An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was displayed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science has been returned to Egypt after US authorities determined it was looted years ago.
Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, inspects the returned sarcophagus at the foreign ministry in Cairo.
The repatriation was part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artefacts returned to Egypt from across the world.
Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the late dynastic period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from 664BC until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332BC.
The sarcophagus, almost 3 metres (9.5 ft) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.
It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony on Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the US chargé d’affaires in Egypt.
The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan district attorney’s office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo.
It was smuggled through Germany into the US in 2008, according to Manhattan district attorney Alvin L Bragg.
“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organised network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg said at the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”
Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum.
The Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about $4m (£3.35). It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
Ancient Necropolis of 40 Tombs With Humans Buried in Pots Discovered in Corsica
An ancient necropolis with 40 tombs, including cylindrical jars filled with human remains, has been discovered on the French island of Corsica. The people buried in the cemetery range from infants to adults, the archaeologists said.
Located in the town of Île-Rousse on the island’s northern coast, the cemetery seems to have been used between the third and fifth centuries CE, a time in which the Roman Empire was gradually declining.
Many of the people were found buried inside amphoras, large vessels that would normally be used to carry goods such as olive oil, wine or pickles.
The design of the amphoras indicates that they are from North Africa, with some possibly being manufactured in Carthage.
Even so, the people buried in the necropolis, including those inside the amphoras, likely lived near the necropolis in Corsica, said Jean-Jacques Grizeaud, an archaeologist at the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) who led excavations at the site.
At the time, a lot of trade was happening across the Mediterranean, Grizeaud added.
Archaeologists also found that some of the burials were covered with terra-cotta tiles that the Romans called “tegulae” and “imbrices”. The Romans often used such tiles to cover the roofs of buildings and, at times, to cover burials.
The necropolis is located at the foot of the Immaculate Conception church constructed in 1893, the researchers said.
The head of one of the people buried.
Other burials found on the island, such as those at the sites of Mariana and Sant’Amanza, have been linked to buildings of worship, the researchers noted.
More research needs to be done to determine what ancient towns or cities were located near this necropolis.
“There is no real mention of a city in the ancient texts or, for example, in the map of [Corsica] made by Ptolemy,” a geographer who lived in the second century CE, Grizeaud said.
Over the next few months, archaeologists will conduct lab work to determine the people’s sexes, their exact ages and any illnesses or injuries they may have had, Grizeaud said.
For the first time in 2000 years, the Biblical site where Jesus healed blind man to be excavated for public view
Several Biblical sites have been identified through archaeology over the course of history. They hold huge historical importance and are often tied to a theological significance.
Most of the sites were in their natural state when found by archeologists. But have locations been unearthed? Apparently not.
In the coming days, a new location will be opening to the public for the first time in 2,000 years.
The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation have announced that a site, cherished by the Christians and Jews, which is allegedly the place where Jesus miraculously healed a blind man will be opened to the public.
The Pool of Siloam is located in the southern part of the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.
“The Pool of Siloam, located at the southern end of the City of David, and within the Jerusalem Walls National Park, is an archaeological and historical site of national and worldwide importance.
According to the Bible, the pool was first built in the 8th century BCE in the reign of King Hezekiah, some 2,700 years ago, as part of Jerusalem’s water system,” Israel Antiquities Authority wrote on Facebook.
It has always been referred to as a number of rock-cut pools on the southern slope of the Wadi Hilweh, considered by some archaeologists to be the original site of Jerusalem.
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus sent the “man blind from birth” to the pool in order to complete his healing. A simpler and more popular belief is that Jesus applied mud to the eyes of the man before telling him to wash it off in the Pool. When he followed his instructions, he was able to see for the first time.
The story makes the Pool of Siloam an important historical site for Christians as well as Jews.
“The Pool of Siloam’s excavation is highly significant to Christians around the world. It was at this site that Jesus healed the blind man (John:9), and it is at this site that, 2,000 years ago, Jewish pilgrims cleansed themselves prior to entering the Second Temple.” American pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, told Fox News Digital.
“The Pool of Siloam and the Pilgrimage Road, both located within the City of David, are among the most inspiring archaeological affirmations of the Bible,” he added.
Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs for the City of David Foundation in Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital that the site ‘will be made fully accessible for the first time in 2,000 years’.
As of now, a small section of the pool has been fully excavated to be made accessible to the public. However, the vast majority of the pool will be opened later once the entire site is unearthed.
Reports have claimed that some tourists have already been able to visit the site. But full access will only be granted when the excavation is complete.
“The Pool of Siloam in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem is a site of historic, national and international significance. After many years of anticipation, we will soon merit being able to uncover this important site and make it accessible to the millions of visitors visiting Jerusalem each year,” said Jerusalem’s mayor Moshe Lion.
World’s Oldest Settlement Plan Found in “Çatalhöyük”
With the beginning of the Holocene period, many lakes have dried up and have become suitable for settlement. It is one of the lake floors in the Konya Plain that dried up in the Holocene period. There have many mounds in this area.
One of the most important of these mounds is Çatalhöyük, which is undoubtedly located within the borders of Çumra province.
It probably owes its name to the fork-like shape of the two hills. Although there are two mounds, east and west, excavations continue in the west mound. Its inhabitants moved to the western mound when the river changed direction in the early chalcolithic period.
Çatalhöyük was discovered in 1958 by James Mellaart. Since 1993, excavations have been continued by Ian Hodder, a student of Mellaart, and if nowadays excavations are carried out by Assoc. Dr. Çiler Çilingiroğlu continues.
Eastern mound, BC. Eighteen layers of Neolithic settlements dating from 7400 to 6200 have been found. Layers 12 and 8 are dated to the first phase of the Early Neolithic (6500 – 6000 BC). After 6 layers it belongs to the second phase of early Neolithic.
The Chalcolithic Age layers in the western mound are dated between 6200 and 5200 BC.
Çatalhöyük
On the north and east walls of the building, a map that is thought to be the city plan of Çatalhöyük was unearthed during the 1963 excavations. This drawing, which is dated to 8200 years ago (age 6200 ± 97 BC as determined by radiocarbon dating method) is the first known map of the world.
Approximately 3 meters long and 90 cm. has a height. It is still exhibited in Ankara Anatolian Civilizations Museum.
Çatalhöyük has its own characteristics. Conservation of art, symbolism, social structure, living of too many people, bull cult, the burial of people, skulls, ancestral cult and house shapes, an egalitarian lifestyle is seen.
Interestingly, although they know of pottery making, they did not show intensive use of up to 5 layers. This is just a preference of those who live there. Probably because they had developed in woodworking, they did not want to change their traditional structure.
The residences they use are intertwined. Since no traces of war and destruction were visible, this might mean that intimacy involves an intense bond of kinship relations.
Houses were entered through roofs. Probably these roofs were used for socializing on hot days. It is thought that many jobs required for the home are here. These flat-roofed houses are now found in the South East.
Bull cult is widely seen in this mound.
The pictures made on the walls in the settlement, where the understanding of art is very developed, is remarkable. The depictions on the walls of the housing are hunting and dance scenes, human and animal paintings.
Animal pictures are animals such as vulture, leopard, various birds, deer, and lions. In addition, there are also motifs that can be called rug motifs dating back to 8800 years ago and are associated with today’s Anatolian rug motifs.
Bull horns and heads should be important to those living here. Many houses have reliefs made by plastering real bull heads with clay on the walls. The figurine finds are cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, bulls, dogs and single cattle horns.
There are Neolithic settlements older than Çatalhöyük in the Middle East. For example, Eriha is a Neolithic settlement a thousand years older than Çatalhöyük. Still, Çatalhöyük has different characteristics from older or contemporary settlements. One of the main differences is its population, which reaches ten thousand people.
According to Hodder, Çatalhöyük is “a center that carries the concept of village beyond logical dimensions”.
It was decided by UNESCO to be included in the World Heritage List in 2012.
SOURCE: Çatalhöyük Research Project, Çatalhöyük 2008 Report
YAZAR, M., 2008 “Anadolu’da Neolitik Dönem Sanatı ve Merkezleri”, Gazi Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Tarih Anabilim Dalı, Eskiçağ Tarihi Bilim Dalı Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Ankara
Researchers identify bird species depicted in ancient, finely detailed Egyptian painting
Facsimile painting of the west wall from the “Green Room” in the North Palace at Amarna (Public Domain; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: accession no. 30.4.134).
A masterpiece of ancient Egyptian art found in a palace is so finely detailed that researchers have been able to pinpoint the bird species it depicts. These images of the natural world likely created a space for relaxation and recreation in the palace.
The artwork was discovered at Amarna, the location of the capital city of Pharaoh Akhenaten (1347–1332 BC). Excavations in 1924 uncovered a palace belonging to Meritaten, daughter of the pharaoh and Nefertiti, with several lavishly decorated rooms.
One of these, the so-called Green Room, has a rare depiction of birds in a wild papyrus marsh with no signs of human activity.
“They have since come to be regarded as masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art,” said Dr. Christopher Stimpson and Professor Barry Kemp, “Featured in these paintings are some of the most skilfully rendered and naturalistic images of birds known from Dynastic Egypt.”
Despite the quality of these images, they have received relatively little attention. As such, not all the bird species in the art had been identified in the nearly 100 years since it was found.
“The art of the Green Room has not received as much attention as you would perhaps expect. This may have been because the original plaster panels did not survive well,” said Dr. Stimpson, an honorary associate of Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Attempts at conserving the painting in 1926 accidentally damaged and discolored the artwork.
So Dr. Stimpson and Professor Kemp set out to identify the birds of the Green Room.
The pair consulted modern ornithological data and a high-quality copy of the artwork made in 1924 by Nina de Garis Davies to identify the birds. Their work is published in Antiquity.
The researchers were ultimately able to identify several species, including shrikes and wagtails. These join the kingfishers and pigeons identified by previous work.
They also found that the artists may have included hints for ancient birdwatchers: Migrant birds are annotated with a triangle, perhaps indicating a seasonal element in the art.
The artwork also may show an ancient Egyptian pigeon problem. Rock pigeons are depicted but are not native to the papyrus marshes, instead being associated with nearby desert cliffs.
Perhaps, like in modern cities, pigeons were attracted to the area by human activity.
While the researchers cannot rule this out, they think the artists instead may have included these birds to make the scene seem wilder and untamed—an atmosphere the realistic artwork appears designed to create.
The team suggests these images of the natural world have made the Green Room a relaxing place.
“No one knows for sure, although the Green Room was most likely a place of rest and relaxation. Illustrations in rock tombs at Amarna possibly show similar settings where women relax, socialize and play music,” said Dr. Stimpson, “In the Green Room, the atmosphere was likely enhanced by the visions of nature.
The calming effects of the natural world were as important then, as they are (more than ever) today.”
Remains of a 3,700-year-old domed oven were discovered in the ancient city of Troy
Remains of a 3,700-year-old domed oven were found in the ancient city of Troy, located in the Tevfikiye district of Çanakkale province, located in the northwestern part of Turkey.
Professor Rüstem Aslan, the head of the excavation, who unearthed the 5,500-year-old remains of the city, said it was the first time they had come across the remains of such a large domed oven during excavations this year.
The discovered domed oven bears traces of Anatolian culture. Troy’s connection with Anatolia was partly established by the findings of the German archaeologist Manfred Osman Korfmann, who led the excavations from 1988 to the early 2000s.
“The description that Korfmann made during his excavations that ‘Troy is Anatolia,’ was a major focus of the next 20 years of digging. Troy is an Anatolian culture,” said Professor Rüstem Aslan.
The area of the domed oven in Troy, Çanakkale, northwestern Türkiye.
Aslan told Anadolu Agency (AA) that further excavations would be conducted to uncover the architectural dimensions of Troy, emphasizing that it was “shaped by the Anatolian culture in and after the Bronze Age.”
The oldest domed ovens so far found in Troy date back to 2000 B.C., about 300 years earlier than Aslan and his team’s latest discovery.
Aslan said architectural developments in Troy, where archeological excavations have been going on for 150 years, pointed to changes in the city’s culinary tradition during the period identified with Anatolian culture.
Troy was the first site where prehistoric period excavations were conducted and turned into a science. Troia and its environs were designated a National Historical Park by the Turkish government on September 30, 1996, and were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998. Between the years 3.000 BC and 500 AD, the ancient city of Troy was continuously inhabited due to its strategic geographic location.
The area of the domed oven in Troy, Çanakkale, northwestern Türkiye.
Kerpiç (sun-dried bricks) was used during the construction of the walls of houses in the settlements. Therefore after a long chain of settlements, an artificial hill was composed containing the different layers of the city.
After the excavations were carried out 10 different city layers and more than 50 building phases were identified.
These cities in short: Troia I – III (Littoral Troia Culture): This name was especially given due to the distribution of settlements in the Mediterranean region. This period starts nearly 3000 BC and ends in 2500 BC. Troia IV – V: Anatolian Characterized Troia Culture: It begins in 2100 BC and continues until the 1700’s BC. Troia VI-VII (From 1700 BC to 1100 BC) was defined as High Troia Troia Culture by archaeologists.
After a gap of several centuries, the settlement of Greeks in Troy VIII continued from 700’s BC to approximately 85 BC. In Troia IX, there was a Roman settlement from 85 BC to 500’s AC.
In Troy X the Byzantine settlement which started in the 12th century continued to the 13th century. After this time, due to great political changes in that period, Troia lost its importance in cultural life.
Especially European intellectuals’ growing interest in Troia after the 17th century, culminated with Heinrich Schliemann and this importance has continued to the present day.
A cave complex with hieroglyphs and Varangian symbols discovered in center of Ukraine
An ancient cave complex thought to date from Kievan Rus’ has been discovered in central Kyiv at Voznesensky Uzvoz.
Dmytro Perov, a conservationist at Kyiv’s Center for Urban Development, told Radio Kultura that the caves were discovered next to a demolished house that Kyiv housing authorities had deemed unsafe for habitation.
Actually, Dmytro Perov followed his grandmother’s clues. Perov’s grandmother used to talk about a large stone house next to an old cave, but no one knew its location of it.
According to Perov, who had previously examined the area several times, only the front facia of the house remained, concealed by bushes.
The conservationist told reporters that he and his friends decided to go to the old house “on a small expedition to look for caves,” and they discovered an entrance.
The first archaeological explorations in the Voznesensky Caves were carried out by Perov and a group of researchers from the Institute of Archaeology last Saturday.
Timur Bobrovskyi, an archaeology professor at the Sofia Kyivska reserve, said he was “amazed that such a treasure was found in the center of Kyiv” after spending three hours exploring the cave.
A unique discovery in the center of Kyiv.
The team discovered pottery fragments from the Late Kyivan Rus’ era, an Eastern and Northern European state that existed from the late ninth to the middle of the thirteenth century, in the cave’s northern section.
Perov wrote on Facebook that the team scoured around 40 meters (131 feet) of caves, including the lower cave complex, which he claims is twice as long as the upper passage and has a series of “radial branches.”
The most significant discovery, according to Petrov, was “a set of Kyivan Rus hieroglyphs and Varangian symbols from the Early Rus period,” when the region was under the control of Varangian rulers.
While more investigation is required to confirm it, according to Dmytro Perov, they think that some of the carved symbols may date all the way back to the fifth or sixth centuries BC. He says that “animistic images of animals and graffiti” from the Varyaz period, including the rune Algiz (“chicken’s foot”), were also discovered on the walls. This was an ancient Varangian charm, a symbol of safety and longevity.
Several Hellenic Greek colonies were established on the northern coast of the Black Sea, on the Crimean Peninsula, and along the Sea of Azov between the 7th and 6th centuries BC.
The steppe hinterland was occupied by the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians who traded with the Greek/Roman colonies after a period of control by the Roman empire during the first millennium BC.
Rurik, a Varangian or Viking prince, established the Kyivan state in the latter part of the ninth century.
Up until the 13th century, his descendants established and controlled a global trade route to the west. However, the Kyivan state was made up of East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic peoples, making it difficult to determine who left the carved symbols on the cave walls.
A rare Elizabethan ship discovered at quarry 300 meters from the coast
In April 2022, a team from CEMEX unexpectedly uncovered the remains of a rare Elizabethan-era ship, while dredging for aggregates at a quarry on the Dungeness headland, in Kent.
Found some 300 metres from the coast, the discovery stumped the quarry team, who contacted our experts to study the remains. Recognising the significance of this extraordinary discovery, Kent County Council enlisted specialist support and emergency funding from Historic England.
Above: Wessex Archaeology Marine Archaeologist, Andrea Hamel, in the Digging for Britain studio with Alice Roberts.
Very few English-built 16th-century vessels survive, making this a rare discovery from what was a fascinating period in the history of seafaring.
The late 16th-century was a period of great expansion of trade, with the English Channel serving as a major route on Europe’s Atlantic seaboard.
Although the ship remains unidentified, it represents an era when English vessels and ports played an important role in this busy traffic.
Above: Archaeologist records the ship’s remains on-site (Left). The hull of the 16th-century ship remains at the quarry (Right).
Over 100 timbers from the ship’s hull were recovered, with dendrochronological analysis, funded by Historic England, dating the timbers that built the ship to between 1558 and 1580 and confirming it was made of English oak.
This places the ship at a transitional period in Northern European ship construction. When ships are believed to have moved from a traditional clinker construction (as seen in Viking vessels) to frame-first-built ships (as recorded here), where the internal framing is built first and flush-laid planking is later added to the frames to create a smooth outer hull.
This technique is similar to what was used on the Mary Rose, built between 1509 and 1511, and the ships that would explore and settle along the Atlantic coastlines of the New World.
Above: Archaeologist records the ship’s remains on-site.
Andrea Hamel, Marine Archaeologist at Wessex Archaeology, said: “To find a late 16th-century ship preserved in the sediment of a quarry was an unexpected but very welcome find indeed.
The ship has the potential to tell us so much about a period where we have little surviving evidence of shipbuilding but yet was such a great period of change in ship construction and seafaring.”
Although uncovered 300 metres from the sea in what is today a quarry, experts believe the site would have once been on the coastline, and that the ship either wrecked on the shingle headland or was discarded at the end of its useful life. Its discovery presents a fascinating opportunity to understand the development of the coast, ports and shipping of this stretch of the Kent coast.
Antony Firth, Head of Marine Heritage Strategy at Historic England, said: “The remains of this ship are really significant, helping us to understand not only the vessel itself but the wider landscape of shipbuilding and trade in this dynamic period.
CEMEX staff deserve our thanks for recognising that this unexpected discovery is something special and for seeking archaeological assistance.
Historic England has been very pleased to support the emergency work by Kent County Council and Wessex Archaeology, and to see the results shared in the new season of Digging for Britain.”
Our archaeologists have recorded the ship using laser scanning and digital photography. Once our work is complete the timbers will be reburied in the quarry lake where they were uncovered so that the silt can continue to preserve the remains.
