EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

New Excavation at Pompeii Underway

New Excavation at Pompeii Underway

The goal is to improve conservation, remodeling the excavation front and acquiring new archaeological data

In Pompeii, excavations are once again in an area covering approximately 3,200 m2, almost an entire block of the ancient city buried in 79 AD by Vesuvius. 

The project is part of a broader approach which, developed during the years of the Great Pompeii Project, aims to rectify and solve the hydrogeological and conservation problems of the excavation fronts, i.e. the boundary between the excavated and the unexplored part of the ancient city.

 The latter amounts to about 15 hectares of blocks and houses still buried under lapilli and ash, almost a third of the ancient town.

The layout of the new excavation, located in Insula 10 of Regio IX, along Via di Nola, is therefore the same already implemented in the excavation of Regio V during the years 2018-2020 which, under the direction of the then director, Massimo Osanna , saw the emergence of the house of Orion, the house with a garden and the Themopolium.

In addition to improving the conditions of conservation and protection of the millenary structures through arranging the excavation fronts, which have always been elements of vulnerability due to the pressure of the ground on the ancient walls and the outflow of rainwater, the new excavations make use of the various professionals of archeology, including archaeologists, archaeobotanists, numismatic volcanologists, ancient topographers, as well as architects, engineers and geologists,

“Excavating in Pompeii is a huge responsibility – declares the Director of the site, Gabriel Zuchtriegel -. Excavation is a non-repeatable operation, what is excavated is forever. 

Therefore, we need to document and analyze each find and all the stratigraphic relationships well and immediately think about how to secure and restore what we find.”

Excavation is still at the beginning, but the masonry ridges of the upper floors of the ancient buildings are already beginning to emerge, including a house, transformed in its last stages into a fullonica (laundry) and already excavated around 1912, and a house with an oven and upper cell. 

In even higher levels, archaeologists have documented a series of holes made in the ground in perhaps more recent years and presumably functional to the agricultural use of the land or perhaps linked to the lapilli quarrying activities that the area underwent in the modern era. Eighteenth-nineteenth-century views (see attached painting by Jacob Philipp Hackert) show how the plateau above the excavations was used for various agricultural crops, between wooded areas and rural buildings, and farmers’ greenhouses were still present until 2015.

A landscape, the historical one of the decades of the rediscovery of Pompeii, which the Park wants to enhance and tell also through another project that aims at the redevelopment of the green areas of the site and its surroundings. 

In recent weeks, the procedure for selecting a partner for the cultivation of the Park’s existing trees is underway in the context of a public-private partnership, which provides for the expansion of the cultivated areas, and in the future also the introduction of olive groves , orchards and vegetable gardens.

“The size of a catastrophe is also measured according to the possibility of forgetting it, of making it fall into oblivion – comments the director – And that landscape of crops, woods and pastures that was born over the centuries after the eruption on the site of the ancient city , is like a small comfort compared to the terrible tragedy of 79 AD which destroyed the entire city of Pompeii in two days. 

The memory of the tragedy faded, life returned. So much so that after the excavations began in 1748, it took 15 years to understand that they were digging in Pompeii and not in Stabia.” 

WORLD

Moai was Discovered on Easter Island

Moai was Discovered on Easter Island

Moai was Discovered on Easter Island
Moai statues on Easter Island, Rapa Nui.

A new moai statue has been found on Rapa Nui, a Chilean territory also known as Easter Island, prompting excitement among researchers that there may yet be others waiting to be discovered.

The sacred monument, which is smaller than most others on the island, was found buried in a dry lake bed. This area is not usually accessible to humans but had dried out most likely due to climate-related weather conditions, allowing archaeologists to attempt an excavation.

“For the Rapa Nui people, it’s [a] very, very important discovery,” Salvador Atan Hito, vice president of the Indigenous organization Ma’u Henua, which oversees the site, told Good Morning America. “Because it’s here in the lake and nobody knows this exists — even the ancestors, our grandparents, don’t know [about] that one.”

Terry Hunt, a professor of archaeology at the University of Arizona who specializes in the Rapa Nui, added, “we think we know all the moai, but then a new one turns up.

There have been no moai found in the dry bed or in what was previously a lake, so this is a first.”

The archaeologists are currently on a mission to see what else they can unearth at the site, looking out for evidence of moai as well as the tools that might have been used to make them.

“They’ve been hidden by the tall reeds that grow in the lake bed and prospecting with something that can detect what’s under the ground surface may tell us that there are in fact more moai in the lakebed sediments,” explained Hunt. “When there’s one moai in the lake, there’s probably more.”

There are approximately 1,000 moai on Easter Island. These monolithic human figures were carved out of volcanic rock some 500 years ago by the Polynesian tribe Rapa Nui. They are believed to embody ancestral spirits and were placed in a ring around the island, facing inwards.

“The moai are important because they really represent the history of the Rapa Nui people.

They were the islander’s deified ancestors,” said Hunt. “They’re iconic worldwide and they really represent the fantastic archeological heritage of this island.”

Many of the monuments are still being excavated and are vulnerable to damage or even attack. For example, last fall, an arsonist set fire to the island leaving some statues charred and cracked and, in 2020, another was knocked over by a runaway pickup truck.

As such, there is ongoing debate over whether one sculpture, Hoa Hakananai’a, which was taken without permission by the U.K.’s Royal Navy in 1868 and is currently held by the British Museum, should be repatriated or remain in safe-keeping for now.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Flotsam May Be Wreckage of Historic 19th-Century Ship

Flotsam May Be Wreckage of Historic 19th-Century Ship

 A chunk of weather-beaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last fall has piqued the interest of experts who say it is likely part of the SS Savannah, which ran aground and broke apart in 1821, two years after it became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power.

Flotsam May Be Wreckage of Historic 19th-Century Ship
This photo shows the 1819 painting of the SS Savannah, by Hunter Wood, LT USMS. A chunk of weatherbeaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last fall has piqued the interest of experts who say it is likely part of the SS Savannah, a famous shipwreck that became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power in 1819 and then ran aground off Long Island two years later.
Tony Femminella, executive director of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, and Betsy DeMaria, museum technician with Fire Island National Seashore, stand beside a section of the hull of a ship believed to be the SS Savannah, at the Fire Island lighthouse, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in New York. The SS Savannah wrecked in 1821 off Fire Island.

The roughly 13-foot (4-meter) square piece of wreckage was spotted in October off Fire Island, a barrier island that hugs Long Island’s southern shore, and is now in the custody of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society. It will work with National Park Service officials to identify the wreckage and put it on public display.

“It was pretty thrilling to find it,” said Betsy DeMaria, a museum technician at the park service’s Fire Island National Seashore. “We definitely are going to have some subject matter experts take a look at it and help us get a better view of what we have here.”

It may be difficult to identify the wreckage with 100% certainty, but park service officials said the Savannah is a top contender among Fire Island’s known shipwrecks.

Explorers have searched for the Savannah for over two centuries but have not found anything they could definitively link to the famous ship. The newly discovered wreckage, though, “very well could be” a piece of the historic shipwreck, said Ira Breskin, a senior lecturer at the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx. “It makes perfect sense.”

Evidence includes the 1-to-1.3-inch (2.5-to-3.3-centimeter) wooden pegs holding the wreckage’s planks together, consistent with a 100-foot (30.5-meter) vessel, park service officials said in a news release.

The Savannah was 98 feet, 6 inches (30 meters) long. Additionally, the officials said, the wreckage’s iron spikes suggest a ship built around 1820. The Savannah was built in 1818.

Breskin, author of “The Business of Shipping,” noted that the Savannah’s use of steam power was so advanced for its time that the May 24, 1819, start of its transatlantic voyage is commemorated as National Maritime Day. “It’s important because they were trying to basically show the viability of a steam engine to make it across the pond,” he said.

Breskin said a nautical archaeologist should be able to help identify the Fire Island wreckage, which appears likely to be from the Savannah. “It’s plausible, and it’s important, and it’s living history if the scientists confirm that it is what we think it is,” he said.

The Savannah, a sailing ship outfitted with a 90-horsepower steam engine, traveled mainly under sail across the Atlantic, using steam power for 80 hours of the nearly month-long passage to Liverpool, England.

Crowds cheered as the Savannah sailed from Liverpool to Sweden and Russia and then back to its home port of Savannah, Georgia, but the ship was not a financial success, in part because people were afraid to travel on the hybrid vessel. The Savannah’s steam engine was removed and sold after the ship’s owners suffered losses in the Great Savannah Fire of 1820.

The Savannah was transporting cargo between Savannah and New York when it ran aground off Fire Island. It later broke apart. The crew made it safely to shore and the cargo of cotton was salvaged, but the Augusta Chronicle & Georgia Gazette reported that “Captain Holdridge was considerably hurt by being upset in the boat.”

Explorers have searched for the Savannah over the two centuries since it but have not found anything they could definitively link to the famous ship.

Until now, perhaps.

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

A Rare Inscription in an Ancient Arabian Script Was Uncovered by Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia

A Rare Inscription in an Ancient Arabian Script Was Uncovered by Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia

A Rare Inscription in an Ancient Arabian Script Was Uncovered by Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia
Musnad inscription at the Al Ukhdud excavation site, Saudi Arabia.

Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have discovered one of the longest-known plaques baring Musnad, or the pre-Islamic southern Arabian script, at the Al Ukhdud excavation site in the country’s Najran region.

Other artifacts, including three gold rings and a bronze bull’s head, were also uncovered.

The country’s heritage commission announced the finding of these pre-Islamic artifacts on Twitter, stating that the discoveries “shed a unique light on the ancient culture” that was present in southern Saudi Arabia. The commission called the discovery “exciting” and the finds “rare.”

Measuring seven-and-a-half feet long and one-and-a-half feet wide, the ancient inscription is the longest of its kind ever discovered at the site. It originally belonged to Wahib Eil bin Magan, who lived locally and worked as a water carrier, whose biography is detailed in the carving.

The term Musnad originated in early Islamic times to describe inscriptions written in the ancient script’s characters. Some of the earliest examples date back to the first half of the first millennium BCE.

The three rings each have a delicate golden butterfly-shaped lobe at the top and a small lock on the side connecting the ends of the circles. Other pieces found at the site include several ceramic jars and a ceramic pot believed to be from the third century BCE.

The bull’s head was commonly depicted in art across the pre-Islamic kingdoms of southern Arabia, as it symbolized power, fertility, and reproduction, as well as wisdom and divinity.

The artifact at Al Ukhdud has traces of oxidation and is currently being restored.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

Scientists dissect 3,500-year-old bear discovered in Siberian permafrost

Scientists dissect 3,500-year-old bear discovered in Siberian permafrost

A brown bear that lay almost perfectly preserved in the frozen wilds of eastern Siberia for 3,500 years has undergone a necropsy by a team of scientists after it was discovered by reindeer herders on a desolate island in the Arctic.

Scientists conduct an autopsy of a fossil brown bear with the geological age of 3,460 years, found in the permafrost of northern Yakutia by reindeer herders in 2020, in Yakutsk, Russia February 21, 2023.

“This find is absolutely unique: the complete carcass of an ancient brown bear,” said Maxim Cheprasov, laboratory chief at the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia.

The female bear was found by reindeer herders in 2020 jutting out of the permafrost on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, part of the New Siberian archipelago around 4,600 km east of Moscow.

Because it was found just east of the Bolshoy Etherican River, it has been named the Etherican brown bear.

The extreme temperatures helped preserve the bear’s soft tissue for 3,460 years, as well as remains of its final repasts – bird feathers and plants. The bear is described as being 1.55 metres (5.09 ft) tall and weighing nearly 78 kg (12 stone).

“For the first time, a carcass with soft tissues has fallen into the hands of scientists, giving us the opportunity to study the internal organs and examine the brain,” said Cheprasov.

The scientific team in Siberia cut through the bear’s tough hide, allowing scientists to examine its brain, internal organs and carry out a host of cellular, microbiological, virological and genetic studies.

The pink tissue and yellow fat of the bear was clearly visible as the team dissected the ancient beast.

They also sawed through its skull, using a vacuum cleaner to suck up the skull bone dust, before extracting its brain.

“Genetic analysis has shown that the bear does not differ in mitochondrial DNA from the modern bear from the north-east of Russia – Yakutia and Chukotka,” Cheprasov said.

He said the bear was probably aged about 2-3 years. It died from an injury to its spinal column.

It is, though, unclear how the bear came to be on the island, which is now divided from the mainland by a 50 km (31 mile) strait. It may have crossed over ice, it might have swum over, or the island might still have been part of the mainland.

The Lyakhovsky islands contain some of the richest palaeontological treasures in the world, attracting both scientists and ivory traders hunting for woolly mammoths.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Group Of Persian, Roman and Coptic Tombs Discovered In Egypt

Group Of Persian, Roman and Coptic Tombs Discovered In Egypt

Ancient tombs dating to the Roman, Persian and Coptic eras have been unearthed in Egypt.

Twenty-two tombs dating to Persian, Roman and Coptic eras were uncovered at an archaeological site in Egypt, officials said.

The burial site — which included coffins and pottery — was found at the Al Bahnasa archaeological area about 130 miles south of Cairo, according to a Feb. 24 news release from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Three of the unearthed tombs dated to the Persian period, the earliest of the three eras associated with the site, officials said.

The Persian period lasted from about 500 to 400 BC and was associated with the Persian Empire’s domination of Egypt, according to research from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Group Of Persian, Roman and Coptic Tombs Discovered In Egypt
Shown are several of the tombs uncovered at an the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Egypt.

Three other tombs, which were made of limestone, dated to the Roman period, officials said.

The Roman period began with Caesar Augustus’ arrival to Egypt in 30 BC and lasted for about another century, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the majority of the tombs, 16, dated to the Byzantine or Coptic periods, which followed the Persian and Roman eras and were associated with the spread of Christianity in Egypt, according to University College London research.

The tombs varied in their conditions. Some were lacking funerary objects, indicating they might have been looted, officials said, while others appeared undisturbed and included bodies wrapped in decorated shrouds, according to the Emirates News Agency.

“One of the more notable finds were offerings consisting of two frogs deposited inside two jars,” the agency said. Additionally, ancient texts, written in Greek and Coptic, were found on the walls of the unearthed necropolis, officials said.

Greek was Egypt’s official language for government proceedings until is was replaced by Arabic in the 7th century, according to UCL research.

The entire burial complex has been rendered using 3D imaging, and archaeologists will continue examining it, officials said.

The Al Bahnasa site, located near the Nile River, has been continuously excavated for over a decade, according to the Egyptian Journal of Archaeological and Restoration Studies.

During the Roman age it was a prominent city known as Okserynekos. The recent excavations were undertaken by a team of Egyptian and Spanish archaeologists affiliated with the University of Barcelona, officials said.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Archaeologists have found seven pairs of Anglo-Saxon brooches in seven graves during an excavation in Gloucestershire

Archaeologists have found seven pairs of Anglo-Saxon brooches in seven graves during an excavation in Gloucestershire

Archaeologists have found seven pairs of Anglo-Saxon brooches in seven graves during an excavation in Gloucestershire

Archaeologists have found seven pairs of Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches, one pair in each of seven burials unearthed in an excavation in South West of England Gloucestershire.

The wonderful discovery was announced on Twitter by Cotswold Archeology.

At the site, the Cotswolds Archaeology team unearthed more than 70 Anglo-Saxon burials, some of which had luxurious grave goods. They are from the 5th or 6th centuries.

Seven pairs of gold-gilt plate (or saucer) brooches were found, in seven separate graves. Plate brooches such as these were decorative items, worn in pairs at the chest and used to fasten clothing.

They’re known as saucer brooches after their shape: a circular central body with a raised rim.

They are made of gilded copper alloy and were relief-cast (cast from a single piece of sheet metal) with decorative motifs in geometric patterns.

The designs on cast saucer brooches are based on geometric motifs. The commonest design is the running spiral, so-called because each of the spirals is linked to the next and they run around the brooch, normally with a pellet in the center. The commonest number of spirals is five or six, but there are occasionally more.

Cast saucer brooches are similar to button brooches, with the upturned rim that gives them their name. They were worn in pairs, so in graves, it is normal to find two very similar, but not mould-identical, brooches together.

Anglo-Saxon saucer brooches.

The saucer brooches are still a high-status signifier for burials from this early period of Anglo-Saxon history in England, often found in tandem with other expensive pieces of jewelry.

Ranging in size from 20-70 mm in diameter, saucer brooches were worn in pairs across the chest to fasten garments. Their designs are more simple than, for example, the long square-headed brooches which were so large they offered much more space to create complex, highly sophisticated designs.

“Those we uncovered were either positioned one on each shoulder or two next to each other on the left shoulder with an associated clothing pin, giving a vivid impression of how they once looked on their wearers,” they wrote on their Cotswold Archeology Facebook page.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

3,000-Year-Old leather Shoe discovered On A Beach In Kent, UK

3,000-Year-Old leather Shoe discovered On A Beach In Kent, UK

3,000-Year-Old leather Shoe discovered On A Beach In Kent, UK

A Bronze Age relic found on a Kent beach is believed to be the oldest shoe ever found in the United Kingdom. The shoe, made of leather, is 3,000 years old and was discovered by archaeologist Steve Tomlinson.

Tomlinson sent the shoe to an East Kilbride, Scotland unit for carbon dating even though he didn’t think it was particularly noteworthy when he first discovered it. He got a response stating the shoe was from the late Bronze Age five weeks later.

“The date they had given me was just astonishing. It’s incredible, and it’s so, so rare. Textiles like this don’t survive often, they have to be found in anaerobic conditions,” Tomlinson told Kent Online.

The shoe is potentially the oldest found in the British Isles, and is also thought to be the smallest Bronze Age shoe found in the world. The shoe is 15cm long, and it is thought that it was worn by a child aged two- to three years old.

Previously, the 2,000-year-old shoe discovered by archaeologists at the Somerset quarry in 2005 was thought to be the oldest in the United Kingdom.

The shoe after cleaning.

However, the discovery in Kent is even older – and is also potentially the smallest Bronze Age shoe ever found in the world,” Kent Online reports.

“I will certainly look forward to the future and what we can all learn from this incredible find. Finding something like that is quite extraordinary. It opens up history too; we just know nothing about these kinds of things,” Tomlinson said.

Now, additional research is being done to see what kind of animal the leather was made from and whether any DNA can be derived from the artifact.

The Bronze Age shoe is anticipated to go to the British Museum once all scientific investigations have been completed.

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