The ancient city of Pompeii has long been celebrated as one of the richest archaeological sites of all time, and now its surrounding suburbs are finally getting their due attention.
Newly discovered pottery at the villa Civita Giuliana, an archaeological site in the suburbs of Pompeii.
Researchers have announced new additions to the growing list of unique finds that have recently been made at a nearby villa, Civita Giuliana.
These items of pottery include fired ceramic bowls found upside down along the walls of a room that was likely part of the servants’s quarters within a vast residential complex. It is assumed that this crockery was in situ at the time of the final phase of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E.
Two years ago, the site made headlines for the stunning discovery of a ceremonial chariot decorated with silver reliefs, a stable containing the remains of a horse still dressed in a caparison as well as evidence of what may have been a small slave family in an adjoining room.
In 2020, two bodies that are believed to be a man and a slave attempting to escape the eruption were also found.
The dig began in 2017, but attempts to unearth the secrets of Civita Giuliana have long been impeded by looters who targeted the site as its more remote position left it relatively unprotected.
To counter these illegal excavations, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the prosecutor’s office for the local city and commune of Torre Annunziata and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in 2019 and renewed in 2021.
This unique partnership is the first of its kind in ensuring collaboration and mutual support between archaeological researchers and law enforcement.
“In a territory so rich in history and yet so abused, which still hides important traces of the past, as the discoveries of recent years have shown, it is essential that the protection of cultural heritage and legality go hand in hand,” said Massimo Osanna, former director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
The agreement has supported researchers in a new scientific investigation of the site, which includes stratigraphic studies to reveal details about daily Roman life that aren’t well documented in written sources from the period.
This work has required the closure of a modern road running through the site, which had already been made structurally vulnerable by the elaborate network of underground tunnels made and used by looters.
The Civita Giuliana villa will become part of the wider Pompeii system and will eventually welcome tourists.
“These finds demonstrate the commitment and ability of the state to stem the scourge of clandestine excavations and the trade in archaeological goods,” said Italy’s minister of culture Gennaro Sangiuliano.
“Pompeii is the pride of Italy and it is our intention to further defend and promote a heritage that is unique worldwide.”
Ancient Egyptian pharaoh-sphinx statues unearthed at sun temple
This head of a sphinx statue shows Ramesses II, a ruler who expanded Egypt’s empire.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered broken statues of ancient royalty at a sun temple in Heliopolis, an archaeological site that was once a major city near what is now Cairo.
The stone-carved fragments include depictions of Ramesses II (reign circa 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C.), Ramesses IX (reign circa 1126 B.C. to 1108 B.C), Horemheb (reign circa 1323 B.C. to 1295 B.C.) and Psamtik II (reign 595 B.C. to 589 B.C.), the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement released March 20.
Sun temples are found at a number of sites in Egypt and are dedicated to Ra, the ancient Egyptian sun god, but the sun temple at Heliopolis was of particular importance. (Heliopolis is a Greek name; the Egyptian name was Iunu.)
According to ancient Egyptian belief, Heliopolis is where “the world was created, with the first sunrise,” excavation dig leader Dietrich Raue, the director of the Cairo department of the German Archaeological Institute, told Live Science in an email.
“Here the connection of kingship to the creator and sun god was celebrated,” Raue said, noting that pharaohs constructed statues, obelisks, and other structures at Heliopolis to legitimize their rule and honor the sun god.
The heads of the pharaohs were part of sphinxes. This shows a fragment of the bottom of a sphinx.
“Serving the gods was one of the major duties of ancient Egyptian kings, and dedicating statues is a part of this,” Raue explained. “Ideally, no ruler of Egypt should be in office without the blessing of the sun god.”
The newly discovered statue fragments, which show the heads of the pharaohs on sphinxes, would have been placed in front of gates or beside obelisks at the sun temple, Raue said. At some point in antiquity, the statues were destroyed and reused as building materials, he added.
Live Science contacted scholars not involved with the excavation to get their thoughts. “The abundant statuary material found by the mission testify of the long-lasting importance of the site in pharaonic [times],” Massimiliano Nuzzolo, an Egyptologist with the Polish Academy of Sciences who is studying a sun temple at Abu Ghurab in Egypt, told Live Science in an email.
The pharaoh-sphinx findings also reveal “the wish of the kings of the second and first millennium [B.C.] to leave a tangible sign of their worship for the sun god Ra in one of the main places of Egyptian civilization,” Nuzzolo added.
Peter Brand, a history professor who specializes in Egyptology at the University of Memphis, said that there is much we still don’t know about Heliopolis. For instance, while Ramesses II was a prominent pharaoh who expanded Egypt’s empire, it’s not clear if he rebuilt parts of this sun temple or continued using an older one.
“Archeologists have only scratched the surface of this area,” Brand told Live Science in an email. “Much of its rich and complex history over the course of three millennia of pharaonic history patiently await[s] discovery beneath the desert sands.”
Here we see part of the sun temple that is under excavation.
Early Pearling Town Discovered on Persian Gulf Island
Archaeologists said Monday they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates.
Journalists film uncovered ruins on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Monday, March 20, 2023. Archaeologists said Monday they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates.
Archaeologists and journalists walk past uncovered ruins on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Monday, March 20, 2023. Archaeologists said Monday they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates.
Artifacts found in this town on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, likely once home to thousands of people and hundreds of homes, date as far back as the region’s pre-Islamic history in the late 6th century.
While older pearling towns have been mentioned in historical texts, this represents the first time archaeologists say they have physically found one from this ancient era across the nations of the Persian Gulf.
A journalist films uncovered ruins on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Monday, March 20, 2023. Archaeologists said Monday they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates.
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, March 16, 2023. Archaeologists said Monday, March 20, 2023, that they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of its northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates, further expanding this young nation’s understanding of its pre-Islamic history.
“This is the oldest example of that kind of very specifically Khaleeji pearling town,” said Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University, using a word that means “Gulf” in Arabic. “It’s the spiritual ancestor of towns like Dubai.”
The pearling town sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Persian Gulf.
The island, whose name means “flashing lights” likely due to the effect of the white-hot sun overhead, already has seen archaeologists discover an ancient Christian monastery dating back as many as 1,400 years.
The town sits directly south of that monastery on one of the curling fingers of the island and stretches across some 12 hectares (143,500 square yards). There, archaeologists found a variety of homes made of beach rock and lime mortar, ranging from cramped quarters to more sprawling homes with courtyards, suggesting a social stratification, Power said.
This photo captured by a drone shows ruins on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Monday, March 20, 2023. Archaeologists said Monday that they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of its northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates, further expanding this young nation’s understanding of its pre-Islamic history.
The site also bears signs of year-round habitation, unlike other pearling operations run in seasonal spots in the region.
“The houses are crammed in there, cheek by jowl,” he added. “The key thing there is permanence. People are living there all year around.”
In the homes, archaeologists have discovered loose pearls and diving weights, which the free divers used to quickly drop down to the seabed while relying only on their held breath.
The town predates the rise of Islam across the Arabian Peninsula, making its residents likely Christians. Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.
Umm al-Quwain’s Department of Tourism and Archaeology, UAE University, the Italian Archaeological Mission in the emirate and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University all took part in the excavation. Umm al-Quwain, the least-populated emirate in the UAE, plans to build a visitor’s center at the site.
Today, the area near the marshland is more known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for a $675 million real estate development.
Authorities hope that development, as well as other building, will grow the emirate’s economy.
However, even this ancient site bears lessons for the Emirates.
The story of pearling, which rapidly collapsed after World War I with the introduction of artificial pearls and the Great Depression, holds particular importance in the history of the UAE — particularly as it faces a looming reckoning with another extractive industry. While crude oil sales built the country after its formation in 1971, the Emirates will have to confront its fossil fuel legacy and potentially plan for a carbon-neutral future as it hosts the United Nations COP28 climate talks later this year.
Those searching the site found a dumpsite nearby filled with the detritus of discarded oyster shells. People walking across the island can feel those remains crunching under their feet in areas as well.
“You only find one pearl in every 10,000 oyster shells. You have to find and discard thousands and thousands of oyster shells to find one,” Power said. ”The waste, the industrial waste of the pearling industry, was colossal. You’re dealing with millions, millions of oyster shells discarded.”
Scientists Review Beethoven’s Health With Hair Samples
Beethoven suffered from liver disease – possibly from his alcohol consumption – and hepatitis B, researchers found
Beethoven had a likely genetic predisposition to liver disease and a hepatitis B infection months before his death, tests have revealed.
A team of researchers led by Cambridge University analysed five locks of hair to sequence the composer’s genome. They were, however, unable to establish a definitive cause of his hearing loss.
Lead author, Tristan Begg, said genetic risk factors, coupled with Beethoven’s high alcohol consumption, may have contributed to his liver condition.
The international team analysed strands from eight locks of hair kept in public and private collections, in a bid to shed light on Beethoven’s health problems.
Five locks were deemed “authentic” by the researchers and came from a single European male. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770 and died at the age of 56 in Vienna, in 1827.
The so-called Halm-Thayer Lock and the Bermann Lock of what is believed to be Beethoven’s hair
The prodigious composer and pianist suffered progressive hearing loss, which began in his mid to late 20s and led to him being functionally deaf by 1818.
A scientist examines the Moscheles Lock, believed to be Beethoven’s hair, in a laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Mr Begg said the team surmised from the composer’s “conversation books” – which he used in the last decade of his life – that Beethoven’s alcohol intake was regular, but the volumes he consumed were difficult to estimate.
“While most of his contemporaries claim his consumption was moderate by early 19th Century Viennese standards, this still likely amounted to quantities of alcohol known today to be harmful to the liver,” he said.
“If his alcohol consumption was sufficiently heavy over a long enough period of time, the interaction with his genetic risk factors presents one possible explanation for his cirrhosis.”
The Stumpff Lock is one of five pieces of Beethoven’s hair studied in a bid to determine the composer’s health issues
The team said, based on the genomic data, that Beethoven’s gastrointestinal issues were not caused by coeliac disease or lactose intolerance.
Johannes Krause, from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said: “We cannot say definitely what killed Beethoven but we can now at least confirm the presence of significant heritable risk and infection with hepatitis B virus.
“We can also eliminate several other less plausible genetic causes.”
Dr Axel Schmidt, of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University Hospital of Bonn, said: “Although a clear genetic underpinning for Beethoven’s hearing loss could not be identified, the scientists caution that such a scenario cannot be strictly ruled out.”
The so-called Stumpff Lock, believed to be Beethoven’s hair, which was tested to sequence the genome of the composer
Genetic genealogists also identified what they describe as an “extra-pair paternity event” – a child resulting from an affair – in Beethoven’s direct paternal line.
Mr Begg added: “We hope that by making Beethoven’s genome publicly available for researchers, and perhaps adding further authenticated locks to the initial chronological series, remaining questions about his health and genealogy can someday be answered.”
The discovery of a burial chamber in the archaeological zone of Palenque with a primary burial, composed of a human skeleton, and a secondary burial, an offering made up of three plates and a niche with various green stone figures, was reported by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), informed its director Diego Prieto during the morning conference of President López Obrador, from Palenque, Chiapas.
Prieto Hernandez emphasized that the discovery was registered during the salvage of Structure CP3, during the construction works of the Mayan Train.
The head of INAH explained that the skeleton of the individual of the primary burial presents a face-up position and is oriented towards the north, something usual in the ancient funerary customs of Palenque.
The skeletal remains of the second deposit would correspond to a woman, who was probably buried in a different place.
Prieto Hernandez said that there is also another skull, of which the analyses continue for its identification.
The archaeological salvage tasks, said Diego Prieto, are practically concluded, nevertheless, the archaeologists and other professionals continue with the analysis and interpretation of the archaeological information.
House remains dating back 5,500 yrs found in China’s Shanxi
Archaeologists have unearthed the foundations of two houses dating back 5,500 years in north China’s Shanxi Province.
This aerial photo shows a house foundation that covers around 30 square meters unearthed at an archaeological site in Xinghuacun Township in Fenyang City, north China’s Shanxi Province.
The house foundations were found at an archaeological site in Xinghuacun Township in Fenyang City and traced back to the middle period of the Yangshao culture, according to the provincial institute of cultural relics and archaeology.
The Yangshao culture, dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years, was a Neolithic culture that originated along the middle reaches of the Yellow River.
The two house foundations, both halfway underground, were found in varying sizes. The larger site covers about 39 square meters, and the smaller one covers around 30 square meters.
Fragments of various artifacts, including millstone, sharp-bottomed bottles, and painted pottery pots, were unearthed at the larger site. In addition, the smaller site shows signs of burning.
“The discovery of two house foundations is of great significance to the study of the structure, layout, construction technology, and function of houses in the middle period of the Yangshao culture,” said Wang Pujun, the director of the archaeological project.
Genomic study of ancient humans sheds light on human evolution on the Tibetan Plateau
Cranium and mandible of an individual from Zongri (5213-3716 cal BP), an archaeological site from the Gonghe Basin in Qinghai, in the northeastern region of the Tibetan Plateau.
The Tibetan Plateau, the highest and largest plateau above sea level, is one of the harshest environments settled by humans. It has a cold and arid environment and its elevation often surpasses 4000 meters above sea level (masl).
The plateau covers a wide expanse of Asia—approximately 2.5 million square kilometers—and is home to over 7 million people, primarily belonging to the Tibetan and Sherpa ethnic groups.
However, our understanding of their origins and history on the plateau is patchy. Despite a rich archaeological context spanning the plateau, sampling of DNA from ancient humans has been limited to a thin slice of the southwestern plateau in the Himalayas.
Now, a study published in Science Advances led by Prof. Fu Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has filled this gap by sequencing the genomes of 89 ancient humans dating back to 5100 BP from 29 archaeological sites spanning the Tibetan Plateau.
The researchers found that ancient humans living across the plateau share a single origin, deriving from a northern East Asian population that admixed with a deeply diverged, yet unsampled, human population.
“This pattern is found in populations since 5100 years ago, prior to the arrival of domesticated crops on the plateau,” said Prof. Fu. She noted that the introduction of northern East Asian ancestry to plateau populations occurred before barley and wheat were introduced and was not associated with migrating wheat/barley agriculturalists.
Chronological and geographic distribution of ancient individuals sampled from the Tibetan Plateau for this study.
A deeper comparison across the plateau reveals distinct genetic patterns prior to 2500 BP, indicating that three very different Tibetan populations occupied the northeastern, southern/central, and southern/southwestern regions of the plateau, with previously sampled plateau populations belonging only to the latter group.
Different population dynamics can be observed in these three regions. Northeastern populations younger than 4700 BP show an influx of additional northern East Asian ancestry in lower elevation regions (~3000 masl) such as the Gonghe Basin. However, this influx is not observed in higher elevation populations (~4000 masl) dating to 2800 BP just 500 km away.
An extended network of humans also lived along the Yarlung Tsangpo River, with a shared ancestry found in southern/southwestern populations dating to 3400 BP, western populations from Ngari Prefecture dating to 2300 BP, and southeastern populations from Nyingchi Prefecture dating to 2000 BP. The extended impact of these populations shows the important role this river valley played in Tibetan history.
“Between these two groups, central populations prior to 2500 BP share ancestry that differed from those further north and south. However, sampling of central populations after 1600 BP show that they share a closer genetic relationship to southern/southwestern populations. These patterns capture a dynamism in human populations on the plateau,” said Melinda Yang, assistant professor at the University of Richmond and a previous postdoc at IVPP.
“While ancient plateau populations show primarily East Asian ancestry, Central Asian influences can be found in some ancient plateau populations,” said Wang Hongru, professor at the Agricultural Genomics Institute in Shenzhen and a previous postdoc at IVPP. “Western populations show partial Central Asian ancestry as early as 2300 BP, and an individual dating to 1500 BP from the southwestern plateau additionally shows ancestry associated with Central Asian populations.”
Excavation in a branch cave in the upper chamber of Sding Chung, an archaeological site from the Shigatse Prefecture of Xizang, in the southwestern region of the Tibetan Plateau.
Present-day Tibetans and Sherpas show heavy influence from lowland East Asian populations, with differing levels of gene flow correlating with longitude. This pattern is not observed across populations of older time transects, including those dating from 1200–800 BP, indicating that lowland East Asian gene flow was largely a product of very recent human migration.
Previous research has shown that present-day plateau populations possess high frequencies of an endothelial Pas domain protein 1 (EPAS1) variant that is adaptive for living at high altitudes and likely originated from a past admixture event with the archaic humans known as Denisovans.
“Humans from this study show archaic ancestry typical of lowland East Asians, but the oldest individual dating to 5100 BP is homozygous for the adaptive variant,” said Prof. Fu. “Thus, the arrival of this variant occurred prior to 5100 BP in the ancestral population that contributed to all plateau populations.”
Through their broad spatiotemporal survey of ancient human DNA from the Tibetan Plateau, Prof. Fu and her team have revealed a Tibetan lineage that dates back to at least 5100 years ago on the Tibetan Plateau. The ancestral population diversified rapidly, such that three regional groups show unique historical patterns that began to merge after 2500 BP.
“This is the largest study of ancient genetics on the Tibetan Plateau to date,” said Lu Hongliang, a professor at Sichuan University. The new evidence in this study on the formation of unique components in the ancient populations from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is highly reliant on collaboration between multiple archaeological teams and geneticists. Prof. Lu notes that “Analyzing ancient DNA allows us to go beyond the study of cultural interaction using only archaeological evidence, and to put forward new ideas for archaeological research on the plateau.”
Future sampling is still needed, as the origin of the unsampled, deeply diverged ancestry found in all plateau populations is still unaccounted for. In addition, when and where the adaptive EPAS1 allele first entered the ancestral Tibetan population is still unknown.
But this study is a step in the right direction. “These genomes reveal a deep and diversified history of humans on the plateau,” said Prof. Fu. “With these findings, we have a much better understanding of an important part of human history in Asia.”
Innovative Construction Technique Spotted in Notre Dame
Notre Dame Cathedral before it underwent a massive reconstruction due to a fire.
In 2019, a fire broke out inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, severely damaging the iconic medieval building. However, the catastrophic fire gave researchers an opportunity to study the building’s architecture like never before.
A few months after the inferno was extinguished, researchers discovered that the stones used to build the Gothic-style cathedral were held together using iron staples, a technique that had never been documented before in a building from this time period, according to a study published March 15 in the journal PLOS One.
Notre Dame was constructed in multiple phases starting in the early 12th century and continuing for the next 300 years, according to the Notre Dame Cathedral website.
“This is the first building of its kind in which we see this,” lead author Maxime L’Héritier, a professor in the Department of History at Paris 8 University, told Live Science. “This shows [that the builders] at the time were trying to experiment with new forms of construction.”
L’Héritier and his team analyzed 12 of the iron staples, which measure approximately 20 inches (50 centimeters) long and were part of the “iron skeleton” holding the building together, L’Héritier wrote in an essay for the archaeology publication Sapiens.
The staples offered additional reinforcements to the cathedral’s stonework, including holding together the large arches in the nave of the building’s towering 226-foot-tall (69 meters) twin towers.
Without the staples’ support, this architectural feat would likely have been impossible to accomplish in 1160, when construction of the building began, according to the study.
“When we studied other Gothic churches of that time period, none used iron in their construction,” L’Héritier said. “We believe that the staples were what enabled them to build this structure at such a terrific height.”
Researchers radiocarbon dated the iron staples and discovered that they were used during one of the initial construction phases, “confirming that the production date of the staples was the same as the masonry, which also dated to around 1160,” L’Héritier said.
However, L’Héritier cautioned that it will take further analysis to know the iron’s exact origins.
“We’re trying to figure out if it’s local or more distant,” L’Héritier said. “There also seems to be different ore sources depending on whether the construction occurred in the 12th or 13th centuries. We do know that the [cathedral’s] bishop died at the end of the 12th century, so it’s possible that a new ore resource was used years later. We should know more in a year or two.”
In the four years following the blaze, Notre Dame has been undergoing reconstruction and is expected to reopen to visitors in December 2024, according to AP News.
