ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue in Israel

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue in Israel

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue in Israel

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue at Huqoq in Israel,

A team of specialists and students led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness recently returned to Israel’s Lower Galilee to continue unearthing nearly 1,600-year-old mosaics.

The team continues its 10th season of excavation this summer at a synagogue in the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Lower Galilee. Discoveries made this year include the first known depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael as described in the book of Judges.

This season, project director Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor of religious studies in Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences, and assistant director Dennis Mizzi of the University of Malta focused on the southwest section of the synagogue, which was built in the late fourth-early fifth century C.E.

The newly discovered mosaic panels depicting the heroines are made of local cut stone from Galilee and were found on the floor on the south end of the synagogue’s west aisle.

Fox eating grapes depicted in the Huqoq synagogue mosaic.

The story of Deborah, a judge, and prophet who helped Israelite general Barak defeat the Canaanite army, is found in the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges.

After the victory, the passage says, the Canaanite commander Sisera fled to the tent of Jael (Yael-a Kenite woman), where she drove a tent peg into his temple and killed him.

The uppermost register of the newly-discovered Huqoq mosaic shows Deborah under a palm tree, gazing at Barak, who is equipped with a shield. Only a small part of the middle register is preserved, which appears to show Sisera seated. The lowest register depicts Sisera lying deceased on the ground, bleeding from the head as Jael hammers a tent stake through his temple.

A fragmented Hebrew dedicatory inscription inside a wreath is also among the newly unearthed mosaics, which are flanked by panels measuring 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide and depicting two vases with budding vines. The vines form medallions that frame four animals eating clusters of grapes: a hare, a fox, a leopard, and a wild boar.

Mosaic depicting the construction of the Tower of Babel.

Sponsors of the project are UNC-Chapel Hill, Austin College, Baylor University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Toronto.

Students and staff from Carolina and the consortium schools participated in the dig. Financial support for the 2022 season was also provided by the National Geographic Society, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Kenan Charitable Trust, and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Excavations are scheduled to continue in the summer of 2023.

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

Rishi Rajpopat, the Indian Ph.D. student at Cambridge, cracks 2,500-year-old ‘father of linguistics’ Panini code

Rishi Rajpopat, the Indian Ph.D. student at Cambridge, cracks 2,500-year-old ‘father of linguistics’ Panini code

A grammatical problem which has defeated Sanskrit scholars since the 5th Century BC has finally been solved by an Indian PhD student at the University of Cambridge, it emerged as his thesis was published on Thursday.

Rishi Rajpopat made the breakthrough by decoding a rule taught by Panini, known as the father of linguistics, and is now encapsulated in his thesis entitled ‘In Panini, We Trust: Discovering the Algorithm for Rule Conflict Resolution in the Astadhyayi.’

According to the university, leading Sanskrit experts have described Rajpopat’s discovery as “revolutionary”.

Dr Rishi Rajpopat, whose PhD thesis cracks the remaining code of Pāṇini’s language machine (Rahil Rajpopat/ Cambridge University )

The 2,500-year-old algorithm decoded by him makes it possible, for the first time, to accurately use Panini’s so-called “language machine”.

Panini’s grammar, known as the Astadhyayi, relied on a system that functioned like an algorithm. Feed in the base and suffix of a word and it should turn them into grammatically correct words and sentences through a step-by-step process.

However, two or more of Panini’s rules often apply simultaneously, resulting in conflicts. Panini taught a “metarule”, which is traditionally interpreted by scholars as meaning “in the event of a conflict between two rules of equal strength, the rule that comes later in the grammar’s serial order wins”. However, this often led to grammatically incorrect results.

Rajpopat rejected the traditional interpretation of the metarule. Instead, he argued that Panini meant that between rules applicable to the left and right sides of a word respectively, Panini wanted us to choose the rule applicable to the right side. Employing this interpretation, he found the Panini’s “language machine” produced grammatically correct words with almost no exceptions.

Panini’s system is thought to have been written around 500 BC.

“I had a eureka moment in Cambridge,” recalls Rajpopat. “After nine months trying to crack this problem, I was almost ready to quit, I was getting nowhere.

So, I closed the books for a month and just enjoyed the summer…. Then, begrudgingly I went back to work, and, within minutes, as I turned the pages, these patterns started emerging, and it all started to make sense…,” said the 27-year-old scholar. It would take him another two and half years before he would get to the finish line.

“My student Rishi has cracked it – he has found an extraordinarily elegant solution to a problem which has perplexed scholars for centuries.

This discovery will revolutionise the study of Sanskrit at a time when interest in the language is on the rise,” said professor Vincenzo Vergiani, Sanskrit professor and Rajpopat’s PhD supervisor. Sanskrit is an ancient and classical Indo-European language. It is spoken in India by an estimated 25,000 people today.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

4,000-Year-Old Toolkit Found Near Stonehenge Was Used for Goldwork, New Study Finds

4,000-Year-Old Toolkit Found Near Stonehenge Was Used for Goldwork, New Study Finds

Archaeologists determined that an ancient toolkit found near Stonehenge was used to make a variety of gold objects.

4,000-Year-Old Toolkit Found Near Stonehenge Was Used for Goldwork, New Study Finds
Microwear analysis showing gold traces on the surface of one of the goldworking tools.

According to new research published in the journal Antiquity, microscopic residue on the surface of the tools is ancient gold, revealing these stone-and-copper-alloy items were used as hammers and anvils, and to smooth the objects being crafted.

“This is a really exciting finding for our project,” said Rachel Crellin, lead author and archaeologist at the University of Leicester, in a statement. “What our work has revealed is the humble stone toolkit that was used to make gold objects thousands of years ago.”

Originally excavated in 1801, the toolkit was found in the Upton Lovell G2a burial which is thought to date to the Bronze Age, around 1850–1700 BCE. Marked by an earthen mound near Stonehenge, initial investigations revealed two individuals and a wide assortment of grave goods.

Grave goods from the Upton Lovell burial site are are on display at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.

One figure was placed sitting upright, with her head close to the top of the barrow, and buried with a fine shale arm ring and a necklace of polished shale beads. The other figure was wearing a ceremonial cloak, with pierced bone points as a necklace, thought to be a specialized costume.

Early speculation referred to the cloaked figure as a ‘Shaman’ who had special ritual significance, or an important and skilled craftsman. Now, researchers have discovered that the toolkit was used to make objects in which a core material—like jet, shale, amber, wood, or copper—was covered and decorated with a layer of gold sheet.

Processes in which the objects are thought to have been used involve making rib-and-furrow decorations, producing perforations, fitting the core object with the sheet-gold, and smoothing and polishing the finished objects.

Some of the tools were already ancient, making them thousands of years old by the time they were reused. There was even a complete battle axe, which was repurposed for metalworking.

“Such battle axes were far from the only smooth stones that could have been selected for these purposes,” the paper explains. “In intentionally repurposing these objects, their histories rubbed off on the materials they worked.”

Flint axes from Upton Lovell at different stages of use.

Researchers used a scanning electron microscope as well as an energy dispersive spectrometer to confirm their findings. The gold residue is present on five artifacts, where they found gold flecks on the surface as well as characteristic wear traces from the goldworking process.

The team additionally suggest that the bone points from the ‘shaman’s costume’ could have been used for goldworking.

“By exploring the use of materials through a technique called microwear analysis, that determines microscopic marks on objects, [we can] better understand how they were made and used,” said Oliver Harris, coauthor and University of Leicester archaeologist, in an email to ARTnews. “We have shown how the central stone is to the process of making gold, and how stones with certain properties and histories were preferentially selected to be part of this practice.”

According to the paper, “there is far more complexity here, in relations, histories, gestures and processes, than could ever be captured under the label ‘shaman’, ‘metalworker’ or ‘goldsmith’ … [our] analysis suggests that goldworking may be different from other forms of metal production and may not, from a Bronze Age perspective, have been considered to be a metal at all, but rather something with its own relational properties that were quite different from those that entwined copper and tin.”

The toolkit and associated finds are currently on view at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

A 5,000-year-old large house has been discovered in China’s Yangshao Village

A 5,000-year-old large house has been discovered in China’s Yangshao Village

A 5,000-year-old large house has been discovered in China’s Yangshao Village

Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology archaeologists have excavated the ruins of house foundations dating back more than 5,000 years in the Yangshao Village site in Central China.

The country’s China.org.tr reports that the remains of a large building with rammed earth have been discovered, though to date back to the neolithic Yangshao Culture – which was active in the Yellow River basin as far back as 3000 BC.

It is the first time archaeologists have discovered house ruins at the Yangshao Village site in Mianchi county, which was first excavated in 1921. The fourth archaeological excavation at Yangshao Village started on August 22, 2020, and is still ongoing.

In addition to the foundations, which are estimated to cover over 130 square meters, archaeologists discovered trenches and various artifacts, including a jade axe, that provide information about the community that once inhabited the site.

Excavation is still ongoing, which means that more information about the prehistoric Yangshao people may be discovered in the future.

According to speculation, it dates from the late Yangshao Culture period, according to Li Shiwei, director of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, who is in charge of the excavation site.

“This is the first time that large house ruins have been discovered since the excavation of the Yangshao Village site in 1921. The findings can provide new materials for studying the types, shapes and building techniques of houses during the Yangshao Culture period,” said Li Shiwei.

The findings show that the settlement in the Yangshao period had a large population, prosperous development, and complete defense facilities.

The Yangshao culture (Chinese: ; pinyin: Yngsháo wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively in northern China along the valleys of the Wei River and the middle Yellow River (Huanghe). The Yangshao culture, which dates from around 5000 BCE to 3000 BCE, is one of China’s earliest settled cultures.

Yangshao, the first excavated representative village of this culture, was discovered in Henan Province in 1921. The culture thrived primarily in Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi provinces. There are over a thousand Yangshao Culture sites, including the Banpo Site in Xian and Jiangzhai in Lintong County, Shanxi Province. Shanxi is considered the center of this culture because it has the most Yangshao sites.

While little is known about the Yangshao culture, information gleaned from archaeological excavations of tombs and tribal villages has provided a rudimentary picture of prehistoric life in China. Furthermore, the geometric paintings that adorn Neolithic vessels are some of the earliest evidence of the origins and evolution of Chinese calligraphic writing.

While these designs are purely abstract and do not constitute a written language, the patterns, motifs, and use of paint all contribute to our understanding of the intellectual and aesthetic environment that would eventually foster the creation of Chinese symbols.

AFRICA, WORLD

Archaeologists have unearthed two early Aksumite Churches in Africa

Archaeologists have unearthed two early Aksumite Churches in Africa

New discoveries in the port city of Adulis on Eritrea’s Red Sea coast show that two ancient churches discovered more than a century ago were built during the reign of the legendary Kingdom of Aksum, which ruled Northeast Africa for the entire first millennium AD.

The two ancient religious structures have finally been dated to the mid-1st millennium AD, thanks to a detailed analysis performed by a team of archaeologists from the Vatican-sponsored Pontificio Instituto di Archeologia Cristiana, with dates of construction beginning no later than the 6th and 7th centuries, respectively.

The Aksumite Kingdom arose in the former territories of the fallen D’mt Kingdom in the mid-first century AD.

From an early stage, the kingdom played an important role in the transcontinental trade route between Rome and India, rising to become one of the most powerful empires of late antiquity.

Archaeologists excavating at Adulis’ port discovered two churches built after the kingdom’s conversion to Christianity in the 4th century AD. One of the churches is a large cathedral with the remains of a baptistry, while the other is smaller but has a ring of columns that supports a dome roof.

Excavation of one of the early churches found in Adulis, which likely served as the city’s cathedral.

Like their Mediterranean neighbor, the Aksumite leader—King Ezana—converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD but securely dated churches from this period are rare.

The churches incorporate elements from a variety of traditions, reflecting the various influences on the kingdom’s conversion. The domed church is one of a kind in the Aksumite Kingdom, and it appears to be inspired by Byzantine architecture. Meanwhile, the cathedral is built on a large platform in the Aksumite tradition.

To accurately date the structures, the researchers used modern scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating on materials recovered from both sites.

Adulis sector 4 – eastern church

“This study provides one of the first examples of Aksumite churches excavated with modern methods and chronological data coming from modern dating methods,” said Dr. Gabriele Castiglia.

In a study published in the journal Antiquity, the cathedral was built between AD 400 and 535, while the domed church was built between AD 480 and 625. Both structures are some of the earliest Christian churches from the Aksumite Kingdom, and the oldest known outside the capital’s heartlands.

From this vantage point, the construction of these two striking and ambitious structures in a port city far from the Aksumite capital suggests that Christianity spread relatively quickly throughout the kingdom.

Work on the first of the two structures may have begun less than a century after King Ezana’s conversion, indicating that the people of the region were open to new spiritual belief systems.

Excavations at the domed church, revealed a room near the entrance.

With the arrival of Islam, the churches fell into decline and disuse; however, they were later re-appropriated as a Muslim burial ground, indicating that the region’s conversion to Islam was also a multicultural phenomenon, with local customs mixed with the new religion.

“This is one of the first times we have the material evidence of the re-appropriation of a Christian sacred space by the Islamic community,” said Dr. Castiglia.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Archaeologists uncover an ancient mosaic of the living room of brutal Publius Vedius Pollio

Archaeologists uncover an ancient mosaic of the living room of brutal Publius Vedius Pollio

Archaeologists uncover an ancient mosaic of the living room of brutal Publius Vedius Pollio

In the Pausilypon Archaeological Park, archaeologists from the University of Naples’ “L’Orientale” uncovered an ancient mosaic. The park is located in Posillipo, which was an elite quarter of Naples in modern-day Italy during the Roman period.

The park is accessible via the 770-meter-long “Grotta Seiano” tunnel, which was excavated during the Roman period.

This park consists of ancient structures that face the sea but actually extend far below the sea’s surface. In fact, the Pausilypon Archaeological-Environmental Park shares boundaries with the Gaiola Sunken Park.

Pausilypo (“Pausilypon” in ancient Greek means “relieving from pain”) was a luxurious zone where the most famous people of the ancient Roman world, such as senators and wealthy cavaliers, had their extravagant villas.

The main attraction of the park is the villa of Publius Vedius Pollio, Emperor Augustus’ right hand, which was built in the first century B.C. This wealthy Roman cavalier was born into a freed slave family but was best known for his exploits with his own slaves.

He became infamous for his luxurious tastes and cruelty to his slaves – when they displeased him, he supposedly had them fed to lampreys in an eel pond. In addition to his villa, he built a theater that could seat 2000 people, an Odeon for small shows, a Nymphaeum, and a spa complex.

When Publius Vedius Pollio’s slave broke a crystal cup, he sentenced him to death and insisted that he be thrown into a pool of moray eels. Emperor Augustus, a close friend of Pollio, told the self-made gagillionaire to spare the slave’s life. Augustus then ordered all Pollio’s expensive drinking vessels smashed and his pool filled in.

Pollio left his estate to Augustus after his death in 15 BC, along with instructions to erect a suitable monument on the site. Up until the time of Hadrian, who passed away in AD 138, the villa was owned by the empire and passed from one emperor to the next.

A mosaic floor from the villa’s initial construction phase has been discovered by archaeologists from the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”

The mosaic, which is composed of tiny white tesserae with a double black frame, was discovered purposefully buried beneath renovation projects that Augustus had ordered following Vedius’s passing.

Stratigraphic dating is still missing, but based on the style that hall could date back to the late Republican age or Augustan at the latest”, says Marco Giglio, of the L’Orientale University of Naples, who led the excavation brought to light.

A refined white mosaic carpet with a double black frame delimits the living room overlooking the sea of Naples.

AFRICA, NIGERIA, WORLD

Cambridge University Will Repatriate Benin Bronzes

Cambridge University Will Repatriate Benin Bronzes

Cambridge University Will Repatriate Benin Bronzes
The university said it was “working with the commission to finalise next steps” regarding the return of the objects

The Charity Commission has granted consent for the University of Cambridge to return 116 artefacts to Nigeria.

The objects, known as the Benin Bronzes, were taken by British armed forces during the sacking of Benin City in 1897, the university said.

The legal ownership of the items will be transferred to the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The Charity Commission concluded the university was “under a moral obligation” to return the artefacts.

A spokesperson for the university said it was “working with the commission to finalise next steps regarding these Benin Bronzes”.

The university said some items would remain in Cambridge on loan

The university said the 1897 attack was “mounted by Britain in response to a violent trade dispute”.

“British forces burned the city’s palace and exiled Benin’s Oba, or king,” the university said.

“Several thousand brasses and other artefacts – collectively known as the ‘Benin Bronzes’ – were taken by the British, and subsequently sold off in London to recoup the costs of the military mission.”

The artefacts ended up dispersed across many museums in the UK, the rest of Europe, and the US.

The university said 116 of the items were at its Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Prof Nicholas Thomas, director of the museum, said: “Across the international museum sector, there is growing recognition that illegitimately acquired artefacts should be returned to their countries of origin.”

A brass penannular bracelet is one of the items at the Cambridge museum

The university said it hosted the Benin Dialogue Group in 2017 and had visited Benin City before receiving a formal claim from the National Commission for Museums and Monuments of Nigeria in January 2022.

The university supported the claim for the items to be returned to the west African country and submitted the case to the Charity Commission for authorisation in July.

The commission has granted consent for the transfer.

A spokesman for the commission said it “carefully” assessed the matter.

“The trustees made the decision to transfer the artefacts, concluding that they were under a moral obligation to take this step,” he said.

A spokesperson for the university said some of the artefacts would remain in Cambridge on “extended loan, ensuring that this West African civilisation continues to be represented in the museum’s displays, and in teaching for school groups”.

“Those that return physically will be transferred to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, as is required legally by the Republic of Nigeria – an approach formally supported by the Oba of Benin.”

AFRICA, TANZANIA, WORLD

Study Suggests Walking May Be Linked to Treetop Foraging

Study Suggests Walking May Be Linked to Treetop Foraging

Study Suggests Walking May Be Linked to Treetop Foraging
An adult male chimpanzee walks upright to navigate flexible branches in the open canopy, in behaviour characteristic of the Issa Valley savanna-mosaic habitat.

The ancestors of humans may have begun moving on two legs to forage for food among the treetops in open habitat, researchers have suggested, contradicting the idea that the behaviour arose as an adaptation to spending more time on the ground.

The origins of bipedalism in hominins around 7m years ago has long been thought to be linked to a shift in environment, when dense forests began to give way to more open woodland and grassland habitats.

In such conditions, it has been argued, our ancestors would have spent more time on the ground than in the trees, and been able to move more efficiently on two legs.

But now researchers studying chimpanzees in Tanzania say that trait may have different origins. “I think we have long told this very logical story, that at least our data don’t really support,” said Dr Alex Piel, a biological anthropologist at University College London and a co-author of the research.

Writing in the journal Science Advances, the researchers report how they spent 15 months studying 13 chimpanzees living in Issa Valley in western Tanzania, an environment similar to that experienced by our ancient ancestors.

The results reveal that these chimpanzees spent a greater proportion of their time on the ground, and in movement, when in an open environment of woodland and grasses than in densely forested parts of the same area.

However, even in the open environment, the proportion of time the chimpanzees spent on the ground was similar to that previously recorded for other populations of the apes living in densely forested areas, including Gombe and Mahale.

“Even though we have far fewer trees, [the chimps are] no more terrestrial,” said Piel.

The team then combined the data for the different environments in Issa Valley and analysed how often the chimpanzees either stood or moved on two feet.

The results reveal that while bipedal behaviour accounted for less than 1% of recorded postures, only 14% related to chimpanzees on the ground.

“Most of the time that they are on two legs is in the trees,” said Piel, adding that the behaviour, at least amid the branches, appears to be most commonly linked to foraging for food.

Rhianna Drummond-Clarke, first author of the research from the University of Kent, said that open woodland could favour bipedalism in chimpanzees, and by extension early human ancestors, because such environments have more sparsely distributed trees than dense forests.

“[Bipedalism may help them] safely and effectively navigate the flexible branches and access as many fruits as possible when they find them,” she said.

The team says that while the study cannot prove that our human ancestors showed the same patterns of bipedal behaviour, it calls into question common assumptions of how humans ended up walking on two legs, and suggests that trees continued to play a role in our evolutionary story even as the environment shifted.

“Rather than time on the ground stimulating [bipedalism], it may have catalysed it, but it was already there,” said Piel. “And that fits perfectly with the fossil record because all the all these early hominins have both arboreal and terrestrial adaptations.”

All In One Magazine