EUROPE, SWITZERLAND, WORLD

Hiker found a place of holy worship at an altitude of 2,590 meters in the Swiss Alps

Hiker found a place of holy worship at an altitude of 2,590 meters in the Swiss Alps

Hiker found a place of holy worship at an altitude of 2,590 meters in the Swiss Alps

A trekking enthusiast stumbled upon an ancient Roman coin buried in rubble in a remote area high in the Alps in the Swiss Canton of Bern.

After reporting the finding to the local archeological unit, a whole hoard of ancient artifacts was found buried at the site, which archeologists now believe may have been a place of holy worship—a site to lay offerings to the Roman mountain gods.

Since the hiker’s fortunate discovery, archaeologists have conducted two dig seasons and discovered one hundred additional Roman coins dating from the first to the fifth century A.D.

The oldest is a Tiberian coin from 22 to 30 AD, and the most recent is an Arcadian coin from the eastern empire (r. 395-408 A.D.). A fibula from the first century B.C., 59 Roman shoe hobnails, and a piece of a bronze votive plate in the shape of a leaf were also discovered by the team.

“We do find single Roman coins occasionally in the Alps, but this site is unusual because of the amount of coins and the location,” Regula Gubler, the study’s scientific project manager, told Newsweek.

“More common would be finds—coins, brooches—on mountain passes. This site however, is far from human habitation, today and in Roman times, at 2,590 meters above sea level [nearly 8,500 feet], and definitely not a pass.”

A votive plaque found at the site, which may have been used to worship the Roman mountains Gods.

Gubler said that the site sits on a plateau between the mountain peaks of Ammertenhorn and Wildstrubel, which she described as “pretty impressive.”

The unusual location of the site, as well as the concentrated collection of treasures that had amassed there, led the researchers to believe that this was a place of great religious significance.

“We are only at the beginning of the investigations, but we think it is a holy place, where people went to deposit votive offerings—mainly coins, but also other objects—asking the deities for things or thanking them,” Gubler said. “I guess a kind of pilgrimage.”

One of the Rock crystals that were found in the excavations. Photo: Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern

The town of Thun, which has several Roman temples, is only a little more than 12 miles away from the site. One of them contains an inscription that mentions female alpine deities, according to archaeologists.

The prevalence of local rock crystals may have been part of the reason the location was seen as sacred.

The researchers will continue to investigate the site in order to learn more about its possible historical significance.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

In Medieval burial ground, a rare embroidered Deisis depicting Jesus Christ was discovered

In Medieval burial ground, a rare embroidered Deisis depicting Jesus Christ was discovered

In Medieval burial ground, a rare embroidered Deisis depicting Jesus Christ was discovered

Russian archaeologists have uncovered a rare embroidered Deisis depicting Jesus Christ in a medieval burial ground.

46 graves have been dug up during excavations; one of them contained a woman who was buried with an embroidered Deisis depicting Jesus Christ and John the Baptist and was between the ages of 16 and 25.

The discovery was made during the construction of the Moscow-Kazan highway, where archaeologists found an 8.6-acre medieval settlement and an associated Christian cemetery.

The iconography of Jesus Christ known as Deesis, which can be translated from Greek as “prayer” or “intercession,” is one of the most potent and prevalent images in Orthodox religious art.

The composition of the Deisis unites the three most important figures of Christianity. A tripartite icon of the Eastern Orthodox Church showing Christ usually enthroned between the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist.

Photo: Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The fabric is 12.1 cm long by 5.5 cm wide and is composed of two parts joined by a vertical seam made of a woven gold ribbon with a braided pattern.

The fabric’s lining did not survive, but a microscopic examination revealed birch bark remnants and needle punctures along the lower and upper edges.

In the center of the fabric is a frontal image of Jesus Christ making a blessing gesture, and to the right of him is John the Baptist praying. A second figure, probably Mary, was once on the left, but it has since disappeared, according to the inspection.

The archaeologists believe the embroidered fabric was once a dark silk samite headdress.

Similar examples include the embroidered crosses and faces of saints discovered in the Karoshsky burial ground in the Yaroslavl region, as well as the Ivorovsky necropolis near Staritsa that features an image of Michael the Archangel wielding a spear.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Roman Lead Coffin Unearthed in Northern England

Roman Lead Coffin Unearthed in Northern England

Roman Lead Coffin Unearthed in Northern England
Bones belonging to the high-status woman were discovered in an ancient lead coffin.

Skeletal remains of a Roman aristocrat have been unearthed in a “truly extraordinary” hidden cemetery dating back 1,600 years. Bones belonging to the high-status woman were discovered in an ancient lead coffin during a dig in the town of Garforth, near Leeds.

Archaeologists said the “once in a lifetime” find could help unlock secrets of a period spanning from the fall of the Roman empire in AD400 to the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon era.

David Hunter, the principal archaeologist with West Yorkshire Joint Services, said: “This has the potential to be a find of massive significance for what we understand about the development of ancient Britain and Yorkshire.”

Unusually for an ancient cemetery, the remains found in Garforth belonged to people from the late Roman and the early Saxon eras. The skeleton of the late Roman aristocratic woman was found alongside the remains of 60 men, women and children from the two periods.

Archaeologists traced the burial traditions of both cultures in the cemetery, the precise location of which is being kept secret.

The find could help unlock secrets of a period spanning from the fall of the Roman empire in AD400 to the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon era.

Hunter said: “The presence of two communities using the same burial site is highly unusual and whether their use of this graveyard overlapped or not will determine just how significant the find is.

“When seen together the burials indicate the complexity and precariousness of life during what was a dynamic period in Yorkshire’s history. The lead coffin itself is extremely rare, so this has been a truly extraordinary dig.”

Experts will seek to establish precise timeframes for the burials by carbon dating the remains. Chemical tests will be carried out to try to determine how they lived and what they ate, as well as details about their ancestry.

Leeds city council said the discovery was made last spring but could only be revealed now because of the need to keep the site safe while tests were carried out.

Although the exact location remains a secret, the excavation was in part prompted by a discovery nearby of late Roman stone buildings and a small number of Anglo-Saxon-style structures.

Kylie Buxton, the on-site supervisor for the excavations, said it was every archaeologist’s dream to work on such a project, adding: “There is always a chance of finding burials, but to have discovered a cemetery of such significance, at such a time of transition, was quite unbelievable.

“For me, it was a particular honour to excavate the high-status lead coffin burial, but it was a great team effort by everyone involved.”

Early analysis indicates some of those in the cemetery held early Christian beliefs, and Saxons were accompanied by personal possessions such as knives and pottery.

The council said it hoped the coffin would be displayed in an upcoming exhibition at Leeds City Museum exploring death and burial customs from across the world.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

17th-Century Coin Hoard Uncovered in Poland

17th-Century Coin Hoard Uncovered in Poland

Archaeologists think the clay jug containing the horde of coins was deliberately buried on a farm in the east of Poland in the second half of the 17th century.

A metal detectorist searching for discarded tractor parts on a Polish farm discovered a completely different type of valuable metal: A spectacular hoard of 17th-century coins buried beneath the soil.

The hoard — a vast stash of about 1,000 copper coins — was found in late February near the small village of Zaniówka in eastern Poland, near the borders with Belarus and Ukraine, by a local man, Michał Łotys.

Łotys was using a new metal detector to find spare parts for his sister’s tractor; and so when the instrument started beeping in one of the farm’s fields, he scraped away a layer of the topsoil. That revealed the coins spilling out of a broken clay “siwak” — a jug in a local style with one handle and a narrow neck.

Using a metal detector to search for buried relics without a permit is illegal in Poland, and so Łotys contacted archaeologists in the nearby city of Lublin, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southeast of Warsaw, who visited the farm the next day.

Their investigations showed that the location of the hidden hoard was clearly outlined on the surface of the soil, which indicated it had been buried there intentionally, according to a report in the Polish news outlet The First News.

17th-Century Coin Hoard Uncovered in Poland
Treasure hunters estimate the entire horde of about 1,000 copper coins would have been enough at the time to buy two pairs of shoes, or perhaps 20 gallons of beer.

Buried hoard

Dariusz Kopciowski, the director of Lublin’s heritage conservation agency, announced in a Facebook post on March 2 that the hoard has about 1,000 Polish and Lithuanian copper coins minted in the 17th century.

Oxidation after roughly 400 years in the ground means all the copper coins are now colored green; and many have corroded together in layers. But about 115 of the coins are loose, and the entire hoard weighs about 6.6 pounds (3 kilograms), Kopciowski noted.

Investigations show most of the coins were created between 1663 and 1666 in mints in Warsaw; Vilnius in Lithuania; and Brest, which is now in Belarus but was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 

The horde contains about 1,000 small copper coins from the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Most of them were minted between 1663 and 1666.
The copper coins are now green from oxidation, and many of them are corroded together in layers. The horde weighs about 6.6 pounds in total.
Copper coins were a popular innovation at the time. They were much cheaper to mint than the existing silver coins of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which were heavily debased and difficult to acquire.

According to the Polish metal detectorist website Zwiadowca Historii, such coins are known as “boratynki” after Tito Livio Burattini, who was the manager of the Kraków mint at that time.

Burattini, an Italian, was a famed inventor and polymath who introduced copper coins to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth because they were much cheaper to make than the existing silver coins of the realm; and because its treasury was devastated after years of war with Sweden, Russia and Cossacks.

The “boratynki” coins were initially popular, although Burattini was later accused of debasing the copper metal they were made of and reaping huge profits. 

For a start, they weren’t very valuable, which meant they could be used in everyday transactions; the entire hoard of 1,000 copper coins from Zaniówka would buy  only “about two pairs of shoes” at the time, although they’re worth more now as historical relics, Zwiadowca Historii reported.

The Zaniówka coin hoard will now be transferred to specialists at a museum in the nearby city of Biała Podlaska for further investigations, Kopciowski said.

Fragments of the broken clay jug and several pieces of fabric from the time were also found at the site, he said in the statement.

ASIA, THAILAND, WORLD

When Did Hominins Begin to Produce Tools?

When Did Hominins Begin to Produce Tools?

In Thailand, long-tailed macaque monkeys (shown pounding open oil palm nuts with rocks) inadvertently bash off pieces of stone, raising questions about whether some of the earliest known hominid tools were made on purpose.

Monkeys in southern Thailand use rocks to pound open oil palm nuts, inadvertently shattering stone pieces off their makeshift nutcrackers. These flakes resemble some sharp-edged stone tools presumed to have been created on purpose by ancient hominids, researchers say.

Thailand’s long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) produce shards that could easily be mistaken for stone flakes previously found at 17 East African hominid sites dating from about 3.3 million to 1.56 million years ago, say archaeologist Tomos Proffitt and colleagues.

The finding suggests that ancient hominids may sometimes have created the stone flakes by accident while using rocks to smash nuts, bones or other objects, the scientists report March 10 in Science Advances.

Previous research has already shown that rock-wielding capuchin monkeys in Brazil unwittingly produce hominid-like stone flakes (SN: 10/19/16).

Observations of rock bashing by these two monkey species undermine a long-standing assumption that hominids must have intentionally made certain ancient stone flakes, including some of the earliest known examples of tools, Proffitt says (SN: 6/3/19). It’s time to reevaluate how such determinations are made, he contends.

Proffitt’s group identified 219 complete and fragmented stone flakes at 40 macaque nut-cracking sites on the island where the monkeys live.

The team also found rocks showing damage consistent with having been used either as pounding implements or pounding platforms.

When Did Hominins Begin to Produce Tools?
While cracking nuts, a long-tailed macaque unintentionally produced this stone shard. It resembles other flakes that researchers have thought ancient hominids created on purpose as tools.

Some differences do exist between macaque and hominid stone flakes, says Proffitt, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. For instance, many macaque flakes display battering damage on only one side, versus frequent two-sided damage on hominid artifacts.

Such clues may help archaeologists develop guidelines for estimating whether ancient hominids made stone flakes on purpose or by accident, Proffitt suspects.

EUROPE, NETHERLANDS, WORLD

Netherlands’s unique treasure finds of medieval gold jewelry and silver coins

Netherlands’s unique treasure finds of medieval gold jewelry and silver coins

Netherlands’s unique treasure finds of medieval gold jewelry and silver coins

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (the National Museum of Antiquities) in the Netherlands has announced that a unique treasure of 1000-year-old gold jewelry and silver coins has been found and will be public as part of a new exhibition.

The hoard was found in 2021 by a metal detectorist in Hoogwoud (Opmeer municipality in North Holland).

The hoard consists of four decorated gold search earring pendants in the shape of a crescent moon, along with two pieces of gold leaf that fit together, and 39 small silver coins from the medieval period. The coins date from 1200 to 1248, indicating that the hoard was buried around the middle of the 13th century. However, the jewelry, a prized heirloom collection, was already 200 years old when it was buried with the coins.

Lorenzo Ruijter, a Dutch historian and metal detectorist, discovered the hoard in Hoogwoud, in 2021. He informed regional heritage authorities about his discovery. He had to keep his discovery hidden for two years while experts at the National Museum of Antiquities cleaned, conserved, and investigated the hoard before announcing the incredible find.

The most important pieces in the hoard are four earrings from the 11th century. They are large, about two inches wide, and crescent-shaped. Two of the four pendants have intricate filigree decoration. The other two are engraved with decorative scenes.

The search earring pendants are decorated on one side and have fragile suspension brackets, implying that they were most likely not pierced through the ears but rather worn on a hood or a headband.

One of the pendants depicts a man’s head surrounded by sunlight rays, which has been interpreted as a portrait of Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun.”

Sol invictus on gold earring.

The 39 silver coins are small pennies from Holland, Guelders and Cleves, the Diocese of Utrecht, and the German Empire. Textile traces discovered with the coins suggest they were originally buried in a bag or wrapped in cloth.

The most recent of the coins were struck in 1247-8 by William II of Holland when he was elected King of Germany after Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV.

William died in 1256 in Hoogwoud where the hoard was found.  He and his horse were in the area fighting one of his many wars against the West Frisians when they fell through weak ice into a frozen lake.

His West Frisian adversaries murdered him before the cold lake could finish what it had begun, and buried him beneath the floorboards of a nearby house.

As a result, the hoard has enormous archaeological significance in the history of Holland as a region and the Netherlands as a whole.

The hoard is on display at the museum until mid-June of this year. It will go back on display in October as part of The Year 1000 exhibition.

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Unique tombs wrapped in high-quality fabrics and painted bodies were discovered at monumental temple in Peru

Unique tombs wrapped in high-quality fabrics and painted bodies were discovered at a monumental temple in Peru

Unique tombs wrapped in high-quality fabrics and painted bodies were discovered at the monumental temple in Peru.

Located on the Cerro Colorado hill near the city of Barranca, Peru, four mysterious mounds were identified as spots with potential archaeological significance. The mounds were later revealed to contain human remains and the remnants of a temple structure.

Excavations are being carried out by archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University and St Mark’s University as part of the Programa de Investigacion “Los valles de Barranca” project.

The project to investigate the area began in 2022, and the results were announced in February of this year, according to Nauka W Polsce.

Human burials and monumental architecture made of dried bricks and stone blocks were discovered during research on two of the mounds. This has resulted in a large-scale excavation of the site, where the project has discovered destroyed burials in the form of burial bundles, which were placed within the ruins of a temple complex made of dried brick.

Dyed fabric found in a tomb at the top of the site, dated 772 -989 AD

The remains of a young boy whose skull was intentionally deformed are found in one of the destroyed burials. He was originally buried with decorated textiles, indicating that he came from a high-status family. The fabric was three meters long and decorated with totally unique zoomorphic representations.

Bioarchaeologist, Łukasz Majchrzak, said “One of them (fabrics), 3 meters long, was decorated with zoomorphic representations and is unique – similar fabrics have not been found in the entire Andes so far,”

The construction of the temple complex was dated by physicochemical analysis and carbon dating of organic remains to between 2500 and 2200 BC, whereas the same method used to date the burials indicates that they were interred between AD 772 and 989.

Dyed fabric detail.

“Andeans used to set up necropolises in abandoned places of worship. This was also the case here because the graves were dug into structures that were several thousand years older,” added Majchrzak.

The grass and mortar mixture that was used to bind the blocks that made up the small pyramid was sampled for the structure’s dating. Settlements with imposing architecture were built in the Andes during the third millennium BC, and agriculture spread as a result of interactions with communities residing in the Amazon.

A wall made of bricks at the top of the site.

The examined graves date from the Wari Empire’s reign over the region. Castillo de Huarmey, one of the most important sites of this culture, is only 70 kilometers north of Barranca.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

The World’s oldest and first swords ever discovered

The World’s oldest and first swords ever discovered

The World’s oldest and first swords ever discovered

The 5,000-year-old swords found 43 years ago during the excavations in the old mud-brick palace structure in Malatya Arslantepe Mound are the oldest swords in the world.

Many archaeologists believed that the earliest swords only dated to around 1600 or 1500 BCE before the discovery of a cache of swords at the archaeological site of Arslantepe in Turkey.

The nine swords from the archaeological site of Arslantepe (Melid) attest to the use of this weapon for the first time in the world – at least a millennium before the already-known examples. They date back to the Early Bronze Age (c. 33rd to 31st centuries).

In the 1980s, Marcella Frangipane’s team at Rome University discovered a cache of nine swords and daggers dating all the way back to 3300 BCE. Frangipane declared the swords of Arslantepe the world’s oldest and first swords ever discovered.

They are made of an alloy of arsenic and copper. Three of the swords were exquisitely inlaid with silver. These weapons have a total length of 45 to 60 cm, which points to either a short sword or a long dagger classification.

The first swords of the world.

This region is thought to be the birthplace of the sword as we see these blades begin to appear, made from this new technology and having the elements we think of as identifying a sword. They have a blade, guard, grip, and pommel like shape.

Size wise they would be shorter than we think of today for most swords but in their time, they may well be the length that was achievable with the best technology of the day.

This advancement in metallurgy can be seen in many valuable objects found in high-status graves of the time, and these swords are among them.

There is a lot of debate about how these pieces work. Were they merely status symbols, or could they have served a practical purpose? Swords have been used for both purposes throughout history, and even if they appear unwieldy to our modern standards, they may have worked well enough in the hands of an antagonist in 3000 BCE to ruin your day.

The first swords of the world.

The Aslantepe Mound in Malatya, where the first city-state was established, sheds light on history with its adobe palace, 5,500-year-old temple, swords, and spears. It is located on the western shore of the Euphrates, seven kilometers away from the city center.

Arslantepe Mound, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, was partially damaged after the Feb. 6 twin earthquakes in the country’s southern region.

With no damage to the permanent roof of the museum, the temporary roof suffered partial collapse but it did not cause harm to its archaeological texture.

All In One Magazine