Category Archives: WORLD

Archaeologists Identify Mummified Legs as Queen Nefertari’s

Archaeologists Identify Mummified Legs as Queen Nefertari’s

A team of international archaeologists believe a pair of mummified legs on display in an Italian museum may belong to Egyptian Queen Nefertari — the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II.

The team, which included Dr Stephen Buckley and Professor Joann Fletcher from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, used radiocarbon dating, anthropology, palaeopathology, genetics and chemical analysis to identify the remains.

They conclude that “the most likely scenario is that the mummified knees truly belong to Queen Nefertari.”

Archaeologists Identify Mummified Legs as Queen Nefertari's
Queen Nefertari’s knees.

As the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II, Nefertari was provided with a beautifully decorated tomb in the Valley of the Queens to which Professor Fletcher was recently given access.

Although plundered in ancient times, the tomb, first excavated by Italian archaeologists in 1904, still contained objects which were sent to the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

This included a pair of mummified legs which could have been part of a later interment as was often the case in other tombs in the region.

But as the legs had never been scientifically investigated, it was decided to undertake the recent study to find out if the legs could actually represent all that remained of one of Egypt’s most legendary queens.

The study, published in the journal Plos One, revealed that the legs are those of an adult woman of about 40 years of age.

Dr Buckley’s chemical analysis also established that the materials used to embalm the legs are consistent with 13th Century BC mummification traditions, which when taken in conjunction with the findings of the other specialists involved, led to the identification.

Professor Fletcher said: “This has been the most exciting project to be part of, and a great privilege to be working alongside some of the world’s leading experts in this area.

“Both Stephen and myself have a long history studying Egypt’s royal mummies, and the evidence we’ve been able to gather about Nefertari’s remains not only complements the research we’ve been doing on the queen and her tomb but really does allow us to add another piece to the jigsaw of what is actually known about Egyptian mummification.”

Carthaginians sacrificed their own children, archaeologists say

Carthaginians sacrificed their own children, archaeologists say

A collaborative paper by academics from institutions across the globe, including Oxford University, suggests that Carthaginian parents ritually sacrificed young children as an offering to the gods.

The paper argues that well-meaning attempts to interpret the ‘tophets‘ – ancient infant burial grounds – simply as child cemeteries are misguided.

And the practice of child sacrifice could even hold the key to why the civilisation was founded in the first place.

A Tophet outside Carthage, a special part of a cemetery dedicated to the burial of infants, according to Josephine Quinn.

The research pulls together literary, epigraphical, archaeological and historical evidence and confirms the Greek and Roman account of events that held sway until the 1970s when scholars began to argue that the theory was simply anti-Carthaginian propaganda.

The paper is published in the journal Antiquity.

Dr Josephine Quinn of Oxford University’s Faculty of Classics, and author of the paper, said: ‘It’s becoming increasingly clear that the stories about Carthaginian child sacrifice are true. This is something the Romans and Greeks said the Carthaginians did and it was part of the popular history of Carthage in the 18th and 19th centuries.

‘But in the 20th century, people increasingly took the view that this was racist propaganda on the part of the Greeks and Romans against their political enemy and that Carthage should be saved from this terrible slander.

‘What we are saying now is that the archaeological, literary, and documentary evidence for child sacrifice is overwhelming and that instead of dismissing it out of hand, we should try to understand it.’

The city-state of ancient Carthage was a Phoenician colony located in what is now Tunisia. It operated from around 800BC until 146BC when it was destroyed by the Romans.

Children – both male and female, and mostly a few weeks old – were sacrificed by the Carthaginians at locations known as tophets. The practice was also carried out by their neighbours at other Phoenician colonies in Sicily, Sardinia and Malta. Dedications from the children’s parents to the gods are inscribed on slabs of stone above their cremated remains, ending with the explanation that the god or gods concerned had ‘heard my voice and blessed me.

Dr Quinn said: ‘People have tried to argue that these archaeological sites are cemeteries for children who were stillborn or died young, but quite apart from the fact that a weak, sick or dead child would be a pretty poor offering to a god, and that animal remains are found in the same sites treated in exactly the same way, it’s hard to imagine how the death of a child could count as the answer to a prayer. It’s very difficult for us to recapture people’s motivations for carrying out this practice or why parents would agree to it, but it’s worth trying.

‘Perhaps it was out of profound religious piety, or a sense that the good the sacrifice could bring the family or community as a whole outweighed the life of the child. We have to remember the high level of mortality among children – it would have been sensible for parents not to get too attached to a child that might well not make its first birthday.’

Dr Quinn added: ‘We think of it as a slander because we view it in our own terms. But people looked at it differently 2,500 years ago.

‘Indeed, contemporary Greek and Roman writers tended to describe the practice as more of an eccentricity or historical oddity – they’re not actually very critical.

‘We should not imagine that ancient people thought like us and were horrified by the same things.’

The backlash against the notion of Carthaginian child sacrifice began in the second half of the 20th century and was led by scholars from Tunisia and Italy, the very countries in which tophets have been found.

Dr Quinn added: ‘Carthage was far bigger than Athens and for many centuries much more important than Rome, but it is something of a forgotten city today.

‘If we accept that child sacrifice happened on some scale, it begins to explain why the colony was founded in the first place.

‘Perhaps the reason the people who established Carthage and its neighbours left their original home of Phoenicia – modern-day Lebanon – was because others there disapproved of their unusual religious practice.

‘Child abandonment was common in the ancient world, and human sacrifice is found in many historical societies, but child sacrifice is relatively uncommon. Perhaps the future Carthaginians were like the Pilgrim Fathers leaving from Plymouth – they were so fervent in their devotion to the gods that they weren’t welcome at home anymore.

‘Dismissing the idea of child sacrifice stops us from seeing the bigger picture.’

Egypt Archaeologists Discover 18,000 Notes Describing Lives of Ancient Civilisation

Egypt Archaeologists Discover 18,000 Notes Describing Lives of Ancient Civilisation

Archaeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities have unearthed a collection of more than 18,000 ostraca (inscribed pottery fragments) in the ancient Egyptian town of Athribis, near to the modern city of Sohag, Egypt. The artefacts document names, purchases of food and everyday objects, and even writings from a school.

Ostraca (plural for ostracon) are pottery fragments used as surfaces for writing or drawing.

They were used as notepads for private letters, laundry lists, records of purchases, and copies of literary works.

An ostracon with a child’s drawing.

By extension, the term is applied to flakes of limestone which were employed for similar purposes.

“In ancient times, ostraca were used in large quantities as writing material, inscribed with ink and a reed or hollow stick (calamus),” explained Professor Christian Leitz, a researcher with the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Tübingen, and his colleagues from the Athribis Project, an archaeological and philological endeavour investigating the ancient Egyptian town of Athribis.

The archaeologists uncovered a collection of more than 18,000 ostraca in the ruins of Athribis.

Fragment of a school text with a bird alphabet in Hieratic. On the right, the name of the bird, and on the left, the numbers from 5 to 8, which reflect the position of the letters in the list.

“These ostraca provide a variety of insights into the everyday life of Athribis,” they said.

“Around 80% of the potsherds are inscribed in Demotic, the common administrative script in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which developed from Hieratic after 600 BCE.”

“Among the second most common finds are ostraca with Greek script, but we also came across inscriptions in Hieratic, hieroglyphic and — more rarely — Coptic and Arabic scripts.”

Pupils had to write lines.

The researchers also found pictorial ostraca with various figurative representations, including animals such as scorpions and swallows, humans, deities from the nearby temple, even geometric figures.

“The contents of the ostraca vary from lists of various names to accounts of different foods and items of daily use,” they said.

“A surprisingly large number of sherds could be assigned to an ancient school.”

“There are lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems, grammar exercises and a ‘bird alphabet’ — each letter was assigned a bird whose name began with that letter.”

Receipt for bread in Demotic; the loaves are distributed in multiples of 5 (often 5, sometimes 10 or 20); many of the buyers are women.

“Several hundreds of ostraca also contain writing exercises that we classified as punishment,” they added.

“They are inscribed with the same one or two characters each time, both on the front and back.”

Traces of 3,600-Year-Old Settlement Found in Qatar’s Desert

Traces of 3,600-Year-Old Settlement Found in Qatar’s Desert

Scholars looking for underground water sources on the Eastern Arabian Peninsula for a project funded by the United States Agency for Aid and International Development have accidentally uncovered the outlines of a settlement that appears to be over 3600 years old.   Asymmetrical  2 x 3 kilometre, landscaped area—or trace outlines of a settlement  (and one of the largest potential settlements uncovered in the area) was identified using advanced radar satellite images in an area of Qatar where there was previously thought to be little evidence of sedentary, ancient civilizations. Their new study, published in the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, counters the narrative that this peninsula was entirely nomadic and evidence mapped from space indicates that the population appears to have had a sophisticated understanding of how to use groundwater. The research also points to the critical need to study water and safeguard against climate fluctuations in arid areas.

DRONE SHOT OF SURVEY OF SETTLEMENT AREA IN THE EASTERN ARABIAN PENINSULA

“Makhfia,” the name attributed to the settlement by researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (and which refers to an invisible location in the local Arabic language), was discovered using L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar images from the Japanese Satellite ALOS 1 and specially acquired, high-resolution radar images by its successor, ALOS 2. While the settlement was not visible from space using normal satellite imaging tools nor through surface observation on the earth—the large, underground rectangular plot, it was determined, had to be manmade due to its shape, texture and soil composition which were in sharp contrast to surrounding geological features. 

Independent carbon dating of retrieved charcoal samples suggests that the site is at least 3650 years old, dating back potentially to the same era of the Dilmun civilization.

Lead author, Essam Heggy, of the USC Arid Climate and Water Research Center, describes the site as akin to a “natural fortress surrounded by very rough terrain,” almost making the area inaccessible.

This discovery has significant historic and scientific implications.  Historically, this may be the first piece of evidence of a sedentary community in the area—and perhaps evidence of advanced engineering for the time period.  While we cannot see the remains of a monument or walls of a settlement, the proof is in the soil.  The properties of the soil at the site have a different surface texture and composition than the terrain surrounding it—a disparity typically associated with planting and landscaping.

A settlement of this size in this particular area, which is far from the coastline where most ancient civilizations were located, is unusual, says Heggy.

“With this area now averaging about 110 degrees Fahrenheit in summer months, this is like finding evidence of very green ranch in the middle of Death Valley, California dating back thousands of years ago.”

Further, the site yields new insights on the poorly understood climatic fluctuations that occurred in the region, and how these changes may have impacted human settlement and mobility.

Most critically, the scholars believe that this settlement must have been in place for an extended period due to its development of agriculture and reliance on groundwater, a fact which speaks to the civilization’s advanced engineering prowess given Qatar’s complex aquifers and harsh terrain.

The researchers believe that a population with sufficient knowledge to leverage such unpredictable groundwater resources— inaccessible by digging through hard limestone and dolomite—would have certainly been ahead of its time in mitigating droughts within harsh, inland environments. There is strong evidence that this settlement’s inhabitants relied on deep groundwater sapping, a method by which one accesses water from deeper aquifers through fractures in the ground, in order to use this water for crop irrigation and to support daily life.

This presence of this settlement is now enabling researchers to piece together the most recent paleoclimatic changes that took place on the Eastern Arabian Peninsula.

The bleak side of this, says Heggy, is that we do not fully know who this culture was and why they disappeared. However, based on the presence of charcoal found on the site, Heggy and his colleagues suggest that fire could be one of several plausible explanations for its demise.

This evidence calls for increased study of this area by archaeologists, says Heggy.

The work also has some implications for how we study and address climate fluctuations today.

“Deserts cover about 10 per cent of our planet. We might think today that they were always inhabitable, but this discovery (along with others in the area) shows that this might not have been always the case,” says Heggy who is a research scientist at the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering at USC.

His concern is that the increase in climate fluctuations in arid areas can worsen food insecurity, migration, and degradation of water resources.

Why should people care about the ruins of this ancient settlement? To Heggy, this culture’s ability to mitigate climatic fluctuations could be our story.

“This story is very important today. In arid areas, we have widespread disbelief in climate research. Many think climate change is something in the future or far away in the ‘geologic’ past. This site shows that it has always been here and that our recent ancestors have made its mitigation a key to their survival,” he says.

Heggy remains hopeful.  He says the forthcoming NASA Earth Observation missions focused on desert research will bring new subsurface mapping capabilities and will provide unique insights on deserts’ paleoclimatic evolution as well as a human presence in desert areas during climate fluctuations.

Hominin Bone-in Israel Dated to 1.5 Million Years Ago

Hominin Bone in Israel Dated to 1.5 Million Years Ago

Archaeologists have discovered the earliest evidence of ancient man in Israel, a 1.5 million-year-old vertebra found at the prehistoric site of ‘Ubeidiya in the Jordan Valley. The international team of researchers say this adds growing ammunition to the theory that human dispersal out of Africa happened in successive waves, rather than a single event. 

A vertebra unearthed at ‘Ubeidiya is the oldest evidence of humans in Israel. Image credit: Dr Omry Barzilai, Israel Antiquities Authority

The research is published today in Scientific Reports.

‘Ubeidiya is one of the oldest archaeological sites outside of Africa, with a rich record of finds including stone artefacts and the bones of extinct creatures such as sabre-toothed tigers and mammoths. 

The site has been under investigation since the 1960s, but this latest work, funded by a grant from the US National Science Foundation, sought to use new dating methods to refine age estimates for these ancient human traces and to better understand the ecology and climate of the site as it was millions of years ago.

Who did the ‘Ubeidiya vertebra belong to? 

Hominin Bone in Israel Dated to 1.5 Million Years Ago
The vertebra was found at ‘Ubeidiya, of a young boy, 6-12 years old. Image credit: Dr. Alon Barash, Bar-Ilan University

The vertebra the team analysed likely belonged to a young male, 6-12 years old, who was particularly tall for his age.

“Had this child reached adulthood, he would have reached a height of over 180cm,” says Ella Been, a palaeoanthropologist at Ono Academic College, Israel, and an expert in spinal evolution. 

Been says that makes the ‘Ubeidiya boy similar in size to other particularly tall ancient hominins found in East Africa, and this differs markedly from some of the other oldest human remains outside Africa, like the relatively diminutive people who lived at Dmanisi in Georgia some 1.8 million years ago.

What does this find tell us about our human story?

Human evolution research may seem to be an endless conveyor belt of new “oldest” and “earliest”, but that’s kind of the point: the more small pieces of the human puzzle we uncover, the more we learn about the epic story of our evolution and dispersal around the globe.

The prevailing scientific wisdom is that our ancestors evolved in Africa some six million years ago, and began to spread around the globe roughly two million years ago, according to the Out of Africa theory. But the routes are taken, the timing of the dispersal, and whether this dispersal was one singular event or a series of events, are all still up for debate.

“Due to the difference in size and shape of the vertebra from ‘Ubeidiya and those found in the Republic of Georgia, we now have unambiguous evidence of the presence of [at least] two distinct dispersal waves,” says study lead-author Alon Barash, of the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

And the authors say that the humans who lived at Dmanisi and ‘Ubeidiya were technologically different, producing markedly different stone tools: the Dmanisi hominins were making Oldowan-style stone tools (some of the earliest stone-tool types found in Africa), while the ‘Ubeidiya hominins were making stone tools like those found in Acheulean assemblages, involving more complex types of tools.

The researchers think their discovery cements the evidence that successive waves of differently evolved hominins moved out of Africa at different times, and in response to different pressures.

“One of the main questions regarding the human dispersal from Africa were the ecological conditions that may have facilitated the dispersal,” explains Miriam Belmaker, study co-author from the University of Tulsa, US. “Previous theories debated whether early humans preferred an African savanna or new, more humid woodland habitat. 

“Our new finding of different human species in Dmanisi and ‘Ubeidiya is consistent with our finding that climates also differed between the two sites,” Belmaker says. According to the study findings, ‘Ubeidiya is more humid and compatible with a Mediterranean climate, while Dmanisi is drier with savannah habitat. 

This, according to Belmaker and team, is further evidence that we’re dealing with two different hominins.

“It seems, then, that in the period known as the Early Pleistocene, we can identify at least two species of early humans outside of Africa,” says Barash. “Each wave of migration was that of different kinds of humans – in appearance and form, technique and tradition of manufacturing stone tools, and ecological niche in which they lived.”

800-Year-Old Shipwreck Found Off Swedish Coast

800-Year-Old Shipwreck Found Off Swedish Coast

A previously undiscovered wreck has been found outside of Fjällbacka on the Swedish west coast. Analysis of wood samples shows that it is the oldest shipwreck ever found in the province of Bohuslän. This is also one of the oldest cogs that have yet to be found in Europe.

“The wreck is made from oaks cut between 1233 and 1240, so nearly 800 years ago,” says Staffan von Arbin, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg.

This wreck from the Middle Ages was found by the island of Dyngö outside of Fjällbacka in the Swedish municipality of Tanum. This last autumn, the University of Gothenburg conducted archaeological diving inspections along the coast of Bohuslän to find out more about known wrecks on the seafloor.

“We collected wood samples to determine the age by dating the tree rings—known as dendrochronology,” says Staffan von Arbin.

It was during this work that the maritime archaeologists came upon the wreck outside of Fjällbacka which has been given the name “Dyngökoggen.” This limited survey of the wreck shows that it is a cog, a type of ship that was widely used from around the 12th century onward.”

The bottom planking is flush-laid (carvel), while the side planks are overlapping (clinker). Seams between planks are also sealed with moss, which is typical for cogs.

The surviving hull section is about 10 meters long and 5 meters wide. Staffan von Arbin believes, however, that originally the ship would have been up to 20 meters long.

A cog ship on the town seal of Stralsund dated to 1329. Even if the depiction is nearly 100 years later than the Dyngö cog ship, it provides a good idea of what cogs may have looked like.
Maritime archaeologist Anders Gutehall from Visuell Arkeologi Norden inspects the bottom at Dyngö.

Was the ship attacked by pirates?

Analysis of the wood samples shows the ship was built of oaks from north-western Germany. How did it end up outside of Fjällbacka?

“Cogs are mentioned often in written sources about the medieval Hanseatic League, but ships of this type were common throughout the Middle Ages in northern Europe.” Staffan von Arbin argues that the find also points to the importance of Bohuslän as a transit route for international maritime trade during this period.

This is also one of the oldest cogs that have yet to be found in Europe.

It is not yet known why the ship sank but that would likely be an exciting story. The survey of the ship clearly shows indications of an intense fire.

“Perhaps the ship was attacked by pirates? Written sources tell us that Norway’s southern coast, including Bohuslän, had periods with intense pirate activity during the Middle Ages.”

But it might also have been a simple accident, perhaps a fire spread while the ship was docked. Or the ship was sunk in battle? The first decades of the 12th century were a turbulent time in Norway, which Bohuslän was a part of, with intense internal struggles for the Norwegian crown.

What happens now?

There are currently no plans for more surveys of the wreck. However, they hope to conduct new dives of the wreck in the future.

But this requires both a permit from the county administrative board and extensive external funding that is currently unavailable. The results and observations by the marine archaeologists are currently being analyzed for a larger scholarly article.

13th-Century Tiled Floor Unearthed at Friary Site in England

13th-Century Tiled Floor Unearthed at Friary Site in England

Archaeologists at a city dig site have uncovered a medieval tiled floor dating back to around the 13th Century. The discovery was made in Gloucestershire at the location of the new £107m development, The Forum.

13th-Century Tiled Floor Unearthed at Friary Site in England
The medieval floor was found two meters below ground level

The floor, made of glazed white and green tiles, belonged to the cloister of the city’s medieval Whitefriars Carmelite Friary and was unearthed by the Cotswold Archaeology team.

Archaeologist Anthony Beechey described the find as “extra special”.

Mr Beechey explained that the “beautiful tiled floor is in remarkably good condition”.

“Most of our Whitefriars findings are fragments of the original structure while this floor is largely intact, making the discovery extra special” and the excavation process “endlessly fascinating”, he added.

‘Best-preserved finding’

Andrew Armstrong, the city archaeologist at Gloucester City Council, said: “It is thrilling to see yet more evidence of Whitefriars emerge and this is the best-preserved finding to date.”

He added: “The friary played an active role in the city for 300 years and yet, until these excavations started, very little was known about it.”

Whitefriars’ exact location in Gloucester was the subject of speculation for decades until the archaeological investigations began, following the demolition of the former multi-storey carpark on Bruton Way in early 2020.

The Forum is being developed into a new social and digital quarter by the council and Reef Group.

Councillor Richard Cook said the findings are shining “a light on Gloucester’s historic heritage”.

In September 2021, a 1,800-year-old figurine was uncovered by Cotswold Archaeology close to the area of the site currently being excavated.

Father discovered a medieval English gold coin worth a record $875,000 on the first day he tried out his new metal detector

Father discovered a medieval English gold coin worth a record $875,000 on the first day he tried out his new metal detector

When his children were born, Michael Leigh-Mallory gave up his passion for metal detecting. Now, 10 and 13, they encouraged him to take up the hobby again. On the first day he used his new metal detector, he found the oldest gold coin in England, dating back to the 13th century.

“The day after it arrived, I went out into this field. It was a bright, sunny day, and within 15 minutes, I found the coin. I knew it was gold, but I had no idea how important it was,” Leigh-Mallory told The Guardian.

The 52-year old ecologist and amateur historian had dug up the rare gold penny as it glistened in a field in Devon, South West England, and was advised to take it to the British Museum.

Father discovered a medieval English gold coin worth a record $875,000 on the first day he tried out his new metal detector
The gold coin was found by the father of two, dates back to the thirteen century. Spink auction house

It was discovered to be one of only eight in existence, and the last one was found 260 years ago, according to The Metro.

The coin, made from North African gold, was minted in the reign of Henry III, who was the English king between 1217-72.

Father discovered a medieval English gold coin worth a record $875,000 on the first day he tried out his new metal detector
Father discovered a medieval English gold coin worth a record $875,000 on the first day he tried out his new metal detector

Not only did it bring immense joy to Leigh-Mallory and his family, but also a record-breaking hammer price of £540,000 – with extra fees taking the total £648,000 ($878,778) – when the coin was sold at Spink and Sons auctioneers in London, last week.

Spink told Insider that the sale price made it the most valuable coin ever sold in the UK. A private collector bought it, say reports.

The gold coin was found by the father of two, which dates back to the 13th century. Spink auction house

“It is quite surreal, really,” Leigh-Mallory told the paper. “I’m just a normal guy who lives in Devon with his family, so this really is a life-changing sum of money which will go towards their futures.”

In a statement to Insider, Leigh-Mallory said that he is “humbled and honoured to be linked with the discovery and subsequent history afforded to us by the staggering research undertaken by Spink and the wider academic community about this coin.”

He will split the profits of the find with the landowner. “The money will be put towards my children’s future, who show the same passion for our history as me. In fact, I really owe it to them for having found the coin in the first place, as they were my inspiration to go out prospecting,” Leigh-Mallory added.