Jewelry Recovered from 18th Dynasty Tomb in Upper Egypt
A British mission from Cambridge University working at Tell El-Amarna necropolis in Minya governorate in Upper Egypt discovered a small collection of gold and steatite (soapstone) jewellery in an 18th Dynasty (1550 to 1292 BC) cemetery.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that the jewellery had originated from the interment of a young adult female, who was buried wearing a necklace of petal-shaped pendants and three finger rings.
She had been wrapped in textile and plant-fibre matting and interred in a small shaft-and-chamber tomb, along with several other individuals.
Ana Steven, deputy director of the mission said that her burial is located at the Amarna North Desert Cemetery in the low desert west of the North Tombs. It includes a small number of burial shafts and tombs, as well as pit graves.
The Amarna Project has been investigating the cemeteries of Amarna since 2005, with the aim of exploring life experiences and burial customs at the ancient city of Akhetaten.
The ancient Egyptian city of Amarna continues to transform our understanding of how human society has developed. Not only was it home to the monotheistic King Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti and the young Tutankhamun, it remains one of the world’s pre-eminent archaeological sites for understanding how people lived in the pre-Classical world.
The Cambridge University mission started excavations in Tel El-Amarna in 1977 at several sites including the grand Aten Temple, the Al-Ahgar village, the northern palace and the Re and Banehsi houses, according to Director-General of Antiquities in Middle Egypt Gamal El-Semestawi.
The mission has also carried out restoration works at the Small Atun Temple and the northern palace.
Tel El-Amarna, which lies around 12 kilometres southwest of Minya city, holds the ruins of the city constructed by King Akhenaten and his wife Queen Nefertiti to be the home of the cult of the sun god Aten.
The ruins of this great city include magnificent temples, palaces and tombs.
The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism has announced the discovery of archaeological artefacts at Dibba site in Musandam Governorate, dating back to the first millennium BC, most notably incense burners, bronze axes, and utensils made of copper and steatite.
The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, in cooperation with an archaeological mission from the Italian Sapienza University, announced the discovery of a number of artefacts at the Dibba site in the Musandam Governorate, dating back to the first millennium BC.
Work is underway for the seventh and final season of excavations in the mass grave CG2, which is 24 metres long and more than 3 metres deep.
A number of important artefacts have been uncovered, most notably a censer, bronze axes, and utensils made of copper and steatite.
These recent excavations come as a prelude to the establishment of the visitor centre, which will start implementation soon, in cooperation with OQ Company, and it will be the first of its kind in the Sultanate of Oman and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
It will be built directly above the archaeological evidence. The centre will include a museum displaying the artefacts discovered at the site.
It is noteworthy that this site is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Oman and dates back to the first millennium BC, when it was a trading centre associated with neighbouring civilisations in India, Persia and Mesopotamia.
Many diverse and precious collectables, locally made and imported from neighbouring civilisations, were found in it.
Archaeologists unearth largest wooden ‘haniwa’ statue ever found in Japan
The remains of a 3.5-meter-tall wooden haniwa statue were found Thursday at one of the ancient kofun burial mounds making up the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Habikino, in Osaka Prefecture.
With the parts also measuring 75 centimeters wide and around 8 cm thick, the statue is believed to be one of the biggest wooden haniwa found in Japan so far.
According to the education board of the city of Habikino, the haniwa was unearthed during an excavation of a moat surrounding the 96-meter-long Minegazuka Kofun, which is believed to have been built at the end of the fifth century.
The statue is an Iwami-style haniwa, which “has only been found at 15 kofun tumuli in Japan so far,” according to an official of the education board.
“The haniwa is a very rare artifact as it is made of kōyamaki (Japanese umbrella pine), which was a type of wood favored by people in power at the time,” the official said.
Remaining parts of a 3.5-meter-tall wooden haniwa statue unearthed from the Minegazuka Kofun in Habikino, Osaka Prefecture | HABIKINO BOARD OF EDUCATION / VIA KYODO
The haniwa is the tallest ever found, exceeding the 2.6-meter-tall Iwami-style specimen excavated from the Ohakayama Kofun in the city of Tenri in neighboring Nara Prefecture, according to the Habikino education board.
“Wooden haniwa made out of kōyamaki, which can be logged in only a few areas in Japan, have only been found from kofun tumuli in the Kinki region and are extremely few in number,” said Hiroaki Suzuki of the Nara Prefectural Government’s cultural property preservation division, who is familiar with wooden haniwa.
“It’s possible that a figure then at the center of power was buried (at the Minegazuka Kofun),” Suzuki added.
Ireland to return mummified remains and sarcophagus to Egypt
Mummified human remains and a sarcophagus is among the ancient objects that an Irish university says it plans to repatriate to Egypt.
This wooden sarcophagus is thought to have belonged to a man called Hor
All of the artifacts being returned by the University College Cork (UCC) date from between 100AD and 975BC. An inscription on the wooden sarcophagus, which was donated to UCC, suggests it belonged to a man named Hor.
UCC said it plans to return the items in 2023.
The human remains are thought to be that of an adult male and were donated to the UCC in 1928.
The items also include a set of four canopic jars – containers used by ancient Egyptians during mummification – and funerary head and body coverings known as cartonnage.
The jars are the oldest items, likely dating between 945-700BC, and were bought by the UCC from an antique dealership in Yorkshire.
There are no records indicating how the cartonnage made its way to the university.
The sarcophagus was excavated by Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli in the early 1900s.
The announcement of the items’ return follows ongoing discussions between UCC, the Egyptian and Irish governments, and the National Museum of Ireland.
Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said he was “delighted” that his department could help in what he described as an “important project”.
Egypt’s ambassador to Ireland, Mohamed Sarwat Selim, expressed his thanks to everyone involved in the repatriation.
The items’ return will be documented in a creative project called Kinship, which is being lead by the Irish artist Dorothy Cross.
“The essence of Kinship is the return of a mummified body of an Egyptian man from Ireland to Cairo, mirroring the tragic displacement and migration of thousands of people from their homelands today,” Ms. Cross said.
The 2,300-year-old mummy under the floorboards that UCC has been in custody dispute with Egypt over has been spotted on the move in the library #UCCpic.twitter.com/CDpIqddSTZ
Stone Tools Offer Clues to Rice Domestication in China
Rice plants near the Shangshan site in the Lower Yangtze River Valley in China.
A new Dartmouth-led study analyzing stone tools from southern China provides the earliest evidence of rice harvesting, dating to as early as 10,000 years ago. The researchers identified two methods of harvesting rice, which helped initiate rice domestication. The results are published in PLOS ONE.
Map illustrating Shangshan and Hehuashan sites in the Lower Yangtze River Valley of China.
Wild rice is different from domesticated rice in that wild rice naturally sheds ripe seeds, shattering them to the ground when they mature, while cultivated rice seeds stay on the plants when they mature.
To harvest rice, some sort of tools would have been needed. In harvesting rice with tools, early rice cultivators were selecting the seeds that stay on the plants, so gradually the proportion of seeds that remain increased, resulting in domestication.
“For quite a long time, one of the puzzles has been that harvesting tools have not been found in southern China from the early Neolithic period or New Stone Age (10,000—7,000 Before Present), the time period when we know rice began to be domesticated,” says lead author Jiajing Wang, an assistant professor of anthropology.
“However, when archaeologists were working at several early Neolithic sites in the Lower Yangtze River Valley, they found a lot of small pieces of stone, which had sharp edges that could have been used for harvesting plants.”
“Our hypothesis was that maybe some of those small stone pieces were rice harvesting tools, which is what our results show.”
In the Lower Yangtze River Valley, the two earliest Neolithic culture groups were the Shangshan and Kuahuqiao. The researchers examined 52 flaked stone tools from the Shangshan and Hehuashan sites, the latter of which was occupied by Shangshan and Kuahuqiao cultures.
A selection of stone flake tools from the Shangshan (a-h) and Kuahuqiao cultures (i – l). Red dots delineate the working edge of tools.
The stone flakes are rough in appearance and are not finely made but have sharp edges. On average, the flaked tools are small enough to be held by one hand and measured approximately 1.7 inches in width and length.
Our hypothesis was that maybe some of those small stone pieces were rice harvesting tools, which is what our results show.
JIAJING WANG, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY
To determine if the stone flakes were used for harvesting rice, the team conducted use-wear and phytolith residue analyses. Phytolith refers to the silica skeleton of plants.
For the use-wear analysis, micro-scratches on the tools’ surfaces were examined under a microscope to determine how the stones were used. The results showed that 30 flakes have use-wear patterns similar to those produced by harvesting siliceous, or silica-rich, plants, likely including rice.
Fine striations, high polish, and rounded edges distinguished the tools that were used for cutting plants from those that were used for processing hard materials, cutting animal tissues, and scraping wood.
Through the phytolith residue analysis, the researchers analyzed the microscopic residue left on the stone flakes. They found that 28 of the tools contained rice phytoliths.
“What’s interesting about rice phytoliths is that rice husk and leaves produce different kinds of phytolith, which enabled us to determine how the rice was harvested,” says Wang.
The findings from the use-wear and phytolith analyses illustrated that two types of rice harvesting methods were used—“finger-knife” and “sickle” techniques. Both methods are still used in Asia today.
The stone flakes from the early phase, 10,000—8,200 BP, showed that rice was largely harvested using the finger-knife method in which the panicles at the top of the rice plant are reaped. The results showed that the tools used for finger-knife harvesting had striations that were mainly perpendicular or diagonal to the edge of the stone flake, which suggests a cutting or scraping motion, and contained phytoliths from seeds or rice husk phytoliths, indicating that the rice was harvested from the top of the plant.
Schematic representation of rice harvesting methods using a finger-knife, at left, and sickle.
“A rice plant contains numerous panicles that mature at different times, so the finger-knife harvesting technique is especially useful when rice domestication was in the early stage,” says Wang.
The stone flakes however, from the later phase, 8,000—7,000 BP, had more evidence of sickle harvesting in which the lower part of the plant was harvested. These tools had striations that were predominantly parallel to the tool’s edge, reflecting that a slicing motion had likely been used.
“Sickle harvesting was more widely used when rice became more domesticated, and more ripe seeds stayed on the plant,” says Wang. “Since you are harvesting the entire plant at the same time, the rice leaves and stems could also be used for fuel, building materials, and other purposes, making this a much more effective harvesting method.”
Wang says, “Both harvesting methods would have reduced seed shattering. That’s why we think rice domestication was driven by human unconscious selection.”
Denisovan Genes May Have Boosted Modern Human Immunity
When modern humans first migrated from Africa to the tropical islands of the southwest Pacific, they encountered unfamiliar people and new pathogens. But their immune systems may have picked up some survival tricks when they mated with the locals—the mysterious Denisovans who gave them immune gene variants that might have protected the newcomers’ offspring from local diseases.
Ancient Denisovans like this reconstruction from a 146,000-year-old potential Denisovan skull from Harbin, China, gave immune-related DNA to people in Papua New Guinea.
Some of these variants still persist in the genomes of people living in Papua New Guinea today, according to a new study.
Researchers have known for a decade that living people in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia, a subregion of the southwest Pacific Ocean, inherited up to 5% of their DNA from Denisovans, ancient humans closely related to Neanderthals who arrived in Asia about 200,000 years ago.
Scientists assume those variants benefited people in the past—perhaps by helping the modern humans better ward off local diseases—but they have wondered how that DNA might still be altering how people look, act, and feel today.
It’s been difficult to detect the function of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in Melanesians, however, because scientists have analyzed so little genetic data from living humans in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia.
The new study overcomes that problem by using genetic data from 56 individuals from Papua New Guinea that were recently analyzed for another paper, part of the Indonesian Genome Diversity Project.
The researchers, mostly from Australia and New Guinea, compared those genomes with those of Denisovans from Denisova Cave in Siberia, as well as Neanderthals.
They found the Papuans had inherited unusually high frequencies of 82,000 genetic variants known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, which arise from differences of a single base or letter in the genetic code—from Denisovans.
The team then looked for those variants in a database that links genes to various functions in different tissues in humans. They homed in on immune-related gene variants that might promote or enhance a nearby gene’s production of proteins, for example, or shut off or dampen its function. These tweaks can help optimize an immune system for the specific pathogens in its environment; too strong an immune response can be as deadly as the infection itself.
In Papuans, the scientists found many Denisovan variants that were located near genes known to impact human immune responses to viruses and other pathogens, such as the flu and chikungunya. Next, they tested the function of eight Denisovan gene variants associated with the expression of proteins produced by two genes, in particular, OAS2 and OAS3, “lymphoblastoid”—cell lines of B cells, a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies critical to the body’s immune response. Those cell lines were collected from Papuans by study co-author Christopher Kinipi, a Papuan physician and health services director at the University of Papua New Guinea.
Two of the Denisovan genetic variants found in those Papuan cell lines lowered the transcription or production of proteins that regulate cytokines, part of the immune system’s defense against infections, reducing inflammation. This subdued inflammatory response could have helped Papuans weather a rash of new infections they would have encountered in the region.
“One of the strengths of the study is that they tested the Denisovan variants in Papuan cell lines, which are essentially the cell environment in which they evolved,” says functional genomicist Francesca Luca of Wayne State University, who was not part of the study.
Taken together, these experiments suggest those Denisovan gene variants “might be fine-tuning the immune response” to optimize it to its environment, says human evolutionary geneticist Irene Gallego Romero of the University of Melbourne, lead author of the new study published in PLOS Genetics. “In the tropics where people have high loads of infectious disease, you might want to tone down the immune response a little and not go overboard.”
These findings dovetail with earlier work on the role of Neanderthal variants in living Europeans. Studies of both Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in different populations are showing how mating with archaic humans—long-adapted to their regions—provided a rapid way for incoming modern humans to pick up beneficial genes, says computational biologist Janet Kelso of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The study shows this sort of gene swap was “an important mechanism for how humans adapted quickly [to new challenges], specifically pathogens,” says human geneticist Luis Barreiro of the University of Chicago.
But he would like to see future work test whether the Denisovan gene variants actually give Papuans a better shot at warding off or surviving specific diseases.
Overall, this study shows “matings which took place tens of thousands of years ago are still influencing the biology of contemporary individuals,” says population geneticist Joshua Akey of Princeton University.
The headless statue may represent a decapitated prisoner of war, the INAH director explained.
An imposing, life-size sculpture of a headless human found during excavation work for the Maya Train has been temporarily nicknamed “Yum keeb” — the god of the phallus or fertility.
The finding occurred in the state of Yucatán in the archaeological zone of Oxkintok, about 55 kilometers south of Mérida. The limestone statue without a head, hands, lower legs and feet measures 1.65 meters tall, or about 5 feet 5 inches.
“He was found lying on his back and represents the human figure,” archaeologist Luis Pantoja Díaz said during a media tour of the area on Wednesday. “We see the marked pectorals, the middle part that could be the hanging belly and the part of the member.”
He also said one could see buttocks (which are clearly visible in the photo) and some lines on the back, such as those that delineate shoulder blades (which are not).
While the newspaper La Jornada used the terms falo (phallus) and miembro (member) in describing the figure, another newspaper reported nothing along those lines, or about fertilidad (fertility), explaining instead that the sculpture is that of a warrior.
Its lack of a head “surely represents a warrior who was a prisoner in combat,” said Diego Prieto, general director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), as quoted by El Financiero.
Both sources said the sculpture was possibly used as an offering to the gods. It was found near a hieroglyph-laden staircase that was being cleaned and restored.
Pantoja Díaz stressed that the figure is still being analyzed to determine its specific function, thus the “temporary” nickname. Even the statue’s status as the representation of a male is not 100% assured, he added.
Oxkintok was a Maya city that existed in the latter portion of the Mesomerican Classic Period (A.D. 250 to 900) and was the capital of the region before the emergence of Uxmal. Noted for its historical markers, such as pyramids and monuments, it is nestled among mountains that are covered in undergrowth — with lots of potential discoveries still to be made.
The statue was found in Oxkintok in western Yucatán, along Section 3 of the Maya Train. (INAH)
The Maya Train has been divided into seven sections and the INAH reportedly has completed its excavation work in sections 1-3 and 5, with No. 4 to be completed soon and sections 6 and 7 in the prospecting stage.
“We have uncovered information that will nourish the knowledge of the Mesoamerican Maya world for at least the next two decades,” said Prieto, the INAH director. “This work will undoubtedly impact the study of Maya cultures … over many, many years.”
Overall, according to INAH data through Dec. 6, findings on the entire Maya Train route include 31,306 structures including foundations, 1,541 ceramics and chiseled stones, 463 sets of bones or skeletons, 1,040 natural features such as caves and cenotes, 708,428 ceramic figures and fragments (from sections 1-4) and 576 pieces in the process of analysis.
The Maya Train, one of President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador’s most ambitious projects, and one that has been challenged by various problems and issues, will pass through Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
Originally budgeted for nearly US $8 billion in 2020, it has now ballooned to up to US $20 billion, according to reports.
Last month, AMLO was quoted as saying that “the largest [current] railway project in the world” at 1,550 kilometers (963 miles) will be completed “in December 2023.”
Why the discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb would rewrite history
The south wall of the temple of Hathor at Dendera. Cleopatra and her son Caesarian are depicted on the left side.
It couldn’t have been a case of better timing. Egyptologists celebrating the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, now have a promising new archaeological discovery that appears to have been made in Egypt.
Excavators have discovered a tunnel under the Taposiris Magna temple, west of the ancient city of Alexandria, which they have suggested could lead to the tomb of Queen Cleopatra.
Evidence that this is really the case remains to be seen, but such a discovery would be a major find, with the potential to rewrite what we know about Egypt’s most famous queen.
According to the ancient Greek writer Plutarch – who wrote a biography of Cleopatra’s husband, the Roman general Mark Antony, and is responsible for the lengthiest and most detailed account of the last days of Cleopatra’s reign – both Antony and Cleopatra were buried inside Cleopatra’s mausoleum.
Bust of Cleopatra’s husband, Roman General Mark Antony, at the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid.
According to Plutarch, on the day that Augustus and his Roman forces invaded Egypt and captured Alexandria, Antony fell on his sword, died in Cleopatra’s arms, and was then interred in the mausoleum. Two weeks later, Cleopatra went to the mausoleum to make offerings and pour libations, and took her own life in a way that is still unknown (a popular misconception is that she was bitten by an asp). She too was then interred in the mausoleum.
In the days that followed, Antony’s son Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV Caesar (also known as Caesarion, “Little Caesar”), were both murdered by Roman forces, and the two young men may likewise have been interred there.
If the mausoleum of Cleopatra has not already vanished beneath the waves of the Mediterranean along with most of the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, and is one day found, it would be an almost unprecedented archaeological discovery.
A discovery that could rewrite history
While the tombs of many famous historical rulers are still standing – the mausoleum of Augustus, Antony, and Cleopatra’s mortal enemy, in Rome, is one example – their contents have often been looted and lost centuries ago.
The Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome.
One notable exception is the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, uncovered at Vergina in the late 1970s.
The tomb was found intact, and this has enabled decades of scientific investigation into its contents, advancing our knowledge of members of the Macedonian royal family and their court. The same would be true if Cleopatra’s tomb were discovered, and found to be intact.
The number of new information Egyptologists, classicists, ancient historians, and archaeologists could glean from its contents would be immense. For the most part, our knowledge of Cleopatra and her reign comes from ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, written after her death and inherently hostile to the Egyptian queen.
We do not have much evidence revealing the Egyptian perspective on Cleopatra, but what we do have, such as honorific reliefs on the temples that she built and votives dedicated by her subjects, gives us a very different view of her.
The ethics of unearthing Cleopatra’s remains
To date, no other Ptolemaic ruler’s tomb has been found. They were reportedly all situated in the palace quarter of Alexandria and are believed to be under the sea with the rest of that part of the city.
The architecture and material contents of the tomb alone would keep historians busy for decades, and provide unprecedented amounts of information about the Ptolemaic royal cult and the fusion of Macedonian and Egyptian culture. But if Cleopatra’s remains were there too, they could tell us a great deal more, including the cause of her death, her physical appearance, and even answer the thorny question of her race.
The mummy of an ancient Egyptian woman decorated with gold and enamel in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
But should we be hoping to find Cleopatra’s remains, and analyze them? From Tutankhamun to the ordinary ancient Egyptians whose mummies have been excavated over the centuries, there has been a long history of mismanagement and mistreatment.
While the days when mummies were unwrapped as a form of entertainment at Victorian dinner parties have thankfully passed, concerns are increasingly being raised by those who work in heritage about the appropriate treatment of our ancestors.
While the discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb would be priceless for Egyptologists and other scholars, is it fair to deny the queen the opportunity for peace and privacy in death that she did not receive in life?
