Long-Lost Kingdom Over 3,000 Years Old Stumbled on by Archeologists in Turkey
It was said that all he touched turned to gold. But destiny eventually caught up with the legendary King Midas, and a long-lost chronicle of his ancient downfall appears to have literally surfaced in Turkey.
The archaeological mound at Türkmen-Karahöyük.
In 2019, archaeologists were investigating an ancient mound site in central Turkey called Türkmen-Karahöyük. The greater region, the Konya Plain, abounds with lost metropolises, but even so, researchers couldn’t have been prepared for what they were about to find.
A local farmer told the group that a nearby canal, recently dredged, revealed the existence of a large strange stone, marked with some kind of unknown inscription.
“We could see it still sticking out of the water, so we jumped right down into the canal – up to our waists wading around,” said archaeologist James Osborne from the University of Chicago in early 2020.
“Right away it was clear it was ancient, and we recognised the script it was written in: Luwian, the language used in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the area.”
The half-submerged stone with inscriptions dating to the 8th century BCE.
With the aid of translators, the researchers found that the hieroglyphs on this ancient stone block – called a stele – boasted of a military victory. And not just any military victory, but the defeat of Phrygia, a kingdom of Anatolia that existed roughly 3,000 years ago.
The royal house of Phrygia was ruled by a few different men called Midas, but the dating of the stele, based on linguistic analysis, suggests the block’s hieroglyphics could be referring to the King Midas – he of the famous ‘golden touch’ myth.
The stone markings also contained a special hieroglyphic symbolising that the victory message came from another king, a man called Hartapu. The hieroglyphs suggest Midas was captured by Hartapu’s forces.
“The storm gods delivered the [opposing] kings to his majesty,” the stone reads.
What’s significant about this is that almost nothing is known about King Hartapu, nor about the kingdom he ruled. Nonetheless, the stele suggests the giant mound of Türkmen-Karahöyük may have been Hartapu’s capital city, spanning some 300 acres in its heyday, the heart of the ancient conquest of Midas and Phrygia.
“We had no idea about this kingdom,” Osborne said. “In a flash, we had profound new information on the Iron Age Middle East.”
Luwian inscriptions were uncovered on a stone from a nearby dig.
There’s a lot more digging to be done in this ongoing archaeological project, and the findings so far should be considered preliminary for now. The international team is eager to revisit the site this year, to find out whatever more we can about this kingdom seemingly lost in history.
“Inside this mound are going to be palaces, monuments, houses,” Osborne said. “This stele was a marvellous, incredibly lucky find – but it’s just the beginning.”
You can find out more about the research here and here.
The Incas used cutting-edge technology to power their empire
In the 15th and early 16th Centuries, a small island in Lake Titicaca was one of South America’s most important religious sites. Revered as the birthplace of the Sun, the Moon and the Inca dynasty, Isla del Sol (“Island of the Sun”) drew pilgrims from across the Andes.
A few years ago, I followed in their footsteps, catching a boat from the Bolivian town of Copacabana across the choppy, gunboat-grey lake, which sits at an altitude of 3,812m, making it the only place on the planet a traveller can “suffer from sea-sickness and mountain-sickness at the same time”, according to the British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who visited in the early 1900s.
After docking on Isla del Sol’s north-east coast, I followed a centuries-old trail past a host of Inca and pre-Inca ruins – tambos (waystations), shrines, temples, plazas, altars and a ceremonial complex that includes Titikala, a slab of sandstone from which Andean creator god Viracocha is said to have brought forth the Sun and the Moon.
These deceptively simple feats of agricultural engineering helped the Inca to build the largest empire in South American history
Captivated by the ancient sites and the views of the snow-streaked Cordillera Real in the distance, I paid little attention to the terraced fields snaking along the hillsides of the island. Yet these deceptively simple feats of agricultural engineering helped the Inca to build the largest empire in South American history.
Known as Andenes (Spanish for “platforms”), these terraced fields are scattered across the central Andes. First constructed around 4,500 years ago by ancient cultures across the region, they were perfected by the Inca, who emerged in the 12th Century and were masters of adopting and adapting techniques, strategies and belief systems from other societies. Andenes, says Cecilia Pardo Grau, curator of the British Museum’s current Peru: a journey in time exhibition, was “a creative way of defying the terrain… that allows for an efficient way of growing [crops]”.
Choquequirao was built during the height of the Inca empire in the late 15th Century.
They allowed Andean communities to overcome challenging environments, including steep slopes, thin soils, extreme and sharply fluctuating temperatures, and scant or seasonal rainfall. Fed by artificial pools and elaborate irrigation systems, Andenes significantly expanded the area of cultivable land. They also conserved water, reduced soil erosion and – thanks to stone walls that absorbed heat during the day and then released it at night – protected plants from severe frosts.
This enabled farmers to grow dozens of different crops, from maize and potatoes to quinoa and coca, many of which would not otherwise have survived in the region. The upshot was a dramatic increase in the overall amount of food produced.
Beyond their ingenuity, Andenes also have an artistic quality, forming vast geometric patterns on the landscapes of the Andes. Some look like giant green staircases carved into the mountainside, while others are made up of sets of concentric circles, capturing the attention like an optical illusion.
One of the most impressive is the Peruvian archaeological site of Moray, which resembles a natural amphitheatre. Located around 50km north of the former Inca capital of Cuzco and 3,500m above sea level, it demonstrates how andenes were used to create a range of microclimates. Thanks to the varying designs, sizes, depths and orientations of the terraces, the temperature differential between the highest and lowest are around 15C. Moray has been described as an “agricultural research station”: soil samples from across the empire have been discovered here and researchers argue the Inca may have used the site to experiment with practices like crop rotation, domestication and hybridisation.
Sophisticated agricultural techniques such as Andenes played a vital role in the expansion of the Inca empire, which was known as Tawantinsuyu and spanned much of modern-day Peru, western Bolivia, southwest Ecuador, south-west Colombia, north-west Argentina and northern Chile at its height. One of the oldest surviving accounts of their use comes from Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616), the son of an Inca noblewoman and a Spanish conquistador. After capturing new territory, the Inca started to expand the amount of agricultural land by bringing in skilled engineers, de la Vega noted in his book, Royal Commentaries of the Incas.
The terraced fields can be found scattered across the steep slopes of the central Andes.
“Having dug the [irrigation] channels, they levelled the fields and squared them so that the irrigation water could be adequately distributed,” he wrote. “They built terraces on the mountains and hillsides, wherever the soil was good… In this way the whole hill was gradually brought under cultivation, the platforms being flattened out like stairs in a staircase and all the cultivable and irrigable land being put to use.”
The newly expanded land was subsequently split into three parts: one for the Inca emperor; one for religious purposes; and one for the community, tranches of which were then distributed by local leaders. Although they were not taxed, farmers were required to spend time working on the emperor’s and the religious lands, as well as their own.
Techniques such as andenes were combined with policies such as mitma, where people were moved to recently conquered territories to help cement Inca control; and mit’a, a form of compulsory public service used to provide manpower to build infrastructure, including a road network tens of thousands of kilometres long.
This approach to agricultural, community and imperial organisation allowed the Inca to amass large surpluses of food for use during droughts, floods, conflicts and other lean periods. These stockpiles – which included chuño, freeze-dried potatoes produced by repeated exposure to frost and bright sunshine – were kept in huge storehouses called qullqas. In the absence of a written language, the Inca used a complex system of multicoloured knotted strings known as quipu (or khipu) to maintain inventories, as well as keep track of population and astronomical data. Some academics believe quipu may even have been used to record narratives such as stories, songs and poems.
Grau argues that quipu – examples of which are on display in the British Museum’s exhibition – were central to Inca society. “They inherited this knowledge from the Wari, a society that existed in the southern highlands, 400 years before the Inca,” she said. “The Inca used a decimal system: they had a different knot for every number from one to nine, and then for tens, hundreds and thousands… the quipu was key in the way the empire functioned and was organised.”
The dramatic Colca Canyon in southern Peru is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon
Ultimately, the andenes, stockpiles and quipus helped the Inca to steadily expand an empire that eventually dominated a great swath of South America, encompassed 12 million people and produced majestic citadels such as Machu Picchu.
But the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th Century triggered the overthrow of the Inca and the decline of the Andenes. Colonial violence, epidemics of European diseases and forced displacement devastated the indigenous populations of the central Andes. European crops and agriculture practices were introduced and quickly spread throughout the region.
Yet while many andenes were abandoned or fell into disrepair, they never disappeared completely. Drawing on knowledge passed down over the generations, many Andean farmers continue to use them today, and though often overlooked by travellers, they remain a common sight in places such as Isla del Sol and the wider Titicaca region, the Sacred Valley near Machu Picchu, and the Colca Canyon in southern Peru, a fissure twice the depth of the Grand Canyon.
In recent years, there has also been renewed academic interest in Andenes as a form of sustainable agriculture that could help the world cope with the climate crisis, water scarcity and soil erosion. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, for example, describes traditional Andean culture as “one of the best examples of the adaptation and knowledge of farmers to their environment”, and highlights its sustainable approach to land usage, water management, soil protection and crop biodiversity.
Four and a half thousand years after they first emerged, the terraced fields of the Andes appear to be ahead of their time.
Mysterious footprints suggest Neanderthals climbed a volcano right after it erupted
According to legend, the devil once took a walk down the side of a volcano in southern Italy, each step preserved forever in solid rock. The tracks are known as the “Ciampate del Diavolo“‘ or “Devil’s Trail” – but details published in 2020 reveal a less diabolical yet far more interesting story on how they came to be.
The mysterious footprints are well known to those living near Roccamonfina, an extinct volcano in southern Italy that hasn’t erupted in tens of thousands of years. Since 2001, researchers have sought to explain the dozens of impressions left by a small group of human ancestors and even a few animals snaking their way down the mountainside.
But a paper published in January 2020 suggested some individuals were actually heading back up. Over recent years numerous expeditions have provided detailed measurements on a total of 67 indentations left by the scuffle of feet, hands, and legs, all divided across three distinct tracks headed away from the mountain’s summit.
Thanks to the contributions by a team of scientists from institutes across Italy, we obtained details on a further 14 prints – these even larger than the others – some of which head up the mountain rather than down.
Radiometric and geological dating of the various rock strata has already established that the imprints were cast in the soft blanket of ash left in the wake of an eruption around 350,000 years ago, making them some of the oldest preserved human footprints on record.
But just who left these tracks? It’s impossible to say for certain based on an assortment of dull shapes pressed awkwardly in time-worn volcanic sediment.
There seemed to be at least five different bodies behind the marks. Further investigations could help whittle down ideas on the sex, body mass, and perhaps even heights of the trekkers.
Given our own Homo sapiens ancestors developed their characteristic traits only 315,000 years ago, we can be pretty confident they weren’t members of our own species.
But the researchers have some clues.
One of the clearer imprints provides clear evidence of a grown human male.
And the shapes of many of the footprints point to an interesting possibility. The broad nature of the hindfoot area, with the low rise of the arch, looks suspiciously like the feet of individuals buried in the Sima de Los Huesos “Pit of Bones”.
Footprints on the Ciampate del Diavolo.
The owners of those 430,000-year-old remains have been a topic of debate of the years, progressing from Homo heidelbergensis to Neanderthal, to Denisovan, back to Neanderthal.
Assuming they truly are Neanderthals, it’s reasonable – even if not solid – to bet that the footprints were left by a gang of young Neanderthal adults.
Still, the researchers were careful about jumping to conclusions.
“We have decided to keep the attribution to a specific species still pending,” lead researcher Adolfo Panarello told New Scientist’s Michael Marshall back in January 2020.
Just what inspired an ancient group of hominids to go trouncing through the cooling soot and debris after the mountain violently blew its lid is anybody’s guess, though it’s clear from the impressions that nobody was in a hurry.
Based on the leisurely pace of around 1 meter per second (3.2 feet per second), the handful of footsteps heading uphill, and a scattering of basalt artefacts found in the vicinity, we might imagine this was just another day in the life by an active volcano.
Slowly treading barefoot through material freshly deposited by a 300 degree Celsius (572 Fahrenheit) flow of billowing pyroclastic insanity isn’t exactly for the faint-hearted either, no matter how tough your soles might be.
Going on a back-of-the-envelope calculation, the researchers estimated the blanket would need to have cooled to at least 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), meaning at least several hours needed to have passed between an eruption and the trek.
We might well imagine members of a community living in the shadow of a mountain known to occasionally spew out hot clouds of poisonous gas and muddy ash, with a small band setting across a familiar path to check out the carnage.
Perhaps disaster tourism isn’t a recent thing, after all.
This research was published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.
A Pregnant Ancient Egyptian Mummy Has Been Discovered in a Shocking World First
A team of Polish scientists say they have discovered the only known example of an embalmed pregnant Egyptian mummy. The discovery was made by researchers at the Warsaw Mummy Project and revealed in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Thursday.
Polish archaeologists described the discovery as “really special”
The project started in 2015, uses technology to examine artefacts housed at the National Museum in Warsaw. The mummy was previously thought to be a male priest but scans reveal it was a woman in the later stages of pregnancy.
Experts from the project believe the remains are most likely of a high-status woman, aged between 20 and 30, who died during the 1st Century BC.
The scans of the pregnant mummy revealed a mummified fetus, as seen in these abdominal scans of her remains
“Presented here is the only known example of a mummified pregnant woman and the first radiological images of such a foetus,” they wrote in the journal article announcing the find.
Using the foetus head circumference, they estimate it was between 26 and 30 weeks when the mother died for unknown reasons.
A CT scanner and radiologists have been assisting the archaeological work
“This is our most important and most significant finding so far, a total surprise,” team member Wojciech Ejsmond of the Polish Academy of Sciences told the Associated Press.
Four bundles thought to be wrapped and embalmed organs were found within the mummy’s abdominal cavity but scientists say the foetus had not been removed from the uterus.
The scientists said it was unclear why it had not been extracted and embalmed separately, but speculated spiritual beliefs about the afterlife or physical difficulties with removal may have contributed.
‘The Mysterious Lady’
Researchers from the mummy project have dubbed the woman as the Mysterious Lady of the National Museum in Warsaw because of conflicting accounts around her origins.
They say the mummified remains were first donated to the University of Warsaw in 1826. The donor alleged the mummy was found in royal tombs in Thebes, but researchers say it was common in the 19th century to falsely ascribe antiquities to famous places to increase their value.
Inscriptions on the elaborate coffin and sarcophagus had led 20th Century experts to believe the mummy inside was that of a male priest named Hor-Djehuti.
But now scientists, having identified it as female with scanning technology, believe the mummy was at some point placed in the wrong coffin by antiquity dealers during the 19th Century when looting and re-wrapping of remains were not uncommon.
Amulets, thought to be items known as the Four Sons of Horus, accompany the mummified body
They describe the condition of the mummy as “well-preserved” but say damage to the neck wrappings suggest it was at some point targeted for valuables.
The experts say at least 15 items, including a “rich set” of mummy-shaped amulets, were found intact within the wrappings.
One of the researchers on the project, Dr Marzena Ożarek-Szilke, told the Polish state news agency that her husband had first spotted what appeared to be “a little foot” on one of the scans.
She told the outlet that the team hope next to study small amounts of tissue to establish the woman’s cause of death.
Archaeologists Discover ‘Lost,’ 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Sun Temple
Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed the remnants of a lost “sun temple” dating back to the 25th century BCE. Experts believe it to be one of just six such temples erected as a shrine to sun god Ra during the Old Kingdom, although to date, only two other sun temples have been found.
The site of the Nyuserra sun temple in Abu Ghurab.
The structure was discovered below a separate temple—itself one of the other known sun temples—at Abu Ghurab, roughly 12 miles south of the capital city of Cairo.
The newer temple is thought to have been built between 2400 and 2370 BCE by Nyuserra (also referred to as Nyuserre and Niuserre), an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the Fifth Dynasty.
The structure was first excavated by archaeologists in 1898. It turns out, however, that they didn’t uncover all that the site had to offer.
“The archaeologists of the 19th century excavated only a very small part of this mud-brick building below the stone temple of Nyuserra and concluded that this was a previous building phase of the same temple,” Massimiliano Nuzzolo, the archaeologist who co-led the dig, told CNN this week. “Now our finds demonstrate that this was a completely different building, erected before.”
The Nyuserra sun temple in Abu Ghurab.
From the older temple, the archaeologists uncovered a pair of columns from a portico and an entrance threshold, all made of limestone.
Nuzzolo—who is an assistant professor of Egyptology at the Warsaw-based Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures—explained that Nyuserra likely used the bones of the previous temple to erect his own.
“We knew that there was something below the stone temple of Nyuserre, but we don’t know if it is just another building phase of the same temple or if it is a new temple,” the archaeologist elaborated for the Daily Telegraph.
“Actually, the fact that there is such a huge, monumental entrance would point to a new building. So, why not another sun temple, one of the missing sun temples?”
Nuzzolo and his team also uncovered seals engraved with the names of kings, as well as dozens of beer jars. The latter vessels have been dated to the mid 25th century BCE, meaning they were created well before Nyuserra’s construction.
These findings were featured in an episode of the series Lost Treasures of Egypt that aired on the National Geographic channel last weekend. However, whoever was responsible for building the older temple remains an unanswered question.
Italy’s culture minister on Thursday welcomed the return of 201 prized antiquities valued at over 10 million euros ($11 million) that had been located in prestigious U.S. museums and galleries after being illegally trafficked in recent decades.
They were among thousands of antiquities seized from traffickers or returned to Italy this year in major operations that also targeted trafficking rings in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany.
Of the 201 works returned by U.S. officials earlier this month, 161 have been repatriated to Italy while 40 are on exhibit at the Italian Consulate General in New York through March 2022.
“These artworks will not end up, as has happened many times in the past, all in one big museum,” Culture Minister Dario Franceschini told a press conference. Instead, they will be returned to the places where they were stolen for display in museums there.
“This too is a great homecoming operation that will add value to our extraordinary country as a vast museum.
They are artworks of absolute importance that will attract people to those places and territories,” Franceschini said.
The U.S. haul includes 96 pieces that had been in the collection of the Fordham Museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art, including ancient pottery and amphora; a terracotta statue titled dating from the 4th century BC seized from a New York gallery; and six items returned from the Getty Museum, including a large ceramic Etruscan vessel.
The Museum of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Art at Fordham University surrendered about a hundred looted antiquities to the Manhattan D.A., including this hydria, or water jar, featuring the labours of Hercules.
Most of the stolen cache was traced to the activities of Edoardo Almagia, an Italian native who was living in New York.
Charges against him in Italy in 2006 were thrown out due to the statute of limitations, but a judge in Rome in 2013 ordered the seizure of all his antiquities in both New York and Naples.
He remains at large in Italy, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
One major operation secured nearly 800 objects from ancient Daunia, which was located in the Gargano peninsula in northern Puglia, while another broke up a trafficking ring of artefacts from southern Italian civilizations operating in northern Europe.
Thirteen people are under investigation in that case, which led to the recovery of 2,000 artefacts.
Priceless Art Found In Paris Apartment Vacant Since 1939
Caked in dust and full of turn-of-the-century treasures, this Paris apartment is like going back in time. Having lain untouched for seven decades the abandoned home was discovered three years ago after its owner died aged 91.
The woman who owned the flat, a Mrs De Florian, had fled for the south of France before the outbreak of the Second World War. She never returned and in the 70 years since it looks like no one had set foot inside.
The property was found near a church in the French capital’s 9th arrondissement, between Pigalle red-light district and Opera.
Back in time: The flat near the Trinité church in Paris between the Pigalle red-light district and Opera
Experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions which included a painting by the 19th-century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.
One expert said it was like stumbling into the castle of Sleeping Beauty, where time had stood still since 1900. ‘There was a smell of old dust,’ said Olivier Choppin-Janvry, who made the discovery.
But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.
The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist’s former muse and Mrs de Florian’s grandmother, Marthe de Florian, a beautiful French actress and socialite of the Belle Époque.
Under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini
Untouched: The cobweb-filled flat was discovered in the 9th arrondissement of Paris
Treasure trove: Behind the door, under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects, including the Boldini painting that sold for £1.78million
When the owner died aged 91, experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions
Mrs de Florian fled Paris before the outbreak of war in 1939, which saw the Nazis invade France and reach Paris on June 14. Pictured here, German officers and Parisians mingle near a sidewalk cafe on the Champs Elysees on Bastille Day in 1940
Marthe de Florian was an actress with a long list of ardent admirers whose fervent love letters she kept wrapped neatly in ribbon and were still on the premises.
Among the admirers was the 72nd prime minister of France, George Clemenceau, but also Boldini.
The expert had a hunch the painting was by Boldini, but could find no record of the painting.
‘No reference book dedicated to Boldini mentioned the tableau, which was never exhibited,’ said Marc Ottavi, the art specialist he consulted about the work.
When Mr Choppin-Janvry found a visiting card with a scribbled love note from Boldini, he knew he had struck gold. ‘We had the link and I was sure at that moment that it was indeed a very fine Boldini’.
He finally found a reference to the work in a book by the artist’s widow, which said it was painted in 1898 when Miss de Florian was 24.
The starting price for the painting was £253,000 but it rocketed as ten bidders vyed for the historic work. Finally, it went under the hammer for £1.78million, a world record for the artist.
‘It was a magic moment. One could see that the buyer loved the painting; he paid the price of passion,’ said Mr Ottavi.
Rare 200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints discovered on beach in Wales, scientists believe
Dinosaur footprints found on a Welsh beach could have been made more than 200 million years ago, experts believe. Palaeontologists at the Natural History Museum believe the footprints – known as a trackway – date back to the Triassic period and were most likely left by an early relative of the famous Diplodocus.
The footprints were most likely left by an early relative of the Diplodocus
The footprints were discovered on a beach in Penarth in April last year by youth worker Kerry Rees, who was taking her daily lockdown stroll having recently moved to the area.
Kerry, from Ferndale in the Rhondda, was aware of the area’s history of dinosaur discoveries – with a fossilised skeleton of a distant cousin of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex found on the same stretch of coastline back in 2014 – and sent pictures of the footprints to the Natural History Museum for experts to investigate.
Museum palaeontologists Dr Susannah Maidment and Professor Paul Barrett were initially sceptical of the report – but now believe that the footprints are from the late Triassic era.
“We get a lot of enquiries from members of the public for things that could be trackways but many are geological features that can easily be mistaken for them,” said Dr Maidment.
“However, from the photographs, we thought they were a fairly good contender for something that could be tracked and that it would be worth taking a look.”
Kerry Rees discovered the trail whilst out walking on the beach in Penarth
After visiting the site to examine the discovery, Prof. Barrett said: “We believed the impressions we saw at Penarth were consistently spaced to suggest an animal walking. We also saw displacement rims where mud had been pushed up.
“These structures are characteristic of active movement through the soft ground.”
Researchers now think that the impressions are an example of Eosauropus, which is a name not of a dinosaur, but a type of track thought to have been made by a very early sauropod or near sauropod-relative – the group of dinosaurs that later included the Diplodocus.
“We know early sauropods were living in Britain at the time, as bones of Camelotia, a very early sauropod, have been found in Somerset in rocks dated to the same period,” said Dr Maidment. “We don’t know if this species was the trackmaker, but it is another clue which suggests something like it could have made these tracks.”
Experts visited the site to examine the discovery
Dinosaur trackways can provide information about how herds moved, as well as the way an animal may have walked – but there is not much existing evidence akin to the trail of footprints discovered in Penarth.
“These types of tracks are not particularly common worldwide, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK,” concluded Prof. Barett.
“The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is fairly small, so anything we can find from the period adds to our picture of what was going on at that time.”
The coastline has a history of dinosaur discoveries
The footprints are not the first to be discovered in Wales in 2021, with a four-year-old girl stunning palaeontologists finding an “internationally important” print on a trip to the supermarket.
Lily Wilder was walking along the coast between Barry and Sully with her father Richard when she spotted what experts have called “the finest impression of a 215 million-year-old dinosaur print found in Britain in a decade”.
