Category Archives: WORLD

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

Emergency food from 1965 Japan expedition found in Antarctica

Emergency food from 1965 Japan expedition found in Antarctica

The Asahi Shimbun reports that Japanese researchers have found fragments of a cardboard box and a cache of emergency food dated to 1965 about five miles from Japan’s Syowa Station in Antarctica. The ration included a can of Coca-Cola, chewing gum, and a can of stewed beef and vegetables. 

A can of the first generation of Coca-Cola, which went on sale in Japan for the first time in 1965

On 3 September, the unopened objects were found at the Mukai Rocks location about eight kilometers from the Syowa station in Japan. The location had been used to land in Antarctica after a voyage through the sea ice through the 10th Japanese Antarctic expedition.

Four members of the current 61st Japanese research expedition team visited Mukai Rocks for observation. There were pieces of cardboard around the food, suggesting they arrived in a box.

The National Institute of Polar Research, which dispatches Japanese expeditions, said no records have been left about the food. Apart from the Coca-Cola and the chewing gum, a can of stewed beef and vegetables, made in February 1965, was found with a label that denoted it as an emergency ration of the Maritime Self-Defense Force.

It was the year when Japan’s Antarctic research resumed with the dispatch of the 7th team. Syowa Station was closed temporarily after Japan’s first ice breaker, the Soya was decommissioned. The Fuji, which succeeded Soya in 1965, was operated by the MSDF.

Susumu Kokubun, 85, a former member of the 7th expedition, recalled that Masayoshi Murayama, who headed his team, went to a location near Mukai Rocks in January 1966 on a helicopter that was loaded on the Fuji.

“He may have left the food on that occasion,” Kokubun said.

The can of Coca-Cola came with a label written in katakana and no stay-on tab opening mechanism. 

According to Coca-Cola (Japan) Co., it is the design of the company’s first canned Coca-Cola introduced into the Japanese market in 1965. A drinker opens it by making a hole with an opener on top of the can. 

The product was available in the market for only one to two years, a company official said, adding that no stock of that particular product is left at the beverage maker.

“It is greatly encouraging to imagine that expedition members had Coca-Cola in the harsh environment,” the official said.

The chewing gum, Cool Mint from Lotte Co., comes in a package featuring a penguin, an iconic creature symbolizing Antarctica. Lotte said it is the design of Cool Mint when it was first released in 1960. But it is not just ordinary, everyday chewing gum.

Records by the company and former members of the Japanese expedition teams show that Eizaburo Nishibori, head of the first wintering party, requested in 1956 the confectionery maker develop a special gum for the country’s first expedition team prior to its departure for Antarctica.

Lotte presented them with a gum mixed with vitamins and minerals that can be preserved for a year and five months without deteriorating despite traveling through the equator or areas where the temperature drops 50 degrees below zero.

Nishibori’s request led Lotte to give birth to Cool Mint in 1960, with its catch phrase “Fresh like in Antarctica.” It was a hit and a long seller. The company said only one Cool Mint sample from those days is left at Lotte.

“It was a pleasant surprise to know that the chewing gum remained after the passage of many decades,” said a public relations official with the company.

Noriaki Obara, one of the four members of the current expedition who discovered the food, said he was stunned to stumble into the long-forgotten cache.

“I initially suspected that they were things just scattered about,” said Obara, 55. “I feel a special connection with the discovery because I was born in 1965.”

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges

Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges

In the Great Plains of Kansas, archaeologists have made an innovative and unlikely discovery: a vast town lost centuries ago. Donald Blakeslee discovered a few years ago the lost city of Etzanoa in Arkansas City, Kan, a Wichita State University anthropologist, and an archaeology professor. 

Anthropologist and archaeology professor Donald Blakeslee in one of the pits being excavated in Arkansas City, Kan.

In that small city in south-central Kansas, local residents found the arrowhead and the gold mine underneath their town, pottery, and other ancient artifacts, for decades, in the fields and rivers of the region.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Blakeslee used newly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors who came across the land over 400 years ago to determine that these artifacts were once part of the Native American lost city of Etzanoa.

Kacie Larsen of Wichita State University shakes dirt through a screened box to see what artefacts may emerge.

“‘I thought, ‘Wow, their eyewitness descriptions are so clear it’s like you were there,’” Blakeslee told the Times about reading the conquistador’s accounts. “I wanted to see if the archaeology fit their descriptions. Every single detail matched this place.”

The city of Etzanoa is believed to have been around from 1450 to 1700 and was home to approximately 20,000 people. Blakeslee said that the city was the second-largest settlement in the present-day United States at the time and spanned across at least five miles of the space between the Walnut and Arkansas rivers.

The 20,000 inhabitants of Etzanoa were said to have lived in “thatched, beehive-shaped houses.”

In 1541, conquistador Francisco Vazquez de Coronado came to the town hoping to discover its fabled gold but instead found Native Americans in a collection of settlements that he called Quivira.

Sixty years later in 1601, Juan de Oñate led a team of 70 conquistadors from New Mexico to Quivira, also hoping to find its gold but they ran into a tribe called the Escanxaques, who told them of the nearby city of Etzanoa.

Oñate and his team arrived at the city and were greeted peacefully by the inhabitants of Etzanoa. However, things quickly went south when the conquistadors started taking hostages, which then caused the city’s residents to flee in fear.

The group of conquistadors explored the vast area of more than 2,000 houses but feared an attack from the peoples they dislodged and decided to return home.

On their return trip, they were attacked by some 1,000 members of the Escanxaque tribe and a huge battle took place. The conquistadors lost and returned home to New Mexico, never to come back to the area again.

French explorers came nearly a century later to that part of south-central Kansas but did not find any evidence of Etzanoa or its people. It is believed that disease caused the untimely demise of the population.

However, traces of the people and their city would not stay hidden forever. Blakeslee and a team of excavators found the site of the ancient battle in a neighborhood in Arkansas City and found remanents from the battle.

Locals in the area had been uncovering artifacts from the lost city for decades but didn’t understand why until evidence of the city itself was discovered by Blakeslee.

“Lots of artifacts have been taken from here,” Warren “Hap” McLeod, a resident of Arkansas City who lives on the spot where the battle took place, told the Times. “Now we know why. There were 20,000 people living here for over 200 years.” One local resident said that the sheer amount of artifacts that people in the area have is mindblowing.

Russell Bishop, a former Arkansas City resident, shows off the arrowheads he found in the area as a kid.
Professor Donald Blakeslee of Wichita State University shows a black pot unearthed by student Jeremiah Perkins, behind him.

“My boss had an entire basement full of pottery and all kinds of artifacts,” Russell Bishop told the Times. “We’d be out there working and he would recognize a black spot on the ground as an ancient campfire site … I don’t think anyone knew how big this all was. I’m glad they’re finally getting to the bottom of it.”

The Great Plains were long-regarded as huge, empty spaces in ancient times that were populated mainly by nomadic tribes. But Blakeslee’s discovery of Etzanoa could prove that some of the tribes in the area weren’t nomadic and were actually more urban than previously believed.

Blakeslee has also discovered evidence that similar, large-scale lost cities could be located in nearby counties which might have been around during the time of Etzanoa.

These latest groundbreaking archaeological finds are helping researchers fill in huge blanks in early American history.

CZECH REPUBLIC, EUROPE, WORLD

This Astronomical Clock is 6 centuries old and still ticks in Prague

This Astronomical Clock is 6 centuries old and still ticks in Prague

One of the most compelling of landmarks in the Czech Republic is the Astronomical Clock in Prague. Legend dates the clock back to the 15th century when Hanus, a clock master with plenty of experience, was chosen to make a device that not only told the time but which also offered other functions.

The most widespread legend of all dates back probably to the 15th century, around the time the clock appeared. It says that an experienced clock master, known as Hanuš, was selected by the city councillors of Prague to produce an original device that would not only measure the time but also have a few other functionalities.

However, the councillors were worried about whether Hanuš might produce another, similar-looking clock for another city. Which is how they started thinking of ways to eliminate any such possibility, and eventually they came up with a sick plan.

One night, they sent people to break into the home of the clock master to injure his eyes with a chunk of iron, leaving him blind.

It was not that Hanuš couldn’t figure who committed this wrongdoing, so in revenge, with a little help of his apprentice, he went to his creation and made the clock halt. As the story goes, over 100 years passed before the clock was brought to life again.

Like many other versions of the legend, this one attributes the clock’s craftsmanship to the wrong person.

According to a paper that contains an insightful description of how the clock’s astronomical dial works, discovered in 1961, the creator was the Imperial clock-producer Mikuláš of Kadaň. He devised the piece in 1410, helped by astronomer and university teacher Jan Sindel.

The Prague Astronomical Clock is a medieval astronomical clock located in Prague.

On a few occasions during its history, the machinery of the Astronomical Clock has failed. Therefore, the device needed to undergo maintenance.

No one knew how to fix it though, so when the clock stopped sometime during the late 18th century, local officials even considered replacing it with another piece.

Luckily they didn’t, but for an extended period, the device was simply not working. The long-needed repair came many decades later, around 1865, when one of the clock’s newest features was added, the Calendar Dial.

Astronomical dial.

It is one of the most famous clocks around the world, but it also makes for the third-oldest astronomical clock and the oldest one still in use. Its age and authenticity are some of the reasons why people gather each hour in front of the Old Town Hall Tower where the Astronomical clock wisely sits, to watch how it chimes the hour, an experience that lasts just 45 seconds.

Detail view of the Prague Astronomical Clock.

When it does chime the hour, the window of the clock in the upper part shows the 12 apostles moving. Simultaneously, the surrounding sculptures that adorn the device are set in motion.

One of the moving figures carrying an hourglass in his hand personifies Death. Another moving figurine has a mirror, representing Vanity. Other figurines, such as those of the Astronomer, the Philosopher, or the Chronicler, appear to be motionless. However, several of these figures are replicas because their originals were severely damaged by the Germans at the end of World War Two.

The Astronomical Dial is probably the oldest of all clock components and is one of the main reasons why the Prague clock is so unique. This element splendidly illustrates how people of the medieval era observed the universe. Of course, it is the Earth represented in the centre of it. The dial’s bits of the blue stand for the skies beyond the horizon, while a brownish counterpart stands for the skies below it.

Inscribed Latin letters further indicate which side is east and which one is west; north and south are in this case replaced by denotations for “above” and “below” the horizon, both marked with Latin words for “dawn” and “twilight” respectively.

A zodiac circle stands for the stars up above and it runs in harmony with them, and the two clock hands display the symbols of our closest stellar bodies, the sun and the Moon.

Functions noted

The three sets of this dial can count three different times. The first is the Italian time or what would be Old Czech time. Central European Time is measured by the sun pointer and this is the hour, from 1 to 24, which the clock chimes. It was once set to measure Old German Time, but before that, it counted the hour according to Bohemian Time.

Statues on Prague Astronomical Clock

The third is likely the most interesting of all sets, measuring Babylonian Time where the hour’s length is determined by which season of the year it is. During summer the hour is longer; in winter it’s shorter. This device is the only clock one on the entire planet known to be capable of tracking Babylonian Time.

The moon sphere is seen showing approximately a half moon.

In comparison with the Astronomical dial, the Calendar one has fewer functionalities, but it is brilliant anyway. In its centre, it shows the symbol of the Old Town of Prague and its outer ring reads the description of each day for all year round. The current day is shown at the very top. Each month is also represented by a zodiac sign situated in a medallion.

Little did we know there were so many ways to measure and represent time.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

17th-Century English Book Found in College Library in Spain

17th-Century English Book Found in College Library in Spain

BBC News reports that John Stone of the University of Barcelona has found a 1634 printing of The Two Noble Kinsmen, a play written by William Shakespeare with John Fletcher, a house playwright for the theater group the King’s Men.

The volume dating to 1634 was found by an academic researching Scots economist Adam Smith

The play appears in a book of English plays held at the Royal Scots College, which is now located in Salamanca, Spain. In the 17th Century, the seminary in Madrid was an important source of English literature for Spanish intellectuals.

The Two Noble Kinsmen was included in a volume made up of several English plays printed from 1630 to 1635. Dr. John Stone, of the University of Barcelona, said he found it among old books in the library of the Real Colegio de Escoceses – Royal Scots College (RSC) -which is now in Salamanca.

The book is still in its original 17th Century leather binding and was found cataloged under a philosophy

What is The Two Noble Kinsmen about?

“Friendship turns to rivalry in this study of the intoxication and strangeness of love,” is how the Royal Shakespeare Company described the play, which is based on Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale.

It was probably written around 1613-14 by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, one of the house playwrights in Bard’s theatre company the King’s Men. It was likely to have been Shakespeare’s last play before he retired to Stratford-on-Avon. He died there in 1616 at the age of 52.

Described as a “tragicomedy” the play features best friends, who are knights captured in a battle. From the window of their prison, they see a beautiful woman with whom they each fall in love.

Within a moment they have turned from intimate friends too jealous rivals in a strange love story that features absurd adventures and confusion.

Dr. Stone, who has worked in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, said: “It is likely these plays arrived as part of some student’s personal library or at the request of the rector of the Royal Scots College, Hugh Semple, who was friends with the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega and had more plays in his personal library.

“It is likely these plays were acquired around 1635 by an English or Scottish traveller who might have wanted to take these plays – all London editions – with him to Madrid.

“By the 1630s English plays were increasingly associated with elite culture. This small community of Scots was briefly the most significant intellectual bridge between the Spanish and English-speaking worlds.”

Canadian John Stone formerly worked as a researcher at the National Library of Scotland and Aberdeen University

In the 17th and 18th Centuries collections of books in English were rare in Spain because of ecclesiastical censorship, but the Scots college had special authorization to import whatever they wanted.

Plays in English were exceptionally rare in the period – and it had previously been thought the oldest work by Shakespeare in Spain was a volume found in the Royal English College of Saint Alban in Valladolid.

It is thought to have arrived in Spain in the decade after the volume found in the Scots College. The rector of the Scots College, Father Tom Kilbride, said the college was proud such an important work had been discovered in its library.

Scots college was exempt from strict ecclesiastical censorship banning many books from circulation

He said: “It says a lot about the kind of education the trainee priests were getting from the foundation of the college in Madrid in 1627, a rounded education in which the culture of the period played an important part.

“To think that plays would have been read, and possibly performed at that time is quite exciting.

“There was clearly a great interest in Spain at that time in English literature.”

The RSC no longer trains men for the priesthood in Scotland, but offers preparatory six-month courses for those expressing a vocation, and holds regular retreats and conferences for the Scottish Catholic community.

In Act 5 scene 1 Arcite, one of the knights talks about “dusty and old titles”, which sums up the find in Salamanca.

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath

The Irish Independent reports that archaeologists led by Geraldine Stout have uncovered pottery; the bones of cows, sheep, cats, and dogs; seeds; nuts; a key; a timber dash-urn with a paddle for churning butter; and a bakery at the site of a thirteenth-century monastery in eastern Ireland.

The new findings were discovered by a team of archaeologists, led by experts Matthew and Geraldine Stout at Beamore in East Month during a four week Covid-19 dig. Armed with two-meter COVID Sticks to ensure social distancing and colour co-ordinated equipment to avoid cross-contamination, the team tried to decipher the size of the monastery by the number of sourdough loaves made each day.

“One loaf equals one monk so the size of the oven might suggest how many came from France to live and work at the monastery,” said Geraldine.

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath
Sourdough bread

“We had to think long and hard if we were even going to do a dig this year in the times that were in it.”

“Everyone was divided into pods for cuttings (sections of excavation) and they stayed with that group for the month. Each cutting had colour coded equipment which was not to be passed around to other groups to minimize the risk of cross-contamination.

“I gave everyone what I called the ‘COVID stick’ which was a two-meter yellow-painted stick so they had an idea of the distance they had to stay away from another person.

“We also got a special wash portacabin which I never saw before which enabled us with hot water to wash our hands and there were sanitising stations everywhere.

“But as much as we had reservations at the start, the measures worked and the excavations have given us more questions to come back and answer next year.”

And if the Cistercians ever had to practice social distancing, it wasn’t obvious in their findings which included evidence to suggest a communal toilet and bakery at the self-sufficient site.

Last year, the excavation team discovered ‘significant’ find of a rare French building and medieval pottery which supported a long-held belief that the site was once home to a unique Cistercian monk community from Normandy. 13th-century French jugs, ceramic roof tiles, and even a corn drying kiln and dried peas which proved crop rotation was ongoing in the 13th century were found on the lands outside Drogheda, owned by local historian and author John McCullen.

Unusual features of an existing gatehouse in a field, suggesting a diagonal French buttress were described as ‘very rare, if not unique in Ireland’ according to two of Ireland’s foremost medieval building archaeologists David Sweetman and Con Manning. It is believed that the site was the home of a 13th Century medieval monastic farm associated with the French Cistercian foundation of De Bello Becco (Beaubec)

The excavations which ended in early August were the second of a €50,000 three-year project, funded by FBD Trust and administered through the Kilsharvan Community Council. Author and archaeologist Geraldine Stout has a particular interest in the Cistercians, having worked on a similar site in Bective in Meath and says they were great innovators and farmers.

“We know that Walter de Lacey gave lands to this Abbey in Beaubec before Normandy in 1201, so there would have been about 100 monks living here up until the 16th century,” she said

“De Bello Becco was flourishing in Ireland in 1302 when it had to pay a tithe of 29s 4d to the Diocese of Meath, which placed it in a group of the highest valued churches in Meath.

This year, the jackpot continued and finds included a medieval key, animal bones of cows, sheep, cats, and dog as well as mixed farming produce of peas, beans, oats, wheat, and rye. Fruits including grapes and figs which, the Stouts say, had to have been imported from France and were further evidence of mixed farming.

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath
Pottery, animal bones, seeds, nuts, and more tell a tale of what everyday life was like in medieval times in a monastic settlement in Ireland.

“We also pushed back the dating of human settlement at Beamore with the discovery of a prehistoric ceremonial pit circle and stone tools beneath the medieval monastic farm”

Remnants of a medieval timber dash urn with a paddle that was used to church butter were also found to prove a long-held belief that the Monks were a self-sufficient community.

“In the main residential block, an impressive, communal latrine was found with thirteenth-century detailing and outside the main residential block we found evidence of a water system that supplied the needs of this community for toilets, washing and food preparation.

“We found a cellar in the ruins which suggest it could possibly have been used for toilet facilities as well as a pot that worked like a medieval air freshener,” says Matthew.

Geraldine believes: “There were between 30 and 50 monks living here. The smallest Cistercian settlement had 12 monks minimum and this is a more sizable community, looking at the scale of the building here.

“We know that each monk was given a loaf of bread for his day’s work so if we work out mathematically the size of the oven and how many loaves it could hold, it would suggest how many monks lived here.

“We were lucky to find waterlogged deposits which preserved a lot of timber and seeds for us so we can tell by the flat oats and cereal that the Monks made and ate sourdough bread – so I guess history and trends can repeat themselves,” she laughed.

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

3,000-Year-Old World’s Oldest Olive Tree on the Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

3,000-Year-Old World’s Oldest Olive Tree on the Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

One day about 3,000 years ago, at a time when the Minoan civilization still ruled over Crete and long before the rise of Classical Greece, an olive fell to the ground in the area of Vouves. Or perhaps it was deliberately planted there by a human hand.

Whichever the case, that olive seed sprouted and grew into a tree. And incredibly that tree is still alive today – and still producing fruit – one of the so-called ‘monumental olive trees’ of Crete.

The Olive tree of Vouves is an olive tree in the village of Ano Vouves in the municipal unit of Kolymvari in Chania regional unit, Crete, Greece. Probably one of the oldest olive trees in the world, it still produces olives today.

The exact age of the tree cannot be determined. The use of radioisotopes is not possible, as its heartwood has been lost down the centuries, while tree ring analysis demonstrated the tree to be at least 2,000 years old.

And on the other end of the scale, scientists from the University of Crete have estimated it to be 4,000 years old. A possible indicator of its age are the two cemeteries from the Geometric Period discovered near the tree.

Current research in Crete and abroad indicates that earlier estimates of the age of olive trees are to be debated as far as their accuracy. There is not yet an agreed-upon scientific method to ascertain the age of olive trees.

In the case of the Vouves Olive, it could be much younger than earlier estimates or even than the ancient tree in Finix (Sfakia).

In 2012, the Municipality of Platanias and Terra Creta organized for the first time a harvesting event where 55 kg of olives has been collected and 5.0 kg of olive oil was produced in a specially designed olive mill.

Olive oil, Vouves

In 1997, the tree was declared a protected natural monument, and in October 2009, the Olive Tree Museum of Vouves was inaugurated in a nearby 19th-century house, displaying the traditional tools and process of olive cultivation.

Branches from the tree were used to weave victors’ wreaths for the winners of the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A terrestrial laser scanner ILRIS 3D for the external and a Minolta Vivid 910 for internal scans were used.

The 3D model of the Monumental Olive Tree of Vouves

The final produced result is a complete three-dimensional model of the trunk of the Monumental Olive Tree of Vouves with a geometry accuracy of 0.5 cm. Thousands of tourists visit the stunning tree every summer to marvel at it and learn its history.

Mostly they are impressed by its enormous shape and the imposing volume of the trunk, but also by the fact that it remains alive and fruitful for 3,000 years without pause.

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert

Archeologists have rediscovered a giant geoglyph of the killer whale that has been carved to a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru for over fifty years.

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert
The rediscovered orca geoglyph lies on a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru.

According to researchers, the 230-foot orca figure, called in ancient Peruvian soul a strong semimythical creature, could be over 2,000 years old, researchers say.

It is said to be one of the oldest geoglyphs in the Palpa region, older than those in the Nazca region known for its vast collection of ancient ground markings– the Nazca lines – which include animal figures, straight lines, and geometric shapes.

Archaeologist Johny Isla, the head of Peru’s Ministry of Culture in Ica province, which includes the Palpa and Nazca valleys, explained that he saw a single photograph of the orca pattern for the first time about four years ago. He’d seen it while researching studies of geoglyphs at the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn.

The photograph appeared in an archaeological catalog of geoglyphs printed in the 1970s, which was based on research carried out in Palpa and Nazca by German archaeologists in the 1960s, Isla said.

But the location and size of the orca geoglyph were not well-described in the catalog, Isla told Ancient Origins in an email.

As a result, he said, the glyph’s whereabouts in the desert hills of the Palpa Valley, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Lima, were by then unknown to local people or to scientists.

After returning to Peru, Isla looked for the orca geoglyph on Google Earth and then on foot. “It was not easy to find it, because the [location and description] data were not correct, and I almost lost hope,” he said. “However, I expanded the search area and finally found it a few months later,”

Orca art

After documenting the rediscovery, Isla led a team of six specialists from Peru’s Ministry of Culture in an effort to clean and restore the orca geoglyph in March and April this year.

Before the restoration, the geoglyph was disappearing due to erosion and the passage of time. “Being drawn on a slope, it is easier [for it] to suffer damage than [for] those figures that are in flat areas, such as those of the Nazca Pampa,” he said.

Until the restoration this year, time and erosion had almost obliterated the ancient orca geoglyph to untrained eyes.

The creators of the orca drew it on the hillside in negative relief by removing a thin layer of stones to form the outline of the figure. This is similar to the technique used by the people of the Nazca culture to create geoglyphs from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 800.

But some contrasting parts of the rediscovered pattern, such as the eyes, were created out of piles of stones, the researchers said. This technique was used by people of the older Paracas culture, who occupied the region from around 800 B.C. to 200 B.C.

Soil tests have indicated that the orca geoglyph dates from around 200 B.C. The style of the pattern and its location on a hillside, rather than on a plain, suggest that it may be one of the oldest geoglyphs in the region, said one of Isla’s colleagues, Markus Reindel of the German Archaeological Institute, in an interview in a German newspaper.

Isla said that before the restoration in 2017, it would have been hard for a layperson to see the orca. “With the eyes of an archaeologist, and after having seen the photo in the catalog and later in Google Earth, it was not very difficult,” he said. “However, [for] the eyes of a person without these advantages, it was a bit difficult.”

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Here’s A 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman Face Cream

Here’s A 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman Face Cream

The oldest face cream in the world was discovered by archaeologists who had excavated a Roman temple on the banks of London’s River Thames, with the finger prints of their last person 2,000 years ago.

The closely wrapped cylindrical tin, measuring 6 cm by 5 cm, was opened at the London Museum to reveal a pungent-smelling white cream.

“It looks like an ointment because there are finger prints in the lid. Someone who uses it last has applied it to something with their fingertips and has used the lid as a dish to take the ointment out,” museum curator Liz Barham said as she opened the box.

Archaeologists assume that the white cream, found in a well-sealed cylindrical tub, may either be a face cream or a face paint, and the canister was probably buried in a ritual offering, they claim.
Archaeologists assume that the white cream, found in a well-sealed cylindrical tub, may either be a face cream or a face paint, and the canister was probably buried in a ritual offering, they claim.

The superbly made canister, now on display at the museum, was made almost entirely of tin, a precious metal at that time. Perhaps a beauty treatment for a fashionable Roman lady or even a face paint used in temple ritual, the cream is currently undergoing scientific analysis.

“We don’t yet know whether the cream was medicinal, cosmetic or entirely ritualistic.

We’re lucky in London to have a marshy site where the contents of this completely sealed box must have been preserved very quickly – the metal is hardly corroded at all,” said Nansi Rosenberg, a senior archaeological consultant on the project.

“This is an extraordinary discovery,” Federico Nappo, an expert on ancient Roman cosmetics of Pompeii. “It is likely that the cream contains animal fats. We know that the Romans used donkey’s milk as a treatment for the skin. However, it should not be very difficult to find out the cream’s composition.”

The pot, which appears to have been deliberately hidden, was found at the bottom of a sealed ditch in Southwark, about two miles south of central London.

Placed at the point where three roads meet near the river crossing – Watling St from Dover, Stane St from Chichester and the bridgehead road over the Thames – the site contains the foundations of two Roman-Celtic temples, a guest house, an outdoor area suitable for mass worship, plinths for statues and a stone pillar.

The complex, which last year revealed a stone tablet with the earliest known inscription bearing the Roman name of London, dates to around the mid-2nd century. It is the first religious complex to be found in the capital, rare evidence of organized religion in London 2,000 years ago.

“The analysis and interpretation of the finds have only just begun, and I’ve no doubt there are further discoveries to be made as we piece together the jigsaw puzzle we’ve excavated,” Rosenberg said. “But it already alters our whole perception – Southwark was a major religious focus of the Roman capital.”

Since excavation work was completed, the site will now become a residential development housing 521 apartments.