Category Archives: WORLD

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Human Remains Discovered Under 19th-Century Pub in Ireland

Human Remains Discovered Under 19th-Century Pub in Ireland

The first skeleton was unearthed almost two weeks ago and works have now uncovered the remains of six people, believed to predate the 19th-century building on the site. The skeletal remains of six people have now been found under a partially demolished pub near the medieval heart of Cork city.

Human Remains Discovered Under 19th-Century Pub in Ireland
The fragmentary remains of the first skeleton were discovered on the site.

Confirmation of the new discoveries on the site of the former Nancy Spain’s pub on Barrack St comes almost two weeks after the discovery of a partial human skeleton during groundworks on the site, which is being cleared for a Cork City Council social housing project.

City archaeologist Ciara Bret, confirmed an archaeological excavation, which has been ongoing since by a licensed archaeological consultant and an osteoarchaeologist, a human bones specialist, in consultation with her and the National Monument Service, has uncovered the remains of six individuals.

“The remains are fragmentary and predate the current 19th-century building on the site,” she said.

“Given that the site is still being archaeologically investigated, it is not possible at this time to definitively date the remains but they are likely to be 18th century or earlier.

“It is important to note that it is only through post-excavation analysis, which will include examination by the osteoarchaeologist and radiocarbon dating of the bones, that a complete understanding of the remains will be achieved.” 

The human remains are being fully recorded and will be removed by experts under an archaeological license issued under Section 26 of the National Monuments Act 2004.

Gardaí is on duty on the site of the former Nancy Spain’s pub on Barrack Street, Cork, where suspected human remains have been discovered.

Following the completion of the post-excavation analysis, the skeletal remains will be prepared for acquisition by the National Museum of Ireland or will be re-interred at “an appropriate location”.

Ms Brett said because the Barrack Street area forms part of the former suburbs of the medieval city, it is of important historical and archaeological significance, and all groundworks at the site were being archaeologically monitored.

The main contractor, MMD Construction, appointed archaeologist John Cronin and Associates to oversee the groundworks.

An archaeologist was present for the excavation of the ground floor slab but during the final stages of the excavation, there was what Ms Brett described as “a notable change in ground conditions” and it was decided that a hand exploration of the area would be required.

It was during this process that the first skeleton was uncovered.

Following a preliminary visual inspection of the remains in situ by the archaeologist and Garda scenes of crime experts, the bones were deemed a historic find and the Garda investigation was stood down.

The site was then handed back to the builders and the hand exploration continued, leading to the discovery of the other remains nearby.

Nancy Spain’s was once one of Cork’s best-known music venues. Singer-songwriter David Gray played his first Cork gig there in 1992.

The city council plans to build 32 apartments on the site.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

11,000-year-old ‘abandoned’ site found with ‘erected penis’ pillars and head carvings

11,000-year-old ‘abandoned’ site found with ‘erected penis’ pillars and head carvings

Archaeologists in Turkey have found evidence that an 11,000-year-old prehistoric site was used for a ceremonial parade through a building containing phallus-shaped pillars and a carving of a human head.  

11,000-year-old 'abandoned' site found with 'erected penis' pillars and head carvings
Scientists have been left to speculate how the penis pillars were erected

Called Karahantepe, the site is located in southern Turkey, east of Şanlıurfa, and has a series of buildings that date back to long before writing was invented.

Within the remains of the buildings, archaeologists found carvings of human heads, snakes and a fox, as well as several interestingly shaped pillars. 

For instance, the archaeologists discovered 11 pillars near a carving of a human head. “All pillars are erected and shaped like a phallus,” Necmi Karul, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at Istanbul University, wrote in a paper recently published in the journal Türk Arkeoloji ve Etnografya Dergisi. 

Researchers excavate at the site of Karahantepe in Turkey on Sept. 30, 2021.

In the journal article, Karul did not speculate as to why the heads and phallus-shaped pillars were built or what meaning they may have had. 

This building is connected to three others to form a complex of sorts.

Ancient people may have held a ceremonial parade through this complex, Karul said. Current evidence suggests that people used the complex for “a ceremonial process, entering the building from one end and exiting at the other end, having to parade in [the] presence of the human head” and the phallus-shaped pillars, Karul wrote in the journal article.

More excavation and analysis will need to be done before archaeologists can say for certain that this parade took place, Karul wrote. 

Rather than being abandoned, the buildings were filled in with dirt, possibly during a decommissioning ceremony of sorts. 

READ ALSO: 2,000-YEAR-OLD ROMAN MILLSTONE FOUND WITH MASSIVE PENIS ENGRAVED ON IT

The site dates to a similar time as Gobekli Tepe, another archaeological site that has large buildings and carvings of animals and human heads.

Gobekli Tepe is also located near Şanlıurfa, and archaeologists are trying to determine the relationship between the two sites.

Although Karahantepe was discovered in 1997, excavations didn’t start until 2019. Between those years, researchers completed several archaeological surveys of the site. Karul did not reply to requests for comment. 

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Amethyst Seal Showing Biblical Persimmon and Maybe an Ibis Found in Jerusalem

Amethyst Seal Showing Biblical Persimmon and Maybe an Ibis Found in Jerusalem

Archaeologists working in the Old City of Jerusalem have discovered an ancient seal carved out of amethyst, which may show the biblical persimmon plant, one of the ingredients in the incense offered in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

Amethyst Seal Showing Biblical Persimmon and Maybe an Ibis Found in Jerusalem
Amethyst seal that may show biblical persimmon, not the fruit, and a dove. Or an ibis

Until now we had not known what that looked like. We may still not, but that is what the archaeologists excavating the site think the seal may show.

Also known as bosem, balsam, or the “Balm of Gilead,” the plant is not related to the orange persimmon fruit that we are familiar with today. It was used during the Second Temple period in the production of expensive perfumes, medicines and ointments, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.

Many scholars believe this plant, Commiphora gileadensis, the Arabian balsam tree, a shrub, is the legendary Biblical persimmon plant, which was medicinal and used to make incense.

“If it is indeed the famous and expensive biblical persimmon, then it is likely that the seal owner was a Jew with means since the production and trade that took place around the persimmon plant was tightly controlled at the time by Jews living in the Dead Sea basin, where the fruit was grown,” said Prof. Shua Amorai-Stark, the co-author of an upcoming paper on the find.

Seal that may show biblical persimmon may have belonged to a well-to-do Jewish resident of Jerusalem

The seal also bears the image of a bird, which may be a dove, she says. “The dove is also a positive motif in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish world. It symbolizes wealth, happiness, goodness and success,” said Prof. Shua Amorai-Stark, the co-author of an upcoming paper on the find.

Or, judging by the shape of its beak, perhaps the seal shows an ibis, a bird the ancient Egyptians associated with the god Thoth, who among other things, judged the dead.

While thought to be about 2,000 years old, the seal’s dating cannot be categorical but the use of gems and semi-precious stones, not only in jewellery but in seals, was relatively common in the late Second Temple period. Its location is also telling.

The amethyst seal was found at the Emek Tzurim National Park, operated by the City of David Foundation, where soil from Israel Antiquities Authority excavations conducted along the foundation stones of the Western Wall was being sifted.

The City of David Foundation says it had been in a drainage system along the street connecting the Siloam pool and the Temple Mount, which at the time housed the Second Temple, erected by King Herod, though some believe he didn’t live to finish the job.

Supporting the notion that the amethyst seal shows biblical persimmon, some Biblical commentators believe that King Solomon gifted the precious plant to the Queen of Sheba, the IAA points out, adding that the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote that Mark Antony presented persimmon orchards that formerly belonged to King Herod, to his beloved, Cleopatra.

READ ALSO: ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND A 2,700-YEAR-OLD TOILET IN A LUXURIOUS PALACE IN JERUSALEM

“This is an important find because it may be the first time a seal has been discovered in the entire world with an engraving of the precious and famous plant, which until now we could only read about in historical descriptions,” archaeologist Eli Shukron, who conducted the excavation at the foundations of the Western Wall on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David, said in a statement.

“The research that takes place around the finds allows us to get a glimpse into the daily lives of the people who lived in the days of the Second Temple, the glory days of Jerusalem.”

Other seals made of gems or semi-precious stones like amethyst have been found in Jerusalem. Just months ago archaeologists excavating the so-called City of David just south of the Temple Mount found a gem carved with the face of Apollo. That was also tentatively dated to about 2,000 years ago, the Second Temple period, and was also discovered in the ancient Jerusalem sewer system. The god’s image was shown featuring flowing long hair, a small but firm chin and a large nose.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Giant ram head statues found on ‘Avenue of Sphinxes’ in Egypt

Giant ram head statues found on ‘Avenue of Sphinxes’ in Egypt

Three giant statues of ram heads — at least one of which had a cobra on top — have been discovered south of Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egyptologists announced. 

Karnak Temple was built between roughly 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, and much of it is dedicated to Amun-Ra, a god associated with the sun and Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt (now the modern-day city of Luxor). The temple complex covers over 250 acres (100 hectares). 

On Oct. 11, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that three giant ram heads had been found by an Egyptian archaeological team south of a gateway built by the Ptolemies, a dynasty of pharaohs descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals that ruled Egypt between 305 B.C and 30 B.C. 

Giant ram head statues found on 'Avenue of Sphinxes' in Egypt
An entire avenue of the ram-headed statues connected Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple.
The ram’s head would have rested on a body (shown here). They are shaped a bit like a sphinx.

In ancient times, these ram heads were part of three larger statues that had the bodies of creatures that looked a bit like sphinxes.

The statues featured in a large avenue of ram-headed statues that went south, running for 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometres) between Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple, Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the news site al-Monitor. 

This avenue is often called the “avenue of the sphinxes” and consisted of around 700 statues.

“An estimated 700 sphinxes lined the route between Karnak and Luxor temples and its magnificence can scarcely be imagined,” wrote Elizabeth Blyth, an independent scholar in her book “Karnak: Evolution of a Temple” (Routledge, 2006). While many of the surviving sphinxes date to the reign of Nectanebo I (380-362 B.C.) artwork suggests that the avenue existed at least as early as the 18th dynasty (1550-1295 B.C.), wrote Blyth. 

Avenue of the sphinxes or criosphinxes leading to the Karnak Temple Complex at Luxor, Egypt.

Egyptologists are in the process of conserving the ram heads and will put them back on statues showing the bodies of the creatures, Waziri said in the statement. 

READ ALSO: EGYPT’S SECRETS REVEALED: POSSIBLY A SECOND SPHINX & MYSTERIOUS HIDDEN CHAMBERS??

Archaeologists unearthed another discovery — the remains of a cobra statue — Waziri announced Oct. 17 on his Facebook page. This cobra statue would have originally been on top of one of the ram heads, so the conservation team plans to put it back on, Waziri said. 

The age of the statues is being investigated, but Waziri told Al-Monitor that the design of one of them suggests that it may date back to the reign of Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt between 1390 B.C and 1352 B.C.,

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s list of Egyptian rulers, and was the grandfather of King Tutankhamun. Excavation, analysis and conservation work is ongoing. 

ASIA, JORDAN, WORLD

Researchers find 3,600-year-old evidence that Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by a ‘cosmic airburst’

Researchers find 3,600 year-old evidence that Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by a ‘cosmic airburst’

A research team including East Carolina University’s Dr Sid Mitra, professor of geological sciences, has presented evidence that a Middle Bronze Age city called Tall el-Hammam, located in the Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea, was destroyed by a cosmic airburst.

Researchers have discovered 3,600-year-old evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by a ‘cosmic impact,’ which may have inspired the Bible story of the destruction of Sodom
Experts uncovered pottery shards that had their outer surfaces melted into glass, ‘bubbled’ mudbrick and partially melted building material in a 5-foot thick burn layer
Melted pottery (a and b) while (c) shows a 6-cm wide potsherd storage jar from the lower tall, displaying an unaltered inner surface, and (d) the highly vesicular outer surface
Experts uncovered pottery shards that had their outer surfaces melted into glass, ‘bubbled’ mudbrick and partially melted building material in a 5-foot thick burn layer

Archaeological excavation of the site began in 2005, Mitra said, and researchers have been particularly interested in a citywide 1.5-meter-thick destruction layer of carbon and ash.

The layer, which dates to about 1650 B.C.E. (about 3,600 years ago), contains shocked quartz, melted pottery and mudbricks, diamond-like carbon, soot, remnants of melted plaster, and melted minerals including platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite and quartz.

“They found all this evidence of high-temperature burning throughout the entire site,” Mitra said. “And the technology didn’t exist at that time, in the Middle Bronze Age, for people to be able to generate fires of that kind of temperature.”

The site includes a massive palace complex with thick walls and a monumental gateway, much of which was destroyed.

The researchers developed a hypothesis that there had been a meteorite impact or bolide — a meteor that explodes in the atmosphere.

The researchers compared the airburst to a 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a 50-meter-wide bolide detonated, generating 1,000 times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Researchers in a variety of fields were called upon to analyze evidence from the site, including Mitra, whose lab focuses on the analysis of soot.

“So we analyzed the soot at this site, and saw that a large fraction of the organic carbon is soot, and you just can’t have that unless you have really high temperatures,” Mitra said. “So that’s what led us to provide support to the story that this was a very high-temperature fire. … And that then supported the idea that this was an external source of energy such as a meteor.”

Other research that supported the hypothesis included the presence of diamond-like carbon, melted pottery, mudbricks and roofing clay; the directionality of the debris; high-pressure shock metamorphism of quartz; high-temperature melted minerals; and human bones in the destruction layer.

There is also a high concentration of salt in the destruction layer, which could have ruined agriculture in the area, explaining the abandonment of more than a dozen towns and cities in the lower Jordan Valley in the following centuries.

The researchers considered and dismissed other potential processes that could explain the destruction, including volcanic or earthquake activity, wildfire, warfare and lightning, but none provided an explanation for the various lines of evidence as well as a cosmic impact or airburst.

The paper, titled “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea,” also speculates that “a remarkable catastrophe, such as the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by a cosmic object, may have generated an oral tradition that, after being passed down through many generations, became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis.”

Genesis 19:24 describes sulfur raining down out of the heavens and the destruction of the cities and all those living in them, as well as the vegetation in the land.

“So some of the oral traditions talk about the walls of Jericho (about 13 1/2 miles away) falling down, as well as the fires if they’re associated with Sodom,” Mitra said. “Again it’s science; you look at your observations, and in this case, it’s the historical record, and you see what you hypothesize and if it fits the data and the data seem to fit.”

The study does not attempt to prove or disprove that possibility, but its explanation of the destruction of the city could be consistent with the biblical accounts.

Mitra said it was rewarding to work with other researchers who were approaching the question from different angles. Most of them he had never worked with before, he said.

“That type of approach tends to be a robust study,” he said. “If someone comes along and says you didn’t do this right or there’s no way that this could have happened, you can still fall back on [all these] other things that support the same argument.”

AFRICA, MOROCCO, WORLD

Shell beads found in Moroccan caves are at least 142,000 years old

Shell beads found in Moroccan caves are at least 142,000 years old

From ancient beads to modern bling, jewellery has allowed humans to make statements for millennia. Now, reports Ann Gibbons for Science magazine, a new analysis of beads found in Morocco offers a clearer picture of how long people have been making these fashion pronouncements: at least 142,000 to 150,000 years.

Shell beads found in Moroccan caves are at least 142,000 years old
Believed to be the world’s oldest jewellery, the perforated shells date to about 142,000 years ago.

Writing in the journal Science Advances, the researchers date 33 small seashells bored with holes to that timeframe—around 10,000 to 20,000 years earlier than previously recorded.

Discovered in Bizmoune Cave, the prehistoric jewellery shows how early humans communicated information about themselves to others.

“They were probably part of the way people expressed their identity with their clothing,” says study co-author Steven L. Kuhn, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, in a statement.

“Wearing beads has to do with meeting strangers, expanding social networks,” Kuhn tells Science. “You don’t have to signal your identity to your mother or whether you’re married to your husband or wife.”

Per the study, the seashells were found in a deposited layer dated to at least 142,000 years ago, extending the earliest records of this type of human activity from the Middle Stone Age into the late Middle Pleistocene period.

“[O]rnaments such as beads are among the earliest signs of symbolic behaviour among human ancestors,” the paper states. “Their appearance signals important developments in both cognition and social relations.”

The discovery suggests that humans in North Africa were making ornaments long before their peers in other parts of Africa and Asia.

Archaeologists recovered the 33 beads from a cave in western Morocco.

“While similar specimens have been found elsewhere in northwestern Africa, these examples extend their range to the far western edge of present-day Morocco, providing evidence for when and where ancient populations may have been connected over large geographic regions and allowing us to refine the mode and tempo of modern human origins,” Teresa Steele, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the study, tells Nature Middle East’s, Rieko Kawabata.

Unearthed between 2014 and 2018, the ancient jewellery was made from perforated shells of the mollusc Tritia gibbosula. All but one of the snail shells was found in the same layer of ash, which also included stone tools and animal bones.

The researchers dated the beads by measuring uranium decay in mineral deposits found in that same layer. Their analysis pinpointed the shells’ modification to between 120,000 and 171,000 years ago, with 142,000 years old as the jewellery’s likely minimum age.

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the earliest forms of jewellery were made from shells, stone and bone. Prehistoric people likely wore such adornments “as a protection from the dangers of life or as a mark of status or rank.”

READ ALSO: BONE TOOLS IN MOROCCO MAY BE EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF CLOTHING

The Moroccan beads join a growing body of millennia-old jewellery analyzed by archaeologists. In 2017, for instance, researchers on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi found a polished pendant crafted from the finger bone of a bear cuscus.

More recently, a team investigating the Qafzeh Cave in Israel discovered 120,000-year-old shells strung on a necklace as beads.

“It’s one thing to know that people were capable of making [jewellery],” says Kuhn in the statement, “but then the question becomes, ‘OK, what stimulated them to do it?’”

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Vikings were in North America in 1021, researchers say

Vikings were in North America in 1021, researchers say

Vikings from Greenland — the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas — lived in a village in Canada’s Newfoundland exactly 1,000 years ago, according to research published Wednesday.

Scientists have known for many years that Vikings — a name given to the Norse by the English they raided — built a village at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the turn of the millennium. But a study published in Nature is the first to pinpoint the date of the Norse occupation.

The explorers — up to 100 people, both women and men — felled trees to build the village and to repair their ships, and the new study fixes a date they were thereby showing they cut down at least three trees in the year 1021 — at least 470 years before Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492.

“This is the first time the date has been scientifically established,” said archaeologist Margot Kuitems, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the study’s lead author.

“Previously the date was based only on sagas — oral histories that were only written down in the 13th century, at least 200 years after the events they described took place,” she said.

The first Norse settlers in Greenland were from Iceland and Scandinavia, and the arrival of the explorers in Newfoundland marks the first time that humanity circled the entire globe.

But their stay didn’t last long. The research suggests the Norse lived at L’Anse aux Meadows for three to 13 years before they abandoned the village and returned to Greenland.

Reconstructed Norse buildings

The archaeological remains are now protected as a historic landmark and Parks Canada has built an interpretive centre nearby. It’s listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The scientific key to the exact date that the Norse were there is a spike in a naturally radioactive form of carbon detected in ancient pieces of wood from the site: some cast-off sticks, part of a tree trunk and what looks to be a piece of a plank. Indigenous people occupied L’Anse aux Meadows both before and after the Norse, so the researchers made sure each piece had distinctive marks showing it was cut with metal tools — something the indigenous people did not have.

Archaeologists have long relied on radiocarbon dating to find an approximate date for organic materials such as wood, bones and charcoal, but the latest study uses a technique based on a global “cosmic ray event” — probably caused by massive solar flares — to determine an exact date.

Three pieces of wood in the Norse layers of the site had been cut with metal tools – something the indigenous people did not have – and showed distinctive radiocarbon traces of a cosmic ray event in A.D. 993.

Previous studies have established there was such a cosmic ray event in the year 993 that for a few months caused greater than usual levels of radioactive carbon-14 in the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere.

Trees “breathe” carbon dioxide as they grow, and so the researchers used that radioactive carbon signature to determine which of the annual growth rings seen in cross-sections of the wood was from 993, Kuitems said.

They then used a microscope to count the later growth rings until the bark of the wood, which gave them the exact year the tree had stopped growing — in other words, when it had been felled by the Norse.

To their surprise, each of the three pieces of wood they tested was from a tree cut down in 1021, although they were from three different trees — two firs and probably one juniper.

The researchers can’t tell if the date of 1021 was near the beginning of the end of the Norse occupation, but they expect further research on other wood from the site will expand the range of dates, Kuitems said.

The Norse voyages to Newfoundland are mentioned in two Icelandic sagas, which indicate L’Anse aux Meadows was a temporary home for explorers who arrived in up to six expeditions.

The first was led by Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky — a son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland.

L’Anse aux Meadows, too, was expected to be a permanent settlement, but the sagas indicate it was abandoned due to infighting and conflicts with indigenous people, whom the Norse called skræling — a word that probably means “wearers of animal skins.”

The sagas refer to the entire region as Vinland, which means “Wineland” — supposedly because it was warm enough for grapes used for wine to grow.

Since Newfoundland itself was then too cold for grapes, the name suggests the Norse also explored warmer regions further south, and pieces of exotic wood found at the site also indicate that Kuitems said.

The use of an ancient cosmic ray event to exactly date pieces of wood is a relatively new development, and similar techniques are being used to establish firm dates at other sites, said Sturt Manning, a professor of archaeology at Cornell University, who was not involved in the new study.

“It’s a clever application,” he said. “This is the first clear evidence of Europeans arriving in North America.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Possible Crusader Campsite Found in Israel

Possible Crusader Campsite Found in Israel

A Crusader campsite was discovered by an Israeli archaeological team near the Tzipori Springs in Galilee, marking the first time a Crusader encampment has been discovered in the field.

Aerial view of the excavations at Ein Tzipori during the 2012 season. Looking east, with Field I to the left and Field II to the right of Road 79.
Aerial view of the excavations at Ein Tzipori during the 2012 season. Looking east, with Field I to the left and Field II to the right of Road 79.

Their findings were published this year in the book Settlement and Crusade in the Thirteenth Century.

Pursuing the idea of liberating the holy sites from Muslim rule and encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, European powers and sometimes peoples initiated several military campaigns in the Middle East between the 11th and 13th centuries, which led to the establishment of a number of Christian states in the area of modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

For a certain period, it placed Jerusalem under Christian rule, a period documented by a vast corpus of historical sources as well as massive structures such as castles and fortresses left by the Crusaders in the region. However, very little remains to testify moments of transitions, such as battles and encampments.

In recent years, while workers were expanding Route 79 that connects the coast with Nazareth, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists Nimrod Getzov and Ianir Milevski from the Prehistory Department conducted the required salvage excavation.

Arrowhead found at the springs of Tzipori.

“The area along Route 79 was known as the site of the Frankish encampment ahead of the battle of Hattin in 1187, as well as for other encampments by both the Crusaders and the Muslims during a period of 125 years,” said Dr Rafael Lewis, a senior lecturer at Ashkelon Academic College and a researcher at Haifa University. “For this reason, I was brought on board to focus on the remains from that era. It was a very exceptional opportunity to study a medieval encampment and to understand their material culture and archaeology.”

According to chronicles from the time, the Christian army stationed in the area of the Tzipori Springs for around two months before the crucial battle that allowed the troops led by Sultan Saladin to reconquer much of the region, including Jerusalem.

The archaeologists unearthed hundreds of metal artefacts and were able to study their relations to the landscape.

“We used a discipline known as ‘artefact distribution analysis’,” he noted. “We started by reconstructing the landscape as it approximately looked like at the time; we considered where the artefacts were found, and compared what we learned to historical records.”

Lewis said that although all of the troops at the time fought under the king, they did not serve in a centralized army – different groups of knights would fight together, each having their own camp and each following the orders of their commander.

The remains mirrored this reality.

“In the site, we found different clusters of artefacts,” he said.

The majority of artefacts the archaeologists uncovered were horseshoe nails, both of a local type and of a more sophisticated European type, which was prevalent closer to the springs.

“We saw that the closer we got to the water, the richer the material culture became,” Lewis said. “We can probably deduce that those who belonged to a higher socio-economic status encamped by the spring. Changing those nails probably represented the main activity in the camp. Nobody wanted to find himself in the battle on a horse with a broken shoe.”

Coin of Baldwin III (1143–1163 CE), Jerusalem, obverse.

The archaeologists were surprised to find very little remains of other activities that might have been expected in relation to the life at the encampment, such as cooking pots. However, this also suggests what objects were brought back to castles and permanent settlements when the encampment was packed up.

Based on the findings in Tzipori, researchers in the future will be able to examine other sites to look for archaeological remains.

“I’m intrigued to understand more about Crusader encampments,” Lewis said. “I believe that the study of military camps has the potential to allow us to understand much more about the period and its culture.”