1,900-year-old Roman ‘battle spoils’ recovered from robbers in Jerusalem
Police in Jerusalem seized a hoard of stolen antiquities that date to a 1,900-year-old Jewish rebellion against the Romans. The cache had been dug up by tomb robbers from a tunnel complex.
Police in Jerusalem has seized a hoard of stolen antiquities in Jerusalem, including coins, incense burners and ceramics.
The hoard included hundreds of coins, incense burners and a number of ceramics with decorations on them, including a jug that has a carving of a reclining figure holding a jug of wine.
Researchers believe that during the Bar Kokhba revolt (A.D. 132-135), Jewish rebels captured the items from Roman soldiers and stored them in a tunnel complex where modern-day robbers found them, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement released on their Facebook page on Wednesday.
Inspectors from the Robbery Prevention Unit examine the artefacts seized in Jerusalem.
Police in Jerusalem has seized a hoard of stolen antiquities in Jerusalem, including coins, incense burners and ceramics.
During the Bar Kokhba revolt, Shimon Ben Kosva (also called Simon Bar-Kokhba or just Bar-Kokhba) led the Jews in a revolt against Roman rule.
The rebels initially captured a substantial amount of territory. However, the Romans counterattacked and gradually wiped out the rebels and killed many civilians.
The ancient writer Cassius Dio claimed that more than 500,000 Jewish men were killed in the revolts. Archaeologists have found numerous hideouts that the Jews used to hide goods or people from the Roman army.
Despite stealing the goods, the Jewish rebels may not have used many of the artefacts, because they had images that may have gone against Jewish religious beliefs.
“The Jewish fighters did not use them, since they are typical Roman cult artefacts and are decorated with figures and pagan symbols,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said in the statement.
Police officers found the artefacts after they stopped a car that was “driving in the wrong direction up a one-way street,” the statement said.
Inside the car, they found the artefacts, which researchers think the robbers stole during illegal excavations of a tunnel complex.
While the artefacts were seized in the Musrara neighbourhood of Jerusalem the precise location of the tunnel complex was not released.
Pendants from Holocaust victims found near gas chamber in Poland
Three pendants bearing the Hebrew prayer Shema Yisrael (“Hear O Israel”) have been excavated at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Thursday.
Two of the amulets depict Moses holding the Ten Commandments on the reverse side.
Researchers have been able to identify that the three pendants, all different from one another and made by hand, originated in Eastern Europe.
A pendant featuring Moses holding the Ten Commandments was found by the gas chambers located in Camp II at Sobibor.
One came from Lviv in Ukraine, and the other two from Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The nearly decade-long excavations of the site — where approximately 250,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis between 1942 and 1943 — were directed by Wojciech Mazurek from Poland, Yoram Haimi from the IAI and Ivar Schute from the Netherlands, assisted by local residents.
“Little is known about the stories behind the pendants, which are heartbreaking,” Haimi said in a statement.
“It has been possible to identify a kind of tradition or fashion among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe with pendants that were inscribed with ‘Shema Yisrael’ on one side and a depiction of Moses and the tablets of the Law on the opposite side,” he said.
A figure of Moses and the Ten Commandments on a pendant that was found in the women’s barracks before they entered the gas chambers.
“But were they distributed in synagogues by local Jewish communities or possibly produced for individual orders? Research of the pendants is ongoing and we invite the public to provide us with details concerning them.”
One of the pendants was discovered in the remains of a building where Jews were undressed before being led to the gas chambers. Another, on which Latin numbers were inscribed, was uncovered in the area where victims were undressed in Camp II. A third was next to a mass grave.
“The personal and human aspect of the discovery of these pendants is chilling,” said Eli Eskozido, director of the IAA.
“They represent a thread running between generations of Jews – actually a thick thread, thousands of years old, of prayer and faith.”
A pendant was discovered in a women’s undressing area at Sobibor, where victims were forced to unclothe before entering the gas chambers.
Archaeologists believe they may have found evidence of a 4,000-year-old prehistoric burial mound during the construction of new student flats. The site has already yielded the remains of St Mary’s, a lost 15th Century Oxford University college.
The remains are typical of a Bronze Age barrow used for human burials
Latest discoveries include a fragment of skull, part of a human jawbone, and remains typical of a Bronze Age barrow used for human burials.
Thirty flats are being developed at Brasenose College’s Frewin Annexe.
Oxford Archaeology’s senior project manager, Ben Ford, said St Mary’s College, which had already been a “significant archaeological discovery”, appeared to have been built above a circular burial mound.
He added: “These intriguing discoveries strongly suggest a prehistoric burial mound was on this site thousands of years before Oxford even existed.
“The jawbone is robust and clearly from an individual of some stature. The mound is built from reddish colour soils and natural gravel – its survival is very unusual.
“We are now searching for the circular ditch which would have surrounded it, and the remaining bones of the individual.”
Latest discoveries include part of a human jawbone
Thirty flats are being developed at Brasenose College’s Frewin Annexe
During the Bronze Age, important people were commemorated under large earthen mounds as part of an extensive burial ground in the region.
Mr Ford said: “Frewin Hall is one of the oldest buildings still in use in the city, and when we started this project, we hoped to uncover evidence of Oxford’s earliest years as a fortified Saxon town, as well as its later use as the residence of some of the Oxfords most powerful Norman families.
“However, it had not been previously documented that there was a prehistoric burial site here.”
He said the “rare discovery” had brought a “new dimension” to a “rich archaeological area”.
Artefacts previously found at the site include ceramic beer jugs, coins, glass vessels, highly decorated window glass, and decorated floor tiles.
At a recent open day, 500 visitors came to see some of the excavations.
The site has already yielded the remains of St Mary’s, a lost 15th Century Oxford University college
The World’s Oldest Stash: Scientists Find 2,700-Year-Old Pot
Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.
A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.
They apparently were getting high too.
Lead author Ethan Russo told Discovery News that marijuana “is quite similar” to what’s grown today.
“We know from both the chemical analysis and genetics that it could produce THC (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, the main psychoactive chemical in the plant),” he explained, adding that no one could feel its effects today, due to decomposition over the millennia.
Russo served as a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany while conducting the study. He and his international team analyzed the cannabis, which was excavated at the Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, China.
It was found lightly pounded in a wooden bowl in a leather basket near the head of a blue-eyed Caucasian man who died when he was about 45.
“This individual was buried with an unusual number of high value, rare items,” Russo said, mentioning that the objects included a make-up bag, bridles, pots, archery equipment and a kongou harp. The researchers believe the individual was a shaman from the Gushi people, who spoke a now-extinct language called Tocharian that was similar to Celtic.
Scientists originally thought the plant material in the grave was coriander, but microscopic botanical analysis of the bowl contents, along with genetic testing, revealed that it was cannabis.
The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their colour and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown.
What is in question, however, is how the marijuana was administered, since no pipes or other objects associated with smoking were found in the grave.
“Perhaps it was ingested orally,” Russo said. “It might also have been fumigated, as the Scythian tribes to the north did subsequently.”
Although other cultures in the area used hemp to make various goods as early as 7,000 years ago, additional tomb finds indicate the Gushi fabricated their clothing from wool and made their rope out of reed fibres.
The scientists are unsure if the marijuana was grown for more spiritual or medical purposes, but it’s evident that the blue-eyed man was buried with a lot of it.
“As with other grave goods, it was traditional to place items needed for the afterlife in the tomb with the departed,” Russo said.
The ancient marijuana stash is now housed at Turpan Museum in China. In the future, Russo hopes to conduct further research at the Yanghai site, which has 2,000 other tombs
A Message From a Mysterious Ancient Culture in Siberia
On the right bank of the Askiz river, a unique archaeological site from the early first millennium C.E. has been found. It is associated with the enigmatic Tashtyk culture in ancient Siberia and for a change, it sheds light not only on how they died, but who they were.
The Tashtyks’ unusual funerary practices had already been described in numerous articles and research but we know little about how they lived before the evil day. Now at the new site dubbed Kazanovka 14, archaeologists have gained rare insight into their culture, their adaptations to the environment and their relationships in this “oasis” in southern Siberia.
The Askiz is a tributary of the Abakan River. It passes through the balmy Minusinsk Basin in the southern Siberian republic of Khakassia, where the previously unknown site was found during the field season of 2021.
The Minusinsk Basin is a territory bordered by mountains and forests, with abundant lakes, fertile land and the mildest climate in Siberia. One might call it an oasis of the steppe. The winter winds blow the snow away from the mountains, making the area a perfect place to keep sheep, who can roam freely. It is therefore little wonder that the Minusinsk hollow attracted semi-nomadic tribes and their flocks throughout history. Archaeologists over the years have uncovered sites of a number of cultures from the third millennia B.C.E. onward.
While performing construction works along the Mezhdurechensk–Tayshet railroad from 2019 to 2021, various sites from the Early Bronze Age to the later Middle Ages were discovered. These included burials of many cultures and settlements. One of the sites, called “Kazanovka 14,” was excavated in 2021.
The salvage excavation of Kazanovka 14 was carried out by Anton Vybornov of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS Novosibirsk, Russia, under the leadership of Timoshenko Alexey. It was here that the scholars found new evidence of how the Tashtyks lived their life, after finding the remains of a burned-down wooden structure, and a remarkable petroglyph – an engraved sandstone slab.
Kazanovka 14, to the right of the track
Excavating the Tashtyk site of Kazanovka 14
Their discoveries were reported in the journal of Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories. As Anton Vybornov told Haaretz, Kazanovka 14 was a Tashtyk seasonal camp, as indicated by characteristic finds known from the vast majority of burial grounds of which this “culture” is famous.
A little bit Scythian
The Tashtyk culture was common in the Khakassian Minusink basin, in southern Siberia, from almost 2,000 to about 1,600 years ago. But the culture is not easy to define, Vybornov says. In some ways, they seem to have carried on some Scythian traditions. In other ways, they evince Hunnic – Sarmatian types of cultures, mixed with local traditions known in the Basin. The Tashtyk culture is also considered to be a local southern Siberian phenomenon on which basis the later medieval Yenisei Kirgizian state would arise.
Weapons and artefacts found in Tashtyk context
One thing we can be sure about is their idiosyncratic and colourful burial practices.
Tashtyk funerary practices involved either cremation or inhumation. The remains were buried either in box graves dug into the ground and lined by wood, or massive crypt burial mounds. The ash and cremated bones were put inside a leather bag that was then stuffed with dry grass. The bag was arranged inside a leather-dressed dummy, and a mask was placed on the area of the face.
In the case of Inhumation, which was also common, the deceased was dressed in leather. Their heads were wrapped with shrouds, orin any case a cloth tissue, and a mask was placed on top.
Tashtyk burial masks
Illustration of a mask on a Tashtyk woman’s body
The masks were the most extraordinary feature of these burials. They were essentially portraits of the dead made using clay and plaster and embellished with red paint. On the forehead, a spiral was drawn, and the cheeks and chin were blushed with the paint as well.
Once the dummies or bodies had been prepared, they were placed in box graves or crypts, among grave goods, including pottery and metal vessels. The crypts were big, with a corridor leading inside. When its mortuary duty was finished, the crypt was sealed, burned, and covered, to stand for eternity overlooking the Basin. While we can say plenty about their way of death, as revealed by the abundance of Tashtyk burial sites and practices, we cannot say much about their way of life. Barely any Tashtyk settlements have been found, hence the importance of Kazanovka 14.
Just below the surface, three to 20 centimetres below the modern deposits, the archaeologists unearthed what seems to have been a seasonal campsite of this semi-nomads, who moved from winter to summer camps and practised farming throughout the years in this fertile land. In the southern part of the camp, they found a charred destruction layer that they believe came from a collapsed structure built of wooden sticks attached horizontally or vertically together. The excavators also detected holes in the ground in the area of the structure, indicating the placement of wooden posts that supported the walls and/or the ceiling.
Pottery vessels found in Kazanovka 14
There was also a hearth, and together with pottery vessels, bone and metal objects, and animal remains, there were several spots of burnt clay accumulations. This leads Anton to surmise that the structure might have been a potter’s workshop, a possibility worth considering even though the research is still basic and further analysis is required. Alternatively, the structure could have been a simple house, a hut, or even a yurt. It seems the site ceased to exist when the fire consumed the wooden structure and what was within, sealing the place for good – until it was uncovered by the expedition in 2021.
Kazanovka 14 not only sheds light on the Tashtyk way of life. It also opens a window to their artistic world and their perception of themselves and their surroundings. The fire might have burned down their house, but signs of the Tashtyks’ artistic spirit survived the conflagration long after their death. Among the ash and debris, the archaeologists found astragalus bones, which are animal ankle bones, with marks incised on them, including crosses, circles, and lines. These are familiar from other sites and might have been used as game pieces. A sense of spaceBut the most exciting discovery of the season was the engraved sandstone slab.
The sandstone slab in situ
The petroglyph
The depictions on the sandstone are divided into three panels. The lower has what seemed to be a stylistic representation of trees. The upper features three horizontal lines with smaller stripes in between. The middle panel was bordered by three vertical lines on each side with stripes in between, similar to the upper panel.
The panel’s centre is oddly empty, with some elements on the side and a semicircle in the middle. Despite its cryptic nature, Vybornov and his team were extremely excited by the find, a whisper left behind by these enigmatic people about themselves and their world, an unintentional message from the past. Learning about the finds and the burnt structure found in Kazanovka 14, and the petroglyphs on the slab, one wonders if it might show that very structure.
When asked about it, Vybornov said that it had been his first thought as well, but at this stage that remains pure speculation. Only further research and analysis of the material, and correlation to old and new finds hopefully to be made, can unveil what the message the Tashtykians wanted to deliver actually was.
Skulls suggest Romans in London enjoyed human blood sports
Left: Digital radiograph showing a healed skull fracture. Right: Skull showing sharp-force injuries and fractures inflicted around the time of death.
A joint research project between the Museum of London and the Natural History Museum has re-evaluated human remains discovered under the London Wall in 1988.
The majority of the remains were recovered from an industrial site in the Walbrook Valley and have been curated by the Museum of London.
Because the skull is the first body part to disarticulate, it was first thought that these were skull bones that had separated from the rest of the bodies over time and been washed out from graves. Similar crania are often found in the River Thames.
Evidence of violent injury
Museum forensic anthropologist Dr Heather Bonney, who analysed the skulls, however, found that many of the individuals had sustained blunt force trauma in the facial area and on the side of their heads around the time of their death.
An adult male skull displaying a healed fracture of the cheekbone sustained during life.
Army trophies
This would suggest several theories, which include that these remains could be the heads of people executed in the amphitheatre near the burial site, or the heads of enemies kept as trophies by the Roman army from the frontiers of Britain, stationed in Roman London.
Roman amphitheatres were typically used for gladiator combat and judicial execution.
Human games
Only a few of the human remains showed signs of the type of decapitation you would expect in judicial execution.
The human remains were deposited between AD 120-AD160, which was a time of prosperity and peace in the province, rather than a period of war when human remains exhibiting violent death would have been more typical.
Violent Londinium
Dr Rebecca Redfern from the Museum of London, said, ‘There is no evidence for social unrest, warfare or other acts of organised violence, during the period that this human remains date from.
The view of bloodthirsty Romans has wide currency, but this is the first time that we have evidence of these types of violence in London.’
Dr Bonney said that similar burial sites for the victims of gladiatorial combat have been found in Europe, but not previously identified in Britain. ‘We know gladiator contests went on in London but not the extent of such contests,’ she said.
‘The prevalence of trauma and young adult males from this site indicates that they probably met a violent end, and their heads were then separated and deposited. Signs of violent injuries sustained during life also provide a fascinating insight into violent activities in Roman London.’
The research team said that the next step was to investigate where the people buried in the site came from.
Holey cow! Evidence of Stone Age veterinary ‘surgery’
A hole in the skull of a Stone Age cow was likely made by humans about 5,000 years ago, probably by a primitive veterinarian or trainee surgeon, scientists said.
A 3D reconstruction of the Stone Age cow’s skull, showing internally and externally the hole produced by trepanation.
The hole appears to have been painstakingly carved into the animal’s head, but whether it was an operation to save the cow or practice for surgery on humans, was not clear, a duo of anthropologists reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
Either way, the puncture does seem to represent the earliest known example of veterinary “trepanation” – the boring of a hole into the skull, they said.
“There are many Neolithic (human) skulls in Europe which bear the marks of trepanation. But we have never seen it in animals,” co-author Fernando Ramirez Rozzi of France’s CNRS research institute told AFP.
The Neolithic era was the closing chapter of the Stone Age – a time when prehistoric humans, hunter-gatherer nomads until then, first tried their hand at cultivating crops and building permanent villages.
The cow skull comes from an archaeological site in western France, inhabited by a Stone Age community between 3,400 and 3,000 BC.
Bone fragments scattered around the camp showed that cows were the main source of food, along with pigs, sheep, and goats.
It was thought at first that the matchbox-sized hole was made when the cow was gored by a horned rival in a fight.
But on closer inspection with high-definition scanners, the team found no splintering or fractures consistent with such a strong blow.
The puncture was too regular to have been the work of a gnawing pest, nor did it appear to have been made by a tumour or infectious diseases, such as syphilis or tuberculosis, as the skull showed no other signs of sickness.
This picture shows cut marks in a cow skull (a, b, c) and in a human skull (d, e) from the Neolithic period suggesting that the technique used for the trepanation in humans is the same as that employed in the cow skull.
DEAD OR ALIVE?
Religious ritual also seemed an unlikely explanation, as the skull was thrown away with the rubbish.
Cut- and scrape marks were found around the hole, said Rozzi – similar to those seen on Neolithic human skulls into which holes had been bored.
“I believe that the evidence of trepanation is indisputable,” the researcher added. “It is the only possible explanation.”
But why would a Stone Age human operate on an animal?
“There are two possible explanations,” according to Rozzi. “Either they were treating the cow, or they were practising on it before trying their hand at the surgery on humans.”
The first option seemed unlikely, he added, given that cows were in such abundance.
The team could not determine whether the hole was made while the cow was still alive, or after it died.
The bone, however, had not started regrowing around the hole, which showed the cow either did not survive the operation, if there was one, or was cut post-mortem.
Ancient DNA reveals surprises about how early Africans lived, travelled and interacted
A new analysis of human remains that were buried in African archaeological sites has produced the earliest DNA from the continent, telling a fascinating tale of how early humans lived, travelled and even found their significant others.
Hora Rockshelter in Malawi, where recent excavations uncovered two of the individuals analyzed in a collaborative study of ancient DNA.
An interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers outlined its findings in “Ancient DNA reveals deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers.” The paper was published today in Nature and reports findings from ancient DNA from six individuals buried in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia who lived between 18,000 and 5,000 years ago.
“This more than doubles the antiquity of reported ancient DNA data from sub-Saharan Africa,” said David Reich, a professor at Harvard University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute whose lab generated the data in the paper. “The study is particularly exciting as a truly equal collaboration of archaeologists and geneticists.”
The study also reanalyzed published data from 28 individuals buried at sites across the continent, generating new and improved data for 15 of them. The result was an unprecedented dataset of DNA from ancient African foragers — people who hunted, gathered or fished. Their genetic legacy is difficult to reconstruct from present-day people because of the many population movements and mixtures that have occurred in the last few thousand years.
Mt. Hora in Malawi, where recent excavations at Hora Rockshelter uncovered two of the individuals analyzed in a collaborative study of ancient DNA.
Thanks to this data, the researchers were able to outline major demographic shifts that took place between about 80,000 and 20,000 years ago. As far back as about 50,000 years ago, people from different regions of the continent moved and settled in other areas and developed alliances and networks over longer distances to trade, share information and even find reproductive partners. This social network helped them survive and thrive, the researchers wrote.
Elizabeth Sawchuk , an author of the study who is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta and a research assistant professor at Stony Brook University, said a dramatic cultural change took place during this timeframe, as beads, pigments and other symbolic art became common across Africa. Researchers long assumed that major changes in the archaeological record about 50,000 years ago reflected a shift in social networks and maybe even changes in population size. However, such hypotheses have remained difficult to test.
“We’ve never been able to directly explore these proposed demographic shifts, until now,” she said. “It has been difficult to reconstruct events in our deeper past using the DNA of people living today, and artefacts like stone tools and beads can’t tell us the whole story. Ancient DNA provides direct insight into the people themselves, which was the missing part of the puzzle.”
The Livingstone Museum in Zambia, where some of the skeletal remains in the study are curated.
Mary Prendergast, an author of the paper and associate professor of anthropology at Rice University, said there are arguments that the development and expansion of long-distance trade networks around this time helped humans weather the last Ice Age.
“Humans began relying on each other in new ways,” she said. “And this creativity and innovation might be what allowed people to thrive.”
The researchers were also able to demonstrate that by about 20,000 years ago, people had stopped moving around so much.
“Maybe it was because by that point, previously established social networks allowed for the flow of information and technologies without people having to move,” Sawchuk said.
Prendergast said the study provides a better understanding of how people moved and mingled in this part of Africa. Previously, the earliest African DNA came from what is now Morocco — but the individuals in this study lived as far from there as Bangladesh is from Norway, she noted.
“Our genetic study confirms an archaeological pattern of more local behaviour in eastern Africa over time,” said Jessica Thompson, an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University, and author of the study and one of the researchers who uncovered the remains. “At first people found reproductive partners from wide geographic and cultural pools. Later, they prioritized partners who lived closer, and who were potentially more culturally similar.”
Ostrich eggshell beads from Mlambalasi Rockshelter in Tanzania, where one of the individuals in the study was buried.
The research team included scholars from Canada, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, the United States, Zambia and many other countries. Critical contributions to the study came from curators and co-authors at African museums who are responsible for protecting and preserving the remains.
Potiphar Kaliba, director of research at the Malawi Department of Museums and Monuments and an author of the study, noted that some of the skeletons sampled for the study were excavated a half-century ago, yet their DNA is preserved despite hot and humid climates in the tropics.
“This work shows why it’s so important to invest in the stewardship of human remains and archaeological artefacts in African museums,” Kaliba said.
The work also helps address global imbalances in research, Prendergast said.
“There are around 30 times more published ancient DNA sequences from Europe than from Africa,” she said. “Given that Africa harbours the greatest human genetic diversity on the planet, we have much more to learn.”
“By associating archaeological artifacts with ancient DNA, the researchers have created a remarkable framework for exploring the prehistory of humans in Africa,” said Archaeology and Archaeometry program director John Yellen of the U.S. National Science Foundation, one of the funders behind this project. “This insight is charting a new way forward to understanding humanity and our complex shared history.”
