A group of UK-based researchers discovered the remains of a stillborn human fetus with an unusual condition in a 2,100-year-old Egyptian mummy long thought to be that of a hawk.
The mummy of an ancient bird was found at the Maidstone Museum in the United Kingdom. Its funerary casement featured a gilt-painted hawk’s face and was just the right size for a bird.
Horus, the Egyptian falcon-headed god, was also mentioned in the hieroglyphics on it.
All these decorations combined with the common practice of animal mummification in ancient Egypt led to the misidentification of the mummy.
Archaeologists long suspected that a tiny 2,100-year-old Egyptian mummy contained the remains of a hawk.A new analysis of the tiny mummy shows it was not a bird beneath the wrappings, but a stillborn human fetus
As a result, it was stored with other animal mummies without conducting CT scans or special attention.
However, the error came to light when the museum decided to scan their resident female mummy as well as a bunch of other animal mummies kept in storage including “EA 493 — Mummified Hawk Ptolemaic Period.”
The images of the scan revealed arms crossed over the chest and suggested that there was something else inside — a human or maybe a monkey — but not a bird for sure.
They called bioarchaeologist Andrew Nelson from Western University, London, to take a closer look.
Nelson and his interdisciplinary team conducted high-resolution micro-CT scans to virtually unwrap the mummy and found that it contains a severely malformed male human fetus, stillborn between 23 and 28 weeks of gestation.
The fetus, as the researchers revealed, suffered from major spinal abnormalities and a rare birth condition called anencephaly, wherein the brain and the skull fail to develop properly.
While the images revealed the mummified fetus had well-formed toes and fingers, the skull bore severe signs of deformities. “The whole top part of his skull isn’t formed,” Nelson said in a statement, noting that the brain of the fetus would not have formed in that scenario.
“The arches of the vertebrae of his spine haven’t closed. His earbones are at the back of his head.”
The work, as the researchers said, makes it the second mummified fetus to have been identified with anencephaly as well as the most studied fetal mummy in history.
“The family’s response was to mummify this individual, which was very rare. In ancient Egypt, fetuses tended to be buried in pots, below house floors, in various ways,” Nelson added.
According to Western University bioarchaeologist Andrew Nelson, there are only about six to eight known fetal mummies from ancient Egypt, making this family’s response very rare. The rarity of this mummification suggests it may have ties to ancient Egyptian magic
“There are only about six or eight known to have been mummified. So this was a very special individual.”
The findings also provide important clues into the diet of the baby’s mother and hint at a lack of foods containing folic acid, which plays a critical role in the development of the neural tube and can lead to anencephaly, if not provided sufficiently.
“It would have been a tragic moment for the family to lose their infant and to give birth to a very strange-looking fetus, not a normal-looking fetus at all,” the researcher concluded.
Inscription of last Babylonian king found in Saudi Arabia, ‘special’ message written in 26 lines?
A 2,550-year-old inscription, written in the name of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, has been discovered carved on basalt stone in northern Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage recently announced.
An engraving at the top of the inscription shows King Nabonidus holding a sceptre alongside four other images that include a snake, a flower and a depiction of the moon, the commission said in a statement, noting that these symbols likely have a religious meaning.
These engravings are followed beneath by about 26 lines of cuneiform text that experts with the commission are currently deciphering. This is the longest cuneiform inscription ever found in Saudi Arabia, the commission said in the statement.
The top of the inscription from the last king of Babylon shows engravings showing Nabonidus and four symbols.
The inscription was found in Al Hait in the Hail Region of northern Saudi Arabia. Known as Fadak in ancient times, Al Hait holds numerous ancient sites, including the remains of fortresses, rock art and water installations, the commission said. “[It] has great historical significance from the first millennium [B.C.] until the early Islamic era.”
King Nabonidus
It remains to be seen what new information this inscription will provide on King Nabonidus (reign 555–539 B.C.).
The Babylonian Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, and at the start of Nabonidus’ reign, he conquered part of what is now Saudi Arabia and ultimately chose to live at Tayma, a city in what is now Saudi Arabia, until around 543 B.C.
Why Nabonidus chose to live in what is now Saudi Arabia for an extended period of time is a matter of debate among historians, with some experts saying that conflicts between Nabonidus and Babylon’s priests and officials are a likely reason.
At the end of Nabonidus’ reign, the Babylonian Empire came under attack by the Persian Empire, which was led by King Cyrus the Great;
Babylon itself was captured by the Persians in 539 B.C. and the Babylonian empire collapsed. The fate of Nabonidus after the collapse is unclear.
Archaeologists stunned by China’s ‘unique underwater world’ shrouded in mystery
Hidden in the depths of Qiandao Lake, China, lies a mysterious sunken city. Myriad ornate temples, each intricately carved with the script and perfectly preserved, offer a tantalising glimpse into China’s imperial past. The city, known as Shi Cheng, is 140 feet underwater and was built during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the building dating back to the 2nd century.
Its name loosely translates to “Lion City”, and was once a bustling hub of commerce.
But, when it was drowned in the mid-20th century, it was largely forgotten.
Only in recent years have researchers and the public rediscovered its ancient splendours, many of which were explored during the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary ‘China from above: Mountain and rivers’.
It was here that the documentary’s narrator noted how the islands within the newly formed lake are actually the tops of hills, describing the space beneath them as a “unique underwater world”.
Archaeology: The ancient city was submerged to make way for a hydropower plant in 1959
Qiandao Lake: The lake is comprised of over 1,000 islands
The ancient city was flooded as part of the Chinese government’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ programme and made way for the country’s first hydropower plant.
A landscape containing over 1,000 islands was created, which sits at the bottom of a reservoir close to the Qiandao Lake near the picturesque Wu Shi Mountain.
Lou Shanliang, a diver, was one of the first people to plunge into the lake and find the city.
He told the documentary how he used to swim in the waters as a child, and how finding out what was beneath was like discovering “another world”.
Imperial China: The structures beneath the lake offer a brief glimpse into China’s imperial history
Teaming up with Wu Lixin, a cameraman, the pair used 3D scanning technology in order to bring the city back to life on the surface. Thought to have been built at some point between 25 and 200 AD, Lion City was once one of China’s most powerful cities and held on to this status for centuries.
While it had been forgotten for over 50 years, in 2014, the authorities discovered that the city was still very much intact and decided to start allowing tourists to visit it.
Explaining that their efforts were the first time the city has been captured three-dimensionally, Mr Wu said: “If we want to get a comprehensive set of data, we have to revolve around the object and take many photos from different angles.
Ancient structures: One of the fine pieces of stonework discovered underwater
Reconstruction: A 3D image of one of the lion statues found
“Then, we input those photos into a computer programme.”
What resulted were a series of 3D images revealing the ancient stonework found underwater, including majestic statues of lions and other figures.
Mr Wu said: “I hope that through our filming and exploration more submerged historic relics and the stories behind them can be brought to light again.”
Much of the stonework found in the lake dates to the 16th century and is considered as some of the best examples of Chinese architecture. The divers also found the city walls, which date from the same period, along with some notable wide streets and 265 archways.
In addition to these, they found five entry gates to the city and six main streets paved with stones connected to one another, making the city about the same size as 62 football fields. The Lion City is believed to have reached its peak in history between 1368 and 1644 when the Ming Dynasty ruled over China.
After this point it began to decline, the fatal blow coming in 1959 when the Chinese government flooded it. Now, however, history buffs and keen tourists can visit the lost city for themselves, and even dive beneath the water with guides.
Hydropower planet: The dam that cleared the path for the reservoir
Protected from wind, rain, and sun, the entire city has been branded a “time capsule” as almost every structure remains completely intact, including wooden beams and stairs. There have since been plans to boost its tourism potential by constructing a floating tunnel across the lake.
How did an 8000-year-old community deal with climate change?
Cosmos Magazine reports that archaeologists including Rick J. Schulting of the University of Oxford have determined that Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, a cemetery on an island in northern Russia’s Lake Onega, was used for a 200-year period during the so-called mini–Ice Age.
Some 8200 years ago, a great sluice of meltwater from a now-vanished ice sheet pulsed into the North Atlantic, causing a mini-Ice Age that lasted for around 200 years.
Across vast swathes of northern Europe, plant life began to change – broadleaf trees were outcompeted by hardier pines suited to the frigid temperatures – and animals and humans alike would have been forced to adapt to the sudden, drastic changes.
Now, in a new study out today in Nature Ecology & Environment, archaeologists from the University of Oxford have opened a small, misty window into this early Holocene upheaval, to see how one community changed in response.
The site, the Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (YOO) cemetery in northern Russia, sits on an island in the vast Lake Onega, 350 kilometres northeast of St Petersburg.
Radiocarbon dating of remains in the cemetery shows that it was mainly used for a short window of around 200 years, spanning some 10 generations and that its use coincided with this mini-Ice Age.
So why might people suddenly decide to organise their dead at a time of stress? The clue, the researchers say, lies in the lake.
Site of the early Holocene cemetery of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, at Lake Onega, some 500 miles north of Moscow.
Lake Onega would have been a relative paradise as freezing temperatures closed in. With its own microclimate and lush stores of fish and plant life, it would have drawn big game such as elk to its milder shores, as well as beleaguered humans on the hunt for food. At the same time, shallower lakes in the region would likely have experienced harsh winter fish kills.
That’s an awful lot of people milling into a small area – a well-known recipe for disaster. But humans are a resilient bunch, and the researchers believe the Lake Onega communities responded by building a more complex, more united society – their cemetery, the final resting place of their loved ones, was yet another display of social belonging and organisation.
The claim is a bold scientific leap, but it’s not unconvincing. Some 200 years on, when the climate improved, the cemetery was abandoned.
“Whatever ‘complexity’ we see at YOO,” the authors write, “was thus situational and reversible.”
Did this tight band of people disperse back into the landscape in smaller, nomadic groups? We’ll probably never know the exact truth of the events, but archaeology offers a tantalising vision of an ancient community in flux, at the mercy of a changing climate.
Ancient “Coyote-Man” Sculpture Recovered in Mexico
Archaeologists from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico have recovered an important artefact of pre-Hispanic culture: a monumental coyote-headed figure perched on a throne.
The coyote-man from Tacámbaro.
Known as the coyote-man from Tacámbaro, an area in the central Mexican state of Michoacán, the sculpture was discovered almost 30 years ago during construction work in the municipality.
The artefact was held in a private collection until it was recovered by the NAH Michoacán Center through a Mexican federal law that regulates the ownership and preservation of national cultural property.
The Llanos de Canícuaro neighbourhood in Tacámbaro, where the coyote-man was first unearthed, was the site of the Tarascan city of Tzintzuntza, meaning “place of the hummingbirds” in the Purépecha language.
Representations of coyote spirits were prolific in the ancient settlement, though few were as tall or intricately carved as the sculpture recovered.
In a statement, INAH said its specialists are now assessing the state of the work, as a series of fractures were sustained during its rough extraction by the municipality.
Once the conservation is executed, it’s expected to “have a place of honour within the archaeological collection of the community museum of the city council,” according to the institute.
On the importance of the sculpture, archaeologist José Luis Punzo said, “We know that the last lords of Tzintzuntzan, who wrote the Relacion de Michoacán, were the so-called uacúsecha, the ‘lineage of the eagle’.
Next to this was another large city on Lake Pátzcuaro, Ihuatzio, which means ‘place of coyotes’, where most of these sculptures have been located.”
He added: “One of the hypotheses is that the coyote-man sculptures could represent a dynasty that ruled this place, even before the Uacúsecha history was written.”
Well-Preserved Visigoth Sarcophagus Found at Roman Villa in Spain
Researchers in southeast Spain have uncovered an incredibly well-preserved Visigoth coffin at the site of a former Roman villa. The stone sarcophagus is about six feet, seven inches, long with a swirling geometric decoration along its slanted lid interlaced with intricate ivy leaves designs.
It’s estimated the coffin dates from the 6th century AD, when the Iberian peninsula was part of the Visigoth kingdom, after the fall of the Roman empire.
The coffin was uncovered at Los Villaricos, a Roman villa established around the first century near the modern town of Mula but abandoned by the fifth century.
Sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries, it was taken over by Germanic invaders.
A team led by Rafael González Fernández, a historian at the University of Murcia, found the coffin earlier this month, during a summer archaeological campaign.
Measuring about six-foot-seven, the carved stone coffin (above) is decorated with geometric patterns interlaced with intricate ivy leaves designs
‘We weren’t expecting this spectacular discovery,’ González told the Times of London—in fact, they initially thought they’d found an ornate rectangular column, or pilaster.
But after some delicate cleaning, they found a crismón, or Chi Rho, one of the earliest forms of Christogram, at the head of what turned out to be a coffin.
A Christogram is a combination of letters forming the initials of Jesus Christ, often overlapping the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P).
A Christogram, or a combination of letters forming the initials of Jesus Christ, often overlapping the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P)
Although the Visigoths were initially pagan, by the 6th century they had largely converted to Christianity.
Human remains were found inside the coffin, though more analysis will need to be done to learn more about who the deceased was.
‘This sarcophagus … shows the archaeological power of [Los Villaricos] and confirms our commitment to the University of Murcia,’ Mula city councilor Diego J. Boluda told National Geographic History. ‘Undoubtedly, the piece will occupy a preferential place in the Museum of the City of Mula.’
While the Visigoths were initially pagan, by the 6th century they had largely converted to Christianity. Pictured: 1888 Painting depicting the 587 AD conversion of Reccared I, Visigothic king of Hispania, to Catholicism, by Antonio Muñoz Degrain
In its prime, Los Villaricos was a wealthy Roman villa, Murica Today! reports, with evidence of an olive press, storage for olive oil and other agricultural activity.
The Visigoths repurposed the villa’s main reception room into a Christian basilica and the adjoining patio into a necropolis.
The three-week excavation ‘was focused on finishing excavating the last three burials in the necropolis and continuing with the excavation work of the complex located north of the town,’ González told National Geographic.
During the Roman era, Los Villaricos was a stopping point along a trade route between Carthage and Complutum, a settlement northeast of Madrid.
Later, it would have been strategic due to its proximity to the Visigoth city of Cehegín.
Armored Dinosaur’s Last Meal Found Preserved in Its Fossilized Belly
More than 110 million years ago, a lumbering 1,300-kilogram, armour-plated dinosaur ate its last meal, died, and was washed out to sea in what is now northern Alberta. This ancient beast then sank onto its thorny back, churning up mud in the seabed that entombed it — until its fossilized body was discovered in a mine near Fort McMurray in 2011.
The Borealopelta fossil is on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.
Since then, researchers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alta., Brandon University, and the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have been working to unlock the extremely well-preserved nodosaur’s many secrets — including what this large armoured dinosaur (a type of ankylosaur) actually ate for its last meal.
“The finding of the actual preserved stomach contents from a dinosaur is extraordinarily rare, and this stomach recovered from the mummified nodosaur by the museum team is by far the best-preserved dinosaur stomach ever found to date,” said USask geologist Jim Basinger, a member of the team that analyzed the dinosaur’s stomach contents, a distinct mass about the size of a soccer ball.
“When people see this stunning fossil and are told that we know what its last meal was because its stomach was so well preserved inside the skeleton, it will almost bring the beast back to life for them, providing a glimpse of how the animal actually carried out its daily activities, where it lived, and what its preferred food was.”
There has been lots of speculation about what dinosaurs ate, but very little is known. In a just-published article in Royal Society Open Science, the team led by Royal Tyrrell Museum palaeontologist Caleb Brown and Brandon University biologist David Greenwood provides detailed and definitive evidence of the diet of large, plant-eating dinosaurs — something that has not been known conclusively for any herbivorous dinosaur until now.
“This new study changes what we know about the diet of large herbivorous dinosaurs,” said Brown. “Our findings are also remarkable for what they can tell us about the animal’s interaction with its environment, details we don’t usually get just from the dinosaur skeleton.”
Previous studies had shown evidence of seeds and twigs in the gut but these studies offered no information as to the kinds of plants that had been eaten. While tooth and jaw shape, plant availability and digestibility have fuelled considerable speculation, the specific plant’s herbivorous dinosaurs consumed has been largely a mystery.
So what was the last meal of Borealopelta markmitchelli (which means “northern shield” and recognizes Mark Mitchell, the museum technician who spent more than five years carefully exposing the skin and bones of the dinosaur from the fossilized marine rock)?
An illustration of Borealopelta chowing down on some ferns.
“The last meal of our dinosaur was mostly fern leaves — 88 per cent chewed leaf material and seven per cent stems and twigs,” said Greenwood, who is also a USask adjunct professor.
“When we examined thin sections of the stomach contents under a microscope, we were shocked to see beautifully preserved and concentrated plant material. In marine rocks, we almost never see such superb preservation of leaves, including the microscopic, spore-producing sporangia of ferns.”
Team members Basinger, Greenwood and Brandon University graduate student Jessica Kalyniuk compared the stomach contents with food plants known to be available from the study of fossil leaves from the same period in the region. They found that the dinosaur was a picky eater, choosing to eat particular ferns (leptosporangiate, the largest group of ferns today) over others, and not eating many cycad and conifer leaves common to the Early Cretaceous landscape.
Specifically, the team identified 48 palynomorphs (microfossils like pollen and spores) including moss or liverwort, 26 clubmosses and ferns, 13 gymnosperms (mostly conifers), and two angiosperms (flowering plants).
“Also, there is considerable charcoal in the stomach from burnt plant fragments, indicating that the animal was browsing in a recently burned area and was taking advantage of a recent fire and the flush of ferns that frequently emerges on a burned landscape,” said Greenwood.
“This adaptation to a fire ecology is new information. Like large herbivores alive today such as moose and deer, and elephants in Africa, these nodosaurs by their feeding would have shaped the vegetation on the landscape, possibly maintaining more open areas by their grazing.”
The team also found gastroliths, or gizzard stones, generally swallowed by animals such as herbivorous dinosaurs and today’s birds such as geese to aid digestion.
“We also know that based on how well-preserved both the plant fragments and animal itself are, the animal’s death and burial must have followed shortly after the last meal,” said Brown. “Plants give us a much better idea of the season than animals, and they indicate that the last meal and the animal’s death and burial all happened in the late spring to mid-summer.”
“Taken together, these findings enable us to make inferences about the ecology of the animal, including how selective it was in choosing which plants to eat and how it may have exploited forest fire regrowth. It will also assist in the understanding dinosaur digestion and physiology.”
Borealopelta markmitchelli, discovered during mining operations at the Suncor Millennium open-pit mine north of Fort McMurray, has been on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum since 2017. The main chunk of the stomach mass is on display with the skeleton. Other members of the team include museum scientists Donald Henderson and Dennis Braman, Brandon University research associate and USask alumna Cathy Greenwood.
Research continues on Borealopelta markmitchelli — the best fossil of a nodosaur ever found — to learn more about its environment and behaviour while it was alive. Student Kalyniuk is currently expanding her work on fossil plants of this age to better understand the composition of the forests in which they lived. Many of the fossils she will examine are in Basinger’ collections at USask.
The research was funded by Canada Foundation for Innovation, Research Manitoba, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, National Geographic Society, Royal Tyrrell Museum Cooperating Society, and Suncor Canada, as well as in-kind support from Olympus Canada.
A couple renovating a 115-year-old building discovered two 60-foot-long hidden murals
What started out as a couple’s renovation project to convert a historic building into a bar has turned into an effort to restore decades-old artwork in a small Washington town.
Nick and Lisa Timm purchased the building in Okanogan, located about four hours east of Seattle, at the end of 2021. This past week, they discovered 60-foot murals painted on canvases along its north and south walls.
“We were about 20 minutes from covering up the walls,” Nick told CNN on Wednesday. “I then was like ‘Well, let’s just look at what’s behind all this plaster.’”
As the plaster peeled away, they discovered a giant mural — stretching 60 feet long and 20 feet high — depicting a lake, cabins and trees. One crew member threw out the idea that there could be another canvas on the opposite wall. Lo and behold, there was indeed a matching mural.
They found the murals at around 5 p.m. and had been working since 5 a.m., Nick said. But the team stayed for four more hours to uncover the rest of the artwork.
“It was like a lightning bolt of energy,” Nick said. “We were just hooting and hollering and pulling things down.”
Lisa and Nick Timm purchased the historical building at the end of 2021.
The Timms moved back to Okanogan last year to take care of Nick’s father, who was diagnosed with lung cancer. After he died in September, a family friend told the couple about the chance to purchase the building.
“One of our main goals moving back was to reenergize Okanogan and then this happened,” Nick said.
Dating back to around 1907, the building had served as a movie theatre, a pool hall and even a rooster fighting rink, according to Nick. The couple’s plan was to turn the 3,000-square-foot space into a bar and gathering place for the community, building on Nick’s experience running bars and restaurants in Olympia.
“It’s funny how this worked out,” Nick said. “We were going to make it a historical showcase by bringing in a bunch of historical stuff about the area.”
This photo, taken in June 1918, shows the building when it was a theatre.
After the Timms’ big find, the Okanogan County Historical Society was able to dig up a newspaper clipping from 1915 that reveals the original plan for the murals.
A local artist was set to paint the murals for what was the Hub Theatre at that time, according to the clipping, which was provided to CNN by the society.
“The new improvements at the Hub include 120 feet of panoramic landscape scenery in light tans,” the clipping reads.
The murals were discovered on both the north and south walls and span, in total, 120 feet.
Now, that panoramic scenery will be cautiously taken down, refurbished and rehung. Nick said some sections of the murals have extensive water damage that they want to get restored as quickly as possible.
It will likely be a pricey process. The couple has started a GoFundMe page to gain support from the community.
The Timms had hoped to open their renovated bar by the end of March, but it may now take until midsummer to finish work on the murals, Nick said.
The mural will be the centrepiece of the establishment, and the plan still is to fill the rest of the space with other historical items. Nick’s family has lived in the area for centuries, so many of the items have been passed down for generations. Other memorabilia have been donated by others in the community.
And Okanogan’s future gathering place already has a name: the Red Light Bar, an ode to the singular red light in town.
