Century-Old Little Girl Found In Coffin Under San Francisco Home Identified
In the 1800s the mysterious girl, whose body was found under a house in San Francisco, her body entombed in a small lead and bronze coffin and her well-preserved hands clutching a single red rose, has been identified.
Garden of Innocence’s nonprofit project says the child — who not only astonished the work Crew who stumbled over the Casket but also city officials who thought the bodies in the 19th century Richmond District cemetery had all been moved — is Edith Howard Cook.
Edith was a month and a half short of her third birthday when she died Oct. 13, 1876, according to researchers working with the Southern California’s Garden of Innocence.
The cause of her death? Probably severe undernourishment caused by an infection, the researchers said.
The team had been working to identify the girl since her body was discovered during a home remodelling project near Lone Mountain.
Construction worker Kevin Boylan told KTVU: ‘All the hair was still there. The nails were there. There were flowers – roses, still on the child’s body. It was a sight to see.’
“It was a light at the end of the tunnel finding out who she is,” said Erica Hernandez, a project spokeswoman
The researchers, who included staff at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, located records from the old cemetery that was run by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows until about 1902, when the graves were relocated to Colma.
Although the paperwork was “unorganized,” Hernandez said, the team was able to cross-reference plot records with old newspaper obituaries and get an idea of who the young child might be.
Once it concluded that Edith was probably the girl, the team tracked down living relatives for a DNA sample to verify their finding. That confirmation came when a sample from Edith’s hair matched that of Peter Cook, a descendant of her brother, who lives in Marin County.
Edith Howard Cook was the second child and first daughter of Horatio Nelson and Edith Scooffy Cook. Peter Cook is descended from Edith’s older brother, Milton H. Cook.
Edith’s family was believed to be of decent means, having buried the child in a relatively expensive metal casket 37 inches in length, with two viewing windows on the lid.
Her skin and hair, as well as her burial flowers, were well preserved. She was one of about 30,000 people with graves at the old Odd Fellows Cemetery.
Why her remains weren’t transported to Colma around 1920, when the city wanted to make room for the living, remains a mystery.
Skeletons Found Under a Florida Wine Shop May Be Some of America’s First Colonists
Historians recently announced in Florida that several small children’s bones buried beneath underneath the last place one might think to look: a wine shop.
However, there will be no police inquiry. The Florida wine shop happens to be located in St. Augustine, America’s oldest city. And those bones? They’re just about as old as the city is.
The archaeologists actually believe that these skeletal remains could have been among the first settlers in North America.
In the past few weeks, researchers have found seven people including three children, in the ancient graveyard.
According to the St. Augustine Register, one of them was a young white European woman.
Researchers are still examining the other remains, but a pottery fragment found nearby suggests that these people died sometime between 1572 and 1586.
“What you’re dealing with is people who made St. Augustine what it is,” Carl Halbirt, St. Augustine city archaeologist, tells FirstCoast News. “You’re in total awe. You want to treat everything with respect, and we are.”
Excavations inside the Fiesta Mall (City of St. Augustine)
Archaeologists were able to dig underneath the building thanks to the effects of last year’s Hurricane Matthew, the flooding from which convinced the building’s owner that it was time to replace the wooden floor.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the building’s floor was constructed in 1888, and the soil beneath the building has remained untouched since then, thus creating a virtual time capsule.
The building also happens to be built where the ancient Church of Nuestra Señora de la Remedios used to stand.
“The mission churches across Florida buried everybody in the church floor,” Ellsbeth Gordon, an architectural historian, told FirstCoast News. “It was consecrated ground, of course.”
According to Smithsonian, Sir Francis Drake burned the church down in 1586, a hurricane destroyed it again in 1599, and the British once again burned it down in 1702.
That last time may have been for good, but until then the church had been the main meeting point for a colony that had been established 55 years before the Pilgrims ever set foot on Plymouth Rock.
While the archaeologists are planning on moving the bones found outside the wine shop to a nearby cemetery, the skeletons found inside will stay right where they have lain for the past 400 years.
Hundreds of Well Preserved Prehistoric Animals have been Found in an Ancient Volcanic Ashbed in Nebraska
The watering holes attracted prehistoric animals among Nebraska’s tall grasslands. From horses to camels and rhinoceroses, with wild dogs looming nearby, animals roamed the savanna-like region.
Then, one day, it all changed. Hundreds of miles away, a volcano in southeast Idaho erupted. Within days, up to two feet of ash covered parts of present-day Nebraska.
Some of the animals died immediately, consumed with ash and other debris. Most of the animals lived for several more days, their lungs ingesting ash as they searched the ground for food. Within a few weeks, northeast Nebraska was barren of animals, except for a few survivors.
An adult (3) rhino fossil lies next to a baby’s fossils. They are among hundreds of skeletons discovered at Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park in Royal, Nebraska.
More than 12 million years later, a fossil was found in Antelope County, near the small town of Royal. The skull of a baby rhino was discovered by a Nebraska palaeontologist and his wife while exploring the area. The fossil was exposed by erosion. Soon after, exploration started in the area.
As more discoveries were made, the site grew into a tourist attraction. Today, people visit Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park to check out hundreds of fossils from 12 species of animals, including five types of horses, three species of camels, as well as a sabre-toothed deer. The infamous sabre-toothed cat remains a dream discovery.
Visitors view fossils inside the Hubbard Rhino Barn, a 17,500-square foot facility that protects the fossils while allowing visitors to roam on a boardwalk. Kiosks provide information on fossils located in specific areas.
One level of the fossil beds discovered at Ashfall Fossil Beds park.
As you tour the barn, if a summer intern or palaeontologist is nearby, they are open to discussing their work, as well as answering questions. During our visit, we learned that an intern had discovered a fossilized dog paw print.
Outside the barn, visitors can read facts about the area, including that mammoths migrated to North America about 1.5 million years ago. A yellow flag in an area a short distance from the main walk to the barn indicates the discovery site of the rhino skull. Red flags showcase spots where additional fossils were discovered.
A yellow flag marks the site of the first skull discovery in 1971. The red flags indicate spots of additional fossil finds.
Visitor activities and views at Ashfall Fossil Beds
In addition to the Hubbard Barn, Ashfall Fossil Beds features a discovery area where children can cipher through the sand searching for their own fossil discoveries. A small barn is used for special exhibits, as well as classes.
Children play in a sandbox “searching” for fossils.
The visitors centre houses some animal remains, as well as palaeontologists working on recent finds. About 60 million years before the area was home to the savanna, Nebraska was part of a tropical sea.
Fossils found in the area include a plesiosaur, a mammal from the Jurassic Period. The fossils displayed were found on the Santee reservation, about an hour away.
Fossils from a plesiosaur were found near Santee, about an hour from the park.c
Sculptures representing animals from the region are located around the state historical park. Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park kicks off its summer hours Memorial Day weekend when it’s open daily through Labor Day. Otherwise, check the website here for hours.
A state park permit ($6 per vehicle for an in-state day permit or free with an annual pass) is required for visiting the park, in addition to the $7 entrance fee.
The Department of Antiquities in Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province announced on Monday the discovery of an ancient artefact that dates back over 2,000 years.
The artifact was found in an ancient hillside 10 kilometers west of Duhok province.
Kurdistan 24 reports that an engraved tablet has been unearthed in northern Kurdistan’s Duhok province. “After careful study, we found out that the stone tablet is engraved with Hellenistic script and dates back to 165 B.C.
Experts in Duhok found the item back in March but only estimated that its age recently.
The Hellenistic era is a period in history that followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, who conquered much of the Middle East and spread Greek influence.
Ahmed explained that the engravings had been translated into Kurdish by researchers, who also concluded that the inscriptions refer specifically to Demetrius— a Hellenistic-era ruler of the region around the second century B.C.
The writing makes references to the period that followed the coming of Alexander the Great, he noted.
“This discovery will pave the way for researchers to conduct further archaeological investigations in the foreseeable future [in the Kurdistan Region],” said Ahmed.
The research findings will be published in academic journals, according to the museum official.
Ahmed’s statement comes after the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism on Monday announced it had unearthed a number of historic sites in Erbil province.
The 2,500-Year-old ancient Greek city, now about one-third of the city is underwater
The Foundation Oleg Deripaska Volnoe Delo and the Russian Academy of Archaeology uncovered parts of marble stele with inscriptions of ancient Persian King Darius I.
Discovered in the ancient town of Phanagoria, in the southern area of Krasnodar, the stele is assessed to date back to the first half of the 5th century B.C. Archaeologists doing excavations in the area say the find has good chances of becoming a world sensation.
The stele with a signature in the name of Persian King Darius I was unearthed in the centre of Phanagoria, the remains of an ancient Greek city near Crimea and the Black Sea during an archaeological expedition that has been supported by Volnoe Delo Foundation since 2004.
During excavations in Phanagoria was discovered foundations of the building, covering an area of 12 square meters. It is the building and call the temple that once stood on the site. In addition, there was discovered a temple, archaeologists were able to detect more than 20 burial complexes and the crypt, which is attributed to the Roman times. In this crypt were buried several generations, so we tell ourselves archaeologists.
The decoded inscriptions on the stele state someone made them in the name of the Persian King Darius I who lived from 550-486 B.C. The stele has an inscription in the ancient Persian language. The approximate assessment dates the find to the first half of the 5th century B.C.
The text contains a word unregistered before and roughly interpreted as the place named Miletus, one of the biggest cities in Ionia, a region known as Asia Minor now. Miletus stood at the head of the so-called Ionian uprising of Greek city-states against Darius I. It was suppressed in 494 B.C.
Fragments of a building dated 5th century with Roman holes
Archaeologists believe the king put up a marble stele in the city after his victory over the Greeks. The monument had a text on it, reporting on the king’s triumph. Later on, a fragment of the overturned and broken stele got to Phanagoria – quite possibly, as ballast on a ship that called into the Phanagoria port, since there is no natural stone of the kind on the Taman peninsula.
At present, the stele is undergoing scrutiny at the restoration laboratory of the Phanagoria Research and Cultural Center. The find has good chances of becoming a world sensation.
Darius I, a Persian ruler from the Achaemenian dynasty considerably expanded the territory of his country with the aid of wars against the Getae, Thrace, Lemnos, Imbros, and Macedonia. He was buried in the mausoleum built on the cliffs at Naqsh-e Rustam near Persepolis on his order and decorated with sculptures.
Apart from the stele, the archaeologists have found in the acropolis the remainders of ancient fortress walls, which in itself is an important even in classical archaeology.
The remains of the wall of a small structure are seen in the foreground.
Vladimir Kuznetsov, Doctor of historical sciences and the head of the Phanagorian expedition:
“The inscription on the stele made in the name of King Darius I is evidently devoted to the crushing of the Ionian revolt. The discovery places Phanagoria in the context of one of the most important events of ancient history, which had far-reaching consequences for the Greeks as well as the Persians, and makes it possible to trace the connections of this colony with other parts of the Greek world and analyze its significance in advancing Hellenistic civilization on the Black Sea coast”
Volnoe Delo Foundation, one of Russia’s biggest privately-held charity funds run by a businessman and industrialist Oleg Deripaska, has supported research activities in the 2550-year-old city of Phanagoria since 2004. The Foundation has allocated over $10 million to Phanagoria fieldwork over the past 15 years.
Now Phanagoria is one of the best-equipped archaeological expeditions in Russia with its own scientific and cultural centre, up-to-date equipment for above-ground and underwater excavation and diverse team of specialists involved in the fieldwork.
Phanagoria archaeological expedition.
Among the recent discoveries made at Phanagoria are remains of a palace of Mithradates VI dated the 1st century B.C., an ancient naval ram used by the army of Mithradates VI, a tomb with a stepped ceiling, the oldest temple unearthed on the Russian territory dating back to the 5th century B.C. and a number of submerged objects e.g. ancient city’s streets covered with sand, Phanagoria’s port structures, ship debris.
Excavation works cover several areas that include the 2,500-square-metre acropolis at the centre of the ancient city, the eastern necropolis, an ancient cemetery that served as a burial place from the very founding of the city, and a submerged part of the city. What makes the expedition unique is the mix of diversified specialists working together.
Apart from archaeologists and historians, there are anthropologists, soil scientists, paleozoologists, numismatists and other researchers. A complex approach to the study of Phanagoria’s cultural relics helps to restore the residents’ way of living, religious beliefs, economic cooperation, as well as their roles in military conflicts.
About Phanagoria
Phanagoria is one of the main antiquity monuments on Russian soil. Founded in the mid-sixth century B.C. by Greek colonists, the city has long been one of the two capitals of the Bosporan Kingdom, an ancient state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula.
Phanagoria was the major economic and cultural centre of the Black Sea region, one of the biggest Greek cities, the first capital of Great Bulgaria, one of the main cities of Khazar Kaganate. It is also one of the ancient centres of Christianity.
Saint Andrew was believed to preach in Phanagoria. The city boasts the largest Jewish community in the Black Sea region: the first synagogue in Russia was built in Phanagoria in 16th century A.D.
In the 9-10th centuries, the residents abandoned the city for reasons still unknown. Phanagoria is surrounded by Russia’s largest necropolis covering an area of over 300 hectares. The total volume of the cultural layers is 2.5 million cubic meters of soil; the layer’s depth is up to seven meters. No single building has been erected in the city since ancient times, which has helped preserve the ruins and the historical artefacts.
Regular archaeological expeditions have been held in Phanagoria since the late 1930s. As of now, only two per cent of the city’s territory has been studied. Phanagoria is located in the Temryuksky District in the Krasnodar region.
The long-Lost Dark Age Kingdom Unearthed in Scotland
Archaeologists started excavations at Trusty’s Hill, they have discovered ancient picturesque patterns etched into a rock surface near the site entrance.
The sculptures were rare in the area, well south of where Pictish carvings had usually been found. (Roman writings of around A.D. 300 described the Picts as the hostile tribes of the region north of the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde; they are thought to have been a loose confederation of Celtic tribes, but their exact origins are uncertain.)
What the archaeologists uncovered at the site turned out to be a complex type of fort, dating to around A.D. 600.
A laser scan of part of the carved Pictish symbols found at Trusty’s Hill. Researchers believe these carvings may have had a role in royal inaugurations at the site.
A wooden and stone rampart had been built around the summit of the hill to fortify the site, in addition to other defensive structures and enclosures on its lower slopes. The style was consistent with other high-status settlements of the early medieval period in Scotland.
This was not a run-of-the-mill agricultural settlement, in other words, but a far more important centre. Dr David Bowles, a Scottish Borders Council archaeologist and co-director of the dig, believes its inhabitants likely managed the farming and natural resources of a much larger estate.
As Bowles told the Independent of the settlement’s influence: “Control was maintained by bonding the people of this land and the districts beyond to the royal household, by gifts, promises of protection and the bounties of raiding and warfare.”
Just how influential was this royal settlement? According to Ronan Toolis of GUARD Archaeology, which led the dig, the archaeological evidence collected at Trusty’s Hill “suggests that Galloway may have been the heart of the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged, a kingdom that was in the late sixth century pre-eminent amongst the kingdoms of the north.”
Thistle-headed iron pin from Trusty’s Hill. Analysis showed that this was originally embellished with copper alloy inlay decoration. Thistle head decorated pins have been found in Dark Age sites across south-west Scotland demonstrating that the thistle emblem goes back a long way in Scotland.
Toolis, Bowles and their team believe the entranceway, with the two Pictish symbols flanking it, was the location for royal inauguration ceremonies that took place at the fort complex.
They also found evidence of leatherworking and wool spinning operations at the site, along with the remains of a metal workshop that appears to have produced high-quality work in gold, silver, iron and bronze.
The remains of a copper alloy horse mount found at Trusty’s Hill. Archaeologists believe artefacts like this one point to an upper-class society of royal distinction.
Among the kingdoms of Dark Age Britain, Rheged has remained the most elusive. The kingdom and its powerful warrior king, Urien, inspired some of the earliest medieval poetry composed in Britain, by the poet Taliesin.
In some Arthurian legends, Urien is said to have married Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur’s sister. Their marriage was reportedly not a happy one; in one version of events, Morgan plotted to use the sword Excalibur to kill Urien and Arthur and take the throne herself with her lover, Accolon.
Surviving fragments of early medieval historical records also show Urien’s dominance in southern Scotland and northern England, before a rival group destroyed the settlement in the early seventh century.
But despite its historical importance, the location of the kingdom of Rheged has long been unknown. Previously, historians thought it might have been centered in Cumbria, a county in northwestern England.
Researchers studying Trusty’s Hill in Scotland believe the site may have been the royal seat of power for the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged. This illustration recreates what the royal stronghold may have looked like around AD 600.
The Dark Ages kingdom of Rheged, dating back more than 1,400 years, may have had its seat of power on the modern day ‘Trusty’s Hill’ in Galloway
Bowles and Toolis laid out the excavation’s findings in their book “The Lost Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged,” published this month. As Bowles puts it: “This was a place of religious, cultural and political innovation whose contribution to culture in Scotland has perhaps not been given due recognition. Yet the influence of Rheged, with Trusty’s Hill at its secular heart…and Urien its most famous king, has nevertheless rippled through the history and literature of Scotland and beyond.”
A lost Roman city dating back to the first century B.C. has been uncovered in spectacular fashion in the south of France.
Archaeologists working the site ahead of the construction for a boarding school and a cafeteria were stunned to discover a wide array of structural ruins, walls, and an organized street network.
Putting the pieces together, it was determined that the team had discovered the remains of the Roman city of Ucetia.
“Prior to our work, we knew that there had been a Roman city called Ucetia only because its name was mentioned on stela in Nimes, alongside 11 other names of Roman towns in the area.
It was probably a secondary town, under the authority of Nimes. No artefacts had been recovered except for a few isolated fragments of mosaic,” archaeologist Philippe Cayn told the International Business Times.
An archeologist cleans the floor of one of the mosaics discovered in the lost Roman city of Ucetia.
As it turns out, those isolated fragments may have been pieces of a beautifully preserved series of mosaic floors found in the remains of a 2,600-square-foot Roman home on the site.
One of the two, nearly-complete, mosaic panels uncovered in the South of France.
One of the mosaics discovered covers nearly 650 square feet, making it one of the largest ever discovered in the South of France.
A close-up of the tiny colored stones shows just how complex and immaculately preserved they are. Archaeologists say the artworks likely date back to the first century or earlier.
One of the medallions is surrounded by four multicolored animals including an owl, a duck, an eagle and a fawn.
The archaeologists speculate that the animals may represent the Roman gods, with the eagle of Jupiter, the owl of Minerva, the doe of Diana and the duck of Sequana.
The partially uncovered remains of an ancient paved roadway from the Roman city of Ucetia.
Next to the building containing the mosaics, the archaeologists uncovered the remains of an ancient paved roadway equipped with a gutter border. They also found fragments of ancient mural paintings, a wine cellar, and even the remains of a complex underfloor heating system.
An aerial view of a portion of the site uncovered by archeologists
Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old ‘Sphinx Room’ hidden in Emperor Nero’s Golden Palace
Archaeologists have discovered a hidden vault in the ruins of Roman Emperor Nero’s sprawling palace, hidden under the hills near Rome’s ancient Colosseum.
According to a statement (translated from Italian) from the Colosseum archaeological park, which includes the palace’s ruins, the chamber has sat hidden for nearly 2,000 years, likely dating to between A.D. 65 and A.D. 68.
The chamber, nicknamed the Sphinx Room, is richly adorned with murals of real and mythical creatures including — you guessed it — a sphinx.
One of the walls of the newly discovered room is painted with a little sphinx.
Painted in rich red, green and yellow pigments that have survived the last two millennia incredibly well, the vaulted room is also decorated with images of a centaur, the goat-rumped god Pan, myriad plant and water ornaments, and a scene of a sword-wielding man being attacked by a panther.
According to the statement, the Sphinx Room was discovered accidentally, while researchers were setting up to restore a nearby chamber.
One of the centaur frescoes in the newly-discovered chamber
The room’s curved ceilings are 15 feet (4.5 meters) high, and much of the room is still filled in with dirt.
Nero began constructing his massive palace — known as the Domus Aurea, or “golden house” — in A.D. 64 after a devastating, six-day-long fire reduced two-thirds of Rome to ashes.
That researchers are still uncovering new rooms in the Domus Aurea after hundreds of years of excavation (the ruins were first rediscovered in the 15th century) is no surprise. In its prime, the palace sprawled over four of Rome’s famous seven hills and is believed to have included at least 300 rooms.
Thanks, in part, to his narcissistic construction project, Nero’s reputation suffered in the eyes of history, and he is remembered today as a power-mad despot. Following Nero’s suicide in A.D. 68, much of his palace was looted, filled with earth, and built over.
One of the palace’s central features, a large manmade lake, was eventually covered up by the Flavian Amphitheater — better known as the Roman Colosseum — in A.D. 70.
Thanks to the lake’s infrastructure, the bottom of the Colosseum was occasionally flooded to wage mock naval battles, bringing glory to the mad emperor’s successors.
