Category Archives: WORLD

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

Archaeologists uncover two Bronze Age ‘royal’ tombs lined with GOLD that promise to unlock secrets about life in ancient Greece 3,500 years ago

Archaeologists uncover two Bronze Age ‘royal’ tombs lined with GOLD that promise to unlock secrets about life in ancient Greece 3,500 years ago

Historians from the classic department of the American University of Cincinnati are readdressing what is known of early Greek history based on their once-in-a-lifetime discovery of two treasure-filled tombs that were once lined with gold leaf.

The two beehive-like graves were uncovered by a team of archeologists in last year and they announced in last Tuesday in Pylos while they were investigating the tomb of the renowned Greek military leader Griffin Warrior, who had been identified with the remarkable collection of weapons armors and jewelry in 2015

The scientist Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker from the UC Classics department reported in an article on the UC Web Site that they spent 18 months excavating both graves and similarly to the Griffin Warrior’s tomb, they were called ‘princely.’

The burials were discovered overlooking the Mediterranean Sea close to the palace of Nestor, a ruler mentioned in Homer’s famous works the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Davis and Stocker´s team are excavating in Greece in the wake of the late Carl Blegen who was head of UC’s Classics Department and was responsible for having discovered the Palace of Nestor in 1939 with Greek archaeologists Konstantinos Kourouniotis.

Stone lines the entrance to a grave called Tholos IV near the former Palace of Nestor, both discovered by the late UC Classics archaeologist Carl Blegen in 1939.

Within the two tombs, a wealth of cultural artifacts were recovered, including delicate jewelry. As an added mark of the extreme opulence of the family, the researchers found, “The tombs were littered with flakes of gold leaf that once papered the walls.”

When interpreted alongside the artifacts recovered from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior, historians expect to use these burials to gain a deeper understanding of early Greek civilization and Pylos’ links with ancient Egypt.

Pylos is a town in the Bay of Navarino and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. It has an exceptionally long history – having been inhabited since the Neolithic era. In Classical times the site was uninhabited yet hosted the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian War.

Pylos was one of the last places which held out against the Spartans in the Second Messenian War and it sank out of history until the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War, during which according to the Greek historian Thucydides in his  History of the Peloponnesian War, the area was together with most of the country and “round, unpopulated.”

An aerial view of the site shows the Tholos IV tomb, far left, found by UC archaeologist Carl Blegen in 1939 in relation to the two family tombs called Tholos VI and Tholos VII, uncovered last year by UC archaeologists Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the identity of the ‘Griffin Warrior’ is an assumption based on the types of armor, weapons, and jewelry found in his tomb – which all suggest he had military and religious authority. It is thought that he may have been the king known in later Mycenaean times as a ‘Wanax.’

The name ‘Griffin Warrior’ was chosen after the mythological creature, the Griffin, which is composed of parts from eagles and lions, a depiction of which was found engraved on an ivory plaque in the warrior’s tomb alongside his armor, weaponry, and gold jewelry.

The new artifacts discovered in the two princely tombs include a gold ring with two bulls within sheaves of barley, and an incredibly detailed carnelian seal depicting an image of two ‘genii,’ which like the Griffin are lionlike mythological creatures. The depictions of the genii are shown below a 16-pointed star and they hold serving vessels and an incense burner over an altar.

According to Dr. Stocker, “16-pointed stars are rare” to find in Mycenaean iconography and he sees the discovery of two objects depicting 16-pointed stars, in both agate and gold, as “noteworthy.”

In one of the two family tombs, UC archaeologists found a carnelian seal stone featuring two mythological creatures called genii with serving vessels and incense over an altar.

A National Geographic article says the two tombs were found holding “lots of gold” but also Baltic amber, Egyptian amethysts, and imported carnelian – which the archaeologists think belonged to “very sophisticated” people at a time when very few luxury items were being imported into Pylos – which was later a central location on the Bronze Age trade routes, said the archaeologists.

Dr. Davis said the discovery of a gold pendant displaying what might be a depiction of the Egyptian goddess Hathor is “particularly interesting considering the role she played in Egypt as protectress of the dead.” And if this is the Egyptian goddess Hathor than new evidence has been discovered suggesting early trade links between Pylos, Greece, and Egypt.

UC archaeologists found several gold pieces, including this double argonaut (octopus type of creature).
ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Ancient anti-witchcraft potion found at old Northamptonshire pub

Ancient anti-witchcraft potion found at old Northamptonshire pub

Throughout Western Europe, about 200,000 witches were murdered, burned, or hanged, between 1484 and 1750 according to historians, while between 1644 and 1646, around 300 so-called witches were killed.

In the 1560s, the practice of witchcraft was a major offense. Many witches in Britain were often old women and were part of poor families.

A Victorian bottle that is supposed to be used to prevent evil spells has recently been found. As per the experts in Watford, Northamptonshire, the bottle has been found at the birthplace of the witch.

History of the Lancashire Witches is in the John Rylands Library in Manchester Wikimedia Commons

Angeline Tubbs, a famous witch, who is still a popular name, was born at the former Star and Garter Inn at Watford village in 1761.

Known as the Witch of Saratoga she is one of the major subjects of ghost tours at Saratoga Springs in New York, where she moved at the age of 15 and used to foretell the future.

But the 19th-century weird bottle was found during roof repairs of her house in Northamptonshire.

The bottle contains fish hooks, human teeth, glass, a liquid and suddenly appeared after several years when a chimney was demolished at the building.

The suspected witch bottle

As reported by BBC, Dr. Ceri Houlbrook, lecturer in folklore and history at the University of Hertfordshire said, “It’s certainly later than most witch bottles, so sadly not contemporary with Angeline Tubbs, but still a fascinating find.”

The researchers who studied the bottle at the Museum of London Archaeology mentioned that such vessels were believed to have been used as a protection method hundreds of years ago.

As per the experts, earlier these glass or stone vessels were found under the floors of historic buildings, mostly in the churchyards and riverbanks.

It should be mentioned that most of these vessels had contained weird things, such as human nails and pins as well as human urine

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Neolithic Seawall Discovered in Mediterranean Waters

Neolithic Seawall Discovered in Mediterranean Waters

Scientists have discovered an ancient seawall constructed by the Neolithic people to protect their village from a sea-level rise over 7,000 years ago.

This wall, which is 330 meters off the Carmel coast of Israel, had been constructed over a mile of riverbed stone, in order to build a barrier between the Mediterranean and Tel Heriz settlement.

Researchers led by Ehud Galili from the University of Haifa, Israel, in a study published in PLOS One claim that it represents the oldest known coastal defense system in the world with “a major effort spent by the neolithic villagers to create, organize and construct.”

At the time the settlement existed, sea levels were rising as global temperatures warmed following the end of the last ice age. The Mediterranean was rising by up to seven millimeters (0.27 inches) per year. Over a lifetime, this would have equaled around 20 centimeters.

“This rate of sea-level rise means the frequency of destructive storms damaging the village would have risen significantly,” Galili said in a statement.

Images from the underwater archaeologists investigating the site.
Model showing where the village and wall would have been compared with today.

“The environmental changes would have been noticeable to people, during the lifetime of a settlement across several centuries. Eventually, the accumulating yearly sea-level necessitated a human response involving the construction of a coastal protection wall similar to what we’re seeing around the world now.”

The Tel Hreiz settlement was first uncovered in the 1960s but the seawall was only identified in 2010 after a severe storm exposed it. Galili and his team then set about analyzing the remains of the submerged wall.

They found it was almost 10 feet tall and was built around the same time as the village. Over the course of decades, the seawall would have suffered from marine erosion, the researchers say.

After the sand layer was removed, waves and storms may have eventually dislodged boulders and stones.

Despite this “display of resilience” in the face of sea-level rise, the people of Tel Hreiz eventually left the village and, over time, both the seawall and village were lost to the sea.

“The seawall may have worked for a period,” the team wrote, “however, ultimately it proved futile and the village was eventually abandoned. The Tel Hreiz seawall represents the earliest example of a coastal defense of this type known to date.”

The team points to parallels with the sea-level rise mankind is facing today. While the rate at the moment is considerably lower than what these Neolithic people were facing, it is expected that many of the world’s coastal towns and cities will be impacted in the next century.

“Given the size of coastal populations and modern urban settlements, the magnitude of predicted future population displacement differs considerably to the impacts on people during the Neolithic,” the study said.

“However, many of the fundamental human questions and the decision-making relating to human resilience, coastal defense, local adaptation, technological innovation and decisions to ultimately abandon long-standing settlements remain ominously relevant.”

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Possible 16th-Century Spanish Anchors Found Near Mexico

Possible 16th-Century Spanish Anchors Found Near Mexico

The exact location where the anchors were found was when the Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes was sinking his ships in order to prevent a return to Cuba by opposing the leaders of his army.

Anchor studies have shown that their morphology places the anchors to the 16th century. Their orientation indicates that they follow patterns that could be associated with the location of the fleet of conquistador Hernan Cortes.

Villa Rica is usually rich in tourists and fishermen in the salty seawater.

One of the anchors recovered off the Velacruz coast

The coast of Veracruz, however, was around 500 years ago one of history’s main cultural gatherings, which is now being investigated, with positive results, by underwater archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), who work together with foreign specialists to explore the seabed.

The researchers have found two iron anchors in their new exploratory project, the second season of the Villa Rica Subaquatic Archeology Project

Curiously, the experts have revealed that the unique characteristics of the anchors link them to the 16th century. The objects join the discover of another anchor that was found in 2018.

Laboratory studies have proven that the wood of its stock belongs to a tree of Spain’s Cantabrian coast.

The recently recovered anchors were discovered no more than 300 meters north of the location where experts in 2018 recovered the first anchor. The largest of the anchors is 3.68 meters long and 1.55 meters wide. The second anchor is 2.6 meters long and 1.43 meters wide.

Unlike the anchors recovered in 2018, the recently found objects did not converse their wooden stock.

Nonetheless, the protuberances over the rod are visible where the stock would adjust.

“In both, a pair of bumps running parallel to the arms can be seen in the cane at the height at which the stocks adjusted, a typical feature of the manufacture of anchors in the 16th century,” the researchers revealed in a statement.

“It is not clear if all three anchors belong to the same historical moment, but their alignment to the southwest coincides with the logic of Villa Rica as a port that protects ships from the north and northwest winds,” explained Roberto Junco, head of the Underwater Archeology Branch of INAH.

Despite this uncertainty, for experts, it is of great importance to know they are following an accurate route to locate shipwrecks that are linked to the arrival of Europeans to the American continent.

“The Conquest of Mexico was a seminal event in human history, and these shipwrecks, if we can find them, will be symbols of the cultural collision that led to what is now the West, geopolitical and socially speaking,” says underwater archaeologist Dr. Frederick Hanselmann.

It is important to note that the anchors are well-preserved thanks to the same sediment that had protected them for five centuries. This is why after experts completed measurements and documentations, the anchors were once again covered in the sediment to be protected in situ.

Researchers will now focus on another 15 anomalies that show potential as being anchors.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Roman Fort Discovered Hidden Beneath English Bus Station

Roman Fort Discovered Hidden Beneath English Bus Station

The local town council reported that archeologists surveying Exeter, England, a bus station had found evidence of a defensive fort dating back to Britain’s Roman conquest.

Per a press release, workers excavating the structure—built during the early 1960s and scheduled to be replaced by a new station and accompanying leisure complex—found three ditches said to represent a previously unknown Roman compound, as well as coins, pottery and imported Samian tableware presumably used by troops based at the site.

According to the Telegraph’s Mike Wright, the fort likely served as a satellite of Isca Dumnoniorum, a military fortification garrisoned by 5,500 legionaries tasked with pacifying the fiercely resisting local populations in the region.

Established soon after the Romans’ invasion of Britain in 43 A.D., Isca Dumnoniorum was supported by a series of smaller forts located along connecting roads.

The newly discovered structure is the first recorded along an eastward road; previously, evidence of smaller forts was limited to roads leading south of Exeter.

Artist’s rendering of the Exeter fort (Exeter City Council)

Stephen Rippon, a landscape archaeologist at the University of Exeter, tells BBC News the find was a “complete surprise.” He adds, “There was no evidence known of [the fort] at all.”

As the council statement notes, the ditches found at the site are typical of those seen in Roman military compounds: One, a V-shaped trench featuring an “ankle breaker” pit designed to deter converging soldiers, was situated on the outer edge of the fort, while another, so steep it was nearly vertical, contributed to inner defenses and was placed directly below a rampart.

If any enemy attackers reached this point, the steep slope would have ensured that defenders firing from the rampart above had the upper hand.

Although the press release suggests the inside of the fort was located west of these trenches, Rippon says it is difficult to make an exact prediction regarding the compound’s size or location in relation to the ditches.

A coin found at the excavation site (Exeter City Council)

Andrew Pye of the Exeter City Council says the discovery demonstrates “just how pivotal a role the Exeter area played in the first decades of the Roman conquest and subjugation of Britain.”

Describing the fort as a “very important and completely unexpected” discovery, Pye notes that its unveiling testifies to “just how much of the city’s history can still survive in unlikely places,” including those damaged by wartime bombing and modern concrete foundations.

Previous archaeological discoveries in the area include the 1970s unearthing of an ancient fortress and bathhouse, as well as the identification of multiple forts of varying size and significance.

Roman forces left Isca Dumnoniorum and its network of smaller forts around 75 A.D. when the army shifted its attention to southern Wales.

Exeter, now acting as the region’s capital, was transformed into a civilian town, with improvements including public baths and defensive stone walls introduced over the coming decades.

By 360, Abbie Bray writes for Devon Live, the village had started to shrink, and in 410, the Romans abandoned Britain completely. Exeter remained sparsely occupied until 928 when settlers once again returned to the area.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

Scientists Reawaken Cells From a 28,000-Year-Old Mammoth

Scientists Reawaken Cells From a 28,000-Year-Old Mammoth

Her name is Yuka: an ancient woolly mammoth that last lived some 28,000 years ago, before becoming mummified in the frozen permafrost wastelands of northern Siberia.

But now that icy tomb is no longer the end of Yuka’s story. The mammoth’s well-preserved remains were discovered in 2010, and scientists in Japan have now reawakened traces of biological activity in this long-extinct beast – by implanting Yuka’s cell nuclei into the egg cells of mice.

“This suggests that, despite the years that have passed, cell activity can still happen and parts of it can be recreated,” genetic engineer Kei Miyamoto from Kindai University told AFP.

In their experiment, the researchers extracted bone marrow and muscle tissue from Yuka’s remains, and inserted the least-damaged nucleus-like structures they could recover into living mouse oocytes (germ cells) in the lab.

In total, 88 of these nuclei structures were collected from 273.5 milligrams of mammoth tissue, and once some of these nuclei were injected into egg cells, a number of the modified cells demonstrated signs of cellular activity that precede cell division.

“In the reconstructed oocytes, the mammoth nuclei showed the spindle assembly, histone incorporation, and partial nuclear formation,” the authors explain in the new paper.

“However, the full activation of nuclei for cleavage was not confirmed.”

Despite the faintness of this limited biological activity, the fact anything could be observed at all is remarkable, and suggests that “cell nuclei are, at least partially, sustained even in over a 28,000 year period”, the researchers say.

Calling the accomplishment a “significant step toward bringing mammoths back from the dead”, Miyamoto acknowledges there is nonetheless a long way to go before the world can expect to see a Jurassic Park-style resurrection of this long-vanished species.

“Once we obtain cell nuclei that are kept in better condition, we can expect to advance the research to the stage of cell division,” Miyamoto told The Asahi Shimbun.

Red and green dyed proteins around a mammoth cell nucleus (upper right) in a mouse oocyte (Kindai University)

Less-damaged samples, the researchers suggest, could hypothetically enable the possibility of inducing further nuclear functions, such as DNA replication and transcription.

Another thing needed is better technology. Previous similar work in 2009 by members of the same research team didn’t get this far – which the scientists at least partially put down to “technological limitations at that time”, and the state of the frozen mammoth tissues used.

To that end, the researchers think their new research could provide a new “platform to evaluate the biological activities of nuclei in extinct animal species” – an incremental progression to perhaps one day, maybe, seeing Yuka’s kind roam again.

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

Eighteenth-Century Wooden Railway Unearthed in Scotland

Eighteenth-Century Wooden Railway Unearthed in Scotland

The first railway track in Scotland is expected to undergo extensive archeological exploration next year.

In June this year, in an excavation, wooden rails were discovered from 297-year-old Tranent Cockenzie Waggonway.

Part of a cobbled horse track for the ponies which pulled the wagons up to coal pits at Tranent in East Lothian was also discovered.

Next year, a community project hopes excavation might unearth some of the timbers used to lay the railway.

The findings of this year were among the top five archäological finds of 2019 by the 1722 Waggonway Heritage Group

Compiled by Scotland’s archaeology hub, Dig It!, other discoveries on the list include a Pictish skeleton found on the Black Isle in the Highlands and what is believed to be a Viking drinking hall in Orkney.

This June’s dig is set to be followed up by a more extensive excavation in 2020

The waggonway involved wooden rails, wagons, and wheels. Constructed in 1722, it was upgraded to an iron railway in 1815.

The community-run waggonway project is guided by a professional archaeologist. Dates have still be confirmed for next year’s more extensive excavation.

A spokesman said: “The hope is that we can excavate a longer stretch of the track, and we are working with East Lothian Council Archaeology Service to plan this for spring 2020.

“Given the level of preservation on the small section we uncovered in June, we are confident that the central cobbled horse-track survives in good condition, and we remain hopeful that some rail timbers will be intact enough to remove, although this is dependent on soil conditions.”

He added: “Archaeological investigations into early wagonways are relatively rare, and the information that this site can give us is incredibly valuable, with the potential to establish links in the technology used for early railways around the country in the 18th Century.”

The other two top discoveries on the Dig It! the list was one of a set of lost gravestones from the Middle Ages at Glasgow’s Govan Old Parish Church and a previously unrecorded Pictish stone near Dingwall.

Archaeologists hope to discover more about 18th Century waggonways
AFRICA, EGYPT, SUDAN, WORLD

The Statue of Lady Sennuwy of Asyut Emerges from the ground at Kerma Sudan in 1913

The Statue of Lady Sennuwy of Asyut Emerges from the ground at Kerma Sudan in 1913

The flourishing, wealthy empires of Nubia have lined the nile in Southern Egypt and Sudan more than a thousand years before Jesus.

A century ago, in partnership with Harvard University, the Boston archeologist George Reisner, Made an excavation in the region and brought back to the American public an enduring sight of Nubian artifacts – the largest collection of Nubian artifacts outside East Africa.

This collection was viewed today for the first time as part of a museum theme to reexamine past archeologists’ conclusions and the biases that affected their work.

Kerma: Beads and pendants: faience, amethyst, glazed crystal, carnelian, shell, garnet, granite, August 10, 1914, Giza Camp

The Ancient Nubia Now exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston discusses some of what Reisner, one of their own archaeologists and curators, got wrong in his representation of history.

“He is considered the father of American Egyptology,” said curator Denise Doxey. “As an archaeologist, he was really superb.”

Ancient Nubia Now exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Oct. 13, 2019, to Jan. 20, 2020

But she says that Reisner based many of his assumptions on history that were written by Egyptians who were at war with Nubians for generations and described Nubians as barbarians.

When Reisner came across a beautifully carved, Egyptian stone statue in a tomb in Sudan in 1913, he classified the whole tomb as an Egyptian outpost — even though the statue known as Lady Sennuwy was surrounded by pottery and jewelry that was distinctly Nubian.

“He just couldn’t believe that the Nubians did all this themselves,” Doxey said. “He was a wonderful archaeologist, but he was not a forward-thinking man on social issues at all. So, he brings his own racial biases, which happened to dovetail nicely with the Egyptians’ image of the Nubians. And [it] causes them to completely misinterpret the site.”

Reisner didn’t believe that the Nubians had conquered southern Egypt for a time, and brought Lady Sennuwy back to Nubia as a prize. But Doxey says that’s what actually happened.

“In fact, he had it completely backward,” she said.

Doxey says Reisner contributed to a portrayal of Nubia as a conquered, marginalized culture somehow less important than Egypt, and eventually mostly forgotten by scholars.

“It’s a vicious cycle because people aren’t familiar with Nubia. So, museums are wary about doing exhibitions and [having] nobody come because they don’t know what Nubia is,” Doxey said. “So, it perpetuates this idea that nobody knows what Nubia is, and it helps to keep that imbalance that Egypt is somehow much more important.”

-Denise Doxey, Museum of Fine Arts, curator

“It’s a vicious cycle because people aren’t familiar with Nubia. So, museums are wary about doing exhibitions and [having] nobody come because they don’t know what Nubia is,” Doxey said. “So, it perpetuates this idea that nobody knows what Nubia is, and it helps to keep that imbalance that Egypt is somehow much more important.”

But it’s been clear for some time that Reisner got it wrong. French and Swiss teams did excavations in Sudan in the 1960s and 1970s and discovered that tomb Reisner found with the Lady Sennuwy statue was part of a thriving, Nubian metropolis at the center of a trading network that reached far into Africa.

“It’s a massive, fortified city with suburbs outside and ports and industrial areas and temples,” Doxey said. “So, it was actually a very powerful and important kingdom.”

A kingdom that left behind fine pottery that is eggshell thin and dipped in a distinctive translucent blue glaze; and gold jewelry, and sculptures depicting animals such as rams and lions. Items that were ahead of their time, and are possibly evidence of an advanced culture.

That reminds some people of Wakanda, the fictional, ultra-advanced African country in the movie, “Black Panther.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes the “Black Panther” series for Marvel, has said he imagines Wakanda being pretty much where Nubia was.

In a video in the Nubia exhibit, Nicole Aljoe, director of Africana studies at Northeastern University, talks about Pauline Hopkins, an African American writer who, in 1902-1903, wrote a serialized novel, “Of One Blood; Or, The Hidden Self,” in which one of the main characters discovers a secret, advanced society of superhumans in the Nubia region.

“It is fascinating — it’s this weird kind of proto-science fiction, fantastic, but at the same time supernatural presentation that resonated a lot for me and my students with the film [“Black Panther”] after it came out,” Aljoe said. “It’d be really cool if she was prescient in that way.”

Begrawiya: North Cemetery at Meroe, Pyramids N 32 and N 19, April 12, 1921

Aljoe says the book is just one example of how African American artists have used the idea of Nubia as a symbol again and again. There were Nubian references during the Harlem Renaissance, the Black arts movement, and in rap music and the Black Lives Matter movement, she says. Right now, there’s a ballot measure in Boston to rename a historic spot Nubian Square. It’s currently named for Thomas Dudley, a governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony who signed laws that enabled the slave trade.

“So, Nubia as kind of representing a royal African history that folks can use to challenge European and racist colonial ideologies,” Aljoe said.