Category Archives: WORLD

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Judahite Elite in Jerusalem Drank Wine Flavored With Vanilla 2,600 Years Ago

Judahite Elite in Jerusalem Drank Wine Flavored With Vanilla 2,600 Years Ago

Analysis of smashed wine jars in Jerusalem houses destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. finds unexpected flavour in jars that the rich reused

Ancient wine and amphorae.

In the year 586 B.C.E., the Babylonians laid waste to Jerusalem in a fury at the rebellion by King Zedekiah of Judah. Ahead of which, we learn – at least some of the elites in Jerusalem were drinking their wine flavoured with exotic vanilla, archaeologists revealed on Tuesday.

This startling discovery was a result of residue analysis of shattered wine jars from the time of King Zedekiah, found in two destroyed buildings in Iron Age Jerusalem, researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority announced. Signals of vanilla were found in five of eight jars, says Dr. Yiftah Shalev of the IAA.

The reconstructed wine jars from the time of King Zedekiah, which were found to contain traces of vanilla.

Its presence was a surprise, but not a shock in the sense that traces of vanilla had been detected in graves in Megiddo dating to the Bronze Age, around 500 years earlier, Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University explains.

Discover the secrets of the Middle East

These jars date to the Iron Age. In some cases, their handles are marked with the rosette seal impression of the Kingdom of Judah. That symbol indicates that the clay jar and its content, the wine, were the possession of the royal Judahite administration.

How secure is the identification of the vanilla? One hundred per cent, Gadot answers. But where the flavouring came from is anybody’s guess. Harvested as pods produced by vanilla plants, it isn’t known to have been cultivated back then and had to be harvested from the wild. It could have originated in Madagascar or another part of tropical Africa, or India, and then reached Iron Age Judah by long-distance trading from either source.

The rosette seal impression of the Kingdom of Judah, on a wine jar handle.

Long-distance trading was common then, by sea and by land. From that perspective, finding spices from far, far away is plausible. In this case, the researchers believe the bean was likely imported via Arabia, through the trade route crossing the Negev Desert: possibly under the auspices of Assyrians, or their heirs the Egyptians, or even, possibly, the Babylonians.

Wine-bibbing was common, but vanilla was not: “Its discovery in so many jars in Jerusalem stresses the relative wealth of the residents of Jerusalem at the time,” Shalev says – at least before the irate Babylonians arrived and levelled the city.

Wine evoked mixed feelings in biblical times, as it does today. Psalms 104:15 extols its virtue: “And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, making the face brighter than oil” – a lovely sentiment. The book of Isaiah admonishes: “Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; that justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him” (5:22-23). Hosea is worse: “Harlotry [sensual idolatry], wine, and new wine take away the heart” (4:11). You stand warned.

Cinnamon in Phoenicia

No trace of other spices was detected in these Judahite wine jars, Gadot and Shalev confirm. But it bears noting that the locals of the Levant were augmenting their range of flavours from overseas going back to the Bronze Age, if not before. Cinnamon has been detected in Phoenician flasks found at Tel Dor from 3,000 years ago. The cinnamon residue was in wine jugs, mark you, but in tiny vessels with narrow necks and a capacity of about three tablespoons.

Remnants of the smashed wine jars in Jerusalem.
Restored wine jars.

The wine jars analyzed in the new study have been dated to roughly the time of King Zedekiah, whose rebellion against the Babylonian overlords about 2,600 years ago did not go well. The vessels were found inside two destroyed buildings, in two different digs in the City of David. The Israel Antiquities Authority is excavating “Beit Shalem” on the eastern slopes of the City of David hill. The other, a joint venture by the IAA and TAU, is at the site formerly known as the Givati parking lot, west of the hill.

All the jars contained chemicals typical of wine, and two, as said, had signals of vanilla bean and seem to have been placed in storage rooms in the two buildings. Both of the buildings show the marks of the furious destruction and the jars had, fittingly to the occasion, been smashed. But residue analysis, a technique that has taken off in recent years, could identify molecules adhering to the clay.

The analysis was performed by Ayala Amir, a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University, performing the tests in laboratories at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, and Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan. “Vanilla markers are an unusual find, especially in light of the fire that occurred in the buildings where the jars were found. The results of the analysis of the organic residues allow me to say with confidence that the jars contained wine and that it was seasoned with vanilla,” she said.

Ortal Chalaf and Dr. Joe Uziel were the excavation directors on behalf of the IAA who uncovered one group of jars, on the eastern slopes of the City of David hill. “The opportunity to combine innovative scientific studies examining the contents of jars opened a window for us, to find out what they ate – and, in this case, what they drank – in Jerusalem on the eve of the destruction,” they stated.

The second set of jars was found by Gadot and Shalev beneath the Givati parking lot, where a sort of surviving two-story building was unearthed. The researchers suggest it may have been an administrative building, which, unlike today’s equivalents, apparently had a wine cellar. More than 15 jars were found there, as well as other storage vessels.

The analysis also revealed that the ancients sensibly reused their pottery jars – big clay jars are a labour to make and lug about. Some of the jars produced signals of having previously held olive oil (the manufacture of olive oil goes back at least 8,000 years).

In short, finding jars of wine is no surprise; discovering that some of the jars had also been used to store olive oil is horse sense. But, as the archaeologists put it: finding vanilla in the wine is amazing.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Stolen Darwin journals returned to the Cambridge University library

Stolen Darwin journals returned to the Cambridge University library

A pair of Charles Darwin’s iconic notebooks have been returned to their rightful home more than 20 years after they were mysteriously stolen. The contents of the notebooks include the naturalist’s first doodle of the “tree of life,” which he sketched out decades before formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection.     

One of the recently recovered notebooks features Charles Darwin’s first sketch of the “tree of life.”

The notebooks are part of the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library in the U.K., which contains journals, manuscripts and more than 15,000 letters written by Darwin.

The journals were originally stored in the library’s high-security Special Collections Strong Rooms but were removed from storage in November 2000 for a photoshoot. Library officials assumed that the notebooks had been returned to safety after the photoshoot, but during a routine audit in January 2001, librarians discovered that the notebooks were missing.

The library staff initially suspected that the notebooks had been misplaced, but in 2020, the staff conducted a new search for the documents — the largest in the library’s history — and came up empty-handed. The library concluded that the notebooks had most likely been stolen, Live Science previously reported.   

But now, they’ve finally turned up: Librarians found the notebooks on March 9 outside the door of a fourth-floor office in the 17-story building.

The journals were swathed in plastic wrap and left in a box inside a bright-pink gift bag, along with a printed note that read “Librarian Happy Easter X,” according to a statement from the library.

“My sense of relief at the notebooks’ safe return is profound and almost impossible to adequately express,” Jessica Gardner, a librarian at Cambridge University Library, said in the statement. “I was heartbroken to learn of their loss, and my joy at their return is immense.”

The leather-bound notebooks are in “remarkably good condition,” and all the pages are accounted for, according to the statement. Experts think the notebooks have barely been handled, and a special analysis of the ink has confirmed that the notebooks are almost certainly genuine, according to the BBC.

The notebooks are part of the “Transmutation Notebooks,” a collection of journals in which Darwin first laid out his ideas of how animals transmute, or change, over time, which we now know is the result of adaptations caused by genetic mutations in DNA.

The recently recovered books were the second and third instalments of the Transmutation Notebooks and are labelled “B” and “C.” Darwin wrote the Transmutation Notebooks in 1837, when he was 28 years old, shortly after returning from his five-year voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle. 

Both of the recovered notebooks are on a library table.

The standout feature of the notebooks is a sketch of a rudimentary tree of life in notebook B showing how species diverge from a common ancestor over time, above which he simply wrote, “I think.” This was more than 20 years before Darwin published his theory of evolution in the book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. “They may be tiny, just the size of postcards, but the notebooks’ impact on the history of science cannot be overstated,” Gardner said in the statement. 

The library will reunite the notebooks with the rest of the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library, alongside the archives of other famous scientists, such as Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking, according to the statement.

The three scientists are also buried right next to each other at Westminster Abbey in London, Live Science previously reported.

Members of the public can see the notebooks when they go on display as a part of the “Darwin in Conversation” exhibition showcasing Darwin’s letters and notebooks at Cambridge University Library in July.

The exhibition will also be transferred to the New York Public Library in 2023. Digital copies of the two notebooks, B and C, can be viewed online.

Stolen Darwin journals returned to the Cambridge University library
The two Darwin notebooks were anonymously returned to where they were taken from in a box in a pink gift bag, along with an envelope signed, “Librarian Happy Easter X.”

Police are continuing to investigate the notebooks’ disappearance, but currently, there are no clues as to who stole the notebooks or where they have been for the past 20 years.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Turkish experts find 4 Umayyad epigraphs in the ancient city Knidos

Turkish experts find 4 Umayyad epigraphs in the ancient city Knidos

MUĞLA

Four inscriptions made of marble and limestone from the Umayyad period have been unearthed during the archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Knidos in the western province of Muğla’s Datça district.

The excavations have been carried out in the ancient city under the direction of Professor Ertekin Doksanaltı from Selçuk University’s Archaeology Department, with a team of 40 people consisting of geologists, architects, restorers, art historians, biologists, anthropologists, and excavation workers.

Four inscriptions were determined to belong to the Umayyads, who ruled in the city of Knidos between 685 and 711.

Turkish experts find 4 Umayyad epigraphs in the ancient city Knidos
One of the epigraphs belonging to the Umayyad period was unearthed during excavations in the ancient city of Knidos, Muğla, Turkey.

It has been determined that the names of tribes that would participate in the Umayyad expedition to Istanbul, as well as commanders and administrators, are written on the four inscriptions found during the excavations.

Doksanaltı said that excavations have been carried out since 2016 in the ancient city of Knidos within the framework of the 12-month excavation project of the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

This collage shows epigraphs belonging to the Umayyad period unearthed during excavations in the ancient city of Knidos, Muğla, Turkey, on April 3, 2022.

Stating that amazing archaeological discoveries were made during the excavations, Doksanaltı said: “On the first day of Ramadan, Knidos presented us with a beautiful gift. Four new Umayyad inscriptions were unearthed during the archaeological excavations.

These inscriptions, which are the largest remains of early Islam in Western Anatolia, contain names of tribes, commanders, and rulers who participated in two of the three expeditions organized by the Umayyads to Istanbul.

Knidos, which offers many new data from the ancient period, showed how important it can be in terms of Islamic historiography with its data that will shed light on the early periods of Islam.”

Stating that the inscriptions vary in length from 15 centimetres to 1 meter, Doksanaltı said that the examinations continue on the artefacts.

Founded by Greek settlers, Knidos became an important cultural and political centre after the fifth century B.C. because of being a busy trading hub in the region.

The city was also famed for its association with Aphrodite and for its famous statue of the goddess, sculpted by Praxiteles of Athens.

ASIA, EUROPE, HUNGARY, MONGOLIA, WORLD

Genetic Study Tracks Warriors from Mongolia to Hungary

Genetic Study Tracks Warriors from Mongolia to Hungary

Less known than Attila’s Huns, the Avars were their more successful successors. They ruled much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. We know that they came from Central Asia in the sixth century CE, but ancient authors, as well as modern historians, have long debated their provenance.

Reconstruction of an Avar-period armoured horseman based on Grave 1341/1503 of the Derecske-Bikás-dűlő site (Déri Museum, Debrecen).

Now, a multidisciplinary research team of geneticists, archaeologists and historians, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, obtained and studied the first ancient genomes from the most important Avar elite sites discovered in contemporary Hungary.

This study traces the genetic origin of the Avar elite to a faraway region of East-Central Asia. It provides direct genetic evidence for one of the largest and most rapid long-distance migrations in ancient human history.

In the 560s, the Avars established an empire that lasted more than 200 years, centered in the Carpathian Basin. Despite much scholarly debate their initial homeland and origin have remained unclear.

They are primarily known from historical sources of their enemies, the Byzantines, who wondered about the origin of the fearsome Avar warriors after their sudden appearance in Europe. Had they come from the Rouran empire in the Mongolian steppe (which had just been destroyed by the Turks), or should one believe the Turks who strongly disputed such a legacy?

Historians have wondered whether that was a well-organized migrant group or a mixed band of fugitives. Archaeological research has pointed to many parallels between the Carpathian Basin and Eurasian nomadic artifacts (weapons, vessels, horse harnesses), for instance, a lunula-shaped pectoral of gold used as a symbol of power. We also know that the Avars introduced the stirrup in Europe. Yet we have so far not been able to trace their origin in the wide Eurasian steppes.

In this study, a multidisciplinary team—including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, the ELTE University and the Institute of Archaeogenomics of Budapest, Harvard Medical School in Boston, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton—analyzed 66 individuals from the Carpathian Basin.

The study included the eight richest Avar graves ever discovered, overflowing with golden objects, as well as other individuals from the region prior to and during the Avar age.

“We address a question that has been a mystery for more than 1400 years: who were the Avar elites, mysterious founders of an empire that almost crushed Constantinople and for more than 200 years ruled the lands of modern-day Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Croatia and Serbia?” explains Johannes Krause, senior author of the study.

Genetic Study Tracks Warriors from Mongolia to Hungary
Derecske-Bikás-dűlő, Grave 1341/1503 (Déri Museum, Debrecen).

Fastest long-distance migration in human history

The Avars did not leave written records about their history and these first genome-wide data provide robust clues about their origins.

“The historical contextualization of the archaeogenetic results allowed us to narrow down the timing of the proposed Avar migration.

They covered more than 5000 kilometres in a few years from Mongolia to the Caucasus, and after ten more years settled in what is now Hungary. This is the fastest long-distance migration in human history that we can reconstruct up to this point,” explains Choongwon Jeong, co-senior author of the study.

Guido Gnecchi-Ruscone, the lead author of the study, adds that “besides their clear affinity to Northeast Asia and their likely origin due to the fall of the Rouran Empire, we also see that the 7th-century Avar period elites show 20 to 30 per cent of additional non-local ancestry, likely associated with the North Caucasus and the Western Asian Steppe, which could suggest further migration from the Steppe after their arrival in the 6th century.”

The East Asian ancestry is found in individuals from several sites in the core settlement area between the Danube and Tisza rivers in modern-day central Hungary.

However, outside the primary settlement region, we find high variability in inter-individual levels of admixture, especially in the south-Hungarian site of Kölked. This suggests an immigrant Avars elite ruling a diverse population with the help of a heterogeneous local elite.

These exciting results show how much potential there is in the unprecedented collaboration between geneticists, archaeologists, historians and anthropologists for the research on the “Migration period” in the first millennium CE. The research was published in Cell.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Royston-area man turns up the Indigenous artefact in yard

Royston-area man turns up the Indigenous artefact in yard

Mark Lake was cleaning up his Royston-area yard last April when he came across an object that looked like it had been around a while. He had been working in a wooded area after an old maple tree had blown over. Over the years, he’d found lots of junk before though never anything of historic value, but what he turned up turned out to be an Indigenous artefact.

“I picked this object up, sticking out from underneath a young maple, and didn’t think anything of it,” he said.

At first, he thought it was a type of industrial waste. Once he got around to cleaning it, he realized it was some kind of carving.

The Indigenous artefact Mark Lake found appears to be a war club.

“I was a geologist in a previous life,” he said. “I recognized it was made out of sandstone.”

He showed it to a sculptor friend who told him from the workmanship it looked like a labour of love.

Lake’s wife Katie has a friend who works with K’ómoks First Nation, so the Lakes got in touch to find out more and sent a picture of the object. The process then started to identify and repatriate it. An archaeologist working with KFN examined it, as did a couple of others.

“The archaeologists have looked at it and certainly think it’s pretty unique,” Lake said.

The couple handed the object over to KFN, and Lake says Chief Nicole Rempel was excited to receive the artefact. It is about 45 cm long, weighs about 1.5 kg and is probably made of medium-grade sandstone.

“It’s fairly hefty and quite smooth in the handle area,” Lake said.

He is not sure of its origin. There is a hole in the handle, perhaps for a rope. Whether it was a functional or strictly ceremonial club remains a bit of a mystery, but it seems to have originated in the Vancouver Island region.

“It might not have moved very far,” he said. “It’s pretty rare to find one that’s that complete.”

After contacting KFN, the Lakes agreed to have their Gartley Point property mapped for archaeological purposes, and it will be added to the provincial registry’s archaeological branch.

For KFN, the Lakes’ willingness to collaborate on this effort is a hopeful sign for broader community relations.

“In a time when Reconciliation is a central focus for our Nation, and more broadly across B.C. and Canada, it’s encouraging to see residents within KFN territory recognize the importance of returning artefacts to the people whose ancestors made them,” Chief Nicole Rempel of KFN said in a news release. “It is my hope that more Vancouver Island residents, and in fact all Canadians, will recognize the importance of these artefacts to local First Nations and reach out when they do come across something. I am grateful to the Lake family for connecting with KFN, so that we can learn more about our history and make it accessible to our members and the broader community.”

KFN asks anyone who has found artefacts in KFN territory to contact Candace Newman (reception@komoks.ca), KFN’s archaeology and referrals co-ordinator, to assess the cultural object.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Remains of Ancient American Dogs Identified at Jamestown

Remains of Ancient American Dogs Identified at Jamestown

Dogs first came to the Americas about 16,000 years ago, likely on the heels of ice age hunters crossing a bygone land bridge from Siberia. These indigenous canines remained on the continent for thousands of years as furry friends and hunting companions—until, suddenly, they were gone, replaced genetically by European breeds.

A modern reconstruction of the Jamestown colony
A modern reconstruction of the Jamestown colony

Now, a pair of jawbones pried from the earth beneath Virginia’s colonial Jamestown settlement may illuminate when these dogs vanished and the roles they may have played in the lives of both Native Americans and European colonists.

It’s a “pretty cool” study that provides a window into a period of time in which little is known about the continent’s first dogs, says Courtney Hofman, an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, who was not involved with the research. “A lot of work has focused on much older indigenous dogs, but less has been done on them in more recent times.”

When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Americas in the 15th century, they brought with them large war dogs. Later European colonists brought over working dogs such as bloodhounds and greyhounds, as well as other hunting dogs.

Gradually, these European lineages almost completely replaced the indigenous dogs of the Americas. Today, only a few arctic breeds, such as Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes, are thought to retain a genetic connection to their ancient past.

How and when this dramatic genetic turnover happened remains unknown. So Ariane Thomas, a graduate student studying anthropology at the University of Iowa, turned to the remains of dogs uncovered at Jamestown between 2007 and 2010.

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, founded largely by explorers with little farming experience.

Thomas managed to extract mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), inherited from the maternal line, from two canine jawbones, one found beneath a former bakery and the other inside a well thought to have belonged to Colonial Governor John Smith. Both structures date to the early 1600s.

Thomas compared the dogs’ mtDNA with that of modern and ancient dogs around the world. The Jamestown dogs’ maternal line was totally unrelated to European breeds, her team reported here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. Instead, the animals were most closely related to other ancient dogs from Illinois and Ohio and were distantly related to several ancient arctic dogs, including the oldest known American dog, found in Alaska and thought to be about 10,000 years old.

Curiously, the dogs aren’t closely related to canines dated to about 1000 to 1400 C.E. found at another early Virginian colonial village known as Weyanoke, just 50 kilometres away.

“There’s a lot more diversity than maybe we initially thought,” Thomas says. That suggests European dogs may have replaced indigenous ones slowly, she says.

All the dog skull fragments recovered from Jamestown feature narrow, shallow cutmarks suggesting they were butchered, she says. The remains were also found amid food waste such as mussel shells and fish bones. The jawbone recovered from Smith’s well dates to a period known as the Starving Time, spanning the winter between 1609 and 1610 during which the Jamestown colonists nearly perished. “They were running low on supplies,” Thomas says, and “resorted to eating whatever was around.”

Some of the other dog bones were found in layers dating to at least 10 years later, suggesting eating dogs wasn’t uncommon when times got tough.

How exactly these indigenous dogs came to Jamestown remains a mystery, she says. Colonists wanted to maintain the prized lineages of European hunting dogs, so it’s unlikely they would have knowingly allowed native dogs to breed with their own, Thomas notes. Later, a law passed in 1629 expressly prohibited trading European dogs to Indigenous people.

The Jamestown dogs may also have had Indigenous owners. Thousands of mussel shell beads in various stages of construction found at the site suggest some Indigenous people—likely the local Powhatan—may have lived and worked at the settlement. If so, they may have brought their canine companions with them.

Next, Thomas hopes to sequence the nuclear DNA of the Jamestown dogs, which will reveal whether they were fully indigenous or hybrids of European-indigenous dogs.

The stories of these dogs highlight the “shared histories” of Indigenous people and colonial Europeans, says Raquel Fleskes, an anthropological geneticist at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. “It’s part of the story of Europeans learning from Indigenous societies, and [the dogs’ story] could shed light on their relationships and interactions.”

ARMENIA, ASIA, WORLD

Archaeologists discover ancient fortune-telling shrines in Armenia

Archaeologists discover ancient fortune-telling shrines in Armenia

Archaeologists say three 3,300-year-old shrines set up by an unknown culture in Armenia apparently were used for occult divination.

This shrine was excavated at the entrance of a fortress’ west terrace in Gegharot in Armenia. The stone monument was probably the focal point for rituals practised there 3,300 years ago, archaeologists say.

Three shrines, dating back about 3,300 years, have been discovered within a hilltop fortress at Gegharot in Armenia. Local rulers at the time probably used the shrines for divination, a practice aimed at predicting the future, the archaeologists involved in the discovery say.

Each of the three shrines consists of a single room holding a clay basin filled with ash and ceramic vessels. Wide varieties of artefacts were discovered, including clay idols with horns, stamp seals, censers used to burn substances and a vast amount of animal bones with markings on them.

During divination practices, the rulers and diviners may have burnt intoxicating substances and drank wine, allowing them to experience altered states of mind, the archaeologists say.

“The logic of divination presumes that variable pathways articulate the past, present and future, opening the possibility that the link between a current situation and an eventual outcome might be altered,” Adam Smith and Jeffrey Leon write in an article published recently in the American Journal of Archaeology.

Smith is a professor at Cornell University, and Leon is a graduate student there.

Excavations at the shrines are part of the American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, also known as Project ArAGATS.

The shrines were unearthed over a period stretching from 2003 to 2011.

Archaeologists discover ancient fortune-telling shrines in Armenia

Smith told LiveScience that the region’s rulers probably used Gegharot as an occult centre. At the time, writing had not yet spread to this part of Armenia, so the names of the polity and its rulers are unknown.

Smith and Leon found evidence for three forms of divination at Gegharot. One form was osteomancy, trying to predict the future through rituals that involved rolling the marked-up knucklebones of cows, sheep and goats like dice.

Lithomancy, trying to predict the future through the use of coloured pebbles, also appears to have been practised at Gegharot.

And at one shrine, the archaeologists found an installation used to grind flour. Smith and Leon think that this flour could have been used to predict the future in a practice called aleuromancy. 

The shrines were in use for a century or so until the surrounding fortress, along with all the other fortresses in the area, were destroyed.

The site was largely abandoned after this, Smith said. Although the rulers who controlled Gegharot put great effort into trying to predict and change the future, it was to no avail.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

A 2,300-year-old Iron Age shield has been revealed by archaeologists

A 2,300-year-old Iron Age shield has been revealed by archaeologists

The shield is made from green bark that has been stiffened with internal wooden laths.

Found during a dig near Leicester in 2015 and dated to between 395 and 255BC, the shield was made of painted bark, backed by wooden spars. Analysis showed it had been badly damaged, probably by spears and edged weapons, before being left in a pit.

Experts said the shield gave an “unparalleled” insight into prehistoric technology.

A 2,300-year-old Iron Age shield has been revealed by archaeologists.
A reconstruction showed the shield was light and surprisingly strong

The shield, which measured 670 x 370mm (26ins x 15ins), was found on the Everards Meadows site near the M1 by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) archaeologists.

The bark used was from either alder, willow, poplar, hazel or spindle and the stiffening spars were made of apple, pear, quince or hawthorn.

The shield had a rim of split hazel rod and a boss, to protect the hand, woven from a willow core.

Iron Age

  • In Britain, dating from 800BC to AD43
  • Iron tools improved agriculture and industry
  • There were larger settlements and a more sophisticated society developed
  • Seen as ending with the Roman conquest of Britain

Mike Bamforth, from the University of York, used CT scanning and 3D printing to help reveal its secrets.

He said: “This truly astonishing and unparalleled artefact has given us an insight into prehistoric technology that we could never have guessed at.

“Being part of the team working to tease apart the complex secrets of the shield’s construction has been incredibly interesting and rewarding.”

Archaeologists said such shields might have been common in the Iron Age but their organic materials meant they rarely survived.

A reconstruction showed that while it was not as strong as solid wooden ones, the shield could stop blows effectively and had the advantage of being extremely light.

The British Museum, which will store the shield, described it as a “absolutely phenomenal object”.