Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, PORTUGAL, WORLD

Were Steel Tools Used in the Late Bronze Age?

Were Steel Tools Used in the Late Bronze Age?

A study by an international and interdisciplinary team headed by Freiburg archaeologist Dr. Ralph Araque Gonzalez from the Faculty of Humanities has shown that steel tools were already in use in Europe around 2900 years ago.

Were Steel Tools Used in the Late Bronze Age?
(Rafael Ferreiro Mählmann (A), Bastian Asmus (B), Ralph Araque Gonzalez (C-E))

Using geochemical analyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel.

This was backed up by metallographic analyses of an iron chisel from the same period and region (Rocha do Vigio, Portugal, ca. 900 BCE) that showed the necessary carbon content to be proper steel.

The result was also confirmed experimentally by undertaking trials with chisels made of various materials: only the chisel made of tempered steel was suitably capable of engraving the stone. Until recently it was assumed that it was not possible to produce suitable quality steel in the Early Iron Age and certainly not in the Final Bronze Age, and that it only came to be widespread in Europe under the Roman Empire.

“The chisel from Rocha do Vigio and the context where it was found show that iron metallurgy including the production and tempering of steel was probably indigenous developments of decentralized small communities in Iberia, and not due to the influence of later colonization processes. This also has consequences for the archaeological assessment of iron metallurgy and quartzite sculptures in other regions of the world,” explains Araque Gonzalez.

The study ‘Stone-working and the earliest steel in Iberia: Scientific analyses and experimental replications of final bronze age stelae and tools’ has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Iberian pillars of siliceous quartz sandstone could only be worked with tempered steel

The archaeological record of Late Bronze Age Iberia (c. 1300-800 BCE) is fragmentary in many parts of the Iberian Peninsula: sparse remains of the settlement and nearly no detectable burials are complemented by traces of metal hoarding and remains of mining activities.

Taking this into account, the western Iberian stelae with their depictions of anthropomorphic figures, animals, and selected objects are of unique importance for the investigation of this era.

Until now, studies of the actual rocks from which these stelae were made to gain insights into the use of materials and tools have been the exception. Araque Gonzalez and his colleagues analyzed the geological composition of the stelae in depth.

This led them to discover that a significant number of stelae were not as had been assumed made of quartzite, but silicate quartz sandstone. “Just like quartzite, this is an extremely hard rock that cannot be worked with bronze or stone tools, but only with tempered steel,” says Araque Gonzalez.

Chisel discovery and archaeological experiments confirm the use of steel

Analysis of an iron chisel found in Rocha do Vigio showed that Iberian stonemasons from the Final Bronze Age had the necessary tools.

The researchers discovered that it consisted of heterogeneous yet astonishingly carbon-rich steel. To confirm their findings, the researchers also carried out an experiment involving a professional stonemason, a blacksmith, and a bronze caster, and attempted to work the rock that the pillars were made of using chisels of different materials.

The stonemason could not work the stone with either the stone or the bronze chisels, or even using an iron chisel with an untempered point. “The people of the Final Bronze Age in Iberia were capable of tempering steel.

Otherwise, they would not have been able to work the pillars,” concludes Araque Gonzalez as a result of the experiment.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

The 1,000-year-old Church was found under a cornfield in Germany

The 1,000-year-old Church was found under a cornfield in Germany

The 1,000-year-old Church was found under a cornfield in Germany

The foundation walls of the large church of the rediscovered Royal Palace of Helfta in Eisleben in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt have been unearthed by archaeologists. The church was discovered earlier this month, and the foundation walls are now completely exposed.

According to the team studying the site, there is evidence of two dwellings at the site by Otto I and his son, Otto II ‘the Red,’ with the former attending the church’s inauguration.

Otto I, often known as Otto the Great, was King of Germany from 936 to 973 and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 till his death in 973.

“With a length of 98 feet (30 meters) and a width of around 66 feet (20 meters), Otto had effectively built a church that resembles a miniature cathedral,” said project manager Felix Biermann.

“This is a magnificent, exceptionally large church, which proves the importance of this location in the Ottoman era,” the team said.

Uncovering medieval graves in the eastern part of the church.

The church is thought to have been dedicated to Saint Radegund, the Thuringian princess and Frankish queen who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross in Poitiers, before 968. She is also the patron saint of several churches in France and England and of Jesus College in Cambridge.

The church, which had been standing for roughly 500 years, was destroyed during the Reformation when the Western Church was split into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church.

In addition to the foundation walls, a number of coins and a tiled stove from the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as a fragment of a bell, were found on the site.

Zenger News, A cemetery containing 70 graves was also found, as well as several stone tombs from the 10th to the 15th century, which, Biermann, was “the burial place for the aristocratic families of the region.” He said.

Enameled non-ferrous metal rectangular brooch — clasp with retracted sides from the Carolingian era.

“In addition, belt fittings, belt buckles made of bronze, coins, knives and various utensils came to light. Numerous disc brooches from the Ottoman times, made of bronze, enameled and with glass inlays in a rectangular and circular shape, were excavated,” said Biermann.

“It is amazing to me what the archeologists and excavation helpers are bringing to light during this excavation,” said the mayor of the city, Carsten Staub.

The long-lost royal palace ruins atop the Kleine Klaus were the starting point for the current discoveries, which were unearthed in 2009 by geomagnetic prospecting, with the exploration gradually moving outside.

Aside from the church, the Palatinate included residential and commercial structures with pit dwellings, as well as grand residential buildings and possibly an auditorium where meetings were held.

Biermann said that the current excavations will continue until September.

Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff said the discovery will close “an important gap in the history of the country.”

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Ruins of the 700-year-old wharf, possibly used by royalty, were found in Oslo

Ruins of the 700-year-old wharf, possibly used by royalty, were found in Oslo

Ruins of the 700-year-old wharf, possibly used by royalty, were found in Oslo

An excavation by NIKU archaeologists in Oslo’s seaside neighborhood of Bjørvika has uncovered the remains of a long section of a medieval wharf believed to have been built by a medieval king of Norway.

Under the dense clay of the Oslofjord seabed, more than 26 feet of the pier’s foundations have persisted in excellent condition.

Archaeologists knew from preliminary surveys that something was buried at a port in Oslo, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) said in a Thursday, March 2, news release. The ruins of a medieval wharf were discovered when excavations got underway.

The wharf consisted of massive logs lashed together to form bulwarks. The logs were dotted with impressions of barnacles and mussels, signs of having once been exposed to the sea.

Over time, the structures built on top of the foundations pressed them deeper into the clay, where they remained even after the surface structures were lost.

The pier was most likely built in the early 14th century and has since sunk into the clay seabed under its own weight, according to the release.

A close-up photo of the accumulated layers of clay.

Archaeologists believe this wharf was probably the king’s, based on its location and estimated age. Another nearby dock is known to have been used by royalty from the 11th to 13th centuries, according to the release.

A small mystery is that archaeologists unearthed layers of food waste, fish bones, dung, and peat in the clay around the massive logs. Archaeologists don’t know how these materials ended up around the pier.

“This is very mysterious,” says Håvard Hegdal, archaeologist and project manager from NIKU, “How has this come into what has been a closed construction? There has been a floor above us, and probably a building, and it shouldn’t be possible to throw food scraps and other things down here.”

“There was also a lot of dirt from a boat inside these layers. And it shouldn’t have come in here in any case. So ‘King’s wharf’ may have had a reasonably short lifespan, and that is quite strange.”

Researchers will cut a portion of the wood off the pier and send it to a lab to be more specifically dated dendrochronologically, the release said.

The most likely candidate to build the wharf was Haakon V (reigned 1299–1319). Oslo overtook Bergen to become the capital of Norway during his reign, and Haakon had the Akershus Fortress built to protect the city and serve as a royal residence. The pier’s foundations were discovered right next to the ruins of the royal palace that stood before Akershus Fortress.

The remains of the wharf have been scanned to create a 3D model. And excavations are ongoing.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Iron Age comb found made from a human skull in the UK

Iron Age comb found made from a human skull in the UK

Iron Age comb found made from a human skull in the UK

Researchers from the London Archaeological Museum (MOLA) determined that an Iron Age comb they found during an archaeological dig that ended in 2018 was made from a human skull and was most likely used as a talisman rather than styling hair.

The accessory dubbed the Bar Hill Comb was among 280,000 items of interest collected between 2016 and 2018 during the A14 improvement scheme.

The comb is around 2 inches long with a curved top and teeth carved into the bottom.

The reconstruction drawing created by the MOLA researchers suggests that the comb was originally rectangular with a circle carved out in the middle for attaching to clothing.

“The Bar Hill Comb may have been a highly symbolic and powerful object for members of the local community,” Michael Marshall, a prehistoric and Roman finds specialist at MOLA said in a statement.

Iron Age comb
MOLA Find specialist Michael Marshall examining the Bar Hill comb.

“It is possible it was carved from the skull of an important member of Iron Age society, whose presence was in some way preserved and commemorated through their bones.”

He said only two other comparable examples have ever been found in Britain – both within 15 miles (24km) of the Bar Hill Comb.

The lack of wear on the comb’s teeth distinguishes this bone from other finds, suggesting that it was possibly worn as an amulet rather than used to brush the hair at all.

Many people in the British Isles during the Iron Age revered human skulls, according to historians.

Both carved stone heads and skulls served as talismans, as evidenced in ritual practices documented by archaeologists and in folklore.

The comb’s tines show no signs of use or deterioration, and traces of a hole that was drilled into its top indicate that it was once attached to a string for wearing.

EUROPE, WORLD

Minoan civilization may have used celestial navigation techniques

Minoan civilization may have used celestial navigation techniques

Minoan civilization may have used celestial navigation techniques

According to a study done by an American researcher at the University of Wales, ancient civilizations may have used celestial navigation methods to travel.

Alessandro Berio, a skyscape archaeologist, discovered new evidence that the ancient Minoan civilization developed significant nautical technologies to aid in international sea trade, which is linked to the wealth and expansion of the culture throughout the Mediterranean.

Because of its location, Minoan culture was based on open sea navigation and international trade cycles.

The Minoan civilization may have relied heavily on celestial star paths above to help them navigate the Mediterranean.

According to a study, the Minoan palaces were even placed to face the rising or setting of a few notable stars, serving as their guide to important commercial centers.

“It is hypothesized that the orienting of palatial architecture toward star paths and specific sea lanes may have symbolized the special relationships between the palaces and distinct foreign emporia, while also being a source of legitimization of power for the local elite who controlled the ideological and technological frameworks of maritime knowledge,” Berio wrote in the paper.

Berio focused his research on the Minoan civilization, a Bronze Age Aegean people who lived on the island of Crete between 2600 – 1100 BC.

The Pelusiac branch of the River Nile was exactly parallel to the central court of the Minoan trading post. The study found that Knossos, the largest Minoan palace, was perfectly positioned on a “star path” with the constellation of Virgo and the commercial center of Sidon.

This alignment may have played a critical role in guiding Minoan sailors to critical trading destinations in Egypt and the Levant.

Indeed, the orientation of various palaces toward specific star paths and sea lanes may have symbolized the unique relationship between these palaces and distinct foreign commercial hubs. Furthermore, they may have legitimized the power of the ruling elite, who controlled maritime navigation knowledge and technology, as well as specific sea routes.

The research discovered that Minoan sailors may have used star paths or linear constellations to guide them to Mediterranean cities where Minoan artifacts and frescoes bear evidence of trade links between them.

The discovery could call into question the previous theory that Homer’s Odyssey was the first historical signal of celestial navigation. We now have more evidence that we need to rewrite history and push back the timeline of human development.

The research was published in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

800-Year-Old Hoard Unearthed in Northern Germany

800-Year-Old Hoard Unearthed in Northern Germany

The front of one gold earring in the Byzantine style that a metal detectorist found in Germany.

A trainee metal detectorist in northern Germany recently hit on something his mentor never expected: an 800-year-old hoard of gold jewelry and silver coins that hints at the area’s trade connections.

The large hoard contained a dazzling collection of artifacts. “The hoard consisted of two very high-quality gold earrings set with semi-precious stones, a gilded pseudo-coin brooch, two gilded stone-studded finger rings, a ring fragment, a small formerly gilded perforated disc, a ring brooch, and about 30 silver coins, some of them heavily fragmented,” Ulf Ickerodt, director of the State Archaeological Department of Schleswig-Holstein (ALSH), told Live Science in an email. 

For decades, amateur and professional archaeologists have been working together to investigate the region of Schleswig-Holstein, and in particular the UNESCO world heritage site of Haithabu.

Known as Hedeby in Danish, the site was the second-largest Nordic town and was important to the Vikings between the eighth and 11th centuries.

Haithabu was destroyed and abandoned around 1066, ending the Viking era in the region, but a century or two later someone purposefully buried the bag full of valuables nearby.

A selection of silver coins was found in the hoard. They date to the time of King Valdemar II.

The detectorists came across the hoard while walking a well-studied patch of land. They reported the find to the ALSH, and a team of archaeologists then excavated the site to reveal items including silver and gold objects with preserved textile fragments adhering to them.

Perhaps the most remarkable items in the hoard are the two earrings. “They probably date to the time around and after 1100 and are in the tradition of Byzantine goldsmiths,” Ickerodt said.

The hoard also contained an imitation of an Islamic coin — an Almohad gold dinar — that had been made into a brooch. The Almohad caliphate was a Muslim dynasty that ruled over southern Spain and northern Africa between the 12th and 13th centuries.

The 30 silver coins, minted during the time of Danish King Valdemar II, suggest that the hoard was buried sometime after 1234. 

The front of the second gold earring in the Byzantine style.
The back of the second gold earring in the Byzantine style
The back of one gold earring in the Byzantine style.

The combination of Danish coins and western Mediterranean jewelry is particularly interesting and hints at the cosmopolitan nature of the area. 

“Islamic coins were well known in southern Scandinavia between the 9th and 11th centuries,” Marjanko Pilekić, a numismatist in Germany who was not involved in this study, told Live Science by email.

The money may have “reached this area en masse through long-distance trade contacts, robbery, tribute, among others,” he said. “It was a popular practice to pierce or loop the coins and wear them.”

A gilded pseudo-coin fibula. This imitation Islamic coin was fashioned into a brooch.

The discovery of hoards is rare in Schleswig-Holstein, and it’s unclear whether these items were personal property or stolen, if they were meant to be delivered to someone else, or if they were buried for ritual reasons.

“Especially in times of crisis,” Ickerodt said, “the resulting danger leads to the hiding of possessions.” The Haithabu area was not abandoned for long after its destruction in the mid-11th century.

Across the inlet of Schlei, Schleswig had begun developing as a settlement and trading center. “An extensive north-south and east-west trade network have developed here since the early Middle Ages, in which the Mediterranean region, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea were integrated,” Ickerodt said. “The hoard was certainly not put down by chance.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Signs of Surgery Examined on Medieval Woman’s Skull

Signs of Surgery Examined on Medieval Woman’s Skull

Signs of Surgery Examined on Medieval Woman’s Skull
The woman’s skull shows clear traces of a large cross-shaped incision in the top, with a partially-healed oval of bone at the center; and a patch on her forehead where the bone has been scraped thin. Researchers think both are evidence of trepanations, possibly in an attempt to cure extreme pain she was suffering from two large abscesses on her upper jaw.

The skull of an early medieval woman found in Italy shows signs of two trepanations –  surgeries for making holes in the head.

There were several reasons for trepanation, but in this case, the procedures seem to have been attempting to remedy an illness, researchers reported in a new study. However, they couldn’t determine exactly what that illness was.

“We suppose that this individual died from pathologies that may have been related to her condition,” Ileana Micarelli, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science. “But we are not certain about the reason.” Micarelli is the lead author of the new study, published Jan. 23 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, part of which she wrote as a doctoral student at the Sapienza University of Rome. 

The skull’s most remarkable features, according to the study authors, are traces of a huge cross-shaped incision that show that most of the skin of the woman’s scalp was peeled back, with a partially healed oval of bone at its center that seems to be the result of a trepanation performed up to three months before she died.

Lombard castle

The skull is one of 19 that have survived since excavations in the 19th century of an early medieval cemetery at Castel Trosino in central Italy. The castle was a Lombard stronghold from the sixth until the eighth centuries A.D.

The woman’s skull was found in the 19th century during excavations at a cemetery at Castel Trosino in central Italy, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Rome.

From around the sixth to eighth century A.D., Castel Trosino was a stronghold of the Lombard people — Germanic invaders who established a kingdom in Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire — and the researchers think this woman was a wealthy Lombard.

Although hundreds of burials were found during the excavations, just 19 skulls have survived. The rest of the woman’s skeleton is lost, which complicates any modern analysis, Micarelli said.

As well as the cross-shaped incision, the skull shows clear signs of a second surgery, when the bone behind the woman’s forehead was scraped thin after the skin there was peeled back. This appears to have been an attempt at a second trepanation, Micarelli said. There is also evidence that the woman died before the second procedure could be completed: The patch of scraped bone doesn’t go all the way through the skull, and there is no sign that it ever healed, Micarelli said. 

But the new scientific analysis doesn’t show any reason why this woman would have voluntarily undergone both of these extreme surgeries, which must have been painful, although painkillers from plants were known of at the time, she said.

Micarelli speculated that the woman may have suffered extreme pain from two large abscesses on her upper jaw, which could have spread the infection to her brain. “We can imagine that these were quite painful as well,” she said.

Ancient Remedy

The researchers made silicone molds of the scars on the bones of the skull, and then used the molds to make casts with epoxy resin that they could study.
Computed tomography (CT) scans show that a hole at the top of the woman’s skull was scraped through the entire bone, but had partially healed; while the scraped patch of bone on the woman’s forehead had not completely penetrated her skull before she died.

Bioarchaeologist Kent Johnson, an associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York, Cortland who wasn’t involved in the study, said there is evidence that trepanations have been carried out for thousands of years. “The practice of trepanation is seen on almost every continent, wherever people have lived,” he told Live Science. “It’s a long-standing and pretty widespread practice.”

In most cases, trepanation was performed in an attempt to cure an ailment and mainly to alleviate trauma to the skull, such as swelling of the brain caused by a blow to the head, Johnson said. However, some scholars have suggested that the surgery sometimes had a ritual purpose.

Indeed, Micarelli and her colleagues considered that the trepanations on the Castel Trosino skull may have been performed for cultural reasons — something is seen among the Avar people in the Carpathian Basin (parts of modern-day Hungary and Romania) in the early medieval period — or as a judicial punishment. However, the study authors ruled out both of those ideas in the case of the Lombard woman’s skull.

In fact, it’s possible that the incisions were not from trepanation at all, said John Verano, an anthropologist and professor at Tulane University and author of “Holes in the Head: The Art and Archaeology of Trepanation in Ancient Peru” (Dumbarton Oaks, 2016) who wasn’t involved in the Castel Trosino research.

He suggested that what Micarelli and her colleagues interpreted as a trepanation on the top of the skull may instead have been an attempt to scrape away infected bone.

“I [have] never seen a trepanation like this, if indeed it is a trepanation,” he told Live Science in an email. “This is a complex case with multiple possible scenarios to explain the bone reaction.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

New Excavation at Pompeii Underway

New Excavation at Pompeii Underway

The goal is to improve conservation, remodeling the excavation front and acquiring new archaeological data

In Pompeii, excavations are once again in an area covering approximately 3,200 m2, almost an entire block of the ancient city buried in 79 AD by Vesuvius. 

The project is part of a broader approach which, developed during the years of the Great Pompeii Project, aims to rectify and solve the hydrogeological and conservation problems of the excavation fronts, i.e. the boundary between the excavated and the unexplored part of the ancient city.

 The latter amounts to about 15 hectares of blocks and houses still buried under lapilli and ash, almost a third of the ancient town.

The layout of the new excavation, located in Insula 10 of Regio IX, along Via di Nola, is therefore the same already implemented in the excavation of Regio V during the years 2018-2020 which, under the direction of the then director, Massimo Osanna , saw the emergence of the house of Orion, the house with a garden and the Themopolium.

In addition to improving the conditions of conservation and protection of the millenary structures through arranging the excavation fronts, which have always been elements of vulnerability due to the pressure of the ground on the ancient walls and the outflow of rainwater, the new excavations make use of the various professionals of archeology, including archaeologists, archaeobotanists, numismatic volcanologists, ancient topographers, as well as architects, engineers and geologists,

“Excavating in Pompeii is a huge responsibility – declares the Director of the site, Gabriel Zuchtriegel -. Excavation is a non-repeatable operation, what is excavated is forever. 

Therefore, we need to document and analyze each find and all the stratigraphic relationships well and immediately think about how to secure and restore what we find.”

Excavation is still at the beginning, but the masonry ridges of the upper floors of the ancient buildings are already beginning to emerge, including a house, transformed in its last stages into a fullonica (laundry) and already excavated around 1912, and a house with an oven and upper cell. 

In even higher levels, archaeologists have documented a series of holes made in the ground in perhaps more recent years and presumably functional to the agricultural use of the land or perhaps linked to the lapilli quarrying activities that the area underwent in the modern era. Eighteenth-nineteenth-century views (see attached painting by Jacob Philipp Hackert) show how the plateau above the excavations was used for various agricultural crops, between wooded areas and rural buildings, and farmers’ greenhouses were still present until 2015.

A landscape, the historical one of the decades of the rediscovery of Pompeii, which the Park wants to enhance and tell also through another project that aims at the redevelopment of the green areas of the site and its surroundings. 

In recent weeks, the procedure for selecting a partner for the cultivation of the Park’s existing trees is underway in the context of a public-private partnership, which provides for the expansion of the cultivated areas, and in the future also the introduction of olive groves , orchards and vegetable gardens.

“The size of a catastrophe is also measured according to the possibility of forgetting it, of making it fall into oblivion – comments the director – And that landscape of crops, woods and pastures that was born over the centuries after the eruption on the site of the ancient city , is like a small comfort compared to the terrible tragedy of 79 AD which destroyed the entire city of Pompeii in two days. 

The memory of the tragedy faded, life returned. So much so that after the excavations began in 1748, it took 15 years to understand that they were digging in Pompeii and not in Stabia.”