Category Archives: WORLD

DENMARK, EUROPE, WORLD

Ancient golden neck ring found in Denmark

Ancient golden neck ring found in Denmark

A one-of-a-kind golden neck ring from the Germanic Iron Age (400-550 A.D.) has been discovered in a field not far from Esbjerg on the Jutland Peninsula in mainland Denmark.

Ancient golden neck ring found in Denmark

The ring weighs in at almost half a kilo (446 grams) and is designed with crescent-like depressions. The decoration is so meticulously detailed that the crescent shapes on the two rings are ever so slightly different: the crescents on the outer ring have eight decorative divots inside them, and the crescents on the inner ones have six. The broadest point of the ring measures 21 centimetres in diameter.

The embellishments on the ring are so rare, which makes it a “masterpiece of almost divine quality,” as termed by the South West Jutland Museum.

That kind of decoration is only known from fewer than a dozen similar rings found in Denmark. And this is by far the most elaborate, most finely worked of them. It is the only one with a soldered plate with intricate gold thread decoration.

The experts noted that the ring was deliberately buried and hidden away and that the inhabitant to whom it belonged did not sacrifice the ring to the gods, which was common practice in that era.

“When sacrificing items at that time, it usually took place in wetlands and bogs and the like. We know a large wetland existed near the discovery site, so if it was sacrificed to the gods, it would have been located out there instead”, Claus Feveile, curator at the Ribe Viking Museum, said in a statement.

The golden neck ring was discovered by metal detectorist Dan Christensen in October 2021.  Christensen when he found the neck ring, immediately alerted museum staff.

In the week following the discovery, the entire field was scanned with metal detectors in case the ring had been part of a larger grouping of precious objects scattered by agricultural activity. (Previous examples of neck rings from this period have been found in pairs.) Nothing turned up.

Subsequent full excavation of the find site revealed evidence of a settlement under a thin layer of plow soil, including roof-bearing post holes from multiple three-nave longhouses dating to between 300 and 600 A.D. The neck ring was found inside one of the longhouses.

It was recovered from below the plow layer, so archaeologists believe it was buried where it was found.

Archaeologists don’t think it has been moved since, as the golden neck ring is in mint condition and has maintained its shape.

Initially, the neck ring will be exhibited at Museet Ribes Vikinger up until December 23.

AUSTRALIA, WORLD

‘Australia’s silk road’: Quarry sites dating back 2,100 years reveal a world-scale trading system in Mithaka country

‘Australia’s silk road’: Quarry sites dating back 2,100 years reveal a world-scale trading system in Mithaka country

In Queensland’s remote Channel Country of red dirt and gibber rock, traditional owners and archaeologists have unearthed what researchers have dubbed “Australia’s Silk Road”.

The region is archaeologically significant: the landscape has been dramatically altered by a huge network of quarries, which Mithaka people once used to make seed-grinding implements.

While historical accounts have suggested Aboriginal Australians may have lived in permanent settlements, scientists say there is relatively limited archaeological evidence to back this up.

But now, a unique collaboration between Mithaka traditional owners, defence veterans, and scientists is unearthing skeletons and stone circles that experts say may paint a new picture of early Aboriginal lives.

In a research project initiated by the Mithaka people addressing, the results show that Mithaka Country has a substantial and diverse archaeological record, including numerous large stone quarries, multiple ritual structures, and substantial dwellings.

A team involving traditional owners and researchers eventually identified 179 quarry sites, spread over 33,800 sq km – an area about half the size of Tasmania. Some quarry pits are estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.

A Mithaka grinding stone set from Morney Plains Quarry.

One of the sites comprises 25,000 individual quarry pits, says Shawnee Gorringe, a Mithaka traditional owner. She describes the archaeological research findings as “scientific validation of something that you already knew was pretty special.”

In December, Michael C. Westaway, and collaborators received grant funding to investigate plant domestication and possible village sites on Mithaka land.

Project partner and lead researcher from Michael C. Westaway said he was blown away by the scale and significance of the Mithaka cultural landscape.

“Mithaka country is in the heart of a massive trade and exchange network, which I have referred to as Australia’s Silk Road,” Dr. Westaway said.

The researchers say archaeological research has uncovered unknown aspects, such as the scale of Mithaka quarrying, that could spur a reassessment of Aboriginal socio-economic systems in parts of ancient Australia.

A newly rediscovered ancient giant “Scorpious Stone Arrangement” in the remote desert of far western QLD, is offering new clues about the Mithika indigenous history.

Australia’s Silk Road

The Channel Country is so named for its intertwined channels, in which monsoonal rains transform from the arid desert into lush greenery. A complex exchange system once operated up and down along these rivulets.

Mithaka land was once at the heart of a vast transcontinental exchange route that spanned from the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, down to the Flinders Ranges in South Australia – a system Westaway describes as “Australia’s Silk Road”.

“It connected large numbers of Aboriginal groups throughout that arid interior area on the eastern margins of the Simpson Desert,” he says. “You get people interacting all across the continent, exchanging ideas, trading objects and items and ceremonies and songs.”

Grindstones mined and produced on an industrial scale on Mithaka land were exchanged for ochre, wooden objects, stone axes, and pituri, a narcotic. “We don’t really know how far and wide they were being distributed, but they were an important element,” Westaway says.

Some of the archaeological findings are on show in an exhibition touring Queensland titled Kirrenderri, meaning the heart of Channel Country.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Unprecedented 1800-year-old marble bathtub recovered in Turkey

Unprecedented 1800-year-old marble bathtub recovered in Turkey

The 1800-year-old marble bathtub, which was seized when it was about to be sold by historical artefact smugglers in Aydın’s Karacasu district, was delivered to the Aphrodisias Museum Directorate. Experts stated that the 1-ton marble bathtub with reliefs of the lion’s head is not similar in Turkey.

Unprecedented 1800-year-old marble bathtub recovered in Turkey

The 1800-year-old marble bathtub, which was seized when it was about to be sold, during the operation carried out by the gendarmerie on March 31 against historical artefact smugglers, weighs 1 tonne and is 1 meter 80 centimetres long.

There are lion head reliefs on the right and left sides of the tub, and these reliefs represent power and power.

Experts pointed out that it was evaluated that the bathtub may have been used by a state administrator or a wealthy business person.

In the research, it was stated that the work, which stands out as the only bathtub made of marble among the bathtubs found so far, has no analogues in Turkey.

Aydın Provincial Culture and Tourism Director Umut Tuncer said, “The ancient city of Aphrodisias was one of the richest cities of its time.

We think that the marble bathtub is an important part of the history of this city, which dates back to the 1st century BC. This bathtub, which is about 1800 years old, is one of the rare examples in the world because it is completely marbled.”

“There are bathtubs created with various mud layers that have been found in Turkey before, but this completely marble structure actually expresses the wealth of this region and the welfare society of the period.”

Aphrodisias was an important city on its own like other Roman and Byzantine cities. Aphrodisias was surrounded by fertile soil to grow all kinds of nutrients and was the first city of the era. In addition, it had the sleek wall and cotton industries, advanced commercial, political, religious, and cultural institutions, great art and painting tradition, philosophy, and a world-famous school of sculpture.

Aydın Provincial Culture and Tourism Director Umut Tuncer said, “The seized marble bathtub is rare in the world”

In ancient times, Aphrodisias was actually quite famous for its expert sculptors, high-quality marble statues, and an important sculpture workshop that was uncovered during excavations. Marble quarries near the city were an important factor in Aphrodisias becoming a leading centre of arts.

In the 4th-6th centuries AD, Aphrodisian sculptors were in high demand to produce marble busts and statues for important individuals in the Roman Empire.

Their products were considered the best marble statues of the time and were displayed in major cities such as Rome, Constantinople, Sardis, Laodikeia, and Stratonikeia. Surviving works of Aphrodisian sculptors include Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

The Neanderthal lifestyle: archaeological insights from Valencia

The Neanderthal lifestyle: archaeological insights from Valencia

A research team from the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia (UV) has discovered and dated in Aspe (Alicante) an open-air neanderthal habitat over 120,000 years old in the Natural Park of Los Aljezares.

The Neanderthal lifestyle: archaeological insights from Valencia
The lower limbs of a Neanderthal analyzed

The team was led by Professor Aleix Eixea, in collaboration with the University of Alicante (UA), the Bizkaiko Arkeologi Museoa and the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution of France.

Neanderthals, also known as homo neanderthalensis, are an extinct subspecies of humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. Experts are not sure of the exact cause of their extinction; they may have simply assimilated and interbred with homo sapiens (modern humans).

Based on the recent study of the area, Prof. Eixea posited that “this site served as a crossing point for the neanderthal populations between the coast and the interior of the Iberian Peninsula within a wide territorial network that the different groups would use to stock up on biotic and abiotic resources.” 

We know that during the Middle Paleolithic era, the period during which Neanderthals lived, the primitive human populations settled in open-air camps. This is the case at the Los Aljezares site.

However, historically, the archaeological record of the European Paleolithic Era, particularly that of the Iberian Peninsula, comes from sites located in caves. In fact, most of the archeological excavations there in the last century and a half have been carried out in caves.

Thus, there is relatively little data about neanderthal activity –human behaviour, settlement patterns, and so on — outside of their cave shelters. 

A Neanderthal tooth studied by researchers

Prof. Eixea explained that the Los Aljezares site “is one of the few examples of this type in the Iberian Peninsula and the only one in the Valencian area in which two archaeological levels have been documented in their original position, rich in lithic, faunal and archaeobotanical materials, and well-dated in time.”

This made it possible for researchers to gain a more detailed understanding of the landscape and climate, both very different from the current ones, and also the activity of the neanderthals themselves. 

Further analysis of the configuration of the site indicated that it was also a place where neanderthals would make stone and wooden tools. They also prepared animals they hunted (deer and horses) for consumption. 

Overall, Los Aljezares can be said to provide a number of keys to understanding the ecology, adaptation and dynamics of the neanderthal lifestyle in the Iberian Peninsula. 

EUROPE, SERBIA, WORLD

Newcomers from Eastern Europe settled in today’s Serbia almost 5,000 years ago

Newcomers from Eastern Europe settled in today’s Serbia almost 5,000 years ago

Bones of tall men covered with a red dye, discovered by researchers including Polish archaeologists in two burial mounds in Vojvodina (northern Serbia) probably belonged to people who had come there almost 5 thousand years ago from the steppes of today’s South Russia or Ukraine.

The targets of research were two large mounds with a diameter of 40 m and a height of 3-4 m located in the region Šajkaška (in the autonomous district of Vojvodina) on the lower Tisa, at the western edge of the Eurasian steppe. In each of them, there were two spacious, wooden tomb chambers.

Both mounds were built in two stages. Initially, when the first deceased was buried approx. 3-2.9 thousand years BCE, they were much smaller. After some 100-200 years, during the second burial, their diameters and heights were significantly increased.

The mound ‘Medisova humka’ during research.

‘The graves we discovered were not spectacularly equipped, but we noticed the red colouring of some bones. This was due to the use of ochre on the bodies of the dead’, says Dr. Piotr Włodarczak from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, one of the supervisors of excavations. According to the expert, during that period it was a ‘sacred colour’ used during the funeral rituals. The remains belonged to tall man, over 1.8 m.

‘Both the use of ochre and above-average height of the deceased (men living in this part of Europe at the turn of the fourth and third millennium BCE were usually approx. 1.6 m tall) indicate that they were newcomers.

The ritual involving the use of ochre and burial in large mounds it is associated with communities living in Eastern European steppes’, the scientist explains.

Reconstruction of the Yamnaya culture burial from the mound in Žabalj.

The researchers managed to dot the ‘i”. Genetic analysis of the remains shows that they the deceased either came from the East themselves, or were the immediate descendants of the newcomers. Samples for isotopic analyses were also taken from the bone to determine the diet, among other things.

‘It was not a surprise that their diet contained a lot of meat, because these communities were animal breeders’, adds Dr. Włodarczak.

Excavations took place in 2016-2018, but only now scientists concluded a series of expert analyses. The project was financed by the Polish National Science Centre. It was carried out in cooperation with the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad.

According to Dr. Włodarczak, at the turn of the IV and III millennium BCE, Europe saw an influx of nomads from the southern steppes of today’s Russia and Ukraine, whose traces of archaeologists describe as the Yamnaya culture (from Russian, Pit Grave culture). It significantly changed Europe’s cultural situation.

‘The Bronze Age proto-state centres and elites began to emerge, as evidenced by huge mounds, under which individual people were buried’, he adds. Archaeologists believe they were community leaders.

Some of the graves were very richly equipped with weapons, ornaments and decorated dishes. The mounds discovered in Vojvodina is the westernmost tombs of the nomadic community of Yamnaya culture.

The new population also reached the areas of contemporary Poland. Archaeologists recorded a cultural change in the third millennium BCE – funeral rituals and method of making ceramic vessels changed.

Based on evidence in the form of genetic analyses, researchers believe that the community referred to as the Corded Ware culture also consisted of descendants of steppe nomads.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

‘Garbage dump’ discovered in ancient Egyptian tomb dedicated to the fertility goddess

‘Garbage dump’ discovered in ancient Egyptian tomb dedicated to the fertility goddess

Figurines of deities and priests as well as vessels with a breast motif are among several hundred items discovered by archaeologists at an ancient garbage dump in Egypt.

Polish researchers at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor in the south of the country, came across the extraordinary find while working on the reconstruction of the 3,500-year-old Chapel of the Goddess Hathor.

Exploring a tomb carved into the rock face, the team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology first came across the rubbish dump. 

'Garbage dump' discovered in ancient Egyptian tomb dedicated to the fertility goddess
Hundreds of artefacts once used as offerings to the ancient Egyptian goddess of love and fertility have been uncovered in a 3,500-year-old garbage dump in Luxor.

Head of research Dr. Patryk Chudzik said: “We were concerned that our work could lead to the collapse of the tomb ceiling, which is why we wanted to secure it. 

“After entering we found that it had never been studied and cleaned because the debris stacked up to a height of about half a meter.”

Buried within the rubble they came across the ancient artefacts. 

Chudzik said: “The amount and quality of the artefacts we have found is astounding. They include a wooden figurine most likely depicting the owner of the tomb with a wig on his head.”

The trove of artefacts includes figurines painted a stunning blue color, along with cups, decorative plates, bowls and ceramic flasks with breast designs.

Other items discovered included dozens of women figurines, as well as ceramic flasks with breast motifs and floral patterns symbolising the rebirth of the Land of the Dead, and cow figurines from the early 18th dynasty, the period of the New Kingdom.

According to Dr. Chudzik, these were offerings to the Egyptian Goddess Hathor. 

He said: “The offerings were made by local residents asking Hathor for support. After a while, there were too many of them and priests and temple staff had to clear them. 

“We have already known a few places right at the temple entrance gates, where they were disposed of. Now we have discovered another, previously unknown place.”

The tomb was originally discovered in the late 19th century by Professor Henri Édouard Naville. However, the information he published about it was quite scarce. The researcher mentioned the rubble filling the tomb, but did not mention any excavations conducted in this place. 

Archaeologists from an American expedition working at the Temple of Hatshepsut in the 1920s also missed this precious rubble. 

It appears that the rubble with votive offerings to Hathor remained intact since the time of the deposit, almost 3,500 years ago.

The pile of rubble was also determined to be 500 years older than the Temple of Hatshepsut. Pictured is a figurine uncovered from the trash pile
The trash pile was discovered when researchers were reconstructing a tomb inside the Temple of Hatshepsut. Pictured is a piece of the tomb wall

Polish researchers have been working at the Temple of Hatshepsut since 1961 when Professor Kazimierz Michałowski founded Polish-Egyptian Archaeology and Conservation Expedition. 

Since then, archaeologists, restorers and architects associated with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology have been working on documentation and reconstruction of the temple. Currently, their efforts are focused on rebuilding the Hathor shrine. Partly underneath it, there is a tomb carved the rock, which they recently explored.

Figurines of deities and priests as well as vessels with a breast motif are among several hundred items discovered by archaeologists at an ancient garbage dump in Egypt.

The tomb is carved in the rock. It consists of a passage more than 15 meters long which leads to a chamber with a recess in the stone floor where the coffin with the body of the owner of the tomb was originally placed.

The discovery was made and research carried out in the spring of 2021. This season, the experts intend to support the ceiling of the tomb to enable reconstruction work in the Hathor shrine located above it.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient pottery workshop — with the remains of rounded vessels, coins, figurines and even a ‘ritual room’ — dating to the beginning of the Roman period in Tabba Matouh, West Alexandria. 

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt
Archaeologists discovered a number of fragments of terracotta statues at the site in Alexandria.

Ancient workers primarily used the site for crafting amphorae —  two-handed vessels with a neck narrower than the main body that was used for the storage and transportation of goods such as oil and grain, according to the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Center. 

Archaeologists with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities discovered a number of buildings at the site, including a workshop containing a group of kilns.

Two of these were carved into the rock and one remains in excellent condition, the ministry announced in a translated statement. 

During the Byzantine era (A.D. 330 to 1453), long after ceramic production ended at the site, the buildings were likely used for another purpose: lime production, Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.

The archaeologists also uncovered graves, with burial holes dug into the rock, suggesting the site was later used as a cemetery during the medieval period. One of the graves held the remains of a pregnant woman.

A view of the site at Tabba Matouh, west Alexandria, Egypt

The archaeologists also discovered a storage room, which contained cooking utensils and tableware. A number of limestone buildings were most likely used as temporary residences for workers at the site. One room was discovered with a raised platform and the remains of terracotta statues, suggesting it was likely used for rituals.

Some of these statues represent the god Harpocrates, the juvenile form of the falcon-headed god Horus.

Another room that had stoves and the remains of amphorae containing preserved fish bones was most likely used for cooking and selling food, according to the statement. 

The site dates back to early Roman Egypt, which began in 30 B.C. following future Roman emperor Octavian’s defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Following the Roman conquest, Egypt became a highly prosperous Roman province that supplied the rest of the Roman Empire with a variety of craft-based products, including pottery.

“Pottery is the most common artefact recovered through excavation and survey of Roman sites [in ancient Egypt],” Scott Gallimore, an archaeologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada who was not involved in the new excavation, wrote in a 2010 paper for the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. 

The archaeological team also unearthed a number of smaller items at the site, such as firewood, small statues, animal bones and a number of coins featuring the likeness of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, according to Heritage Daily.

An amulet of the ancient Egyptian god Bes and a feathered crown associated with Bes were also discovered. Bes was seen as the god of music, merriment and childbirth, according to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in California. Fishing hooks and the anchor of a boat were also among the items discovered.

AUSTRIA, EUROPE, WORLD

Gold ‘sun bowl’ discovered near Bronze Age swamp

Gold ‘sun bowl’ discovered near Bronze Age swamp

Archaeologists excavating a 3,000-year-old settlement in Austria have unearthed a golden bowl with the image of a sun adorning its underside. 

“At the bottom of the bowl, a sun disc with 11 rays is depicted,” Michał Sip, an archaeologist with the German company Novetus, who is leading excavations at the site, told Live Science in an email. The artisan (or artisans) who crafted the bowl also included a “circular motif [images] of circles and dots” decorating the bowl’s exterior, Sip said. 

The fragile bowl was shaped out of gold sheet metal, and it “probably had a cultic function,” Sip added. 

Gold 'sun bowl' discovered near Bronze Age swamp
A photo of the sun bowl is seen here. The bottom has a sun disc with 11 rays coming out. There are also circular motifs decorating the bowl.

Archaeologists know of about 30 similar bowls from ancient Europe, but “this is the first find of this type in Austria, and the second to the east of the alpine line,” Sip told Science in Poland.

These bowls were produced in the regions of what is now Germany, Scandinavia and Denmark, he noted.

At nearly 8 inches (20 centimetres) in diameter, the bowl is slightly larger than a person’s hand. But it’s very shallow — just 2 inches (5 cm) tall. An analysis revealed that the vessel is about 90% gold, 5% silver and 5% copper, and researchers are now hoping to discover where its raw materials originated, according to Science in Poland.

The bowl wasn’t the only stunning artefact found at the site. Two bracelets made from twisted gold wires were found with the bowl, and some organic remains, possibly fabric or leather, still cling to them.

The team is doing DNA tests to try to determine what the organic remains are, Sip said.

The bowl was found near the wall of one of the houses at the Bronze Age settlement, said Sip, adding that it’s possible that the bowl was wrapped in the gold wires and intentionally deposited at this location, perhaps during a religious ceremony honouring the sun.

The settlement dates back to before writing was used in the area, making it harder to determine what exactly the bowl would have been used for.

The prehistoric settlement lies beneath the modern-day town of Ebreichsdorf, Austria, and excavations are being conducted prior to the construction of a train station at the site.

During their excavations, the archaeologists also found nearly 500 bronze objects, including daggers, pins and knives, in a now-dry area south of the settlement that was once a swamp.

None of these objects is damaged, meaning that the swamp wasn’t used as a garbage dump for broken goods. Rather, these bronze objects were likely thrown into the water during rituals, Sip told Science in Poland.

After excavations are complete, the site will be returned to the Austrian Federal Railways, Sip said. Excavation of the site and analysis of its remains is ongoing. The gold bowl will soon go on display at Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.