, or “knapped,” on both sides to produce a symmetrical shape with a long cutting edge.

Photo: UCL Institute of Archaeology

Dr Matt Pope (UCL Institute of Archaeology), said: “The excavations at the Maritime Academy have given us an incredibly valuable opportunity to study how an entire Ice Age landscape developed over a quarter of a million years ago.

A programme of scientific analysis, involving specialists from UCL and other UK institutions, will now help us to understand why the site was important to ancient people and how the stone artifacts, including the ‘giant handaxes’ helped them adapt to the challenges of the Ice Age environments.”

The research team is now working on identifying and studying the recovered artifacts to better understand who created them and what they were used for.

EUROPE, ROMANIA, WORLD

Wolf skull atop 1,800-year-old grave was left by a robber who feared revenge, experts say

Wolf skull atop 1,800-year-old grave was left by a robber who feared revenge, experts say

The range of the studied burial mound in Cheia, Dobrogea.

A wolf skull was supposed to protect robbers from the revenge of the spirit of the deceased buried in a great mound 2,000 years ago. Archaeologists came across this unusual find in the town of Cheia, Romania – in a robber’s dig from ancient times.

The mound is now almost invisible to the naked eye because it is located in a cultivated field and has been ploughed up. The latest geophysical research shows that its diameter could be up to 75 m. The tomb is located in the village of Cheia in the central part of Dobrogea in south-eastern Romania. This region has been the target of the Romanian-Polish expedition since 2008.

Exploration of the interior of the barrow.

Archaeologists have found two graves. The first one, located in the centre of the mound, was looted in antiquity.

‘The closing of the robber’s dig was interesting and unusual. A few stones were placed there, with a wolf skull on top of them. It was probably a magical ritual aimed at closing the looted space to prevent the robbed spirit from exiting and taking revenge,’ says Poland’s research leader Dr. Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. 

The head of research on the Romanian side is Dr. Valentina Voinea from the Muzeul de Istorie Națională și Arheologie in Constanța.

Wolf skull atop 1,800-year-old grave was left by a robber who feared revenge, experts say
Wolf skull, partially cleaned.

The robbers did not steal everything from the grave. In the robber’s dig, the archaeologists found a fragment of a clay oil lamp, broken during the robbery. Its other part of which was in the grave pit.

According to Dr. Szmoniewski, in the grave pit itself, there are partially burnt parts of a wooden structure, which was joined with nails and decorated with bronze fittings.

Parts of the wooden structure from the crematory grave (M1).

‘It was probably a wooden box that contained the body of the deceased and grave goods. It was burned on the spot, as evidenced by the strong burn of the walls and the bottom of the pit. Then, the pit was covered with wooden boards and filled in. Barrows with very similar cremation burials were discovered in Hârșova, known in the Roman period as Carsium, on the lower Danube,’ Szmoniewski says.

There is not much left of the skeleton, because the deceased was cremated during the funeral; only burnt human bones have been preserved.

The researchers also found a large number of burnt walnut seeds preserved whole and as shells, parts of pine cones and other plant remains.

Burnt walnut seed from the crematory grave (M1).

‘The presence of burnt walnut seeds in the burial is an interesting custom known from crematory graves from the early Roman period. In the sepulchral context, walnuts are interpreted as a kind of grave gift – special food for the soul. In the Casimcea river valley in Dobrogea, where we are conducting research, this is the first find of this kind,’ Szmoniewski says. 

This was not the only grave discovered in the barrow. The other one was located at a distance from the centre of the barrow. Archaeologists found a skeleton in it, placed in a wooden structure, probably a coffin, the remains of which were found both above and below the skeleton. 

According to Dr. Szmoniewski, the deceased had a glass unguentarium placed on the stomach – a kind of container for liquid fragrances and toilet perfumes, and in the mouth, there was a bronze coin (an assarius) from the reign of Emperor Hadrian, minted in 125-127 CE.

‘The coin in the mouth of the buried refers to the ancient custom of Charon’s obol, when a coin inserted into the mouth was to be used as payment to Charon for transporting the soul of the deceased across the River Styx in Hades,’ Szmoniewski says. 

Skeletal grave (M2).

Both graves date from the mid-2nd century CE. This is an important discovery for scientists because barrows have not been discovered in this region until now.

‘The unusual wolf skull found at the exit of the robber’s dig in one of the graves may indicate that the robbery was committed by the Dacians – a people who had lived in this area before the arrival of the Greeks and Romans,’ says Dr. Szmoniewski. ‘In turn, the deceased buried in the two graves were probably Romans who came to this area during the Roman colonisation.’

Crematory grave (M1).

The graves were discovered in 2022. Archaeologists plan to continue the research this year. The season will start in August. (PAP)

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

See the face of ‘Ava,’ a Bronze Age woman who lived in Scotland 3,800 years ago

See the face of ‘Ava,’ a Bronze Age woman who lived in Scotland 3,800 years ago

See the face of 'Ava,' a Bronze Age woman who lived in Scotland 3,800 years ago
Researchers used scans of a Bronze Age woman’s skull to create a facial approximation of what she may have looked like 3,800 years ago.

In 1987, Scottish workers accidentally unearthed the burial of a Bronze Age woman during a road construction project.

The stone, coffin-like tomb, called a cist, contained the woman’s skeletal remains alongside grave goods, including a short-necked pottery beaker, a cow bone fragment, and small pieces of flint.

The burial in Achavanich, in northern Scotland, came to be known as the Achavanich Beaker Burial. However, not much was known about the woman, whom archaeologists nicknamed “Ava,” other than what they determined through anthropological analysis.

She was between 18 and 25 years old when she died, and based on measurements of her tibia (shinbone), she was tall, standing approximately 5 feet, 7 inches (1.71 meters), according to a study published online on June 22. 

Based on her grave goods, it’s possible that Ava was part of the Bronze Age “Bell Beaker” culture, which was common in Europe during this time period and known for its distinctively round pottery drinking vessels.

Now, a new image offers a glimpse of what this mystery woman might have looked like.

To make the three-dimensional facial approximation, researchers used existing computed tomography (CT) scans of Ava’s roughly 3,800-year-old skull.

However, since the cranium was missing a mandible, or lower jaw, the team used data culled from CT scans of living donor individuals to piece together the final image, according to the study.

“Thanks to anatomical, statistical and logical data, it was possible to reconstruct” her face even without the mandible, study author Cícero Moraes, a Brazilian graphics expert, told Live Science in an email. “I then set out to trace the profile of the face, which we do through a combination of soft tissue thickness markers, which inform the limits of the skin,” he explained.

From there, the team performed an “anatomical deformation” of the virtual donor “that is adjusted until the donor’s skull converts to the skull of Ava,” Moraes said, “causing the skin to follow the deformation, resulting in a face compatible with the approximated individual.”

A 2016 analysis of Ava’s likeness showed her with light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. But a separate facial approximation of Ava in 2018 analyzed her DNA and determined that she most likely had brown eyes and black hair and that “her skin [was] slightly darker than today’s Scots’,” the researchers wrote in the new study.

The researchers speculated, based on her height and facial features, that she may have been considered imposing during that time period.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

This 48-Million-Year-Old Fossil Has an Insect Inside a Lizard Inside a Snake

This 48-Million-Year-Old Fossil Has an Insect Inside a Lizard Inside a Snake

Palaeontologists have uncovered a fossil that has preserved an insect inside a lizard inside a snake – a prehistoric battle of the food chain that ended in a volcanic lake some 48 million years ago.

Pulled from an abandoned quarry in southwest Germany called the Messel Pit, the fossil is only the second of its kind ever found, with the remains of three animals sitting snug in one another.

“It’s probably the kind of fossil that I will go the rest of my professional life without ever encountering again, such is the rarity of these things,” palaeontologist Krister Smith from Germany’s Senckenberg Institute told Michael Greshko at National Geographic. “It was pure astonishment.”

Smith and his team suspect that the iguana ate a shiny insect meal, and then two days later was swallowed headfirst by a juvenile snake. 

It’s unclear how the snake ultimately died, but what we do know is it got too close to the deep volcanic lake that once bubbled in the Messel Pit, and was either poisoned or suffocated by the toxic fumes.

Its corpse likely slid into the lake after death, where the Russian doll of skeletons was preserved perfectly for millions of years.

Rare ‘Nesting Doll’ Fossil Uncovers Beetle in Lizard in Snake. Snake with lizard and beetle: The rare tripartite fossil food chain from the Messel Pit.
Beetle inside a reptile inside a snake.

“To see this kind of trophic scale recorded within the gut of a snake is a very cool thing,” UK palaeontologist Jason Head from the University of Cambridge, who wasn’t involved with the study, told National Geographic.

While the combination of snake-lizard-bug is entirely unique in the fossil record, this isn’t the first time a prehistoric turducken has been discovered. 

Back in 2008, Austrian researchers found a 250-million-year-old fossil that had preserved a shark that had eaten some kind of amphibian that had eaten a small fish. 

It’s far more fragmentary than the Messel Pit fossil, but it was the first real indication that the food web of the time was far more complex than researchers had thought.

If anywhere is likely to be harbouring more of these types of fossils, it’s the Messel Pit, which in the past has served up the now notorious Darwinius masillae fossil, a fossilised beetle with its turquoise iridescence largely intact, and two turtles caught in the middle of doing, erm, turtle things…

The best-preserved fossils in the world from the Eocene epoch, which ran from around 56 to 34 million years ago, have been found here, and Smith and his team are already planning another trip back.

“This fossil is amazing,” says one of the researchers, Agustín Scanferla. “We were lucky men to study this kind of specimen.”

The find has been published in Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments.