Painted Medieval Burial Vaults Uncovered in Bruges
Excavations at a cemetery in the centre of Bruges have yielded an extraordinary find. Archaeologists have discovered three painted burial vaults dating from the 14th century.
The find was made last May during works in a street in the vicinity of the Church of Our Lady in Bruges (West Flanders). The best-preserved burial vault is being paced in the church today.
The three medieval burial vaults were discovered during works on the construction of a filling station.
“The find is unique in Flanders” says culture alderman Nico Blontrock.
It’s taken a while for one of the burial vaults to be moved into the church as removing it from the soil required special equipment.
There’s little experience here with the removal of burial vaults and Alderman Blontrock says that in the past this has often failed: “These are fragile constructions, often consisting of brickwork.
Taking them out of the ground often means the painting is damaged.
We wanted to avoid this and established a special commission of experts. I’m so happy the vault has now been saved for posterity.
The best-preserved burial vault is now receiving a temporary home in the Church of Our Lady before it is moved to the church museum.
The paintings show classical medieval representations: “The paintings on a layer of plaster feature angels, crosses and other Christian themes. The vault can be viewed in 3D on the Raakvlak website” says Blontrock.
An Old Classic Bronze Age board game ‘played 4,000 years ago’ uncovered in the Oman desert
While innovative and artistic board games may hold our attention today, settlers four millennia ago in the Arabian Peninsula whiled away the time on a stone board game.
The stone board game featured a grid-like pattern and cup holes to hold game pieces.
Last month, archaeologists discovered a stone slab carved with a grid and cup holes to hold game pieces at a prehistoric settlement in the Qumayrah Valley, located in modern-day Oman, reports Samuel Kutty for the Oman Daily Observer.
The team, led by Piotr Bieliński of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and Sultan al-Bakri, Oman’s director-general of antiquities, found the large stone board in a structure near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah.
In a statement, Bieliński said that similar kinds of games have been found in “areas stretching from India, through Mesopotamia even to the eastern Mediterranean.” She cited, as an example, one of the earliest-known game boards found in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur’s royal cemetery in 1922, dated around 4,500 years ago. Known today as the Royal Game of Ur, the two-player strategy game was similar to backgammon.
Archaeologists search for Bronze and Iron age artefacts at the Oman dig site, located in the Arabian Peninsula.
Board games have been played across the world for thousands of years. In Jerusalem, bored Roman soldiers were believed to have carved a grid for a board game on the steps of the Damascus Gate some 1,800 years ago, possibly an early form of modern-day checkers, as reported by Ruth Schuster for the Jerusalem Post in November.
The stone board game in Oman was just one of several discoveries made at the excavation site, reports Ashley Cowie for Ancient Origins.
Archaeologists also unearthed the remains of stone towers—one of which is believed to have been 60 feet tall—and evidence of copper production all dated to the Bronze Age, from 3200 to 1200 B.C.E.
“The settlement is exceptional for including at least four towers: three round ones and an angular one,” says Agnieszka Pieńkowska of the Polish Center, who is analyzing the site’s artefacts and stone structures.
Researchers at Ayn Bani Saidah dated the settlement to the Umm an-Nar period, between 2600 to 2000 B.C.E. They discovered several copper items and smelting remains at the site, indicating the site was involved in the early copper trade, reports the Jerusalem Post.
An archaeologist examines a copper artefact found at an exvacation site in the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in Oman.
“This shows that our settlement participated in the lucrative copper trade for which Oman was famous at that time, with mentions of Omani copper present in the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia,” says Bieliński in the statement.
The team also found evidence that the region remained an important trade and production site through the second phase of the Iron Age, dating from 1100 to 600 B.C.E.
Per the Oman Observer, the Qumayrah Valley has yielded many archaeological finds, likely due to serving as a major trade route between several Arab cities.
“This abundance of settlement traces proves that this valley was an important spot in Oman’s prehistory,” Bieliński tells Ian Randall of the Daily Mail. “Ayn Bani Sadah is strategically located at a junction of [trade] routes.”
The team plans to continue its excavations this year, focusing on areas surrounding the settlement and other parts of the Qumayrah Valley.
Vast Roman town and hundreds of artefacts uncovered during rail excavation
The remains of a vast Roman trading settlement have been discovered by a team of archaeologists working along a future high-speed railway route in England.
Hundreds of Roman coins, jewellery, pottery and a pair of shackles were among the artefacts to be discovered at the site near a village in Northamptonshire, according to a press release from High Speed 2 (HS2) Tuesday.
HS2 is a large-scale project intended to create high-speed rail links between London and major cities in central and northern England. The site, known as Backgrounds, dates back to around 50 AD, although it initially housed an Iron Age village dating back to around 400 BC, HS2 said.
The site is known as Backgrounds.
As an Iron Age road and more than 30 roundhouses were found near the Roman remains, archaeologists believe the Iron Age village developed into a wealthy Roman settlement. The area is believed to have developed over time and become wealthier, with new roads and stone buildings being constructed.
A Roman pot is shown as HS2 archaeologists uncover a vast Roman trading settlement in Northamptonshire
A huge Roman road around 10 meters in width (33 feet) runs through the settlement, far exceeding the normal maximum of around four meters (13 feet), said James West, site manager for MOLA Headland Infrastructure, which oversaw the excavation.
Badger leads archaeologists to a hoard of Roman coins in Spain Experts believe this road — described as “exceptional in its size” — indicates the settlement was once a busy area with carts going in and out with goods.
“Uncovering such a well-preserved and large Roman road, as well as so many high quality, finds has been extraordinary and tells us so much about the people who lived here,” West said in the press release.
A lead weight, cast into the shape of a head, was found at the site.
“The site really does have the potential to transform our understanding of the Roman landscape in the region and beyond.”
Giant 180 million-year-old ‘sea dragon’ fossil found in UK reservoir Unearthed workshops, kilns and several wells suggest the town would have been a “bustling and busy area” at its peak, the press release says. In addition to industrial practices, the foundations of buildings used for domestic purposes were also uncovered.
More than 300 Roman coins were found, suggesting a significant volume of commerce passed through the area. Glass vessels, highly decorative pottery, jewellery and evidence of cosmetics — as the mineral galena, which was crushed and mixed with oil to create makeup — was also discovered.
This coin depicting Marcus Aurelius from the reign of Emperor Constantine was one of more than 300 unearthed.
The quality of the soil, which is a fiery red colour in some parts, suggest activities involving burning took place in the area, such as bread making, metalwork or pottery.
The soil is a fiery red colour in parts, suggesting activities involving burning.
A pair of shackles discovered could also be evidence of either slave labour or criminal activity, the press release says.
The artefacts will be cleaned and examined by specialists, while the layout of the area and details of the buildings are being mapped. Backgrounds are one of more than 100 archaeological sites between London and Birmingham that HS2 has examined since 2018.
HS2 has unearthed a number of interesting archaeological finds, such as rare Roman statues found at a church in Buckinghamshire and a Roman mosaic at a farm in Rutland in the East Midlands.
Long-lost temple of Hercules from 9th century BC discovered, claim researchers
The Roman Empire-era Lansdowne Herakles from the collection of the Getty in Los Angeles.
Archaeologists near Cádiz, Spain, believe they have located the site of the lost Temple of Hercules Gaditanus, an ancient pilgrimage destination visited by the likes of Roman dictator Julius Caesar and Carthaginian general Hannibal.
The elusive site has been something of “a holy grail” for archaeologists, according to El País, which first reported the potential discovery.
The reason experts have failed to uncover it? The temple has been underwater, submerged by the Caño de Sancti Petri, a shallow channel off the Bay of Cádiz between San Fernando and Chiclana.
Ricardo Belizón, a graduate archaeology student at the southern Spain’s University of Seville, made the discovery while examining topographic models of the region created using Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, a remote sensing technology.
This 3-D map shows a rectangular structure that could be the lost Temple of Hercules Gaditanus, now submerged under the Caño of Sancti Petri
Looking at public data from Spain’s PNOA-LiDAR project, which began mapping the country in 2009, he spotted what appeared to be a nearly 1,000-foot-long, 500-foot-wide structure just offshore beneath the waves.
That matched the description of the lost 8th-century BC temple.
“Researchers are very reluctant to go for ‘show archaeology’ fed by the mass media, but in this case, we are faced with some spectacular finds. They are first class,” University of Seville director of archaeology Francisco José García told the London Times.
Working with the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage, a University of Seville team of researchers further consulted a digital terrain model provided by the National Geographic Institute and the Navy Oceanographic Institute to confirm the LiDAR data.
Archaeologists have yet to attempt to excavate the watery site, but plans to do so are in the works. Digs in the area have faced challenges in the past, due to the marshy coastline and shifting topography of the shallow channels, which are subject to rising and falling sea levels.
This 3-D map shows a rectangular structure that could be the lost Temple of Hercules Gaditanus, now submerged under the Caño of Sancti Petri.
That actually matches up with the historical record on the Temple of Hercules, believed to have been built by the Phoenicians. (Their god Melqart later became equated with the famous divine Roman hero.)
Ancient writings about Caesar’s and Hannibal’s visits mention “a changing environment, in contact with the sea, subject to the changing tides, in a temple where there must have been port structures and a seafaring environment,” Milagros Alzaga, head of the Andalusian Institute’s Center for Underwater Archaeology, who assisted with the research, told El País.
“The documentary sources we analyzed, the archaeological information together with the images obtained with digital models of the site, lead us to believe that this could be the mythical temple of Hercules,” he told Euro News.
But other experts are sceptical that the LiDAR maps are being accurately interpreted.
In 2020, University of Cordoba archaeology professor Antonio Monterroso-Checa published a study concluding that the temple was located at Cerro de Los Martires, or “Hill of the Martyrs,” to the south of Cádiz, in the San Fernando area.
The new theory is based on “a triangulation error,” he told the Times. “No reality at all.”
Neolithic cattle sites could change the understanding of what beef meant to the people of Ireland
An archaeological site in Dublin with an unusually large collection of cattle remains could potentially change the understanding of beef and cattle herding in Middle Neolithic Ireland and Europe.
Data collected from the N2 Kilshane excavation in north county Dublin near Finglas by researchers from the UCD School of Archaeology and Queen’s University Belfast suggests that the multipurpose use of cattle for milk, meat and as draft animals were far more complex in the later 4th millennium BC Atlantic Europe than previously thought.
The remains of at least 58 individual cattle were recovered from the ditches of an enclosure excavated at Kilshane dating back some 5,500 years, and the site is one of the few with large faunal assemblages to be unearthed in Ireland.
Cattle are widely recognised as having important economic, social, symbolic and religious roles in Neolithic communities in Europe, and it has long been assumed that cattle in Neolithic Ireland had similar important roles.
However the absence of large faunal assemblages like the one found at Kilshane has, to date, precluded direct comparison with the rest of Europe, where the special status of cattle was strongly expressed by feasting and commensality.
Dr Fabienne Pigiere, zooarchaeologist in the UCD School of Archaeology, who led the study stressed the unusual character of this osteological assemblage compared to feasting remains from other sites: “Unlike contemporary British or continental sites, the Kilshane assemblage is nearly fully composed of cattle remains.
Its analysis shows the importance of sharing meat during this special gathering event and also allows us to investigate the husbandry economy of the Neolithic communities who exploited cattle for milk and as working beasts for traction”.
The kill-off pattern found on the bones at Kilshane indicates that the bulk of the cattle killed was of an optimum age for meat production, at around two and a half years.
Another small group of individuals aged over three years were also slaughtered; likely having been kept for milk production or breeding stock, and to be used as draft animals.
The numerous females identified in the Kilshane assemblage also confirms the importance of milk production in the husbandry economy of Middle Neolithic Ireland.
Similar kill-off patterns, indicating a focus on milk and meat production, have been recorded at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the UK and North-Western Europe.
“This cattle assemblage is providing key insights into prehistoric farming in Ireland, and Europe, right at the time that passage tombs are starting to be constructed. It’s giving us a real sense of the communities behind these monuments and how they supported themselves”, said Dr Jessica Smyth, Lecturer in the UCD School of Archaeology.
The discovery at Kilshane not only has implications for understanding how the economy of the communities of Neolithic Ireland functioned but the larger role that cattle husbandry played in their social, symbolic and religious activities.
This recent research carried out at Kilshane was undertaken as part of the IRC Laureate ‘Passage Tomb People’ project, building on earlier post-excavation analysis funded by Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
“We are delighted to see further research emanating from the exceptional faunal assemblage discovered on the N2 Kilshane excavation,” said Mary Deevy, Senior Archaeologist with Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Island grave reveals 1,000-year-old treasure trove of ‘elite’ jewellery including a solid amber ring
Archaeologists have uncovered an ‘elite’ grave from the 12th century during excavation work in Northern Poland. The discovery in the village of Ostrowite included two amber rings, a bronze bowl, and an iron knife in a leather sheath with bronze fittings.
A ring from the elite grave after cleaning.
Distinguished from previous graves discovered at the site by its size and rich equipment, scientists say they believe the items belonged to elite members of the then local Christian community.
Team leader Dr. Jerzy Sikora from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Lodz said: “The deceased was most likely a representative of local, Pomeranian elites.
Grave 81 – the newly discovered burial in Ostrowite with a bronze bowl.
“It is striking that there are two identical rings, symmetrically arranged relative to the axis of the body. Amber ones, no less. The situation is quite unique. I do not know a similar burial.”
He added that the size of the grave, a wooden structure the size of a small house, and the rings were probably associated with symbols of power.
Wood fragments on the bowl.
Sikora said: “Amber can be related to either mediation in trade in this raw material or control over local deposits. During the modern age, amber was extracted in the area of Chojnice.”
In addition, archaeologists found a bronze bowl by the skeleton’s feet, inside of which were fragments of wood thought to have belonged to the man’s coffin.
The deceased was also had an iron knife in a leather sheath with bronze fittings and two coin pieces. On the surface of the bowl and the knife sheath, the archaeologists noticed fragments and imprints of fabrics.
Under the bowl, there were small fragments of leather, probably remnants of the deceased’s footwear, preserved thanks to the preservative effect of copper oxides.
In previous years, archaeologists made several similar discoveries in the area, with Dr. Sikora saying that such graves were associated with emerging local elites. Similar graves are known, for example, from Usadel and Usedom in Mecklenburg (Germany) or Cedynia in Poland.
He added that two states were established in Pomerania in the 12th century: of the West Pomeranian Gryfites, subjected by Bolesław III Wrymouth and Christianised by Otto of Bamberg, and East Pomeranian Samborides, dependent on Polish princes, probably also from the time of Bolesław III Wrymouth.
Ostrowite, where the latest discovery was made, was an important local centre of power, which functioned from the 11th to the 14th century.
Dr. Sikora said: “It was a fairly extensive complex with a settlement on a nearby island, which at least from about 1160 was connected to the shore with a wooden bridge, but most likely functioned earlier.”
On the eastern shore of the lake, there were two cemeteries. Trade was an important aspect of the functioning of the settlement, as evidenced by the earlier findings of archaeologists, including about 20 weights for balance scales, coins (including Western European, mainly Saxon ones, as well as numerous imitations) and a number of imported items, such as bronze bowls.
The discovered items indicate trade with the areas of Pomerania, Greater Poland, as well as Scandinavia, Western Europe and Ruthenia.
Drilling under Antarctic ice shelf, scientists find treasure trove of life with 77 species
Far beneath the ice shelves of the Antarctic, there is more marine life than expected, finds a recent study in the journal Current Biology, published this week.
Despite occupying nearly 1.6 million km2, ice shelves are amongst the least known environments on Earth. Life has been seen in these perpetual dark, cold and still habitats on camera but has rarely been collected.
Using hot water, a team of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Germany, drilled two holes, through nearly 200 meters of the Ekström Ice Shelf near Neumayer Station III in the South Eastern Weddell Sea in 2018. The environment is harsh and extremely cold (minus 2.2 degrees centigrade).
The fragments of a life on the seabed collected were extraordinary and completely unexpected.
Despite being several kilometres from the open sea, the biodiversity of the specimens they collected was extremely rich. In fact, richer than many open water samples found on the continental shelf where there are light and food sources.
Lead author Dr. David Barnes, a marine biologist at British Antarctic Survey, says:
“This discovery of so much life living in these extreme conditions is a complete surprise and reminds us how Antarctic marine life is so unique and special.
It’s amazing that we found evidence of so many animal types, most feed on micro-algae (phytoplankton) yet no plants or algae can live in this environment. So the big question is how do these animals survive and flourish here?”
The team concludes there must be enough algae carried under the ice shelf from open water to fuel a strong food web. Microscopy of samples showed that, surprisingly, the annual growth of four of the species was comparable with similar animals in open marine Antarctic shelf habitats.
Co-author Dr. Gerhard Kuhn (AWI), who coordinated the drilling project, says:
“Another surprise was to find out how long life has existed here. Carbon dating of dead fragments of these seafloor animals varied from current to 5800 years. So, despite living 3-9 km from the nearest open water, an oasis of life may have existed continuously for nearly 6000 years under the ice shelf. Only samples from the seafloor beneath the floating ice shelf will tell us stories from its past history.”
Current theories on what life could survive under ice shelves suggest that all life becomes less abundant as you move further away from open water and sunlight. Past studies have found some small mobile scavengers and predators, such as fish, worms, jellyfish or krill, in these habitats. But filter-feeding organisms—which depend on a supply of food from above—were expected to be amongst the first to disappear further under the ice.
The team also notes that with climate change and the collapse of these ice shelves, time is running out to study and protect these ecosystems.
“Richness, growth, and persistence of life under an Antarctic ice shelf” by David K.A. Barnes, Gerhard Kuhn, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Raphael Gromig, Nikola Koglin, Boris K. Biskaborn, Bettina A.V. Frinault, Johann P. Klages, and Julian Gutt is published in the journal Current Biology.
Archaeological dig reveals participants in California’s Gold Rush dined on salted Atlantic cod
It turns out San Francisco has been a destination for lovers of imported delicacies since its earliest Gold Rush days. According to results published recently in the peer-reviewed Journal of Anthropological Research, an excavation at Thompson’s Cove in San Francisco has shown “Atlantic cod were imported during the 1850s, likely as a (largely) deboned, dried and salted product from the East Coast of the United States.”
Drying codfish in Flake Yard in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Credit: Historic photograph courtesy of the University of Washington.
The results underscore the importance of global maritime trade in northern California during the Gold Rush. Co-author Brittany Bingham, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Kansas, performed genetic analysis on 18 cod bones recovered from Thompson’s Cove to determine if they came from cod caught in the deep nearby waters of the Pacific or were shipped in packages by boat from Atlantic fisheries. Her results on five specimens for ancient DNA show Atlantic cod were imported during the debut of the Gold Rush.
Bingham said bones tend to be better preserved and more suitable for analysis than other materials left behind from the rapid surge in San Francisco’s population. (In the first year of the Gold Rush, between 1848-49, the area’s 800 residents quickly swelled to more than 20,000.)
Caudal vertebra from an Atlantic cod at Thompson’s Cove analyzed in the study versus (b) Pacific cod caudal vertebra from a contemporary comparative collection.
“Bones preserve better than other things that don’t last in the archaeological record as well,” she said. “You won’t get a quality DNA sample from every bone — some are burned, and soil and other factors can affect preservation, so we typically check for DNA and determine what we’re looking at. But often people move bones elsewhere and maybe they’re thrown in a different place than the rest of the bones, so you don’t have the whole specimen to look at. That’s where people like me come into play, and we’ll take the one tiny piece of bone that might have been found and figure out what it actually came from.”
The results of Bingham’s analysis were among the first archaeological results to confirm findings from historical newspapers and invoices: The early history of San Francisco included the importation of a wide range of fish and seafood to support the population boom.
The project came about when the Musto Building built-in 1907 at Thompson’s Cove — where the city was first settled — undertook a mandatory retrofitting to be more resilient to earthquakes, triggering a California compliance law requiring archaeological work in conjunction with construction at the site. Today, the building is home to a private social club.
Kale Bruner, who earned her doctorate in anthropology at KU, worked on the Thompson’s Cove site as construction took place. Today, Bruner serves as a research associate at the Museum of the Aleutians.
“Compliance work is challenging in a lot of ways because you don’t really get a lot of control over the excavations, and this case was kind of an extreme example of that — the fieldwork conditions were overwhelming — and I was the only archaeologist on-site,” Bruner said. “They were fortunately only excavating dirt in one location at a time, so I only had one piece of machinery to be watching, but we were hitting archaeologically significant material constantly. It was two years essentially of monitoring that kind of activity and documenting as rapidly as possible everything that was being uncovered.”
Aside from evidence of Atlantic cod, the authors reported about 8,000 total specimens or fragments of animal bone, and a total number of artefacts collected that numbered nearly 70,000. The work will yield more academic papers on the historical significance of the site.
Lead author Cyler Conrad, adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico and archaeologist with Los Alamos National Laboratory, has published other findings from work at Thompson’s Cove, including evidence of a California hide and tallow trade, eating of wild game, hunting of ducks and geese, and even importation of Galapagos tortoise.
He described the Gold Rush era as exciting and chaotic, a time that in some ways mirrored the supply chain problems plaguing the world in the COVID-19 era.
“During the Gold Rush, it took many months for vessels to arrive in San Francisco, so often when you needed things is not when they would arrive, and when things would arrive, they were often not needed anymore,” Conrad said. “You find these descriptions of San Francisco as this kind of a muddy mess, a kind of a tent city where there were shacks built upon shacks all the way up until the shoreline, just stacked with crates and boxes.
Even at Thompson’s Cove, I think Kale excavated several essentially intact crates of frying pans and shovelheads. You can imagine shiploads of shovels might arrive, but maybe everyone had a shovel already or maybe it was winter, and no one was in the goldfields and you have all this material that accumulates right along the shoreline — but that was convenient for our work.”
Conrad said the work to determine the Atlantic origins of cod bones found at the site was a significant contribution to understanding maritime trade of the era when Atlantic cod was either shipped by boat all the way around Cape Horn — or shipped to Panama, then hauled across the isthmus, before being shipped up to the Northern California goldfields.
“We have this really fascinating aggregation of material, and it’s remarkable we only found 18 bones we can identify to the genus of cod from the Atlantic,” he said. “Brittany’s DNA work was critical for this because it’s difficult to distinguish between bones of Atlantic versus Pacific cod — their bone morphology is virtually the same. We’ve been able to tie the DNA from Brittany’s work with some slight differences in the very far tail vertebrae. If you think how cod was prepped and salted, they removed almost all bones, except for the very last few bones. Perhaps this was rapidly prepared and exported cod from the East Coast, because of this rush to the goldfields and demand for food.
Perhaps they were just kind of shipping out whatever they could. There are some interesting details in the cod bones, and we would never have been able to answer these questions without DNA — and it really supports this identification that, yes, these are Atlantic cod — and that opens up a whole new window into this human experience.”
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