ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

3000-year-old temple-era gold bead found by 9-year-old Jerusalem boy

3000-year-old temple-era gold bead found by 9-year-old Jerusalem boy

A nine-year-old boy, the Temple Mount Sifting Project (TMSP) revealed earlier this week, found the first-ever Temple-era gold granule bead during wet sifting of earth from the Temple Mount.

In August, while sifting through the soil with his kin, Binyamin Milt, a resident of Jerusalem, unearthed a perfectly preserved small, flower-shaped cylinder, made of four layers of tiny gold balls, unaware that the item he carried was probably forged around 3,000 years ago.

In fact, the bead was so well preserved that when the boy took the bead to the supervising archaeologist, he initially wrote it off as likely to be an unidentified modern object, not even writing down the boy’s contact information before hurrying back to continue sifting.

3000-year-old temple-era gold bead found by 9-year-old Jerusalem boy
First Temple-era gold granule bead

It was only while sorting through the summer’s artefacts in Dr Gabriel Barkay’s backyard that he realized the bead was strikingly similar to several similar items he had found when he excavated burial systems from the First Temple period in Katef Hinnom.

While those beads were made of silver, they were identical to the gold bead in both shape and manufacturing method (called granulation).

Similar beads have been found in several other sites across Israel, dated to various periods, with the overwhelming majority dating to the Iron Age (12th to 6th centuries BCE).

Once the bead’s significance had become clear, TMSP researchers called all the families who participated in the sifting on that specific day, until they made contact with Binyamin.

Pieces of gold jewellery are rarely found among archaeological artefacts from the First Temple period since gold at that time was not refined and generally contained a significant percentage of silver.

Granulation is a technique which demands of the goldsmith a considerable amount of expertise and experience, due to the many components and complex manufacturing stages.

The granules are shaped using tiny metal pieces which are melted on a bed of charcoal or charcoal powder, which absorbs air, preventing oxidation.

Once the metal melts, the surface tension of the liquid produces ball-shaped drops. An alternative method involves dripping the liquid metal from a height into a bowl and constantly stirring the drops.

At this stage, it is not yet clear what purpose the bead served, though initial projections by TMSP members say it could have been part of an ornament worn by an important personage who visited the Temple, or by a priest. More info on the piece will be published once all the artefacts from the summer are processed.

TMSP was founded in response to illegal renovations which were carried out in 1999 by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, disposing of over 9,000 tons of dirt, mixed with invaluable archaeological artefacts, dumping it all into the Kidron Valley.

Archaeologists Dr Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira retrieved the rubble and began sifting through it in 2004, with the goal of understanding the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount, while preserving history.

Over the years, it has grown into an internationally significant project, bringing in over 200,000 volunteers who have helped the researchers find thousands of priceless artefacts.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Norway ice melt reveals ‘frozen archive’ of ancient reindeer-hunting arrows

Norway ice melt reveals ‘frozen archive’ of ancient reindeer-hunting arrows

In the Jotunheimen Mountains, the team found 68 arrows on the Langfonne ice patch, tracing the objects again to various lengths of time over 1000 years, from the Stone Age to the Medieval Period.

In addition, the find, printed this week as an examination in the Holocene journal, includes the stays of reindeer antlers, Iron Age scaring sticks utilised in reindeer searching and a 3,300-year-old shoe from the Bronze Age.

In line with the authors of the survey, the arrows mark the earliest ice findings in Northern Europe.

Norway ice melt reveals 'frozen archive' of ancient reindeer-hunting arrows
Archaeologists have uncovered a haul of ancient artifacts from a melted ice patch in Norway, including this leather boot that dates back more than 3000 years.

Norway’s Jotunheimen Mountains are positioned greater than 200 miles (in extra of 320 kilometres) north of the capital, Oslo.

The Langfonne ice patch, the place the arrows have been discovered, has retreated by greater than 70% over the previous 20 years as international warming has brought about dramatic ice melt, the examine says.

“With the ice now retreating due to climate change, the evidence for ancient hunting at Langfonne is reappearing from what is, in essence, a frozen archive,” mentioned Lars Pilø, the examine’s lead writer and an archaeologist from the Innlandet County Council, in a press release.

“The ice melt, sad as it is, provides an unprecedented archaeological opportunity for new knowledge.”

The oldest arrows, courting again to 4000 BC, are in a poor situation. But surprisingly, the arrows from the Late Neolithic interval (2400-1750 BC) have been higher preserved compared to these from the next 2,000 years, in line with the examine.

Researchers discovered a plethora of ancient arrows that date across various periods of Norwegian history.

Using floor penetrating radar (GPR) know-how, researchers imagine that the dangerous state of the oldest arrows could also be as a result of ice motion.

GPR information revealed ice deformation deep inside of the patch could have damaged the outdated, brittle arrows, however, it additionally helped to convey them to the floor to be found.

“Icy patches are not your regular archaeological sites,” Pilø mentioned. “Glacial archaeology has the potential to transform our understanding of human activity in the high mountains and beyond.”

ASIA, THAILAND, WORLD

Thailand: Rare 5,000 Years old whale skeleton discovered

Thailand: Rare 5,000 Years old whale skeleton discovered

In Samut Sakhon, researchers say, an almost fully preserved whale skeleton believed to be between 3,000 and 5,000 years old has been uncovered.

Thailand: Rare 5,000 Years old whale skeleton discovered
The rare whale skeleton discovered in Thailand. It is thought to be up to 5,000 years old.

The bones were discovered about 12 kilometres from the coast in the province just west of Bangkok in early November, the BBC announced on Friday.

The 12-metre-long skeleton is thought to be that of a Bryde’s whale, it said.

Experts hope the find might provide “a window into the past”, especially for research on sea levels and biodiversity.

The partially fossilised bones are “a rare find”, mammal researcher Marcus Chua of the National University of Singapore told the BBC.

“There are few whale subfossils in Asia,” he said, and even fewer ones are “in such good condition”.

Pictures shared by Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-Archa show the bones apparently almost entirely intact.

According to Mr Varawut, more than 80% of the skeleton has so far been recovered, including vertebrae, ribs, fins and one shoulder blade.

The skeleton’s head alone is estimated to be about 3 metres in length.

Mr Chua said the discovery would allow researchers to find out more about the particular species in the past, whether there were any differences compared to today’s Bryde’s whales.

The skeleton will also provide information about the “paleobiological and geological conditions at that time, including sea level estimation, types of sediments, and the contemporary biological communities at that time”.

“So this find provides a window into the past once the skeleton has been dated,” Mr Chua said.

The bones are yet to be carbon-dated to determine their exact age, with the results expected in December.

The Gulf of Thailand has an interesting history in the last 10,000 years, Mr Chua pointed out, with sea levels possibly up to four metres higher than today and active tectonic activity.

Bryde’s whales, which live worldwide in warm temperate and tropical waters, are still found in the waters around Thailand today.

AFRICA

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

Archaeologists believe a tomb recently excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 7 metres (23 feet) high at its entrance.

Dating back around 3,300 years this tomb was discovered recently at an ancient cemetery at Abydos in Egypt. At left the rectangular entrance shaft with massive walls served as a base for a small pyramid that was an estimated 23 feet (7 meters) high.

Found on the site of Abydos, the tomb dates back some 3,300 years. A team of archaeologists discovered a finely carved sandstone sarcophagus, painted red inside one of its vaulted burial chambers, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.

There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.

The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.

“Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything,” said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.

In one of the burial chambers, the archaeologists found a sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a “scribe” named Horemheb.

The pyramid itself “probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath,” Cahail told Live Science, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven’t survived or have not yet been found. 

Military ties

It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland.

Cahail believes that Horemheb’s family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Writing on the figurines say that they are for the “Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses).” This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.

He noted it’s interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.

“They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time,” Cahail said.

Multiple wives?

The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it’s uncertain if it was practised among non-royalty.

Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.

Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.

“You’re left with the question, who are all these people?” Cahail said.

A Jasper treasure

One of the most interesting artefacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.

“It’s a beautiful object and possibly one of the best-carved examples of these very rare type of amulets,” Cahail said. “It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that.”

The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma’at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.

“Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you’ve done in your life are weighed against the measure of truth,” Cahail said.

EUROPE, SERBIA, WORLD

The impressive Roman military base found in Cornfield in Serbia

The impressive Roman military base found in Cornfield in Serbia

The well-maintained ruins of the headquarters of a Roman legion, hidden under a Serbian cornfield near the coal mines, are excavated by archaeologists, who say that its rural location makes it exceptional.

Covering an estimated 3,500 square meters, the headquarters – or principium – belonged to the VII Claudia Legion. Its location was deduced in the spring during a survey.

There are over 100 recorded principiums across the territory of the Roman empire, but almost all are buried under modern cities, said Miomir Korac, lead archaeologist of digs there and at the Roman provincial capital Viminacium that the compound served.

Miomir Korac, the lead archaeologist, poses for a picture at the remains of Roman legion’s headquarters at the ancient city of Viminacium, near Kostolac, Serbia.

“A very small number of principiums are explored completely (and) … so we can say (preservation of) this one is unique as it is undisturbed.”

The compound, which lies east of Belgrade and around one metre (3 ft) under the surface, had 40 rooms with heated walls, a treasury, a shrine, parade grounds and a fountain.

So far only a quarter has been explored, with excavations scheduled to resume next spring.

Inside one room, archaeologists found 120 silver coins that “must have been lost during an emergency” such as an invasion or a natural disaster, said the principium’s lead archaeologist Nemanja Mrdjic.

Buried under a Serbian cornfield, Roman military headquarters slowly sheds its secrets

“The distribution of coins from a corner to the door, … suggests they (coins) spilled while someone was fleeing.”

The VII Claudia Legion was active between 2nd and 5th centuries AD, and its walled camp and principium were separated from the rest of Viminacium, which had its own fortifications.

Excavations of Viminacium have been ongoing since 1882 and finds there include a Roman ship, golden tiles, jade sculptures, mosaics and frescos, along with 14,000 tombs and the remains of three mammoths.

The impressive Roman military base found in Cornfield in Serbia

Archaeologists estimate that they have only uncovered 4% of the site, which they say it’s bigger than New York’s Central Park.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Discovering ancient Egypt in the heart of Rome, Italy

Discovering ancient Egypt in the heart of Rome, Italy

Have you ever seen a real mummy? In the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, which is a section of the Vatican’s museums, you will. It is the body of a woman, whose name was probably Amenirdis and it is greatly conserved.

Many are the monuments and rarities coming from Egypt in Roman times, as for instance hieroglyphics, stelae, mummy cases coming from the city of Thebes, canopic jars and ritual objects.

These are just a few of the treasures and wonders you can admire in the shrines located through the corridors in which you will find yourself fascinated. There is a whole part of the museum dedicated to the funeral customs of Ancient Egypt.

Did you know that for ancient Egyptians the death was not the meaning of an end?

Death was not the end of life but the beginning of a new existence. They believed that men had two souls: Ba and Ka. The first one was destined to the afterlife to receive the prize or the punishment concerned, whereas the second one remained with the body to look after it: it was used to put in the graves goods, food, beverages, clothes, cosmetics and all the things that the deceased may need and used during the normal life so that, even in the afterlife, they might survive.

Also, the physical body of the passed ones had to be as conserved as well preserved for the afterlife, and they had to be recognizable, this is why the technique of mummification was used.

The mummification technique had a profound spiritual meaning: the body, once mummified was made incorruptible and spiritualized. Another constant and typical funeral custom of ancient Egypt was to conserve even the organs of the passed ones.

The Canopy jars

The Canopy jars were the four vessels in which the mummified deceased’s organs were conserved. Usually, they were made in alabaster but also in other materials like stone or steel.

The caps are four because they are the representation of the four sons of Horus.

They collaborated with Anubis in the mummification of Osiris’s body, (the sovereign of the realm of the dead) and this is the reason why they became patrons of the canopy jars.

Duamutef, whose jar has a wolf’s head, containing the stomach of the deceased, Hapi, with the head of a monkey, conserving the lungs, Imset, the human head, conserving the liver and the last one Qebehsenuf, with the rapacious head, containing the guts.

The Sacred Vessel

You will find these sculptures too, usually made of wood. They were often used and collocated in tombs to represent positive advice for the deceased in his or her travel. It was a tangible symbol that connected the Ka with life.

Navigation had a huge importance in Egypt: Egyptian people’s life highly depended on the Nile and it was venerated as it was a real and proper God.

A cat from ancient Egypt in Rome

Bast or Bastet is the name of the Egyptian cat goddess, venerated for protection and fertility. In ancient times to kill or injure a cat led to serious penalties and also cats were mummified and this explains how much they were respected and loved by people. So, cats where and are loved even nowadays by people from all over the world, even by the Egyptian Goddess Isis! There a place in Rome was walking just in front of Palazzo Grazioli and looking up you can find a cat statue which was part of the Isis Goddess Temple.

And there is also a “Roman” Pyramid

Discovering ancient Egypt in the heart of Rome, Italy

Rome is well known for its ancient architecture – the Colosseum, Pantheon, Trajan’s Market and the Roman Forum to name a few – but one thing it is not often associated with is pyramids. But right in the heart of Rome, sits a 2,000-year-old pyramid, measuring 30 meters along each side and 35 meters in height. You can’t miss it! Yet very few people have heard of Rome’s Pyramid of Cestius.

The Pyramid of Cestius was built along the Via Ostiensis, an important road in ancient Rome, sometime between 18 and 12 BC. While it is debatable whether the Egyptian pyramids were ever really used as tombs, the pyramid of Cestius most definitely was.

Within the pyramid is a barrel-vaulted burial chamber which, according to the inscriptions on the east and west flanks of the pyramid, housed the body of a Roman politician known as Gaius Cestius Epulo , a tribune, praetor and member of the priesthood. A second inscription announces that the building of this pyramid was completed in 330 days.

Pyramids were royal tombs and this particular custom came to Rome thanks to the Egyptian influence on Rome’s architecture developed after the civil war and Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Archaeologists uncovered entire roman city without digging

Archaeologists uncovered entire roman city without digging

Archaeologists first managed to map a full roman city, Falerii Novi in Italy, using advanced GPRs, which allowed them to reveal surprising information while it remains deep underground. The technology could revolutionise our view of ancient settlements.

The team, from the University of Cambridge and Ghent University, has discovered a bath complex, market, temple, a public monument unlike anything seen before, and even the city’s sprawling network of water pipes. By looking at different depths, the archaeologists can now study how the town evolved over hundreds of years.

The research, published today in Antiquity, harnessed recent advances in GPR technology which make it possible to explore larger areas in higher resolution than ever before. This is likely to have major implications for the study of ancient cities because many cannot be excavated either because they are too large, or because they are trapped under modern structures.

A slice of ground-penetrating radar data from Falerii Novi, revealing the outlines of the town’s buildings.

GPR works like regular radar, bouncing radio waves off objects and using the ‘echo’ to build up a picture at different depths.* By towing their GPR instruments behind a quad bike, the archaeologists surveyed all 30.5 hectares within the city’s walls — Falerii Novi was just under half the size of Pompeii — taking a reading every 12.5cm.

Located 50 km north of Rome and first occupied in 241 BC, Falerii Novi survived into the medieval period (until around AD 700). The team’s GPR data can now start to reveal some of the physical changes experienced by the city at this time. They have already found evidence of stone robbing.

The study also challenges certain assumptions about Roman urban design, showing that Falerii Novi’s layout was less standardised than many other well-studied towns, like Pompeii.

The temple, market building and bath complex discovered by the team are also more architecturally elaborate than would usually be expected in a small city.

In a southern district, just within the city’s walls, GPR revealed a large rectangular building connected to a series of water pipes which lead to the aqueduct.

Remarkably, these pipes can be traced across much of Falerii Novi, running beneath its insulae (city blocks), and not just along its streets, as might normally be expected. The team believes that this structure was an open-air natatio or pool, forming part of a substantial public bathing complex.

Even more unexpectedly, near the city’s north gate, the team identified a pair of large structures facing each other within a porticus duplex (a covered passageway with a central row of columns). They know of no direct parallel but believe these were part of an impressive public monument and contributed to an intriguing sacred landscape on the city’s edge.

Corresponding author, Professor Martin Millett from the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Classics, said:

“The astonishing level of detail which we have achieved at Falerii Novi, and the surprising features that GPR has revealed, suggest that this type of survey could transform the way archaeologists investigate urban sites, as total entities.”

Millett and his colleagues have already used GPR to survey Interamna Lirenas in Italy, and on a lesser scale, Alborough in North Yorkshire, but they now hope to see it deployed on far bigger sites.

“It is exciting and now realistic to imagine GPR being used to survey a major city such as Miletus in Turkey, Nicopolis in Greece or Cyrene in Libya,” Millett said. “We still have so much to learn about Roman urban life and this technology should open up unprecedented opportunities for decades to come.”

The sheer wealth of data produced by such high-resolution mapping does, however, pose significant challenges. Traditional methods of manual data analysis are to time-consuming, requiring around 20 hours to fully document a single hectare. It will be some time before the researchers finish examining Falerii Novi but to speed the process up they are developing new automated techniques.

Falerii Novi is well documented in the historical record, is not covered by modern buildings and has been the subject of decades of analysis using other non-invasive techniques, such as magnetometry, but GPR has now revealed a far more complete picture.

Further information

*GPR is so effective because it relies on the reflection of radio waves off items in the ground. Different materials reflect waves differently, which can be used to create maps of underground features. Although this principle has been employed since the 1910s, over the past few years technological advances have made the equipment faster and higher resolution.

Funding

The project was funded by the AHRC. Lieven Verdonck, from Ghent University, was employed on a post-doctoral fellowship from the Fund for Scientific Research — Flanders (FWO). The team is grateful for support from Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per l’Area Metropolitana di Roma, la Provincia di Viterbo e l’Etruria Meridionale.

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

Breathtaking Find Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Ancient Greek Tombs, Once Lined With Gold

Breathtaking Find Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Ancient Greek Tombs, Once Lined With Gold

Archaeologists recently discovered two magnificent 3,500-year-old royal tombs in the shadow of the palace of the legendary King Nestor of Pylos. It’s not clear exactly who the tombs’ owners were, but their contents—gold and bronze, amber from the Baltic, amethyst from Egypt, and carnelian from the Arabian Peninsula and India—suggest wealth, power, and far-flung trade connections in the Bronze Age world. And the images engraved on many of those artefacts may eventually help us better understand the Mycenaean culture that preceded classical Greece.

Breathtaking Find Unearths 3,500-Year-Old Ancient Greek Tombs, Once Lined With Gold
Archaeologists used photogrammetry to make a detailed 3D map of the tomb and its contents.

Tombs fit for royalty

The larger tomb is 12m (36 feet) wide and 4.5 meters (15 feet) deep, and stone walls would once have stood that height again above ground.

Domes once covered the underground chambers, but the roofs and upper walls have long since collapsed, burying the tombs beneath thousands of melon-sized stones and a tangle of grapevines. University of Cincinnati archaeologists Jack Davis, Sharon Stocker, and their colleagues had to clear away vegetation and then remove the stones by hand.

“It was like going back to the Mycenaean period,” Stocker said. “They had placed them by hand in the walls of the tomb, and we were taking them out by hand. It was a lot of work.”

Beneath the rubble, gold leaf litters the burial pits’ floors in gleaming flakes; once, it lined the walls and floors of the chambers.

The tombs don’t appear to have contained the remains of their occupants (there’s some evidence that the tombs were disturbed in the distant past), but they were interred with jewellery and other opulent artefacts of gold, bronze, and gemstones, as well as a commanding view of the Mediterranean Sea.

For archaeologists, the real treasure in the Mycenaean tombs isn’t all the gold leaf or polished gemstones but the imagery engraved in those artefacts and what it can tell us about Mycenaean culture and beliefs.

Carved in stone

Today, we’ve got a pretty good grasp of classical Greek religion (and it’s still got a pretty good grip on popular culture). But classical Greece emerged from the ashes of the Mycenaean civilization, which crumbled like many other Mediterranean societies around 1200 BCE when the Bronze Age world suffered a sudden economic and political collapse.

Texts written in the earliest written form of Greek, a script called Linear B, describe the Bronze Age ideas that eventually gave rise to the more familiar classical Greek mythology.

Those texts mention some familiar names, like Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena, but those figures are not quite in the roles they hold in the later Greek pantheon. Zeus isn’t yet the ruler of the gods, while his brother Poseidon rules over earthquakes and the underworld. Other almost-familiar deities appear under different names.

But we don’t know what most of the symbols and motifs unearthed at Mycenaean archaeological sites mean or what role those symbols may have played in daily life, religious rituals, or other aspects of the culture.

“One problem is we don’t have any writing from the Minoan or Mycenaean time that talks of their religion or explain the importance of their symbols,” said Stocker.

On a gold ring, two bulls face each other between sheaves of grain detailed enough to be recognizable as barley. “It’s an interesting scene of animal husbandry: cattle mixed with grain production. It’s the foundation of agriculture,” Davis said.

A gold pendant suggests trade links with Egypt; it bears an image of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, whose domains include motherhood and the protection of the dead. Later Greek culture drew parallels between Hathor and the Greek goddess Aphrodite, but it’s not entirely clear what she meant to Mycenaeans.

But one of the most interesting items from the tombs is an agate sealstone, a type of carved gemstone popular in the Minoan civilization that flourished on the island of Crete at around the same time as the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland.

The agate sealstone depicts a detailed ritual scene involving two lion-like spirits called genii.

Archaeologists think people may have carried sealstones as amulets. This one depicts two lion-like spirits, or genii, standing on their hind legs and carrying offerings—a serving vase and an incense burner—to an altar. The altar itself holds a sprouting sapling and a Minoan symbol that probably represents the horns of a sacrificial ox.

A 16-pointed star hangs over the whole scene. The elaborate star shape is a rare symbol on Mycenaean artefacts, but it shows up on two artefacts in the same tomb at Pylos: the agate sealstone and another gold and bronze item. Stocker, Davis, and their colleagues aren’t yet sure what the symbol means or why it may have been associated with the tomb’s occupant, but they’ll spend the next couple of years in the field and in the lab trying to better understand the tombs and their contents.

The Griffin Warrior

The pair of newly-discovered tombs lies close to another royal tomb, first excavated in 2015. It contained armour, weapons, gold jewellery, and another agate sealstone with a detailed combat scene engraved on it. Those warlike grave goods, combined with an ivory plaque bearing an engraving of a griffin, gave the tomb’s occupant the nickname “Griffin Warrior.”

Based on the style of the tomb and the nature of the things he took to the grave, Stocker, Davis, and their colleagues say the Griffin Warrior was probably a king who wielded both military and religious authority—a predecessor to later Mycenaean kings like Nestor, who features in the Greek epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. The two nearby tombs may hold relatives or family members of the Griffin Warrior, perhaps immediate family or members of the same dynasty.

All In One Magazine