EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

The broken Amphorae of monte testaccio in Rome

The broken Amphorae of monte testaccio in Rome

An immense mound overgrown with grass and small trees sits on the outskirts of Rome, near the Horrea Galbae, a short distance from the east bank of the River Tiber. It may seem to be just another hill, but it is actually an ancient landfill from the Roman era and one of the largest landfill of the ancient world.

It has a circumference of nearly a kilometre at its base covering an area of 20,000 square meters, and it stands 35 meters tall, though it was probably a lot higher in ancient times.

The hill is made entirely out of discarded Roman amphorae, a type of ceramic jar used to store olive oil. It has been estimated that the hill contains the remains of as many as 53 million olive oil amphorae, in which some 6 billion litres of oil were imported.

In ancient times, amphorae were the main containers used for transportation and storage of goods. They were massively produced because of their low cost and were usually recycled or destroyed once they reached their final destination.

Many amphorae were re-used to serve as drain pipes or flower pots, for instance. Broken amphorae were pounded into chips and mixed with concrete and widely used as a building material.

But the amphorae olive jars could not be recycled as they were too impregnated with oil which made them smelly and sticky. So they were dumped in landfills.

Monte Testaccio was not a haphazard waste dump, but a highly organized and carefully engineered refuse site. Excavations revealed that the mound had been raised as a series of level terraces with retaining walls made of nearly intact amphorae filled with shards to anchor them in place.

View of the Testaccio district of Rome, 1625.

Empty amphorae were probably carried up the mound intact on the backs of donkeys or mules and then broken up on the spot, with the shards laid out in a stable pattern. Lime was then spread over the broken jars to neutralize the smell of rotting oil.

The huge numbers of broken amphorae at Monte Testaccio illustrate the enormous demand for oil of imperial Rome, which was at the time the world’s largest city with a population of at least one million people.

Many of the amphorae still have the maker’s seal and other stamped inscriptions which record information such as the weight of the oil contained in the vessel, the place where it was bottled, who weighted it and the names of the exporter.

Studies of these inscriptions and the hill’s composition suggest Rome’s imports of olive oil reached a peak towards the end of the 2nd century AD when as many as 130,000 amphorae were being deposited on the site each year. It has been estimated that Rome was importing at least 7.5 million litres of olive oil annually.

Monte dei Cocci.
Types of Roman amphorae at Bodrum castle (Turkey) . 
The amphorae fragments were placed in an organized way.
Roman tituli picti from amphorae found at Monte Testaccio, Rome. From H. Dressel, Ricerche sul Monte Testaccio, Annali dell’Instituto di Correspondenza Archeologica [1878], plate L.
Broken amphorae on Monte Testaccio.
PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Peru archaeologists find a hall for human sacrifice

Peru archaeologists find a hall for human sacrifice

Archaeologists discovered an ancient ritual ground used by a Pre-Columbian civilization for human sacrifices on Peru’s northern coast.

The finding appears to support existing hypotheses about a ritual known as “the introduction” performed by the Moche people, an agricultural culture that existed between 100 B.C. and 800 A.D.

“There was a great ceremonial hall or passage integrated into the rest of the architecture that establishes the presence of certain figures of the Moche elite and also the practice of complex rituals such as human sacrifice,” Wester told Reuters.

Carlos Wester La Torre, director of the Bruning Museum in Peru and a leader of the dig, said the ceremonial site likely hosted ritual killings of prisoners of war.

Photographs were taken at the site show more than half a dozen skeletons on the floor of the hall.

Peru archaeologists find a hall for human sacrifice
Excavations at the San Jose de Moro site

The remnants of a mural found within the corridor depict three high priests whose ornamentation confirms the involvement of the culture’s political leadership in the ceremony, he said.

His team uncovered a 60-meter-long (197-foot-long) corridor opening up to face three equidistant porticos and five thrones on the archaeological site’s main pyramid.

Peru is believed to be one of the places in the world where agriculture first developed and has hundreds of ancient archaeological sites, including the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

The Sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel

The Sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel

The sword trapped in stone, only to be freed by a future king’s forceful grip, is an essential part of King Arthur mythology. The question of whether there’s a historical basis for Arthur in the mists of chaotic Dark Ages Britain has haunted many historians, writers, and treasure seekers. Bits and pieces of the Arthur legend have been analyzed endlessly to see if some real person or place might fit.

Montesiepi chapel in Tuscany.

In a version of the story, Merlin foretold that only a true king was worthy to draw the sword, and when a boy, Arthur, is the one who succeeds in doing it, he reveals himself to be the son of the brave king Uther Pendragon. That sword then becomes Arthur’s powerful weapon, called Excalibur.

But what if the inspiration for the tale of the sword in the stone comes not from England but Italy, and the proof of that can be found in a 12th century stone still thrust into the bedrock in Tuscany?

The Sword in the Stone of Saint Galgano can be seen today, in the Montesiepi chapel southwest of Siena. It was long a curiosity: Only the hilt, wooden grip and a few inches of the three-foot-long blade are visible to be seen in the chapel of a Cistercian abbey.

The story was that it was thrust into the stone by an Italian knight, Galgano Guidotti after he renounced war to become a hermit in 1180.

For years the sword was suspected of being some sort of fake. However, recent scientific tests dealt a surprise to skeptics. The metal of the sword was confirmed to be from the 12th century.

“Dating metal is a very difficult task, but we can say that the composition of the metal and the style are compatible with the era of the legend,” said Luigi Garlaschelli, of the University of Pavia, in an interview with The Guardian.

Interior of Montesiepi chapel, with the sword in the stone under the clear case.

“We have succeeded in refuting those who maintain that it is a recent fake.”

The sword from the medieval era and ground-penetrating radar analysis revealed that beneath the sword, there is a cavity that could be a burial recess, possibly containing a body.  “To know more we’d have to excavate,” said Garlaschelli.

The Italian academic Mario Moiraghi wrote a book suggesting that the stone’s Arthurian legend was inspired by the Tuscany sword.

Rotonda of Montesiepi chapel, with the sword in the stone below.

A 13th century English book about Merlin and the sword obviously came after the existence of the Italian sword in the stone, as did Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in the 14th century. However, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about Arthur, Merlin, and Excalibur, called Caliburnus (or Caliburn), in Historia, completed in 1138.

Moiraghi said in an interview, “The sword which, having being plunged into the stone becomes a cross; this is a true symbol of the Christian life — the transformation of violence into love.”

In the same chapel are two mummified hands; scientific testing has revealed that they too date to the 12th century. According to legend, anyone who tries to steal the sword in the Tuscany chapel would have his arms ripped off.

The sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel, San Galgano.

The knight, Galgano, was the son of a feudal lord known for his arrogance and violence when he had a vision of the Archangel Michael inviting him to change his life.

Galgano supposedly decided that he should become a hermit. As he climbed the mountain where he would devote his life to contemplation, a voice told him he had to leave all traces of worldly sin, to which the saint replied, “It would be easier to cut a stone with this sword to do that.”

When Galgano stuck his sword in the rock to prove his point, the sword sank smoothly. It went into the rock as if it were as soft as butter, the story goes.

Galgano was a hermit for the rest of his life. Four years after his death he was canonized and a chapel was built around the sword.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Infra-red satellite imagery unveils 17 lost Egyptian pyramids

Infra-red satellite imagery unveils 17 lost Egyptian pyramids

Through his large army, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Egypt in 1798, bringing more than 150 scientists and scholars with him. The academics spread across Egypt, writing about the country’s geological and cultural history, mapping archaeological sites from Alexandria to Aswan, and bringing areas such as the Valley of the Kings to the scientific world for the first time.

The infrared image on the right reveals the ancient city streets of Tanis near modern-day San El Hagar
Satellite imagery reveals a maze of streets and buildings at the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis.

An American research team announced that it has succeeded in a high-tech follow-on to Bonaparte’s grand survey. By analyzing high-resolution satellite imagery covering all of Egypt, researchers have reportedly discovered up to 17 lost pyramids, nearly 3000 ancient settlements, and 1000 tombs.

The effort was led by archaeologist Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama, Birmingham. The team’s work will be highlighted in a BBC documentary airing in the United Kingdom and later on the Discovery Channel in the United States.

The findings are groundbreaking, says Egyptologist Willeke Wendrich of the University of California, Los Angeles, who has followed closely the team’s as-yet-unpublished work. “It gives us the opportunity to get at the settlement of ancient Egypt without digging even a centimeter,” she says.

In the wake of the finds, the Egyptian government reached an agreement this week to work with Parcak and other American researchers to develop a nationwide satellite imagery project to monitor archaeological sites from space and protect them from looting and illegal house construction, and other encroachments.

“We are going to be teaching young Egyptians how to look at the satellite data and analyze it so they can keep an eye on these sites,” Parcak says. She and her colleagues plan to raise funds privately to support the effort.

Parcak began her study 11 years ago, searching for traces of ancient village walls buried under Egypt’s fields and desert sands. Obtaining images from both NASA and QuickBird satellites, she combined and analyzed data from the visible imagery as well as the infrared and thermal parts of the light spectrum. Through trial and error, she discovered that the most informative images were taken during the relatively wet weeks of late winter.

During this period, buried mud-brick walls absorbed more moisture than usual, producing a subtle chemical signature in the overlying soil that showed up in high-resolution, infrared satellite images. These places became “our hot spots, the places that we could end up exploring on foot,” Parcak says.

An infra-red satellite image shows a buried pyramid, located in the centre of the highlight box.

The team found 17 buried pyramid-shaped structures, including one at Saqqara, famed for its numerous pyramids. That sighting was confirmed by a team of Egyptian archaeologists who excavated part of what is now thought to be a late Middle Kingdom pyramid at the site.

The other 16 structures look like pyramids from space but could be elite tombs, Parcak says. “Let’s be honest, we won’t know if those pyramids are pyramids until we excavate,” she says.

To further test some of the most recent satellite finds, Parcak enlisted the help of a French archaeological team already digging at a 3000-year-old site known as Tanis.

The satellite data revealed a warren of mud-brick walls, mazelike streets, and large residences that may have housed the wealthy. So the French team chose a structure from the images and excavated there.

Beneath about 30 centimeters of sediments, they discovered mud-brick walls. “They found an almost 100% correlation between what we see on the imagery and what we see on the ground,” Parcak says. “So this gives a significant amount of credence to what we see in the whole image.”

“It’s really incredible work, particularly the results for Tanis,” says Peter Lacovara, an Egyptologist at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, who is not a member of Parcak’s team. “You can see the entire city plan under the sands.”

The greatest payoff may become apparent in years to come, adds Lacovara, as the Egyptian government develops a space-based archaeological monitoring system founded on satellite data.

“Ancient sites are all over the place in Egypt,” Lacovara concludes. “And there’s just not enough time and money to monitor them on the ground.”

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

The 2,50-year-old rug is a wonderful reflection of the Advanced Culture of the Pazyryk Nomads

The 2,50-year-old rug is a wonderful reflection of the Advanced Culture of the Pazyryk Nomads

In 1948, Altai Mountains excavated the oldest hand-knotted oriental rug. It was discovered in the grave of the prince of Altai near Pazyryk, 5400 feet above sea level, and clearly shows how well hand-knotted rugs were produced thousands of years ago.

The Pazyryk carpet was woven in the 5th century B.C., making it approximately 2,500 years old, according to radiocarbon dating.

The advanced weaving techniques and the sophisticated design and construction, used in this rug, suggest the art of carpet weaving to go back much further than the 5th century B.C.. to be at least 4000 years old. Today the rug is in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, Russia.

Detail of the Pazyryk carpet from a replica in the Carpet Museum of Iran

When the prince of Altai died, he was buried in a grave mound with many of his prized possessions, including the Pazryk Carpet. Unfortunately, soon after, the grave mound was robbed of its prized possessions, with the exception of the rug.

The rug was semi-frozen because the thieves did not bother to cover up the hole they had dug to retrieve the items, rendering the hole exposed to the elements within the tomb.

The combination of low temperature and precipitation within the tomb subsequently froze the carpet, and preserved it in a thick sheet of ice, protecting it for twenty-five centuries. This somewhat ironic story is the reason that the Pazyryk rug still exists today.

Although it was found in a Scythian burial mound, most experts attribute the Pazyryk rug to Persia.

Pazyryk horseman. Circa 300 BCE. Detail from a carpet in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Its design is in the same style as the sculptures of Persepolis, The outer of the two principal border bands is decorated with a line of horsemen: seven on each side, twenty-eight in number — a figure which corresponds to the number of males who carried the throne of Xerxes to Perspolis. Some are mounted, while others walk beside their horses. In the inner principal band, there is a line of six elks on each side.

The extra figures inside the elks are depicting the inwards and the vertebra of the elk, all parts in real positions with nearly clinical precision:

1. The heart, just above the front legs (a yellow framed red sphere, black contoured).

2. The aorta (a long red protuberance on the heart).

3. The maw, on the right-hand side of the sphere (a large yellow area with a widening upwards on the end).

4. The intestine, in the rear end (a yellow square surrounded by a light blue and a yellow bow).

5. Possibly the urethra, on the upper part of the right hind leg (a yellow line with a black point), better to see on some others deer on the border.

6. The vertebra, directly below the brown back contour (an alternating black-white chain).

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Atlit Yam, a 9,000-year-old underground megalithic settlement

Atlit Yam, a 9,000-year-old underground megalithic settlement

On the Levantine coast, Atlit-Yam offers the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system. The site of Atlit Yam has been carbon-dated to be between 8,900 and 8,300 years old (calibrated dates) and belongs to the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period.

Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel

It is currently 8-12 meters (25-40 feet) below sea level in the Bay of Atlit, near the mouth of the Oren river on the Carmel coast. It covers an area of ca. 40,000 square meters (10 acres).

Underwater excavations have uncovered rectangular houses and a well. The site was covered by the eustatic rise of sea levels after the end of the Ice age. It is assumed that the contemporary coastline was about 1 km (a half-mile) west of the present coast.

Piles of fish ready for trade or storage have led scientists to conclude that the village was abandoned suddenly. An Italian study led by Maria Pareschi of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa indicates that a volcanic collapse of the eastern flank of Mount Etna 8,500 years ago would likely have caused a 10-story (40 m or 130 ft) tsunami to engulf some Mediterranean coastal cities within hours.

Some scientists point to the apparent abandonment of Atlit Yam around the same time as further evidence that such a tsunami did indeed occur.

Submerged settlements and shipwrecks have been found on the Carmel coast since 1960, in the wake of large-scale sand quarrying. In 1984, marine archaeologist Ehud Galili spotted ancient remains whilst surveying the area for shipwrecks.

Remains of rectangular houses and hearth-places have been found, along with a well that currently lies 10.5 m (35 ft) below sea level, constructed of dry-stone walling, with a diameter of 1.5 m (5 ft) and a depth of 5.5 m (20 ft) lower. The fill contained flints, artifacts of ground stone, and bone and animal bones in two separate layers.

The upper layer contained partly articulated animal bones, which were presumably thrown in after the well went out of use. Other round structures at the site may also be wells. Galili believes that the water in the wells gradually became contaminated with seawater, forcing the inhabitants to abandon their homes.

A stone semicircle, containing seven 600 kg (1,300 lb) megaliths, has been found. The stones have cup marks carved into them and are arranged around a freshwater spring, which suggests that they may have been used for a water ritual.

Top: A diver examines megaliths at Atlit Yam. Bottom: Artist’s reconstruction of stone formation

Ten flexed burials have been discovered, both inside the houses and in their vicinity.

The skeletons of a woman and child, found in 2008, have revealed the earliest known cases of tuberculosis. Bonefish hooks and piles of fish bones ready for trade or storage point to the importance of marine resources.

The men are also thought to have dived for seafood as four skeletons have been found with ear damage, probably caused by diving in cold water. Anthropomorphic stone stelae have been found. The lithics include arrowheads, sickle blades, and axes.

An excavation was mounted by the University of Haifa on Oct 1, 1987. A complete human burial was discovered under 10m of water on Oct. 4th with the skeleton oriented in a fetal position on the right side in an excellent state of preservation. Subsequent carbon dating of plant material recovered from the burial placed the age of the site at 8000 +-200 years.

Animal bones and plant remains have also been preserved. Animal bones come mainly from wild species. The plant remains to include wild grape, poppy, and caraway seeds.

Granary weevils indicate the presence of stored grain. Pollen analysis and the remains of marsh plants indicate the local presence of swamps.

EUROPE, SWEDEN, WORLD

In Sweden, a long-lost runestone from a Viking monument has been discovered

In Sweden, a long-lost runestone from a Viking monument has been discovered

The valuable runestone was found on a bridge across a nearby river as part of an eight-piece 10th-century monument. The discovery, according to scholars, would unleash a wealth of knowledge in several areas, including art, religious history, and archaeology.

One of the Hunnestad runestones, which had been missing since the 18th century, was discovered during construction work for a future sewer pipe outside the town of Ystad in southern Sweden.

The Hunnestad monument is estimated to date back to the 10th century and is seen as one of the country’s most remarkable monuments from the Viking Age.

Long-Lost Runestone From Viking Monument Recovered In Sweden
Archaeologist Axel Krogh Hansen at the statue that was found during the excavation in front of a sewer line.

The monument consisted of eight stones, three with pictures and two runestones.

It was discovered in the early 18th century but later disappeared. Some of the stones were found on land near Marsvinsholm Castle in 1814 and are on exhibition in Lund.

The recent find was discovered on a bridge over the Hunnestadsån River.

“A fantastic find, which you didn’t expect to happen. This stone has been gone for so long that we thought it had been destroyed”, Magnus Källström, runologist at the Swedish National Heritage Board, said in a statement.

According to Källström, the find will unlock a lot of new knowledge in several areas, including art, religious history, and archaeology.

“The fact that we have found one of the Hunnestad stones is really sensational”, Britta Roos, head of the cultural environment unit at the County Administrative Board of Skåne, said.

The famous drawing of the Hunnestad Monument by Ole Worm (Ole Worm (1588-1654)

Local man Max Rosell, who lives barely 20 metres from the find, was also elated.

“It feels a little crazy that it was so d*mn close. But it’s great fun for the village, we have all talked about the stones, people have wondered where they went. Some are in museums, now one is found and then there is only one left”, says Max Rosell.

According to the runes from the stones in Lund, the monument was erected by Esbern and Tomme.

They are presumed to have been outstanding men who, according to field archaeologist Axel Hansen, may have had connections to the Danish monarchy.

The Viking Age (793-1066) is a period when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raids, conquests, and trading throughout Europe and established settlements in present-day Russia, southern Europe, Iceland, Ireland, the British Isles, and Greenland, and even reached North America (which they called Vinland).

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Mummified Parrots Found In The Atacama Desert Transported Hundreds Of Miles While Alive

Mummified Parrots Found In The Atacama Desert Transported Hundreds Of Miles While Alive

The more we delve into Chile’s desolate Atacama Desert, the more we discover, Phenomena both mystifying and wonderful, occasionally bordering on alien. But in this incredibly dry place, it wasn’t just the climate that was unforgiving. Its ancient human inhabitants, making do in a parched place not best suited to hosting them, traded in whatever they could get their hands on.

Sometimes, it seems, that was the brilliant feathers of colourful birds brought unceremoniously to a desert they didn’t belong to, but were destined to be buried within. What we consider acceptable interactions with animals under our care was very different back then, says anthropological archaeologist Jose Capriles from Pennsylvania State University.

“Some of these birds did not live a happy life. They were kept to produce feathers and their feathers were plucked out as soon as they grew in.” Capriles is something of a specialist when it comes to discovering the exotic oddities of pre-Columbian American culture.

This is how the mummified macaws would’ve looked when they were alive.

This time, his mother – Eliana Flores Bedregal, an ornithologist by profession – came along for the ride, co-authoring a new study examining the life and death of over two-dozen mummified and partially mummified parrots found within the Atacama Desert.

In total, at least six species of parrots originally recovered from five of the desert’s archaeological sites were studied in the research, with the remains variously dating from between 1100 to 1450 CE.

Mummified Parrots Found In The Atacama Desert Transported Hundreds Of Miles While Alive
Researchers identified a mummified Blue-Fronted Amazon parrot, recovered from an ancient cemetery in the Atacama Desert.

“The feathers of tropical birds were one of the most significant symbols of economic, social, and sacred status in the pre-Columbian Americas,” the authors write in their study.

In the Andes, finely produced clothing and textiles containing multicoloured feathers of tropical parrots materialized power, prestige, and distinction and were particularly prized by political and religious elites. Behind the folds of this marvellous drapery, the colourful birds likely lived a miserable existence in captivity, far from the Amazonian rainforests that were once their home.

Sometimes, the feathers were plucked elsewhere and imported into the Andes in special containers, but the remains of the 27 parrots and macaws analyzed here suggest many other birds were specifically brought to the desert for their vibrant plumage.

The feather trade in the region dates back much longer than this, at least to the Chinchorro mummies of around 5050 BCE. Thousands of years later, feathers were still a cherished feature used in garments, hats, headdresses, and other ornaments.

Most of the mummified birds examined in the new study were originally recovered from an archaeological site called Pica 8, located close to an oasis community within the Atacama Desert that still exists today.

Mummified scarlet macaw.

Once upon a time, though, the people here buried their birds alongside themselves.

“Most birds were placed in direct association with human burials,” the researchers write, noting the parrots’ tails were often removed.

Sometimes the animals were positioned in elaborate stances, with beaks opened and tongues sticking out, perhaps tied to ritualistic practices invoking parrots’ ability to mimic human speech. Others had their wings spread as if to forever soar in the afterlife.

During their life on Earth, it seems many had their wings broken and their feet strapped, although the researchers also observe care was taken with some of the animals, with evidence of clipping of their beaks and claws, in addition to healing processes for fractures sustained by the parrots.

“We have absolutely no idea why they were mummified like this,” Capriles says.

“They seem to be eviscerated through their cloaca (a common excretory and reproductive opening), which helped to preserve them. Many times, they were wrapped in textiles or bags.”

What is certain is that it can’t have been easy to get these grounded birds to the desert. Transported by llama caravans, it’s likely the journey from the Amazon would have taken months, the researchers think, although it’s possible some of the birds were procured from regions closer to the desert.

Once there, they were held as valuable pets, treasured for their wondrous palette of feathers, with each enticing shade certain to be stolen.

All In One Magazine