High-status Danish Vikings wore exotic beaver furs

High-status Danish Vikings wore exotic beaver furs

Beaver fur was a symbol of wealth and an important trade item in 10th Century Denmark, according to a study published July 27, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Luise Ørsted Brandt of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues.

Written sources indicate that fur was a key commodity during the Viking Age, between 800-1050 CE, but fur doesn’t often survive well in the archaeological record, so little direct evidence is available.

Previous reports have used the microscopic anatomy of ancient fur to identify species of origin, but this method is often inexact. All in all, not much is known about the kinds of furs the Vikings preferred.

Map of studied sites (a) and examples of included fur: b) Hvilehøj C4273-97, fragment 1, c) Hvilehøj C4280c, d) Bjerringhøj C143. Graphics: Luise Ørsted Brandt and Charlotte Rimstad.

In this study, Brandt and colleagues analyzed animal remains from six high-status graves from 10th Century Denmark. 

While no ancient DNA was recovered from the samples, perhaps due to treatment processes performed on furs and skins and probably due to preservation conditions, identifiable proteins were recovered by two different analytical techniques. 

Grave furnishings and accessories included skins from domestic animals, while clothing exhibited furs from wild animals, specifically a weasel, a squirrel, and beavers.

These findings support the idea that fur was a symbol of wealth during the Viking Age.

The fact that beavers are not native to Denmark suggests this fur was a luxury item acquired through trade.

Some clothing items included fur from multiple species, demonstrating a knowledge of the varying functions of different animal hides, and may have indicated a desire to show off exclusive furs.

The authors note the biggest limiting factor in this sort of study is the incompleteness of comparative protein databases; as these databases expand, more specific identifications of ancient animal skins and furs will be possible.

The authors add: “In the Viking Age, wearing exotic fur was almost certainly an obvious visual statement of affluence and social status, similar to high-end fashion in today’s world.

This study uses ancient proteins preserved in elite Danish Viking burials to provide direct evidence of beaver fur trade and use.”

Neolithic Tomb Linked to King Arthur Investigated in England

Neolithic Tomb Linked to King Arthur Investigated in England

High above one of western Britain’s loveliest valleys, the silence is broken by the sound of gentle digging, scraping and brushing, along with bursts of excited chatter as another ancient feature is revealed or a curious visitor stops by to find out what is going on.

Neolithic Tomb Linked to King Arthur Investigated in England
Archaeologists digging at Arthur’s Stone, Herefordshire, thought it to be an important neolithic meeting place like Stonehenge and Avebury.

This summer archaeologists have been granted rare permission to excavate part of the Arthur’s Stone site, a neolithic burial plot with soaring views across the Golden Valley in Herefordshire and the Black Mountains of south-east Wales.

Using their version of keyhole surgery, the archaeologists unearthed features, including what appear to be stone steps leading up to the 5,000-year-old tomb, and tools used by the first people to farm this landscape.

The 25-strong team have launched drones that have pinpointed possible sites of several other ancient burial spots nearby, all of which are leading them to surmise that Arthur’s Stone – like the circles at Stonehenge and Avebury – was an important meeting place and possibly part of a much larger complex of inter-related monuments.

Julian Thomas of Manchester University at the dig site.

“Arthur’s Stone is one of the most wonderful ancient monuments in the care of the nation but it’s been very poorly understood,” said Julian Thomas, a professor of archaeology at the University of Manchester, who is leading the dig. “We’re trying to do justice to it, put it in the context of what was happening in the very early neolithic.”

Over the centuries the site has inspired storytellers as well as archaeologists and historians. King Arthur was said to have killed a giant on the spot; indentations on the surface of the tomb’s capstone were supposedly made by the creature’s elbows as it fell backwards.

In the 20th century, CS Lewis is said to have used the monument as the inspiration for the stone table on which Aslan is sacrificed in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Thomas said the true story emerging was of a monument developed over many decades or centuries in the very early neolithic period by the first farmers and last hunter-gatherers.

He said it was becoming clear that it was almost certainly connected to two other nearby sites, Dorstone Hill, where prehistoric halls were burned and incorporated into burial mounds, and a long barrow at Cross Lodge.

The site has views across the Golden Valley in Herefordshire and the Black Mountains of southeast Wales.

The site also seems oriented towards a mountain on the horizon across the border in Wales called the Skirrid, another place steeped in myth and legend, where a landslide was said to have been caused by an earthquake or lightning strike at the moment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Keith Ray, an honorary professor of archaeology at Cardiff University, who is also overseeing the digging, said he had been asking people to look afresh at the Skirrid and imagine what it may have meant to ancient people. “I’ve thrown out one idea, it’s a bit wacky, but could it have looked like a mammoth to them and reminded them of this giant creature that used to roam here.”

Visitors have flocked to the dig from near and far. Ben Hughes, a musician based in Cardiff, said he found the site “strange, weird, wonderful, fascinating”. He said: “For me it feels like an in-between sort of place, with the more gentle landscape behind and the mountains over there. I can see why people have met here for centuries.”

Pam Thom-Rowe, an English Heritage volunteer guide, said visitors from as far away as Texas had been on site. “To me it feels like the monument is putting feelers out on the landscape.”

Thomas examines uncovered stones, and evidence of a wall around the site.

Such is the excitement at what is being found – and the public response – that the chief executive of English Heritage, Kate Mavor, is paying a visit on Friday. She said new archaeology and research continued to find fresh stories.

“Exploring a site like Arthur’s Stone is a fascinating process and something we wanted to open up to the public,” she said. “We’ve had a great response.”

Keeping an eye on the dig was Win Scutt, a properties curator at English Heritage. He said it was rare for permission to be given for this type of exploration within a scheduled monument. “This is very delicate, targeted keyhole sampling to try to answer specific questions,” he said.

Scutt said ideas about what the site was all about had changed immensely over the past few weeks – making the details on the English Heritage interpretation board out of date. “But I won’t be in too much of a rush to change it. The story will be different next year and the year after that. Which is the very exciting thing.”

Helle’s Toilet: Three-Person Loo Seat was Unusual Medieval Status Symbol

Helle’s Toilet: Three-Person Loo Seat was Unusual Medieval Status Symbol

A rare 12th-century toilet seat built to accommodate three users at once is to go on display for the first time at the Museum of London Docklands.

Conservator Luisa Duarte working on the 12th-century toilet seat.

Nine hundred years after the roughly carved plank of oak was first placed over a cesspit near a tributary of the Thames, it will form the centrepiece of an exhibition about the capital’s “secret” rivers.

The strikingly well-preserved seat, still showing the axe marks where its three rough holes were cut, once sat behind a mixed commercial and residential tenement building on what is now Ludgate Hill, near St Paul’s Cathedral, on land that in the mid-1100s would have been a small island in the river Fleet.

Remarkably, archaeologists have even been able to identify the owners of the building, which was known at the time as Helle: a capmaker called John de Flete and his wife, Cassandra.

“So what I love about this is that we know the names of the people whose bottoms probably sat on it,” said Kate Sumnall, the curator of archaeology for the exhibition.

Axe marks are visible where the seat’s three rough holes were cut.

They would probably have shared the facilities with shopkeepers and potentially other families who lived and worked in the modest tenement block, she said. “This is a really rare survival. We don’t have many of these in existence at all.”

Around 50 small rivers and tributaries of the Thames are known, according to Sumnall, many of which, including the Fleet, Westbourne, Effra and Tyburn, have now been routed underground. But their influence on the topography of London has been significant, and their banks, bends and islands can still be identified in the capital’s slopes and bumps. “No one perfectly flattens the land before building the next stage,” she said.

Among the other artefacts going on display is a late bronze age sword dating from 1000BC, two Viking battleaxes and a 14th-century iron sword found in Putney, all of which appear barely corroded despite having spent centuries buried in mud.

Also on display will be a late 18th-century copper alloy dog collar, inscribed to “Tom, of the Gray Hound, Bucklers Bury” – a street close to what is now Bank – which was also excavated from the Fleet.

“We are very lucky in London that we tend to get really great preservation of a lot of things from the river,” said Luisa Duarte, the archaeological conservator.

Thanks to the low-oxygen environments of the waters and surrounding muds, she said, “in the case of the metals we have very low corrosion, and in organics, we have a very low biological activity. That’s why in London we have so much wood and leather – sometimes we have more organic Roman material than in Rome.”

The toilet seat was first excavated in the 1980s as part of what was, at the time, the largest archaeological dig in London. But because the money ran out, the findings were never published, which is why the seat has never gone on display before now.

The museum has commissioned a replica, which will form part of the exhibition and which visitors will be invited to try.

Sumnall said it was quite comfortable, but were three people to use at once “I imagine you would be touching shoulders, which would be slightly awkward.”

The ancient Vespasianus Titus Tunnel of Turkey

The ancient Vespasianus Titus Tunnel of Turkey

The ancient Vespasianus Titus Tunnel of Turkey
The ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.

In the Samandağ district of southern Turkey’s Hatay province, the Vespasianus Titus Tunnel, or simply the Titus Tunnel, is a magnificent ancient structure constructed by 1,000 slaves to prevent floodwaters in the area, has been garnering particular attention from tourists.

The Titus Tunnel was a mega project 2,000 years ago carved into the mountain, and it still stands as an unbelievable engineering marvel.

The tunnel, which was built to prevent floodwaters that carried sand and gravel down the mountains from filling the city’s harbour and threatening it, was first conceived by the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who started its construction in A.D. 69. Its construction continued during the reign of his successor and son Emperor Titus and in the times of his other successors.

The ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.

It was finally completed during the era of Antoninus Pius in the second century. It was built by digging the rocks using human resources only.

The tunnel is part of a water diversion system consisting of a dam, a short approach channel, the first tunnel section, a short intermediary channel, the second tunnel section and a long discharge channel.

It hosts an inscription elegantly carved into the rock at the first tunnel entrance that reads the names of Vespasianus and Titus, while there is another one at the discharge tunnel for Antonious.

Ancient structures near the Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.

It stands today as a must-see site for anyone that visits Hatay as it takes visitors on a wonderful journey through time. The tunnel is 1,380 meters (4,527 feet) long with a height of 7 meters and a width of 6 meters, attracting admiration from local visitors and abroad with its architecture in the middle of nature.

The tunnel is part of a water diversion system consisting of a dam, a short approach channel, the first tunnel section, a short intermediary channel, the second tunnel section and a long discharge channel.

It is located at the foot of the Nur Mountains, near the modern village of Çevlik, 7 kilometres (4.3 miles), northwest of central Samandağ (the medieval port of Saint Symeon) and 35 kilometres southwest of Antakya.

The ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.
Beşikli Cave where 12 rock tombs are located near the ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.

Beşikli Cave is also right next to the tunnel, standing only 100 meters away, boasting a particularly flashy architectural structure and decoration. In the cave, there are tombs from the ancient Roman period, believed to belong to a nobleman and his family.

Those who come to visit the tunnel also get the chance to see the tomb chambers here.

Ayşe Ersoy, director of the Hatay Archaeology Museum, said that it was evident from these sites as well that Hatay occupied a significantly important historical and cultural value.

Ersoy stated that the city had hosted several civilizations throughout its history and that now it was receiving great interest from both domestic and foreign visitors. She noted that the Titus Tunnel was one of the most remarkable places in the city.

She also said that the number of visitors to the tunnel was increasing day by day.

Beşikli Cave where 12 rock tombs are located near the ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.
The path between high stone walls to the ancient Roman Titus Tunnel, in the Samandağ district of Hatay, Turkey.

“The 1,380-meter-long Titus Tunnel, an important Roman ruin of our city, takes its visitors on a journey in time,” Ersoy said and added, “More than 28,000 local and foreign visitors have been to Titus Tunnel over the last eight months in Samandağ.”

Cafer Tayyar Demirci, who came from Gaziantep, said, “Titus Tunnel is a place of a natural wonder; everyone should definitely stop by here.”

Celal Karadavut, who came from Mersin to visit the tunnel with his family, said that Hatay is an important city that has left its mark on history.

Karadavut stated that he was pleased to visit the city that has hosted many civilizations. “Hatay is a city that has a different place in Turkey both in terms of history, nature and gastronomy,” he said.

Şükran Naz Karadavut also noted that she liked the tunnel very much and that everyone should see it.

Archaeologists unearth a 3,500-year-old warrior’s grave in Greece

Archaeologists unearth a 3,500-year-old warrior’s grave in Greece

An undated picture released on October 26, 2105, by the Greek Culture Ministry shows an ivory comb, one of the items found in a 3,500 years old warrior tomb unearthed in the Peloponnese region of Greece

Archaeologists in Greece have made a rare and exciting discovery – an ancient unlooted tomb with the remains of an unknown warrior and a huge hoard of treasure.  The Greek Ministry of Culture announced that it is the most important treasure to have been discovered in 65 years.

The Ministry of Culture announced the finding today, revealing that two US archaeologists, Jack L. Davis and Sharon R. Stocker from the University of Cincinnati, made the discovery while excavating the 3,500-year-old Palace of Nestor on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula.

The Palace of Nestor, located at the top of the hill of Epano Englianos, near Pylos, is the best preserved Mycenaean Greek palace discovered. It once consisted of a two-storey building with reception rooms, baths, workshops, store rooms, and an established sewage system.

Photo of Nestor’s Palace taken in 2010.

The tomb, which measures 2.4 meters in length and 1.5 meters in width, was discovered on the site of the palace complex.

However, it had been placed there many years before the palace was built. Surprisingly, the tomb had not been looted in antiquity, unlike most of the other Mycenaean-era tombs found to date.

Inside the tomb, archaeologists discovered the remains of a wooden coffin containing the skeleton of an unknown warrior, aged between 30 and 35 years old. 

Next to him were his weapons – a bronze sword with a gold and ivory handle and a gold-hilted dagger.

Considering his place of burial and the treasures he was buried with, he is believed to have been a person of great importance.

According to the Ministry of Culture, the treasures also included gold rings, an ornate string of pearls, 50 Minoan seal stones carved with imagery of goddesses, silver vases, gold cups, a bronze mirror, ivory combs, an ivory plaque carved with a griffin, and Minoan-style gold jewellery decorated with figures of deities, animals, and floral motifs.

Archaeologists unearth a 3,500-year-old warrior's grave in Greece
A bronze mirror with an ivory handle was found in the grave of the warrior.

Many of the artefacts found in the tomb have been traced to Crete, the island upon which the Minoan civilization arose.

James C. Wright, the director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, told the New York Times that the finding of the tomb “will help scholars understand how the state cultures that developed in Crete were adopted into what became the Mycenaean palace culture on the mainland.”

Artefacts were recovered from the grave of the ancient warrior.

Archaeologists now plan to carry out a DNA analysis on the warrior’s remains to try to determine his origin.  They also plan to carry out radiocarbon tests on the plant material recovered from the tomb, which may allow more accurate dating of the burial.

Evidence of Third-Century A.D. Tsunami Uncovered in Spain

Evidence of Third-Century A.D. Tsunami Uncovered in Spain

The Seville Cathedral, as seen from Patio de Banderas Plaza.

In the 1970s, two Roman inscriptions — dated from 245 to 253 AD — were discovered in Écija (known in ancient Roman times as Astigi), a city in Spain’s southern province of Seville. The writings on the tablets suggest that the emperor at the time had exempted the Roman province of Baetica (roughly the equivalent of modern-day Andalusia, a region of southern Spain) from taxes. But the inscriptions failed to explain why, and the reason has remained a mystery for decades.

In a new study published in Natural Science in Archaeology, a team of European and U.S. scientists and researchers say they have finally found an explanation. The article, A Third Century AD Extreme Wave Event Identified in a Collapse Facies of a Public Building in the Roman City of Hispalis (Seville, Spain), provides a surprising answer: A gigantic tsunami that began in the Bay of Cadiz crashed into the land, causing numerous coastal settlements to be abandoned and engulfing everything its path, including the city of Seville, located 45 miles inland from the sea.

The discovery was made following the excavation and study of a public building from the Roman era, destroyed during what researchers now believe was a massive tidal wave event. The building once stood in what is now the Patio de Banderas public square in Seville, adjacent to the capital city’s main cathedral.

The report, authored by experts from universities in Spain, France, Germany, and the U.S. describes how, in 400 BC, the Atlantic Ocean had created a large lagoon, known in antiquity as Lacus Ligustinus, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.

The lake was fed by three river corridors, one of which led directly to Hispalis. The river was large enough that medium-sized ships could use it to transport minerals, oil, wine, and other goods as far inland as Alcalá del Río, roughly 10 miles past Seville. It is estimated that the Port of Seville was quite large, even at that time, stretching over a kilometer in length and moving some 18,000 tons of merchandise per year.

Between 2009 and 2014, a team of archaeologists excavated the Patio de Banderas site. “Impressive urban stratigraphy dated between the ninth century BC and the thirteenth century AD,” the report reads. “From all these findings, a very well-preserved Roman public building […] stands out. The building [was] constructed in opus africanum [a form of Roman brick masonry] during the Late Republic (60 to 30 BC).” It was organized around a central courtyard, with a gallery of columns at its southern end. Experts identified the site as a commercial and administrative space associated with the Hispalis river port.

Analyzing the ruins at the Patio de Banderas, the first team of archaeologists to study the site concluded that the ancient building had been repaired several times under the Flavian Dynasty (late 1st century AD), but especially between the years 200 and 225 AD, when there was “widespread collapse of the architectural remains [and] most of the southern walls appear to have been displaced from their original position [by an external force], always in the same direction, toward the northwest.” At the time, the archaeologists ruled out a tsunami for two main reasons: because the site is 22 feet above sea level, and because the distance between Híspalis and the Lacus Ligustinus was almost 25 miles in Roman times (now it’s more than 45 miles). In other words, for a tsunami to destroy the building, it would have had to be bigger than any on record — the mother of all tsunamis.

Remains of an ancient Roman building destroyed by a tsunami in the 3rd century AD were found inside an excavated public building in Seville, Spain.

The authors of the new report ―Mario Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, José N. Pérez-Asensio, Francisco José Martín Peinado, Enrique García Vargas, Miguel Ángel Tabales, Antonio Rodríguez Ramírez, Eduardo Mayoral Alfaro and Paul Goldberg ― were not satisfied with the first team’s findings. They believed that an opinion based on a visual analysis of the site “was not enough,” so they undertook a multidisciplinary study that combined macro- and microscale methods and techniques.

They used carbon-14 dating, micromorphology, mineralogy, geochemistry, micropaleontology, ultraviolet fluorescence microscopy, accelerator mass spectrometry, radiocarbon calibration, and ceramic and materials science, among other techniques, to re-examine the site and search for new answers.

The team of researchers began to analyze “a microlaminated deposit, alternating sandy and silty beds, and with abundant fresh-fragmented shell,” as well as brick columns, several calcarenite ashlars, plaster and paint, a fluted column, fragmented marble from different Mediterranean quarries, an inscription, and a complete marble votive relief, typical of the Cult of Isis. What was especially striking about the site, the team discovered, was that “the materials [did] not belong to the building excavated at the Patio de Banderas, since it was constructed with different materials (mainly limestone and brick) and different techniques.” Rather, these exogenous architectural elements had been chemically transformed by a “highly energetic event,” which transported them to the Patio de Banderas, where they were trapped inside the building due to flooding from the tsunami.

The report calculates that the flooding occurred between the years 197 and 225.

The courtyard of the public building was destroyed by the tsunami in Hispalis.

Among the objects excavated at the site was an inscription reading “IIAVRHERACLAE / PATETFILFBAR AVR HERACLAE/ PAT ET FIL / F BAR.” The artefact was originally fabricated in a ceramics workshop owned by Roman emperors Septimius Severus, Antonino Caracalla, and Geta, which once stood on the banks of the Guadalquivir River.

The inscription references Aurelii Heraclae, the family of freedmen who managed the workshop between 197 and 207 AD — the same period from which the other artefacts found on the site date.

On the left, are fragments of paintings and marble; in the centre, a votive plaque dedicated to the goddess Isis; on the right, a close-up of a piece of marble.

The study thus concludes that “the Patio de Banderas deposit was generated during an extreme wave event,” and that the building acted as a trap for the artefacts transported inland by the tsunami. “With the data, we actually have, and considering the distance at this point from the coast in Roman times [about 25 miles], and also taking into account the distance from this point to the coast in Roman times [about 40 kilometres], we affirm that the most probable origin of the deposit identified is the combined action of an energetic storm, which might have produced waves and currents in the Lacus Ligustinus energetic enough to transport estuary and marine fauna, together with extreme rainfall and flooding from the Guadalquivir River.”

These new findings suggest an answer to the mystery posed by the inscriptions found in Écija that indicate Baetica’s status as prouincia immunis — a province exempt from taxes. As the authors of the Patio de Banderas study note, this status was most commonly granted in the aftermath of natural disasters. Like, as an example, a tsunami.

Ice Age Footprints Uncovered in Utah

Ice Age Footprints Uncovered in Utah

Human footprints believed to date from the end of the last ice age have been discovered on the salt flats of the Air Force’s Utah Testing and Training Range (UTTR) by Cornell researcher Thomas Urban in forthcoming research.

Ice Age Footprints Uncovered in Utah
Footprints discovered on an archaeological site are marked with a pin flag on the Utah Test and Training Range.

Urban and Daron Duke, of Far Western Anthropological Research Group, were driving to an archaeological hearth site at UTTR when Urban spotted what appeared to be “ghost tracks” – tracks that appear suddenly for a short time when moisture conditions are right, and then disappear again.

Stopping to look, Urban immediately identified what to him was a familiar sight: unshod human footprints, similar to those he has investigated at White Sands National Park, including the earliest known human footprints in the Americas.

“It was a truly serendipitous find,” said Urban, a research scientist in the College of Arts and Sciences and with the Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory.

The researchers returned to the site the next day and began documenting the prints, with Urban conducting a ground-penetrating radar survey of one of the two visible trackways.

Since he previously refined the application of geophysical methods, including radar, for imaging footprints at White Sands, Urban was able to quickly identify what was hidden.

“As was the case at White Sands, the visible ghost tracks were just part of the story,” Urban said. “We detected many more invisible prints by radar.”

Duke excavated a subset of the prints, confirming that they were barefoot and that there were additional unseen prints. Altogether, 88 footprints were documented, including both adults and children, offering insight into family life in the time of the Pleistocene.

“Based on excavations of several prints, we’ve found evidence of adults with children from about five to 12 years of age leaving bare footprints,” Duke said in an Air Force press release. “People appear to have been walking in shallow water, the sand rapidly infilling their print behind them – much as you might experience on a beach – but under the sand was a layer of mud that kept the print intact after infilling.”

Since there haven’t been any wetland conditions in at least 10,000 years that could have produced such footprint trails in this remote area of the Great Salt Lake Desert, Duke said, the prints are likely more than 12,000 years old.

Additional research is being done to confirm the discovery.

“We found so much more than we bargained for,” Anya Kitterman, the Air Force Cultural Resource Manager for the area, said in a statement.

Urban was working at the request of Duke, who had previously found two open-air hearths in the UTTR dated to the end of the Ice Age. At one of these hearth sites, Duke found the earliest evidence of human tobacco use. Those hearths were about a half-mile from the newly discovered footprints.

The site has broader significance, according to Urban. “We have long wondered whether other sites like White Sands were out there and whether ground-penetrating radar would be effective for imaging footprints at locations other than White Sands since it was a very novel application of the technology,” he said. “The answer to both questions is ‘yes.’”

While the Utah site is not as old and may not be as extensive as White Sands, Urban said there might be much more to be found.

Researchers Have Just Reconstructed a 2,300-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy’s Face

Researchers Have Just Reconstructed a 2,300-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy’s Face

Australian researchers have reconstructed the face of an ancient Egyptian mummy, using a 3D printer to create a replica skull and forensic sculpting techniques to bring it to life.

While the sculpture is awesome in its own right and allows us to get a glimpse into an ancient culture, the team says the reconstruction will also teach students about diagnosing pathologies in former populations.

“The idea of the project is to take this relic and, in a sense, bring her back to life by using all the new technology,” said team member Varsha Pilbrow, from the University of Melbourne.

“This way she can become much more than a fascinating object to be put on display. Through her, students will be able to learn how to diagnose pathology marked on our anatomy, and learn how whole population groups can be affected by the environments in which they live.”

The funny thing is that the mummy – which is just a wrapped head with no body – was found by accident inside the university’s collections area where a curator was performing an audit.

The team suspects the head might have been brought to the university by Frederic Wood Jones, an archaeologist turned anatomy professor, who taught there in the early 1900s.

“Her face is kept upright because it is more respectful that way,” said museum curator Ryan Jefferies. “She was once a living person, just like all the human specimens we have preserved here, and we can’t forget that.”

The decision to reconstruct the face was prompted when Jefferies grew concerned that the skull was starting to rot from the inside. This is a unique problem, because the team can’t unwrap the mummy to check if everything is okay, and risk further damaging the specimen.

Instead, they used a CT scan to see what was going on inside. “The CT scan opened up a whole lot of questions and avenues of enquiry and we realised it was a great forensic and teaching opportunity in collaborative research,” Jefferies said.

To help reconstruct the face based on what they now knew of the skull, the researchers called in a team of forensic experts from Monash University.

Based on the CT scans of the skull, the Monash team estimated that the head once belonged to a woman – who the team has named Meritamun – who likely lived around 300 BC.

There’s still a lot to learn about the exact timeframe through radiocarbon dating, though, which will hopefully get underway soon.

With the CT scans, imaging specialist Gavan Mitchell was able to use a 3D printer to create an exact replica of the skull:

With that, the team turned the skull over to Jennifer Mann, a forensic sculptor, who painstakingly reconstructed the mummy’s face using clay and all of the data gathered by the forensic team.

“It is incredible that her skull is in such good condition after all this time, and the model that Gavan produced was beautiful in its details,” Mann said. “It is really poignant work and extremely important for finally identifying these people who would otherwise have remained unknown.”

The end result was a completely reconstructed face that offers a unique way to see an ancient Egyptian:

The team’s work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, so the technique awaits proper scrutiny, though publication will likely be forthcoming after more analysis is done on the head using radiocarbon dating techniques.

Check out the video below to see the reconstruction in action:

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