Eighteenth-Century Wooden Railway Unearthed in Scotland
The first railway track in Scotland is expected to undergo extensive archeological exploration next year.
In June this year, in an excavation, wooden rails were discovered from 297-year-old Tranent Cockenzie Waggonway.
Part of a cobbled horse track for the ponies which pulled the wagons up to coal pits at Tranent in East Lothian was also discovered.
Next year, a community project hopes excavation might unearth some of the timbers used to lay the railway.
The findings of this year were among the top five archäological finds of 2019 by the 1722 Waggonway Heritage Group
Compiled by Scotland’s archaeology hub, Dig It!, other discoveries on the list include a Pictish skeleton found on the Black Isle in the Highlands and what is believed to be a Viking drinking hall in Orkney.
This June’s dig is set to be followed up by a more extensive excavation in 2020
The waggonway involved wooden rails, wagons, and wheels. Constructed in 1722, it was upgraded to an iron railway in 1815.
The community-run waggonway project is guided by a professional archaeologist. Dates have still be confirmed for next year’s more extensive excavation.
A spokesman said: “The hope is that we can excavate a longer stretch of the track, and we are working with East Lothian Council Archaeology Service to plan this for spring 2020.
“Given the level of preservation on the small section we uncovered in June, we are confident that the central cobbled horse-track survives in good condition, and we remain hopeful that some rail timbers will be intact enough to remove, although this is dependent on soil conditions.”
He added: “Archaeological investigations into early wagonways are relatively rare, and the information that this site can give us is incredibly valuable, with the potential to establish links in the technology used for early railways around the country in the 18th Century.”
The other two top discoveries on the Dig It! the list was one of a set of lost gravestones from the Middle Ages at Glasgow’s Govan Old Parish Church and a previously unrecorded Pictish stone near Dingwall.
Archaeologists hope to discover more about 18th Century waggonways
The Statue of Lady Sennuwy of Asyut Emerges from the ground at Kerma Sudan in 1913
The flourishing, wealthy empires of Nubia have lined the nile in Southern Egypt and Sudan more than a thousand years before Jesus.
A century ago, in partnership with Harvard University, the Boston archeologist George Reisner, Made an excavation in the region and brought back to the American public an enduring sight of Nubian artifacts – the largest collection of Nubian artifacts outside East Africa.
This collection was viewed today for the first time as part of a museum theme to reexamine past archeologists’ conclusions and the biases that affected their work.
Kerma: Beads and pendants: faience, amethyst, glazed crystal, carnelian, shell, garnet, granite, August 10, 1914, Giza Camp
The Ancient Nubia Now exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston discusses some of what Reisner, one of their own archaeologists and curators, got wrong in his representation of history.
“He is considered the father of American Egyptology,” said curator Denise Doxey. “As an archaeologist, he was really superb.”
Ancient Nubia Now exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Oct. 13, 2019, to Jan. 20, 2020
But she says that Reisner based many of his assumptions on history that were written by Egyptians who were at war with Nubians for generations and described Nubians as barbarians.
When Reisner came across a beautifully carved, Egyptian stone statue in a tomb in Sudan in 1913, he classified the whole tomb as an Egyptian outpost — even though the statue known as Lady Sennuwy was surrounded by pottery and jewelry that was distinctly Nubian.
“He just couldn’t believe that the Nubians did all this themselves,” Doxey said. “He was a wonderful archaeologist, but he was not a forward-thinking man on social issues at all. So, he brings his own racial biases, which happened to dovetail nicely with the Egyptians’ image of the Nubians. And [it] causes them to completely misinterpret the site.”
Reisner didn’t believe that the Nubians had conquered southern Egypt for a time, and brought Lady Sennuwy back to Nubia as a prize. But Doxey says that’s what actually happened.
“In fact, he had it completely backward,” she said.
Doxey says Reisner contributed to a portrayal of Nubia as a conquered, marginalized culture somehow less important than Egypt, and eventually mostly forgotten by scholars.
“It’s a vicious cycle because people aren’t familiar with Nubia. So, museums are wary about doing exhibitions and [having] nobody come because they don’t know what Nubia is,” Doxey said. “So, it perpetuates this idea that nobody knows what Nubia is, and it helps to keep that imbalance that Egypt is somehow much more important.”
-Denise Doxey, Museum of Fine Arts, curator
“It’s a vicious cycle because people aren’t familiar with Nubia. So, museums are wary about doing exhibitions and [having] nobody come because they don’t know what Nubia is,” Doxey said. “So, it perpetuates this idea that nobody knows what Nubia is, and it helps to keep that imbalance that Egypt is somehow much more important.”
But it’s been clear for some time that Reisner got it wrong. French and Swiss teams did excavations in Sudan in the 1960s and 1970s and discovered that tomb Reisner found with the Lady Sennuwy statue was part of a thriving, Nubian metropolis at the center of a trading network that reached far into Africa.
“It’s a massive, fortified city with suburbs outside and ports and industrial areas and temples,” Doxey said. “So, it was actually a very powerful and important kingdom.”
A kingdom that left behind fine pottery that is eggshell thin and dipped in a distinctive translucent blue glaze; and gold jewelry, and sculptures depicting animals such as rams and lions. Items that were ahead of their time, and are possibly evidence of an advanced culture.
That reminds some people of Wakanda, the fictional, ultra-advanced African country in the movie, “Black Panther.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes the “Black Panther” series for Marvel, has said he imagines Wakanda being pretty much where Nubia was.
In a video in the Nubia exhibit, Nicole Aljoe, director of Africana studies at Northeastern University, talks about Pauline Hopkins, an African American writer who, in 1902-1903, wrote a serialized novel, “Of One Blood; Or, The Hidden Self,” in which one of the main characters discovers a secret, advanced society of superhumans in the Nubia region.
“It is fascinating — it’s this weird kind of proto-science fiction, fantastic, but at the same time supernatural presentation that resonated a lot for me and my students with the film [“Black Panther”] after it came out,” Aljoe said. “It’d be really cool if she was prescient in that way.”
Begrawiya: North Cemetery at Meroe, Pyramids N 32 and N 19, April 12, 1921
Aljoe says the book is just one example of how African American artists have used the idea of Nubia as a symbol again and again. There were Nubian references during the Harlem Renaissance, the Black arts movement, and in rap music and the Black Lives Matter movement, she says. Right now, there’s a ballot measure in Boston to rename a historic spot Nubian Square. It’s currently named for Thomas Dudley, a governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony who signed laws that enabled the slave trade.
“So, Nubia as kind of representing a royal African history that folks can use to challenge European and racist colonial ideologies,” Aljoe said.
Stone Age “chewing gum” yields 5,700-year-old human genome and oral microbiome
Experts of the University of Copenhagen have been able to extract a complete human genome from a “chewing gum” which is thousands of years old. It’s a new untapped source of ancient DNA, according to the researchers
Archaeologists found a “chewing gum” type of birch pitch, which was 5700 years old during excavations on Lolland. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen succeeded in extracting a complete ancient human genome from the pitch.
This is the first time that an entire ancient human genome was extracted from anything other than human bones. The new research results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
The Associate Professor Hannes Schroeder of the Globe Institute of Copenhagen University who led the research says, “It is amazing to have a complete ancient of the human genome from anything other than bone.”
‘What is more, we also retrieved DNA from oral microbes and several important human pathogens, which makes this a very valuable source of ancient DNA, especially for time periods where we have no human remains,’ Hannes Schroeder adds.
Piece of birch pitch from Syltholm, southern Denmark
Based on the ancient human genome, the researchers could tell that the birch pitch was chewed by a female. She was genetically more closely related to hunter-gatherers from mainland Europe than to those who lived in central Scandinavia at the time. They also found that she probably had dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes.
Artistic reconstruction of ‘Lola, based on the information from the DNA found in the birch tar.
The birch pitch was found during archaeological excavations at Syltholm, east of Rødbyhavn in southern Denmark. The excavations are being carried out by the Museum Lolland-Falster in connection with the construction of the Fehmarn tunnel.
‘Syltholm is completely unique. Almost everything is sealed in mud, which means that the preservation of organic remains is absolutely phenomenal,’ says Theis Jensen, Postdoc at the Globe Institute, who worked on the study for his Ph.D. and also participated in the excavations at Syltholm.
‘It is the biggest Stone Age site in Denmark and the archaeological finds suggest that the people who occupied the site were heavily exploiting wild resources well into the Neolithic, which is the period when farming and domesticated animals were first introduced into southern Scandinavia,’ Theis Jensen adds.
This is reflected in the DNA results, as the researchers also identified traces of plant and animal DNA in the pitch – specifically hazelnuts and duck – which may have been part of the individual’s diet.
In addition, the researchers succeeded in extracting DNA from several oral microbiotas from the pitch, including many commensal species and opportunistic pathogens.
‘The preservation is incredibly good, and we managed to extract many different bacterial species that are characteristic of the oral microbiome.
Our ancestors lived in a different environment and had a different lifestyle and diet, and it is, therefore, interesting to find out how this is reflected in their microbiome,’ says Hannes Schroeder.
The researchers also found DNA that could be assigned to the Epstein-Barr Virus, which is known to cause infectious mononucleosis or glandular fever.
According to Hannes Schroeder, ancient “chewing gums” bears great potential in researching the composition of our ancestral microbiome and the evolution of important human pathogens.
‘It can help us understand how pathogens have evolved and spread over time, and what makes them particularly virulent in a given environment.
At the same time, it may help predict how a pathogen will behave in the future, and how it might be contained or eradicated,’ says Hannes Schroeder.
The study was supported by the Villum Foundation and the EU’s research program Horizon 2020 through the Marie Curie Actions.
Egypt: Experts discover pharaoh’s boat in perfect condition
Archeologists of Egypt uncovered a boat claimed to have been “perfectly preserved” by Pharaoh Khufu himself, which led to verified theories of how ancient civilization constructed their wonders.
The boat was discovered near the Great Pyramid
Probably the most famous and well known of Egypt’s many ancient landmarks and includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with their associated pyramid complexes and the Great Sphinx of Giza.
The Great Pyramid of Giza, or the Pyramid of Khufu, is a spectacle of the three still existing pyramids today, who marvel at how a society over 4,500 years ago managed to build such a colossal structure.
But archeologists were able to slowly combine what this ancient civilization looked like and how ingenious and brilliant people have worked together, thanks to a find made more than half a century ago.
Amazon Prime’s “Secrets of Archaeology revealed some of those secrets. The 2014 series explained: “On this plateau, set on the edge of the desert, the story of the pyramids achieved its finest hour.
“It is here that we best appreciate the grandeur and majesty of these constructions, and the organizational skills and methods used to erect them.
“The workers here were organized into teams that hauled blocks of stones on huge sledges mounted on logs of wood. “Each team was made up of about 1,000 men organized along military lines and led by a master mason and various underlings.
The workers pulled together
“They were not slaves, they earned a regular wage, bed, and board and it is thanks to their work that these immense structures were ever completed.”
The series continued, explaining the clever tactics used by the ancient society to haul together in the building process. It added: “Even today, such imposing buildings would involve complex engineering problems.
“The Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was the first one to be built in Giza around 2500BC, has a base that covers over 12 acres (48,500 square meters). “More than 2,300,000 blocks of stone were needed to build the base and weighed between two and 200 tonnes each.
Evidence showed the workers were skilled, not slaves
“It may sound incredible, but this was once a lush green land, with neither desert nor buildings. “Irrigation canals linked the areas to the Nile, and some of the stones used in buildings were transported on these canals.”
The documentary went on to reveal how evidence of this was discovered more than 50 years ago. It added: “A boat made with cedarwood built almost 5,000 years ago was discovered here in 1954 near the Pyramid of Cheops, still in a perfect state of preservation.
Khufu’s boat was found in this hole
“Archaeologists found it belonged to the pharaoh Cheops himself, 140 feet long, equipped with 12 oars and was probably used by Cheops when he travelled along the Nile. “On those occasions, his subjects could get a glimpse of their Pharaoh and pay homage to him.”
At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced with white “casing stones” — slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone.
However, in 1303, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were taken away 50 years later to be used in the building of mosques and fortresses in Cairo.
Many other theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid’s construction techniques, disagreeing on whether the blocks were dragged, lifted, or even rolled into place.
The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers’ camps associated with construction at Giza suggest it was built instead of thousands of skilled workers.
Czech archaeologist, Miroslav Verner, claimed that the labour was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 100,000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 20,000 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers.
Small Sphinx Uncovered at Egypt’s Necropolis of Khumun
On Saturday, 14 December in the archeological area of Tuna El-Gebel at Minya, Upper Egypt, a small royal statue of a sphinx was uncovered.
A small royal statue of a sphinx uncovered in Tuna El-Gebel
The recently found sphinx of limestone stone has been revealed by SayedAbdel-Malek’s Egyptian Archeological Team.
Middle Egypt’s Director General of Antiquities Gamal El-Samastawy said the sphinx was about 35 cm tall and 55 cm width on Saturday.
In addition to pottery of different shapes and sizes, the Mission also found collections of ancient amulets.
The area of Tuna el Gebel is part of the archeological sites of the Minya governorate, which contain numerous ancient Egyptian treasures not yet revealed.
Tuna el-Gebel in the city of Mallawi was the necropolis of Khmun. It contains monuments from the Greek and Roman eras, as well as the Late Middle Ages.
The area hosts the Boundary Stelae of Akhenaton, catacombs of falcons, baboons and ibises, and the tombs of Petosiris and Isadora.
Tuna el-Gebel village is famous for having many archaeological tombs, which contributed greatly to the revival of archaeological and touristic life and helped drive Arab and foreign tourists to the region once again. It is an archaeological village located in Al Minya Governorate. It has a population of more than 20,000 people.
A unique royal bust of King Ramses II made of red granite was unearthed on a private land in Mit Rahina village in Giza by an Egyptian archaeological mission from the Ministry of Antiquities on Wednesday, December 11.
The newly discovered bust is emblazoned with the “Ka,” a symbol of power, life force and spirit.
King Ramses II bust is carved in red granite and depicts Ramses II wearing a wig with the symbol of the “Ka” over his head. The bust is 105 cm tall, 55 cm wide and 45 cm thick.
The mission discovered this unique bust during excavations on privately owned land in Giza, after the landowner was caught carrying out illegal excavation work at his land.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the uncovered King Ramses II bust is one of a kind because the only similar bust is one carved in wood and belongs to 13th Dynasty King Hor Awibre, which is now on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The mission has also discovered a group of huge red granite and limestone blocks engraved with scenes showing Ramses II during the Heb-Sed religious ritual, which indicates that these blocks could belong to a great temple dedicated to the worship of the deity Ptah.
The bust and the blocks have been transferred to Mit Rahina open air museum for restoration, and excavations will continue at the site.
One of the main achievements of King Ramses II is building Abu Simbel temple to impress Egypt’s southern neighbors, and also to reinforce the status of the Egyptian religion in the area.
Abu Simbel was one of six rock temples erected in Nubia during the ruling period of Ramses II and its construction took 20 years from 1264 BC to 1244 BC.
Abu Simbel is made up of two temples. The smaller one was built for Queen Nefertari and has two statues of her and four pharaohs; each about 33 feet (10 meters) in height.
According to many scholars, this great temple was created to celebrate the victory of Ramses II over the Hittites at the Battle of Qadesh in 1274 BC. This means that the temple was situated on the border of the conquered lands of Nubia after many military campaigns were carried out by the Pharaoh against Nubia.
Female Remains Found at Strictly Male-only Greek Monastery
The Guardian reported that American anthropologist Laura Wynn-Antikas was asked to investigate some bones found in the burial site while the church of St. Athanasius was restored on Mount Athos, only to declare they were those of a female.
The surprise assessment is surprising for the centuries-old strictly male monastic community where women even today, are not permitted to access the peninsula which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Laura Wynn-Antikas told Guardian representative Helen Smith, that “a forearm, a trunk, and a sacred bone were among those found which were very different in morphology from the rest of the males.
“Bones never lie. They will reveal the way a person lived and probably how that person died. You are prepared to see everything,” she commented.
The bones have now been sent to the Democritus Carbon Radiocarbon Research Centre to confirm their dating, with genetic analysis for gender identification expected.
Some of the bones found at the Chapel of Athanasios seem to be female.
“If we talk about one woman or even more than one woman, this will raise many questions,” the scientist added. But few among the monks are willing to learn the truth.
After all, the entry of women into the autonomous status of Mount Athos has been banned since the 10th century, despite the fact that the EU considers the fact illegal.
In fact, even female animals are banned, with the exception of cats. If tests confirm Wynn-Antika’s assertion, it will be the first time that a woman has been buried in Mount Athos, according to architect Faidon Chatziantoni, who called on the experts.
Monastery of Pantokrator, Mount Athos.
“What is certain is that [the bones] would not be [buried] there if these people were not important to the monastery,” he noted.
In all, seven people were re-buried at the site, according to Wynn-Antica, who explained that no skulls could be found but that there were seven jaws and added that the process is not easy as the bones were moved from the original landfill, resulting in lost information.
“Once we have the dating, another piece of the puzzle will be solved,” the anthropologist noted. Finally, the director of the Democritus lab, Yiannis Maniatis, said that “the whole process is likely to take three months”.
Breakthrough in Translating Proto-Elamite, World’s Oldest Undeciphered Writing
Specialists claim that the world’s oldest undeciphered writing system will be decoding 5,000-year-old secrets
Jacob Dahl, a fellow at Oxford Wolfson’s College and director of Ancient World Research Cluster, said, “I hope we’re actually about to make a breakthrough.
Live Science has confirmed that Dahl’s secret weapons can see this writing more clearly than ever.
Experts working on proto-Elamite hope they are on the point of ‘a breakthrough’
In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilizations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out the light.
This device is providing the most detailed and high-quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets.
It’s being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200 BC and 2900 BC in a region now in the southwest of modern Iran.
The Oxford team thinks that they could be on the brink of understanding this last great remaining cache of undeciphered texts from the ancient world.
Dahl, from the Oriental Studies Faculty, shipped his image-making device on the Eurostar to the Louvre Museum in Paris, which holds the most important collection of this writing.
The clay tablets were put inside this machine, the Reflectance Transformation Imaging System, which uses a combination of 76 separate photographic lights and computer processing to capture every groove and notch on the surface of the clay tablets.
It allows a virtual image to be turned around, as though being held up to the light at every possible angle.
So far Dahl has deciphered 1,200 separate signs, but he said that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as “cow” or “cattle”.
Dahl believes that the writing has proved so hard to interpret because the original texts seem to contain many mistakes – and this makes it extremely tricky for anyone trying to find consistent patterns.
“The lack of a scholarly tradition meant that a lot of mistakes were made and the writing system may eventually have become useless,” Dahl said.
Unlike any other ancient writing style, there are no bi-lingual texts and few helpful overlaps to provide a key to these otherwise arbitrary looking dashes and circles and symbols.
Proto-Elamite writing is the first-ever recorded case of one society adopting writing from another neighbouring group.
However, when these proto-Elamites borrowed the concept of writing from the Mesopotamians, they made up an entirely different set of symbols. The writing was the first ever to use syllables, Dahl said.
Dahl added that with sufficient support within two years this last great lost writing could be fully understood.
A Kiln That Fired Millions of Clay Pipes Was Unearthed Under a Montreal Bridge
A bustling pipe-making district at the intersection of four Montreal neighborhoods catered to Canadians in need of a tobacco fix, during the 19th Century.
The leading Henderson pipe plant manufactured millions of pipes each year was one of the manufacturers operating in the area.
According to Max Harrold of CTV News, a key component of the factory operations was discovered by archaeologists: a “massive” kiln where Henderson clay pipes were fired before being sold to smokers.
A massive pipe kiln from the Henderson factory, unearthed by archaeologists.
The team discovered the kiln beneath the Jacques Cartier Bridge, a now-iconic landmark that connects Montreal and the city of Longueuil while conducting survey work prior to the installation of a drainage system near piers on the Montreal side of the bridge.
Per a press release from Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated (JCCBI), archaeologists embarked on the dig with the specific goal of locating the Henderson kiln.
Historic maps confirmed that the team’s chosen dig spot was once the site of the Henderson factory and even identified the location of a kiln spanning between 16 and 19 feet in diameter.
Hundreds of pipes have previously been found in the area, many of them stamped with the “Henderson/Montreal” label-another sign that the kiln was hiding nearby.
“We knew we’d come across it this time around,” archaeologist Christian Roy tells Jessica Leigh Hester of Atlas Obscura.
The kiln had been largely demolished, but Roy says the excavation team found chambers “through which the air would flow into the oven,” along with “other openings where they could put charcoal in to heat up the kiln.”
Archaeologists suspect the structure dates to sometime between 1847 and 1892. According to JCCBI, which spearheaded the dig, the kiln may have been rebuilt while still in operation, as “this type of equipment required regular maintenance and repairs.”
Pipes found on land near the kiln
Tobacco smoking was a fashionable habit in centuries past. In Scandanavia, it was much more popular to consume tobacco in the form of snus. Even today, this is still very popular and is consumed via slim or large portions placed under the lip. However, in other areas of the world, smoking tobacco was most common. To capitalize on the trend, companies in Europe and North America produced an array of pipes made from such materials as wood, porcelain, clay, and plaster.
Irish immigrants who flocked to Canada to escape the Great Famine of the 1840s may have sparked Montreal’s pipe-making craze. Prior to their arrival, the city “had little if any prior history of pipe making,” explains the late Iain Walker, a leading clay pipe researcher. “Irish immigrants were forced to make their own pipes.”
The Henderson factory was founded in 1847 by a Scotsman named William Henderson Sr. His company manufactured clay pipes engraved with delicate fruits, flowers, and other designs.
Clay tobacco pipes were fragile but cheap and are among “the most commonly-found [artifacts] on colonial and post-colonial settlements in Canada,” Walker explained in a 1970 paper.
Cigarettes, Walker added, “did not become the most popular means of taking tobacco in Great Britain and the United States until the end of the First World War.”
Henderson’s factory was a thriving business. It processed between 225 and 300 tons of clay each year, according to JCCBI, and by 1871, the company was producing some seven million pipes annually. Most of the people who worked in the factory were Scottish and Irish immigrants.
Henderson’s grandsons, known as the Dixon brothers, took over the factory in 1876. By the 1980s, reports Hester, the factory’s operations were winding down, and in the 1920s, the land was razed to make way for the new bridge.
The newly unearthed kiln will soon be reburied; exposing it to the harsh Canadian winter would result in its destruction, and the structure is too fragile to relocate. Roy tells Hester that an interpretive plaque may be added to the site in a nod to Montreal’s history as a prominent center of Canada’s pipe-making industry.
