Archaeologists have discovered a wooden sculpture depicting a litter bearer of a ruler of the Chimú culture at the Chan Chan archaeological site on the outskirts of Trujillo, northwestern Peru.
The sculpture has not been absolutely dated yet, but the style indicates it is early Chimú, between 850 and 1,470 years old, making it one of the oldest sculptures found at the site. Despite its advanced age, it is in excellent condition, complete with its original bright paint.
The piece was unearthed during conservation work on the Huaca Takaynamo, a pyramidal structure in the north of the ancient complex. The sculpture is 18.5 inches long and just over six inches wide and depicts a male figure with bent arms and straight legs.
The face is oval in shape and flat with the exception of a veritable sundial of the nose that juts upwards. It is painted red. The eyes are almond-shaped and filled in with a black resin originally used as an adhesive for mother-of-pearl inlays that are now lost. The curved, scooped ears have a layer of the same black resin.
The right arm is bent upwards at the elbow, cleaving close to the body. The hand is at shoulder height, palm facing the torso.
The left arm bends 90 degrees at the elbow with the hand outstretched in front of the torso. The chest, arms and hands were also painted red.
He wears a trapezoidal cap and a triangular skirt. The cap is decorated with seven vertical bands in alternating light and dark colours, with a dark horizontal band across the forehead.
The skirt has a dark triangle in the middle and the edge is decorated with rectangular bands similar to the ones on the cap.
Next to the sculpture, archaeologists discovered nectandra seeds — known to have been used for ritual purposes in pre-Hispanic Peru — that were strung on a thread to wear as a necklace.
Underneath the figure was a small black bag stitched with decorative brown and white thread.
Archaeologist Arturo Paredes Núñez, head of the Pecach Research, Conservation and Enhancement Unit, pointed out the characteristics of this finding. “Chimú wood carvings or sculptures are fixed or mobile. The former are documented at the entrance to some walled complexes of Chan Chan, from an uncarved segment that when buried, fixes the carved portion of the element to the ground. The mobile sculpture lacks such an element and has frequently been documented in some huacas,” he said.
The Huaca Takaynamo is north of the main complex of Chan Chan. It is being excavated as part of a wider project of conservation and study to learn more about the peripheral buildings in the ancient city and how to preserve them for eventual display. The litter bearer sculpture is key evidence that the Huaca had a ceremonial function.
Archaeologists unearth 3,800-year-old wall relief in Peru
Wall carvings were found in what was once a fishing city of the Caral civilization, the oldest in the Americas. The relief is thought to symbolize a period of drought and famine brought on by climate change.
Archaeologists discovered an ancient wall relief in Peru, belonging to the oldest civilizations in the Americas, news agency Andina reported on Thursday. The wall is approximately 3,800 years old and portrays snakes and human heads.
One meter (3.2 feet) high and 2.8 meters long, the wall relief was discovered in the sea-side archaeological site of Vichama, 110 kilometres (68 miles) north of Peru’s capital, Lima.
The Vichama site is one of the excavation points of the recently discovered Caral civilization, also known as Norte Chico, and has been explored by archaeologists since 2007.
Aerial view of the Caral Archeological Area in the Supe valley
The Caral civilization is 5,000 years old, making it the oldest civilization in the Americas, and flourished at the same time as the thriving Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations. The Caral people lived in the Supe Valley along the north-central coast of Peru.
Dating back to 1800 and 3500 B.C., Vichama is thought to have been a fishing community and one of the Caral peoples’ various cities. The wall was made of adobe, a clay-like material from which bricks are made and was located at the entry point of a ceremonial hall.
The snakes represent a water deity that lands on a humanoid seed
Documenting climate change
The wall relief shows four human heads, side by side, their eyes closed, with two snakes passing between and around them. The snakes point their heads to what appears to be a humanoid seed symbol that is digging into the soil.
Archaeologist Ruth Shady, who oversees the site and announced the discovery, hypothesized that the serpents represent a water deity that irrigates the earth and makes seeds grow.
Shady said the relief was likely done towards the end of a drought and famine that the Caral civilization experienced. Other reliefs discovered nearby showed emaciated humans.
Archaeologists believe that the relief discovery reinforces the notion that these early humans were attempting to depict the difficulties they faced due to climate change and water scarcity, which had a large impact on their agricultural production.
The Caral excavation site has so far unearthed the ruins of 22 buildings in a 25-hectare space, dating back to between 1800 and 1500 B.C.
An Ancient Home Found Beneath the Baths of Caracalla Is Now on Display
On their own, the early third-century Baths of Caracalla in Rome are a site of imposing magnificence. But now, visitors will get to see what existed at the site before the lavish public baths were built: a Roman home with frescoed ceilings and a prayer room paying homage to Roman and Egyptian gods.
Discovered beneath the Baths of Caracalla, the two-story home dates to between 134 and 138 C.E.
“For the first time, visitors can admire parts of the frescoes from the ceiling of a second room of the Domus [home] that collapsed,” Luca del Fra, spokesperson for the Special Superintendence of Rome, tells CNN’s Livia Borghese and Jeevan Ravindran.
The two-story home was built around 134 to 138 C.E., in the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian, reports Nicole Winfield for the Associated Press (AP). But the structure was dismantled in part to make way for the baths, which opened in 216 C.E.
These ruins went largely undetected until the mid-19th century when they were discovered roughly ten yards below the baths.
Another century passed before they were excavated, at which point the prayer room and parts of the frescoed dining room ceiling were taken away to be restored, per the AP.
Now, the ceiling frescoes and prayer room are open as part of a permanent exhibition, which will help visitors see the baths in the context of what came before.
Dionysus (also known as Bacchus) was the god of wine and was depicted in the frescoes discovered under the Baths of Caracalla.
The ceiling depicts images of Bacchus, the god of wine, in “prized Egyptian blue and Cinnabar red pigments,” as conservators told the AP.
Anubis, the Egyptian god of death and the afterlife, is also depicted within the Roman frescoes at the Baths of Caracalla.
The inner temple shows the Roman gods Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, while also depicting silhouettes of the Egyptian deities Isis and Anubis. This religious melting pot suggests a mixing of Roman and Egyptian culture and religion, even in the domestic space.
“It’s stunning that there are two separate pantheons or groups of gods, one from the Greek-Roman tradition … and one from the Egyptian tradition,” del Fra tells CNN. “This could indicate that the family who owned the Domus had a close relationship with Egypt.”
The site’s director, Mirella Serlorenzi, tells CNN that the juxtaposition of the two cultures is an example of the “religious syncretism typical of ancient Rome since its foundation.”
The Roman frescoes were once part of a Domus, created between 134 and 138m during the time of Emperor Hadrian. The Baths of Caracalla were built on top of the site where this house had existed.
Additionally, experts are interested in the frescoes because other existing evidence of Roman wall art is found largely in Pompeii and Herculaneum, two towns buried and eventually preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., Serlorenzi tells the AP.
“Roman painting after the first century C.E. has remained a mystery,” she adds, “because we just haven’t had rooms so well-conserved.”
1200-Year-Old Tibetan Chessboard Found Engraved On Rock
The Tubo Kingdom of Tibet flourished from circa the 7th – 9th centuries. Interestingly enough, the ancient land-locked realm was influenced by both contemporary Chinese and Indians, especially in the fields of government, religion, literature, and culture.
Pertaining to the latter, archaeologists have discovered a Tibetan chessboard engraved on an imposing rock surface dating back to the Tubo era.
The discovery was made in what is now southwest China’s Sichuan province, with the site being located only around 19 miles away from the autonomous region of Garze in Tibet.
According to the researchers from the cultural and tourism bureau of the Tibetan autonomous region, the chessboard was carved on the surface of a 2-tonne rock, thus essentially making it the centrepiece of the massive ‘setup’.
However, since we are talking about chess, the board arrangement varies from our modern chessboard, with the 1,300-year-old specimen having 100 squares instead of 64.
Furthermore, the researchers also found two grooves on either side of the engraved board that was probably used for holding the pieces.
Now in terms of history, the Tubo Kingdom was multi-ethnic in nature, while also being one of the most powerful realms of Eastern Asia that established its dominance outside of traditional Tibet – mainly in the regions of what is now modern Gansu and Qinghai.
As for the cultural side of affairs, this ancient version of chess was pretty popular among the Tibetan noble classes, with the game often played by the commanders of the realm.
Relating to this scope, Chinese archaeologists had previously discovered a similar Tibetan chessboard in Maizhokunggar county within Tibet proper.
The face of a 4,500-year-old mummy found in Peru was digitally reconstructed
Last year, archaeologists came across a 4,500-year-old mummy of a woman at Aspero, in Peru – and she was given the moniker of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’. Now to put things into perspective, this ‘new world’ discovery is almost as old as the Great Pyramid of Giza, thus shedding light on the intricacy of the pre-Columbian civilizations of America.
And now, a collaborative effort from researchers (at Caral Archaeological Zone or ZAC and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University or UIGV) has resulted in the reconstruction of the face of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’, with the incredible recreation being unveiled at the Ministry of Culture in Lima, on 11th October.
The reconstructed visage represents a middle-aged woman (40-50 years old and around 5 ft tall) with simple features and a benign, almost-affectionate bearing. However, there was more to this ancient lady than her gentle face suggests. According to Dr Ruth Shady, director of ZAC –
It’s exciting to see the computer-generated 3D image of a person who we believe was a noblewoman with important social standing and authority in the ancient Caral civilization. Her discovery refers to the four brooches or ‘cuatro tupus’ carved from animal bones and shaped like monkeys and birds, that were found pinned to the fabric covering her remains. We know that these ornamental fasteners were used by women of prestige in traditional societies as symbols of their affluent social status. By revealing this ancient female’s face, we can throw some light on an intricate culture that supported gender equality, allowing both men and women to hold, political, religious and leadership roles.
Now as for this reconstruction, the process was not without its fair share of hiccups. For starters, the researchers had to deal with a missing eye. Furthermore, the mummy’s cranium was also severely deformed, possibly due to intentional ritual cranial distortions followed by some ancient Andean civilizations (for reasons still unknown). In any case, the scientists could figure out other aberrations, like three fractures on her skull that might have been caused by a fall.
Brazilian 3D computer graphic artist, Cicero Moraes, who was a part of the digital reconstruction process said –
There was a dark mass obscuring the skull’s left eye socket which was partly caused by decaying body tissues and remnants of the funeral blanket covering the corpse. Photogrammetry can only take 3D photographic scans of the outside of the object, so I digitized the skull as it was and found an ingenious way to fill in the gap. I simply mirrored the right eye orbit and copied it to the left side. I was able to soften the jawline by giving it a more feminine pointed chin.
He also talked about how the artists recreated the various facial features complemented by the different density parameters –
Working with a disfigured skull is always a challenge as there is very little data to use as a reference. I compared the ‘Lady’s’ skull with a modern woman of compatible ancestry and age. By overlapping the structures, you could see how the jaw on the ancient skull was more robust and square compared to the recent skull. I reconstructed the face by working with the anatomical distortion while referencing the modern skull. I also used data tables which give the standard density of skin tissue, muscles and fat on various sections of the head.
Coming to the historical scope of the ‘Lady with the Four Brooches’, the find hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of 2016, pertained to an entombed body discovered inside a burial chamber in the Huaca of the Idols.
This fascinating structure entails one of the many pyramid-shaped buildings in the region designed with overlapping platforms and a central staircase (pictured below).
The deceased woman was flanked by objects like broaches with animal-shaped etchings, a necklace made of sea shells, and a pendant of Spondylus (bivalve molluscs). These jewellery items allude to her affluent social status, while also hinting at how high-end commodities and items were possibly traded between the coastal and inland settlements in pre-Columbian Peru.
Interestingly enough, the site of coastal Aspero in itself is only 14 miles away from inland Caral (or Caral-Supe), possibly the oldest known city in the Americas. This obviously brings us to the question – who were these ancient inhabitants of Peru who built impressive monuments and pyramids that were contemporary to their Egyptian counterparts? Well, the answer points to the so-called Norte Chico civilization, a factional conglomeration of around 30 major population centres, which was established along the region of north-central coastal Peru.
The Norte Chico thrived from 3500-1800 BC, thus making them the oldest known civilization in the Americas. And of the major cities (or probably the biggest one) of this conglomeration was Caral, a massive urban sprawl that covered 60 hectares of area, and was home to numerous temple complexes, and earthen mounds (pyramids), circular plazas and even a geoglyph.
Various carved objects were found in the tomb.
The main temple compound among these impressive architectural feats relates to the Templo Mayor, a massive complex encompassing an area of 150 m (492 ft) in length and 110 m (360 ft) in width (with an average height of 28 m or 92 ft), which is more than equivalent of three American football fields! Oddly enough, the commercial and economic aptitude required for these ambitious constructional endeavours was (probably) not fueled by wars and conquests on the part of the political elite. In that regard, much like the ancient Jomon people of Japan, the Norte Chico culture was not predisposed toward violence, as evidenced by the lack of warfare-based weapons, trauma-bearing skeletons and even human sacrifices (which possibly occurred in very rare instances).
In any case, there is still much to know about the Norte Chico (Caral) civilization of ancient Peru and the inter-relation between the coastal towns (like Aspero) and the inland cities (like Caral). Furthermore, there is also the angle of how women could achieve higher statuses within the society – as evidenced by this mummy in question. And lastly, a baffling element accompanies the architectural feats of the advanced civilization, and it pertains to how the Norte Chico didn’t dabble in either visual art or ceramic-based pottery.
Magnificent Royal Celtic Tomb Discovered in France
Archaeologists have uncovered an extraordinary 2,500-year-old grave of a Celtic royal outside the town of Lavau in north-central France.
The skeleton is believed to be the remains of a royal Celtic prince or princess
The team has not yet been able to determine the gender of the inhumed individual, but the luxurious jewellery and artefacts that the person was buried with indicate that the tomb belonged to a member of the Celtic royal family.
The individual was buried wearing golden jewellery
The skeleton was buried with a two-wheeled chariot and was discovered wearing a 580g (1.2 lbs) decorated golden torque around its neck and two golden bracelets on its wrists.
A sheathed sword discovered nearby suggests that the person may have been a warrior or soldier.
Bastien Dubuis, chief archaeologist in charge of the excavation told the Daily Mail, “The presence of a chariot, a cauldron and bronze crockery are three typical characteristics of a princely tomb from this period.
They’re well-documented funerary objects, objects of prestige. They were used in religious ceremonies and as a way to show off the power of the elite.”
The tomb contained lavish Greek vases indicating the wealth of the buried individual
A statement from the National Archaeological Research Institute in France (INRAP) announced “The tomb contains funerary deposits worthy of the highest wealthy Hallstatt elites,” referring to the Hallstatt Celts, a culture that emerged in the Iron Age and spread across northern Europe.
The statement also explained, “The poor state of preservation of the bones means it is not yet possible to determine with certainty the sex of the individual.”
After 5,300 years, the last meal of an ancient Iceman has been revealed – and it was a high-fat, meaty feast
Some 5,300 years ago, Otzi (aka “frozen Fritz”) was murdered in the Alps with a simple one-two punch move: an arrow to the chest, and a blow to the head. But first, the roughly 45-year-old iceman fueled up, enjoying one last hearty meal.
Iceman’s stomach was full of fat.
Fortunately for science, his dead body was neatly preserved in a rock hollow and naturally mummified as the glaciers moved in and slid right over him, freezing his stomach contents.
What Otzi ate remained something of a mystery after he was first found in 1991. His stomach had shifted upwards over time, making it tough to pinpoint what he ate right before he died, and earlier studies focused more on his intestines. Some scientists thought he might’ve munched on some kind of prehistoric bacon.
New research, released Thursday in the journal Current Biology, gives us a closer picture than ever of exactly what the mountain man ate to power his high-altitude journey.
Turns out, the guy loved fat.
Microbiologist Frank Maixner of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies said he found a “remarkably high proportion of fat” – roughly 50% – in the mummy’s stomach.
Probing further into the DNA in iceman’s stomach, scientists found evidence of ibex [wild goat] and red deer inside, as well as einkorn wheat. A new analysis of the meat fibres in iceman’s gut confirms they were probably cooked, barbecued, or smoked and dried in some way before he ate them because the protein compounds looked different than raw meat would. Previous studies of iceman found some charcoal in his intestine, further suggesting he was a griller.
A rendering of what Ötzi might’ve looked like, from the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
A rendering of what Ötzi might’ve looked like, from the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
It looks like Otzi ate well. He had a good mix of nutritional minerals, like iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium, and sodium in his stomach. These probably came from consuming animal products.
He also had smaller concentrations of chromium, copper, manganese, selenium, molybdenum, and cobalt in there.
“These data suggest that the Iceman’s last meal was well balanced in terms of essential minerals required for good health,” the scientists wrote in their paper. That was a smart strategy for someone trekking nearly 10,500 feet high, slogging through the Alps between Austria and Italy.
“Iceman seemed to have been fully aware that fat represents an excellent energy source.” paleopathologist Albert Zink, also at the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies said in a release. “The high and cold environment is particularly challenging for the human physiology and requires optimal nutrient supply to avoid rapid starvation and energy loss.”
The iceman functioned using a similar principle to today’s popular ketogenic diet. When there are no carbohydrates or sugars left to fuel your journey, the body can switch into ketosis, relying on fats to keep the brain and body moving.
But the iceman was not a paleo dieter, nor was he a fan of the low-carb, high-fat keto plan.
“The Iceman’s last meal was a well-balanced mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, perfectly adjusted to the energetic requirements of his high-altitude trekking,” the paper’s authors wrote.
In other words, he wasn’t a picky eater, and nibbled on all kinds of foods, including some dangerous toxic bracken ferns. Scientists still aren’t sure exactly why he would have eaten a toxic leaf, but suspect it could have been some kind of early stomach medicine, or else it was just an earthy container that some of his other food was wrapped inside, like an early Tupperware.
His prehistoric body was not immune to some of the ill effects of a high-fat diet, either. Body scans show that his middle-aged arteries were hardening, and it looks like he was well on his way to developing coronary artery disease. That didn’t matter once he was murdered and plunged down into a dark rock hollow, putting his fresh and fatty meal on ice for curious scientists to discover thousands of years later.
Africa’s 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off
Africa’s iconic baobab trees are dying, and scientists don’t know why. In a study intended to examine why the trees are so long-living, researchers made the unexpected finding that many of the oldest and largest of the trees have died in the past decade or so.
The African baobab is one of the continent’s most recognizable tree species.
The African baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) is the oldest living flowering plant, or angiosperm, and is found in the continent’s tropical regions. Individual trees — which can contain up to 500 cubic metres of wood — can live for more than 2,000 years. Their wide trunks often have hollow cavities, and their high branches resemble roots sticking up into the air.
The researchers — who published their findings1 in Nature Plants on 11 June — set out to use a newly developed radiocarbon-dating technique to study the age and architecture of the species. Usual tree-ring dating methods are not suitable for baobabs, because their trunks do not necessarily grow annual rings.
The trees’ ages were previously attributed to their size. In local folklore, baobabs are often described as being old, says study author Adrian Patrut, a radiochemist at Babeş-Bolyai University in Romania.
Periodic renewal
Between 2005 and 2017, Patrut’s team dated more than 60 trees across Africa and its islands — nearly all of the continent’s largest, and potentially longest-living known baobabs. To compare the ages of different parts of the trees, the researchers collected samples of wood from the inner cavities and exteriors of the trunks and from deep incisions in the stems, which were then sealed to prevent infection.
Patrut and his colleagues say that their measurements suggest the trees live so long because they periodically produce new stems, similarly to how other trees produce new branches.
The team says that over time, these stems fuse into a ring-shaped structure, creating a false cavity in the middle.
But, surprisingly, the scientists also found that most of the oldest and largest baobabs died during the study, often suddenly between measurements.
Nine of the 13 oldest, and 5 of the 6 largest, baobabs measured died in the 12-year period — “an event of unprecedented magnitude”, says the study.
The researchers found no signs of an epidemic or disease, leading them to suggest that changing climates in southern Africa could be to blame — but they stress that more research is needed to confirm this idea.
In one instance, the researchers observed that in 2010 and 2011, all the stems of Panke, a giant, sacred baobab tree in Zimbabwe, fell over and died.
The team estimates that the tree was 2,450 years old, making it the oldest known accurately dated African baobab and angiosperm. Other trees across southern Africa also died completely or had partial stem collapse.
Local experts welcomed the technique for dating baobabs, but some were sceptical of the team’s findings on the die-off. Michael Wingfield, a plant pathologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, says that the team’s sample was small and did not provide evidence that baobabs are not afflicted by an epidemic. “We know very little about baobab health,” Wingfield says. “There is much more to this picture than purely the fact that the oldest trees are dying.”
Sarah Venter, a baobab specialist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, says that her team’s ongoing research shows that baobabs may not be as drought-resistant as previously thought — and this could be the cause of the deaths. But lower tolerance for drought would affect all the trees, not just the largest and oldest ones, she says.
