Category Archives: WORLD

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Amateur metal detector uncovers 22,000 Roman coins

Amateur metal detector uncovers 22,000 Roman coins

An enthusiast of an East Devon metal detector has stumbled on one of Britain’s largest hoards of Roman coins ever discovered, prompting a local museum to launch a campaign to buy the “remarkable” collection for the nation.

It is the fifth-largest discovery of Roman coins in Britain, comprising approximately 22,000 coins dating back more than 1,700 years. The British Museum announced the discovery of the Seaton Down Hoard

Laurence Egerton, 51, a semi-retired builder from East Devon, discovered two ancient coins “the size of a thumbnail” buried near the surface of a field with his metal detector in November last year.

After digging deeper, his shovel came up full of the copper-alloy coins. “They just spilled out all over the field,” he said. “It was an exciting moment. I had found one or two Roman coins before but never so many together.”

The metal detectorist called in the experts and watched amazed as archaeologists discovered thousands of more coins buried about a foot deep. To ensure the site did not tamper with Mr Egerton slept in his car nearby “for three cold nights” until the dig was finished.

According to Devon County Archaeologist, Bill Horner, the Roman copper-alloy coins (pictured) date back to between AD 260 and AD 348 and bear the images of Emperor Constantine, his family, co-Emperors and immediate predecessors and successors

“It’s by far the biggest find I’ve ever had. It really doesn’t get any better. It is so important to record all of these finds properly because it is so easy to lose important insights into our history,” Mr Egerton said. He found the coins near the Honeyditches site in Devon where a Roman villa had previously been excavated.

Bill Horner, county archaeologist at Devon County Council, said: “We realised the significance and mobilised a team as fast as we could.” He continued: “The coins were in remarkably good condition. Coming out of the ground you could see the portrait faces; a family tree of the House of Constantine.”

Over the past 10 months the coins have been lightly cleaned, identified and catalogued at the British Museum, although there is still more work to do. They range from late AD 260 to almost AD 350. Mr Horner said the coins bore a range of portraits, describing it as a “family tree of the House of Constantine”.

The British Museum called the scale of the find “remarkable”, adding that it was “one of the largest hoards ever found within the whole Roman Empire”. The largest find in Britain was the Cunetio Hoard of almost 55,000 coins discovered near Mildenhall, Wiltshire in 1978

The coins would not have been particularly valuable at the time; with experts estimated they would then have been worth about four gold coins, equivalent to a worker’s pay for two years. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter hopes to raise money to buy the collection and appealed to the public to donate.

A cluster of coins that were discovered 

The hoard is yet to be fully valued, but one expert said it would be worth less than £100,000. The proceeds will be split between Mr Egerton and the landowner, Clinton Devon Estates.

One of the coins is particularly special. It marks the one millionth find of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, set up in 1997 to provide a record of all the finds brought in by members of the public. The scheme is managed by the British Museum and funded by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport’s grant-in-aid to the institution.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum said: “You know what it’s like; you sit waiting for the millionth object to come along and 22,000 come along at once.”

The special coin, called a nummus, was struck by Constantine the Great to celebrate the inauguration of the new city of Constantinople, now Istanbul.

The trove of 22,000 Roman coins (pictured) was found by Laurence Egerton in East Devon. Dubbed Seaton Down Hoard, it was declared treasure at a Devon Coroner’s Inquest earlier this month. This means it is eligible for acquisition by a museum, once it has been valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee

The scheme was set up to keep track of all the finds by metal detectorists and enthusiasts and provide a resource for scholars to study historical objects. Since 1997 a total of 500 Roman coin hoards have been discovered across the country.

Major finds since the PAS scheme was set up include the Staffordshire Hoard, dating to the 7th century, the largest Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold and silver ever found. There have also been significant Viking and Bronze Age finds.

The British Museum said recording the finds has helped revolutionise the understanding of battlefields including Naseby in 1645 and the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. There, the find of a silver-gilt boar badge helped pinpoint where Richard III met his death.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Extremely rare mass grave of decapitated Vikings found in the UK

Extremely rare mass grave of decapitated Vikings found in the UK

Archaeologists made the gruesome discovery of 51 Viking corpses buried in the UK – with researchers claiming they may have been killed in sacrifice. Archaeologists believed that the violent killing happened 1000 years ago – the 51 skeletons had languished near Weymouth, Dorset.

Oxford Archaeology removed the skulls which had been placed together in one part of a pit, and the bodies which had been thrown roughly into a heap a few feet away.

Chemical analysis was used to study the teeth from 10 men – and led to a remarkable piece of information.

The men are thought to have grown up in an environment much colder than the UK, with one set of remains believed to be from the Arctic Circle.

Carbon dating showed they were buried between 910 and 1030AD, a time when England was being unified under Saxon kings and when Vikings from Denmark had begun a second wave of raids on the South Coast.

Oxford Archaeology project manager David Score said: “To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development.

“Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual.”

The vikings were decapitated
51 bodies were found

Researchers had no doubts that the bodies belonged to Vikings.

Evidence suggested they were captured by British soldiers after arriving in the country to raid.

The blows to the back of their necks were so fierce that the swords cut into the jaws and collarbones.

One man had wounds to his hands – indicating that he grabbed for the blade in a futile bid to save himself. Others suffered blows to pelvis, stomach and chest.

There were more bodies than skulls, leading to speculation that three dismembered heads were displayed on stakes.

The first to arrive in Britain were after loot – and they saw the undefended monasteries, which boasted silver-chalices, gold crosses and bejewelled books, as key targets.

Dr Richard Hall, director of archaeology at the York Archaeological Trust, said: “Vikings would be the same build and height as us.

“But there would be few women over 35 because so many died in childbirth. And if you lived to 50 you were doing very well.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

A hidden temple was recently discovered in an ancient Roman city that’s mostly still underground

A hidden temple was recently discovered in an ancient Roman city that’s mostly still underground

The temple was once part of the city of Falerii Novi, which was abandoned more than 1,000 years ago and buried by time.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) map of the newly discovered temple in the Roman city of Falerii Novi, Italy.

Archaeologists recently mapped the entire town in remarkable detail with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealing previously unknown structures, including the temple and a bathing complex.

Located about 31 miles (50 kilometers) north of Rome, Falerii Novi was founded in 241 B.C. and was occupied until around the seventh century A.D. It was surrounded by a wall and at just 0.1 square miles (0.3 square kilometers) in area, it was quite small.

Today, Falerii Novi’s ruins lie in a rural area, and there are no modern buildings atop it. But the city has thus far only been partly excavated.

The new map demonstrates that high-resolution radar scans can reveal the secrets of buried cities, providing valuable data about their construction and evolution, scientists reported in a new study. 

“This technique really liberates us for looking at whole towns; we don’t have to rely on places like Pompeii that are already mostly excavated,” said study co-author Martin Millett, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Cambridge in England. “This is a technique where, with a little bit of planning, you can gather fantastic quality data over a whole city,” Millett told BBC News.

Archaeologists began excavating the ruins in the 19th century; the site was later identified as Falerii Novi based on extensive historic records that described the Roman city, according to the study.

In the late 1990s, other researchers conducted magnetic surveys of the site, measuring patterns in soil magnetism to visualize buried structures.

This technique produced a map showing the street grid and most of the city buildings, but with one reading taken about every 20 inches (50 centimeters), the map’s resolution was poor, painting “a fuzzy picture” of what the city looked like, Millett said.

A slice of ground-penetrating radar data from Falerii Novi, revealing the outlines of the town’s buildings.

Buried temple

For the new study, the researchers deployed a grid of ground-penetrating radar antennae, fixed to a cart and towed over the site by an all-terrain vehicle.

They bombarded the site with radio wave pulses, taking measurements every 2 inches (6 cm) and reflecting off objects underground to a depth of 6.5 feet (2 meters), according to the study. This showed Falerii Novi’s buried structures in high resolution and in three dimensions.

Each scan provided a “slice” that the researchers then stitched together to create the map. Thanks to the new data, a much sharper picture of the long-hidden city emerged.

The exceptional resolution enabled the study authors to perform detailed architectural analysis that would otherwise have been possible only through excavation.

One structure, to the west of the city’s southern gate, was clearly a temple; “you can see steps leading up to it, the columnated courtyard around it and the altar,” Millett said. 

A market building and a bath complex were also visible for the first time, as well as a large enclosure that may have been a public monument, according to the study.

Computer-aided object detection in the GPR data from the case-study area: a) the wall objects detected in each individual GPR slice and profile were combined and projected onto a 2D map (red). Detected floors are shown in green; b) 3D representation showing the same result, with the floors semi-transparent.

Criss-crossing pipes

Another intriguing find was the unusual layout of Falerii Novi’s water supply system, as the radar scans revealed networks of pipes running underneath the city’s buildings. In other ancient Roman towns that have been fully excavated — or nearly so — water pipes typically ran parallel to the city streets.

Those water systems are therefore thought to have been installed during a later stage of the city’s construction after most of the buildings were already in place. 

But in Falerii Novi, pipes were installed under the buildings, running diagonally across the town. That would have been impossible to do unless the pipes were put in place first, before construction of any of the buildings. This offers an unexpected glimpse of how the Romans designed and built some of their cities, according to the study.

“In a sense, that changes the game for looking at Roman urbanism,” Millett said. “If we can do this across a whole series of cities, we begin to get new insights into how their urban planning worked.”

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

10-Year-Old Boy Finds Centuries-Old Sword in Northern Ireland

10-Year-Old Boy Finds Centuries-Old Sword in Northern Ireland

Fionntan Hughes, Ten years old received a metal detector for his birthday in July. Hughes discovered a centuries-old sword hidden about a foot underground the first time he took it out for a walk, reports Eimear Flanagan for BBC News.

On the banks of the Blackwater River near his home in Northern Ireland, Fionntan, father, and cousin used a metal detector when they found the sword in their third strike.

They dug up the large, mud-covered object, brought it home and washed it off with a garden hose, Fionntan tells Aftenposten Junior. That revealed it was half of a rusted, old sword with an ornate pommel.

“I felt excited,” Fionntan tells BBC Newsline’s Cormac Campbell. “because it was a sword and it was just here, and I didn’t really expect anything too big.”

The sword’s ornate handle is its most identifiable feature, but antique experts Mark and David Hawkins tell BBC News that the sword is difficult to identify from photographs because the rust may be exaggerating its size. But it looks like an English basket-hilted broadsword that was introduced between 1610 to 1640.

It seems to have a plum pudding pommel, which is “typical of the early types,” the Hawkins tells BBC News, but because some designs were used by English officers for more than a century, they suspect this sword is from the late 1600s or early 1700s.

A young boy with a metal detector has made an amazing discovery in Northern Ireland. With the detector, given to him on his birthday, he found an Irish historic sword that could be up to 300 years old.
A young boy with a metal detector has made an amazing discovery in Northern Ireland. With the detector, given to him on his birthday, he found an Irish historic sword that could be up to 300 years old.

Most metal detectorists are not so lucky, but between 1997 and 2016, amateur history fans found about 1 million archaeological discoveries in the United Kingdom alone.

In 1992, a man looking for his lost hammer happened upon a 60-pound hoard of Roman gold and silver artifacts. In 2016, another metal detectorist found a hoard of Viking artifacts.

A 2019 discovery showed evidence of 11th-century tax evasion, and this June, a Welsh man found a lead ingot inscribed with Latin.

The U.K.’s Treasure Act of 1996 requires those who discover caches of buried treasure to report their finds to the local coroner’s office, who will then notify local authorities.

Last year, four men received sentences of between five and ten years in prison because they didn’t report the Viking artifacts they found in 2015, Lateshia Beachum reported for the Washington Post at the time.

After Fionntan and his family realized he had found a sword, his father Paul Hughes notified the National Museums Northern Ireland archaeology curator Greer Ramsey. Ramsey is now in the process of identifying the sword in more detail, as per BBC News.

“The last thing I want is for it to be left rusting away in my garage,” Hughes tells BBC News, adding that he worries the sword is “deteriorating by the day.”

The family hopes to give it to a museum for preservation and eventual display. But the Covid-19 pandemic has made it challenging to hand the sword off to a museum expert, according to Aftenposten Junior.

The riverbank where Fionntan found the sword was dredged in the 1980s, which would have displaced sediment and objects at the bottom of the river, reports BBC Newsline.

Because of that, the family believes there may be more interesting artifacts buried nearby. And Fionntan tells BBC News that he’s looking forward to going metal detecting again.

AFRICA, SUDAN, WORLD

Looters destroy 2,000-year-old Sudan archaeological site in search for gold

Looters destroy 2,000-year-old Sudan archaeological site in search for gold

When last month a team of archeologists deep in Sudan’s deserts arrived at Jabal Maragha’s ancient site, they thought they’d been lost. The site had vanished. But they hadn’t made a mistake. In fact, gold-hunters with giant diggers had destroyed almost all sign of the two millennia-old sites.

Archaeologist, Habab Idris Ahmed, who painstakingly excavated the historic site in 1999, told us that they had only one intention to search here — to find gold.

“They did something crazy; to save time, they used heavy machinery.”

In the baking-hot desert of Bayouda, some 270 kilometers (170 miles) north of the capital Khartoum, the team discovered two mechanical diggers and five men at work.

They had dug a vast trench 17 metres (55 feet) deep, and 20 meters long. The rust-coloured sand was scarred with tyre tracks, some cut deep into the ground, from the trucks that transported the equipment. The site, dating from the Meroitic period between 350 BC and 350 AD, was either a small settlement or a checkpoint. Since the diggers came, hardly anything remains.

“They had completely excavated it, because the ground is composed of layers of sandstone and pyrite,” said Hatem al-Nour, Sudan’s director of antiquities and museums.

“And as this rock is metallic their detector would start ringing. So they thought there was gold.”

Archeologists in Sudan assess the damage done by gold hunters digging up ancient sites looking for buried treasure

Escape justice

Archeologists in Sudan assess the damage done by gold hunters digging up ancient sites looking for buried treasure. Archeologists in Sudan assess the damage done by gold hunters digging up ancient sites looking for buried treasure. Next to the huge gash in the ground, the diggers had piled up ancient cylindrical stones on top of each other to prop up a roof for their dining room. The archaeologists were accompanied by a police escort, who took the treasure-hunters to a police station — but they were freed within hours.

“They should have been put in jail and their machines confiscated. There are laws,” said Mahmoud al-Tayeb, a former expert from Sudan’s antiquities department.

Instead, the men left without charge, and their diggers were released too.

“It is the saddest thing,” said Tayeb, who is also a professor of archaeology at the University of Warsaw.

Tayeb believes that the real culprit is the workers’ employer, someone who can pull strings and circumvent justice. Sudan’s archaeologists warn that this was not a unique case, but part of a systematic looting of ancient sites. At Sai, a 12-kilometre-long river island in the Nile, hundreds of graves have been ransacked and destroyed by looters. Some of them date back to the times of the pharaohs. Sudan’s ancient civilisations built more pyramids than the Egyptians, but many are still unexplored.

Now, in hundreds of remote places ranging from cemeteries to temples, desperate diggers are hunting for anything to improve their daily lives.

Sudanese treasure hunters use mechanical diggers to cut deep trenches at ancient sites looking for gold.

Gold fever

Sudanese treasure hunters use mechanical diggers to cut deep trenches at ancient sites looking for gold Sudan is Africa’s third-largest producer of gold, after South Africa and Ghana, with commercial mining bringing in $1.22 billion to the government last year.

Prof Muhammad suggests that teaching students about Sudan’s history could encourage them to protect the sites

In the past, people also tried their luck by panning for gold at the city of Omdurman, across the river from Khartoum, where the waters of the White and Blue Niles meet.

“We used to see older people with small sieves like the ones women use for sifting flour at home,” Tayeb said, recalling times when he was a boy. “They used them to look for gold.”

But the gold they found was in tiny quantities.

Then in the late 1990s, people saw archaeologists using metal detectors for their scientific research.

“When people saw archeologists digging and finding things, they were convinced there was gold.”

Reason for pride

A team of archaeologist inspects stones stacked up on top of each other to prop up a roof for a dining room to be used by gold hunters

Remote archaeological sites in Sudan are being targeted by people believing they can find buried gold beneath the sand Remote archaeological sites in Sudan are being targeted by people believing they can find buried gold beneath the sand. Even worse, local authorities have encouraged the young and unemployed to hunt for treasures while wealthy businessmen bring in mechanical diggers alongside.

“Out of a thousand more or less well-known sites in Sudan, at least a hundred have been destroyed or damaged,” said Nour. “There is one policeman for 30 sites… and he has no communication equipment or adequate means of transport.”

For Tayeb, the root problem is not a lack of security, but rather the government’s priorities.

“It’s not a question of policemen,” he said. “It is a serious matter of how do you treat your history, your heritage? This is the main problem. But heritage is not a high priority for the government, so what can one do?”

The destruction of the sites is an extra tragedy for a country long riven by civil war between rival ethnic groups, destroying a common cultural identity of a nation.

“This heritage is vital for the unity of the Sudanese,” Nour said. “Their history gives them a reason for pride.”

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

1,000000-year-old artificial underground complex has been discovered

1,000000-year-old artificial underground complex has been discovered

Dr Alexander Koltypin recently came out to state that the process through which we identify just how old a relic or a ruin really it shouldn’t be considered the definitive end of the debate as it is heavily flawed, to say the least.

In most cases, there is no clear proof of how old a ruin really is which is why we look at the surroundings and more specifically at how old the surrounding structures are. But, this is unfair as there is always the possibility that they weren’t built around the same time period.

In recent years, many researchers have started looking at the history of civilization on Earth with an open mind. One of those researchers is without a doubt, Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist, and director of the Natural Science Research Center at Moscow’s International Independent University of Ecology and Politology.

This is where Dr Alexander Koltypin actually came across the 1,000,000-year-old artificial underground complex that historians simply put do not wish to accept the existence of.

During his long career, Dr Koltypin has studied numerous ancient underground structures mainly in the Mediterranean and has identified numerous similarities which have led him to believe that many sites were interconnected. But most incredibly, the weathering of the structures, together with their material composition and extreme geological features has led him to believe, these megastructures were built by advanced civilizations that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.

Dr. Koltypin argues that mainstream archeologists who work in the region, are used to date sites by looking at the settlements located on them or in their vicinity, however, some of these settlements were created upon much older prehistoric structures.

Writing on his website, Dr. Koltypin states: “When we examined the constructions… none of us never for a moment had a doubt that they are much older than the ruins of the Canaanite, Philistine, Hebraic, Roman, Byzantine, and other cities and settlements that are placed on it and around.” (source)

During his travel to the Mediterranean, Dr Koltypin was able to accurately record the features present in different ancient sites, something that allowed him to compare afterwards, their incredible similarities and details which tell an incredible alternative history, one that has been firmly rejected by mainstream scholars.

An ancient stone structure in Antalya, Turkey.

While traveling near the Hurvat Burgin ruins in Adullam Grove Nature Reserve, central Israel, Dr. Koltypin recalled a similar felling when he climbed on the top of the rock city Cavusin in Turkey, almost as a Deja vu feeling, Dr. Koltypin said: “I was personally convinced once again (in the first time the same feeling came to me after I climbed to the top of the rock city Cavusin in Turkey) that all these rectangular indentations, man-made underground structures and scattered debris of megaliths were one underground-terrestrial megalithic complex which was opened by erosion to a depth of several hundred meters” (source)

In his work (source), Dr. Koltypin argues that nor all parts of the giant complex are located underground, there are some parts that have come above ground due to geological shifts that have occurred throughout the history of our planet, where Dr. Koltypin includes the incredibly rocky towns of Cappadocia in modern-day Turkey.

“On the basis of this, we can conclude that the underground cities of Cappadocia (including Tatlarin rock city) intended for the accommodation of the ordinary population and the rock city of Cavusin (or its part) was the residence of the kings of underground.

Though almost nothing is known about subterranean, nevertheless we can assume that the people who built the underground cities (if they even were men) were sun-worshipers professed religion of sun gods (harmony and life by the Divine principles – nature laws). After many thousand or million years, this religion had become a basis of the Christian religion.” — Dr Alexander Koltypin.

Dr. Koltypin continues explaining that certain sites in central and Northern Israel, and central Turkey were exposed after cutting into the ground some one hundred meters. “According to my estimates, such depth of erosion … hardly could be formed in less time than 500,000 to 1 million years,” he wrote on his website.

Cavusin village in the Cappadocia region of Turkey.

Dr Koltypin suggests that certain parts of the complex surfaced as a result of mountain formation processes. According to his estimates, there is evidence to support that the composition of building material found on a site in Antalya Turkey, referred to by Dr. Koltypin as “Jernokleev site,” are up to One Million years old, even though mainstream scholars refuse to accept that age, proposing that the site dates back to the Middle Ages.

Dr. Koltypin further adds that as a result of Earth’s crust moving throughout the centuries, parts of the underground complex were plunged into the sea.

“Practically in all the studied underground constructions of Israel and in the majority of underground constructions of Turkey, sediments of lithified (hard) and calcareous clay deposits are widely developed on their floor,” Dr. Koltypin writes on his website.

Returning to the subject, Dr. Koltypin suggests that the similarity seen in numerous megalithic ruins is evidence of a profound connection present in ancient sites, which were connected in one giant prehistoric complex.

According to Dr. Koltypin, numerous megalithic blocks weight tens of tons could have been directly attached to underground complexes in the distant past.

“This circumstance gave me a reason to call the underground structures and geographically related ruins of cyclopean walls and buildings as a single underground-terrestrial megalithic complex,” writes Dr. Koltypin in his website.

He further adds that the megalithic construction which is seen in all corners around the world seem to surpass by far the technological capabilities of ancient civilizations which according to mainstream scholars built them.

Making reference to the technological capabilities of the ancients, Dr. Koltypin states the stones fit together perfectly in some parts without cement, and the ceilings, columns, arches, gates, and other elements seem beyond the work of men with chisels.

Adding to the mystery of these incredible sites, Dr. Koltypin notes that structures built on top of, or near sites by the Romans or other civilizations are completely primitive.

Mystery track left behind advanced technology millions of year ago

Dr. Alexander Koltypin believes that the mysterious markings that extend along the Phrygian Valley, in central Turkey, were made by an intelligent race between 12 and 14 million years ago.

“We can assume that ancient vehicles with “wheels” were driven into the soft ground, perhaps a wet surface,” said the geologist. “Because of the great weight of these vehicles, they left behind very deep grooves which eventually petrified and turned into evidence.”

Geologists are familiar with such phenomena as they have found petrified footprints of dinosaurs that were preserved in the same way. Together with three colleagues, Dr Koltypin, director of the Natural Science Scientific Research Centre at Moscow’s International Independent Ecological-Political University, travelled to the site in Anatolia, Turkey where these markings can be found. Upon returning from his trip, he described the observed as ‘petrified tracking ruts in rocky tuffaceous [made from compacted volcanic ash] deposits’.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

Ancient mammoth ivory carving technology reconstructed by archaeologists

Ancient mammoth ivory carving technology reconstructed by archaeologists

A team of archaeologists from Siberian Federal University and Novosibirsk State University provided a detailed reconstruction of a technology that was used to carve ornaments and sculptures from mammoth ivory.

The team studied a string of beads and an ancient animal figurine found at the Paleolithic site of Ust-Kova in Krasnoyarsk Territory. Over 20 thousand years ago its residents used drills, cutters, and even levelling blades.

The unusual features of some of the items showcased the mastery of the craftsmen. The new data obtained by the scientists will help study the relations between the residents of different Siberian sites.

The article about the study was published in the highly respected journal Archaeological Research in Asia.

The Ust-Kova site is located in Kezhemsky District of Krasnoyarsk Territory at the mouth of the Kova river.

Archaeologists from Krasnoyarsk have been working there since the middle of the 20th century, but the major part of the excavation work took place between 1980 and 2000.

Based on the results of radiocarbon dating, the site is considered to be over 20 thousand years old. Of all findings from Ust-Kova, scientists consider animal figurines the most interesting. They also found various ornaments and tools made from mammoth ivory. However, until recently the technology of their manufacture has been unknown.

“We studied several mammoth ivory items found at Ust-Kova: a mammoth figurine, a seal sculpture, and bracelets and beads of different sizes that were created around 24 thousand years ago.

Our group was supervised by Prof. L.V. Lbova, a PhD in History, from the Department of Archeology and Ethnography of Novosibirsk State University.

We conducted a detailed microscopic analysis of each object to identify the tools used in their manufacture by the markings they left,” said Prof. Nikolay Drozdov, a PhD in History, representing Siberian Federal University.

After processing the microscopic images of the mammoth figurine with DStretch, the team was able to reconstruct the ancient technology in every detail. The image showed markings that were left by different tools.

According to the scientists, at first, a craftsman had to break a mammoth tusk down into segments. After that smaller plates were turned into beads: the master cut them into rectangles and made a hole in the centre of each piece using a stone drill. Bigger parts were used to create animal sculptures.

To depict a mammoth, the craftsman outlined a head and legs with a levelling blade and then removed the excess of the bone with a cutter. After the figurine was finished, it was decorated with a pattern to imitate eyes and hair.

The team also analyzed the chemical composition of the findings. The scientists were especially interested in the traces of dark-red pigment on the surface of the sculpture. It turned out that ancient craftsmen used to paint many of their items with manganese and magnesium (presumably, they were extracted from salt rocks situated not far from the site).

The mammoth figurine was painted with red pigment on one side and with a black one on the other. In the mythology of the Ust-Kuva people, red was a symbol of life and black meant death.

The researchers also found several layers of pigment on the beads. They assumed that the ornaments had been in use for many years and had to be regularly repaired.

The study can help better understand the relationships between different tribes and territories. Now scientists will be able to compare tools from different sites by various parameters. This will show whether distant tribes were in contact with each other and also help identify individual styles of ancient master carvers.

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

India: Archaeologists found 9,000 years old city beneath the surface of modern-day Dwarka

India: Archaeologists found 9,000 years old city beneath the surface of modern-day Dwarka.

The discovery of the legendary city of Dvaraka which is said to have been founded by Sri Krishna is an important landmark in the validation of historical relevance of Mahabharata. It has set at rest the doubts expressed by historians about the historicity of Mahabharata and the very existence of Dvaraka city.

It has greatly narrowed the gap of Indian history by establishing the continuity of the Indian civilization from the Vedic age to the present day. The discovery has also shed welcome light on second urbanization in the so-called ‘Dark age’, on the resuscitation of dharma, on the resumption of maritime trade, and use of Sanskrit language and modified Indus script.

Incidentally, scientific data useful for a study of sea-level changes and effects of the marine environment on metals and wood over long periods has also been generated by underwater exploration. All this was possible because of the dedicated and daring efforts of marine archaeologists, scientists and technicians of the Marine Archaeology Centre of the National Institute of Oceanography

Dwarka Exploration

Dwaraka is a coastal town in Jamnagar district of Gujarat. Traditionally, modern Dwaraka is identified with Dvaraka, mentioned in the Mahabharata as Krishna’s city. Dwaraka was a port, and some scholars have identified it with the island of Barka mentioned in the Periplus of Erythrean Sea.

Ancient Dwaraka sank in the sea and hence is an important archaeological site. The first clear historical record of the lost city is dated 574 A.D. and occurs in the Palitana Plates of Samanta Simhaditya. This inscription refers to Dwaraka as the capital of the western coast of Saurashtra and still more important, states that Sri Krishna lived here.

The first archaeological excavations at Dwaraka were done by the Deccan College, Pune and the Department of Archaeology, Government of Gujarat, in 1963 under the direction of H.D. Sankalia. It revealed artefacts many centuries old.

The Marine Archaeological Unit (MAU) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducted a second round of excavations in 1979 under the supervision of Dr S. R. Rao (one of the most respected archaeologists of India). An emeritus scientist at the marine archaeology unit of the National Institute of Oceanography, Rao has excavated a large number of Harappan sites including the port city of Lothal in Gujarat. He found distinct pottery known as lustrous red ware, which could be more than 3,000 years old. Based on the results of these excavations, the search for the sunken city in the Arabian Sea began in 1981. Scientists and archaeologists have continually worked on the site for 20 years.

The project for underwater exploration was sanctioned in 1984, directly by the then Prime Minister for three years. Excavation under the sea is a hard and strenuous task. The sea offers too much resistance. Excavation is possible only between November and February, during low tide. The sea has to be smooth and there should be bright sunshine. All these requirements effectively reduce the number of diving days to 40 to 45 in one season. In order to make the maximum use of the time available, divers use echo sounder to get a fairly accurate idea of the location and the depth of the object underwater.

The side-scan sonar offers a view of the seafloor. The sonar signals sent inside the water return the signals. Reading of the signals reveals the broad nature of the object underwater. Underwater scooters, besides the usual diving equipment like scuba, were also pressed into service. Between 1983 and 1990, S.R.Rao’s team came across discoveries that cemented the existence of a submerged city.

In January 2007, the Underwater Archaeology Wing (UAW) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) began excavations at Dwaraka again. Alok Tripathi, Superintending Archaeologist, UAW, said the ancient underwater structures found in the Arabian Sea were yet to be identified. “We have to find out what they are. They are fragments. I would not like to call them a wall or a temple. They are part of some structure,” said Dr Tripathi, himself a trained diver. Dr Tripathi had said: “To study the antiquity of the site in a holistic manner, excavations are being conducted simultaneously both on land [close to the Dwarakadhish temple] and undersea so that finds from both the places can be co-related and analysed scientifically.”

The objective of the excavation was to know the antiquity of the site, based on material evidence. In the offshore excavation, the ASI’s trained underwater archaeologists and the divers of the Navy searched the sunken structural remains. The finds were studied, dated and documented. On land, the excavation was done in the forecourt of the Dwarakadhish temple. Students from Gwalior, Lucknow, Pune, Vadodara, Varanasi and Bikaner joined in to help the ASI archaeologists.

Explorations yielded structures such as bastions, walls, pillars and triangular and rectangular stone anchors.

In 2001, the students of National Institute of Oceanography were commissioned by the Indian Government to do a survey on pollution in Gulf of Khambat, seven miles from the shore. During the survey, they found buildings made of stones covered in mud and sand covering five square miles. Divers have collected blocks, samples, artefacts, and coppers coins, which scientists believe is the evidence from an age that is about 3,600 years old. Some of the samples were sent to Manipur and oxford university for carbon dating, and the results created more suspicion since some of the objects were found to be 9,000 years old.

It is indeed overwhelming to find that what had been discovered underwater at the bay of Combat is an archaeological site, dating back to 7,500 BC and older than any previously claimed oldest sites of civilization.

Findings at the Dwarka excavation site

Marine archaeological explorations off Dwarka have brought to light a large number of stone structures. They are semicircular, rectangular and square in shape and are in water depth ranging from the intertidal zone to 6 m. They are randomly scattered over a vast area. Besides these structures, a large number of varieties of stone anchors have been noticed along with the structures as well as beyond 6 m water depth.

These findings suggest that Dwarka was one of the busiest port centres during the past on the west coast of India. The comparative study of surrounding sites indicates that the date of the structures of Dwarka may be between the Historical period and late medieval period. The ruins have been proclaimed the remains of the legendary lost city of Dwarka which, according to ancient Hindu texts, was the dwelling place of Krishna.

The underwater excavations revealed structures and ridge-like features. Other antiquities were also found. All the objects were photographed and documented with drawings – both underwater. While underwater cameras are used for photography, drawings are done on boards – a transparent polyester film of 75 microns fixed with a graph sheet below. The graph sheet acts as a scale.

One or two divers take the dimensions and the third draws the pictures. The Public Works Department routinely conducts dredging in these waters to keep the Gomati channel open. This throws up a lot of sediments, which settle on underwater structures. Brushes are used to clear these sediments to expose the structures.

Until recently the very existence of the city of Dwarka was a matter of legends. Now, that the remains have been discovered underwater, and with many clues seeming to suggest that this, indeed, is the legendary Dwarka, the dwelling place of Lord Krishna.